Indulgence (149 page)

I shrug to myself. “I don’t know. Maybe he was waiting to
get my insurance money.”

“So he took out an insurance policy on you?”

“No. But maybe he was going to.”

A huge sigh comes out of the phone. “Do you hear how
ridiculous you sound now?”

“Oh, now I sound ridiculous. Thanks. Thanks a lot.” I can
feel the anger leaving me and a big ball of hurt and exhaustion taking its
place. “I need to go. I’ve got to get some rest. I’ve got a flight back
tomorrow and I’m going to have to move back to my house.”

“Promise me you’ll talk to him. And get some professional
help. I think you need it.”

“I’ll think about it.” And just like with Jasper and Leona
and Melissa, I hang up on him.

Weird shadows fall on the ceiling and walls during the
night, and the quiet is interrupted off and on by people laughing or yelling,
or a dog barking, or a car horn. I lie awake in the dark, staring at the
ceiling, and listen to my phone buzz. I turned off the ringer, but it keeps
vibrating with every call, and I know who it is. I finally start listening to
some of his voicemails.

“Kimmie, baby, please, I don’t know what’s going on, but
whatever it is, we can fix it. I love you, Kimmie. Please come on home. I love
you. Bye.” I hit DELETE and go to the next one.

“Kimmie, it’s me. I just talked to Melissa. I can’t believe
you think I was plotting to do something to you or get some kind of weird
revenge. Have I ever hurt you? I’ve never hurt you, baby. Please come home and
we can straighten all of this out. Please? I love you so much, baby girl. Call
me back, please? Bye.” Once again, DELETE.

The next one takes me by surprise – a little. “Kimmie, baby,
I called Meredith and we talked. Honey, she didn’t know I was engaged to Phil’s
ex-wife any more than I knew she was married to your ex-husband. Neither of us
knew. Baby, please come home. It hurts me to know that you think I’d do
something like that to you. What have I ever done to make you think I’d do
something like that? What? I’ve never done anything. Look, you don’t have to
stay here. You can stay with Michael and his wife until we get this worked out,
okay? But please come home. I miss you. Please?” His voice breaks as he says,
“You’re the most important thing in my world. I just want to hold you and kiss
you and make everything all right. I’ll be waiting here for you. I love you,
Kimmie. Bye.” And again, I hit DELETE.

And if I thought that one was a surprise, the next one blows
me away. “Is this Kimberly Hendricks? Kimberly, this is Meredith Renzada. I
just wanted you to know that I’ve talked with Jasper. First, you need to know
that after what happened between us, it took a lot to get him to call me and
talk to me, but he did, and he’s very broken up about whatever this is that you
think is going on. The things that happened between us were a long time ago,
and I was very sick. I’ve had a lot of therapy and a lot of treatment and I’m
doing very well. But I wanted you to know that I had no idea he was engaged to
Phil’s ex-wife, I mean, you. Well, you’re Phil’s ex-wife. But you know what I
mean. Look, I don’t know what you think was going on, but neither of us knew
who the other was involved with. So please, talk to him. He didn’t do anything
wrong, really. I wish you’d stayed at Phil’s visitation. I would’ve loved to
meet you. Melissa says lovely things about you. Well, okay then. Sorry to
bother you. I hope the two of you work this out. Goodbye.” I start to erase it,
but it’s Meredith fucking Renzada, the soap opera star. No one will believe me
if I tell them.

The darkness is like a big, fluffy blanket, hiding me from
the world and keeping the world away from me. I try to sleep, but I can’t. I
just lie there in my cocoon, waiting for dawn, so I can go back to Chicago and
face my ruined life.

When I get back to town, I go straight to my little house. I
don’t want to talk to anybody or see anybody. I don’t even go to the workshop
the next day. After cancelling every appointment I had, I just hide out. Jaz
tries to call me several times during the day; matter of fact, everybody does.
I guess no one understands that my brain is overtaxed and I can’t deal with
anything. Even a conversation seems too hard. I just lie in bed and wish I
could die.

The next day, halfway through the day, someone knocks on my
front door and I go to it and yell through, “Who is it?”

“Kimmie, baby, please, let me in?”

“No. Go away.”

“Kimmie, I have a key. I could . . .”

