Farewell, My Loves

by Jen Tirone

  What the fuck was I doing now?

  Here.

  Alone with him.

  I had to turn my face away because I couldn’t stand to look at him, reflecting back everything I felt.

  It’s wrong.

  I have tried so hard to forbid myself from feeling anything for him.

  I don’t want to.

  How did I get caught up in this man’s web every time?

  Why does it have to be this way?

  I was no match for Michael.

  Never was.

  I don’t have the strength in me to keep away from him anymore and we both knew it. It was like trying to keep a waterfall from overflowing out of cupped hands. No matter how hard I held my hands together, my resolve was slipping through all my fingers.

  We’re footing dangerous boundaries, about to cross that irreversible line, I feel it so deeply in my whole being... my life will never be the same.

  My God, I am going to hell for wanting another man.

  Losing the fight against his magnetic pull, still I was unwilling to be so in love with him but my determination not to failed anyway.

  It was all out of my control.

  I quickly and silently begged God for mercy on my damned and weak soul. Because every second we stared at each other, it felt like I was running toward my forsaken destination to hell, and I couldn’t stop myself if I tried.

  I knew this was it.

  Finally, he turned away from me and started walking to the end of the foyer and then stopped short.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he says with his back to me. ”I can’t take it,” he whispered and then turns around to face me with wild eyes.

  “I need to know I’m not the only one feeling this way! I’m plagued by you, Gia. I don’t know how to keep a handle on it,” he confesses, stalking back toward me. “The need for you gets unbearable; consuming my every moment I’m not breathing your same air. I close my eyes and you’re there. I open them and they’re searching for you in every crevice of this city. I ache for you, all the time,” he groans.

  I had to close my eyes from agony of it all.

  His wet shirt outlining his glorious body.

  His beautiful face, contorted in yearning affliction.

  I could feel myself coming undone.

  “Tell me! Tell me that something went wrong somewhere in time, because somehow, I know you’re supposed to be mine!” he said right before he crashed his lips on mine.

  I was a wreck.

  We’ve been damned the moment our lives collided, I knew we were ruined the second our lips met.

  I hadn’t crossed the line physically in all this time but it doesn’t mean it hadn’t been crossed at all. I broke my vows long before it really happened.

  I couldn’t even keep up with the actions of my body.

  My hands were gripping his hair, my lips devotedly on his, I needed to touch every part of him in order to live.

  I felt possessed.

  His hands were everywhere too, grabbing everything all at once, undecided in their path so long as they made contact with me anywhere.

  A primal need took over us and all we could do was respond to one another’s innate ministrations.

  He lifted me up without taking his lips off mine and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He pinned us against the door with his hips and feeling him where I needed him most... oh God.

  I didn’t want to be in love with another man.

  I never dreamed this could happen.

  I hated him for it.

  But I hated myself more.

  It feels like a lifetime ago, but he made me recognize I’d made a huge mistake rushing into things with Giorgio back then.

  Michael made me realize I may never really have loved Gio more than a friend and didn’t know it—because I didn’t know what it was like to love any other man than him.

  This secret has been poisoning me for years.

  I was so fucking wrong for wanting Michael.

  But what’s worse is that Gio, albeit a bad man, has never been a bad husband.

  Still, I wanted to love Michael.

  I needed to.

  No one else in this world has ever made me feel like he has.

  I wanted to love him and I wanted it to transcend for us through every moment we wouldn’t get to love each other the way we should.

  Because from the moment our eyes locked on one another it’s been him. Making me regret the day I met him because I knew we would never be.

  He seeped into the marrow of my bones; his presence pulled at the elements of himself that he embedded inside me... and I was helpless.

  I thought I adored my husband with every fiber of my being, but Michael poisoned those very fibers and convinced them they were his very own.

  I wouldn’t be able to walk away from him again and survive it without feeling flayed alive.

  He stumbled through the dark carrying me in his arms.

  The steps dug into my back when we fell on them as he lost his footing.

  My shirt that was stuck to me like a second skin, I vaguely heard the buttons of it scattering across the floor as he ripped my shirt open. I couldn’t care he tore it because his mouth, those fucking lips, was finally all over me.

  Hot, wet kisses branded me everywhere.

  My hands, and arms, and legs, couldn’t pull him to me close enough.

  Yanking my bra down roughly, he cupped my exposed breast and sucked my nipple into his mouth.

  “Michael!” I gasped, feeling ignited by the devil himself.

  He nipped it with his teeth and then jumped off of me, picking me up into his arms again to continue his stumbled track to his bedroom, attaching his gorgeous mouth back to mine.

  The only light to help guide us was from the storm. We made it to the room and he laid us right on top of the bed and the remainder of our clothes was pulled off in the utmost urgency.

  We were desperate, unrestrained, and now we were unstoppable.

  I couldn’t breathe when he pushed inside of me.

  I didn’t want to either. I wanted to die right then, right in his arms, connected forever in a way I’d never, ever forget.

