Cat and Mouse - Stephanie Wilson (pocket ebook reader txt) 📗

Among all the demons of mankind, there has never been one as great as he with the green eyes. All of humanity will experience him at some point, though when installed into the right person, this particular demon can be an all-consuming, terror inducing horror to behold.

And Amanda Potter was going to learn this the hard way.

*

Amanda hadn’t intended to go to the Coffee House. After a long shift of filing, answering phone calls and mind numbing errands, her back ached, her head pounded and all she could think about was curling up with her book ‘The Luminaries’. But that bitter aroma of fresh coffee and chocolate had curled its finger at her from the doorway, beckoning deliciously.

After a working week, Amanda’s self control was at an all time low. Despite the promise that she was going to cut down on caffeine, the chill in the air and the smell of hot coffee was very tempting. Amanda was feeling joyous, as most do, at the knowledge that it was Friday. She had a wonderful new home, a good steady job and a conscious awareness that she had no real problems to speak of. On the most part, things were good.

Surely, she thought, it didn’t matter if I have a coffee at six in the evening, because I didn’t have to get up early in the morning for work.

That small though was all it took for her to spin on her heel, and push open the doors to the Coffee House.

The warmth enveloped her like a hug. She noted that the only other person in the store was a staff member, who was in the corner scrubbing at a table viciously. At her entrance, he looked up, revealing a face that was dominated by a thorough splattering of angry red pimples, and blushed. He quickly ducked his head and made his way to the counter, where he met Amanda’s gaze again. Amanda, feeling the need to share her cheer with the world, gave him her most encouraging smile.

She gave her order, a black coffee and then started rummaging in her wallet.

“Oh, I’m so sorry – I forgot to get cash out, is card ok?”

The boy nodded, and she presented him with her card.

As the boy finalized the transaction and returned her card, Amanda felt herself detach into half formed thoughts about what she would do in the weekend, intermittently pushed asides by thought about work and errands she needed to do. But, when she heard the low rumble of a familiar bus’s engine overtop of the grinding noises of the coffee machine, she was roused from her vacancy. She turned and looked out the shop window, just in time to see the bus she was meant to catch go past her. With a deep sigh, she resigned herself to waiting another twenty minutes until the next one arrived.

On the plus side, at least she would have a coffee to enjoy while she waited.

The boy gave Amanda her coffee, and she saw with pleasure that he had made a mistake and given her a bigger cup than what she had paid for. Her generally honest disposition made her hesitate, considering for just a moment about pointing out his error. Instead she took it for a happy blessing, thanked him, and made her was out the door.

It only took five minutes of walking to reach her bus stop. Taking tentative sips of her steaming coffee, she walked past the divider on the shelter, only to see a man bundled up in a thick coat that could not hide the roundness of his shoulders sitting smack in the middle of the bench. Realizing that Amanda wanted to sit, he shuffled over a bit to make room for her. Amanda thanked him and took her seat, sipping her slightly bitter coffee with ease.

“You’re welcome,” he replied slightly later than what would make it natural.

Time passes slowly, but Amanda noted, with amusement, that the man’s eyes would flicker to her now and again - though she pretended not to notice.

Eventually, he awkwardly cleared his throat.

“I’m...I’m Thomas,” he said shyly.

“Amanda,” she said, reaching out boldly to shake his hand.

Encouraged by this act, Thomas started to make small talk with Amanda. Through their twenty minute wait for the bus, and (of all the coincidences) the subsequent fifteen minute bus ride together, they chatted about many things. Thomas, with hesitant awkwardness, found in Amanda someone who patiently listened to stories about his work in I.T., and was willing to overlook the more awkward of his social interactions.

Amanda found in Thomas someone who was surprisingly charming under his shy demeanour. His slow half smile, his courteous nature (Ladies first) and his almost effeminate chuckles was all instantly endearing to her.

At the end of their trip, Amanda, with the confidence of someone who had always been easy on the eyes had taken Thomas’s phone and quickly punched in her number.

“Text me,” she instructed.

And text her he did.

*

After two months of daily contact, whether by phone, internet or actual dates, both Thomas and Amanda were quickly falling for each other. Despite this mutual attraction, very little physically had happened. Thomas’s fear of being rejected, based on past experiences, was too great for him to make the first move and initially Amanda’s sense of decorum prevented her from making the first move too.

But when Thomas had walked her home after a particularly pleasant evening of Italian food, good wine and merry laughter, Amanda threw he own sensibilities to the wind. On the steps to her house, she simply planted a small kiss directly on his slightly chapped lips.

