Chapter 4
For the first time in quite a while, it seemed at last as though I’d found some light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Thanks to Danny, I now had hope to help me make my way through the day. I had a reason to want to keep going, and everything seemed so much simpler, so much happier, and so much more worthwhile now. I simply couldn’t believe how lucky I’d been to meet him.
It seemed too good to be true, that a man like him could love a girl like me with the degree of enthusiasm and affection that he routinely displayed. The way he held me close to him and consumed me whenever we made love. The way he whispered into my ear late at night, and held my hand during the day, and the way that the two of us spent every waking moment together whenever we could possibly afford to do so.
I didn’t know, really, whether I could honestly say I’d actually ever been in love up to that point, but now there was no doubt in my mind. I knew that the feelings coursing through my chest for my bad boy were real, and as far as I could tell his own feelings for me were just as genuine.
I loved nearly everything about him, honestly… I loved how caring and considerate of me he was, a secret romantic, I think, despite his gruff, “bad boy” appearance. One morning after a night spent at my apartment alone, I’d awoken feeling miserable, dragging my ass out of bed to look forward to a long day of work ahead. My day was instantly brightened, however, by a bouquet of flowers waiting outside my doorstep, courtesy of Danny, along with a card – whose message was simultaneously so sweet and so steamy that I won’t bother to repeat it here.
My entire day seemed to brighten after that, and I made it through the entire day with a smile on my face, feeling lighter than air, like I could easily take on the world and its challenges, regardless of what it decided to throw at me.
I let myself get lost, swept up in the romance, and secretly I was just so damn proud of myself, for having finally stepped outside my comfort zone, and experimented with the life of being a genuine “bad girl” for a change…
I loved riding on the back of his motorcycle with him… Squeezing my arms tightly around him, as he ramped the speed higher and higher, drove me to new places, showed me new sights I’d never seen before, views I couldn’t even have imagined might exist so close to my proximity.
He was expanding my horizons in such a monumental way, opening up the world for me, and I thought that, no matter how hard I tried, I might never be able to repay him for all that he’d already managed to do for me in life up to this point.
And of course, then, there was also the sex… God, it was so wonderful… Every session of lovemaking between the two of us was like a dream, as we sweated the sheets, and made the bed rock violently, and he had me gritting my teeth, curling my toes, struggling not to spin out of control as he sent me through the apex of pleasure and beyond. He savored my luscious, ebony curves every time, and I was overjoyed by the feeling of his taut, powerful body wrapped around me, the sensation of him inside me, his thickness, his hardness, the mingling of our sweat, the sinking of his teeth into my dark flesh…
But then there was the afterglow…
Those fleeting moments, magical and strange after sex was concluded – generally happy times, but gradually, it seemed like these were the moments when I found myself second guessing this whole fantasy the most severely.
I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, honestly, other than to say it was a little bit like an addiction… When I was in the right mood, lost in Danny’s aura and susceptible to every single thing he did and said, I seemed not to give a damn either way about anything. I could go along with whatever he asked me to accept without questioning him, without trying to dig into things where I had no business being.
But afterwards, following that great burst of sexual energy and the slow drifting back down to earth, it was like a cold chill would come over me, a skepticism, as those nagging questions just kept wriggling their way back into my consciousness.
How the hell did he afford all of this? This nice place, these nice things? What possible career could he have that allowed him such luxury, when he looked like such a slacker on so many levels, defiant and independent, unable to mesh with society?
I know I’d been wanting a bad boy, and that that fact, in itself, was a huge selling point for me, but still… Just how bad was the man that I loved?
He refused to answer questions whenever I made the mistake of asking him about his work. He either turned away from me, or else he distracted me… He gave me some vague phrase that I would have to think about and process, and while I was trying to dissect his meaning, he would start kissing me, touching me, driving back to distraction… And I would be forced to put such things out of my mind, and surrender myself to his love.
Still, though, it was hard not to think about it, the longer and longer the two of us stayed together. There seemed to be warning signs everywhere, indications of the danger that were getting harder and harder to ignore.
For instance, one night while I was over at his place, he got this phone call. He got up, and stepped into another room to take it privately, yet even as he slipped into the other room I could hear violent shouting on the other end of the line, demands being made, it sounded like, ultimatums… And Christ, I was left confused, not to mention pissed off upon his return, as when I asked who it was, he just said “nobody,” and proceeded to give me a massage to redirect my thoughts.
