“Stop it! Give me the phone!” she hissed, knee walking to the end of the bed and holding out her hand. He batted her away.
“Yes, sir, I couldn't believe it either … pushed her around, called her names … I'd be happy to, sir … she wouldn't let me, or believe me, I'd be there right now, shoving his -,” but he didn't get to finish, because Mischa grabbed his wrist and yanked as hard as she could. He hadn't been looking at her and he let out a shout of surprise, dropping the phone. She quickly grabbed it and put it to her ear.
“It's not as bad as he's making it sound,” she said quickly.
“Michael hurt you!?” her dad was almost shouting.
“No. I mean, not on purpose,” she replied.
“Bruising you is too much, Mischa, I don't care what you did to him!”
“They're tiny, on my arms, from his fingers. He just squeezed too hard, he was upset. Let it go, both of you,” she made her voice stern as she glared up at Tal. “He's been through a lot, because of me, and on top of that, he was blindsided. He's allowed to be upset.”
“Fine. But if he touches you like that again, I'm gonna tell that Tal guy to kick his ass,” her dad threatened.
“Stop it. And 'Tal guy'!?” she exclaimed. Her dad and Tal being on a first name basis. Unreal.
“He seems like a nice boy, Misch. Though he can't be all good if he chases married women, and likes the Yankees,” her dad commented.
“Everyone likes the Yankees, you're the only who doesn't,” she pointed out.
“I'm the only one with any common sense.”
“You're really okay with this?” Mischa asked, sinking back down to sitting position.
“Hell no. But I love you, and I always thought things weren't right between you and Mike. Like I said, I wish things hadn't happened this way. I'm not proud of what you did. But I am happy that you seem happy,” he answered. She closed her eyes.
“Thanks, Dad,” she whispered.
“You are happy, right? He's taking care of you?” he double checked.
“He takes excellent care of me. I was very happy up until this morning,” she chuckled.
“Well, I can't say that you don't deserve it. But don't beat yourself up too much – everyone else is gearing up to do enough of that on their own,” her dad assured her.
“I know. I got it from Mom and Lacey today. I stopped answering the phone.”
“Speaking of your mom, I made this call when I knew she'd be sleeping. She is one unhappy camper, sweetie. You're gonna be getting that for a while,” her dad warned her.
“I know. I figured.”
“You 'figured'. If you knew it was gonna be this bad, then why'd you do it?” he questioned.
Mischa sighed and rubbed her forehead, not sure how to answer that question. It wasn't like she could say “sexual frustration” to her dad, that was just weird. Or that she'd only planned on having a one night stand and not telling anyone, that sounded worse. And she really didn't want to rehash all the bullshit between her and Mike that had driven her to it.
She glanced up at Tal, then stared at him. He was still standing at the foot of the bed, and he had his arms crossed over his chest. He was only wearing his boxer briefs, and he had braced his feet wide apart. He looked very dominating and intimidating, especially when combined with the intense look he had in his eyes. He looked concerned, and ready to jump in and save her at a moments notice.
“Because,” Mischa whispered, not taking her eyes off him. “After Tal found me, I couldn't let him go. I didn't want to be lost anymore.”
“Well, then hold on tight to that man, cause it's gonna be a bumpy ride.”
They said their goodbyes after that, with her dad even shouting a goodbye to Tal. She chuckled and dropped her phone back onto the table.
“Your dad is a good man,” Tal commented. She nodded.
“The best. And he likes you, which is kind of a shock,” she laughed.
“Not to me – I'm fucking amazing,” he replied. She snorted.
“Hardly. But really, I think he likes you. If I'd thought about it at all, I guess I would've figured that he'd like you. He's kind of a guy's guy, you know? He's always building something or working on a car or … spitting loogies, I don't know. He didn't not like Mike, but they never hung out or anything. Mike's more into runs, and trips to the lake, and concerts,” she tried to explain.
“Your dad will love me, I can hock a mean loogie,” Tal assured her as he moved to lay down next to her.
“Do you think you'll ever meet my dad?” Misch asked in a small voice.
Despite their connection, their chemistry, she and Tal hadn't really known each other that long, and they were involved in an illicit affair as opposed to a proper relationship, so she hadn't really thought about it. But if he and her dad didn't get along, a relationship was almost pointless.
“I hope I do. I hope you can introduce us someday. Maybe someday when everyone doesn't hate us,” he chuckled, stretching his arm across her shoulders and pulling her to lay down next to him.
“The way today went, I don't think that day will ever come,” she told him.
“It just feels that way now. It won't feel that way forever.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it can't. Things don't work that way. Your friends and family love you. They're hurt right now. They'll come around,” he assured her. She took a deep breath and turned towards him.
“It always sounds so easy when you talk about it. Living it is so much worse,” she whispered.
“It only seemed that way cause you were alone for the hard part. I'll be with you, from now on,” he told her.
“Really?”
“I promise.”