Poor un-expecting Thomas was too slow in processing what was happening to him. Before he had a chance to reciprocate the kiss, it was over. But he really shouldn’t have worried, because before long they were locked in a much more tender kiss.

*

Just a week after their first kiss, Amanda had made an important decision about her relationship with Thomas. He would be coming over that night – in less than an hour, in fact – and Amanda had a surprise planned for him. Part of that surprise involved the red lacy nȇgligȇe that she was laying delicately on the bed. She imagined Thomas’s expression when he saw her in this and a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

As with the number, and the first kiss, Amanda planned to instigate the next ‘first’ of their relationship. Now having a sound knowledge of Thomas’s inability to make the first move, and feeling that their relationship was becoming increasingly more solid, she felt safe in doing so.

The soft tones of Daughter accompanied Amanda as she got ready, first with the makeup, which finished in a soft red lipstick. She took her time, examining her face in fine detail to see if anything about it was untoward. She undressed and studied her body in the mirror with the same amount of scrutiny, as only someone who knows that they will shortly be seen naked does.

She pulled the soft green material over her head, again studying how she looked in the mirror. She ran her fingers through her dark curls and just like that came to a relaization that had been dancing on the tip of her tounge for a while.

That she loved Thomas, indeed, she even though he might be the one.

It was as she came to this realization, processing it through in startled but ecstatic detail, that a sound could be heard over the music. A jarring creak of a door who’s hinges were in desperate need of oiling. It was a familiar sound to Amanda, and yet not familiar in the context.

Because that sound was always accompanied by her opening her closet door.

Her gaze instantly flickered to the mirror, watching the reflection of her closet opening slowly. Amanda, in the comfort of her own home and the belief of her own safety, didn’t have time to register her own disbelief and fear before he struck.

Jeremy Winters was scrubbing at graffiti on a table with purpose. His hands ached with the effort, and the smell of the cleaner had settled in his nose uncomfortably – but he did not stop.

Jeremy was having what his Mum liked to refer to as an “iffy day”. An iffy day was when his hands trembled, where his head ached and everything seemed to have succumbed to some unseen dark cloud. He had the late shift at the Coffee House too, and this did not help his increasingly dark mood.

But then she came in.

The bell dinged, and he looked up, feeling irate that a customer would dare come in to his store when he was in such a state. The scowl that was on his face froze, and as his gaze settled on her progress to the counter, his face seemed to melt. The creases between his eyebrows softened, the scowl faded into an almost dazed smile, and the perpetual claws around his chest lessened its grip.

In his eyes, it was like she shone with a light of her own. Illuminated by her beauty, he felt as if the sun finally shone again. She was perfection. A snowflake. A rare gem. She was his saviour.

Realizing he wasn’t moving, he felt the shameful heat spread across his face. Quickly (but not so quickly as to be obvious) he went to the counter to take her order.

When he got to the counter, the goddess of a woman smiled at him. Such a smile that he felt to his very soul. And then she ordered.

Coffee, tall, black.

A black coffee. No shot of peppermint. No cinnamon lattee. No whipped cream. Just a wonderfully simple and elegant black coffee - but of course that would be her order, because in his eyes, she was perfection.

As she handed over her card, their hands met briefly and it was as if an electric current went through him, making him feel both alive and not at the same time. He came to the awe inspiring realization that she was the one. There was no denying it. Their lives were connected.

Without really registering that he was doing so, Jeremy noted the name stamped on the card.

A. B. Porter.

He made her drink into a larger cup, deathly aware of how his heart jumping out of his chest. He was wondering whether her heart was dancing in the same way.

As if she could read his mind, Jeremy heard her sigh. A sigh filled with longing and with love and he knew that she was feeling the same way.

He popped the coffee lid back onto her drink, knowing that she would see the favour he had paid her, by providing her a larger cup. To Jeremy, how she accepted this gift would be an acknowledgement of what was to come.

She took the cup he offered, looked at it, paused, smiled and said thank you. That was all the sign that Jeremy needed – they had started their game of cat and mouse.

*

It only took him two hours and forty two minutes to find her on Facebook. There were only so many A. B. Porters on the net, and very few in the local area. Couple that up with a nice close up profile picture of her at the beach, bare neck with thin pink straps teasing him deliciously on her shoulder, hinting at a bikini just out of sight. The task was completely within Jeremy’s reach.

Amanda Porter, he thought, beautiful and caring Amanda Porter. I see what you did, you changed your privacy settings, because you’re waiting for me to find you. I’m coming, my love.

He spent the next four hours going through every one of her photos, sometimes clicking on on the friends tagged in the photos, who he believed were