Champagne Showers (13 page)

Oh no! Maybe I should duck into the stairwell. Just as the door to the hallway closes behind me, I hear the ding of the elevator. I don’t want to be seen but I have to peek to see who is getting off the elevator. I squat down and open the door just a slight crack, but unfortunately, my view is obstructed. I can’t see the whole person, but can see that it is a man with brown leather shoes and jeans. That’s it. The man goes back into the elevator. I hear the doors close and the mechanical gears move again as the elevator heads upward. I come out of the stairwell and watch the elevator ascend up and stop at the 10th floor. My floor.  Shit! What to do? This man is now on my floor.  It could be just a neighbor or a visitor, but at this hour?  What if it’s the person who was lurking behind that SUV?  Why would someone be following
me
anyway? I have zero skeletons in the closet and I haven’t made any deals with a loan shark. So if anything, this is random. However, I’m not willing to take any risks. Besides, I’ve watched too many Lifetime Movies to know that if it doesn’t feel right, I should trust that instinct. The problem is that if I take the stairs up to my floor, the person might figure out that I hadn’t gone all the way to the top via the elevator and come down the stairway to find me and we would intersect on the stairs. If I take the elevator, I also run the risk of the person being in the elevator lying in wait for me.

I make a quick decision to go back down to the garage and get back into my car to wait and see. Without giving it much more thought, I head back into the stairwell and down one and a half flights to the parking garage. I exit the stairwell door and the next realization hits me that I don’t know for certain that the person lurking by the SUV was the same person in the elevator. The creepy lurker could still be here in the garage with me. I run to my car across the garage and hop in, throwing my belongings onto the passenger seat. I hit the power lock and fumble to get the key in the ignition. I hit the button on the remote to open the overhead gate to the garage. Where to now? Simone is out of town with her writer man, so I have nowhere to go. I think she said she was on a movie set somewhere in Eastern Oregon. I don’t have her key with me, it’s in my loft.  I know for certain that she would have been fine with my staying at her place, but now what? I’m sure not staying here.

Hoping I wasn’t followed, I find myself going from looking in the rearview mirror, to the side mirrors  to over my shoulder, while sitting in my car waiting for the light to turn in front of my building. I think of the penthouse. I’m sure Harrison wouldn’t mind if he knew the circumstances. I know it’s risky and unprofessional.  But, at this late hour, I am short on thinking of other options.  Reluctantly, I head back to the penthouse. I can sleep there and then get up super early and head back to my place to shower and  return in time to help the event planner with the final touches before the Grand Opening.

I wake with a start. What is that tickling my face? I open my eyes to a curtain of ice blue and silver chenille bell tassels dangling over my face. I sit upright and look around. I look around again and then I remember that I’m in the den at the penthouse. I’m lying on the sofa with a throw blanket and a decorator pillow over my face. I had decided against helping myself to one of the beds last night, and besides, that would have been more work to straighten up this morning. I stand up and stretch. In all my frenzy last night, I didn’t check my voicemail or text messages. I had simply texted Simone to let her know I was staying here last night and that I would explain later and for her not to worry. I then curled up and passed out with my phone perched on my chest. I remember that my phone was buzzing and buzzing last night, though. Guess I should check all that and Oh shit! What time is it?!! I look at my phone and see it is 7:13 AM. Phew! I need to get moving and fast!

I slide open my phone to find I have missed eleven calls from the unknown caller and not a single voicemail. That’s odd. What’s even stranger is that the calls all came from 10:00 PM until after midnight. Almost every ten minutes give or take. I feel a slight chill run from the top of my chest to my gut and settle there.

I shake it off.

I open my text messages and have a couple from Simone asking if I am okay and gushing about her new man, a couple from my mom going on about the gallery and oh, what’s this? There are two from Harrison.

10:42 PM

Harrison Towers

Goodnight. Looking forward to day 3.

11:28 PM

Harrison Towers

Did you get my surprise?

