ᴸᴬᵁᴿᴱᴺ
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My fucking heart hurts.
"Christmas is around the corner," the green-eyed man announces with a touch of excitement; tipping over to the living room with a bottle of champagne. "...I think we should, you know...decorate at least." He chug back his drink, grinning at the familiar yet, unfamiliar taste.
For some reason it taste...richer. Though, if I am being honest, Christmas has some time to present itself.
Halloween is only weeks away, and so is Thanksgiving.
I scoff, sensing that buzz; buzzing up, "This is a big place, Harry. Christmas will be over by the time we finish decorating." He found that funny...
Hilarious, even.
"Yeah, you're probably right," he agrees as I observed my reflection in the crystal wine glass. His voice melts in the background the more I peer into the glass. Tears showed their way in my eyes; I saw firsthand my vision gets unclear–and that's exactly how I feel. I blink but it gave me mercy by not falling over. The only thing I am clear of is...I miss her. So freaking much.
I miss her springtime brown eyes, her curly long hair, her luscious lips, and her soft and gentle hands. Is this lust? Or is it love that I am feeling? I don't know, and right now, I don't care.
I am an idiot when I'm tipsy...
"Uh, yeah, Harry, sounds like a plan," I chimed in, not really trying to be rude; but surely, that's how it came off. I'm sure he couldn't tell. He's very, very tipsy. "I'll be right back, okay? I just have to use the restroom."
He checks my face out before saying, "Uh, okay. Are you alright?" I just nod and send him a slanted smile.
"Yeah, I'm just on my period. Cramps, so." I stood up, heading around the corner of the couch. He says: cool, as a quiet response, not really knowing what to say to that. Good–no...great. I nearly tumble over my feet in to the bathroom, as I flick the lights on. I push myself off the door frame, executing a deep sigh.
I whip out my phone from my back pocket; my hands felt a certain surge. My heart is in my ears. The nerves is taking a quick swim through my body. I want to tell her off, but I did that yesterday evening. I'm sure she's keeping track of my behavior. And so far, it hasn't been the greatest. I'm horny, I'm distressed.
I miss her...
I stalked back to the living room; leaving my phone in the bathroom behind. I saw the brown-haired guy tip back his head for another drink as I grab my coat. He heard the ruckus and twist his head back at me. "Hey, where ever you are going," his words slurs a bit, and I pause on rushing towards the door, "Be safe."
I took him in for a moment, then blink, "Yeah, uh, I'll try Harry. Goodnight." I bid him, then thrust out the door; meeting a newer and cleaner corridor. I stare at the other door in front of me. I need to be sure that I would want to do this. Of course you are Lauren. Besides, handsome guy in there had already locked the door, the devil on my left shoulder says. Tell her off!
No, you've already done that. Don't make her more mad than before, the sweet voice reasoned. "Am I really that mess up?" I questioned myself with scowl on my face.
Yes, the two voices answered.
I tuck my head down, then palm my hands in my coat once I step outside. The cool air blew across my cheek, and I quickly shiver at the feeling. "Lauren!" My head snatch to the voice in my direction. Jeremiah? I asked myself. The hell is he doing here? Is she with him?
I feel myself become thrilled a little.
"Jeremiah?" I call back, as he take steps closer to me, cradle up in his own coat, "What are you doing here?"
He quietly laugh; as if saying: I know exactly what you are thinking. "Ms. Hamilton wanted me to watch you and make sure you wouldn't do anything stupid. Trust me or not, I just got here ten minutes ago."
I audibly gulp, gradually nodding my head. What I got from those two sentences was; she isn't with him. And she probably elsewhere, either busy with work or busy with someone else. Maybe she's looking for other girls to be her submissive. What if I told her off too hard?
"Wow, Normani was right," he cackles, weighing on his feet; shaking his head, "You do think way too much."
I buck my head back, appalled; my eyebrows knotted together, "I..I thought we couldn't call her by her first name?" Jeremiah bit his lip, tilting his head, mocking the same baffled expression on my face.
"Uh, who told you that?"
I think until it came to me. "Um, her assistant, Mya. Well, old assistant."
"Oh well, that's kind of true. Really it's just for people who works for her at the company. I've known her for years now. Her mama named her Normani, I'm going to call her Normani."
"But not in front of her?" I slurred just a bit. Shiet! I really don't want him reporting back everything he heard and saw to her. His chin lift up and I knew he had questions.
"Bitch, are you drunk?"
"–What?! No," I shook my head, and I could've sworn my whole brain shook with me, too. "Hey, uh, can you take me to Vieux Carre Pizza? I'm hungry." I hold my blink, thinking that would make it all better. I waited for his response but I didn't get one. His brown eyes tells me something I don't know, and his comfortable posture became tense.
