Scorpio Love

by S. Tamanaha

  “You hide things from me all the time,” she said, even more angrily. She tried to pull her hand away but he refused to let go. “You don’t tell me about all those propositions that you get from women. You never told me about that woman—that actress—who was waiting by your car wearing nothing under her coat. Or the one that followed you into the men’s room at that bar you went to with your friends. I’ve heard the crew talking sometimes at those stupid cast parties. They all think it’s funny, but it hurts me. I have feelings too. I get jealous too. All those damn women. But I don’t accuse you of wanting to sleep with them.”

  He was stunned to find out that she had known about all of those things for such a long time and never said a word. He felt like an idiot and a hypocrite. “I was trying to protect you from being hurt,” he tried to explain.

  “So was I. Why is it okay when you do it and wrong when I do? Why don’t you trust me?”

  He could see the unfairness of it, but it was hard to explain his jealousy. He wasn’t sure if he even understood it. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that sometimes I worry about losing you.”

  “You always say that but you don’t mean it. I sang that song at the reception and you thought that I might have sang it to other men, giving them a sexual invitation. You found me dancing in private working on Damien’s music and you thought I might be stripping. You question me about why I’m wearing makeup as though you think I’m doing it for somebody else. And now you’ve accused me of wanting to sleep with Daniel Stevens of all people. Getting upset at a guy who’s coming on to me is one thing, but you get suspicious and imagine all sorts of filthy things about me. If I gave you reason, that’s another story, but I don’t. I don’t flirt with other men. I don’t lead them on. I’m not like my mother or my sister or the Cheryls in this damn town, but it doesn’t matter because you still think that I am and even if I love you, I’m not staying if that’s what you think of me. I’ve spent my whole life trying to never be like them and nobody, not even you, is going to make me feel like I am.”

  She was still crying but he knew that she wasn’t being emotional or dramatic. She was crying out of anger and hurt and meant what she was saying about leaving and he couldn’t blame another man for stealing her affection or put any fault on her. He knew that he was completely to blame. His greatest fear had been to lose her and now he had caused this situation. His only hope was that she said she still loved him. He pulled her gently from the car and exchanged places with her, with him seated on the passenger seat and her in front of him. He held on to both of her hands so that he could look at her directly and to keep her from running away.

  “Susan, listen to me, all right? Please listen. This jealousy of mine—I hate it. How it feels, how I act, the things that pop into my head. But I swear to you that I don’t feel those things in my heart. I swear it. I know that you’re not like your mother or your sister or the Cheryls in this town. I know that you don’t come on to men. You always act like a lady. And I know that you can’t help it if men are attracted to you. I know the problem is me. Most men would feel good that they have something other men want. I just feel threatened and angry. And with you, I love you so much that it doesn’t even take a guy making a pass to get me upset. All it takes is my knowing or thinking that another man will want you and maybe try to take you from me. That’s why it bothered me when you sang that song, especially after Daniel made that comment, and when I saw you dancing. And tonight, when I saw him talking to you at the bar, I knew what he was trying to do. I know sometimes the way that I say things, it comes out sounding like I’m accusing you of doing something wrong, but that’s not the way I really feel inside. I wasn’t accusing you of being the kind of woman who sleeps around. I was just ... I thought that maybe, inside, you might be attracted to him.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice still shaky from crying. “Don’t you believe that I love you? Is that it? Why would you even think that if you really believed that I loved you?”

  “I know that you love me,” he said quietly. “I think what I’m worried about ... afraid of ... is that you can stop loving me. That maybe somebody else is going to come along who’ll make you stop loving me.”

  It was difficult for him to outwardly admit that he felt fearful of anything; a little worried or concerned, perhaps, but never afraid. He had decided early in his life that fears needed to be kept hidden; to admit to them was to expose his weaknesses which made him vulnerable to those who might try to hurt or manipulate him. He had cultivated a public persona of strong confidence to protect himself and whenever he found himself confronted with fear, he usually reacted with anger to mask his real feelings. But he loved her and he had hurt her and he needed to make her understand.

