by Tammy Bench
‘Tom, do you really have to ask that?’ she stared at him hard this time.
‘I don’t know? At the time I thought what we were doing was crazy, but we both wanted it as much as the other. Then when I left and as the years went on I started to really question my actions and wonder if I was truly a monster or something?’ he blinked and his jaw tensed, she was watching him so intently as he spoke, ‘but you’re here and you haven’t hit me and you don’t seem scared so I hope you didn’t feel that way?’
‘No, Tom. I wanted and pushed you for what we had, if you remember it right?’ she tried to reassure him.
‘I remember it.’
‘You didn’t abuse me,’ she said solemnly.
‘You’re sure?’ he stared at her.
‘Positive,’ she vowed.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he watched her still.
‘Not physically.’
‘But you were a virgin. It’s the worst part and the bit that feels the most perverted,’ he rubbed his hand over his face, ‘I can’t believe I’m getting the chance to ask you these things that have been running around in my thoughts forever.’
‘I was a virgin, but that doesn’t…’ she looked at him then not really knowing what to say.
‘I just think of my own daughter…’ he started.
‘Don’t compare what you’re thinking, to what we did. It is a million miles away from that. You are not that guy, Tom. Honestly.’
‘I look at the girls I teach now and I wouldn’t ever dream of thinking about them in that way. So why was it okay with you?’
‘Because you’re not into young girls,’ she said.
‘I know that. I’m just into you,’ he turned his gaze to her and smiled ruthlessly while trying to lighten the mood.
‘I wouldn’t have wanted it to be with anyone else but you.’
‘Thank you.’
This was getting dangerous. She should think about leaving, but first she had to ask him something too.
‘Tom?’
‘Yes?’
‘Before I go…’
Tom cut in, ‘you’re not going.’
It wasn’t a question.
‘Tom,’ she frowned at him.
‘What? You’re not,’ he half smiled.
‘Tom, you’re being an arse. I’ll be going soon. I can’t stay too long, you know why…’ she sighed.
Please don’t think I want to leave though…
‘You won’t, but go on?’ he smiled again.
Why was his self-confidence always so attractive to her?
‘I’m very strong you know?’ he winked.
She looked at his arms and then back to her drink quickly, ‘I do.’
‘I might not let you go. I might just keep you here.’
She breathed out and felt a small shiver run over her shoulders.
‘I’m stronger than I look. I could kick your arse.’ Pure heat rushed to her head as she spoke.
‘Care to try? I’m very happy to get physical.’
Alice rolled her eyes.
‘I have a semi serious question I have to ask too?’ she said then.
‘Please ask? Anything you need to ask, I’ll answer if I can,’ he said.
‘I just wanted to know for my own peace of mind,’ she stopped and gathered strength for the next few words, ‘the night we split… was it always going to be over?’
Alice looked away and prayed she wouldn’t cry in front of him. She had said so much hurtful crap to him the night she had found out he was moving back to Ireland. Some of it probably responsible for his last question and his worry about being a pervert.
He had said he wanted to put distance between them and have a break until she finished her A-levels. She pushed him into walking away – but would he have done it anyway, if she hadn’t?
‘Did I push you away, Tom?’
Could her life have been so different?
Would she have wanted it to be?
Tom’s expression turned serious. His crystal blue eyes clouded a little and he drained the last of his drink. He shook his head.
‘Alice, that’s such a hard question to answer. Everything I said about giving us some space, I meant. But if I’m honest part of my brain was telling me it had to be over for your sake. But if it hadn’t ended the way it had, and we had parted on better terms? I know the way I felt when I left you – I would have been begging you to take me back within months,’ he pushed his hand through his hair, ‘but what we said to each other in the heat of things made it harder to go back. The amount of hurt that we both felt scared me into thinking that we wouldn’t be able to tough out the bad times to come. There definitely would have been a few of those when we started telling people about us.’
Alice was close to tears, ‘I know that. But did you walk away because of the things I said?’
Tom breathed heavily.
‘No, Alice. Nothing you said to me pushed me away from you. What you said was close to the truth even. I was shocked. I was disgusted with myself. But nothing you could have ever said would have kept me away from you if I had not been so fucking scared of the consequences. I walked because I was young, idiotic and blind.’
‘We both were,’ she whispered.
‘No. You knew your heart. You were steadfast in what you wanted. And because of that you were able to move on eventually and be happy. Because I ran like a fucking coward at the first sign of trouble I couldn’t and I’ve had to live with that regret.’
So he blamed himself and not her? How messed up was that? They had both spent the last fourteen years blaming themselves for something that just simply was.
She looked at her phone, nine forty-five and it was dark now. She hadn’t wanted it to get so deep tonight. But if this was the last time she would see him, she had to ask the thing that had eaten her up all this time. And now she had her answer.
‘We all have regrets Tom, it’s what makes us human,’ she tried to change the subject again, ‘take Jane Eyre for heaven’s sake?’
Tom nodded slowly.
