"Thank you, Tom. I know I don't need to hide anything that I have done but…" she said and found herself quite emotional all of a sudden, still finding it so hard to be accepting of her own past actions.
He reached out his arm and touched her shoulder lightly with his hand, as an old friend would.
"It's okay. I don't think you should feel bad about anything that has happened to you, or anything that you have done, but I know that you do and you can trust me, Alexis. I won't talk about it to anyone," he said and paused. "Now about tonight?"
She smiled at him and nodded.
"Yes, of course. Where shall I go, and at what time?"
"It is probably easiest if I pick you up, I think, as my place is on the outskirts of the town and not at all within walking distance. Are you okay with me coming to your home?" he asked, curious about what her actual level of trust in him was, but she only nodded.
"Of course, thank you," she responded and wrote down the address of the guest house for him.
"Awesome, I'll let her know. She is really looking forward to meeting you," he said and strode off, leaving Alexis slightly nervous about the evening to come. Making friends was something she had never really invested any time into in her life, but she was enjoying getting to know Tom, and she put trust in the assumption that anyone who was a good friend of his, must also be likely to be a good person.
~~~~~
Alexis was giggling - hard. She was at Tom's house and while he cooked their meal in the kitchen that was open to the living area, she was sitting down with Samantha, who had told one of many stories she had so far shared about her and Tom growing up.
It was the first time in such a long time that Alexis felt like she was truly letting go - she could not remember the last time she had laughed for so long, continuously.
Already she was warmed to Samantha, who had instantly invited her into her arms and hugged her with a huge smile on her face when they two women had met.
"Come on now, Samantha, you are stretching the truth a bit there," Tom threw into the conversation, making Alexis laugh even more at the facial expressions the two people before her gave to each other.
"Don't believe him, Alexis. I'm the one you can trust in these stories," Samantha quipped back quickly, showing her fondness for him on her face.
~~~~~
Sitting and eating the food Tom had prepared, Alexis felt herself so at ease that she once again found herself pondering the situation between Tom and Samantha. They got on so well, and she could see the way that Tom looked at Samantha, and yet they had never crossed the sexual line, Tom had told her.
Alexis listened patiently and with great interest to Samantha talking about her journey through studying to be a clothing designer, and her small, slow start in the industry since her course had finished. It seemed like such a contrast to her own life - the glamour of becoming a known clothing designer was a far cry from being a supermarket checkout operator - but Alexis could hear in Samantha's voice the degree of dedication to how far she had to go, and how hard she would have to work, to become a true success in a way that she could support herself comfortably from those kind of earnings.
"You are incredible, Samantha," Alexis said, in awe.
Samantha laughed loudly at her.
"I don't think so! But thank you for saying that, Alexis. It might take some time, but I will get there."
~~~~~
As they finished their meal, Alexis jumped up to show her appreciation.
"What are you doing, Alexis?" Tom asked as he saw her making moves in his kitchen.
"I'm going to wash the dishes…" she started to say and immediately Samantha laughed out loud.
Tom was surprised but didn't object, instead taking the stance of being grateful.
"Thank you, Alexis," he said, looking pointedly at Samantha. "That is very kind of you."
Alexis watched the two of them as she set to work, and eventually saw Samantha stand up and come toward her.
"Alright, you are making me feel guilty, Alexis. Move over and I will wash if you dry," she said, making Tom laugh out loud in response.
"Oh my God! Alexis, you must come and have dinner more often when this one is here."
~~~~~
"Right, Alexis, how about I give you a ride home and we leave this one here in his now-pristine home?" Samantha was asking Alexis whilst joking with Tom.
"Are you sure? I can catch a taxi…"
"No, you will not catch a taxi! I have to drive past the area you live in anyway, so it is no bother," Samantha replied, moving in to give Tom a hug and a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you for a lovely dinner, Tom. I will see you Thursday night."
Alexis saw Tom return the hug and kiss, before turning to her.
"Thank you for coming, Alexis. It is good for this one to be able to talk to someone about so many things about me!" he said, with a humorous sound to his voice.
Alexis leaned up and kissed him on the cheek softly.
"I have enjoyed this greatly, Tom. Thank you for inviting me."
~~~~~
Soon Alexis and Samantha were sitting in a car, slowly leaving Tom's driveway. It was the first time the two women had been alone all evening, and Samantha caught Alexis looking at her.
"I see what you are thinking, Alexis. You are wondering why Tom and I are only friends, right?" she asked and Alexis nodded in response. "I know, people ask that question all the time - they have for years. I don't know why…"
Alexis laughed.
"Really? You don't know why?"
Samantha laughed softly with her, whilst maintaining a friendly but confused look on her face.
"He is a good friend - he has always been a good friend to me. I have never regarded him … like that."
Alexis saw a slight level of tiredness appear on Samantha's face, as if she were tired of having to answer the same question over and over, so Alexis stopped talking.
