CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
 Behind Closed Doors
 
       

         "Sonny…Sonny!!"

         Hearing his name screeching into his thoughts spun Sonny around. Carly was right in his face, eyes blazing.

         "What do you want, Carly?" Sonny snapped at her. "Why are you even here?!"

        "I'm here because this is where I'm supposed to be." Her angry expression vanished. She kept on talking, in spite of the incredulous look on his face. "I came to talk to you about our son and your birthday, but one thing is as important as the other."

         "You want to talk about Michael, we can do that another time. The same for my birthday. You know I don't like celebrating my birthday."

         "But you have a son that does. Or doesn't that count for anything, anymore."

"You know that's not true, Carly. But for tonight, it can wait. And as for anything else…. Look, Carly, it's over." Sonny said tiredly. He was not up to this. All of his focus was on the penthouse across the hall. "Why won't you let it go?"

         "Let what go…us?. why should I?…You didn't. You had men following me, Zander included, keeping an eye on me. Because you still care."

         "I'll always care about you. I don't want anything to happen to you… but don't let that give some sort of false hopes. It's different now. Things are different. And things have changed. One thing that has got to change is the fact that you just can't come by and show up any time you want, Carly."

         "Why not; it seems your lawyer has carte blanche." She snarled at him. "I come by to talk to you, and  find her instead. Cuddled up all comfy and cozy in your penthouse. She just couldn't wait for me to clear out before moving herself in here, could she? Are her legal briefs the only ones she's shown you? Has she changed the sheets we made love on yet? Or is miss-uptight-and-frigid not even up to the job? Or maybe she's waiting for you to hike her retainer before she'll hike her well-tailored skirts?"

          Alexis had never been in his bed…not yet….and yet there was Carly's voice, profaning what he'd spent too many nights wishing for. In contrast, images of the night of he and Carly's hate-sex echoed through his mind… overlaying his dreams with a long-ago nightmare. He wouldn't let her destroy it with her filthy implications.

         "Enough!" The sudden fury in his voice stunned them both. "It's over…We're over! Why can't you get that?!?"

         "We will NEVER be over, Sonny!" She watched stunned, as he turned away from her and began to walk upstairs.

         "Never! She screamed at his back. "Did you hear me -  never!"

         **

         Alexis closed the door behind her, leaning against it and leaned against it, closing her eyes. The shouting had begun before she'd gotten across the hall. Memories flooded her mind, in spite of herself. Try as she might, Alexis couldn't help remember how Sonny and Carly's relationship had always been touched with passion…whether they were fighting… or loving. 

         All of her past doubts, the ones she'd thought buried at last, as she and Sonny had begun to grow closer, came flooding back accompanied by a overwhelming surge of pain. Had she been fooling herself all this time? How many times, with her own eyes, had Alexis seen the electricity that existed between them. How many times in the last few months had she told Sonny that he still loved his wife, and no matter how passionately he'd denied it, there was always a tiny piece of her heart that didn't – couldn't – quite bring itself to believe him.

         That part, so carefully buried until now, resurrected itself with a vengeance. Alexis pushed herself away from the door, feeling the her thoughts creating a knot of  tension tightening up in a knot at the base of her skull, threatening to turn itself into a raging headache. Well, she wasn't about to let Carly win just like that, not like this. Do whatever she would, Carly was not going to take anything from her in the comfort of her own home. Suddenly, Alexis knew what would do it…she wanted a bath.. a hot, steaming, bath, fragrant with her favorite bath oil that Kristina had gotten for her on her last trip to her favorite herbal shop. That was exactly what she wanted, needed. And that's what she would have. A part of her mind recognized that she was rationalizing her thoughts, reaching for reasons and order, in order to bottle away her fears, but it was all right. Anything to get her away from the door, and away from her thoughts, was all right..

         Once she was upstairs, Alexis went into her bathroom, taking her time to deliberately and single-mindedly study the array of glass bottles on the rack besides the tub. She reached from one, her favorite scent, and realized with a start, that her fingers were shaking. Badly. "Damn you!" she whispered fiercely, but just who she was damming wasn't clear. 

         The slender vial slipped from her fingers, despite her best efforts to catch it, it shattered on the floor. "Damn!" Alexis repeated. Her voice thick with unspoken and denied emotion. She brought her hand up before her face, as a thin line of blood spilled from her palm. The pain of it stung, but it wasn't the sting that brought the tears to her eyes. They blurred her vision and threatened to trickle down her cheeks, but Alexis ruthlessly forced them back. Her thoughts were determined, and she wasn't going to let any sign of weak emotion turn her from  what she'd already decided to do. She was going to find some other bath oil, she was going to take a bath… a hot steaming bath where she could forget everything – and every ONE -- even if it was only for a little while.

         **

Sonny continued on up the stairs. For a single hopeful moment, he'd thought maybe she'd get it…. Maybe she would finally just go away. But even as he thought the wish, he knew it was untrue. The sound of her footsteps behind him told him that.

"I see the sheets haven't been changed…"  Carly smirked at the bed as she followed him into the room. "Nothing much has changed at all. Everything was just the way it used to be."

Sonny walked across the bedroom and reached for the decanter of liquor sitting on the bar cart. He reached for it, but something halted him in  mid-motion.. Sonny's hand halted in mid-reach; unknowingly, he shook his head slightly. He turned away from it, only to find Carly right in his face.

