Love Me or Leave Me

by Gwynne Forster

  “Put your head here.”

  Knowing the wisdom of following her lead, he did so, and gazed up at her in an attempt to gauge her mood. She stroked his hair and his cheeks, kissed his forehead and his eyes and brushed his lips with hers.

  “You’re so precious,” she murmured against his lips and quickly moved her mouth to nibble on his ear.

  His heartbeat slowed, he felt himself relaxing, calm, contented, and closed his eyes.

  From a distance it seemed, he heard her mezzo-soprano softly singing “Summertime,” or perhaps he dreamed it. Surely, her fingers loosened his tie, or he only sensed it. When he awoke, her arms held him, and his lips pressed against her belly. As if Providence were toying with him, his first thought was that one day his own child would grow there.

  “Have I been asleep?” he asked her, sitting up and looking around the room.

  Her fingers smoothed his hair. “For more than an hour.”

  A look at his watch told him that it was one-thirty in the morning. “I’ve abused your hospitality. I certainly didn’t mean to sleep, but I felt so…so much peace. Do you want me to leave?”

  He couldn’t believe his good fortune. For an answer, she leaned toward him and pressed her parted lips to his. Excitement plowed through him, and he stood, put her in the bed and cherished her. She opened up to him as a flower unfolds its petals to the sun and gave herself to him. When he could no longer contain the awesome feeling of love that his heart held for her, he gave in to it and exploded into her pulsating warmth, certain that she was the only woman he would ever want.

  “You’re mine and I love you.” The words tore themselves out of him as, for the first time in his life, he lost control completely and like a spent shell, collapsed, trembling, in her arms.

  The next morning, he went with his brothers to the minister of the interior, pushing aside the resentment he felt for having to leave Pamela.

  “What’s going on with you and Pamela?” Telford asked him when they were on the way back to the hotel, a signal to him that he hadn’t treated that conference with his usual critical skepticism. “You seem a bit preoccupied,” Telford added.

  “We’re…fine. She’s… I don’t know, man.”

  “As long as she makes you happy. That’s what counts.”

  He knew Telford was feeling him out. They were and always had been close, and he hadn’t shared with his brother his feelings about Pamela. “Nothing’s wrong, Telford. I’m finding my way.”

  Telford’s grin melted into a laugh. “She’s got your number, eh? Man, I remember it well!”

  He didn’t see the point in answering; it was useless to lie and, moreover, he didn’t want to. That afternoon, he ignored his brothers and their wives and spent as much time as possible alone with Pamela. He couldn’t get enough of her, and she welcomed his every gesture of affection. They played darts and various card games, and swam several laps in the pool.

  “Ladd has invited all of us to dinner at his home tomorrow evening, but don’t expect Ghanaian food, or at least not a full meal of it. Both he and Doris, his wife, prefer American and continental dishes. I suspect it will be a formal occasion, though, because he’s probably also asked some of the local bigwigs.”

  Pamela dressed for dinner that evening in the long peach-colored chiffon sheath that she wore to Rhoda’s garden party. She draped a matching stole around her shoulders, picked up the silver bag that matched her shoes and took the elevator down to the lobby where Drake waited for her. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Velma and Alexis wore dresses similar in fashion to hers.

  The dinner began with peanut soup, which she thought was delicious. Before the next course was served, however, she noticed that Selicia Dennis, the woman seated at Drake’s left, occasionally put her right arm around his shoulder, patted his knee from time to time and attempted to monopolize him. When Russ’s gaze moved repeatedly from Pamela to the woman, Pamela positioned herself to get a good look at her. What she saw was an average-looking, well-gowned woman of thirty to thirty-five years who couldn’t keep her hands off Drake. Fuming at the attention Drake seemed to pay the woman, she waited until after dessert was served, excused herself, went to her room and locked the door.

