This is the second part. For those wondering if there'll be a POV of Bo? Yes! This one. Thanks for the awesome comments. Hope you like that one.
Thanks for reading, biiig thanks to EmCelle and well, I still don't own Lost Girl or the characters.
BO'S POV
Stepping out of the revolving glass door into the bright light of the midday sun, I have to squeeze my eyes into tight slits. A slight burn behind my forehead makes me stop in my tracks and my arm reaches up to automatically shield my eyes from the sun.
"Dammit!"
I knew that I would have need my sunglasses when I left my office. But I didn't have to think twice whether or not to get them. My decision was set in tablets of stone from the very beginning, knowing that I had to walk past my boss all over again, who was hovering over his next lunch-bunny. Elena, of Mr. Flinch's -from the appeal division office- secretary.
'No thanks' is all I was thinking.
It is warm. Warmer than I thought it would get when I headed to work this morning. When I woke up at four it had been rather cold so I chose to wear one of my suits. The black one. Not my favorite, but it fits perfectly and the weather guy on channel seven promised, that the day would get warmer. In that case this suit wouldn't heat up as much as those others I have stocked away in my closet.
My eyes become accustomed to the natural brightness with every step I take. All I've been thinking of for the last couple of hours has been reading that new book I bought online. It arrived just yesterday with my mail. That, and a little more peace and a bit less of Miss Dennis this and Miss Dennis that.
The forty five minutes break would be over faster than I'd like it to be, so I have to hurry to get to that place I know no one was going to interrupt me with stupid question about what number to dial or how to hit on the new girl from the service staff, 'cause as a woman myself, I was accused to be the best source of knowledge of 'how to woo correctly'.
The warmth of the sunbeams feels good on my face. I love the early summer. When the days grow longer and the nights hold that mild temperature. Less cold and pleasant enough to sit on my small balcony of my small single apartment. A glass of cheap wine in hand, I would hate myself the next day for it, wrapped in a blanket, watching the sunset and waiting for the stars to pop out of the darkened sky.
I used to sit on the porch of my father's house. The stars got me hooked since I was little. When my place in the world seemed too hard to stand at times, I got lost in my dreams of the depth of the outer space. The constellations never changed. They are fixed on the firmament. Just the location circled with the earth moving around the sun. Sometimes I fell asleep while counting them and woke up to the birds chirping.
Walking across the parking lot of the skyscraper I work in, I take off my blazer. Never once stopping or slowing down. My suitcase switches from my left to my right hand and back again until my jacket joins the leather bag under my left arm. Warm wind blows along my now exposed forearms as I managed to pull my blouse up to my elbows.
"Hey Bo!"
'God no, please.'
A male voice yells at me from behind and I know who the owner is without turning around.
"Bo, hey, Bo!"
I walk on.
'I can't hear you, you're not there!'
A hand lands on my right shoulder, stopping me. I wish I had chosen the other direction. The one which wouldn't make me run into Don. Don is one of the junior partners of the air-condition company from the building next to my office.
He has been eyeing me since forever and I was too polite at that time to tell him to get lost. I am used to ogling eyes and drooling mouths. I do have that effect on people. Mostly men. Although I usually prefer the so called weaker sex.
A strong pull forced me to swirl around and face that break-disturber. His blue eyes land on my cleavage.
'Memo to myself, bottom up!'
Don is a rather short man. Almost my height but his body stopped to grow further when he must have turned twelve and so I am a few inches taller. My chest is on direct eye level so I cannot really blame him for staring.
"Don, hey, uhm- I don't have much time, I-"
My thumb points in the direction of the bus stop. Finally he meets my gaze. His blue eyes looking hopefully into my brown ones.
"Can I join you?"
"God no!"
He blinks.
"I mean- sorry, no, I already have a place to be and a someone to meet so... Some other time maybe."
I free myself from the hand still laying on my shoulder. The smaller man adjusts his tie, clearing his throat. His chest pushes forward. He has a muscular body. Surely putting a lot of effort in pumping them up. He has to compensate his lack of height somehow I guess.
Looking at his disappointed features I almost feel guilty for declining. Almost. I am through with dating under false suppositions. I've been dragged to meet up with boys my age in high school.
"Ysabeau, this is Jeff. He is the son of the Millers from down the street."
My stepmother, Jill, thought it would be a good idea to introduce me to the sons or younger cousins or brothers or whatevers of the women of her book club or tennis club or whichever club she had joined recently. Most of them had been either to shy and girl-phobish or too fast forward and grope-y. I have goosebumps all over my body only thinking back at those times.
"Oh, yes, ok. Then- I'll see you around."
I nod and smile at him.
"Yes, Don. So- uh, I gotta go."
