Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, except for my own. The rest
belong to Tribune Entertainment.
Aha, I received a lot of screaming e-mail for my last chapter duck. But guys, I did warn you this story was pre-planned! Do you think someone like Shalimar would just roll over and accept her fate without fighting for Brennan? Heck, I would fight for him! I'm a sucker for beautiful bad boys, no matter how much they can hurt a girl.
This chapter is rated PG-13 upfront, then gets into R somewhere in the middle for animalistic sex.
Chapter 11
There was a stunned silence.
Then Emma asked, stammering, 'Wh..what do you mean?'
'Exactly what I said. Brennan and I made love. Emma, are you okay?'
Emma closed her eyes for a moment. Be careful, she thought. She felt her pulse thrumming in her throat, a restless two-beat tapping that transmuted itself onto the scarf she had tied around her neck for effect; so that its edges too went flutter, flutter. 'I'm okay, it caught me by surprise, that's all. When...when did this happen?'
'Five days ago.'
Five days ago. That must have been after their date at the party. The morning she had woken up totally deflowered and dejected. Where it had been at the tip of her tongue to confess her love for him, and she had held back - as usual, the story of her life. She was now wishing, dread admixed with horror rising within her, that she had told him then; perhaps things wouldn't have taken such a drastic turn as they seemed to be doing now. Then again (the doormat part of her speaking), if she had, might they have been any different?
She attempted a smile; though inside, she could feel herself breaking, like she was being cleaved in two and the two sides of her were being pulled far, far apart. Oh Brennan... Brennan..after everything we shared.....how could you? She resisted an attempt to put her knuckles in her mouth and scream.
A voice inside her said, 'But you didn't tell him. And he thought once he had helped you, there would be closure. And he would be free to pursue other matters.'
She wanted to wipe away angry mental tears. Stop making excuses for him. He must have been blind not to see it, or else he chose not to see it. Couldn't he just have waited? And what about that date he had promised her (their final date - the ominous thought came), would that proceed according to plan? Or did this little interlude with Shal change everything?
She hated him. She loved him. She wanted to rant and scream all her frustrations to the ceiling. She wanted to creep away and die. She wanted to walk out right now, Shal be damned, find him and tear his face apart. She wanted to hold him in her arms the moment she saw him, and take him away from Shal forever. Her limbs felt leaden, like she could no longer move without eliciting an ache in her chest. The ambivalence of her emotions were tearing her mind apart, she couldn't handle this. This was too complex.
And all through this, she was smiling agonizedly, nodding her head at Shal, and saying words that sounded distant to her ears. 'So...' a casual tone, 'what happened?'
Shal turned pensive. 'After I spoke to you, I realized I couldn't just stand aside and watch someone I love - someone I thought I had a chance with... and someone I was certain loved me some way in return, only he had a funny way of showing it sometimes - being taken away; growing more distant every day. I struggled with myself, you know. Because it hurt so much in here,' she placed a hand on her heart, 'and I wasn't sure I could do it.'
Emma felt as if she was wading in candle wax. Time suddenly seemed abominably slow.
'But I didn't want to be a victim. And I thought, I just had to give it a try, you know. Be damn with the consequences. I had lost everything already. I had nothing left to lose.'
Nor have I, Emma thought.
'I had no intention of throwing myself at him. I had too much pride for that.' Shal gave a sad little laugh. 'That's my problem, I always did have too much pride. I just wanted to talk to him, and tell him that I thought of him as more than a friend. And maybe, he would give me a lead on how he felt. And I could take it from there.'
Emma wondered if she dared. And she decided she didn't care anymore, Shal wouldn't find out anyway. So she reached into her friend's mind - wincing slightly from the sting generated from the tangled animalistic emotions of a feral - and connected. And found herself drowning.
Why, she pleaded, do you do this to yourself?
*
They had gone undercover at a posh party thrown at somebody's house to check out a new mutant couple whose powers were in flux. The cry for help had come to Adam over broadband e-mail. And due to the amount of occasions they had been set up recently by such distress beacons, he had naturally been wary. 'Why don't you investigate them first?' he had suggested to Shalimar and Brennan.
So they had slipped in. Shalimar had dressed carefully, choosing a form fitting, ice blue dress that left little to the imagination. She wondered if she was doing it to impress him, and decided that her subconscious motives were too painful to think about.
He too was looking particularly handsome. When he made an effort to dress up, he was breathtaking in a totally different way, like a soap opera actor playing the stunning best man at a wedding. Or maybe it was the lighting. She remembered the first time she saw him, back when he was still a common criminal and she was trying to help him and Emma escape the GSA. Arrogant, she had then thought. Supremely challenging. He was going to be a handful. Life with him would be anything but dull. She was going to have to put him in his place.
And now it seemed he had put her in her place, stringing her heart along with hopes, little glimpses of candid revelations, a smile here, a peck there, a look that belied so many unspoken words. She liked to think she had strung him along too, and a base part of her had enjoyed his petty jealousies and possessiveness. The feral in her tended to be coquettish sometimes - it was how the great cats played the mating game - she felt engulfed by her feline side, which was more often than not a tease. But he was not a feral and patience for him was not a virtue. One day, that tenuous string had snapped, and she found herself bereft, wondering how she got blindsided.
When she had been a child, she had a little kitty that hero- worshipped her. Followed her around like a shadow like she was the love of its life. One day, that little kitty grew up, became self-absorbed like all cats, and left off tailing her. The withdrawal pangs were acute. For several months, she found herself looking over her shoulder, missing that familiar pad-pad-pad of its velveteen paws. She felt like that with Brennan now.
Oh Bren, she thought, why do we do this to each other?
The trouble with him was that he was too dominant. He wanted to be in control all the time, even in love. But she too was alpha. They were two tempestuous creatures bonded by an undeniable chemistry. She wondered how it would ever work out.
'You look nice, Shal,' he pronounced solemnly as they entered the main hall.
'You look nice too.'
They had scanned the crowd for the couple, who had RSVP'ed on the guest list. They had checked with the butler several times. After two hours, when the duo still didn't show up, they were ready to give it up as a lost cause.
'Maybe they got wind we were here. Or they truly weren't legit. Anyway, we've wasted our time. You wanna go home?' he asked.
