by S. L. Naeole
I was dirty.
Dirty dirty dirty.
“No,” I cried, dropping his cock and scrubbing at the sticky effluence, shaking as it dribbled down my thighs.
Dirty.
“No. No. No. Get it off.”
Mal, waking up from the haze of sexual bliss, looked at me with large, round eyes. “Baby?”
“Dirty,” I muttered as my nails started to claw at my skin, the memory of sensation stronger than the reality of it. “Dirty. Dirty. Dirty!”
He grabbed my hands, ignoring my frantic tugs to get away. “Baby. You’re not dirty. This—” he touched my belly and I flinched “—isn’t dirty. What we did together is not dirty.”
I started screaming, pulling at his hands, jerking my body away even as he pulled me closer to him. He was naked. I was naked. I was dirty.
“Victoria, you’re not dirty. You’re beautiful. You’re wonderful. You’re the love of my life.” He kissed me. Sweetly and gently, his mouth touched mine. Only his mouth. A press of lips and then an exhale that swept over my mouth and into my nose and reminded me of caresses that bore no touching, loving whispers that promised only tenderness, and words that heated my blood and filled me with promise and hope, yet the panic did not abate.
And then, his lips and voice began to vibrate. He tucked my head against his neck and the vibrations took on sound. Sound that moved through me, sound that wormed its way into my panic and my fear. Sound that soothed, that resonated through me as though every cell in my body could hear it, feel it.
Mal was humming.
I woke up wearing pajamas too large for my body in a bed that wasn’t my own. My hair had been braided, though I know I wasn’t the one who’d done it. My legs were stinging, and as I sat up and shifted around in the bed, they also felt stiff, as if something was wrapped around my thighs.
Sunlight swept over me through floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a familiar garden. I scooted out of the bed and planted my feet on a plush rug that almost sighed between my toes. Each movement of my body pushed a familiar scent into my nose, and my body heated at the memory of him.
Then I stilled.
I was in Mal’s room. I’d been in Mal’s shower.
“Oh, God,” I breathed as my mind was flooded with the memory of last night. My hands immediately flew to the drawstring pants around my waist. I tugged them down, kicking them off my sore legs and gasped at the large bandages taped across my thighs. Not caring about the pain, I tore the tapes off and pulled the bandages back, only to cry out at the damage that lay beneath them.
My legs looked as though a wild animal had clawed through them.
Though my legs hurt, the sight of them hurt more. The fact that I not only hurt myself but that I’d done it in front of Michael, caused my chest to ache and my lungs to collapse from shame and grief. Pushing the bandage down and swiping at the tape to seal it back to my skin, I stood and looked around the room. White walls and gray furniture gave the room a clean and airy feel, while the windows made the room feel more spacious, which was a hard thing to accomplish since my entire living room could fit in the corner of Mal’s bedroom alone. At a quick glance, the bed—a simple platform design with white sheets and a million pillows—showed the telltale signs of only one person sleeping in it.
My heart fell at the realization.
The bedroom door was partially closed, and as I padded toward it I could hear familiar voices down the hallway. I pulled the door slightly toward me, listening.
“She was hurting herself. There was blood everywhere!”
“Ria’s been through a lot, Michael. She’s not as fragile as she used to be thanks to time and, of course, you, but she’s still not whole. I think that her relationship with you has been a great thing for her but, if I’m being honest, I think it’s moving too fast.”
Vonne was here?
“Has she done this before? Hurt herself?” Mal’s voice was touched with fear. That fact was not reassuring.
Quiet. And then…
“Yes, though not as bad as you’re describing. She would claw at her belly and her legs, but barely hard enough to draw blood, and only in her sleep. For weeks after she was rescued and released from the hospital, she slept in bed with Kara or Lara so that one of them could stop her from doing more harm. Then when they all came to stay with me, both of them would hold her down when she’d have nightmares.”
My hand clamped over my mouth. They’d never told me.
“She didn’t stop having those nightmares until a few years after she started working at MOAT. Del was understanding and patient with her, and he gave her the privacy and space that she needed to heal. It took three years before we trusted her to sleep on her own. It was another two years before she could even go outside on her own to do something without having a full-blown panic attack.
“By the time she met you, she was as healed as we thought she’d ever be. She could be around other men, as long as they didn’t touch her. She could be in public as long as she wasn’t in a crowd. It’s why she drove from California instead of catching a plane, did you know that? She can’t be on a plane, Mal. The enclosed space, the number of people…it would have killed her.”
“That’s why the elevator story was such a big deal,” he muttered.
I could almost picture Vonne nodding her head. “Yes. She wouldn’t have been able to do that before meeting you. Which is why I’m telling you that, no matter how you feel about what happened last night, don’t let it be your reason for pulling away from her now.”
“But you didn’t see her. I’m the reason she did that to herself. If I hadn’t acted like a rutting pig—”
“You’re not the reason she had a bad reaction, Michael. The boys who hurt her are. The man who tried to hurt her is. The system that failed to get her the justice she deserved is. You’ve helped heal her in ways that nothing else has. And you said it yourself, the only way you could calm her down was by humming.
