Wounds of Time

by Stevie D. Parker

  “You’re just anti-love,” I argued.

  “No, Bianca, I am not anti-love. I’m a realist. Men in that caliber never leave their wives. You ever hear the expression, ‘It’s cheaper to keep her?’ And women who are married to men in that caliber don’t give a fuck what they do. As long as they stay flossed, they know it comes along with the territory. These men have licenses to cheat.” She stood up and walked over to the counter and made us another drink.

  “So, what exactly are you saying? I shouldn’t go to Puerto Rico with him?”

  She turned her head to face me and rolled her eyes. “What, are you stupid? Of course, you should go to Puerto Rico with him. I’m just saying you have to slow down a little with the feelings—date other men. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, especially in an unavailable basket. His son is closer to your age. Do you know what he looks like? Maybe you can get with him. Then Vincent will be your father-in-law and you can fuck him on all the holidays. Why stop at just Christmas Eve?”

  “That’s disgusting,” I said, shaking my head. I sipped my drink.

  “Look, that guy, Chris I’m seeing has this friend, Brendon. The guy is like obsessed with you. Keeps asking about my blonde friend in my profile pic with me. Up my ass about it, really. Go out with him—we can go on a double date so it’s not awkward. You can still see Vincent on Mondays and give yourself some options. Next month you’re going to be in the last year of your twenties. Don’t waste your entire life on a man who is essentially going to break your heart. Plus, it will be fun to date best friends.”

  She had a point. It would be nice to be able to go out with someone in public without driving to Jersey, especially on a double date.

  “Fine,” I agreed. “One date but no promises.”

  Vincent had a car pick me up that morning to take me to the airport. He was already at the gate waiting.

  I walked over to where he paced in front of the gate, holding a garment bag in his hand.

  “That’s all you brought? What’s in there?” I asked.

  “Just a few suits,” he replied.

  “Suits? Little overdressed for Puerto Rico, no?” I asked, surprised.

  “Well, I couldn’t exactly pack summer clothes—I’ll buy some when we get there,” he answered.

  “Where does she think you’re going?” I asked.

  “I have a huge client in Miami, just in case the sunblock fails me,” he answered.

  That solved the mystery of how he was going to explain a suntan. He glanced around.

  “Are you afraid to be seen with me?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “I’m afraid to look like I’m in love with you. A lot of people fly out of Newark. It may be weird to be gawking at my cousin.”

  I pointed at the screen that said Puerto Rico, 7:15 a.m. On time.

  “May also be weird to be going to Puerto Rico with your cousin,” I said.

  He laughed. “You’re right. We’ll just say you’re my daughter. She has blonde hair too. You can pass.”

  “Ew, that’s gross that you think I look like your daughter?” I asked.

  “No, you don’t look like her, she just happens to have blonde hair, too. So, if you were turned around and someone saw me with a little blonde girl, they might assume it’s my daughter—you know what? Now you’re grossing me out, forget I said it.”

  “Your hair is so dark—how did your daughter end up with blonde hair?” I asked, as the flight attendants started boarding the plane.

  “My wife is naturally blonde; she dyes it…you know what, before we board, I would like to institute a rule. Effective immediately! Once we get on that plane, and I successfully make sure no one knows me, there’s no talk of wives, kids, work, friends—just us. This whole trip is just us, like no one else exists. Deal?”

  I smiled at him. He couldn’t have said anything more perfectly. “Yes, deal,” I said.

  He had got us first-class tickets. I’d never flown in first-class before—I couldn’t even remember the last time I was on a plane. Once we found our seats, the flight attendant came over to us. “Mr. DeLuca, care for a beverage before takeoff?”

  “Yes, I’ll have a Bloody Mary, please. Sarah?”

  My eyes went wide in disbelief. “It’s seven a.m., isn't it a little early to start drinking?”

  He leaned over to me. “Baby, we’re on vacation. There is no such thing as early or late for the next four days.”

