Natalie was droning on and on, but I tuned her out. Ryan did, too, apparently. Neither of us bothered to even engage her in conversation at all. We both just stared at each other.
Then he took my hands, and kissed them tenderly. He kissed my forehead, and put his hand in my hair, inhaling deeply. I put my head on his chest, hearing his heart pounding. Dalilah, for her part, laid in her crib, gurgling and cooing.
Ryan looked at Nat. “I’m sorry, Nat. We both know that Christopher isn’t mine. I haven’t had the energy to do anything about it until now. But I’m calling Sheldon the first thing tomorrow morning, and I’m going to get a court order for a DNA test. Then you need to return to your husband.”
“No,” Nat said. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. I know that this baby looks like Nate, but he also looks like me. And you, for that matter. The dark curly hair is all you. Blue eyes run in your family – look at Sarah and your father, and I have blue eyes as well. This baby is yours, I’m telling you.”
“Ok, if he’s mine, we’ll deal with it. I won’t leave him high and dry. I’m more responsible than that. Either way, though, I want you to patch things up with Nate. He loves you. I don’t.”
“I can’t just go to Nate and ask him to raise your child. Your child belongs with you.”
“I admit, it will put a crimp in my relationship with him, even more than it has already been damaged. But, we’ll all get past this, I promise you.” Then, he looked at me. “Iris, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you want to come home. I’m not going to say that it’s going to be easy for us – both of us have done something major to the other that is going to make it hard to trust. We’re going to have to do some work on this relationship so that you can forgive me for Nat, and I can forgive you for hiding Dalilah from me. And don’t think that I have forgotten that Nick had to force you to come back.” He shook his head. “Nat does have a point, come to think of it. What would you have done if Nick hadn’t been there at that coffee shop to force you to come back?”
“I admit, I wasn’t ready,” I said. “Not because I didn’t want to come home. I did. I missed you terribly, every single minute of every single day. I used to pray to God to take care of you. I wanted you to be happy, even if it wasn’t with me. I somehow thought that you could be happy with Nat and your child with her. Nick let me know that wasn’t the case.”
“So, if Nick didn’t run into you…” Ryan said.
“I’m not sure, to be honest with you. I didn’t want to face you and Nat together, and I knew that seeing you with her and your child would absolutely rip out my soul. And there was a part of me that thought that if you could find happiness with Nat and the baby than that would be enough for me. I would never be happy without you, but I could find some peace if I knew that you were happy.”
“I’m not happy, Iris. I could never be happy without you, either. I hope that you’re serious about coming home.”
“I’m not going to jerk you around again, Ryan. I don’t think that I could live without having you in my life in some sort of way.”
Nat was standing there, watching this unfold, a pissed-off expression on her beautiful face. Christopher started screaming, but she just ignored him. It was like she was in some kind of trance.
“Nat, aren’t you gonna attend to your child?” Ryan asked.
“Our child. Christopher is our child. Yes, I will attend to our child.”
Turning to me, Ryan said “we can find our way back to each other. It’s going to take a lot of work, but we can do it. Do you mind going to see Dr. Halder?”
I shuddered just a little. I was still uncomfortable with men in some ways - mainly because I didn’t want to share my intimate secrets with them. With the exception of Ryan, of course. But I would do this for him.
So, he made an appointment with Dr. Halder for the next day.
Chapter Fifty
I stayed the night with Ryan and Nat, in our bed in our bedroom. The bed was still the only real furniture in the house, save for the furniture in Christopher and Nat’s room. Dalilah slept peacefully between us. I still had to get up during the night to feed her, and I did so while sitting on the floor. It wasn’t comfortable, and I had to rock my body back and forth, because the rocking motion was the only thing that could get her to sleep.
“I’m so sorry, Iris,” Ryan said. “I guess I couldn’t bring myself to decorate this home without you.”
That touched me more than anything else, in a weird way.
