The Light of Day (19 page)

I’m not ready for that, and neither is she.  What we’re doing here is different than just sex, even great sex.  It’s more; it’s the words we’re afraid to say, the feelings that burn bright and hot between us and have no other vehicle for expression.  So I don’t do what my body begs and throw her over the bed to pound my release into her.  I battle the raging pulse below my waist and continue to assault her over her clothes, cupping those full breasts and massaging them, using my tongue to drive into her mouth and set a rhythm that shows her exactly what I want.

              Time and again I run my hands over her, innocent touches trimmed with bold ones, always pulling back before either of us gets too close to the edge, stripping her down until she wears nothing but the matching panties to that bra.  When it seems like she might break apart just from a touch, I please us both and dip my head to lick my tongue into the valley between her breasts, laying her back as I do, curving my right arm under her hips and holding us up with my left as I hitch her toward the center of the bed and lay down on her side, one thigh pressed against her heat while my lips assault the sensitive flesh of her chest.

              I’m a solid rod of iron when I push past the thin barrier of her panties and slip my fingers inside her to bring her over the edge, my mouth drinking down her cries even as I push her up and over again.  As she lays there, sated and vibrating, I stand to shed my clothing, grabbing a condom from the drawer in the nightstand before returning to her.  I don’t suit up right away, instead waiting until she’s come back to me, working my lips over her breasts and then her stomach, slipping her out of those panties and cruising my lips over the inside of her thighs and in, covering her with my mouth so she cries out and arches against me, shattering once more as I use my tongue on her.

              Shifting to my back, I roll the latex on and then shift back over her, sweeping my fingers over the hair that’s fallen to her cheek, stroking the skin of her jaw, her neck, her lips, until her eyes meet mine.  And then, watching her while she watches me, I slide inside with one push, flexing my hips and ripping a cry from both of us before the animal inside unleashes and claims her as no one ever has, or will again.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Cora

I’m standing at the kitchen sink wearing Jake’s Yankees T-shirt that’s thin and worn at the shoulders and faded on the front.  Some might call it vintage — I think it’s actually reached the stage where
old
is the only description applicable.  And still, the stretched neck of the graying white fabric with faded blue sleeves rests against my skin softer than any silk I’ve ever worn, mostly because it’s his and wearing it feels like being next to him.

              Which I was, ten minutes ago, right before I got out of the bed I’d been in for almost thirteen hours to get water and ease the dryness in my throat that’s partly a result of the non-stop touching and exploration of each other’s bodies we spent the night engaging in, with only minimal breaks for sleep and recuperation, and partly from the way it felt to lie there watching Jake as he finally succumbed to sleep, sprawled on his stomach, his left arm thrown over my hip, his right shoved under his pillow with the sheet twisted carelessly below his waist to reveal all of his glorious brown skin.

              Sleep is the only time he’s completely still, the only time I can watch him openly and not worry that he sees more than me.  Lying on my side, content to feel the weight and warmth of his arm, I started with the outline of his profile, those sharp cheek bones and slashing dark brows, his thick mop of brown hair curled into a disheveled mess from my fingers alternately twisting into it and yanking at it last night.  Down my eyes swept, over his broad shoulders that are roped with muscles, apparent even in this relaxed position, further to his tapered waist and the slope of his lower back to his backside that disappeared under the sheet.

              It was that sight which had me getting out of bed, because it caused things to start stirring low in my belly, and however much I used to be a rock star who partied all night, I knew if I started something there was a distinct possibility I wouldn’t be able to finish it.  Jake had out-sexed me last night, plain and simple, and as much gratitude as those memories evoked while they swirled and spun in colorful detail through my mind, accompanied by the requisite tingle or two, I was more than a little sore and even more grateful that he wasn’t awake this morning to watch me limp from bed, whimpering when I leaned down to grab his T-shirt from the folded but not yet put away laundry in the basket by the bedroom door.

              Now, I’m downing my second glass of water over the kitchen sink in the morning light that’s quickly turning to afternoon, and my head’s clearing enough from the sexual fog to see what I couldn’t when I walked out of the salon yesterday and into his arms.  We’ve started our goodbye, and I can’t stop it.

              I think back to when he touched me last night, the first time and all others, how he transitioned from a careful, almost reverent lover to a brutal and demanding one, dragging responses from me that are terrifying on more levels than just the physical.  I didn’t want him to stop touching me, ever; even more terrifying, I couldn’t have asked him to if I did.  The power he has over me isn’t physical — it’s a connection of my soul that has woven him within its fabric, forever tying me to him and the person he’s let me be.  Alone, I was surviving, finding my feet and learning how to get through each day, but with Jake, I’ve learned to be happy.  He woke me from my slumber and showed me that life can’t be lived in the fear of yesterday, but has to be cherished for what I feel, what I can be, what I can offer today.  And what everyone else offers.

              He offered me freedom from the walls I was living behind, and I’ll never forget that.

              My skin prickles, that natural warning bell that tells me he’s close, so I set my glass down and turn to face him, prepared, yet still shocked by the overwhelming swarm of desire that sweeps through me at the sight of him in low-strung sweats and nothing else, his long, lean frame a foot from me.  I lean back against the counter and stare at him while he stares back, and then he’s moving forward, pushing into my space as he did time and again last night and has every night since we met really, until my hands grip his shoulders and he lifts me, settling me on the counter where he stands in the space between my legs.

              His hands stay at my hips and he inclines his head now that I’m slightly above him.  I take my hands and run them through his hair, scraping my nails along his scalp and back, watching him the entire time.

              “How was training?” I ask again, and this time his eyes flutter closed and he leans forward to rest his forehead against mine, his hands slipping from my hips so his arms can band fully around my waist.

