Con (Part V)

There were things that changed immediately: how we ate, what we ate; Beth was meticulous and watchful of every single thing that went into my mouth even before the confirming blood-test ten days later.

She paced by the phone after that appointment, had been ready to drive back down to the lab to get the results herself when the phone rang and the voice at the other end told us what she already knew.

There were no more "lost weekends." With the exception of work for either one of us, I have to honestly say she devoted herself to me - and I felt horribly ill about ninety percent of the time and it wasn't simply the nausea and its accompanying joys- it was the horrible headaches as well.

For the first time during the entire time we'd been together, it was finally, finally, just us, just the two of us: no drinking, no strangers, none of the usual things that she always said needed, no crying jags or suicide attempts...

Beth was happy for once, really and truly happy, and things were almost like being eighteen again, vitamins and food - anything she could think of that would tempt me to eat.

She was loving, tender, she relished the changes in my body and was so very, very beautifully gentle when we loved...

But as wonderful as it was, I cried...almost every time.

Con (Part IV)

It was a mistake to think that heaven was anything other than a figment of someone's imagination. I'd gotten used to what I referred to as "lost weekends" with Beth - days where we were both free - she from work, and I from rehearsals and gigs - she cooked, we drank, we went out and came back and made mad, mad love to each other, with another, however, whatever. There were days I didn't remember and didn't worry about, because as crazy as things could get, I was safe: I was with Beth. Two, maybe three hazy days had gone by, and I finally got clear enough to know where I was: in one of our many favorite positions, with Beth between my legs as I lay on top of her, bodies pressed hard and moving fast, her hands firm on my ass and urging me on as we moved close, so close to that lightning edge that I didn't think anything of the hands that closed around my hips, the shift of the bed, and the heat of another impending upon me, but the hands felt wrong somehow, and the blunt edge that eased between us, the body that overlay mine was wrong, too. She tore her mouth away from mine. "Don't hurt her, Louis," she warned as he entered me. Stunned. I was stunned, that she'd pushed this, that she'd allowed it, and the weight of his body pinned me firmly between them even as I tried to move away. "It's okay, JayJay, it's okay...shh," she soothed and cupped my face between her hands. "Look at me, baby." I did, stared in stupefaction into those ice eyes, even as tears stung mine because despite her warning, he hurt, her brother hurt as he moved in me and my heart ached because this felt so very, very, wrong. "Relax, honey, it's just Louis, a part of me, just like you're a part of me, just like our baby's gonna be." I bit my lip against the tears that fell anyway.  "Oh baby, don't cry," she asked and drew my mouth to hers, delivered tender kisses.  "Okay, honey? Okay? We're gonna make that baby together, in our bed, sweetheart, that's all we're doing. Do you love me?" she asked, her eyes searching mine. I closed mine a moment anyway because despite the numbness that had grown in my body, my chest still ached, and I had to reach through the pain because I loved her, loved her with everything I was. Finally, I nodded, unable to speak against the shock and the pain, lip still tight between my teeth. "I love you, too, baby," she said and pulled my head down to her shoulder and held it there as I trembled against her. "Just feel me, baby," she whispered and shifted beneath me, "I'm right here with you. Louis - ease up a little - you're hurting her," she told him and he did, lightened his body off mine. I hazed again as he came, shuddering within me, and I neither noticed nor cared when he left because as soon as I was free of him Beth rolled me onto my back, held me, kissed my tears, wrapped herself around me and whispered words of love until I fell asleep. I ran a fever for two days, four days later, I bled, and on the sixth I threw up at the smell of milk. Beth was thrilled.

Con Part III

Everyone loved Beth: older, smarter, beautiful. Even my estranged parents were something resembling happy that I was with her.

By twenty I was her house-pet, bleeding with her because she'd wanted to die, loving her through the blood and the pain, watching, over and over again, as she got drunk, brought someone home, wanted to hold me while he fucked her, kiss her, comfort her, fuck her until she finally came, nails deep in my back, slammed desperately close to me, hot and slick and wet, all to prove I loved her, and I did, I did.

Beth was my life, my home, my world, everything to me, and I was everything she wanted me to be.

She brought me women, she picked out men, I even dated a few for her, because she loved to go out, have them watch while we made out, then go back home without them so she could suck me off.

And Beth...loved, loved to watch me with other women, loved to join in, but still, in the end, I came for her, with her, and she for me. 