  “I gave up everything to be here with you, Johnny. I would never have done that for any other person and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t feel that this was forever.”

  He pulled her to him and held her tightly. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice filled with emotion. “I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you. I wish that I could promise that I’ll never be jealous again, but I don’t know if I’d be able to keep that promise. All I can say is that I love you and I don’t want to lose you and that I’ll try not to ever again let the jealousy get out of control like it did tonight. You didn’t deserve that. I know it. Please don’t believe that I really think those things about you or that I feel them inside of me because I don’t. I don’t.”

  He was being honest. He loved her, but he wasn’t making insincere promises just to keep her and she appreciated that even though he had hurt her so deeply. She could feel the depth of his sorrow and, as hurt as she was, her heart forgave him because she understood, better than anyone, a Scorpio’s jealousy and temper. She put her arms around his neck then and returned his embrace. She felt his arms tighten around her. After a while, she pulled away and caressed his face gently. She could see the sadness in his eyes.

  “Johnny, what is it about Daniel Stevens that upsets you so much? You’ve gotten a little jealous before if a man pays too much attention to me but there’s something about him in particular that really gets to you. What is it?”

  Johnny sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t respect boundaries. Most times if a guy is paying too much attention to you, he’ll back off if he finds out that you’re my wife. But Daniel—he knows that we’re married and still he comes on to you. It’s like he thinks that his position and his money are powerful enough to come between us.”

  She was beginning to understand. “So you feel that he’s disrespecting and challenging you. His money and power against what you have to offer me?”

  He looked at the ground. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “And you think that what you have to offer me isn’t good enough?”

  “What do I really offer you?” he asked in frustration. “Long hours at home alone while I’m working? Parties that you hate? Living in this city that you hate?”

  She realized then that it was his own guilt that was fueling his jealousy. “Your heart and soul,” she said softly. “That’s what you offered me when you asked me to move here and it’s the only reason that I came. I thought you understood that after all this time, after all the things that we’ve talked about. Money and power could never compare to that. That’s why I feel sorry for Daniel.”

  “You feel sorry for him when he disrespects me and you that way?”

  “Yes, because he doesn’t understand. With his money and power, he could have a lot of the Cheryls that are around here, but he doesn’t want that kind of woman. If he did, he wouldn’t be showing up alone all the time. He’s looking for the kind of relationship that we have. The problem is, he’ll never get it if all that he can offer is money and power. Those things have gotten him ahead in business, but they’re not going to get him a woman like me. A woman like me isn’t impressed by those things. We know that money and power may not last. We’re more interested in the
things that do—the things that lie in a man’s heart and soul.”

  Johnny reached out and caressed her face gently. “Do you still love my heart and soul in spite of this stupid jealously of mine?”

  She nodded. “I know that you can’t help feeling jealous sometimes. I know it’s a part of you. I feel jealous a lot of times too, especially when it’s part of your job to appear seductive to other women and you spend so much time being surrounded by beautiful women and I hear those stories. Those women don’t care about boundaries either. They all know that you’re married but it doesn’t matter to them. Maybe the way things are, we’re bound to argue sometimes. I just don’t want us to say things to each other that we may not be able to take back. If you inflict the same wound too many times, it doesn’t heal. I saw it happen to my parents. I don’t want it happening to us—the constant fighting and the accusations. I can’t stand it.”

  He pulled her close again and hugged her tightly. “I promise,” he said. She hadn’t asked the impossible—that he never be jealous again. She knew that it was in his character. She simply asked that he not hurt her the way he had hurt her that night. For that, he loved her even more. He pulled away to look at her and saw, once again, the love in her eyes. He kissed her tenderly. “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” he said. “I am. Forgive me?”

  She nodded and he kissed her again, more passionately. “I love you,” he said, “and Daniel’s out of luck because there is no other woman like you.”

