Everything that has a beginning, has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.
-Buddha
Karma tried not to think about Mark’s looming departure, but each day brought the end of their relationship a little more into focus, and the weeks passed faster than she could keep track. She took advantage of every opportunity to spend time with him.
Mark seemed just as motivated to make the most of their time together, as well, because after that night he never brought up his eventual return to Chicago again. It was as if he wanted to focus on what little time they had together instead of the brick wall looming in the distance.
But she knew the end was coming. An hourglass sat over their heads, and grain-by-grain, time slipped further away. The nights spent together, the laughs, the way they seemed so perfect together. All of it would eventually cease.
Karma lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. It was now the first week of September. She and Mark had been together four months. Four incredible, magical months. In one respect, it felt much longer than that, but in another, it felt like they had only just met.
It was a rare night when they weren’t together. She slept as many nights in his bed as her own, and when she was in her own, he was usually with her. Not that they always made love. Three or four nights a week, he had business dinners or work to do after regular hours and showed up at her place a little before bedtime. Or he would call her from his place to let her know he was home and invite her over.
And then there were the nights he was in Chicago and she was here. Sometimes they would talk on the phone, and sometimes they only texted back and forth, but no matter how she sliced it, she and Mark either saw each other or communicated in some way at least once every day. He had become the most dominant force in her life, and she had never felt so confident and purely feminine.
It was hard to believe that only four months ago she had been a different person. Thanks to Daniel and that red dress, he had unknowingly thrust her into Mark’s path, and she had found her true self through his eyes. She smiled into the darkness. Four months ago, she had been a naïve mess, lost, confused about what she wanted and who she was, and a little self-conscious. But not anymore. She was still a good girl, but now she was the type of good girl who embraced a little sexy, a little bad. She had become good-but-a-little-naughty Karma.
Her phone chimed on her nightstand. It had to be him. He was the only one who would text her after ten o’clock, and even then, he didn’t do it often.
She picked up her phone and read his message.
Hey, beautiful. Are you sleeping?
She grinned and texted back. No. Are you?
LOL. No. Want company?
Do you have to ask?
A knock came at her door less than a minute later as if he had been waiting outside in his car.
She darted into the living room. “That was fast,” she said, pulling the door open.
He was on her so swiftly she didn’t even have time to blink. Strong arms pulled her in as he kicked the door shut behind him. Without a word, he lifted her, his mouth hot with kisses so blazingly intense, he stole her breath. Within record time, she was back in her bedroom, on her bed, her pajamas discarded wherever he had thrown them.
The sex consumed her, his body almost desperate with urgency as he sank inside. Something was different tonight. Something raw and almost frantic dwelled inside his coiled muscles as he rolled and surged above her.
“Come with me,” he gritted between clenched teeth.
They had found that rhythm long ago. After making love so many times, he knew her body better than she did, and simultaneous climax wasn’t something they struggled with. But tonight he seemed especially keen on the two of them hitting the end together. It seemed important. Almost crucial.
Barely hanging on for the ride, Karma hooked her arms under his and gripped his shoulders from behind, crying out with each urgent thrust. She was close, and she wouldn’t disappoint him.
“Hurry!” Desperation gripped her body. Whatever drove Mark tonight, she was on board and ascending with him, unable to hold back as he unleashed a torrent of pleasure that invaded her senses.
“I’m close.” A long, ragged groan rumbled in his throat, and he repositioned himself so he could meet her gaze and hold it. That connection, that link between them. No one before and no one ever again would claim this mastery over her. She was all his and always would be.
“So am I,” she whispered urgently.
“I’m about to come.” Duress tightened the skin around his eyes. His jaw clenched, but his gaze stayed locked on hers. He wouldn’t even blink.
“Don’t stop don’t stop!” She was about to come, too.
“Now, Karma!”
Both of them let loose a guttural cry of release, their bodies hitting the height of the crescendo simultaneously, shredding them with jarring spasms that rocked them to their souls.
For several long moments, not a word was uttered, just the shuddering sounds of breathing mingled with broken moans. And then he fell on top of her, driving his arms around her, crushing her to him as if he would never let go.
They stayed like that for a long time. So long that Karma began to worry that something was wrong.
Just as she was about to ask if he was okay, Mark sighed, kissed her neck, and eased away.
“That was…” she began.
“Good,” he said, filling in the blank.
“I was thinking more along the lines of intense.”
He grinned, but the gesture didn’t quite touch his eyes. Something was bothering him. “Intense is good.”
“Yes, it is.” She combed her fingers through the dark hair on his chest.
Tonight hadn’t been about a lesson plan or what he jokingly called hands-on teaching. In fact, as the weeks had ticked by, it seemed like, more and more, their time together had become more about just that: spending time together. The level of comfort between them was more like that of a bona fide couple, not two people having a temporary affair.
He got up, went to the bathroom to discard the condom and clean up, then returned to the bed. He sank onto the mattress and pulled her into his arms. “I had a conference call with my boss tonight,” he said quietly as his fingers tickled her arm in a feathery, affectionate dance from her shoulder to her elbow and back up.
A momentary pulse of fear jolted her. Without hearing him say it, she knew their time was up. The inevitable end had come.
“And…?” she said.
He sighed. “My assignment’s over.”
