Whipped, page 16
“Maybe we should watch something else.” Cheyenne’s voice shook Erica out of her waking nightmare. “You look a little pale.”
Erica was back in the room, the cat sleeping in her lap as she sat in an armchair and Cheyenne sat crossed legged on the couch as far away from her as possible. She’d lost track of how long they’d been sitting there like that watching the news.
It could’ve been hours. Apart from the increasing devastation of the upper keys, they’d been consuming the same images on a loop.
“Are you in pain?” Cheyenne started to get up. “Is it time for medication or something?”
“No, I’m fine.” Erica didn’t need to tell her she didn’t intend to take any more pain meds. They clouded her mind and her judgment.
“Are you sure?” Cheyenne furrowed her brow, her usually bright eyes dim in the room’s darkness.
The concern on her face was unsettling. Erica wasn’t a baby. She didn’t need to be coddled. “I’m fine,” she repeated more sternly.
Cheyenne shrugged. “Well, if you need me to grab you something just ask.”
Erica’s gaze lingered on her a moment. Y ou’re not only pathologically helpful, but you’re also relentless.
“God, those poor people,” Cheyenne said when her attention returned to the television. “I hate that the eye is going their way and not ours.”
“Someone’s always gotta be the loser,” Erica replied as she scratched Tilly behind the ear, eliciting a deep, rumbling purr while the cat’s eyes remained shut.
“How can you be so callous?”
The sympathy on Cheyenne’s face was replaced with disgust. It caught Erica off guard.
“What?” Erica snapped, already defensive. “Am I wrong?
In a hurricane like this someone’s going to bear the brunt of it.
How is it callous to state the obvious?”
Cheyenne shook her head. “Everything isn’t so matter of fact, Erica.” There was that hard c again. She was mad, but why?
“So, is me adding those poor people to my sentence going to keep them from getting smashed by tornados and storm surge? I don’t understand what you’re angry about.”
Cheyenne glared before turning away from her and back to the television where people were scrambling onto their roofs hoping to be rescued during the eerie calm of the hurricane’s eye. She wanted to comment that neighbors should be helping each other instead of taking video with their phones, but giving the rip currents in the flood waters, there was nothing to do but wait.
That’s why they told you to evacuate.
On the television, the meteorologist who’d been working all day nonstop, and would probably continue all night, appeared in front of a green screen.
Is it time for the 11:00 p.m. advisory already?
Erica’s body tensed. Every six hours the National Hurricane Center provided details about the hurricane’s intensity and predicted its path. She held her breath as they awaited their fate. Down to a Category Two after ripping through the state’s southern tip, Earl was still formidable. As it neared, any variation in its path could mean the difference between a direct hit and a glancing blow.
“With the northeasterly high-pressure system swooping in and pressing down here.” The meteorologist, his face haggard and baby blue tie looser than it was this morning, used both hands to mimic some invisible stream pushing against the top of the storm. “If it keeps curving this way, as we expect, the eye will start turning away from Miami-Dade County and toward the Everglades.”
Cheyenne tossed her head back and sighed. “Oh, thank you, Jesus.”
Erica allowed her stomach to unclench. It looked like they’d be spared the worst. “What? You don’t care about all the animals in the Everglades?” She couldn’t help herself.
Teasing Cheyenne was the only way to release the excess anxiety bubbling in her body, plus her hand was hurting and that was still her fault.
Cheyenne’s reply was a squinty-eyed glare.
Before Erica could make another crack, thunder clapped, shaking the house. Outside, an explosion roared over the storm’s cacophony. Neither of them had a chance to say what the fuck was that? before the lights went out.
The darkness lasted less than a second. With a whirling sound like a plane’s turbine coming to life, the generator turned on and the lights returned. Erica breathed a final sigh of relief.
“Neat trick,” Cheyenne decided, reaching for the remote on the coffee table, presumably to turn the television back on.
Cheyenne only got as far as the reach before a loud pop plunged them into darkness once again.