Ryan continued, “if you are home for good, then I’ll get the decorators here right away. I still want to realize our visions for the house.”
“I am home for good, if you will have me.”
Then, the next day, we went to see Dr. Halder, and Ryan called the decorators to come and start bringing the ordered furniture into the house. I dropped Dalilah off at my mother’s house, although I felt guilty about this. My mother was in her late 70s, and caring for an infant was something that I knew that she never thought she would have to do again. But I gave her some bottles of breast milk, and Dalilah’s toys and blankets, and thanked god that she was a good child.
We got to Dr. Halder’s office, and he greeted us warmly. “Iris. It’s good to see you again. Ryan, you’re looking well. Now, what can I do for you?”
I started. “I need to find a way to trust Ryan again after he had sex with another woman. Ryan needs to find a way to trust me again after I went to San Francisco and hid his child from him.”
“Infidelity is a very serious issue,” was all he said. Then he looked at Ryan. “What do you say to your wife about that?”
“Well, you know, Dr. Halder, I’ve talked to you about all that at great length. I can’t seem to get Iris to believe me about the way that it happened.”
To this, I said “It’s just so far-fetched. So daytime soap opera-ish. Nat is a beautiful woman, so it’s just hard for me to believe that Ryan had to be in an altered state to be with her.”
Dr. Halder said in response “that’s the major problem here. Your lack of trust and belief in what your husband is telling you. You have to believe in your husband when he is telling you that he never would’ve been unfaithful if he wasn’t in an altered state. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for you to trust him, and that would be toxic for your relationship.”
Ryan was just looking at me, with a pleading look in his eyes.
And I suddenly knew that what he was saying was the truth.
Why didn’t I see that before? How could I have been so blind? And so stupid? To think that I was thisclose to screwing up the best thing that ever could’ve happened to me because I refused to believe Ryan’s story…And, all at once, I wanted him in a way that I never wanted him before. He put his hand on mine, and I felt the old electric tingle make its way from my hand all the way up to my shoulder and down the other arm.
I looked him in the eye and said “I believe you.”
His facial expression changed completely. He lit up at my words, his eyes getting bright and his smile taking on the mega-watt quality that I hadn’t seen in so long. He squeezed my hand, and put his hand in my hair and stroked it.
Then I told Dr. Halder “it’s a great thing that I now believe Ryan, but I did something hideous. I don’t know how he can trust me again.”
“What was this hideous act?”
“I covered up the fact that I was pregnant with his child when I divorced him. Then I immediately fled halfway across the country, to San Francisco. I only came back because his best friend made me.”
“Ryan, what are your feelings about this?”
“I’m angry,” he said. “And hurt. Betrayed. But, at the same time, I know that my wife has been through some of the worst traumas imaginable in the span of less than a year. I’m inclined to give her a break for that reason alone.”
“Iris, tell me about why you would’ve done this to Ryan?”
“I was out of my mind, I guess. Kinda like when I went into the drug house.
I’m sure Ryan told you about that?”
Dr. Halder nodded.
“I had a hard time coping. Things got so much better out in Beverly Hills. But Nat drove me out of my mind. And my hormones were raging, which didn’t help things, I guess.”
“The problem is, Iris, that you didn’t come home on your own,” Ryan said. “I can almost understand why you did what you did. Your thought processes have always been just a little bit left of center, which is one of the reasons why I love you so much. But why couldn’t you come home on your own?” Ryan asked.
I shook my head. “I really don’t know the answer to that question. I guess that I felt that I needed to keep running, because if I stopped, and confronted the true situation with you, Nat and your child – I felt that I would fall apart. Avoidance was always my greatest friend.”
Dr. Halder said “Iris, you’re saying that avoidance is your coping mechanism?”
“Sure,” I said. “Isn’t it that way for everybody?”
“That is human nature,” Dr. Halder said. “But you seemed to have taken it to the extreme.”
“What can I say, I raise avoidance to an art form.”
