by Jorja Tabu
We were quiet for a long while. I didn’t know what to say, but eventually I felt like I had to alleviate the silence. “Well, what is?” I tried to meet his eyes again, and failed.
“Skinny dipping in the mayor’s pool. Stealing the principal’s car—twice. To go to a rodeo, no less.” He grinned at the memory. “Shooting off a rack of fireworks during convocation, three years in a row.”
“That was you?” I stared at him, mouth wide open. “You’re joking!”
He laughed at my expression. “No—was all me. Every time. Nobody knows that but Johnny—don’t want my whole class to hate me now, do I, for busting up our graduation ceremony?” We laughed so hard the kitchen rang with it. “There’s lots of stories like that. I was never mean, never vindictive. I was just young and restless and more than a little devious.” He watched me taking it in.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I shook my head. My Michael, the good boy, terrorizing our town the whole time and I hadn’t known. How?
“Because you were my good girl, Luce,” he said softly, reaching a rough hand across the table to cover mine with it. He squeezed it gently, and then let it go. “Back then, you didn’t truck with much nonsense.”
“But adventure, or mischief…I needed those things so badly, Mike, and you…I thought that…”
“You thought what I wanted you to think,” he said harshly, and stared at the wall for a second, a far-away look on his face. “I didn’t ask you what you wanted, I just thought I knew. Thought I was so smart—I could have the most beautiful girl in the world, and keep her, if I didn’t let her know who I was.” His eyes turned towards me. “Or find out who she was.”
“Maybe that’s not love, Mike,” I said gently, feeling tears gathering behind my eyes. “Maybe when you’re eighteen, that kind of thing seems like it, but…”
“You’re right, Luce,” he said with a sad smile. “You’re the smart one, honey.” He stared at the wall for another long moment. “But it turns out, I did really love you.”
“How can you know that?” I shook my head, wiped the tear away. He didn’t look anywhere else. Just at me.
“I love you now,” he said softly. Neither of us moved. “I will always love you, have always loved you, and will till the day I die.”
It was more than I could take.
I’d lived through my operation, my chemo, my life being sucked away from me in a heartbeat by my betraying body. I couldn’t live with any more hopes being stolen, another moment of tragic miscommunication, any more pain. “Stop it, Michael,” I breathed, feeling all the sadness inside of me rising like a tidal wave. “I can’t stand this.”
“What?” He reached towards me again, his strong hands gently cupping mine as I held my tea like a lifeline.
I wretched away, gasping as the tears came full force. “Don’t make me hope something, don’t set me up for this hurt! Michael,” I sobbed, “I was a fool. I had sex with strangers so I could tell more strangers about it, and we both know that’s not the same as fooling around in a small town. No one can love me—no one could love the person I was, or the person I am. Because I am this—“ I pulled the shoulder of my shirt down to show him the beginnings of the scar, the sudden emptiness where my breast had been. “I am ruined. In so many ways. So how dare you…How dare you lie to me, how dare you punish me more than I’ve already been punished by god.” I had exhausted myself, and I felt the pulse of my rampage dying down, the tears spent. I stood to my feet, wavering, unsteady, and gestured towards the door. “I’d like you to go now. Please.”
“No,” he said softly, but he stood as well. He seemed to know better than to come close to me, but he didn’t move away. “No, I can’t go yet.” I can’t let this be the last thing you think about me,” he said, his voice firm and steady. “This is not the last time I’m going to look at your face, the last time I’m going to tell you I love you.” A small smile began in the corner of his mouth, but it didn’t get any bigger. “And this may not be the last time you yell at me, tell me to get out.” His small smile grew a little grimmer. “I hope not, anyway.” His eyes were locked on me, daring me to go somewhere else, think of anything but him and me, and this room.
And nothing else could have been as compelling—not Reykjavik, not nubile Spaniards with compassionate eyes, not the memory of a dead, dirty talking soldier. Nothing was between Michael and me, except my guilt.
“Why now?” I sat down in the chair, made sure my shirt was once again covering the thick scar that ran along the edge of my body like a knife blade. “Why the great confession now, after all these years? Trish told me you asked about me—“
“Did more than ask,” he said roughly, carefully sitting only when he was sure I was interested. And in spite of my outburst, I certainly was. “I went every place you’d been, the first three years.” I stared at him.
“Like a stalker?”
“Well,” he smiled again with that little corner of his mouth quirked, the prominent bow in his lips softening, “that was certainly Trish’s word.” He furrowed his brow. “But I knew where you lived—I wasn’t trying to insert myself in your new life, Luce. I was just trying to understand, just wanted to know who you were. I’d been ignoring you for years, it turns out, and saying you were my girl the whole time—who was this person traveling and fucking their way across the word?”
“No,” I said, feeling horribly exposed under his scrutiny. “You couldn’t have.”
“I could, and I did,” he exclaimed. “I found the guy you fucked in Reykjavik, by the way. Quite the looker.”
“Oh my god,” I howled. “You freak!”