And then there was another time, a lot like it. We’d been having sex, humping vigorously, enthusiastically in the dark, when suddenly there had been a furious pounding at his front door, like whoever was there wanted to bust down the damn door. He’d pulled out of me, slipped into his underwear and a bathrobe, then commanded me, “Stay here…”
I’d been scared out of my wits, pressing my ear against the bedroom door to try and hear across the apartment. I couldn’t even begin to make out half of what the voices were saying, other than “For Christ sake, my girlfriend and I are trying to sleep…” Beyond that, though, it was all guesswork. Something about somebody owing someone money…
The door had eventually slammed shut, and after a while he’d come back to bed, slipping beneath the sheets without explanation, barely even a word, and I didn’t dare question him just then.
On and on it went in this manner, the questions eating me alive inside until at last, one day, he came home sporting a black eye, cuts across his face, and I had to call him out on it.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell you do, or are you going to keep treating me like a damn child all the time and leaving me guessing as to what I should expect next?” I’d demanded.
It had taken quite a bit of angry muttering from him at first, refusing to commit to an answer, until at last he seemed to realize that I deserved an explanation, and he confessed, “I’m involved… With drugs… Not, like, personally… I mean I don’t use, or anything like that. I’ve seen what that shit can do to people… Just… On the sales end of the operation, I guess you could say. On the ground floor, really, but…” He shrugged. I looked at him, blinking, not wholly sure what I should make of this. “But it’s not dangerous, or anything like that… I mean, I’m safe…”
“You’re safe?” I repeated, incredulous, peering at his black eye.
He hurried to cover himself on this front. “Look that was… That wasn’t… I mean, it was really just a simple misunderstanding… It’s not something that will happen again, so don’t worry about that. It’s all taken care of… And besides, I thought you were attracted to danger?”
And God, I don’t know what was wrong with me… I don’t know how I’d managed to swing so far toward the opposite extreme of being the “good girl” that I let myself be talked out of my clear distaste for his occupation, and seduced yet again by his charms.
But the truth was, I really did find myself attracted to danger, and now I let myself be ravished by him following his confession, the two of us engaging in the hottest, most pleasurable sex we’d ever had in those next few minutes.
I would be lying if I said my chest didn’t feel like it was twisted up in the center after that, or that I didn’t find myself worrying day and night about what might happen next, because I did…
But I just didn’t care anymore. Danny’s hold was simply too strong over me, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, get enough of him.
I lived with his evil, because it turned me on, and it felt good, as anxious as it made me, to be doing the completely wrong thing for once, to see how long I could go on before my choices caught up to me.
And then one day, Danny made a sudden disappearance…
He’d gone for a while without returning my texts, so during my lunch break I tried calling him.
No answer.
I waited until after work, then I tried calling him again.
Still no answer.
Not wanting to seem too clingy, yet worried all the same, I drove over to his place that evening, knocking on the door, but there was no one home. Cautiously, I used my spare key to get inside and peered around his apartment for signs of life, but it was empty, devoid of human presence, and I was left dumbstruck, fear welling up inside me.
Three days passed, during which I didn’t hear a single word from him.
And then, at last, I got a phone call, relieved to hear the sound of his voice over the line, but then immediately swept under by dread.
He was at the hospital.
He’d been shot…
I rushed to go and see him, stumbling through the door, and for a brief moment a feeling of elation coursed through me, just knowing he’d survived, that he was still alive, that there was hope…
And yet, quickly enough, any notion of relief was overtaken by dread, and to some extent, hatred… I hated him, for risking everything, putting himself, and frankly, me, in harm’s way. I stared, transfixed at him, and although my urge was to run over and hug him, to kiss him on the lips, I just couldn’t do this anymore…
I walked up to him slowly, and he leaned forward expectantly, stopping to grunt, as pain coursed through his body – he’d been shot in the shoulder, and was all bandaged up.
I shook my head at him, trying to lower his expectations.
“I’m sorry…” said, still shaking. Feeling disgusted with myself for what I was about to do, yet knowing inwardly that it needed to be done all the same. “I’m sorry, but… This just can’t go on…” I said.
“What?” he asked, blinking. “Babe, come on…”
“No…” I repeated. “No, I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it. I thought I could, but I can’t. I care about you too much, regardless of what it might seem like right now. But I’m done… As long as you keep working, doing the same thing that you’ve been doing, putting your life at risk every day, I’m finished… I’m sorry…”
I leaned in, kissed him on the forehead, but then quickly hurried off, not wanting to allow myself to fall prey to his protestations.
“Babe… Heather, wait!” he called after me.
But it was too late. I was gone.
I was the good girl once more…