Human Hieroglyphix - Dex & Leila (14 page)

I just looked at him, the beauty of him. 

Beauty that I had no right wanting. 

And had no words to say to him, to explain.

I looked down at the floor and moved to the bedroom doorway.

I could do this.  Just get downstairs and smile and make nice and it will all be over soon.

I was just about to the bottom when I heard him again.

"What happened, Leila?"

I raised an arm and waved my hand in a 'forget about it' gesture before I moved the rest of the way downstairs and went to the bar and began to load my plate.  It took just about all the willpower I could muster to tense my hand hard enough so the plate didn't shake.

I heard him come the rest of the way downstairs, but he didn't come to the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room.  Dex went straight to his boots by the door and I heard him pull them on.  There was a moment of silence and then I heard my front door open then close.

I didn't turn my head to watch him leave. 

I was already dying inside and I knew, I freaking knew that if I watched him go, I would be shattered.

*.*.*.*.*

Dex made his way out to his Jeep sitting in her driveway.  He had no understanding of what just happened but he knew at some level that he was responsible for her complete and total shut down.

He stopped as he reached the car and turned back to look at the house.  From this vantage point he could see her at the bar. 

See her at the bar with her hands over her face. 

Could see her at the bar with her hands over her face and her shoulders shaking.

He had cut her.

It was unintentional but he had cut her nonetheless.

He had only tried to slow things down.

He didn't want to push her too far, too fast and had taken a step back to give them both some breathing space.  But as soon as he saw her going up the stairs, he knew that he had fucked up. 

And in rethinking his words and actions, he could see how someone, someone with little to no experience, might not understand what he was doing.

Leila wasn't like any of the others he had been with. 

In a lot of respects she was an innocent, untried.  And she reacted to him as innocent and untried. 

Not like the others.

With a couple of the others, if he had pulled a stunt like that, he would have been physically thrown out the door, with the words, "Cunt Tease" echoing throughout the neighborhood.

And he was very familiar with the turning on the taps to cover crying.  His mother used to do it all the time.

He focused again on the beauty sitting with her back to the window.

And watched as she picked up her plate and threw it across the kitchen before dropping her head down to her arms, her shoulders visibly shaking.

Fuck.

This was going too fast for him.

He didn't understand what this 'thing' was between them but there was definitely something there.  He could either go back inside to see where 'this' led them, or he could get into his car and drive away knowing that hers wouldn't be the only heart that splintered.  But better a heart taking a hit at the beginning, when you didn't have that much invested, rather than later when your very soul could be broken.

But, still he didn't move, his eyes glued to the beauty in the window.

He glanced down at his boots and realized that he always did this.

Left before it got sticky.

But right here, right now, with
her
, he wanted sticky.

He wanted complicated.

And he wanted to have his soul so entwined with hers that even if it did go bad, he'd still be willing to try it, to stick it out.

Just as long as he had her.

He glanced back up at the window and she was still sitting at the bar, her head still laying on her arms.

Dex felt his feet moving back towards her porch before he had even made a conscious decision to move.  He paused a moment before turning the large, old-fashioned door knob.

He still had time to leave if that was what he wanted.

Dex opened and stepped through the door.

*.*.*.*.*

I couldn't help it.  When I heard the front door close softly behind him, I lost it.  My mind was all tangled up with my heart, but how can that be after only really being around him twice?  And never having my heart tangled with another person before, I didn't know how to react except at a visceral level.

What had I done wrong?

I didn't understand.  Things were going so well and I was so excited to be with him, just be near him and yet he didn't want me.

But the bulge in his pants did, that hardness that he had pressed and rubbed against my ass wanted me.

I didn't understand.  What had I done wrong?

Dan was right.  I
was
a fuck up.

I felt my sobs grow deeper, heavier when I finally acknowledged that what Dan said was really true.

Who was I trying to fool?

Oh, God, it hurt.

I hurt.

I found my plate in my hand and I threw it, I heaved it with all my might before dropping my head to my arms, not even watching where it, or the food on it, had landed.

I just let the tears come, let them wash out of me.  I didn't have anything left other than tears. 

I had tried to change, I wanted to change but truthfully I was more miserable now than I had been before when I was hiding behind my glasses, letting the world ignore me. 

Have men like Dex ignore me.

Oh, God.

Dex.

Just the thought of him brought a fresh onslaught of tears.

Why do I feel so
connected
to him?

Why do I want him so very much?  So much that I ached inside.

Finally, my sobbing eased and I was able to just rest my head on my arms.  I rubbed my eyes and nose on my Henley knowing I would never wear it again, that I never wanted to even see it again.

I turned my head to the side, my right ear on my arm waiting for the hitches to subside before I cleaned up the mess I made.

I sighed deeply wishing I had a different life, that I was a different kind of woman. 

The kind of woman that could laugh this kind of stuff off.

I moved to get off the barstool but noticed Dex standing, leaning against the front door, his arms crossed over his chest, his ankles crossed. 

