Shades of Obsession

by L J Hadley

  Shades of Obsession

  L J Hadley

  Shades of Obsession

  © 2012 L J Hadley

  Cover by Kim Van Meter

  Cover Photograph © istockphoto 000006819829

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Intro

  ‘It takes six to nine days for a bruise to fade.’

  Luke has carried me to the bath he has run and I sit spent, shaking and reeling as, very gently, he washes me intimately, inserting his fingers, soaping me, removing his scent.

  I do nothing.

  I feel like a rag doll.

  Astounded at what has taken place.

  The things he did.

  But it’s Luke, I remind myself and I always let him do anything.

  He pulls the plug and lifts me out.

  I stand and he dries me and then, in a matter of fact way, he dresses me.

  He takes a bra and panties from my drawer and then walks me to the bed and he puts on my blouse and does it up, then he slides on my panties so they are around my knees and he does the same with my skirt, then pulls me to a stand and zips my skirt and then he walks me to my bedside table and that’s when he say it. ‘It takes six to nine days for a bruise to fade.’ He opens my jewellery box and selects my watch.

  I haven’t worn a watch in years.

  He slides it onto my wrist and it covers the bruise and I pick up a thick bracelet that Rick bought me for Christmas one year.

  Is there guilt as I pull it on to hide the other bruise?

  Not yet.

  Is there shame?

  Soon.

  Luke has taken me back to the edge, but it’s a different edge than it was all those years ago.

  And that was just the start he promised - there is so much more to learn, he has told me – there is so much that I don’t know.

  I am too naïve, Luke has always told me that I am.

  I don’t feel that way anymore.

  ‘Look.’ He lifts my chin and I look at myself in the mirror. My blonde hair is in knots and messy, my face is still flushed and I need to sort out my make up before I go to pick up the twins but, apart from that, I’m almost back to who I was just a couple of hours ago.

  On the outside.

  I look like Portia – the perfect wife, the doting mum, right arm woman to the school principal.

  The image in the mirror doesn’t equate with how I feel on the inside, nor what just went on in this room.

  And then Luke turns my face to his.

  He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen.

  His hair is as black as night, his skin so pale and he truly is beautiful.

  He always has been.

  Dangerous my mother called him.

  Bad for me, my father said.

  He was all those things and so much more.

  I was warned, I was told and, a long time ago I listened, I conformed.

  But now he’s back in my life and the stakes are much higher this time– and he is bad for me, he is dangerous.

  I could lose everything to his hand.

  I feel sick as to what just occurred, guilt comes in then and so too does shame and I want him gone, I want my head back, my normal life to return, but then he tells me that I am beautiful, in a way that no-one else can, and then he kisses me.

  It is a kiss that claims my mouth, which hushes my racing thoughts, that stems the guilt that is flooding in.

  It is a kiss that is tender.

  I feel myself buckle again, I am back to being his and there’s nothing I can do. I went through the withdrawals for months, no years and I’m back to addicted again. I feel the flood come back to my bones, to my veins, to my sex, as Luke kisses me back to him.

  And do I crave the woman I was two days ago? Do I want to go back to how it was before he came back into my life? Do I crave the safe, seemingly perfect existence my husband has so carefully created.

  No.

  In Luke’s arms I am honest.

  I crave Luke.

  I crave this, I crave all we could have had, but more than that, I crave all that he is going to teach me.

  Chapter One

  Before …

  I have my earphones in as I jog.

  I take the same route everyday.

  Before Rick gets up.

  Before the twins awake.

  It’s my hour and I need it. Just the pavement and my music - just an hour that’s mine before I start my day.

  It’s still dark and, as I turn the corner, I look up at the hill I will soon tackle with paced ease. I stop for a moment and have a drink from my water bottle and take out my earphones, as I do each morning, to listen and watch the breaking day.

  The same but different each morning.

  This morning the sky is a dark navy and I stare up and into it and I want to climb up into it, I want it to lift me away from here, but I can’t think like that, so I gulp some more water.

  Where are the birds?

  Normally they are deafening but this morning they are silent, maybe I’m early, but I don’t think so.

  I remember reading that the birds leave before an earthquake, or is it after?

  I want there to be one.

  I want the ground to open up and swallow me into it. I want the earth to split and crack and for something to give because I can’t go on like this for much longer.

  Except, for the twins sake, I have to.

  I have to survive this until they are eighteen.

  Somehow, I have to survive.

  I break into a run, which is not part of my routine; it cannot be a part of my routine.

  It was once.

  I used to run at every chance, I would get up and run at five am, and then do it again a few hours later - I needed the lactic acid burn and I need it now, I know that I shouldn’t, but it’s more that I have to - I am running from myself, from my life.

  Five years and nine months till I can leave him.

  I count in my head as I pound the pavement, as I pick up pace and my muscles fire, properly fire, for the first time in years.

