Chapter 11

"The key to seduction is subtlety." he told her as he pushed the eject button to expel the CD of top 40 smarmy love ballads that were popular two decades ago when people still owned bell bottoms and avocado green was an appliance color. He scanned down the playlist that had been scrawled in sloppy permanent marker on the front side of the disc. "Yeesh, where'd you get this?"

"From Big Nose."

"Well, that's one reason he can't get a date. This stuff is terrible. You don't want to bash the poor girl over the head with cheesy love songs. You want to get her in the right frame of mind. You want to suggest things without being suggestive. . . . Here, I've got a playlist for this sort of thing." He rifled through his jewel cases until he found the one he was looking for. He popped his CD into the player and fast forwarded it to the bridge of one of the songs.

"There. You hear that groove? Not too fast or too slow? I could go all night at that pace." He told her. He began to unconsciously sway to the track until he noticed and stopped.

"Hmm" She said looking flustered as she reluctantly peeled her eyes from his hips.

"And what's with all the candles?" He asked.

"I was setting the mood."

"Look, if you want to have a romantic candlelit dinner with me -"

"And Pascal." she added.

". . . And Pascal," he conceded. "Have at it, but if Vlad walks in here and all these candles are lit the guy's going to run out of here screaming."

###

Their dinner guests arrived uncharacteristically early. Rapunzel was still getting dressed when Eugene opened the door for Vlad. He did a double take when he saw the large burly man; he'd never seen the thug without his helmet before. Was that pomade on his head? It's too bad none of the pub thugs had expressed any interest in hairdressing; Vlad's curls could've used some more taming.

The girl Rapunzel was hoping to set up with Vlad arrived a few minutes later. She was an even stranger sight to behold. In all the years Eugene had worked with her, she had never, ever worn a dress before and her hair looked pinker than usual.

Aside from a polite greeting, Vlad and his intended date didn't say another word to each other. Eugene had to work really hard to keep a conversation going. He would talk to Vlad and he would talk to her, but neither one of them talked to each other. He felt like a ping pong ball between them. He kept anxiously glancing at the hallway for Rapunzel to appear. This was torture and it hadn't even been his idea.

He figured they should all start drinking now, before things got really awkward. He handed her a wineglass, grabbed a beer for Vlad and poured himself a glass of scotch. He was convinced he was in for a long night. There was no way things were going to progress between these two the way Rapunzel wanted. They had nothing in common. He wasn't even sure they'd ever seen each other outside of the parlor before. He had been in situations before where he felt out of place, but he'd never been in one where everyone in the room felt out of place. The CD he'd selected earlier was now playing in the background. It was a compilation of songs that had been the soundtrack of his bachelor days; they were inextricably intermingled with those memories and only upped the strangeness of the situation.

Things were not going well at all until Rapunzel walked in. Everyone seemed relieved to see her and Eugene immediately forgot about the small talk he'd been trying to maintain. She wore a black backless number with Pascal accessorizing her shoulder, like a weird, scaly brooch. It was decidedly more adult than the pastel sundresses he was used to seeing her in when she dressed up and his eyes naturally followed the curve of her spine coming to rest at her backside. It was where his hands wanted to follow, but he kept them firmly on his glass. This dinner party couldn't be over fast enough. When she approached him, he vacated his seat for her, leaving her to talk freely and easily with their two dinner guests as he headed to the kitchen to mix one of those awful fruity drinks she liked so much. He knew why she liked them, they were sugary and sweet and masked the taste of alcohol.

Eugene brought the drink over to Rapunzel who by now was engrossed in a conversation with his receptionist and Vlad about a well-known collector who had stopped by the parlor that week. As he sat on the armrest of couch, he noted that the two girls had grown closer after the night of the storm. It had been a hellish experience for him and it still shocked him how close he had come to losing her. He knew that Rapunzel felt extremely guilty about not trusting him that night and giving credence to the word of a delusional stranger over everything she knew about him. It wasn't something either of them was particularly eager to revisit. So they hadn't talked about it since their reunion the following morning at the restaurant.

Still, there was something about that night he wanted to know. The opportunity came to him when one of the girls went into the kitchen to pour herself another glass of wine.

It was just the two of them, Rapunzel had remained in the living room and was showing Vlad Pascal's new trick. The frog could now change colors according to the kind of fruit she plopped in his mouth. Great. He hoped she wasn't feeding him fruit from the bottom of her glass, the last thing he needed was a drunk chameleon. He'd have to keep track of her drink intake too. She was a lightweight; he'd learned that lesson the hard way the night he brought her home with him.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why'd you do it?" He didn't need to elaborate, they both knew what he was referring to.