“And I’ll call the cops, I swear I will.”

“Baby, please, just talk to me?”

“Not yet. I need you to go away.” I wait, and then I hear
the sound of a car starting and pulling away. I look out the window over the
sofa to see his car leaving. I think about what it feels like when he holds me
and I want him so much, but I can’t trust him now. Maybe no one else knew
anything about this, but he certainly did. Maybe he acted alone. That makes no
difference. It’s still just as bad, and my heart’s just as broken.

The following day, he calls three times; the next, twice.
Finally, on the fourth day after the trip, he doesn’t call at all. I breathe a
huge sigh of relief, and I start to wonder what will happen when I sit down and
talk to him finally. I know he’s waiting for that. I’m feeling better and
stronger, and not quite so afraid of him. He hasn’t come over and tried to
knock down my door or anything. To me, that’s a sign that he knows I’m onto him
and I won’t take any shit from him.

Several days pass without a call, and I decide it’s about
time that we talked – at Michael and Robyn’s, of course. I don’t want to be
alone with him. That’s not going to work. While I put away my work for the day,
I make the decision to call Michael when I get home and see if we can arrange
for a meeting the next evening. I stop and pick up a sandwich on my way home
and then head in for a quiet night. And when I open the front door, I get a big
surprise.

My things. Everything I had over at Jaz’s is there in the
living room. It’s all neatly packed in boxes and stacked there. On top of it is
a note:

I hope this is everything. After I lock the door, I’ll
put the key in the pot holding the marigolds. If anything is missing, have
Michael call me and I’ll take it to him. You can keep the ring.

Jaz

Something twists in my gut, and I call Michael’s cell. When
he answers it, instead of saying hello, he just says, “Before you say a word,
let me just say that I support his decision.”

“Michael, what the hell’s going on?”

He sighs. “He called me last night and told me he couldn’t
be with someone who thinks of him what you do. I guess all your stuff is
there?”

“Yes.” My voice sounds hollow in my ears.

“That’s what I thought. He tried to talk to you, Kimmer. He
wanted to talk to you. You accused him of some horrible things and just shut
him out, and I don’t think he could handle that. I don’t blame him for feeling
that way. He loves you, but he doesn’t want to be treated like that.”

“I was planning to call you tonight, ask if we could come
over to your place tomorrow night and talk. Maybe if I call him . . .”

“I don’t think it’ll do any good. You can try, but I don’t
think so.”

My heart is about to pound out of my chest and I’m getting
lightheaded. This was not what I thought was going to happen – at all. I
thought we’d meet, talk, maybe iron it out, maybe not, but he’d at least try,
and maybe he’d confess what his plan had been so I’d know what his intentions
were. “I’m calling him now, Michael. If we meet, can we do it there?”

“Sure. Let me know.”

“Thanks.” My hands are shaking so hard that I can barely
hold the phone, and for the first time I find myself thinking,
Maybe I
overreacted.
I hit his contact and it rings long enough that I’m pretty
sure it’s going to voicemail before he finally says, “Hello?”

“Jaz?”

“Yes?”

I wait. That’s all he says. I thought he’d start asking me
to talk to him, to come home, to believe him, but he says nothing else. “Um,
Jaz, I was going to call Michael tonight and ask him if we could meet at their
house tomorrow night to talk.”

Just as evenly and matter-of-factly as I’ve ever heard, he
says, “No. But thanks anyway.”

No, but thanks anyway?
“Listen, I just needed some
time to think about everything and . . .”

“Kimberly.” I stop dead in my tracks. He hasn’t called me
that in forever, and I know the next sound I hear will be the other shoe
dropping. “I needed some time to think about everything too. And I came to the
conclusion that I don’t want to be with somebody who would believe those kinds
of horrible things about me. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

“But Jaz, you have to understand, that’s an awfully big
coincidence and I couldn’t . . .”

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t do that, be with somebody who might
think that kind of thing about me. You wouldn’t even talk to me. You just
pushed me away. I’m sorry. If you think of anything else you’ve left behind,
like I said in the note, just let Michael know. He’ll tell me and I’ll get it
to you through him.”

His tone, the passivity of it, the detachment in it, lets me
know that I’ve committed a grievous error. Trembling and in little more than a
whisper, I croak out, “I love you, Jaz.”

