Behind the Silk Curtain

The apartment the next day was horrendous. I was scared to even leave Thomas' room the next morning to get breakfast…or even a glass of water. I hovered about the door for a few minutes while Thomas was still fast asleep in the bed behind me. He looked adorable tucked away in the corner, the bed sheets covering half his body but revealing the rest -- the rest that I had learned to love.

To help me gain the courage to leave the room, I walked back over to the bed and knelt down on top of it. I watched him a moment, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the slight parting of his lips, and the flutter of his eyes as he dreamt the minutes away.

I reached out to him, letting my fingers press through his hair and his curls soft, smooth. I took my hands from his hair and leaned down towards him, kissing him lightly on the lips. I felt him respond, but not to fully register that he was ready to get out of bed.

Sighing, I removed myself from him and walked back to the door. I was still dressed in Thomas' shorts and t-shirt but its not like I could go back into…my room to get changed. Besides, this is where I lived now. Clothes like the ones I wore were suitable, I guess.

I opened the door slowly, peeking out to see bottles gathered on the coffee table in the lounge room with plastic cups discarded across the floor. The couch was taken by two women, comfortable in each others embrace, and their dresses disheveled and torn.

I continued to look around the torn apartment, the kitchen littered with old remnants of food and the balcony littered with junk and cigarette butts. I closed the door behind me slowly, pressing my hand against the door in attempts to halt my shaking hands.

Turning back to the lounge room around me, I moved into the kitchen, noticing a few more littered bodies strewn across the ground. I searched the cupboards for some sort of garbage bag and found one underneath the sink next to a bin that was hidden there.

Pulling it out, I quietly shut the cupboard door and began to clean what I could see. I knew that I had no business cleaning up from a party that I wasn't even invited to, but this was my apartment now and I felt some responsibility to clean it up. So when I did, I made sure that I kept as quiet as possible.

I dumped pizza boxes, beer bottles and lolly water glasses. Damn, I hated that stuff. Me and alcohol, especially the sweet kind, didn't usually mix too well. There was a slight clink as I dropped the bottles into the bag. I glanced over to the clock on the microwave to see that it was nine thirty in the morning, about time for this couch surfers to get out of my apartment.

So by the time that I was finished picking up all of the bottles and any contamination within the apartment, still having the rest outside to clean up, all the party goers were stumbling around the apartment. They were straightening out their clothes, tying up their hair, and groaning about what could have happened the previous night.

The thing about working in a club is that you begin to hate the stuff you serve and begin to question why people would black out their memory like that. The taste, to let go for one night? To be peer pressured into rubbing up against some guy that you would regret sleeping with the next day? I seriously didn't get it.

I tied up the garbage bag and set it in the kitchen where I grabbed a second bag. As I did so, I went to the front door and ushered everyone out of the apartment. I was glad to be rid of their sound, their stink, and to finally be left in silence. I went outside and cleaned its contents and set everything back in place, like it had never been touched.

When I returned to the apartment, closing the balcony door behind me, I saw that Thomas was up and making a cup of coffee. He cleared his throat, enjoying the taste and kick that it gave him at this time of morning. I smiled at him as I walked into the kitchen and slipped my arms around his waist after dropping the garbage bag beside the other one that I had used to clean the apartment with.

I felt him fall against me, melting into my body. He took a long sip of coffee and set it down on the kitchen bench before turning to me and taking my face in his hands. We looked at each other for a moment as I felt my heart rise into my throat. Drawing the moment out for a little longer, he dipped down and kissed me upon the lips.

As he did so, he transferred the coffee that he had taken from the coffee cup into my mouth. Not an inch was spilt as he continued to kiss me, his passion continuing to grow. I wasn't particularly fond of coffee but I accepted it anyway because I knew that if I didn't, it could get messy -- emotionally and physically.

When I had swallowed all the coffee that he had to give, I removed myself from him rested my hand upon his cheek, saying, "Morning."

"Morning," Thomas replied as I began to wipe down the benches with a sponge that I found in the sink. "What are you doing?"

"I feel like I owe something to the apartment, weirdly enough," I replied, finishing one of the benches and bumping hips with me as I went to clean the second bench of the grime that it contained. "I live here now, don't I?"

"Doesn't mean you have to clean up after a party you didn't throw," he said, hoisting himself up onto one of uncleaned benches. I sighed and ushered him off there as I quickly cleaned where he sat momentarily. "I'll get Stacey out and we can go have some breakfast."

"Surely there will be some stuff in the fridge," I reasoned as I cleaned the rat of the benches.

"You tell me," he said, taking his cup of coffee and heading towards Stacey's former room. He opened the door roughly and practically shouted when the door slammed open. "Rise and shine, roomie!"

It took her a while to stumble out of the bedroom with a bag of her things that she had left the previous night. She still wore the slutty clothing that she had on the previous night and her make-up was completely ruined. You see, this is that moment that I would hate to experience -- the morning after. I would like to at least to remember whatever happened the previous night, especially if it was a sexual experience because who knew what could have happened.

