souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 151: the secret journal (part two)

The two of them made their way back outside to the cool afternoon: it had snowed the few days before but in its wake was a round of immense rain followed by a blanket of clouds overhead. Even though there was a bit of a chill to the air, they both stood outside in their short sleeves.
"I've lived here long enough to not feel the cold so intensely," she told him as she adjusted the arms of her sunglasses.
"Well, as it doesn't rain around here, I'm sure you and I'll be fine," he pointed out as he put his shades back on over his prominent nose. He turned his head in the direction of the street perpendicular to there: she never noticed the slight widow's peak over his forehead before, that is until he glanced up that way.
"I know where we can go," she told him, and she guided him up the street to the bakery. Once they were in there, she handed him a little pack from the display out front.
"Ginger snaps," he declared. "Of course!"
"Remember our little thing when we were hanging out together more?" she recalled. "When you were with Testament, too?"
"Oh, yeah! Milk and cookies, was it?" He peered over his shoulder to the room behind them. "You sure you wanna do that here?"
"Maybe a little later on down the line," she vowed to him in a soft voice. She bought him the cookies and they returned to her place for the rest of the afternoon. She told him about the apprenticeship she had landed with the glass shop up in Scarsdale and he treated her to a high-five.
"About time, right?" he asked her with that lopsided grin on his face.
"About damn time, exactly!" she declared. She offered to get him dinner but he told her that he needed to make some phone calls first and he had a meeting with another manager of another band.
"They've been around for some time now," he explained, "and they're on the search for a lead guitarist, at least for their next album."
"What're they called?"
"Savatage. Sounds like 'sabotage' but different, though. S-A-V-A-T-A-G-E."
"So, like a fusion of 'sabotage' and 'savage'," she followed along, much to his laughter.
"But yeah, in all seriousness, if there's anything I'll give the Spin Doctors, it's the fact that jamming with them was a whole lot of fun. But they're still looking around themselves. Like I said before, it's just having to be the very best 'me' that I possibly can at the moment."
When he returned to his hotel room, she headed back into her room for another quick sketch of him, that time with her heavier graphite for his dark hair and to better bring out the incoming grays at the crown of his head.
However, he returned to her apartment the next day for the news.
"So, how'd it go?" she asked him as part of her greeting, and he stepped into the apartment and rubbed his hands together.
"Get this. You're not gonna believe this. I had dinner with him last night and then I showed him my playing a bit. Real off the cuff type stuff." His eyes sparkled, more than they ever had up to that point as well.
"You got the part?" she gasped, and she brought her hands to her mouth. He bowed his head a bit and she lunged for his little body. She held him close to her, but that wasn't enough. Neither of them had anything to drink up to that point, but she stood up on her toes and brought her lips to the side of his neck.
"Oh, my. You're really gonna do that, are you?" He could hardly contain his excited laughter. The fact that he had a slight fling going on with Eric at the moment only added to her attraction to him. She clasped her hands to the sides of his face.
"The power of ginger snaps," he continued, but she had a different plan for him in the meantime. "I'm pretty sure I've been a good boy at this point that I should have some milk and cookies now."
She didn't reply as she gazed right into those deep eyes. How she wished to drink him down once more, that time without the bitter taste of alcohol riddled about the surface of their tongues.
"You look like you wanna tell me something," he confessed to her.
"Let me kiss you," she begged him in a slight whisper.
"Then kiss me," he retorted to her with that crooked little smile plastered back across his face. She put her lips onto his: they were in fact as smooth as plump ripe Rainier cherries right off of the tree, all for her. She held there for a few seconds and then she gazed into his face.
"Makes me wonder about Marla and that bottle of brandy," he confessed to her.
"Who needs brandy when we have each other's sugar?" she asked him, and he lowered his eyelids a bit at her. "Let me slip into something a little bit more comfortable, baby boy. You and I deserve a little fun after everything, if you know what I mean."
"Of course! I was hoping you would never ask, either." He flashed her a wink, and then she tapped her finger on the full tip of his nose. He then ran his fingers through his dark hair and he took the pin out at the back of his head. Alex tousled his hair about so it hung loose around his face and his shoulders.
With a slight sashay of her hips, she headed back to her room to change her clothes, out of her jeans and her top so she stood there in nothing more than her underwear. And yet she figured that, if she and Alex were to have a romp on her bed, she needed to move that journal to a better place like the bottom of her underwear drawer.
Away from his prying eyes and the movement of the bed frame as well.
She picked up the mattress and took the journal out of its hiding place, but she never realized that one corner of the outer cover held onto a piece of one of those stray drawings.
"Samantha?" Alex called out to her from down the hallway: the sudden sound of his voice made her drop her journal on the floor and all those drawings spilled out in its wake. He stepped into the room with a look of concern on his face. "Oh, damn. Here, let me help you—you change your clothes and—"
No sooner had she turned away from him when he stopped right in his tracks.
"Hey." He held up the journal to her, complete with the page open to that very first drawing, the one of him lying on the hotel bed in Oregon twisted up. "What's this?"
Sam nibbled on her bottom lip and she knew that he had very hastily put the pieces together.
"Alex, I can explain—" she started, and then he turned the journal back to him, and he put his finger on the date.
"April, 1992." He paused and then that crooked little smile disappeared from his face; in its wake was a serious, stoic frown, one that she knew from the incident at Tiananmen Square four years ago. "Is this me sleeping? When you and I were both beat to hell from all that driving?"
