August 1914
The man and woman had finished their dinner and stood, heading into Henry's lounge to sit in front of the fireplace together while the housekeepers cleared the table and finished up their chores for the night, the maid bringing Abigail and Henry a tray of tea before Henry dismissed her and the other workers from his home so they could head to their own homes for the evening.
"Thank you again, Henry, for dinner. It was lovely." Abigail said to him as she sipped on her tea. "Though I am still a bit curious."
"Curious?" Henry looked at her.
"As to why you asked me here tonight." She replied.
"I told you. I am taking your advice on opening up more." He half lied.
"Yes, but Henry, when I said that, I did not necessarily mean for you to open up more TO ME." She told him.
"I know. But you are the only one I WANT to open up to." He admitted.
"And why is that?"
"I honestly cannot answer that question, because I do not know the answer myself."
"I hope you still do not feel angry with me for what happened when my family and I first moved here." The woman set her tea cup back on the tray in front of the couch, between them and the fireplace.
"I beg your pardon?" Henry asked, a bit confused.
"Come on, Henry. I know that all these years, you have treated me a certain way because you thought that there was a chance that you and I could-"
"I have forgotten all about that." He lied again. "Why don't we start fresh and new? I am tired of arguing with you. And especially now that I am the Mayor again…I don't see why we can't just get along, you and I." He told her. "You did well as mayor, Abigail. But let's face it…you were not cut out for a job with so many responsibilities."
"That right there, Henry, is why you and I can never start over 'fresh and new.' Every fourth sentence is some type of insult toward me and how differently we both view the world."
"That's not true."
"Oh, yes, it is." She sighed as they heard the back door shut as the last housekeeper finally left for home and Henry and Abigail knew they were in his big house, alone…once again. "Every part of me wishes that we COULD start over. I would love to speak with the man that I met in the mercantile and went fishing with. But the truth is that I can never see you that way again after everything that's happened. After the way you treated my Noah. After the mine. Henry, starting over is only possible for you and perhaps Nora….but it is most certainly not possible for US. You and I have too much bad blood and too much of a negative history to try and fix it now."
"If that were true, then why did you come here tonight?" He asked.
"I'm not quite sure anymore." She lifted her tea cup again and took another sip of it as Henry examined her movements in silence for almost a minute.
"That's not true. You came here to use me to get back at Frank."
"I would never use somebody." Abigail protested.
"Yes, you would." He studied her a bit longer before he chuckled a bit to himself. "You won't admit it, but you are a lot more like me than we both thought."
"What is that supposed to mean?" She wondered.
"The only difference between us is that whatever you are doing is working." Henry stood up from the couch and went over to his drink tray in the corner of the room, grabbing a glass and pouring some hard liquor into it. Abigail's eyes followed his every move and landed on the brown liquid in his glass. She now wished she had something stronger than tea to drink considering every word Henry was saying caused her heart to beat a bit faster as she could already read his mind and anticipate what he was going to say next.
"Working?" She gulped back a squeak in her voice.
"We both love the power we have over the people in this town. You try to act humble, but the truth is…you know you've got everyone here wrapped around your slender fingers and you love it. You love knowing that they listen to your advice. You love that you can smile at anyone here and they will smile back at you." He sipped his liquor. "With me, it is the opposite…I love that I can glance at someone in town and they will look away as if they are not worthy enough to look at me. I love knowing that they will listen to me out of fear. You and I both love the power that we have, Abigail. You are just too self righteous to admit it….and THAT is why you courted Pastor Frank. THAT is why you are the first one to forgive the people around you who make mistakes. You may be kind and generous, but what scares you about yourself is that you KNOW your good deeds feel rewarding. You feel good about yourself when you help others. I feel good about myself when I take them down."
"We are NOTHING alike." Abigail disagreed out loud, though on the inside, she shuddered, fearing that he was right and fearing that he, too, could read her mind just as she could read his. "I help others because it is the right thing to do. You SCARE others because it makes you feel like you are above us."
"And do you NOT feel like you are above ME by being more kind than I am?" He pointed out.
"No." She tried to protest again.
"Yes." He argued. "It's okay, Abigail."
"What is?"
"To admit that you are not perfect and that you are a human who wants to be adored and validated." He told her and sipped his drink again. "You love that your opinion is valued in town. There is nothing wrong with that. Admit it."
"I will not."
"Come on. It's just the two of us here. You cannot fool me anymore."
"Alright!" Abigail looked into the flames in the fireplace as she let out an ashamed breath. "Yes…I enjoy being everyone's safe place. I enjoy knowing that they all look up to me and want my advice. You are right." She sighed and spoke quieter. "You are right….I am, at times, consumed by my own vanity and self love and it hurts me. It hurts to know that I am so selfish."
"There is nothing wrong with being selfish. I've been selfish for years and look at where it got me." He looked up at his high ceiling, stretching his arms out a bit to emphasize his success in living in a mansion.
Abigail tore her eyes away from the fire and she looked to Henry, watching him simply bask in his own glory before she stood up and walked passed him, pouring herself a drink of hard liquor as well. As she poured, she spoke again, their backs toward each other. "Being selfish almost got you arrested, Henry. Being selfish got my son and my husband killed. Being selfish has made you lonely." She finished pouring her drink and moved to stand in front of him, between the corner wall and the man, looking into his eyes as she sipped her drink.
"You are lonely too." Henry pointed out to her and she hated that he was right. "Look at what NOT being selfish has gotten you. We both have the entire town at our feet yet when we lay in bed at night…we are still empty. And what you can't handle is that you have felt that way even before your precious Noah died."
