From the family room I could still hear the music. Luke scooted back and rested against the brown leather of the headboard. He looked down at his legs stretched out in front of him. His feet fell to either side and his toes pointed downwards almost as if they would curl under his feet. He was the most gorgeous man in the world to me. And I was a nervous twenty-two year old virgin again, starving for him but too consumed by my insecurities to move. In spite of every instinct, desire, and need to crawl into Luke’s arms, I waited on my side of the bed, anxious for the man he had always been to me, the Luke who took charge of every situation, to do that now. He was an alpha male. I couldn’t imagine him being any other way. But nothing was happening.
“Luke?” I eventually spoke his name softly, hesitantly.
Please God, don’t let him change his mind, I prayed.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” he said and turned to look at me directly.
Oh God, he was changing his mind. Desperate, I scooted a little closer to him and touched his arm.
“It’s still hard for me,” he continued.
In his eyes there was this bewildered kind of hurt, a look that said he realized that something terrible was true but he was unable to understand why. I had seen that look before. I can’t be with you.
No! You cannot do this to me again.
I wanted to cry. And I had cried, over and over, until my eyes were dry and dead. I wouldn’t take my hand off his arm. Tonight I would not retreat.
“Every time I do this,” Luke said. “See somebody seeing me for the first time, it’s like I’m reliving it. Like I’m seeing myself for the first time. You know what I mean?”
I did. Tears of empathy, love, and relief filled my eyes. I blinked them back. This was one of those huge parts I wanted so much to know. I must show that I could handle it. I squeezed his arm.
“I understand, Luke,” I murmured and cleared my throat. “If-if you want to go slow. That’s okay.” I smiled a little. “I mean I’ll try to. But please, Luke. I-I’ve waited so long, I can’t—”
Before I could finish my own words I was kissing his mouth again greedily, and selfishly if he really wasn’t ready. But he was kissing me back, and I began climbing up his body like some kind of untamed vine, wrapping myself around him, pressing my lips to his face, his head, his neck, his chest.
Turning on his side, Luke carried me with him, pressing me down onto the bed, returning my passion with his, covering me with sweet, sucking kisses that left me wet and hot and craving for more. Grasping me between the legs, he encountered the damp crotch of my panties and looked surprised.
“I didn’t want you to think I was too easy,” I explained sheepishly.
“Easy?” he chuckled, his eyes shining again. “You?” He pulled down my panties with one hand. “About as easy as walking on water.”
Even before I could kick free of my last appearance of dignity, Luke had used his palm to cover my vulva, keeping his fingers stretched over my pubic mound. He must feel the way my body throbbed. Gradually he slipped his fingers into my vagina, their calloused skin brushing against my clitoris in a gentle up-and-down motion.
“Oh Luke,” I cried his name as I felt myself already beginning to peak.
“No-no sweetie,” he whispered. “Nice and slow.” Withdrawing his fingers he gently began to massage my inner thighs. “You can wait just a little while longer.”
He filled my mouth with his tongue and I pressed my body up against his, feeling the coarseness of his pubic hair. If his penis could be erect he could have easily slipped it inside of me. I wanted it still. I could not not think about it.
As my breathing leveled, I reached down and pulled his right leg over mine which sort of held us together. His left leg shook against me. Our arms were around each other. Luke kissed the tip of my nose and smiled at me.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” I smiled joyously at him. “You?”
“Magnificent,” he grinned.
“You are, Luke,” I said earnestly. “You really are.”
“Not quite,” he replied. “So I think we probably need to go over the merchandise, so to speak. My list of can’ts and cans if you will.”
I must have made a face.
“You look like my mother right now,” he chuckled.
“That’s not funny, Luke. Not yet.”
“Okay,” he smiled, kissing me again deeply.
When we separated to breathe again I asked, “What do you want me to know?”
“Don’t you have questions?” he asked back.
Of course I did, but I wasn’t about to go down a list as if he were required to give me a tutorial.
“Be honest, Rachel,” he said. “Unless you’ve been with another man like me before you—”
“There’s nobody like you in the world, Luke,” I interrupted, pressing my pelvis against his, hoping he could feel it.
He smiled. Perhaps he could. He lay back on the pillow.
“This is the borderline,” he began to explain using one of my index fingers to trace a line just under his navel. “Everything above I can feel really well, extra well in some places. Below it gets a little wacky. Some places yes, others no. My right side’s a little better than the left.”
“So you’re stronger on the right side then?”
“Less paralyzed, yes.”
He moved his right leg against me. I was thrilled.
“That’s wonderful, Luke,” I exclaimed happily.
“It’s something,” he said dryly.
I was quiet but Luke seemed to read my thoughts.
“My dick can get hard, but it’s got to be manually operated.”
“But you-you can?” I asked hopefully.
“I can. Pills help, but it’s not great.” He smiled crookedly. “It’s kinda wacky like I said.”
“Can you…have-have an—?”
“An orgasm? Not the way you’re used to. But trust me, babe, you’ll make me very happy. And what really matters is that can I satisfy you.”
