by Ford, Hannah
I looked nothing like myself. I looked crazed and out of control.
Panic pounded through me and this time, I wasn’t strong enough to stop it.
What the hell are you doing, Adriana?
I stood up and began gathering my clothes.
“What’s wrong?” Callum asked, his voice laced with concern. “Where are you going?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, buttoning my shirt and stepping into my jeans. “I just… I can’t.”
I pushed by him, running out of the room and out of the restaurant, zipping up my pants I went.
I thought I heard him behind me, calling my name, his voice echoing down the hall and following me through the crowd.
But I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, and I kept going, pushing through the throng of people in leather and silk until I was out safely out on the sidewalks of New York.
***
My apartment was a small two bedroom in a nice enough neighborhood all the way uptown, in Morningside Heights. It was the basement apartment of a three- story walk-up, but the windows were above ground, and there was a gate with a keypad blocking off access from the sidewalk. Across the street was a daycare, the windows of the building filled with the bright colors of children’s art projects. There were a few decent restaurants on my street, and a cute little gift shop on the corner. The subway ride to midtown could be a bitch, but the area was nice, and the apartment was spacious by New York City standards.
My roommate Nessa had gone to bed by the time I got home, but she’d left a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the counter covered in Saran Wrap, with a note saying to help myself.
I considered eating one, but the thought of food wasn’t appealing.
My body was still wired, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened.
I couldn’t believe I’d done something like that! Giving a complete stranger a blow job, and not only that, but liking it? It was insane.
For a moment, I wondered if maybe Callum had slipped something into my drink, something that made me lose my inhibitions. I was always a ball of anxiety and nerves, and yes, being in that room with him had made me nervous, but it had also made me feel alive for the first time in as long as I could remember.
But if I’d been drugged, would I still be able to remember all of it so sharply? I wondered what would have happened if I’d stayed. Would he have tied me up? Fucked me? Spanked me? Beat me? Blindfolded me?
The thoughts swirled through my head, making me dizzy.
I poured myself a glass of water and walked into my room.
I slid into bed and listened to the sounds of the city through the window.
My whole body felt feverish.
Callum.
Just the thought of him made my belly quiver.
I dipped my hand into the top of my panties, remembering how his fingers had done the same thing. I closed my eyes and pretended my hand was his, remembered how he’d fingered my pussy, how he’d made me keep my eyes away from his until finally he’d allowed me to look at him, exploding my body into a burst of need.
You’re never going to see him again, I told myself as I drifted off to sleep. So forget about it.
When I woke up the next morning, I could hear the sounds of Nessa clattering around in the kitchen.
My eyelids felt heavy, and the sun streaming through the window didn’t help things.
Callum.
He was my first thought.
The way he’d felt in my mouth, the taste of lemon he’d left on my lips.
Forget him, I told myself again, more forcefully this time. You have to focus on getting a job now that you’re in New York, not getting all worked up about some guy who’s not even a thing.
I brushed my teeth and scraped my hair back into a ponytail, then padded into the kitchen in my pajamas -- a pair of black cotton drawstring pants and a white tank top.
When I got to the kitchen, Nessa was sitting there, a huge mirror set in front of her on the table. It was the kind of mirror that magnified your every pore, that blew up every blemish and spot to four times its normal size. In other words, it was every woman’s worst nightmare.
“Good morning,” I said, reaching up and grabbing a cup out of the cupboard and setting it under the Keurig. “Is this okay?” I asked Nessa.
“Is what okay?” she asked, frowning.
“Me just making coffee.”
“Yeah, of course,” she said, waving her hand. “Mi casa su casa.”
“Thanks.” I’d only been living here for a few days – Nessa and I had known each other in college, and she’d moved into this apartment right after graduation. I’d spent the summer back in Michigan, waiting tables at a pizza place and saving money for my move to New York. When Nessa found out I needed a place to stay, she offered for me to move in with her. The rent was a little more than I had been wanting to pay, but the apartment was cute and I liked the though of living with someone I already knew. But I needed to get a job. Fast.
I made a note to buy some groceries for the apartment today. The last thing I wanted was to seem like a mooch.
Nessa turned to look at me. “Look at my face!” she demanded. “Just look at it!” I peered at her, not sure exactly what to say. Nessa was pretty. She had shiny auburn hair and a few freckles sprinkled over her nose and an infectious laugh. She’d been my roommate freshmen year at Michigan State, and even though we’d drifted a little bit since then, I’d always still considered her a friend.
“What’s wrong with your face?” I asked, even though I knew immediately what she was talking about. There was a huge zit on the chin, the kind that sprouted underneath the skin and turned an angry red color, the kind of zit that no amount of benzoyl peroxide cream or concealer was going to help. You just had to wait it out.
“Hello!” Nessa yelled. “My face is completely disgusting, there is a huge pimple on my chin.” She turned back to the mirror, and for the first time, I noticed the tweezers in her hand. She poked at the pimple. “I cannot go to work like this,” she said. “It’s bad for business.”
