“I know I didn’t do basic. And you’re not supposed to argue.”
“Oh-ay.”
I waited.
And waited.
I was drooling around the phone and my ass was getting cold. I wondered if I should get the proposal proofread before I showed it to Tina. I wanted to present my best face, but if she had a ton of changes, a proofread would be a waste of time.
Finally, I heard his footfall on the back stairs, and his black shoes appeared under trouser cuffs. He stopped in the doorway. I looked up at him, and he looked down at me. I became acutely aware of my position and my choice to maintain it.
He took the phone out of my mouth and snapped it closed before placing it on the filing cabinet behind the desk. “You’re beautiful like this.”
Great. Thanks.
“And it upsets Damon, which I enjoy.”
He didn’t sound as if he was enjoying anything. He sounded as though he was reporting the weather in the tri-state area. All the more reason to play along. He was sick. He needed me. Without me, he’d descend into this hard, brittle personality.
“Crawl to me,” he said.
I put one elbow in front of the other, lowering my pelvis as close to the ground as possible so I could fit under the wire.
Of course, this wasn’t basic, but I’d been trained to do things a certain way.
“Stop,” he said, coming around me.
I put my head down so he couldn’t see my face. He put his hands on either side of my hips and lifted them, then he pressed my lower back down.
“Better.” He went back to the doorway. “Now. Crawl.”
I moved a knee forward, and my butt dropped. When I moved my other knee, it would drop farther. I was supposed to present myself like a cunt-proud peacock and—
“Honestly, Caden?” I got up on my knees and rested on my haunches. “Not today.”
He raised an eyebrow and leaned on the jamb with his arms crossed. Not offended or hurt, which was good, but he’d locked away his emotions so tight, he couldn’t feel insulted. That was not good.
“I just finished the proposal for the hospital’s PTSD unit.”
“Yes?”
“How about… you know, congratulations?”
“You can’t tell me this later?”
I got up. “I’m telling you now.” I pulled up my pants and fastened them. “You could play along for fifteen minutes before dropping this on me.”
“So could you.”
I swung my blouse over my shoulders. “Sure. I could. I could. And I agreed to. But I just can’t crawl around right now. I want to feel happy. I want to feel proud, and I want to be excited for my meeting.”
I got to the top button and realized I’d forgotten my bra. Damnit. I didn’t want to take the shirt off again. I wanted to finish getting dressed. I wanted to tell him all the things in the packet. I wanted his feedback and his joy, not this. Not today.
“You know what I want?” I said. “A celebratory fuck.”
“I can’t deliver that right now. Not in a way you’d find honest.”
“And I can’t let you control me right now. Not in a way I’d find honest.”
Not waiting for his reaction, I left the office and went upstairs.
Living room and kitchen. Didn’t want to eat. Didn’t want to sit. I wanted to think about something besides my husband’s mental health, or anyone else’s for that matter. But he was at the bottom of the stairs, a pressure from below, squeezing me into a corner.
Footfall on the steps. A creak. Slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he should come or as if creeping up on me.
I couldn’t deal with his stone-cold face. It wasn’t him. This was a single dimension of the multi-dimensional human I loved. Neither one of us had control over this situation. I couldn’t be mad at Caden any more than I could be mad at a bird for shitting on my shoulder.
“Greyson?” he called from the stairs, raising his voice only enough to make sure I heard, as if he had a complete understanding of the physics of space and sound and used it to make sure I knew he was still in control.
The tone was hard to ignore. The command was so complete, I thought maybe if I went to the top of the stairs and kneeled, we could continue with the game and he’d be pleased. Damon would run. I’d have so many orgasms, I’d pass out in a heap. We could be normal inside of three hours.
Wanting one thing meant not wanting another, no matter how agreeable I made it sound to myself. I went to the foyer and plucked my coat off the hook.
“Greyson?” he called louder as he came up the stairs. I was punching my hands into my coat sleeves when he appeared from the living room. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. But I can’t do this. Not today. And I can’t be in this house with you right now.”
“I should say I’m sorry now.”
“I’ll accept that as the best apology you can deliver in this state.”
A flicker passed over his face. A lake perfectly reflecting a statue, then rippling. Was it regret? A rethinking of his assumptions? A change in strategy? All of them?
“I keep thinking about you first,” I said. “I keep asking myself what you need, and I’m happy to give it to you. I love you. But today? It’s about me and what I need. You can’t give it to me. Fine. I get it. But I have nothing to give right now.”
I opened the front door, and he came for me, grabbing me at my new favorite spot. The hair on the back of my head. I gasped.
“When are you coming back?”
“Stop.”
The flicker again. The ripple in the cold lake. My Caden was in there.
He let me go, dropping his hand completely. His body was still. No nervous tics. No tells for displeasure or discomfort.
I’d married a fucking robot.
“I’ll come back when I do.”
I walked out, closing the door behind me.
I breathed the outside air, exhaled a wintry cloud, and went down the steps onto 87th Street with no destination except relief.
