by N. Godwin
“Ooh, yes.”
“I think you’re trying to push me across that fine line, Helen. I think you want me to lose control.”
“I think you already have.”
“Come down here, Helen!”
“No way!” I laugh. “I’m not that stupid. Besides I’ve got my nightshirt on.”
“I know,” Rawly whispers deeply. “It’s gray.”
“Where are you?” I ask looking outside into the night.
“In a tree.”
“Which one?” I laugh.
“Come down here!”
“No.”
“Then I’m coming up.”
“No, you’re not! I have roommates, remember? Besides, I’m not about to see you right now. Not in your condition. I know what you’d do. And you would, too, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes!”
“Then I can’t come down because, whatever else you do or don’t believe about me, you must know I could never have, you know, sex outside of marriage. I believe in my heart that it would be wrong.”
“I’m beginning to believe that, too.”
“So you see, I’m going to be a virgin for my husband until our wedding night. Anything less would make a mockery of all I believe. And I don’t plan on ever marrying you, so I’d say you’ve got a problem, huh?”
“There are…other ways,” he moans softly.
“Yes… I know.”
“Tell me what you know,” his warm voice entices me. “You owe me another, remember? Tell me what you know, Helen.”
I let the seductive challenge in his voice take hold of me and lead me somewhere else as I answer him. I have no secrets right now and I do not pause to contemplate a meaning.
“Tonight,” I whisper, “in my bathtub. I…tried to…you know.”
“You tried to masturbate?” His voice takes on a higher pitch.
“Don’t say that word! It makes it ugly!”
“Sorry, Helen, shh,” his voice quickly soothes me. “Tell me, in your bathtub, what exactly did you do?”
“I…touched myself.”
“Where, Helen?”
“You know where. Down… there, between my legs.”
“And?” his whisper grows hard.
“And nothing, it felt kind of silly and foolish, very foolish. It was just my hand, after all. It was a waste of time.” I am quiet and listen to the rhythm of his breath. It stirs a memory and I close my eyes a moment remembering his warm breath beating against my ear, and I think and speak at the same time, my words flowing and unyielding in their candor, even for my ears.
“I remembered that strange friction from before, the sensation I didn’t like then yet there is something persistent about its memory, something empowering,” I whisper, “remembering how it felt when it hadn’t been just my silly hand. You know, I tried to remember that sensation in the tub and couldn’t--”
“Don’t tell me this, Helen, because if he touched you tonight I really will--”
“No, silly, it was when you were rubbing yourself against me that night on the football field when I thought you were trying to take advantage of me. It was awful at the time and yet I had this insatiable curiosity afterwards, like Eve holding an apple for the first time. And I hate you, so imagine if it had been with someone I actually liked. So, anyway, I tried to recreate that sensation--”
“You thought about me while you masturbated?!” His voice goes up an octave and he sounds breathless, almost angry.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“That’s what you said!”
“No I didn’t!”
“Come down here right now, Helen, or else I’m coming up there to get you!”
“No, you’re not. And if you don’t want me to hang up you’ll stop with these juvenile threats.”
“Damn you!” he hisses.
“Shall I continue?”
“No! God, yes! Ah,” he moans.
“I didn’t like it. It felt empty, stupid even, so I stopped.” I am silent a moment. “I think the important thing is that I at least gave it a try, right?”
“Not if you didn’t do it correctly.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize there was actually a… technique.”
“Oh, Helen, there is most definitely a technique. Shall I talk you through it?”
“No way! That would be--it would be…something. I don’t know what exactly but something just the same. Besides,” I chuckle, “youcouldn’t possibly know what technique a woman uses to—you know?”
“Want to make a bet?”
“I’d win!” I laugh. “You wouldn’t stand a chance against me.”
“You think so? Then make the bet. I win, you have to kiss me. You win,
I go away.”
“Deal!” I laugh happily. “I can’t believe you’re really this dense.”