"I, uh, don't thin–"
"Take me there. Now!"
•¥•
oмnιѕcιənт
Lauren waited as she tiredly lays back on the soft-cushion booth with her arms folded. The last customers had vanish into thin air thirty-something minutes ago. It was just muffled chatters between the workers, and mild blues humming from the jukebox. It wasn't until the door bursted open that made her heart race a mile per second. Her mind thought she was a in the middle of a robbery, already putting her hands up.
"Ma, are you fucking serious? Whatever you had to say was so important that you couldn't tell me while on the phone?" Even as harsh as that sentence sound, her tone was still cool, calm, and collected. She took more steps towards the register that her mother was standing at.
Andrea, streaming, of course, doesn't let that bother her. Instead she gently says, "Norm–"
"Normani what?!"
"–Look!"
Her mother's finger points at the latina, then she turns her way; her world stopping immediately. Lauren melts more into the seat while Normani just stood there with her body twisted halfway. This is the first time Lauren had ever seen her stuck. Her heart pumps overly hard then explodes only to do it again. "Jeremiah brought her here. I believe she wanted to see you."
Normani blinks, "You wanted to see me..."
"No," Lauren disagrees across the restaurant, and over the gentle blues; fiddling in the background, "I was just hungry."
"So why come to this pizza place?" she easily countered back, slowly beginning to walk her way. Lauren lets her head fall down, allowing herself to fidget with her nails as her boss sat down in front of her. Blinking her eyes at the cash register; it seems the other two has left.
"It's closer I guess," she tells her then swallows. For some reason she's always swallowing around her.
Normani laughs, looking away. "But you moved a little farther away from here..."
"It's not that far!"
"Your old apartment building is only fifteen minutes away. Where you're now is thirty-five minutes away."
The latina wants the laugh. The itch in her funny bone really wants to let go as she tries fights her smile back.
"I hope you know you're jerk," she remarks, her pink lips tripping over her laughs. The woman across from her just smiles while shaking her head as she proceed to crack up. Her laughing lines are drawn around her mouth. Normani had then stop smiling, taking her all in. Latter, her sighing.
"You know," she begin, rubbing under her lip, "I was beginning to think you didn't want to do be with me anymore. As my submissive..." Lauren ability to read her is somewhat impossible. Her cinnamon eyes are shielded completely; her face is straight as usual.
"I have a contract with you. I can't leave. Even if I wanted to." The cuban saw how her boss shoulders took a breath of relief. "You know that."
"But, uh," Lauren drags out then her throat went bare, which made her cleared her throat. And of course, that simple action made her appear to be nervous, "I–I did want to see you." Lauren looks up at her, then puts her head back down at the intense eye contact, "–But not for what you think, though."
Normani nods very slowly once then, unimpressively comment, "Oh, really?"
"Yeah, not the I miss you kind. More of, wanted to see you because it's something important," she tries to reason with herself.
Normani started clenching her jaw tightly; leaning her head a little to the side, "Yeah?" she asked, "Then spill the beans, little one..." Lauren kept her eyes distracted on her lips, catching a glimpse of her boss's tongue run over them. Clearing her throat, she look back down.
"Am I in trouble...for my behavior yesterday?"
"Oh, very much so." The business woman countered without a blink of hesitation. "You were highly brave, Lauren. The moving out situation," she pauses, "I'm not going to count that since I planned it. But...the shutting the door in my face–and interrupting me."
Lauren sighs, closing her eyes, "I'm–"
"I don't tolerate any disrespect!" Lauren body jumped and her eyelids flutter at the loud clapped on the table. As her breathing tries to goes back to normal, she watch her boss's brown eyes dance and notice how dark they are. "I understand if I made you upset but, don't ever, and I mean ever disrespect me like that. I'm going to give you mercy, so your color is yellow–"
Yellow? Lauren thought.
"–It was on red. But if I hadn't done that, then you wouldn't have disrespected me."
Lauren breathing came back to its normal state, and she quietly tells her, "I wasn't upset, I–...my feelings were just hurt. But I wasn't upset."
"In the beginning, you were clearly upset," Normani casually confirmed. "Did you even read the contract? Or did you just read what you wanted to read?"
Lauren threw her head back, squishing her eyes shut, then she let out a tired breath. "I...never felt anything like this before...Ms. Hamilton. I don't know how you do it. You're mysterious. You are attractive, you say all the right things. Maybe it's just me–"
"It's not just you. I find you gorgeous, too gorgeous to sum up in words. When you rushed into this place, you took my breath away." Lauren head snatch up within a beat; thinking her ears playing her for an idiot. "You're cute, you're persistent. I'm sure you have more qualities to you as well."