“Yeah, basically,” Mike said. “Got him good and liquored up. We talked about how your hair smelled, the inside of your thighs, the texture…” His eyes grew soft as he looked at me, and I pulled my shirt closer. “Don’t hate me, Luce,” he said then, suddenly sad. “I didn’t want to interfere with who you were becoming. I just wanted to understand. And when you’re nineteen and facing what looks like the most powerful regret your life will yield, a man will get a tad…Obsessive.” He looked down at the tabletop. “I’d like to make a full confession, if you are past the point of wanting to throw me out.”
“This is…insane,” I said, still feeling shivers of discomfort and even fear as I thought about Mike following me around the globe. “Is this some kind of test to see what my real definition of nonsense is? Some high school trick?”
Mike burst into raucous laughter, filling the room with the sound. My heart seized. In spite of what I told myself now his revelation hadn’t necessarily changed the way I felt about him.
On the other hand, it hadn’t changed my feelings about love, either.
“No,” Mike finally said, finally catching his breath after a long moment of resilient chuckles. “I told you, you’re the smart one here, Luce. I’m not clever enough to think of a scheme like that.”
“Not that scheme, apparently," I said, frowning.
“Luce, just let me explain,” he said, worry clouding the bright smile of a moment before. “I’m the same guy you’ve always known.”
“The same duplicitous, obsessive rancher I’ve always known, huh,” I said, my arms crossing even tighter across my chest. “Is it really so hard to see why I’m so suspicious?”
“No,” he said softly, watching me. “It’s not. And frankly, when I’m done talking you may ask me to leave and never come back, and there won’t be anything left I could say to convince you otherwise. But that’s your right.” He licked his lips, nervous but determined, and seeing his slick tongue momentarily sent me for a loop without his meaning to. He didn’t notice my flush, but I closed my eyes. He took this as an indication that I was agreeing to hear his story, and took a deep breath before continuing.
“I found out you were the Lucy Landers by accident. After you told me you didn’t want to see me any more—after you went away to college, and I would show up periodically, drink some of your beer, and then disappear—my brother
and Trish started to get serious. I came over to her house one day, dusted my boots in the muck room, and saw she’d gotten a postcard from San Francisco. I didn’t mean to look, but the postmark was bright…And that’s where you were. I saw your name at the bottom of the note and before I even realized what I was doing, I read your postcard. It said for Trish to check out your new job—a blog called Sexplorers or something like that. You know the first article you wrote— before the magazine even hired you.” His eyes searched my face, and I nodded. “I immediately began reading it. And I found…I found out you were a great writer, Luce. You do things with words the way God does things with gardens. And as I read them, I just couldn’t believe this was my little Lucy, my good girl, who never told me all these deep thoughts rolling around in your head.” He watched me.
He was right, also. At that time, before I’d become a Real Writer, I had written about philosophy, religion, art, music and, of course, sex. At that point, I hadn’t even had any yet. I’d engaged in some heavy petting and Mike had introduced me to orgasms while we were sophomores in high school, but… “I haven’t looked at those entries in a long time,” I said thoughtfully. “So you’re a stalker from way back, huh?” I tried to lighten the joke with a smile, and he allowed a little bit of hope to show in his eyes. Then, it was back to business.
“I guess so,” he said softly. “But I…I don’t think of it that way. I was obsessed, but…I just don’t have the same delusions any more, Luce,” he said slowly, then slightly shook his head. “Let me finish and you decide.”
“Fine,” I said, knowing I was already going to forget about this strange development if he told me he loved me again. But I still wasn’t ready to even entertain the thought that he was crazy to say it, let alone believe it, so I listened and tried to make sure the light of hope in my heart held back.
“I’m not the brightest, as you know,” he said slowly, a small smile forming yet again on the corner of his mouth. “But you inspired me—I tried to keep up with what you were learning in school. I went to the library for the first time. Actually looked over all the old essays we wrote that I never thought would do much good on the farm. My teachers all let me slide to a certain extent because they knew I was taking care of Johnny—the good boy, like you said—but I hadn’t realized how much I missed about the world being so obsessed with this town, and having my way here. He looked pained. “Having my perfect, beautiful girl, in our perfect small town…getting away with nonsense, letting everybody think I was as golden as they wanted to believe. I wasn’t sad when I tore my rotator cuff,” he said, his voice growing hard. “I never wanted to leave this town. I was a king. And I never wanted anything to interfere with what I thought I wanted, what I thought I knew. Not even the truth.” He squared his firm jaw, the delicate five o’clock shadow beginning to glisten in the dim light. “I was boring. You were right. But you weren’t right about how I was boring. I thought I could keep you, keep time from moving forward, if I just didn’t let on that I was wilder than I seemed. But really I was just a liar. And when I lost you, it was probably the best and worst thing for me.”
“How?” In all Trish’s pep talks, she never made it seem like there was anything other than romantic hardship in Mike’s life. He looked at me.
