Noelle (Babysitter’s Club 4)

And when we reached the landing on the second floor and the sense of Déjà vu hit me square in the gut, it was his hand that held me up and kept me from falling.

I reddened with embarrassment but the look in his eyes put me at ease. “No need to apologize. It was a long ride, you must be exhausted.” His voice. Why did it tickle the edges of my mind?

I had to force myself to look away from his stare and barely stopped myself from shaking my head to free myself from my own confusing thoughts. If I didn’t know better I could almost believe that I’d seen that same look before, heard that same exact tone, whispered in my ear.

Each room seemed to know me, to welcome me and I accepted his diagnosis that the ride had somehow tired me out because why else would I be feeling this way?

If I closed my eyes I could almost see the rooms as they once were, which made no sense. Maybe the house just reminded me of some place I’d visited a long time ago.

“Come, let me show you to your room so you can catch your breath while the baby naps.” I didn’t question why he was still holding my hand. Because it felt natural.

There was no uneasy feeling like maybe he was a perv. No, instead it felt reassuring. Like I was safe as long as he was there. What was surprising was the fact that I didn’t feel the need to fight it.

He led me back down the hallway to a large mahogany door with an angel carved into the panel. I reached out and traced the design feeling a sense of… something.

He opened the door and stood back for me to enter ahead of him, finally releasing my hand. I felt the loss and had to clench my hand into a fist so as not to reach for him again.

My room, I was pleased to see, was one with a dormer window, which turned out to actually be a French door that led out onto the upper balcony.

The room was huge as were all the others in this mausoleum of a house. Here too the place was like stepping back in time. Even with the bright sunlight outside, it didn’t seem to touch here.

Not that the room was old and stuffy, far from it. But it felt almost like a cocoon. Like the outside did not intrude here. As if reading my thoughts he walked over and pulled the drapes letting in the sunlight, which transformed the room.

“We put you in this room because it’s close to the baby. This way she’ll be between the two of us so one of us will hear her if she needs us in the night.”

For some inexplicable reason, while he spoke of such innocent things, my eyes fell on the bed. It was an old canopy bed with red- checkered curtains and deep dark stained mahogany wood.

There was another intricate pattern carved into the wood, which I couldn’t quite make out now. My heart started beating out of place the longer I stared at the two hundred year old bed and my skin grew hot, my face flush.

My mind was playing tricks on me, because for a split second it was as if the room and time disappeared and he and I were in a different time. I felt my face heat up even more as a vision unfolded in my mind.

In my mind, plain as day, I saw us on that bed, naked, entwined. Our bodies were wet with perspiration, skin glistening; our breath coming hard and fast as he moved inside me.

My chest tightened and my breath stayed trapped in my lungs as something exploded inside my head. I could feel him, there, inside me. It was so real, I never wanted it to end.

I felt a sweet ache between my thighs just as his voice penetrated the haze that had enveloped me. “Are you okay?” He was standing right in front of me, his hand on my elbow… his eyes.

I know those eyes, I’ve seen those eyes before. Looking at me in just that way. With concern and caring. I could only nod my head as he looked at me worriedly before dropping my arm. I felt cold as soon as he did.

My voice was barely above a croak when I answered. What was I supposed to say? That I think I was losing my mind? The doctors had given me a clean bill of health.

There were no lingering affects from the concussion and coma that I’d been in for three days after the accident. But I had no other reason for the strange phenomena that seemed to be assailing me.

Get your act together Noelle before you lose this job before you even start. Any doubts I may have had were long gone now that I was here.