Deep Surrendering (Episode Two)

by Cameron, Chelsea M.

  Deep Surrenderings, Episode 2

  Copyright © 2014 Chelsea M. Cameron

  www.chelseamcameron.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are use fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. All rights reserved.

  Cover Copyright © Chelsea M. Cameron

  Edited by Jen Hendricks

  Copy Editing by Kara Malinczak

  Cover Design by OkayCreations.com

  Interior Design by Novel Ninjutsu

  There I was—naked, turned on, and alone. For the second time, Fintan Herald had rushed out of my apartment, telling me that he couldn’t go further with me.

  Only this time, I cried.

  I couldn’t help it. Fin told me he wasn’t going to bail on me again, and then what did he do? Bailed. Mid-fucking-coitus. I should have just let Chloe stay and gotten middle-of-the-week drunk on wine and passed out on my couch.

  With shaky legs, I got up and got dressed. I couldn’t stop myself from shivering even after I had my clothes on. I was cold and alone and rejected. Twice.

  Tears fell from my face as I paced around my apartment, trying to decide what to do. Why the fuck was I so cold? I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to rub some warmth into my body. It was summer and usually I’d be sweltering in my apartment due to the poor ventilation, but it didn’t matter.

  I went to the bathroom and turned on the water as hot as it would go and plugged the tub. I went to the kitchen and found a bottle of wine in the back of my fridge and popped it open, pouring it into a large juice glass. I had another packed day tomorrow, but sometimes you needed a mental health day. This was definitely one of those times.

  I sipped from my glass and stripped again, wincing as I got in the tub. The water was hot enough to nearly scald my skin, but I liked it that way. I got in, sat back, and closed my eyes.

  The look on Fin’s face when he’d pulled away from me flooded my headspace, leaving room for nothing else.

  I’d been so ready to give myself over to him, to let him do what he wanted with me. I’d never given myself up like that before. I’d wanted to, with him. I’d given him my trust and he’d broken it.

  No more. I was done.

  Not that he would try to contact me. That was highly unlikely. I wished, more than anything, that the hot water could wash Fin Herald from my body, from my mind, and from my life.

  I grabbed my loofah and some body wash and started scrubbing my skin.

  Lots of wine later and when the water was finally too cool to stand, I got out of the tub. My skin was raw from scrubbing. Once I started I couldn’t stop, and then I was doing my whole body.

  Shivering in a towel, I let the water drain from the tub.

  I wasn’t going to lose my shit over a guy. No. Especially not over one I’d known for less than a week. I was going to brush this one off my shoulder and go back to the girl I’d been before I met Fin.

  I could be her. I would be her.

  But first, I needed some more wine.

  I staggered to the kitchen a little while later, which was a big mistake. The bottle with the lilacs and the rubber duck were still on my counter. I imagined myself swiping my arm out and knocking both of them onto the floor, but that would just leave me with a shattered bottle and a lot of water to clean up.

  Instead, I threw the lilacs in the trash, put the bottle in the sink, and shoved the duck in a drawer.

  “Fuck you, Fin,” I said under my breath. I needed to go to bed. The wine was starting to make me sleepy and my body was so heavy that I nearly crawled to bed, but not before I grabbed a glass of water and put it on my nightstand. I knew I would need it in the morning.

  “Fuck you, Fin,” I said once more before I succumbed to the effects of the wine and passed out.

  The first sound I heard the next morning was my alarm. The second was me groaning. My head pounded in response to the wailing coming from my cell phone.

  “Fuuuuucccckkkkk,” I groaned again, gripping my head as if that would somehow stop the pain ricocheting through my brain. Logic told me that I needed to get up and get my ass in the shower, but that definitely wasn’t happening. I doubted I was even going to be getting out of bed anytime soon.

  My attendance record in my classes was impeccable, and thanks to a little well-placed ass kissing, I had every confidence that I could fake a 24-hour stomach bug. That would clear me from all of my obligations for the day.

  Before I could type out a few emails on my phone, I had to crawl to the bathroom and empty the contents of my stomach. I felt much better when I was done, so I made my way to the kitchen to see if I could find something to fill my now-empty stomach.

  I stared at the couch and memories from last night assaulted me. Too bad I couldn’t have thrown those up too. Ew. That was not a fun image.

  After frying up an egg and toasting a croissant, I made myself a sandwich with lots of cheese. Avoiding the couch, I took it back to bed with me, chasing it with two aspirin and some careful sips of water.

  I closed my eyes and lay back, waiting for the medicine to kick in. If I stayed perfectly still, the pain almost stopped. And then my phone rang.

  “Son of a—“ It was Chloe. Odd.

  “Hello?” I said, trying to keep the moan out of my voice. I was less than successful.

  “Hey,” Chloe said, sounding equally as awful as I felt. “I got drunk last night. Had that whole cheap bottle of wine and it’s all your fault. You’re probably still in bed with the dark-haired sex god.” Oh no, I wasn’t.

  “I am not.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. I’m also not going to class today, and I’m guessing you called out of work?”

  “You would be correct,” she said.

  “Think you can manage to get your ass over here?”

