Inconsolable

by Ainslie Paton

  Then she searched Patrick Drummond and entered Drum’s world before it narrowed to fear and guilt, to a rock ledge and a cave.

  She couldn’t help herself, she started with images. She got Drum as businessman, gob-stoppingly handsome in tailored suits. She got him clean-shaved with a haircut that gave him old school glamour, shaking hands and smiling, behind podiums speaking, and in what looked like staff photos, without his suit coat, with his tie off and his sleeves rolled up, looking relaxed and laughing.

  She got him as an A-lister on the town. The suits were different, black tie, his hands were occupied with the shoulders of beautiful women, one in particular who wore an enormous diamond ring. If lustrous was a person, she was the fiancée. And yet he’d preferred to play the field and that field included plenty of action. She saw him on horseback, piloting a small plane, playing golf, shooting hoops, sailing a yacht. Before he’d consigned himself to odd jobs, charity bin clothing and second-hand books, he’d been at conferences and balls, involved in high-level business and expensive sports. He had celebrated his life.

  The more photos she looked at, the more disconnected the man who wore op shop clothing and didn’t like to be upstairs in his own home was from his self of three years ago.

  She went from photos to news stories, searching his full name. These were business page stories and financial analyst’s reports about board ructions, about shareholder discontent. There was a profile headlined “The Meltdown of an Entrepreneur”. There was a story about him being forced out of the company and then nothing. He disappeared.

  When she checked her watch, it was 2am and she was weaving with tiredness. She padded downstairs. Drum sat on the stairs almost where she’d left him. His head was tipped back, resting on the wall. She touched his shoulder and his eyes opened. He was cold and tense.

  She didn’t mean to cry but this was the longest, most intense day of her life and she had no idea what to say to him. It wasn’t as though she had the power to help him see this differently, to forget, or to heal him, and her forgiveness would mean nothing.

  Silent tears wet her cheeks. He stood up and she fell into his arms. He wrapped around her with the deepest of sighs. It seemed to have been dragged out of his childhood, made of his aloneness and the terrible burden of how he’d interpreted duty and the threats he’d faced.

  “Ah Foley, now you know.”

  She nodded into his chest, clutching at his arms.

  “Now you understand why I shouldn’t be near you, but God help me I don’t want to let you go.”

  She lifted her face. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you, not tonight, not tomorrow, not until we’ve worked this out.”

  She’d have promised him longer, a fraction of forever, but she didn’t know if that’s what he needed, if that’s what she could give. “We have to talk. But I need to sleep first, we both do. I’ll call in sick, take a few days off.”

  He pushed her hair back. Studied her face. He’d see her exhaustion, the raw, fretful emotions she couldn’t smooth out and everything she felt for him. She had to hope that would hold him for now.

  He closed his eyes as if it was more than he could bear, his arm at her back going slack. She tugged his hand; they both needed that big warm bed and the consolation of sleep.

  He opened his eyes, came back to himself. “Go. I can’t come with you.”

  No, no, no. She couldn’t bear it. “You made this rule because of all the people who got hurt.” He nodded, the certainty of that in his eyes, but such weariness too. “Tonight I’m hurting. Tonight I need you.”

  He groaned, a wounded sound full of bewildered intentions and dark inhibitions, his head dropped forward, eyes to the stairs.

  “Lay with me and sleep, Drum. We’ll work the rest out tomorrow.” She took a step up and pulled his hand.

  He was unmoving. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  “To break your rule, like you did for me when I was sick.” It wasn’t too much to ask, he’d already shown he could do it.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  She pulled on his hand. “We can make it that simple.”

  His eyes came up. “What I feel for you, to lay with you. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  He studied her, his eyes roving over her face, his breathing short and he wasn’t cold anymore. He wasn’t an exiled businessman, or an A-list playboy or a hermit squatter. He wasn’t wealthy or poverty stricken. He wasn’t threatened or accused, healthy or sick, or confused. He was man who wanted a woman in all the richest ways possible and didn’t believe he was worthy.

