The Trap

Sooner Than Later

"God. This is so good."

After dinner, Cari ended up joining her girlfriend into the bathtub. She wasn't planning on doing it because she knew Shannon would be tired as hell, but the doctor insisted so much with the cutest puppy eyes and she couldn't say no to that. So now, she was sitting behind Shannon messaging her sore neck and shoulders while she was completely relaxed under her touch.

"Do you like it?" Cari said with a raspy voice.

"Mm-hmm." Shannon slid her hands up and down through Cari's legs under the water.

"You sound like you're barely awake babe." Cari laughed when Shannon almost couldn't answer her.

"I kinda am." The answer was so low that she almost couldn't hear it.

Cari laughed again and wrapped her arms around Shannon's waist pulling her closer and kissing the back of her neck.

"C'mon babe, let's go to bed."

"Wait, wait, wait." Shannon seemed to be brought back to life suddenly. She turned around to face Cari and got into her knees, supporting herself with her arms on each side of Cari's body and leaning ahead, making her girlfriend touch her back against the tub. "I just wanna..." She slowly got closer and connected their lips together, kissing her gently. "...Thank you for tonight." She kissed her again. "It was amazing." Cari touched her face with both of her hands when she kissed her longer. "And I'm so happy to be able to call you my girlfriend now."

"Me too baby." She kissed her one more time.

"I was thinking, would you like to take a little trip to New York this weekend? I have an apartment there and I kinda miss the city. Have you ever been there before?"

"Yes, I've been there with a couple of friends once." She lied. She had been there dozens of times. She even had an apartment there. But she couldn't tell Shannon that.

"We could go on friday and return sunday, just to do something different and breath some new air for a little. What do you think?"

"Oh babe, I can't go this weekend. I have this work thing on saturday that I can't miss. It's a book launching thing and I've been designated to cover it. I'm sorry." That was obviously another lie.

The problem was, she didn't have any document with the name of Cari Bennet and she wouldn't have enough time to get one in two days. Also, she never had to use a fake ID on an airport, she didn't even know if she could get away with it without being discovered. Airports in the United States had extra inspection on everything. It was too risky to use a false identification for those situations.

In her old days, whenever she got an invitation to be taken on a trip, she'd always make up an excuse so she wouldn't have to go, like she did just now. She'd only spend around four months with the same guy anyways, so that didn't happen too often. But, she couldn't do that forever with Shannon. That would be impossible and too suspicious after the first couple of times. 

What were her choices now? How could she explain that her real name was in fact Cari "Fletcher" without telling her all the other things she was hiding? Or, how could she avoid everything that required having a simple ID without being caught? She never thought about those things before and now she was feeling the affliction taking over her body. Staying with Shannon would be harder than she thought after all.

After agreeing that they could go another day, they got out of the tub and prepared themselves to go to bed. Shannon held her from behind and Cari noticed she fell asleep some minutes later as she felt the rhythmic up and down of her chest against her back. After taking a deep breath, she felt the a tear roll down her face and leave a wet mark on the pillowcase. She would have to tell Shannon the truth sooner than later.