“ You have no idea what I have up my sleeve. You’ve already lost,” he chuckles.
“Whatever!” I give a skeptical blow into the phone. “Your vanity is beyond the pale. You’re a beast, Commander Hawkings and you know I know it. You couldn’t make me relax long enough to even want to attempt being intimate with you!” I scoff. “Remember, I don’t even like you.”
“No, Helen, you hate me. Hating me is infinitely better than not liking me.”
“I’m pretty sure that imagining fifty possible ways to kill you anytime we’re together is not the better choice here,” I chuckle.
“Ooh the things I could make you do, baby-girl, the wonders I could teach you are endless,” Rawly begins to whisper in a deep voice I’ve never heard.
“Like what?” I whisper back, intrigued by the danger.
“Come and see for yourself. Lie back and listen to my voice; let my words drift over your skin and back again. Ssh, just lie back and relax. Follow my voice,” Rawly’s words entice me as I lie back against the pillow and exhale slowly. “I won’t hurt you. You are safe inside my voice. Stretch out your hands and legs and feet. Stretch and breathe and follow my voice.”
And I do.
I hear Rawly’s deep steady breathing flow over my skin and as I yawn softly the phone feels suddenly warm in my hand and vibrates softly against my ear as his soothing whispers turn into a foreign language I swear I almost understand, strange words I strain to follow. His murmurings turn deeper and sound like a chant or a call to arms, and even though I realize he’s casting some type of enchantment over me, I seem unable to care.
I hear my names weaving in and out in rapid patterns and realize his voice has splintered off into many, some hissing, some soothing, and each whispering incantations that make me tremble until I am woozy and confused as I lie on my bed and stretch out luxuriously, lulled into something beyond sleep’s promise. I run my hand down my face and trace my lips. I run my fingers across the material covering my breasts and linger for a moment on my nipples beneath my nightgown as they run magically down over my stomach.
“Tell me what you’re feeling,” I hear him ask as his other voices tell me to Relax. Be still. Listen and to run my hand down further and further.
“I don’t wear panties at night,” I hear my voice offer.”
“I know.” His voice is harder, more urgent. “Tell me what you feel. Tell me how you feel.”
“My skin, my hair, I’m soft and all silky from my rosewater bubble bath. And I like how I feel, all clean and sleepy,” I say and succumb to a tiny yawn.
“Ah,” I hear him moan softly. “What else do you feel?”
“Rawly?”
“Helen?”
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“I’m… not…sure, but your voice--”
He moans again. “Damn it, are you wet, baby?” he asks quickly. “When you touch yourself are you wet?”
“Baby?!”
“Are you?”
“Yes! No! It’s just my hand! This is foolish!”
“No! It’s my hand!” he whispers fiercely. “And I’m running
my fingers down your abdomen down into your warm silky hair. I’m touching you now and I’m trembling along with you as I slide my fingers up deep inside you now…right now. I’m never taking my eyes off your sweet face. I just want to feel all of you… ah, all of you, baby! I’m sliding myself into you now, deeper and deeper as you moan and call my name. I’m thrusting against and into you until I am surrounded by nothing beyond your pleasure, your scent, you.” His chants ebb and flow into my ear like a massive hungry tide.
I throw my head back and can feel him sliding inside of me. I open my legs wider as he thrusts against me in fast and urgent strokes while he moans in my ear. He moans loudly and I suddenly realize it is his voice over this phone forcing his way inside me, not some safe phantom shadow, and I jerk my hand away.
“Stop!” I say. “Stop it! Get out of my head!” I hiss. “I don’t like this! It’s dirty and wrong! Stop!”
“Think about my lips and my tongue,” he sighs. “Think about me kissing you, baby. Think about my mouth over yours for so long and deep a kiss you struggle to breathe. Think about you under me, in my arms, and me sucking nectar from you, all of you, just to stay sane. Think of all this, Helen, because that’s how it will be, how it is with me now, right here, inside all of you.”
“No!”