  He looked up at the flight attendant. “Two, please.”

  After we’d reached a safe flying altitude, Vincent got up to go to the bathroom. He started heading to the back of the plane when the flight attendant stopped him.

  “Sir, you can use the first-class bathroom in the front.”

  “I know, I prefer using the one in the back, if you don’t mind,” he responded.

  I knew exactly what he was doing. He was scouring the plane to make sure he didn’t know anyone.

  When he returned to his seat, he seemed relieved and took my hand in his. “I can’t wait to be alone with you. I’m going to tell you now though—I’m a real bad sleeper, I get up a lot at night. So, I apologize in advance if I keep waking you,” he warned.

  The lobby of the hotel was tremendous: crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, beautiful marble floors. The concierge offered us both a glass of champagne and apologized that the room wasn’t ready yet.

  Vincent was very cool about it. “We’ll leave our bags with the bellhop and go hit the beach. Do you want champagne before we go?” he asked me.

  “Are you having some?” I asked.

  “Nah, not the best thing to mix after Bloody Mary’s,” he said.

  I turned down the offer as well and then went to open my suitcase to dig for my bathing suit.

  Vincent stopped me. “Don’t worry about it. I have to go shopping anyway. I’ll get you a bathing suit. Come on, let’s not waste any time.”

  We were staying at an extremely fancy hotel, so needless to say, there were some very high-end stores. He told me to get whatever I wanted and then headed over to the men’s section. I had a bikini in my hand when this beautiful dress caught my eye. The fabric was the prettiest shade of coral I’d ever seen. I leaned in to get a closer look. Holy shit! The price tag said eight hundred dollars! I immediately started backing away, as if I might be charged for touching it, when I heard Vincent.

  “Can she try that on?” he said.

  I whirled around and saw that he was right behind me.

  “Oh no,” I said. “It’s okay. I don’t want that dress.”

  “You don’t want to try it on? It’s a really nice dress. I bet you’d look great it in.” His dimple appeared.

  I flashed the worker an embarrassed smile before peeking up at Vincent. “It’s way too expensive,” I whispered. “Plus, I would have nowhere even to wear a dress like that. Seriously I don’t want it.”

  He looked at me with a stern expression. “Okay, rule number two on this trip—we don’t look at price tags. You see something you like, you get it. I don’t even want you to look at how much anything costs, is that understood?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Meanwhile, the worker sized me up.

  “You look like a size four or six. I’ll bring you both, and we’ll see which one fits better,” she said.

  Vincent was shuffling through a rack when I came out wearing the dress. He stopped immediately and stared in awe.

  “Wow!” he said. “Looks like we have to find a really nice restaurant tomorrow night to give you a reason to wear that dress.”

  I cannot even put into words what an amazing day it was. We relaxed on the beach until lunchtime, and then ate at an outdoor restaurant overlooking the ocean. Afterward, we walked around and checked out the sights, and he even coaxed me into trying parasailing. Later, we watched the sun dip into the ocean as he stood behind me, arms wrapped around me, kissing the back of my neck. The water was so blue, but now als
o reflected the red and purple rays from the sky. If I could freeze that one moment in time for eternity, I would. As promised, we spoke of nothing but us. For that short period of time, I was truly convinced we were a real couple.

  “Want to go up to the room and get ready for dinner?” he asked, once the sky had darkened.

  I wanted to anything he wanted to do. “Yes,” I said.

  As he opened the door to our room, I stood frozen. The room—no, the suite was bigger than my entire apartment. It was so classy, with a balcony that overlooked the beach. There was a full refrigerator stocked with full sizes of everything: water, wine, beer. There was a living room, an office space, and a huge bathroom, which by itself may literally have been the size of my apartment. Inside the bathroom was a hot tub, a bathtub, a shower, and two toilets.

  I looked at the toilets, confused.

