Fragile Things

by Lauren Jameson

  The pain was hot and blinding.

  Like a newly formed scab crudely ripped off of a wound, it very nearly brought me to my knees.

  It brought everything back. For me and, I think, for him, too. Looking up into his face, I could tell the same thick paste of salt that was currently rubbing my innards raw was present for him, too.

  I didn’t know what to say, and for the first time in over a year, we seemed to be on the same page there. I didn’t know what I felt, either, and so I blindly shoved his chart at the doctor and stumbled into the back.

  There, the tears came. Scalding hot, they steamed off of my cheeks, stinging my eyes with the toxic emotions that they released. I didn’t want those feelings coming out, not ever… but especially not here and now.

  Maybe it was time they did.

  Still, it was hard to pull it back together, to dry my eyes and stem the flow of from my nose. I knew they’d understand, the people that I worked with, but I’d just started the job, and I really didn’t want to blow it. More, I didn’t want to be “that” woman. The woman that everyone felt sorry for, the woman on the receiving end of those pained smiles of sympathy.

  It had been a year since Matt and I split up and eighteen months since Eve had died. Two months since I’d been able to venture back out into the work world, to be able to deal with prying eyes on a daily basis.

  I’d had to do it. No matter what had happened, I was still me, damn it. I was still Ellie.

  It was too bad Matt no longer seemed able to see that. But he’d once known me better than I’d even known myself. He’d once been my heart, my other half.

  Now I didn’t even know where he lived. If he still lived in the condo we’d shared, or if he’d left town. I’d assumed he’d run far and fast, putting space between himself and the memories that held me here, tied me up tight, gagged me.

  No, I couldn’t leave. And I found it kind of interesting that he was back.

  I was acutely aware of his every movement as he sat in the waiting room, face buried in a newspaper. I noticed he didn’t turn any pages. I, too, was preoccupied, staring at the day sheet I was supposed to be balancing. The numbers blurred before my eyes into an inky smudge, a dark stain, and nothing added up the way it was supposed to.

  Then he’d been ushered into a patient room by the doctor for his yearly checkup, and I felt strangely bereft. There was a noticeable hole in the air. A blank space that he had occupied, and though it hurt, I couldn’t help probing at it, playing with it, much the same way a child does something that their growing brains can’t yet grasp.

  A child. Oh, God. The tears again threatened to fall, to blind me, but with great focus, I blinked them back. It had taken a great deal of that focus to put the remains of my life back together, and I wouldn’t fall apart just because the missing piece had wedged its way back into the puzzle unexpectedly.

  That piece no longer belonged. Oh, sure, it would fit but only if I undid the entire thing. If I pried apart the edges that didn’t quite lock neatly but that I’d forced into place anyways.

  The puzzle of my life was holding together just fine, thank you very much. Even if what was once the central piece was no longer there. The central piece and also a tiny, little piece on an edge, one that had barely made it into the puzzle at all. Tiny, yes, but there was a noticeable hole where it had once been, a hole that had absorbed both Matt’s heart and my own.

  I couldn’t take that puzzle apart again. I wasn’t sure I’d survive the reassembly.

  Keeping this in mind, I timed a trip to the washroom to coincide with Matt’s exit from the clinic. It would be easier that way for him, too, and no matter what else had passed between us, I meant him no harm, didn’t want him to feel any more pain.

  We’d both experienced more than a lifetime’s worth when we’d held that small, exquisite little creature in our arms. That little baby that had his nose, my mouth, and no chance to live.

  But I couldn’t dwell on that. Not here, not now. Though I thought of Eve all the time, I had to live as well.

  Even if the precious baby pictured in the locket that I wore around my neck always held a piece of my heart tight in her chubby, little hand, and always would.

  Her father held another. I knew I’d never get either piece back.

  Somehow I managed to stumble through the rest of the workday, the damp gloom outside matching my mood. I don’t know if the others noticed my distraction or not.

