Masked Indulgence

by Michelle Love

  “Your husband, Pierce Langford is here with us. We really need you here, Mrs. Langford. Decisions have to be made. How fast can you get here?” his question echoed in my head.

  I was in shock, unable to move or answer the man. But then I pictured my rock of a husband and how he needed me and shook my head as I jumped out of bed. “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Good. Come to the Emergency Department and tell them who you are and they’ll get you to us.” He hung up, and I sprang into action.

  Calling my mother as I pulled off my nightclothes and pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, I’d never been more thankful for my parents living in the guesthouse just behind our home. “Hello?” came her weary voice.

  “Mom, I need you to come into the main house to be with the children. Something’s happened to Pierce. The hospital just called me, and I have to take off now.”

  “Oh, God!” she cried out. “What’s happened to him?”

  “Mom, I don’t know. I don’t have time. Please just hurry up and get here.” I ended the call as I ran to the bathroom to splash water on my face and pull my hair into a ponytail.

  My reflection told me I wasn’t taking things well. The color in my face had drained away, leaving only pale skin behind. There were dark circles underneath my eyes, and when I looked down, I noticed my hands were shaking. “I need to call our driver.”

  After calling him and getting him going, I grabbed my purse, and a jacket then ran out of our bedroom, only to come right back in, cursing the whole time as I’d forgotten to put on any shoes.

  Stuffing my feet into a pair of sneakers, my eyes roamed over the bedroom one more time, scanning for anything else I’d missed. Seeing nothing, I left our bedroom, extremely conscious of the fact that I might never see my husband in our bed again.

  Trying not to cry proved to be hard, but somehow I managed to fight back the tears. Staying strong for Pierce had to be my first priority.

  Passing my mother in the hallway, one of her hands grabbed my arm, stopping me. “Call me as soon as you know what’s happened, Jade. Your father and I are worried sick.”

  “I will, Mum, thank you. Keep the kids calm, please. Love you.” I ran to the front door and was happy to see the driver had the car waiting.

  He stood at the back door, holding it open for me. I couldn’t say a word as I slipped inside. Our driver sped off toward the hospital while I sat perfectly still. My eyes traveled over the posh interior of the car my husband had purchased only a few months earlier. A car he might never get to ride in again.

  Shaking my head, I drove the negative thoughts away once more. They kept creeping up on me somehow.

  The drive took forever, not really; it only took fifteen minutes. Those fifteen minutes felt like an hour. Time wasn’t moving right. Nothing felt real. It was as if I was an actor in some drama. A drama I wanted to end happily. Most dramas don’t end that way.

  A Shakespearean tragedy wasn’t a thing I wanted to be a part of. But it seemed I’d been thrust into the middle of one anyway. What had started out as a beautiful relationship, one that had brought three souls into the world, might end on a sad note and much too soon at that.

  How could I make sure our ending didn’t come too soon?

  Pierce

  “Can you feel this, Mr. Langford?” the doctor asked me as he pushed a needled into the tip of my finger.

  My eyes were trained on the needle as it pierced my flesh. “No. Nothing,” my tone as grim as my heart.

  Always the optimist, my wife piped in, “Nothing to worry about, Pierce. This is very common with injuries like the ones you’ve sustained. You could still regain feeling and movement, no need to get down about this little test.”

  Her cheery tone annoyed me to no end, and I found myself clenching my jaw for the umpteenth time that day.

  Six weeks had passed since my accident. The casts on my arms had been removed, but I couldn’t make them move on my own. Physical therapists came in twice a day to move them for me. And Jade had been shown how to move them too; she did so in the afternoon.

  I felt like a puppet.

  Once I’d been a powerful man. A dominant man who took the role of the rock in my family. And now, well, now I was nothing. As useless as a puppet.

  Jade had demanded that I let our children come to the hospital for a visit. No longer in traction, I didn’t look quite as decrepit as I did swinging in the chains. Now I was lying in a hospital bed.

