She Spun Her Chains around My Heart and Soul

Although I couldn't remember any specific time when I had actually planned for the life I currently lived, I couldn't imagine myself planning this.

I was at The Rabbit Hole, which was probably a terrible decision in the first place, and Regina Mills had just walked in, which-I had the sneaking suspicion-would spur me on to even worse decisions.

We had kissed a week ago, which had been the worst decision of all. Since then, I had been carefully avoiding even the thought of her, but that was proving difficult.

Every other day I would receive a memo about my "absurd classroom budget" or my "sub par anticipatory sets" or my "abhorrent record of pursuing continuing education." And every other night I would wake in a cold sweat knowing my mostly forgotten dream had included her lips.

I downed my cosmopolitan in two quick gulps and meant to leave, but she was suddenly there in front of my table, smirking. I told myself my head was fuzzy because of the speed with which I had just finished my drink and not because of the way her red lips looked as they curled over her white teeth and certainly not because she had just slid into the booth beside me and her arm had just brushed against mine and had felt unnaturally hot and had left goosebumps in its wake.

"Miss Blanchard," she said with a nod, the way people did when they saw each other in bars, I supposed.

"Mayor Mills," I said, willing myself not to look at her.

"This seat's not taken, is it?"

"I was just leaving."

I braced myself on the table in preparation to stand, and her hand was on my arm. It was fire.

"So soon? It's not even a school night."

I turned my head. Her face was close to my face, and I could smell that she'd been drinking prior to her arrival here. It raised my ire, and before I could stop myself, I said,

"If your memos are any indication, I should be working just as hard, if not harder, on non-school nights."

"I'm glad to hear you've been reading them. I wasn't sure you were literate."

And again I couldn't stop myself. I slammed a palm onto the table.

"Oh my," she said with a mean smile. "Alcohol is meant to relax you, dear."

"Nothing could relax me enough to tolerate your insults." She raised an eyebrow, and her smile grew wider and meaner.

"Are you willing to put money on that?" She was well on her way to leering, and she was looking me up and down with a feline voracity.

"I-You-That's deplorable," I finally spat out.

"Funny. You didn't seem to think so a few days ago."

"I-" I didn't know how to defend myself. She was an unfathomably attractive woman, and I wanted her. But I knew she was volatile, dangerous. I also knew there must have been some reason she was being this way to me-alternately flirtatious and cruel.

"I was under the impression we weren't discussing the events of a few days ago," I said.

"I never said I wanted to discuss anything."

"Well maybe I want to," I said. Maybe the liquor was making me bold. She raised an eyebrow. "Why did you kiss me?" She laughed.

"No wonder you're so painfully mediocre as a teacher. You have a terrible memory." She had said it with a dare and something mean and sexy in her voice.

"Excuse me?" I was a half inch away from pounding my palm on the table again, but she leaned in closer and said slowly in a firm, confident whisper,

"Search your tiny brain, Miss Blanchard. You kissed me." She leaned back again, smirking, and she made a hand signal to the waiter. He came over with an amber liquid in a tumbler and smiled at both of us before he retreated again. It had given me time to frantically process her words. Had I blocked that part out?

"Well you were drunk. How would you know?" I said, equally flabbergasted that it had probably happened exactly how she had said and at the words that had somehow come out of my mouth.

She laughed again.

"Do you often kiss drunk girls and hope they won't remember the details?"

"How dare you!"

"Oh, I've got a dare for you, dear. I'm drunk right now. Why don't you make a move instead of sitting there wishing you had any honor or dignity left? And then tomorrow morning we can see what I can and can't remember." I was too appalled-both at her and myself-to say anything, but I couldn't help staring at her and every smug, self-satisfied movement she was making. She took a big drink, somehow daintily, and licked her lips. She looked into her glass, then, and laughed. She looked up at me, fluttering her eyelashes. And then she slid the tumbler my way.

"Or maybe you want to see what I do with drunk girls," she said, more of a purr than anything else.