I see the red lights of the brakes of the bus I intended to catch. Only a few feet away, I have to run to make it before it drives off again. Running in my stilettos, it is a miracle that I don't fall down by now. Simply walking in those things some called shoes is a science of its own. I never thought I would ever wear high heels. For as long as I could remember I hated them. The sound they make on the concrete not to mention a hallway. Annoying. And here I am in a pair of clicking spike heels.
If this bus drove off without me, it would have been the perfect match to the rest of my glorious morning. My boss had one of those days. He never stopped joking and his habit of come as close to me as he could, left me in a cold shiver, and not in a good way. If herpes had ever been growing on my lips, it would have happened today. Thank the holly mighty that I haven't suffered from those little blisters ever before.
He is a tall man with an athletic body. Most of the women around him behave like Robbie Williams fans on a concert, first row. His hair holds too much styling gel and he literally bathes in after shave. And his charm, well, for those who don't have some kind of self-preservative instinct or pharyngeal reflex, he must have quite an effect.
As his secretary, I am seated right in front of his bureau. Writing his schedule of appointments, receiving calls and checking his mails. When I started working for a politician I didn't think I'd be doing the shopping or searching for the next excuse to soothe his wife when he went out with one of those chicks.
I hate him. I hate the way he treats women and uses them for his satisfaction. I hate how he looks at me freely without a hint of embarrassment when I catch him, but a big smirk on his face. He tried to hit on me several times. I felt so dirty. His filthy comments and grabby fingertips...
"Come on, Ysabeau. I would love to celebrate my latest success with you and some wine in that small Italian restaurant near by." When I told him about me being his secretary and him being my boss, it just led him on to grow even more aggressive in his efforts to woo me.
"In that case, maybe I should fire you. But then I would miss the daily eye candy."
Touching my back or arm or grabbing my hand every now and then. I know that this is sexual harassment at work, but I need that job.
That doesn't change the fact that I hate it. I can no longer hide my dislike. That's not how I imagined life would be like when I moved from Sacramento to Toronto. Raised by my stepmother, while my dad worked almost twenty for seven, I never received much of my parents attention.
Money isn't an issue. I have plenty. My dad must have felt kind of guilty or he was just too preoccupied with living his own dream that he shoved checks into my pockets when ever he had some time to spare. Which had been every Monday morning with coffee in one hand and the last bite of his toast in his mouth when I was still living at home.
"Have a good week, hon. Buy that nice dress you never stopped talking about."
"That wasn't me Dad. Jill said she..."
"Yes, great, give me a kiss and see you later."
But later was a very elastic term.
I don't want his money. I never have. All those checks are cashed and put aside in a bank account after donating half of it to 'Children of hope' an organization that helps orphans to ease their suffering. I earn my own dollars and that's how I want it to be. Everything I have, everything I own, I bought from hard earned cash.
He wasn't much of a talker. My dad. Still isn't. We talk over the phone once every four to six weeks. But sometimes he forgets that. When I first moved out he wanted us to stay in touch and that I had to tell him about my well being every Monday. But as the years went by, his calls faded. The checks still come monthly though. He has never once forgotten them. Easier to write down some numbers and letters than to speak words or listen to them.
"Time is money and money doesn't lay on the street, sweetheart."
I am used to it by now. He wasn't there for me growing up and I am not surprised that he hasn't changed that much after I moved out. All my life I was by myself. My mother left me and dad when I was a baby, so I don't remember anything about her. She just abandoned us.
My dad did the best he could. He himself was very young when I was born, only twenty. I don't have grandparents. At least that's what I was told.
"No, Ysa, no! It's just you and me. There is no one else."
When I first went to Kindergarten some kids got picked up by their granny or aunt or other relatives. It was hard for me to understand. My family had been him an me. He worked hard. Double shifts and three different jobs. I never saw much of him. I stayed in a day care center after Kindergarten. Always the last one to get home. I missed him most of the time, but I understood, somehow at least.
When my dad had found that woman and fell in love with her, I didn't understand. He already had me in his life. There was no room for another girl. I hated her. More so that little boy they named Björn. He was born three years after she moved in with us. I was seven. I hated him. His name was stupid, I thought, and his small hands sticky. And he cried a lot. I had to share my tiny room and some of my toys with him.
"Jill! Stupid Björn broke Harvey! All his bowels splashed out on the floor!"
Harvey was my plushy. A frog. He was a gift my dad gave me for my sixth birthday. It was special to me, because it had been the first and only birthday we spent together from breakfast 'til bedtime story. It was the best day of my life.
"Don't call your baby brother stupid and those are not its bowels, it's just fiberfill. This frog was old and gross anyways, we'll just buy you a new one."
I felt so many emotions that day. Most of all anger.
"I don't want a damn new one! And he is not my brother."
That statement had earned me a week of room arrest, which was the worst that could have happened because I still shared my space with the tiny rat. We didn't get along well. I broke up contact first thing when I finally moved out.