“None of us, not a single one of us, could do that. None of us even knew to do it. We would have to blindfold her or turn off all the lights and close the drapes in order to get her to calm down. She’s always turned to darkness for safety, Michael. You helped calm her with the lights on.”
Silence filled the hallway and for a moment I thought they were done speaking.
“Don’t give up on her, Michael. I know you think that’s the best way to help her but it’s not.”
The hopeless sound of Mal’s voice tore at my heart. “I just don’t think I can help her in the way she needs, Yvonne. And I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me for what happened last night. She’s going to bear those scars forever. Physical reminders of what happened when I couldn’t control myself.”
“Did you force yourself on her?”
“No.”
“Was she drunk?”
“No, but—”
“Then she wanted to be with you just as much as you wanted to be with her.”
“Dammit, Yvonne. She might as well have been shitfaced! She can’t consent to being with someone when the minute she is she has a panic attack and starts hurting herself! What happens the next time? What’s she going to make bleed next? What if she claws at something vital and bleeds to death?
“No. This cannot happen again. I won’t let it.”
“Michael. Is this because you don’t think you can handle it or because you think she can’t? Because let me tell you something. That woman has been through more shit than you can ever imagine and she never gave up. Not once. Not even when the whole world turned against her. If you give up on her, it’ll be because you aren’t strong enough, not her, and if that’s the case then admit that you don’t deserve her and walk away now before it’s too late.”
My face pressed against the doorjamb, my mouth clamped shut by my hand. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, but all I could do was stand there, quiet, as I waited for his response.
“I always knew I didn’t deserve her, Yvonne. That’s the probl
em. I tried to have her anyway.”
I turned away from the door and headed to the bathroom, my stomach roiling from his words. My knees sank to the cold marble floor and my arms draped over the toilet seat as bile and fluids spilled out of my mouth. I heaved, spilling my misery and my hope into the porcelain vessel.
Tears joined the bile, and as I stared into the murky depths of my vomit, I came to a startling realization that this person, this fearful, terrified thing that I still was…was proof that I was still a victim. I could chant about being a survivor until the moon literally turned to cheese but it didn’t make it true. It didn’t make it real.
I’d given those jerks more than eight years of my life, on top of the time they’d stolen from me. I’d given them my past. I’d also given them my present. I wasn’t going to let them get my future, too. Not anymore. They’d already had too much of it.
I flushed the toilet and then walked over to one of the vessel sinks. I rinsed my mouth out and washed my face, straightened myself as best as I could and then headed out of the bathroom, out of the bedroom, and toward the voices.
Mal stood up first, his eyes rueful and wide as he took me in. Vonne’s eyes were full of sorrow and concern as she glanced at Mal and me, her mouth twitching as if to say something. “Are you okay?” Mal finally asked as I approached him
I turned to look over my shoulder at Vonne. “Could you give us a moment?”
Nodding, she stood up and headed down the hallway I entered from. As soon as I heard the click of a door, I pulled Mal’s mouth down to mine. He hesitated for a moment, his mouth stiff, but only a moment. Then his arms were around me, his mouth opening, his tongue searching. My hands grabbed the back of his head and trapped him against me, needing him to understand, to know, to feel that I was okay.
As soon as I felt his hardness against me, felt him shake with need, I pulled away from him and looked into his hazel eyes. “Michael Alan Lachlan, you listen to me. The only person who gets to decide if they deserve me is me. You don’t get to decide that and neither does Vonne.”
“You heard me?”
I nodded. “I heard everything. And I want you to understand that what happened last night might happen again, but only because I want what we did together to happen again. I want us to keep doing that until I stop being afraid. I want you to understand that if I’m not walking away from this relationship then you shouldn’t be either. You said you love me, right?”
“You know I love you,” he insisted.
“Well then prove it. Don’t abandon us at the first test, because I’m not.”
Mal’s eyes were skeptical, his face a study in concern. His gaze dropped to my legs, where the bandages were stark against my thighs. “Sweetheart, you scared me last night. I…I didn’t know how to help you.”
“And yet you figured out your own way to do it. You hummed for me, Mal.”
The smile that spread on his face was a sad one as he pushed back a wisp of hair that came loose from my braid. “I remembered you telling me that it was something you did to calm yourself, so I did it.”
“And what did you hum?”
This time a chuckle slipped from his throat. “In the Navy.”
I beamed. “Our song.”
His smile widened and he nodded before kissing my nose. “Our song.”
Gathering me into his arms, Mal pressed his chin to the top of my head, his body shaking. “I don’t ever want to do something that would drive you away, Victoria. I would rather walk away myself than do anything to hurt you. You know that, right?”
I encircled his waist with my arms, flattening my palms against his back as I pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Walking away would hurt me, Mal. It would show me that you've given up on me. The day you turn your back on me will be the day I’ll have nothing left.”
He hissed before moving his hands to cup my face, holding me still and pinning me with his mossy gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being such a fucking coward. I’m not giving up on you. I’m not walking away. Ever. I promise, Victoria. I love you too much to hurt you and need you too much to leave you.”
