Beautiful Illusions (29 page)

“Thanks for all your help,” I said.

“Please. You helped me more than you know by coming out to see me in California.”

“Well, thanks, all the same.”

He grabbed my hand, and we walked out of the building. I got in my car, he in his. I was going back to my parents’ house to get my clothes, and would move back in that night. Ryan followed me to my parents’ house so that he could help with that, as well.

That night, after I moved back in, Ryan prepared a bubble bath for me. Just for me. He had scented candles by the bathtub, and had even chosen a book for me to read in the tub. “Relax and enjoy,” he said, smiling, as I got undressed and into the tub
. I soaked in the tub, and I did end up relaxing and enjoying myself.

So much so that I fell asleep.

Ryan came in the bathroom to check on me, about two hours after I got into the tub. He gently nudged me awake. “Come on, sleepy head, let’s go to bed.” I staggered out of the tub and into the bed, and he lay down beside me. “Welcome home, beautiful,” he whispered before I became unconscious again.

Ryan didn’t go back to his own work all that week. Instead, he came to my job to help out. He was wonderful that week, making phone calls when I asked him, filing papers, and helping out Melinda. He even helped me with new client intake, presenting coffee and water to my new people, and chatting with them when I was late seeing them - which was often, because I had to pile up as many people as possible, every day, so that I could make up for my lost time out in California
.

Melinda couldn’t believe her eyes. “Oh, my sweet Jesus, that man is beautiful!”

I nodded. I was used to hearing that. She continued. “And he is so efficient and kind! Where did you find him?”

“I invented him. Like in
Weird Science.
” I almost felt that to be true. I couldn’t come up with a more perfect guy if I’d actually invented him.

“Ser
iously, where did he come from?”

“I met him in a bar,” I said, not bothering to mention the fact that I initially had a one-night stand with him.

“I gotta get out more. Hubba hubba!”

I laughed. Melinda had a boyfriend, but they were perpetually having problems. I sympathized with her, remembering my own checkered past before meeting Ryan
.   

By the end of the week, with Ryan’s help, I was not only caught up, but I was ahead a little bit
.

“Man, you need to come in the office more often!”

“I wish I could. But, alas, I have my own job to get to on Monday.” He smiled. “But I sure have enjoyed helping you, for a change.”

I sighed
. I wished that he could stay here and help me. But, as he said, he had his own job to go to. A job that he hadn’t been at for six weeks, now.

Chapter Twenty-
Seven

About a month after I moved back in, around Christmas time, everything changed again. I arrived home early one day to find that the lights had gone out. A fuse must have blown. I went to the basement to try to find the fuse box, not wanting to bother Ryan at work to ask him where the fuse box was
. It was already dark, even though it was only 4:30 PM, so I had to use a flashlight to navigate my way around the large house.

Seeing nothing in the basement, I proceeded into the attic with my flashlight
. I got momentarily distracted, however, with Ryan’s high school yearbook. I always love looking at yearbooks, and I was really eager to see his.

I looked at his name in the index. He was on a multitude of pages, meaning that he was actively involved in the school. I flipped to one of the pages – it was the superlative section. He was
voted “Most Popular,” “Best Looking,” “Most Athletic,” and “Cutest Couple” – this last superlative was for himself and Alexis. Flipping through to other pages, I saw his picture on the football team, where he was captain, and I also saw his picture for his crew team.
I didn’t know that he was a rower, as well.
He was also featured in the homecoming spread, as he was homecoming king, and the prom spread, because he was prom king. I looked up Alexis as well, and found out that she was the head cheerleader, and she was also homecoming queen.

I rolled my eyes. When I was in high school, a guy like Ryan would’ve never looked twice at me
. I didn’t have a single date in high school. Not even to my own prom. Not that I could've afforded to go to prom, even if somebody had asked me. I also didn’t get invited to a single party. Not one. Somehow, knowing that he was literally the most popular guy in his high school intimidated me more than anything else about him. And, since he was voted “most popular,” it
had to mean that he was nice to everybody. I knew that the truly popular kids at my high school were nice to most people – that was how they were voted to be homecoming royalty and so-forth. The entire school votes for you, and if you were a jerk to the “little people,” you didn’t get very far.

Of course
he was nice to everybody. That was the kind of guy that he was.

I sighed, moving on through the attic.
This fuse box should be around here somewhere.

However, I froze again, as I came up on a pile of wate
rcolor paintings, which were exquisitely detailed. Some of the paintings were of an enormous palace on acreages of land, with a lake in front. The palace had two circular towers connected to a rectangular building with a flat façade. This place reminded me of an English country manor that I had seen in photographs. I looked at the back of the painting. “Cork, 1994,” it read.

Other paintings were of a beautiful, dark-haired lady with sad green eyes
. In some of the pictures, she was clutching a beautiful young girl. In others, she was clutching a young girl and a young boy. The young boy looked like Ryan. I looked closer. Come to think of it, the lady resembled Ryan, as well. The paintings were in great detail, and were beautifully drawn, like a professional did them.

Still other paintings were more abstract. There were some that had a surrealist bent,
others that were cubist. Some of the surrealist influences were evidently Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, and Francis Bacon. The cubist work was evidently influenced by Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris. There were also works that seemed to transcend genres, and others that were hybrids.

Flipping through the paintings, my heart stopped. There were several portraits of me! I rubbed my eyes, not quit comprehending what I was seeing. There was a portrait of me which was made from a photograph. In the portrait, I was wearing a fishing hat and smiling. Another portrait of me was from a photograph of me on skis. A third portrait was of me in the backyard garden, staring at some of the flowers. This was a candid portrait, and I didn’t recall a picture being taken of me like this. A fourth one was of me sleeping on a couch. I vaguely remembered th
at there was a photograph like this somewhere.