              “It was really good,” he says, and I hear it, the words we won’t say but are being forced to acknowledge as every day gets closer to the last. 
It’s almost done, it’s almost time
for me to go
.  I nod and hold on tighter, knowing that soon enough I’ll hold him for the last time.

~

The average addict relapses seven times before sobriety takes hold.  This statistic is one I know well, not only because I’m a recovering addict, but because I’ve felt the pull of oblivion more than once since I left The House.

              I’m an alcoholic, but really, I only use that label because it’s the most straightforward and people need a label to understand other people, especially those people who are different.  The reality is that most addicts are more than their substance of choice — alcohol is not my weakness, it’s my escape, my crutch to lean on when I don’t want to deal with everything else that’s weighing down on me.  My weakness is control, fear, self-loathing, my never-ending need for
more
.  More attention, more things, more fun, more love.

              I wasn’t a lovable child.  No one had to tell me that for me to know it’s true.  I was contrary from the moment I could speak, always saying no when someone else said yes, always pushing the envelope when everyone else accepted the limitations given.  I didn’t feel loved because I didn’t accept it, and then when I realized I wanted it, no one knew how to give it to me, not even myself.  So, instead I filled that void, that need, with substances and people.  Lots and lots of people.  Anyone, everyone, so long as I didn’t have to hear the silence that told me I was well and truly alone.

              I knew by age seventeen that I had pushed my mother far enough she wasn’t coming back.  It took me until almost twenty-one to realize that every party I went to, every pill I swallowed or joint I smoked, and every morning after that I let her see me hung-over and used, I was challenging her to challenge me because even if she was done with me, I wasn’t done with her.  How could I blame my mother for not loving me when I understood why she couldn’t? Why she shouldn’t.  I wasn’t smart like Mia and Lily, her own sister’s children, or beautiful and dynamic like her friends’ daughters.  I wasn’t athletic or motivated or perfect… I wasn’t anything, and that was the problem for both of us.

Now, I feel like something, like
someone
, but I’m also scared as hell of losing that person, which is why I called my sponsor the weekend after Jake picked me up from the salon.  I know that as strong as I am now, what I feel for him is so big, so terrifyingly real and wonderful that when it’s gone, I’m going to hurt.  Since I don’t want to fall into an old habit, I called Kari, the fifty-year-old single law clerk who had dragged me back from the edge more times than Mia and Nina could ever even think of doing in those first few months.  Mostly because she was an alcoholic, so she herself understood the pull of addiction, even when repercussions for it were staring you right in the face, giving you a goddamn good reason you should walk away.

“There’s not always a reason we want to relapse, Blondie,” she once told me, using the nickname she first gave me back when I wore my hair as white as Gwen Stefani.  “Sometimes, life’s enough to make you want the escape.  When you feel the urge, you call me and we talk, then you find a meeting and you sit there and let other stories remind you why you’re stronger than your addiction.”

              “What about texting you?”

“I’m fifty, not fifteen, so we’ll talk like humans and not those robots you young kids are turning into.”

So, Kari and I talk, and even text sometimes, though she’s never happy about it.  We talk less now that I’ve hit my one year mark than we did in the beginning, but I know she’s there and so I called, needing to tell her what I just figured out: Jake has to go and be who he was meant to be, and I have to let him, because however wonderful we are right now, there are things you have to face alone, without anything or anyone holding onto you.

              I wouldn’t hold Jake back, but I would hold on, and he needs someone who’s going to let him go and fight that battle and win, so he never feels the shame of failure his father did.  And he needs to do that without worrying about me and the fact that I might get bored or lonely or needy for him while he’s gone for hundreds of days on end.

“Blondie, I think you need to find a meeting.”

              Kari’s rough voice scrapes over the line and I bring myself back to the conversation.  I’m standing outside of the salon, watching as pedestrians walk or bike by, bro-tanks and maxi dresses in full effect as April teases Oregon into bloom.

              “That’s why I called you.”

“And I’m telling you that you’ve got too much shit going on to just call someone.  You need to sit down and face some people, listen to them and maybe let yourself talk, and you don’t need to just sit with someone, you need to sit with your people, people who understand what a trigger moment is.”

              I know all of this, which is why I called her instead of Mia.  Sometimes, no matter how much people love you, it’s the strangers who don’t know you but who are
like
you that help the most.  “I think you might be right.”

“I know I am, that’s why I’m your sponsor.  Listen to me, Cora,” she says and I know she’s serious.  “You’ve got some heavy shit going down.  You can handle it, I know you can, but that doesn’t mean you need to ignore the other things that are important, like your meetings and your recovery.  It’s only been eighteen months, Blondie, that’s not that long.  You need to take care of yourself, so you can take care of the rest of the people you love.”

              I sigh and close my eyes, understanding now why a sponsor is different than a friend, and why Kari’s always been able to be both.  She’s like the Scientist with her no nonsense ways, her direct statements, and blunt attitude.  She has a heart bigger than most and a shell that’s tough to crack, and she’s as different from my own mother as a person can possibly get.  That’s one of the reasons I chose her.  At my first meeting I just sat and listened, did what the counselor at The House recommended and watched, listening to people share countless stories, relapses, heartaches, and then I saw and heard from Kari.  She didn’t cry when she spoke, and I could sense right away that her tears were private, something she wouldn’t share, but something I sensed were just below the surface.  Kari regretted who she had been, and the limits it put on the person she was, even now.  She was happy, and she was strong, but Kari was alone.  Alcohol was a crutch that had taken her husband and her chance at a family away from her.  Her battle was in reminding herself that she deserved forgiveness, even if she couldn’t give it to herself right away.