  I didn’t really care.

  Relief washed over me, a warm yet crashing wave, when I stepped outside of the office into the cool night air. Now I could shed my professional skin, could step outside the cool, calm facade.

  Now I could be a woman. I could be a heartbroken mother, a wife without her husband.

  I could be me.

  Or maybe not. Because there, leaning against the scratchy brick wall that fronted the office building, was Matt. Matt, the man I’d loved more than anything. Matt, Eve’s father.

  It hurt to look at him. That had been one of our biggest problems, one of the reasons we hadn’t been able to make it work. When we looked at each other, all we saw were the bits and pieces we’d passed along, his and mine combining into perfection.

  I didn’t want to go there or relive the anguish. But when he held his hand out to me, the old connection that had always been threaded between us flared strong and bright.

  “Walk with me.” It seemed completely natural that he’d been waiting for me, felt right to take his hand and move through the mist of autumn rain.

  It seemed right he’d found me. And my body and soul were screaming at me to soak up as much of him as I could, to draw in his life force, the essence I’d once had unlimited access to. To take it in, right into me, into my very core.

  We talked about inconsequential things as we walked. The dim light of a late fall afternoon melted into blueberry twilight, and all we touched upon was his work, my new job, movies he’d seen, books I’d read.

  Was he sad golf season was over? Did I still knit?

  When we’d run out of meaningless words, he stopped, turned, and looked into my eyes.

  I knew what he was about to ask, and I couldn’t handle it. Stepping backward, trying to put space between myself and that probing gaze, I found myself backed into the unyielding siding of a building.

  Behind me was steel. In front of me a different kind of strength.

  Only one of them terrified me.

  “Ellie.” He didn’t touch me, didn’t need to. His words reached me, as they always had, like a light kiss over my entire body.

  I shuddered.

  “Ellie.” A finger was placed under my chin. It tilted my head up to look into those whiskey-colored eyes. I couldn’t lie to those eyes, and he knew it. “Ellie, how are you doing?”

  A feeling like warm butter melting into hot toast spread its way throughout my gut. My knees buckled. Warring vines of want and pain began to work their way through my belly, twisting and turning, tightening, releasing, until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  The grief spilled over. There was no warning, no gradual build-up. One minute I was looking into Matt’s eyes and feeling all sorts of things, not the least of them bewilderment. And then I was a seething mass of anger, frustration, love and sorrow, howling my upset to the barely visible moon.

  I was only vaguely aware of him pulling me close, holding me tight. Absorbing my pain into himself. When he bundled me into his car, wrapped me in a blanket, I didn’t protest. It felt good to have the comfort and familiarity.

  It felt good to have Matt.

  It also felt natural to pull up together to the condo we’d once shared. As we sat in the car, staring up at the home we’d made together, an incredible and terrible longing washed over me
from head to foot. A longing veined with pain, with pure, bright love, and unfortunately with death.

  The death needed life. I needed life. When Eve died, I hadn’t just lost my baby; I’d lost Matt, too—my best friend, my lover, my heart. My partner in life. Hard as we’d tried, we just hadn’t been able to work through our grief together.

  Was it possible that maybe, just maybe, we could now?

  I wasn’t surprised when his lips found mine, when my arms wound their way around his waist. In fact, it seemed like it had taken an eternity for it to happen. Though a part of me was screaming to slow down, to stop, that this was a bad idea, that I was just asking to be hurt again. I couldn’t seem to help myself.

  After nearly a year of aimless wandering, this finally felt like home. The sweet kiss ended, though the comfort remained. Each drawing in a ragged breath, we touched noses and looked, just looked, at each other, something we’d done a million times before. Warmth sparked within me, burning away the shrieking voice in my head.

  I smiled. So did he. And then we lunged for each other.

  Struggling with seatbelts and the bulky blanket, a glorious rush of triumph exploded inside of me. Here was life. My life, the way it was supposed to be.

