Heaven and Hell (24 page)

I expected him to blow, my body braced and I
winced, preparing for it.

But when his voice came, it was soft, gentle
but still velvet rough.

“Talk to me, baby.”

I stopped wincing and looked into his
eyes.

Then I told him the truth.

“You don’t need this drama.”

“Kia –”

I cut him off. “Luci doesn’t either.”

And she didn’t. Neither of them did.

God.

God!

I ran away from the table like the
fraught heroine in a romantic comedy.

How humiliating.

“Don’t worry about that shit; tell me what’s
in your head.”

“Sam –”

“What’s in your head?”

“I can’t –”

His face got closer. “Tell me. What’s in
your head? Tell me everything that’s goin’ through your head.”

“I’m unclean,” I blurted and his head
jerked.

Then he asked, “What?”

“Sam,” I shook my head, “just let me
go.”

“Kia –”

“
Just let me go!
” I shrieked, losing
it, tearing out of his arms, taking four quick steps back, I yanked
my bag off my shoulder and threw it on the bed.

He started toward me but I lifted up a hand
as if to fend him off and he stopped.

“He hit me,” I whispered, it just came out
and I watched Sam’s body go rock solid but I couldn’t stop the
words flowing so they kept coming. “He backhanded me and he did it
so often, I had a scale, how bad it was, I’d rate it. My head
whipped to the side that was a one. He took me to the floor that
was a ten. And that was the worst because if I hit the floor, more
often than not, he’d kick me.”

Sam didn’t move, not an inch, not a twitch,
his eyes didn’t even leave me.

“He wore steel toed boots to work.”

Sam moved then, or at least the muscle in
his cheek did.

He knew what I was saying.

“I tried to leave, six times, Sam, and
never, not once, did I call Mom or Dad, Kyle, Missy, Paula, Teri.
Even Ozzie. What was the matter with me?”

“Kia –”

“They would have helped.”

“Kia –”

“It was like, like…” I shook my head and
threw up my hands, “like I didn’t actually
want
to
leave.”

“I need to come to you,” Sam said gently but
I shook my head again.

“No.” I took another step back, compounding
the denial and kept right on talking. “I… he… he’d get mad when I
left and he… it was bad when he got me back, Sam. I learned. I
learned not to leave. And he was mean and not just mean to me. I
mean
mean.
I tried to figure it out, what changed in him,
why he wasn’t who I dated in high school. He was always cocky but
he was never mean. But, after he got kicked out of college because
his grades were so bad and we got married and life wasn’t so easy,
he wasn’t the glory boy anymore, he had to work at things; he got
mean. And I worried he’d do shit like slash their tires or get them
in trouble at work or follow them, mess with them, freak them out.
My Mom had a heart valve replacement, like, seven years ago. She’s
okay now but it was scary before we figured out what was wrong. She
couldn’t take that. Teri and Missy are single. Paula only got
married last year and Rudy would never let anything hurt her, not
ever but that wasn’t… she hadn’t started with him until I… until
after I gave up.”

“Baby –”

I kept talking, fast, my breath coming
faster, speaking right over Sam.

“He had this guy, at work, he hated him.
God, he
obsessed
about him. Everyone liked this guy,
especially Cooter’s boss. It drove Cooter wild. Just wild. He
started messing with him. Screwing around with his car. Doing crazy
shit. God, he’d come home, tell me what he did, I couldn’t believe
it, it was so crazy but he giggled himself sick. He loved it. Every
minute of it. Then there was an accident at work and the guy got
hurt. It was bad. So bad, he’s on Disability now, he hasn’t worked
since. Cooter never said anything to me but he calmed down after
that and I don’t think it was just because the guy wasn’t around. I
think it was because he
made
the guy not
be
around. I
couldn’t do that to my family. My friends.”

“No, honey, that’s understandable,” Sam said
softly, moving a step toward me but I took a step back and he
stopped.

“But all of them, Sam, I could have rallied
all of them. I see that now. These past couple of days, it’s come
to me. They were there to help. Some of them even
told me
they were there if I needed them and they told me this because they
knew
I needed them. It was hurting them, watching him
tearing away parts of me. And, now, looking back, I know he
couldn’t have taken them all on. Especially if I talked to Ozzie.
Ozzie knew. Ozzie has seen a lot in his life, his job. I knew he
knew what was happening to me. I should have talked to Ozzie. He
would have helped me.”