He leaned in and kissed her, and it was the first real intimate gesture they'd shared since Mike had shown up. She'd been feeling so guilty, and it must have been obvious, because Tal hadn't even tried to really touch her or kiss her. Just held her a lot.
The guilt was still there, the thoughts of Mike hurting and being alone were still there. But she couldn't deny it, Tal had always had a hypnotic effect on her. A drugging effect. She sighed against his lips and gave into him.
“I missed this,” she whispered as his lips moved down her throat.
“You'll never have to again,” he whispered back, his lips lingering along her clavicle.
“It's not right, that we're here together. It isn't fair,” she went on.
“Life isn't fair. Just be happy it's working out in our favor right now.”
“God, that sounds horrible.”
“We're horrible people, remember? Just embrace it.”
“Not funny.”
His hands pressed her body down into the mattress, ran up and down the length of her torso. His fingers brushed away her guilt, and soon enough she was kissing him back in earnest. Straining towards him, holding onto him, fiending for him.
“I've been dying to do this since yesterday,” he groaned, pulling her bra away.
“We shouldn't be doing this at all,” she replied, working his underwear down his legs.
“We should always be doing this.”
“Having sex?”
“Just being together.”
Hard to argue with something that felt so right, even if it was wrong, and she let him remove her panties. They were gone with the flick of a wrist and then he was between her legs, parting them around his waist.
His tongue was hot and his touch scorching, she bit her lips between her teeth and went with it. When he pinned her hands to the mattress by her head, she abandoned herself to him. Let his hips ride her and guide her. His fingers moved through her own, linked them together. Squeezed so tight it hurt.
Kinda like love.
They came one right after the other, hips locked together in battle. Tal had his forehead pressed to hers, and even though her eyes were closed, she knew his eyes were open. Knew he was staring at her face. Knew he was looking into her soul.
“Say
it now,” he panted above her.
“What?” she was still coming down off the orgasm.
“He's not between us anymore. You can say it now.”
“Excuse me?”
But she knew what he was talking about, knew what was going on. She kept her eyes closed, tried to keep the tears inside.
“Say it, one time. For the first time in your life, say it, and really mean it,” he whispered. She took a deep breath.
“I love you.”
~Mischa~
I wanted him to save me.
I wanted to be baptized in his skin, purified in his love. I was a sinner, or worse.
I wanted him to make me whole.
I wanted him to take away the pain and the guilt and the hurt and the wrong.
I was blinded by him, with him, to him.
I wanted him to save me.
~Out of Time~
She wanted to speak to him. Wanted one last chance for some closure, before Michael left.
Tal warned her that it was a bad idea. That it wouldn't go well. That Mike wasn't ready for closure yet – he needed distance first.
But she insisted, so Tal drove her to the airport. Though he refused to wait in the car. He wouldn't interrupt them, wouldn't alert Mike to his presence, but he wasn't about to let the other man grab Mischa again, he didn't care how “upset” Mr. Rapaport was; Tal would kick his ass clear back to the coast.
It didn't go well, just as he'd predicted. There was a minor scene, with Mike yelling at her to get away from him. When he called her a slut, Tal stood up. But she backed away and Mike stomped off, heading through customs without so much as a backwards glance.
To her credit, she didn't break down sobbing again. She was crying, but she had on a large pair of sunglasses which hid most of the tears. Tal waited till they were outside of the airport to wrap his arm around her shoulders. He expected her to pull away at first, as she'd been doing ever since Mike came into the picture for real, but she didn't – she leaned right into his side, pressed her face into his shoulder, and walked the whole way to the car in that position.
We can do this now, whenever we want.
She was feeling depressed as fuck, so she went right back to sleep when they got to the hotel. He helped her undress, then he made her lay down on her stomach. She had acted suspicious, obviously assuming he was going to take advantage of her half naked form under him. He really, really, wanted to, but he resisted – he gave her a massage, instead. Rubbed her aching muscles and her sore skin until she fell asleep.
Her phone rang not long after, and when he saw that it was her dad calling, Tal went ahead and picked up. It was strange, but much like with Mischa, he felt an instant connection to Mr. Duggard. Conversation should've been awkward between them – Tal had played a large part in breaking up her marriage. He was the “bad guy” by all accounts.
But it wasn't awkward. Tal gave him a rundown of how Misch was doing, and that he thought she'd be okay. Mr. Duggard told him everything that Mike had been saying, which it was all true, technically, but very colorfully painted and with graphic language.
Mr. Duggard liked hearing Mischa called names even less than Tal.
They bullshitted about baseball and football, discussed Ford versus Chevy. Both had served in the militaries for their respective countries, and they shared stories. And they both cared very deeply for a hazel eyed girl who was very lost.
Conversation was very easy.
“Don't you hurt my girl,” her father warned.
“I'll try my best.”
“That's not good enough. I want your word.”
“How can you trust my word, when we've never met?”
“You're not making a good argument for yourself.”
“Just being honest with you, sir.”
“You hurt her, and I'll fly over there and break a lead pipe over your head.”