  I wanted my last memory to be of him just like this, in this unthinkable but oh so fucking beautiful joining.

  As frenzied as it began, peace wrapped comfortingly around my soul as we made the most incredible love to each other.

  We both knew we only had this one night. Perhaps it’s what made us all the more insatiable.

  Deep down inside we knew this would have to stave us off for the rest of our lives. So we didn’t stop. We didn’t talk. We didn’t think beyond this moment. Our bodies communicated in a language our minds were forbidden to. We forced ourselves to accept the hand we were dealt; which was that this turning point in time, this fractional instant in the entire universe, would be the only chance we had at this abandoned bliss.

  This was our one moment to disregard everything else, but each other.

  Breaths labored in sync, bodies fused together so tightly making it indistinguishable where one began and the other ended, we were devouring each and every part of each other, recklessly becoming one.

  One of the countless times we made love that night, Michael was behind me with a hand palming my breast, his other rubbing me at the core while he jut in a slow, unrelenting pace.

  That divine, full mouth of his was at my ear, torturing my condemned soul with the aching in his soft voice.

  “Gia,” he sighed my name in reverence.

  He kissed the back of my neck and then bit me there softly, pushing me close to the precipice.

  “Come again for me, love. Come. Show me what I do to you...” he groans, pressing in as deep as he could, “...because you’ve annihilated me.”

  Trembling with my eyes tightly shut, I couldn’t take any more of this provocative agony.

  His hand stopped caressing me and made it’s way to my hair where he pulled it back in a fist and turned my fac
e toward his. He kissed me softly and at length, the emotions he poured into it along with his thrusts tipped me over the edge where he followed closely behind me.

  I was undeniably ravished every time he was inside me that night. He took his time acquainting himself with every pleasure, even coaxing me into some I wouldn’t have fathomed. Every time he brought me to ecstasy, he looked into my eyes and conveyed the unmistakable claim that he was taking me there with everything he had in him to give me.

  We layed in bed decimated from greedily confiscating all that we could from each other. It was almost dawn and the guilt was weighing heavily on my conscious now that paradise was slipping away, reminding me of the severity of my sin.

  Michael knew this, intuitive as he was, and tried his best to keep my mind from going anywhere else while I was with him still.

  “Did you ever make a wish with that dandelion I gave you all those years ago?” he asks.

  “No,” was all I could whisper.

  “That was last time I saw you,” he murmured.

  He had his chest pressed to my back and his arm was embracing me to him, his hand entwined with mine.

  “Well, I did. I begged my wish to please not let me die without experiencing this with you once in my life,” he said and then kissed my bare shoulder, his lips lingering there as he continued to speak.

  “It came true, my love. You could still wish yours,” he whispered, nuzzling the back of my neck.

  But I never wanted to give away that piece of him, not even to the universe where it belonged.

  The oppressive weight of what we’d done was crushing me with every word he was uttering.

  “Don’t regret what we just shared,” he tried to turn me toward him, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look at him. I pressed myself into the pillow harder, not allowing him to look at me either.

  I feel so ashamed.

  “Gia...”

  He sits up next to me and caresses my back softly for a little while.

  “Love,” he whispers, “I wish I could have you, in this, and every other lifetime. I wish it with every part of me.”

  He turns me over finally to look at him and he’s smiling at me, bursting with love.

  “Michael,” I say, with the intentions of stopping him from pouring out any more of what’s left of his beautiful heart.

  I don’t deserve any of it. Not a single drop of gold from his untainted heart.

  It’s painful knowing I have to leave him now.

  “I do. I love you, Gia,” he says softly, with a troubled look in his eyes.

  “I’m so in love with you I can’t think of you in any other way than with everything I feel for you… I’m losing my mind with the unfairness of it all.”

  I’m failing in the effort to hold back my tears.

  How could I do this to him?

  Badly, I want to reassure him that in so many ways I feel the same for him too.

  But I couldn’t lead him on with any hope of anything more than this embezzled moment.

  After a quiet moment, he whispers so softly I could’ve missed it if I weren’t looking at him right now. “You could leave him. You could do it and be with me.”

  The tears ran down my face knowing the time has come for me to tarnish the ecstasy of our experience forever with the unavoidable slap of rejection to us both in the reality of this situation.

  “I can’t,” I plead with him to understand.

  Catholics didn’t consent to divorce.

  Women didn’t leave their husbands.

  And you certainly didn’t try with a husband like Giorgio Moretti.

  He looks at me silently for a bit, working my words through his mind. He nods once—not in agreement, but with devastating resignation.

  We didn’t talk after that, because really, there wasn’t much to say anymore.

  He simply held me close and held me tight as if he couldn’t get enough, and in a way, he never would.

  In retrospect, I don’t think he would’ve ever let me go had he known the way everything would transpire.