I was dumbfounded, completely forgetting why it was that I was in the attic in the first place
.   

Just then, I heard a car pull up.
Shit!
I scrambled out of the attic, putting the ladder back and closing the attic opening. I ran into the den, and plopped on the couch, the flashlight in hand.

“Hey!” Ryan called. “You wanting to surprise me with a candlelight dinner?”

I called back. “I’m in here. In the den. With a flashlight.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. The electricity went out. Must've blown a fuse.”

“Oh, ok. Did you go to the fusebox?”

“No. I didn’t know where it was.”

“I showed it to you when you moved in, silly. Give me that flashlight.” At that, he snatched the flashlight out of my hand. He walked over to the hallway, where there was a little tiny door, and, inside the door, there was the fusebox
. He flipped a few switches, and the lights came on. The refrigerator resumed its familiar hum.

“I guess I’ll find it next time.”

“You should’ve found it this time. You don’t have a very good memory, do you?”

“I guess not.”

He rolled his eyes, making a fist and knocking my head a few times. “Anybody home?”

I shrugged. “I’ll remember next time.”

“That’s all I can ask, I guess.” He went to the fridge and opened it.

“Everyth
ing needs to cool down in there,” he said. “I hope that nothing spoiled.” He turned to me. “Looks like we’ll be going out to eat tonight.”

My heart soared. I loved going out to eat, especially when I wasn’t expecting it
.

We ended up getting Mexican food. Over margaritas, I found a
subtle way to ask about his mother.

“You know, you don’t talk too much about your mother. What was she like?”

He had a faraway look. “Mom was a wonderful woman. She is a wonderful woman, still. Beautiful singing voice, and she always made me laugh. She was very caring, very warm, very funny, very smart.” He looked at me. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. I mean, I know about, your uh, father. You haven’t talked much about your mother.”

He looked a little upset. I wondered why.

Then I asked “What did she look like?”

“Beautiful. Black hair, green eyes. She looked  like a movie star.”

I thought about the woman in the paintings. Black hair, green eyes. She was as beautiful as a movie star
.

Of course, those portraits had to be of her.

He was onto another subject. “So, tell me again why you couldn’t find the fuse box?” He was looking at me, expectantly, his right eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know, I just forgot where it was.”

“Didn’t you look?”

“Sure. I looked in the basement.”

“Where else did you look?”

“Nowhere,” I lied. I wondered how I could bring up the subject of the paintings. He obviously wasn’t going to volunteer the information. I would’ve never known of their existence if I didn’t happen upon them like I did.

“Hmmmmm….You aren’t a persistent one, are you?” He looked skeptical. However, just as that moment, the waitress approached with our food. I had the chile relleno, he had the shrimp fajitas.

That night, Ryan undressed me, kissing the back of my neck. “I think I’m ready,” was all he said. My heart skipped a beat. We hadn’t made love since that one night in the hotel room, when he freaked out. I was nervous about trying again. I turned around, and he kissed me passionately, yet slowly. His shirt was off already, and I was in a t-shirt and underwear, no pants. I was ready for bed.

His body was beautiful. He had lost a few pounds in California, as his therapy took away his appetite. However, he had since gained them back, and he looked more buff than ever. I rubbed my hands up and down his arms, as he kissed my neck and my breasts. He picked me up and put me on the sink vanity, pulling down my panties. He then pulled off his pants, revealing his massive erection. I gasped. I hadn’t seen it in all its glory for awhile, and looking at it always made me hyperventilate a little, like the first time I felt it through his pants.

He was kissing me hungrily, fingering me, getting me wetter and wetter
. The sink was the right height for him, as his erection was level with it. I spread my legs open, and he plunged all ten inches into me, thrusting deep, kissing me the entire time. His hands were in my hair, messing it up and pulling it at the same time. My nails were digging into his beautiful, sculpted back, clawing deep into him. Then my hands were on his butt, as I fingered his sphincter slowly. He groaned, biting my breast hungrily. Then he shuddered, his head now on my shoulders. He was breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry. It’s been so long. That was, uh, a little quick.”

I didn’t care. I had an orgasm, as usual.

Then he grinned. “Let me make it up to you.” At that he carried me into the bedroom, and laid a blanket next to the fireplace
. We were still naked, and he looked at me longingly, his hands gently stroking my hair. “Such beautiful hair,” he said, before kissing me, more slowly than before. He stroked my breasts, and fingered me slowly. He was hard again, but did not thrust into me right away. “This will last longer, I promise.” I could hear him breathing in my ear. His heart was pounding louder than I have ever heard it. “Goddamn, I missed you.”

“I’ve always been here,” I said, innocently.

“You know what I mean,” he said, as he kissed me passionately again. He kissed my stomach, then my inner thighs, then lightly started tonguing my vagina. I groaned. He was really very good at this part, the oral part, unlike most men I’ve known. His tongue was gentle, yet firm, and he took his time, patiently darting his tongue in and out, and up and down. I gasped, and moaned, coming to orgasm again. Then he slowly, slowly thrust his manhood inside of me, filling me up. He gently slid in and out, while kissing me slowly and deeply.

Then he flipped me over so that I was on my stomach
. He lay on top of me. “Uh, do you mind if we try anal?”

I felt a little afraid. I had done that before with an ex-boyfriend, but he was not nearly as big as Ryan. I was afraid that it would hurt. I held my breath, then let it out. I nodded.