Everything within me stilled.

"You want it light or you want it heavy?" he rumbled.

"P-pardon?"

"Light or heavy.  Your choice, babe," he repeated.

I swallowed, considering my choices.

"Don't care, Dex.  Want you to be honest with whichever way you go," I said with as much bravery as I could muster. 

After all, what did I have to lose?

He made his way to me and grabbed my hands, pulling me into the unlit living room to sit beside him on the sofa.

"Gas or wood?"

"Huh?"

"Babe.  Fireplace.  Gas or Wood?"

"Oh, ah.  Gas," I said trying to remove my hands from his so I could turn it on.

"I'll do it.  Where's the starter?

I showed him after he basically plonked me down onto the couch that faced the fireplace.  And before I knew it, the living room was lit with the glow of the gas fire.

Dex made his way back to me, sitting right up next to me, so we were touching all down our sides.  I felt, more than saw, his arm across the back of the cushion.

"Leila?"

"Yeah, Dex?"

"I'm a dick, babe."

I sighed deeply.

"I'm kind of getting that," I said softly.

"I was a dick when I first met you, when you didn't deserve to even be a part of my dickness."

"Is that even a word, Dex?"

"You’re the English Professor, you tell me," he said quietly.

I was quiet, too, sensing that he had something to say. 

And it was something that he wanted me to hear.

"Leila?"

"Yeah?"

He sighed and ran the hand, the one not resting on the cushion behind my head, over his face.

"I want you so much I can't think straight.  You are on my mind twenty-four hours a day which doesn't make a shit-load of sense because we don't really know each other."

My heart was beating fast at his words, his closeness.  I ventured a glance at him.  Dex was staring into the fire.

"I feel the same, Dex."

"I'm getting that, babe."

"Are you as scared as I am?"

I felt his arm drop from the cushion to my shoulders.

"Probably more, Elle," he admitted pulling me tight against his side.

"I-I, ah…" I started.  He needed to know this about me. 

I needed to tell him but I didn't know how to say it so that he could completely understand and make his decision based on truth.

I turned my body towards his, but I couldn't look at him.

"I was married before," I began on whisper.  "His name was Dan."

I paused and glanced quickly up to gauge Dex's face.  He was still watching the fire.

"Ah, things weren't so good between us in the…ah…bedroom department."

I swallowed hoping that I could get this out as fast as possible.

"I wasn't enough for him.  And he, ah, told me how horrible I was in bed and in our last three years he took numerous lovers because I was so bad at it, at sex."

I watched as the hand that Dex had resting on his thigh was now a clenched fist.

"He was my first and only lover.  I don't want you feeling mixed up about wanting me, especially in
that
way because I already know I'm not good at sex.  I wish I was but I'm not."

I swallowed again before continuing,  "I'm so sorry, Dex.  I should have told you earlier…"

"Stop," his voice was very firm and very deep.  "I want you to shut the fuck up right now, Leila, okay?"

I shut the fuck up right then.

There was a long bit of silence where the only sound in the room was his clenched fist rubbing against his thigh.

"Questions?"

"Pardon?"

"Can I ask questions, Elle?"

I nodded, not having a clue where this conversation was going to go.

"How long were you married?"

"Four years," I said softly.

"Four years," he repeated.  "Four fucking years and he started playing around after a
year
?  Or should I say that he fucking let you
know
that he was fucking around after a year?

"Yes," I admitted softly.

"And he told you that it was
your fucking fault
that he was sleeping around?

"Yes," I said again. 

I wasn't a mind reader but the tension pouring off of Dex was definitely filling the room.

"How long has it been since your divorce?"

"Ah…just a little over three and a half years," I honestly had no clue what was going on in Dex's mind.

"Date much since your divorce?"

"Uh-uh," I admitted shaking my head for emphasis.

"So you are basically a virgin, right?"

"Excuse me?"

I felt him turn towards me, before I felt his hand moving my chin so I would look at him.

"Babe," he said.  And left it at that, all the while staring into my eyes.

I had no answer. 

I didn't know what he was asking. 

I had already told him my biggest, darkest secret and he was calling me a
virgin
?

"You ever come with him?"

"Have an orgasm, you mean?"

"Yeah," he said.  There was something moving behind his eyes.

"No," I said trying to lower my head but he held my chin firm, forcing me to look at him.

"You want one?"

"Excuse me?"

"You wanna come, Leila?"

I had no response to that. 

I had just told him that I couldn't come with a man and here he is asking me if I want to have an orgasm? 

If this was some kind of game, I sure didn't understand the rules.

"You play with toys?" he asked after a couple of lifetimes of silence.

"Toys?"

"Vibrators, dildos, etc.  Things that get you off."  The expression on his face told me he was totally serious.

"Did you find my…er…my thing, when you spent the night?" I whispered.

"No, honey, I didn't.  I like others to respect my privacy so I give them theirs."

I watched as he dropped his head to mine for a long, slow stroke along my nose.