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I wake again but now I’m in a room somewhere. I look around and see bright sunlight streaming into the room. It hurts my eyes so I squint against the glare. As I squint I feel the now-familiar throbbing in my head, and my right shoulder aches for some reason. I hear a rushing noise of water still. Only this time I think it’s coming from a shower, rather than the pummeling force of a waterfall.
Sure enough, the water stops running, and I hear someone’s whistling echoing off the walls. Must be in a bathroom.
“Who’s there?” I call out in a raspy voice.
The door squeaks open and light from the bathroom spills into the already bright room. I look over to see Smoothie, a soft towel slung low across his hips. The tips of his blond curls dripping water onto his shoulders and his shark’s tooth necklace. His smile is as warm as a cloudless Caribbean day.
“Well, well, well. Look who’s up from her beauty sleep. If it ain’t Rapunzel Doopree.” He grins again.
“What is going on?” I manage to get out just barely past a whisper.
Smoothie strolls over to where I am sprawled out on the bed and sits down next to me. I sit up, despite the creak in my shoulder and that drumbeat in my skull. He puts his hand up to my forehead and brushes my hair away from my eyes.
“Nothing much. You just had a little spill, that’s all.”
“I don’t remember anything about what happened.”
“You don’t remember running full force toward the waterfall?”
I look at him like he’s insane. “Huh?”
“Remember? Your last hurrah? Your grand exit? You wanted to go flying into Niagara Falls like a bat outta hell and see what happened. Only I couldn’t let you, Mary Kate.”
I look up into his eyes and suddenly I remember everything going dark, and then that eddy of sea glass-green light pulling me in, and a rainbow.
“You kept me from jumping into that?” I point outside of our window, where some twenty-seven floors below is a spectacular force of nature that I can still hear all the way up here in the clouds.
Smoothie nods his head slowly. “Don’t be mad at me, baby.”
“Oh, my God. Mad at you? How could I ever be mad at you? How could I have ever thought to do something so stupid?”
He looks a little dumbfounded when I ask that, as if I ought to know that answer myself.
“So what happened?” I ask him, rubbing my temple and then noticing the rough feel of disturbed flesh.
Smoothie gently pushes me back down against the soft pillow, which swallows me up and somehow absorbs the pain in my head.
“You took off running. I held on tight to your hand. I didn’t know what I was gonna do, but no way was I gonna let you do such a thing to your pretty little self.”
Pretty little self? Me?
“Then you pulled me in a different direction and I was afraid I was gonna lose my grip on you so I gave you a good tug my way.”
He grimaces. “I guess I tugged a little too hard. You swung back around, lost your footing, and slammed your head into the ground.”
I nod my head knowingly. “So that explains this?” I say, rubbing my temple again, which feels a bit bashed up. “And this?” I point to my shoulder.
“Yeah, well, no pain, no gain, honey. You’d have been hurting a hell of a lot more if I let you get away with it. That is—”
“—if I’d survived.”
He nods his head, staring into my eyes.
“Scooch over, Mary Kate. Give a fellow some room.”
I shimmy over to the middle of what I realize is an enormous bed with the softest, fullest down comforter I’ve ever been in contact with. Smoothie stretches out next to me, that towel dangerously low on his belly, and his smooth, tanned chest something I feel an uncontrollable need to stare at but know entirely better than to do so.
“How’d I get here?”
There was a doctor nearby when you fell. He came running over and checked you out. Told me he thought you’d have a splitting headache and maybe a concussion but he didn’t think it was much worse than that. I don’t think anyone knew what you were up to, that you were aiming for the falls. After a little bit, you started to come to but then you went out again. So some folks nearby helped me get you back to the car. I had to take you somewhere. The Sheraton was the first place I came to.
“The Sheraton? Instead of submerging beneath the plunge pool of a waterfall, I’m drowning in a down comforter and pillows at the Sheraton?”
“Hell, I figured if today was gonna be the first day of the rest of your life, you’d better do it in style.”
“Oh, Smoothie.” I stop to collect my thoughts. “You saved me from myself. Again.” I reach over for him with my good arm and pull him toward me, and when I do, we come face to face. Really close. We stare at each other, trying to figure things out for a minute.
“I think it’s way more complicated than that, Mary Kate. Because you saved me too, you know.”
At that he leans over and grazes his lips against me, just a whisper of a touch so soft I almost don’t feel it. But I feel it. You’d better believe I feel it.
“If my memory serves, that’s not the first time you’ve done that.” I say, trying to inject some levity into the situation. “This is, however, the first time I’ve felt that.” With nothing more than a towel—albeit a plush, upgraded, luxurious Sheraton kind of towel—between Smoothie and me, there are certain things that can’t be ignored.
“You remember what I told you, Mary Kate.”
“If I’m lucky I’d find out?” I repeat his words from the parade. “And what’d I say back?”
“Star light, star bright,” he begins. And I join in, “First star I see tonight. I wish I may I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.”