  “That’s called a bidet,” he said.

  “What’s a bidet?” I asked.

  He started laughing. “It’s what rich people use to wash their private parts,” he explained.

  “Really? Do you use that?” I asked.

  He was shaking his head, still laughing. “No, but I know what it is. I’m half-kidding. It’s a French thing.” He obviously thought my question was very funny.

  “What would you like to eat for dinner tonight?” he asked.

  I draped my arms around his shoulders and started kissing his neck. “Oh, I have a few ideas,” I said, as I ran my hands down his chest. He groaned as I pulled his shirt off.

  “Ah, room service, yeah, I thought so too,” he said.

  We didn’t make it out of the bathroom—we had sex right on the sink.

  I woke up the next morning with our bodies intertwined: his arm over my waist, his leg around my thighs. I didn’t understand why he’d said he was a bad sleeper. He was a perfect sleeper. Didn’t snore, didn’t drool, barely moved. The other perfect thing about him, I realized right then…his hair. How did a forty-five-year-old man have such perfect hair? Thick, full, not one gray. I was going to be twenty-nine next month and yet I was already dying grays—did he dye his hair? I started obsessively running my fingers through the dark strands, searching for some sort of indication as to why his hair was so perfect. I tried not to wake him, but his eyes slowly fluttered open until he was gazing at me.

  “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” I asked.

  He pulled me close and smiled. “You know,” he said. “You are the last face I see at night before I close my eyes to go to sleep, and the first face I see in the morning when I wake up. It is so nice to have you here in person, waking up to your real face and not the image of it.”

  I practically melted in his arms. “How do you have such perfect hair?”

  He touched his head, feeling his hair. “I’m sure it’s not perfect right now.”

  “No, really. I inspected it while you were sleeping. Not one sign of a gray, how is that possible?”

  He chuckled. “You like gray hair?” he asked.

  “Salt and pepper’s nice,” I said.

  “Okay, we’ll go to a salon today, and I’ll throw some gray in my hair for you,” he said, still smiling.

  “You would dye your hair gray for me?”

  He got really serious. “I would dye my hair blue for you.”

  I didn’t say anything, so he continued. “You’re like a drug, you know that? I haven’t slept through the night in years, maybe decades. You’re like a natural mood stabilizer.”

  I laughed. He shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?” I asked.

  He paused for a second, almost as if he wasn’t sure whether he should say whatever he was thinking. Then he plunged ahead. “I’m not kidding. When I’m having a bad day, in a funk, or just not in the best of moods, you know what I do? I listen to the soundtrack of Wounds of Time. I listen to you sing and immediately, I’m in a good mood. I know every word to every song in your show.”

  I stared at him. “Vincent, you have to stop saying things like this to me,” I said, shifting my eyes off of his.

  “Why? I thought we could tell each other anything,” he said.

  I inhaled deeply. “You are going to make me fall so madly in love with you.”

  He pulled me in closer. “You’re not already?” he asked.

  I felt my face turn red.

  “Are you blushing?” he asked, surprised.

  My gaze locked with his. “No, no, I’m not blushing—am I?”

  He started laughing.

  “Yeah, you’re blushing.” He moved in even closer, his mouth so close to mine that I could feel his breath against my lips when he repeated the question, “You’re not already?”

  What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I say the words? “You know how I feel about you.”

  “Say it,” he said.

  “Why do I have to say it?” I asked.

  “Because I want to hear it. I need to hear it.” His lips were so close, I could taste them.

  “I love you,” I finally said.

  He immediately started kissing me and without taking his lips off me, muttered, “Say it again.”

  “I love you.” It came out so much easier the second time.

  He stopped kissing me and stared. “I would tell you I love you, but it’s not enough. You can’t even begin to understand how I feel about you. You consume my entire brain. You’re all I think about: all day, all night, every day, every night. I’m possessed by you, if that’s possible. You are somehow IN me.”