  “He will do one hell of a piece of talking before I forgive him,” she said to herself. She refused to answer the telephone, and when it rang repeatedly, she placed it beneath the soft pillows. The next morning, she ordered breakfast in her room, not because she had an appetite, but because she didn’t want to go to breakfast where she knew she’d find Drake. And she wasn’t anywhere near ready to let go of her anger.

  Around nine o’clock, Pamela saw a slip of paper that someone had shoved beneath her door. She picked it up and read a note from Alexis.

  Velma and I are going shopping for an hour, and we’d love for you to come with us.

  She wanted to be friends with them, especially with Velma, and temperamental behavior was not the way to begin it. She phoned Alexis and agreed to meet the women in the lobby at nine-thirty.

  “That woman is Doris’s best friend. You shouldn’t blame Drake—he had to talk to her or seem rude,” Velma said. “But, boy, is she aggressive!”

  “I don’t care whose best friend she is. He didn’t say fifty words to me during the meal, and if he prefers me to be mad at him rather than displease that man-eater, fine. He has his wish.”

  “Come, now,” Alexis said. “As long as you don’t say anything you’ll regret, let him know how you feel, but as upset as he was at your leaving him and not answering your phone, I’d say that woman didn’t gain one thing.”

  So this was what it was like to have sisters or girlfriends her age with whom she could talk. An aura of contentment enveloped her, and she stopped worrying about Drake and enjoyed herself.

  “You mean you’re still mad about that?” Drake asked Pamela. “If I was interested in that woman, I wouldn’t have brought you here. I met her at Ladd’s wedding, and she behaved outrageously then. If you can’t trust me and believe in me, we don’t have anything going for us.”

  “I do trust you, and I believe in you. Furthermore, you know it. But if you think I’m going to sit like a wilting daisy while you let some dame crawl all over you, think again.”

  Russ joined them, leaned against the corner of the bar and said, “Don’t let this cause a rift between you two. It’s foolish. You mean too much to each other. Drake, if you were engaged to Pamela, you could have demanded that that woman back off and keep her hands off you, and she would have. But you’re not engaged, and that is the crux of the problem.”

  Drake stared at Russ, but said nothing because he knew his brother spoke the truth.

  As they flew back to the States, he couldn’t bridge the chasm between Pamela and himself, no matter what he said. And when he took her home, she didn’t invite him to come in. No one had to tell him that he had his work cut out for him.

  “I wasn’t jealous, mind you,” she said. “I was hurt because you failed to acknowledge our relationship. Or maybe we don’t have one.”

  “I won’t dignify that comment with an answer. It was unfair.”

  He had forgotten that many people regarded him as a womanizer, a playboy. Perhaps that was what Pamela allowed herself to see at that dinner. He leaned down, kissed her cheek and left her. He was well on his way to Eagle Park before it dawned on him that her cheek had the taste of salt. Salt from her tears.

  “Man, you have to let a woman know where she stands,” Telford told him that night as they sat alone in the den.

  “I know that, but I felt obligated to talk to Ladd’s guest. If I wanted her, I’d have her. The truth is that I can’t stand her, and she knows it, because I practically told her so.”

  Telford locked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “If Pamela understands and sympathizes with your need to be courteous to another woman, I’ll buy Fort Knox.” He rubbed his fingers across his chin. “I can’t believe this. The two of you
were besotted with each other until… Oh, hell, man. You’ll find a way to repair it.”

  He hoped so. Oh, how he hoped so.

  The next morning, shortly after breakfast, Drake headed for the Harrington-Sparkman Memorial Houses in Frederick. However, no sooner had he parked than he realized that something was amiss. Immediately, Bond Jergens greeted him with a handshake and bad news.

  “We’ve had some pilfering here,” he said, “so I’ve been spending the night in the trailer. Last night, I caught two fellows trying to cart off buckets of paint, and I called the police, who arrested them.”

  “Thanks, Bond. You’ll be well rewarded for this. I’m going to the precinct, and I’ll get back as soon as I can.” He got into his car and drove to the nearest police station.

