Blue with Black Dots (The Caprice Trilogy Book 2) (27 page)

He fell over on his right side.  His deep breathing rivaled her own but for a different reason.  He was spent—exhausted.  His chest palpitated over and over again.  When she thought he would stop, he kept going.  It was a lot for him.  She could see it.  She wanted to let him know he’d done well.  She pulled the duvet over him, up to his navel.  He was too tired to do it for himself.  She slid behind him and put her arm around his waist.  She didn’t say a thing, neither did he.  She closed her eyes.  His eyes were already closed.  His breathing slowed.  She could feel it.  She could hear it.  His breathing slowed near silence.  The silence took over everything.

•••

Owen woke up alone in his bed.  He knew Georgia was with him when he fell asleep but he didn’t know if she had migrated during the night.  He sat up in bed and looked around the bedroom.  His eyes settled on his telescope.  It was his favorite thing in his flat.  He liked the freedom it seemed to bestow, to see things, celestial things—things that were beyond him.  He got up from his bed and didn’t bother to put anything on.  He was genuinely concerned about Georgia and about his own masculinity on top of that.  He remembered the night before.  It had happened twice.  The second time took a lot.  It was pretty much everything he could do.  And he really had to focus himself on being a man, reminding himself that Georgia was extra when it came to women.  He kept telling himself he should do what any red-blooded man should do with such a woman, using his mind to overcome the challenges of his body.  It was a blow to his pride to think she had somehow scuttled in the night.  He went to the guest bedroom.  It was pristine.  The bed was perfectly made and her rucksack was still on the floor.  He went to the guest bathroom and turned the light on—empty.  He went and drew the shower curtain back—empty.  He turned the light out and moved to the open space of the living room.  He did a 360° panorama of the whole space. 
Living room
. 
Dining room
. 
Kitchen
.  Everything was there but no one was.  He thought about it and realized there was only one other place in the flat he hadn’t checked, his bathroom.  Owen backtracked to his bedroom, walked around the bed and opened the door to the bathroom.

“Don’t turn the light on,” said Georgia, “Please.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Owen.

              “Just don’t turn the light on,” said Georgia, “Please just leave it off.”

              “I don’t understand,” said Owen, “What’s wrong?”

              “I don’t want you to see me like this,” said Georgia.

              “Like what?” asked Owen.

              “Please don’t do it,” said Georgia.

              “I’m sorry,” said Owen, “I have to check what’s going on.”  The light came on.  Georgia closed her eyes.

              “Oh god,” said Owen.  Georgia was on the floor hugging the toilet.  There was vomit on the toilet bowl and some had run down the side of the bowl.  She also had vomit in her hair and running over her breasts and down her belly.  There was also some vomit on the floor.

              “What happened?” asked Owen.

              “I don’t know,” said Georgia, “I felt dizzy and light-headed and then my stomach started swirling.  I thought maybe it was diarrhea but stuff started to come up instead of down so I came in here.  I’ve been here a while.”

              “Is it food poisoning, you think?” asked Owen.

              “I’ve never had food poisoning like this,” said Georgia, “My stomach feels tight not bloated, like cramping.”

              “We ate the same thing,” said Owen, “I feel fine.  Do you eat meat regularly?”

              “I wouldn’t have had steak if I wasn’t use to it,” said Georgia, “And I was fine last night.”  Georgia looked up at Owen for the first time.  He could see she had an orange stain running down the side of her mouth.  It was a shock to Owen.  The extraordinary womanly form that he told himself was worthy of pushing his physical limits was gone.  Georgia looked like a sickly mess.  Her eyes looked miserable.

              “Let’s get you into the tub,” said Owen, “We’ll give you a wash off.”  Owen pulled the hand towel from the rack and began to wipe the mess from Georgia’s skin.  He lifted her into the tub, placed the stopper in the drain and opened the spigot.

              “I’ll be right back,” said Owen.  He came back with multiple towels.  He wet one towel and started to clean the floor and the toilet.  He bunched the dirty towels in a pile in the far corner, near the long mirror that reflected everything in the bathroom.  Georgia sat in the filling bathtub trying to pretend to be scared and sick.  She didn’t know when was the right time to drop the bombshell.  With any conflict, it was better sooner than later.  She was conflicted doing it.  Owen had done nothing to her.  His kindness and style were in the premier league.  She admired his class.  But she was in play, so was he.

              “Owen,” said Georgia.

              “What?” said Owen, “Tell me.”

              “I’m thinking this might be morning sickness,” said Georgia.

              “Morning sickness?” said Owen.

              “Well,” said Georgia, “It just started this morning and I’ve never had food poisoning like this.”