"Tom said you might want to ask me some questions about the club he and I go to."
"No, not really. I mean, I found it interesting, what he was talking about, but I think the part of my life that was centered around delivering pain to someone, is now over. And I don't want to go anywhere near that again."
Samantha looked at her, briefly removing her eyes from the road, to try and see what was showing on the face of the woman beside her in that moment.
"I sense there is quite a story there," she said and Alexis smiled.
"Maybe," Alexis said and then paused before continuing. "No, not really. I just … some things I just want to move on from and forget, really."
They sat quietly, each in their own thoughts, before Samantha spoke again.
"Okay, but if you want to talk to me just ring me and let's arrange to meet up another time, just the two of us, okay?"
Alexis nodded and smiled. She knew that Tom would want that as well - he was eager to hear how Samantha felt about him in so many ways, she was sure.
~~~~~
"Here is my phone number," Samantha said as she wrote it down on a pad she kept in the car. "I mean it. Ring me and let's arrange for a girls only catch up sometime soon. I love Tom to death but some things a girl has to talk about just with another girl!"
Alexis laughed at her and took the piece of paper, nodding, before she got out of the car.
"Thank you for the ride home, Samantha. I will call you next week."
~~~~~
Lying in bed that night Alexis could clearly picture the images of Tom and Samantha, and the way they had interacted together, and looked at one another. Still she was learning so much about human interaction, after so many years of not wishing to be a willing participant in socialising, and she was still learning to simply read people. But where those two were concerned, she did feel at a loss for words.
But then, what did she really know about people? So far, she did not have the best track record of accurately interpreting who they were or what they were really like.
5 ~ THE MATRIMONIAL DI
SCUSSION
Lincoln had a restless night in the motel, finding his thoughts veering between two extremes of beliefs, and his confusion great.
On the one hand, he didn't want to let Lexi go. He didn't want to let go of his belief that she loved him, and the two of them were meant to be together. The two of them were soul mates.
But at the other extreme, he had finally found the insight to be able to stand back and view the whole situation with her - the entire three years they had known each other. He knew things could have been so different. At the start he had enjoyed the simple pleasure of being with her. He did not know when that had stopped being enough for him. When he had started to need so much more from her.
He knew he had to get himself together - he had to get his life back together. For more than three years he had been making the wrong things a priority, and even though he knew he was a great businessman, he also had to concede that there must have been a certain level of luck involved in his personal chaos not having flowed over to affect the company.
It was time, he knew. It was time to go home and forget all about Lexi. He had pushed her too far in his ongoing quest to keep finding more and more ways for her to satisfy him, and now she was gone. She had moved on and he couldn't deny the level of happiness he had seen on her face when she was with that man. The way they had kissed, the hunger he could see on their faces. And she looked healthy.
When she had left Melbourne, she had not been so healthy. He couldn't see it then. He could see it now.
No, enough was enough. He stayed in the motel that night and the following morning drove to the airport and was soon back in Melbourne.
~~~~~
Walking into his apartment, the first thing he did was have a long shower. He felt unclean, and he wanted to get himself back to being the person he had always been, before he had met her. Too much time had been invested in the wrong thing. It was time to put everything back in order. Always he had needed order, and since the day he had met her, his life had been in chaos. A chaos he just couldn't control, no matter how hard he tried.
The chaos had to stop. Order needed to be gained once more.
He took his time under the water, thinking about so many different things. But the first thing he needed to do when he got out of the shower and was presentable once more, was call Diana. She had taken the time to talk to him on the phone the night before. When he had needed someone to guide him in his moment of being uncertain what was the right thing to do - the right way to act - he had called her and she had been there. She had been there for him. She could have hung up on him, if not when she first answered and heard his voice, definitely when she realised he was talking about Lexi again. But she didn't. She talked to him and did what she had to, to make him see that it was time for him to wake up and start living life again.
Diana. She had always been the perfect wife, in so many ways. She had supported him right through from when he was at university, and on through him taking over and building the company to what it was today. She never said anything about the long hours he worked. She never mentioned anything about their lack of having a family. She always stood beside him at every charity event, at every company promotion, at every media event. Always she had smiled when she needed to smile, and she put great effort into looking and sounding the part that she needed to, to be by his side.
He sat on his sofa and pulled out his phone. Before he dialled her number he took a moment to think about the last time he had seen her. That had been a wonderful night, for them. It was the first time that he could remember, where she had relaxed and let him enjoy her so much, including letting him pleasure her. She had always stopped him when he had tried that, during the beginning of their relationship, and eventually he had stopped trying. But that night she let him, and it worked. She had gotten aroused - for the first time he had felt her get wet. Had felt her climax. Thinking about that now, he felt a slight sense of arousal beginning in him, but he pushed it down. He didn't want to be focusing on anything sexual when he spoke to her.
