A Bloom of Darkness

It was nice, being able to allow my emotions and my moans so freely. And to likewise hear Arthur's.

That time was so full of joy and bliss and love, and yes, at times grief. But it made me nearly forget that first time, well, the lack of control anyway. Nothing else bizarre like that happened again. Not with him. But then on my way home one night, out of nowhere someone ran into me.

I would have sworn for all the world there hadn't been anyone else on the road. The other driver must have had their headlights off, it was the only explanation. It wasn't really all that forceful, but it still scared the shit out of me. I pulled over, and they followed suit, at first. Their lights were on now and I could tell it was some kind of muscle car. In the dark of the night it looked black, like most everything else.

In my rearview mirror I could see that it was a woman. She held my gaze in the mirror, and in the dark of the night she was wearing these oversized, gaudy sunglasses. It was no wonder she'd ran into me! She started backing her vehicle up, further and further. I was starting to wonder if she was going to sneakily keep backing away until she simply disappeared.

Then her headlights switched off. The road was a long straightaway out in the country. There were a couple miles to go yet before she could simply disappear. Honestly I was at a loss about what to do. I knew not to get out of my car, but that was about it. My heart was beating against my chest, almost painfully so. The initial jarring shock of being propelled and rattled out of nowhere still hadn't worn off. I kept forcing myself to take deep breaths, desperately trying to calm down.

I decided to drive home. Better than just sitting in the dark, and I hadn't heard anything fall off after all. Just as I turned my car on, her headlights flicked back on. But they weren't on the road. They were above it shining down and towards me. At least ten yards above and back from where I was. I know it was nearly pitch black, but I swear it was clear given the angle of the shining lights and how her muscle car roared down to me. It all happened impossibly fast; I didn't even have time to respond. By the time I'd put my own car in drive she was sidling up alongside me.

All I could do was stare over at her in horror as she leered at me from over her lowered sunglasses, revealing a blue fire where her eyes should have been. When she was far enough in front of me that she couldn't maintain that fiery stare, she roared her nightmarish chariot into gear, disappearing into the night.

I don't remember driving home.

He was waiting for me when I got there. I still hadn't given him my cell phone number and was yet to get his. It had become a little game between us, but that was going to change. My whole body was still shaking when I came through my bedroom door. He was a gentle medley of annoyed and indignant, until he saw me.

"Lucia, what happened?" His voice was tinted with nervous concern.

"Some crazy lady rear ended me. I... I think I'm fine. But she, her eyes were. I don't know." I didn't dare tell him just then. "She just took off, glaring at me."

"You didn't call the police?" He was already calling someone himself.

"The car looks fine. It just, I don't know! It was weird. Bad weird. And creepy."

His face paled as he hung up on whoever he'd just called. "What happened? I don't care how crazy you sound, Lucia. I'll believe you. Now tell me exactly what happened."

I believed him. And so I told him. Knowing he probably would think me crazy, I told him every detail. He had me sit down, saying something about needing to make some calls. A minute later he was back with a glass of water and tried wrapping one of my blankets around me.

"No, I'm still all gross from work," I absentmindedly objected.

He grumbled in a language of frustration I wasn't used to hearing from him. Looking up at him, somewhat nervously, his demeanor softened instantly.

"Let's get you cleaned up then." I cocked my head at him but didn't resist when he pulled me towards the bathroom.

If his plan was to distract me to get me to calm down- it worked.

No one else was home, like usual, but he still locked the door behind us. All of his movements were slow and purposeful. He turned the shower on before coming back to me, getting the bathroom steamy before we made it steamier. He put both his hands on either side of my face, holding me gently. Then he kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me.

I was nearly dizzy by the time he started to undress me, slowly pulling layers off, refusing to let me help. He moved to stand behind me, taking my bra off and spending a few minutes caringly massaging where the straps had pressed into and indented my skin. Ample breasts can wear on you after having to constrain them all day, especially after an entire sweaty shift in the grueling summer heat.

