The color drained from my face. "Um, well, it was a really heavy job dragging him here and, well, I'm still a little sore," I told her. The truth was my dream had left me with some sapped energy, or maybe I was lying to myself and wishing to get to bed to see if I could replace the dream.
"Oh, yeah, that. He was pretty heavy. Even my shoulders are sore," Tiffany agreed as she rubbed one shoulder. "Anyway, how about we hang out tomorrow? I could take us to a new Italian restaurant I know of, my treat," she offered.
"Yeah, sure, that sounds great," I replied. Anything just to get to my apartment and rest.
She crossed her arms. "Don't sound so excited, you're embarrassing me," she quipped.
I sighed and ran my hands through my medium-length brown hair. "Sorry, Italian sounds great. What time?"
"Dinner time, but I'll wait for you at the bottom of the stairs when you get off to work in case you're so lethargic you need someone to hold you up when you want to go up," she teased.
I managed a smile. "Sounds great. See you tomorrow," I told her.
I hurried past her to the sanctuary of my apartment and breathed a sigh of relief when I closed the door behind myself. The calm, quiet serenity of my lonely apartment greeted me. I tossed my purse on the couch and glanced in the direction of the bedroom. I was overcome with an irresistible urge to see if there was someone waiting in there for me, and I practically ran into the room.
Nothing. The room was dark and the bed lay empty. I hung my head and returned to the bright living room. Time to make dinner for myself and not think about dreams that weren't going to come true.
Or so I thought.
Chapter 5
I ate dinner, went to bed, and woke up the next morning with a more resigned attitude. If my fate was to be alone then I'd need to make the best of it, and that included not moping for the rest of my life. Moping just wasn't my style, and it made my back hurt from being so droopy. I drove to work and arrived with plenty of time to spare. My cubicle awaited me. I plopped down in my chair and turned on the power to the tower, but was slow on the dark screen. I reached out for the power button and pressed it in just as I saw the face of the stranger reflected in the screen just over my shoulder.
Wait, what?
I swung around, but I was alone. I swiveled again and stared at my computer. The screen was on now, but I swore I saw his face in the machine.
I clutched my head in my hand and sighed. "Don't start hallucinating now," I scolded myself.
"What was that?" came the unwelcome voice of my boss. I swiveled around to find Lenin standing in the entrance with his cute eyebrows crashed down and his cold eyes narrowed.
"Um, just talking to myself," I replied.
"About hallucinations?" he questioned me.
I sheepishly smiled and shrugged. "Just a trick of the screen," I told him.
He wasn't amused. "Do I need to remind you that any dangerous medical conditions not reported to the company could result in your removal from your position?" he asked me.
"No, sir, but I was just joking with myself," I insisted.
"Then keep those kind of jokes to yourself and get to work," he ordered me.
"Yes, sir," I replied, and he marched off to harass somebody else.
When he left I stuck my tongue out at his empty spot and turned back to the screen. There was still the same old desktop still waiting for me to get to work. Ah, the drudgeries of a paycheck. My only consolation was it was Friday and Tiffany had promised me that dinner tonight.
The phantom taste of Italian in my mouth got me through most of the day. At mid-afternoon I was visited not by three spirits, but by a spirited young lad of eighteen with a smile so bright and a face so handsome I wondered how he avoided all the cougars in the office.
"Hi, Liz," he greeted me.
"Hey, Johnny," I replied. Johnny was his name, and his game was go-fer for our floor. If there was a menial task to be done he was the guy to get it done. We ran him as hard as a rental car, but he kept that smile on his face and that adorable innocence in his heart.
"Mr. Lennon asked me to pick up some documents from you. Are they done?" he wondered. He was probably the only one to call our box by his real last name.
I nodded at a stack of papers on my desk to my left. "Knock yourself out."
He smiled. "I'll try not to." He picked up the pile and hurried out of there.
I smiled and shook my head. Poor kid, he'd someday learn that all his hurrying would only give him sore feet. I returned to my work a little bit more chipper.