  The layers between us were unbearable, but it was too cold out to remove them in the car. Too cold, even though sweat slicked my skin and steamed off into the frigid early evening air, little ghosts that danced around me, around us, twirling in their mocking dance.

  He took his arms from around me, and I felt the sting of loss again, even though I could see with my own eyes he was just going to take us inside. Take me inside.

  The transition from the warmth of the car to the chill of the outside air was dizzying. When Matt turned and looked at me from the steps of the front door, not beckoning, no crooking of the fingers, just looking with those storm-gray eyes, the dizziness increased.

  I knew what was going to happen.

  I wanted it to.

  And yet… the heat inside the condo was a slap in the face. Hot, moist, much warmer than I ever would have kept the internal temperature. It was a reminder of what had changed between us, what was no longer the same.

  Could I do this? More, could I withstand the feelings afterward?

  “Ellie.” Lacing his warm, dry, familiar fingers through my own clammy ones, Matt gave me a little tug in the direction of the stairs. As usual, he understood. Thick as the tension between us was, he wasn’t about to grab me and fuck me against the front door. No matter that we’d done it countless times before.

  This was too fragile, this healing thread of flesh between us too newly formed, for something so crude as that.

  Still, I was scared as we made our way up the stairs, hand in hand. On the upper landing, the door to the right was closed, and I turned away from it. Ignored it altogether.

  This was hard enough, even though I wanted it so much.

  The other door, our door, was wide open.

  Welcoming?

  I wasn’t sure.

  “Ellie.” Matt looked as unsure as I was. Unsure and aroused, as if he was certain I’d turn and run, to leave him here with his cock and his heart aching.

  The thought was there, surfacing every other moment in my mind. Sex with Matt had always been all consuming, wiping away all traces of me and leaving only us in its wake.

  I’d worked too hard over the past year to have me wiped away.

  Knowing that sickened me a bit. I wasn’t going to be able to do this. Those hard won dredges of me were too important to rinse away with something like sex, even sex that was… well, was this.

  But how could I explain that?

  As I stood in the doorway to the bedroom, all of this running through my head, Matt had been bent over his bedside table. Without smiling, he retrieved something, something that felt cool and silky when he pressed it into my hand.

  My panic erupted, hummingbirds throbbing in my veins, when I realized it was a long, silky blindfold.

  “Matt, I can’t.” He’d brought out this blindfold before, as well as a few other things I’d been game to try but hadn’t ultimately enjoyed all that much.

  The thought of being without my sight right now when I was as terrified as I’d ever been made me want to bolt, even as my feet were glued to the floor, unwilling to leave my husband.

  “No.” Quickly, before I could flee, he caught my hands in his, lifted them to slide up over his chest, over the thick cords in his neck, and over the planes of his lean face.

  He helped me draw that scrap of silkiness over his own eyes, to tie it behind his head.

  I held my breath. He stood still, nothing moving except for the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

  This was new, and the novelty drowned most of those scary birds in my veins. Before, when we’d played, Matt had always been the one in control. It was one of the things I hadn’t liked about pushing the boundaries of our sex life.

  I didn’t like placing that much trust in someone else, even someone I trusted with everything.

  I wasn’t sure what to do here. Wasn’t sure at all. But I knew that the thought of Matt blindfolded, at my mercy, was appealing. Far more appealing than I’d ever imagined it could be.

  It made my nipples tighten beneath the scratchy wool of the coat I hadn’t yet removed…and made that tender spot between my legs throb.

  Still, I wasn’t sure how to go about being in control. In fact, if I had been with anyone but Matt, right at that moment, I would have felt like a Grade A fool.

  “Tell me what you want me to do.” His voice scratched away at the silence that hung in the air, as thick as honey. And then he stood still again, waiting. Waiting for me to decide.

  “I—” I didn’t know. I just didn’t. But I did need to remove my coat as the heat inside the already unbearably warm room grew exponentially. A trickle of sweat was birthed between the chicken wings of my shoulder blades, and it rolled its way down my spine and into the crack of my ass, making me shiver.

