Obsessive Compulsion (8 page)

I think this is the kiss I’ve been waiting
over a month for. I just didn’t realize it until he gave it to
me.

I’m going to have lipstick all over my
mouth, but at this moment in time I really don’t give a fuck. That
revelation alone, that I just don’t care, is another indication
that this is getting serious. She gives me peace. She shows me
patience. She accepts the fact that I unplug all my crap every
single night, and now she’s kissing me in a way that’s doing its
best to make me forget that anything exists but her.

Part of my brain is still on, though. So,
after twenty-four, mind-blowing seconds, I lean away from her lips.
My eyes dart to the pot of water to see if it’s boiling, then my
brain lets me refocus back on Charlie. My eyes meet hers just in
time to catch her opening them.

It’s a slow, beautiful awakening. Her stormy
seas revealed. My whole body quivers as I’m carried away by
them.

Those twin seas darken as her pupils expand,
a flush coloring her cheeks. The plump nature of her just-kissed
lips are begging for further attention, but I’m afraid to kiss her
again. I
never
get things right on the first try, but that
kiss was
perfection
.

My mind stutters. My jaw twitches. I’m saved
by the pot finally coming to boil.

The pot grabs my attention as I begin
counting, my hand reaching into the cupboard for the box of
macaroni. I pull it down and open it, all with only taking my eyes
off the water for a split second.
Eight. Nine. Ten…

“I’ll get the milk and…” her voice yanks the
count from my head and I curse. Looking up at her confused
expression as she surveys my kitchen, I curse again. Turning to me,
her mouth slightly agape, I want to crawl under my couch and hide
for the rest of the night, no matter how dusty it is under there.
“Uhm, Ian… Where’s your fridge?”

“Three floors down,” I quip with a nervous
bite to my words, then I mutter another curse under my breath. The
water continues to boil uncounted. “I’m sor… dammit!”

“Hey, it’s alright,” her lips smile and I
watch her force the confusion from her eyes. She’s trying
desperately to figure me out. I wonder if she’ll clue me in if she
does, because I have no fucking idea how I function. “What do you
need?” she asks.

Well, that’s a loaded question.

I need her in my arms without my body
revolting. I need to go back to Friday so we can try again. I need
to go back to the very beginning and figure out why I ended up this
way. I need a lot of things that I’m never going to get.

I hold up the box. It’s the Velveeta kind
that you don’t have to add anything to. The awesomely gooey cheese
is already prepared in a shiny silver packet. “I need quiet.
Please.”

She nods and takes a step back, leaning
against the counter. The boiling water calls to me like a siren and
I refocus on it. Silence fills in the spaces between the gurgling
bubbles, but I know Charlie is standing in my kitchen, watching me
count, waiting for me.

Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.

As soon as I get to sixteen, I tug the
silver cheese packet out of the box then dump the pasta into the
water. I breathe an anxiety-releasing sigh as I set the timer on
the microwave to six minutes. Glancing back over, I find Charlie
still waiting patiently for me.

Why the hell isn’t she running? I have my
real stove unplugged so I can plug this camper stove into a surge
protector. I have a surge protector so I can unplug everything
before I go to bed. I count boiling water before I poor in
macaroni. I have no damn fridge! I’d be running as far away, as
fast as possible from me, if only I could.

“Thanks,” I mutter, then I close my eyes
before giving her the proper appreciation she deserves. “Thank you
for waiting, Charlie.”

“Got nowhere else to be,” she winks at me as
I open my eyes, and I’m ready to fall on my knees in front of her
in the middle of my fucked up kitchen. “I
am
curious about
the fridge, though.”

Right. The fridge. “You can’t plug and
unplug a fridge repeatedly. Found that out after the repairman at
my old building nearly threw a wrench at me on his fifth visit. So,
I never plugged in the one Brandon put in this unit. When 3-B’s
fridge broke, I told Brandon just to take mine.”

I watch her eyes and can actually see her
trying to work out the logic behind the reality that I live my life
without a fridge or freezer. “So, nonperishables only, I guess?
Your grocery shopping is either really easy or really
difficult.”