Twenty minutes after five found me in the lobby of my apartment building. I recalled Tiffany's promise to meet me at the elevator on our floor, and decided to have some fun with her. I took the stairs and as I approached our floor I slunk toward the door and landing leading to my stop. If I timed this right I could sneak up behind Tiffany and turn the tables on her little spook joke.
However, I was the one still in for a scare, and it happened on the landing. The stairs were built so they weaved a tight, looping square up the building with each floor having a landing and a door for emergency exits or, in my case, to cause mischief. As I rounded the corner and garnered a view of the landing to my floor I glimpsed a shadow on the wall beside the doorway. The way the shadow was positioned the person must have been standing on the turn above my head and to the right. I froze, fearful Ackerman was doing his rounds of the fire escape stairs. It wasn't against the rules to use them, but I was sure he'd see my purpose was for mischief rather than convenience. Grumpy old men had a way of seeing fun and ruining it.
I paused on the stairs and hunkered down. The shadow didn't move, but there was no way they couldn't have heard my footsteps on these hard, echoing stairs. The landing and doorway were only five yards off, but I waited for them to move up or down to decide my plan of action. The shadow seemed to turn to me so it was a silhouette, and I saw it was the outline of a man. The silhouette seemed to stare down at me for a few moments before it shrank into the wall.
My blood ran cold as two problems were presented to me. The first was the person's feet made no noise as they retreated, but even a mouse would make a noise on those steps. The second was that the shadow really did seem to shrink into the wall, as in get smaller and smaller until it disappeared into some invisible hole between dimensions. I was entranced by the disappearance and slowly walked up the stairs with my eyes firmly on the spot where I'd last seen the shadow.
I reached the landing and the wall, and cautiously pressed my hand against the spot. Nothing. It was as solid as anything else in this old place. I glanced behind me at the stairs that led to the next floor. Nobody there, and I didn't hear any footsteps. It was as if the shadow had been the only thing that existed, and then it decided to slip into nothingness. I wrapped my arms around myself as that idea left a chill over me.
"Boo!"
I screamed. It was a nice, loud, clear scream that reverberated up and down the stairwell, and maybe into the old copper pipes. I spun around and found Tiffany standing behind me with her hands pinned to her ears.
"Don't do that!" I scolded her.
She snickered. "Sorry, I didn't know you were that into the wall. What were you staring at?" she asked me.
"I just thought I saw somebody," I told her.
Her eyes flickered between me and said wall. "On the wall?" she wondered.
"On the stairs, and I was just, well, I was just looking at the wall when you snuck in," I explained.
She raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh, and while you were looking at that you totally missed the creaky door opening like it was a thousand years old and my loud footsteps?" she argued.
I shrugged. "It was an interesting shadow," I defended myself.
Tiffany rolled her eyes, grabbed my hand and pulled me through the door. "Well, I don't think it's an interesting wall, so how about we get you out of those clothes, into something more comfortable, and out on the town for some spaghetti," she suggested.
I changed int
o jeans and a blouse shirt, and Tiffany drove me to the new restaurant near the downtown shopping district. It was one of those fancy shopping strips with the boutique shops mingled with large furniture stores filled with items that cost more than my monthly paycheck. As we sat eating our faux-authentic Italian food Tiffany bombarded me with questions.
"You know, you haven't been acting like yourself since we met that guy," she pointed out as she slurped up a noodle.
I shrugged and picked at my linguine. "I just kind of felt something the first time I saw him. Maybe it was love at first sight," I suggested.
She snorted. "You mean like in all those Disney movies?" she teased
"It could happen," I defended.
"Yeah, in the movies, but I'm trying to be serious here. What about him has been bothering you?" she persisted.
I sighed, cupped my chin in my hand and glanced out the window. Our booth had a great view of the street and all the people walking by. It was Friday night, and that meant the roads and sidewalks were congested with cars and people. There were young and old, singles and couples strolling by engrossed in their own little worlds. The couples interested me the most. They all looked so happy together walking the streets arm-in-arm. "Maybe I thought I'd found the one," I admitted.