Lauren holds her gaze, "..Just one question. Do you at least feel something for me?" If she doesn't know now, then it's going to keep eating at her, alive. She want to know if the feelings she's experiencing aren't one-sided. That she isn't necessarily alone in–whatever this is.
Normani, she blinks; twice, before taking a lick at her lips, "You make me feel things I haven't felt in years."
"I don't like like you, but...you're very beautiful person, inside and out. Anyone would kill to be with you." She delicately added, making sure that statement she made five seconds earlier didn't fly over her head. "I know I would if we met on different circumstances."
Lauren perks her lips; making a face, her eyes falling everywhere but Normani's. "I'm doing it again, huh?"
"You're quite the charmer," she countered with a grayly chuckle, then asked, "How come your previous woman never made you feel anything? I'm sure you picked the best of the best woman's."
The chocolate-skinned woman nods, peeking out the large window; seeing the trees leaves being blown. It was just a short pause; a minor distraction before she decided to answer her question. "Indeed, they were."
It happens again. That briefly break, then sniff as she swallows down nothing. "Of course, the girls were as beautiful as you. But the reason why I didn't fall was because–they wanted what I wanted. Pleasure."
Lauren's face twist at that, "They didn't care to get to know you?" Her voice was so little, so child–like; it made a smile bless Normani's lips as she chuckles.
"They only cared about the places I was sending them where their significant other couldn't," she strictly told her with the slight roll of her eyes, as well as a rash act of raising her shoulders. "It didn't bother me."
Lauren leaned her head back against the booth, then analyze everything feature on her look. The long curls stays down on both sides; swaying whenever she move her head. Her torso sported a beige, thick turtle neck, and below, she's wearing one of her work pants. Just a different color.
She looks...delicious.
Like a nice, tall glass of chocolate milk.
With her being so silly, she actually pictured herself; having a full-blown conversation with a glass of tall, good-looking milk. She begin to start smiling widely, eyes squinted and all. "What's so funny?"
Lauren completely lost it, tapping the table with her hands when she saw the glass of milk talk. "You look great. And funny, but mostly great." Lauren watch as the woman across from her, stare at her with a look; physically spatting, she's crazy. "I'm tired, okay?"
Normani raise her eyebrows in response to that lame statement, then turn her body to stand. "Rightt," she dragged out while holding in her laugh. "Maybe if you stayed your sleepy ass at home, you would be sleeping peacefully right now."
Lauren opted to jut out her bottom lip; all the while, luring shining, chestnut eyes. Just as quick as she look, she removed them, shifting her jittery eyes around the scraped up marbled floor. "I was hungry."
Normani almost had an heart-attack when she felt the warmth clouding around her heart; sealing up the daft up wounds. It hurts more than it makes her feel alive.
She can't get at mad anyone but herself, because she knew exactly what she signed up for when she chose the latina to be her submissive. She couldn't subtract herself away from her. It was this casual pull you get when you see the love of your life. "Yeah," she said in nothing but coldness. "It's best I take you home."
It wasn't harsh, it was more distant.
More stand-offish.
And as Lauren stands up, making sure to not feel hurt with her tone, she says, "And from now on we proceed like we are suppose to proceed. Dom and Sub. If I can push what I feel for you away, then you should learn how to push yours away, too. I understand how you feel, believe it or not..."
"You do?..."
Normani scoffs lightly, "I wasn't born, cold and dark. Love and I wasn't so inevitable once."
Lauren felt sympathy for her and she doesn't even have a clue to what happened to her. "Why do you fear love so much? Did something happen to you–"
"Lauren, I'd rather not."
"It's not about me, or my feelings anymore. Or it isn't about the fact that I sometimes daydream about both of us holding hands without an issue." That sentence alone almost made Normani burst out into a smile.
It was the weirdness of it, mainly. "I'm not asking you that because; oh, I need to figure out why you are not interested in me enough to ever date me. It is because I care to know how the fuck you can just push your feelings away like that."
Normani weakly release a sigh while throwing her head back; frustrated on to why she can't keep her emotions in fucking check. "That is the problem, Lauren–I need you to not care. I need you to be more like me. I need you to...t-to not be you. I need to be more wrong than ever!"
"Wrong about what, Ms. Hamilton?" It's breaking her heart to see the beauty fight her emotions. She wants to cradle her in her tiny arms and kiss the demons, or what ever she seems to be battling, away. But that may only add fuel to the flames. It evident that she doesn't want any type of emotional connection, as the latina accusation is more than correct. The drive in wanting to know even more about her stop once she saw the driver coming from the shadows of the restaurant.