Sam's mouth went dry as she struggled for the right words. There was no explaining any of this, even as she stood there in her underwear.
"What the hell, am I naked here?" he demanded. She grimaced as she saw that herself. That was supposed to be her secret journal and yet by a mere circumstance and the kindness of his own heart, he still stumbled upon it as well. He closed the book and set it down on the bed.
"Samantha, you drew me when I was sleeping naked," he curtly said. "Moreover, you drew me when I was sleeping naked and without my consent."
"You weren't naked, though," she finally managed to blurt out. "I just—took the clothes off of you."
He pressed his hands to his hips and turned away from her. His whole reaction left her confused, and the dry sensation in the back of her throat did anything but help.
"Alex, I can explain!" she exclaimed. "It's not what it looks like!"
"What does it look like then?" He whirled around. Those blue eyes seared right through her like the cold blades of knives.
"It was supposed to be private," she said in a small voice, to which he frowned.
"Look, I understand you and I had a thing for a little while a few years back but context is important. You do understand this, right?"
"It was supposed to be private," she repeated, and her hands trembled with fear of what he would do after that. He picked up the journal again and flipped through the pages.
"How long has this been going on... oh my god, this is all the times you and I have hung out together!"
He stopped at one point and raised his eyebrows.
"What the hell, is this me and Eric?"
"Yeah, because he told me that you guys are doing the thing together," she told him, to which he snapped the book closed.
"I'm gonna have a long talk with him," he quipped, and then he shook his head at her. "What're you doin' to me, Samantha?"
"I just... like the way your body looks," she sputtered. "And I never intended for anyone else to see it, either. Not you, or even Eric for that matter. I just—your reaction to this whole thing is confusing the hell out of me, Alex. It was an accident! I was going to move it and put it in my underwear drawer. Like I said, I never intended for you to see it."
He closed his eyes and he shook his head again.
"This is just..." He could hardly speak and he threw his hands up.
"Are you mad at me?" she asked in a small voice, even though it was rather obvious that he was in fact quite cross with her.
"I... I just... I don't know what to think," he said with a second shake of his head; he opened his eyes so he could glare at her. "Because I should probably clarify this to you that it's not the drawings that are bothering me. It's the fact that you were all about consent and then you drew me while I was sleeping and then you went back and made it so I was completely in the buff. I just—"
He picked up the journal and then he set it back down on top of the bed out of frustration. He pursed his lips, those same lips that Sam had just kissed and felt for herself, without the feeling of alcohol over them all the while. He then doubled back out of the room and back to the front of the apartment.
And she knew that she had screwed up big time with him. She picked up her blouse but she never put it back on over her body. She stood there right next to the couch as he picked up his guitar case and his jacket.
"What're you doing?" she asked him.
"I'm leaving," he stated in a low voice. "I—I just—I can't."
"What? No! Alex, don't go." She hurried towards him as he put his jacket back on and then slung his case over his shoulder. She could hear the strings in there hitting the body, as if his guitar was crying for them as well.
Sam stepped before him and set her hands on his shoulders.
"Alex, listen—I'll burn that journal if you want," she pleaded, and she could feel the tears in her throat.
"Samantha, like I said, it's not the journal that's perturbing me," he said, once more in a curt tone of voice. "It's the fact that you were all about making me feel comfortable and making your patrons and your subjects comfortable. And you—you—you fucking—" He almost whispered that word, albeit through gritted teeth. "—betrayed that."
One of the few times she ever heard him swear, and as a result, she knew that it was serious. She had made a serious mistake this time, and one that caused him to pick up his things and head for the door. Sam stood there before him with her hands clasped to her upper arms to keep the warmth in her body. There was in fact no excuse for any of this: she knew in her heart that he was completely right about all of this. It didn't help matters that the pressure on her arms squeezed her breasts together so he had a view of her chest.
She bowed her head and closed her eyes. She thought about when the incident at Tiananmen Square happened a few years back and she comforted him for it. Who was to comfort him after this? After she had practiced consent and treating his body and mind with respect, there was no way out of this. He sniffled and she didn't even have to look into his face to know that he was crying himself.
"I'm sorry, Samantha," he told her in a broken voice. "I can't be around someone who doesn't practice what they preach, especially with me."
She raised her head to him right as he brushed away tears. The boy who had taken her home to her mother's house after she found out Joey was in love with another woman. The boy who had gotten to know her parents, especially her mother. The boy with the pearl in his hair.
He bowed for the door and he flung it open. She had no idea what overcame her as she chased after him, still in her underwear. He walked at a brisk pace, especially given he towered over her head; he was almost able to turn his stride into a full-on run. And since she was barefoot herself, she couldn't exactly run herself. But she chased after him nonetheless.
He reached the elevator first and pressed the button. The doors slid open and he bowed in there at a fast clip. He pressed the button right as Sam caught up to him.
"Alex!" she shrieked.
"Put your clothes back on," he told her as a tear fell from his right eye and the elevator doors slid shut. But she darted to the doors regardless of whether they were still open or not. She slammed her hands on the cold metal.
"Alex!" she called after him; the tears welled up inside of her, such that she couldn't hardly breathe. "ALEX!"
But he was long gone at that point. She broke out into a full sob and she almost collapsed right there on the carpet. Instead, she kept her arms over her chest and she doubled back down the corridor, back to her apartment. She wished she could close the door and keep it locked; she shut it behind her and leaned back against the panels. She slid down to the floor and bowed her head in a loud, agonized sob.
As far as she knew, the best friend she could have ever asked for, gone.