The Visitor: Alien Hunger Special Edition (16 page)

She
might
be able to avoid disaster, but
she sure as hell couldn’t count on it!

People always seemed to want to think
the worst, anyway, and she’d left herself wide open for all sorts
of accusations.

They could even twist her decision to
stop teaching into something sordid. It was only a coincidence that
she’d finally given in to Lawrence’s demands and resigned just
before Garryk graduated, but even she could see how that could be
interpreted as fleeing the scene of the crime!

She didn’t think it would’ve been
quite so bad if she’d at least been able to dismiss the nagging
fear that Marla was right about Garryk, too—not that she could, or
would, believe he was a con man! The problem was, she was almost a
hundred percent certain that he was only serious about screwing her
brains out at every opportunity—until he was tired of her and ready
to move on to greener pastures.

Even if he
had
been a … gold
digger, as Marla suggested, he would’ve realized the moment he saw
her apartment that she was as close to broke as made very little
difference! She didn’t believe he was.
That
had certainly never crossed her
mind! She supposed it
should
have given the fact that she was years older than
him, but he hadn’t even tried to bum money off of her—not once!
He’d been scrupulously careful to pay her back for everything she’d
spent on him or that he’d helped himself to.

She’d figured it was just
the sex. She
still
thought that. Sure she was older and he could’ve gotten
pretty much any woman he wanted, but she wasn’t
that
old! She might not be a great
beauty, either, but she had a decent figure and she certainly
wasn’t ugly. She also didn’t think she would’ve tempted a lot of
men his age, if it came to that, but she’d figured it was a fantasy
thing for him. It wasn’t as if impressionable young men didn’t
notice their young teachers! They hit high school ripe to fuck
anything in sight that they could chase down and plenty of them
wanted nothing more than to get their hands on a
woman
.

In all honesty, she suspected she’d
been caught up in a similar fantasy. She knew absolutely that if
she’d never lain eyes on Garryk before the night of her party, she
would’ve felt much the same as she did now. There was just
something about him and always had been that was magnetic to
her.

She
had
known him before, though, and
forbidden fruit or not he’d been just as magnetic to the young
Chelsey as he was now to her older self. She hadn’t been
able
not
to
wonder if he could possibly be as good as he looked like he was.
She’d even had a couple of seriously hot dreams featuring Garryk in
the starring role.

So she’d been putty in his
hands when the opportunity presented itself—because she
had
always wanted to
know. And of course now she did and she realized she’d totally
underestimated him.

So she wasn’t just putty in his hands,
she was hopeless—a lost cause!

Even now, as frightened as she was at
the future Marla had drawn for her, as many doubts as she’d planted
about Garryk, all she could think about was figuring out some way
to keep from having to give him up. She didn’t think she could ask
him to leave even to save herself. All she could think about was
that life wasn’t really going to be worth living if she had to do
that.

She’d been unhappy
before
Garryk and she
knew without any doubt that when he left it was going to be ten
times worse.

She thought he was probably going to
leave soon enough anyway. Couldn’t she just enjoy it a little
while? Wasn’t there some way to protect her future and still have
Garryk as long it lasted? Couldn’t she have her cake and eat it,
too?

The thought finally gave her some
focus. She’d worry about the other things later—when she had
to.

Fortunately, she’d still had enough
sense before they’d gotten involved to consider the consequences
and Garryk had agreed to see her secretly. That didn’t mean
Lawrence couldn’t find out if she wasn’t paranoid and he really was
having her watched, but it at least lowered the risk.

So all she really had to
do was hide, right? She honestly couldn’t picture Garryk making a
stink and telling anyone. He hated anyone prying into his private
life. He wasn’t going to announce it to anybody that he was fucking
his ex-teacher! And she sure as hell couldn’t picture him telling
anyone she’d molested him! If she
had
, he would’ve gone to his
grave
to keep anyone
from knowing.

So that left her and Marla and
possibly Lawrence.

Lawrence would’ve cut her throat and
thrown her off a bridge if he’d thought he could get away with it.
If he got his hands on the story, she was cooked. Otherwise, she
sure as hell wasn’t going to tell and Marla wouldn’t and Garryk
wouldn’t.

So hiding seemed the best
bet.

Of course, she’d no sooner realized
that than she remembered Garryk had told her he was taking her out
and she should pick a nice restaurant. She didn’t know what his
idea of ‘nice’ was, but she didn’t think it was likely to be any of
the super expensive places Lawrence frequented.

It still seemed like a really bad idea
to be seen in public with him. She might not run into Lawrence, but
she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t run into somebody that knew him
and knew she was his ex.

Garryk would think she was ashamed of
being seen with him! She knew he would!

She didn’t want him to think that!
Because it absolutely wasn’t true!

She was
afraid
to be seen with
him, and that was entirely different!

Right!

He wasn’t going to see the
fine difference—and there was a difference, damn it! He was a fine
man and she was proud of him! She would’ve been proud to be seen
anywhere with him—except she knew what Lawrence could do with the
fact that he was an exotic dancer! Ruin her! She could lose any
chance of seeing Larry. She could lose her job. And worse, if he
got to digging, he could
really
ruin her, set off the witch hunt Marla had warned
her about!

She could fix the meal she’d planned
before! She could tell him she didn’t want the expensive meat to
ruin and she also thought it would be nice to just take it easy and
have a leisurely ‘date’ at her place since he only had a half day
off!

She was
sure
she could pull that
off!

