Stronger

by Misty Provencher

  I go into my apartment and plaster my ear to our adjoining wall, but Aidan's voice is so deep and low, it's nothing like it was at the Thanksgiving dinner party. The conversation next door isn't jovial or even held at a normal decibel. I can only hear the outline of their words, and all I hear of Miss Lips are a few murmurs of oh and oh wow and then, I'm glad you told me.

  I want to kick in the wall. Or drill my fist through it.

  Instead, I get a grip and push myself away. I've been telling myself all along that Aidan's just my neighbor and that he's got to remain just my neighbor, and I guess this is as good a time as any for me to put that declaration in stone. If he wants to come explain what's going on, I'll listen. Otherwise, as much as I hate it, Lips was right.

  He's not my business.

  CHAPTER NINE

  X MARKS AIDAN'S APARTMENT

  I take a shower and put on my make up, but I'm jittery. I expect a knock on the door that hasn't come, even after I've done my hair. I make my bed for the hell of it. I do all sorts of things I never do--organize my jewelry, clean out my purse, strip the sheets off my bed, and gather up the clothes from all over my apartment for the Laundromat.

  When I'm finished, Aidan still hasn't knocked at my door. It's not that he owes me an explanation, but it was a bizarre way to leave, after the night we had. To scamper away with Mystery Lips like he did, and knowing he was the one that had called her with some kind of urgent news...wouldn't anyone else be just as confused?

  It would be one thing if we'd had ourselves a little scoop of vanilla sex, but we didn't. We practiced some incredibly compatible sexual-yoga four times last night. And there's not one drunken, black hole in my memory, which is unfortunate for me. None of this would matter right now if I couldn't remember his face, or didn't know his name, or didn't feel like I could just walk next door and touch him.

  Whoa. Do I really want to do that?

  This man is a flu. He's gotten under my skin and made my muscles ache. When I replay last night, my limbs quiver. Goosebumps bloom all over me as I think of how softly his lips slid over my collarbone, or the way his hips rocked against mine, or the silky strings of loving words he whispered into my hair, binding me to him like soft ribbon.

  Now I'm craving his fever. I'm dragging around my apartment waiting for him to knock, when I should be figuring out how to revert this relationship to one of friendly, platonic neighbors. The only remedy I know of is to get myself down to Modo's tonight and start sorting through the crowd for a new, three-date flavor of the week.

  The burst of excitement over my recovery plan is short lived once I hear Aidan's apartment door open. All my thoughts flood back to him and I freeze in the middle of the living room floor, anticipating his knock at my door. I'll let him squirm out there with Mrs. Lowt a bit, just so he realizes he did me wrong by leaving the way he did.

  I'm paralyzed for a full minute, but Aidan's knock doesn't come. Their voices are out there. I finally cross the floor and press my eye to the peep hole. Nothing in the bubble of visible range. The voices have faded. My nerves shred.

  He's got to be out there, deciding how he's going to make nice with me. I grab my laundry basket and whip open my door. I step out just as the elevator doors close at the other end of the hall, but I couldn't catch who was inside. The hall is empty now and Aidan's door is shut.

  Mrs. Lowt's door opens.

  "Lydia," she whispers, peering toward the elevator, "what is going on? Aidan comes from your apartment this morning and goes straight into his with another girl? What was that about? Is he seeing that woman? She looked easy to me. I don't like that. Oh, Lydia...don't tell me there are going to be three of you going around together now?"

  "No, Mrs. Lowt," I say a little sternly. "She was just a friend of his. Did he leave with her?"

  Mrs. Lowt's tucks her wrists to her hips so her fingers stick out like the swag of a sucker wrapper. "How am I supposed to know that, Lydia? I'm not in charge of the hallway. I don't know what the neighbors do."

  I adjust the laundry basket on my hip and slam my door so Aidan, if he's still in his apartment, will hear me leave. I fumble my keys into my coat pocket longer than necessary, waiting for his door to open up, but it doesn't. The prospect of having to do laundry is even more dismal now.