He unbuttoned my pants from behind me, slowly unzipping them and peeling them down. Kneeling behind me, he kissed the back of my legs as he uncovered them. The whole thing made me weak in the knees. I felt so much better already. He stood back up, his fingers tracing my legs and hips as he did so, coming to stand before me again.

When I tried to take my undies off, he caught my hands, stopping me. "I get to do that," he reprimanded, "when I'm ready, of course." Looking up at him and his darkened, wolf-like eyes, I could feel that familiar tingle in my pussy and my hardening nipples. I would have given anything for him to be ready, already! Again he slipped behind me, slipping his fingers into the scant, satiny fabric to find my silk-like folds. He groaned about as much as I did when he found my warmth and wetness. He felt so good, I really couldn't wait for him to be ready.

As I focused on that thought his hand swiftly retreated as he grabbed the material on both sides of my hips and yanked them down, making me gasp, and leaving me entirely nude. He slid the shower door back for me and told me to go ahead. "I'll be in as soon as I catch up."

It took him too long to catch up. I don't know what he was doing, but the hot water felt too good for me to be terribly upset about it. When the wait started to become untenable I grabbed my shampoo bottle, only hearing the shower door once he was closing it.

"Nope," he said as he took the bottle out of my hand. "That's my job tonight too, among a few others." He turned me around and washed my obnoxiously long hair for me. I couldn't remember the last time anyone had done that for me. It felt luxurious and lavish and for whatever reason made me desperately want to suck his cock. When I tried to, he kissed me and told me tonight was about me. That I would get him another time.

I wasn't sure when that could be. We only had another week before I was leaving. I'd been trying not to think about that though. I'd fallen for him hard, as much as I knew I shouldn't have. He finished washing my hair, conditioner and all, and soaped me up, slowly getting all the good, hard to reach places. He kept working me up, but never letting me cum.

"You're being mean," I grumbled into his ear as he pretended to continue washing my back, his hard cock bumping my stomach.

"What do you mean?" He genuinely seemed perplexed. His reaction honestly took me aback.

"I like making you happy! And I like how you feel on my tongue and lips. But you're not letting me because why? Do you think I don't enjoy it? Don't want to do it? And besides, you're teasing me. Getting me close and then... not!"

"I...." Without another word he picked me up, my legs moved instinctively around his waist and my arms wrapped around his neck as he guided himself into my pussy. One hand on my ass, he placed the other on the shower wall, using it as leverage as he bounced me up and down on his throbbing cock. I wanted more of him and leaned back, my shoulders now bumping against the wall. He pressed into me and grabbed my legs, hooking them over his arms as he took hold of me just above the knees and started pounding into me.

I was already so worked up. Within a minute I was cumming, my legs shaking uncontrollably as he firmly held them. My pussy was grabbing his cock as he continued his thrusts. Maybe it was the shower, the sounds, the sensations, or maybe it was the buildup- I don't know. But as his thrusts became frenzied, as he was just about to cum, he grabbed onto me harder than ever before, pressing his forehead to mine as our eyes met in that weird blurriness that comes with being too close. He growled as he came, groaning out to me, "You're mine, Lucia. Mine!"

I came again hearing his words.

He stayed over that night, and every night after. Nothing else strange happened that summer. I did have one weird dream. Rory was talking with Greg, my pet giant African millipede. In my dream I'd woken up and found them. Rory sitting in my desk chair, Greg on the desk, unfurled and attentive as he readily received spitfire commands. I asked them what they were doing. Rory came over to me and tucked me back in, telling me to sleep and not worry. Greg would take care of me. Funny thing that, but it made sense in the way that dreams sometimes can. Greg was one of the few things that would be coming along with me from my old life. Dreaming about him being my protector only made sense. It even made sense to me that Rory would be in on it. After all, he asked me the same night as the amazing shower sex if I was taking Greg with me when I left.

