“Jessie?” my voice curls with bemusement, my facial expression a twin of my voice. “Where’s, Samantha? I have had––”
“Where the fucking Hell was you? Samantha had been going out of her Goddamn mind.” Jessie fumes, but with the understanding that she is bolstering and defending her best friend, I allow her to finish. “You can’t rain check on your girlfriend for some appointment, tell her that she can ring you whenever she wants and you will answer…and then not fucking answer, my God, Hayden.”
“I had a matter I had to attend to in Oakland, Jessie. I accidently left my phone in the car. Do you really think that I would put Samantha through that much stress, if I knew I could avoid it?” I murmur with upwelling remorse.
Closing my eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose. I
really
wish I could have a do-over today. Things have gone from bad, to liberation and joy, to guilt and right now, I’m sailing without a paddle right into Shit Street.
“I’m going to let you in on something here, Hayden, and you had better be listening damn fucking good, understand,” she seethes. I’ve never heard her curse this much, and I can’t say I blame her. “I encouraged Samantha to take the risk with you, she was adamant if you enter a relationship with a man, then you are asking for trouble.
“I told you, that very first day you came to the apartment to make sure she was safe after you two slept together, that she has certain issues, and that you have to show her patience and persevere. You have which has been a huge wake up call to Samantha. I can’t remember the last time she was so happy, and contented…” She pauses before resuming in a more palliative tone. “Today, you broke a level of trust that she managed to build up and yield for you, do you know how much of a hard limit that is for, Sammy? She didn’t trust any male. The first time in five years, Hayden, she had cried herself to sleep, over a man. She didn’t have to experience these emotions before you; she locked them up and allowed them to sink into the deepest, darkest rifts that she could.”
I gasp, all air debarred from my lungs, my chest tightens, and tears prick the back of my eyes as I am shrouded by sympathy, empathy, guilt. I know those feelings all, too, well––the need to abandon emotions, unable to tolerate the pain and distress that they cause any longer, so you withdraw from them entirely.
“Jessie…I––”
“Hayden, I was so absorbed with finding the most irrefutable way to kick Samantha into gear and get her to stand back and analyze her way of living and coping, that I found myself boosting you up to her, giving her hope.” There’s another long pause. “But then you go and do this. And now we are back at the first mother-fucking hurdle.” I hear her flop and the recognizable noise of cracking leather as she sinks into the couch. I can imagine her fisting her hands into her hair.
I know better than anybody that it takes time to earn trust and only a second to break it, but I cannot allow her to slip away from me. I at least need the chance to explain.
“Jessie, please, I need to talk with her. I have to explain. It’s nothing like what she is thinking––and please, trust me when I say––I do know what she is thinking, because those thoughts would be circling my head, too,” I plead.
“Hayden––”
“No, Jessie, I’m sure that Samantha has kept secrets hidden from me because they are still, too, raw. It is the same with me. Please, Jess. Let me put things right, I need to explain…something that I should have done before hand.” My grip tightens on the steering wheel in desperation. “Please,” I whisper finally.
The God-awful long pause on the end of the line is broken by Jessie’s sigh of reluctance. I feel an uprising guilt melding and solidifying in my gut for placing her in the middle of this fiasco. But the fear of rubbing salt in Jessie’s wounds is nothing in comparison to the fear I feel of losing Samantha. None of this would be happening if I was honest with her at the beginning.
“You’re going to need to check, Calypso in Downtown, Bimbo’s in The Financial District, and Meze on Mason. Those are her hot spots,” she mutters with a degree of leniency amidst her tone.
“Hot spots?”
“Yes, Hayden, they are her hot spots––where she goes to cope and deal with her… issues,” Jessie informs me. “Let off some steam.”
“They’re nightclubs, right?” I cannot conceal the puzzlement in my voice.
“Yes, they’re nightclubs, Hayden.”
Why would Samantha need to go there to cope? I have never seen her drink heavily or irresponsibly in the time I have known her. Burn off some energy maybe––or a distraction?
Jessie informs me of what Samantha is wearing so she is easier to identify, although in a nightclub in San Francisco on a Saturday night, I highly doubt this will be a simple task. Even so, I will not give up until she is safely in my arms.
“And, Hayden…” she pauses.
“…Hmm.”