She missed him. She missed talking to him, one on one, the way they used to. He had been so preoccupied lately. 'Nah. It's quite a cool party. I don't mind hanging out a little. Maybe if we stay awhile, some of the money off these people would rub off on us.'
He laughed. 'Don't bet on it. I never got rich that way. Sometimes you have to be proactive.'
So they had hung out. Several men made a pass at her, which she took in good stride. She had always enjoyed the propositions, it gave her a much needed boost of confidence in her own attractiveness, especially now in her despairing state. Nevertheless, she found herself looking at him longingly in several occasions. He was practically reveling in all the female attention he was getting; again, she wondered how truly involved he was with this other woman. Or maybe it was just part of his nature to flirt, he couldn't help himself. To his credit however, she noticed that at least he was holding back. Letting them look but not touch; she had to smile at that. For a non-feral male, he certainly knew how to play hard to get.
Barging in anyway in between two society matrons, she tapped him on the shoulder. 'Hey, wanna explore?'
'Sure,' he said quickly.
She wanted to laugh at the way he bolted after her. 'You owe me one for rescuing you.'
'Well, it was your idea to stay.'
They walked together in companionable silence around the house, which was more like a Bruce Wayne gothic-styled castle with its many rooms and corridors. It had been so long since they were together like this without verbally sparring or doing something to hurt each other. It was so pleasant that she didn't want to shatter the peacefulness by saying something. And yet, she knew she eventually did want to say something. She had planned it even when she had been choosing her wardrobe. Oh damn. This was so out of character for her to feel this jittery, like she was on a prom date with the best-looking boy in school.
She wondered if she would get her confidence back before the night was over. It's okay, she whispered to herself. You have nothing to lose. Be bold.
It was now or never. She felt her muscles tensing. 'Bren? Are you seeing someone?'
He stopped in mid-stride. 'What do you mean?'
'I mean...' Was she wrong? 'You have been..preoccupied lately, and I just thought...'
He looked away for a while, deciding carefully how to choose his words. 'Technically, I'm helping out a friend. Only I'm not quite sure how it's turning out.. And I'm not sure how she's feeling about the whole thing.' He paused for a while, frowning. 'It's complicated, really.'
Shalimar's chest compacted. 'Is it someone I know?'
He looked levelly at her. 'No.'
'Okay then.' She was relieved. Better a faceless anonymous somebody she could pretend to rake her nails in.
He seemed bemused. 'You actually noticed.'
'So I did.'
They had entered a hall hosting a medium-sized swimming pool, which was blue mosaic-tiled with Moorish motifs, and very inviting-looking. The place was empty, though the lights were softly lit to give it a Kublai Khan pleasure palace effect.
Shalimar knelt down and tested the water, more to avoid looking at him than anything else. 'It's heated. Some people are amazingly rich. Whose house is this anyway?'
'Don't remember. Can't imagine how I missed it in my days as a career criminal. I must have been slipping.'
She had to laugh. Brennan was funny that way. She truly enjoyed having him around again. It was funny how you never missed things until you realized they were gone.
She suddenly had an impulse. 'Hey, do you want to go swimming?'
He looked at her as though she had gone mad. 'Right now? Are you crazy?'
'Come on, be wild. Loosen up for one night.'
'Me, loosen up? Who are you talking to? Emma?' He backed away nonetheless. 'You're not planning on skinny dipping, are you?'
'I was,' she smiled, feeling a rush of adrenaline again. She needed the fix. It chased away her jitters and she felt confident, in control once more, the way she needed to be. 'But since you're shy, I'll keep my underwear on. You can do the same, I promise I won't peek.'
He was still looking at her, as though deciding if she was serious. 'Shal, you do know I can't swim.'
'Yeah. And that's the whole point. You have to do something totally crazy that you haven't done before. And I'll teach you. Come on.'
Maybe her enthusiasm was infectious, because his eyes twinkled. 'Okay. But I'm staying in shallow water. And you can't peek, 'cause you won't be able to handle it.'
She laughed. 'Oh I think I can. You've got nothing I haven't seen anyway.'
'Ditto.' He removed his dinner jacket, the one she thought was so James Bond, and began to undo the buttons on his cuffs. This was so fun, almost like old times. He had unbuttoned the rest of his shirt and was about to shrug it off when he seemed to realize she wasn't undressing. 'Stop ogling.'
Grinning, she kicked off her shoes and began to unzip her dress. She wore no stockings and she was glad for that, she always preferred to be bare-limbed anyway. She had a strapless push-up bra on and matching blue lacy panties, she wondered what he would think of that. And she felt his eyes on her. He was gazing at her body, a catch in his breath; and when he realized she knew he was gazing, he looked abruptly away.
She was sorry. She liked him looking at her. It made her feel desired. Not that she wanted to play seductive tonight, he meant too much to her to perform a cheap, low trick like that. Then again if that were the case, she asked herself, why was she undressing? And getting him to undress? Because subconsciously, some part of her knew that was best card she could play to win him back? Oh, if she had to resort to that...
She felt a flood of embarrassment. Surely she had more confidence in her own personality than that. Her body shouldn't have to be part of the equation. To think that she had to sink so low to try and win him back.
She was on the verge of calling the whole swimming thing off, when he said, 'Now you're having second thoughts. You turning chicken?'
Now, that was a challenge if she heard one, and she couldn't resist. Turning up her nose at him, she executed a perfect dive into the pool. Unlike cats, she had no fear of water. Fire was her only denouement (and maybe, falling too deeply in love). The water was balmy and oh so refreshing, she could scarcely have believed it was chilly outside. Gasping, she surfaced. This was truly a vivid experience and she felt the excitement coursing through her limbs again. To hell with thinking so much with her head, she was going to have fun. All she had to do was let herself be.
'Who's a chicken now?' she called to him.
He was kneeling at the edge of the pool, clad only in his briefs and laughing at her. It struck her, not for the first time, how truly beautiful he was. He should, she thought, be captured on celluloid or the pages of a Vanity Fair magazine and be preserved forever. Though she doubted very much he would like to have his photo taken; he had a phobia of that. He had always said it would be used against him.
She swam up to him, sought purchase with her feet on the floor of the pool and held one hand out. 'Don't be such a baby. Look, I'm standing. It's shallow.'