With that, Smoothie leans into me, his hands holding my face as if it’s a delicate piece of china he’s afraid he’ll drop and break. And finally, finally, finally we kiss. I mean, we really kiss. His mouth is warm and soft and strong and probing, and through the fog my head is still a little mired in, I’m aware of a paradigm shift that’s occurred in my life. As if everything up until now has been the prologue to my life story, and now the page has turned and we’re into the real meat of the plot. Up until now, it’s been too much backstory. Too much miserable, dull, stagnant backstory.
Smoothie pauses for a minute, and I immediately worry he’s had a change of heart. He looks me directly in the eye, his fingers toying with my hair affectionately. “You do realize, Mizz Doopree, that I’ve fallen in love with you.”
And it feels as if a giant vacuum has sucked every drop of air from my lungs, I’m so paralyzed with the impossible notion that someone would love me. Mary Kate Dupree.
My natural inclination is to resist. The momentum, however, feels like a force beyond my control, like the rush of water plunging at a hundred and fifty thousand gallons a second at me, over the lip of the falls, and no human being can stop it. Maybe a freak wind shift in wintertime, but I don’t see that on the horizon for me right now.
“This is impossible, Smoothie,” I insist. “I’m too old for you! Hell, when I was losing my virginity, you were still losing your baby teeth. How could a man like you,” I pause to sweep my hand up and down his body, like he’s the next item up for bidding on the Price is Right, “be in love with a woman like me?”
“How could I not?” he asks. “You are the most honest, unpretentious, simply charming woman I think I’ve ever met. I hate to tell you, Mary Kate, but it looks like you’ve landed yourself a younger man.” His smile is frisky and suggestive and adorable.
“Whatever happened to never again?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, I know I said that. But it doesn’t mean I meant that. Somewhere along the line I guess I just took the fall for you.”
I know I’m breathing but it’s clearly involuntary because I feel as if all important life functions have frozen in mid-motion. But then my fingers kick into overdrive. He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not.
I stare into Smoothie’s face and tell him what I know I should’ve told him the minute I met him, even though back then it was too crazy a notion to put into words.
“I do love you, Smoothie. I don’t understand it yet, but I believe it.”
I trail my tongue across his lips, savoring the taste of freedom and kindness and this chance at something other than the frigid status quo that was my pale existence.
But right now, Smoothie’s got the upper hand. And he’s working his way down my body, his mouth trailing kisses and his tongue making a path in his wake. He gets to my stomach and stops.
“Whoo-eee, Mary Kate. Dayum,” he says. “This is one sexy belly button you’ve got for me.”
With that, he follows his tongue around my stomach, treating my mid-section like some temple to be revered, delicately handled, and, like some natural treasure, left in better condition than when he found it.
“You know, Mary Kate, when you got this thing put in, I knew we could fix what was broken in your life. I knew you had it in you to climb over the pile of burning embers in that house fire of a life you were living. And I think that’s when I knew I was falling head over heels for you.”
Smoothie keeps licking around my stomach and it actually feels comforting. Not to mention sensual as hell.
Up until now I’ve remained garbed in the same outfit I had on for my folly at the falls. My purple cami top, denim mini-skirt, my sexy strapless black bra and sheer black thong panties. I know, it is quite out of character for me to put on a thong under any circumstances, but in particular with a skirt! But I’d figured today was the day I needed to just throw all caution to the wind. Plus, well, my mama always told me to have nice underwear on in case of an accident, and this was the only clean pair left. Although for what it’s worth, I’d have been just as well with nothing on if the ambulance had to come get me, as it probably would’ve been shredded to bits.
But now Smoothie seizes the opportunity to divest me of any extraneous garments, and slips my cami over my head, deftly avoiding the bulging wound at my temple.
He whistles, long and low. “Mary Kate! Why didn’t you tell me how perfect this looked on you?”
I blush enough for ten women. “I don’t normally go braggin’ on my underwear, Smoothie!”
“Well, any wife of mine looks this good in her skivvies, I want to know about it.”
Wife? I look at him with confusion in my eyes.
“I know, I said ‘wife.’ And I mean it, Mary Kate. I’m determined to make you my wife. It might not be easy. I know we have to extricate ourselves from a certain mess we’ve found ourselves in, but it’s my intent. I told you: I love you, Mary Kate Doopreeee. And when a man loves a woman the way I love you, well, it should be forever.”
With that he unhooks the front of my bra and tenderly works his way from one breast to the other, settling his mouth over one and then the other while my mind buzzes with the culmination of far too much information to be able to process. So I try to just let it go and feel. And it feels pretty damned good.
I run my hands along Smoothie’s body, navigating the muscles of his chest and his strong biceps, pulling the hard curve of his delicious glutes—tattoo and all—toward me. His towel has fallen free, and once he eases my skirt off, followed by that meager excuse for a pair of undies, it’s only skin against skin and I know now that this feeling shouldn’t be repulsive like it’s always been for me, but should be something to savor. And I savor it in spades as I taste his shoulder and his neck and my tongue follows along his chest and holy shit, is this me doing this? How do I even know to do this, I ask you?
