Either way, I was happy to move on. “Okay, card eleven represents your community. This is how you interact with people around you, like colleagues and acquaintances.” I turned over the card. “Eight of Swords.” He was getting a lot of swords.
“A lot of these are quite damning, aren’t they?”
“They are a bit.”
I watched as Forest contemplated the card. His brow furrowed softly in concentration, his eyelashes fluttering behind his thin, fashionable glasses frames as he scanned the card for images and meanings. The way the muscles in his strong shoulders tensed when he thought. The way he was quite tense in general, actually, like he could do with a massage.
In a way, this was a mental massage. I really enjoyed getting him to open up, pushing gently through his reticence to both the tarot and his disinclination to talk about himself. I was starting to see more of the Forest his brothers saw, as opposed to whatever image was necessary for him to project outwards.
And now I was thinking about unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt, massaging his tense shoulders as we completed the reading, getting him to relax not just mentally, but physically, too...
Dirty, bad thoughts. Shut up, I chastised myself internally.
I glanced over at Forest in time to see something dark pass over his expression. He hadn’t said anything yet about the card. We were getting into ‘The Sun’ territory here – when he had fixated on the card, become overwhelmed, and left. I wanted him to go a bit deeper than he usually did, but I didn’t want to sink him into the abyss.
I picked up the Eight of Swords and dropped it onto the floor, more pointedly than I had last time. He looked up, and I grinned at him wickedly across the table.
The first time I’d dropped the card had been an accident. It had stirred something in me that I couldn’t quite explain, but was certainly a bit dirty, too, Forest kneeling by my thighs to find the missing card, presenting it to me dutifully at the table. The second time, it had been to break him out of dark speculation. But I’d also been testing him, not quite realizing what I was doing – seeing if he was feeling the same things I was. It was unprofessional, and I shouldn’t tease. But feeling his breathing quicken under the table last time, I’d grown wet and warm.
This time I also wanted to break him out of dark thoughts. But I also wanted to up the game. Something very unprofessional within me wanted to test him, see how far I could push the tension between us.
“Could you get that for me, please?”
There was a hint of a smile about his eyes, and something that was still dark, but more lustful. I thought of the naked man and the woman on ‘The Devil’ card he’d drawn first, standing apart but chained together. The space in between them, perhaps, an office desk.
When he wordlessly got to his knees, I pushed back my chair too and knelt down to watch him. I knew my shirt was somewhat loosened about my chest. Forest looked up in confusion, his fingertips on the fallen card. I held out my palm. He placed the card there, and his fingertips lingered for a moment, more confidently than when he had fumbled before. There was no physical electric shock this time, but a different kind of jolt, that felt like I was suddenly waking up.
And then, before anything more could happen, I withdrew. “Thank you.”
We resumed our positions. He was watching me silently – hungrily, now.
I resumed my professional manner. “The last house is the one I’m most interested in. That’s your shadow self.”
He nodded. He still hadn’t spoken since the last card was revealed. I got the feeling he was more confident in his silence than in his speech, which was refreshing and different in a world where so many men were all talk. He had a quiet power that I did not yet quite understand.
I turned over the last card. “Five of Swords. Interesting.”
Itwasinteresting. Five of Swords usually represented a conflict or competition, one that was not entirely just or noble, or one that had spiralled out of control and had either gone too far or had consumed someone entirely, so that they were losing themselves along the way.
I wasn’t going to tell this to Forest, of course. He had to make up his own mind about what his cards meant. With some prompting. “What do you see?”
He was frowning. He still hadn’t spoken. When he did, it was slow and ponderous. “This is an odd one. This guy in the foreground is holding two swords and picking up another, and there’s two lying on the ground. He’s looking quite smugly over his shoulder at two quite bedraggled people who seem to be headed for the sea.”
I nodded. “And?”
“If there’s swords lying on the ground, there’s been some kind of battle. With quite a few losses, if their swords haven’t been claimed. This guy doesn’t exactly look dressed for combat, I don’t know if he was in the battle or what... or he’s just profiting from it.”
“Who or what does it make you think of, relating to you?”
“Hmm. I have another brother – half-brother – I don’t speak of much. But you must know of him. Apollo Brock. Anyone that smug-looking on these cards reminds me of him.”
An admission I hadn’t expected to come from Forest. That guilty feeling rotted in the pit of my stomach. Unfortunately, it was overridden by my continuing urge – to lean across the table, to kiss Forest, to take off his shirt, and my shirt, and to let our bodies meet. The guilt, in this moment, only served to increase my desire. I wanted to forget it, leave it behind in the wake of something more primal.
I didn’t act on it. “But this card represents your shadow self. If it reminds you of Apollo...”
I didn’t need to finish my sentence. He clicked before I did. The shift in his expression was very obvious. From a quiet concentration to a horrified disgust. A spark of anger lit somewhere in him. Whether to me, or to his brother, I wasn’t sure. He had reason to be angry at both of us, though he didn’t know it.
There was only one thing to do.