  Until tonight’s fevered kisses, he’d never initiated anything more than a longing look. He’d let Foley demand, prod, lead, but in every move since they’d first touched, that desire had been there, reined in, tightly controlled, disciplined. And all that time he’d waited for her to learn something to make her reject him, and in all that time, all she’d done was fall in love with him.

  But now the rules had changed. He’d let her see inside him, to all his hateful secrets and unforgivable sins and she was still holding his hand and asking him to come to bed. He had no restraint left to cling to. That’s what she read in his eyes.

  If she let him, tonight he’d take.

  She wanted him, to the marrow of her bones, needed that physical communication with him after so many weeks of tortured touches, and then this hardcore passion they’d discovered; too lustful to be accidental, too deep to be innocent, but frightening as well, for its intensity.

  He mistook her stillness for indecision and released her hand, turning away. He took a step down the staircase, a hand to the back of his neck. “Go, go before I do something we’ll both regret.”

  She should go, that was the sensible thing to do. To sleep, pick this up exactly where they’d left it tomorrow, when it might look different, solutions might be more obvious, but she wasn’t leaving him alone in this.

  “I could never regret being with you.”

  He had his back to her. The very last of his control was in the brace of his shoulders, the stiffness in his neck. It flowed from him into the space with the choppy sound of his breath.

  There were so many things she could say to convince him she understood, she cared, she’d stand by him, and work through the mess of his guilt and his rules. It should all be said in time. In time, she hoped he’d be able to listen, without fear of being judged, with hope of being understood.

  “I’m sick, Foley. I’m like Alison. There is something wrong with me. They call it an adjustment disorder. It’s a member of the post-traumatic stress family. You should go upstairs and let me be.”

  “But you can be well again.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know that. I don’t know that I want that. If being well means I accept the price of my ambition is the death of innocent people who simply have trouble sleeping. I didn’t like how medication made me feel. I didn’t like the therapy. I preferred to make my own way. That brought me here, this foyer and the cave and it brought me peace until I saw what that would mean for you—how I live, how I can’t fit.”

  “We can make a fit.”

  It was an absurd thing to say. Did it mean she was agreeing to live in a cave, to squat in a foyer or reside upstairs while he lived down? That was insanity, as distorted as what he was putting himself though for inability to cope with a traumatic event.

  But it was the right thing to say because without him there was a hole carved in her life, and the goodness of teasing laughter and wit, of the deepest listening, of clever conversation and easy companionship, of desire, turned to fine grains of sand and spilled out of her, blowing away in the wind.

  “Drum, we can make a fit.”

  He put his hand out, palm flattened against the wall. “You’re smarter than that. I failed, and I’m too messed up for you.”

  She said the one thing he’d have no defence against, deliberately aiming at him, targeting the soft underbelly of his yearning. “I lo
ve you.”

  “Ah, Foley.” His voice fractured. He turned his head away as if she had managed to strike him. “You can’t.”

  She took the few steps towards him. “I love you.” She would stand with him, whatever it took. She slid her arms around him and pressed the side of her face into his back. His whole body trembled like he was fevered. “I want you.”

  He caught one of her hands in his and held it against his heart and this too was right.

  “You love me too.”

  He didn’t have to say it. It was written in every look he gave her, every touch he’d withheld, every kiss he’d waited for, and in the shared agony of their separation. She’d never been so sure of a man who was so unsure, so distrustful of himself.

  He spun them so they were face to face. The colour had drained from his features, his winter tan gone pale with anticipation, but his eyes were hot, heavy jewels. “You are my sunrise, my sky, my weather. I adore you.”

  It was more than enough. It was everything. He cupped her face and kissed her and she handed him permission to give, to take what they both needed.

