It’s only two days late. I’ve been stressed out. Life has been chaotic and painful and impossible, and such things can throw off a woman’s cycle.
It’s only two days.
Nothing to worry about.
A week and a half late.
I’m refusing to panic. Refusing to worry. Burying my head in the sand. Not even thinking about it. Any of it.
If I let myself start thinking about it, I will lose all control over everything. I’m unbalanced. Tripping along the edge of a cliff, arms windmilling wildly.
But I know, deep down, that I am going to fall.
With my period now two weeks late, I find myself ill in the morning. Nauseous. Stomach roiling. Sometimes I barely make it to the toilet. Fortunately, Logan is an early riser and follows a regular routine: up at five, eat a quick breakfast and drink a cup of coffee, then upstairs to work out. In the shower by seven, out the door to work by eight, in the office by eight thirty, usually.
My illness—I know the term, but refuse to think it—usually happens around six thirty. While Logan is in the gym upstairs. Sometimes later, while he’s in the shower. Or after he’s gone. It hasn’t happened while he’s been around to see it. He’d know what it means—what itmightmean.Couldmean.
He has me stay at his house, working from home. Writing out lesson ideas for my business, creating materials, my own version of the informational pamphlet Indigo clients received.
The sickness usually passes once I’ve vomited, but I have to eat directly after. Light food. Fruit, an egg-white omelette, tea. No cheese; I tried, and my stomach rebelled, which is odd because I usually love cheese. I tried a sandwich for lunch one day and couldn’t keep the lunch meat down. Or, no red meat. White meat was fine. But not red. No red meat, no cheese, nothing too salty or too sweet. Bland food, then. Unusual, once again, because I typically prefer rich, flavorful food.
My moods are unpredictable, too.
Weepy and sad one moment, for no reason. Irritable the next. Giddy and manic another.
I steadfastly refuse to consider what it all might mean.
Logan comes home early from work one day, when I’m nearing three weeks late. Lays a garment bag across the back of the couch and just grins at me.
I put on the dress. It’s sexy, alluring, a little risqué for my usual taste, but I decide I like it. Black, low cut, edgy lines, a slit up the left thigh nearly to my hip, fabric gathered tight across my torso into a bunch over my left hip.
When I emerge wearing the gown, Logan’s eyes go wide and rake over me. And, for the first time in nearly a month, there’s lust in his gaze. Not that it’s been absent all this while, but he hides it. Tamps it down, refuses to act on it.
This time, he slides close to me, wraps a palm around my back, low, just above my buttocks, and tugs me against his front. “Gorgeous, Isabel.”
“Thank you,” I say. Breathe a moment, feel his heart thumping, feel his fingers dimpling against my spine, edging lower to the swell of my bottom. “What’s the occasion?”
“A business associate of mine had extra tickets to an opera performance at the Lincoln Center tonight. I managed to wangle a table at a fancy dinner place near it, so we’ve got a fun night out.”
“Opera sounds delightful. I’ve always wanted to attend a performance”
Logan shrugs, makes a face. “I dunno. Opera isn’t really my thing, I don’t think, but you don’t turn down free seats to the Lincoln Center, especially not when they’re prime seats. So we’ll go and be fancy.”
I notice now that he’s changed into a tuxedo, and has replaced his eyepatch with a black one that somehow adheres to his face without a strap. The tux is bespoke, with glintingsapphire and titanium cuff links, an expertly tied bow tie. Hair slicked back, bound low at his nape. He looks sleek, elegant, and powerful. Virile. Indigo eye matching the jewels in his cuff links. Indeed, his eye is brighter, more arresting and iridescent than the sapphire.
He reaches into the inside pocket of his tuxedo, pulls out a long thin box: a necklace, sapphire and titanium to match his cuff links, and his eye. He glides behind me, and I can suddenly feel him everywhere. His heat, his hard body looming behind me. His hands tickling across my breastbone, laying the gleaming blue pendant just above my cleavage, clasping it at my neck. Setting the box aside, reaching into his trouser pocket for another box, this one smaller, and square. Earrings, to complete the set. Gentle, sure, nimble fingers sliding the post through my earlobe, attaching the back.
And then his palms are carving down my hips. Pulling me back against him. Lips to my ear. Not whispering or speaking or kissing, just a momentary resting of his lips against my ear, a pause on their downward journey. Back of my ear, the knob of bone just there. And then to my neck. The curve where neck becomes shoulder. Feather-light kisses. Drifting touches of his lips.
Goose bumps pebble my skin.
My nipples ache.
Thoughts leave me.
He continues to press soft slow careful kisses onto my skin, neck, shoulder, my back where the cut of the dress leaves my flesh bare. And his fingers, at my hips, gathering the fabric of the dress. The hem rises. Rises. I gasp and focus on his kisses, and on the cool air on my bare flesh as the hem of the dress glides upward.
Breathing becomes difficult, then.