  I can't believe he left. I can't believe he didn't return to let me know what was going on. I can't believe I'm going to actually go sit at the Laundromat or that I'm suddenly welcoming the idea of sitting and just watching my clothes spin.

  <<<<>>>>

  FOUR FUCKING DAYS. Aidan stays away for nearly four whole days. The 'flu' I had for him is over. I haven't seen him in the hallways, heard only a few of his bumpings-around next door, and got the report from Mrs. Lowt--he's lying low. Maybe he is with Lips? Maybe they had to hide a body in a river or he's waiting for his witness protection agent to find him a new place. Who the hell knows?

  At least I'm back to my own comfortable position of: it ain't my business.

  Now, in the late afternoon of the fourth, symptomless day, I step into the hall dressed for my appointment with Des and there stands Aidan, all smiles. I'm about as welcoming as a snarly ponytail.

  "On your way out?" he asks. He looks like he's on his way in, from the bag of groceries he's toting.

  "Yep," I say, continuing past him. His jacket is cut in a way that accents the slant of muscles across his shoulders. I remember his smooth, solid skin beneath my fingers and a wave of heat bolts into my deepest places. I've got to get out of here. This man isn't a flu, he's a disease. I get only three steps away before he stops me with just his voice.

  "Lydia."

  I turn on my designer heel, the lace of my thigh-high stocking itching my skin beneath my pencil skirt. "What?"

  "Can I talk to you?"

  "I'm kind of in a hurry."

  "I can see that." He frowns. "Can I talk to you when you get back then?"

  "I don't know when that will be."

  "Please...I don't want to wait. It will only take a few minutes."

  I roll my tongue behind my lip. Yes, waiting is a bitch, isn't it? He should try four days on for size. I don't have time for games, so I cut to the chase.

  "Are you in the mafia, Aidan?"

  "What? No." He laughs, his face crinkling with disbelief, relief. I can't tell. "Why would you think that?"

  I glance at my wrist, as if I have ever worn a watch. "I've got to go."

  "Don't you want to know why Marta was here?"

  Now, that's offensive. As if I'm the kind of girl who cares about a guy's other chicks. At least, I wasn't that girl until four mornings ago. I hate him a little for that. I violated my three-date rule with daydreams and hope and look where it's gotten me. This mess, dammit. With him insinuating that I'd want to know (and I do) or even care (I've got to stop this)...

  I carve him off a chip of my ice queen facade and throw it over my shoulder as I head for the elevator. "It's none of my business."

  "I want to explain where I've been and..." His tone goes to soft gravel. It shreds my nerves a little more. I have to stop, just to keep my balance. "I want to tell you everything. I need to make it up to you."

  The pleading in his tone pierces the one speck of softness I have left and it just about blows my whole heart open like an exploded trunk. I have to catch myself before I start gushing about how I've been thinking of him and missing him beside me in my bed each night and--

  What is wrong with me?

  I am not some stupid, naive girl.

  I've been around the ring enough times with Des to know better than this.

  I still struggle to hang on to the handle of my portfolio, instead of throwing it down, along with my travel mug of spiked coffee, and head back to Aidan. But I don't. No matter how unnatural it feels, we are neighbors and it will stay like this--with a wall between us, even if it is only an invisible one that I've built.

  "Really, Aidan, I'm late. I've got to get out of here."

  All of hi
s muscles go slack. The free hand with his keys falls to his side with a flat jingle, his shoulders droop, even the muscles in his face resign from holding up any readable expression for me to see.

  "Alright," he says. "I'll see you when I see you then."

  "Yeah," I say. He turns to his door as I make my way to the elevator, punching the button over and over, as if it will take me down any faster.

  <<<<>>>>

  Des is weird from the moment I arrived. He takes my portfolio without a word and walks off toward the mansion at such a clip that I have a hard time keeping up.

  "Slow down," I growl, but he keeps going until we are standing in the grand entrance, with the heavy, crystal chandelier hanging over our heads like a hard snow.

