My mind is demanding that I do something to stop this, but my body is giving in to each stroke of his tongue. My thoughts and emotions crash against one another, my moans of pleasure battling against my pleas for him to stop. This isn’t what I wanted. I cover my face as best I can with my arms as his tongue delves deeper inside me. I try to inch away from him, and he grips my thighs tightly and pulls me to him. He goes more slowly, his pressure increasing, and my protests become shorter and inaudible. As my stomach tightens, he goes faster, and I can barely catch my breath. I give in completely, and as I feel myself building to a climax, my legs trembling, I think of when we first met—our first kiss. I try to block these things out and focus on the absolute pleasure my body is feeling—no emotion.
But my mind isn’t giving in. I see the night he proposed and our wedding day. Then suddenly, our first fight, the first time he left for days without calling. I see him walking out the door and me alone on the floor, and I envision getting a phone call from Dexter telling me he’s dead. At that moment, my body gives in, experiencing a pleasure that momentarily overwhelms these terrible thoughts.
My body recovers, and my legs stop trembling as an overwhelming sadness washes over me. I catch my breath and recover from the eerie visions weighing on me. Now, more than anything, I want him to hold me. I want that slow, sensual kiss he gave me a taste of earlier, but he just undoes the thong on my wrists, goes into the bathroom, and slams the door. I don’t know what to think or how to feel. I rub my wrists, which are now free, and wonder what happens next. Is he just going to walk out? Is he going to say anything? He’s angry, and I don’t know why he has any right to be angry. I put my T-shirt back on and hug my knees to my chest.
When he comes out, he leans in the doorway, his lips held between his teeth, arms folded. “That’s what you wanted, right?” he asks in a sardonic tone. He’s fully dressed again.
“What are you talking about?” I say, rubbing my temples, not wanting to look at him.
“To get off. That’s what you wanted from me. A last good fuck, right?” he snarls, grabbing his keys from the nightstand. I can’t believe he would say that to me.
“What? That wasn’t what I wanted!”
Deep down, I know it’s a lie. I didn’t want to feel him. I wanted to feel his body, and he was trying to take me to a place I couldn’t go. I wanted him to give me something—to not think about him, to get away from all this. I know it’s wrong, but he’s the one fucking leaving.
“Yeah. You wanted me to fuck you, but you couldn’t even look at me.” He laughs cuttingly, his hand resting on the back of his head.
I open my mouth to respond, but I have no valid comeback. “What do you want from me, Cal? What? You’re the one leaving. What do you want me to do? How do you want me to feel!” I demand, getting angrier by the minute.
“I wanted you to let me in.” He sounds so dejected, it makes my heart break.
Why is he doing this? Why is he trying to take me to a place I have to leave in order to move on? But I guess the reality is he didn’t need to take me to that place. I’m already there, living in it. Since the day I met him, I’ve been there, and he’s the only person I want to be there with me.
I swallow my pride and get off the bed. He’s hurt and can easily spurn me, but I still move toward him. When I reach him, he looks down at me, his hands now stuffed into his jeans. I place my hands on his chest and force myself to look at him. I know once I do, the flimsy wall I’ve tried to create around myself today is going to crumble. And when I look into his eyes, it does.
“You’re already in. You always have been, and you always will be,” I say, unable to imagine how he can’t know this already.
In the back of my mind, I wonder if this is a trick. Is this what he wanted to hear all along? Is this a card he can play, to know he can leave and waltz back into my life whenever he wants? Because he can’t not know how much I love him, how much I need him, and how much his leaving tears me apart. I feel as if my heart is being ripped out of my body.
“Promise me,” he says, and for only the second time in my life, I hear his voice sound unsteady and unsure.
I nod furiously and stand on tiptoe. I kiss him as he did me earlier—passionately, with controlled patience—and in return, he makes it so deep, it’s as if he’s pulling my soul from my body to take it with him. His hands slide beneath my shirt, and he removes it. I do the same, tugging at his, and soon our clothes are off and I’m back on the bed, this time with him fully inside me, connected. He doesn’t pin my arms over my head but allows me to dig my fingers deep into his skin as he takes me to places of ecstasy only he ever has. I take in his scent, his breath, his touch. I try to remember each of his kisses; I capture every single movement in my mind. I allow him to go as deep inside me as he wants, taking in the pain and the pleasure as one. I hold him tight. I say his name, and my body gives into him over and over again, as it always does, even knowing the danger in which I’m putting myself.
I tell him how much I love him and that I’d wait if he’d only ask… but he doesn’t. He’s done what I asked—put me to sleep. I can barely keep my eyes open, but now I try to fight the sleep that’s coming down on me so heavily, the kind I wished for earlier. I’m exhausted emotionally and physically. I look at Cal. He’s already asleep, and I lie as close to him as I can. My eyes are so heavy, but I don’t want them to close.
“Don’t give up on me.”
His words are quiet, barely over a whisper, and as quickly as they’re said, they’re gone. I wonder if I imagined them. I close my eyes and know that soon this night will only be a memory within a nightmare I want to forget. Now it’s only a dream. Still, I give him my heart and let him take it with him.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I can’t give him something he’s always had.
Chapter 11
April 22nd, 2010
I open my eyes and stretch out my body, noticing there’s more space in the bed than usual. I sit up and look around to see that I’m alone. “Cal?”
He’d better not have left me again. I hate being in his house alone. I especially hate waking up in his bed alone instead of in his arms. Looking out the window, I notice the sun has been replaced by darkness, which is interrupted by the surrounding city lights. I step out of bed and turn on the lamp in order to find my clothes. A piece of paper on the nightstand catches my eye. It’s a note from Cal asking me to come to the roof.
“What are you up to now?” I say to myself, a smile spreading across my face.
Quickly, I open one of his drawers and pull out a shirt to throw on instead of dragging around this stupid sheet. A brief glance in the mirror tells me my hair needs some help. My brush is nowhere to be found, so I shake my fingers through it to try to settle it back down. It’ll have to do.
I hear music playing as I make my way up the stairs. My eyebrows shoot up when I see candles lighting the way up the stairs and pink rose petals trailing the steps. When I finally make it up to the top, my mouth drops open. The entire roof is outlined with candles, and the ground is littered with rose petals.