Vargr Biotech, Rory's family company, was actually funding my education. They sponsored several scholarships for local kids that were going into a science field. I was headed to Georgia, partly to get away from, well, a lot. I was majoring in biology with dual minors in applied biotech and mycology. Rory was going to our hometown's nearby state college, undeclared. That hadn't been the plan before his dad got sick, but apparently his family or the company wanted him nearby. It didn't make an awful lot of sense to me, but Rory always got a little defensive when I asked him anything about his family. Nothing too obvious. Nothing most people would even notice, just little tics really. Maybe that's why he liked me. I knew when to leave him alone.

That last day though, I don't how he didn't hate me. I was all packed but certainly not ready to go. He saw me off, being his usual stoic self. Definitely his family's influence. He was on edge about something though, and I think I was bothering him. Neither one of us was in terribly stellar shape that day. I didn't know how to say goodbye to him. I was a fucking mess and not entirely sure if I would even make it out of the state. What was I supposed to do? You don't start relationships right before going off to college, you end them! When I finally told him that's what was bothering me, he half-smiled and shook his head, as though he found something funny about it all.

"This isn't the end. You know that, right?" Annoyingly optimistic, stupid Rory and his handsome red hair and rugged good looks. Fuck. He just seemed so sure of it though.

It hurt leaving and being away from him. For a time the novelty of college helped. But about a month after classes started, I started to really hurt. My chest burned thinking about him, and us. The thought of not seeing him again, not feeling him again, not kissing him again.... The pain didn't go away, it only became more and more unbearable.

He texted a handful of times, but it only made it worse. The hurt would flare up, digging in and ripping me up. Destroying me time after time. I couldn't take it. And I couldn't take going through it again and again. So I blocked his number. When he started calling from other numbers I told him point blank to stop and that I couldn't take it. He tried to tell me I didn't understand and that I just needed to listen to him. But what was there to say? That he wanted to see me when I came home, for what? Winter break?

I didn't plan on going home. Ever.

Relentlessly he kept reaching out, sending flowers, gifts, letters. Even his mother started calling me. One night it was all simply too much.

He texted from a different number:

Lucia, please, take off with me. We'll drive across the country, see the world, and we'll never look back.

That caused a bit of a breakdown. I slowly crumpled to the floor of my dorm, mumbling to myself, asking why this pain in my chest wouldn't stop? Maybe it sounds extreme, but it was absolutely excruciating. I didn't understand it and I was dying for it to go away. I laid sobbing on that floor for hours, until I heard Greg tapping on the glass of his terrarium with a few of his digits. For whatever reason that roused me from my pain. Not much, but enough that I crawled into bed and passed out.

Rory didn't reach out again after that. Even when I did go home the summer after I graduated. Nothing. He'd actually made himself scarce. I was honestly kinda surprised he was allowed to. I'd only gone home for the banquet his family's company put on for the graduates of their scholarship program. By no means mandatory, but I very much wanted to work in their Washington branch, and I knew the woman running that place would be there. Rory should have been there. I'd mentally prepared myself for it. And then... nothing.

I'd thrown myself into my studies while at college. That had mostly helped. When I got to Washington though, that something missing started to push its way into the forefront of my mind more and more forcefully. I hadn't even thought about dating since that summer with Rory. That pain turned me off of it altogether. Not having to fuck around gave me a lot more time to study and work. Besides, whenever the mood would strike, I'd just take care of myself, and those feelings would usually subside.

There were the rare occurrences when they hadn't, and I was quickly reminded why I wasn't bothering. They all seemed so... thin. As partners, they weren't substantial. Always so shallow and constantly coming up wanting.

I know they say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. I eventually tried really giving that a go. But I was stupid about it. I was co-running a lab at the Washington branch and when my partner made a move on me, I let him. Then I kept letting him. He was good, hit all the right buttons physically, but we still didn't click like it had when I was younger. Chalking that up to puppy love or possibly the simple idiocy of youth, I assumed true love was only ever imagined. My inaction against our casual fucking slowly crept us into a relationship. Which in turn became a marriage.

By no means was he a bad match. Clever, witty, well read, not terrible looking, but he was always so worried about other peoples' opinions of him. He so desperately needed to check off boxes of the full human experience that he never really lived in any of the moments he'd worked so hard to get to. Everything was a chore, a thing to do, and once completed it was merely onto the next thing. No savoring, no existing, no simply being. As a scientist I see the obstacles, in my work and in my life, as not only a part of the experience, but as THE experience. Apparently he didn't enjoy coming along for the ride with me.

