by A. R. Hadley
"Communion." Okay. I couldn't help it. There was laughter in my tone. "With whom?" Please don't tell me she suddenly believed in a god.
"The Divine."
"You don't believe in any of that shit."
"I don't know."
There it was. Those three words I was beginning to hate. She was starting to say them often and with her usual inflection. Boredom or an invitation. She was a mixed bag of marbles.
"Come on. That night I was hypnotized." I had a few shells marching. A few others formed a heart in a box. "You called bullshit."
"That's just it, Jon. It wasn't. You remembered." She hadn't looked at me the entire time she talked. She just held that little paperback in her hands as if it were some sort of prop to her nonsense. "You were in a kind of meditation that night."
I didn't like where this was headed. I didn't want to talk about this. Not the unexplainable parts. None of it could be explained really. Yeah. I had been hypnotized. Once. I saw a girl I thought was dead open her eyes in a hypnotic dream. I had gone to sleep listening to music. What was it? I had woken up to the same sounds. An orchestra. A viola. Something about my father's words that night were as memorable as the hypnosis. What were they? My biological needs. Right. Yes. "You can fight it your whole life if you want to, but it will be a fight," my father had said at my fucking engagement party of all places and inappropriate times.
Nothing was appropriate when it came to Declan. Fuck him. Was he right? My biological needs were surely different than his. I didn't fancy young girls. Not since I was seventeen and I was supposed to, anyway. But, I did have these new needs. Unacceptable, improper, a-reject-to-society needs. I was fighting them. Would I fight them my whole life? Fuck Declan. Next Jess is going to tell me everything happens for a reason. The hypnosis. My father. Maybe even the fucking viola. Not the loss of our baby. This could not be happening for a reason. Had the other things, the events in my life that followed my hypnosis, had they happened for a reason? They served a purpose. Jessica had helped me find Rachel. She believed in me. She helped me put that whole episode of my life behind me the best I could. I had finally cut ties with my father. I was free.
Shells on her back. Control learned. Free.
Until the Divine would grow frustrated with me and wiggle and protest and curse. Until then, my perfect little village was secure.
twelve
JONATHAN
We traveled down a four-lane divided highway. We were on our way to visit yet another gallery. I had been to several local ones with Jess already. I liked art. A lot. But this trip, I had gotten my fill of shapes and colors and collages on walls, and the meaning of it all. Still, I obliged. How could I say no to my wife? U.S. Highway 1 was rural compared to home. City here, probably. Our turn crept up on us. There hadn't been a traffic light for more than two miles, the last one we passed was at the intersection of Faulkner Street. I remembered the name because of the writer, and because we had driven past it once before; the night we arrived at the local airport.
A huge, tacky billboard took up the southwest corner where I made the turn onto a two lane road that went about a mile and a half past a residential neighborhood, old Florida houses and a few newer, larger homes. I wasn't expecting to find much at the end of the street. Nothing special anyway.
I pulled the rented Mercedes convertible into the gravel lot and parked. As we approached the main building, I realized I was dead wrong.
The architecture was straight out of a magazine. A mix of concrete, glass and wood beams. It had an aluminum roof set at a sharp angle. A gazebo out front. Nature trails. Acres and acres.
Jessica glowed. The morning sun agreed with her. Maybe vacation or Florida agreed with her. The way she looked at the art surprised me. She could spot things plenty of other people would not notice. I was proud to be with her. Next to her. On her arm. This was something else though. Her expression seemed softer. Open. The ideas she seemed to be entertaining were actually on a split screen, jotting back and forth between her blue eyes as we toured the inside of the main building with the three interconnecting galleries, and then we strolled, hand in hand, along one of the nature trails. The entire complex was in the middle of Florida brush, plonked down on the outskirts of the city, giving me the impression we had been transported to a new world. City to nature. Instantaneously. Unencumbered by rote and necessity. There were residence buildings on the property too. Signs at the end of the wood-plank trails warned visitors: "Do not go beyond this point. Artists at work. Please respect the privacy of our guests." The cottages were hidden. Scattered. A dance studio, a writer's studio, a sculpture studio, and a few others.