"I'll have Jeremiah take me–"
"No!" she spat out with a bark, slightly cringing at her tone. "I already said I would take you home. Let's go."
_
Lauren's heart feels for steady and healthier for the most part as they cruise down the New Orleans street in her boss's 1972 Gran Torino; her ears quickly falling in love with the classic, old jam. It has something to do with being in her presence. It felt right–looking over at her side-profile with her right hand steering the wheel, while her seat is leaned back to some degree that made Lauren scared for her safety. But then watching her in her element made her worries go away. Now, she looks sexy as hell driving–without seatbelt, she may add.
Me and my niggas be rolling
Scheming on you and your homies.
The very first day of summer,
All chromed our in a hummer babe.
The more Lauren sat there and soaked in the seat, the more she fell in love with this feeling. "You know, you shouldn't talk to your mom that way." Lauren stares at the light as Normani glance at her, then focus back on the road. "My mother would kill me if I talked to her like that. You only get one mother, Ms. Hamilton."
"Believe it or not, she deserves it." Lauren turns to her again, feeling the vehicle slow down at the red light.
Lauren doesn't know her situation with her mother, so she wouldn't dare shove that; she's still your mother bull-shit down her throat. Mothers are wrong, too. "If you don't mind me asking–" Normani rolled her shoulders back, showing she is tired of the interrogation, "Have you forgiven her for whatever she has done?"
It takes her a while to come up with a response; that question visibly making her hands sweaty. "Yeah."
"Then why all the hostility? If you forgave her, then what's done is done." Lauren shrugged, looking back out at the streets. It's truly beautiful, being here.
"I love my mother," she spoke firmly, as if she is trying to get Lauren to not disrespect her. And from the tone of it, she definitely does. "Or love what she use to be."
Lauren squints her sensitive eyes at the bright yellow lights, hugging around one of the streetlights. "I miss her...a lot. I miss the good days. Back to when she was stress as hell, yet she still gave me a smile, and tucked me in bed like there wasn't a flaw in the world. Back when she was my mother. Us against the world..."
Lauren spoke, "She must've been a strong woman."
"Indeed, she was." She heavily agreed with her, no one could take that away from her mother–no one. Not even her. At one point in her life, she wanted her mother to kiss the very ground that she walked on. "Still is, even after dealing with me. You're right. I'd slapped the shit out of me. But she feel as if she deserves it. Sometimes she gets angry with me, most of the time she just turn her back and walk away, being the bigger person."
"And before you feel pity for her. She is actually one of the reason why I despise love, now. I forgave her, but it still...hurts. It...it hurts like hell, what she did to me."
Lauren's eyes blurred her vision, as it glints with tears and shine off of the lights. Little sweet ole' Andrea.
She couldn't imagine...
"In due time, you guys will work it out. But you have to be acceptable towards her. You have to understand her part of the story, just as well she understand yours."
"Thank you, Ms. Jauregui. I will be sure to pay for our next therapy sessions," she smiles.
"–Oh, shut up!" The cuban proclaims.
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After opening Lauren's door from the passengers side, she just stood there, in front of her. Kind of awkward.
"Tonight was...a bit overwhelming for me, and uh," she pauses, then feels over her curls; being that it is crinkly, so she couldn't exactly run through her curls. Flinching away from green eyes, she says, "And I apologize for my behavior tonight."
Lauren frowns ducking her head to see her face, but she gets fidgeting in return, "Oh...Ms. Hamilton. You don't–"
"It won't happen again." What? Lauren thought, "I do appreciate you being welcoming. But...I just wish you would respect my wishes and, try not to provoke. The agreement that we have will continue to stand. I want you to understand that...I am not fond of love."
Oh, I understand that very clearly.
The only thing Lauren can really do is smile, and move along with the agreement. But as she does so, she'll say this, "You chose me for a reason, Ms. Hamilton. And I don't know if...that reasoning is happening at this very moment, but...I can't be like you. Nor do I want to be. I can't just...wash my feelings away. But I will definitely try my best, and I won't mention my feelings anymore. Promise."
It was soft, gentle–genuine when she spoke; staring her hazel eyes into hers. She meant every word she said. It made the ebony woman feel quite terrible.
Who is she to try and force someone to look out from her perspective? Everyone needs love. Or they'll start looking for love from somewhere or something else.
"And with all due respect; if you can't figure it out now, then later you will." Normani just blinks at her loss for words, as she had just been read. She feels violated.
But she whispers, "Goodnight, Lauren."
"...Goodnight, Ms. Hamilton."
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