  Reluctantly I slipped out of his comforting hold and snatched his shirt from the floor. I regarded him for a moment as he slept; sad I would never see that precious image again before I quietly snuck out of his house and caught that damn taxi home, after all.

  I left more confused and sorrier about both men than ever, in my whole life.

  It was a hard pill to swallow realizing I’d been at peace by myself while Gio was in prison.

  Because I stayed away from my husband longer than I could Michael.

  That said a lot, honestly. I know.

  Two weeks was all I could manage.

  Only fourteen days.

  Countless hours were afflicted with thoughts of my forbidden lover and that night.

  See, hope was a bitch too.

  She was nagging me.

  Pestering me with the little seed Michael planted when he whispered to me that we could be together; and it began to bloom, no matter how hard I tried to suffocate the thought from growing into belief.

  Could I truly go through with it?

  I don’t know that I could, but Michael, my God, he has this power over me.

  He’s played a wicked, wicked game making me dream of him.

  Dream of us.

  I honestly didn’t know what to do.

  Did this mean I loved him more than Giorgio?

  Someone I have loved all my life?

  It couldn’t be.

  What I knew for sure was that I didn’t know anything anymore.

  I especially didn’t know how to live with what I did.

  I couldn’t trust my feelings either. No, those were certainly the most dangerous in all this.

  My husband was a murderer. He had no qualms about getting his hands bloodied. He never hid it again after I confronted him.

  Michael was a longing I knew nothing could cure and that’s all he was ever going to be. Somehow I needed to make peace with the idea that he only had a place in my heart and not in my life. That was the only way he’d be safest.

  Because love was unfair; it’s been destructive.

  Love has only created despair for me.

  It could never happen.

  But before I came to terms with that… I went to see him on a spur of the moment. Because fucking hope gave me wings just to brutally tear them right off.

  I took a cab early in the morning, not having slept at all the night before, in hopes of catching Michael before he left to work.

  The sun had barely come up yet, painting the sky in vibrant hues of optimism.

  I told the taxi not to idle. I had no idea how long this would take.

  I had no expectations either.

  My stomach was pulsating with butterflies, feeling good to be alive.

  I was excited, I was nervous.

  I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, we could make this work.

  I sprinted from the cab. If I could fly over to him with my new wings, I would have.

  I was midway through his driveway before I looked up.

  The smile I couldn’t hold back anymore dropped.

  My stomach plummeted and all those butterflies died and decayed in an instant, replaced with bile and the virulent need to expel it.

  There was a gorgeous brunette stepping outside his door and he was leaning against the frame in nothing but black briefs watching her go.

  My heart ceased to beat watching him, watch her.

  She turned back around, bounced right back up to him throwing her arms around his shoulders and kissed him.

  No.

  Was everything a lie?

  God, please, no.

  When they were done, she made it down the steps and almost ran into me, incapable of seeing anything else from all the hearts in her eyes.

  I hated her.

  Because that’s exactly how I was a moment ago before I saw them.

  It was difficult to swallow the bitter taste of my immense stupidity pooli
ng in my mouth.

  I stepped aside to avoid her running into me because I couldn’t bare it if she touched me. My heart was too wild and I couldn’t be held accountable for my loss of sanity.

  I know it wasn’t the girl’s fault.

  But I still hated her all the same.

  She snapped out of her stupor in the last moment and looked up at me, “Oh! Sorry! Hi! Gotta go!” And took off without a worry on her face for having just seen another woman in the drive of the house she just spent the night at.

  I know what the walk of shame looked like. Only hers was a fucking skip instead.

  I stayed staring at her back, watching her make her way to the subway station down the street a moment before the dream killer spoke to me.

  “You shouldn’t be here, love,” he said in a soft voice.

  Love.

  I think what he meant to call me was fool.

  Finally, I looked at him and saw that he wasn’t smug or happy in the least.

  No, he looked upset too, like he was holding himself back from reaching for me.

  “Yeah... I don’t know what I was thinking,” I tell him shaking my head.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me like I’m the bad one here,” he tells me. “We don’t need to make this all harder than it is.”

  “You’re the good one then?” I ask him, because I want him to say it to my face. “Was it all a lie, Michael?”

  I needed to hear it; I needed to bury all this where it all belonged.

  “Never. Not for a single second, love. But what’ll you have me do? Pine over you for the rest of my life? Wait on the side for a scrap of you whenever you can sneak it?” he says, straightening up from the doorframe to face me off in all his beautiful glory.

  Showing me he has no shame for what I walked into.

  “No, that’s not what I wanted at all,” I tell him and leave it at that. There was no point anymore.

  “Then answer me this: is it okay in your heart that I’ll be completely alone?”

  “Of course not, Michael. I just—”

  “You just what? Thought that whenever you were lonely, or mad at your fucking husband, you could come to me and I’d make it all better? Then I’d watch you trot right back to him?” he asks me angrily.

  “Not at all. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him, so sad that he’s thinking of me that way.