A Hanging

Signs of Interest 12

A Hanging

Goldie yawned. Again. She was sure her jaw was going to crack. Soon. This sexual tension thing sucked rocks. Despite cuddling with her at the restaurant, the night had been frustrating again. She sleepless in her bed, Justin sleepless on the couch. He'd squirmed as much as she had; the couch squeaked.

"So, I love it, Goldie!"

Goldie fought to bring her attention back to reality and not on sex. "Really?" she asked, squinting at the teddy bear with sword, whom Susie, after talking to Justin, had hung in a place of honor for her gallery with a title below it, "Signs of Interest."

"It sucks," Goldie replied turning to walk out into the sunshine.

Susie frowned but didn't follow her. "She's like that, Justin. Don't worry. She mostly focuses on what she's currently painting. Most pieces she's finished she finds lacking. I guess she's a perfectionist where her painting goes. She's never happy with any of them."

"You know her father?" Justin asked, keeping one eye on Goldie.

Susie frowned. "Maybe," she replied cautiously.

Justin set his jaw, sucking air through his nose. "Don't fence with me. You'll lose."

"Look, Goldie's my friend. Don't put me in the middle." Susie glared at him.

"Does he come here to see her work?" he asked, ignoring her attitude.

She did him the courtesy of giving it some thought. "Once or twice he's come. At Goldie's invitation."

"If he shows up or even just calls, you let me know immediately. You do not do anything else first. Not even sneeze. Anyone else gets interested in that painting I want to know right away. I own it. And I'm who you talk to about selling it."

Susie crossed her arms on her chest. "You know, you could ask, instead of demand. But sure. I'll call you."

"You set it up this way, not wanting to get in the middle. Deal with it." He almost snarled. "You and every other so called friend she has letting her father keep using her."

Susie's mouth dropped open. "You can only tell her about her father so many times, you know. She loves him, she doesn't want to hear bad things about him. I'd rather not hurt her if I can avoid it," Susie replied.

He gave a short laugh. "Yeah. Tell me, what does he say about her work?"

"Not a lot. He thinks she should paint landscapes. He doesn't like nudes much."

"Yeah. Mostly because she paints them better than Botticelli's angels and he can't compete."

Susie raised an eyebrow. "I hadn't realized you liked her work that much. Or that you appreciated it so much."

"It's hard not to once you look at it."

"Oh, a lot of people look at it and think it's just... not something they'd want to display in their houses. You know, above the couch where kiddies and grandma sit."

"Nor the bedroom where they have this haunting sense of all that might have been if they were just brave enough."

Susie's lips twitched. "More like they know they aren't that gorgeous so why have to compete."

He shook his head. "No. It's that they have come to believe they aren't. If they believed differently...eroticism is about self, beginning in the self and a willingness to share it without holding back this part or that because it isn't gorgeous."

Susie cocked her head and regarded Justin for a time. "Don't break her heart. She hasn't had much luck with love."

"Luck has nothing to do with it. Not that she'll ever have to worry about it again...once she decides to trust me."

"Trust. Ah... She's pretty slow to trust anyone," Susie replied. "Justine is pretty much it on that front."

"I'm willing to wait."

"Good. Give her space, too."

"What are you two jabbering about?" Goldie asked from the doorway, frowning.

"Eroticism and trust," Justin said, moving towards her.

Goldie opened her mouth then shut it. "Right. So, we done here?" she asked Justin.

He bent and nibbled at her earlobe, letting his breath wash over it. "Would you like us to be?"

Susie's eyes opened wide and Goldie blushed scarlet.

"Uhm, yeah," Goldie replied, gabbing Justin's hand and tugging him toward the door.

"Bye you two! I'll call if anyone shows an interest," Susie called out after them, laughing as she did so.

"Where are you taking me to, baby girl?"

"Well, today's my day to dress up and show tourists how women used to spin. I'm not sure what you're going to do while I do that. I need to be there by noon."

"I'll watch you spin," Justin said easily. "We can grab a couple of sandwiches from the deli on the way to your place so you can change."

"Nothing bad can happen to me there, you know. Don't you have to, like, check in at work?"

"Luc's taking care of it," he said.

"Hmmm." Goldie led him over to her Mini Cooper and waited patiently while he folded himself into it. "I still don't see why you think someone will want that particular painting."