She… she’s joking about it? Like it’s no big
deal? I know my jaw is hanging open because I can feel the air pass
by my teeth with each intake of breath. I think she just broke my
already damaged brain.

“Oh, damn,” her bottom lip disappears
between her teeth then pops back out. That little gesture shreds
through my body, straight to my groin, but the groan in my throat
can’t get past my bafflement. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Ian… I…
dammit.”

Her eyes downcast and that kicks my brain
back into gear.
Shit
. Rider, pull yourself together.

“Nothing you do or say offends me,” I speak
before I can fully figure out where I’m going with this. Her eyes
raise back to mine. “Charlie… I… I have
no
fucking
fridge!”

Why am I yelling? Wait, I’m also laughing?
Cackling, possibly.

Okay.
Yeah. Brain’s completely
broken.

“I have no fridge, and you’re… you’re making
a joke about my grocery list after watching me count boiling water
and…” I make a wild gesture towards the surge protector. “All
this!
”

Hello? Ian? Buddy, are you still in there?
If she wasn’t running before, she’s going to be if you don’t get
back on your damn rocker.

Her hands raise to her mouth and I’m
preparing myself for the fall. The tiniest snort muffles out from
behind her hands. Her face flushes red, her nose scrunches up and
she loses the fight. She’s laughing. I’m laughing. We’re standing
in my messed up world, laughing at the ridiculous reality of it
all.

The microwave beeps. My laughter continues
while I grab my colander and drain the pasta. Transferring it back
into the pot, still trying to catch my breath between latent
chuckles, I squeeze in the cheese sauce. Letting out a final snort
and a deep exhale, I stir the bright orange cheese into the pasta,
separate it into two bowls, then motion for her to follow me.

I set the two bowls on my little
bistro-sized dinette and pull out her chair. She lets me scoot her
in, as if we’re at some fancy restaurant like
Alphonse
and
this three-dollar mac n’ cheese is the house specialty. “I don’t
have any wine. Alcohol and I don’t really mix. But, I can make
coffee?”

“I’d like that,” she continues to smile with
me as I head back into the kitchen.

I have one of those single-serve k-cup style
machines with boxes and boxes of different flavors. I’m not
supposed to have caffeine either, but I’m a worse tyrant than Kyle
without it. I grin because I even have café mocha. Yeah, I bought
it after I found out she likes it, not that I ever actually
believed I’d be making it for her in my apartment.

Two more trips delivers her mug and fork
then my mug, fork and six non-dairy creamers. When she sniffs the
cup and realizes it’s café mocha, her eyes widen to pools of
sparkling blue excitement. I stand there, staring at her so my
brain can capture every single piece of that moment to save it
forever.

“Sit and eat before it gets cold,” Charlie’s
gentle command puts my feet back in motion.

I’m thankful for it, her willingness to both
be patient and to take control when it becomes apparent I’m stuck.
So, I sit down and begin the ritual of adding my six creamers to my
coffee. Once I’m done, stirs counted, I look back up. “Thank you.
For this being okay, I mean.”

She swallows her bite. “If I’d known you
were gonna pull out the fancy, name-brand stuff with the good
cheese sauce, I’d have dressed up.”

I lean in and examine her more closely.
Simple, elegant blue silk blouse, black pencil skirt and a pair of
black leather, calf-high winter boots that make my tongue anxious.
“You look lovely.”

“Thank you.”

Her blush makes my whole body anxious. A
soft silence falls between us as she eats. Realizing I’m counting
her chews by the movement of her jaw, I refocus on the task of
eating my own. Fork four noodles, eat. Fork six noodles, eat.
Twelve chews each time.

Swallowing, I look up to find her fork
hovering above her bowl and her eyes locked on the living room
behind me. The shifting expression on her face startles me stupid
for a moment, then it hits me about the same time her eyes go wide.
Oh
.
Shit
.

Right. Defiantly didn’t think she’d ever be
in my apartment.

She sets her fork down and gets up slowly,
her eyes widening further, as if she can’t believe what she’s
seeing. I force my latest bite down my throat, my brain protesting
that it’s only had five chews. Stopping on a prime number never
bodes well.