In those early days of my sexual debut, for me it was the missionary position or nothing. Robert’s was the first penis I had ever let go beyond my vagina. I had let him try a variety of things, even when I found them distasteful or uncomfortable. I supposed I had been trying to make it up to Robert. It had never been like that with Luke. Even doing it to hold onto to him, it had been equal parts about him and me. There was no doubt in my mind that Luke could satisfy me.
So when Luke pushed me down on the pillow and spread my legs apart before positioning himself between them, I actually eagerly raised my pelvis to meet his lips. I wanted him that much. However, Luke was determined to take his time. He began by softly kissing me behind the knees, working his way up my inner thighs, intermittently teasing my labia with his fingertips. By the time he was kissing my abdomen I couldn’t possibly care if my figure wasn’t perfect. He was making me feel like a goddess, cooing my name and other endearments, pushing me to the precipice and then pulling me back again. I wriggled and writhed, but always moving towards him. I draped my legs over his shoulders, pulling him closer to me. Using his finger Luke began massaging my labia, lightly tapping my clitoris. Grabbing his shoulders with my hands I dug into his strong frame and my pelvis thrust upwards again this time seemingly of its own volition. Now his lips were on my labia, then his tongue.
“Oh Luke!” I cried out frantically. “Please, Luke, now! I have to now!”
“Then come for me, baby,” I heard him whisper. “Come for me too.”
His tongue entered me and I gasped for air. My whole body seemed to leave the bed, and I didn’t know where I was until I recognized Luke’s powerful arms around me and felt my face pressed safely against his chest.
“Shhh,” he spoke tenderly. “It’s okay.”
But why was I crying?
“Oh Luke,” I said clinging to him, sobbing against him. “Oh Luke.”
“I know,” he held me tightly. “It’s okay. We’re good. We
’re very good.”
Was the iPod still playing? The only music in the world was the beating of his heart.
TWENTY-ONE
When I was in college fantasizing about a future with Luke, I would dream about sharing Saturday mornings with him, the two of us in matching bathrobes, having coffee, sharing the newspaper. In my fantasies there would be one of those chrome racks for toast—whole wheat of course—and petite jars of strawberry jam and orange marmalade. There would be kids in the picture too, a boy and a girl, settled in a cozy den watching cartoons. A very American-Norman-Rockwell kind of picture. Family Ties and The Cosby Show. Nothing like my childhood at all. And nothing like reality. A girl could dream, couldn’t she?
In the early days of my marriage to Robert I had tried to reconstruct the fantasy, recasting the leading-man-father-knows-best role with a willing-just-not-able Robert. There had been lots of Saturday mornings for that us, Sunday ones too, complete with carefully set tables and impeccably brewed coffee. Mommy had forced me to take Home Economics in high school for the sewing, which I had been rotten at, but I had excelled in cooking and entertaining. Maybe I was nervous around Betty Sterling, but I wasn’t completely ignorant at a formally set dining room table. For the most part I had been a good wife, attentive to details, indulging Robert, spoiling him, just not loving him. At least not the way he had needed me to, the way he had been entitled to.
The way I had never stopped loving Luke.
I watched him now. He was wearing dark blue sweat pants and a long-sleeved white t-shirt, reading the newspaper, occasionally drinking from his coffee mug. This Luke was older than my college fantasies had been able to imagine, but he was also more handsome, as if time were his friend. Him and his trend lines. Despite its gray strands, the stubble on his chin gave him a more rugged look. The facial lines, the reading glasses, they made him look mature and wise. The cocky pretty boy I remembered had evolved into the confident beautiful man I cherished. Seated at the kitchen table like this the wheelchair was practically invisible.
But it was of course very real. As were the scars crisscrossing his body. I had touched them last night, caressing and cursing them at the same time, because they had saved him and failed to restore him.
“Just call me Raggedy Andy,” he had said last night. “All stitched together with floppy legs.”
Okay, so it was Raggedy Andy and Little Orphan Annie. I was still the luckiest woman in the world.
“You’re beautiful, Luke,” I had whispered back, reverently kissing the long scar that ran across the right side of his abdomen.
A long scar also ran up the middle of his back. The metal pins they had inserted to rebuild and support his vertebrae set off alarms in office building entrances and airport checkpoints he had said. Of course the wheelchair did that too.
“You’ve always had a thing for misfit toys,” he had laughed sardonically.
I wouldn’t lie to him and say that he was perfect. He wasn’t. Not anymore. His limitations were obvious. But in truth he never had been. None of us were. It was only that once upon a time he had looked the part. Perfect. The handsome nobleman with a kind enough heart to befriend a village peasant girl. If I liked misfit toys, it was because I understood them.
Betty Sterling could be right. Maybe I was just this odd little diversion. When it had come time for Luke to grow up, to get serious about his life, he had left me behind. Even if he hadn’t wanted to see me with Robert, the truth was he had discarded me; even including the infamous it’s-not-you-it’s-me line. I had made a lot of bad choices with those meaningless words reverberating in my head. It had taken me years to outgrow their impact.