We stared at each other, and before I could taste it or think better of it, I drank what was left. It burned all the way down and settled into a pile of embers in my stomach. She smiled at me-a smile full of teeth and danger and terrible ideas.

"That's the spirit, Miss Blanchard." She slid closer to me, and her smell was overpowering and I thought she was going to touch me, but she didn't. What she did was worse: she leaned in and whispered in my ear,

"Would you like to take me home? Have your illicit way with me? Pretend you're someone else for the night?"

She did touch me then. Her hand was on my mid thigh, and it was burning hot.

I swallowed and managed to whisper,

"And who would I pretend to be?"

She chuckled into my ear and squeezed my leg a little too hard to be sexy.

"Someone who could seduce someone like me." Her voice was low and raised the hair on the back of my neck, but it was also hard and mean, and I was torn between wanting her to continue and wanting to be safe at home two hours ago-or two weeks ago-before any of this had happened.

"No," I whispered. "I don't want to be anyone other than myself." She laughed a full laugh, and I felt sick to my stomach. I felt even sicker when her hand shifted from my mid thigh to my upper thigh, her fingertips brushing against my other leg, lightly starting a rhythm like a brush on a cymbal in a smoky jazz club. I could feel my breathing start to mimic it.

"It's a bit late for that," she whispered. I wasn't sure I was supposed to have heard it, but I had, and I looked into her whiskey-soaked eyes. They were sparkling with laughter and meanness, and instead of asking her more questions she would only half answer, I kissed her, still feeling that hypnotic rhythm.

She was laughing into my mouth, and I felt stupid and like maybe this was a bad dream. But I hardly ever remembered my dreams, so it probably wasn't. But then she wasn't laughing anymore, and her tongue was in my mouth, and I wasn't sure if she really wanted to kiss me or if she wanted to win the game we were playing, and I didn't care. I cared about the woody taste of her and how her silk blouse was caressing my arm and how the rhythm she was playing stayed steady and insistent. Her other hand was in my hair now, pulling me farther into her.

It was when I put my hands on her shoulders and delighted in the feel of the fabric under my fingers that her hand on my thigh stilled and gripped my flesh firmly. She stopped kissing me, and I was late to stop kissing her. And then the hand that had been in my hair was around my chin, pulling me out of a lust-haze as she stared at me.

"Take me home, Miss Blanchard. No useless chatter, no questions, no hickies."

She pressed her keys into my hand and placed a few bills on the table, and we were in her car.

I had driven-on frenzied autopilot-to my own apartment before I wondered if she meant her home or mine. But here we were.

"I don't suppose you have anything to drink," she said as she took off her coat. I was watching the movement of her shoulders and wondering why I had let her come here and didn't answer. She was in my kitchen, looking through my freezer.

"Gin. I should have known," she said.

I took off my own coat. My heart was in my throat, thumping wildly.

"Surely you're already toasted enough," I said. She tossed her head in a laugh.

"I'm hardly ever not toasted enough. I was thinking of you." Her eyes met mine for a brief moment, and there was anger in them, lust maybe, guilt probably not. I was probably projecting although I wasn't sure what I was feeling guilty about.

"I don't need to be toasted to want you," I said, the words launching out of my mouth before I could even slow them down.

She laughed and crossed back into the living room.

"I'll be sure to file that information away."

We stood in my living room, staring at each other. She was probably analyzing me, but all I could do was wonder at her lips and the way they seemed to be taunting me.

"And I'm sure you'll send me a memo about it." Her eyes narrowed.

"This is your only warning. Remember what I said about useless chatter." I couldn't be sure what chatter she might deem useless, so I grabbed her face and pulled her mouth to me before either of us could break the rules.

Her tongue found its way into my mouth before mine made its way to hers, and it was so insistent, as if it were still trying to talk, trying to berate me with big, mean words. But inside my mouth they were all muted into a sensual chant that spoke only of satin sheets and feverish undulating. I slid my hands into her hair and let my mouth take its lashing.