She didn’t know what she
was going to do if he decided to take her out again, but she could
cross that bridge when she came to it. The important thing was to
be careful
now
without giving Garryk the idea that she didn’t want to be
seen with him! She didn’t want to hurt him, or hurt his pride, and
she didn’t want him to get angry with her and leave.

* * * *

There were times, Chelsey reflected,
when she wished she had chill pills on hand or happy pills or maybe
both. She hadn’t managed to achieve any kind of real calm since
she’d argued with Marla. She’d done her damndest. She’d thoroughly
indulged in an ‘oh woe is me’ crying jag when she couldn’t convince
herself that her life wasn’t falling apart. She followed that with
a long, hot soak in her tub—and another crying jag. She’d fought a
round with a panic attack when she realized how late it was and how
unprepared she was and then she’d rushed around in a blind panic
trying to put everything together for a ‘quiet, relaxing’ evening
at home.

If hysterics wasn’t the road to calm,
she didn’t know what the hell was! But she’d run the full gamut,
thoroughly exhausted herself, and she was still on edge.

Every time she went to the
refrigerator to get something, she stared at the beer Garryk had
left. She didn’t know if it was the last of the two she’d found
before, or a new one, but there was only one.

He was bound to notice if she took
it.

She’d probably puke if she tried to
drink it anyway.

Unfortunately, she didn’t drink so she
not only didn’t have ‘happy-calm’ in a bottle, it didn’t occur to
her that she could buy a bottle of ‘happy-calm’ until she’d already
started cooking and couldn’t leave.

She was just going to have to wing it,
manage the old fashioned way—drug and alcohol free.

My god, how did they do it
before
, she wondered when she took the
lamb chops out and discovered she’d overcooked them?
Nothing
had turned out!
Absolutely nothing! Garryk was going to think she couldn’t
cook!

Her chin wobbled threateningly as she
glanced from the disaster she’d prepared to the clock for the
umpteenth time. Her nose stung. She sniffed, setting the pan down
and dashing to the bathroom to throw cold water on her face. When
she’d fought back the urge to yield to her emotions again, she
looked at herself in the mirror and felt worse. Her eyes were
swollen and she’d washed her makeup off. Her hair was falling down
and she’d dripped something on her damned dress!

“
Kill me, god! Just kill
me now!”

A sound emanated from the front of the
apartment that instantly distracted her. Her eyes widened. “Oh
please! Not now!” Racing on tiptoes, she reached the door to the
living room just as Garryk opened it and stepped inside. She froze,
staring at Garryk in wide eyed dismay, trying to remember the play
she’d rehearsed to convince him he really didn’t want to go out.
When her search turned up empty and she refocused on Garryk, she
discovered he’d spotted her frozen in the doorway like a deer
caught in the headlights of a car.

He was looking at her a little
strangely.

Was it the hair and makeup, she
wondered? Or the mannequin pose? She smiled brightly. “I cooked!”
Can’t you smell the charred meat in the air?

He blinked a couple of times. “I
thought we were going out?”

She blinked back at him, trying to
remember her next line. “Oh! Well, you know I bought something to
cook for you before. Well, it was lamb chops and I didn’t want them
to go bad, so I cooked instead.”

He frowned. “I thought I put them in
the freezer.”

“
That’s
how they got there!” Chelsey exclaimed. “But I
didn’t realize that until I had everything else ready … and I
didn’t want to just throw it all out, so I thawed them.”

He sniffed the air a couple of times.
“Is something burning?”

Chelsey sniffed, wondering if that was
old burn or something else she’d …. “Oh fuck! I forgot the
rolls!”

Smoke billowed out of the oven when
she snatched it open. Fanning her face and coughing, she grabbed
the pot holder and snatched the rack holding the flaming pan of
rolls out. The rack stopped. The pan of rolls didn’t and Chelsey
made an instinctive grab to catch the pan as it fell.

“
Don’t!” Garryk
shouted.

It took a moment for shock to give way
to pain. When it did, Chelsey dropped the pan on the floor, waving
her hands to cool them off, looking around frantically for the pot
holder she’d dropped as the smell of melting floor vinyl joined the
odors of charred rolls and burned lamb chops.

The smoke detector went off with an
ear piercing, endless scream that rattled her eardrums.

Chelsey didn’t know if the tears
streaming down her face were from the pain, the smoke burning her
eyes, or despair, but at least she had an excuse.

Garryk opened the window and patio
doors and finally got the smoke detector to shut off. Chelsey
plopped down on one of the kitchen chairs and stared at her
blistered hands. In a moment, Garryk crouched in front of her.
“Here, let me see your hands.”

She curled her fingers toward her
palms to hide the blisters. “They’re ok.”

He flicked a look at her face and
pulled her from the chair, dragging her to the sink and shoving her
hands under the cold water. The relief was almost instantaneous.
“Keep them under the water. I think I might have something to put
on the blisters.”

Chelsey stared bleakly at the water
running over her fingers, her mind curiously blank. The water was
soothing beyond the coolness, almost hypnotic as she watched it
trickle over her hands. Garryk returned a few moments later and set
something down on the counter. Taking her hands, he lifted first
one and then the other to study her fingers. “It’s not as bad as it
could’ve been.”

“
I burned the rolls,”
Chelsey said pointedly.

His lips twitched. “I’m more worried
about the fingers.”

Chelsey sighed. “I really can
cook.”

Garryk studied her face for a long
moment and finally wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close.
“Bad day, baby?”

Chelsey nuzzled her face against his
chest, wrapping her arms around him. “It’s better now.”