HER

The water’s hot on my back, but it does nothing to ease the ache in my temples.

I hadn’t noticed it yesterday, but my stitches are pulling, not feeling quite right, and the ache in my head throbbed all night. Lying in one position on the couch didn’t really help the situation either.

But the water pressure from the three spouts in the shower, overhead and around the midsection, bombard my naked body with a luxurious therapy that I’m reluctant to end.

Half an hour later my fingers resemble dehydrated fruit. I turn the water off and wrap myself in one of the giant, fluffy towels on the heated rack.

I’d stumbled over a linen closet on the far wall of the gargantuan bathroom and found a bathrobe in there, too. Since I’d spent the last day and a half in the same clothes, I had no intention of adorning my newly massaged clean body with them.

Wrapping my hair in the towel turban-like on top of my head, I wander around the apartment bedroom, looking for something to wear.

It takes a moment for me to realize I’m in a bedroom when I get to his.

The bed is the only clue; otherwise, it resembles no bedroom I’ve ever seen.

There is nothing in the room but a cement floor, a king-sized bed, a giant white woollen rug and the view of Central Park.

“Woww...” I exhale as I run my toes through the carpet and wander over to the bed. It looks like it came out of a designer catalogue for billionaires. The quilt cover is soft, like butter under my palm. In a moment of utter lunacy, I step back from the bed and take a leap onto it, landing on my back, bang in the middle of the mattress. It barely moves. It just moulds around my body, easing every niggling ache and pain.

“Holy hell.” Why would anyone ever leave this thing? I lie star-fished on the bed, reaching for the corners, to no avail. There’s no end to the mattress.

There’s a flash of K laying on the bed, naked. And my face blares hot.

I quickly slide to the edge and climb off.

“How do you know he even sleep naked, silly girl,” I admonish myself.

I shake my head to get rid of the images and spot an opening in the wall behind the bed. There’s a sliding door and I push it to the side. A light comes on as I step through the space, and illuminates a huge clothes closet. If there was anything that was going to entice me to become a man, this closet would do it. Everything is organized and hung in perfect formation. I run my fingers along the lines of suits and crisp shirts. Everything feels like decadence. There’s a bench in the middle of the closet and I sit down, staring at the lines of shoes and ties.

He might have a fashion-conscious man’s wet dream closet, but it seems he and I do not wear the same type of clothing. I get up and open some drawers until I find one full of long sweater hoodies. Ah yes, the famous hoodies. I take one back to the living room with me. Pushing the little button by the kitchen wall, I watch as the blinds come to life and pull away from each other, opening to a dramatic view of New York City. I drop the bathrobe from my body and pull the hoodie over my head. It’s long enough to hide that I’m not wearing underwear, which will have to do, because I draw the line at wearing a strange man’s undies, Prada or not.

My stomach rumbles and I realize it’s been almost a whole day since my last meal. I growl a bit, remembering that the meal I had cooked last night has gone uneaten, but it’s too early for me to gnaw on a pork chop. I pad barefoot to the kitchen and find a bowl and head to the fridge. There’s fruit and yoghurt and orange juice.

He might not give any indication of anything about him, but at least I know he likes to eat and eat well. And that’s enough for me right now.

I fill up my bowl and balance it on one hand as I return to my perch on the couch.

Munching on a berry, I dial, then balance my cell phone on my left ear and shoulder. It’s early still and Harriet’s phone is off, so I leave her a voicemail telling her where I am and ask her to bring me some work from the office.

“They won’t let me up,” She tells me over the phone two hours later.

“Can’t they just ding you up, I told you what number apartment I’m in?”

“No, ‘there will be no dinging without Mr. Ashley’s okay,’ they said.”

“Ooh, his last name is Ashley?”

“Focus”

“Okay, well... I don’t know what to do.”

“Can’t you come down and get the stuff?”

“I’m not wearing pants. Or underwear.

There’s the silence again.

“Fine, just give me a minute.”

I wander over to the kitchen bench where Xavier left his card and number. I pick up the house phone and dial.

“Kaine?” Xavier answers on the first ring.

Kaine... starts with a K.

“No, it’s Jade, the squatter.”

“Yes, Ms. Sinclair, what can I do for you?”

“I need you to get my friend ding’d up so she can come up to the apartment.”

“No. Anything else?”

“Xavier. I need her to bring me some work while I wait for your anti-social stubborn boss to come home so I can say thank you to him. The work will keep me busy so I stop trashing his apartment and going through all his personal belongings. You’d think he’d want that, wouldn’t you?”

There’s silence on the line and then a sigh. “You know... you’re exactly like him. Call him yourself, his number is...”

“Whoa, whoa! Wait!”

I grab a pen from my bag and prepare to jot down the number on my arm.

“Thank you, Xavier. I owe you.”

“You WILL owe me, when I get fired.”

I hang up the phone and dial the number.

It’s not until it starts ringing that I notice the knot in my stomach at the prospect of talking to him.