The Woman of Her Adversary's Desires(2)

"No," she said with a firm tone and let herself sink into one of the few dining room chairs still down on the ground. The rest had been carefully flipped and placed on the table-tops to make sweeping and mopping easier. "You know that I don’t want the help."

Mr. Hayes held both hands up like he was trying to prove that he wasn’t armed. "Okay, okay," he said softly. "I take it that you won’t be wanting any wine, either?"

Tracy looked up to him and scrunched her eyebrows together to get a good look at him. The fog of pain had spread into her vision, making the periphery look like cloudy pools of water. Even when she spoke up again, her words were slow and careful.

"I don’t need any wine. Between this and not getting enough sleep, I already feel drunk."

"I see," he replied plainly, moving around her until he was standing behind her chair.

With both of his large hands, Mr. Hayes reached down and began to massage the throbbing cluster of muscles between Tracy’s neck and shoulder. With each of his thumbs, he made wide, sweeping movements over her shoulder blade.

Tracy groaned with approval, so he continued.

"When is your appointment with Gordon?"

"Tomorrow morning," she sighed.

"Are you nervous?"

She closed her eyes and let her head sink forward with a quiet, "Mmhmm."

By then, the hard rubbing had turned her into putty in his hands. With every powerful sweep that he made, Tracy’s head would bob up and down before falling back down to its original position. As the massaging continued, she could feel some of the tension starting to melt away, though an overwhelming urge to sleep quickly took its place.

Even though the visions had stopped, her dreams, which were filled to the brim with fantastic nonsense and awful monsters that were seldom seen, made every night both fitful and restless.

After several minutes, Mr. Hayes leaned over and said softly into her ear, "I’m going to go get you some water."

Fortunately, the former owner of the building had left a few things behind as part of the deal, including a brand-new ice machine that was situated near the walk-in cooler. Mr. Hayes grabbed a couple of plastic cups out of a bag and filled them up, though only one of them ended up with water, too.

Back inside of the dining room, Tracy hadn’t moved. She sat, still partially slumped over, in her seat. Mr. Hayes pressed both cups carefully against his chest with one arm and used the other to snap off the first three light switches. Like a candle being blown out, the room dropped into an impressive darkness. The only light was able to get in was from the kitchen and the little slivers of window where the paper covering it didn’t quite reach. It wasn’t much, though, and cast little slashes of light all over.

"Here," he said and reached around to hand Tracy the water cup.

She reached up and took it from him. "Thanks."

"Sure."

He set the other cup on the table in front of her and pulled a couple of the disk-shaped cubes out.

"Lean your head back."

A hint of a demanding tone crept into his voice.

Tracy raised an eyebrow but nothing else. "Why?"

Mr. Hayes wrapped his free hand around her chin and guided her face upwards.

"Because I’m trying to help."

Tracy wanted to fight. She knew that, in a way, she needed to fight. She also knew that she didn’t have very much fight left in her at that moment. Though her eyes were still closed, little, quick flashes of white and green speckled her vision. The spots would flash and dance in almost imperceptible quivers before disappearing completely.

Then there was the matter of the pain. Like a buzzing chainsaw had just passed through, a horrible ripping sensation raced from Tracy’s eyebrow- near her scar- all the way to the base of her skull, where it then pooled and radiated out through the rest of her body. It didn’t feel like a normal headache. At least, not like any headache that Tracy had ever experienced. In the end, she knew that she had to relinquish control, even if it was just a little.

Her neck muscles went slack as soon as the back of her head came to rest on a kitchen towel that Mr. Hayes had placed strategically over the back of the chair.

"Just relax. I’ve already had the room made up at home. It was supposed to be a surprise but," he cupped his fingers around the saucer of ice and lowered it down until it was resting on the middle of her forehead, "this is just as good."

The shock of cold was a welcome relief. In the minutes that passed, she could feel the icy sensation sinking deeper and deeper into her flesh, relaxing the tight muscles that were causing all of her grief.

A steady trickle of cool, melted water dribbled down over her eyebrows and started to pool near the corners of her eyes.