Her body was pressing closer to mine, and I could feel the heat of it through all the layers of clothing between us. Her hands were on my ribs, her fingers radiating heat into my lungs through the clothes, the tissue, the bone. I worried briefly she had a fever. But I forgot to care as one hand slid lower and found its way to the back of my thigh and squeezed.

There was a resurgence of energy in the kiss, and our bodies pressed even closer together, firmly, madly. I pushed her onto the couch, and she laughed as she fell. I wondered if this was always how it would be-my kissing her earnestly and her laughing, and then I briefly castigated myself for thinking there would be an always attached to us at all. That would be a poor always situation.

I stopped thinking about this when she bit my lip, and I was more aroused than angry. I wanted to say something about it, but there was no allowance for chatter, so I clawed at her blouse in retaliation. She laughed again. I was tired of that. I abandoned the blouse and found my way under her skirt, pushed past her silk panties, and pressed two fingers into her. She gasped this time instead. I much prefered that.

I wanted to say something about that, too, but instead I just gasped with her, at her wetness and the way she arched up to me.

I was watching her now and feeling her and smelling her and hearing her. It was overwhelming and less foreign than it should've been, and I must've slowed my pace reveling in her somehow familiar erotic beauty because her eyes opened suddenly.

"Don't you dare," she said, voice low and threatening. I didn't know what I was supposedly daring to do, so I kissed her and thrust faster, finding her clit with my thumb. She moaned, and her body was quivering, or perhaps mine was, or perhaps we both were. I thrust even faster and harder, and she moaned again, stiffened, whispered something. I continued as if I were in some kind of trance, a trance full of her, and I felt her heat from every angle. I kissed her again, and it was almost pleasant and warm instead of mean and hot. She cried out into my mouth, and her hot fingers were around my wrist, stopping me.

She panted for a few seconds into my mouth, and then she pushed both my shoulders as she straightened into a sitting position.

"Strip, Blanchard. I can't fuck someone in a wool skirt and ugly cardigan."

As I undid my buttons, I bit my own lip so I wouldn't say anything about her being fucked by someone in a wool skirt and ugly cardigan. But halfway through my actions, and three quarters of the way through that thought, I found myself pinned underneath her. Apparently she couldn't wait for me to finish, and her hands were on my breasts, and her mouth was on my neck, and I could feel her heat and anger everywhere, especially in her thigh that was pressing against my clit.

"Why?" someone said.

Her face was above me, angrier than ever. Something in my stomach dropped: I must've said it.

"Why what?" she growled as she pinched my nipple, which shot pain and pleasure through my entire body.

"I don't know," I said. "Why is this happening? Why do you hate me? Why-"

She stood abruptly.

"I told you no useless chatter. I should've known anything to come out of your mouth would be useless."

She was buttoning her blouse, and I didn't know what to do to make her stay, or even if I wanted her to stay.

"I'm sure my mouth could be useful," I said, reaching for her. Her jaw clenched.

"We'd both be better off if we forgot this ever happened."

And she was gone.

xxxxx

I was fine. I was eating fine. I was sleeping fine. I was dreaming fine-the dreams were as vague and seldom remembered as always. I was fine.

The strange, truncated night I had shared with Mayor Mills was not affecting my life in any way.

Except when I looked at her.

There I was at a school board meeting, trying not to look at her.

But she wasn't even trying not to look at me.

Every time I accidentally glanced over, there were her eyes, her eyebrows, her lips. Her entire face was taunting me, her eyes boring into me.

At the first lull in new business I made a beeline for the ladies' room.

But as I stood washing my hands and staring into my own reflection, I heard the door open and smelled her as she entered-flowers and booze and fire, and I didn't want to want her, but I did, of course.

She was pulling powder and lipstick out of her purse and staring into the mirror, frowning with tight, angry eyes. Our gazes met.

"What, Miss Blanchard?" Her voice was cold and hard. She was quietly furious, and I suspected it wasn't about the new playground budget proposal.

"I-" I realized the water was still on and finally turned it off, but I didn't dare break eye contact to get a paper towel. "Are you feeling all right?"

"No," she said, keeping the perfect o of her mouth to reapply her lipstick.