He immediately recognized the error in his words as his cheek was struck by Abigail's hand. It was quickly replaced by Gowen's own hand to rub the stinging away and he looked into Abigail's teary eyes. An urge took over him to apologize to her instantly, something he would not do for anyone else, but he had no chance to speak as soon his lips were met with hers in an angry, passionate kiss. Abigail's glass of liquor hit the floor beneath them and shattered.
The kiss lasted a while before the cafe owner pulled away, Henry noticing the taste of her tears on his mouth. She wiped her tears away quickly. "How dare you!" She told him. "I loved my husband."
"I never said that you didn't." He expected another argumentative word from her but was, instead, met with another kiss from her and she whimpered into it while Henry placed his glass down on the drink tray in the corner of the room beside them.
"Oh, god." She whispered against his lips in a brief break before the kiss continued. "Why must you do this to me?" She asked him, desperately.
"Do what?" He wondered aloud while trailing kisses up and down her neck and jawline, the blonde tilting her head for the mayor to have more access to her skin.
"Pull me to you." She told him as if he were the force of a strong magnet and she was a weak metal pin.
"I want to see you." He told her as his hands began to hike her skirt up just slightly.
"No." She told him though she turned around and leaned her back against him, resting her head on his shoulder behind her. She closed her eyes as she spoke. "I am not yours." She informed him, justifying why he would never see her without her clothes on.
Henry then forced her to walk forward until her face and chest were completely pressed up against the wall. He placed kisses along the back of her neck and shoulders. "Hm, are you sure?" He asked her, knowing that her words said one thing but her body said something else.
"Po-Positive." Abigail forced out the word as Henry's lips left goosebumps all over her neck. She pressed her cheek even harder against the wall, trying to look at the man behind her, but he was out of her line of sight and she whined, letting her eyes fall shut with a small whine.
"Do you want me to stop?" He asked her.
"No!" She said so fast that she even surprised herself. "Ju-just hurry up." She softly demanded, the feeling that she had between her legs ever since she walked into his house that night growing unbearable now. "We wo-...We won't have much time before we go to Hell." She joked, mostly to herself than to him, knowing that the way her body gave into temptation with Henry was most certainly a great sin. Probably the greatest sin she had ever committed.
But, in that moment, she did not care. All she could think about was how much her body had ached for Henry since the last time he was inside her and though she knew it was MORE than wrong to think of him while she was at dinners with Frank, she could not bring herself to forget about that feeling. Even Noah never made her feel so satisfied and she loved him with all her heart. But Henry…she swore she hated him. Perhaps that was why he satisfied her more. She couldn't tell anymore. The woman who usually had all the answers…had absolutely none when it came to this man and he made her head spin.
She couldn't help but let out a loud moan as Henry pushed into her from behind. Her right hand lay flat up on the wall while her left hand reached around behind her to feel Henry's hair as he pounded into her, pushing her more against the wall with every thrust.
After a while, Henry spoke, a bit out of breath. "I need to see you." He growled a bit in the back of his throat.
"I-I said no-" She started to say but Henry interrupted her.
"I mean your face." He pulled out of her and took a small step backwards. "Turn around." He commanded.
She immediately did as she was told as she already missed him inside of her and she wrapped a leg up around Henry's waist when he stepped close again. He looked into her eyes as he pushed into her once more and moved in and out of her at the same pace as before, his eyes never leaving hers.
"I-I-" Abigail squeezed Henry's shoulders, her breathing growing heavier. "I can't stay away from you. T-Tell me why that is, Henry." She moaned and clutched the fabric of his shirt in her hands.
"Because it feels so good to stop fi-fighting what our bodies need from each other." He said, hoping she would agree.
"B-But it is so wrong." She told him. "We are not-"
"Then marry me, if it is such an issue." He growled again and kissed her neck.
Looking up to the ceiling, Abigail felt her stomach flip as he said that. "Ar-Are you proposing, Henry Gowen?" She asked him. "Because I-...I am NOT marrying you." She softly chuckled through a moan.
"Then be quiet." He demanded with a smirk and moved a hand down between them to slide into her skirt to rub her clit.
Her moans immediately grew louder as she said his name over and over again before she let out a long moan, cumming around his member as her body shook with pleasure. Henry came inside her only seconds later and he hummed at the feeling of Abigail's fingers massaging his hair while they both came down from their high.
Once he, somewhat, caught his breath, Henry trailed his kisses back up to Abigail's lips and they French kissed for what seemed like hours, though it was only about three minutes, the cafe owner's back still pinned against the wall.
"Hmmm, your leg seems to be working just fine now, Henry." Abigail smiled against his lips as she teased him with her words.
"Mm, don't speak too soon. I may collapse." He softly chuckled.
"Let's get you to the couch." The woman suggested, bringing her own leg down from around his waist and she let her skirt lay flat again before she reached for Henry's cane which was luckily, resting against the back of the couch closest to them.
After they fixed their clothes, Abigail handed Gowen his cane and watched him make his way around the couch to sit down in front of the fire again while he zipped his pants back up after. "Where is a broom?"
"What?" He asked her.
"To clean up the glass."
"Just sit." He told her. "It'll get it taken care of in the morning."
"Are you sure? I could-"
"Sit, Abigail." He told her, looking into the fire.
She just stood there, still, for a moment before doing as he said and sitting on the couch beside him. She looked into the fire as well before picking up her tea and having some more of it, internally smiling.