Jim came back to reality slowly. Like a whale rising up from the ocean depths after a long, deep, dive. His eyes were fully open and his jaw slack, as he was breathing through his mouth. His face hurt and that was unusual. He was highly immune to pain. He had been in so much pain, for so long, that it no longer had the same reality it once had. He lived outside himself, as if he was a second person, also him, but not.
He was aware of the other self, who was in a lot of pain, but that self was no longer him, so he didn’t feel that pain directly. While he lived as this other person, that was the celestial him, that person, was detached from his physical form that was enduring his pain for him. The him, that lived only in his mind, had no physical self. The pain in his face was different though he could feel it. It was new. It almost felt good to have something new. Something that he could feel directly. Something that was his, that made him more real, the self that lived in the mind.
Through all this reflection he was unaware of the presence and pressure at his side. He blended it in with the blankets and pillows, he propped himself with, to be able to rest in the least painful position. It was a long, stray, blond hair tickling his face, another new feeling, that made him aware of Lisa. He turned his head enough to see her. He was so stunned by her presence he was incapable of having a reaction other than to look at her as if she was a phantom. He studied her like a scientist discovering a new life form. He didn’t feel any emotional reaction, just curiosity. Her eyelids were closed and rubbed red at the edges. Her nose tip was also visibly raw and flushed.
The lines he had started to see forming at her eyes and mouth seemed to be gone. He realized her face muscles were relaxed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her and the muscles in her face weren’t pulled tight. If he ever had. Even when she was a teenager there always seemed to be a tightness in her face. The reality of her presence slowly crept into his consciousness. He remained still not wanting to wake her, as if doing so would make her disappear.
He wanted to understand, relish, the phantasmal moment before she vanished. It was a battle to wrap his head around her being in his bed. The last time he had touched he was sure that he was going to kill her. The long desired feel of the tender flesh, of her neck, in his hands was something he had often thought of when she stood over him. Bitching that her life was not the one she had planned. As if he was living his best life and she wasn’t. The only reason he had not snapped her neck was that he wanted to take his time. He wanted to see the life draining from her face. He wanted her to know that he was killing her and he wanted to see the life slip from her eyes as he slowly increased the pressure of his fingers.
He realized that he was grinding his teeth and his lip was curled and his nostrils flared. His breathing had also began to rise to harsh gasps. Then he realized his right hand had started to rise for her throat. It shook him deeply and he lowered his hand and took control of his emotioms. It had truly scared him that he was capable of what he had fantasized and would have done it if she hadn’t managed to have stopped him.
He took a long slow breath to calm his thumping heart that was pounding in his ears. He had never wanted to hate her. He had fought it for as long as he could. Slowly it had come over him and taken him, controlling his every thought of her. He knew that she went out drinking and could only imagine what happened when she did. He would fantasize that one day she would kill herself in a drunken stupor driving home. He felt the anger rising again and he pushed it down with more slow breaths.
This face snuggled beside him did not belong to that Lisa. It belonged to the Lisa he had once loved. The Lisa that could be vulnerable. The Lisa that believed in him. Encouraged him. The Lisa that had professed to love him. He let his mind be blank. He just looked at her and pretended that it was that Lisa again. He didn’t know why she had crawled into bed with him, but he was going to pretend, until it ended, that the girl that he had loved had come back to him.
Then he felt something else that felt new. If not new at least so far in the past that it seemed new. He felt his heart breaking. Breaking at the love that he thought he had found and then lost. Breaking from all the lost years. All the pain they had inflicted on each other. Breaking for dreams crushed and hope lost. His eyes filled with tears and he began to shake as he fought to keep himself from sobbing.
It was at that moment that Lisa’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at Jim’s face and felt everything he was feeling and felt the same and her eyes filled with tears as well.
“Jim… Jim… I am so sorry…” It was all she could say before her sobs and shaking took control of her. Jim reached up with his right hand. The hand that moments before had risen to strangle her and he cradled it at the back of her neck to pull her to him and put his lips on her forehead, kissing her. Her openness and pain brought his emotions under control and he continued to kiss her face and her tears. He turned, as well as he could, on his side to hold her and let her bury her face in his neck and sob. He stroked her hair and rocked her.
“It’s okay… It’s okay… I’m all right.” He whispered, rocking her in his arms. Ignoring the pain in his back and hips.
