Nick

Nick

  J. Dean

  Copyright 2010 J. Dean

  The Summoning of Clade Josso

  Fraidy-Cat

  Jungle Prey

  One Favor Before You Go…

  10:15

  The deep exhale of breath cut through the silence of the dark room. A row of spherical light fixtures above the rectangular mirror caused the darkness to fade away. Nick was leaning over the sink, face down, eyes squeezed shut, attempting to push out the thumping migraine in the middle of his head. It had taken a tremendous effort to lift himself off the couch in the still, black living room and lurch into the bathroom; right now, he was content enough to prop himself up and prevent himself from falling over for a few more minutes.

  His head rolled upward, eyelids peeled back, looking through strands of blond hair that fell over his face. A brush of the fingers brought back the sight of his square-jawed, stubble-peppered visage: not too disfigured, except that his steel-tinted blue eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into their sockets. That would pass in time.

  “You’re quite the devil, buddy.” A low, craggy voice sputtered from his lips.

  He let out a deep chuckle-not too deep, though. Brenda was still sleeping in the bedroom, down the hall. She was hard to wake up, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Not after last night, especially. What a night at work.

  And after work as well.

  Somewhere, in the back of his throbbing head, a pulse of guilt was tapping him in between the rhythmic thump of the migraine. Yes, he had been a bad boy, a very bad boy. Granted, he hadn’t planned on doing it; it had just happened. And guilt aside, it had been fun-more fun than he could have ever imagined. He shouldn’t have done it. There was no denying that. A part of him regretted it, dreading to look Brenda in the face when he would see her after work tonight.

  But that didn’t mean it hadn’t been fun at the time.

  He shifted his attention to the reflected image of the unbuttoned, wrinkled business shirt he was still wearing, exposing a white tank top. No lipstick or makeup appeared to occupy the collar. A sniff of the shirt material revealed no lingering odor of perfume aside from the remains of his own cologne. Good enough: no physical evidence. As for his late arrival home, it wouldn’t have been the first time. He had been in the office until after midnight plenty of other nights, often making phone calls to-and setting up appointments with-contacts on the other side of the country; contacts who couldn’t be reached in person any other way. That came with the job, and Brenda knew it. But she seemed fine with the arrangement. After all, Nick didn’t have to work the weekends too often, and there had been other days (albeit fewer days overall) in which he could complete all of his work as early as two or three o’clock, which meant a surprise arrival home, often to Brenda’s delight. Nick liked seeing her in a delighted mood.

  The thought of Brenda losing that delighted mood caused his mirror image to darken.

  I shouldn’t have done it.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” He muttered back.

  Still, a part of him-a very small part, but a part nonetheless-didn’t regret it. It was pleasure, plain and simple; a fun little roll in the hay. And he’d made it pretty clear to her at the outset that it was going to be just a one time thing and nothing more. Even now, he mouthed the words again to himself in the mirror, assuring himself that it wasn’t going to happen again.

  Was it?

  No-it wasn’t. Once was enough. One time, one little slip-up: not a regular affair, not like some of the other guys in the office who really did act like scumbags toward their wives. His was casual, a bump in the road, quickly recovered from and forgotten. Brenda didn’t know, didn’t have to know. It would be a secret sin, buried in his past.

  A sin that replayed itself on the silver screen of his mind even now.

  There he was again, standing with Donald at the copy machine, when the coworker as tall as a skyscraper and dark as a starless night proposed that Nick come with him and a couple of the other guys down to the Fill Station on the corner of Second and Pine. Nick knew the place: a nice little bar and grill with one of the best cheese steak sandwiches found in the city, complimented with one of the best local-brewed dark beers around. Why not? He’d finished with his calls earlier than expected; a little bite and refreshment wouldn’t hurt before heading home. Besides, Brenda was probably at her sister’s place-again. That was how it often went: if Nick was out, so was Brenda. She beat him home most of the time, of course, and would end up in bed long before Nick ended his night. They were lovers on the weekend, but virtual strangers during the week.

  So down they went, taking a corner booth, and ordered four cheese steaks-Nick’s with extra onions-and shot the breeze about work, sports, families, work again, politics, work for a third time, and sports again, all of which were peppered with sprinkles of blue humor and crude remarks. Brenda wouldn’t have liked it. Nick looked at it as his right to talk that way after work; it was his idea of winding down. Brenda had countered once that Nick could’ve laughed just as easily at things that weren’t so vulgar. Nick had simply shrugged her off; he hadn’t felt like arguing that night, and that’s all their conversation would have become had he given any sort of defense.

  And in the middle of the jokes, the mouths full of hot bites of steak, bread, onions, cheese, and peppers, the gulps of strong ale-that’s when Nick saw her.

  She was standing by the jukebox, dancing by herself-no, not quite a dance; more like a sensual swaying. Small, curved just right in the right places, with wavy, shoulder-length blond hair and closed eyes that made her face read internal bliss, shutting out the rest of the world, pushing it away with the rhythmic bumps and pulses of her rolling, blue jean-clad hips, hands on her thighs, shoulders shifting her long sleeved and low cut purple blouse up and down. Next to her, some guy at a barstool was talking, and looking in her general direction, but Nick couldn’t tell whether or not he was trying to say anything to her. Not that it mattered anyway; she didn’t seem to be listening.

  Nick hadn’t realized how absorbed he had been in staring at her until Donald had called his name (“Hey! Nicky-boy! Earth callin’ ya, man!”). Nick had arrived back in the atmosphere and had joined his friends back in conversational orbit. But he continued to throw glances back at the solitary dancer, still in seductive step with her invisible partner.

  As Nick and the others had finished their meals, the woman’s eyelids drifted upward; her invisible dance partner had left. The unnaturally blue ice surrounding her pupils froze upon Nick’s face.

  Nick had sat up in a startled shiver, returning her look with a bobbed head and half a smile. She had kept her focus upon him, a mischievous upturning with the corners of her mouth. The other three had continued with their chatter while standing up, threading hands through coat sleeves. Nick had not done the same thing. Nor had he remembered saying goodbye to the others; all he had remembered was Donald glancing at the woman by the jukebox, then back at Nick with a perplexed frown.

  “Don’t be too late, Nicky.” He murmured with caution.

  Nick nodded, mumbling something about seeing Donald tomorrow at work, his speech not quite clear. The fill of beer he had downed was not enough to make him officially drunk, but the faint tinge of a buzz had started to cushion the back of his head.

  Five minutes later, she was sitting next to him, one ivory arm pushed against his own arm on the table. Somewhere, underneath, the edge of a high heel stroked Nick’s shin. She introduced herself in a soft, liquid voice as Lucy, but beyond that, not much of the talk had centered on her. She wanted to hear all about Nick. And Nick didn’t mind that at all, particularly with the consumption of more beer to make his life sound grander and more glamorous than it would have sounded wh
en coming through a pair of sober lips. Had Nick mentioned Brenda? He thought he had, could have sworn that the last remaining island of conscience in the sea of uninhibited thought forced him to mention her. If he had done so, it hadn’t bothered Lucy. On the contrary, by the time the two of them had been ready to head back to her apartment, Lucy had become quite liberal in permitting her hands to drift across Nick’s chest and shoulders.

  Twenty minutes later, back at her place, Lucy wanted to dance again, a much different sort of dance.

  And Nick had been happy to replace the invisible man as Lucy’s partner.