  “Good morning, officer. I’m Drake Harrington, and my foreman tells me you’re holding two men caught stealing from one of my building sites.”

  The officer verified the address. “You want to talk to them?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  The officer stood at the door while Drake asked them what they planned to do with the paint.

  “Nothing,” one said. “I was just doing a job, man.”

  His antenna shot up. “Who paid you?” When the man didn’t respond, he said, “All right, more than paint was stolen. I’m pressing charges for grand larceny.”

  The man’s face reddened and his eyes mirrored in fear. “A guy out in Honolulu. Name’s Parker. He said you owed him plenty.”

  “And he paid you to wreck my property?”

  “He wanted me to burn it down, but I wasn’t in for that, man.”

  “And it’s a good thing,” the policeman said. He looked at Drake. “You wanna press charges?”

  “I want them to stay here until I bring charges against Lawrence Parker.”

  At five-thirty that afternoon, he quit work, washed up, dressed in the trailer and telephoned Pamela. “I have to see you about something important. Would you rather I went to your office or to your apartment?”

  After hesitating long enough to make him nervous, she said, “My apartment. I’ll be there by seven-thirty.”

  She opened the door as soon as he rang the bell, and he stood there staring at her. So near, and yet so far away from him. After their solemn greetings with words such as strangers use, he told her of Lawrence Parker’s latest antics and added, “Please beware. He seems to have long arms, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Thanks.” After a moment of silence during which she seemed pensive, she said, “You mean he wanted someone to burn up those houses? What are you going to do?”

  “Have him arrested and press charges.”

  “The poor dunce,” she said. She got up, walked to the window, looked out and walked back to the chair she had vacated.

  She didn’t sit down, but stood there looking at him, and he waited for what he knew would be a bombshell.

  “I think you should know that the adoption agency has located a baby girl for me.”

  “What? Are you…?” He stood and faced her. “Don’t go through with it. Please.”

  “Why not? I want a child, and this is the only way I’ll get one.”

  Without considering his action, he grabbed her shoulders. “Like hell it is!” His hands gripped her to him, and he pressed his lips to hers. When she didn’t open to him, he rubbed her nipple until she moaned and parted her lips. He plunged his tongue into her, and she grasped his buttocks and locked him to her. Then he slipped his hand into the neckline of her sweater and toyed with her breast; she cried out and undulated against him. On fire for her, he picked her up and carried her to her bed.

  “If you don’t want me, tell me right now,” he heard himself say.

  Her tongue rimmed her lips, bathing them in that seductive way she had. “I’m on fire for you, and you know it,” she replied, as his lips covered her breast, and he sucked her nipple into his mouth.

  She had never been so frantic for him, and he reveled in it, stripping her and then himself as fast as he could. He slipped on a condom, and when at last he sank into the sweet warmth of her body, he heard himself cry out, “You’re mine. You hear me? Mine!”

  “Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, and you belong to me.”

  Minutes later, his shattering climax, following her own, drained him of all his energy, and he lay in her arms panting for breath. When he could climb down from the cloud of euphoria onto which she’d flung him, he accepted that they could not continue as they were. However, before he could voice that sentiment, she said, “I’m sorry, Drake, but as deeply as I love you, nothing has changed. I’m going through with it.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Pamela. You can’t know how much.”

  “Goodbye,” she said slowly and deliberately when he left, and he didn’t miss the finality in her voice.

  “But it’s not over yet,” he said to himself as he headed home. “It can’t be. If she’ll give me a little more time, I can pull it all together. That job in Ghana, and the consultancy I’ve been offered, should put me on the map, and I’ll have a legacy for my children.”

  Shortly after Thanksgiving, he returned to Ghana to sign the contract obligating himself and his brothers to build a mall in Accra. And wherever he went there, the memory of that perfect day he’d spent with Pamela haunted him.