  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard anyone say, especially to me.

  “Have you slept with a lot of women?” I asked.

  He rolled over on his back and gazed up at the ceiling, resting his hand on his forehead. “Well, that’s a bizarre question to ask after I profess my love to you.”

  While still lying on his back, he turned his head to the side to look at me.

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  “Not as many as you probably think. I don’t know. I can probably count on one hand, maybe a little more.”

  “Do you think it’s just the sex? Maybe that’s why you’re so into me, because we have such good sex?” I asked.

  His expression suggested that my comment was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.

  “No, it’s not about the sex. Yes, we do have incredible sex, but even if we never had sex again, I’d still feel the same way,” he said.

  “Yeah, okay!” I said sarcastically.

  “Oh, you don’t believe me? Okay, I’ll prove it. No sex anymore. Sex ban, starting now,” he said.

  “No!” I shrieked.

  “What? I’m proving a point that it’s not about sex. How am I going to prove that if we still have sex?” he asked.

  “You can’t do that,” I said, running my hands down his bare chest. “I have needs too!”

  He rolled over on top of me.

  “Oh, you have needs?” he asked playfully now, kissing my neck, up to my ear. Then he whispered, “Tell me what you need.”

  I slid his hand down my body until it reached between my legs. “For starters, I need your fingers here.”

  He started rubbing me, moving his lips from my neck, down my chest, over my breasts.

  “Tell me what else you need.”

  I dictated his every move, until we both orgasmed.

  After breakfast, we laid on the beach for a while when I noticed him staring off at the ocean. Boats, jet skis, people parasailing.

  He shot me a sideways glance and said, “Let’s go jet skiing.”

  I looked at him, unmotivated. How did a man his age have so much energy? I wondered to myself. “No way, I don’t know how,” I said.

  “You don’t need to know how—I’ll drive the jet ski, you just hold on to me.”

  “Nope, not happening. I’ve been in a car with you. I know how fast you drive, definitely not. I’m afraid of deep water,”
I explained.

  He looked at me in disbelief. “You hate Christmas, and you’re afraid of water? What were you raised by? Gremlins? Don’t make me beg,” he pleaded. “We’ll do whatever you want afterward.”

  He was very convincing. An hour later, I gripped his waist for dear life as he sped across the ocean on this jet ski, driving like a lunatic. He stopped midway through the ride and hopped off. Standing in waist-deep water, he said, “Jump off.”

  “I can’t.” The thought of jumping off this jet ski and landing in the water terrified me.

  He laughed, obviously finding this all very amusing. “I’ll catch you,” he said. “I am literally in three feet of water.”

  After about ten minutes of him trying to persuade me to get off that thing, I finally give in, and he caught me, just like he said he would.

  Standing in his wet arms, he gazed at me and said, “I told you I’d catch you. I will never let anything happen to you.”

  We stayed in the water until he decided he wanted a drink, and then we rode back. After having a cocktail, we made our way back to our room to get changed for dinner. I emerged from the bathroom wearing the new coral dress.

  “Wow.” He stopped buttoning down his shirt and stared at me. “You look amazing, like that dress was literally made for your body!” He started tucking his shirt into his pants.

  “No, leave it out,” I said.

  “Leave it out?” he repeated.

  “Yes, we’re going to dinner, not a business meeting. It looks better out.” I could tell he was hesitant, but he kept it out.

  He picked a very nice restaurant on the water where I wouldn’t be overdressed in my new, extremely expensive dress. They served authentic Puerto Rican food, with Spanish guitars playing softly in the background. I had no idea what they were singing, but the music made me want to dance. I bopped my body to the rhythm while we waited to be seated, pointing out all the men who were wearing their shirts out. I could tell seeing them made Vincent feel better about his own appearance, which made me happy. He looked so handsome; I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable.

  The hostess approached us. “Mr. and Mrs. DeLuca, your table is ready.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.