  Two women, hair in ponytails and jeans pegged up over their comfortable sneakers, busily wash the floor. They didn't even glance up at us when we entered.

  "I want to surprise my wife with a remodel," Des announces. "The conservatory has some leaks that need to be addressed and I want new furniture and a new design. I want you to create a private ambience with a sitting area at the center of the greenery."

  "I'm sure I can--"

  "Good," Des clips me off as he heads up the stairs. "Then come with me, and we will discuss costs in my office."

  "Certainly," I say. The cleaners don't bat an eye, but I don't believe they don't speculate.

  Twenty minutes later, I'm tied to the palatial, leather couch in his office and all I'm doing is lying here like a dead fish as he strokes me, the lace of my stocking still itching my inner thigh. From lack of moisture alone, Desmond's anger has turned from a smolder to a burn.

  "What is he to you, Lyddle?" Des asks. He doesn't have to be specific.

  I can't see him through the blindfold, but his velvety tone isn't doing a damn thing for me today. The last thing that's going to kindle my fire is talking about Aidan, but Des still knows me as well as he knows the feel of his own penis. And he is very aware that something's not working right now.

  "It's got nothing to do with my neighbor," I say, as if I can really sell that to him. "I'm just not into this today."

  The cushion shifts as Des stands. I hear his feet move across the hardwood. He retrieves something.

  "You're always into it," Des whispers. I hear the scrape of a Bic overhead. The crackle of a candle wick.

  "Seriously, I'm just not."

  "Shhh," he says.

  "Des..."

  "What did I say, Lyddle?"

  A drop of wax hits my hip bone and it burns. Really burns.

  "Ouch!" I yelp. "It's too hot!"

  Another drop follows and I shriek.

  "What is he to you?" Des demands, as I pull at the restraints on my wrists.

  He chuckles as his fingers yank the lace of my right stocking down a few inches. This isn't our usual play. I buck at the restraints again, but they hold firm. Des designed this room for ultimate privacy, so I'm not sure that even my loudest scream would be more than a whisper outside the insulated walls and door. While it usually excites me, this time I'm unnerved. I lay there, blindfolded and bound, with the wax raising up a blister on my skin.

  "I'm all done, Des. Enough."

  "Tell me, Lyddle," he says. I bite my lip. A dribble of wax suddenly beads down my inner thigh. It feels like a third degree burn and I do something I've never done before. I bark our safe word. Actually, it's a phrase.

  "Green eggs and ham!"

  The room goes deathly silent, the smell of the candle hovers in my nose. I breathe hard, in and out, in and out, but the hot scent of the wax remains. The small patch of my thigh is on fire. The wax has dribbled a trail down too close to my most delicate and intimate folds.

  "What is he to you?" Des asks again. But this time, his voice breaks. He clears his throat.

  "Stop it, Des. He's my neighbor! He's just my fucking neighbor!"

  "Oh no, he's more than that. I can tell," Des whispers. "I know you're lying to me."

  I'm quivering in the bindings, scared to the bone for the first time that maybe Des has lost his mind. If I could see him, instead of looking into the dark center of the blindfold, I'd have a much better idea, but what's going on with my thigh is still a pretty good indication that things aren't right. We've done enough bondage before, even a little wax play, but burning me like this is so far over the line I can't even put a name on it.

  Des has always known that I go to Modo's, that I pick up men, and even that I have sex with them--but he realizes, as much as I do, that this one is different. I never know any of their names and none of them stick around longer than three dates. Whether or not anything has actually happened yet, it's as if we can both feel our thin future hanging between us like an old, smoky, bar cloud.

  Aidan and I have had sex--four incredible times--but we only spent one night together. Des shouldn't be complaining at all, considering I shut Aidan down only a few hours ago, in the hallway outside my apartment. Especially when I was on my way here, to have sex with my husband.

  It doesn't matter that my heart isn't in it. That I only came to collect some money.

  My God, my life is such a mess.

