by Penny Dixon
I felt cheated. I’d waited so long, eleven years to know him, to uncover his skeletons; to be sure I wouldn’t be in for any nasty shocks. How could he have kept this skeleton so well hidden? It was like hiding Mount Vesuvius in a pothole. Now the volcano had erupted. I’d poked about in the pothole and it had blown up in my face. Now I had to deal with the fall out.
That night I cried tears of anger and resentment. There was a rage in me that would dwarf Mount Vesuvius, would darken the skies, snuff out all life in its path. I felt betrayed. I’d been sold shoddy goods; sows ears packaged as a beautiful silk purse and I’d accepted it without looking below the wrapper.
Yet I had looked below the wrapper. I was aware of Richard’s eagerness to please, his willingness to take the line of least resistance, to acquiesce without a fight, to make a round trip rather than make a confrontation. After Curtis’ purple days, these were qualities I prized. Now I had to face the other side of these. I felt angry with myself. How could I have been so blind?
He needed help. Professional help. I knew a very good therapist who specialised in this kind of thing, but he was a friend, had been a guest at our wedding. I made enquiries, asked for recommendations to refer a client on. Felt a fraud and a liar and felt even more resentful for being pulled into his mesh of deceit. I finally found someone outside my sphere of contacts two weeks after moving into the spare room. I gave Richard the number and told him Dr Patterson was expecting his call.
I kept my own practice going as best I could. A couple of clients commented on my distraction during their session. I apologised and blamed a brewing cold. I managed the strain in the knowledge that Richard would be getting help and would at least gain some insight into why he’d allowed this to happen. I wanted him to understand the consequences for the boy, the implications for my practice if any of this came out and the potentially explosive ramification of legal action if he was ever tracked down.
I was living on a knife edge, living in the spare room, living in a house with a man I no longer knew, living with the hope that something good would come out of this. That Richard and I could find a way back to each other.
My social life reduced to zilch. Everyone thought we were in wedded bliss and left us alone. I was grateful that I didn’t have to make excuses, that I could just say, ‘I’m staying in with Richard tonight.’ And it was accepted.
He left early and worked late. I spent a lot of time at the gym at weekends. We ate before coming home so there was no need for a shared meal in the evenings. The Le Creuset set I’d been looking forward to using was gathering dust. I went to the office every day and helped other people move their lives forward, yet here I was treading in quicksand.
Three weeks after I’d given him Dr Patterson’s number, he was making me a drink when I asked him how he was getting on. He busied himself pouring the tea, said they’d been very busy at work and he hadn’t managed to make the call yet. I felt ready to burst, but managed to ask calmly, ‘Are you aware how busy he is, that he’d cleared time in his diary to fit you in because I stressed how urgent this is?’
The blood was pulsing at my temples. All these nights I’d been lying in the spare room believing we may be moving closer to a resolution and all the time he hadn’t even made the call, not one appointment, he was nowhere closer to taking responsibility for what he’d done. I couldn’t believe it!
‘I’ll phone next week when we’re less busy.’ He took his drink and went to his bedroom. Yes, it had become his bedroom. I’m often surprised what we’ll adapt and adjust to and accept as normal, while promising ourselves that things will change soon.
Richard’s company continued to experience an unprecedented increase in contracts, which was great for the company but which gave him the excuse not to ring Dr Patterson. We settled into a pattern. Every fortnight I’d ask him if he’d managed to make the appointment. He’d plead work and I’d let it go. After about five months, I told him I would leave if he didn’t make and appointment. He got one two weeks later, didn’t share any of the issues he was covering and we carried on as usual.
I was going quietly mad, unable to share this with anyone. Everyone thought we were so happy. I’d stopped shouting; he didn’t retaliate, just left the room.
‘We’ve become strangers, Celia, that’s when I called you. I needed to get away.’
The sun’s coming up. It promises to be a beautiful day. It’s already twenty degrees outside as we get ready for bed.