  “I think so. Give me at least a half an hour.”

  “Sure.”

  I hung up and closed my eyes again.

  Chloe arrived at my apartment with her makeup smeared everywhere, her hair sticking up, and in a pair of pajamas that had definitely seen better days.

  “You know you’re not wearing any shoes,” I pointed out. She looked down.

  “Huh. I guess not.” She shrugged and staggered inside, going right for the couch and collapsing on it, facedown. I was not going to point out that I had been recently naked on said couch. Not that she probably would have cared. We had a close friendship.

  “Do you want something to eat?”

  “No, definitely not. I’m not at that stage of my recovery yet. I’m still hanging. Or hung. Whatever.” She moaned into the pillow and I went and sat on the chair next to the couch. It was going to take a little while to wipe my brain of the memory of the activities that had taken place on that couch.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I sure as hell didn’t want to talk about my own reasons for currently being hung over.

  “No. I want to know why you’re in this condition and not basking in post-coital bliss with your penis friend.” She turned her head and squinted one mascara-covered eye at me.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Chloe made a sound of distress and then rolled over onto her back.

  “Too bad. You listened to me while I bitched and moaned about you know who, and it’s time for me to return the favor. Was it the crooked penis?”

  Oh. If only.

  “Nope. Penis was fine, from what I could tell. I didn’
t actually get to see any of it.” I was being vague on purpose. Chloe hated it when I did that.

  “You didn’t see it? Then what happened?”

  I sighed and tipped my head back to look at the ceiling. I couldn’t look her in the face and tell her this story.

  “Well, everything started out fine. More than fine. I decided that I wanted a break from my rules, so I was completely ready to be with him. And then he told me . . .” I had a hard time getting the next words out. About Fin’s request for control. I gave Chloe most of the details because it would have been weird if I didn’t. We shared nearly everything with each another and that included the dirty details of our sex lives.

  “He smacked you? So he’s a kinky motherfucker?” The way she said it made me burst out laughing and finally make eye contact with her.“I dated a girl once who was into that. Only she wanted to be dominated. I did a bunch of research on it because it sounded pretty hot.”

  My experience with that form of sexual expression was limited to what I’d read in books, or seen on television, or the occasional bit of porn that had piqued my curiosity. I’d never thought of it as something that was for me. Until . . .

  “And what was the verdict?”

  Chloe shrugged. “I had a hard time taking it seriously. I couldn’t stop laughing so she got mad at me, and then we decided it wasn’t working. I think if it had been with someone else it might have been different. But that was just my experience.” She waited for me to elaborate.

  “I was up for it. Or at least I thought I was. Anyway, he went down on me, told me not to come, I did, and then he just sort of . . . changed. He had the weirdest expression on his face, and then he told me he couldn’t continue and was gone quicker than you could say fuck and flee.”

  Chloe whistled and shook her head. “That’s harsh. Not to mention that was the second time, and he left you standing there with your pants around your ankles.” Actually, I’d had no pants, but I didn’t correct her.

  “So I guess that’s it for him then, huh?”

  I nodded. “Absolutely. He used up all his chances and then some.” I was so done.

  “What are you going to tell Rory?”

  That was the question. “I have no idea. I was thinking less is more in this case. I’m not going to tell her about his kinky motherfuckery tendencies. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to know. I guess I’m just going to say thanks, but no thanks.” I shrugged.

  “Sounds good. Hey, would you mind getting me a glass of water? If I keep talking, I’m going to lose my voice.”

  “Oh, really? What a tragedy.” She smacked me as I walked by her to the kitchen.

  Chloe and I spent most of the day nursing ourselves back to health and complaining about past relationships.

  “I hope Rory’s works out. Even though it’s going to be tricky with her being his boss and everything. Although, that would be kind of hot,” Chloe said, scraping the bottom of my last container of ice cream. I was busy working on one of my mini cheesecakes. Okay, so I was working on my second mini cheesecake, but they were so small that it hardly counted.

  “Why do people treat us like this? Is it us or them?” Chloe said. I hated it when she pointed out things like that. It just made me examine my life choices, and that wasn’t always a fun thing to do.

  “It’s them. Definitely them.”

  She nodded. “Definitely them. We’re awesome. Anyone who can’t see that is an asshole, and they don’t deserve us anyway.”

  “Hear, hear,” I said, holding up my fork. She smacked it with her spoon and we went back to recovering.

  Chloe tossed the empty ice cream container on the counter and folded her hands over her stomach. “But if they treat us this way, is it because we let them? I mean, H-Harmony and I had problems long before it ended. But I was too in love to see it.” I knew what she meant. I’d been blinded by love before. We all had.

  “I don’t know, Chlo. I’m beginning to think it’s me. I must be attracting the wrong people. Or the wrong people are attracted to me. I guess it’s a little bit of a chicken and egg question.” We had a conundrum on our hands. One I wasn’t sure if we’d ever solve, not really.

  “We just do the best we can, right?” she said.

  “Right. Do the best we can.”

  We did the best we could and actually got dressed. Chloe had more than several sets of clothes at my house for emergencies.