"Is there anything I can-" I had been staring too obviously at her lips, and she raised an eyebrow.

"For the record, it is not a boo boo that can be kissed and made better." She blotted and returned her makeup to her purse.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. I tried a weak smile, and she frowned harder as she turned to face me.

"I want to be clear, Miss Blanchard," she said. Her face was mean without any levity at all. I didn't know what to expect. She eyed me, and I couldn't be too sure what my own face was doing. I was unequivocally turned on, but I was also worried-worried that she was, too, worried that she wasn't, worried that she would bring up my alleged incompetence as a teacher, just worried.

"Yes?" I said. It was mostly a whisper. And I watched her face this time-mostly her lips because I couldn't help myself. It was mean, definitely, but sort of suddenly it softened.

"Have you experienced déjà vu lately?" I thought for a moment.

"No." It hadn't been a lie until I had said it, and suddenly this bathroom seemed familiar somehow, and there was a weird tightening of my chest and a flash of something I couldn't identify behind my eyes.

I shook it off, and we stared at each other. I got the distinct impression she was trying to break me with the look in her eyes. But I didn't know what she thought I needed to be broken of.

"Would you like to?" She said, velvet and low.

"I don't know how you're expecting to-" she stepped closer, and her eyes traced my body. I felt naked and slightly on fire. "No, I-" she raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"Well, if you're not interested..."

"Of course, I'd like to broaden my horizons. In the interest of becoming a better educator-"

She cut me off with her tongue darting into my mouth, and I felt a thousand things, none of which had anything to do with becoming a better educator. Before I knew it, I felt her erect nipple under my right palm, her supple skin under my fingertips.

"Careful, dear. Anyone might walk into this washroom," she said, and she stepped away from me.

"Let's meet," a disembodied voice that must've been mine said. She laughed.

"In what dark alley would you like to take advantage of me?" she said.

"The old toll bridge," I said. I should've been offended; I should've given her sass instead of an eager response. I could've sworn I saw her grimace before she said,

"Tonight. Nine o'clock."

I couldn't remember a child version of myself dreaming of being a doctor or firefighter or housewife. I couldn't remember a child version of myself wanting a husband. But I knew for a fact that child I couldn't remember wouldn't ever have dreamed of whatever this was.

An owl hooted its melancholy song in the distance. It probably wasn't hooting for me and the mistake I was about to embrace, but its ululations discomfited me nonetheless. It seemed to say I had no past, no future, no direction. I was wont to agree. But that was no reason not to have hope. I wasn't sure what I was hoping for, but it was something just beyond reach.

High beams flashed in my rearview mirror, and a chill coursed through me.

I watched as Regina's car pulled in behind me, and we stared at each other through my rearview mirror for a moment. She flashed her high beams again. I took this to mean she intended for me to get out, so I did.

"I wouldn't be caught dead in a station wagon," she said as she rolled down her window.

"I thought maybe we could sit on the riverbank and talk." I expected her to laugh derisively, but she just narrowed her eyes.

"Roughing it under the stars? I'm not trying to get a merit badge," she said.

"And just what are you trying to get?" She did laugh then.

"Laid, of course." She wasn't smiling, and neither was I.

"I thought since you wanted to meet somewhere that maybe-"

"Maybe I wanted a secret romance with flowers and candy and declarations in the moonlight? No, thank you."

"I'm glad we're on the same page," I said. I had hoped I had played that card right. I looked at her face in the dimness, and she seemed shocked and relieved and mad, and I didn't know what to think of any of it, but I leaned in her window all the same. "My car is more spacious, though."

"Absolutely not," she said. She made a shooing motion with her hand, and I took a step back so she could open her door. She got out and ambled toward the river.

"I always forget how outdoorsy you are," she said, not looking at me.

"It's not something that has really come up in our conversations." I was following her, and we had made it to the underside of the bridge. After a beat she turned.

"It's a little chilly for skinny dipping. Do you have a plan, or am I supposed to come up with something?" Her hands were in her blazer pockets, and she was looking at me with cold eyes.