Grant
The end of another week. What do I have to show for it? It’s the same question I asked myself last week and the week before that. I pull a few bits of work, price job for a contractor, look over plans for another one. A few dollars. Not enough to stop the bank phoning me every day, bugging me about when I’m going to clear the overdraft and start paying back the loan. They had no problem throwing it at me when I was bringing in big dollars.
I look at the name flashing on my cell. I know it will keep flashing till I answer. If I let it go to voicemail, it will just start flashing again.
‘Waz up?’ I ask. Can barely lift my voice.
It’s Melissa. Time to pick her up from work. I resent this daily ritual but since she the one bringing in the regular money, I’m obliged. At least I still have the car, still hanging on, but even that she helping to pay for. I look out the window at people with their shopping bags, people coming out the furniture shop, and wonder how the hell I find myself in this situation.
She the one did all the running, wouldn’t leave me alone. She young. When she tell me she twenty I put her out my mind. I’m not into young girls; in fact, if anything I like my women on the mature side. Not old, just with enough experience to hold a decent conversation. Older women know what they want in bed, they make it easier for me and they know how to please a man. I’m passed the stage when I had to lay down with everything in a skirt, have two and three of them on the go at a time. After a while one pussy is pretty much the same as another, if it’s just about the sex.
But Melissa know what she want, was forever calling my cell, calling by my house, inviting me to her house, to this party, to that dance. She wasn’t even my type, skinny with a chest like my son. I always tell her no; till one night I was bored as hell, hadn’t been with anyone since me and my wife split six months before. She had just got off the phone giving me a hard time about payments for my daughter. The daughter she wouldn’t even let me talk to. How could she always be sleeping when I call?
That’s when Melissa came by the house. I picture it in my head. Say she have two tickets for a movie called Why Did I Get Married? Do I want to come? It’s the same question I’ve been asking myself for the last three years. Maybe somebody else have the answer. I say, ‘Why not?’
The movie make me laugh, and God knows I need a laugh, but there’s something in it that make me uncomfortable. What a woman will do to keep her man and how a man can abuse that desperation. I bet most of the men in that room see a bit of himself in Mike.
I offer to buy her a drink on the way home, stop for a couple of beers before I take her back home.
‘You can come in for a drink if you want.’ She isn’t even trying to disguise what she have in mind. I don’t want to hurt her feelings by just saying ‘no’, so I just play around a little.
‘What you have to drink?’
‘I have beer and rum and soft drinks.’ She count them off on her fingers.
‘I don’t really want any of them. But thanks for asking.’
‘What you like to drink?’
‘Hennessey.’ The word just fly out my mouth, like it’s my favourite drink. My sister buy me a bottle couple years now. Never opened it till a few months ago and have a drink from time to time. I’m not a drinking man. Don’t smoke either. I like to look after my body, stay fit for my football. She even came one Sunday to watch me play, said she had nothing better to do.
‘I don’t have any of that.’ She look disappointed.
‘Maybe next time.’ I let her know the conversation over.
She open the door and get out. I wind down the electric window on her side and say, ‘Thanks again for the night.’
‘Maybe we could do it again?’ She is like a eager child. I already have three children. I don’t want another one.
As I pull on the drive the light in the lounge switch off. That tell me Darron just jump into bed and going to act like he just get up to get a drink or something. I know he’s been playing on the computer. And I bet he didn’t finish his homework. That boy is out of hand. But is partly my fault. When I was working all the hours God send on the construction site, I buy him a lot of computer games. I couldn’t come home till late some night and they keep him off the streets. At least I knew he was home.
I let myself in the garage door and come through the kitchen. I look in his room. Light off and he breathing heavy.
‘What you doing up till now Darron?’ No answer. ‘You know tomorrow is a school day and you should be in bed for ten thirty. It’s eleven o’clock now. Darron!’ Sleepy grunt.
‘I know you not sleeping. I’m warning you. If you don’t do what I tell you I going take away your games.’ I shut his door. I know he heard me.