Huh? What surprise? I’ll have to look further into that. I straighten up the den and head out to the lobby of Harrison’s penthouse. I stop. Sitting next to the elevator on the floor is a single long stemmed red rose, just lying there. Is this my surprise? Why would he have left a rose and if he did, why didn’t he come wake me or say hello or??? Is he here? In a panic, I go to search the penthouse for Harrison. There’s no sign of him and further, there’s no sign that anyone else has been here other than me as everything is just as I had left it last night. That rose wasn’t there when I left last night. In fact, I know that that rose wasn’t there when I came back because when I exited the elevator upon arrival last night I dropped my keys. I would have noticed a single long stemmed rose lying there, for sure. Where the heck did it come from then? As uneasy as I feel, I have to shake it off and get home, otherwise I’m not going to be ready for today.

Once I get settled into my car, I realize that I haven’t texted Harrison back. I pull the phone out of my pocket.  I look down to see that I have missed another call from Unknown Caller. Ugh, this is getting annoying. It must be one of those computer automated phone dialers from a solicitor.  I open my text message from Harrison and send him a reply.

7:24 AM

Me

Crazy night will explain later. Surprise? See you soon.

Okay, just playing it safe here.

I hurry home and park on the street instead of the garage. I’m still totally creeped out about last night. Something is just not right, but at the moment, I don’t have the luxury of giving it too much energy.

I enter the lobby and there is good old Frank. I’m quite relieved to see him for some reason.

“Good morning, Frank.”

“Good morning, Miss Austen, up and around early today I see,“ he says with a lift to his gray furry eyebrows.

“I had a late night working.” I reply

“Uh huh. Parking on the street I see.”

“Yes, I have to leave again so thought it would be easier. Say, did you notice anything unusual this morning when you got here?”

“Unusual in what way, Miss Austen?”

“I came home late last night and parked in the garage and saw someone lurking behind a parked car in the lot. It was just odd and I felt really uneasy. Like I was being watched or something.”

“I only got in this morning at 7:00 so I haven’t walked the building, but I haven’t noticed anything so far. I can keep my eye out.” He gives me wink and once again raises his furry eyebrows.

“Okay, thanks Frank. It was probably nothing but my late night imagination getting the better of me.”

I summon the elevator and suddenly feel a longing to be in the safety of my condo.

Once I get to my door, I get that uneasy feeling again.

I let myself in and lock the door behind me. I walk into the kitchen and then I stand frozen in place. There on my kitchen stands a vase of long stemmed red roses. How the fuck did those flowers get there??!! I run to the intercom system and buzz Frank.

“Yes, Miss Austen?”

“Frank,” I blurt out “Did you receive a flower delivery for me yesterday and put it in my condo?”

“Miss Austen, that is against building rules. I’m never allowed to enter a tenant’s loft without permission.”

“So, you didn’t enter or let someone in to deliver a bouquet of red roses?”

“No, Miss Austen, I did not.”

“I see.”

“Miss Austen, are you okay?”

“No Frank, I’m not okay, I can’t figure out how someone could have left me flowers and there’s no note.”

“Say, did you perhaps give anyone a key to your condo and may have forgotten?”

“I certainly did not. Wait! Is there any chance you can review the security cameras to see who entered my loft?”

“Well yes, I can see who entered the lobby and the garage. It will take me about a half hour. “

“Okay, that would be super. Maybe it will shed some light on this mystery.”

“Miss Austen, would you like me to come up there and check the loft for any signs of intrusion?”

Then it hit me, could this be Harrison’s surprise? Of course, he is a man with resources, he probably sent over one of his ‘people’ and had the flowers delivered. Quite the surprise to break and enter a single woman’s apartment just to leave flowers. These rich mogul types are used to getting things their way, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

“Ahem.” Frank clears his voice loudly, “Miss Austen?”

“Frank, that won’t be necessary and forget about the surveillance video, I think I may know who’s behind this, Thank you anyway.”