  Soon the casts on my legs would come off, and then I’d be able to move about using a wheelchair — a thing my doctors and wife thought I should be overjoyed about — I wasn’t happy about it at all though.

  Jade had washed and cut my hair, sprucing me up, trimming my beard a bit, making me as presentable as she possibly could for a visit with our kids and her parents. Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to the visit.

  The doctor patted me on the shoulder, a thing I didn’t feel. “Okay, Mr. Langford, I’ll be back to check in on you on the morrow.” He gave Jade a little wave. “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Langford.” I could see the sorrow in his light blue eyes as he made eye contact with my wife. He felt sorry for her, having to put up with me.

  Jade bid him goodbye then turned her attention to me. “I’ll call Mum and have them come up here with the children now.”

  All I could do was sigh, heavily. “Whatever.”

  “Pierce, don’t be like that,” she chided me. “They all miss you so very much. They’ve begged to get to come see you. You have no idea how hard this has been on them.”

  “You think this is hard on them, Jade?” I practically yelled at her before clenching my jaw again to shut myself up.

  She paused, glaring at me, then put her cell down on the table. “Pierce Langford, I’ve had just about as much as I can take out of you. This self-pity is a thing you need to get the fuck over,” her tone firm and strict.

  “I can’t just get the fuck over this, Jade. Fuck!” I shouted. “I am nothing now. You made me this way!”

  The way she recoiled from me, astonished me. She acted as if she’d just been struck by something. A grimace took her stoic expression over as she spat, “I did not make you this way!”

  Emotion welled up inside of me and tears spilled from my eyes. What was I saying? “I love you. I don’t know why I’m so pissed at you. But I am mad at you, Jade. I do blame you for this. Why didn’t you just let me die? Death would be better than this. Why did you demand I be brought back to life six goddamned times, Jade!”

  Sobbing, I gasped for air and hated the fact that I couldn’t even wipe the tears away. But I didn’t want her to touch me. I wanted to be left alone. Why couldn’t she see that all I wanted was to be left alone?

  The tears made everything blurry, but I could see her small frame as she stumbled back and fell onto a chair. “Pierce, my God. I really had no idea. I’ll make sure you get some mental help, sweetheart.”

  Suddenly the sobbing stopped. My tears dried up, miraculously. “No,” came my soft word.

  “No?” she asked then got up and came to me, wiping away the tears.

  “I don’t want to talk to a therapist. I just want you to leave me alone, Jade. Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I asked as I searched her eyes. Eyes that had looked at me with love filling them for a decade. Now all I saw was sympathy.

  I hated being a pathetic human being who could only arouse sympathy in my wife’s eyes.

  Passion had once filled them, desire, even panic — which was better than fucking sympathy — I had to wonder if I’d ever see those things again in her beautiful eyes.

  After clearing all the tears, she held a tissue to my nose. “Blow.”

  I blew my nose, feeling helpless. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t understand why this had happened to me. What had I done so terribly wrong to deserve this?

  “Jade, during all the BDSM stuff we did, did I ever hurt you and you not tell me?” I asked her as a train of thought sparked up in my head.

&
nbsp; Blinking, she tilted her head to one side. “Pierce, do you think you had an accident that cost you so much because you somehow deserve it?”

  “Maybe.”

  All I could do was watch her as unshed tears shimmered in her eyes. Then she leaned over me and pressed her lips to mine, kissing me softly. Her lips grazed mine as she said, “You never hurt me. You only took me higher than I imagined I could go, my wonderful Master.”

  Could I still be the Master she deserved?

  Jade

  When I got into the Emergency room, I was whisked away to the other side of the large hospital. A nurse led the way at a fast pace, telling me everything that had happened to my husband, “Mr. Langford was heading east on King’s Road when a delivery truck suddenly moved into his lane, striking his vehicle head-on. Due to the heavy weight of the truck, which was filled with mattress sets, the front of your husband’s Mercedes was crushed much like an aluminum can.”

  “My, God!” I gasped and clenched my throat in dismay.