'Yeah well, it's easy for you to say. You don't get shorted out when you're wet.'
He took her hand anyway. And suddenly jerking it, she pulled him into the water.
She could have sworn he shrieked. He landed with a resounding (and very embarrassing) splash, almost dunking her in the process. For a while, she thought he was going to be in trouble and she was almost sorry she did it; but he managed to clamber up for air, holding on to her shoulder.
'That was nasty,' he said, spluttering. 'Why do you do nasty things like that?'
She giggled. He looked really cute when he was wet and cross. 'Come on, I'll teach you how to swim.'
She showed him how to hold on to the side while kicking out, frog style. It was totally enjoyable, having him in her power like that, obediently following her lead. He was usually so good at everything that she was hard-pressed to find something that he sucked at; and when she did find one, she was going to milk it for all it was worth.
After a while, she said, 'Now you try it. Let go of the side and try kicking out on your own.'
'No, I'll sink.'
'You won't sink. Hold on to my hands.'
He did, clasping them tightly as though he was afraid to let go. The situation was so hilarious she wanted to laugh. Here she was, teaching Brennan Mulwray how to swim and he was behaving like a scared kitty cat being put into a well. It was also nice to see him so uncertain and timorous; he was usually so brash and testosterone-ridden. This vulnerability was a very nice change.
It also made him dangerously attractive.
She led him like this, pulling him by his hands, keeping both of them afloat across the width of the pool. Once or twice she brushed against his wrists, and his pulse was bounding so hard she thought he was going to have a seizure.
'You really are scared, aren't you?' she teased him when they had safely gotten to the other side.
'Yeah,' he confessed. 'Been terrified of water ever since I was a kid.'
'Does that mean you don't take baths?'
'A guy's gotta take a bath sometime.'
She giggled. His wet skin was glistening a soft gold in the lamplight, his face was flushed from the exertion (and terror) and he looked carelessly, carelessly marvelous. She did always have a protective pang for men in distress, and right now she was finding him irresistible. The incredible urge was blossoming in her again, stronger than ever.
You can do it, Shalimar, she whispered to herself. Be bold.
Holding his face in both her palms, she kissed him. Softly at first, and when his eyes flew wide open in surprise, she kissed him again. Harder. Pressing her mouth against his, sucking at his lower lip insistently until he responded by kissing her back; tenuously at first and then with a growing hunger.
When they momentarily separated, he had a questioning look in his eyes. 'Shalimar?'
'I missed you, Brennan.' She didn't know what else to say, so she might as well start with the truth. 'I missed....us.'
She wondered if he knew what she meant. He seemed to understand, his brown eyes softening.
'There was a time...' he said in such a low voice that she had to strain to hear it, 'that I thought there wasn't going to be an "us".'
She had nothing to say to that. It wasn't the time to be pointing fingers and slinging 'You hurt me so I hurt you back' retorts. And besides, the ambience was too sultry, the mood too ripe and the air between them too voluptuous to let it go to waste. So she kissed him again, tilting his head downwards, clutching at his dripping hair; devouring his mouth - he tasted of pool water - probing the chlorine tang with her tongue. She felt her loins moisten with need...if she had known it was going to be like this with him, she would have done it sooner.
In retaliation, he scooped her up, clutching at the small of her back and the underside of her thigh, so she was at eye level with him. And whispered against her lips, 'I've wanted to do this for such a long time.'
She wondered if it was a good time to tell him that she loved him. And decided to save it till later. Until he gave her a lead on how he felt.
They kissed again and again, each kiss more unnerving than the last, until she felt she could drown into his wetness. As he drew her closer to his body, she could feel his hardness pressing against her. It was a startling experience; they were in the water so it was almost like floating, and she could feel him through his clammy underwear. Only it was a numbed sensation, surrealistic in quality.
Again that questing look in his eyes. 'Do you want me to?'
She responded with a hungry kiss. 'Yes...yes. I want you to. Please.'
He put her down, splashing her a little, and reached down below to strip off his briefs, almost slipping in his awkwardness. She steadied him as he laughed ruefully, 'I'm not very good at water gymnastics, am I?'
'Let me help you,' she said, licking her lower lip. Taking a deep breath, she submerged herself into the water. Kneeling on the bottom of the pool in front of him, she peeled off his briefs and helped him step out of them, holding on to his calves and ankles as she did so. She was noting how muscled his thighs were, like a pale, sunken Michelangelo sculpture in the eerie blueness of the water. It was too disconcerting to look further upward, so she surfaced for air.
He kissed her as she was gasping, and took his sodden underwear from her. 'Don't want to lose these.' He tossed it aside, freeing his hands to undo the clasp of her bra. Her nipples were peeking above the wired cups, she had only now noticed it - gosh, were they exposed throughout the whole period when she was towing him across the pool? No wonder he looked flushed. As he freed her breasts, he bent down to kiss their upper halves which were not submerged, apologizing, 'I'm not very good at holding my breath under water, but I'll work on these later.' And reached down below to slide her panties off. She helped him, accommodating him, tossing her underwear to join his at the side of the pool.
He was hesitating. 'I wonder if we should do this. I haven't brought a condom.'
'It's okay,' she assured him. 'It's different for us ferals. We know our cycles, and I'm not in heat right now.'
'Does that mean you'll be any less passionate?' he teased.
'Just a little. Unless you can convince me otherwise.'
He was still holding back, like there was an internal struggle within him, his brown eyes taking on a wistful cast. He was looking away, not daring to meet her eyes. She wondered if it was that other woman. He would be betraying her, whoever she was, by doing this. Unless there were no promises between them, no exchanges of heartfelt devotion. Again, she wondered if he was in love with this other woman. Or, for Brennan, if being in love necessitated a vow of monogamy; or whether that dichotomy even applied to him. Things worked differently in his mind. He was curiously opaque that way.
'Is it..that someone else?' she asked him, feeling her heart sink. Was he too far gone in his affair to be salvaged? Oh please, she thought, don't let it be so. Don't let it be too late. She was now sorry she hadn't done this earlier. She found herself hating this unknown woman with a newfound passion.
He did not dare answer for a moment, seemingly eschewing the thought. 'I don't know,' he finally said. 'But it was meant to be a temporary thing. It's more or less over now. And I guess she'll go her way.'