My nod was perfunctory, but inside my heart sang and my body yearned. I leaned into his hold and kissed his mouth, his face, his jaw. I whimpered when I felt his hard length pressing into the softness of me. And when I took my hand and slipped it down into his pants, cupping the heavy weights of his testes and then trailing my fingers up and down his shaft, it was his turn to whimper.
Vonne and I left Mal’s apartment that afternoon and said nothing on the way home. She winked at me knowingly when we arrived at our apartment and left me to return to work. As soon as I walked into my room my phone began to buzz. It was Mal.
“You can’t possibly miss me already,” I teased as I headed to my bathroom to brush my teeth.
“I missed you the minute you stepped out the door, sweetheart,” he husked.
“I miss you, too. So what’s up?”
“I wanted to let you know that I’m transferring my main office to the one in the city. It’s going to take some doing since I’m going to have to transfer integral members of my staff and arrange for transportation and moving expenses. This means that—”
“This means that you have to go back to California,” I finished for him.
“Yes. I’ll leave tonight so that I can get started on it first thing tomorrow California time, but I didn’t want you to think that I was…skipping out on you. On us. I just wanted you to be aware.”
Oh, how my heart swelled at his words. He was actually doing it. He was moving here, to New York, to Brooklyn, for me. For us. “Thank you,” I breathed into the phone.
“Anything for you, baby.”
We listened to each other breathe for a few passing moments before his voice carried over the line, thick and rich with emotion. “So, what are you wearing?”
Every blood vessel in my body flared up with life at his question. “Are you really trying to have phone sex with me?” I giggled.
“Is that a problem? What if I start and tell you that I’m completely naked?”
The vision of Mal’s body, stripped of the clothes that hid his gorgeous body from prying eyes, sent ripples of desire to pulse through me. “Then I’d wonder why you were getting naked without me.”
“Is that an invitation to come over, love?”
I eyed my bed, remembering how good it felt to have him in it. “Did you need one?”
“Do you want me to come over and show you my naked body?”
Biting my lip, I nodded, knowing he couldn’t see me. “Yes,” I panted.
“I’ll be there in forty,” he whispered before the line went dead.
Mal left for California after we had dinner—and dessert—in my room. We avoided the shower, and Mal did his best to, as he put it, give me as many orgasms as possible to tide me over until he got back.” I went back to work and even worked into the weekend trying to clear out our backlog and finalize the Arizona work we did. Monday and Tuesday passed without a word from Michael. The girls and I, too lazy to cook, had Chinese take-out or ate Mexican almost every night for a week.
Finally, we went grocery shopping when the budget got too tight for another night of eating out. It was while standing in line that someone tugged on my arm. A middle-aged woman looked at me and smiled despite the obvious panicked look on my face.
“Aren’t you the lady that’s dating that rich guy? The one on the magazine?”
“What?” I asked as I yanked my arm out of her grip, confused.
Reaching into her purse, the woman pulled out her phone and then quickly pulled up an image. It was of me and Mal at the charity auction. We were looking at the fake Gauguin and by the look in our eyes, there was no doubting that we were in love, no doubting that we were something special.
“Holy shit, that’s you and Michael,” Lara screeched.
“You’re pretty much on all of the magazines,” Kara added as she started to swivel her head, taking in
all the gossip rags that sat near the checkout stands.
I followed her gaze and, sure enough, my face and Michael’s were plastered everywhere. The headlines were all asking about the mystery woman on Mal’s arm. Who I was. Were we serious. Was it love.
No one should have seen those photos. No one should have even taken those photos. Mal had promised that there’d be no cameras. “Are these local magazines?” I said, feeling my breaths coming too quickly.
“No, they’re national,” Lara said before realizing what the problem was. “Maybe…maybe they won’t recognize you. You don’t look like that girl from eight years ago.”
Kara was holding one of the magazines in her hand, her eyes glancing at a page and then back up at me. Her mouth was drawn down and I snatched the magazine away from her, gasping and dropping it the moment I saw what was inside:
Photos of Mal and me at the AITTIA gala, of me in the café with Mal having lunch, of Mal and I outside my apartment.
Shaking my head I rushed out of the store, dropping my basket of unpaid groceries at the door before climbing into the Clam II and grabbing my phone.
Me: Did you know that they took pictures of us at the auction?
Mal: No. Why?
Me: Because they’re plastered everywhere! Magazines are asking about me, wondering who I am. It won’t be long before they know and then everyone will know! This is why I didn’t want to go to that event in the first place, Mal!
Mal: I won’t let that happen.
Me: How? They all know that I’m your girlfriend! They have pictures of us from other places, too! From MOAT and from outside my apartment!
Mal: I’ll find out what’s going on. I’ll take care of this, Victoria.
I know he believed it. I know he believed that he could fix everything. But deep down inside I just wasn’t so sure. I’d lived this tabloid life once. I’d seen them dig through trash cans and follow me into the bathrooms at the doctor’s office to get any dirt they could. Back then my story was a titillating scandal. What would it be when Mal’s name was attached to it?
