Wounds of Time

by Stevie D. Parker

  “What are you laughing at?” he asked.

  “She thought I was your wife,” I said, still laughing.

  “Don’t laugh. You’re going to be one day, so get used to it now,” he said as we took our seats.

  “You really think we’re going to get married?” I asked.

  “Yes, I am going to be buried next to you.” He said this so seriously, that I almost believed him.

  “What is that? It smells amazing!”

  I peered over at the table next to us while Vincent tried to be more subtle.

  “Looks like grilled octopus, you want to try it?” he asked.

  I shook my head no.

  “You’ll like it trust me, it’s very tender and juicy.” He went ahead and ordered some as a tourist-hunting photographer came over to us to snap our picture.

  When the octopus arrived, I had to admit that he was right. It was delicious; all marinated in a spicy sauce with chopped tomatoes and onions mixed in. I was amazed at how good he was at predicting what I would and wouldn’t like.

  “Why do you love me?” I asked him.

  He took a deep breath, like that was a hard question to answer. “It’s kind of hard to pinpoint one specific thing. I guess your willingness to try anything. Food, jet skiing—no matter how afraid you are of something, after enough convincing, you finally try it. The same way I am going to eventually convince you to marry me,” he said, smiling. “What about me? What do you love about me?” he asked.

  I thought for a second, and then I looked at him and said, “The way you look at me. Are you always going to look at me like that?”

  Before he could answer, the photographer came over and showed us the picture, which had turned out great. She asked him if he wanted to buy it and he shook his head.

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  I pretended to study my plate of food, but he noticed my expression. “It’s a really nice picture, but I can’t do anything with it. Do you want it?” he asked.

  In that second, reality sank in: we weren’t really a couple. Once we flew home, we’d be going right back to the same situation as before. He’d go home to his wife, and I would be going on a third date with Brendon to appease Isabel. I felt so stupid.

  “No, I don’t want it,” I said.

  We finished dinner, and he suggested going to a tiki bar that wasn’t too far away. He claimed that we had been in Puerto Rico for two whole days already without having a real homemade piña colada.

  When we walked out, hand-in-hand, I said, “You know what? Let me just go pee real fast before we go to the other place.”

  He said okay and waited outside the restaurant. I hurried back inside, desperately searching for the photographer. I found her at another tourist’s table and waited patiently for her to finish. The young couple seemed very excited about their picture. As she turned to leave, I rushed over, telling her that I’d like to purchase my photo, after all. I slipped the picture into my pocketbook without even looking at it again and then went back outside to meet Vincent. I wasn’t sure why I bought the picture. It wasn’t like I could hang it anywhere, either. Those past two days had been so amazing, though—I think I needed something to remind me of them when I was an old lady.

  We barely made it back in the room when he started pulling the spaghetti straps down my shoulders.

  “This dress is the best thing I’ve ever bought,” he said. He grabbed the neckline and yanked it down, exposing my breasts. He kissed them and pushed me back toward the bed, while his hands stroked up my thighs. Then, he flipped me over onto my stomach and held me down on the bed. From behind me, he lifted my dress and slid my panties off. With my dress bunched around my waist and my shoes on, he had me right there.

  Luckily, he was careful not to ruin the dress. I was hoping I would be able to wear it again one day.

  VINCE

  When I woke up the next morning, Sarah wasn’t in bed. I got up, still half asleep, to see where she’d gone. It was only 5 a.m. so what could she possibly be doing? When I reached the archway of the living room, I saw her. There she was, on her back, legs stretched over her shoulders in an extremely flexible position. Leave it to a Broadway actress to bring exercise clothes on vacation. I observed her in an upside-down position for a little while, before she spotted with me and realized I was watching her.

  “Why are you staring at me like a creep?” she asked, not breaking her stance.

  I walked into the room. “I think the term ‘gazing adoringly’ is a better fit, but hey if you think it’s creepy…” I shrugged. “Wanna go for a run?”

  She sat up and laughed. “You think you can keep up with me in a run?”

  “Are you kidding me? I run every morning and was a baseball player, remember? Of course, I can keep up with you,” I said confidently.

  Now she looked at me like it was a challenge. “Sure, Mr. Baseball player, let’s go for a run.”

  The cargo shorts I was wearing were definitely not suitable for sprinting, and running on sand was not as easy as running on concrete. Not to say I’d have been able to keep up any better if we were, in fact, on concrete, or if I were wearing the proper attire. As I worked my hardest to stay close, huffing and puffing the entire way, she turned around to face me, running backward. Taunting me.

  “There are two types of girls in the world,” she said. “The kind that lets their man win out of pure respect for his pride, and the ones who watch them lose and laugh. I’m the second girl.”

  “Oh yeah?” I tried to squeeze the words out between my gasps for air. “Well, there are two types of men in the world. The ones who are proud of their women for being able to accomplish such a feat and the ones who…”

  I grabbed her and pulled her towards me. She tripped from being stopped so abruptly. I caught her midair and picked her up and, with her legs around my waist, started carrying her toward the water.

  She playfully yelled, “No!” as she realized what I was about to do.

