Chapter 4

Finally after the shows were done with I parted ways with Mark for a few days so that I could go see Amber. It felt like the longest plant trip I'd ever taken. I tried to read, tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I was too excited about seeing her.

She met me in the airport, and ran through all the people to jump up and hug me. I picked her up easily, and we stood there in each other's arms for several minutes before I let her go. In her car we drove back to her apartment. In the car she told me about her father, that he'd owned the hotel since she could remember, that he'd run it with her mother until she died. Amber was only a year old when this happened. Her father made ridiculous amounts of money and paid for her apartment as a sixteenth birthday present. She'd been living there since. And she'd started college a few times but never earned a degree in anything because she couldn't stand it. At the time right then she was looking for a real job instead of her part time job. She said that she only worked part time jobs because she didn't need money, that she was spoiled by her father and had all the money she needed, but still wanted the satisfaction of earning it. And because she didn't need it she wasn't motivated to getting serious about job hunting.

We arrived at her apartment about an hour later, and upon opening her door she told me to go in first. I was amazed at the work she must've gone through. All around the apartment were lit candle and flowers…well red, pink, and white roses, really. She led me into the dining room to show a fully made table and dinner ready. And wine. She giggled.

"I asked my father's caterers to make dinner while I was gone to get you and light the candles. Everything else I did on my own."

I laughed and hugged. "You went through a lot."

She pulled away from me and looked up. Her eyes were filling with tears. "Kane, you have no idea how many people I've loved before. I pour out my heart to people and they hug me or whatever and I fall in love with their embraces. And they always leave. Almost everything falls apart on me…but you actually listen. And you don't touch me to help me…you speak back. I actually feel like you love me back…

"My mother died before I knew her. All my life I've watched as my friends grew up the way girls should grow up, and watched as they all went shopping and decided to be girly. I never had a mom to help me pick out clothes or show me how to dress up dolls or braid my hair. And when we were old enough to date I didn't have a mother to tell me what to look out for. I've had to go through hell learning these things on my own, learning from my mistakes by guessing what to do. You know, like in cartoons where you push the wrong button and an anvil falls on you.

"And you, Kane, talking to you seems to be the first thing that I've done right on my own so far. And out of every time I've thought I loved someone, I've never felt this way. Now I know what it really means to love somebody."

By the middle of her speech she'd started to cry. And when she was done she'd begun to smile. We hugged again, and she stood up on her toes to take off my mask, "I don't want you wearing this terrible thing when we're alone together…it scares me." I laughed a bit at that and asked where her bathroom was so that I could wash my eye makeup off, which I did, and came back into the room to see that she'd sat down. And she'd poured the wine.

I sat down with her and she made a toast to us. Her eyes were sparkling in the candlelight as we spoke, of happy things now. Neither of us wanted to talk about bad things, and didn't even have to tell each other that. After we ate, she brought me into her living room, and we sat on a couch, talking for hours. For a while she just told me about herself, the way she'd grown up, stuff like that…but then asked if I would talk. It took me a few moments to think of how I should word the story that I had only told one or two people, but finally I started talking. I told her about my mother and about the firs and about Paul and how even though I'd forgiven Mark we still fought sometimes. Once I had started, the words simply spilled out, and after a little while so did my tears. She came to me and hugged me and told me that it was over and that it was good of me to cry, and then she did something that I hadn't expected. She wiped my tears away with her hands, and placed kisses on my face. No one had ever done that before. Not hands aside from my own had ever touched my face like that…like they weren't disgusted. Well actually I was never not disgusted so I guess that made her the first. Of course, Paul had touched it, to torture me really and tell me what a monster I was, and Mark had when it was still healing to change bandages but he was disgusted as well, and I saw through the veil of that which he'd put up so well. So she was the first. I felt myself smile.

"What?" she asked quietly, perhaps alarmed at my grin.

"No one has ever touched me like that…" I told her. I could hear the defeat in my voice despite the happiness I felt. She noticed this and continued with her soft kisses, more rapidly as she worked her way to my mouth. Subconsciously we took off each other's clothes and again we were making love, in such ecstasy that nothing else was to be noticed. Like that fact that her father was outside, pounding on the door.

She froze and we pulled away from each other, quickly throwing on clothes. I pulled on my mask. She ran her hands through her hair and ran to the door, opening it to see her nonchalant looking father leaning against the doorframe.

"Hi, Daddy," she said, slightly out of breath. She went up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. He let out on of those rough, manly sighs as he straightened. He cleared his throat and peered into the apartment. He didn't see me though.

"Todd told me that you had some people over here making dinner and that there were roses and candles all over. So what's up?"

"Well I have someone here," she said. She let him into the apartment foyer. I walked into the room and looked down at her father. He was perhaps six feet tall. He looked angry for a moment but then calmed. We shook hands.

"Daddy, this is Kane," she said in a high-pitched, girlish voice. He made some grunting noise and looked back to me.

"What's with the mask?"

Amber answered for me. "He's like Becka, Dad," she said softly. A calm came over him, sympathy really.

"You look familiar," he told me.

"I'm a wrestler. I was in your hotel the other night for Valentine's Day…with Vince McMahon and everybody." He nodded, then smiled.

"Yeah yeah yeah. I saw you two dancing," he sighed. "Well I'm sorry to interrupt you guys. I'll get going." He let himself out and I took my mask off for Amber. She led me into her bedroom and we lay down. We talked again. I asked her about her father.

"He seems slightly overprotective," I said. She laughed.

"It can seem that way, can't it? He's protective of me in an 'it's my little girl' way by he understands that I'm a woman and that it isn't totally unheard of to have sex or anything," she laughed. "He totally spoils me. Ha. I mean, look at me. I'm twenty-five years old and I still live like a teenager. My dad does everything for me."

For the rest of the night we talked, occasionally stopping because we were making out or having sex again. All of it was pure ecstasy. And then, at perhaps five in the morning, as the sky was lightening and the sun was coming up, we fell asleep in each other's arms.

She fell asleep before I did, and as I looked down at her I thought: "This must be what Heaven is like."

Then I scolded myself for being corny.

But it was true. And I held her in my arms and never wanted to let go.