We were running our own section of the branch. There were about a dozen people under us and given our success, they were expanding our department. Private industry can be a marvel at times, when it comes to research anyway. I saw it as a blessing when they gave us an office assistant/secretary/whatever they were calling them. I could finally get back into my damn lab. I think she preferred the title office manager. The label never mattered to me, as long as she fulfilled the duties of the job. Same thing went for my husband, really.

We weren't perfect. We had our moments of course. I think at some point I must have loved him. I did marry him after all. He certainly loved me, at one point. Kids were something we both wanted and tried for fairly early on. In fact, we tried everything- IVF, IUI, donor eggs, all the drugs I felt would be effective. But after about five years of going through all of that, I was finally able to bless him with a quick divorce. It was the only option after he brought our secretary home, pregnant. Whatever he was expecting of me, it just wasn't for me.

Neither was working in the Washington branch anymore, even though that was the only one focusing on my specialty- bioremediating fungi. I put in my resignation then took two weeks off with my accrued sick time. I would have lost it anyway. Fuck 'em. Right?

At least that's where my head was at. Until the Vargr Corporation sent me an offer to open my own plastics bioremediation lab. The catch? It would be at their branch back home. The branch where he worked, overseeing everything. I wasn't entirely sure how he could have known about any of this- my cheating husband, the overachieving office manager, my sudden lack of a job. Not that it really surprised me. His family always knew everything.

I wanted to turn it down. I started out to several times, but... something always stopped me. I don't know, I just couldn't. It was an idiotic, juvenile reason to not take my dream job. Really, I was going to turn that down because of an old fling? No. I took the job. And asked for fifteen percent more than what was offered. They didn't even blink. I should have asked for twenty.

So back I went. With precious little more than what I left with. Greg, some clothes, a few pieces of sentimental crap, books, and that was about it. Certainly not my pride, I wasn't sure where I'd left that or when.

Setting up my very own lab was exhilarating. A literal dream come true. I'd be studying a few particular strains of fungi that degrade and absorb plastic, and I needed specialized equipment. Honestly, the proximity to a glass engineering tech company worked out well.

He seemed to be keeping his distance still, for whatever reason. But I did end up running into him once in a while. His right hand oversaw all the accounts and whenever she needed a physical signature she'd track me down. Sometimes she'd spot me while they were out and about and flag me down. It'd be more accurate to say she told me to stop walking away, and I would. I'd look anywhere but at him, all the while feeling his eyes on me.

Once, early on, I was in a particularly bad mood when he couldn't keep his eyes to himself. I should have known to keep my mouth shut. But I didn't. So I snapped at him. And regretted it. His once brilliant red hair was now jet black. I knew it was getting darker back then, I figured it was an age thing. But to be this dark? He had to be dying it to look more, I'm not sure, professional? He was the boss, by birth and by merit, at least from what I'd heard recently. What on earth did it matter?! For what it's worth, I knew he was a natural red head, or had known. And not just from his messy mane or scraggly beard.

"What happened to your hair, Arthur? Did your fire go out?"

"No, it just never texted me back," he barked back at me.

My eyes trembled at his words. I literally bit my tongue to keep myself from crying. After enduring my mother, emotions had never been something I really had to work to control, not outside of him anyway. We'd barely spent a month together, and yet, he still had this draw to him, this pull over me. I hated it. I wanted to hate him.

The look he gave me when he saw my quivering eyes.... I didn't know what to think, or feel.

I did know I wasn't being paid to think about that. My most recent issue with my ongoing work was whether or not my more aggressive strains would attack biomatter. How certain of an answer I could demonstrate could help determine which strain might be most viable to continue working with. The most readily available biomatter were the flowers the company decorated the offices with. All pristinely white- roses, anemones, ranunculi, night-blooming jasmine. The flowers would vary, but not the color.