When the Lights Go Out (3 page)

Chapter Seven

April put her hands to her face. Her first day of independence was not going according to plan.

“Mom. I am not having sex to pass the time. I’m fine. Just head to the cottage and I’ll call you when I get out of here.” April was pleading with whatever deity would listen to make her mother go away.

Having to sit in a restroom with a stranger in the dark wouldn’t be pleasant. Having to explain her mother to a stranger would be torture.

“Well…just in case they can’t get that telephone pole off the street soon…here.”

“And make sure you share with the nice man you’re stuck with.” A Mojo nut bar slid under the door. So did a condom.

April grabbed both and held them behind her back. Her face was as red as her fellow captive’s shirt. “Yes, mom.”

The man she was stuck with started looking like he was going to speak. She threw a hand over his mouth and hissed at him to shush. The more he spoke to her mother the less likely she’d be to let the other employees usher her out.

A few shouted instructions and a call to the electric company confirmed that, yes, a semi-truck hit an electrical pole holding a massive transformer. But they didn’t have an estimated time for when the electricity would be back up and running at this point.

“Well, that’s good news.” April said.

“Either I hit my head far too hard, or you sound happy about this.”

“They said the driver was stable and no one else was hurt.” Isn’t that what this guy heard too?

“It does us no good.”

“We didn’t get into a car accident. We’re trapped in a room with working plumbing and,” April waved the nut bar to reflect in the red light, “we have food.”

“I need to take care of a few things. Can I borrow your phone again?”

April handed over the last twelve percent of her battery life. Other managers, or at least someone in charge hustled the last of the people out of the store.

They might consider a rolling door for the bathrooms next time they renovate.

When April got her phone back, he reminded her, “You should turn that off. We don’t have any natural light, and we only have another hour at most on those battery backup lights.”

April looked up at the red glow of the exit sign. It would suck to be in complete blackness. The little battery in the corner of her phone was empty with a line through it. Three percent wouldn’t do them much good. They might as well look around and memorize their surroundings as best they could. Some odd placement of foliage caught her attention.

“Why are there plants in the urinals?” She asked. It could be some new recycling method for waste, but since her parents hadn’t tried it yet, she doubted it.

The man she was with sighed. “Like I said, it’s April Fools’ Day. Which is also why there was a bear occupying the stall.”

“I hate April Fools’ Day,” she grumbled.

“You and me both, lady.”

April plopped down on the floor. This was a complete disaster.

“I really wouldn’t sit on the floor of this restroom.” He held out a hand to help her up.

She didn’t take it.

“Why not?” April pointed to the sign on the sink. “It says on that sign off chart it was just cleaned.”

“You’re forgetting what day it is. And the chart says the year is 1776.”

April laughed. “At least they’re patriotic, and with the red light, I won’t know what’s on me until we get out of here.” She waved his hand off. “I’m fine.”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot. He was wearing dress shoes, and couldn’t be very comfortable. 

“Oh for Pete’s sake. Would you please sit down?”

He plopped down. Then he rubbed his hands on his pants where he had touched the floor.

It was only a couple more minutes before he broke the silence. This guy definitely didn’t have parents like hers. When her mom decided to meditate on a regular basis, April learned to go for hours of complete silence with her. But a few minutes of quiet had this guy tapping his foot and slapping his hands on his knees.

“So what were you coming to buy?” he asked.

“A handcart.” April answered and went back to enjoying the light hum of the emergency light.

“Okay.” He shifted more before he huffed, “Are you even breathing?”

“Yep.”

“Ugh. Can we please hold a conversation? This is awkward enough without us just staring at each other.”

April grinned. She was often in a situation where her parents had caused other people discomfort with their actions. Guess the apple didn’t fall too far from the fruit tree.

“I don’t really care for small talk, so I usually skip it. I don’t mind if we talk about other things though.”

He turned his head and squinted one eye as he arched an eyebrow. “What kind of other things? You seem nice and everything, but I’m just trying to talk.” He grabbed the condom her mom had slipped in with the granola bar. “We need to pass the time, and I’m not getting it on with a stranger in a bathroom.”

April laughed. “Way to ding a gal’s ego there, sport.”

He grimaced and tossed the condom back at her. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant even if sex were on the table I wouldn’t want to talk about it with you.”

“You’re not doing any better.”

He looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. “I should have stuck to the silence. Or how about you just tell me your name?”

“Nope. No names.”

Taylor furrowed his brow. “What do you mean, no names?”

April wasn’t sure why she didn’t want to know. Maybe it was because he’d already gotten a dose of her mother, or maybe she just wanted to get away from who she was for a moment. But she knew, she wanted to escape from everything right then. Even who she was.