"I-" I had actually just thought we'd make out in my car until I unknowingly said something that offended her and we'd both leave unsatisfied. "No. I just-It was the first place I thought of. When you asked me." Her eyes were only half as cold when she rolled them.

"You're terrible at this." She grabbed the collar of my blouse and pulled me to her. "I guess that's the appeal of you." She stared at me for a half a moment before she kissed me-all teeth and tongue and redirected meanness.

Perhaps she did like the novelty of me, and perhaps I did like the meanness of her. I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted her, and I wanted that coldness out of her eyes, even if angry fire was the only thing that would replace it. I pushed her against a cement pillar and was more satisfied than guilty when I heard a thud as she made contact with it. She pulled my hair for it, and our kiss broke, and she was trailing her mouth down my neck, tickling me and making me wish I'd picked a different location.

She snaked a hand under my blouse, and her skin seemed even hotter in the evening coolness. She hummed into my throat as she grazed my bra. The pillar was rough and cold under my palm, but her body was yielding and warm, and I fell into it heavily, slipping my thigh between hers, steadying myself with a hand on her hip. I pressed my nails in and started a slow rhythm with my hips. It was more luscious than I thought it might be, and I was drowning in her sweet whiskey scent and the waves of her hips meeting mine. I could feel her teeth now and wondered briefly if her hickey rule applied to me, as well. But then she stopped suddenly and brought her face up to mine.

"Do you want me to touch you?" It might've been a nice question, a concerned question. But it wasn't. It was an interrogation-her eyes narrow and suspicious, though unmistakably clouded with lust.

"Of course," I said.

"Why?" she said. I could've sworn when I had asked the same question she had run out the door. I didn't think before I said,

"Who wouldn't want you to touch them?"

"That's not what I asked." I tried to straighten up, to move away from her, but her hands were still on me, pulling me back to her. "You stay right here and answer me." She spread her hot hand across my ribs and moved it up my chest. I shivered against it. I could feel my heart beating against her fingertips, and I was wondering why she was trying so hard to seduce me when I was already seduced.

"I-guess-I like you." She tapped a finger against my thudding heart.

"No you don't. Try again." Her other hand was where it had been on my neck, and its grip tightened and pulled me slightly closer. I could feel her breath on me.

"I find you attractive." She brushed her thumb along my jaw, and I shivered again. She began to undulate her hips, and my hips followed.

"And?" she said, her eyes still interrogating but half closed.

"And I want to be close to you." Her eyes opened fully, and she scraped her nails down my abdomen and stopped when she reached the waistband of my slacks, which she grabbed forcefully.

"Why?" she said, the nails of her other hand digging into my trapezius, her hips still lazily rocking. I kissed her then, hard but not hard enough to knock her head into the pillar. She pulled me closer by my waistband, and I broke the kiss.

"I don't know what you want from me. I just-I want you. Because I do."

She looked at me-seemingly through me-for a second before she seemed to decide something and kissed me again, her tongue working in the same cadence as her hand unbuttoning my slacks.

Her fingers traced my panties several times, and I wanted to scream.

"Please," I said into her mouth.

And she did. With one finger at the pace her hips had already set. I reveled in the languid luxury of it for a moment.

"Please," I said again. She laughed, and I kissed her hard, pushing myself into her, begging her with my whole body.

And suddenly there were three fingers, fast and hard, and I didn't have any breath to thank her. She was kissing me voraciously, and I was taking all she would give me more voraciously, my body vibrating. I could feel heat radiating throughout myself, pulsating.

She moaned when I came, and afterward I watched her slide her fingers into her mouth. Her smile was calculated when she said,

"If I were slightly more drunk or we weren't under a bridge, I might be tempted to taste you first hand."

"I have gin at my house," I panted. She slithered out from under me, laughing, and began to rearrange herself. I turned toward her and leaned back on the pillar.

"Like I want to debase myself by drinking a Christmas tree and chasing it with you."

"So that's it, then?" I said.

She smiled a mean smile.