  “Okay, we’re dressed. Now what?”

  “We go out into society and put our best foot forward. Fuck, I just sounded like my mother.” I almost asked Chloe to slap some sense into me, but that would have left a red mark on my face.

  “It’s okay. It happens to the best of us.” She patted my shoulder in sympathy. “The older you get, the more you realize that you’re becoming your parents. Don’t worry, there’s always therapy.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Do you want to just do dinner? No drinking?” I said.

  “Ugh, no drinking. Hydrating. Water only. And food. Lots of food.”

  “Not like we haven’t already eaten enough today,” I pointed out as Chloe put the final touches on her hair with a flatiron.

  “We have to replenish what we puked up this morning.” That gave me a charming mental image that I wanted to go away ASAP.

  I thought about calling Rory, but I definitely didn’t want to deal with anyone else associated with Fin. Poor, Rory. I was a terrible friend.

  So it was just me and Chloe. Since neither of us wanted to go too far, we ended up at our usual seafood place. I was craving lobster and Chloe had this thing for oysters which I would never understand.

  Since it was a weeknight, the place was filled with the after work crowd, still in their suits and pencil skirts. It almost made me feel guilty for calling out of class. Almost.

  Chloe slurped her oysters and I distracted myself from my need to gag by staring around the room. And then I froze. “Shit,” I hissed, sliding down in my seat.

  “What? What is it?” Chloe put down her oyster and looked around. “Babe, I think he’s stalking you.”

  Oh, he definitely was. There was no other explanation why Fin Herald was at this particular restaurant on this particular night. Or maybe I’d been a mass murderer in a previous life and this was part of my karmic punishment.

  “Stop looking at him,” I hissed at Chloe. Her bright red hair was like a beacon in the darkened restaurant. If Fin saw her, he’d see me, and then everything would go to hell in an awkward basket.

  Our meal hadn’t even come yet, so my only hope was that he’d get up and leave. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and saw he was with a woman. A woman with a dress that was painted on. A woman with a fabulous back and legs that went on for days. She had dark hair swooped into an effortless updo.

  “She’s pretty hot,” Chloe said, also staring. I quickly tore my eyes away from Fin and the mystery woman so they wouldn’t catch both of us staring. “Although those corporate types can be kind of uptight. But it’s pretty fun helping them unwind, if you know what I mean.”

  Yup. I did, and I didn’t need more details about it.

  “But she’s probably not a lesbian. That would be just my luck. All the good ones are straight or taken.” She sighed and looked away from Fin’s date. I cringed inside when I thought about the word “date.” For all I knew, she could be his cousin. Not that he’d told me he had a stunning cousin. But girls were always doing that. Seeing a guy with some girl and jumping to conclusions. I wouldn’t make that jump. Even though he didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. He could be with anyone he wanted. I was done with him. DONE.

  “Shit, they’re leaving,” I said, scrunching down so far in the seat that I almost slid under the table. Please don’t walk by our table, please don’t walk by our table, I said over and over in my head.

  My chanting seemed to have the opposite effect as Fin and the mystery woman crossed the room and walked right past our table. The woman went first, her walk both confident and sedu
ctive. This was a girl who would NEVER trip while wearing heels. She didn’t look twice at Chloe or me.

  But Fin noticed.

  “Marisol?”

  It was painfully obvious that I was hiding from him. My chin was practically resting on the table.

  “Hi, Fin,” I said, slowly sitting back in the seat. “I, um, dropped something?” It sounded like a question. The woman realized Fin wasn’t behind her and turned to see what had stopped him. She was even more fetching from the front. She had that unearthly, ethereal beauty that almost looked like it couldn’t be real.

  Well, shit.

  “Oh, um,” he said, flustered. “I should leave you to your dinner. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’m . . . so sorry. Again.” Before I could say another word, he’d grabbed the beauty by her arm and whisked her out the door.

  “Damn, he’s fast. Must be those long legs,” Chloe said, leaning forward to try and catch a glimpse of them as they retreated. “And it looks like he didn’t take too long to move on, either. Which proves my theory that he wasn’t worth your time. Too bad.” She gave me a sympathetic smile, but it did little to raise my confidence from where it had fallen on the floor. I hated to admit how much of an effect he had on me.

  I wouldn’t admit how much of an effect he had on me.

  “You okay, babe?” Chloe snapped her fingers in front of my face because I’d been staring off into space.

  “Yup, fine.”

  “Uh huh, you’re totally fine. That’s why you have that look on your face.”

  “What look?” I wasn’t aware of my face doing anything special.

  “That look like you just embarrassed yourself horribly and now you want to die a little bit.”

  I didn’t feel that way. At all. I mean, not much. Why was I embarrassed? I shouldn’t be. He was the asshole who’d left me. I had to remember that. Always.

  “Shut up,” I said as the waiter brought our meals. I definitely didn’t feel like eating anymore, but I wasn’t going to waste good food, so I ate as much as I could and got a box for the rest. Chloe tried to keep my spirits up by chatting about this, that, and the other. My mind was a million miles away, but I appreciated the effort.