Nessa was an assistant in a dermatology office. She’d wanted to be a dermatologist, but her grades hadn’t been quite good enough to get her into medical school. So she was taking a year off to pad her application with some real world experience before applying again in the spring.
“Maybe they could give you something at work,” I suggested. “Doesn’t the doctor have all kinds of prescription creams?”
I added a couple of packets of Splenda to my coffee, then went to the refrigerator and grabbed some half and half, making a mental note to pick up more at the store later.
“If I could just pull it out,” Nessa said, poking angrily at her chin with the tweezers. I wondered briefly if she’d made sure to sterilize them before she went hacking away at her skin.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to pop pimples,” I tried.
“I’m not popping it,” she said. “I’m trying to remove it from deep within my pores.”
Something about this seemed off, but I decided not to press her on it. Who was I to judge? I’d gone to a BDSM club last night and given a blow job to a stranger.
“How was last night?” Nessa asked. “Was your blind date as cute as his pictures?”
I took my coffee over to the table and sat down across from her, trying not to think about the fact that Nessa was doing what ultimately amounted to a medical procedure in the middle of a common eating area.
“He stood me up,” I said. “And not only that, but the place he invited me to was a BDSM club. I didn’t realize it until I was already there.”
“Oh my God!” Nessa shrieked. “What was it like?”
“It was… strange,” I said, not sure exactly how much I wanted to tell her.
“Did you see women getting raped?”
“What? No!” I said. “It wasn’t like that.”
She set her tweezers down and looked at me, her green eyes curious. “Oh my God,” sh
e said slowly. “You liked it.”
“No!” I said a little too quickly. I took a sip of my coffee to stall for time, rolling the sweet dark liquid over my tongue and swallowing it slowly. “It was just different from what I expected.”
“Why are you blushing?” Nessa asked immediately.
“I’m not!” Damn my fair skin for betraying me.
“Yes, you are.” She pushed her mirror away and studied my face. “Did you end up meeting someone?”
“No,” the lie slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“Adriana O’Connor, you are a horrible liar,” Nessa squealed. She sprung up from her chair and clapped her hands together in delight. “Tell me all about him.”
“It was nothing,” I said. “He was just a guy, we chatted for a bit and that was it.”
“Did he ask for your number?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He didn’t.” The words sent a crushing realization tumbling through me. Callum hadn’t asked for my number. In fact, it was almost completely the opposite. He hadn’t even tried that hard to stop me from leaving. If he’d really wanted to see me again, wouldn’t he have made sure he had a way to contact me?
But he doesn’t want to see you again. He wasn’t acting like a man who wanted to see you again. He was acting like like a man who wanted to use you for one night.
One night would have been fine with me.
I shook the thoughts from my head.
I needed to forget about Callum. I had come to New York to start my life. Not to get caught up with some billionaire jackass who spent his nights trolling BDSM clubs. He probably hadn’t even really been there to buy it. That was probably a lie.
“Well,” Nessa said. “Maybe he was too shy to ask for your number.”
I almost laughed out loud. The thought of Callum Wilder being shy about anything was ludicrous.
“Or maybe – ” Nessa started.
Her voice got cut off by a sharp knock on the apartment door.
“Special delivery!” a male voice called cheerily from the hallway.
“Oh my God,” Nessa said, her eyes widening. “Oh my God.”
“What?” I asked, confused, as Nessa pulled her hair down from its messy ponytail and began frantically smoothing it down. Wispy strands framed her face and the rest of her hair had a slight sheen of grease, like perhaps she hadn’t washed it in a while. She readjusted the violet tank top she was wearing, then walked to the door and opened it.
“Isaac!” she said with a smile.
“Hey,” a male voice said. “You got a delivery but they dropped it at my apartment by accident. It’s for someone named Adriana? Your new roommate, I presume?”
I jumped out of my chair and ran to the door.
There was a guy standing on the other side of the threshold, in the hallway. He had blond hair and blue eyes. His face was tan with a sprinkle of freckles across his nose, like he’d spent his summer doing something outdoors. He was wearing a pair of loose jeans, shiny white sneakers, and a t-shirt that said “YOU READ MY TSHIRT. THAT’S ENOUGH SOCIAL INTERACTION FOR ONE DAY.”
“Oh,” he said when he saw me. “Hi! You must be Adriana.”
“Yup, this is Adriana,” Nessa said. “Adriana, this is Isaac. He lives upstairs.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said politely.
“Nice to meet you, too. Oh, uh, these came for you.” He was holding a large glass vase filled with lemons and yellow wildflowers and he held it out to me.
My heart jumped into my throat as I took them.
Lemons.
“Thanks,” I said.
I walked back into the kitchen with the vase, while Nessa stood in the doorway, babbling away to Isaac about how her sliding glass door needed fixing and how the maintenance guys still hadn’t gotten around to it.
I set the vase down on the counter and stared at it.