* * *
Colin met me for a movie. It was loud and fast. The sensory overload pushed my sadness and anxiety into a corner but didn’t eradicate it.
“Wasn’t that better than the depressing French thing?” Colin asked outside the theater as he wrapped his scarf around his neck.
“Sure.”
“So,” he said, hands in his pockets, looking up the street for a free cab. “What’s going on with the man of the house?”
“How do you mean?”
“You called me for a spur-of-the-moment movie. You don’t do that. If I want to see you, I have to make plans a month in advance.”
I bounced on the balls of my feet, trying to find the happiness I’d earned. “The proposal I told you about? For Mt. Sinai? I finished it.”
“All right! Congratulations! Are we getting a drink?”
A drink was so much more appealing than dealing with Doctor Robot.
* * *
The lighting was minimal and the patrons were all in the hippest years of their twenties. Colin had unbuttoned his coat, exposing his neck. The bartender, a young woman with the flattest, smoothest stomach I’d seen on anyone since treating Iraqi refugees, couldn’t keep her eyes off it. I held my credit card out for her, but my brother pushed my hand away and held out his card. The bartender pursed her lips and eyed his hand, then his face, holding back a smile.
“Oh, for Chrissakes.” My grumble was drowned out by the music.
When she took his card, she touched his hand.
“I could be your girlfriend, you know,” I said.
“You used a card to buy the last round. Same name.” He brought his drink to his smiling lips.
“I could be your wife.”
He waved his bare left ring finger at me with a devilish wink.
“Remember when I had to be your prom date?” I asked. “You asked three girls and they all said yes?”
“You were a fun date.”
“An
d you made out with all three of them anyway.”
“You were dancing with… what’s his name?”
“I had one foot in a recruitment office, so I was dancing with everyone.”
“Thanks for taking one for the team.” Colin still thought my entry into the military had spared him the pressure to do the same. I wasn’t sure Dad wasn’t aware Colin wasn’t cut out to be bossed around all day. “Mom hasn’t seen you since you came back.”
I sipped my drink. Not bad. They didn’t have wine, so I’d ended up with a whiskey and mint concoction, and Colin had gotten something with a vanilla bean sticking out of it. The bartender dropped the check in front of us with his card on top.
“I’m waiting for Dad to get back. She knows that.”
Dad was in Japan, and Mom was doing what she did—waiting for him to come back. It was the gender-reversed version of the life I’d avoided by retiring with Caden.
“Well, she’s not telling you, but she’s talking about coming here.” He signed the receipt before showing me that his copy had her number on it.
“Jake was in North Carolina for how long before he saw them? Was she chewing off your ear then?”
“You’re the baby girl. You weren’t supposed to be in the military at all.”
“I wasn’t supposed to have my own life at all.”
“And she’s wound up about you guys being in Medical Corps. From what Dad says, the surge is still going and they’re deploying doctors and nurses whether they like it or not. He said you guys dodged a bullet leaving when you did. Anyone with a medical license and a pair of boots is getting stop-lossed.”
“I’m not going back. Neither is Caden. We’re both done.” I slapped my hands together to illustrate the done-ness of our service obligations.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You loved the army. I thought you wouldn’t be able to adjust to having your own life.”
I couldn’t tell him that my life wasn’t my own or who it belonged to. I knew what the warning signs of abuse were, which was why I’d lied to the hospital staff about my wrist. Isolating the victim. Mercurial personality changes. Sexual demands. A rising tide of injuries.
No one would understand what was going on in my house, especially not my little brother.
“It’s hard,” I said. “I’m used to knowing what I’m doing every day and having this huge support system.”
“That fails constantly?”
“At least when the pipes broke on base, Mom knew who to call. I don’t know where the boundaries are out here.”
“Is something going on I should know about?”
“No. Everything’s fine. But like with the bartender here? Of course she saw the names, but I promise you she was eyefucking you before you handed her your card. And that’s not even the thing. Sure, it happens in the service, but it doesn’t feel so strange because I understand the context. Multiply that by a billion little things.”
Colin finished his drink and pushed the glass to the back edge of the bar. “Sister, dear, you are the most competent person I know. That’s the only reason you’re doubting your competence. We doubt what we’re gifted with.”
“And what do you doubt?”
He smirked. “I doubt you could walk a straight line. You’re swaying like a boat. Should I get you a cab?”
I finished my drink and plopped it on the bar, flicking two fingers against the bottom to slide it over to Colin’s. They clinked together. “Let’s blow this shithole.”
“We have to talk about Mom,” he said when we were outside. “If she comes, she’s staying with you.”
With me? Where Caden did violent, painful, intense things to my body?
I agreed to talk about it, but no more.
* * *
The house was empty and quiet. Caden’s coat was gone. A note sat on the counter.
Major -
I got a call. I’ll be at the hospital. Come by the theater some time if you feel like watching.
- Captain
Short, businesslike, to the point.
“Roger,” I said with a little slur on the edges, tossing the note on the counter.
