Dindi

Hello!

So this is part 2.

When I have a story in my head I have to finish it soon. I don't have the patience to post a chapter each three months, I have to be done with it soon or else I'll have no peace.

Chapter 2 was a hard child to bear, because I wasn't sure how much information to put in it. This alternates between Travis and Morena's POV.

The story is meant to have 5 parts.

Particularly, I like the third one better because it is more revealing, but that's only coming to you next week (and it's longer).

Once again I must warn you: English is not my first language, so forgive my mistakes.

Enjoy.

XOXO,

Nana

*****

MORENA

I snapped my copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover shut. The book was giving me ideas and It was no good trying to concentrate. It had been a week since I'd awkwardly met Travis Keegan, and I had thought about him with alarming frequency ever since. Only god knew why, though, those had been the weirdest five minutes of my life. Nevertheless, his smile and uncanny blue eyes kept crawling back into my mind.

"What about moo shu pork?" George's voice caught my attention.

George was watering his plants in the firescape wearing my sunglasses and bright blue boxers in heart's pattern while he pondered on what we should have for lunch.

"I think I'm in the mood for Yakisoba today." I said.

"Yakisoba it is, then."

***

I hadn't had the courage to ask Gee if he knew Travis. He probably did, since he was a fashion photographer -I thought- and Gee knew almost everyone in the business.

"Gee?"

"Hum?" He looked up at me with his mouth full of Yakisoba.

"Do you know a photographer named Travis Keegan?" My curiosity got the best of me and I hid it poorly.

George stopped chewing and narrowed his eyes. "I do. He's quite famous. Why?"

I picked up a piece of chicken with my chopsticks, setting it aside, and trying to sound uninterested.

"Oh, nothing. I just met him the other day. When I went to the Lincoln Center to bring you your chest."

Gee swallowed his food, drank a sip of his diet coke and sighed loudly.

"So he found you then, did he." He said.

Found me?

"What do you mean

he found me

"? It was clear George knew Travis, and by the looks of it didn't think very much of him.

George rolled his eyes and waved a hand. "He came asking for you after you left that day. I told him you had left, but he clearly found you."

Travis had asked George about me? How could he have asked about me when he didn't even know me? Obviously, the only theory that made sense was that he had seen me talking to George. He had seen me and come after me? It didn't make sense to me.

"He did, yes." I could tell by Gee's expression I was failing miserably in faking my lack of interest in Travis. "Why didn't you tell me he asked after me?"

"Ah, well. You didn't mention him so I figured he hadn't found you and I just forgot about it."

I gave him my best sarcastic look from under my eyelashes. "Forgot about it. Oh, I see."

If a man, a good looking one at that, showed any interest in me and Gee didn't tell me about it, his reason for not doing so went being forgetfulness. His mission in life was to get me a boyfriend.

"Yeah. And?" Gee asked.

I looked at him, shrugging and pretending to be oblivious to his meaning.

"Morena. What happened? Did you talk to him?" His tone was curious and comandful.

I groaned in frustration.

"He...He took my picture and then he just...smiled. He kept smiling at me and telling me I was beautiful. Frankly it was weird. He was weird." I spoke too fast using too much of my hands. Obvious sign that I was nervous.

"Ohmygod! You like him!" Gee shrieked, his words coming out in a string.

"I WHAT?!"

He pointed a finger at me. "You like him, Morena!" He threw his new discovery at my face.

"George. I don't even fucking know him!" I said defensively.

"You like him! He's gorgeous and you like him!" He enthused so loudly, I bet the whole neighborhood heard him.

"Shut up, George!" I threw my napkin at him.

"You like him, you like him, you like him, you like him-ouch!"

My chopsticks hit him in the forehead, because honestly, sometimes it was like we were still 12 years old.

"Alright, George! So he's handsome and he's got nice eyes. But I don't like him. I don't! I don't even know him. He doesn't even know my name. And besides he looks like he's bad news. Also," I added quickly. "It's highly unlikely I'll ever see him again." I was babbling and giving myself away. It didn't even take an expert on me like Gee to know I was lying. I was a shitty liar, too.

"Yeah. You like him." He said for the millionth time. "And, if you'd like to see him again, I could arrange that for you, my darling."