  Des clears his sinuses with a sharp inhale. I turn my head toward the sound, the blindfold still firmly in place.

  "Are you crying?" I ask. Long pause.

  "Do you really think you have that kind of power over me, Lyddle?"

  Yes. But I say, "No."

  "Well, you're right," he snaps. "You don't."

  A drizzle of wax splatters down my thigh and I curse. Des's fingers are on the restraints and as soon as he frees my hands, I rip off the blindfold and throw it to the floor. I rub away the wax. There are welts beneath it.

  "Lydia..." There are a million apologies and pleadings in his tone, but I yank on my clothes and leave without looking at him even once.

  <<<<>>>>

  My skin is still burning when I get out of the cab in front of my apartment building. It doesn't stop, even when I'm sitting on my couch with a bag of ice wedged between my legs.

  I sip a tumbler of wine and stare at the ceiling, trying to separate the mess of my life by assigning different nail pops and spots in the uneven paint job to Des and Claudia, to Des and me, to me alone, to Aidan, to me and Aidan. There's too much for me to keep straight. I'm overwhelmed with how big the ceiling is and how it still isn't big enough to hold all my problems. I keep trying to straighten it out, until someone knocks on my door.

  I hobble over and swing it open, expecting Des to be there, full of apologies, even though that's not his style. And it's not him. Aidan's in the hall.

  "Can I come in?" he says. I lean heavily on the door knob.

  "Some other time, alright? It's been a long day."

  "It will only take a few minutes," he says, striding in past me. He never does seem to understand that no is a legitimate answer.

  He takes the chair at the small end of the coffee table and watches me stagger my way back to the couch. His eyes glide up my yoga pants to where the ice pack has left a dark ring. I try not to notice him assessing my gait, my bag of ice, the open bottle on the coffee table. It leaves me with an aftertaste of guilt that is a little overwhelming, since there's nothing I can do about any of it.

  "What happened to you?" he says. I shrug it off.

  "Nothing. I think I pulled a muscle."

  "With him?" There's an accusatory edge to his tone that I really can't handle right now. I should've never opened the door. It's my fault. I invited the vampire in--even though Aidan is the kind that sucks out my emotions, instead of my blood.

  "No, it wasn't him," I lie.

  "Weren't you with him?"

  "I was, but..."

  "Then when did it happen, Lydia? With me? Or him?" He leans forward, elbows on knees, his weary eyes searching mine.

  "Neither," I say. "I just pulled a muscle, alright?"

  He drops back in the chair, watching me. "I know he hurts you, Lydia."

  What am I going to say? Mos
tly, it's a consensual pain that Des and I conjure between us? Granted, I'm the only one who limps home, but I agree to it. Do I say this is the first time I've had to use our safe word, that it's the first time Des took it up way too many notches? Do I say it was all because of him?

  No. I'm not fool enough to spill the truth to Aidan--that these burns on my leg are directly connected to him. I don't need to light that wick.

  I take a drink. Aidan studies every movement. His eyes trace my throat as I swallow and then escort the empty glass down to the table top. He inclines off the edge of the chair, and for a second, I think he's going to snatch up my glass and hurl it across the room. Or snarl in my face that he wants the truth. My muscles tighten up, ready to respond to whatever kind of assault he launches.

  Aidan swoops down and I startle as he catches my bare foot. I fall back as he scoots over, taking a seat on the edge of the coffee table in front of me. He lifts my heel tenderly into his lap.

  Without a word, he presses his thumbs into my sole, kneading the skin. His eyes are centered on my foot in his hands, and it takes me a few minutes to realize he's not interested in looking me in the eyes. Slowly, my body relaxes. My neck feels weak, so I drop my head on the back of the couch and look back up at the ceiling again.

  The configuration up there seems different than it was earlier. A little clearer, maybe.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE COLDER THE BETTER

  Aidan keeps kneading my feet without a word. My muscles loosen to the consistency of puddles. My defenses spread thin, until I'm about as tenderized and translucent as my soul. Of course, that's when he clears his throat to speak again.