“You weren’t thinkin’ then, you were scared
and protecting them and yourself.”

I shook my head. Closed my eyes then opened
them and looked at him.

“He was my only lover and he made me
unclean.”

“Kia, we don’t know –”

“You fuck me, you fuck him and I can’t have
that for you. I can’t do that to you. So I can’t have you.”

His face changed, like an understanding, it
washed over his features leaving a beautiful warmth in its wake but
it didn’t penetrate even when he whispered, “Baby, that’s
crazy.”

“He contaminated me and he can’t contaminate
you.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We know.”

His head cocked to the side. “You know?”

“I don’t know how many women he’s been with.
It could be dozens. But it doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “It
doesn’t matter.” He melted as the tears filled my eyes because it
hit me and when it hit me it crushed me. “He’s already contaminated
me.”

The weight of this knowledge was so heavy,
my legs gave out but I didn’t hit the floor. Sam caught me in his
arms, I was up then we were both down on the bed, Sam cradling me
and I burrowed closer, sobbing into his chest.

“That’s right, honey, get that shit out,”
Sam murmured into the top of my hair and my body bucked with
another sob.

He cradled me closer and held me for a long
time because I cried for a long time. Then finally, the tears came
slower and I lay in his arms, held close, tight and sniffling.

“Took it too fast, movin’ on you, takin’ you
to bed. Fucked up, mentioning that shit to you,” he muttered like
he was talking to himself, his hand moving soothingly on my
back.

I lifted my hand, dragged my fingers across
my cheek, stared at his shirt and mumbled, “You should really
go.”

His hand stopped moving and both arms closed
around me as he asked, “What?”

“You should go.”

“Where?”

“Away from me.”

“Kia –”

I sucked in breath, lifted my head and
looked at him. “I’m… you were right. He broke me and you need
–”

“I know what I need, baby, you don’t. Don’t
tell me what I need. Only I know.”

“Well
I
know it isn’t me.”

He held my eyes. Then he grinned.

Then he said gently, “Last night, I was
pissed and losin’ it. That woman, rude. Takin’ our time then up in
my space. She kept talkin’, I woulda said something that woulda
made her kid not like me so fuckin’ much. You moved right in,
sorted it out, got them what they wanted and us on our way. Been in
that position too many times, Kia. Not one woman standing by my
side has felt my patience go and stepped in for me. Not one woman…
except you.”

I stared at him, stunned at this news. I
mean, his hand got so tight in mine, how could his other women not
know and, well,
do something?

“Really?” I asked.

“Really,” he answered then went on quietly.
“You wore those shoes you’re wearin’ now the first time I saw
you.”

I felt my lips part.

He remembered.

Holy cow. He remembered my
shoes.

Sam’s eyes went to my mouth and he muttered,
“She gets it.”

“Sam –” I started but he immediately talked
over me.

“Silver shoes the second time I saw you,
blue dress.”

I closed my eyes.

I knew what he was saying.

He remembered everything about me.

“Gold when you went out with me.”

I opened my eyes and felt tears filling them
again as he kept right on going.

“Your Lake Como bud, Kia, baby, she didn’t
tell you about her kid because you remind her of her daughter. She
told you about her kid because you remind her of her daughter and
you are all she hoped her daughter would grow up to be. Beautiful,
funny, friendly, classy. I know why Luci liked you at first, you
looked good, pure class but effortless, not a wannabe; you looked
like what she thinks would fit me. I don’t know what you did to
take it beyond that but whatever it was, you did it. By the time I
got to you with the champagne, you had Luci. Not one woman I’ve
ever been with that she’s met has had her approval at all so
definitely not that soon.”

“But –”

His arms gave me a tight squeeze and he
shook his head.

“You did that, Kia,
you.
You talk
about your family and your friends and they’re loyal to you, it’s
obvious they love you and
you
inspire that. That fuckin’
asshole didn’t contaminate you.
He
was contaminated and I’ll
bet he wanted to contaminate you but I
know
he worked hard
at doin’ it. He looked at you, saw how gorgeous you are, how people
care about you and he knew, you woke up, you’d see he was the piece
of shit he was. So he had to drag you down so you’d never see him
for what he was, leave him behind and find what you deserve.”