"Have I held you back, Jess?" Sometimes I opened my mouth without thinking. Jessica had a strange effect on me lately.
"What do you mean?" She stopped in front of one of those little informative plaques, indicating the various species of indigenous plants and animals. This one told us about the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake. I think I preferred earthquakes to cockroaches, alligators, and venomous snakes. Maybe I just preferred the city. I liked both.
"Do you wish you could apply for residency? Stay in a place like this?"
She kept her profile to me. A study of the human form. Right here. Someone should paint her, capture what I saw. Impossible. No one could draw the detail, the fine lines or the places where she held things. She scanned the trees, holding a floppy gray hat in her hand, giving away nothing. No regret. No desires. No hopes or dreams.
"I like things as they are. Wishing hurts." She blinked two times in succession, put on her hat and sunglasses and walked on.
We stopped in front of a sculpture on a different path. I was beginning to warm. The shade of the trees and the breeze couldn't do away with the heat. I had worn jeans. Jessica didn't seem fazed, but she had on a beautiful spaghetti strap dress and her hair tied up, not to mention the hat.
"This piece isn't as big as some of the ones you've done." I tipped my head toward the huge misshapen thing we stood in front of.
"It has an amazing texture." She stepped closer to the bronzed sculpture and stared at the lines and colors.
"Is it giving you any ideas?"
She didn't move. If anything she appeared straighter. Taller. The Tin Man.
"I don't know," she replied.
Again with the, I don't know. That was a lie. Or a means for me to ask her further questions. She liked it when I dragged information from her, even when I had to tread lightly to get it. Jessica did know. She was the artist. She had an acute focus I admired. Like me. Except my focus was business. Numbers. In art, maybe life, I was always the onlooker. An observer. Maybe that was why I could read people so well. Or my father taught me. Declan taught me things. Now there was a subject for therapy. I had tried it. Therapy. I never really liked it. Jessica listened to me better than any other human being I had ever met. She had an objective and courage, and she knew how to support my escape from being under the thumb of my family's entitlement and my unnecessary subjection to victimhood.
Being here, at an artist's retreat, reminded me of the things I wasn't though. The things I would never be. I didn't mind. I liked who I was, but I was never creative. Sure. My mother, at some point, had myself and each of my seven sisters attempt the piano. I finger painted, and I colored. Big deal. Jesus. Every kid did those things. I tried stuff. Nothing stuck. Well, except the feel of my hand inside the leather glove. My palm around the solid white ball. The texture of the red threads. The crack of the bat. Baseball wasn't creative though. Unless you counted the way a pitcher managed a perfect curveball with the flick of his wrist. An eye for detail. The little things. The way he positioned his feet on the mound. The elbows. The hips. Each thing was precise. A science. An art? Knowing those things wasn't special. It was automatic. I was one in a million boys who enjoyed a ball and a game. Big fucking deal. I couldn't sing. I hummed. I couldn't write worth a damn or paint or draw.
I made money.
I made love.
&n
bsp; I made deals.
I made people fall to their knees.
Jessica did have something to say. She ignored my pointed question, but went on and on about the sculpture. The methods. The time involved. I noticed the trees. I liked the trees. Clusters of saw palmettos. I stepped to the side and peeled off a few leaflets from one of the fronds. I probably shouldn't have done that. Here. On the property. But there was something about the plant. I had to touch it. Feel the texture. I carried the strips in my hands, slapping the long leaves against my palm once we started to walk along the path again.
I couldn't let it go.