If you want to know, then ask him, she told herself. You've come so far, and you can't proceed until you help him over this hurdle.
'And will you let her go? Are you in love with her?' She wondered if she was brave enough to hear the answer. She closed her eyes momentarily and opened them again. Have courage. You have nothing to lose.
A fleeting look of indecision crossed his features, and then it passed. 'I promised myself a long time ago I would never fall in love again. And I was so sure of myself..until I met you, Shalimar. And now..'
She felt the heat rising in her cheeks. Perhaps it wasn't too late. She had to plunge in the knife, deep.
'I love you, Brennan,' she said before she could stop herself. And all those words she had rehearsed, all those secret desires she had shared with Emma...all of that went through the roof. She was left speechless, the words dying on her tongue, looking helplessly at him.
He seemed to resolve something internally, crossing a threshold. For answer, he leaned over and kissed her, timidly at first, and then with a mounting passion. As she threw her arms around him, a warm glow suffusing her entire body, he grabbed her waist with both his hands and lifted her up, pressing her back against the side of the pool. His fervor was infectious, because she found herself caught up again, her own animal lust escalating as she wantonly circled his hips with her legs.
Again, his eyes asked for permission. Which she consented, sighing. 'Take me, Brennan.'
And he did. It was a slow penetration, and she felt herself being expanded, gasping at the size of him. It had been so long for her, she had almost forgotten what it was like. Tears sprung to her eyes and she had to bite his shoulder to keep from screaming out.
'Am I hurting you?' he asked, stopping.
'No, no. It's wonderful.'
He slid himself all the way in and halted there, letting her get used to him. She felt so incredibly..filled. Like there was no room for anything else. Again, she felt something primal surfacing, threatening to burst open her dam. She wondered if she should surrender herself fully to it.
'Just tell me when you're ready, okay?' he whispered.
'Okay. I'm ready.'
He began with gentle rhythmic strokes that teased her at first, and which increased in tempo into something wilder, more frenetic. She found herself responding to him, clasping him tightly with her thighs and inner muscles, squeezing him so hard that he gasped. The wave was coming again, and she knew she would not be able to hold back any longer. It was part of her, and she knew she should give him fair warning.
'Brennan, don't mind me okay? I might hurt you a little, but it's just me.'
'It's okay,' he said, understanding. 'I can take it.'
And she surrendered completely to her feral side. It was indescribable; she felt her senses sharpening - her touch, taste, smell - the feel of him against her, around her and inside her; everything heightened into an intense tactile cornucopia. She wanted to scream at the agony and pleasure of it. She wanted to devour him - this magnificent male animal who would be the alpha of any pride - fuse his blood with hers, run naked with him in the wilds of the forest and ravish him, entwining him in her limbs, losing herself forever in the microcosm of their glorious coupling.
As he pounded her, she abandoned all inhibitions. She remembered vaguely grinding herself against him like a pestle on mortar; grabbing him by the hair and biting him, hard, on his neck, his shoulder - whatever part of him that was accessible to her. Raking her nails into his back and buttocks and clawing. She heard him cry out, but she couldn't stop herself. He felt so good, and she was being transformed rapidly into one giant sensory orifice, floating murkily in her own pleasure cocoon.
She came, her mind a blinding streak of light. And came again several times before she felt him ejaculate inside her, a squishy stickiness that melded with the water. This is the way it's meant to be, she thought, as she came down to earth, the sensations ebbing away in a sultry, languorous aftermath.
'Are you..turned off?' she asked him after a while, when she was able to speak again. He was still inside her, though it was now a gratifying semi-hardness, like a torpid, spongy presence. She hadn't had that many non-feral lovers - or feral ones for the matter - but she knew it was important to ask. With the ferals, they accepted it as part of their nature, but he was the first elemental she had ever made love to. She was afraid that he might have found it too...alien.
'No,' he laughed. 'I used to go out with someone who did that. And worse. It never turned me off. Quite the contrary, in fact.'
She laughed with him, feeling ecstatic, like she was on an all-time high. Her instincts were awash with an outpouring of love and nurture for him, and she knew that again it was the DNA in her manifesting. This was a mate that she would savagely defend against all odds, and that included all predators and other suitors, be damned with them. He was quiet however. As he withdrew, his face took on a thoughtful, bruised expression.
'So where do we go from here?' she questioned.
'Yes,' he echoed. 'Where do we go from here?'
*
Emma closed her mind against the barrage of images and emotions, and severed the connection swiftly before she would become too embedded in them. She now understood her friend more completely than she ever had before. And with that understanding came a deep-seated empathy she might not have had if she had merely listened to Shalimar, and allowed her own jealousies to warp her.
It didn't make her pain any lesser though. There were no villains here, only a simple story of two women - both vastly different - in love with one intriguing, complicated man whose mind to them was an enigma. Her realization of this cognizant fact allowed her to distance herself from the situation and observe the three of them from a psychological parabola. And whom would he choose? The goddess whom he had been in admiration/lust (love?) for over a year or the quieter best friend he had come to share his life's journey with?
Oh Brennan, she thought. This doesn't make me love you any less. It just makes it more painful, that's all. If anyone is to blame, it's me. I should have told you earlier. And in any case, it perversely makes you more precious, more desirable, even more worth fighting for.
'Emma?' Shal was smiling at her, taking her hand across the table. 'Thank you for listening. It's wonderful to be able to talk about it with somebody.'
She smiled back. 'Sure, anytime.' She wondered if Shal noticed the melancholic expression in her eyes.
She excused herself to go to the washroom, to gather her thoughts. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned (a version she far preferred, no matter what he said), but she strangely did not feel scorned. Just misinterpreted. Unlike half an hour ago, she no longer felt the need to furiously tear him apart (though that urge was only partially submerged). She had now come to a decision. And besides, like what Shalimar harbored, there were always hope.
She looked around, making sure there was nobody in the restroom with her, and activated her com-ring.
'Brennan?'
He replied a second later, tersely. 'Yeah?'
'I need to talk to you. Tonight.'
TBC
*
*
Note: This is a character driven story, and I just wrote what I thought the characters (with their personalities) would do in the situation ducking again from the rotten tomatoes. After all, what would you do if you were Shalimar? Or Emma? Or importantly, if you were Brennan?