"Found the one? After knowing him for a whole half an hour?" she pointed out.
I turned and glared at her. "You're the one asking, I'm just telling you what I think is wrong," I snapped.
"Well, I think you need to get over him. If he really did care about you he'd be trying to get a hold of you before now. Besides, somebody that cute probably has a half dozen girlfriends waiting in the wings," she argued.
"I thought you told me he gave off creepy vibes," I reminded her.
"Yeah, but a blind woman could see he was cute," she argued. She paused and tapped her chin. "He actually kind of reminded me of your boss, that McCarthy guy," she told me.
"Lennon," I corrected her.
"Yeah, well, they're both cute and I wouldn't want to date either of them," she explained.
"That guy was nothing like Lennon. My boss acts like a dictator, that guy we met-"
"Who we knew for only a half hour," she reminded me.
"-was at least nice enough to be grateful for our help," I finished.
"Yeah, maybe," she reluctantly agreed. "But did you ever wonder what he was doing in that alley? He said he got in a fight or something and he wasn't hurt too bad, but I swear I saw some blood stains or something on his shirt. When I tried getting a look at him in the rec room I couldn't find any. Weird, huh?"
I choked on my mouthful of pasta. "You noticed that, too?" I asked her.
Tiffany raised an eyebrow. "You mean I didn't hallucinate it?" she wondered.
I shook my head. "No, unless we both did. Maybe it was the lighting in the alley," I suggested.
"Maybe, but I think that was part of his creepy vibe. That, and how he didn't even tell us his name," she added.
"We didn't tell him our names," I reminded her.
"That's different, but I don't know why we're talking about this guy at all. He's gone and I doubt we're going to be seeing him again," she commented.
I sighed and looked out the window again. "Yeah, probably-" I froze. A familiar face had caught my eye. It was him, that strange man of my sensual dream, the one we'd helped from the alley. He strode by the window without turning his head, and he slipped through the crowds so effortlessly it was as though they parted for him.
I jumped from my seat and raced for the door. I didn't want to lose him, not again.
Chapter 6
"Liz! Liz!" Tiffany yelled from our table, but I ignored her. She couldn't follow me without first paying our bill, and that meant she'd only slow me down.
I burst from the front doors and out into the dark night. The streets were crowded for the shopping season, and a light snow fell on my head. I glanced down the street. I could just make out his back in the distance, but I didn't have much time. The crowds were swallowing him and he'd be lost again to me. I hurried down the sidewalk, pushing and knocking into people like a pinball directed by an inexperienced player.
"Excuse me! Pardon me!" I shouted like a mantra as I tried to catch up to the shadow in front of me.
My target led me on a merry chase down the block and around the corner onto a less busy street. This street had large furniture stores with long window displays. Many were lit and their doors were open to invite customers, but at the end of the block, separated from the others by an alley, was a dark store. There were no lights, and the furniture in the front windows was covered by dust and cobwebs. I pushed through the last group and the sidewalk opened to me in time to glimpse the man step into that dark store.
I hurried after him, but stopped in front of the closed doors. There were no signs to indicate the store was closed, but none to show it was open, either. I stepped up to the door and pressed my face against the glass to peer into the dark interior. Ghosts made of cloth-covered furniture stared back at me and the building was quiet. Too quiet. I stepped back and glanced up and down the block. No one was around. Tiffany must have lost my trail.
I was on the verge of finding my friend and leading her back to that street when something caught my eye. It was the soft glow of a light, and it came from inside the store. I peeked into the interior and saw the light stood at the far back of the store. Somebody must have flicked on a light, and I didn't need three guesses to know who that was.
I gripped the door handle and wasn't surprised to find it unlocked. With a deep breath and a lot of prayer I swung open the door and stepped inside. The dry air of years of abandonment greeted me, and the door ominously clicked shut behind me. In front of me was a vast showroom filled with the sheeted furniture covered in dust and standing as though time had stopped.