"Lincoln," he heard her say when she answered. There was no question in it at all, just a confirmation that she was there, ready to talk and listen if he needed to.
"Will you come over?" he asked her simply, not bothering with any of the gushing that people so often did to him - something that he had always avoided with his wife, although on occasion she did it to him.
"Yes. When?"
"I am home now, so whenever suits you is fine."
"I am on my way," she said and he heard the call end.
~~~~~
Diana looked in the mirror one more time, nervous about tonight. She was worried about him, if she was completely honest with herself. It was beyond the fact that he had sex with another woman - there was something about him that had her on edge. The same question kept going through her mind - did she really know her husband at all?
Finally she left and made her way there. Part of her wanted to still call their apartment home, but she didn't think that would ever happen again. She didn't think she wanted it to happen again. And yet, it was a twenty year bond that they had. Perhaps not such an easy thing to walk away from.
~~~~~
Lincoln heard the apartment buzzer and remembered that he had briefly noticed she had left her key the last time she was there.
Jumping up from the sofa, he made his way to the door, finding it very strange to be opening the door for her when they had lived together for so many years.
He was surprised when he saw her. It felt as if he hadn't really seen her for so long, even though it was only a short time ago they had spent that night together.
He welcomed her in and found himself feeling nervous.
"Wine?" he asked but was already heading into the kitchen, because that was something that they often did - they drank wine together and talked about things.
"No, thank you. I don't need anything except to know that you are okay," she said and he looked at her, stopping still on his journey to the kitchen.
Finally hearing that she didn't want to have a drink - it seemed to be some kind of delayed response on his part - he came back and sat on the sofa, and welcomed her to sit beside him.
"I am fine."
"Are you, Lincoln? Because you don't look fine. And you didn't sound fine on the phone last night," she said to him, making him cringe silently before he responded.
"I…" he started to say and suddenly he felt tears coming to his eyes. It was a weird sensation - he could not remember feeling like he needed to cry, since he had been a boy.
He wiped his eyes, in that moment seeming so vulnerable to the woman in front of him. A woman who had known him for more than 20 years, and not once in that time had ever seen this kind of emotion in him.
"I don't feel like myself, Diana. I don't think I have felt like myself for a very long time. But I know that I have to fix that. Too many things have become less of a priority when they shouldn't have."
Diana watched him, silent, forcing him to continue to be the one speaking.
"I have been so consumed by this woman - I'm so sorry if that hurts you…"
"No, Lincoln, please just keep talking, no matter what you need to say," he heard her say, as he felt her hand come out and take his, holding it tightly.
He looked at her, feeling so much pain inside of him because of the pain he would have caused her, no matter how strong and composed she looked right now.
"At first it was just about sex, I think. I had given up on trying to do things differently in our bed, and when she came along I was driven by her … eagerness … to please me. To let me do whatever I wanted with her. And then the sex changed … I just kept needing different things. And she still let me do - have - whatever I wanted, and I think I became addicted to it. It was like a … euphoria. I didn't want to hurt you. I thought I had kept it from you, so you wouldn't be hurt…"
"That does not matter now, Lincoln…"
"Yes it does! Don't say that! It matters
a great deal," he said, suddenly feeling impassioned about her implying she was not worth more than to have a husband who was unfaithful to her.
He looked deeply at her and she saw him moving in to kiss her. She didn't stop him, expecting that this was going to be his way of stopping the talking. But she was wrong. After kissing her deeply, he pulled away and looked at her, before continuing.
"You have been by my side for all of these years, and I have stood in my own world and just accepted how much you have given up…"
"I never gave anything up, Lincoln."
She saw him look at her with a knowing face.
"Yes, you did. When we met at university you had plans. You wanted a career. You dreamed of being an architect. And then my father died and the company was handed over to me … and you stopped talking about the career you had been working toward."
Diana looked down at their hands, still joined, and felt herself a little overwhelmed with emotion. All these years she had thought he had forgotten that she had wanted to work - that she had wanted to do so many things for herself in her life. He had never said anything and she had been thinking for two decades that he hadn't noticed what she had stopped wishing for.
"I stopped encouraging you, I know, and I am sorry for that. I should have been reminding you to keep moving forward with your self-development, rather than letting you work alongside me solely on mine."
Suddenly he saw her break down in front of him, his words finally - after twenty years - hitting a raw nerve inside of her. Making her feel emotion, which was something she had tried to keep under control so that she could be the perfect wife to him.
Lincoln watched her face - saw her tears and heard her start to sob, even though it was clear to him that she was fighting with herself in an effort to not let her feelings show. He pulled her closer and kissed her again, feeling inside of him a great need to stop her hurting and start to put things right with her.
Diana felt the movement and was confused. Having spent that one night together was one thing, but did she want to encourage it to happen again? Should she kiss him back, like everything was just normal for them, and nothing had happened?
Darkness of Heart (Painful Deliverance Book 2) Page 9