  “Would you please turn that off?” he said to the disc jockey who provided music at cocktail hour in the hotel. Every time he heard Gershwin’s “Summertime,” tears spilled down his insides, for his thoughts went back to that night when she sang it to him while he lay, half-asleep, with his head in her lap.

  When his plane landed in Baltimore, he called home. “Yer girlfriend called here twice for ya,” Henry told him. “She seemed upset. Better see what she wants.”

  He telephoned Pamela. “Henry said you called me.”

  “I did. I…I’ve been so upset. That adoption agency isn’t reputable. They want me to pay for the baby. A lot of money, too. But that’s…that’s illegal. I can’t do it.”

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  She interrupted him. “I don’t need sympathy. I…I need a family of my own.”

  His efforts to console her failed, and he had no choice but to go on home. But when he got there, Telford, Alexis and Tara were ecstatic because Alexis’s unborn baby had moved in her womb, and their hands were pressed to her in the hope of feeling the movement again. He slipped, unnoticed, into his room and, for a second time, he felt like an outsider in his own home.

  When he arrived at work the next morning, Bond greeted him jubilantly with the news that his wife was pregnant. He stared at his foreman. “Uh…that makes six, doesn’t it? Sounds to me as if…” He didn’t finish it, for he saw the delight on the man’s face, the face of a poor man who struggled to make ends meet.

  “I see you think I’m crazy,” Bond said. He looked into the distance as if counting memories. “A woman carries a baby for nine months, losing her pretty shape, sick half the time and then she has those awful pains. You and I couldn’t do that. My wife knows what to expect, but she’s still as happy as she can be. I’d do anything for her. Having children together creates an unbreakable bond between a man and a woman. You think you love her, and then she gives you a child, and she’s a hundred percent more precious to you.”

  For over a week, Bond’s words dominated Drake’s thoughts, and he could concentrate on little else. “Am I selfish to want my life to be perfect before I marry and settle down?” he asked himself. “I love her, and I want what she wants—a home, family and children. My children and hers. I don’t have to be the greatest architectural engineer in the country. I only have to do my best. She needs me, and I need her.”

  After supper, he told Telford that he wanted the plot of land up the road from where Russ was building a house for himself and Velma.

  “Does this mean you’re getting married?”

  “It means I don’t want to live without her, and I’m going to
ask her to marry me.”

  His brother’s face beamed with happiness. “When?”

  “Tonight, if she’s home.”

  “You have my blessings and my prayers, brother,” Telford said, opening his arms and embracing him.

  Pamela answered the telephone after the first ring. “Hello.”

  “This is Drake, Pamela. I’m in Eagle Park, and I’d like to see you tonight as soon as I can get to your place.” She remained silent.

  “I need to get my life in order, and that means I have to begin with you.”

  “I’ll be here when you get here.”

  “Thanks,” he said. That was all. Nothing but thanks. Well, at least he was in a mood to finalize something, though she didn’t know what or how. She called her mother because she needed moral support. Not that she intended to tell Delta details of her relationship with Drake—she didn’t. She needed the sweet, calming influence of her mother’s voice.

  “How’s Drake?” Delta asked after they spoke for some minutes.

  “He’s on his way over here now.”

  “Then, for goodness’ sake, why are you talking to me? Pamper yourself so you’ll be fresh and lovely when he gets there. Good night, darling.” She hung up.

  Pamela stared at the telephone, and then laughed. Her mother was a femme fatale and a genuine romantic. Her mother also knew how to hold a man. She showered, applied Opium bath oil over her body, put on the long white sheath that she wore for Drake in Accra, combed out her hair and slipped her feet into a pair of flat white sandals. When the doorbell rang after what seemed like years, she rushed to the door and flung it open.

  “Hi. You look…wonderful,” he said and handed her a bunch of pink calla lilies.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said, hoping to make him feel welcome. “Come on in.”

  He took her hand, walked into the living room and sat with her on the sofa; she was sure he could hear the thumping of her heart.