One breath at a time, p.14
One Breath at a Time, page 14
The door in front of me opened. A woman stepped out, looking rather warm in her white dress. She had a high color to her cheeks and smelled deliciously of tanning oil.
I watched her walk out. The door swung on silent hinges. Before it closed, I caught a glimpse of the glow of the tanning beds.
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.
I had to get out of there. Panic rose up, a complete surprise. I hurried to the front door, pushed it open and almost ran into a man who was on his way in. I stood outside against the wall, right in front of traffic and passersby and God and everybody, and took deep breaths.
I burst into tears.
The pretty receptionist ran out of the building and found me. ‘Ma’am? Are you all right? What happened in there?’
I let out a few more sobs before pulling myself under control. She handed me a tissue. It was wrinkled from her pocket. I dried my eyes.
‘My ex-boyfriend,’ I said. ‘He has a thing for tanning beds.’
She nodded with the light of understanding in her eyes. ‘You took one look at them and remembered all sorts of things you didn’t want to remember?’
‘Yeah.’
She nodded again. ‘For me, it was cantaloupes.’
Despite my tears, I smiled at that. ‘Cantaloupes?’
‘Going to the grocery store was a bitch,’ she said sagely.
My laughter sounded foreign and forced.
‘Thanks for checking up on me,’ I said.
‘It goes away, you know,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it takes a long time. But once you realize what he really was, not who you wish he had been, then it will start to go away.’
I stared at her. She couldn’t be more than twenty, if that. She smiled and went back into the building, and I skipped out on the massage by getting in my car and driving out to the lake.
Once you realize who he really was, not who you wish he had been, then the pain will start to go away.
I stared at the water. I hadn’t considered that I didn’t know who Michael really was. But if a man could be so loving and so open with me, and then suddenly turn on a dime and announce he wanted someone else, was it really possible that I knew him at all?
I thought about things that had bothered me back then. Now that I was looking at those things in a different light – all the long nights at work, all the phone calls not answered, all the dodging of questions and the fights for no reason – I started to feel the sneaking suspicion that maybe not everything was OK after all. It was easy to look at what was on the surface and be happy with that. Was I so happy that I didn’t bother to look deeper?
What else had Michael hidden?
I watched the water and thought about Tom.
How well do you ever really know someone?
Jet skis kicked up tails of water behind them. Men in swim trunks and women in tiny bikinis sat on the top of boats, letting the sun bake their skin. Kids played happily in the water near the shore. It was a world of families and couples, and I was sitting here in my car, alone, watching them.
What else was there? What else didn’t I know?
I started the car and squealed out of the parking lot. Families, content in their togetherness, looked up in annoyance at my show of disrespect.
There were so many things I didn’t know. There were so many questions rising to the surface. The things I didn’t know would drive me insane if I let them, so instead I just drove. My speedometer hit sixty, then went far past it. I didn’t care if I got pulled over. It would give me something else to focus on, something other than the horrible images in my head and the questions that kept my heart pounding just as hard as that engine under my hood.
I cried the whole way.
I almost ran out of gas. I finally pulled into a little service station, miles and miles away from where I should have been. I filled up and turned around, heading back for Tom.
By the time I got there, darkness was settling in. Tom was sitting on the front porch, waiting for me. As soon as he saw my car, he vaulted down the stairs and came running. He pulled the door open before I stopped the engine.
‘Where the hell were you?’ he asked, his voice barely on the sane side of panic. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried!’
I looked at Tom helplessly.
‘I needed to take a drive,’ I said, knowing it was the absolute truth and knowing it also wasn’t nearly enough.
Tom stared at me. He wasn’t sure what to think and I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t sure what to think, either.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered.
Tom knelt beside me and touched my thigh. ‘What is happening, Kelley?’
I didn’t know what to say.
‘I want to help you, Kelley. But if you don’t let me in, there’s nothing I can do to help you. You have to meet me halfway.’
The sudden flare of anger was completely unexpected and entirely out of place. He was simply trying to help me. What was my problem, anyway? Why did I expect him to put up with my emotional bullshit without any input from me? Was he supposed to read my mind or something?
I took a deep breath and said all I could say. ‘I’m sorry, Tom.’
‘Get yourself together and come in the house. We need to talk.’
I sat in the car for a long while. Tom went around the side of the house, then inside the kitchen – I saw the lights flicker on. He waited for a long time, then came back out to the car. His concern had transformed into anger. Tom pulled the door open again. This time he wasn’t nearly as nice as he had been earlier.
‘Get out.’
I climbed out of the car, both sheepish at what I had done and angry for reasons I couldn’t name. I was furious at Tom for being so solicitous towards me. I was furious with myself for letting Michael elbow his way into my life without even trying. I was angry with myself and sad over the whole situation.
I walked into the house. Tom was right on my heels. The remnants of dinner were all over the kitchen. I grabbed a plate and scraped the last bits of steak into the garbage disposal. I turned it on and listened to the grinding sound. It kept Tom from talking to me.