“Ian…” her voice is full of questions I
don’t know how to answer.

“I can explain,” but I’m not sure I can. So,
I follow her mutely into my living room, to a book case and a
reading chair above which exists the wall I have come to call the
Gallery of Never
. In my messed up world, those six drawings
of dark charcoal silhouettes bound with rope and the two
water-colored souls on a single canvas represented an impossible,
unreachable desire.

“These…” she pauses, her head shaking as her
hands cup her mouth. She lets out a soft breath and I wait for her
to tell me what a freak I am. A creepy fucker who’s been stalking
her since day one. “These are from Richard’s gallery in
Portland?”

“They are.” No sense lying about it now.
They are clearly originals and of course she’s going to recognize
her own drawings. “I asked him not to tell you they had sold, at
least not yet and not all at once. I… Damn, that sounds messed
up.”

“How?” She takes a step closer to them.

I stare at my favorite charcoal, its place
on the wall in the lower right of the two lines of three that flank
her centered watercolor I stole on Saturday. I know that results in
a prime seven, but for some reason I haven’t worked out yet, my
brain accepts that as okay as long as it’s us, together. Or maybe
that is
the reason. Maybe Charlie makes primes work out okay
in my head because she balances the equation.

One plus one will always be two. Primes plus
one will always be even.

My jaw twitches as I lower my gaze away from
the charcoal that depicts the back of a masculine silhouette with
head bowed and hands, waist and shoulders bound by thick rope.
“Emma mentioned you had pieces in a Portland gallery, so I looked
it up online. I was just curious, but when I saw them…” My eyes
turn to her as I finish what I never should have started, “…I fell
in love with them.”

“They were part of my final graduate study
on form and light,” she whispers, leaning in to them and oblivious
to my stare. “I liked the way the rough texture of the rope played
against the smooth nature of the skin, and the model’s figure
really stood out when bound.”

Leaning back, she blinks, and I think
reality is getting through her shock. She turns to me, but I can’t
meet her gaze. “When did you get these?”

Maybe I should lie and say I ordered them
last week, but I’m not sure that’s any better than the truth. The
truth is, I
am
a creepy fucker who’s been obsessed with her
since the day I met her. That understanding, about just how truly
fucked up I am, sets all my nerves on edge.

“A while ago,” I bark out, my arm flailing
in a cascading tremor I can’t control.

Fuck!
And this is how it ends – not
with a bang but with a stupid twitch. Lovely.

I retreat to the hallway. “I’ll get your
coat.”

“I haven’t finished my coffee yet,” her
voice calls from the living room.

Why isn’t she following me? Why isn’t she
making this easier by running out my door and then slamming that
door in my face? Why is she so stubborn?!

I take my hand off the coat-closet door
handle with a snort. She’s stubborn because she’s Tornado Charlie,
and she’s blowing through my world, leaving nothing recognizable
behind. With a deep inhale, I peek around the corner, back into my
living room.

“Well? Can I finish my dinner or not?” she
asks. Her arms are crossed and one of her red eyebrows is raised,
but she’s smirking. Can nothing faze this woman?

“You’re not mad?”

“No, Ian, I’m not mad,” she waves it off and
sits back down at the dinette.

I cautiously follow, waiting to step on the
landmine that’s going to blow my leg off. “How are you possibly
alright with all this?”

She motions for me to sit while she sips her
coffee. I do as directed, my hands folded in my lap as I wait.
Setting down her mug, she mirrors my pose. “I have a confession to
make.”

Uh-oh. “Alright?”

“I’ve caught you staring at me more than
once,” she starts. I’m sure my eyes go wide as I stutter to come up
with some sort of response, but she quiets me with a raised hand.
“I was flattered,
am
flattered, and curious. I guess I
stared a few times at you, too.”

I set my coffee down before I choke.
“Oh?”

She blushes. “You’re a handsome man, Ian.
You’re also kind, considerate, intelligent… I went to The Stables
on Friday because I was curious, both about what goes on there and
about you. When I told Emma and Brandon my reasons, it led to him
telling me about your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I kina knew
already, but I didn’t know how severe it is.”