Part 8: Against the Rules

His room was dark. He hadn’t even snuggled under the fluffy comforter until a few minutes ago, and now he found himself inevitably in the same position he usually found himself when he prepared to sleep. He stared at the walls, the shadows, the ceiling, the window with its curtain drawn. He listened to the busy New York City street outside and wished for the solitude of his home that nestled along the ocean, yet at the same time ached because he could never go back, it being the home he had shared with Mandy, the home where he had come so closely to taking his life, or as Sunshine called it, breaking the contract.

He closed his eyes at the thought of her name. Aurora. He wondered if he was crazy. It was in the evenings, especially close to sleep where he truly believed that his spirit guide was not a bout with insanity, but something so special and perfect and wonderfully revealed to him by God, whoever that was. And whatever God was, it had revealed itself completely to him. It was almost as if he had been reborn. And it was all thanks to Aurora.

He had looked the word up in the dictionary. Aurora meant dawn. With Aurora, the sun had risen upon his life. It was liberating and frightening all at once.

Nick was in love with her. The thought confused him because his brain would not stop telling him that she wasn’t real, at least not physically. He could never marry her and have children with her. He would never be able to make love to her and introduce her to his friends. Yet there was no denying it. He was madly, deeply, overwhelmingly in love with the woman, or the spirit, or whatever she was.

Tonight, as he lie in his bed, hearing every slight noise, there was something other than insomnia gnawing at Nick. There was more than just slight noise in the room next to him. Nickolas smiled at the thought of AJ, his friend, who was just one door down. He was playing something from the new album. They were to release it in only a few weeks. Their first single was doing well already. And here Nick had thought people had given up on them, on him, and they hadn’t. It made a lump form in his throat and he swallowed it back. He never cried, not even when he had almost killed himself. A few tears had barely escaped, him trying his hardest not to let them out. That was something he needed to work on…the way he hid his emotions. Aurora had told him that and she had been right. But he was proud, proud of himself and his fans. AJ was playing a remix of the Call, which would probably be the next single.

What was Nick forgetting?

He had called it quits with Mandy just a few weeks ago. He felt like he could spread his wings and fly, like he had finally been able to let her go. He could think of her without feeling dead or alone, he could think of her without feeling pain or guilt. She was past.

I knew what he was forgetting. He had asked his bodyguard, Billy, a sullen soul who grated my nerves endlessly, to remind him. Of course he had forgotten. Leave it to Billy to forget to remind Nick of the important things. I let myself into Nick’s thoughts, ready to remind him, and found the thoughts of Mandy. Mandy who sat by herself in a hotel room in Minneapolis wondering what she would do without him. Mandy who had been chosen by Nick as one of his wives. She was supposed to mother their two toe-headed, musically inclined children. But due to even just the slight beginning action of taking his own life, Nick had altered everything he had planned for. And now we were all scraping back home to see what would happen now. What path would be next or laid in front of him. It wasn’t that it never happened. Lives were meant to change from their original course a bit. Yet Nick was thrown completely off.

And I knew what he was feeling. I knew he had fallen in love. I should have known before hand. It was almost inevitable, perhaps why he had kept me so far out of his conscious state. But it wasn’t something we couldn’t deal with. Afterall, I was professional, wasn’t I? I could handle this. He would fall in love with another woman, and soon. If only we could find the right one. And if only I weren’t so in love with him myself.

For the first time I could remember, I wished that I was alive, there on earth, so he could find me. Thinking like that, though, was fruitless. That would never happen. I had my own contract as a Spirit Guide to keep.

I watched him sit up in bed, his knees raised as he leaned on them with his elbows, rubbing his temples with fingers through his unkempt hair. It would be so nice to feel him, lie my front against his back, wrapping my arms around him, caressing his neck and chest. I didn’t, though. I just walked up close to him, knowing he’d see me in a moment, and whispered in his ear, “Liner Notes.”

Nickolas closed his eyes at the tender sound of my voice. When he opened them, he saw me standing there next to him, my hand on his arm, smiling. “I knew you’d come through.” He told me. I pointed to the desk in the suite of the posh Le Parker Meridien in New York City. There was a pad of paper and a pen. Nick sat and began writing, toiling away with draft upon draft until he had made it perfect. By then, the sun was rising and his eyes were falling. By then I had been watching him for hours, savoring the way he moved and the way he looked when he was concentrating. I had been inside his thoughts and knew what he had written; beautiful simplicity of spirit that had thanked family, friends, spirit and fans for all his good fortune.

When he finished, he lay his pen down on the desk and turned to look at me, sitting on the corner of the bed, holding onto one of his sweatshirts that smelt and felt like him. “All done.” He said in a low tone. And his eyes caught mine and I was suddenly swept away in everything we were to each other.