Lisa pulled away enough to wipe her tears and snot with the back of her hand. “I’m so sorry…” She burst into a new round of sobs and Jim pulled her close again. Whispering to her. Stroking her back. Rocking her. Telling her it was going to be okay. It went on for several minutes until she pulled away and proped herself up with one arm and tried to wipe her face with her free hand. Jim reached over to his bedside table to get the box of tissue that lived there and handed it to her. Lisa took it and sat up on the bed, turning half away from Jim towards the wall. One leg over the side, one tucked in to hold her up. She took several tissues to blow her nose and wipe her face.
“You must think I’m a monster… You must hate me so much…” Her body began to shudder again and she grabbed fresh tissues to cover her eyes which were now swollen and bloodshot.
Jim rested his left hand on her thigh. “I don’t hate you…” Jim realized only after he said it that is was suddenly true. He didn’t hate her. He loved her. He had always loved her from their first moment together. Not the bitter shrew of a woman she had become, but this girl, this girl sitting beside him on his bed. This vulnerable, beautiful girl. “I love you, Lisa… I always have.”
Lisa pushed his hand off her thigh. “Please don’t say that… Please don’t. I know you can’t feel that way. Not after the way… the way… I’ve been.” She sobbed, but quickly got control of it and blew her nose in the balled up tissue she’d been blotting her eyes with.
“It hurts too much to hear you say it, knowing you can’t possibly mean it…” Jim let it go. He sensed there was nothing he could say at that moment that would help anything. She threw her spent tissue on the floor and took a fresh one. They sat in silence for a while. Lisa blowing her nose and wiping her eyes then holding her hands in her lap and staring at them. When she had finally got herself under control she spoke again.
“Jim… I woke up this morning, by myself, in the Shangri-La motel. Hungover and hating myself for the person I’ve become.” She paused and ran her hand lightly over his chest without looking at him. “For the way I’ve treated you.” She gave him a quick glance and quickly looked away. Lisa felt no shame in her edited, information withheld, version of the truth. She wasn’t going to hurt Jim more by telling him she had cheated on him. That was her burden. There was no purpose in telling him. He’d made it clear he wasn’t going to divorce her no matter how she acted. So there was nothing to be gained by telling him now that she wanted things to change. It hadn’t been the first time, but it was going to be the last.
“The only thing I could think of was that I wanted to be with you. I wanted you…” She began to shudder, but pushed on, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I wanted you to look at me the way you used to look at me… When you… when you… loved me…” Lisa body shuddered as she fought to keep from sobbing again.
She glanced back at Jim and she saw it. That look. Those soft, kind, blue eyes. That look of total acceptance and love. She couldn’t breathe. Her mouth would not open. Her lungs would not expand. Her body shook against the vacuum formed at her lips. Jim opened his arms to her and she collapsed and she let him cradle her into his shoulder. Still no air came though her mouth was open and her body shook. Jim stroked the back of her head and gave her a squeeze.
“It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” He held tighter as the sob broke free from her throat and she gasped for air. He kissed the top of her head and rocked her gently. “Everything is going to be okay.” He said it over and over again until she believed it and she quieted and snuggled into him and after while, holding each other like they’d never let go, they fell asleep. At least for now, Lisa could believe that everything was really going to be okay.
**********
Lisa’s eyes blinked open about six PM. She was looking up from Jim’s shoulder to the side of his face. She tried to make sense of the world as it had become in the last several hours. It was difficult to believe it was all real. Only one thing told her it was, she was starving. She was so hungry she couldn’t remember ever being that hungry. She kissed Jim on his cheek and pulled away from him. He opened his eyes and immediately reached for her.
“Where are you going?” His voice was raspy.
“I’m going to make us something to eat.” She touched his cheek with the back of her hand. “What sounds good to you?”
“Breakfast.” He smiled.
She looked at the clock. “It’s after six…”
He shrugged. “It’s Saturday.” As if that explained it.
She laughed. “Okay. Breakfast it is.”
He touched her arm. “Could you bring me some orange juice first. I feel like my throat has been wire brushed and I also really need to take a few pills.”
Lisa suddenly felt sad, deep in her heart. She had become completely immune to the idea that Jim was constantly in pain. She just thought of him as taking pills, for what? For pleasure? She was hit by a new wave of guilt that broadcast on her face. Jim reached up and touched her arm and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“It’s a new day, Lisa.” He smiled. “New beginning.”