He watched from his place near the counter as I cleaned the kitchen. With each small chore, my anger dissipated a bit more. I tried desperately to hold onto it.
‘Talk to me,’ Tom finally said.
I dropped a plate. It shattered on the floor at my feet. Tom flinched hard, and I covered my face with my hands.
‘Michael,’ I said, and then the tears came.
Tom came towards me. Fine china crunched under his shoes. He took my arms.
‘Walk this way,’ he said. ‘Careful. You’ve got a cut on your foot.’
I looked down and saw the blood. The world went hazy. Tom caught me before I fell, and then lifted me into his arms. His jaw was set in a hard line, but his eyes were filled with worry. He carried me through the house and set me down on the couch.
The sun had gone down long ago, and the living room was dark. I lay there while Tom went into the bathroom and came back with the things he needed to clean the cut. He spread a towel over his lap and pulled my foot onto it. We looked at each other from our opposite ends of the couch.
‘Talk,’ he said.
The peroxide was cold and made me jump. The bubbles made a white foam across my foot.
‘I went to the spa today. There were tanning beds there. I took one look at them and I got sick, Tom. Physically sick. I thought about him and that woman, and the fact that he wanted her more than he wanted me, and I got sick.’
Tom patted my foot dry. He looked at it closely, then poured on more peroxide.
‘What else?’
‘I got in the car and went to the lake. Then I drove. I just drove.’
Tom looked up at me for a moment. He patted my foot dry again, then picked up a band-aid.
‘I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t think, Tom. I just went, and then I came back, and now I don’t even know where I am.’
‘You don’t know where you are?’ He opened the band-aid with a tiny ripping sound.
‘Emotionally.’
‘Oh.’
‘I want to be free of him, Tom. But I don’t know how.’ Tom flicked on the lamp on the table. It was just enough of a glow to see each other clearly.
‘You’re not ready for this, are you? For you and me,’ he said.
‘I want to be.’
‘What can I do to help you?’ he asked. There was an edge of desperation to his voice, a fear that was barely in check. ‘Tell me what I can do, Kelley.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You need to talk to him,’ Tom said. ‘You need to ask him all those questions that are tearing you apart, Kelley. You won’t move on until you have the answers.’
I shook my head. ‘He won’t give me a straight answer to anything,’ I said.
Tom cupped my face in his hands. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I know now isn’t the most romantic time to say that to you. But you have to know how far it’s gone for me, Kelley. I love you, and I’m here for the long haul.’
I kissed him, as trusting as I had always been. Try as I might, there was nothing nagging in the back of my mind, no reasons not to trust Tom. I was ashamed of myself for trying to find anything amiss.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
Tom kissed me for a long, long time. I pushed him to his back on the couch. When I reached for the buttons of his shirt, he stopped me.
‘Not now, Kelley.’
I was floored. Sex was what we enjoyed and used generously at times like this. His rejection of the act felt like a rejection of me. Hadn’t he just told me he loved me? And now he didn’t want me?
I knew that wasn’t the case, but it was the excuse I needed to find the anger again. I climbed off the couch. He didn’t say a word, and he didn’t move. I tramped down the stairs into the basement. I slammed the door so hard, the hinges rattled.
Tom didn’t come after me.
I punched at the bag that hung in the corner. It hardly moved. I hit it again, harder this time. It moved even less. The force of my anger felt dangerously impotent, as though, if I didn’t get it out, it would turn on me and tear me apart from the inside out.
I was so fucking tired of this.
I slammed into the bag with my full weight. It was like hitting a brick wall. I wrapped my arms around it and tried to move it, but nothing happened. I settled for punching it as hard as I could, over and over, until sweat was running down my body and my breasts hurt from bouncing with every punch. A thin line of fire ran up and down my spine. My arms burned from the pounding I was giving the bag, but still I didn’t stop until the pain was too much for me to handle.
I slumped on the weight bench. The leather immediately grabbed at my wet buttocks, making a sucking sound as I shifted. The room smelled like leather and sweat and hard work. I looked at the weights on the bench and the bolts on the floor, and remembered all the times Tom and I had made love – or simply fucked – on that bench.
I hated that bench tonight.
I kicked the weights with my foot. The flare of pain shot through my toe and I was grateful for it. It took away the attention from the pain in my heart.
I limped over to the mirror and stared at myself. I looked for so long that it began to seem as though I wasn’t looking at a reflection at all, but another person, someone I didn’t know. How audacious I had been, to believe Tom was the one with the serious issues.
The guilt finally swamped me, replacing the anger with a slow, sinking rush. Tom had just told me he loved me, and I had taken it all the wrong way. I shouldn’t be down here, berating myself; I should be up there in the bedroom, making it all up to him.
The staircase seemed to be longer and steeper than it had been before. I expected to find Tom on the couch where I had left him, but he wasn’t there.
I looked out the window. Both vehicles were out in the driveway. The four-wheeler was parked in the backyard. Moonlight glinted from the handlebars. The broken plate was still scattered on the kitchen floor. I ignored it and walked back to the office. The door was closed and no light was showing through the small space underneath.
