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“No…not at all. I don’t normally drink like this. I’m sorry…I’m not myself this weekend.”
“Well I’m pretty sure that was the real you in bed with me last night.”
“Oh yes, Bo…yes…I’m afraid that was all of me. I can’t hold back from you no matter how I try,” she says, swayin just a little from side to side.
“And why would you ever wanna do a thing like that?”
“Like what?” she asks, lookin confused.
“Hold back from me.”
Fiona stares into me with intent, not droppin her gaze. “I appreciate the full honesty and bluntness of your nature more than you I can describe,” she says, “and I want to live up to these values that you obviously have. But I just don’t know how much of my war-torn life I can offer up to a man I just met, on the first weekend I met him.”
I appreciate Fiona’s directness as well, but that makes her words no less painful. Again, I remind myself that I’ve known her all my life, in a mystical, visionary way, while I’m a whole new ballgame for her.
“Darlin, that’s exactly why I’m gonna call you up every night. Cause I’d like to get to know the woman I spent my weekend makin love to.”
I watch as my words momentarily melt Fiona’s body-language, but she quickly reinforces with her usual armor. “Tell you what, I saw Maxine leave a long while back. Let’s go congratulate her again, because we ought to, and then we’ll go to your room and I’ll talk.”
“Absolutely. Let’s do it,” I reply, as Fiona takes my hand and begins leading me out. It takes a real alpha woman to drag around a guy like me, and I love it.
When we arrive at their wing of the complex, Fiona slows her pace like she wants to keep me a while longer. I shoot her a questioning look and she turns around and hops into my arms, throwin her legs around my waist right here in the quiet hall.
“Bo…I just wanna tell you, no matter what happens after tonight, this has been the best weekend of my life.”
Her words floor me. It’s been the best weekend of mine too, but I can’t get comfortable with the negative fatalism she projects onto everything. It seems almost like a form of self-punishment. She’s stoic and tough in a way I’ve rarely encountered in a woman. I stand and hold her tight, my sexual energy dampened into a sympathetic angst I can barely sort out.
“Let’s just get you back to my room, darlin.” I set her on her feet and hold her another minute till she loosens her grip and begins leadin us toward Maxine’s room again, swishin and swayin as she walks…teasin me all the way. “What am I gonna do with you, woman?”
“That is the question,” she turns and responds coyly.
I smack Fiona’s ass and send her into a giggling fit just as she bursts into Maxine’s room. So much for findin out whether the poor girl was awake first. We say our congratulations and our goodbyes, and Fiona arranges to meet her at the shuttle at eight thirty tomorrow mornin… finally dropping the charade that she’s gonna make it back to their room.
As we walk to my building, Fiona’s eerily quiet. Occasionally throwin me a phonily ‘reassuring’ glance, I can tell she’s thinkin real hard about whatever all it is she needs to lay out on the table. Then, just as I unlock my door and close it behind us, her energy shifts another 180 degrees… into a wild tiger. Springing into my arms, she kisses me blind as she reaches for my belt. She’s got everything unraveled and ready to hit the floor by the time I can waddle over to the bed and lay her down. Her back dramatically arches and her dress hikes up with the spread of her knees, as she breathes my name repeatedly in that husky voice of hers. It’s all I can do not to take her right now, but I have to slow things down. I must get her to be forthright. I can’t allow this night to disappear into another session of total ecstasy followed by a hard snooze. How would I deal with Fiona walkin out of my life and into the unknown first thing in the mornin?
I watch her begin to go limp as I re-secure my pants. Her face falls and she closes her eyes, as though giving up on something critical.
“Fiona, sweetheart,” I breathe as I lie next to her and take her into my arms.
The first sign of tears appears at the edge of her lovely closed lashes. I pull her face to my chest and hold her as she begins to shudder. Something’s terribly wrong, but I need more information to make it right. I decide to begin takin guesses. If I land on the right thing, or the wrong one, that should provoke her to start sharing either way.
“Fiona, you’ve gotta talk to me. It’s time to tell me what’s hurtin you,” I say, holdin her tenderly. She quietly cries and says nothin at first, so I start to prod. “You weren’t serious about that phone tappin business were you? Cause you know, after tomorrow I’ve gotta have access to my princess.”
She raises her gaze and looks at me with desperate, watery eyes. “I don’t know Bo. I feel like a crazy person. I tell myself every day that it’s ridiculous but I can’t banish the notion from my mind. Maybe you were right about it being intuition.”
“Shit! Fiona…this is a serious legal situation. You’re actually afraid this man’s stalkin you? You have to go to the police with this.”
“I told you Bo, it’s not that simple. Quade has friends all over the local legal system. He was high school buddies with those guys. It’s like a boys’ club that he’s front and center of.”
“Woman, you can’t go home to Iowa if you’re in danger. I would not and cannot let you do that. You can’t hide at your girlfriend, what’s-her-name’s, house forever.”
“Holly.”
“Right, Holly.”
“I know I can’t Bo, you’re right. But I am planning to take steps. When I get home, I’m going to hire a professional to examine my phone…and my house…to determine whether anything’s been tapped. And I’m sure they haven’t, but then I can rest about it and call you whenever I want and I won’t have to feel paranoid anymore. Okay?”
“And what if they have been?” My question strikes Fiona with renewed concern.
