Emma knew the moment she took the card of the young man with electric blue eyes and the sleeve of colorful tattoos that fate hadn't brought him to her side of the room. She had smiled at him, and now Emma begrudged the boy – that's what he was, after all - the effort it cost her.
"Hey! Yeah! Good to see you," the young man garbed in a vintage Nirvana t-shirt and black skinny jeans and Vans shouted above the chainsaw-like music of the club. He looked around Emma, scanning the room like prey searching for the predator's hidden location.
Emma knew he was looking for Regina Mills. Regina Mills, the prolific avant-garde novelist well known in all arts circles for her penchant for multimedia projects and literary openings. When Regina Mills did well, the people around her did well. And everybody wanted to be on the Regina Mills bandwagon, given she was the queen of every bestseller list.
There was her name. Pre-printed. The address perfectly printed in its laser-inked reflective baby blue. It was some announcement of a film project by a group of graduate student at the nearby university, wanting her to be an interview subject. Emma had made the mistake yet again of thinking she could separate her life into compartments marked "with her" or "without her", and she had that heart-sinking feeling as she left the makeshift bar and out into the lonely street.
It was well after most bars closed. Emma couldn't even bring forth the impetus to chastise herself for walking the sidewalk at 4 a.m. She knew it was stupid, yet still walked toward her makeshift temporary home. Something was missing. "Something important has somehow slipped away," Emma thought, "something that I'd never had and only now began to realize was missing."
She had thought that seeing a band by herself in this dingy hole of a venue would be a good way to get away from the overwhelmingness of her. Not just her, but the fact that Emma's employer and her notoriety had seeped their way into every dark corner of Emma's life. Not just into her heart, where all was torment and conflict, but where it was quiet and soft and where Emma could keep the sacredness a secret to herself. To hold onto it in the dark night when she knew she would never act upon it.
But no. Emma was still approached by strangers in odd places asking an audience. With Regina.
Emma's dating life had screeched to a halt after she had begun working for Regina. And after she moved onto her massive estate after Emma's apartment had caught fire, well. That was just the death knell for what had once been a struggling social life on the most meager of life support. If Emma was perfectly honest with herself, she had begun to slowly starve that part of herself the moment Regina had stared at her with those dark, wet eyes and said she was the one.
The one to get her coffee and arrange her flights. The one to organize her appointments and signings. Emma was her personal assistant. "And it would do me well to remember that. All she needs from me are my office skills," Emma whispered to herself.
I suppose that's not entirely true, she thought. There were other things she needs from me. To Regina, I am a sort of adopted family member. She has little family left, and those who were have the habit of only coming around when they need something.
Emma never asked those things of Regina, made sure never to reveal what she did need. What that need did to her. Emma was sure the effort was beginning to take its toll on both her and the working relationship. She didn't know how much longer she could keep it under wraps.
No, she would never say anything to Regina. But she would start putting out feelers for a new position tomorrow. It was time to move on. Emma couldn't do this anymore, it wasn't healthy. Her obsession was becoming too much to handle on her own, and she needed to rip the bandage off in one quick move.
But she couldn't deny the fact Regina was everything. She was perfect. Beautiful, smart, witty, well-read, a good friend. Rich beyond any possible material needs would require. Yes, Regina provided Emma a place to live. She was a friend, if nothing else. Emma knew, though, that something had to change or she was going to lose herself.
Emma listened to the sound of her heels clicking on the badly cracked sidewalk, echoing in the dark. One of them caught between two slabs of separated concrete and snapped with a sound that was like a gunshot in the heavy dark night. She couldn't help but chortle. I thought that only happened in movies. How cliché I've become, she said to herself. She rolled her eyes and slid her shoes off, tucking one in each pocket of her black trench coat.
A car engine purred on the street beside her. Emma knew who it was before Regina even pulled the Benz to a smooth stop. "Not a very good place to be walking this time of night, ma cherie," she said. "Get in."
So she did.
What else could she do?
"Not a good idea, ma cherie, to walk alone in the dark. The city has dangers even you cannot imagine," she purred, much like her car. Emma loved the sound of Regina's voice, it was a velvet tone licking up her spine.