I finally found him on the porch, standing at the corner of it and looking down into the yard. He took a long pensive drink from the stoneware mug in his hand.
‘I think I’m going to build this porch further out,’ he said. ‘I know you like wrap-around porches. I could do that.’
I smiled. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I’ve been reading your books.’
I sat down on the swing. The chains made a comforting squeak as I moved back and forth. It was the sound of pure country, harking back to a time when life was simple.
‘You’re very observant,’ I said. ‘To know which parts are true and which parts are not.’
He glanced back at me suspiciously, as though he expected a punch line.
‘Do you feel better?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘I feel horrible. For more reasons than you can imagine. I’m sorry, Tom.’
He waved my apology away.
I watched him as he watched the yard. From somewhere in the woods a bobwhite quail called, and Tom whistled back. After a puzzled silence, the bird answered, and Tom proceeded to carry on a conversation with him. The bantering back and forth was comforting.
I thought about how lucky I was to have a man who was willing to share so much with me, who had opened his home and his heart and laid them all out for my inspection. There were so many things about him I didn’t know, but what could he really hide? When I was with Michael it was a long-distance relationship, and he had more than ample opportunity to hide things from me. Tom had no such luxury. So why was I lumping him into the same category as Michael when it came to honesty?
‘I had no idea,’ I said, ‘how badly he damaged me.’
Tom surprised me when he answered: ‘I didn’t know, either.’
He came to sit next to me on the swing. Our thighs touched. He leaned forwards with the mug in his hands and stared at the liquid inside it. The bobwhite whistled again, puzzled now that his singing partner had suddenly fallen silent.
‘You know what you need?’ Tom asked quietly.
‘Do tell.’
‘You need a good, hard, savage fuck.’
I looked at him, but he didn’t move. The swing gently rocked, the bobwhite called, and nothing seemed to have changed – but the electricity was there, in the air, practically crackling with heat. I almost expected to see fingers of lightning flash down from the sky.
How was it possible to go from such anger and despair to this thrill of anticipation?
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do need that from you.’
‘From me?’ Tom asked. Even as the sharp edge of his doubt cut into my heart, the excitement surged, stronger than ever.
‘I don’t want anyone but you,’ I reassured him.
Tom stood up. The swing moved more easily without his weight. He tossed the remainder of his drink off the railing. Moonlight flashed through the liquid as it flew in a gentle arc.
‘I think it’s time for something special,’ Tom said.
He reached out a hand. I took it and followed him into the house. He led me through the living room, down the hallway, to the basement stairs. Tom flicked on the small light over by the whirlpool. It cast a dim light over the exercise equipment, threw shadows on the walls and made the basement look more like a medieval dungeon than a gym.
He looked at me. Without a word, I removed my clothes.
‘Get on the bench,’ Tom said.
I was trembling with anticipation by the time I reached the bench. The leather seemed to glow in the pale light from the corner. I touched the bar for a moment, looking down at the place where Tom wanted me. I slowly straddled the bench.
Tom carefully tied each ankle to the lower bar. Then he tied my hands to the support bars on either side of the bench. In that position my ass was up in the air, and I was entirely exposed for whatever he might choose to do to me.
‘Do you remember our safe word?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
‘Good. You don’t say a word unless it’s that one. Understand?’
I started to say yes, but then realized what he had just told me. I nodded instead. I looked up at Tom and he gave me a smile.
‘Good girl,’ he praised.
He stood over me for a long time. I thought he would touch me, but the pressure of his hand never came. He simply stood there, breathing deep and even, his eyes taking in every inch of me. Goosebumps rose on my skin and then went away. I blushed like fire, then that went away, too. I squirmed a little against my bonds, but eventually found a comfortable place where I simply resigned myself to the way I was bound. I closed my eyes and let my head hang down.
Only then did Tom move. I didn’t open my eyes or look up. I concentrated on my breathing. I heard the cabinet door open, and I knew he was pulling something out of there – or many things – but I still did not move. Tom’s calmness had infused me.
‘You are so beautiful like that,’ he murmured from right in front of me. ‘You have no idea how you look now, Kelley. Trust is so damn beautiful.’
He trailed something made of leather down my spine. It was cool against my skin. I didn’t even flinch; I just arched into it, welcoming it, feeling it grow warm.
Then the paddle followed the same trail. I knew what it was from the shape and the hard edge. It touched every inch of my spine, almost as if Tom were counting the vertebrae. Then came what had to be the cane, a springy thing that was surprisingly warm already. Tom rolled it down my spine and back up, eventually using it to massage the back of my neck. I relaxed even further.
The first blow of the cane was surprisingly soft. My mind and body instantly focused on this strange new sensation. The touch was feather light, and the thought of what the cane could do versus what it was doing was a contradiction that kept my attention narrowed to a thin corridor of pleasure. The touch of it fluttered down my spine, tapping lightly on either side, never actually touching the center. There was a difference between the taps with the end of the cane and the ones that came from further up the shaft; those were harder, heavier, but still not hard enough to hurt. The small taps were like punctuation marks, illustrating the differences.