I was jealous. Jealous of the way my father's eyes sparkled when he looked at Björn. As if that boy was all he had dreamed of. Jealous of the attention he received. The smiles directed at him after his first steps, his first word, his first anything. I felt forgotten. I tried so hard. Best in my class in middle school, best in my spelling competitions, best grades in most of my courses. But never enough. Never have I ever seen that look of pride on my father's face again since the beast was born. I felt replaced.
At some point my dad's career worked out pretty well. He climbed his way up the ladder of a telecommunications company. One of his bosses, an old guy without children, had found the son he never had in my father and saw his potential. He became a partner and is now one of the leading roles.
He had never been home much, but since then I think he just came back home to get some sleep.
"Why doesn't he love me anymore? What did I do?"
I cried my heart out at Lisa's, she was in my biology class. We sat on her bed in her room and I cried so hard until my eyes dried out. I was fourteen. Lisa gave me my first kiss and I didn't feel that alone anymore.
I see people stream inside the bus and curse quietly. My steps getting faster and unsteadier. Damn these shoes. Fortunately I bought an all-day-ticket this morning at the small kiosk on the corner of the street I live in. Normally I walk to work as the office lays within arms reach. Twenty something minutes of the day to gather my thoughts. Today I felt like riding the bus though. Another sleepless night absorbed the most of my energy and left me tired and it was hard to concentrate on anything.
I hold on tight to my suitcase. Good thing I decided to leave that coffee-to-go shop out, otherwise my run off would have been interesting to those watching me, although I am craving some caffeine right now.
I can hear the beeping, signaling that the doors will close sometime soon. Without thinking my hand head-reaches between the shutting wings. For about a second I thought I would get stuck and the bus would drag me behind but they open up again and out of breath, I step inside.
A cracking sounds along when I place my foot on the floor of the bus. Looking down I see the pieces of broken sunglasses. I could imagine how the person must have felt afterwards and yet again I wish for my own pair.
My eyes are flying around the front of the bus, watching a group of older women talking furiously about the youth nowadays, hearing the kids in the back laughing loudly. I smile to myself. Wondering, if I turn into one of those women when I would have grown old, bemoaning disrespect and the loss of strict upbringing.
Remembering my teenage time. I loved to provoke. With my body, with my sexuality, with everything I had and was. I wasn't shy, nor am I now. Being kissed and touched and adored by others. Me in a club alone wouldn't stay like this for long. A lot of potential lovers tried to hit on me. There isn't much I have to do. Just sit and wait. I am used of getting compliments and most of the drinks are for free, offered by men and women in equal measure.
My longing for skin on skin overlays the preference of gender from time to time. I don't like labels anyways.
It's all about the need for release. The need for anything that makes me feel something. Something more than this emptiness. More than those dreams of finding that someone who could look through all my show and see the real me.
Countless nights of giving and receiving pleasure and countless nights in which I felt like crap afterwards. My soap soaked hands scratching over my already pink rubbed skin. Feeling even emptier than before.
Somehow I have the feeling that someone is watching me. Groaning on the inside and rolling my eyes I turn my head left side preparing the right words and body language to give that person their well deserved lecture. I'm not in the mood nor in the right place and outfit for anything like that. But what I see I'm not prepared for at all.
Right behind a glass front, there she is. A beautiful blonde woman is staring at my upper arm. Light brown orbs dancing along my shoulder to the place I scored the most with but stopped a bit higher. She must be glancing at my throat or collarbone. I'm not quite sure about the exact location and I couldn't care less.
I am used to people watching me, staring at me, but none of them make my skin burn. The inward smile squeezes its way past my mouth on my lips and offer a welcoming gesture onto a slightly reddened face. I feel even warmer than before.
She hasn't met my gaze just yet. My own eyes wander along her shimmering tresses and soft expression. The blonde shut her lids close, breathing in deeply. I can switch out of my state of observing fast enough to catch her eyes with my own.
'I've got you there, gorgeous!'
I think I radiate like a nuclear outburst right into her face. My cheeks almost hurt from all the smiling. But I can't help it. My shitty day just spiked up form zero to hyper and I loose my track of thoughts for a second.
Why am I standing here? In this bus? Where have you been hiding all my life?
And I keep standing in the middle of the entrance, holding her all-pervasive gaze. It feels as if she is looking right into me, reading my inner commotion like an open book. A shiver runs across my back up to my hair when I see her lips mouthing something I can't make out. But suddenly I crave those lips to move again. Imagining what her voice might sound like.
When she looks away, shaking her head, a slight sadness overcomes me. The beeping of the doors filling the already noisy surroundings I almost forgot are still there. And here I thought I was a good multitasker. Maybe not that good.
The wheels get into moving. Making me jump with the sudden motion and almost losing the ground under my feet. I grab the steal handle near by.