“Think about me loving you until you can’t fight against me any longer. Think about me taking--”
“No, I can’t think about you!”
“Why not, baby?”
“You’re not real!”
“What am I, Helen?”
“I don’t know! Honestly! But mainly because… because if I let someone like you, especially you-- touch me, I’m afraid I’ll hate myself till the day I die!” I confess in a huge exhale of breath. “I think I’d really hate myself if I was ever capable of stooping tha--”
“I’m going to die in your arms!” he shouts at me suddenly. “I swear this to you now! Believe it!”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why not?” he yells. “I thought you wanted to kill me?”
“Not like this!”
He is quiet a moment and I can’t think of only nothing, my safety net. I listen until he begins to chuckle softly. “Light a candle, Helen.”
“Why?”
“For once just— Baby, sit up and light a candle for me, please.”
I sit up and reach for a match. I pause and kiss the tip for some silly reason then strike it against my windowsill and light a scented candle. My shadows dance and surround the walls around me. I move my hair out of my face across my shoulders and sigh.
“God, I love you,” he whispers.
“I know,” I whisper back. I look out at the nearest tree hoping to get a glimpse of him and hoping not to get a glimpse at the same time.
“Run away with me, Helen.”
“Where to?” I ask leaning my face against the cool glass pane separating me from the night.
“Where ever your heart desires. Let’s just take this magic and run as fast and as far away as we can.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not, baby?”
“I don’t love you for one.” I close my eyes and whisper.
“Bullshit!”
“I don’t! God, you are such an arrogant--”
“I’m climbing down now, Helen and I’m coming to get you. I’d pack a bag if I were you.” I can hear twigs and branches snapping over the phone.
“We can’t!” I insist. “I can’t leave my kids. Cecile and Kelly are meeting their new family in two days for heaven’s sake! You know I can’t leave them, Rawly, and especially not now. Why am I explaining myself to you?! Why? This is insanity! I could never--”
“Pack your damn bag, Helen!” he says roughly. “Once again, you’re going to have to deal with the corner you’ve painted yourself into. I’m across the street and I’m not taking no for an answer, not this time.” He chuckles as I hear gravel crunching beneath his feet.
“I can’t!” I say as my head spins. “I’m not allowed.”
I lean my back against the wall and open my eyes, surveying the room. The candle flicker casts a soft golden glow around the edges of my vision and I hold the candle higher to check on Cecile’s sweet little face as she dreams and smiles. Could I? I linger over her smile and hold my candle up in the other direction, looking for Kelly’s tender face.
“I’m in your driveway, Helen,” he whispers, “so if you’re planning on double-locking your door I’d do it now, fast! But don’t… Please don’t lock me out, Helen. Not tonight.”
Kelly’s bed is still made and unslepted in. I sit up quickly and look toward the bathroom and realize she couldn’t be there. I scan the corners and anywhere else in the room I can imagine. She clearly wasn’t downstairs in the restaurant or girl’s’ dorm when I’d checked.
“Oh my God!” I gasp when I realize she is nowhere to be found.
“What?” I can hear Rawly ask as his impatient footsteps pound up my stairs.
There is a note lying on Kelly’s pillow and I reach for it quickly and hold the candle up to it and drop the phone down onto her bed. “Oh, my God!” I cry out as I read her note.
I am doing what is best. Take good care of Cecile. You are her mama now. Goodbye, Kelly.
“No God, not Kelly! No, please!” I plead as my knees hit the ground and I rock her note to my breasts.
“Answer me, damn it! Answer me, Helen!” I hear Rawly shout as he bursts into my room.
“No, God!” I plead. “I’ll be good! I swear I will! I’ll never do this again! I’ll never even think like this again! But please-- please not Kelly! I’m so sorry!” I cry. “Please God, don’t hurt Kelly! Don’t punish her because of me!”
SOMETHING MORE
“She’s been gone over a week now,” Eunice tells me again. “Kelly’s not coming back, you know it and I know it.”