“So, how can you confront the situation with Ryan and Natalie?” Dr. Halder asked.
Ryan said “she doesn’t have to confront it. I’m getting a court order for a DNA test, and I have a feeling that the baby isn’t mine. Even if he is, I’m not going to let Natalie live in the house anymore. That house is mine and Iris’ house. Getting Natalie out isn’t going to be easy, but it’s something that has to be done.”
The session went on for the rest of the hour, but we both were feeling that it wasn’t all that necessary, after all. We understood one another. We always had almost a psychic bond with each other, and this bond was something that evidently went haywire when I refused to believe Ryan’s story.
When we got to the car, which was parked in the parking lot, I made my move. I straddled him, pushing him down and releasing the seat latch all at once. Neither of us spoke. I just ran my fingers through his hair, and we were kissing passionately. Just like old times. I ran my hand to the buttons of his shirt, feeling his chest. He had lost quite a bit of weight, but he was still firm in his pecs and abs. He kissed me back, running his hands through my hair, but not trying to put his hands anywhere else. So, I put his hand on my breast, as I lifted up my shirt. It was an uncomfortable position, as we were, unfortunately, in the Porsche, not the Escalade, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I wasn’t thinking about the steering wheel which was pinning my back, or the gear shifter which was squishing my leg. All I could think of was my beautiful, beautiful husband, and how much I wanted him badly.
So badly.
I unbuttoned his pants, and lifted up my skirt, pulling down my panties. He looked at me nervously and said “Are you sure about this, beautiful?”
I smiled at him using my nickname again. I secretly cringed every time he called Iris. I sighed and said “Yes. Yes. Yes,” as I took his manhood and put it inside of me. I had a little bit of trouble, not for lack of lubrication, but because it had been so long since we made love. I released the seat fully, so that Ryan was completely lying down, as I rode him, coming to orgasm after orgasm. He tentatively put his hands on my breasts as he kissed me passionately, his lips running from my lips to my cheeks to my neck to my clavicle, and back again. There were people walking by, and I heard laughter, but I didn’t care. There was only me and Ryan in the world, nobody else. He consumed me like nobody else ever had before. I knew that nobody would ever consume me like that again. I didn’t want it to ever stop, so I just kept riding him, even after I felt his hot cum squirt inside me.
I finally was sated a little, so I climbed off of him and into the passenger seat. I looked at him - his thick hair was going in different directions and his shirt was unbuttoned still. My underwear was still on the floor of the car. He smiled at me and said “do you think that your mom will be ok with Dalilah for a few hours more?”
I nodded, getting on the phone and asking my mother if she could continue to watch our child for the rest of the afternoon. She reluctantly agreed.
We didn’t go home, of course. Nat was still there. So, we got a suite at the Radisson, an upscale downtown hotel. As soon as we got into the room, Ryan pounced on me, his hands on my breasts as he stripped off my top. I unzipped my skirt, tossing it to the side of the bed, while pulling down his pants, then unbuttoned his shirt, pulling this off of him as well.
Although we got our clothes off in record time, the actual love-making did not have the same urgency as it did in the car. Ryan laid me down gently on the bed, looking into my eyes and stroking my hair before he started kissing me passionately. He worked his way down my neck, my breasts, my stomach, then started kissing my thighs. I sighed. This was one of my favorite parts, when he started to lick my thighs slowly. Then he started licking and sucking my genitals, very gently and smoothly, his hands running the length of my entire body. He teased me, bringing me to the precipice of an orgasm, then backing off, only to come back to that area a few minutes later. Briefly, the memory of Andrew flashed in my brain, and I could feel my heart racing in panic and fear. But I willed myself to tamp it down, and concentrate on what my magnetic husband was doing. It felt amazing, and I finally exploded in a powerful orgasm.