  “…and the men who just won’t let them win,” I said, as I submerged her in the water. I carried her all the way in until the water reached waist deep. The sun hadn’t come up yet and the water was freezing. I could see the hairs on her arms bristling from goosebumps. Her nipples were hard. With my arms around her waist, I pulled her into me and said, “Try running wet.”

  “Oh my God, we’re soaked!” she exclaimed. She put her arms around me, shivering.

  “Do we need to go shopping again?” I asked, laughing. We stared at each other, and I said, “Let’s not go home. Let’s stay here forever. We can get a house, open a tiki bar. Bartend at night and make love all day.”

  She stared into my eyes lovingly and said, “I wish.”

  “Would you leave everything for me?” I asked.

  Without hesitation, she sighed. “Yes.”

  I couldn’t control what came out of my mouth next. “Then why won’t you let me leave everything for you?”

  She pushed away from me and began walking towards the sand. She stripped off her soaked sneakers and socks and rolled her pants up. “You said we wouldn’t talk about this Vincent—it was your rule. Before even getting on the plane.”

  I started doing the same, taking off my wet socks and shoes.

  “I’m not talking about them. I am talking about us: you and me. Our future,” I argued.

  She stood there trying to look away from me, wrapping her arms around her waist. “Then what exactly are you talking about when you say everything? I already told you I would not be the cause of your divorce.”

  “You’re not the cause of my divorce,” I said. “The cause of my divorce will be that we aren’t in love. That we don’t really have a marriage.”

  She kept shaking her head. The more I spoke, the more upset she was getting.

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” I said. I lifted my hand in the air in swear position. “I promise I will never bring it up again. Not until you do. But know this, th
e second you tell me to pull the trigger, I will.”

  She nodded in agreement and unfolded her arms. She glanced down at her soaked clothes. “Let’s go take showers,” she suggested.

  “Showers sounds like a complete waste of water. We should take a shower, one, together,” I proposed.

  That was a shower to remember.

  Afterward, as I stood in the mirror shaping my now three-day-old facial hair, she walked up behind me. “You should keep the sides on around your goatee,” she said.

  Puzzled, I looked at her and handed her the razor.

  “What do you mean? Show me,” I said.

  She hesitantly took the razor. “You trust me with a blade to your face?” she asked.

  “I trust you with anything,” I replied.

  She sat on the sink with my body now nestled between her legs. I held on to her thighs as she shaved me. She kept the sides along my face the same length as the goatee. Said it was more modern.

  I felt weird, when she made comments like that. Like I was so old in comparison—and yet she made me feel so young.

  The next day after lunch, we returned to the room to get ready for our next adventure. She came out of the bathroom, wearing only my t-shirt. That shirt had never looked so good. I heard my phone go off, so I looked down, and there was a text from Jimmy.

  Call me.

  I inhaled an exasperated breath. “I’m really sorry, but I have to call the office real quick. Shit, I can’t even take a few days off.”

  I went into the living room. She sat on the couch and watched me talk on the phone. Jimmy was speaking a mile a minute, telling me about a tip he’d had just received and whether or not we should buy. The call went on longer than I would have liked. I had to go into detail over who needed to be called, what needed to be said, and how much they should buy. Jimmy put me on speakerphone, so that the brokers in his office could listen to my instructions. Sarah stared the whole time, looking impressed. She always told me that I was so smart. She loved hearing me talking about work. I argued that I wasn’t that smart, I just knew money.

  As I talked to the guys, carefully detailing every step that each of them needed to take, she crawled over to me and unzipped my shorts. I waved my hand, trying to shoo her away. I couldn’t be distracted. She apparently found that funny. She kept going, started going down on me while I tried my hardest to concentrate on what I was saying. I couldn’t let her bring me to the point of climax. I couldn’t get off while on a conference call with my staff.

  Her mouth turned me on so much, though. I had to tell my staff, “Hold on one second,” and put the phone on mute. I pulled her mouth off of me.

  “Are you nuts? Give me a few minutes, let me finish this call,” I said, laughing and frustrated, at the same time.

  She pouted her lips. “You’re no fun.” She walked over to the desk and sat on top, watching me and waiting for me to finish the call.

  When the call was over, I looked at her with my shorts still hanging open. “I’m going to kill you.” I stalked over to the desk where she’d arranged her body into an extremely seductive pose.

  “What am I going to do with you?” I asked, knowing full well I was about to ravish her.

  “I don’t know, what are you going to do with me?” she asked daringly, biting that bottom lip. She must have known that was my weakness.

  “Do you masturbate?” she asked, out of the blue.

  I stopped. “Why would you ask that question?”

  “You’re just so sexual and ready to go at any time, I was curious if you masturbated,” she said.

  “Obviously I masturbate. I’m a man,” I answered.

  She looked at me, surprised by my answer. “What does being a man have to do with masturbating? Women masturbate too.”

  I looked at her. I had never thought of women masturbating. I’d always assumed it was a guy thing. Suddenly, all I could envision was her touching herself.

  “They do?”

  “Of course they do.” She laughed.

  I closed the distance between us. “I’d like to watch that.”