Aha, I received a lot of screaming e-mail for my last chapter duck. But guys, I did warn you this story was pre-planned! Do you think someone like Shalimar would just roll over and accept her fate without fighting for Brennan? Heck, I would fight for him! I'm a sucker for beautiful bad boys, no matter how much they can hurt a girl.
This chapter is rated PG-13 upfront, then gets into R somewhere in the middle for animalistic sex.
Chapter 11
There was a stunned silence.
Then Emma asked, stammering, 'Wh..what do you mean?'
'Exactly what I said. Brennan and I made love. Emma, are you okay?'
Emma closed her eyes for a moment. Be careful, she thought. She felt her pulse thrumming in her throat, a restless two-beat tapping that transmuted itself onto the scarf she had tied around her neck for effect; so that its edges too went flutter, flutter. 'I'm okay, it caught me by surprise, that's all. When...when did this happen?'
'Five days ago.'
Five days ago. That must have been after their date at the party. The morning she had woken up totally deflowered and dejected. Where it had been at the tip of her tongue to confess her love for him, and she had held back - as usual, the story of her life. She was now wishing, dread admixed with horror rising within her, that she had told him then; perhaps things wouldn't have taken such a drastic turn as they seemed to be doing now. Then again (the doormat part of her speaking), if she had, might they have been any different?
She attempted a smile; though inside, she could feel herself breaking, like she was being cleaved in two and the two sides of her were being pulled far, far apart. Oh Brennan... Brennan..after everything we shared.....how could you? She resisted an attempt to put her knuckles in her mouth and scream.
A voice inside her said, 'But you didn't tell him. And he thought once he had helped you, there would be closure. And he would be free to pursue other matters.'
She wanted to wipe away angry mental tears. Stop making excuses for him. He must have been blind not to see it, or else he chose not to see it. Couldn't he just have waited? And what about that date he had promised her (their final date - the ominous thought came), would that proceed according to plan? Or did this little interlude with Shal change everything?
She hated him. She loved him. She wanted to rant and scream all her frustrations to the ceiling. She wanted to creep away and die. She wanted to walk out right now, Shal be damned, find him and tear his face apart. She wanted to hold him in her arms the moment she saw him, and take him away from Shal forever. Her limbs felt leaden, like she could no longer move without eliciting an ache in her chest. The ambivalence of her emotions were tearing her mind apart, she couldn't handle this. This was too complex.
And all through this, she was smiling agonizedly, nodding her head at Shal, and saying words that sounded distant to her ears. 'So...' a casual tone, 'what happened?'
Shal turned pensive. 'After I spoke to you, I realized I couldn't just stand aside and watch someone I love - someone I thought I had a chance with... and someone I was certain loved me some way in return, only he had a funny way of showing it sometimes - being taken away; growing more distant every day. I struggled with myself, you know. Because it hurt so much in here,' she placed a hand on her heart, 'and I wasn't sure I could do it.'
Emma felt as if she was wading in candle wax. Time suddenly seemed abominably slow.
'But I didn't want to be a victim. And I thought, I just had to give it a try, you know. Be damn with the consequences. I had lost everything already. I had nothing left to lose.'
Nor have I, Emma thought.
'I had no intention of throwing myself at him. I had too much pride for that.' Shal gave a sad little laugh. 'That's my problem, I always did have too much pride. I just wanted to talk to him, and tell him that I thought of him as more than a friend. And maybe, he would give me a lead on how he felt. And I could take it from there.'
Emma wondered if she dared. And she decided she didn't care anymore, Shal wouldn't find out anyway. So she reached into her friend's mind - wincing slightly from the sting generated from the tangled animalistic emotions of a feral - and connected. And found herself drowning.
Why, she pleaded, do you do this to yourself?
*
They had gone undercover at a posh party thrown at somebody's house to check out a new mutant couple whose powers were in flux. The cry for help had come to Adam over broadband e-mail. And due to the amount of occasions they had been set up recently by such distress beacons, he had naturally been wary. 'Why don't you investigate them first?' he had suggested to Shalimar and Brennan.
So they had slipped in. Shalimar had dressed carefully, choosing a form fitting, ice blue dress that left little to the imagination. She wondered if she was doing it to impress him, and decided that her subconscious motives were too painful to think about.
He too was looking particularly handsome. When he made an effort to dress up, he was breathtaking in a totally different way, like a soap opera actor playing the stunning best man at a wedding. Or maybe it was the lighting. She remembered the first time she saw him, back when he was still a common criminal and she was trying to help him and Emma escape the GSA. Arrogant, she had then thought. Supremely challenging. He was going to be a handful. Life with him would be anything but dull. She was going to have to put him in his place.
And now it seemed he had put her in her place, stringing her heart along with hopes, little glimpses of candid revelations, a smile here, a peck there, a look that belied so many unspoken words. She liked to think she had strung him along too, and a base part of her had enjoyed his petty jealousies and possessiveness. The feral in her tended to be coquettish sometimes - it was how the great cats played the mating game - she felt engulfed by her feline side, which was more often than not a tease. But he was not a feral and patience for him was not a virtue. One day, that tenuous string had snapped, and she found herself bereft, wondering how she got blindsided.
When she had been a child, she had a little kitty that hero- worshipped her. Followed her around like a shadow like she was the love of its life. One day, that little kitty grew up, became self-absorbed like all cats, and left off tailing her. The withdrawal pangs were acute. For several months, she found herself looking over her shoulder, missing that familiar pad-pad-pad of its velveteen paws. She felt like that with Brennan now.
Oh Bren, she thought, why do we do this to each other?
The trouble with him was that he was too dominant. He wanted to be in control all the time, even in love. But she too was alpha. They were two tempestuous creatures bonded by an undeniable chemistry. She wondered how it would ever work out.
'You look nice, Shal,' he pronounced solemnly as they entered the main hall.
'You look nice too.'
They had scanned the crowd for the couple, who had RSVP'ed on the guest list. They had checked with the butler several times. After two hours, when the duo still didn't show up, they were ready to give it up as a lost cause.
'Maybe they got wind we were here. Or they truly weren't legit. Anyway, we've wasted our time. You wanna go home?' he asked.