I’m not sleepy yet. I pour myself a small Hennessey and turn on the computer. Check my emails; see if I get any job offers. See if Jeanette email me the information I need for the divorce yet. Nothing. I decide to do a bit of surfing. There’s a site I was checking about US immigration before Melissa turn up with the tickets. My sister in the States putting pressure on me to go; but I want to be clear about what I’d be getting into.
I go to history to find it quick. First thing I see is that Darron’s been surfing, just finish before I come home. I recognise the site. The boy’s been watching porn. No wonder he fly into bed so quick. My eyes rest on the site a little. I sip the Hennessey and feel my rod getting stiff, uncurling like one of those long balloons when you blow them up. I unzip my pants to let it stretch out. I turn the sound right down, don’t want Darron to know I’m watching the site, I’m going to bawl him out about it tomorrow.
The blonde haired, big breasted woman in the movie is nothing like Jeanette, but I find myself thinking about her. Jeanette, five foot nothing, round in all the right places, look a lot like Betty Boop. Not a right angle on her body. Locks down to her waist. I’m sucking on her breast, running my tongue down her belly, pushing her legs apart. Baking in the heat from…
It take me a while before I realise that the tapping isn’t coming from the movie. It’s at my front door. Shoot! I click off the screen. Put the pig back in his pen; squeeze him in till I can zip up my pants. I pull the curtain to one side to see who out there. It’s Melissa. I open the door.
‘Something wrong?’ She’s never call by this late before.
‘No. I’m not working tomorrow; you’re not working either. I wonder if you wanted to share this with me?’
She pull the bottle of Hennessey from behind her back. Take it out the brown paper bag. Hold it out to me like some kind of trophy.
‘Where you get that from?’
‘The garage.’
‘How you get down there dis time a night?’ It’s nearly three miles from Silver Hill to the garage at Oistens.
‘Taxi.’
‘You get taxi all the way to go and buy me this?’
‘You want it, yes or no?’
I figure she don’t appreciate all the questions. A little part of me feel good that she went through all that trouble, especially as I’m having such a hard time with Jeanette, who look like she going out of her way to make things difficult for me.
‘Sit down. I’ll get the glasses and ice.’
When I come back with a bucket of ice and two glasses, she’s sitting right back in the sofa, looking like she settling in for a long night.
‘I can’t stay up too long cause I want to talk to Darron before he go to school.’ I realise I’ll have to give her a ride home. I can’t let her walk back home this time a night.
‘All right. Tell me when you ready.’
I open the flask of Hennessey, pour about a double shot in each glass, give her one glass and sit down on the other smaller sofa. The chairs are at a right angle so I can be close enough to talk without sitting next to her. There’s a little silence while we sip the drinks. She wrinkle her nose up and make a face like she just drink a glass of vinegar. I laugh out loud.
‘You never drink this before.’
‘No. I only really drink beer or soft drinks.’
‘So why you buy the Hennessey?’
‘Because you like it.’
She take another, smaller sip. Her eyebrows come together like she’s squinting hard to see something.
‘You want me get you a beer?’
She nod, looking like water going to spring from her eyes.
‘It taste like medicine.’
She remind me of the first time I give Darron a beer. The same face, the same words. She take a mouthful of the beer and swill it round her mouth to wash out the taste of the Hennessey.
I laugh again. Sit back in my chair and watch her.
‘Why you always laughing at me?’
‘Because…’ I was going to tell her because she remind me of Darron but she might take it the wrong way, that I think she’s like a boy. Right now, with the Hennessey hitting my head and my balloon refusing to deflate she look very much like a woman. I stop.
‘Because?’ she remind me that I don’t finish.
‘Nothing, just because. I like the movie.’
‘Which part you like best?’ she ask like she asking one of her girlfriends which dress she like best. She fold her legs under her bottom and lean forward, like she listening for words of wisdom from me.
‘No particular part. I like the story, the whole thing.’ I don’t add that I feel for the character who couldn’t find a job. Remind me too much of my own situation. ‘Which part you like best?’