I looped them around my fingers, my hands, my wrists. I yanked on the ends. Hm. This place gave me ideas too. Interesting ones. Ideas that made my heartbeat sound in my ears and my breath catch. The strips were deceptive. They looked flimsy, but they were tough. Pliable. Reliable. Strong. They smelled like beauty and green and forests. Tied around the limbs of my wife's body, knotted precisely — would be beauty personified.
thirteen
JONATHAN
We sat at a high-top table near the ocean where we could people watch. I wore the sunglasses Jess had picked out yesterday from the unique little shop up the street. They weren't any fancy designer brand. I didn't mind. Jess had taste. She knew what looked good on me, how we looked good together, and she liked to buy things locally. The sunglasses happened to be made in the USA from recyclable material. What the fuck? All I knew was that they kept the fucking sun out of my eyes. My Irish skin, on the other hand, would burn. I had to apply sunscreen, especially to my face. Apparently, my ginger-haired family and I were at a greater risk for skin cancer than the average human. I had been told this all my life. It was bullshit. I wasn't even thirty. I grew up in Los Angeles, and I wasn't dead yet. I had life in me. Tons. A lot left to live and to live for. I had escaped death once. My father had tried to fuck everything up, or he saved me, I don't know, but I did know — I had control. Jessica helped me to take control. She taught me what it meant to be a man. Not Declan.
We had already ordered.
I reached across the square table and took her hand. She took a swig of beer. Her hair blew from under the visor. Drinking beer from a bottle. Now that was something I didn't see my wife do every day. Maybe the vacation was changing us. Bringing our inhibitions and irregularities to the surface.
"Did you hear about the shark bite?" she asked.
My eyebrows arched above the rims of my enviro-friendly glasses. "No. Where?"
"Right here." She nodded toward the ocean.
"This area apparently is prone to attacks. Something about the inlet. The way they feed."
"Is that why you picked it? Did you pick this place out?"
She shrugged. The bottle popped off her lips. I had to shift in my seat. I'd known the woman for years, and yet her lips around an amber bottle did things to me.
"I do wonder what it's like for the person who is attacked. Do they brave going back out into the ocean? Do they keep surfing?"
"They probably wait until they clean up all the blood."
"Jon..."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Fear."
"Would you let fear stop you from doing something you love?"
"Aren't you getting very morose?"
"Don't use such poetic words, Jess."
She grinned. "I am getting inspiration here." She paused. She was giving me something. She was allowing me to be right. "For my next piece."
"Indeed." I leaned forward. Inspiration, in this case, was code for becoming restless. "How much?" I smirked. I played with my own bottle.
"My work pays for itself."
She must be drunk on the ale.
"Yeah," I laughed. I lifted my sunglasses to the top of my wind-blown head. "It just doesn't put you in the black."
The waiter appeared with our food, probably interrupting her snazzy comeback. The guy with the plates made me feel at home. He had a Mohawk, jet-black hair shaved on the sides and a bright, bushy yellow streak down the center. Perhaps Jess and I could feel as if we belonged here. We nodded at fancy Mohawk guy, said thank you and he departed.
"Maybe I should get a little hoop earring like him." I angled my head toward our server who now stood at another table taking an order. He was out of earshot. I wasn't uncouth.
"Then you would have to get a patch."
I cocked my head to the side, gifting her with an adorable stare, one I knew she couldn't resist.
"A patch, Jon." I saw the rise in her chest. Subtle, but there. "To go with your earring. You would look like a pirate. Maybe you could get a bandanna too." She slid the lettuce from her fork into her mouth. Carefully. Without getting dressing on her lips.
"Fine. What about him?" I tipped my head in the direction of a man a few tables to her left. This is how we had our fun. This was our play. "Look discreetly." I started to eat my food. Shrimp tacos. Local shrimp too.
"I am nothing if not discreet," she said.
Indeed.
"Tattoo man?" she asked.
I nodded.
"I suppose then you would need a bike." She shrugged. She pinned me to my seat with her eyes.