"I don't know," She shrugged, "I guess I've never seen you this happy before, Flynn. You're a great boss and you're a good person. You would never have cheated on her. I knew that. I didn't believe that story for a second. And you deserve this." She gestured towards Rapunzel, "I didn't want to see you lose her over some bullshit story some crazy bitch made up."

"Thank you for stepping in." He told her sincerely. "I don't even want to think about how differently it would've all turned out if you'd gone home early with everyone else that night, if you hadn't been there to run interference."

He took a swig of his drink just to quell the thought.

"Do you like him?" He asked her. He normally minded his own business and didn't meddle into other people's lives, but after the night of the storm, he'd learned there was something to be said in favor of meddling.

She rolled her eyes at him looking like she wasn't sure she wanted to answer the question.

"I don't know. I guess it's worth a shot, right? Maybe I should give someone new a chance after wasting all those years on that shit head."

She too was trying to find some courage at the bottom of her wineglass.

"I can't believe I wore a dress." She confessed feeling self-conscious under his watch. "I even got my hair done. I don't know what I'm doing here. I thought about canceling tonight. You know me, I'm no good at this, Flynn. What if it doesn't work out, what if I - -"

"You can't know. Not yet, anyway, it's too soon. But that's the good part, I guess. You get to figure it out along the way," he said as he took another sip and gazed at Rapunzel from across the room.

###

Eugene didn't have a dining room table. He had a drafting table instead so Rapunzel served a sumptuous five course meal over the kitchen counter. After they finished the fourth course, Eugene help Rapunzel clear the plates and the four of them sat around the counter talking.

Despite the initial awkward attempts at small talk, the conversation had flowed once Rapunzel joined the party and it hadn't stopped since. She had a way of putting people at ease with each other.

"And here's my newest tattoo." Vlad said in his low, rumbly voice as he pulled his shirt up a bit to reveal ink over a large swath of skin.

"It's beautiful. Flynn, you did a really nice job on it." She remarked, before turning her attention to Vlad again. "I've always liked unicorns."

"Really?" Eugene interjected incredulously before Rapunzel elbowed him hard in the ribs.

"Yeah, ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted one until my smart aleck older brother told me they didn't exist. It was like my dreams died that day."

"Aww. I'm sorry to hear that. They may not be real but they sure are pretty. I collect ceramic ones, you know?"

"Really? Hmmm, I didn't know that about you."

"Sure. I've collected them since I was a kid. I have a whole mess of them in my room back at the pub - -"

"I'd love to see them."

". . . Yeah, you should drop by, sometime. I'll show them to you."

"No, I mean I want to see them right now."

"Right now?" Vlad echoed her words before turning to Flynn and Rapunzel and looking unsure of what to do next.

Eugene knew a proposition when he heard one, having been on the receiving end of many, but Rapunzel was new at this game.

"But the pie's still in the - -" Eugene's hand flew over Rapunzel's mouth muffling the rest of her words. It was his turn to censor her, even if his ribs were still smarting from his earlier miscue. He let out an exaggerated yawn and looked at the wrist watch on his free hand. "Is it 9:30 already? Will you look at that? Time sure flies when you're having fun. Don't worry about finishing the wine." he told his receptionist. "You know what? Take your glass with you. Here's the rest of the bottle," he eagerly offered.

"Alright, if you're both okay with us leaving now." She said as she took the bottle from him.

"Sure, we're okay!" He responded letting go of Rapunzel only when he was sure she was done with her muffled protests.

Rapunzel and Eugene bid them goodbye from the second floor landing. Vlad extended his meaty arm to his date so he could escort her down the cement staircase. As they made their way down the stairs, the girl with carnation pink hair turned around, smiled dazzlingly and mouthed "Thank you."

###

He was scrubbing the last of the serving dishes before handing it to her to rinse when she expressed disappointment that the night had ended before her pie was out of the oven. He knew this was coming, she'd been pouting since their guests left.

"I guess neither one of them had a good time, if they left in such a hurry." She casted a sad glance at the peach cobbler that was now cooling off in the windowsill behind the kitchen sink.

"Oh, I don't know about that Babe. I wouldn't be surprised if he's still showing her that ceramic unicorn collection of his right now." He said with a wince, trying hard to suppress the image that involuntarily crept into his head.

He dried his hands on the dish towel that hung from the oven door handle before grabbing a pair of forks from the silverware drawer and reaching for the pressurized can of whipped cream in the fridge.

He met up with her in the living room placing the things he'd been carrying on the coffee table next to the cobbler she had brought with her before popping a movie into the video player.

He sat down next to her on the couch, lifting his arm up so she could settle herself against his flank in the space he created just for her. Pascal smiled lazily in her lap as she petted the ridge at the top of his head looking like he might've imbibed too much fruit juice and was about to doze off.