"You're right, of course," Emma said, her voice just above a whisper. The night had gotten her down far more than it should have. She felt the burden of her obsession on her shoulders and that betraying tingle between her legs, even as Emma inhaled the scent of Regina's light, expensive perfume and the leather of the car's interior. She wanted it to saturate her senses, to become a part of her sinuses, her lungs, her soul so it would never leave her.
Rational thought intruded, this is exactly why you have to get away from her.
She looked over at Regina's profile, alternating between silhouette and flashes of the real woman under the passing streetlights. Emma knew it was more than obsession. She had to admit that to herself. It was far more.
Emma was in love with Regina. What was it they said? That it was like falling asleep? Slowly at first, then all at once. That was exactly how it had happened. Tricky, tricky love.
More than that, Emma knew Regina didn't have similar feelings. She felt obligation, a responsibility to someone who worked for her. She was a good woman. It was the main reason she loved Regina. Despite all, she was a good person. But Emma knew their differences were too high a wall to overcome.
Emma was younger. She was a nobody, and she liked that. She was only a somebody because of her attachment to Regina. As soon as she was no longer a part of her sphere, Emma would go back to the miasma from which nobodies like her sometimes bubbled up from for mere moments. Regina would always have fame and wealth and cars and men.
Good God, the men. Emma had never known Regina to have even had one girlfriend in all the time she had known her. Men, yes. Handsome little Ambercrombie & Fitch fuck boys who were too old to model, but not too old to decorate a successful woman's arm and to fetch her drinks.
When they finally reached Regina's home, she took Emma's hand and walked her to the door of the guesthouse. She had insisted Emma use it after the catastrophe of her apartment fire. Damn, she's nice, Emma thought. She turned to thank Regina for saving her from herself, yet again.
As she stood on the sidewalk outside the blackened ruins of her apartment, Regina had driven up in her black Benz, got out, looked her over, and simply opened the passenger side door. Emma got in and after a few nights in one of the spare bedrooms in the main house, realized she couldn't be that close to her much longer.
"What about the guesthouse?" Emma asked one day while she was going over line edits on one of Regina's many writing projects.
"What about it?" Regina looked up from the ream of paper in her hand and reached for the coffee Emma had prepared for her. Black, double sweet, extra strong.
"Why I can't I move out there?" Emma asked. "It would give you some space. It's not really good for people who work together to live together, too, y'know."
Regina swiveled around in her desk chair, her hair swinging behind her in a dark aura, and looked at me with those golden chocolate eyes of hers. Emma would have been more coherent if she were still talking to the back of Regina's head instead of those eyes, now blackish in the subdued light of the office. They were her downfall, she only hoped Regina would see it her way and grant some merciful absence from her presence.
"If that's what you want," she murmured. Taking a sip of coffee, she turned back to his work. Emma couldn't tell because she was turned away, but it sounded as though Regina was disappointed.
It's not what Emma had wanted at all. Later that day, though, she packed her essentials. By week's end, the guesthouse had been ready for occupancy. Emma packed the rest of her things and was moved away from Regina within a few days. She still saw her every day, but the distance at night was a needed one. She don't know why, it's not as if Emma would ever have acted on her impulses. She would never walk down the hall, strip off, and then crawl into bed with Regina.
Not that Emma had thought about it every minute of every night and every day, or anything.
But Emma knew that she was only a mere step away from inappropriateness, and Regina's very being was based on being appropriate. She was "appropriate," and would never do anything to make anyone, Emma included, think otherwise. Meanwhile, Emma was daydreaming of pulling her hot boss away from that desk and doing things that would make her pull my hair in ecstasy.
Inappropriate things.
Regina was too close, her face about an inch from Emma's. She felt Regina's warm breath on her cheek, the scent of her skin drowning Emma in apples and cinnamon and … a touch of lavender? Emma smiled contentedly into her flashing dark eyes.
"Good night …"
And that's when it happened. Her boss, her friend, her obsession - Regina Mills - kissed her.
And it was hot.