"Oh, god, could you stop saying that?! And, no, I don't want to see him again." I lied, glaring at him.

Gee widened his eyes as if he were God's most innocent creature. "What?! You just said yourself you like him!"

"No, I didn't." And I had not.

"You did. You said he's handsome and that you like his eyes." He pointed out.

"Well," Damn George, he was doing his best to throw me off my balance. "Of course I noticed he is handsome. He is most likely the most handsome man I've ever seen, and his eyes are lovely. Truth. But anyone can see that. One only needs to have eyes to see that, George!"

He was chewing again.

"Hmmyeahhmm." He hummed, with his mouth too full of food for him to speak.

Gee swallowed and spoke, a piece of broccoli still dancing around his mouth. "But, mmhmhmm, he's a bad boy, Mo."

I wrinkled my nose. "George, swallow your food, please. You're disgusting."

I didn't want to hear him say what I had already gathered. Travis Keegan was bad news. There was a warning flashing on his face:

Look at me. I'm gorgeous. I'm sexy. You want to shag me senseless and then I'll ruin your life.

Any man who had enough balls to go running after strange women and telling them they're beautiful -Exquisitely beautiful- certainly also had enough experience with them. All that confidence came from somewhere.

"But you know something?" I stopped my thoughts about Travis and focused my attention on George when he spoke. "You're smart, if only a little uptight. I bet you could handle him. And I'm sure he's a beast in bed! Oh, I've heard some stories. It appears he's got a hu-"

"Oh, George! Enough! For fuck's sake!" I most definitely did not want to know what stories he had heard. "I've told you: I.DON'T.LIKE.HIM!"

"If you say so." The bastard said with a coy smile and returned to his food.

I ate just for the sake of eating, because I could taste nothing anymore.

A beast in bed? Wherever had Gee heard that?

And with how many people had this Travis slept with that there were known stories about how good he was in bed?

If I was being honest with myself I had wondered what it would feel like to have his hands on me. Those blue eyes going over every inch of my body. His beard grazing my skin...

I shook my head.

Stop.thinking.about.him.NOW.

I finished eating as quickly as I could before getting up and locking myself in the bathroom where it took my fingers no more than two minutes to take care of the need thinking about Travis had created in me.

***

TRAVIS

I was lying in my bed studying her face for...I didn't even know which time. I had lost count.

Truth be told, her face wasn't the only thing I had been studying.

Her picture hung on the wall opposite my bed. It was the first thing I saw when I woke up and the last thing I saw when I fell asleep.

I couldn't explain what it was about this woman that affected me so deeply. It was just a woman. Just a little, curly haired woman, but I couldn't take her off my mind.

It wasn't like I was in love with her or anything. It was an

obsession

.

The way she had her body half turned displayed her full breasts perfectly. The curve of her ass just begged for a hand to grab it. Her face was a mix of angry surprise and curiosity, her lips were parted, her beautiful eyes wide. And her hair was just fucking glorious, lustful, voluminous and softly framing her heart-shaped face.

For some reason I had chosen to print her picture in black and white. I had loved her skin and the way it looked with that color she'd been wearing, not to mention her eyes, but the black and white photograph was able to elucidate that thing about her that was so attractive to me and that no camera could capture.

I felt like a freak. I was a freak. If I was being honest, I had jerked off to her picture more times than it was proper to admit. I was like a teenager who'd just discovered what his cock can do.

The cock in question twitched, like it did every time I stared at her picture for too long. But I had no time for self indulgences, because I had a party to get ready for.

***

MORENA

It was a rare saturday when George woke up and had lunch at home. So when the sun went down he finally got the itch and found some party to go to.

"Mo, are you sure you don't want to come?"

He had insisted I go to this specific party. He never insisted much. He knew I didn't like this kind of thing so he just gave up when I said 'no' the first time. This time though, he had tried a little harder to make me leave the flat.

"Come on, Mo! This one will be different!" He kept insisting.

"What's so different about it? A bunch of hipsters and super models getting drunk and talking nonsense. Same old shite as every party."

I had gone to a single one of Gee's parties when I first arrived in NY and made up my mind then to never go to another one like that again. Ever.

I didn't see what could be so different about this one. So finally, Gee gave up trying to convince me and left.