"Hello?" I called out. My own voice replied with my echo. "Anyone there?"
The lights at the rear brightened, and I swear I saw something flit around them. I took that as a yes to my question and reluctantly walked down the aisle through the ghostly furniture. The aisle led me to the far corner where I was presented with an eerily normal scene.
Before me stood a bedroom display complete with sleigh bed and nightstands on either side. The sleigh bed was covered in red silk sheets and enough pillows to swallow me. To my immediate left was the dresser, and opposite me lay the vanity with a mirror that showed my pale, confused face. The eerie part of the scene was the tall, black candle holders of varying heights that surrounded the display. Atop each pole was a single red, burning candle. That was the light that had attracted me to this place. The lights reflected off the red sheets on the bed and cast a red glow over the floor.
"Hello? Sir?" I called again. I couldn't anybody and heard nothing.
I stepped into the bedroom display and it was as though I'd stepped into a trap. The world beyond the flickering candles darkened into blackness. From that blackness stepped a familiar figure, the man who was now an obsession for me. My instincts forced me to step away from him, but my longing to see him again kept me from turning away and running into the abyss of darkness behind me.
He smiled at me, and those beautiful eyes captured me in their vibrant, heated gaze. "Good evening," he greeted me.
I swallowed hard and gave him a shaky smile. "Um, good evening. I-I didn't mean to just walk in here. The door was unlocked and-"
"I know. I left it unlocked, and I also meant for you to follow me," he told me.
I frowned. "You did? Why?" I asked him.
He moved over to the bed and stood near the foot at the corner that was nearest to me. "Don't be afraid. I mean you no harm," he promised. There was a sincerity in his voice that told me to believe him, and so I cautiously stepped closer to the bed.
I gestured to the display. "What is all this for?" I wondered.
"For us," he told me. His red eyes swept over my body and seared me with their heat. I felt as though he'd undressed me, and covered myself
with my arms. He chuckled and walked over to stand in front of me. "Don't hide yourself from me. You're too beautiful." He grasped my arms in his gentle but firm hands and pulled them down. My heart beat quickened and my cheeks blushed as he took in my body with hunger in his eyes.
This was getting too intense. My mind screamed at me to run, to flee from this strange man. My words came out in a voice more breathy than I intended. "I-I think I need to leave," I told him.
He leaned down so his lips brushed against my ear. "Your mind orders you to leave, but what does your soul tell you?"
"I-I don't know," I whispered. I couldn't think straight. My body was flushed with sweat. I felt an ache pulse between my legs. My body wanted him.
"Let me show you," he cooed.
I didn't struggle when he swept me into his arms and carried me to the bed. He set me atop the soft, slick sheets and covered me with his body. His lips teased the flesh of my neck as one of his hands slipped inside my shirt. His fingers caught my heaving breast in their grasp and brushed aside my tight bra. All of my clothes felt tight as he slowly rubbed his hips against mine. I felt his swollen manhood against my hip and whimpered. I wanted him inside me, to feel our union as he made sweet, sensual love to me.
Through my hazy mind I had one question that begged to be answered. "Why. . .why are you doing this to me?" I whispered.
I almost regretted the question when he pulled his hot lips away from my neck. "You have done me a kindness, and I find that the impossible has happened. I have fallen in love with a mortal," he replied.
"A mortal?" I asked him.
He sat up and smiled down at me. My cheeks were warmed with a blush and my eyelids felt heavy. "Yes, my love. You are mortal, and I am not. I am an incubus, a creature of dreams and fantasies." He reached up and brushed his hand against my cheek. "You showed me kindness when no other human has shown me kindness without expecting rewarding," he told me.
I should have wondered at this man's sanity. I should have screamed and kicked him off. I should never have even come after him. But I was here and he was atop me, and I didn't care. I didn't care what he was so long as he would satisfy the lust inside of me. He chuckled and the sound echoed through me like a teasing ripple of warm water.