  She pulled the t-shirt of mine she was wearing over her head and threw it at me. Now, she sat on the desk, only wearing a bra and panties. “Here’s your shirt back…come here.”

  I stood right between her legs as she kissed me—slow. Sensual. She slipped her pointer finger into my mouth, moistening it. Then, I backed up and watched as she very slowly ran her hand down her body, trailing down her neck, between her breasts, down past her belly button. She shifted her panties over and started caressing herself. Just when I believed I couldn’t get any more turned on, I began throbbing—so hard, I felt like I could orgasm without even being touched.

  “Do you think about me when you do that?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I watched for a few minutes, mesmerized.

  “Explain to me what you think about,” I said, as I dropped to my knees and let my mouth join her private party. She went into explicit detail of what she pictured me doing to her when I wasn’t there.

  Those four days were incredible. I don’t think there was a square inch of that suite where we didn’t have sex. She was right—the sex was amazing, best I ever had. But it was so much more than that. I was so in love with this girl. Obsessed. There wasn’t one thing in the world she could ask me to do that I would say no to. I’d never felt that way about anybody.

  Friday afternoon back in my office, I was staring at my computer screen. Looking at numbers, but only seeing Puerto Rico. Sand, water, Sarah, piña coladas, and coral dresses. I was in a complete trance when there was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” I said, snapping myself out of my fantasy.

  Jimmy walked in and shut the door. “Vince, we have a problem.”

  I stood up, rested my hands on my desk, and sighed. I ranted, “Jimmy, one day someone is going to knock on that door, and when I say come in, they are going to have something positive to say. It’s going to be ‘Hey Vince, something incredible just happened,’ or ‘Hey Vince, look what I did,’ or even ‘Hey Vince, how was your weekend’? It’s not always going to be ‘Vince, we have a problem.’ Why does everyone feel the need to come here with their problems? Do I look like the fucking therapist around here?”

  Jimmy stood there with his mouth hanging open. “You’re right, I’m so sorry—that was completely insensitive of me. How was Puerto Rico?”

  “Amazing, wish I was still there,” I said.

  “Oh good, that’s so reassuring—I’m really glad you had a good time,” he said, sarcastically, while putting his hand over his chest. “Now that we’ve covered that, can we get back to business? To answer your question, no, you don’t look like a therapist, but you do look like the boss, and we have a fucking problem. It’s Benny. He needs to be fired.”

  I dropped my head into my hands and groaned. “How bad are his numbers?”

  “Bad—very bad. To say extremely bad would be a gross understatement. Not only is he not covering his own salary, but his last mistake cost the firm $40 million. We have brokers down there busting their asses to make up for his mistakes.”

  He had a point. Benny had been a problem for a while now; it was only a matter of time before we needed to get rid of him. Any other problem I’d been mentally prepared for, with the exception of the termination of an employee. Why today? Why on my day back? Why me?

  “Can’t human resources do it?” I asked. Of all the stressful things someone in my position ever had to do, firing employees was by far the worst. You never knew how long it was going to take, or how they were going to react. You had to choose your words carefully, with a witness in the room to avoid any type of misinterpretation. I’d watched grown men cry and plead, swearing that they’d improve.

  “Vince, the guy worked here for over twenty years. Don’t you think he at least deserves the courtesy of you telling him?” he asked.

  And just like that, the sa
nd blew away. The water, drained. No more piña coladas and no more coral dresses. I was back in real life, getting ready to go ruin someone else’s.

  A few months passed, and then it was June 19th. I remember the exact date because it was Casey’s twentieth birthday. We had a tradition every year. We would go to the same Italian restaurant and then I would buy her whatever she wanted for her birthday. Everything was low key, not too fancy. The restaurant was like a glamourized pizzeria with a counter up front for takeout. The dining room in the back was tiny, but Casey loved their eggplant rollatini and especially liked that the owner always knew it was her birthday when she walked in. What she didn’t know was that every year, I called ahead to remind him.

  “Still seeing that guy, what was his name? Ethan?” I asked her as we were eating.

  “No, I broke up with him.” She stared down at her pasta.

  “What happened? Do I need to kick his ass?” I asked, half-serious.

  “No, you don’t need to kick his ass.” She laughed. “I’ll be fine. He cheated on me. I guess he didn’t like me as much as I thought he did.”

  I sat there, silent for a minute. I didn’t even know what to say to that, considering I was cheating myself.

  “Most guys are just assholes,” I began. “Doesn’t mean it had anything to do with you at all. You’re so young, and you have so much to offer. Any guy would be lucky to have you. You’re going to find the right guy one day, who appreciates you, and you shouldn’t expect anything less. You’re too beautiful and too smart to settle for just anyone. You did the right thing by breaking up with him—you’re too good for that.”

  She looked at me and smiled. “You’re my dad. You have to say that kind of stuff.”

  “Yeah, I am your dad, but that doesn’t mean what I’m saying isn’t true. I’m also a man, and trust me, we can be assholes.”

  “You are far from an asshole!” she argued.

  I wondered how her thoughts on me would change if she knew my situation.

  “Now, did you decide what you wanted for your birthday? Go ahead, hit me with it,” I asked, changing the subject.