The bottom was square and filled with water and sliced lemons, the two sides narrowing before separating again, giving the vase a beautiful asymmetrical look. Yellow wildflowers mixed with bursts of sunflowers were arranged perfectly in the vase.
A tiny card was taped to the front, my name written on it.
I took a deep breath and opened it.
Be ready at noon.
That’s it.
That’s all it said.
No signature.
No more information.
Just ‘be ready at noon.’
My breathing deepened as the scent of lemons filled the kitchen.
I turned the card over, looking for any clues as to where it had come from – a florist, perhaps, or a phone number.
But there was nothing.
Be ready at noon.
Even when Callum was writing a card he was being bossy and demanding. I ran my finger over the sharp script, wondering if he’d written the words himself. I knew billionaire businessmen had much better things to do then write their own cards, or go to the florist themselves.
Probably his assistant had done it, or an employee of the flower shop. And yet somehow I thought maybe he had written it.
Something about the handwriting. It was so masculine, so commanding, the period he’d put at the end making it clear that nothing was up for discussion.
“What’s that?” Nessa piped in from behind me, and I jumped.
“Oh,” I said. “You scared me.”
She reached over and plucked the white card from my hand.
“Be ready at noon,” he recited, then frowned. “Who sent this?”
“Oh, um… just…some guy.”
Understanding dawned on her face. “The boy you met last night?”
He was definitely not a boy. Callum Wilder was all man. I thought about his shirtless body and shivered.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Yay!” Nessa said. “What does the card say?”
“He wants to meet me for lunch,” I said, leaving it at that.
Nessa crossed the room to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of ginger iced tea, popped the top and took a long drink. “Are you going to go?”
“Yes,” I said.
She nodded. “Okay. Just be careful.”
“I will.”
“So what did you think of Isaac?” She leaned back against the refrigerator, practically swooning. “He’s so hot, right?”
“Yeah, sure.” If you liked that type. It was strange, but I had the feeling that before last night, I would have thought Isaac was just as hot as Nessa seemed to think he was – but now that I’d spent time with Callum, no one else could even come close to being as sexy or as gorgeous.
Callum was a man.
Isaac was a boy.
“He’s really sweet, too. He comes and fixes things at the apartment all the time, like if the toilet is broken and maintenance can’t get to it.” She sighed again in delight, then capped her bottle of ginger tea. “I have to finish getting ready for work.” Her chin was raw and angry where she’d scraped her skin, and a small spot of blood was sitting in the middle of her zit. I wondered how, exactly, she was going to hide it. “Are you going to be okay here?”
“Yes,” I said, waving my hand at her. “I’m just going to finish my coffee and fill out some applications. Maybe stop at the store later.”
“Great,” she said, calling over her shoulder on her way back to her room. “Pick up some sesame bagels. I’m craving junk carbs.”
***
After Nessa left for work, I spent the next two hours filling out online applications. My dream was to work in publishing, at a magazine or a publishing house. But those jobs were hard to get, and the other options were limited for an English major. But I filled applications for anything being offered in publishing, along with anything else that looked even remotely interesting.
Be ready at noon.
Ready for what? I wondered as I looked through my closet for something to wear. I had no idea what Callum had in store for me. Lunch was my best guess, but what kind of lunch? He didn’t se
em like the picnic in the park type, but it was also slightly presumptuous to think he was going to take me to some fancy restaurant just because he was rich.
My phone rang, the caller ID flashing a 212 number I didn’t recognize.
I answered it, wondering if it was a call back from one of the countless places I’d put applications in.
“Hello?”
“Lemon,” the deep male voice on the other end of the line said.
“Oh,” I said, so surprised I almost dropped the phone.
“Will you be ready at twelve?”
“Oh,” I said again, groping around in my brain for something to say. “Um, yes, I will be ready at twelve. But what should I be ready for?” I cringed at the way my voice sounded. “I mean, what should I… is this a lunch date?”
I threw myself down on my bed.
“It’s just lunch, Lemon,” Callum said, sounding amused at the effect he was having on me.
“What kind of lunch?”
“The kind of lunch you eat.”
“What should I wear?”
“Something sexy.”
That didn’t narrow it down, and I had no idea how to dress sexy, as evidenced by the disaster that was last night’s fashion choices, but what was I supposed to say? “Okay.”
“You haven’t thanked me for the flowers.”
“Oh! Thank you for the flowers, they were beautiful,” I said honestly.
“You liked them, then.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“See you at twelve, Lemon.”
And then the line went dead.
It was a couple minutes later before it dawned on me that I hadn’t given him my phone number. Or my address.
***
I was standing outside my apartment at noon sharp before I realized it might make me seem too eager.
Weren’t you supposed to wait inside when a man came to get you? Make him wait while you finished dressing upstairs, letting him wander around awkwardly while he made uncomfortable small talk with your roommate?
Something told me Callum wasn’t the small talk type. I also had the nagging fear that if I didn’t follow his instructions, if I wasn’t ready at noon like he’d said to be, that he might just leave.