"I have excellent taste," he told her leaning over and nuzzling her throat, tasting her as he dotted kisses along the blue vein pulsing down to her collarbone.

"Hey, I'm driving here," Goldie protested. "Last night it was all, don't touch me. Do you have a hang up about sex?"

"Nope. How about you? You hung up about sex or do you fantasize about whips and chains?" He moved back to her ear. "Have you ever been tied up and teased and loved until you begged?"

Goldie whipped the Mini through the back narrow streets of town. "No, I don't fantasize about whips and chains. And no, I've never been tied up. It sounds horrible."

"No? What about fur lined cuffs and feathers?"

"How many times have you used fur lined cuffs and worn feathers?" Goldie asked.

"You don't wear the feathers, baby."

"Oh, that is sick."

"What? You use them like this, " He trailed his fingertips over the skin of her shoulder to demonstrate.

She shivered. "Don't. I'm .. I get that they're to tickle. But .. And you let someone handcuff you?"

"Not tickle. Seduce. Arouse. Slowly, very, very slowly."

"You keep avoiding the question!" Goldie replied as she pulled into her parking spot at her apartment. "So you let someone handcuff you, or are you just one of those guys who want to do it to your partner?" She met his eyes as she shut off the car.

"I'll let you do anything you want to me," he said, meeting her eyes. "And I'll do anything you want to you."

"You are such a tease," she replied as she got out of the car.

He was out of the car in a flash and backed her against it, his body not touching her, even as it caged her between him and the car. "Not about that," he said, eating her with his eyes as they traveled over her body slowly. They slowed at her breasts watching as her nipples hardened into points then continued on to vee of her jeans. "I can smell your arousal, baby. I bet you're all wet and swollen and hot." He stepped closer, letting his pelvis brush hers, letting her feel how hard he was, rocking into her, rubbing against her, his eyes going dark and predatory at the low moan she couldn't control. "What ever you want. Whisper it in my ear, send me a note or scream it out while I'm learning every inch of your skin with the tip of my tongue."

"I've told you I want you," she whispered, her eyes closed, her breath ragged. "You know I want you. I don't know how else to show you, to convince you."

"I want more than your body, angel," he said, "more than just a few weeks or months until you get scared and run. I want it all and I want it forever and I won't settle for less."

"God, Justin! How do I know ... How can you know? I know I want you more than I've ever wanted another man. I know you make my knees weak when you touch me."

"Is that all you want, baby? Weak knees? 'Cause I'm offering you something much better. I'm offering you a home, right here in my arms, for as long as we live. Accept that, trust that and you'll get the weak knees too."

She stared into his eyes as if she thought she might figure out how to read inside it. "I ... Is this what love is? Leaping off a cliff with your heart in your throat?"

He nodded. "Believing I'll catch you. I'll always catch you."

"I believe that," she whispered.

His mouth was back at the pulse in her throat, laving it with his tongue, his breathing ragged, a scalding wind moving possessively over her skin, soaking into her, claiming her pore by pore. "Then what are you going to do?"

"Wait," she murmured and gave him a little shove, breaking the kiss, and loosening his grip. She took several deep breaths. "I can't think when you do that. And you keep wanting me to think. You don't want it just as an emotional thing, or at least that's how it seems to me. You want a commitment. I get that. But ... but you keep saying I have to agree to forever and give up the idea of running away. Right?"

He rubbed her nose with his and sighed. "Agree is the wrong word in some ways," he said after he got his breathing under control. "Accept is perhaps better. You would be bound to me and I to you. Mentally as well as physically. You would be unable to run. Not successfully, anyway."

"And it's that way with Justine and Luc?"

"Yes. She is aware of the mental bond, but is wary of it, I think. I doubt she's considered the implications. For her it doesn't matter. For you it does." He took a step back so she was no longer trapped between him and the car. "I'm still a cop. I'm still hunting. And the outcome might not make you do the happy dance."

"See, that's what I don't get. How can you be just a cop and claim to have some sort of mental bonding thing that I've never heard of, well, beyond some weird novels."

