Touch

by MJ Knight

  Marlowe closed his notebook. “No, not really. The suicide would have invalidated the policy anyway. You’ll be getting nothing.”

  “Which is what I wanted from her.”

  “I just wondered what you’d say about it.”

  “Going fishing at my expense? Thanks.” His wound gave him a twinge and he pressed his arm against his chest.

  “I just wanted to see if you led anywhere. This looks pretty cut-and-dried, but there were a few things about it that bothered me.”

  “The drugs? I can tell you that she drank a lot and I know she did illegal drugs, though not in front of me. She knew I didn’t like it.”

  “She must’ve done a lot because we found cocaine, heroin and marijuana in her apartment. In bulk. Also some forged artwork, and a case full of counterfeit money.”

  Adrian was genuinely shocked by that information. “That doesn’t sound like her. Not at all.”

  “No?” He took a photo out of his notebook and handed it to Adrian. “You know this guy?”

  The photo was of a youngish, man covered with tattoos, and sporting long, blond dreads. “No. Who is it?”

  “That’s what we’re wondering. We found this in her nightstand along with other... more revealing pictures.”

  It took Adrian a few seconds to get the full meaning. “You’re kidding!”

  “Nothing of you though.”

  “No, that’s not something we... I go in for. I didn’t think she did either. She never suggested it.”

  “Looks like she might’ve been two-timing you with this punk.”

  Adrian didn’t understand. “Why would she kill herself to spite me if she had another young guy in her life?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering. Well, thanks for your help.”

  Marlowe left, leaving Adrian completely flummoxed. That wasn’t the Olivia he knew. Drugs sure, but in bulk? And counterfeit money and art? What was she into? Had this other guy dragged her into something illegal? Why wouldn’t she have told him? Why didn’t she ask him for help? He’d have helped her if she’d just asked.

  He felt sick and rang for the nurse. “I’m going to throw up,” he said when she arrived.

  “Try not to, it won’t be pleasant.” She poured him some cold water and got half a glass down him. The nausea ebbed. “Breathe now. What happened?”

  He told her a bit about what he’d learned without really getting into his part in all of it. “I felt responsible and it made me feel ill.”

  “C’mon and sit up, let me fix your pillows for you.”

  He tipped forward, pressing his hand against his side where his stitches were. Sometimes he felt like they were going to pop open and all his insides would just pour out.

  “You’re not responsible for what other people do, Mr. Castle. You’re a grown up, you know that.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No buts. Just get it out of your head right now.”

  “Get what out of his head?” Julianne had returned with some ice cream.

  Before Adrian could explain, the nurse said, “He thinks he’s going to go walking around the hospital today. Honestly, you take them to PT and they think they can run the Boston marathon.” She gave the pillows one last sharp smack, and then helped Adrian lie back against them. “Now you’ve got some ice cream to eat, and some cards to play. I suggest you stop being a daredevil.” To Julianne she said, “Keep an eye on him, he’s a wild one.”

  “You brought ice cream,” he said, grateful not to have to tell Julie about Olivia.

  “Chocolate and coffee. I thought we could share.”

  “Perfect. Let’s play some more cards.”

  “Glutton for punishment,” she said as she sat down beside the bed.

  “I think you cheat.”

  “I don’t have to,” she replied, laughing.

  In spite of his vague feelings of guilt, he was grateful Olivia was gone. He could be with Julianne and not have to worry about what might happen, particularly now that he knew Olivia ran with some rough characters. What might she have had done to Julianne?

  Adrian’s mind slipped away from those thoughts. They were too frightening.

  Dr. Lange’s Diary

  I’ve broken my own rules, though it hardly seems to matter at this point. Julianne phoned me a week ago to tell me that Adrian had been shot and was in the hospital. While I hoped it was a robbery or some other random act, I think I knew in my heart that it was Olivia who had shot him. Julianne confirmed that instinct, then told me that Olivia had committed suicide with Adrian watching.

  I suppose I could have found another therapist who would visit him in the hospital, but it wasn’t in me to be so cold. I sat with Julianne and conducted an informal session, and I’ve visited Adrian in the hospital to talk this event through. They’ve both been badly shaken by what Olivia did. Julianne confessed that she nearly ended her relationship with Adrian when she learned about Olivia.

  “I was so angry with him for not telling me,” she explained. “But when I thought of never seeing him again, never hearing his voice again, I found the idea so much worse than thinking that he didn’t tell me about a previous relationship. I realized what matters to me.”

  She’s come a long way in the last year. I was genuinely worried that she was pushing herself too hard. I’m glad I was mistaken. Her relationship with Adrian seems to be a good thing for her.

  Adrian, on the other hand, seems to be having a great deal of trouble adjusting to what’s happened to him in the last month. It’s to be expected. One doesn’t lightly experience attempted murder and then the sight of a lover committing suicide. Adrian doesn’t let much out and I noted that he was even less communicative in the hospital than he has been at my office. I have seen a marked change in him during our recent talks, and all my attempts to draw him out have been fruitless.