‘The part at the end where she tell him she leaving him. After all that woman do for him. He think that because of his pretty looks he can treat her like dirt. So many men think they can take advantage of a woman, just because she love him.’ She take another swig of her beer.
There’s fire in her eyes, passion in her voice. Like she speaking from experience.
‘Somebody treat you like that?’
‘That’s why I don’t have any time for pretty boys. They only in love with themselves.’
‘So is that why you in my house near midnight with Hennessey, because I’m not a pretty boy?’
She look uncomfortable. I’m no Will Smith or Fifty Cent but what I lack in looks I make up for in other quarters. I know how to please a woman, how to charm her, how to make her feel special. I know how to stay on the job till she fully satisfied. Not every pretty face can do that.
I suddenly see her as a challenge. Every sober cell in my brain telling me to drive her home, walk away, put her down. ‘You in enough trouble without taking up this’ they’re saying, but I’m not listening. Six months without Jeanette, even longer if you count the months we didn’t do it; the porn, the drink and the fire in her eyes drown out the sober voice. I get up and walk around the coffee table to her sofa. I sit down very close and put my arm round her shoulder. I whisper in her ear, ‘I wouldn’t hurt you. Would never take advantage of you, would only ever do what you want me to do.’
Her slight bony body relax as I kiss her ear. I smell the beer on her breath as I move my mouth round to hers. Her lips are thin and hard. She’s the first woman since Jeanette. Jeanette’s lips are soft pillows. I used to sink into them. Melissa’s lips hard but her breath’s hot. I part her lips with my tongue and taste the salty sweetness of her mouth juices. I can always tell how a woman’s going to taste down below from her mouth. Salty, sweet, sour, bitter. If a woman have bad breath I don’t even bother.
My balloon is full blown, straining aga
inst my jeans. She unfold her leg and turn her body toward me. I press hard against her chest and run my hand inside her thigh till I feel her panties. I pull them to one side. Her lips are like the ones I’m kissing, hot and wet and thin and hard. She’s like a fruit that’s not ripe yet. Like when you bite into a mango and it crunchy, before the flesh soften and juice run down the side of your mouth. Melissa might not be ripe fruit but I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten in a long time. The balloon in my pants is ready to pop.
‘Let’s go to the bedroom,’ my voice is deep, impatient. Without waiting for a reply I pick her up and carry her to my bed. She’s like a feather. Even though she taller than Jeanette she weigh almost nothing.
I pull her little blouse over her head. She’s not wearing a brassiere. Her two little breasts sit like fried eggs on her chest. Guys in my football team have bigger breast than hers. But when I lick them she trembles. I feel her pleasure. I keep my lips on her breast while I pull off her skirt and panties. I use my fingers to part her lips. She wet. Wetter than I was expecting. I slide my finger to her clit, feel it rigid and pulsing. I take off my T-shirt, jeans and boxers. My balloon is stiff, so tight it’s painful. If I was watching porn I’d have relieved myself by now. I look down at Melissa. Her hips are narrow, legs straight and thin, hardly any shape. I’m not sure she can take my weight.
‘You all right baby?’
She pants, ‘Yes.’
‘Ready for me?’
‘Yes.’
I spread her legs a little wider and am taking aim when I remember I need a condom. Been so long since I needed to use them I nearly forget. Damn, I have to go to the bathroom cupboard to get one. I hope they still in date.
‘Wait, back in a minute.’
I thank God they’re still there. Now Darron watching porn I don’t know what else he doing and whose gear he using. I just hope he using protection. I roll it on, fumble a bit because I’m out of practice.
Melissa’s lying exactly how I leave her. I give her nipples a little bite. She does that little gasp. Then I’m probing my way into her opening. I have to go easy, inch my way in. She don’t look like she can take all of me. I don’t want to hurt her. She’s hot and slippery and I slide all the way in. I let out a sigh, a mix of relief and satisfaction. I begin working on her, rotating my hips, pulling back, pushing forward. I put my hand under her bottom and lift her hips up so I can go in deeper, she make little gasping noises, wrap her arms round my neck, hold on tight.