  He took her hand and led her up the stairs, no hesitation, no trace of the furtiveness he’d had about him, the discomfort about being on the second floor. The bedroom was dark, a sliver of light from the street though a split in the curtains. His lips were close to her ear, his nose nuzzling her neck. “What do you need?”

  “Only you.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yesss.” She hissed it as he brought their hips together, his stance wide so she felt him though the fabric of her skirt, both of them flexing, the subtle beginning of a grind.

  “It doesn’t have to be now.”

  She folded her fingers over his ears. “You can’t mean that.” She’d be the one needing a padded cell if he walked away from this.

  He nuzzled her throat and she tipped her head back to let him put heated lips on spots of skin that were control points for other places in her. A spot under her ear made her knees go soft, another across her throat spun her stomach like on a carnival ride; she wanted to whoop as she felt lifted higher and higher, anticipating the swooping fall.

  He found another spot that forced air to the outer edges of her lungs and made her shake. He spoke against her clavicle, his voice like sandstone, shedding grains of his civilised manner. “It’s been a long time and I want you so much, this can’t possibly be good.”

  It was already far hotter than anything Foley had ever done and they were both still dressed. The top of her head was going to lift off with delight; there were butterflies in her brain and soft swirling pulses low in her abdomen, making her belief in gravity a pure thing.

  “It can’t possibly be bad.”

  He straightened, a hand to the back of her neck. “I’ve had every examination known to man, it’s only my brain that’s broken, the rest of me is clean.”

  She chased his lips and he was happily caught. Her eyes had adjusted to the low light. He was god-like perfection under her hands and she was way overexcited, her clothing a horrid restriction, his preventing her getting to enough of him.

  “Jesus, Foley. I have no idea if there are—”

  She took a fistful of his hair and a lungful of breath. “I have an implant and I’m clean too.”

  He put his hands at her waist and lifted her so his face was tucked into her belly, her hands on his shoulders, legs dangling. He brought them to the bed that way, lowering her down, lying beside her, his hands never leaving her body, his lips never leaving her mouth, neck, throat.

  She tugged at his t-shirt. “Off.”

  He pulled away to get rid of the hoodie and the shirt. She could see the shape of him, the sculptured muscles, the shading of hair across his chest, better she could touch all those seen places once forbidden. It made her moan to put her hands on him, to rub her cheek against his shoulder, to put her mouth on his collarbone and graze it with her teeth.

  Her ears filled with the sound of his breath catching, releasing, his control shredding. She climbed across his lap, spreading her knees to straddle his thighs, the sound of stitches popping in her skirt making her laugh, giddy with the touch and smell and taste of him.

  He lay back with a groan that made parts of her tighten up, dragging her down, over him. He held her while her hands feasted on him, her eyes hunting, her lips foraging. He managed to get the buttons of her shirt undone and she must have helped, but she had no conscious thought of doing it. The skirt was another matter. It was twisted up from his hands, from her climbing him and though he’d gotten the zipper to move, the skirt wasn’t coming off easy unless she stood.

  She was about to break away and he rolled them and in one fluid movement, stood and yanked her skirt off her hips and down her legs. She’d had hose on, shoes, until her last visit to the bathroom, now all that separated them from being skin to skin was her underwear and his jeans.

  “Look at you.” His voice was clotted cream thick and sweet to her. “I’ve been blind all my damn life till now.”

  “Oh, Drum.”

  “And deaf, and insensible.” He opened the top of his jeans, unzipped them and her breath left her. No underwear. “This is wrong.” He put his hand to his hair and fisted it. “I’m going to screw this up, go too fast, want too much.”

  She sat up to reach for him, put her hands on his still denim glad thighs. “Want me hard, Drum.”

  He dropped his arms to his sides, his eyes going to her hands. She was burning up, all her organs liquefied, all her though processes spun to tissue paper. She could smell her own desire, knew she was wet for him. “Please don’t make me wait.”

