Unfamiliar, adjective
Not known or recognized.
She was an odd sight in my apartment, and she looked different in person than I had imagined her.
It had always been obvious Dr. Halen was an attractive woman, but seeing her in person told me just how stunning she was. She was very tall, but that didn’t turn her off from wearing heels, and her feet were arched on black lacquered pumps with a red sole and a pencil-thin, staggeringly tall heel. She was blonde, her hair somehow enhanced to make for a mane of honey-blonde, tumbling in easy waves around her shoulders. She wore a lot of makeup, most of it serving to bring out her sky-blue eyes. She was a stunning woman, probably around fifty or fifty-five. I could barely take my eyes off her, but not because I was attracted.
I was concerned. She’d just seen me get into my apartment through a window. As far as Dr. Halen knew, I was crippled by the fear of outside. I didn’t leave my apartment, ever. What would she think now? And what was I going to tell her? The truth, or more thinly veiled lies to shut her up?
She sighed as she moved closer to me. Her body was slim, her breasts pressed up in the décolletage of her ivory blouse. Her skirt was tight. Very attractive indeed.
“I’ve been worried about you, Mr. Reilly,” she told me. “That’s why I had to come and check up on you. Something wasn’t adding up, and I knew something was going on.”
My fingers gripped the doorframe as she drew closer. There was something in her attitude that didn’t speak of a doctor-patient relationship. She found me attractive. Her eyes kept dancing over my inked muscles, settling on my mouth, drinking in my heavy frame.
“Dr. Halen,” I repeated. “How did you get in here?”
She smiled at me, tilting her head. “Well, past the doorman, obviously. I guess that’s not how you come and go, though.”
She was so close now, and I moved away from the door, peeling myself away from her and approaching the bar.
“Would you like a drink?” I asked her hoarsely, and she nodded, her hand on the door. She had long red nails shaped into neat, rounded points. “What’s your poison?”
“Whatever you’re having,” she said, waving a hand as if it didn’t really matter. “You know, I was wondering how long it would take for the two of us to finally meet.”
I gave her a sideways glance. She may have gotten through to our doorman, but she wasn’t fooling me. There was another reason she was here, and she wasn’t ready to tell me just yet. But I was going to get it out of her one way or another.
I poured us both a Scotch on the rocks.
“What are you really doing here?” I asked her once we clinked our glasses and each took a long sip of the amber liquid. “You’re not fooling me, Dr. Halen.”
“Agneta,” she said with a smile. “You can call me Agneta. I’m not on office hours right now.”
“Agneta,” I confirmed, cringing the whole way through. I didn’t want to call her fucking Agneta. I wanted to call her Dr. Halen, and I wanted her back on the other side of the screen where I was safe from her toxic fucking touch. “Please, explain what made you come over here tonight.”
“Warning signs,” she said, walking over to the sofa and sitting. When she crossed her legs, I caught a glimpse of her stockings, and my cock twitched at the sight. “We’ve been talking online for a couple of years, Miles. I know all your habits. I also know when you’re trying to hide something from me.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” I insisted, and she let out a short laugh.
“Spare me the lies, Miles,” she said simply. “I’m here because I was worried about you. I was convinced you were planning something. You spoke about ending your life quite often a year ago, Miles, do you remember that?”
I looked away, unable to handle the pressure of her gaze.
“You don’t have to answer,” she said gently, and I walked over to the window, one hand in my pocket and the other clasped around the cold glass. I needed a fucking smoke like never before in my life, even though I hadn’t smoked for years. But my thoughts kept escaping to the hidden pack of cigarettes in the back of my closet. I would be desperately taking the poison from one of them in my lungs the second I got rid of Dr. Halen.
“But it seems like I needn’t have been worried at all,” Dr. Halen finally said thoughtfully. “Actually, Miles, you seem better than ever.”
I raised my gaze to her eyes, and she smiled at me gently.
The attraction between us made the room heated, but I would never make a move.
Not now, not ever. The obvious reason was Bebe, but I’d sooner die than admit that to myself.
“What’s her name?” Dr. Halen asked quietly, breaking the tense moment as if she was shattering a window. “Come on, Miles. At least tell me something, so I can leave here in peace.”
“She’s a girl,” I said. “Just… a girl.”
“Just a girl?” she pressed.
“No,” I barked back. “She’s… I don’t know. She’s everything. She’s all I can think about. The only thing on my mind. I’m worried I’m getting addicted, you know, like the cigarettes.”
I didn’t mention my urge for a cancer stick, but it looked like she knew. In fact, it looked like she knew everything. And suddenly we were patient and therapist again as she got off the couch and grabbed her coat and gloves.