So as lucky as I felt, I also couldn’t help but feel a little—well a lot—cheated too, and yes, residually jealous. I coveted Luke’s years that were also Christina’s. The children she had raised with him, the homes she had made for him, it was all hers. Every success and failure, every happiness and heartbreak.
How long had they been together? I knew from my own experience that big weddings took time to plan. Since they had married so soon after he had broken-up with me, he must have been seeing her while we were together. So in fact Luke must have been cheating on me with her all along. Although maybe I had only assumed exclusivity. I could never recall if we had been explicit about it. In those days mutual monogamy for typical heterosexuals couples had not been a matter of life or death, just one of devotion, or at least respect.
On the verge of wrangling insecurity out of rapture, I got up from the table and went to get the coffee carafe. It was time to change the subject.
“Thanks, babe,” Luke said to me as I refilled his coffee mug.
I smiled at him. Let bygones be bygones, right? So Luke had betrayed me once, why dredge up something hurtful when I could choose to be happy? Luke had made a life without me, and technically I had done the same without him. Technically. And now he was back.
This morning I was wearing a pair of his pajamas, because my clothes from yesterday were tumbling around in his washing machine. During our college days, my chest measurements would have prevented me from wearing Luke’s shirts, but over the years he had built up and I had slimmed down, resulting in his pajama shirt being roomy enough for me even at the dreaded bust-line button. The green cotton pajama cloth touched me all over comfortably, affirming for me that what had happened last night was completely real, that I had spent the night in Luke’s bed, in Luke’s arms. And now we were having coffee in matching mugs and sharing the newspaper. There was even whole-wheat toast, although minus the wire rack and the jam was blackberry. It was absolutely better than a dream.
And if a wheelchair must be a part of it, then so be it. If the whole reason I finally had this second chance with Luke was because Christina had abandoned him when he had needed her most, then so be that too. If I was only here because I amused him, entertained him, like his mother had said, if I helped him to feel better about himself, then okay. The only thing that mattered was that I was getting to love him again. That I was having my Saturday morning with Luke. I smiled again and gazed contentedly out the kitchen window.
“You can tell me,” Luke said. “I won’t tell anybody.”
I hadn’t noticed but he had lowered the newspaper, removed his reading glasses, and was now watching me.
“Tell you what?” I asked, my smile rivaling the Cheshire cat’s.
I was in a kind of Wonderland after all.
“What you’re thinking,” Luke replied. “Why you’re smiling.”
Because God really does answer prayers, I thought but did not say, even sometimes granting us the desires of our hearts. Such a confession would merely sound corny to a social Christian like Luke. He’d be very polite about it, he always had been, but he would think I was naïve.
“Afterglow,” I replied coquettishly instead, choosing to sound sexy instead of grateful.
“It doesn’t have to be after yet,” he said, a small smile tugging at the corners of his gorgeous mouth.
I beamed at the not-so-subtle invitation, eager to climb into his lap. Perhaps he would allow me to touch his penis this time. Last night when I had reached for it he had moved my hand away.
“I don’t want to disappoint you,” he had explained.
As if that could have possibly happened. He had brought me to multiple orgasms until I had been little more than a clinging, quivering mess. Now I completely understood the hype.
“But I want to please you too,” I had whined.
“You do, baby,” he had reassured me tenderly. “I swear you do.”
“Did you…” I had stumbled. “I mean…”
“When you’re kissing me,” Luke had helped. “Especially on my chest, but everywhere really, I get this sensation, like an ocean wave coming over me, only it’s warm and it feels good. It feels wonderful.”
Perhaps that should be enough, but I still wanted to touch his manhood, wanted to feel it inside of me again even if he wasn’t able to drive it there on
his own. I supposed it was a joining thing, something about our bodies locking together in this primal sacred way. I had read enough to know that Luke probably couldn’t ejaculate anymore, so I wasn’t worried about getting pregnant, and besides I had an IUD now. I was just greedy and wanting everything. But I wouldn’t rush it. I’d bide my time and have every single bit of him when he was ready to give it to me. I couldn’t bear the thought of his manhood, or rather this most basic symbol of it, being left out of our lovemaking forever.
“Even though my children have fur,” I now playfully deferred. “I do have parental responsibilities. Their little kibble bowls are probably pretty empty by now. And the litter box is—”
“Got it,” Luke laughed, holding up his hands to stop me. “No need for details.”
“But I could come back later,” I offered—hopefully.
He wheeled his chair closer and kissed me, and I savored the taste of the Kenyan dark roast on his tongue.
“The Grecian Urn for dinner?” he suggested, slipping his hand underneath the pajama shirt to fondle my naked breast.
With the wheelchair I supposed his hands could never be soft again, but then again perhaps a man’s shouldn’t be. Luke’s hands were hard and warm, and my breathing changed. Agatha and T-T would be okay until lunchtime. They’d just have to be because I was the one starving again. I would plan better for them next time. Next time. It was already the next time.
“Can’t you make us grilled salmon like before?” I countered as my dark walls throbbed in hot anticipation. “I’ll bring the wine.”
“And something suitable for church tomorrow?” he wanted to know, pulling me to sit in his lap.
Walk on Water Page 16
