Page 429 of S is for SEX

BABY GIRL II

(Erik Ead Trilogy, Book II)

KELLI. I had not expected Erik to come by so late. Typically we had been seeing each other four of the seven days in the week. He had never been over this late, and certainly not without letting me know well in advance that he was coming over. I felt like something was wrong. I didn’t like thinking about him being upset.

Thinking about Erik being upset made me want to try to fix it. No matter what it was that was wrong, I felt like it was my fault, and I wanted to do something to make it better. Erik being upset made me upset and it made my head spin. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I felt like a jumbled up mess in my head.

When the bathroom door opened, and he walked out into the living room, I stood up from the bed. I didn’t know whether to walk in there, or wait and see if he was going to come in my room. As I rubbed my sweaty palms on the legs of my pajamas, he walked in.

He looked around the room like he had never been in it before, like it was all new to him. He turned, walked to the door, and looked in the living room. He stepped back into the bedroom, turned, and looked at the closet doors.

The closet in my room was large, about fifteen feet long. It was like a display closet - a large shelf on top, and a rod that all of the clothes hung on that spanned the length. The closet was deep and oversized. I had all of my dress clothes on the left side, winter clothes in the middle, and summer clothes on the right. My shoes were fairly organized on the floor.

“Holy shit, you have a lot of fucking shoes,” he said as he looked down at the closet floor.

“I’m going to straighten it up. I was going to do it this weekend,” I lied.

“How many fucking pair you suppose there is in there?” he asked as he turned to look at me.

“Seventy-seven,” I said, feeling weird that I knew the exact amount - and that I just told him.

“Exactly?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” I responded.

He turned, looked around the room, and then looked at the floor of the closet again.

“Get all the shoes out of the closet. Move them out for a minute. We’ll put them back in later,” he said as he motioned to the closet floor.

“Sir?”

“You still speak English, right? Since I saw you last?” he asked as he raised his eyebrows.

I nodded, confused.

He tilted his head, eyebrows still raised.

“Yes sir.” I responded.

He motioned to the closet and stepped aside.

Okay, this is just fucking weird. It’s 11:30 at night on Sunday night.

I knelt down and started scooping the shoes from the closet floor, tossing them onto the bedroom floor. I looked out and up at Erik.

He nodded.

Well, this must be making him happy.

I tossed all of the shoes I could reach, and then slid the closet door to the other side of the closet and started on the other side. After all of the shoes were in a mountain of a pile surrounding Erik, I stood up and looked at the mess.

“Get in the closet for a minute,” he demanded.

“In with the clothes?” I asked.

“Yes, Kelli, in with the clothes,” he said.

I stepped inside the closet, smashing the shirts against the rod.

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