There was only one line I drew:

No matter how she teased, no matter how she begged, even once when she cried, the only time her tears didn't change my mind, I wouldn't sleep with any of the guys she brought home. I'd hold her, kiss her, anything else she wanted, but I didn't want them to touch me and they were as uncomfortable with me as I was with them. We touched her, but we kept a respectful distance from one another.

Until one day, she crossed that line, too.

Beth wanted kids, wanted them so much it was one of the things she cried about, because for various reasons, she couldn't have them. When I promised to have them for her, the smile she threw my way, the kiss she gave, the heart-filling touch in how we made love after that made me think this...was heaven.

Con (Part II)

She stared at me. "That's...that's not what happened." Her voice was barely a whisper and her fingers fluttered, helpless,by her sides. "It's not what I meant."

My face was cold, but heat thrummed though me, forcing me forward. "Not what you meant?" I asked, incredulity warring with anger. "Beth, you had to call a fucking ambulance."

Somehow, impossibly, her eyes seemed even paler as did her skin and she shook her head. "It was...it was an accident, I swear to God."

The haze I'd felt earlier kicked back, a vicious buzz that now impelled me, my hands, my fingers curled around the cream and white lapels of the fashionable short trench coat she wore.

"Was it an accident that you fuckin' tripped me out, fucked me up, left me needing stitches? A fucking accident that happened almost three months after we broke up, I'd moved out?" The words came out an angry hiss, my eyes barely two inches from hers.

She blinked, flinched, under my hands, under the tone, and her face worked, tears in the corners of her eyes as I watched her struggle for control, something I knew because I'd known her so very fucking well. And then...the damn broke.

"You were mine, you were fucking mine, you didn't belong to her, with her," she said, her voice a harsh rasp. She covered my hands with hers, skin smooth as always, cool from the wind.

It was my turn to flinch, and I let go of her lapels, slipped my hands out from under hers. I stepped back again, I had to get away. Memories, no longer dull, sharpened by her voice, by her presence, flooded through me, as icy as the wind that had picked up off the river, of how much I'd been hers, of how it hadn't been enough.

At eighteen Beth fed me vitamins and pasta, cuddled me to her skin because she said I made her feel safe and loved, but except for the sensual, beautiful kisses, velvet soft touches of her body and mine, wouldn't touch me, because she said she was afraid she'd hurt me.

At nineteen, someone else--a beloved friend--had done what Beth had said she'd been afraid to, because she'd asked me to, because she wanted me to. It also infuriated her and since I lived one floor above her, two days later she came into my room with several bottles of wine, twined my body with hers and there we stayed for days following.

We matched, she said, we matched, and it was true, our hands were almost identical. I met her parents, her brother, her sister. When we made love that night, she wore my ring after. She came home with one for me the next afternoon.

Con (Part 1)

I started cramping somewhere toward the late morning, hard and vicious, the sort that lets you know you're in for it, and it floated over that...that sense...I had, the edgy anticipation of something, or actually, someone, headed my way.

I hate that sense sometimes. I can go days, occasionally weeks, and if I'm lucky, a month almost two, before it hits me again, because when it does? I'm an edge-jangled mess, hyper-alert and twitchy.

That it came now, on top of pain that was four days early--an extremely unusual occurrence--left me gritting my teeth. This...was going to be ugly.

The nerves and the pain were beginning to fuzz me out and the effort to smile, to engage in animated conversation with strangers, the effort of separating mind from the aching throb that begged me to curl up somewhere dark to puke in peace, was surely eating away at the last of my reserves.

A slight lull in the crowd gave me my chance, and I excused myself from the table. I slipped between people and bags, costumes and weapons, the haze between my eyes flowing down my neck, my chest, until I reached the door, the patio of the convention center that overlooked the river.

There were perhaps half a dozen people--mostly in pairs--scattered about the large deck and I found a comfortable spot to lean against the concrete railing, lit myself a cigarette, and let the pain and the edge drift away with the smoke as I watched it.

I was clear and alert, the cramp settled to a warm, mindful discomfort in my belly. A name, a face, drifted through my mind and as the muscles seized--a twist that forced me to shift my legs, compensate with my stance--in the resigned way you know that whatever comes next, you'll still be wrong and have to correct it, I knew she was near.

"JayJay."

Her voice was the same: husky, low, and it sent that spike of resignation through my spine.

"Beth."

I didn't turn around, because she did what I knew she would: lean along the railing next to me.

"I heard you'd be here," she said as her sleeved arm rested next to mine and my peripheral vision caught her staring out over the water next to me.