“Why don’t you tell me something secret?” April scooted closer to him until their knees touched. They might as well have some part of their bodies touching. If this guy was right about the lights they didn’t have much time left to see where the other person was. So she took a moment to memorize.

The red shirt he wore pulled a bit at his biceps. As he fidgeted she could see the muscles move just beneath the surface. He was frowning, but she was used to people frowning around her. She was a supervisor in her own office and she saw a lot of frowns. By the way he was dressed he had to have been pretty high up on this store’s food chain too.

The red light caught in the lines in his brow. He would have looked menacing were it not for the teddy bear and urinal planters in the background. “Why would I tell you a secret?”

“Because we’re in a deserted building? Because we’re all alone in a strange situation? Because I don’t even know your name? It’s always easier to tell a stranger more than someone you know.” April looked into his eyes, and she saw the harshness soften. He parted his lips and took a breath. The lines in his forehead smoothed out, and she realized she couldn’t wait to find out something about him.

Then she couldn’t see him anymore. The hum of the light stopped. The last bit of red making the room visible clicked off. April hoped her eyes would adjust, but there just wasn’t any light to adjust with. “And you should tell me because we’re in the dark until someone gets that power line fixed.”

Chapter Eight

Taylor tried really hard not to panic at the absolute blackness surrounding him. He was getting someone out here to put in a window, or something, because this was ridiculous.

What was more ridiculous was he wanted to share secrets with this woman. It would be a distraction in this insane situation, but that wasn’t what was making him want to talk to her. He didn’t have many secrets, and he suddenly wished he had a hobby like naked rock-climbing, because it would have been something he could’ve told her. It would be something exciting and new, and something totally not him. Because the way she’d looked, like she saw something worth knowing in his eyes, made him feel he needed more than this job for once. He wanted her to look at him and see something more exciting than upper management and a good 401k.

Not that they could see anything at the moment, but when the lights turned back on, he wanted something more than enough income to keep his bank account happy. He figured a nice dinner would be a good place to start.

Taylor unbuttoned a couple buttons and pulled the back of his shirt out to get a bit of air against his skin. The air conditioning was also powered by the missing electricity. It was starting to get warm.

Lost in his thoughts for a moment, he jumped at the touch on his knee, but quickly grabbed the small hand. “Well, at least I know where you are.”

“Wouldn’t want me getting into trouble.” She laughed. “And you still didn’t tell me a secret.”

The small sound vibrated across his skin. He smiled and didn’t bother to remove her hand. As long as she didn’t go any higher she couldn’t see that her touch was affecting him. Perhaps he did have a bit of something exciting in him.

“How are you not freaked out by this?” he asked.

“My mom took us to visit this cave when I was little. They took us deep underground and turned off the lights. A few kids cried, a few screamed, but not me. I’ve always thought the dark is peaceful.”

Taylor tried hard to find this peaceful instead of a reason to panic. “Your mom seems…interesting.” Taylor couldn’t think of a better word to describe a mother who would suggest her daughter have sex with a stranger.

Luckily the woman didn’t seem to take offense. “You could say that.”

“So, your mom was here. Are you two close?”

“She was helping me move out of my parents’ house. And, before you say anything, it’s not like it sounds.” She grumbled. “I’m not a mooch. I just wanted to own a house instead of renting an apartment. It takes some time to save up enough for a down payment.”

Interesting
. She wasn’t just leaving the nest—she was financially independent. “What did you buy?”

“Just a little cottage in the suburbs for now, but it’s the smallest house in the neighborhood, and I can fix it up and probably get a really good gain on my investment when I do sell it and upgrade.”

“Belleview?” Most of his new customers were moving into the development.

“Yes.” She sounded surprised. “How did you know?”

He settled a bit. This was much a much more comfortable line of conversation. He was able to relax by dragging her into some small talk. “A lot of house flippers buy up there. I know a couple of contractors that work the area. If you give me your name, I can pass along their information.”

“We’re going to tell secrets, remember? I can’t be a stranger if you know where my home is
and
my full name. So…no more names, and no more talk about family.” He heard her chewing.

He was a bit sad as he confessed, “I’m not interesting enough to have any secrets.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying.” He let go of her hand, and for lack of a better spot, put his palms next to his hips on the floor.

“Nobody is completely open about who they are. But if you’re going to play this game, at least tell me something embarrassing that happened in your past.” Her nails scratched him through his pants as she pulled herself forward, and the zings went straight to his cock. “I know. You said you hated April Fools’ Day. Tell me why.”

How he could even feel like getting an erection after all his poor cock had been through was beyond him, but the blood flow was definitely headed south of the border thanks to her hot little hands. He cleared his throat. “There aren’t enough hours in the day to go over that one.”