She missed him. She missed talking to him, one on one, the way they used to. He had been so preoccupied lately. 'Nah. It's quite a cool party. I don't mind hanging out a little. Maybe if we stay awhile, some of the money off these people would rub off on us.'
He laughed. 'Don't bet on it. I never got rich that way. Sometimes you have to be proactive.'
So they had hung out. Several men made a pass at her, which she took in good stride. She had always enjoyed the propositions, it gave her a much needed boost of confidence in her own attractiveness, especially now in her despairing state. Nevertheless, she found herself looking at him longingly in several occasions. He was practically reveling in all the female attention he was getting; again, she wondered how truly involved he was with this other woman. Or maybe it was just part of his nature to flirt, he couldn't help himself. To his credit however, she noticed that at least he was holding back. Letting them look but not touch; she had to smile at that. For a non-feral male, he certainly knew how to play hard to get.
Barging in anyway in between two society matrons, she tapped him on the shoulder. 'Hey, wanna explore?'
'Sure,' he said quickly.
She wanted to laugh at the way he bolted after her. 'You owe me one for rescuing you.'
'Well, it was your idea to stay.'
They walked together in companionable silence around the house, which was more like a Bruce Wayne gothic-styled castle with its many rooms and corridors. It had been so long since they were together like this without verbally sparring or doing something to hurt each other. It was so pleasant that she didn't want to shatter the peacefulness by saying something. And yet, she knew she eventually did want to say something. She had planned it even when she had been choosing her wardrobe. Oh damn. This was so out of character for her to feel this jittery, like she was on a prom date with the best-looking boy in school.
She wondered if she would get her confidence back before the night was over. It's okay, she whispered to herself. You have nothing to lose. Be bold.
It was now or never. She felt her muscles tensing. 'Bren? Are you seeing someone?'
He stopped in mid-stride. 'What do you mean?'
'I mean...' Was she wrong? 'You have been..preoccupied lately, and I just thought...'
He looked away for a while, deciding carefully how to choose his words. 'Technically, I'm helping out a friend. Only I'm not quite sure how it's turning out.. And I'm not sure how she's feeling about the whole thing.' He paused for a while, frowning. 'It's complicated, really.'
Shalimar's chest compacted. 'Is it someone I know?'
He looked levelly at her. 'No.'
'Okay then.' She was relieved. Better a faceless anonymous somebody she could pretend to rake her nails in.
He seemed bemused. 'You actually noticed.'
'So I did.'
They had entered a hall hosting a medium-sized swimming pool, which was blue mosaic-tiled with Moorish motifs, and very inviting-looking. The place was empty, though the lights were softly lit to give it a Kublai Khan pleasure palace effect.
Shalimar knelt down and tested the water, more to avoid looking at him than anything else. 'It's heated. Some people are amazingly rich. Whose house is this anyway?'
'Don't remember. Can't imagine how I missed it in my days as a career criminal. I must have been slipping.'
She had to laugh. Brennan was funny that way. She truly enjoyed having him around again. It was funny how you never missed things until you realized they were gone.
She suddenly had an impulse. 'Hey, do you want to go swimming?'
He looked at her as though she had gone mad. 'Right now? Are you crazy?'
'Come on, be wild. Loosen up for one night.'
'Me, loosen up? Who are you talking to? Emma?' He backed away nonetheless. 'You're not planning on skinny dipping, are you?'
'I was,' she smiled, feeling a rush of adrenaline again. She needed the fix. It chased away her jitters and she felt confident, in control once more, the way she needed to be. 'But since you're shy, I'll keep my underwear on. You can do the same, I promise I won't peek.'
He was still looking at her, as though deciding if she was serious. 'Shal, you do know I can't swim.'
'Yeah. And that's the whole point. You have to do something totally crazy that you haven't done before. And I'll teach you. Come on.'
Maybe her enthusiasm was infectious, because his eyes twinkled. 'Okay. But I'm staying in shallow water. And you can't peek, 'cause you won't be able to handle it.'
She laughed. 'Oh I think I can. You've got nothing I haven't seen anyway.'
'Ditto.' He removed his dinner jacket, the one she thought was so James Bond, and began to undo the buttons on his cuffs. This was so fun, almost like old times. He had unbuttoned the rest of his shirt and was about to shrug it off when he seemed to realize she wasn't undressing. 'Stop ogling.'
Grinning, she kicked off her shoes and began to unzip her dress. She wore no stockings and she was glad for that, she always preferred to be bare-limbed anyway. She had a strapless push-up bra on and matching blue lacy panties, she wondered what he would think of that. And she felt his eyes on her. He was gazing at her body, a catch in his breath; and when he realized she knew he was gazing, he looked abruptly away.
She was sorry. She liked him looking at her. It made her feel desired. Not that she wanted to play seductive tonight, he meant too much to her to perform a cheap, low trick like that. Then again if that were the case, she asked herself, why was she undressing? And getting him to undress? Because subconsciously, some part of her knew that was best card she could play to win him back? Oh, if she had to resort to that...
She felt a flood of embarrassment. Surely she had more confidence in her own personality than that. Her body shouldn't have to be part of the equation. To think that she had to sink so low to try and win him back.
She was on the verge of calling the whole swimming thing off, when he said, 'Now you're having second thoughts. You turning chicken?'
Now, that was a challenge if she heard one, and she couldn't resist. Turning up her nose at him, she executed a perfect dive into the pool. Unlike cats, she had no fear of water. Fire was her only denouement (and maybe, falling too deeply in love). The water was balmy and oh so refreshing, she could scarcely have believed it was chilly outside. Gasping, she surfaced. This was truly a vivid experience and she felt the excitement coursing through her limbs again. To hell with thinking so much with her head, she was going to have fun. All she had to do was let herself be.
'Who's a chicken now?' she called to him.
He was kneeling at the edge of the pool, clad only in his briefs and laughing at her. It struck her, not for the first time, how truly beautiful he was. He should, she thought, be captured on celluloid or the pages of a Vanity Fair magazine and be preserved forever. Though she doubted very much he would like to have his photo taken; he had a phobia of that. He had always said it would be used against him.
She swam up to him, sought purchase with her feet on the floor of the pool and held one hand out. 'Don't be such a baby. Look, I'm standing. It's shallow.'
