The Wallflower Ch. 04

"Um...I'm here to see Nicholas Yates," she said quietly.

"I'm sorry, hon. He's booked straight though today," he informed.

"I'm not here for an appointment. I'm here to give him his lunch." Lily held up the brown paper bag with Nicholas's name scrawled over it. She heard some murmuring behind her back. About her no doubt. "He forgot it at home."

"I thought he only lived with his mom," he said, not totally convinced.

"I'm the new tenant. Lily. I just started living there this week. His mom sent me to give him his lunch since he forgot it again."

The bald man chuckled to himself. "Sounds like his forgetful ass. Would forget his dick if it wasn't attached. Sorry for the third degree, hon. Have too many of his one-nighters trying to stalk him at work." The man pointed to a white door that said 'For Piercings Only'. "He's in the back giving someone snakebites. If you don't mind piercings, you can go on to the first room on your right. Knock first though."

She smiled and thanked him as she walked away towards the door. On her way, she couldn't help but notice a tall blonde woman with pink highlights. The woman glared down at her with her bold red lips fixed as if she was about to snarl. She looked like one of those pin up girls from the 50's with her hair nicely coifed in a red bandana and her clothes in a skimpy outfit. Only thing was she was shaped like a stick.

'I wonder what her problem is?' Lily thought as she closed the door behind her. She knocked on the door to her right and waited for an answer.

"Come in," Nicholas shouted through the door. Lily opened the door and nearly lost the cereal she ate that morning. She had thought all piercings were done by doing it with a piercing gun. She was mentally prepared for that, but she wasn't prepared to see Nicholas pulling a piercing through a guy's lip with needle and thread.

Nicholas looked back at her briefly before going back to pulling the piercing through. "Hey there, cowgirl. What are you here for?"

"I'm here to bring you your lunch. You left it at home."

"Oh how sweet of you," he said in a fake syrupy sweet voice. "My mum put you up to it, didn't she?"

"She wouldn't have to if you remembered to pick up your lunch."

"Ha ha ha. And...I'm...done." Nicholas stood up to his full height and threw away his latex gloves. "Your mouth is going to be a little swollen for awhile. You can put some ice on it. Make sure to clean the piercings on the inside and outside. Clean the inside with a saline solution and the outside with a nonalcoholic medicated mouthwash..."

After awhile Lily just tuned Nicholas out as he talked to the guy about taking care of his new piercings. Lily took the time to observe Nicholas. 'Yeah right, Lily. You're checking him out.' She rolled her eyes at herself but continued to look. Today, he wore an oversized tank top of the British flag with a pair of nicely fitted jeans and some Vans. In this outfit, his toned tatted arms were on full display. His tattoos were just a colorful continuous flow. It made it hard to see individually but they were still beautiful as a whole. As he turned a little, she could see his own snake bites jutting from his mouth. Of course he had his eyebrow and nose studs in, but they didn't grasp her attention like the lip piercings did.

Looking at his full pink lips pushed against the metal rings made her think about how it would feel with those same rings pressed against hers. Heat started creeping up her face as she remembered yesterday's kiss. But that memory soon turned to fear as she remembered Nicholas's cold hands forcefully tugging at her body as the possession took over.

A pair of fingers snapped in front of her, bringing her back to the present. "Helllooooo? Cowgirl? Stop thinking about riding me for five seconds, please."

"Can't you be normal for five seconds," Lily said, placing her hands on her hips.

Nicholas stuck his tongue out at her and pulled down his lower eyelid. "Nope." He grabbed his lunch out of her hand and walked to the door. "Are you on lunch break?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Keep me company and have lunch with me." Nicholas requested in a more serious tone. Lily looked at him unsure of what to say. Every time they were alone, he always pulled some kind of crap to touch her while at the same time proving a point of his right. As if reading her mind, he added, "I won't try anything. Promise."

With one last moment of uncertainty, she agreed. He gave her an actual smile as he opened the door for her. He led her down the hallway to a door that said 'Employees Only'. In the room was a typical small kitchen setting of a coffee machine, sink, cabinets, and so on. He pulled out her chair for her before going to wash his hands in the sink. 'Since when did he get some manners? This is the same guy who dumped me on the living room floor after grabbing my ass.' She looked at him confused as he washed his hands. 'This man is confusing. One minute, he's a perverted asshole. The next he's a loner bookworm. THEN he's a gentleman! What the fuck...I need some answers.'

"Nicholas?" Lily said in a quiet voice.

"What's up?" Nicholas answered back while heating up his lunch.

"You know stuff about me..."