  I fear that he’s going to find the next months quite rocky. And, though I never thought I’d say this, I think he’s lucky he has Julianne. She seems to have found her strength, and has enough for two.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  His kisses felt like flowers on her lips, her eyes, her face. She pulled him closer.. They were outside, walking hand in hand. He kissed her again on a mountain top, and she could see a river raging below them, wild water rushing past them. She longed to dive in, to pull him in with her and slip through the wild water together.

  Julianne awoke with a start. She’d fallen asleep in her chair. Had Adrian called? She got up and looked into his bedroom.

  He was sound asleep, snoring softly. His hair, which hadn’t been cut since just after they’d become lovers, fell in dark curls against the white pillowcase. She liked the curls, it made him look more approachable.

  What was the time? She checked the kitchen clock and realized she’d been asleep for over an hour. Jimmy, the physical therapist, would be arriving soon and Julianne knew she ought to wake Adrian so he could be alert for his session. But sleep was healing, and she hated waking him and seeing that bleak look in his eyes. He had been depressed since the shooting though he’d never admit to it. Whenever Julianne tried to bring up the subject, he would dodge around until he managed to get her talking about something else entirely. He was good at deflecting her concerns. She tried to tell him it was normal but he just smiled a smile that never went past his mouth and said that he was fine. Nothing wrong. Nothing at all.

  She’d been trying to get him to agree to talk to Dr. Lange, but he said that he was just tired. “Anyway I’ve been thinking of firing Lange.”

  Julianne was shocked, but said nothing. She wasn’t going to argue the point with him.

  The doorbell rang and Julianne let Jimmy in. “He’s asleep,” she told him.

  “He sleeps a lot, doesn’t he?”

  “Well he’s been through so much. And sleep heals.”

  “Not this much sleep, Julie.” He tossed his bag on a chair. “Adrian should have more energy by now. It’s been three weeks since he was shot.”
<
br />   “Do you think there’s something wrong?”

  “Physically? No,” he said as he pulled off his jacket.

  She supposed she should be grateful that there wasn’t more wrong with Adrian, but physical problems were so straightforward. You figured them out and you fixed them.

  “I’ll go wake him,” Jimmy said. He’ll snarl at me, but I can take it.”

  “I’ll start the coffee.” She always made a pot when Jimmy came by. Adrian seemed to enjoy the man’s company in spite of never wanting to cooperate with Jimmy’s therapy program. But he always seemed more open when he and Jimmy interacted as friends so Julianne did her best to create the sort of atmosphere where they could talk as equals.

  She often made herself scarce as Adrian worked with Jimmy. She knew Jimmy preferred it and suspected that Adrian didn’t like her seeing him looking weak. That afternoon she went outside and enjoyed the early autumn weather. She would have preferred to walk through the park near her apartment, but Adrian’s neighborhood was nice enough if congested. He lived a block from a nice shopping area, a street mall with some interesting independent stores, so she walked down to the main street and window-shopped for a while.

  Getting out cleared her head. She’d been having a lot of dreams about Adrian. Some were typically confusing dreams where nothing seemed to make sense except that Adrian was in them. Many were about the difficulty of going from point A to point B with setbacks and side trips. Julianne was pretty certain she knew that those were about her perceptions of the progress they were making together. She’d had similar dreams of traveling by herself during periods self-discovery.

  And some of the dreams were bluntly erotic. It was true that they hadn’t slept together for almost a month, but it was a surprise that she felt the lack in such an immediate way. A surprise and something of a pleasure. It meant, she thought, that she was a perfectly normal human being with a perfectly normal attitude towards sex. She wanted it, and she wanted it then. She was hungry for Adrian.

  She had been molested at such an early age that she’d never really had an opportunity to consider sex as a natural part of her life. It had taken her years of hard work and, yes, of suffering, to come to the point where she was comfortable having the same desires as the average woman. She smiled as she contemplated the idea that there was something completely normal about the way she viewed sex.

  She caught sight of a pair of earrings in one of the shop windows, an almost Byzantine design with square cut amethysts set in enameled silver settings. They were delicate and beautiful, and they made Julianne smile. She wondered if she could afford them.

  The sales woman she approached smiled and nodded. “Those are my favorites, too.” She fished them out of the window and handed them to Julianne.

  As Julianne held them up beside her ears, she was startled at how pretty she looked. She really had become attractive in the last few months, ever since she had stopped hiding from the world.

  “I’ll take them,” she said in spite of the fact that they were a little pricier than she would have liked. “And I’ll wear them.”

  She returned home in earrings that made her feel pretty, and desirable. She was going to ask Jimmy if Adrian was well enough for a little light naughtiness.

  When she returned to the apartment, Jimmy and Adrian were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Julianne poured herself a cup and joined them.

  “How is it going?” she asked.

  “Okay,” Jimmy told her. “Hey, those are pretty,” he said, nodding at her new earrings.

  She blushed a little. “Thank you. But only okay?”

  “He’s stubborn.”

  “I am not,” Adrian insisted.

  “I rest my case. Okay I have to motor. Adrian you really need to do those exercises I’ve been giving you, and not just when I’m standing beside you making you do them.”

  “The cruelty of the man is not to be imagined.”

