Possessed

by Stephanie Doyle

  Naked, he crawled under the covers and made a space for her to join him. Not that there wasn’t plenty. Six people could have slept in that bed together and not known the others were there. Somehow Cass didn’t think that would be the case with them.

  She hesitated before getting in the bed, a lingering doubt nipping at her heels. What had happened to returning to their corners? If she slept with him, let him hold her, then it wouldn’t be meaningless sex.

  It wouldn’t be meaningless anyway.

  The echo of truth in her head was as loud as a spirit making contact. No, it hadn’t been meaningless. It had been intense and now that the lethargy and woozy good feelings of it had passed, she could see that it was going to be something real she had to deal with. But maybe she didn’t have to deal with it tonight.

  His hand was still stretched out to her. “What happened to being brave?”

  “I was,” she said pertly.

  “You were.” He sighed. “You are. Brave enough to talk to ghosts and brave enough to survive being committed and brave enough to take on a monster. So be brave enough for this, too, and come to bed.”

  She hesitated only for another second and then climbed into the bed with him and let him settle the covers around her. He pushed up against her side, clearly not satisfied with just having her within reach, and spooned her from behind.

  After a moment she could feel sleep begin to pull at her. She thought about how delicious the macaroni had been, how cold the milk. She thought about how heated the sex had been, fluid, then intense. She thought about Malcolm and the way he seemed to take control so effortlessly and decided she was going to have to find a way to stop that.

  Tomorrow though. Tomorrow would be soon enough to find a way to take the control back.

  Then she felt the familiar bounce of first one then another cat leaping silently onto the bed near their feet. They did their normal midnight ritual and circled each other until eventually they found spots where they were comfortable and settled down.

  Cass moved as if to shoo them off the bed, uncertain about how Malcolm would feel about having more than one visitor in his bed at a time. But his arm merely tightened around her waist and pressed her more firmly against him.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered in her ear.

  “But how did they get in?”

  “I left the door ajar. You said they liked to sleep with you. I figured they would find you.”

  The consideration of the act touched a nerve under her heart and for the second time that night, she felt her eyes well with tears. She said nothing, but instead swallowed the lump in her throat and pretended to be unaffected.

  The distant purring, the rumble of his breath in her ear, the warmth of his embrace around her body had her tumbling into sleep in minutes.

  It was the same dream as before. She was back in the glittering ballroom, only this time Malcolm was holding her hand. He was dressed in a tux. The color contrast of the black on white seemed so stark. Just like him and the way he saw things in black and white…Only he didn’t. Not really. He said he didn’t believe in the things she told him, but he did believe her.

  What was that if not gray?

  He reached out his hand for her and she took it. This time, though, she noticed she was in a ball gown. Her shoes sparkled, and when she reached for her hair, she felt a diamond tiara perched on top of her head. She pulled the tiara off and looked at its glittering diamonds.

  She frowned slightly at the frivolous accessory. She didn’t want him to give her things. She didn’t need things to make her happy. Things had no meaning. Things didn’t follow you when you died.

  Only love did. And hate.

  Suddenly, it was no longer Malcolm reaching out to her, but her grandfather.

  “Please, Cassie. Talk to me. Let me talk to you. I need to say I’m sorry. You need to let me.”

  Cass woke with a start and clapped a hand over her mouth, hoping to smother any noise she had made, but she wasn’t quick enough.

  “What is it?” Malcolm stirred beside her, his arm still wrapped tightly around her waist as if he was afraid she might bolt in the middle of the night.

  “Bad dream.”

  “Was it…?”

  “No. No monster. Just a bad dream,” she assured him. The lie rolled easily enough off her tongue, and for a second she felt guilty about it, given that they were currently tucked together in bed. It didn’t seem like the place for lies. But she dismissed the guilt she felt. He didn’t need to be bothered with the truth. Frankly, she doubted he would care.

  No, that was probably a lie, too. He might care. That’s why she had to lie.

  “Will you sleep?”

  No. “Yes. Go back to sleep. If I can’t, I promise I won’t wake you.”

  He moved then until he was on top of her, his face above hers so that she could make out the shape in the shadows of the room. Captivated despite herself, she ran a finger over the bridge of his nose. She found a bump there and remembered what he’d told her about having it broken. The small imperfection only added to his appeal in her eyes. It made him that much more touchable. More reachable, too.

  “Are you feeling okay? I mean it wasn’t too much…”

  “No. It was perfect. I feel fine.”

  “Fine, fine?” His voice rose an octave and she smiled at him, knowing what was coming next. “Then I think I can help you get to sleep,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to hers so that his lips just touched hers then pulled away.

  “Really?” she said, her smile growing wider as she sensed his playfulness. Suddenly, she had an urge to play along. “Do you have a sleeping pill?”

  “Pill? No. It’s more of a therapeutic approach.”

  “Like deep breathing?”

  She could see his white teeth against the dark and knew that he was smiling again. For whatever reason, it made her happy. Cass couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this way. Tonight she could play with him. Then when she needed to, she could back away from him.