"Sexual stuff about you, yeah." Just like him to ruin a perfectly serious moment. Lily rolled her eyes.

"I want to know more stuff about you." A silence crossed over them as the request floated through the air. The silence became so intense to the point that the only thing that could be heard was the whirring of the microwave.

"Well..." Nicholas said, breaking the silence. "I'm not a virgin."

Lily let out a loud groan that made Nicholas jump. "That's not what I meant!"

"Ok! Yeash! Calm your tits. What kind of questions did you want me to answer?"

"I don't know...like why do you go to the library every Monday?"

Nicholas put his lunch on the table before taking the seat beside her. "Well every Monday I have the day off. So I like spending it at the library." He shrugged his shoulders and took a bite out of his sandwich. "And yeah I did notice that you work there." He turned his head to look at her. "What's with the look on your face?"

"I don't know." Lily shrugged. "I just thought...you don't look like the book reading type."

Nicholas's face hardened as he continued to eat. "And what type do you consider me?" Another awkward silence passed between them as Lily tried to pick her words carefully. But were their really any words to make this seem less insulting than it was?

"I thought..." she lowered her tone a little. "I thought... that you were the type that was only interested in having fun."

"Don't sugar coat it. What do you mean?"

A few seconds passed before she gave up on figuring out how to make it seem any less insulting. "I thought you were a party boy who liked to party, smoke, and drink every night. And thought you would fuck anything with a pretty face and a short skirt..."

"So basically an idiot without a brain?" Lily nodded her head. "Well I won't lie...I do some of those things, but they're not the only things I do. Sex is not the only thing I think about. I'm not always loud. Sometimes I need my time. And during my time I like to read since I'm working during the other weekdays."

"Is that why you're quiet and by yourself when you read in the library?" He nodded his head. "But...you look and act like a different person."

"Isn't that the beauty of humanity, though?" Lily looked at him curiously, not understanding this philosophical question. "Why must a person fit into an overly stereotyped personality? Why must a person act a certain way just because it has been told to them they must act or expected to act? The beauty of human nature is complexity. Because of this, it is possible for me to be extroverted and introverted. I like to party and I like to read. But yet another person can like to party and hate reading period. No person is exactly like the other. But the sad, ugly truth is that most times humanity conforms to stereotypes in order to fill the need of being accepted." After he was done talking, Nicholas continued to finish his lunch

Lily sat there pondering what Nicholas had just said. Was that what she had been doing this whole entire time? Conforming herself to be accepted? Couldn't be. She didn't dress in skimpy clothes like other girls. She certainly didn't act like other girls who gave up their virginity easily. She had never drank, smoked or partied in her entire life. She never was in any kind of clique. She was always a good girl. She was always obedient. Always working hard. Always respectful. She never did anything wrong. No, she was her own person.

"Can I ask you something?" Nicholas asked her, getting up to throw away his trash.

"Sure," she said exhausted from thinking.

"What kind of person do you consider yourself?"

"...A good girl." Lily shrugged her shoulders.

"Then you are part of the sad and ugly truth," he smiled sadly at her. She looked back at him with widened eyes. How dare he tell her that she was party of this ugly truth? Before she could challenge his accusation, he asked. "Would you like me to walk you back to the library? I still have time left in my lunch period."

"Sure," she said not too enthusiastically.

As they took that long walk out to the entrance of the tattoo parlor, neither one said anything to each other. She was internally cussing out Nicholas all the way to the entrance. How dare he say that she was part of the ugly truth?! She actually wished at that point that she had the perverted Nicholas instead of the serious Nicholas. At least then he would have been joking. She crossed her arms in front of her and pouted as she strolled down the street. She was NOT part of the problem.

"Did you have any other questions?" Nicholas asked, breaking her concentration. Lily glared back at him but decided to let it go for the moment since she really wanted some answers.

"You never talk about the Spirit. Why?" she said looking up at him.

His being immediately became distant as he mulled over the question. "He's just there. What else is there to say?"

"Well every night he takes over your body. I mean...how long has he been doing that?"

"For as long as I can remember." His answer came out clipped and short. "Change the subject."

"But do you know anything about him at all? Like why does he use you specifically? What happened in that house?" When she looked into his eyes, she nearly froze in place as the same look of rage from last night marred his face.

"It doesn't matter. Why be concerned with things that don't even have to deal with appeasing him? I don't want to do to you what I did last night, ok? There will be no second chance if you fail to appease him again."He turned around and headed back to the tattoo parlor without even saying anything else.

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"My Nicholas has always been like that," Mrs. Yates sighed.