“Please, bring her home safe,” her voice is jagged; cracking with elements of concern, apprehension and sympathetic sentiments for her best friend, to whom––by what I have witnessed over time––is more like a sister to her.
“If I have to scale the entire San Francisco area and back, I will make sure she is safe, Jessie…always.”
I hang up, and slip the handset into my breast pocket.
Okay, Calypso, Meze, and Bimbo’s. With anxiety flooding my gut, I concentrate profoundly on locating Samantha, and getting her home safe. Maybe then, I can explain to her exactly what happened today and we can get back on track.
Stopping the car at the sidewalk across the street, I gaze up at the white, triangle shaped awning. Masses of people are cueing outside a set of double-doors, along the red velvet rope draping its way up the walkway. A burnish-orange backlight against the red, stylish script on either side of the triangle identifies the establishment as Calypso.
I had no luck at Meze, and by the look of things, I am not going to have much luck here either. Everyone, even the patrons are sporting some sort white clothing––a flowing river of white skirts, dresses, trousers, shirts…even the doormen are donning white attire.
Pushing myself out of the car, I dash over to the entrance of the club and ask the balding security guy if anyone fitting Samantha’s description has entered. He shakes his head and points to the ever-growing cue of clientele.
“Ambiance Night…if she’s not in white, she’s not getting in. Sorry mate,” he booms in a deep, authoritative tone.
I nod, smile my appreciation, and dash back to the car.
Glimpsing down at the console, the digital clock glows at 10:00 p.m. Please, please, please let her be safe, let her be at this last place. I pull out into the traffic, with a heavy-mind and an equally heavy-heart, hoping and praying that the expression, ‘always in the last place you look’, is accurate.
Repeating my previous two approaches, I park the car along the sidewalk. The sidewalk is lined with evenly spread Designer trimmed Saplings. Bimbo’s is illuminated in brilliant, white light along the edge of the roof. A large, black canopy shelters the entrance.
Hanging my head, I stare at my hands that are knitted in my lap. Drawing in a deep breath, I attempt to purge the trepidation that I have befallen victim to. Prepping myself for some serious groveling, I peek up at the building, and thrust myself up and out of the seat.
There’s no security at the front and it looks somewhat empty. I rest against the passenger-side door with my arms crossed over my chest and gaze down at the paving, steadying myself to go inside to look for her. I haven’t been in a club for years, I loathe the concept of one night-stands, I rarely drink, so I had never needed to experience it…indulge in it.
A piercing giggle travels along the light breeze. I whip my head up and my focus falls on a slim, leggy female, with long and deeply wavy hair tumbling down to her middle back exiting the doorway. I gasp as I appraise her choice of attire––something I wouldn’t object my woman wearing in the bedroom––but definitely not something to wear outside. I wouldn’t want another man eyeing up my…
My stomach knots and vaults to my throat before freefalling back into its rightful position. I feel instant beads of perspiration seeping through the pores of my back, palms, fuck, even the soles of my feet.
A muscular man appears from behind her. His dark jeans and pale blue shirt hangs out inanely, his blond hair is effortlessly spiked up. I’m screwed to the spot; my limbs feel like they’re cased in concrete, my larynx cannot force out a single word. I am utterly immobilized, witnessing this spectacle in slow-fucking-motion.
He pushes her hair back from over her shoulder, exposing her neck and whispers something in her ear, before kissing her in the sensitive spot that makes her weak in the knees. She throws her head back and giggles blithely, before sealing her lips over his. My mouth falls open as she uplifts her leg and he grasps her promptly behind her knee, curling it around his waist, his hand skimming up higher to her behind.
My heart is speared and aches. My stomach feels as though it has been replaced by a bowling ball. I tremble as a result of the gushing adrenaline, my head is ring and the world spins rapidly at an angle. I press my hands against the side of the car to regain my balance. I feel physically sick.
What is she doing? How can she allow him to touch her like that when she is in a relationship?
Pooling all of my strength, I march over to Samantha and the testosterone ragged male that is mauling her before my very eyes.
Her hands clasped behind his neck, his hands gliding up her thigh, pushing her already obscenely short skirt up with his hungry hands.
“Samantha!” I run across the street and step onto the sidewalk.