Lisa’s lip trembled, a couple of tears sprouted and spilled from her eyes. She sniffed and wiped them away and stood up. She nodded, looked down at her hands, then across the bed to Jim’s table. The water pitcher was half full, but had been there at least all day. “I’ll
get you some fresh ice water too.” She went around the bed and picked up the pitcher and felt Jim’s hand touch her back.
“Thank you, Baby.”
She nodded, but didn’t look back. He hadn’t called her baby in almost ten years. She couldn’t look at him, or it she was going to break open all over again. “I’ll just be a minute.” She went to the kitchen without looking back.
*********
They spent the rest of the night in Jim’s room and slept most of Sunday away. Lisa laid curled up next to Jim, his arm around her shoulders. They were watching 60 Minutes, but neither of them could have said what it was about, because they weren’t looking at the screen much and the voices were just comforting background noise. They had eaten breakfast for dinner again and their plates were clean, save but a slight smear of egg yoke, and stacked on the table on her side of the bed. When the stopwatch ticked down it sort of revived them from their contemplations.
Jim blinked and looked at the TV. “What happened?”
Lisa lifted her head enough to view the screen. “I think Mike Wallace, just made some bad business man very uncomfortable. Or maybe it was a congressman.” They both chuckled.
“You want to watch Battlestar Galactica? That’s a fun show.” Jim was looking at the screen so he didn’t see Lisa’s brief look of horror. She had time to hide her face against his chest before he looked back at her.
“No…” Lisa struggled to keep her voice neutral. She let it be whiny to cover her shakiness. “Then I’d have to get up and change the channel.” She snuggled into him a little closer. “All in the Family is pretty funny. Let’s just watch that.”
“Okay. That works for me.” Jim laid his head against the top of Lisa’s. Neither of them looked at the TV. They were both still exhausted and didn’t even make it through “Those were the Days.” before they were sound asleep again.
********
Lisa heard the sound of static. She smack her lips a couple of times. Her breakfast dinner had become pasty morning breath in her mouth. She opened her eyes and blinked several times. Jim was breathing steady, still sleeping. She slipped out of bed and tapped the power button on the TV to end the rasping blank channel. Then she went to brush her teeth.
When she came back in the room, Jim was awake. She stood still looking at him for a moment and neither felt compelled to speak. Finally Jim did.
“I’m awake.” He smiled. “Any late night movies on?”
Lisa shook her head. “Sunday night. TV’s over and good Americans are asleep.”
He laughed. “I guess we’re not good Americans.” Jim picked up the prescription bottle from his table and tapped out a couple of pills. Then picked up his glass of water to wash them down. Lisa stood perfectly still and watched him do what she’d seen him do thousands of times. This time she sighed heavily to control the lump in her throat.
“Is it bad?” She asked clutching her hands together over her hips.
Jim set the glass down. “It’s been worse.” He smiled. “At least I’m washing them down with water. I haven’t even thought about taking a drink all day. Though I’ve still probably got some in my blood from yesterday.”
Lisa looked down at her hands and forced them to stop fidgeting. “Can I get you anything?”
“Do we have any cookies?” He smiled like a kid. She hadn’t seen that smile in a long time.
“No.” She shook her head, looked at him and smiled. “I’m afraid not and I don’t think my baking skills are up to the task.”
He patted the bed beside him. “Then why don’t you just bring me you.”
She hurried around the bed, lifted the covers and carefully climbed in next to him, laying her arm across his stomach.
“You want to listen to the radio.” He said looking down at the top of her head.
“No.” She said with a little shake. “Let’s just be quiet.”
“Okay.” He gave her a squeeze and looked up at the ceiling.
The laid there for an hour without falling back to sleep. Lisa took a deep breath and supporting herself with her elbow leaned to kiss Jim on the mouth. Their lips were only slightly open, but they were moist after one kiss. They hadn’t kissed like that since the accident and they held it for a long time. They could both feel there cheeks blossom like school kids on a first date. Lisa open her mouth a little more and Jim responded by darting his tongue out to meet hers. Gently, not wide and forced. The warmth spread all through Lisa’s body. Her thighs warmed and instead of clinching they wanted to open. They continued to kiss, sometimes just lips, sometimes with tongues, but always gently.