“I knew what I’d lost, immediately. Sure, I fucked my way through every nineteen year old cheerleading squad remnant in town after you left, but I knew. And all the little ways I’d lied to myself about who I was, what I was afraid to admit wanting—adventure, running around and blowing shit up, just plain teen-age rebellion—masked how much I’d punished myself by denying it. I saw your blog, and I saw who you really were—and then I started to pay attention to who I really was.” We looked at each other for a long time. “I wanted to know things about the world outside. I wanted to…to participate. If that make sense. I wanted to see.” He took a deep breath. “And I saw that you and I were more alike than I’d believed. So I went to Reykjavik, and got drunk with someone else that had experienced you—all the things that aren’t in your articles, I know, because I saw these places through your eyes once I was there, through the words you’d put up before the magazine started bossing you around, making you focus on the flashy side of things.”
“Pimping me out, you mean,” I said darkly, and to my surprise, he laughed.
“Nobody pimped you out, hon,” he said, grinning. “And learning how much you loved to fuck was quite a revelation, believe me, but,” and he paused, his eyes growing more serious, “all of that was never half as interesting to me as what you saw when you were there. The food you ate. The clothes you slept in, if any. The scent of the soap in your hotel shower. Nothing was as rich as your ideas about why the world worked the way it did, and how it worked. I know that was far too boring to be the focus of any of your articles, the more popular you became, but…” He trailed away, again looking at my face as if something were gnawing at his heart. “I could find it, sometimes. Sometimes the way you wrote about fucking was enough—the experience was so visceral, the way you chose who could explore you, what they represented to you. All of it fascinated me. I couldn’t even be jealous.”
“You weren’t jealous?” I remembered high school, my legs crossing firmly under my skirt, his hands patiently tracing my inner thighs as I squirmed, breathless, not yet ready. “After I…”
“After you waited to fuck someone who would really know what they were doing? Instead of letting your high school boyfriend do a half-assed job of opening you up?” He grinned wryly. “Sure, I was fucking jealous. Am jealous, I guess. But not more so than I am fascinated. Regretful that I didn’t know myself well enough to be the one you could see the world with.” He shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment, frowning at the past. “What a waste.”
”But if it had been you…” I thought about it for a moment, my mind still lingering on his talented fingers, his flawless chest. I realized I was staring at him, and looked away.
“Who did you choose?” His eyes were like embers, the sudden tension in them not entirely masked by clear, amused interest. “Who got to…?”
“Who kicked off the Tramp Rampage?” I grinned at him. “Do you really want to know?”
“Do you forgive me?” The amusement was utterly absent in a flash. “That’s what I want the most, if what I want matters at all in this instance.”
“You’re not very good at begging,” I said slowly, not sure what else to say.
“I can beg,” he said softly, and the sex in the undercurrent of his words was exquisite. Then gone again. “I will do anything, if you think I deserve to be forgiven.”
“What am I forgiving exactly?” I grew serious as well. “It turns out you weren’t much of a stalker. You were just confused, and disappointed, and horny.”
“And a liar,” he said bluntly. “I lied to you, and I wanted to trap you in this small town forever to serve my ego, at both our expenses.” His words were harsher than mine. “I was an idiot,” he finished, “and I have regretted it ever since.”
“Mike, there’s nothing to forgive. I can’t forgive you for being eighteen,” I said sadly. The gulf between us was still vast—small-town troubles were nothing compared to my international whoring. And even if he knew more about it than I’d previously thought, he was wrong. He didn’t love me.
Couldn’t love me.
“There’s something you’re ignoring,” I said as evenly as I could. “So I taught you—inadvertently—who Kierkegaard was. And you think you’re okay with how much sex I’ve had, when I didn’t put out for you at all. There’s still this.” I let a hand tease the hemline of my shirt again, fighting the compulsion to avoid this at all costs. “I know you know. I look like a completely different person.”
“Maybe to yourself,” he said, and again I was treated to a small smile. “But I’ve memorized every line on your face, and you’re still the same girl to me.”
“The same trampy cancer-addled girl you’ve always known, huh?” I tried fo
r humor this time, but didn’t quite make it.
“Yeah,” he said softly, with eyes to match. I shuddered under his loving gaze, unable to accept it. It abruptly changed to one of scrutiny. “You know what? I think you were never really mad at me,” he said wonderingly. “I scared you because it sounds fucking creepy when an old boyfriend says some shit like, hey, I followed you all over the world for three years…But…I think you believe you’re the one who needs to be forgiven.”
His insight caught me completely off guard. “For what?” I snapped, all bravura and false assurance. He wasn’t fooled, and gave me a cocky grin as he settled more comfortably in his seat.
“Not sure,” he said. “Not sure you know.” One of his eyebrows quirked up on his forehead as his eyes once again became laced with a delicate lust. “Maybe you just want to be punished.”
“You’re crazy,” I scoffed, huddling into my nightgown, trying not to react to his sexy expression.
“Yeah,” he said, the slow chuckle escaping from his lips. “But still right.” Without another heartbeat passing he was next to me, his chair lightly bumping mine as he collapsed into it. “So maybe that’s what I can do for you, girl I love. Give you the punishment you think you deserve.”