‘True enough, that novel is full of them,’ he paused, grinned and rubbed his chin, ‘remind me again what happens at the end of that book though?’
Alice raised an eyebrow at him and he continued.
‘Oh that’s right, Jane comes back to Rochester and they live happily – as much as those two can – ever after.’
‘Yes, but you’re overlooking Rochester’s shady past, his wife in the attic and illegitimate child? Also you fail to mention Jane’s handsome young suitor, St John, and her ongoing reservations about Edward. In the end she returns to him out of love and loyalty. She also returns a young vivacious woman and he sadly is an aging, broken man,’ she joked pushing Tom’s arm.
‘Such is life…’ he started laughing too.
‘The truth hurts old man!’ she joked.
‘Look at me now! Oh when I think of my glory days. How fit, how handsome, how modest…’ he said in his best dramatic voice.
Alice watched him playing. Her heart fluttering like a stupid child and her pulse racing like she had never seen a more perfect man.
Oh God why did you take him from me?
‘Look at you now…’ she whispered to herself and turned away.
Tom stopped laughing.
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me what you see now, Alice? Please, I want to know.’
Tom lifted himself on to the seat next to her and placed his bottle on the coffee table. He grabbed her shoulders lightly and turned her to face him. When she met his eyes he let her arms go.
‘Tell me,’ he ordered.
Alice swallowed hard. She knew he meant what she saw between them? If she still felt it too? Not a bit about his appearance.
‘I see you, Tom. The way you are and the way you were. There is no major difference. You’re an incredibly good looking man and I still can’t believe that you ever wanted to be with me,’ she tried to steer him o
ff the subject.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ he looked annoyed.
‘No.’
‘You think that you were beneath me? That you were lucky I ever looked at you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got to be joking? I didn’t deserve to even breathe the same air as you, Alice – I still don’t.’
‘Then we will have to agree to differ,’ she insisted.
‘I’m going to tell you what I see. Because I know you won’t. Even though I know you understood what I meant when I asked you that question.’
She tucked her hair behind one ear and waited, her heart rate increasing with every second that passed.
‘I see what we could have been and it’s fucking killing me,’ his jaw tensed. He reached over and took the beer from her hand and placed it next to his empty one on the table.
Her hands were shaking. He sat in front of her. Maybe five inches apart. His eyes locked with hers and he silently dared her to try and look away.
‘I see you, the woman that should have been my wife…’
‘Tom, don’t,’ she reached out and touched his hand without thinking.
He looked down at her fingers on his skin.
Touching him felt warm and safe. But it was wrong.
What kind of a woman was she?
‘It’s true. A handful of moments with you and…’
‘Don’t say anymore,’ she cut him off, ‘please don’t say things that’ll make me want this.’
She watched Tom’s face change from emotional to something more dangerous. It had been so long since she had seen the hunger in him. His breathing quickened, she could see his chest rising and falling. His body was tense she could feel it under her fingertips.
‘I’ve got to go…’ she said in sudden panic.
‘No,’ he demanded.
‘I have to. You know I can’t let this carry on.’
‘Please.’
‘I have to go, Tom.’ Her eyes pleading with him.
‘Alice?’
‘I know,’ she breathed, ‘but I’m not that sort of girl.’
‘You’re making it sound like it would be a mistake or wrong? You know it wouldn’t be,’ he locked her in his stare.
‘Whatever it would mean to me is irrelevant, it’s what it would mean to my family that matters.’
She moved her hand away. Tom grabbed her fingers with his.
‘Don’t leave,’ he pleaded.
Her whole body was screaming in protest at her intent to walk away from him. She was at war with herself. If heart and head were ever truer she’d never known it.
‘I don’t have a choice,’ she wiped her face with her free hand.
‘You do have a choice,’ he moved his left hand to her outer thigh and brushed his palm over the material.
She breathed deeply and looked up at him, ‘What’s my choice, Tom?’
‘You know exactly what I’m saying.’
‘You’re saying I have a choice between leaving to go home to my husband and staying here with you and doing…’ she paused, she just couldn’t say it, ‘If you were the married one and I was single you’d understand how hard this is…’
‘If you were single and I was married we wouldn’t be here right now – we’d be in bed.’
Alice felt her tummy turn over. She bit her lip to stop them from trembling.
‘I’m losing my mind here because I can feel what you’re feeling and I know you’re just doing your best to push it away. I can’t hold this back like you can,’ he snapped.
She was walking the line here. She knew Tom when she had been a teenager. He had control around her, respect and patience. She also knew on occasion that control had slipped and a more dominant man had emerged, but he had pushed it back to protect her. Now that line seemed thinner. He was unapologetic about it what he wanted. Her marital status wasn’t acting as any kind of barrier that was going to dissuade him. She wasn’t an innocent anymore and he wasn’t as he said, holding back.
‘You can’t put me in this position. You understood and accepted the terms of my being here tonight,’ she stated.
‘Screw that, be honest with yourself,’ he was a potent mixture of angry and hot.