  “Your husband’s car had to be cut open with a mechanism they call, the jaws of life. His body was intact, a thing most of the rescuers were afraid wouldn’t be.”

  “Thank goodness,” I mumbled. At least he hadn’t lost any limbs.

  The nurse nodded in agreement. “That being said. The surgeons are not certain at this point that they will be able to save all of his extremities. He’s broken most of the bones in his body, Mrs. Langston. He’s looking at a long and frankly painful recovery.” Her eyes darted to me then back in front. “If he can feel anything, that is. There is a very large possibility that he could either be paralyzed from the waist down or even the neck down.”

  Knots formed in my stomach and my throat as my hands clasped together and I wrung them in a nervous state. “But he’s alive. That’s what matters the most. I still have him.”

  The nurse stopped at a set of double doors that had the word, surgery over them. “For now, he is alive. But you need to know that he isn’t breathing on his own. He’s on a ventilator. But his heart is beating on its own. If it wasn’t, I’m afraid he would’ve been called dead on arrival. His brain isn’t showing much function at all, either.”

  My knees went weak. “He’s that bad off?”

  She nodded then pushed a button to open the doors and in we went. There I was met by two men in light blue scrubs. Blood was splattered on the fronts of their clothes. Was it my husband’s? My stomach churned with the thought.

  They pulled their masks down, and one of the men spoke to me, “Mrs. Langford, I presume?”

  I nodded. “How is he? When can I see him?”

  The other man took over. “He’s in a grave condition. And you can’t see him until he’s out of the O.R.”

  All I had wanted was to see him. I needed to see him. I needed to hold his hand and tell him everything would be alright. I’d take care of him forever if I had to. “Please, gentlemen, I really need to see my husband.”

  The nurse patted me on the back. “His condition would only serve to break you, Mrs. Langston. Let them do what they can for him first.”

  Suddenly grief overtook me, and I swooned. The men grabbed me and took me to sit down in a nearby waiting area. One of them went to get me a cup of water while the other looked me over. “I know this is shocking. We need you to keep a level head. Your husband is in surgery right now. If his heart stops, it will be up to you to make the call if we’re to try to resuscitate him or not.”

  Suddenly I knew I had to push this sorrow and shock to the side. I had to be the rock now. Pierce needed me to stay strong and keep him alive.

  And just as I took a drink of the water I was handed, another man came flying out of a set of double door. Doors I now knew my husband was behind.

  I could hear the loud, long beep that kept on going. “Is that her?” the man called out to the three who were with me.

  They all nodded, and I stood up. The sound I could still hear, even though the doors had closed, told me what was wrong. “Save him,” I ordered.

  With a nod, the man who’d run out of the operating room turned and ran right back inside, shouting, “Bring him back!”

  And that would happen five more times in a matter of six hours. Each time the chance of him not coming back was far greater than the previous one.

  I sat and waited, chewing every fingernail I had to the quick. My body ached from the tense way I’d kept it. My jaw hurt from clenching it so hard and for so long.

  Why was it taking so damn long?

  Why couldn’t they stabilize him?

  Why did this have to happen to him?

  As the staff had work to get back to, I was left alone in the small waiting room with one solid glass wall that allowed me to see the comings and goings of the people who went in and out of the operating room Pierce was in. Alone, I waited and waited, giving my consent to them when needed to bring my husband back from the other side.

  Deep inside my heart, I knew he might hate me if he had to live the remainder of his life as a person with quadriplegia. Losing the ability to walk would prove difficult, but I had confidence that he’d be able to handle that. Losing the ability to move anything lower than his neck might prove to be too much for the dominant male that had been my husband, merely hours before.

  Eventually, as I gave the sixth order to bring him back to me, I became comfortable with what I’d done. He could hate me all he wanted; I’d only ever love him back.

  Pierce was my rock, my world, my life. I’d accept his hate in return for having him here with us. I’d do that for our children. They didn’t deserve to lose their father so young.