He grinned. "Even where I come from there's still bad guys, baby. Human nature is still the same and the seven deadly sins are alive and well and reproducing. Your branch of our species, for lack of a better way to put it, has the potential for many things you haven't achieved yet, but may someday. And there are many things you've lost, because they were no longer needed or became feared. It doesn't take godhood."

"And yet your branch can bond with mine? You'll... uhm, be inside my head somehow?" She turned a bit grayish.

"Yes."

She leaned weakly against the car. "I don't want anyone to know all the things I think."

He wasn't surprised. "It's not like that. It is more an intimacy, a joining or merging of two, though thoughts and memories are shared as well. It would be like being a shadow in your mind, a presence you no more aware of most of the time than you are of the air against your skin. A private place, a private channel for mates to share and talk and love."

"Justin," Goldie said softly, after she'd considered what he'd said, "how can anyone who hasn't ever even imagined such a thing was possible, rationally choose it?" She put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm an emotional creature. It's why I paint, I expect. Rationality has never been my strong suit."

"It's not a rational thing. Accepting it, acknowledging it and committing to it is, even when driven by the need, the imperative to mate, to claim each other so that no other will ever encroach on what you know to your soul belongs to your soul belongs to you alone. That your mate was created for you alone, fits you like no other ever could." He sighed again, took another step back from her as he fought the urge to just take her and end the torment.

"You have to face your fears, baby. Name them out loud and force them into the light of day. There's never any guarantees. But there's always hope and trust."

"And you believe I'm the only one in the universe for you?" Goldie asked.

"No, baby, I don't. I know it."

Goldie frowned. "How? How do you know it?"

"Because of how I feel, how I react to you. Add that to the fact that I grew up in a culture, a society, where this is normal, it's expected, hoped for, craved even."

"But how I feel and react to you isn't enough," she said. "What is enough? Naming my fears? That's easy: abandonment, lying."

"Now face them." He paused for a moment, knowing what he risked. "And the denial they spawn."

"But..." she frowned. "I don't understand. I've never abandoned anyone. And I tell the truth as I know it. What denial?"

He shook his head. "Don't you need to change for your spinning demonstration?"

"Grrr," she said and marched off toward her bedroom. "I hate people who tell you something in code but won't be open and face you about it."

He whirled, stopping her, anger flashing. "I've told you that way too. Do you want to hear it again? That your father's a low life sleaze who uses you and you let him because you're desperate for him to love you and not abandon you like your mother did. And you refuse to see he can't abandon you because he was never there for you in the first place. You think you're unlovable because you know deep down he doesn't love you and you think it's your fault. And every time anyone tries to tell you the truth about it, you shove them away and run and hide You think your art is crap because on your worst day you're light years more talented than he is and he knows it and he hates it. So you buy into his bullshit to make him feel better."

She stood there shaking, pale. "Jesus, you're worse than a therapist."

Justin didn't budge. "No. I'm your mate and I'd kill to keep you from being hurt. But the hurt your father causes you I can't protect you from. Only you can do that and you're too terrified to do it. You're afraid you'll be alone. Trouble is, you already are."

"I thought I had you," she breathed.

"You do, but what does it matter if you don't trust me? If you believe I'll abandon you the first time things get tense? You've got one eye on the exit baby, figuring how to stay safe, to not get hurt, just like you always do. So you only let me get so close and no closer. And you stay alone and lonely, two feet from the thing you crave, but can't let yourself let go of the doorknob to have."

"Yeah, he's scum. But he's still my father. Just because he'd abandon me, doesn't mean I should abandon him, Justin. I don't want to be like him. Or my mother. He's my responsibility. I volunteered for it. Now you want me to just wash my hands of him?"

"I want you to stop protecting him at your expense. Stop taking responsibility for him. It isn't your job."

Goldie sniffled. "I can't just abandon him, Justin. Not even for you. Don't ask me to do that."

He shook his head. "I didn't."

"Then what?"

"My talents do not include precognition. You need to change."

"Oh, I need to change." She was angry now. "How many times I've heard that from guys. How many women have said that to their men. Why can't you take me as I am. Accept me as I am? Warts and all?" She wanted to scream. "I'm not asking you to change."

"Baby, I meant for the spinning thing. Your clothes," he said, amusement plain.

She blushed bright red and pushed past him, marching into her bedroom and slamming the door behind her.

He laughed.

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