              “Morning sickness?” said Owen, “You’re serious?”

              “I don’t know,” said Georgia.  A sudden fear mixed with anger came over Owen.  But he didn’t know whom to be angry at.  He was angry at the situation.  But there was a subtle hint of pride.  The thought of his potency made him feel something that was many times absent in his life, a sense of his own manliness.  Even in her infirmed condition, Georgia still represented what so many men wanted a woman to look like.  Her brown hair had a shine that made it look meticulously managed.  It was draped over her body as she hugged her knees in the bathtub.

              “Ok,” said Owen, “Let’s think about this.”

              “Let’s be smart about this,” said Georgia, “Can you do something for me?”

              “Sure,” said Owen, “What do you want me to do?”

              “You know those pregnancy tests,” said Georgia, “The ones they advertise on the tele?”

              “I know them,” said Owen, “But do those things even work.”

              “They’re supposed to be simple,” said Georgia.

              “Have you used one before?” asked Owen.

              “No,” said Georgia, “But they say you just let it sit in your urine and it will turn a certain color if you’re pregnant.”

              “You want me to go get one?” said Owen.

              “I think it would alleviate some rational thoughts,” said Georgia, “I don’t want you to have to worry about something that may not exist.”

              “Ok,” said Owen, “I appreciate how mature you are about this.”

              “I’m doing the best I can with it,” said Georgia, “Whatever the case may be, I wouldn’t trade last night for any outcome.”

              “That’s encouraging,” said Owen closing the bathroom door as he exited.  Georgia could hear the sounds of him getting dressed in the next room, the opening of the closet, the jingle of his belt buckle.  She could hear his footsteps in the living room.  The rest was quiet.

              “Do you think a pharmacy would have one?” asked Owen, coming back into the bathroom fully dressed.

              “That’s about the only place I can think of that would have one,” said Georgia.

              “Ok,” said Owen, “Just try to enjoy a bath.  I’ll be back.”

              “I’ll be here,” said Georgia.  Owen exited the bathroom and Georgia could hear him in the living room.  There was a ringing of keys and she heard the door open and close.  She stayed still in the water, making sure she heard everything she needed to hear, before she could go to work.

Chapter Eight    Go to Work

Georgia did as instructed.  She waited a full ten minutes after the door closed before she got out of the tub and dried off.  She made sure her feet were bone-dry before she started to search the apartment.  She didn’t bother dressing.  She was naked when he left.  She wanted to be naked when he came back.  She wanted to signal as little activity as possible.  When he came back, she wanted everything to look like when he left.  The biggest risk was the fact that his car was parked in the underground parking garage ten floors down.  She couldn’t hear his car start up or speed away.  But she heard the ding of the elevator as it arrived.  It would have to do.  But in all reality, he could have been waiting on the other side of the door.  She opened it, just slightly to take a peak into the hall.  It was empty.  She went to the guestroom and found her rucksack next to the bed.  It was where she left it.  She reached in her toiletry bag for a hair tie.  She tied her damp hair into a ponytail and unzipped the main compartment.  She felt through the soft cotton of her camisoles and t-shirts to something hard, tucked inside a plastic bag.  Georgia pulled a thick metallic object from her rucksack.  She began to slide the metal pieces over each other until the object opened up and unfolded to sit upright, a camera.  Georgia reached in the side pocket of her rucksack and fitted herself with two plastic gloves from her hair dye kit.  She went back into the living room, walking passed the sofa and the floor rug it sat on to the far corner of the room.  Georgia lined herself up in the far corner and wedged her backside to the wall, pointing the camera toward the open room.  She snapped the photo.  The technique was called Pictorial Triangulation.  The vast majority of constructed rooms on Earth were rectangular or square, which made Pictorial Triangulation a real-world chess move.  Georgia’s camera was a
Polaroid SX-70
, giving her ten snaps on instant film.  The photo slid out the mouth of the camera in chemical-pastels—orange, blue and green.  Georgia flapped the photo in the open air until the image of the room began to solidify in the square face of the paper film.  She placed the photo on the floor on top of the exact spot where she took it. 

To properly use Pictorial Triangulation, Georgia had to repeat the same action in all other corners of the room.  Then she could tear the room apart.  She had to take a side shot to get a good picture of the kitchen.  With an image of the room from each corner, Georgia could disassemble the room and reassemble it—assembled perfectly.   With all furniture, globes, rugs, pictures and paintings looking exactly as they did in each photo from each corner, the room would be an exact copy of the room before it was searched.  No one would be able to tell the difference and only one person would see her work anyway. 