  When a woman came out, wearing hot pink scrubs, I was surprised and relieved with the smile she wore after she took off her mask. “He’s out of the woods, Mrs. Langford. You can see him soon!”

  Pierce

  “Daddy! Daddy!” my children all called out at once as they came streaming into my hospital room.

  “Easy now kids, Daddy’s not able to move, and you must be very careful with him,” Jade cautioned as she got between them and me, guarding me from my own children.

  Our nine-year-old, Sarah, looked at me with wide eyes as she peered around her mother. “Daddy, we’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you all too, Sarah.” I looked at them all as Jade moved out of the way. Johnathon was seven. “How’s school, my boy?”

  “I’m doing pretty good, Dad.” He smiled at me. “And Mary Simmons kissed me on the cheek last Tuesday.”

  A chuckle rose up in me as I found the red in his cheeks to be adorable. “Did she, now?”

  He nodded, then our youngest, four-year-old Quinn, came toward me, placing her hand on my leg. The cast was hard beneath her palm, and she gave me a questioning look. The blanket covered my body, so she had no idea why her Daddy was so hard. “What’s this?”

  Jade answered. “I told you that Daddy’s legs are still in casts, Quinn.”

  “Can I see?” Quinn asked as she pulled the blanket up.

  Jade reached out to stop her, but I said, “Go ahead.”

  My baby girl pulled the blanket up, and all three of my children looked at the white cast that held my leg in place. Johnathon knocked on it with his little fist. “Does that hurt, Dad?”

  “No.” My eyes darted to Jade. “You haven’t told them?”

  Sarah looked at me. “Told us what, Daddy?”

  “I can’t feel anything,” I let her know.

  Sarah looked at me harder then came to me, kissing my cheek. “Can you feel that?”

  “Yes, I can feel my head, but nothing else,” I told her, and my heart ached, as even though I couldn’t move my arms, they wanted to hold my oldest daughter in them so desperately I could actually feel the pain of not getting to, coursing through my veins.

  A smile curled my oldest daughter’s lips. “Well, at least you can feel something.” She hugged me then, and it nearly made me cry. “Oh, Daddy, how I’ve missed you!”

  Her dark s
ilky hair moved over my face, the lilac scent filling my senses. “Oh, baby, Daddy has missed you too.” Tears fell again; I’d lost control.

  And as I cried, the rest of my family came to hug me; their combined smells filled me with the memory of home. A place I missed so much it seemed impossible. We all cried then. We all shared the pain and the happiness of being together.

  And Jade’s softly spoken words were the glue that bound us together, “As a family, we will all get through this tough time, and we will all come out of this a bit stronger than we were before.”

  Lips pressed against my cheeks as they all left kisses on them. I’d never felt so loved in my entire life than I felt at that moment. I could get past this. With their love and devotion, I’d survive this tragedy and find my way through the darkness.

  I had to.

  My family deserved that.

  “Okay. Cry-fest is over,” I let them know.

  As they all pulled back, Jade grabbed tissues and handed them to the kids then took one and wiped my tears away. “I love you, Pierce.”

  “I love you, Jade,” I said as she kissed my cheek once more. “It’s all going to be okay. From here on out, I will stop moaning and complaining about everything. I promise you that.”

  Her smile was brilliant as she stood over me. “I should’ve brought the kids much earlier.”

  “Nah, you brought them at just the right time.” I winked at her. “Sorry about all that earlier. I really am.”

  She waved me off. “Think nothing of it.” She put her hand on top of mine, and I looked at our hands touching and wished that I could feel that. “Mum and Dad would love to come in and see you if that’s okay.”

  “I think I’d like that,” I said then looked at the kids. “How about you guys climb up on the bed with me? I like the way I feel when you’re all close to me.” Their energy comforted me in a way I’d never felt before.

  And after Jade’s parents came in and hugged me too, I knew I’d found the best medicine there ever could be.

  Love. Family. Hope.

  I’d all but lost hope of things ever getting better. I’d resigned myself to the fact that I would never walk again. That my limbs would never function again. That I’d never make love to my wife again.