Fine. It was fine. I needed to get to sleep anyway. I could worry about my husband tomorrow. I trudged up the stairs, hanging on to the banister. Colin had been right. I couldn’t walk a straight line to save my life.
The empty bed was made; an accusatory rectangle with military corners and sheets so tight a quarter would bounce twice on it.
You failed him.
Having let in the first thought I’d been avoiding, the next ones came without being invited.
He needed you and you failed him.
You’re the healthy one. You need to step up.
I stripped down, leaving my clothes on the floor, and put on a big army T-shirt.
You enjoy it anyway.
You need to just let go.
“I do enjoy it,” I grumbled, getting off the toilet. “But not today. Not today.”
I saw myself in the bathroom mirror.
“You,” I said with all the authority the whiskey-and-mint drink let me muster, “you are awesome. You did a great job.”
I opened the medicine cabinet, retrieved the toothbrush and toothpaste, and snapped it closed to see my face again. “No. Really. No arguments.”
I squeezed toothpaste on my brush and got to work. Despite my mouth being occupied with daily hygiene, the woman in the mirror wasn’t finished talking.
“Ou can ‘ake a ‘ight ‘or-ooself. Ou did-a’ight ‘hing. ‘Oor no ‘ood ‘oo him ‘essed uhp.”
The woman in the mirror was right. I was useless to Caden if my resources were depleted. We’d worked out sexual boundaries and needs, but we hadn’t talked about the toll his condition, or whatever it was, was taking on me.
I spit the toothpaste.
I could call the shots too. The man I’d married was going to have to live with that. The man he became in the weeks—no, days—between demanding, painful, orgasmic, boundary-pushing sex was going to have to live with it too.
Chapter Seventeen
caden
The lubricated slope that slid into the pit of cool detachment got wider and easier to find. I felt relief sliding down it and worried about how easy it was. Was I making a choice anymore, or was I like an addict telling myself the story of a decision I never made?
I didn’t leave her alone out of consideration but practicality. Considering her earlier refusal, I wasn’t sad or guilty. I couldn’t register her needs as important outside my own because Damon was shouting in the desperate corners of my perception. But I knew they existed and I knew what they were. I knew feelings inside me would return and that I’d be glad they were there. Maintaining complete detachment wasn’t hard, yet the consequences were exhausting.
It got worse every time.
I didn’t wonder if I loved her; I wondered what love was at all.
It was getting harder to pull back.
I had control over what I did to her, but without love to set boundaries or guilt to govern my impulses, when would I start to ask myself what I could get away with?
Without the wherewithal to feel fear, I had to ask myself if I should be afraid.
By the time I left the OR in the morning, one thing had become very clear.
The absolutes were unsustainable.
Not my pattern of madness or her constant patience.
Not my unquestionable demands or her total acquiescence.
The calculation was made to my own detriment, but even in the hardest part of my heart, where the long-term decision happened, the truth of it was the single constant.
This had to end.
* * *
Early morning on September 13th, 2001, I stopped working and started looking for my parents.
At one point, I realized they were never coming back from their morning appointment with their financial advisor. Dad hadn’t been with the first responders doing tri
age or patching the immediately patchable. He hadn’t made it to a hospital to offer or receive services. My mother wasn’t in a recovery room or wandering around with amnesia.
The flyer I stapled to poles and subway walls had a recent photo of them at a hospital fundraiser. Mom was smiling. When I’d offered to take her away from Dad, she laughed at me. She loved him. She’d never leave him.
I loved him too. I didn’t want to love him. He deserved to be despised, but I couldn’t. I was a surgeon. And an adult. But all I wanted was to earn his approval.
It was a week before I could stomach the September eleventh videos, and that was when the narrative formed. The jumpers were falling like dried buds off an old Valentine’s bouquet, dropping petals of shredded fabric, too fast to identify. Too blurred.
There was a couple holding hands on the way down. They could have been strangers. Friends. Lovers. Married. We’d never know.
The acceleration of gravity is 32.2 feet per second squared. They fell for six to eight seconds, depending on wind shear, hitting a velocity of 132 miles per hour. They must have been conscious in freefall. Capable of thought and fear. Capable of peace. Capable of making a decision.
The couple holding hands wasn’t Mom and Dad, because I decided that in the end, my mother would have come to peace and realized she was better than the way he treated her.
And Dad? Was he sorry?
Between the place where I trusted Mom had rejected him and the place where I loved my father enough to wish atonement for him, I hoped he’d died proud of me.
Which was pathetic.
I didn’t find peace. I found impotence and rage. On October first, after hanging on to hope for three weeks, I signed up for the war to keep as many soldiers as possible from dying for my father, and to avenge my mother, who never got to avenge her years of abuse.
We weren’t anything like Greyson’s family. We didn’t have a history of military service. My great-grandfather served as an army doctor in World War II and Korea. That was the extent of it.
Dark Romance Collection: A Sexy, Dark Bundle Page 42