The Kiss (26 page)

“It's all right, my love … it's all right… give it
time,” she whispered as he clung to her, and then she felt him pull away from her and turn away. He was devastated by not being able to make love to her. All Bill could think as he lay next to her was that he had failed, and nothing she could say altered that fact. He vowed to himself, as he held her close to him, that he would never try again. Despite her tenderness and her love for him, he felt humiliated and more despondent than he had since the accident. It was the worst day of his life. He was no longer a man. And nothing on earth, he told himself, would induce him to try again. And surely not with her.

“Put your clothes on,” he whispered to her, and she hesitated, wanting to do anything she could for him. But she could see how depressed he was, and any effort to please him, or comfort him, or caress or fondle him would only have upset him more. She slipped under the covers with him, and covered herself with the sheet as she lay close to him.

“It's all right, Bill,” she whispered tenderly. “It will happen eventually,” they both knew how deeply he felt for her, but he had wanted more than that, for both of them. “This is only the beginning,” she said, kissing him gently on the cheek and trying to take his hand in hers, but he pulled it away. He was fighting back tears, and all he wanted was to run away, and there was no chance of that.

“No, it's not the beginning,” he said angrily. He was furious with himself, not with her. “It's the end.” The end of his life as a man, as far as he was concerned.

“It's not the end of anything,” she said as she would
have to a child. “The doctor told you it could take time to get things going again.” But Bill was terrified his failure to perform was permanent. It would have been hard for any woman to imagine what his failure to make love to her represented to him. It was not something she could simply kiss away. All he could see ahead of him was a terrifying future without sex, and knowing that he could no longer function as a man. Like any other man, it had happened to him from time to time in his life, when he had been too tired, or too upset, too worried about politics, or when he had had too much to drink. But this had been his watershed, his epiphany, the first time he had ever made love to Isabelle. And after the accident, it had been, in his eyes, his one chance to prove that he was still a man, whether or not he could walk. What he had discovered changed everything for him, if not for her. Isabelle was understanding and decidedly calm about it. She was certain that it would work eventually. And even if not, she was prepared to accept whatever limitations he had, and love him anyway. It changed nothing for her, but it changed Bill's entire world. He was certain if he didn't recover his manhood, if not his legs, there was no way he could remain in her life. He had lost a lot that night, his self-respect, his self-esteem, his sense of his own masculinity, and all hope of any kind of a future with Isabelle, if his abilities were gone for good, which he feared they were. It would have seemed insane to her to come to those conclusions because of one failed attempt to make love to her. But Bill's fears were
overpowering. He was terrified it would mean the end of the road for them, although his inability to make love to her meant nothing to Isabelle. If anything, as a result, she loved him more, and felt infinite tenderness for him.

Chapter 11

Bill's spirits took a hard
hit after their failed attempt at making love. And although they continued to sleep in the same room, he was adamant about not trying again. He had risked all the humiliation he could bear, and Isabelle tried to encourage him to be optimistic, but she didn't force herself on him. She was careful not to, in fact. She was quiet and calm and supportive, and insisted, when he allowed her to talk about it, that with time and patience, his sexual abilities would very probably return. He had felt far too much, even during their brief attempt, to suggest that he would be forever numb. But Bill refused to accept even the remote possibility that there was hope for him. As far as he was concerned, the door to his life as a man was closed. He and Isabelle remained close to each other, and derived enormous comfort from each other, but he had no intention of trying to make love to her again.

As Bill and Isabelle grew even closer to each other emotionally, time seemed to move at an ever faster speed. The physical therapists were beginning to work with Bill, and Isabelle underwent a battery of tests, which covered everything from EEGs for brain function
to sonograms for her heart. Little by little, they were advancing in their recoveries, and they were increasingly aware that their days together would soon end. The accident had been a high price to pay to spend nearly two months together, but as time went on, they were almost beginning to feel married.

They sat in each other's rooms all day, he accompanied her for her tests, they read the newspaper and had breakfast together in the morning, and at night they slept in two hospital beds that had been placed side by side. The only thing missing from their conjugal life was sex, still a sore subject for him. Although even without a physical side to their relationship, Isabelle had never been happier in her life.

“I feel like I'm running a beach resort here,” one of the nurses teased amiably as they came back from sitting in the sun. Isabelle had had a headache that day, and they had done a brain scan on her before lunch, but the doctor said it looked fine. They were following her progress carefully, and she had done remarkably well. Gordon was pressing her about when she was coming home. She knew, as Bill did, that her return to Paris was only weeks away. She wasn't hoping for complications for either of them, but she dreaded leaving Bill, not knowing when she would see him again.

She talked to her children every day, and she thought Sophie sounded incredibly stressed, which worried her. The full responsibility for Teddy was on her shoulders, and although Isabelle talked to him constantly, the boy was not doing as well as he had been before his mother left. Isabelle felt guilty for staying away from them for so long, but at the moment,
she had no other choice, other than to be in a hospital in Paris. But she knew that as happy as she would be to see her children again, it was going to be excruciatingly painful to leave Bill.

They talked about it sometimes, and she said that perhaps in the future they could continue to meet somewhere, as they had in June. She didn't know how she'd get away, but she thought she could. What she shared now with Bill was not something she was willing to give up easily, even if they only met a few times a year. Bill was vague when she talked about meeting him every few months. He couldn't even think about it now, although he was making steady progress, his recovery had been far slower than hers, and his spirits had been flagging. He didn't want to commit to seeing her until he saw how his rehabilitation went. He continued not to want to be a burden to her. Nor did he want to give up seeing her. And after what they'd shared in the hospital, and the time they'd spent, it was hard to imagine that phone calls would still be enough, for either of them.