We’re quiet for a while but then the sounds of his pleasure and my pleasure mingle together and frankly, I can’t believe I’m making any sounds—this is not something I do. But as Smoothie parts my legs and slips inside of me and I feel so filled with his adoration and unparalleled love and respect for me, I can do nothing but moan out his name as he thrusts into me at an ever-increasing pace. He collects my hands and stretches them above my head and is feasting on one breast and then the other and part of me says I should feel like I’m trapped, because I’ve always been trapped when I’ve been naked with a man, but the other part of me tells me this is freedom, the incredibly liberating feeling of warm flesh against warm flesh and mouths and breath and saliva and wetness and the smooth glide of togetherness that defines this act of love we’re engaged in. I know I once said to Smoothie that intimate needs to be quiet, but this most intimate of moments for us both is not even remotely subdued. As Smoothie and I near climax our voices raise loud enough to jar me from my stupor, just long enough to realize I’ve never moaned for a man in my life.
And I’m glad I saved it for Smoothie. When I think I can’t stand another moment of anticipation, I crash over the edge, the powerful rush of a waterfall, and Smoothie follows, and we slow our pace and settle down to a gentle rhythm of remembrance, and he stays in me just to let me know he’ll always be there for me.
I know you want to know why I would risk pregnancy but don’t forget, I tried for years to get pregnant to no avail, so I’m not the least bit worried about that. And if there’s anything else I need to worry about, well, I trust Smoothie wouldn’t have taken advantage of me in this way.
We lie there silently for a while, drinking in the moment.
“So that’s what they’re all singing about?” I finally say.
“Who’s singing? I don’t hear anything.”
“In songs,” I explain. “All those songs about loving and making love and I never understood it to be worth writing a song about, let alone singing one.”
Smoothie laughs and kisses me.
“You remember that dog, Bowser? My friend’s dog who jumped out the window to go have sex?”
Smoothie nods.
“Well now I can finally see why someone would jump out of a window, even jump off a bridge for it.”
“But not jump into a waterfall, right?”
I smile. “I’ve already gone over the falls, Smoothie. With you. And I didn’t even get hurt.”
We drift off to sleep for a while and I wake to find Smoothie snoring gently by my side, my arm draped across his chest like it belongs there. I trail my hand down to his behind, where I see his tattoo, and my finger follows the outlines of the sun and the tiny stars. My mood is supercharged, a feeling like I’ve never in my life experienced. It’s almost too overwhelming to know what to do with it.
The fingers of my right hand drape across his chest, and I begin to type. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Over and over and over and over. I can’t seem to stop my fingers from shouting out to the world my great good news.
“Baby?” Smoothie stirs awake. “What is it you’re doing with your fingers all the time like that?”
I should be shocked that he’s noticed. I should be ashamed, mortified to tell him the truth about my strange fixation. But I’m not.
Instead I tell Smoothie the truth about how I type out my feelings.
“I’ve done it for so long I would be fully prepared to be blind, what with my manual dexterity from typing my thoughts all these years. Braille would be a piece of cake for me.”
And then I tell him how I don’t think it’s something I can ever stop from doing, it’s like having brown eyes or a hairlip.
“Why should you?” He asks.
“Why should I what?”
“Stop it, I mean There’s no reason to. It’s a special part of who you are.”
I can only smile and breathe in this feeling of complete acceptance.
“So what are you typing now, Mary Kate?”
I come up on my elbows, put my other hand on his chest as well, and as I type out the words, I finally say them out loud.
“I. Love. You.” I say, and I type and type and type.
Smoothie just smiles broadly, and pulls me toward him and squeezes me tight, then whispers in my ear so only I can hear him, “I love you back.”
Chapter 24
The day dawns fresh and cool. A storm last night ushered in pink candy floss clouds in the early morning sky. Everything feels clear and fresh and new and unpolluted. Like a huge burden has been not only lifted, but crushed in a million little pieces and left behind for the clean-up crew to deal with.
Smoothie and I take our time, order breakfast in bed, then go back to bed for a while. This is, after all, very new to us. We finally check out, load the car with our minimal possessions.
We pick up Niagara, who I’d completely forgotten about. Evidently one of the doormen kept him for us during our stay.
“Where to, Mary Kate? You want to find a spider web to follow?” Smoothie asks, pulling out the map.
I pause, thinking. “How about we wander around Niagara Falls for the day. Then worry where to next. I’ve heard Toronto’s a great city. Or maybe Quebec for Bastille Day?”
He raises his eyebrow. “You won’t do anything rash near the falls? You know my heart can’t take that, baby.”
“Nothing rash. I think I want to say my goodbyes, that’s all.”
We park and again stroll through the park, only today it feels like an entirely different experience. Like last time I did this was under a storm cloud. This time I take time to notice more things, even the small children in strollers and the harried mothers and the newlyweds spread out on blankets taking in the glorious day. I hear the pounding of the waterfalls but it doesn’t impose a fear in me. Rather it instills a sense of excitement, maybe even accomplishment. Which I know sounds crazy. I mean, I didn’t exactly accomplish what I’d set out to, did I? But instead I leapt a big-dog hurdle. Which for me is nothing to sniff at. I think I’m making progress.
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