"Eat…out?" Kassam asks, turning toward me. There is a curious look on his face.
"You know, get food from one of the local places?" I frown at him. "How do you not know what eating out is? Is your brain fogged, too?"
He moves toward me, his hands moving to either side of my legs on the counter, and then I'm trapped against his large body. He gazes up at me, so gorgeous it makes my chest ache to look at him, and grins. "My brain is not fogged. I just do not make sense to you…yet. But I will."
I lean down, fighting the urge to kiss him again. As if he can read my mind, Kassam reaches a hand up and caresses the tip of my breast through my shirt, sending a hot, piercing surge of lust through my body. "God, you're distracting," I whisper.
"I want to do this 'eat out,'" he tells me. "Let us go to one of these local places." He leans forward and then nips at my breast through my shirt, and I practically melt into a puddle on the countertop. "Then we will come home and I will fuck you until you are hoarse. Yes?"
Oh god, yes. A thousand times, yes. I let out a low moan as my answer.
"Then let us go," Kassam says.
"Pants," I whimper in protest. "We need pants."
"Why?" he asks, nuzzling my breast. He gazes up at me, his tongue dragging across my covered nipple, and I swear I nearly come all over again.
"Law," I pant. "No one will serve us if we show up naked."
"That is a foolish law," Kassam says, looking up at me with those hooded, sexy silver eyes. "Is it like that everywhere in this world?"
"What do you mean ‘this world’?" I'm torn between shoving his head between my breasts again…or shoving him further south. Choices, choices.
"I mean this world," he says, as if that answers everything. "This is not my world. It is yours. I am unfamiliar with its rules. That is one reason why we are now bound together." He grins. "Among others, of course."
I shake my head. "You…you're not making sense." Please put your mouth on my tits again.
"I suspect I am not. Give it time." He grins up at me and gives my flank a light tap. "Where are these pants?"
4
It's a short time later, when I'm brushing my teeth in the bathroom, that I realize I'm no longer fogged. Kassam is in the kitchen, no doubt licking the butter paper, while I get ready to go out and get us breakfast. He's wearing a pair of old sweatpants from an ex-boyfriend of mine, along with an old hoodie, but no shoes, since there was nothing we could find in his size.
I stare at my reflection, curious. Now that he's in the next room, I can think straight. I can think straight and I wonder…what the fuck am I doing? Why have I not told him to buzz off? Why am I going to go have breakfast with him instead of getting rid of him? I think back over our conversations.
This is not my world.
We are now bound together.
He's crazy, I think. Disoriented. Possibly off a medication of some kind? Maybe I should call the police. I spit my toothpaste out, wiping at my mouth, and wonder if I can get to my phone in the bedroom before Kassam's presence fogs me again. Staying away from him is key, I realize. He's cast some sort of…spell on me.
A spell. I didn't think such things existed, but after being in Kassam's confusing, sexy presence, I believe it now.
I think of my mother again. Mom believes in crystals and hoodoo and all that shit. She'd know the answer I'm looking for. The question is, how do I ask without sending her into a panic spiral? I ponder for a minute, and then start to type.
* * *
CARLY: Morning, Ma. I'm a little foggy this AM. Late night. What's the best crystal for clearing your mind?
* * *
Mom's answer comes right away, as I knew it would.
* * *
MOM: Hello, darling!!
MOM: Clear quartz is best! It will also extract negative energy. You work too hard! Tell your boss you need to leave work earlier. I don't like how late you stay out.
MOM: You need to take care of yourself.
* * *
I smile. Twenty-seven years old and my mother still hovers protectively over me. Probably always will, too.
* * *
CARLY: Thanks, Ma!
CARLY: And I'm fine. I promise it's not a regular thing. And I work at a bar, of course I have to work late.
CARLY: Please don't worry. XOXO
* * *
My mom will worry anyhow, of course. What's ironic is that she's going to worry about me bartending, which is the least of my worries right now. I'm far more concerned with the big, seductive stranger in my kitchen that keeps fogging my head every time I get close. It has to be some sort of chemical situation, I tell myself. He's dosed in some sort of cologne with pheromones and that's why my body lights up like a firework whenever he's near. That's why my brain can't function properly around him and I end up agreeing to everything. There has to be a simple, logical explanation.