Not two hours had gone by since he'd left for his party and he was calling me. This wasn't common. Gee loved partying. Suddenly I felt my chest tightening. Maybe something had happened to him.

"George? Are you alright?" I said as soon as I answered my phone.

"Mo, you must come to this party RIGHT NOW!" He practically yelled through the phone.

Strangely enough, I didn't hear much of a party going on in the background.

"What?!" I couldn't believe he was calling me to insist some more. "Really, George? Didn't we have this discussion a few hours ago?"

"No, Mo! I'm serious! You can't believe what I've found! You must come and see this! It's un-fucking-believable!" George was drunk. Most of what he said was intelligible.

"What? George, you sound Welsh, I have no idea what you're saying!"

"I was going to pee." He said really slowly. "And I took a wrong turn and I found you. You must come and see you! Oh, Mo! You're so pretty!"

"I what?" It was like talking to the door.

"Mo. I'm texting you the address. I love you!" And just like that he hang up.

I stared dumbly at the phone on my hand. Whatever it was George was talking about I couldn't understand a thing. And now I was worried about him, because he seemed to be out of his face.

The phone vibrated and I jumped. It was a text from George with his location.

He was in Brooklyn.

Fantastic.

Now I had to go and make sure he wasn't high, or drunk, or dead in ditch.

***

Hurriedly, I had put on a black dress and a leather jacket and left. Forty minutes after I'd received Gee's text I was inside an old freight elevator going up some artist's loft where the so called party was happening. The old thing stopped with a noise that startled me. I made a mental note to take the stairs when I left.

Inside, the loft was crawling with people. Hipsters and super good looking models like I had predicted. Taking my phone from my purse I called Gee. It rang twice before he picked it up.

"Mo! You're here?!" His voice held as much excitement as it did incredulity.

"Well, you said I needed to see

me

, so here I am. Where are you?"

"Do you see the kissing people picture?" He asked.

Kissing people picture?

Every single wall in this place had a picture on it. Quite beautiful ones, too. Whoever lived here had good taste. But then I saw it. How could I not? It was my favourite photograph in the world. Robert Doisneau's

'Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville'.

"I see it, George." I said, stunned, though the picture was famous enough that anyone could have it hanging on their wall.

"So, you come straight." Gee instructed me.

"Come straight?"

"Yes. Follow the picture and you'll find a door. I'm behind the blue door."

I studied the crowd I'd have to navigate to get to him.

"You're behind the blue door?" He really was drunk. "Alright. I'm coming." I said and I hang up.

Gathering courage, I made my way through the crowd muttering "I'm sorry" to every foot I stepped on and "Excuse me" to every group talking in the middle of my way.

I reached the brick wall where the Doisneau picture was and found the blue door that George was supposedly behind. I opened it just enough to peek inside, and then went in, closing it behind me.

"George?" I called almost whispering.

The place seemed to be empty. But the lights were on. It was somebody's room. There was a large bed opposite the door, and to my left there were various lined window panels that let the city lights in. A door to my right opened and George appeared. His face was almost as red as his hair.

"Mo!" He crushed me to his chest, knocking the air out of my lungs. He smelled like vodka.

"Ugh! I can't breath, George." I said, slapping his shoulders so he'd let me go.

When he did, I took his face in my hands, turning it and examining him.

"You alright?" I asked. "I was worried sick, thinking you were drunk, sleeping in some ditch!"

He waved a dismissive hand. "I'm marvellous, Mo! But I was going to pee and then I took a wrong turn and I found you!"

"You found me?" Whatever he meant, I was clueless.

George took me by the hand and positioned me by the foot of the bed "Look.At.This! Oh, you won't believe it!" He was beaming with excitement.

I lifted my eyebrows. "Look at what?"

He put his large hands on my shoulders then, and turned me so I faced the wall opposite the bed.

I gasped and my heart skipped a beat.

It was ME.

A huge, black and white photograph of me. In the elevator's hall. The picture

he

had taken.

This was Travis's loft.

I was in his room, where he had a 5'' picture of me facing his bed.

"Oh, fuck."

So much for thinking I'd never see him again.

****

TRAVIS

It was her. I was sure of it. I knew her face well enough by now to know for certain that was

her

. It was either that or I was going insane and seeing her face in random crowds now. She disappeared somewhere near my kitchen.