Tonight's feature was a black and white silent film about sentient killer meteors from outer space. At least that's what the synopsis on the back cover said. He thought the outer space part of the description was redundant. Where else would they come from? But he had to admit that while there wasn't a lot of thought put into some of these movies, it was the kind of mindless fun he liked to unwind to. In any case, he wasn't planning on finishing the movie tonight. There was the matter of that little black dress that was even more distracting now that their guests were gone and he had every intention of removing that distraction, if she were so inclined.

He placed the pie dish on his own lap and handed her a fork as he kissed the top of her head, neither one of them bothering to use a plate.

The sweet and tart filling sent his taste buds into overdrive and made his mouth water.

"Hmmm, this is really amazing, Babe. You're really amazing." He said in between forkfuls.

She beamed at the compliment like someone who still wasn't used to being praised very often. But then she got that doleful look in her eyes, the kind she got whenever she talked about her mother. Eugene knew enough about the woman to hate her and he was grateful that the witch hadn't tried to find Rapunzel. He knew when she got like this it was best to distract her. There was no point in reflecting on the past, for either of them. What was done was done and they couldn't do anything about that. He wanted her to focus on the present and on the future, on their future, and he knew just how to remind her of that. He kissed her cheek and then slowly made his way down her neck. He smiled against her skin when she leaned her head to the side, giving him better access.

"Would you like to see my ceramic unicorn collection?" He teasingly offered.

"Eugene, you don't have a ceramic unicorn collection. You have a tattoo collection."

"Alright then, how about I show you that?"

###

He spent the next few days pouring over his art books and sketching, the floor under his drafting table was littered with crumpled up drawings. He normally worked freestyle, but this, the concept, the design, the execution, required meticulous planning. He wanted it to be different from any of the tattoos he'd done before. He was determined to come up with something beautiful, something as unique and special as she was.

He played around with different symbols and meanings, but so far he wasn't happy with anything he'd come up with. When the inspiration finally struck, he felt a rush of excitement. He couldn't sketch it down fast enough.

"I've never seen anything like it." She remarked in awe as she leaned over his shoulder to get a closer look.

"It's the magic golden flower." He explained as he placed an arm over her waist so she would settle on his lap. There weren't any sketches of this flower in the books he had researched, no one had ever seen it. No one was sure it existed. So this was just his rendition of what it might've looked like.

"It's from an old folk tale," He told her. "It was said that a single drop of sunlight fell from the heavens and from this drop of sun grew a magic golden flower. It had the ability to heal the sick and injured. It could even bring people back to life after they - -"

He lifted her chin so she would look at him. "That's how I felt before I met you. Dead inside. . . . You brought me back from that." It was true. He'd been alive, but not really living, before she came along. She had brought him back from the dead in a way; she had saved him from his empty and unfulfilling life.

"It's beautiful." She told him as she pulled him down by the front of his shirt and kissed him.

###

It felt strange seeing her sitting in his chair, like one of his clients, like she had been the night they met. He'd done this a million times with other people, but at the moment he felt a nervous excitement. They'd picked a Sunday because the parlor was closed that day. He wanted to take his time with her and avoid the usual chatter and interruptions. It was just the two of them and the room where he worked felt decidedly intimate.

He'd normally have had his playlist of punk rock classics blasting in the background, but he wanted to concentrate on her. He wanted to hear every gasp, every breath sucked in through gritted teeth and feel every tremble beneath his hands. He wanted to make this as painless and comfortable as possible for her and he wanted to be tuned in to every clue she gave him.

He felt a tinge of male pride when she showed him where she wanted it, a spot where only he would see it, where even her skimpiest of bikinis wouldn't give her away. They told no one. It would be a sultry little secret between the two of them. One of many they now shared.

He took her small hand and placed it on his thigh. "Here. You can just squeeze my leg if it hurts too much and I'll stop." He told her.

She never did. She bore it in one sitting with only the faintest of whimpers. When he finished, he took a moment to admire his work. He'd left his mark on her and he felt a sense of possessiveness towards her he hadn't expected. She'd never looked more claimed. She'd never looked more . . . his. She belonged to him. She was his and no one else's. It made his heart swell and seize all at the same time. And as he reflected upon that truth, he also noted with equal conviction that he belonged to her.

He bandaged her up carefully, quietly before removing his black latex gloves and depositing them in the nearby waste receptacle. If she were a client, this was the time he would meticulously go over the aftercare instructions. He felt a rush of warmth when he realized that he didn't need to with her; he would be there to watch over her, to take care of her, to make sure she was alright. He would be with her much longer than that.

AN: Okay, I had said this would be the last chapter, but it got so long when I started writing it that I had to break it up into two. So you're getting two chapter updates, one tonight and the other possibly tomorrow. Yay?