“We don’t know anything for certain,” I insist as I pull Cecile in closer on my lap as she bows her head over her coloring book.
I put my face in her hair and inhale. She smells like my perfume and the makeup she loves to play with.
Eunice sucks another cherry out of her chocolate bonbon and glares at me. “We both knew the minute she walked in our door she was on some weird pilgrimage we weren’t meant to understand,” she allows as she pauses to sip her 90% grape juice slowly. “I’m telling you, life is just a Jiminy-Cricket mystery! We never know why it works out the way it does. Take my property for instance. Why do you suppose I didn’t buy gulf side while I had the chance?”
“Kelly’s gone,” a tiny voice informs us, “all gone.”
Eunice and I stare at Cecile in shock. Behind us we hear Ken and Lavelle crash into each other and drop their trays. Cecile is intently coloring Barney’s green belly without looking up.
“All gone now,” she says.
“Nice,” Rawly says as he zooms over into my line of vision. I refuse to meet his eyes and look away. I keep up a steady pace and stare straight ahead. “You’re getting good at this,” he says, still trying to meet my eyes as he turns around and runs backward. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you enjoy running.”
I dodge and run around him getting slightly ahead. Rawly just laughs and tickles Cecile’s feet as she places her hands over his eyes and giggles with delight. I look over at her sitting high up on Rawly’s shoulders and wink at her then concentrate on the tallest condo in front of us, today’s destination. Rawly zooms in front of me again while Cecile covers his eyes and laughs, and it’s really starting to annoy me.
“Why are you doing this?” I huff angrily.
“I’m trying to get you to look me in the eyes. Like you haven’t been able to do since the night we almost--”
“I mean why are you keeping up this ridiculous charade? I’m not even trying to live up to my end of the bargain anymore. As far as I’m concerned our deal is off!”
“Really, then why are you here?”
“You know something I want to learn,
no matter how repug--”
“Exactly,” he says as Cecile claps and waves at two passing children. “You’ve got your reasons and I’ve got mine. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Fine!”
“Oh, you’re pretty,” Cecile tells Rawly as she leans down and kisses the side of his face. “Do you lub me?”
“You know something, Muffin,” he laughs softly, “I’m sure beginning to. Do you love me?”
“Nope, I lub Horst.”
Rawly closes his eyes and groans over the brutal honesty of a three year old. “Ouch, Muffin, you sure know how to hurt a guy.”
“Mama lubs Horst, too,” Cecile continues.
“She does?” Rawly jokes and tickles the bottom of her foot. “We’re trying real hard to find your sweet mama, Cecile.”
“Don’t you lub Horst, Mama?” she asks me as Rawly’s eyes jerk back to my face.
“She calls me mama,” I say with a shrug.
He stops his massive body on a dime and I zoom ahead. As he sprints up next to me, I can tell he is angry or confused. I don’t care which.
“Mama, huh?” he asks with a critical arch of his eyebrow. “Do you think that’s wise, letting a three year old child believe that or pretend that, which ever nonsense you’re doing?”
“Whatever,” I say ignoring him and looking over my left shoulder out into the calming waters of the gulf, trying to drown him out.
“No, Muffin, you’re mama does not love Horst. Unless I’m horribly mistaken, I know firsthand she’s falling in love with--”
“Don’t confuse temporary insanity with love, Harold.”
“Cecile, tell your mama that insanity never felt so--”
“Cecile, the Commander does not realize it’s impolite to use a child to make a point!”
Rawly just throws his head back and laughs. “Hey, Muffin, tell your mama for me that no matter what she throws at me I’m not going anywhere, not now. You tell her for me that as a soldier and a man in love I’m prepared for setbacks. Tell her I’m prepared to break all the rules in love and war. Tell her that for me, okay?”
“Will you stop?” I huff angrily as I slow down. “I’m sick and tired of everyone overhearing our conversations and getting the wrong idea.”