  Well, there was a start.

  “Take—take your clothes off.” I threw my coat onto the floor and shucked my own sweater, not so much as a response to the arousal that was stalking me as to the heat. “Take off your clothes and lie down.”

  Besides, he couldn’t see me. Couldn’t see what I was doing.

  But he could see me.

  Slowly, he crossed his arms at his waist, gripped the hem of his own sweater, and lifted. He didn’t have a T-shirt underneath, and so the movement revealed a stripe of skin gone pale with winter, pale but still stretched tight over ropy muscle.

  That pale skin all but glowed in the faint, dancing light of the streetlamps that had begun to flicker to life outside.

  His sweater off, discarded on top of mine on the floor, he let his fingers stray to the button of his jeans. He paused, giving me time to say no, before he slid the metal through the rough denim and rasped the zipper downward.

  My skin was unbearably hot by that time. I mirrored his movements, peeling my own pants away, letting the sweat that had sprung there in pools dry in the exposed air.

  He couldn’t see me. Couldn’t see what I was doing. It made me feel brave.

  Well, braver.

  I drew the line at removing my underwear, though, the serviceable cotton bra and panties that held in the swells that hadn’t disappeared after the baby. I wasn’t ashamed of them—they were battle scars, and I’d earned them—but I wasn’t sure I was ready to share them, either. Never mind that this man had seen me in every vulnerable situation imaginable.

  This was new. This was fragile.

  “Ellie.” The two syllables drew my attention back to the bed. He was naked, naked and vulnerable, lying on his back in the center of the bed. He couldn’t see me—he was still tightly blindfolded—and the trust he was offering nearly made my knees buckle.

  This was it—take it or forever leave it be.

  I made my decision. Crawling onto the bed, I straddled him, my knees pressi
ng his in together. He quivered where our skin brushed together and stuck but remained still.

  I stayed still, too. Testing him. Seeing if he would let me stay in control.

  He didn’t move. Slowly, I leaned over to his bedside table, pulled the partially open drawer the rest of the way out. There was a jumble of things, things I’d seen before, things I’d used before, but I knew what I was looking for. Yes, I knew what I was looking for, and it wasn’t the vibrator or the leather collars that still had the tags attached.

  In my opinion, collars were for dogs. No, I was looking for three things and three things only.

  The ribbons I pulled from beneath the collars were silky and black and matched the blindfold that still tightly bound Matt. With my teeth sinking into my lip, I wrapped one end around his right wrist, threaded the length through the headboard, and then I tied the left.

  He let me. The complete trust he had in me made me shake, and a good portion of my quivers were from arousal. He was there, the man I still loved more than anything, naked and open and trusting.

  The fact that I was in control opened up something inside of me, something dark, that I’d never known existed. Or at least that I’d never acknowledged.

  Allowing myself to sink more fully into the moment, I leaned back to the candle and lighter that were the second and third things I’d pulled from the drawer. Matt tensed between my thighs as the lighter rasped its way through the thick, still air and when the dry wick of the candle flickered and stuttered to life.

  I set the lit candle on the table to burn and turned back to the man that lay at my mercy.

  He twisted beneath me, his movements familiar, but he let me stay on top. I knew the ribbons wouldn’t hold him if he really put his mind to it, and somehow that made it even better—the fact that he was letting me stay in control.

  My legs spread, a hot hardness pressed against the heat of my center. I leaned over, brushed my lips over his, and a feverish mouth urged mine to open.

  A jolt of heat rocked me to my core, and Matt swallowed my moan, pressing his own against my tongue.

  I couldn’t think, couldn’t analyze the situation when the unyielding hardness of a cock that I suddenly remembered all too clearly rocked forward against my cunt. Wetness slicked my folds, naked beneath soft gray cotton, and when I freed my mouth abruptly, I choked on the influx of air.