It was at that moment that I realized that I had been wrong. My love for him was something I could not control. He was magnetic and pulled me inward toward him, his body, his soul, his all. And neither of us could stop it or control ourselves. A miracle was about to happen.

*****

Nickolas swallowed hard. He wanted her. He couldn’t stop himself from saying it. “I think about you all the time.”

He walked toward where I was sitting on the edge of the bed. Because Nick willed it so, I was flesh and blood, there before him, something he could touch, taste, smell. I felt almost human sitting there, my body becoming warmer and warmer as I watched the way his own physique moved so deftly before me. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be a woman. It was wonderful and I wanted to yell out, but I just gasped quietly.

We didn’t speak. There was absolutely no need for words. He stood above me and slowly put his hands into my hair, rubbing from the base of my scalp to the top of my head. Chills vibrated throughout my being and I shuddered. He tilted my face upward toward him and I could see him looking at every inch of it, beginning at my hair line and traveling down to my neck. When he was done looking, he refollowed his path back upward, this time with his soft lips rather than his eyes. His mouth was just slightly wet and the moistness of that tiny perfect part of his body traveling along my own was taking me away, making remember just how much I loved him, loved being alive and being able to express love this way. I remembered that being born and living here was such a wonderful experience, the greatest gift God had ever given to us.

His lips finally made their way back to my own and he began to kiss me deeply and passionately, moving his supple tongue into my mine, against my own tongue, across my teeth, across the roof, along the insides of my cheeks. Deft gentle laps that I responded to myself longfully.

He pushed me inward and still held his position, only putting non leg on either side of me. He was grasping my face, hungrily tasting me over and over again. One of his palms moved to the bottom of my neck, kneading it with his fingers and pressing my lips to his own. The other moved down my back forcefully, bringing my body against his own. I felt his breath and was reminded of the life that I had lived every minute along side of. He breathed that life inside of me now. His lips and nose trailed down my ear and neck he brought me still closer to his long full body. I understood now why all those girls, all those women lusted for him. Lust was coming back to me, even in spirit form.

I was getting weak, falling backwards onto the soft confines of the bed. Nick’s hands lead me, holding my neck, protective. He continued kissing, removing my garments meticulously, slowly, agonizingly gentle. I did the same, although I didn’t so much need to see him naturally as I need to feel his nakedness. Skin that I had helped choose for him, pale and delicate, thinly veiled with smooth blonde hair.

When we were finally free from all of our clothing, he caressed me with his body, pressing it against mine, rubbing it with his hands and his legs and arms and feet and mouth. I inhaled the scent, the sweet nectar of his salted skin, sweet lips, light perspiration, cologne, soap, shampoo, and simply Nickolas, his own smell.

His heart beat, pounded, into my breasts as he continued his lips devotion to my collar bone; a bone I possessed that I had hardly been aware of until that very moment. His warm breath moistened my already wet skin as he whispered. “Aurora.”

My soul mate leaned onto his elbows and his blue eyes gazed into mine, deeply, intensely. He blinked once slowly, turning his eyes down, his eyelashes hiding the water colored centerpieces that made my spirit melt. He slowly looked back up into mine. “I love you, Sunshine.” His voice was very quiet, yet still held musical notes behind everything he said. It was as if Nickolas’s entire being was a sweet song. A lonely and beautiful and joyous one; a song that represented life in general.

I knew then that this would never happen again. I knew then that this was not right, that I would never receive approval from anyone on the Other Side. But the part of me that remained human was defiant against my God and told me that He shouldn’t have created us for one another if He wanted to keep us apart. And I gave in as I pushed Nick so that he was on his own back. All I wanted was to taste him, to have him inside of me. I used my teeth as I ran my mouth down his chest, as he shivered uncontrollably. He leaned his head back, arching his neck, then moving his head from side to side. I ran my tongue over his dark erect nipples and sucked gently as I felt him quiver beneath my own body. My eyes wandered to his magnificent, rigid extension of himself. I could contain myself no longer, wanted so much to make love. I put him inside of me, moved up and down and watched him writhe there in electric ecstasy. He called out my name, sung it out, and he took me away. He brought me back home, our spirits soaring, becoming one as we should be, the fire never subsiding, only getting larger and larger until it was us, burning bright as the sun that I had been named after, born of. And then the world and all being exploded and we went even farther away, where we really were one another, only us, forever and ever.

We collapsed and he fell asleep. I knew it couldn’t be much longer for me until I was called back. I slowly was yanked away, and with a lungful whisper I said into his ear, “I’ll be right here.” And then I was taken away as I knew I would be.

Nick awoke alone and called for me. But I did not come.

Malachi walked into the room in my place.