  “If you’re going to kiss me like that, don’t you think we’d better go home now?” she asked softly.

  He smiled and then kissed her once more before climbing out of the car and helping her in. At home, she changed her clothes quickly and took her baby out to the backyard for her last outing. After cleaning Angel up, Susan carried her to the bedroom and got her settled with a small treat. Johnny had changed out of his dinner clothes and was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She sat next to him.

  “Johnny, what are you going to do when you see Daniel again?” she asked.

  “That’s what I’m thinking about. I know that you think I shouldn’t do anything, but I can’t let this pass even if it means cancelling the talks about the movie. If I do, he’s going to try it again and I’m going to lose it. Do you know that he still has the lei that you gave him at the reception? It’s been a month, the flowers are dead, and still he keeps it, draped over his credenza, like a memento of love or something.”

  “I think you’re right,” she said.

  It surprised him. “You think that I should confront him?”

  “Yes, but not angrily. I think you should talk to him, man to man. Tell him you know that he feels an attraction to me but that we’re in love with each other and nothing is going to come between us. Ask him to respect you and me and this marriage.”

  “You think he’s going to listen to that?

  “I have a feeling that he might. I wouldn’t suggest it if I thought that he was someone sleazy, but I do think he’s basically a decent man. Otherwise, he would have said something indecent to me tonight and he didn’t. And I don’t think that he necessarily wants me. I think he wants what you and I have. If he found that with someone, he wouldn’t want someone else trying to interfere. You can make him see that.”

  Johnny reached out and caressed her face. “What makes you so good?” he asked softly.

  “I’m not that good,” she said. “I’ve had visions of setting her outfit on fire.”

  “Whose outfit?”

  “That actress who was waiting for you at your car wearing only a coat.”

  He laughed a little and then reached out and pulled her to him and kissed her. “You don’t have to worry about her or anyone else. Besides, the best thing about her was the coat.” He stroked her hair gently. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about her or about any of the other things that you might have overheard the crew talking about. I wasn’t trying to deceive you and I wasn’t having fantasies about any of them. Nothing like that. I just knew that if our situations were reversed, I’d get upset every time some joker sent you a nude photo or a proposition. I just didn’t want to put you through that. You’re already forced to put up with all that other stuff. Why didn’t you ever say anything when you found out?”

  “I don’t want to get angry or upset every time a woman throws herself at you,” she said. “With your line of work, I’d be angry all the time.” She sat up then and looked at her hands. “But since we’re talking about all this, there’s something that I need to say to you, Johnny. Something that I need you to understand. I’ve never had much faith in men. The guys I grew up with ... I’ve seen the best of them stray. A lot of the men who chased after my mother and fooled around with the waitresses and other women in my parents’ bar and got involved with my sister were married or had girlfriends. So for me to trust you, especially when you do the kind of work that you do, isn’t easy. But I love you—more than I thought I could ever love someone—and I want to believe in you so I try not to think about the women who are throwing themselves at you and I’m going to try to always give you the benefit of the doubt. But if it ever happens, if there ever comes a time when there is no doubt, I have to leave and you have to let me go.”

  “Susan, that’s not—”

  “No, Johnny, I need to say this. I know that some people can work through that kind of thing, but I can’t. It’s the one thing that I can’t forgive or forget because sex isn’t just sex to me, you know that. And you wouldn’t want me to stay anyway because I’d never trust you again and I’d bring it up every time we had an argument.”