  “I’ll make sure he does them,” she promised. Jimmy had left sheets of instructions on all the exercises. She didn’t think Adrian had ever looked at them.

  “The cruelty of the woman is also unimaginable.”

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Jimmy told Adrian.

  “Let me see you out,” Julianne said. But once at the door where Adrian couldn’t hear them, she asked Jimmy about sex.

  “Is he... I mean, do you think it’d be okay?” she asked.

  “I think it’d be great for him so long as it’s not athletic. Maybe start slow? Oral stuff. Oh, don’t blush, it’s perfectly normal,” he teased. “And commendable. I don’t want you treating him like glass, but don’t let him get too frisky. It might be a good thing. It might be the only exercise he’ll take. You really do need to get him up and moving, Julie. He’s not improving as fast as I think he should be. I’m sure he doesn’t do his exercises when I’m not here. He doesn’t even remember them.”

  She thought about it. “To be honest, I rarely see him do much of anything. I haven’t pushed because I just assumed that he would be down for a while. I mean, he was shot.”

  Jimmy nodded. “But the thing is, that the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as you might think it was. A man his age who was in good physical condition at the time of the shooting and who suffered no complications should be much more active by now. Really? If he wants to stay healthy he’s going to have to stop being such a slug. Y’know most people I work with are trying to push the boundaries by this stage, but he seems to like them. Is there a reason for that? I mean anything you can share?”

  “I don’t know.” Julianne gave it some thought. “He’s seemed depressed.”

  “Okay yeah, that does happen. Depression will rob us of our will to improve. And he’s gone through some mental trauma. Maybe he needs to see someone about it, a trauma counselor. But I can help with the depression. I’ll talk to his doctor about that and maybe get him to phone in a script for a mild anti-depressant.”

  “Thank you so much. It’s been difficult to know what to do.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Me?”

  “Being a caregiver is a hard job,” Jimmy said. “You’re not neglecting yourself, are you? You look tired.”

  “I am a little.”

  “You know what? Go home and rest. Make him take care of himself for a while. He’s well enough to start cooking for himself and doing dishes. Anything that gets him walking around and breathing more deeply.”

  “I can’t do that. I said I’d be there for him.”

  “Sometimes, Julie, you have to get tough with people. I’ll be back on Wednesday. I hope I won’t find you here.”

  She laughed and gave him an impulsive hug, amazed at how far she’d come. “I don’t know if that will happen, but I’m going to work on getting him moving.”

  Adrian was already back in bed when she came in to look for him. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Tired. Those exercises are stressful.”

  “Really? You think so?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “You could have done them without even trying before you got shot.”

  “And then I got shot.”

  She sighed and sat down on the bed. “Adrian, you should be further along by now.”

  “Is that what Jimmy told you?”

  “He did, but I know he’s right. You don’t do your exercises unless he’s here and I’ve been letting you get away with it. Don’t you want to get better?”

  He turned to look out the window.

  “Hey, how about a different sort of exercise?” she asked as she began to unbutton his pajama top.

  “No, Julie.”

  “Oh come on. We’ll get you breathing deeply.” She opened the top and ran her fingers through the silky hair of his chest.

  “I’m not up to it.”

  “I can fix that,” she told him and slid her hand down the front of his pajama bottom. He gasped as she teased his cock with her fingers. “Anything?” she asked playfully. She could feel
him respond. It had been way too long. “Hips up,” she ordered, and pushed the bottom downward so that he was laid bare from mid-thigh to shoulder.

  The wound on his chest was still bandaged. She was cautious as she caressed him and kissed her way down his chest to the root of his cock. And then she thought about what would come next and she froze.

  She wanted to take him in her mouth, but she couldn’t think about the act without imagining Uncle Gerald forcing himself into her mouth. The memory made her feel sick to her stomach, but she understood that this was just another hurdle she had to clear. She had done so well in the past, she could do it again.

  She lifted Adrian’s stiffening cock to her lips and kissed the tip. She opened her mouth and tried to take him inside, she tried so hard, but she wasn’t able, wasn’t ready. So she stroked him with both hands and pressed the occasional kiss to the head or shaft.

  He came to the point of climax so much more quickly than she expected, and when he jerked upwards, striking her chin, and coming on her face, the monster came roaring out of her. She went as cold as if she’d been dunked in ice water, and her heart began to race making her gasp for air. Her vision narrowed and her chest began to ache. As she fell off the bed and tried to crawl away her tears blinded her, but the memories played out behind the tears, horrible memories that had just been waiting for her to push too far into normalcy. Panic overwhelmed her. She’d forgotten how horrible it could be to remember these things so vividly.

  Adrian’s hands on her shoulders. He had gotten up and followed her, and was trying to lift her up.

  “No! No, don’t!” she shouted at him. She could feel his semen on her face and she began to gag, remembering... remembering. “Just leave me alone.” She didn’t want him to touch her, and she didn’t want him to hurt himself. “Just leave me.”

  She got to her feet and stumbled into the bathroom where she scrubbed her face with a washcloth.

  She didn’t vomit. That was a kind of victory, she supposed.