“I love you too. But I can’t be in a relationship like that.
So it’s over. You’re welcome to the ring, and I’m sorry everything turned out
this way. I was looking forward to a lifetime with you. I hope you find someone
you can love and trust in ways you couldn’t love and trust me. Goodbye,
Kimberly.”

“But Jaz, I . . .” And the phone goes dead in my hand.

A feeling of dread unlike anything I’ve ever known winds
around my body. What have I done? What was I thinking?

I make a decision to go over there, so I grab my purse and
run to the car. When I knock on the door, no one comes at first, so I knock
again. After the third round of knocking, the door opens.

He’s standing there in those worn jeans and a Cubs
tee-shirt, barefoot. Instead of the Jaz I know, this one is pale and drawn, and
his eyes are sunken and dark. He just stands there, door open, arm resting on
the facing as he blocks the doorway. After a little bit of fidgeting, I quietly
ask, “Can I come in?”

“No.” I start to say something, but he interrupts.
“Kimberly, there’s nothing to say. There’s no reason for you to be here.”

Without thinking, I reach for him, but I almost gasp when he
backs away, a horrified look on his face. “Jaz, please . . .”

“Please, call me Jasper. And no. Don’t touch me. This is
over. I’m sorry it has to be this way.” With that, he closes the door in my
face.

All I can do is stand there in stunned silence. It’s over.
If he’d been planning something dreadful for me, he wouldn’t have handed over
everything I had here. Yes, I overreacted. I was so afraid, so shocked and
terrified, that I let my imagination run away with me. But the emotions I’m
experiencing now are even more terrifying. I can’t even draw a breath – my heart
and lungs are just frozen. I’ve thrown away the love of my life, a man who
never did anything but love me and try to please me. All I wanted was a little
time to think things through.

Looks like I waited a little too long.

*****

I have to go to the courthouse for Angus’s arraignment, but
he pleads guilty, so there’ll be no trial. I look around to see if Jaz is
there, hoping he’d at least come to support me, but he’s nowhere to be found.
At least I know where Angus is and that he won’t be bothering me.

At Michael’s insistence, I find a counselor. I had no idea
how much damage Phil had done, and I’m still paying for the way he treated me.
It hadn’t been obvious to me before, but now I see that, for all my yearning to
move forward, his verbal abuse and neglect held me back and made me afraid and
paranoid. Jaz never offered me anything but truth and love, and something
inside me didn’t want to see that; it couldn’t trust. Exposing his worst
behavior was what I was seeking, and I couldn’t make that happen, so I let my
imagination run away with me. All I could do was be fearful that history would
repeat itself. And it has. Unfortunately, this time, to my shame, it’s totally
my fault.

And it’s come back with a vengeance, that need to hurt. I’ve
been afraid to go to the club for fear I’ll run into Jaz; even so, I can’t hold
out anymore. I need it so badly that I can’t think.

For the first time since I met Jaz, I scene with someone
else. Alexander is handy, and I tell him what I need. His point of negotiation
is simple: He gives me the pain I need, and I give him the sex he wants. Hell,
why not? No reason why that can’t happen. After working me over with a stiff
flogger, he takes me to a private room and fucks me like I’m just a dog. After
he’s fucked my pussy until he’s come, he fucks my ass for another thirty
minutes. Even though I’m not sure I can take it, the pain and degradation are
welcome. And that’s okay. I deserve whatever I get.

But during the scene, I turn my head, gasping in pain, and
there he is. When our eyes meet, the agony I see in those brown ones pierces my
gut just as Alexander is lashing me so hard that I can’t breathe. Then Jaz does
the one thing that crushes my heart – he shakes his head ever so slightly and
just walks away. It’s final confirmation that what we had is gone, pulverized
like old bones and blown into the wind. When Alexander releases me and drags me
toward the private room, I silently pray that whatever he does to me, it’ll
kill me. Going on is something I don’t really want to do.

Striped and aching, I leave the private room for the
dressing area and pull on my jeans and an old tee. The cotton of the shirt is
abrasive on my raw skin, and something trickles down my back. Blood? I don’t
care, really don’t. What happens to me now doesn’t matter.