With gloves on, Georgia started in order of rooms she would have to reassemble first:  living room; dining room; kitchen; bathroom; guestroom; master bedroom.  She ransacked the living room.  She took out all of Owen’s vinyl records and ordered them on the floor.   She searched the vinyl records and inside the record sleeves.  She searched through the TV stand cabinet looking through every manual and inside boxes.  She took the top book on the left hand side from the bookshelf and rapid-fired the pages.  If she saw something stuffed between pages, she examined it.  If it didn’t match was she was looking for, she replaced it—moved on.  She did it with every book, 258 total.  It took time but not as long as if she lost focus.  She searched his sofa cushions she moved the sofa and looked under each rug, behind every picture on the wall.  She walked toward the dining room table and removed all chairs.  She placed all six chairs upside down on the table to search their bottoms.  She wiggled each chair leg to see if it was loose.  She checked the seams to see if they seemed altered.  She lied down on her back under the table.  The cold tile floor tickled her bare back.  Her butt got used to the cold floor before her back did.  She examined the table from underneath, looking for anything that had been heavily scraped or scratched.  She rotated her body 180°, feeling the floor pinch her skin as she rotated.  She examined the other end of the table—nothing.  She moved on.  As Georgia searched the house she realized she was wrong.  The bonsai bush that sat in the living room corner, next to the long bookshelf, wasn’t fake.  She didn’t understand how she could have been wrong about it.  She examined the metallic sculptured globe, standing behind the sofa.  Then moved to the kitchen. 

She started with the cabinets below the counter.  It was psychological.  She would have to stand on a chair to search the cabinets above the counter.  She wanted to know the cabinets at her feet were already accounted for.  She went back to the living room and put all the chairs back down on the floor.  She took one with her to the kitchen and used it to reach the top cabinets.  She peered inside the coffee percolator and the microwave oven.  She looked behind the microwave.  She went inside the freezer first.  The probability was higher—nothing.  She checked the fridge—nothing.  She put everything back together in the living room, dining room and kitchen.  She went to each corner and looked at the photograph, then looked at the room.  The sofa didn’t line up with the globe and the bonsai bush behind it, like in the photo.  She had to slide it over some more.

She went to the bathroom then to her own guestroom, which she had only been in twice.  She only had five exposures left on her camera.  She saved them for the master bedroom.  She figured Owen seldom went in the guestroom or guest bathroom.  But he would be very likely to notice, if his own room weren’t in order.  Aside from the bed, which Georgia was supposed to still be lying in, nothing else could look disheveled.  The telescope had to look out the window in the exact same direction.  Georgia used the same technique to map his bedroom as she had with the open area living room.  She took a photo from every angle and left it there.  She opened his closet, stood back and took her last photo.  She then went through everything, especially the closet.  He had shoeboxes stacked one on top of the other.  Georgia opened them in ordered, searched them, restacked them and checked her photo to make sure she got the order right.  The hardest room for Georgia to search was Owen’s bathroom.  It wasn’t terribly big.  It was an oblong room, behind his bed in between the master bedroom and the guest bedroom.  The difficulty in searching was that Georgia could see herself.  There was a large mirror, against the wall, that ran the height of the room.  She was self-conscious about seeing herself naked.  With men, she always felt like she was doing them a favor.  To be naked with a man, gave her a sense of self-pride that overcame her own awareness of her flaws.  But being alone in the bathroom was unsettling because she could see her every movement in the mirror.  As she searched the cabinets beneath the sink, she could see her head go up and down.  Seeing her complexion, she thought she needed tanning.  When she stood up she noticed the slight wag of her breasts forcing her to realize the extent of their sag.  She stayed focused and searched the top deck of the toilet.  She turned around in the bathroom, looking for anywhere else she could search.  She had her mini camera in the next room in her rucksack but she had to find the document first before she could photograph the pages.  And she didn’t find it.  She retreated back to Owen’s bedroom and gave a cursory once-over through his closet, just for good measure.  Looking at the clock in his bedroom, it had been about an hour and twenty minutes since Owen left the flat.  Georgia didn’t want anything spoiled.  She knew she could squeeze out another ten or fifteen minutes of search time but, for her, it wasn’t worth it.  She gave the line crew their due.  Shane and Liza had choreographed everything well.  According to their estimates, she still had a few more minutes before Owen would come back.  But it was Georgia herself who would be stuck, if Owen came back earlier than forecast.  She didn’t want to operate that way.  She went back to her corners and collected all her
Polaroid
pictures.  She tore them up and flushed them down the toilet, in the guest bathroom, not Owen’s bathroom.  She put her
SX-70
camera back inside its plastic bag and left it at the bottom of her rucksack and put her plastic gloves back in the hair dye box.  She took off her hair tie and left it in her rucksack as well.  She went back to Owen’s bathroom and drained the tub, figuring she wouldn’t have soaked for that long, even if she were sick.  She put all dirty towels in a plastic bag and tied it shut and went back to the bedroom.  She rolled into bed.  She was seated in bed when Owen came back over two and a half hours later.