  She looked at him with eyes full of pain. “I can never be like my mother, Johnny, but I won’t end up like my father either—miserable and suspicious all the time. I can still remember their fights. Once, when I was about six years old, a man dropped my mother off at our house after she’d finished work. She worked in a bar for a while when we first moved to Honolulu to learn the bar business. My father was waiting for her because she was late and they ended up fighting, yelling, and he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his neck and tried to strangle himself with it. That’s probably not even physically possible, but I was six and that image ... I still have it in my head. I can still hear him crying out of anger and hurt and screaming at her ‘Why don’t you just kill me?’ And it just kept happening over and over. They’d fight and then somehow make up, and then they’d fight again and start throwing everything that happened in the past at each other. Mostly, it was him bringing up all the men in the past. And in the end, the way that she was did kill him. She killed his heart and his soul. That’s why I can’t be her ... ever. But I won’t be him either. I don’t want that kind of life, Johnny. So if it ever happens with you, I’m not going to stay and fight about it and I’m not going to fight over you with whoever the woman is. I have to leave and you have to let me go.”

  She was crying from the memory of it all and he pulled her down beside him and wrapped her in his arms securely. He could feel how deeply she had been hurt by those fights between her parents and he understood, even more clearly, how much he had hurt her that night.

  Complete trust is a difficult thing for a Scorpio to achieve, even in matters of the heart; perhaps especially in matters of the heart since being in love made one more vulnerable to extreme hurt and disappointment. Like Susan, who had developed a deep distrust of men, Johnny had never fully trusted any woman. He had seen too many who were like her mother—beautiful, but always with some hidden agenda or wanting to play games. Whenever he had been involved with a woman and had suspected that games were being played, he had often played them first—flirted with other women, even cheated, or otherwise did exactly the opposite of what the woman was attempting to make him do—just out of spite and revenge, bringing an end to the relationship. In those past relationships, when he had exhibited jealousy, it was because he didn’t trust the person that he was with and because his ego had been threatened or bruised. When the relat
ionships had ended, it didn’t break his heart because he had never invested his entire self into those relationships and had almost expected them to end.

  With her, he realized that his jealousy stemmed from his fear of losing her and the kind of love that she gave him. There had never been anyone like her who had been willing to sacrifice so much out of love for him, who always put his needs and dreams first, and who had been able to see so deeply into his heart and soul. There had never been anyone that he loved so much and so completely. And now he knew in his mind what his heart had always known—that he could trust her completely. It didn’t matter how many men were interested in her or what they offered her. She had pledged her love to him and she would never betray him because she could never be the kind of woman that her mother had been; the kind of woman who had killed the heart and soul of the only other man that she loved so much ... her father. He finally understood.

  He also finally realized how difficult it had been for her to put aside her own distrust of men and choose to believe in him. He knew how much he loved her and often assumed that she should know as well. Now, he could see how she must have struggled to cope with his long hours at work, the false reports in the tabloids, the stories she had heard, and the obsessed fans. She could have easily allowed suspicion and fear to threaten their relationship, as he had done that night, but she had chosen instead to trust her heart ... and him. It was time for him to explain his heart to her in a way that, as close as they were, he had never done before.

  “It won’t ever happen,” he said quietly but firmly. “I will never hurt you that way. I know a lot of men say that and then a woman comes along and they get weak, but the kind of love that I have for you, it doesn’t leave room for any other woman in my heart; it doesn’t leave room for that kind of weakness.

  “I want you to listen to me, okay? When I was growing up, I was a total nerd. All gangly with glasses. Girls barely gave me a glance. Then I went to college and my body changed. I grew taller, I filled out because of sports, even my face changed. I got contacts. Suddenly, girls were interested. Then they turned me into this image that’s on the screen and on posters and the women were everywhere. I’m not going to lie. I took advantage of it for a while. That nerdy kid now being pursued by women he wouldn’t have dreamed could ever be interested in him. It was exciting and kind of like getting my own private revenge. But then I got tired and fed up because of the same reason. I realized that all of the women who were so interested in me now would never have given me a glance before and the thing is, in a lot of ways, I’m still that same kid inside. My feelings, my thoughts—they’re mostly all the same, just in a different body. So I knew that those women weren’t interested in me ... not the real me. And a lot of them were like your mother and sister—into playing games and using their looks to try to manipulate me into doing things.