  “There will be deep breathing involved,” he assured her. “Plus a muscle-relaxing technique that, while I have often found requires a certain amount of exertion at first, eventually results in a lassitude that makes sleep easy.”

  His hips settled between her open legs and she felt him press against the sweet spot between her thighs. The last thing she thought before he slid inside her was that this would be different than the first time. It wasn’t going to be slow and intense or fast and frenzied. It was going to be fun.

  And she gave herself over to it.

  Chapter 16

  Cass felt a firm spank on her naked bottom and she was pretty sure it wasn’t one of her cats.

  “Get up, sleepyhead. We’ve got a big day.”

  Turning over, she saw that Malcolm was already up, dressed as if he was headed for the gym and so chipper she wanted to slap him. In the two days she’d been living with him, she’d come to discover that he was a morning person. And he had discovered that she was not.

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost ten in the morning,” he told her.

  Cass’s eyes popped open. Ten was late even for her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so late. Although sleeping did come much more readily in a big warm bed after a night of passionate sex. It was definitely a pattern she could get used to.

  “Seriously?”

  He smiled mischievously, and once again, she was reminded of how much younger he seemed when he did. “Seriously. You went out like a light after another of my special relaxation therapy treatments last night, and you haven’t stirred since. But it was getting late and I was starting to worry about you so I figured I would wake you.”

  “I’m glad you did.” For two days they’d both been content to just be. They’d read the paper. They’d talked. They’d eaten. And they had made love. Last night, however, Cass had decided it was time to get serious about finding a new job. This fantasy world she was living in was only
temporary, and she needed to be prepared for what came next when it ended.

  “I would hold off on your shower this morning until after.”

  “After what?” she asked tentatively. “Are you planning on seducing me again this morning, Mr. McDonough? Because I have to say if you are…well, that would be fine.”

  Malcolm laughed and the sound made her heart bump heavily against her chest. “As enticing as that sounds, I have another idea. I came up with it this morning. Trust me, okay. I want to take you to this place I know. I think it might help.”

  “Help what?”

  “I don’t want to say. I don’t want you to nix the idea before you’ve had a chance to see what I’m talking about. Get dressed in what you would wear to work out, and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  “Malcolm…”

  “Trust me.”

  He left before she could protest, and she huffed with irritation. Trust him. Like that was the easiest thing in the world to do. She briefly recalled making a mental pact to stop letting him lead her around. To take back control. But the idea of stubbornly refusing an offer of help for no reason was silly.

  Figuring the job search could wait, Cass decided that whatever he had in mind couldn’t hurt. She found a sports tank top she’d packed and matched it with a pair of her yoga pants and sneakers. A normal workout outfit and one that she would have donned to do her exercises anyway.

  Skipping down the staircase, she made her way to the kitchen and found a glass of juice and toast waiting on the counter for her.

  “You want eggs?” he offered with his head still inside the oversize refrigerator.

  “Toast is fine.”

  He closed the door and shrugged. “Good, because I don’t have any. I’m running out of everything. I really need to do some grocery shopping.”

  Cass stared at him, her orange juice glass suspended halfway to her mouth. “You grocery shop?”

  “How else do you think the food gets in the refrigerator?”

  Right. Maybe a man who had money all his life would have a staff of people on hand to do his cleaning and grocery shopping, but that wasn’t Malcolm. He would do for himself. It was time that Cass stopped trying to fit his round pegs into the square holes she’d created for him in her mind.

  “Do you clean bathrooms, too?”

  “Are you insane? I hire somebody to do that.”

  Cass shook her head with a rueful grin on her lips and sipped her juice. At least some of the pegs fit. “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get there. Why don’t you take the toast to go?”

  He was anxious. That much was obvious. And she was certain he wouldn’t take her anyplace that would deliberately hurt her. Still, surprises in general weren’t a good thing for her. Especially now, when she had no idea how she would react in certain situations.

  “Malcolm, I’m not great in large crowds or places where I might pick up on a lot of…activity. You know what I mean?”

  “Not exactly, but this place won’t be crowded. Especially at this time of the day.”

  Speaking of which…“You’ve already blown off work for a few days so you could babysit me.”

  “Can you not use the term babysitting? Considering what we’ve done these past few days, it makes me sound like a pervert.”

  “All I’m saying is that taking off to stay with me really isn’t necessary. I can handle being on my own.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But it’s not an issue. I let them know at the office that I would need a bit of time off. I think I surprised a lot of my employees. They probably thought I would be back to work immediately after the funeral.” He sighed. “I don’t know. If all this hadn’t been going on, maybe I would have been. I would have had nowhere else to go. But right now I’m not in any hurry. Nothing is pressing and the company can live without me for a few days.”

  Cass bet that was probably the first time he had ever admitted such a thing. “Okay. Lead the way.”

  The surprise was Hank’s Gym. The sign actually read Han ’s Gym, but Cass could make out enough of a faded k to figure it out. It was a squat cinder block building in a seedy section of northeast Philly that looked like it smelled of sweat and testosterone even from fifty feet away. Malcolm parked the car and found a kid riding by on his bike, who gladly took a ten spot to keep an eye on the car for him. Malcolm led Cass across the street. She stopped short at the door.

