Chapter 14 #2
What a view I’ve got. Danica’s hands splayed on either side of Alicia’s head. Her face was so far away, but her body deliciously close, their skin sliding together as easily as two inconsequential water droplets. “Okay, but when you meet my parents, don’t do that.”
“I do as I please.” Danica attacked her throat with heavy lips, sucking, kissing, delighting her in every affectionately carnal way.
The next day, after Danica had reluctantly left to go back to her fast-paced life wearing a fresh Yves Saint Laurent mini dress Mr. Nigel Clayborn brought over, Candice approached her bedraggled roommate and said, “I need more warning for when that babe comes over to fuck you six ways to Sunday. That way, I can invest in some ample earplugs. Or rent some nanny cams from work so I can make some quick money off you two.”
Alicia couldn’t be bothered to be embarrassed that the whole place had heard her screaming in pleasure and her girlfriend moaning every five seconds.
Not even when Pete landed on the coffee table and mimicked Alicia’s orgasmic wails.
He wasn’t too far off, really. A bit pitchy, but even Alicia couldn’t recreate those sounds without Danica there to inspire them out of her. Oh, well.
“Look at this!” Candice cried, shoving a piece of thick paper beneath Alicia’s nose. She had been reading a book when her roommate rudely interrupted. “I won a trip to Las Vegas!”
“Huh?” Alicia put her book down. “From whom?”
Candice squinted at the fine print. “The radio station. Yeah, I remember now. I think I entered when they asked someone to name George Michael’s five biggest hit songs.”
“You knew the answer to that?”
Candice shrugged. “Apparently. Does it matter? I won!”
“Nice.”
“Yup! I’ve gotta leave tonight, though! This must’ve gotten lost in the mail.”
“That’s… concerning.”
“What’s even more concerning is that I only get to take one person with me.” Candice’s face lit up again. “I know! I’ll take my sister! She broke up with that douche and has been moping about for weeks. Need to take her to someplace like Vegas for the weekend.”
“Aw, not me?” Alicia was only half-serious.
Candice scoffed. “No offense, but you’ve got an on-call jet now. You don’t need my middle-class perceptions of Las Vegas to bore you. Besides,” she turned a chilling look toward Alicia, “you’d probably try to get Elvis to marry you and your girlfriend. Classy folks.”
“Don’t even bring that up.” Unlike Danica, who slipped their possibly impending wedding into every conversation they had.
“I recently purchased a condo in Bavaria. I hear it’s the top honeymoon spot in Europe this year.
” Suave. Alicia, meanwhile, was content to slow things down.
They were in love. They wanted each other. It was enough.
“Anyway, I’ve gotta go call my sister and tell her to pack her suitcase. I’m leaving in five hours! Take care of Pete for me, okay?”
The bird in question was asleep in its cage. Alicia had no idea that birds snored until living with Pete. “No problem.”
Alicia texted Danica while Candice ran about the apartment, throwing things into her own bag. “My roommate’s going out of town for the weekend. You should bang me on her bed.”
She didn’t expect to get a response so quickly. “Love to, but I told you I’m in Manhattan this weekend.” Not “New York City” or even “NYC,” but she had to specify Manhattan. “Touch yourself while thinking of me instead.”
Alicia could do that. She did that, anyway.
Her phone vibrated again. “Will you be alone?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. Stay safe. I love you.”
Did she have to sound so ominous about it? Alicia picked up her book and resumed her reading, the phrase stay safe replacing every other sentence in her story.
That night, Alicia dreamed of the only thing that mattered to her anymore. Danica, holding her in her arms and whispering in her ear. Even in her dreams, she could smell her flowery perfume. It was as much a part of her as Danica was now.
“Will you marry me, Alicia?” she asked, her voice so soft that it felt like a breeze pressing upon her eyes and lips. “There is no other woman. Only you. Tell me no, and I will die.”
In her dreams, this was a valid thing to say. “Of course, Danica.” Alicia looked down at her hand and saw more than the emerald ring. She saw a wedding ring, as pure and clear as her love for Danica. “Why wouldn’t I marry you?”
Things change quickly in dreams, especially ones that are built on the heart’s innermost desires and the soul’s abundant fantasies.
Alicia went from wearing a simple white wedding gown to the sort of luxurious cocktail dress she was now used to wearing.
She sat at a dining table, ornate with golden candlesticks and silver platters full of scrumptious food prepared by the live-in chef.
Sitting across from her was a young woman.
No, a girl. A teenage girl with such perfect posture and the heavy look of all the successful family members who came before.
“You can stop studying for ten minutes to eat dinner with us,” Alicia said. Her heart was divided between concern and undying love for this girl. My daughter! So studious. So hardworking. So like her other mother.
“I cannot,” the girl said, her hatred for contractions hopefully nothing more than a silly phase. “The Warner girl is five points ahead of me in mathematics. If I am to acquire the summer internship before her, I must beat her at her own logistical games.”
Alicia sighed, in frustration and in pride. “Don’t beat her too badly. Your mother has been spending the past two months trying to arrange a marriage between her sister and your brother. We need her to be hale in spirits and healthy in body.”
“Which brother?”
“Does it matter?” The boys were so close in age that either one was a candidate for the heir of the only other family that truly rivaled the Moreaus in wealth and social prosperity.
Soon, the table was full of both familiar and unknown faces.
The Colberts arrived, Alicia’s parents rattling their grandchildren with good humor, never able to truly go head-to-head with someone of a Moreau’s aloof genetics.
Terrence, battered by his conditions but still chipper enough to come to these dinners, played games with the two boys at the far end of the table.
The oldest daughter continued to study as if no one else were there. The youngest? She clung to her mother’s legs, the poor thing still so shy, even though she was in kindergarten.
“Precious.” Danica sat at the head of the table, flanked by candlesticks. “I love you.”
They held hands on the table, Alicia so content that she didn’t flinch when Mrs. Colbert lit one of the candles and promptly set the tablecloth on fire.
The children screamed, but did not run. The oldest girl subjected herself to fate with a resigned look that was classically Moreau.
The boys retreated into their video games while Terrence shielded them from the first burst of flames.
Linda grabbed the baby and shrieked in terror when her husband lit up like one of the candles.
“What have you done?” Alicia asked her wife. They were the only ones untouched by the flames that ravaged their family.
It was not her wife looking back at her. It was the man not invited to the family dinner.
“Goodbye, Ms. Colbert.”
Alicia looked across the table. Julia Moreau sat in the chair that the oldest girl once occupied. “I told you,” she said, shaking her head. “You didn’t listen. You didn’t run when I told you to.”
A coughing fit snapped Alicia out of her dream. She kept coughing.
And coughing.
She couldn’t breathe.
Nor could she see. Her room was so full of smoke that it was a miracle she wasn’t dead.