“Bet I hate it more than you,” she challenged.

He’d always been competitive, and now he was intrigued. He knew there were people out there who had a rougher life than he did, but this was one day of the year where he had the crappy day award pretty locked up.

“I’m the butt of all the pranks at the store here, and my boss lets it go on.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“You saw the bathroom.”

She gave him a little of that soft giggle. He pulled at his collar. The sweat forming on his brow was not just from the increase in temperature now. Was she flirting with him? Why did he want to flirt back so badly? This couldn’t be good for his career, and for the first time in his adult life, he really didn’t care.

Her fingers made little circles on his knee as she reminded him, “I saw a
lot
in this bathroom.”

“Just remember it was cold in here before the air conditioning went out, okay?”

She laughed and shifted closer. Her hand crept a bit higher. He grabbed her fingers again. If she reached forward any more she’d see exactly how much he enjoyed her laugh. And that wasn’t good. It wasn’t professional. But like she said, they were in the dark. It didn’t have to count in the dark, did it?

“Want to know why I hate April Fools’ Day?” she asked.

“If you can top being glued to the toilet seat and getting assaulted by a bucket of bouncy balls before coffee, have at it.”

“My parents conceived me on April Fools’ Day.”

“Why do you know that?” He couldn’t imagine having knowledge of his conception from his own parents.

“They named me after it.” She sighed. “My first name’s April, all right? It’s their favorite funny story. They told it to everyone. Every date I took home. Every friend I invited over. And mind you, my very first birthday sleepover they told all the girls in my second grade class, that they had sex on this very night eight years ago.”

“Thinking of your parents having sex every time someone says your name? Okay, you win.” Taylor couldn’t stop laughing. “I do know your first name now. Wonder if I’ll get your last name out of you before we’re rescued.”

“Not a chance, mister. You’re not getting any more out of me. We’re having an intimate conversation between strangers.”

He heard some crinkling.

“What is that?” he asked the blackness. Her mother had slipped two things under that door. One was food, the other… He opened his eyes further to try and process.

“I got hungry,” she said around a bite of the granola bar. “Don’t worry. I’ll share.”

Taylor wasn’t sure what she was sharing, but he damn sure wasn’t thinking about food when her hand crept higher.

Without his sight, the touch had every nerve in his body going off like a strobe light in the darkness. The hand that touched him was small, but definitely not shy. She pressed at the midpoint of his thigh as she shifted her weight and adjusted, so her knees were no longer touching his.

She pressed the half empty wrapper against his abdomen. She walked her fingers up his chest. His heart pounded as her digits tickled his nipple while they slid past.

He would have said something, but he wasn’t sure the sounds he made would be at all appropriate, and they might’ve been past that point now anyway. Her fingers continued up his neck and then traced along the line of his jaw. Even though it made no difference in the amount of light, Taylor felt his eyes close. He kept silent and he felt his face go lax with pleasure. Whether he should or not, he enjoyed her touch. For once he wasn’t worried about if the woman was marriage material or if she would be able to put up with his schedule. He wasn’t thinking about any of that. In the dark, he didn’t even have to worry about how she was reacting, because he couldn’t see. It was all about how she made him feel, and he felt alive.

Then her fingers found his lips. His suddenly dry lips. Without thinking, his tongue darted out to wet them, but he ended up licking her finger instead.

“Oh.” She cleared her throat, but she didn’t move her finger.

Taylor should have leaned his head back and put his tongue away, but her finger tasted like chocolate. He licked her again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d licked a woman’s finger. It hadn’t been on his schedule before. From the way the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, he realized how tragic that was.

“I think I dropped the granola bar.” She said as she slid her finger along his tongue.

They were trapped in here, and didn’t know when they would get out. His brain realized him he was being incredibly inappropriate with a customer.

“I’m sorry.” It took all his effort to move his head back. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?”

This was when having a conscience put him at a disadvantage. Working in retail sucked the life out of a person on many levels, but one thing it had taught Taylor was how to read people. Just like a game of poker, little tells in body language told him a lot. But there was nothing here. Just her breath and the few words she gave him.

Then she moved her fingers back to his chest.

“Why shouldn’t you lick my finger?” Her hands slowly curled in on themselves and she gripped his shirt. Her whispered words thickened the air around him. “I liked it.”

He had to be hallucinating at this point. There was no other explanation for it. This woman was the figment of his thirteen-year-old self’s imagination. She was the hallucination that resulted from sitting in his parent's basement trolling through the Penthouse magazines and finally reading the letters all those years ago. She couldn’t be real.

But she
really
pushed her finger back into his mouth, and he told his rational inner voice to shut up, as he sucked her deeper.