Then he was on top of me, once again kissing my lips as he entered me slowly. I gasped a little. We had just made love in the car, but this was different. The action in the car was more like a release, a satisfaction of a need I suddenly had for him while we were talking to Dr. Halder. Once I realized that Ryan had been telling me the truth, I suddenly had to have him inside me. That was what the car love-making was. But this – this was just a pure expression of love. Of undying, unadulterated love. Of two people who would never stop having a need for one another, no matter what happened. It was obvious from the way that we touched one another, to the unspoken words that we conveyed with our eyes. As corny as it sounds, our love-making was the culmination of two souls that have a need to be together, and they finally were fused again, after being apart from one another for way too long. For hours, we were like this, me feeling him hard inside me, feeling his mouth all over me.
Then, after making love for hours in the bed, we moved to the bathtub. Ryan lit some candles as we soaked in the enormous Jacuzzi tub. He gently soaped me up with a sponge, laying behind me, then kissing my back and my neck. Some music was playing from the stereo in the room, and it was being piped into the bathroom. It was easy 70s music, which was one of my favorite genres. Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Carly Simon, The Carpenters, Christopher Cross, Bread, Air Supply, The Commodores, Kenny Rogers, David Gates, Dan Fogelberg – I loved them all, and Ryan apparently made a CD featuring all of my favorite old-time artists. We hadn’t really spoken in all this time, just letting our touch and our eyes do the communicating. We remained in the bathtub for hours, just relaxing and enjoying each other, and making love in the bubbles.
I finally was out of my reverie when I realized that it was 10 PM. We got the hotel room at 10 AM, after our appointment, and had been enjoying each other non-stop since then. And, as much as I wanted to continue throughout the night, as did he, there was a little matter of a baby who was at my elderly mother’s house.
Both of us looked at each other and said, at the same time “Dalilah.” Then we smiled.
As we made our way to his car, my legs felt like spaghetti. He held my hand, and I could feel the tingling coursing throughout my body as we touched. We were still quiet, neither of us wanting to break the spell. Finally, I spoke. “I hope that Dalilah was ok at my mother’s house.”
“I’m sure she’s fine, beautiful. Like we are, or will be, from now on.”
We got to my mother’s house, then picked up our daughter. “How was she?” I asked.
“Fine,” my mother said. “A little unusual, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I swear to god, she said an actual wo
rd.”
“Oh, come on, she’s just over four months old. How can that be possible? What word did she say?”
“It sounded like grandma.”
I made a face, then took Ryan’s hand and led him up to the room where Dalilah was staying. She was in her crib, punching and kicking the air. Then she looked at me and clearly said “mama.” Then looked at Ryan and said “dada.”
Ryan and I looked at each other with a puzzled look. Then I gave her a stuffed bear, and she clearly said “bear.”
What the hell? She was gurgling and cooing this morning. Then I thought back – it did seem that she was trying to form words for awhile now, but I’m ashamed to say that, with all the chaos going on, I really wasn’t paying attention.
Ryan and I both just shook our heads, as I picked her up and put her in her car seat. “Bottle,” she said. So I got a bottle out of the diaper bag, and she sucked on it hungrily.
Neither of us spoke about our unusual daughter in the back seat. It was just too weird. Then again, nothing would surprise me anymore about anything. There was always something strange that had been popping up – horrible strange things, but nice ones, too. Like having a less than five month old daughter who suddenly knew words.
And, when I got home with Ryan, I suddenly felt the urge to see his mother.
Chapter Fifty-One
It was a very peculiar situation at home. Nat and Christopher were still there. Ryan and I had not yet figured out how to get her gone. And Nat had announced to us that she was staying until the results of the DNA test was in, and, if the baby was Ryan’s, she was going to stay with us indefinitely.
Ryan sighed. “Nat, you can’t just be a squatter here. My life is with Iris. It always has been, it always will be, and you’ve always known that. Now, I really don’t want to resort to calling the police and having you arrested for trespassing, but I also don’t know what else I can do.”
Deeper Illusions Page 24