  Sixty nine months.

  The world moves faster when I’m running - maybe I can speed up my life? Maybe I can break the monotony by breaking the sound barrier. It’s all there, just faster - I nod to the man who walks his dog and there’s that car again, with its engine idling, the driver just sitting waiting, for whoever it is to come out. All is the same as it always is, just faster.

  I regret running though, not because it’s dangerous for me, more because I’m back at my house too soon and for a moment I think about not going in, that I could just keep on running.

  But I don’t.

  I get in the house and I am breathless –I kick off my runners and climb the stairs, I step into my bedroom and Rick’s still asleep.

  I run my shower as I strip off and then I step in and wash quickly and dress - maybe I can have a cup of coffee on my own before Rick gets up?

  ‘Portia…?’ he rolls over as he starts to wake, he sort of feels the bed, he’s heard me, he’s half asleep and I stand in our bedroom and freeze. I don’t want him to know that I’m in here, I want him to think I’m still out jogging.

  It’s been two weeks since we had sex and I know that he wants it.

  It, not me.

 
They’re two very different things.

  I know I can’t avoid it much longer, I know it will be tonight.

  I hate it.

  I hate that this is what it comes down to, me tiptoeing out of the bedroom just to avoid sex with the man I’ve been married to for thirteen years.

  I hate sex.

  But I didn’t used to.

  There’s a stir of a memory that I cannot visit, a pull low in my stomach that I felt when I looked to the sky and I simply can’t go there.

  I cannot let myself remember.

  Not yet.

  But I can feel it building.

  I try to ignore it.

  I wake the twins and I get on with my morning and I smile when Rick comes downstairs and I make him his coffee. ‘I won’t come home after school, I’ll just see you there.’ He’s all showered and shaven and wearing a suit because today’s his big day – a nice massage for his already overinflated ego - it’s the monthly PTA and they’re asking for nominations to be on the committee.

  ‘Make sure you get everything on the list…’ He reminds me.

  ‘Of course.’ I smile, but inside I’m bracing myself for his next words - and bring the receipts.

  ‘And bring the receipts.’

  So he can check them.

  He checks everything.

  I want to throw his coffee in his face, but I just pass it to him.

  I just do my best to get through my morning.

  You guys are the reason I am here, I think to myself as I drive them to school. I chat to Gina for a bit and then head to the hairdressers so that I look nice for the PTA meeting tonight and then I head to the shops.

  Monotony is my routine.

  The store is quiet and I test a lipstick on the back of my hand – it’s a red lipstick and not one that I’d usually wear.

  I’m beige and neutral.

  I glance at myself in the display mirror, I see my long, freshly washed blonde hair and yes, I look nice.

  Rick likes me to always look nice.

  He likes our house to look nice and the garden to be well maintained. I have to keep myself well maintained too - he complains if I gain a couple of pounds, we have an image to maintain, he reminds.

  And so I maintain it.

  I just don’t know that I can for much longer. There is an anxiety building in me, one that says I can’t wait till the children finish school, that I can’t maintain the façade for much longer.

  I stare in the mirror and I see my green eyes dart as the ever present panic starts to build – I want to smear the red-lipstick on, I want to go over the edges, I am gripped with a need for escape but every exit is blocked by Rick….

  But there has to be something for me.

  There has to be…

  I see glitter return to my eyes and then I look out to the aisles.

  I know what I want, I know what I am going to do, but I can’t risk it again.

  I mustn’t.

  Yet, somehow I know that I will.

  I am already there! I am caught up in the rush and there is no stopping me now.

  I put the lipstick back and push my full trolley along the aisle.

  There is no-one around and I move to the condom display and I stand for a moment as if carefully choosing – I pick up a tube of lube and then put it back and then another, only this time I pick up two.

  Only one is returned to the shelf.

  It’s for me, this is for me, just me.

  I’m about to turn, to go, my heart is pounding right up to my throat, I want to get home, I want to be home so that I…

  ‘I have a suggestion.’

  I hear a very deep voice and I still, just at the sound of him, just as the very male scent of him reaches me. But it can’t be him I tell myself… my imagination is playing overtime and, given where I’m standing, it’s probably some perve.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ I don’t look over my shoulder, instead I take my trolley and make to walk off, but he halts me then, his fingers are very firm and tight on the top of my arm, they’re hurting in fact – and I know then it is him, he’s the only one who has ever touched me like that.

  ‘Drop it.’

  Does he even know that it’s me?

  Does he even care?

  I turn to navy eyes, to the sky that this morning I wanted to climb into, to the memories I would have allowed myself to visit this afternoon.

  It’s been fourteen years since I’ve seen him and he was beautiful then, but he’s even more so now.