Lowering her leg from around his hip and loosening her grasp around his neck, she turns to face me. Scanning me with her alcohol-fueled eyes, she curls her upper lip in disgust, and shakes her head before turning to face her ‘friend’.
“Samantha,” I repeat myself again, my tone harsher and demanding.
“WHAT!?” she yells in exasperation as she releases her hands from behind the strangers neck, allowing them to fall at her sides. She looks so…diverse, so callous and vengeful. She upholds the same attitude I witnessed when we first had sex, all over again. No, this is worse. She isn’t the same woman that I have fallen in love with. She is worth more than this. Yet what I am witnessing is a stranger acting like a cheap whore.
My eyes widen. “Get in the car.”
She simpers and shakes her head.
“Samantha, get in the car,
please
.”
“Do you know what, Hayden?” she sneers and I am momentarily winded. She’s a shadow of
her––
of Addison; the dark, menacing smirk, the hatred and delight glimmering in her eyes as she inflicts emotional pain and anguish. She points her long, manicured, index finger at me scornfully. “You were the one that fucked up. You lost the right to ask me to do anything for you, last night.”
Last night?
“What do you mean, Samantha?” I frown. “Last night was––”
“No, Hayden. You see…” she purses her lips, taking pleasure from my displeasure. Her voice is dry. She cocks her head, feigning innocence with her flaring eyes. “I gave you ample opportunity to come clean, but, being a typical male, you decide to follow the flock, and lie through your back teeth. You barefaced lied to me––”
“Lied?”
“Oh, my God, are you deliberately being obtuse, Hayden? I am talking about, Cassandra.” Her eyes narrow, the side of her mouth twists into a sickening smirk.
My face falls, as does my head. I focus on the paving once more.
“That’s right, Hayden. I saw the message she sent you at dinner. What’s the matter? That guilt-ridden you can’t even look at me?” her voice is so impassive and sardonic, so derisive it makes me shudder and think of her doppelganger.
I peek up at her agitated form, her hands placed firmly on her hips.
“I can explain, please, Samantha. Just get in the car,” I plead once more.
“So, are you coming with me then, babe?” the man behind her murmurs.
“No, she won’t be,” I bark, scowling at the man who used my woman as a piece of meat. I idly thank all that’s holy that I found her before he got more physical than he already was. Without sparing the time for her to dispute against my actions, I grab Samantha by the wrist and lead her to the car.
Slamming the door behind her, I walk around the front of the DB9 and slip into my seat.
We are both silent for a beat.
Closing my eyes, I endeavor to prioritize the concoction of truths that I know I must verbalize. This is going to be so much harder than I ever deemed possible.
But she has freely gotten in the car with you, Hayden. She is giving you the opportunity to correct matters, and explain yourself. There is still hope,
my subconscious roots for me with self-assured enthusiasm.
“My God, Samantha––what were you thinking?” I snap, slamming my hands hard against the steering wheel. She blanches and whips her head around to face me. Her lack in her own safety enrages me and the words pour out of my mouth without a second thought. “Do you realize how many men are acquitted of rape and walk free from a courtroom, because in their defence, ‘the woman was leading them on all night, and was holding it out on a platter’?”
“Shut up, Hayden. Just shut the fuck up!” she screams at me, holding her hands in the air, palms facing forward. “You have no idea...” she shakes her head; a contemptuous grin and repulsed expression mars her beauty, the face that I have come to relax to, crave for, trust and love. “It was only a few weeks ago, that I would have freely lead him down that alleyway and allowed him to take me in whatever way he wanted.” She points behind her in the general direction of a side passage.
What? I look down at my knees. I can’t believe what I’ve just heard. The connection between my ears and my stomach are synched, my gut wrenching as I fathom the comparison of the two women in my life, that meant and mean so much to me. This is a side of Samantha that I never even knew existed. Compared to the, Miss Kennedy that has worked for me for the last six weeks…the contrast is unnerving.
“But tonight I couldn’t, Hayden,” I force myself to look up at her. “Because you are living rent free, right up here,” she mutters in a composed manner, repeatedly pressing her index finger to her temple, before allowing it to drop heavily against the bare, pale flesh of her thighs. The thighs that the ape had his wondering hands slither up against––and her lips. Oh, my God, I cringe, wounded by the verity that she kissed him, and was sexual with him, even in the minimal sense.