Owen came back with three boxes.  Two were the pregnancy tests for Georgia.  The other was condoms.  Owen wanted to have a backup test, in case Georgia made some mistake.  She had never done it before.  There was always the possibility for human error.  Georgia went to the bathroom and took the pregnancy test.  Even though she knew she didn’t need to.  She came out of the bathroom forty-five minutes after she went in.  The test was negative, which shaded the atmosphere with color but not to the line.  The atmosphere was different for the rest of her stay.  Owen went to buy groceries on Saturday.  He told Georgia she should stay in bed and rest.  He bought a thermometer to take her temperature.  His demeanor turned apologetic.  Instead of coming on to her, he waited on her.  Georgia spent most of the day in bed pretending to be slowly returning to form.  In addition to stargazing, Owen showed off his other romantic talent, cooking. He made miso soup and spring rolls.  He wasn’t a medic.  But he thought she needed something in her stomach, something light.  At night, he seemed bashful, offering to give the bed to Georgia and sleep in the guestroom.  She told him she needed to stay warm, which would be aided by his warm body.  Despite the false alarm and having an unopened box of condoms, Owen made no advances.  Georgia couldn’t decipher whether he wanted sex or didn’t think it was appropriate to ask. 

There wasn’t anything either could do to change the mood.  The night before was unique.  It wasn’t going to be repeated.  Saturday night was overcast, no starlight.  But there was one thing the starlight couldn’t illuminate, the space between Georgia and Owen.  Physically, they were very close.  Georgia curled up next to Owen and rested her head on his chest.  Her right hand held his left hand atop his chest.  But the mood had no real fix.  The pregnancy scare had made Owen realize what he was doing.  It was more distinct than before.  The last time he was three years younger and she was four years older than Georgia.  There were only fourteen years between them.  But there was more than two full decades between Georgia and himself.   He felt like he had almost impregnated someone young enough to be his daughter.  It was true but it wasn’t the reality.  With Nita Harris it was different.  The fourteen-year age difference was a gap but he didn’t feel like he was with someone he could have raised.  It left a stain on the night before.  It wasn’t so much a stain.  It was more like spent embers—ash.  That feeling—sex under starlight, both burning like star fire—couldn’t be resurrected.  They were the same two, in the same place but the unseen piece was missing.  That was the irony.  They couldn’t see it the night before but it was there.

The mood carried through the night and into the next day, Sunday.  The sad part was that Georgia knew a way to get the spark back, she just couldn’t tell it—the truth.  If she had told him that she couldn’t get pregnant, that there was no scare, it would put things back to primal.  But the scare tactic put thoughts in his head.  Telling him the truth might put even more.  She caressed him without kissing him.  She grabbed his penis and began to play.  She went to the bathroom and came back with one condom.  She made sure to get him in the right mood to put it on him.  She let him stay.  She mounted him and did the work herself.  But there were no stars and no fire.  It was all biological—a disappointment to them both.   They ate breakfast together before Georgia showered and readied herself to board the train back to London.  The closing seemed to have less efficacy than the greeting.

“Thank you for having me,” said Georgia.

“Thank you for accepting my invitation,” said Owen.

“I’ll call you when I get back to London,” said Georgia.

“Please do,” said Owen.  They hugged each other like old friends, who tried to see if there was a spark between them, but were disappointed that there wasn’t.  The hug was more of a question. 
How will it be from here on?
For Georgia, the answer was above her pay grade.  It was up to the powers that be to decide how to proceed.  She looked back and held her hand up, extending her fingers.  She smiled like a student would smile at her professor and went into Leeds Station by herself.

•••

Georgia made it back to her apartment in Isleworth at 8:58pm.  She let her rucksack fall without bothering to unpack anything.  She lied on top of her bed—fully clothed—with a large smile on her face.  The train from Leeds to London was from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll.   It was the kind of enlightenment brought on by clearing thoughts.  She had gone from a creature of stirring emotions to a calm and rational scientist, capable of acute thought.  It was the kind of transformation brought on by sitting still while looking at passing landscapes—only a train ride could do it.  She had found the success in her failure.  She felt she was successful enough to call in sick at
Roizman
, even though she was still within her six-month probation period.