Stacey looked between Thomas and I, and that was when I realised how little clothing he was wearing…only a pair of boxer shorts that gripped tightly around his hips and accentuated everything. Including his package. I had to pull myself away from looking at it because really, he could have a mjolnir down there.

I cleared my throat, hearing Thomas laughing softly as he ushered Stacey out of the apartment. I chucked the sponge into the sink, washing my hands, and went to check the fridge to see if Thomas was telling the truth about there being not food in the apartment -- and he was right. There was only some mouldy bread that had been left there for too long.

I closed the fridge and jumped when I saw Thomas standing there behind me. He stood there casually, draining the rest of his coffee as his perfectly formed body hovered closer to mine. He set the coffee aside on the newly cleaned bench with his pelvis pushing closer towards me.

His fingers went to pull up my t-shirt, pushing at every bump and grind that he came across. Thomas cast the t-shirt to the ground as I stood topless in front of him. I would have done something, a small voice in the back of mind telling me to cover myself up, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Our eyes were permanently connected as he ran his fingers up and over me again. He pulled my arms above my head and pressed me against the cool surface of the fridge. I felt a wave of goosebumps flow over me as he pressed me further against the fridge and his toned body against my own. It was warm, a contrast against the coldness of the fridge behind me.

I dropped down into the crook of my neck, kissing me down my neck, along my collar bone, and in between my breasts. I had this feeling rising up in my stomach and it wasn't a sexual feeling…I just didn't feel as if this was the right situation, the right moment. I just wasn't ready.

I pushed him off my body and bent down to pick up the t-shirt that I borrowed from him. I slipped it back over my body and glared at him as I moved into the room that Stacey once occupied. I closed the door behind me, wanting him to just go away for a moment.

The room smelt of sex and perfume. I reminded myself to get something to get rid of the smell…and make the room more mine. I pulled off all the sheets off the bed and threw them in the corner of the room. I pulled open the doors of the stack of draws at the end of the bed to find them empty.

I shoved all my clothes in there from the bags that Thomas and I had pulled over. It didn't take too long with the little that I had in the first place. I shoved the few shoes that I had to the side of the draws before I pulled out some underwear and some clothes.

I shuffled over to the bathroom where I found Thomas in there, still dressed just in his boxers. He had a toothbrush pocking out the corner of his mouth and toothpaste lining his lips. With one glance at me, he washed his mouth out and left the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

"Breakfast at Hyde in twenty," he said from his bedroom as I shut the door from my end.

"Alright," I said, turning on the shower and stripping off his clothes.

I cast the underwear that I wore to the ground and went to the door to his room. I opened it and held out the clothes that I borrowed from him the previous night. I held it out to him, waving it around until he came over to the door and took his clothes from me.

"Thought you might want them back," I said, maintaining eye contact.

"Thanks," he said, glancing down at my almost naked body. "Not ashamed, are we?"

"I'm an actor in training," I replied. "I shouldn't be ashamed of anything."

He smiled down at me, his fingers jumping around the door and pressing into my hip. I closed the door on him, preventing him from getting any further…further then what happened in the kitchen only a few minutes earlier. I turned on the shower when I returned to the bathroom and set out the little make-up I had while I waited for the shower to warm up.

I took up one corner of the bench against the wall, trying not to look at myself in the reflection I cast in the mirror. I put the clothes that I had taken from my room on the bench and jumped into the shower. I didn't take me long to wash out my hair and clean off my body. I jumped out as quickly as I jumped in.

I dried out my hair as much as I could before donning a coloured pair of jeans that Yvette had given me for my birthday and hardly worn since over the top of a pair of underwear. I pulled on a bra and a band t-shirt for Coldplay. I applied little make-up to my features and left the room, knocking on the door to Thomas' bedroom to let him know that I finished with the bathroom.

I grabbed a coat, a scarf and my wallet before leaving my bedroom, finding Thomas by the door and ready to go. He took my hand we made our way over to Hyde Park. We went passed a coffee cart we we picked up some tea and another cafe in the park where we picked up a take away French toast along with bacon and eggs.

We found ourselves by a lake in Hyde Park, stretched out and watching the ducks float passed. They hovered near by the edge where little kids fed them bits of bread despite the sign nearby that told them not to do so. I sipped at my tea while Thomas chewed on a piece of the French toast that he had claimed.

"Tell me about your family," I said, setting down my tea and looking over to him.

He stared out at the lake for a little while longer before he responded, "What did you want to know?"

He reached over to my tea and sipped some. I eyed his own tea, saying that it was empty and that I deserved some of mine. I rolled my eyes and said, "Siblings?"

I took the tea from him and held it close, hearing him say, "Two sisters. One older, one younger."

"The younger still in high school?" I said.

"Yeah, but doesn't want to be."

"Why?"

"Wants to be an actress as well, last time I spoke to her," he said with a sigh.

"When was the last time you spoke to your family?"

"Last Christmas. It was the only time I could go and see them."

"At least you get to see them soon."

"At least I have you there with me to help me through it."

"What do you mean?" I asked him, leaning over for some food. "Surely they couldn't be as bad as my family."

"My parents have been divorced since I was a kid and they haven't seen each other since then," he said, watching me eat my food. "This will be the first time they've really gotten back together."