“Shit,” Erica cursed into the pitch blackness of her living room. Without the roar of electricity, the storm was deafening.
“I’m guessing that wasn’t supposed to happen,”
Cheyenne’s disembodied voice said.
Erica rolled her eyes even if her unexpected guest couldn’t see her. In the darkness, the light from Cheyenne’s phone was a beacon.
I must be having a nightmare, Erica decided rationally.
There was no other explanation. It was simply a variation on a recurring dream she used to have where she showed up to school wearing nothing but her mother’s tie-dye tank top unprepared for a final exam. It was the same lack of control.
“Apparently you’re supposed to do regular maintenance on generators. Have you done that?” Cheyenne looked in her direction, her face soft in the phone’s glow.
The simple, and probably reasonable, question put Erica over the edge. Between the pain in her wrist, the storm, and now the damn generator, she’d had enough.
“How would I know?” Erica shrieked, her blood pumping hard in her ears. “I’ve lived here a few weeks! The previous owner certainly didn’t leave me care and feeding instructions for the stupid thing!” It was an overreaction, she knew it even then, but with her pulse racing she couldn’t walk herself back from the ledge. It was too much.
Cheyenne uttered the words that had never once in all human history had the effect of easing tension. “Calm down.”
Erica glared at her again. Was the house already feeling stuffy? The room was too small and getting smaller. She hugged herself to keep her skin from feeling so tight that it choked the air from her lungs.
“Do you have a lantern or a flashlight?” Cheyenne asked, looking away from her phone and toward Erica’s general direction.
When Erica couldn’t respond immediately, Cheyenne stood. Using her phone to guide her, she rushed toward the box of crap she’d insisted on unloading from her car. The
sound of clicking was not accompanied by battery operated light.
“Damn. This is a great camping lantern, but the batteries must be out. Do you have any? I just need double As. I have a little adaptor thing.”
Unnerved by Cheyenne’s aplomb, Erica tried to recall. “In one of those, I think.” She pointed into the darkness of the kitchen where all boxes marked miscellaneous awaited her attention.
Cheyenne pointed the blinding light at her. Erica squinted and repeated the gesture. When Cheyenne started for the kitchen, Erica stood.
“Any idea which one of these might have the batteries?”
Switching on her phone’s light, Erica regretted not having set it to charge. Being half full seemed like plenty before the generator crapped out. She held her throbbing arm close to her chest as she illuminated her feet to avoid tripping. With her recent luck, she might fall and break her left hand too.
“Wait,” Erica called when Cheyenne was about to slice through the packing tape. “I’ll do it. I don’t need you rummaging through my things. Hold the light for me.”
Erica dropped her phone on the kitchen island and took the pen Cheyenne intended on using to hack at the box. She reached for a letter opener in a drawer instead. Cutting through the tape with her left hand without holding the box steady with her right made opening the stupid thing more awkward than she anticipated.
Cheyenne shifted her weight and sighed. “At this rate the storm will be over and the power back on before you open that box.”
“I definitely tolerated you better before,” Erica muttered, allowing Cheyenne to take the letter opener. Not because she needed her help, but because the pain in her arm had been sharply increasing since she started moving around.
“Hold the light,” Cheyenne demanded as she handed her the phone and tore the box open in one swift, decisive
movement.
After rummaging unsuccessfully through a box of fancy kitchen gadgets she rarely used, they moved on to a couple of others. Annoyed and drained from the quickly settling heat, Erica was relegated to holding the phone while Cheyenne touched all her things. Erica wanted to look away to ease the uncomfortable sensation percolating in her guts, but not knowing what she was looking at was worse.
“Are you sure you have batteries?” Cheyenne asked before moving on to the next box.
Erica was starting to doubt it herself.
Cheyenne pulled something out and knocked into the side of the box. “What’s this?”
Straining her vision in the low light, Erica trained the flashlight on Cheyenne’s hand. As soon as she recognized the gilded edge of the frame, her stomach dropped.
