Cassie's Cupid
“Are you sure you don’t want to come? We don’t mind, honestly.”
“No,” Cassie replied. “But thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Ok, have a good night then!”
Cassie just smiled at her roommate until she was out of site and the door shut behind her. Her dour expression returned and she muttered under her breath “yeah like I want to be the third wheel with Princess Perfect and Captain Cupid.” Instead, Cassie went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and removed the bottle of Prosecco she had begun chilling hours before.
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” she quipped sarcastically as she held up the bottle. There was another just like it remaining in the fridge. Cassie fully intended on having an intense, if brief, relationship with both of them that evening. “Fucking Hallmark,” she said aloud as she poured.
Cassidy Hanlon shouldn’t have been alone. She was thirty-three years old, intelligent, witty, ant stunningly gorgeous. Her long, blond hair stretched just below her shoulder blades, and she had legs that went from here to Chicago
Cassie had fallen into a bitter contentment with her solitude. Though she thought she had convinced herself to accept her situation as inevitable, deep inside her subconscious wept in loneliness. Spending Valentine’s Day alone, nestled in an over sized arm chair while getting drunk and watching sappy movies was her self-imposed penance for her romantic inadequacies. She was three quarters of the way through both the first bottle of Prosecco and Love, Actually when the tears came, uncontrollably and without warning. Cassidy Hanlon was not one to cry.
“Goddamn it!” she screamed as she flung her wine glass across the room, shattering it against the wall and causing its pieces to spray across the floor of the apartment’s small kitchen. It took her a moment to catch her breath and compose herself, yet still she wondered what had prompted her uncharacteristic, emotional outburst. Quickly she set about cleaning up the broken glass, fetched another, and poured. The remainder of the evening progressed as one might expect – More tears, more wine, and a monstrous headache when she awoke, awkwardly splayed across the chair, around two-thirty in the morning.
“Daria! Daria I don’t feel good,” Cassie called out, but there was no answer. It was all she could do to stumble her way to the bathroom by herself, and she was lucky she made it to the commode before vomiting. She remained there, disgusted with herself, for a few minutes before summoning the strength to rise to her feet, wash her face and brush her teeth. That action helped cleared her head, if only slightly, enough to allow her to move about in the dim light of the apartment. Stopping at Daria’s door, she peeked in to see that Daria hadn’t come home. Someone was getting lucky that night, at least.
Without turning on her bedroom light, and despite her advanced drunkenness, she still managed to slip her bra off through the sleeve of her T-shirt and remove her yoga pants before climbing into bed with every intention of passing out. Not until she rolled over did she feel the warmth of another body beneath the covers with her. Cassie screamed hysterically, leaped from the bed and flipped on the light. She had half-expected to see Daria lying there, assuming her roommate simply came home inebriated and crashed in the wrong bed. When she realized that wasn’t the case, she grabbed the baseball bat she kept next to her dresser.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?” she yelled frantically. He just smiled.
“Calm down, I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Right. Sure. I’m calling the police,” she informed him as she cautiously reached forward and grabbed her phone from the nightstand.
“Go ahead. I’m still not here to hurt you.”
Cassie dialed 911, reported an intruder, and ran through the apartment and out the door. After several failed attempts to reach Daria, she sat in the hallway and waited. The police arrived shortly, and after a thorough twenty minute search through an apartment that should have only required ten, found no one there, nor any evidence anyone other than Cassie had been in the apartment that evening. Chalking it up to drunken loneliness, the police officers took pity on the woman and opted not to press charges for filing a false report. Instead, they left, but not without a chuckle in the elevator.
Cassie stood, alone, in the middle of the apartment, and silently wondered if she was losing her mind. The voice that spoke from behind her assured her she wasn’t.
“I told you, I’m not going to harm you. Can we talk now?”
Cassie spun around to see her visitor seated in the overstuffed armchair in which she had passed out earlier. Strangely, she no longer felt any fear. Apprehension, certainly, but no fear. There was something in his eyes that was both warm and inviting. He appeared to be about her age, and had short, brown hair that showed no signs of graying. As best as she could tell, he was probably about six feet tall, and very fit. Handsome, even. That certainly didn’t hurt. Cautiously, she sat down on the couch opposite him and instinctively pulled a pillow into her lap to conceal her braless torso.
“Who are you?” She asked skeptically. “Are you a ghost or something?”
“Have you ever seen A Christmas Carol, or It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“Yes, why?”
“Yeah, this is nothing like that.”
“Ok,” she asked confusedly. “Then, uh, what is this?”
“Someone made a wish for you.”
“What?” Cassie asked, shaking her head. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Someone made a wish for you,” he continued, leaning forward. “Someone loves you, and wants you to be happy, and made a wish for you.”
“Let me guess, they wished I had a man, and here you are.”
“Something like that, yes.”
"This is insane,” Cassie remarked as she stood and began pacing the apartment. “This isn’t real. I’m passed out, drunk, and dreaming. This can’t be real.”
Her visitor stood and approached her slowly. She paused her pacing long enough to stare into his eyes as he moved to stand in front of her. Everything she had learned, everything she had ever been taught, screamed in her skull to run. Instead, she stood mesmerized by his seemingly loving gaze. Without saying another word, he gently placed his hands on her face and kissed her softly. She let him. Hips lips felt natural against hers, and the sensation of his tongue warmed her entire body. He broke away for a moment and stared in her eyes, grinning.
Cassie gazed back up at him with longing. “This can’t be real,” she repeated before his kissed her again. Like before, he broke away and smiled. “Oh dear God, please let this be real,” she exclaimed before kissing him once more.
© J.J. Goodman 2013. All rights reserved.