"Everything is the way it was…" Looking around she smiled with satisfaction, then she was smiling up at him, a suggestive gleam in her eye. "Everything could be the way it was, if only you'd let it. Don't you remember how smooth those silk sheets used to feel, how cool they were against our hot bodies…"  Unable to resist, she lifted one hand to his throat, letting her fingers trail downward.

He grabbed her wrist and jerked her hand away from him. "Stop it, Carly" he said, his voice an angry growl.

"Whatsmatter, lover? Are you remembering how hot we used to be? How we couldn't keep our hands off of each other? How we made love all night long and lit a inferno each and every time we did it?" Carly leaned in even closer, so that her body was brushing provocatively up against his. "We can do it now…right now, Sonny. we can do it right here…."

She pressed herself up against him. "Tell me you don't want me – right now." Carly smiled as his dark eyes met hers. She remembered getting lost in those dark brown depths and shivered in remembered delight at the memory.  She raised her lips 'til they were a fraction away from his, letting one hand slip up into his hair.

"I don't." His words were a sudden cold splash of ice water in her face. So was his hard grip on her wrists, pulling her down and away from him. "Not now. Not ever again. You think I don't know your plan? You live for plans." He looked down at her as though seeing her clearly for the first time. And maybe he was. "You don't want me…at least not that's not all of it…you want to be able to throw it in Alexis' face that I was with you. Tell me, Carly, if I bedded you tonight,  right here and right now, how long would you wait before you told her?…would you go skipping across the hall as soon as I did you?  Before the sweat even dried on our bodies?"

**

Her eyes met Johnny's as Alexis stepped out of her apartment. After realizing that she'd broken the last bottle of her favorite oil, a lavender-ylang-ylang blend, Alexis was determined to have some more this night to take her bath. In her new-found sense of determination, nothing else would do. She knew that the little herbal shop Kristina had insisted on dragging her to so often was still open, so Alexis called ahead and ascertained that her order would be waiting for her when she got there.

            Alexis for once, had allowed  her emotions fuel her energy It had kept her focused as she'd tended to the stinging slice in her palm, kept her on her determined course as she cleaned the tiny shards of glass up, and kept her resolute as she headed out the door. She'd made a decision, and she was going to see it through. Pure Alexis.And as long as she kept focused on her objectives, well, there wasn't room to think of anything else, was there?

            And all of her focus and resolve evaporated as soon as she stood in the hallway that separated her apartment from Sonny's and looked into Johnny's eyes. They were carefully – oh so very carefully that it sent a dagger thru her heart --  blank.

The second thing she noticed was the silence.

She looked back at Johnny and one glance answered the unspoken question hovering own her lips. Carly hadn't left. In spite of everything, that thought echoed in her head . If they weren't fighting, then what was happening on the other side of that door? Well, she wasn't waiting around to find out. Alexis turned away and pressed the elevator button.

Alexis Davis had left the building.

**

"You want to do me, Sonny?" Carly purred. "That's fine by me. C'mon." She stepped to him again and tried to wrap her thin arms around his neck once more and bring his lips down to hers. "Come on and do me right now." She murmured against his mouth.

Her touch, her lips, were clinging and annoying, repulsive. Even the scent of her filled his senses and suddenly nauseated him. He untangled the death-hold she had on him and pushed her away. Sonny stared at her in disbelief. "What will it take for you to accept the fact that we're done? You signed the divorce papers? What else do I have to do to convince you that we're over?"

"We'll never be over, Sonny. I'm in your blood, and your in mine!" Carly shot back.
        

"No, Carly. Not any more."  He looked at her. "You say we lit an inferno. No, it was more like a firestorm. And it incinerated everything and everyone around us. And Jason was it's first victim. And then we did our best to destroy each other. We did." He said, forestalling any reply she might have made. " We did, Carly.  We tore each other to shreds. Every lie I tried to forgive, every scheme you felt you had to hatch, can't you see it…what we had almost incinerated who we were. But not any more. I'm done. You can't push my buttons any more. I'm free, Carly. If I want to live a life..I have to be free of you….. So …just… let… me… go."

Carly was stunned into silence at the flatness -  the truth -  she heard  in his voice. Before this, Sonny had been angry at her before…the fights they'd had, the passion in his eyes as he raged at her only underscored the passion he'd felt for her. But this time… Carly was scared in spite of herself for the first time in a long time…this time, there was nothing in his eyes… no passion, no rage…not even pity or exasperation…. just emptiness…. And it rocked her to the core. She couldn't touch him...there was nothing there to be touched..… instinctively, she reached out towards him, only to flinch back when he jerked away, out of her reach. "You need to go home, Carly. And your home isn't here anymore. Stop coming here anytime of the day or night. Go home to your son." She opened her mouth to say something…anything…

He spoke before she could. "Just go."

And then he turned his back on her. And that was like a final door shutting between them.

That shock shook her to the core. Carly stared at him for a long, long moment before stumbling her way down the stairs and out of the apartment. Ignoring Johnny – who returned the favor – she slammed the door behind her. She punched the elevator button savagely several times before the door opened.

            On the ride down, her senses returned…a slow burning rage began to consume her. It was that bitch, Alexis. With all her fancy ten-dollar words, and her fancy this and that, she had Sonny's head so screwed up he didn't know what he was thinking. Well, Alexis had never fooled her, not from the first. She'd wanted Sonny from the begininng when she'd pretended to want to help Jason keep custody of Mikey. She had just laid a different game from what Sonny was used to. She thought it had worked, and now she thought she had him. Oh, but she was very very wrong…and Carly would make sure that Alexis knew it.