“Not batteries,” she replied, swatting at the object she’d sworn she tossed in the trash.
She wasn’t quick enough with her occupied left hand.
Cheyenne easily snatched it close to her chest and away from Erica’s reach.
“Lend me the phone,” Cheyenne demanded, her voice stern but for the undertone of glee rippling at its core.
“Absolutely not,” she shrieked. It might be undignified for her to wrestle the picture out of her hand, but she could withhold the light without injuring her self-respect.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be such a baby.”
Erica cringed at Cheyenne’s amusement as if she were acting coy about the photo as part of a game. “Release my property.”
Cheyenne laughed. “Okay. No problem. Just give me my phone back then.”
She’d forgotten that it was hers. There was no way to do a prisoner exchange one-handed and she was sure Cheyenne
would run away with both the frame and the phone as soon as she got the chance.
Erica rolled her eyes. “Since it obviously means so much to you.” She handed her the phone.
“Oh my God! Is this you?” Cheyenne held the light over the picture.
“No. I usually keep framed photos of strange little girls in my home.”
Cheyenne laughed, undeterred by Erica’s caustic tone.
“You were so cute! What are you wearing?”
Erica glanced at the image. Her hair, black and glossy, was coiled in long braids around her head. Her tall, ten-year-old frame was dressed in a hodgepodge of multi-colored fabrics fashioned into a folksy gown.
“Is it like some kind of traditional thing?” Cheyenne held the image closer to her face and squinted.
Desperate to get out of the conversation, Erica gave in. She guessed Cheyenne would never let it go otherwise. “I wanted to do ballet when I was a kid. Instead of putting me in a class, my parents found Moonbeam instead. Turns out she was a bit of a hippie charlatan.”
Cheyenne’s hazel eyes shone as she smiled with her entire face, a feat she didn’t know was possible. “I have about a million new questions.”
Erica took the phone back, ready to erase the tightness in her chest. “I let you see it. That’s all you get.” She aimed the light at an electric wine opener. “Open that up. I’m pretty sure it has batteries.”
Much to her relief, Cheyenne did as she was told for once.
A few minutes later they were back in the living room, a small lantern illuminating the stuffy, warming room.
“Now what?” Cheyenne asked.
Erica watched Tilly splayed out on the relatively cool tile.
“We wait for the storm to pass.”
CHAPTER 27
IN THE UNBEARABLE HEAT, Cheyenne had somehow managed to fall asleep slumped in a corner of Erica’s couch. With the benefit of the lantern, Cheyenne retrieved the extra fan she’d packed for her mother’s house. It was small, but it was enough to keep the thick, humid air circulating around them. Tilly had laid herself right in front of it, blocking half the breeze.
Neither of them told her to move.
Cheyenne had been shocked at Erica’s lack of preparation.
She didn’t have a hand crank radio, stash of fresh batteries, extra fans. Nothing to use in the event of a power failure.
Cheyenne resisted heckling her about her corporate conspiracy theories. It was obvious she was in a lot of pain even if she didn’t complain about it. After an hour of sitting in the dark listening to the news on the phone, Cheyenne closed her eyes and drifted away.
“Wake up.” Erica’s husky voice was a slap to the face.
Disoriented and with her heart pounding in her ears, it took Cheyenne a few seconds to recognize her surroundings.
Crushing heat settled over her sweat-soaked skin as soon as she roused. The storm still roaring outside reminded her of her location.
“What’s wrong?” Cheyenne peeled herself off the leather couch as the material clung to her skin like they’d been glued together.
“Drink this,” Erica demanded before shoving a bottle of water in her face. “You’re too hot.”
Cheyenne stretched the kink in her neck. “Such a charmer.”
Erica’s response was a furrowed brow.
“I know, I know. Heat stroke is nothing to joke about,”
Cheyenne said, mimicking the sober, preachy tone Erica liked to use when she was schooling her on something.