'Yeah well, it's easy for you to say. You don't get shorted out when you're wet.'
He took her hand anyway. And suddenly jerking it, she pulled him into the water.
She could have sworn he shrieked. He landed with a resounding (and very embarrassing) splash, almost dunking her in the process. For a while, she thought he was going to be in trouble and she was almost sorry she did it; but he managed to clamber up for air, holding on to her shoulder.
'That was nasty,' he said, spluttering. 'Why do you do nasty things like that?'
She giggled. He looked really cute when he was wet and cross. 'Come on, I'll teach you how to swim.'
She showed him how to hold on to the side while kicking out, frog style. It was totally enjoyable, having him in her power like that, obediently following her lead. He was usually so good at everything that she was hard-pressed to find something that he sucked at; and when she did find one, she was going to milk it for all it was worth.
After a while, she said, 'Now you try it. Let go of the side and try kicking out on your own.'
'No, I'll sink.'
'You won't sink. Hold on to my hands.'
He did, clasping them tightly as though he was afraid to let go. The situation was so hilarious she wanted to laugh. Here she was, teaching Brennan Mulwray how to swim and he was behaving like a scared kitty cat being put into a well. It was also nice to see him so uncertain and timorous; he was usually so brash and testosterone-ridden. This vulnerability was a very nice change.
It also made him dangerously attractive.
She led him like this, pulling him by his hands, keeping both of them afloat across the width of the pool. Once or twice she brushed against his wrists, and his pulse was bounding so hard she thought he was going to have a seizure.
'You really are scared, aren't you?' she teased him when they had safely gotten to the other side.
'Yeah,' he confessed. 'Been terrified of water ever since I was a kid.'
'Does that mean you don't take baths?'
'A guy's gotta take a bath sometime.'
She giggled. His wet skin was glistening a soft gold in the lamplight, his face was flushed from the exertion (and terror) and he looked carelessly, carelessly marvelous. She did always have a protective pang for men in distress, and right now she was finding him irresistible. The incredible urge was blossoming in her again, stronger than ever.
You can do it, Shalimar, she whispered to herself. Be bold.
Holding his face in both her palms, she kissed him. Softly at first, and when his eyes flew wide open in surprise, she kissed him again. Harder. Pressing her mouth against his, sucking at his lower lip insistently until he responded by kissing her back; tenuously at first and then with a growing hunger.
When they momentarily separated, he had a questioning look in his eyes. 'Shalimar?'
'I missed you, Brennan.' She didn't know what else to say, so she might as well start with the truth. 'I missed....us.'
She wondered if he knew what she meant. He seemed to understand, his brown eyes softening.
'There was a time...' he said in such a low voice that she had to strain to hear it, 'that I thought there wasn't going to be an "us".'
She had nothing to say to that. It wasn't the time to be pointing fingers and slinging 'You hurt me so I hurt you back' retorts. And besides, the ambience was too sultry, the mood too ripe and the air between them too voluptuous to let it go to waste. So she kissed him again, tilting his head downwards, clutching at his dripping hair; devouring his mouth - he tasted of pool water - probing the chlorine tang with her tongue. She felt her loins moisten with need...if she had known it was going to be like this with him, she would have done it sooner.
In retaliation, he scooped her up, clutching at the small of her back and the underside of her thigh, so she was at eye level with him. And whispered against her lips, 'I've wanted to do this for such a long time.'
She wondered if it was a good time to tell him that she loved him. And decided to save it till later. Until he gave her a lead on how he felt.
They kissed again and again, each kiss more unnerving than the last, until she felt she could drown into his wetness. As he drew her closer to his body, she could feel his hardness pressing against her. It was a startling experience; they were in the water so it was almost like floating, and she could feel him through his clammy underwear. Only it was a numbed sensation, surrealistic in quality.
Again that questing look in his eyes. 'Do you want me to?'
She responded with a hungry kiss. 'Yes...yes. I want you to. Please.'
He put her down, splashing her a little, and reached down below to strip off his briefs, almost slipping in his awkwardness. She steadied him as he laughed ruefully, 'I'm not very good at water gymnastics, am I?'
'Let me help you,' she said, licking her lower lip. Taking a deep breath, she submerged herself into the water. Kneeling on the bottom of the pool in front of him, she peeled off his briefs and helped him step out of them, holding on to his calves and ankles as she did so. She was noting how muscled his thighs were, like a pale, sunken Michelangelo sculpture in the eerie blueness of the water. It was too disconcerting to look further upward, so she surfaced for air.
He kissed her as she was gasping, and took his sodden underwear from her. 'Don't want to lose these.' He tossed it aside, freeing his hands to undo the clasp of her bra. Her nipples were peeking above the wired cups, she had only now noticed it - gosh, were they exposed throughout the whole period when she was towing him across the pool? No wonder he looked flushed. As he freed her breasts, he bent down to kiss their upper halves which were not submerged, apologizing, 'I'm not very good at holding my breath under water, but I'll work on these later.' And reached down below to slide her panties off. She helped him, accommodating him, tossing her underwear to join his at the side of the pool.
He was hesitating. 'I wonder if we should do this. I haven't brought a condom.'
'It's okay,' she assured him. 'It's different for us ferals. We know our cycles, and I'm not in heat right now.'
'Does that mean you'll be any less passionate?' he teased.
'Just a little. Unless you can convince me otherwise.'
He was still holding back, like there was an internal struggle within him, his brown eyes taking on a wistful cast. He was looking away, not daring to meet her eyes. She wondered if it was that other woman. He would be betraying her, whoever she was, by doing this. Unless there were no promises between them, no exchanges of heartfelt devotion. Again, she wondered if he was in love with this other woman. Or, for Brennan, if being in love necessitated a vow of monogamy; or whether that dichotomy even applied to him. Things worked differently in his mind. He was curiously opaque that way.
'Is it..that someone else?' she asked him, feeling her heart sink. Was he too far gone in his affair to be salvaged? Oh please, she thought, don't let it be so. Don't let it be too late. She was now sorry she hadn't done this earlier. She found herself hating this unknown woman with a newfound passion.
He did not dare answer for a moment, seemingly eschewing the thought. 'I don't know,' he finally said. 'But it was meant to be a temporary thing. It's more or less over now. And I guess she'll go her way.'