She wasn't talking about our beach cruisers either. She was talking about a motorcycle. We didn't argue much, mainly because I chose not to engage when she made a flippant comment, but I could easily debate the reasons I wanted a bike. I had a mental list. She abhorred bikes. Said if I bought one she would not ride passenger with me, said she would not stand by to witness my demise. Said she would not be the one to receive a phone call late at night asking her to identify the body that had been badly mangled on the 110. It was too dangerous. She left no room for discussion. Fine. The bike talk was about as dramatic as I'd ever had the pleasure to see her slip.
"It's our last day," I said.
She stabbed at the salad. I liked to watch her eat. She made deliberate choices. What vegetables to put on the fork with the greens, how much dressing to swirl around all of it.
"What do you want to do? I want to do something crazy." She said crazy the way she said most words. No inflection. No evidence of crazy.
"We can rent a Harley." I couldn't help myself. I was an ass. She gave me the opening, but she didn't bat an eye at my snarky comment.
"I want to skinny dip," she said. "Tonight. After dark."
Well... My little minx. There may be hope yet to slowly introduce a little kink.
"The water will be cold." I didn't mind. Sharks I did mind. Especially if I couldn't see them.
"Afraid, Jon?" She smirked. Her eyes were devoid of any icebergs, and they were only full of who I fell in love with. Blue, ethereal passion. The color of the sky. I could see through the swan-posture and the French manicured fingernails. I could see past the polished slate of her upbringing. We could make this work. What am I saying? It was never broken. I was broken. I was the one who wasn't whole, fantasizing about crazy sadist shit she may never give me. I didn't know if I could ever be truly whole. Jessica knew about the shards of glass that made up my skin, and she accepted it. Me. That was all I could ever hope for. That and a family. One day. I loved her as much today as when I first laid eyes on her. I had to get my mind back on track. I had learned control. I could control this desire. These fantasies. This subconscious roar. What we had together was enough. She would complete me. Bound me wherever I became loose.
Except the play — the kink — it spoke. A little voice — a part of me — it knew. It cried out. It silently screamed:
You need this control like you need the air to breathe. You will die a slow death of losing yourself the way your mother gave up and lost herself to pills and alcohol. Without being true to yourself, you will lose it, Jonathan. One day. Everything you've gained and learned and earned, will be for nothing.
Indeed.
Maybe I could do both.
fourteen
JESSICA
I had suggested the nudity on purpose. The nighttime skinny dipping. I knew he would lik
e it. I enjoyed making fun of his needs. It was easy. He wanted to have sex all the time. Like now. Except in this freezing cold water, the poor guy couldn't keep an erection. Too bad. I wanted to do other things. Enjoy simply having my legs wrapped around him. No penetration. Only intimacy. No words. Only breath. I wanted to simply live. Make art. Spend time with my friends.
If Jonathan wasn't working, he was stripping off his clothes ready to make love to me, and he was a sight, he took excellent care of his body, but I had become bored. Having an orgasm was no longer a compulsory goal. The pressure and expectation exceeded what I could give to him, and I didn't know what I had to give. I didn't know what his needs were anymore. Since the miscarriage, my interest had changed. It was impossible to come out on the other side of that life experience and not change. Unfortunately, his drive had not only increased, it had changed too. Would this be how he dealt with my avoidance of introspective conversation regarding my inability-to-have-children?
He would hurt me.
Punish me.
If he hurt me, he could no longer be the wings around my body in which I hid.
He would never hurt me. Why would he get off on hurting me? I didn't know who he was turning into.
He was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
A gentleman, the man who had scooped me into his arms and comforted me the night I bled our baby out onto my stockings, and the one from the other day, who wanted to bite me, pin me, the one who expected me to obey his demands. He wanted to humiliate me. What a joke. Jonathan had come so far, but he still thought the entire world revolved around him.
He held me in the ocean. We tried to warm each other. Comfort each other.
Only my mind couldn't stop replaying his recent selfish behavior on a worn out cassette tape...
"When will you realize this is not about you?" I had asked. This was the second time he had forced me to have the conversation, and it would be the last. People didn't talk about these things. I wouldn't.