‘I’m going,’ she said but didn’t move.
‘If I let you leave this house I’ll never see you again,’ he whispered.
‘Yes, you will.’
‘No. You’ll go home and be so scared about this thing that we still have between us, this obvious thing that you won’t acknowledge and you will vow to stay away from me.’ Tom stroked the side of her face lightly with his free hand.
She looked into his eyes and knew he was right. She would run and run and never look back, because the risk of falling for him again was far too great. So with every deceitful bone she had in her body she prepared herself for her lie.
‘…there is nothing between us anymore,’ she looked away from his face and bit the inside of her cheek hard enough she almost drew blood.
‘Like fuck there isn’t,’ Tom roared.
He moved suddenly and hoisted her backwards onto the sofa. His arms holding his weight, he stared down at her.
Alice sat frozen.
He looked at her face, then to his left. He muttered something inaudible and Irish. Looked back at her, then with harsh resolve he shouted.
‘Go!’
‘What?’ she didn’t understand.
‘Go, Alice. I can’t do this. God knows I get that you’re scared and loyal. You don’t want to hurt anyone I understand that. But I can’t pretend I don’t need you – I fucking do. I need you so bad I’m close to breaking. I can’t look into your eyes and see something true only for your lips to speak a lie.’
‘Tom?’ she didn’t want to go like this.
‘In about ten seconds I’m going to start pulling the clothes from your body. Right or wrong I won’t stop. I’m giving you fair warning. I will touch you and worship you until you submit to this thing we have… so, please go now,’ he cursed.
‘Tom, why does it have to be like this? Why can’t we just be friends and leave it at that?’
As she said it she knew the words were meaningless.
His face moved closer to hers. She could smell him. She could feel his body warm against her own, not yet touching, but its heat was present and so mesmerising.
‘Friends?’ he grabbed her hand and pressed her palm against his groin. Through his jeans she felt just how much he wanted her.
She gasped and stared at him.
‘This isn’t right, Tom,’ she breathed rapidly and pulled her hand away, ‘don’t push me to a place where all I can do is follow you. This isn’t real life. It’s just acting on a memory of something we think we miss.’
‘If this isn’t real, Alice, then what the hell is?’
‘We are. But not together, together it’s just a dream,’ she could smell the beer on his lips and wanted to lean forward and lick the nectar from them.
‘Are you going?’ his face moved closer to hers.
‘I’m not going to let this happen,’ she whispered.
‘Are you leaving?’ he said again.
‘I’m not going to have sex with…’
Tom cut in, ‘So stop me.’
CONTROL
Monday 2nd August
God, her eyes amazed him. Did she have any idea how much they told him?
What are you doing you crazy bastard?
He had lost it. Without any doubt he had lost his mind.
But he couldn’t stand to hear it any longer, that’s no excuse for man-handling a married woman, he knew that. But Alice was his. As fucked up as that sounded he believed it was the truth. As arrogant as it seemed Tom was sure she wanted him too.
She was beneath him just as Neil had warned. He cursed himself for that too. He was weaker than he thought and his feelings too close to the surface to conceal. When she said she had to go he had been backed into a corner and right or wrong he had come out fighting.
He was too fucking old and too much in love not to lay it all down for this one chance.
Alice started speaking.
‘Stop you? I’m not even going to credit that with a response,’ she said fidgeting.
He loved this woman. He had loved her since she was little more than a child. He would give her the world and his life willingly, but he wouldn’t back down. For if he backed down now he would lose her all over again. Weakness here would show her he hadn’t changed, that he still had the capacity to run from her.
‘I want you,’ he leaned down and rested his forehead against hers.
‘You’re confusing me…’ she whispered.
You’re confusing me.
‘Shush…’ Tom pressed his lips against her cheek and felt her body shudder.
‘If you keep going you will hurt us both and when it’s time to land back on earth we’ll mourn the loss all over again,’ she whispered into his cheek.
‘I’m not losing you again.’
She didn’t respond. He felt her face turn towards him. Her soft skin brush against his own roughness and then she kissed him. It was a simple kiss that lingered for a moment or two on his lips, just a simple kiss that humbled him in its innocence and then broke his heart with its intent.
Goodbye.
He pulled his head back and she was crying.
No.
‘Don’t say it,’ he shook his head. He moved away a little and sat back on his knees.
He was going to shout, fucking scream like he had no tomorrows left.
‘Oh God Tom, don’t look at me like that!’ she cursed him.
‘Don’t cry,’ he whispered.
She grabbed at her chest and with her two hands, met his eyes and shook her head sadly. Tears ran down her face and for the first time that evening he understood the weight of it for her.
He felt his own emotion close to the surface and he nodded at her slowly.
Alice nodded too, then jumped to her feet. She looked around her quickly and grabbed her bag from the floor. He was watching her but couldn’t get his head together.
‘Goodbye, Tom,’ she wiped her eyes and started walking to the living room door. Her shoulders slumped and head low she reached out for the handle.