If you want to know, then ask him, she told herself. You've come so far, and you can't proceed until you help him over this hurdle.
'And will you let her go? Are you in love with her?' She wondered if she was brave enough to hear the answer. She closed her eyes momentarily and opened them again. Have courage. You have nothing to lose.
A fleeting look of indecision crossed his features, and then it passed. 'I promised myself a long time ago I would never fall in love again. And I was so sure of myself..until I met you, Shalimar. And now..'
She felt the heat rising in her cheeks. Perhaps it wasn't too late. She had to plunge in the knife, deep.
'I love you, Brennan,' she said before she could stop herself. And all those words she had rehearsed, all those secret desires she had shared with Emma...all of that went through the roof. She was left speechless, the words dying on her tongue, looking helplessly at him.
He seemed to resolve something internally, crossing a threshold. For answer, he leaned over and kissed her, timidly at first, and then with a mounting passion. As she threw her arms around him, a warm glow suffusing her entire body, he grabbed her waist with both his hands and lifted her up, pressing her back against the side of the pool. His fervor was infectious, because she found herself caught up again, her own animal lust escalating as she wantonly circled his hips with her legs.
Again, his eyes asked for permission. Which she consented, sighing. 'Take me, Brennan.'
And he did. It was a slow penetration, and she felt herself being expanded, gasping at the size of him. It had been so long for her, she had almost forgotten what it was like. Tears sprung to her eyes and she had to bite his shoulder to keep from screaming out.
'Am I hurting you?' he asked, stopping.
'No, no. It's wonderful.'
He slid himself all the way in and halted there, letting her get used to him. She felt so incredibly..filled. Like there was no room for anything else. Again, she felt something primal surfacing, threatening to burst open her dam. She wondered if she should surrender herself fully to it.
'Just tell me when you're ready, okay?' he whispered.
'Okay. I'm ready.'
He began with gentle rhythmic strokes that teased her at first, and which increased in tempo into something wilder, more frenetic. She found herself responding to him, clasping him tightly with her thighs and inner muscles, squeezing him so hard that he gasped. The wave was coming again, and she knew she would not be able to hold back any longer. It was part of her, and she knew she should give him fair warning.
'Brennan, don't mind me okay? I might hurt you a little, but it's just me.'
'It's okay,' he said, understanding. 'I can take it.'
And she surrendered completely to her feral side. It was indescribable; she felt her senses sharpening - her touch, taste, smell - the feel of him against her, around her and inside her; everything heightened into an intense tactile cornucopia. She wanted to scream at the agony and pleasure of it. She wanted to devour him - this magnificent male animal who would be the alpha of any pride - fuse his blood with hers, run naked with him in the wilds of the forest and ravish him, entwining him in her limbs, losing herself forever in the microcosm of their glorious coupling.
As he pounded her, she abandoned all inhibitions. She remembered vaguely grinding herself against him like a pestle on mortar; grabbing him by the hair and biting him, hard, on his neck, his shoulder - whatever part of him that was accessible to her. Raking her nails into his back and buttocks and clawing. She heard him cry out, but she couldn't stop herself. He felt so good, and she was being transformed rapidly into one giant sensory orifice, floating murkily in her own pleasure cocoon.
She came, her mind a blinding streak of light. And came again several times before she felt him ejaculate inside her, a squishy stickiness that melded with the water. This is the way it's meant to be, she thought, as she came down to earth, the sensations ebbing away in a sultry, languorous aftermath.
'Are you..turned off?' she asked him after a while, when she was able to speak again. He was still inside her, though it was now a gratifying semi-hardness, like a torpid, spongy presence. She hadn't had that many non-feral lovers - or feral ones for the matter - but she knew it was important to ask. With the ferals, they accepted it as part of their nature, but he was the first elemental she had ever made love to. She was afraid that he might have found it too...alien.
'No,' he laughed. 'I used to go out with someone who did that. And worse. It never turned me off. Quite the contrary, in fact.'
She laughed with him, feeling ecstatic, like she was on an all-time high. Her instincts were awash with an outpouring of love and nurture for him, and she knew that again it was the DNA in her manifesting. This was a mate that she would savagely defend against all odds, and that included all predators and other suitors, be damned with them. He was quiet however. As he withdrew, his face took on a thoughtful, bruised expression.
'So where do we go from here?' she questioned.
'Yes,' he echoed. 'Where do we go from here?'
*
Emma closed her mind against the barrage of images and emotions, and severed the connection swiftly before she would become too embedded in them. She now understood her friend more completely than she ever had before. And with that understanding came a deep-seated empathy she might not have had if she had merely listened to Shalimar, and allowed her own jealousies to warp her.
It didn't make her pain any lesser though. There were no villains here, only a simple story of two women - both vastly different - in love with one intriguing, complicated man whose mind to them was an enigma. Her realization of this cognizant fact allowed her to distance herself from the situation and observe the three of them from a psychological parabola. And whom would he choose? The goddess whom he had been in admiration/lust (love?) for over a year or the quieter best friend he had come to share his life's journey with?
Oh Brennan, she thought. This doesn't make me love you any less. It just makes it more painful, that's all. If anyone is to blame, it's me. I should have told you earlier. And in any case, it perversely makes you more precious, more desirable, even more worth fighting for.
'Emma?' Shal was smiling at her, taking her hand across the table. 'Thank you for listening. It's wonderful to be able to talk about it with somebody.'
She smiled back. 'Sure, anytime.' She wondered if Shal noticed the melancholic expression in her eyes.
She excused herself to go to the washroom, to gather her thoughts. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned (a version she far preferred, no matter what he said), but she strangely did not feel scorned. Just misinterpreted. Unlike half an hour ago, she no longer felt the need to furiously tear him apart (though that urge was only partially submerged). She had now come to a decision. And besides, like what Shalimar harbored, there were always hope.
She looked around, making sure there was nobody in the restroom with her, and activated her com-ring.
'Brennan?'
He replied a second later, tersely. 'Yeah?'
'I need to talk to you. Tonight.'
TBC
*
*
Note: This is a character driven story, and I just wrote what I thought the characters (with their personalities) would do in the situation ducking again from the rotten tomatoes. After all, what would you do if you were Shalimar? Or Emma? Or importantly, if you were Brennan?