"Button your pants, Blanchard. I hear the wolves around here can smell a wet girl a mile away."

xxxxx

If I were to say I was in love with her, I would've had to reevaluate everything I'd ever thought about love. We hardly even knew each other, let alone liked each other. But there was definitely something there I couldn't describe. Something just beyond what my mind or my heart or my body could comprehend. It was more than wanting her. I could understand that. I could understand if I just thought she was pretty and I wanted to touch her. I could understand and restrain myself.

But I didn't understand, and I couldn't restrain myself.

I wanted all of her, and it didn't matter that she scared me and that she was mean. In fact, those two facts probably encouraged this confounding longing, hunger, desire.

Need.

It was a necessity, and I couldn't help but need it more every day. Even before any of this had come about, I would catch myself staring at her in school board meetings, shuddering at the sound of her voice, breathing heavily as I read her memos. I was bound to her in a way I'd always subconsciously known but had never analyzed until recently.

And now that I knew this strange thing about myself, I also knew that she had known the whole time. My question now was whether she felt-if not the same-at least some similar pull. It made little sense that she would, but it made less sense that she would treat me the way she did in any context. Or maybe she just liked the attention. For as beautiful and intriguing as she was, I had never even heard rumors about a love life.

I was thinking about this as I read to my coma patient. I felt guilty that my narration didn't have much pizazz this evening as my mind was far away from the Jack London book I'd chosen for him. (I didn't know what books an anonymous man might like, so I had picked something that looked rugged but probably wouldn't put me to sleep right alongside him.)

"You might get more of a reaction if you were in one of those little striped uniforms." I stopped reading mid-sentence. It was her. And she was here. In this tiny space I had carved out as my own.

"But would it get a reaction from you?" Why couldn't I have just told her to mind her own business? Why did I find it necessary to flirt back? It wasn't healthy.

I turned to look at her and realized belatedly that she probably had not meant it flirtatiously but sarcastically. She was still sneering.

"I highly doubt it," she said, sneering harder.

"What are you doing here?" I said. I hadn't exactly meant it accusingly, but it had come out that way because I was disgusted with my reprobate self and confused about her presence and its effect on me.

"A mayor who doesn't care about health care isn't much of a mayor," she said.

"Of course. And are you here to harass Dr. Whale the way you harass me?"

She almost smiled but then hardened her face.

"I don't harass anyone the way I harass you."

I wanted that to make me feel special, but somehow it just made me angry.

"Well, in that case, could you harass me later?" I meant to turn around and resume what I had been doing, but her eyes caught mine, and we were staring at each other. The laugh she gave was forced and a second too late to be convincing.

"No. My harassment schedule is very tight." We continued staring at each other. I put down the book and stood.

"I have no doubt. You're very efficient." I stepped closer to her. She stepped away from me. Not back. That would've meant weakness. She stepped to the side.

"I'll take that as a compliment." She cleared her throat and rearranged the coat that she had slung over her arm. "Truth be told, I came here to find you." I was trying to look into her eyes, but she wouldn't let me.

"Well, you found me." She shifted her weight and then met my eyes. They weren't exactly mean but not exactly not mean, either.

"I'm not interested in continuing our arrangement," she said, as though she were switching trash companies.

I looked over at where the unconscious man lay. I suddenly felt as though I should've asked her at the beginning for a more private arena. I looked back at her. She was standing straight, unflinching, unblinking.

"And what if I am?"

"What you're interested in has never been of much concern to me." It rang true, but it also rang false. In fact, it just rang-a loud and indeterminate alarm.

"Kiss me one last time." I didn't know where that had come from, but it had come out, and there it was. She didn't huff. She didn't roll her eyes. She stepped in closer-her fire and bourbon and roses scent making me reel-and she was staring at me so intently that I broke eye contact.

"No," she said. I touched her arm, and she didn't flinch.

"But you're not finished with me." We made eye contact, and she looked pained. I couldn't exactly tell why. I suspected it had little to do with the conversation we were having. She grimaced as she said,

"Never. Unfortunately."