Lily sat across the living room table from Mrs. Yates playing cards in the late evening. They were both dressed in pajamas with their hair up as they looked over their cards. Lily didn't play many card games, but when Mrs. Yates had offered to play a few rounds, she found herself accepting the offer. Lily wasn't doing anything anyway. She was just fuming over Nicholas was all. After awhile Mrs. Yates started to notice her dark mood and asked what was wrong. Lily told her everything that happened with Nicholas today minus the perverted teasing.

"He's always been very social ever since he was a little kid, but at the same time he kept to himself. It's nothing that you did that angered him. He's just...it's just a sore spot with him." She laid down a card before reaching over to drink some of her tea. "Do you have any threes?"

"Go fish."

"Damn." She pulled a card from the stack.

"But you've lived in this house longer than he has. How come you are able to talk about it more freely than he can?"

Mrs. Yates thought her answer over before saying anything else. "People handle stressful things in different ways."

"Do you have any Aces?"

Mrs. Yates handed Lily one of her Aces before continuing. "For me, I've never experienced the Spirit the way that Nicholas has. He has never come to me about the Spirit. Not since he was a little boy. I remember when he was beginning to talk, in the middle of the night he would scream 'Pictures! Pictures!'. Of course I thought he was just spewing some nonsense, so I told him to take his little bottom back to bed. When it came the time for him to sleep in his own bed, he screamed that the monster would come in his dreams and show him these horrible things. He was trying to tell me, in his own way, that when he is possessed he relives the Spirit's life. He feels everything he felt and is feeling. So I imagine that it hurts him still to see those visions. Even being a bloke of twenty-three, it hurts him. So the best thing is for him not to talk about it."

Silence passed between them as what she just told Lily began to settle in. Lily had never considered that. That every night for perhaps the last twenty-three years, Nicholas's dreams were full of the nightmarish life of the Spirit that possessed him. 'Great. Now I feel like a total ass again.' Lily could barely take the Spirit for one night, let alone for years. She would need to apologize to Nicholas when he comes home.

"Do you have any Kings?" Mrs. Yates said, breaking the silence.

Lily handed her the king while still deep in thought. "Mrs. Yates."

"Yes, Lily?"

"How come you and Nicholas refer to him as a 'he' if he can not talk?"

Before Mrs. Yates had a chance to answer, the front door opened with a bang. Nicholas's recognizable drunken laughter rang out from the entrance. But it was not alone. A female's titters could be easily heard along with it. As usual, Mrs. Yates was oblivious to her son's drunken stupor. But Lilt dared to turn her head around to see who he was with

It was the blonde woman from the tattoo parlor. She had glared at Lily earlier today. Lily made sense of why. It had to be only one thing that made any sense to her. She had to be Nicholas's girlfriend. 'Well he's good looking, Lily. Of course, the man isn't single. Plus he only did all of those things to you just to get a reaction, Not because he liked you.' Then why did it still hurt. Of course she was foolish for even being attracted to the guy in the first place. She only knew the guy for four days for God's sake. She couldn't fool herself that she liked him because she didn't. All she ever felt was attracted to him.

'What would you have had to offer anyway? He's still in the stage in his life where he fucks the hottest thing nearby. I mean look at the way she's built.' The woman didn't have any curves at all but she was very leggy and had a pretty face. 'I mean seriously? Even the guy said it himself. Nicholas has a whole bunch of women who are just as attracted to him as you are. What could you have offered him anyway? You've never had sex. You're too dark. AND you're fugly as hell.'

Lily wrapped one arm around her middle as she knew it was all true. His girlfriend may not have been much, but she had things that Lily surely didn't have. She looked perfect Nicholas. She was pretty enough to be with him. She didn't dress like a prude like Lily. She actually knew a way to get a guy. Her polka dotted skirt didn't make it pass her thighs and her crisp white blouse was unbuttoned enough to see down her shirt. Nicholas seemed to be very interested in her since his hands held tightly to her thigh and her lower back. Lily just didn't have the things that Nicholas liked.

"Hey mum," his words slurred.

"Hello Mrs. Yates!" the woman shouted and snickered afterwards.

"Hello, slut," Mrs. Yates said only loud enough for her and Lily to hear.

"I'm going to go turn in for the night," Nicholas shouted as he climbed the stairs with the blonde woman. "Night, mum." After a few minutes, the deafening sound of door closing was heard throughout the house."

Mrs. Yates and Lily sat there in silence. The once light hearted game of Go Fish was now shattered by the drunken pair. Mrs. Yates breathed out as calmly as she could. "Do you care to sleep down here for the night?"

Lily nodded her head numbly as she forced herself to get up and help put away the cards.