Lisa let her free hand drift across Jim’s chest that was solid from his daily workouts. Jim ran his hand over Lisa’s back and under her t-shirt so he could feel her smooth skin. It was cool and warm at the same time. He let himself enjoy the texture and life it possessed, then slipped his hand under her waste band to feel the curve of her back. He ran his finger gently around the dimples he found there, then let his hand cover her firm cheek. He grasped it and rubbed his hand in small circle before sliding his hand up to her back again. Lisa had been on her own journey slipping under the waistband of his boxers and Jim suddenly realized that she was taking him in her hand and he shut down.
She felt it and pulled away to look at him, but he couldn’t look at her.
“What is it, Jim.” She honestly didn’t know.
“Um…” Jim’s eyes searched the room for something to focus on. Anything but Lisa’s face. “Why, um… Just let me touch you for now.”
“Jim, I want to touch you…” She knew she needed to touch him. She needed him inside her. She needed him to release into her.
“Ah… it’s ah… the pills… and the pain… Probably the booze too. There isn’t anything happening down there.” He risked a glance in her direction. He didn’t see the scorn he feared. He saw compassion and he swallowed hard and looked again. The expression had not changed. Soft, pure, love.
“Could you…” He was finally able to look her in the eyes. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“Just try and we’ll figure it out.”
“Could you sort of hover over me so I could touch you, pleasure you.” Jim looked away and then back again. She could see the hurt in his eyes. Despite what she had said to hurt him, before the accident, Jim had been a very healthy lover. She thought, it must have be crushing to have lost that power. She kissed him passionately and pulled away to look into his eyes.
“I’ll make you a deal. You have to be naked too and let things happen, or not happen. Just know I want to touch you. Whatever that means. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know your a good man.” Her voice fell to a whisper and silent tears formed and spilled a few at a time onto Lisa’s cheek.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known and nothing will change that, because I love you, Jim. I know that now like I’ve never known it before.” She kissed him again and they kissed tenderly for a while. Then she slipped out of bed to pull off her clothes.
The little bit of weight that Lisa had put on had only made her body more inviting. Softening up her lines and making her more subtle and inviting. Jim was lost for a moment in the pleasure of just seeing her stand there showing herself to him. Then she pulled back the covers. Climbed up on the bed, resting on her knees and carefully help Jim out of his pajamas and under clothes. She leaned over him and kissed his chest. Then he pulled her up to kiss her on the lips. She straddled his waist so that he could easily reach her.
“Is this what you want?” She whispered, holding herself up from the bed with her hands on either side of Jim’s shoulders.
“Yes.” He nodded and reached up and stroked her neck where her bruises were turning from green to black. “I’m sorry. I…”
“New day… remember. For both of us.” She leaned down to kiss him and he let his hands slowly move over her shoulders and onto her breasts. He lightly massaged them, careful not to touch her nipples too hard. Lisa flooded with warmth and continued to kiss him. Her thighs spread and her began slowly rock. Jim took his time working his way to her. His middle finger slipped easily inside her she bared down on his hand pumping down slowly to allow his finger to slip in and out and for her to ride his knuckles across her point of ecstasy at just the right pressure. She shuttered and gasped lowering herself gently on to Jim. When he started to move his hand away she stopped him.
“No… leave it inside me.” She took a couple of quick breaths. “I just need a moment to let the feeling go through me.” She took another breath. “Am I too heavy on you?”
“No, your fine. Your skin against mine feels wonderful.” He ran his hand across her damp back.
Lisa smiled. After a few more breaths she rose up and kissed deeply on the mouth. Then she straightened up supporting her weight with her knees. When Jim started to touch her again she took his hands away and put them on her breasts. Then she supported herself with her hands on the bed and lowered herself onto Jim. He was completely flaccid. She let herself enfold him. She was warm and wet and easily slid up and down on his timid shaft.
“Lisa… nothing’s going to happen.” Jim tried not to frown.
“Shhhhh…” Lisa put her finger to his lips. “This is wonderful, just like this. If this is what it is, I’m happy.” She continued to slide against him and grind the tip of him into her pleasure. Soon he was just hard enough that she was able to get him inside her and she squeezed and rotated her hips. He wasn’t even sure when the change actually happened, he just realized that he was hard inside her. When he felt her shuddered with pleasure, squeezing and shaking him inside her, he released as he never had before. Fully aware of every atom in his being and every inch of Lisa’s warm flesh. They melted into each other and for that moment Jim was not crippled, there was no pain, there was only pleasure, and his two self’s were one inside of Lisa.
