by Jane New
“What happened?” she asked.
“He told me there was nothing wrong with me. Nothing they could fix, anyway.”
“But you’d been in a wheelchair for—how long? Seven years?”
Phillip nodded. “Exactly what I said to him. He gave me an address on the outskirts of the city. He said the people there could heal me.. He told me my disability was not in my body, and I needed to look at other ways.
“The place he sent me to was a temple of sorts. Not especially glamourous, like the temples on the postcards. Just a collection of quite humble wooden buildings. They ran meditation classes. I joined.”
He surprised her with a gentle kiss.
“Just picture it, Tracy. A successful London merchant banker, learning how to meditate. But I did it, I learned. It took a while, but I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.”
His random patterns became caresses.
“What I told you before, about acknowledging my part in Claire’s pain and eventual death, came out of this. Much more rose to the surface, like scum on a pond in summer. Deals I’d pushed through that perhaps weren’t quite right. The wife of a friend I didn’t treat well. The way I’d handled a business partner. The accumulated guilt of a lifetime.
“I let it all go, all the guilt, all the shame. I did what I did, and in some cases I will need to make reparations. In others I will ask for forgiveness. But I can’t change the past.”
His stroked her from breast to thigh.
“One day I meditated from before dawn until after sunset. I lost myself in a place, a state I’d never reached before. At the end of it, the monks helped me up from the floor and into my wheelchair. I sat in it. I felt the leather and the metal, how foreign the chair was, how alien. I knew it was no longer a part of me. “I stood up, and I walked a few steps.”
“Oh, Phillip.” Tears stung Tracy’s eyes.
“It wasn’t an easy process. I hadn’t walked for years. The first week was hell, like that fairy tale about the mermaid who grows legs so that she can be with the man she loves.”
Tracy stroked his arm, hoping her touch conveyed her understanding.
“Mrs. Jones. Tracy. I found one more thing, or person rather, in that place, that space I went to when I meditated. I found a woman. I realized I love her very much.”
He looked into her eyes.
“I found you, my darling girl. You were there—my wild, intense, exhibitionist, nympho lover, with all your crazy adventures and your over-the-top sexuality. You started my process of healing the first day we met, at your job interview. You seduced me, when that part of me had died.”
“Me?” she scoffed. She inched her thigh forward and felt the press of a growing hardness. “He sure as hell ain’t dead now!”
Phillip laughed. “You brought me back. All of me. You made my life worth living again.”
“But why this charade? The sexy room, the game with the masseur, hiding yourself away from me?”
“Because I am determined to be the best lover you’ve ever had. I wanted you so horny, so insanely randy, that when I did finally reveal myself the sex with me would be infinitely better than any you ever had before. I want every experience, every lover to fade into insignificance when you’re with me.”
“It did already. Sex with you has always been amazing.” Unshed tears blurred her vision. “And you went to all that trouble for me? But I’m ordinary! I’m Tracy Jones from Clapham, forty-six and a bit overweight, even if I am alright for my age.”
He stroked her cheek and kissed her lips. His tenderness took Tracy’s breath away.
“Tracy Jones, you are anything but ordinary. In fact, you’re the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met.”
He hesitated, suddenly shy, more like a teenager than the mature, confident man she was used to. He watched her almost as though he was scared she’d escape.
“Mrs. Jones, would you do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Browne? If you’re happy to change your name, that is?”
“You mean?” Tracy was sure she hadn’t heard him correctly. He couldn’t have said what she thought he said.
“Yes, darling girl. Say you’ll marry me. Stay with me, forever.”
Memories surged to the surface of Tracy’s mind. Her long, white lace dress, the prettiest thing she’d ever worn. The diaphanous veil drifting around her face while she clutched her bouquet in gloved hands. Mum in the front pew of the church, a huge grin on her face. Colin, his thick, dark hair brushed and tamed, a white carnation in the lapel of his hired suit. The happiest day of her life, she’d thought.
Her husband, the man she’d sworn to love for the rest of her life, had struck her two days after they’d come home from their honeymoon. She’d burnt the sausages she cooked for their dinner. After that incident she taught herself to be an excellent cook, but the blows didn’t stop. She wondered, many times, if he needed an excuse.
In the end she had survived, and Colin hadn’t. She wanted to shout, look at me now! On a tropical island with a wonderful man, a man any woman would be proud to stand beside.
Instead she stammered, “I… I don’t know. I’m sorry Phillip, I wasn’t expecting…”
Phillip kissed her quickly on the lips.
“I’m not thinking straight, Tracy, my love, forgive me. A little too carried away by the moment. Let’s go home to London. You can give me your answer there. There’s no hurry, no hurry at all.”
“Thank you Phillip.” Tracy stroked his face and looked into his wonderful brown eyes. “You do know I care for you deeply.”
“I’m just being old fashioned,” he replied and kissed her again. “In my day, when a man found a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he asked her to marry him. Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Phillip. I’m honored. I really am. Some bad memories, that’s all. Ancient history. Nothing that will get in the way of our happiness, I promise.”
“Then we must continue to live in sin, my delightful Mrs. Jones.” Phillip grinned and ran his hand up her thigh. “And speaking of sin, which one would you care to enjoy next?”
Author Bio
Jane New grew up in Tasmania, Australia. When she wasn’t at the beach or in the bush with a pack of neighborhood kids, she was reading. The highlight of her young life was the day she turned thirteen and satisfied the entry requirement for the adult section of the local library.
She discovered writing in her thirties and has published short stories, verse, and nonfiction articles in Australia. Bored with the depiction of romantic heroes and heroines as eternally young and beautiful, she wrote a brief erotic piece for a lover about a middle-aged couple. He liked it so much that he encouraged her to write more, and several of her short pieces have been published on various websites. She now has ten titles published by Cobblestone Press, with another two in the pipeline.
She dreams of a cottage near the sea where all she has to do is write, feed her cat, and have occasional lovers to stay the night. Purely for research purposes, of course.
www.JaneNewAuthor.com