  “Are you trying to tell me I need to work out more? You know that’s the kind of thing that can get a man into trouble with a woman, especially when she knows he’s just seen her naked.”

  He laughed and grabbed her hand to pull her forward. “Certainly not. My stepmother taught me better. This isn’t your average workout place.”

  The grimy sign and soap-covered windows gave that much away. Malcolm opened the door and caught the eye of an older man with thinning white hair dressed in a stained blue sweatshirt sitting behind the desk. He appeared to be counting cash. Lots of it.

  “Hey, Johnny,” Malcolm called out.

  “Hey! Mr. M. Good to see you,” he rattled out through smoke-filled lungs. “I was sorry to hear about your loss.”

  “Thanks.”

  That was it. The man turned his attention back to the cash in his hand and went back to counting. “Johnny is a pretty popular bookie around here. He watches over the place for Hank when he’s in the hospital.”

  “Hank of Hank’s Gym is in the hospital? That doesn’t bode well.”

  “I guess not. He’s getting his hip replaced.”

  “I see.” Cass looked around at the large, cushioned floor mats spread about over an open area of concrete. The back wall sported some spot-riddled mirrors, in front of which two overly large men were lifting free weights. There was a bench with a rack above it loaded with round weights and, next to it on the floor, a bunch of handheld weights in various sizes.

  No leg lift machines, no bicep curl machines. Just the weights and the bench. To her left, there was a row of punching bags. Two heavy bags hung on the wall some distance apart, and between them was a smaller punching bag that, given its height over the floor, Cass was certain she would not be able to reach. Behind the punching bags was a tight wire about shoulder height that ran the length of the wall and was secured to either end with hooks.

  On Cass’s right, a small, wiry, brown-skinned man with long dreadlocks jumped rope so quickly that she couldn’t be absolutely sure he was even holding a rope.

  “You brought me to a boy gym.”

  “We like to call it a ‘real’ gym,” Malcolm corrected her. He moved her toward the punching bags. There was a squat shelf loaded with gloves of a few different sizes and a roll of white tape. Grabbing the tape, he motioned for her to hold out her hands.

  “Here’s what I was thinking,” he started. “This person is looking for you. We know he’s dangerous. Lauren wasn’t exactly tough, but she was a scrapper. She would have fought to live.”

  He stopped and Cass waited while he tried to shake off what must have been a rush of grief.

  “Not that I’m going to let anything happen to you, but if this person also comes with this…thing…it leaves you vulnerable. You’re going to need to find a way to fight them both off or at least avoid them. I can’t teach you martial arts or any fancy tricks quickly, but throwing a punch and ducking a punch…that’s pretty standard. At least it will serve you better than yoga.”

  Cass wasn’t sure of his logic. “You make it sound like I have control over what happens with the monster in the room. I don’t know that I do.”

  “It’s your room, isn’t it? You visualize it. It stands to reason you can do anything you want inside it. For example, it’s not like it’s a real monster. It was a person. Only you’re seeing him like you do. I thought if we could teach your body how to fight, maybe your brain will catch on and it will be easier to visualize the next time you have to defend yourself.”

  “That makes sense, I guess. The first time it c
ame after me, my only reaction was to huddle into a ball.”

  “Ducking is not a bad place to start, but if you can imagine hitting him back…”

  “But he…it…is so strong,” Cass muttered.

  “Only in your head. And mentally-I think you’ve got some game yourself. You just need the right tools.”

  Cass stared at the bag, then at the worn gloves on the shelves. “Okay, but I’m not putting my hands in those things.”

  “We’ll start with tape. If it hurts badly enough you’ll beg for gloves.”

  More pain. Terrific.

  Malcolm walked her through the basics of how to shape her fist, how to swing through the punch, how to hit the bag with maximum impact. With her right and then her left hand, she hit the bag repeatedly, first jabbing it, then hooking it, then uppercutting it. She hit it until her fingers were swollen and her knuckles were scraped. Until the tape began to fray around the edges.

  “Enough with the bag,” Malcolm finally said.

  Cass agreed thankfully. She didn’t doubt the usefulness of the workout, but her hands were numb and her shoulders and arms protested.

  “We’re done?”

  “Do you have a little left in the tank?”

  Unfortunately, Cass was the type who, even if she didn’t, wasn’t going to admit it.

  “What next?”

  “Something more important than hitting. Ducking.”

  The taut wire that ran the length of the wall behind the punching bags was expressly for that purpose. Cass ducked and weaved over and over again, moving from one side of the thin rope to the other. Making her legs move forward. More often than not she misjudged and came up directly under the wire. One time she came up so hard the wire snapped her back and sent her tumbling to the mat. She was pretty sure she heard a few chuckles from the other side of the gym.

  But she got up and she kept going and after a while the motion became almost effortless. Until she was ducking and weaving in a fluid motion. When Malcolm swung his arms at her, she moved underneath one, underneath the other and landed a gentle jab to his midsection.