“Okay then, are you sure?”

“I think so, Frank.”

I turn back to the flowers and bury my face in their velvety redness and take a deep breath to inhale their intoxicating scent. As cliché as it may seem, red roses are my all-time favorite. I wonder to myself how he knew that.  Something is still off, though, when I count the roses I come up with eleven. There are only eleven roses. Oh! The twelfth rose is the one that was on the floor by the elevator this morning. Of course! Whoops, I left that in the car. I’ll have to be sure to get that in water. Still feeling a bit uneasy, I decide to indulge myself that soak in my tub that I got spooked out of last night.

As I pass my bed on my way to the bathroom, I look over and see that it has the appearance that someone had plopped down in the middle of it like you see in mattress commercials. What the heck? I know that I had the white duvet cover crisp and straight when I left yesterday morning. I walk over to the bed to straighten it up again. I must be losing my mind. It’s all too creepy; I swear I can smell cologne. I lean down and smell where I just straightened the duvet and sure enough, I can smell a faint musky smell. I detect something earthy like being in woods right after a rainfall. I lean down and take another deep whiff. I can’t detect it now. I must be imagining things.

The scent of vanilla and red current fill my bathroom and I sink down further into the bubbles and luxuriate in the warmth embracing my body. Now this is exactly what I need.

My thoughts once again travel to Harrison.

It’s hard not to think of him. He’s awakened my inner sex kitten and I don’t want her to ever go back to sleep. The fact that I had multiple orgasms over the course of two days, when during three years of marriage, I only came a few times total with Bradley. How lame is that? I had always thought it was just something wrong with me. He had let me believe that too. He had been totally disconnected from me. I just didn’t have any point of reference to know any different. Bradley was my first love and I had thought he was my forever. I realize now how naive I was. It had never occurred to me that Bradley was having sex with all of these other women and I was get sloppy leftovers.

When I originally confronted him with getting a divorce, it was like he thought I was off my rocker. He admitted that he shouldn’t have been having relations with other women, but his defense was that it didn’t mean anything. He also maintained that if I had been giving him what he needed, he wouldn’t have sought out other women in the first place. I was quick to remind him that he was out of town sometimes five days a week and how could I have been able to ‘give him what he needed?’

I shake my head to rid myself of this thought path. I divert my thoughts back to Harrison. The way his mouth feels on my neck right below my ear. Who knew I was so sensitive there? I felt my “P” tingle at the thought of Harrison’s soft lips and hot sweet breath travelling down my neck to my breasts where he would gently pull and tug at my erect nipples with his teeth and use his tongue to flick over the sensitive tips. I feel my loins stirring in response to my thoughts. It feels good so I allow myself to continue. I use my hands to play out my thoughts. I cup my breasts and softly pinch the pink tips to mimic the gentle nibbling of Harrison’s teeth. I caress my hands down my belly as if they were Harrison’s hands feeling the curve of my hips underneath my own hands. Realizing that this is what Harrison feels, I find myself even more aroused. I continue running my hands over my body ending up at my most sensitive part. I let my fingers probe my clitoris, rubbing it in circles with my right hand while my left hand is on my left breast caressing and lightly pinching my nipple.

I continue to explore myself with both of my hands, with two fingers, I enter my “P” and begin to slowly and methodically move in and out in a rhythm similar to Harrison’s ample and firm cock sliding in and out. I feel more tingles in my loins just from the thought. With my other hand, I rub my clit in a slow torturous circular motion in time with my other fingers. I think of Harrison doing this to me, his hard cock in me, his fingers probing my clit, my hips moving in time with his hips, his hot breath and firm lips on mine, tongue seeking tongue. My breathing is ragged and I begin to violently explode around my own probing fingers. After a few moments, my breathing slows as the last convulsion in my vagina comes to an end. I sit up in the tub and take a deep breath. Wow. I have no thoughts, no words. Just need to breath.