Noticing the empty seat is next to the only person I could think of sitting next to right now. I pull myself together with all there is left of my courage and step up, stopping in front of her.
That has never happened to me before. Feeling insecure in front of somebody I wanted, somebody I felt attracted to. And I felt an ineffable pull towards this woman I have only seen the upper half of. But as much as I can tell, I have never met anyone like her.
"Hi, is this seat taken?"
'Please say no. Please say I can sit down. Please say- something. Anything.'
She won't even look at me. Seemingly shy. A small wave of her hand and a simple nod is all I get. But I take what she offers at that point. Desperate for anything. Clutching at every straw. So I sit down. Careful to leave enough space for her, or for me. I don't know.
I steal a glance at her hands. She kills her book with her tight grip and I am relieved that I am not the only one feeling all catapulted back in time. Right now I'm not twenty nine but sixteen all over again, sitting next to Amelie. The most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on when I was younger and I wanted to hold hands with so badly while Mister Hacky scribbled some stupid math formulas at the whiteboard.
Her fingers fiddling at the steal spiral of her notepad. I wonder what she does for a living. I wonder where she is heading to. I wonder why she wouldn't just start talking to me because I'm obviously not able to find my voice.
'I don't even care what you say, just- talk to me.'
I barely recognize myself. All speechless and I can't place what is happening inside my stomach. It takes all of my willpower to keep my leg from bumping up and down. I am nervous. Sweaty hands, pounding heart... Normally I feel self-assured and it doesn't take long for me to get to the 'My place or your place'-point.
I can't see her face. Her hair blocks the view. I have the sudden urge to lace my fingers through those strands falling freely across her shoulders. I want to brush away the blonde blanket and reveal that luscious rose skin of her lips. To watch her cheekbones change color again. Like before, when I caught her staring.
My finger twitches. So I grab my suitcase, pressing my nails into the leather. Looking back down to the small gap between her jeans clad thigh and my suit pants. A tiny space that separates our bodies. It wouldn't take much, to reach out and touch her bare forearm, resting on her upper leg. To cares that soft skin with an almost ghost like fingertip hovering above the small hairs, tickling along until our two hands would join to one.
'Talk to me!'
I can hear her. I hear her every breath. I hear her heart running thousand miles an hour, or is that mine?
I can't think clearly. Haven't since I stepped inside what I thought would be an unspectacular and fast ride to my destination. But the second I focused all my senses on the woman next to me I wished for more. More time, more words, more courage, more of all of those things I usually don't have to grope about in the dark void I call my brain.
A next sharp intake of that overly consumed air and I could swear she prepared herself to speak up, finally. I look at the glass in front of us. I see her reflection. See that face I longed to see for minutes on end now. But her eyes, shut close again.
'Boy, what is it about your eyes that I can't think straight anymore?'
I stare freely now. I don't care if she registered my gaze on her or not. The only thing I am waiting for is to hear her voice. How could I miss something I haven't had the chance of getting to know just yet?
Her eyes fly open. She is looking at me. Not directly, though. But at parts of my face. I follow her brown orbs. A journey, its course unknown. But hope never dies. So I wait patiently. I've never been patient. I couldn't stand the feelings that come with wanting something so badly but not being allowed to get it.
'Look at me. Just-please, look up.'
My world of silent prayers and overwhelming desires collides with reality when she lays her eyes upon mine eventually. God those eyes. Fixed on the mirror like glass I stare. Her mouth agape. Something in the way she looks at me enthralls me. Tells me that I have to get to know her. That there is now way possible, that I would let her get away ever again.
She blinks. Rolling her eyes to the ceiling.
'No- no, no. Don't. Just keep your eyes on me.'
A panic like murmur spreads inside my guts. I breathe in sharply. Capturing the warm air in my lungs. Yet again, I have to wait. Finally she drops her gaze back on my face and her mouth moves as if she was forming words.
"Next stop..."
That's not the voice I imagined would come out of this delicate throat. It is deep, a bit husky even, a male one and I couldn't get the whole sentence. Shocked of the unexpected sound.
"What?" is all I manage to bring out. Proud that the vibration of my vocal cords created more than a growl.
"I said, this is my station. I have to get out please."
Her words are like music to my ears, but the meaning leaves me disappointed. In the background that male voice repeatedly tells the passengers that the bus will come to a halt within the next seconds.
'That can't be...'
"Uhm- s-sure."
I stand up to let her pass. She hesitates for a second. Facing me, her notepad and book pressed against her chest tightly with her left hand, holding the steal bar with her right. Searching my eyes, clearly searching for words.
'Don't go.'
A silent plea I try to throw out against her fleeing position, but can't be transported in time.
The doors pop open and before I can reach out or force my tongue to verbalize my thoughts again, she is gone. Leaving me here, wondering what the heck just happened.
Okay, that was part two. One is yet to come. What do you think?