Excusing myself from the group I was talking to, I went looking for her. That was the second time I was running after this woman.

She wasn't anywhere around the kitchen, the only place she could have gone to that part of loft with the exception of my room, but...

My room?

I rushed to the door of my bedroom and burst it open.

And there she was. In my room.

She turned to me, her face wore such a serene expression while she stared at me with those fucking beautiful eyes of hers it all seemed unreal to me.

"Hi." I said, stupidly.

She couldn't be there. Not really, could she?

She cocked her head to the side. "You hung my photograph in your bedroom." She said, pointing to the wall where I hung her picture.

Say something, Travis.

Nothing came to me. I didn't know what to say. Every time I came close to her I was reduced to a speechless moron and now she probably thought I was a pervert on top of being and idiot.

"Errr. I think I need to go get more vodka." Someone said.

George.

George was there, too. I hadn't noticed him, so consumed I was by her presence.

What the fuck were they doing in my room anyway?

Usually, I never gave parties at my loft. But this had been an attempt to see her again. I had invited George hoping she'd come with him. But then he showed up alone and I guessed he had told her the party was mine and she had decided not to come. But now here she was. In my room. In my fucking room.

I saw her mouth the word 'No', and furrowed my brows in confusion. But then George passed by me and closed the door, leaving me alone with her, and I realized she had said it to him. She didn't want to be left alone with me. But now she was.

"You're in my room."

Wow. Congrats, man. Stating the obvious. Great way to start a conversation.

This was my chance to prove to her I was a normal human being, and I started off by acting just as weirdly as I had the first time I saw her.

"It seems I'm always in your room." She said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

I chuckled. I had no way out of this. "That's right where I want you to be."

She gaped at me. "Wow. You're subtle."

She was wearing a little black dress, tight around her waist and loose around her ass. She looked like a doll.

"I'm just being honest." And I was.

I wanted her. It was simple as that. But for me to get what I wanted I had to behave accordingly.

"Look, I wanted to apologize for that day. In the elevator. I think I scared you."

"Yeah. You were a bit weird." She agreed, but smiled nonetheless.

That was the first time I

saw

her smiling, and I found I really liked it.

"I really was, wasn't I? I kept smiling like a creep." She laughed when I said that.

"You did! Did your cheeks hurt afterwards?" She asked. Her eyes shining with amusement.

With her smiling like that I didn't answer her right away. It took me a minute.

"Yeah." I answered dumbly, shaking my head. I just couldn't cope with how beautiful I thought she was.

She smiled and turned to look at her picture again. I had to explain that...If only I knew how.

"You never told me your name." I said, drawing her attention away from the picture.

"Oh, right. My name." She crossed her arms over her stomach, hands holding each one of her elbows. "You have a picture of me in your bedroom and you don't even know my name."

She bit her lip and all I wanted in the world was to be the one doing it.

"Not your real name. No."

One of her designed eyebrows shot up. "Do I have a fake one?"

I was still standing by the door and it was way too far from her. Carefully, I took a few steps towards her and stood beside her. She smelled heavenly. Of sweet vanilla.

"Only the one I made up for you when you wouldn't tell me your real name."

She looked at her feet and I heard a suppressed laugh in her throat.

"And what name did you give me in your imagination?"

She turned to me with her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. I used all of my strength not to lean over and take it between my own teeth.

"Dindi." I whispered. Ogling her mouth.

I saw it when she let her lip go and smiled, repeating the name I'd given her.

"Dindi. I like it better than my real name. I think I'll keep it."

Her eyes went up to meet mine. They seemed to have more green in them today. I held her gaze and noticed a shift in her breath.

"Morena." She said.

Morena. So that was what Mo stood for.

Morena.

"You have a beautiful name, Dindi." I made her laugh again, and the pleasure it gave me was indescribable. "But in my head you're Dindi. That's the name you had when I thought of you."

She touched the bridge of her nose, trying to hide a shy smile. "When you thought of me?" She asked.

"Yeah." I was surprised by how serious I sounded. "Every day since I first saw you."

She probably had a pretty good idea what kind of thoughts I had about her. The kind where she was naked and wet and completely under my will.

For a second I thought perhaps she had leaned closer to me, but suddenly she cleared her throat and stepped back, creating a much hated gap between us.