“Sounds completely fair, sir.”
Of course, Tal wanted to say that he would never do anything to hurt Mischa. That he couldn't stand the thought of her being hurt, or in pain, because of him. That he would do anything to prevent that.
But Tal didn't like to make promises he knew he couldn't keep.
After he hung up, Tal pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and sat down. And stared. Let his eyes wander over Misch's body. Over her skin and lips and hair. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was dinner time. Then he stared at her some more.
“I love you,” she had whispered, shivering underneath him.
“That doesn't make you a bad person,” he had whispered back.
“I think it does.”
Tal could try to kiss the pain away, try to touch the hurt away, but it would take a lot of time before she felt comfortable in her own skin again. A lot of time before she was strong enough to take another hit.
And time was something Tal didn't have. He would give her anything she wanted. Anything she asked for, he would find it and lay it at her feet. But time was a promise he couldn't deliver, not at that point. They had to stay caught in their moments, in her timeless existence, finding each other between the seconds. He just needed a few more of those moments, and maybe she'd never even have to know his secrets. She had run away from her life, and he'd found her.
Maybe he could run away from his secrets, and she'd find him.
I think I love you, too, dancer lady. Just have faith in me.
~Shots Fired~
“I can't believe how beautiful it is!”
“I told you.”
Istanbul was gorgeous. And talk about being surrounded by history! Mischa loved it. She hadn't really expected to, or rather, she hadn't known what to expect. A language she couldn't speak, and a culture she knew literally nothing about; she had figured she'd feel lost, most of the time.
I don't feel lost at all.
Things weren't any better on the home front, necessarily. Her mom was still calling her disgusting. Her friends still weren't speaking to her. Mike was blasting her on any and all social medias.
But Mischa wasn't on the home front. She was away from it all, and that timeless feeling was slowly coming back to her. The ol' outta-sight-outta-mind trick. She knew better now, knew the come down would be harsh, but at least she was better prepared. And at least she would have Tal right next to her, holding her hand.
Such a surreal thought. She'd gone to Italy thinking she would cheat on her husband. She had never counted on finding someone like Tal. Love wasn't part of the equation, was a foreign feeling. She hadn't wanted it, hadn't been looking for it. But it seemed to have found her. She knew she should tread carefully, but the feeling was too immense. It was everywhere, all around her, blanketing her. It made her feel guilty to think it, but she could honestly say that she'd never felt that way before, with anyone. Only him.
Tal had come with her, actually flown on the plane with her. His home was in Istanbul, after all, so he told her he would stay in the city with her, for as long as he could. His photography job, whatever exactly it was, seemed to be something he could do from anywhere – she wondered if he was freelance and without work, and figured he was embarrassed to say he was essentially unemployed.
The only downside to Istanbul was she was forced to throw herself into work. In Rome, sneaking off and calling in sick had been easy, but not anymore. Her boss was gone from the office more than he was there, so the burden of getting things done fell to her.
“It's weird,” Misch finally said, sitting down to dinner with Tal.
“What's weird?” he asked around a mouthful of food.
“I hardly see Peter. Like, at all. He's never in the office, or if he is, he's just dashing in and out. I don't understand what he's doing, I guess. How many business lunches can a person have in a day?” she questioned, stealing a piece of pizza from a tray in the center of the table.
“I don't know. A lot. I like lunch. Don't worry about it. Maybe you should play hookie more often, too,” he suggested.
“But still. Mayb
e I should talk to him, ask him what -,” she started when Tal stood up.
“Leave it alone, babe. The more distracted he is, the more time we get to spend together,” he interrupted her before leaning down and kissing her on the forehead. Then he walked away, sucking pizza grease off his fingers.
She frowned as he went into the bathroom, then she shook it off and dug into her dinner.
They were in her hotel room. She had been demoted back to the standard room, no more suites for her – though her current room did have two double beds in it. While she was at work one day, Tal shoved them together, making a super bed for them.
The guilt was still there, of course. Sometimes she wondered if it would always be there, in a small way. Her and Tal's relationship was built on top of the still-beating-heart of her last relationship. Not too cute. But the guilt was lessening in intensity, and she was grateful for that; it had been hard, at first, to have sex again, and Tal was a very sexual person. He was taking it slow for her, he hadn't pushed her or asked for anything, but she knew it wasn't easy for him, and she was grateful for his patience.
“I e-mailed Mike again,” she called out. That was another thing she was grateful for – they could talk about the dreaded “him” without that sense of doom anymore. No more hushed whispers or avoiding his name, like saying it would conjure him up, right in the middle of their dirty lie.
No, now it was just their dirty truth, so they could say whatever they wanted.
“Why do you keep doing that!?” Tal yelled back.
“Because, there's a lot of shit between us still. We shared an apartment, the car loan is in both our names, we have a joint savings account. We need to get divorced – that involves some communication. And believe it or not, I worry about him,” she tried to explain. Tal finally walked back out into the main room.
My Time in the Affair Page 18