  He’s taller, his shoulders are broader, he’s dressed in a dark suit and tie, he is so immaculate and groomed and grim faced that he might just as well have come from a funeral.

  I thought that he’d come from a funeral the day I first met him.

  He said that he felt as if he had.

  I remember standing by the lake, I remember my tears and the hopelessness I felt, and then there was his hand on my arm, just as it is now - he stopped me that day, he saved me that day and from that moment my heart has belonged to him.

  I take in the changes, but they are all good ones – time has served him well. There is not a flicker of silver in his jet black hair, his eyes that familiar dark navy and the only thing unkempt about him is that he hasn’t shaved. He pulls me a touch closer to him and I get more of the scent of him - he’s doused in expensive cologne but beneath that there’s the smell of male that my body recognizes and it flares in instant response.

  ‘Luke.’ It is the name that lives on the tip of my tongue, a name I have swallowed down for so long, he is my past and now he is he here.

  ‘Put it back.’ His voice is low and his eyes are holding mine.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He doesn’t even seem to know that it’s me.

  ‘Put it back or I’ll let the store know.’ He opens his jacket and I see his ID.

  Detective Luke Masters.

  A detective – I would never have pictured him as that, there is so much about him I don’t know, but then I guess he would never have pictured me as the school principal’s wife, as a mother of twins, there is so much that has changed since that time.

  He looks down at the jacket sleeve I am holding closed with my fingers and I stand there mortified, not because of what I’ve done, I am mortified at the sight of a ring on his finger - my face is scalding, my eyes are filling, I want to spit, I want to scream, jealousy spikes in my throat

  ‘Three choices.’ I just stand there - I can feel his eyes scan my face, I feel them linger on my burning cheeks and then on my tongue as it bobs out to moisten my lips. ‘You can drop it this minute, or I can march you down to security, or…’ I feel his eyes on my neck as I swallow. ‘I can cuff you now and we can miss out the middle man and I take you straight down to the station…’

  It’s not just the adrenaline at being caught, nor just the grip of him, or his warm breath in my ear, but so easily his words arouse - I can feel the moisture in my panties and the stretch of my breasts as they peak beneath my top and I want to turn, I want his mouth on me, I want him again.

  ‘The last one.’

  Except it doesn’t move him, he doesn’t respond to my tease, instead he stares at me with disgust.

  ‘Let it go…’ He warns.

  I loosen my fingers and he shakes my arm a little, and we watch as the long, smooth tube of lube falls into my palm.

  He runs an eye over my trolley, it is full – bursting with nice things, there’s camembert cheese, wine, olives, all the ingredients for the nice middle class housewife that I am.

  I put the tube back on the shelf. ‘Aren’t you going to pay for it?’

  ‘I can’t pay for it.’ I flare - angry not at him, but at the joke my life is, that everything I spend is relegated to a spreadsheet, that there isn’t even petty cash.

  ‘You need to be careful, Portia.’ I feel my throat tighten as he acknowledges now that he knows me, that he remembers our past. ‘Don’t take risks…’

  But I want to
take risks.

  I don’t say that, I just stand there and I can feel my nose burn as tears rush in and I’m angry at him now, angry at the man who stands here, who once knew me but no longer seems to understand me. ‘Isn’t that the whole fucking point of shoplifting?’ I hurl.

  I’m in this mad, dangerous place, before guilt rushes in, before shame, before I panic as to what I’ve just done. I’m still riding the rush of adrenaline that gripped me at the lipstick counter, then heightened as his hand tightened on me, I’m still in the place where consequences don’t matter. ‘Just arrest me if you’re going to.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I beg – what are you doing coming back into my life? ‘Luke?’ I have to know, but he doesn’t answer my questions..

  He never did.

  ‘Just be more careful.’

  And then he’s gone.

  I am shaking as I go through checkout, even as I pay my legs are trembling and it has nothing to do with being almost caught stealing. My eyes scan the people, I am desperate in my search for him, I am standing by the bakers and I want Luke, I want him to take me by the arm really firmly and march me somewhere, anywhere, the way he once used to.

  Except he’s nowhere.

  I load my shopping in to the car, still breathless with anticipation, still waiting for the touch of his hand, but he’s gone. I drive the short distance home and then unload the boot and it’s the same old, same old, except it’s not, I’ve seen Luke – that’s why the birds were quiet, the earthquake has hit and he’s back in my life, but I don’t know where.

  I hear the phone and I answer it.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Rick asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You sound upset.’

  ‘I’m not.’ I tell him. ‘I’m just busy.’ I hear the pause, because I don’t know what busy is apparently. ‘I’ve been shopping.’

  ‘Did you get the stuff for the PTA?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘On separate receipts?’

  ‘Yes.’

  God….

  ‘I need you to go and get a cake,’ Rick says and he explains that it’s his secretary’s birthday and, of course, he forgot.