“But… you and me, when we’re, uh… intimate
–”

His arms gave me another squeeze, pulling me
up his chest so we were face to face and turning me deeper into
him, tangling his long legs with mine.

Then he asked quietly, “All that you just
gave me, you haven’t told any of your crew that shit, have
you?”

I shook my head.

“Buried it.”

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

“Buried everything, didn’t deal, just
thought you could move on.”

There it was yet again. He figured me
out.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

One of his hands came up, his fingers
gliding around my ear, tucking my hair behind it as he said,
“Honey, shit like that, you can’t bury. You’ve gotta deal with it
and part of what you gotta deal with is,” his arm went back around
me and both closed tight, “that he stepped out on you and you gotta
be strong enough to face another possible consequence of him bein’
a piece of shit. It’ll probably be nothing but you gotta face it,
find out then put that behind you just like you need to face all
this shit before you put it behind you. You can’t bury it, you
gotta look right at it, see it for the shit it is, understand that
completely and
then
put it behind you.”

I stared into his beautiful face knowing he
was right. Knowing, as all this stuff came up and I couldn’t hold
it back, that I had to deal with it. I wanted to bury it but that
wasn’t working. So I had to face it.

And that sucked.

And I stared at his beautiful face and it
came to me for the first time since we lay in bed at Luci’s house
talking that this was Sampson Cooper.

And he could easily find a woman who was not
a total mess, crying in his arms, running through sidewalk eateries
like the fraught heroine of a romantic comedy, needing to get an
AIDS test because her dead husband was a piece of shit.

And that was why I whispered, “You really
should go.”

I watched his eyes flash before he muttered
softly but impatiently, “For fuck’s sake, Kia.”

“Sam, you’re
Sampson Cooper,
you can
find a woman who’s not a pain in the ass,
easy.
”

“Yeah?” he shot back. “Has it occurred to
you that I’m thirty-five and I haven’t?”

Actually, no. It hadn’t occurred to me.

Sam kept talking.

“I got the bitches who are very,
very
aware I’m Sampson Cooper. Last night, you told me you like Sam
Cooper better. Last night,
I
fucked you,
I
ate you
and you sucked
my
cock. Not them. They do not see Sam Cooper
because they don’t want Sam Cooper. They do not suck my cock; they
suck Sampson Cooper’s cock and tell all their friends about
it.”

Oh God. That stunk but I bet it was
true.

He kept going.

“Then I got the bitches who look good, dress
nice and think their shit don’t stink. They are not high
maintenance. They are not divas. They
define
both. They get
up and go to bed convinced the world revolves around them, even me.
They knock themselves out to do one thing, lead me around by my
dick like they have every other guy who’s taken a dip in their
pussy then they get pissed and seriously fuckin’ bitchy when they
can’t do that.”

That stunk too but I bet it was also
true.

Sam continued his litany of his experience
with the not so fairer sex.

“Then I got the bitches who play cat and
mouse, twistin’ themselves in knots to convince me I’m the cat when
I’m always the fuckin’ mouse. I’m not a mouse, Kia, no fuckin’ way.
That shit doesn’t fly with me.”

Hmm. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

I didn’t get the chance to decide, he went
on.

“Then I got the bitches who are so desperate
to keep their claws in me, the whole relationship is a sham. They
hide everything and show me nothin’ but what they think I want to
see. Some of ‘em are good, even I can’t see through them. Luci can,
but I can’t. Then they fuck up, they always fuck up, no one can
keep that shit up without eventually fuckin’ up and I see through
them and every fuckin’ second they spent with me is a lie because
they haven’t given themselves to me.” His hand tangled in my hair.
“Not you. Right off the bat, you’re shy, hesitant, you lay it out
about your husband and you’re honest that you know who I am. Then
you tell me you internet stalked me, your girl’s got a cutout of me
and you got a yappy dog. With you, for the first time in a long
fuckin’ time, maybe even all the way back to high school, I’m the
cat. You are not gettin’ this so I’ll lay it out, I like the
challenge and I like it because, even when you withhold from me, I
like what I see but when I break through, I see what I’ll get when
I finally get all of you. But even with this dance we got goin’,
baby, you are not lying, you are not pretending, you’re just you
and I’ve had a number of pains in the asses, I know when I find one
who’s gonna be worth it.”