… And a million miles away, Apollyon smiled to himself, because he had taken Lisa’s evil with him and it tasted like ambrosia on his tongue. She was her purest self. The beautiful perfect being she would have been if she had been born into a perfect world. A world where she hadn’t been spoiled at an early age by a bad man that she’d never told anyone about. A world where she didn’t have a selfish mother obsessed about the wealth she felt cheated by not having and thought she was entitled to. Who didn’t see the changes in her young daughter, because she didn’t care to look. Who instilled in her that only fools and idiots married for love.
Money was the only reason to marry and that little hot spot between her thighs was the ticket to get it. Her mother raged at her surroundings and the man she had been chained to until it was too late for her to capture a good prospect. She wanted Lisa to find a fortune and funnel that money back to her, to pay her back for giving her life to raise Lisa.
No she was no longer changed by all that, because Apollyon had taken it from her when he drank the evil it had created from her soul. She was the person she was meant to be and she was doing just what she was supposed to do for Apollyon. Just what he told her to do while she slept. She was fixing her life with her damaged husband. Because they couldn’t know. They wouldn’t know. Well not until he was ready for them to know and he came to claim and collect his child.
Jim came back to reality slowly. Like a whale rising up from the ocean depths after a long, deep, dive. His eyes were fully open and his jaw slack, as he was breathing through his mouth. His face hurt and that was unusual. He was highly immune to pain. He had been in so much pain, for so long, that it no longer had the same reality it once had. He lived outside himself, as if he was a second person, also him, but not.
He was aware of the other self, who was in a lot of pain, but that self was no longer him, so he didn’t feel that pain directly. While he lived as this other person, that was the celestial him, that person, was detached from his physical form that was enduring his pain for him. The him, that lived only in his mind, had no physical self. The pain in his face was different though he could feel it. It was new. It almost felt good to have something new. Something that he could feel directly. Something that was his, that made him more real, the self that lived in the mind.
Through all this reflection he was unaware of the presence and pressure at his side. He blended it in with the blankets and pillows, he propped himself with, to be able to rest in the least painful position. It was a long, stray, blond hair tickling his face, another new feeling, that made him aware of Lisa. He turned his head enough to see her. He was so stunned by her presence he was incapable of having a reaction other than to look at her as if she was a phantom. He studied her like a scientist discovering a new life form. He didn’t feel any emotional reaction, just curiosity. Her eyelids were closed and rubbed red at the edges. Her nose tip was also visibly raw and flushed.
The lines he had started to see forming at her eyes and mouth seemed to be gone. He realized her face muscles were relaxed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her and the muscles in her face weren’t pulled tight. If he ever had. Even when she was a teenager there always seemed to be a tightness in her face. The reality of her presence slowly crept into his consciousness. He remained still not wanting to wake her, as if doing so would make her disappear.
He wanted to understand, relish, the phantasmal moment before she vanished. It was a battle to wrap his head around her being in his bed. The last time he had touched he was sure that he was going to kill her. The long desired feel of the tender flesh, of her neck, in his hands was something he had often thought of when she stood over him. Bitching that her life was not the one she had planned. As if he was living his best life and she wasn’t. The only reason he had not snapped her neck was that he wanted to take his time. He wanted to see the life draining from her face. He wanted her to know that he was killing her and he wanted to see the life slip from her eyes as he slowly increased the pressure of his fingers.
He realized that he was grinding his teeth and his lip was curled and his nostrils flared. His breathing had also began to rise to harsh gasps. Then he realized his right hand had started to rise for her throat. It shook him deeply and he lowered his hand and took control of his emotioms. It had truly scared him that he was capable of what he had fantasized and would have done it if she hadn’t managed to have stopped him.
He took a long slow breath to calm his thumping heart that was pounding in his ears. He had never wanted to hate her. He had fought it for as long as he could. Slowly it had come over him and taken him, controlling his every thought of her. He knew that she went out drinking and could only imagine what happened when she did. He would fantasize that one day she would kill herself in a drunken stupor driving home. He felt the anger rising again and he pushed it down with more slow breaths.
This face snuggled beside him did not belong to that Lisa. It belonged to the Lisa he had once loved. The Lisa that could be vulnerable. The Lisa that believed in him. Encouraged him. The Lisa that had professed to love him. He let his mind be blank. He just looked at her and pretended that it was that Lisa again. He didn’t know why she had crawled into bed with him, but he was going to pretend, until it ended, that the girl that he had loved had come back to him.