  He went to his knees, buried his face in her thighs, his hands pressing her hipbones, smoothing up her belly and across her ribs, then he hooked his fingers over the sides of her pants and kissed his way to her centre. He scraped his teeth over the front of her pants and her hips lifted off the bed. He did it again and she grabbed for his hair to hold him there. She wanted to open her thighs to him, but he bracketed them with his elbows.

  “Don’t rush a starving man.”

  She bucked against his hands. “You don’t hurry, it won’t be you who goes too fast.” Her mouth was somehow too dry to say those words while her body was too wet to deny them.

  His laugh vibrated off her pelvis and she might’ve come from that alone, but he had her pants off and he saw her wetness. He said her name, hushed, crushed glass rough as he stroked his thumb over her and then replaced it with his tongue.

  He was a man who knew about edges, about flirting with their danger, and he took her to hers too quickly, too fiercely; she feared the fall would be too steep. She pulled his hair and clawed his neck, tried to scramble away, pushing back on the bed, bringing her knees up, wanting him to come too.

  “Please.”

  He pressed her knees open, met her eyes. “Give me this.”

  She moaned. She gave him everything she’d held back in their splintered friendship, in that hesitant dance they’d paced out between duty, fear, desire and unsuitability.

  He pressed two fingers inside her, opened her slickness, moved them deeper, faster and her eyes slammed shut and she arched off the bed. Any worry she had he wouldn’t lead, wouldn’t demand for himself, got lost in inarticulate cries.

  He tripped her off with his tongue and his own insensible murmurs. Then he climbed over her and held her, keeping the rhythm running with his hand till she was spent, whispering incoherent filth in her ear as she rode out the aftershocks.

  She got two minutes to breathe, to stare into his eyes, to wonder at what she’d have missed if she’d walked away from his troubles, if she’d have avoided his illness, and he was moving again, stripping off his jeans, back between her legs, aligning their bodies, his actions roughened, jerky, beyond courtesy, restraint and control.

  He shook hard when he entered her and she thought she was ready for him, but the weight of him, the size of him, the glazed look in his eyes, reanimated ever
y nerve, every pleasure zone and she gasped at the shock of it, rocking as his strokes took her to that edge again.

  His eyes were down on their joining, his hair fallen forward over his forehead and cheeks, his body rigid, taut and trembling. They’d go over together.

  She slammed her hips to his. “Give me this.”

  He shouted her name as they climaxed, bodies jumping, shuddering, knocking against one another then flying free in an edgeless, borderless sky.

  Drum dropped to her side and curled around her, his chest heaving, his face tucked into the back of her neck. His fingers played over the tattoo on her side. “Unbelievable.”

  His voice was barely there, but she’d echo the sentiment if she could make her own mouth work. Between them they hadn’t managed to get her bra off, and the heat was leaking out of their bodies fast.

  She rolled away to pull the quilt out from under them and he quirked a brow, shifting to let her, eyes greedy. “Go leave a message, make your excuses for work. I’m not letting you sleep yet, and when I do you’re going to need a week for it.”

  28: Small Talk

  The blood brain barrier protects the central nervous system from common bacterial infections in the blood that might cause damage. It was an ingenious system until it broke down. Drum’s blood brain barrier was shattered the moment he entered Foley.

  That moment she gave all of herself to him, he was irrevocably changed. Bones, blood, breathing, biology—all altered beyond expectation by the union with her.

  He had no illusions, he knew he wasn’t normal, no longer competent in the usual ways and certainly not in the way he’d worked and lived before the cave. He’d always known he had an obsessive personality. That’d been part of his extraordinary success; his spectacular failure, his ability to focus intently from a young age, to stay on course and not get sidetracked.

  He’d struggled not to turn Foley into an obsession, made himself passive and let her take the lead, but now she was all he could see, think, feel. She was his heroine, his morphine, his anaesthetic. His immunity against his own inconsolable state.