“It’s already in the eighties in here.” Erica pointed to the thermostat.
As Cheyenne rehydrated, she understood Erica’s meaning.
Her nearly dead cellphone showed sunrise was still hours away. Once the July sun was well and truly up, the heat would be unbearable.
“When the winds die down, we’ll go out there and figure out the generator situation. I was watching some videos online.
We’ll get the power going.” Cheyenne tried to be encouraging as she twisted the cap back on the half-empty bottle.
“In the meantime, you should cool off,” Erica replied, apparently unfazed by Cheyenne’s attempts at optimism.
“Come on.”
Erica turned on her heels and started for the hallway off the living room before Cheyenne could crack a joke. She didn’t bother to wait for Cheyenne or even offer the illusion that she was doing anything less than demanding her compliance.
Curious, Cheyenne peeled herself the rest of the way off the stiff couch and followed her. When she opened a door, Cheyenne was surprised it was to her bedroom.
While Erica crossed the threshold, Cheyenne remained rooted to the ground, her pulse suddenly dancing in her neck as the heat pressed in on her, making her dizzy.
She couldn’t fathom why Erica was leading her to her bedroom, the most private, intimate space in her home.
Moistening her dry lips, Cheyenne watched Erica’s hips sway gently as she sauntered forward. She imagined her stripping off her sweat-soaked clothes, each item a breadcrumb for Cheyenne to follow as she floated closer.
“What are you doing?”
Erica’s voice shattered the strange fantasy, jarring Cheyenne back to her senses. There was no universe in which Erica would be seducing her. Shaking off the idea, Cheyenne shuffled into Erica’s bedroom. From what she could see in the low light of the lantern Erica was carrying, the sprawling space was nicely decorated in the same clean, contemporary style as the rest of the house. The huge king-sized bed looked heavenly to Cheyenne’s sore body.
Stopping at a small writing desk angled in the corner of the room, Erica pointed the light toward the open door. “I don’t want to move all of Tilly’s things. You’ll have to use my shower.”
Cheyenne squinted as she peered into the dark bathroom.
The long, glass encased shower had a fancy spa quality. “You make it sound like I’m going to have to use an outhouse,” she joked. When Erica didn’t laugh, Cheyenne continued. “I didn’t bring anything to change into.” The idea of putting her damp clothes back on after showering was so unappealing, she’d prefer to skip it all together.
Instead of a response, Erica turned away, taking the light with her, leaving Cheyenne standing in the dark by the bathroom door. Without anything else to do, Cheyenne watched Erica perch the light on a tall, white dresser and pull something out of a top drawer before bending down to open another.
Performing such a simple domestic act, Erica appeared so normal. So ordinary. Cheyenne pictured her rolling out of bed and reaching for something to wear. She wasn’t some pod person who always existed in a state of perfection. I wonder what she looks like with bed head.
“This is pretty light. Much better than what you’re wearing,” Erica gestured for her to come get the clothes.
“Thanks,” Cheyenne replied.
As Cheyenne reached for it, she misjudged the distance in the dark and grabbed Erica’s hand by mistake. Erica recoiled
like Cheyenne’s skin was made of molten lava.
“Sorry,” Cheyenne snapped, taking the clothes just as Erica was about to drop them. There goes that seduction idea.
“I…” Erica faltered, sounding embarrassed rather than angry. “I couldn’t see.”
“My fault,” Cheyenne interrupted. They had a long night to get through and it didn’t serve either of them to let any more awkwardness crop up between them.
“I have a tankless water heater, so I’m afraid there’s probably not going to be any hot water.”
Cheyenne started for the bathroom again while Erica retrieved the lantern. “That’s fine. I’m sure the cold shower will do my hot body good.” Cheyenne cringed as her ears registered the words coming out of her mouth.
Erica cleared her throat, her only response. In that moment, Cheyenne was grateful for the darkness concealing the fierce flush on her face.
