Crossing The Grey

F o u r

8 years ago..

Christian.

I'd imagined her skin a thousand times. Maybe even more. And it wasn't a disappointment. Smooth, pale and perfect. It made my mouth ache with the need to taste it. And in the half-light of the room with her hair draped around her shoulders like a cloak, she looked like something from a painting. Goddess-like almost, yet with a touch of the girl next door.

It was times like this when I thought hanging out with them was tantamount to some sort of torture. It was painful - and not the kind of pain that I liked. This was a pain that I felt in my stomach, around my chest and between my legs. I wanted her, yet I didn't even know what that meant. I couldn't even fathom how to be with a girl like her. Or any girl for that matter. I had Elena. Elena. It was also times like this, namely when I was with Charlie, that I struggled to remember Elena's face.

I glance up at the painting hanging above Charlie's bed of the naked woman and the dwarf. Or, "Homunculus" as she'd corrected earlier. The woman reminded me of her. Dark haired and seductive, yet with an innocence in the eyes. I wonder what Charlie looked like naked with her hair braided like that.

When I look back at her she's smiling at me. I always feel like she is trying to communicate something with me when she smiles at me like that. As though we are party to some secret Gideon isn't in on. Of course that wasn't the case - she just happened to have a smile that made you feel like the only man on the planet. Not for the first time, a wave of envy rips through me for the guy sprawled out on the floor to my left. He was down to just his boxers - black with a bright green waistband. I'd always assumed Gideon would be good at poker. I'd assumed wrong.

"Your turn," Charlie says as she takes a gulp from the bottle of scotch.

"Why me? Why not you?" I ask looking down at my toes. Telling a half naked Charlie one of my fantasies was dangerously close to the most arousing thing that had ever happened to me. I didn't class my time with Elena as arousing. Not anymore. I classed that as therapy. Or training. You'll make an incredible dominant one day Christian. When you're ready.

"Umm because mine is probably far more embarrassing and I need to be a LOT more drunk before I'm brave enough to share," She smiles taking another large gulp from the bottle. She drinks scotch the way she drinks beer. With complete abandon and disregard for her female constitution. When she leans forward to hand it to me our fingers touch. Warm skin against warm skin. It makes my groin vibrate.

"I highly doubt that." I say quietly, taking a huge gulp of her father's scotch. She'd stolen it from his drinks cabinet last time she was at home. Scotch and Belgian white beer were her favorite drinks. I liked neither, though scotch was the greater evil in my opinion.

Apart from once with Elliot - which had resulted in dad going apeshit and the worst 11 hours of my life as the hangover tried to kill me - I never touched the stuff. It was vile. Pure alcohol with no discernible taste. I'm drinking it only because it's all there is and I'd already been called a "püssy" by Gideon for preferring wine. It was doing its job I suppose.

My face felt warm and my entire body, right down to my toes is tingling with a calming sort of heat. I felt soft. Malleable. I also felt aroused. The room was too hot, and she was half naked and I'd need to be a f*cking monk to be unaffected.

"Oh come on man, I told you mine," Gideon grumbles from the floor.

"No Gideon, you didn't. A fantasy is something you haven't already done." I point out.

"F*cking someone while being watched then. That's one I haven't done yet. Now spill." He sits up and takes the bottle from me. Charlie who has her knees pulled up to her chin, gazes at me with a far off look on her face. The thin straps of her bright pink bra peek at me through her hair and she's wearing only a pair of what I presume is Gideon's white boxers. Her feet are bare and her toenails are painted in light turquoise blue, as are her fingernails.