“I'm not sure you're being realistic about our meeting in Paris,” Bill said once quietly. “Gordon doesn't know what happened here, but he does know we were together that night. He told me to get out of your room, in no uncertain terms, when he was here. I don't think he's going to just sit by while you go wandering off. I think he's going to be highly suspicious of us, and of you.” Bill realized he might even monitor her calls. Gordon had been shocked to realize that she had developed a friendship with a man right under his nose.

And Bill didn't say it to Isabelle, but he had made a decision weeks before that if he was to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, he refused to be a burden to her, or anyone else. It had been a factor, although not the most important one in their case, in his divorcing Cynthia. And if in addition, he could not be a man with Isabelle, in every sense of the word, he was going to end it between them.

If he could learn to walk again, he would meet her quietly somewhere in France when she could get away. But the sexual issue remained a question mark for him. If the rehabilitation center in the States was no more successful at getting him on his feet again than the doctors in England thought it would be, he was not going to see her again. Sex would not even be an issue then. He was not willing to burden her with his limitations if he was wheelchair-bound for the rest of his days. He was tormented by both issues in their final days in the hospital, whether he would ever walk again, and whether time would restore his manhood. He was not willing to inflict either problem on Isabelle, and she had no idea how intensely and how hopeless he felt about it. Bill was careful not to express to her how pessimistic he was, although at times she sensed it without words.

He admitted to his doctor once that he had attempted to make love to her, and how devastating his failure had been, and the doctor had reassured him as best he could.

“I'm not surprised, you know,” the surgeon said to him, with uncharacteristic understanding. “It actually sounds fairly hopeful, for the first time, after such an
extensive trauma. Give it time, I think you may be encouraged by what happens. It is still very reasonable to expect that you would achieve both erection and orgasm within the first year. I think you may have been a little too enthusiastic and optimistic a little too soon. It's still very early days.” But in spite of the potential comfort of the doctor's words, Bill didn't believe him. He continued to cling to his terror that the situation was hopeless, and it would never work. And he was absolutely determined not to try it again anytime in the near future, although Isabelle was more than willing to be creative with him, but Bill was not. He had abandoned all thought of a physical relationship with Isabelle for the time being, and maybe forever. And he had no idea when, or if, they'd have the opportunity to try again.

But in spite of the torture Bill was putting himself through, he and Isabelle were still sharing a room, and she was contemplating what to do with her life. She knew she would never leave her marriage, because of Teddy and Sophie, but nor was she willing now to give up Bill. Being his lover was a life she had never envisaged for herself, but it was what she wanted now and all she could have. She and Bill shared something that she had never known before. She often felt as though they were two bodies with one soul. And nothing on earth was going to make her give that up.

She spoke to Gordon every few days. He had his secretary call the nurses' station every day to check on her condition, but more often than not she called him, usually at the office, out of respect for him, and to check how Teddy was. Usually, Sophie called her about
him. And Isabelle called Teddy herself every day. And when Isabelle spoke to Gordon, as always, he sounded distant and cool. Most of the time, she had the feeling that she had interrupted him and had called at an inopportune time. He had very little to say to her, since the accident. And she could sense that he no longer trusted her, although he never said as much. She felt as though he were punishing her, and she knew that once she was back in Paris with him, she would have some serious explaining to do. The fact that she and Bill had been to Annabel's and Harry's Bar, and had been together at that hour when the bus hit their car, spoke for itself. He said only once to her, during one of their calls, “You're not the woman I married, Isabelle. In fact, I'm not sure I know who you are.” She felt guilty about it at times, and she knew it wasn't right to pursue her relationship with Bill, and yet it was like a drug to her now, her life depended on it, and she didn't want to give it up.

She was talking to Bill about it one night, as she massaged his legs for him. He said they still felt mostly numb, but he had some sensation, as he did elsewhere, and they ached sometimes, almost as though he'd been walking for a long time. She was telling him about the conversation she'd had with Gordon that day. He had been particularly short with her, and she sighed when she hung up the phone.

“I don't think he'll ever trust me again,” she said to Bill. “And he's right, of course. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like going home. What about you? How angry is Cynthia?” Isabelle had noticed that he never talked about her, only the girls. But their
relationship had been very different than hers and Gordon's was, they led far more separate lives, and there was little if any pretense of a relationship between them anymore. He still had not told Isabelle about the divorce. It was the only secret he had kept from her. He didn't want her to know he was soon to be free. He didn't want her to feel pressured. He knew she was staying in her marriage, and it seemed best to him if she believed he was married too.

“I don't think she was happy when she left,” Bill said honestly. “I was honest with her about my feelings about you. And I didn't have to be. But she knows me, and she knew how worried I was about you.”

“That didn't bother her?” Isabelle asked, looking surprised.

“I'm sure it did, but she knows better than to make a big fuss. She has enough secrets in her past.” He smiled at Isabelle. “You can't put a man in jail for being in love. And Cynthia has led her own life for a long time. She hasn't let the grass grow under her feet for the last ten years.”

Isabelle was pensive as she listened to him. “I don't think Gordon has ever cheated on me,” she said quietly. “He's far too conservative and proper and sensible to do anything like that.” From what Bill knew of their marriage, he wasn't as sure, but he didn't want to say that to her. It seemed odd to him for a man to be as cold and even cruel to her as her husband was, and not be finding comfort and consolation somewhere else. On the contrary, when he'd met him, he didn't think Gordon looked like the kind of man to be faithful or loyal to anyone. He
was entirely out for himself. And Bill thought a mistress hidden somewhere would have explained Gordon's appalling behavior to his wife.

“What makes you think that?” Bill asked cautiously, he didn't want to stir things up, particularly since she was going back to him. He wanted her to have a peaceful life, not assist her in waging war on a man who could far too easily be cruel and damaging to her.