It became more than the sex that night when the rain pattered against the window with such force, he swore it would burst through into the room. He was fucking her hard into the mattress; she gasped and screamed with her climax and the world spun until he realized that beyond the snark, she was actually in tears, and the floodgates had been broken.
"Where were you? Where were you?" she kept whispering, and he held her tightly, not understanding the words or the sentiments that she brokenly whispered into his ear. For someone who was used to fixing everything that's wrong; for wiping tears and giving lollipops and the right amount of warning for a little pinch of a shot, he realized there was more here, and that he couldn't begin to know how to fix what was wrong with her.
//~//
He knows these things, and these things only: she was born in Alabama; she has a Southern accent that could burn acid-holes through a wall, and she doesn't speak to her family anymore for a reason she won't tell him.
Conversely, she knows he had a happy childhood in his adoptive family; that he played in Little League, made top marks in school and liked to build model airplanes. He graduated medical school a year earlier than most people of his age and his secret dream is to have children of his own, someday.
Despite his kinks and quirks, he has a wholesome attitude towards life; he is pro-life – he is family-oriented. How, then, did he fall in with someone like Charlotte King?
She's extreme – she loves pain. She'll take a whip ten times on her back without flinching, and still have enough energy to rip her nails down his back and bite his neck until he cries out. Their sex life is rough and satisfying; she hates to cuddle and sometimes he can't even touch her after sex.
She's bled afterwards; he's actually hurt after their sessions. And he realizes, he might know her intimately, physically able to please her – but she'll never let him in.
//~//
That night, she came dressed in her dominatrix costume, ready for a night of debauchery and pain. But he refused and held her off, until she sat on the edge of the bed, leather creaking, puzzled expression on her pretty, piquant face.
"I'm not sure why you suddenly think that 'being tired' exempts you from punishment. I didn't haul myself over here to sit and talk, Freedman."
Normally, her harsh voice turns him on, but today, he shakes his head. "What is this?"
"What is what?"
"This. What is this? You come over every night, I go to work exhausted in the morning, and I still don't really know who you are."
"Since when has it ever been anything but sex with us?"
"Since when does it have to stop at sex?"
Her green eyes have a hint of empathy, way down deep, past the icy front she puts up to hold off the world. Something's hurt her deeply, that much is true – and not even the whipping takes away her need to be in control at all times – takes away the hot needles that stab her at every turn.
Of course, she hasn't told him. She never tells him anything.
"Cooper, lie down. I'm not here for the good of my health."
"Why are you always so harsh?"
"Why have you suddenly turned so soft?"
And then he loses it. "Stop answering my questions with questions! I don't know why you think I can't handle whatever you have to tell me, but I'm getting tired of the mystery – of the constant wondering why you constantly need life to be like rubbing ground glass on your skin."
"It's none of your damn – "
"Business, fine. None of my business. But I'm tired of this. I don't want just this. I want you as a woman."
And at that, she pauses. "Why?"
He bows his head. "Because I care."
"No one really cares."
"I do."
She throws down the whip and stands up. "I'm tired of this. If you don't want to play, fine. I'll go home and play with myself."
"Charlotte, what is wrong with you?"
At the door, she turns. "If I could answer that, don't you think I would?"
//~//
He gets the call late at night, while staring at the stubbled ceiling and the way that light from the street traces across the whole length of the loft.
"Cooper?"
The first thing he notices is the tears in her voice. The second thing he notices, belatedly, is that she's calling him by his first name.
"Charlotte? Is that you?"
"Look, I just . . . can you just come?"
"What's wrong?"
"Just come." And the line goes dead.
He shows up at her door, but she won't open it all the way. Instead, he catches sight of her shining eyes on the other side, catching the light of the hallway through the crack.
"It was really nothing."
"You called me in tears, Charlotte. I'm here, and you won't let me in. Even you must see that rationally, this is stupid."
He hears her break down on the other side, and makes the decision to just push through. "I'm coming in."
The place is strewn with office clothing and lab coats, over chairs – on the couch. The smell of her perfume hangs over the mess and she's on the floor, on her knees in front of the broken glass that lies on her ceramic kitchen tile.
In a moment, he has her – he holds her tightly, feeling her bones poke out through her skin and the slight catch of her breathing as the panic attack that grips her sends waves of shivers over her sensitive skin.
"What? What can I do for you?" he whispers into her ear, letting her tears wet his shirt collar, her body fold closer into his. And eventually, she calms down, relaxing for the first time into his arms.
"I'm sorry," is all she says.
He's puzzled. "Why are you sorry?"
"Because. Because I vowed that no one would see me like this again. But I can't deal with it all alone. I can't deal with the insomnia, the depression, the anxiety, the mania and the pills . . ."
And then he gets it. "You're bipolar?"
"Yeah."
He knows she was married before. "He left because you're sick?"
"He left because during one of my manic episodes, I came after him with a knife."
The silence in the room is palpable, as his knees begin to hurt from resting on the ceramic tile. But he wouldn't move for the world – and he hopes she knows that.
"Is that why?"
"Why what?"
"You're like this. You're so prickly and closed. That's why, isn't it?"
And she laughs a little. "I've never met a man I can't annoy. I've never met someone who wants to take me on, scars and all."
He turns her wrist to the light of the street, tracing the pale scars that trace along the soft skin. "But you don't give them a chance, either."
"I just don't know how."
When he's carried her to bed, and he cradles her against his chest, he watches the night pass through her thoughtful eyes, and smiles. "I won't go."
"It's too late now. If you leave, I'd have to kill you." The ghost of a smile passes across her face and she sighs against him.
"You found me and you stayed." Her voice holds a hint of incredulity, and he smiles.
"Don't you deserve it?"