I couldn't stand the thought of my back so vulnerable to her and I shifted again--pain be damned--and the leather of my jacket rubbed up against the concrete, guarding me.

"Wasn't a big secret," I answered. That was very true; it had been announced on websites and boards, even a couple of stores and a few emails. And then, there was always word of mouth...and there were always plenty of those.

"Hometown girl making it big, everyone whose known you knows," she said.

The afternoon sun shone down on her and reflected back up into her face from the water that shimmered below. Ice blue, winter sky blue, almost colorless eyes stared down at the river and the ice that lined its edges. Grey hadn't taken over her hair yet, a few thick streaks here and there were strung among coal-black waves, waves that still flowed just past her shoulders.

"Are you bleeding?" she asked quietly, turning those eyes, and those soft, soft lips, to me.

"Huh. Around you? Probably," I answered as flippantly as I could.

"You look like you're in pain," she said in the same quiet voice, and she reached automatically, the way she had almost a lifetime ago, to touch me, to reach that spot that would ease the muscles.

I caught her hands half way, gently pushed them back. "Again...around you? Definitely," I told her as I let go.

She stared at me, those ice eyes on mine, and for a brief moment, I wondered what she saw, what my eyes looked like to her. I knew than when I was at any emotional extreme, the outer ring turned a bright emerald green, but when I was hazy, or as both my mother and my beloved partner had told me, half awake and furious, they shone an amber gold. I wondered what she saw--the green or the gold?

Beth nodded. "I deserve that."

"You do, Beth. You do," I agreed.

I tossed my cigarette over the railing--it had lost its appeal--and shoved a hand into my pocket as I edged away.

"Can we talk?" she asked as I took my first step.

I hesitated. The last time we'd spoken, she'd issued an invitation, an invitation to her wedding that I didn't attend. Eight years. Eight years since I'd seen her to that invitation, eight years to this day on the patio.

She edged closer. "We haven't spoken in a long time, not alone." Her face was somber, sad, her eyes fixed on mine.

I glanced around the patio. The chill of the air off the water must have gotten to those who'd been outside, because with the exception of one lone smoker stationed about thirty feet away, she was right: we were alone.

"We haven't spoken alone since..." I let it hang, because the memory was dull, but the pain wasn't, another knife through my gut that made me want to retch.

"Since I hurt you," she supplied. She took another step closer.

"No, Beth. No," I corrected, stepping back with a shake of my head. "You didn't hurt me--you raped me." 

Sober - A Fragment

(consider this a...prologue...to the story that will follow)

It had been several years. I hadn't thought, spoke, not even dreamed, not a thing about her [I'm off you, baby, my blood's mine now] and it was good, so good to be clean.

Then...at the wedding of a mutual friend:

"C'mon, baby, you know how I feel - felt - about you."

[No, I never really did]

"You must have been pretty stupid, then."

[Yep, that was me, pretty and stupid: a landscaped vacant lot she'd driven around in dusty circles]

She caught my chin in her hands, fingertips a sensual cage as her lips drew closer. "I loved you. I still love you. Stupid."

She kissed the corner of my mouth, gently, softly, not quite the kiss she used to give. After all, things were different...now.

"I still wear your ring." She showed me. She wore it now on the other hand, in the position of friendship, and I watched as she switched it over, to the position that swore love.

[I'd forgotten about that. Forgot how I'd had it custom designed, the first real piece of jewelry I'd ever bought myself, the only piece since. Forgot how I was so drunk on wine and you, so wanted to see you smile, that I gave it to you, a piece of me, like all the others I gave. You gave me yours, an exchange, our left hands, the ring, the one that symbolizes friendship, loyalty, love, union, marriage. Your lips were full of wine and your tongue drenched in honey when you swore we'd always, always, be beautiful together. I didn't know then that lies were sweet]

She hugged me tightly then kissed my neck in that perfect, perfect spot she knew so well, the spot that always guaranteed my "yes" - or at least my "maybe." Then she begged me to come to her wedding.

To him. His initials were mine, his name similar, too. I promised I would - and didn't - my own would be three weeks later.

And now? That too was years ago, and since... There are days when my blood runs thick and dirty.

Creation

Let the music...

let the words flow out

hot...fat...wet

Through my veins

to my hands

from my hands

to the pen

from the pen

to the page

words to you

in black

and blue

words for you

who couldn't read them

     

  when

they       

            were

red