“I’m glad you’re alright, Miles,” she said simply. “I will admit I came here because I wasn’t just worried professionally.”
My heart hurt when she went on.
“You have people who care about you.” Her voice was soft, but I couldn’t so much as look at her. “I know you don’t want or need them, Miles. But you are not alone. Remember that.”
Any other time I would have ripped her clothes to shreds, choked her while I fucked her into oblivion. But not this time.
She left a fleeting squeeze on my wrist, and then she was gone in a cloud of Chanel perfume and expensive shoes clacking on my hardwood floors. The door closed behind her and locked into place.
I felt suddenly overheated, over-pressured, and overstressed.
I tore at my clothes. My T-shirt ended up on the floor and my pants followed suit until my body was exposed. I stared at my own reflection in the window, wishing Bebe was there with me. I didn’t want Dr. Halen. I didn’t want anyone I’d met. I wanted her, and only fucking her, and now I knew I wasn’t going to stop until I tasted her.
Bleach. I needed bleach.
Intense feelings of self-hatred mixed with overwhelming emotions took over my body. I grabbed a pristine white bottle from my secret stash in the pantry, along with a packet of cancer sticks, and raced to the bathroom. My glorious, custom-made tub awaited me, offering comfort only it could bring. I emptied too much bleach into its bowels, pouring and pouring even when I knew it was too much.
Then I stopped, and I thought of her. Of Bebe.
My fingers shook as I turned the drain and watched most of the bleach leak out. I only left a little.
I got into the ice-cold bath, the bleach burning, tingling, itching. In my right hand, I held the packet of sins in a shaky hand. And my fingers shook harder as I lit one up, throwing my head back and staring at the ceiling above me as I let the smoke into my body.
My mind was swimming with her, sexy, sweet little Bebe that I would never get enough of. Fucking shit, she was messing with my head. I never got like this, and much less over a girl that was supposed to mean nothing. But I kept remembering the most basic details. The way her sheets smelled. The feel of her bra against my nose. Her hair fanning over the silk pillows.
I soaked in the bath for what felt like hours, until it was so cold my teeth were chattering despite my stinging flesh. Finally, I climbed out and dried off my damaged skin.
I felt better now. Not yet relaxed, but at least a little more in control than I had been when I’d found Dr. Halen in my living room.
I wrapped a towel around my waist and made my way into the living room, where my phone sat blinking in the darkness.
Picking it up, my eyes bulged at the sight. I had seventeen messages, all from one number that I’d come to know very well.
I clicked through to the photos, staring and staring and then staring some fucking more.
They started coming in three hours ago, probably around the time I’d been snooping around in Bebe’s apartment.
And fuck, were they hot. So fucking hot.
I didn’t recognize the other girl right away. My eyes were focused on Bebe, her sexy little body in that sinful dress, her eyes so desperate as she stared into the camera. She really wanted me, but I knew it was only because she hadn’t discovered the horrible truth that lay behind my exterior.
And then it clicked. The other girl was Lana, my conquest from the other day. She was still just as pretty and cute, but a little less disheveled than she had been with my cum splattered all over her face. And now she was fucking working with Bebe to get me off.
I’d never hated my agoraphobia more. Every cell in my body was demanding I go right over there, put Bebe over my knee in front of all her shitty friends, and spank that tight little ass while they all watched. God, I wanted to. I wanted her to know full well what bad girls get when they misbehave.
Instead, I was left with a tented towel, and wondering why I wasn’t fucking man enough to just get over my damn irrational fear. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t even take a single step to the front door. I was glued to the spot, fucking doomed. I would never be able to get a girl like Bebe.
A girl who needed friends, parties, people. A girl who lived for the thrill.
Who was I to even try and satisfy her? I was a piece of shit that used girls with daddy issues to fix my own problems. I wasn’t worthy. I would never fucking deserve her.
In the midst of my pity party, my phone started ringing shrilly with a number I didn’t recognize. I furrowed my brow and raised my phone to my ear, answering the call.
“Hello?”
“Hi, I just, I didn’t know who to call,” a frantic female voice said.
“Lana?” I asked gruffly, and a small pause followed.
“What?” she asked. “No, who is that?”
I was about to answer when she cut me off again.
“You, you are in Bebe’s phone, you’re all over her messages,” she said with a pleading voice. “If you care about her at all—whoever you are—you will come help.”
“Who is this?” I barked down the line.
“Arden,” she said, her voice heavy with tears. “I’m Arden.”
“What’s wrong, Arden?”
“It’s Bebe,” she sniffled. “She’s… she’s not breathing.”