So the hammer fell.
“Oh.” That was all she could say, because her mind went blank.
They hadn’t talked about this moment since Fourth of July weekend, as if both had refused to risk damaging their magical dynamic. No sense talking and worrying about an ending they couldn’t do anything about, right?
Well, they had to talk about it now. And Karma wasn’t prepared. Like a speech she hadn’t practiced beforehand, all she could do was stand at the front of the room and stare blankly at all the eyes looking at her. She had no notes to refer to, no experience to pull from, nothing at all to help get her through this.
So she said nothing.
“All the reports are done,” he said. “The analysis is complete. Recommendations have been made and accepted.” Mark’s fingers continued caressing her as if they weren’t playing from the same program as his words. “All that’s left to do is pull the trigger.”
What an appropriate expression, because right now, it felt like someone had shot her in the chest.
“How long will that take?” She had finally found her voice, and now survival mode kicked in.
He answered the real question. “Next week is my last week. Don will be telling you tomorrow, so I wanted to make sure you knew in advance so you weren’t caught off guard.”
In other words, he wanted her prepared so she didn’t behave inappropriately when Don told her, lest she let the cat out of the bag about their relationship.
“Oh.” She was back to one-syllable responses.
Silence engulfed them for several minutes, then, out of the blue, he said, “Come to Chicago with me this weekend.” He spoke as if he hadn’t just dropped a weapon of mass destruction in her bedroom. “Spend one last weekend with me where we don’t have to hide from everybody.”
The fact he wanted to take her away for a weekend brightened her spirits a little. She had one more week left with him, and it wouldn’t do any good to mope around and waste that time. It was a much better idea to embrace these final days and make them count. But count for what? She didn’t know, she just knew she needed to make them count.
“I’d like that,” she said. She forced a fake smile, but who was she fooling? She was hurting so badly. This was heartache. Now she knew why people called it that, because her chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it.
“Me, too.” His voice took on a clinical tone. “We’ll drive up tomorrow night after work, if that’s okay.”
Tomorrow was Friday. Doomsday, as far as she was concerned. “Sure. After work is fine.”
She suddenly didn’t know how to talk to him. The walls that had dropped around him over the past couple of months seemed to have fully reformed, and she couldn’t seem to bridge the divide already pushing them apart. He already seemed to be pulling away.
She recognized his behavior as a defense mechanism. Of course he would have one. Maybe she needed to get one, too.
He rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. “I need to get going.”
“Okay. Yeah, it’s late.”
Normally, he would stay, but not now. The magic was over. He was leaving in a week. The carriage was turning back into a pumpkin, and her prince was stealing her magic glass slipper. Only, in her case, it was her heart.
He found his pants and pulled them on, taking away her view of his muscular thighs and backside. And then he fumbled with his shirt, turning it right-side out. Within seconds, his perfectly sculpted six-pack and the lightly hairy chest she had grown so fond of were stolen from sight, too.
Everything was different now.
They had spent a beautiful summer together. One she would never forget. Ever. Because you didn’t forget men like Mark. He had transformed her from a girl to a woman, taking her from gawky, geeky, and insecure to comely, confident, and self-assured. The man was a miracle worker. He had delivered everything he had promised.
And that was where it ended. No extras were thrown in. She would receive no gold stars for being an honor student. There would be no happy, surprise ending.
After he sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled on his shoes, he leaned down and kissed her, but there was no passion in his lips. Not like there had been when he swept through her door not even an hour ago and stole her breath with an urgency that screamed into the depths of her soul.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night.”
He got up and walked out of her room, and a moment later, she heard the front door open and close.
And a moment after that, she rolled over and buried her face against her pillow.
And cried like she never had before.
Until she finally cried herself to sleep.
* * *
Mark drove back to his condo in a stupor. The ache in his chest gnawed his sternum like an army of carpenter ants devouring a fallen tree.
But he refused to give in to the pain.
He pulled into his garage, parked, walked calmly inside, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, drank the whole thing, trudged up the steps to his loft, and got undressed.
The pain magnified the longer he tried to ignore it. He would not give. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He was doing the right thing—what he had promised from the very beginning.
Entering his bathroom, he flipped on the faucet, leaned over, and splashed cool water on his face.
Splash-splash.
But the ache continued to intensify. He tried taking deep breaths. He tried closing his eyes. But nothing helped.
Bile rose in his throat, and he gagged. No. He was in control. He was. He shook off the wave of nausea, doused his face again with more water, took several deep, shaky breaths, then gazed at his reflection.
Oh God. This wasn’t happening. Not again.
Falling to his knees in front of the toilet, he tried to keep it down. He fought, he swallowed, but it was useless. He couldn’t fight his anguish any longer. He threw up, sobbing even as he continued to wretch. When the gagging stopped, he threw his arm over the seat and rested his forehead against the front edge, lost to wracking sobs that tore at his raw throat like the tines of a fork. Tears splattered the tile floor.
It had been six years since he’d cried—truly cried. But this time it wasn’t Carol who had forced his emotions to overflow.
It was Karma.
More specifically, his feelings for her.
He loved her. In his heart, he knew the truth, no matter how much he tried to deny it.
But his relationship with Karma was over.
And there was nothing he could do about it.