Then he felt something else that felt new. If not new at least so far in the past that it seemed new. He felt his heart breaking. Breaking at the love that he thought he had found and then lost. Breaking from all the lost years. All the pain they had inflicted on each other. Breaking for dreams crushed and hope lost. His eyes filled with tears and he began to shake as he fought to keep himself from sobbing.
It was at that moment that Lisa’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at Jim’s face and felt everything he was feeling and felt the same and her eyes filled with tears as well.
“Jim… Jim… I am so sorry…” It was all she could say before her sobs and shaking took control of her. Jim reached up with his right hand. The hand that moments before had risen to strangle her and he cradled it at the back of her neck to pull her to him and put his lips on her forehead, kissing her. Her openness and pain brought his emotions under control and he continued to kiss her face and her tears. He turned, as well as he could, on his side to hold her and let her bury her face in his neck and sob. He stroked her hair and rocked her.
“It’s okay… It’s okay… I’m all right.” He whispered, rocking her in his arms. Ignoring the pain in his back and hips.
Lisa pulled away enough to wipe her tears and snot with the back of her hand. “I’m so sorry…” She burst into a new round of sobs and Jim pulled her close again. Whispering to her. Stroking her back. Rocking her. Telling her it was going to be okay. It went on for several minutes until she pulled away and proped herself up with one arm and tried to wipe her face with her free hand. Jim reached over to his bedside table to get the box of tissue that lived there and handed it to her. Lisa took it and sat up on the bed, turning half away from Jim towards the wall. One leg over the side, one tucked in to hold her up. She took several tissues to blow her nose and wipe her face.
“You must think I’m a monster… You must hate me so much…” Her body began to shudder again and she grabbed fresh tissues to cover her eyes which were now swollen and bloodshot.
Jim rested his left hand on her thigh. “I don’t hate you…” Jim realized only after he said it that is was suddenly true. He didn’t hate her. He loved her. He had always loved her from their first moment together. Not the bitter shrew of a woman she had become, but this girl, this girl sitting beside him on his bed. This vulnerable, beautiful girl. “I love you, Lisa… I always have.”
Lisa pushed his hand off her thigh. “Please don’t say that… Please don’t. I know you can’t feel that way. Not after the way… the way… I’ve been.” She sobbed, but quickly got control of it and blew her nose in the balled up tissue she’d been blotting her eyes with.
“It hurts too much to hear you say it, knowing you can’t possibly mean it…” Jim let it go. He sensed there was nothing he could say at that moment that would help anything. She threw her spent tissue on the floor and took a fresh one. They sat in silence for a while. Lisa blowing her nose and wiping her eyes then holding her hands in her lap and staring at them. When she had finally got herself under control she spoke again.
“Jim… I woke up this morning, by myself, in the Shangri-La motel. Hungover and hating myself for the person I’ve become.” She paused and ran her hand lightly over his chest without looking at him. “For the way I’ve treated you.” She gave him a quick glance and quickly looked away. Lisa felt no shame in her edited, information withheld, version of the truth. She wasn’t going to hurt Jim more by telling him she had cheated on him. That was her burden. There was no purpose in telling him. He’d made it clear he wasn’t going to divorce her no matter how she acted. So there was nothing to be gained by telling him now that she wanted things to change. It hadn’t been the first time, but it was going to be the last.
“The only thing I could think of was that I wanted to be with you. I wanted you…” She began to shudder, but pushed on, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I wanted you to look at me the way you used to look at me… When you… when you… loved me…” Lisa body shuddered as she fought to keep from sobbing again.
She glanced back at Jim and she saw it. That look. Those soft, kind, blue eyes. That look of total acceptance and love. She couldn’t breathe. Her mouth would not open. Her lungs would not expand. Her body shook against the vacuum formed at her lips. Jim opened his arms to her and she collapsed and she let him cradle her into his shoulder. Still no air came though her mouth was open and her body shook. Jim stroked the back of her head and gave her a squeeze.
“It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” He held tighter as the sob broke free from her throat and she gasped for air. He kissed the top of her head and rocked her gently. “Everything is going to be okay.” He said it over and over again until she believed it and she quieted and snuggled into him and after while, holding each other like they’d never let go, they fell asleep. At least for now, Lisa could believe that everything was really going to be okay.
**********
Lisa’s eyes blinked open about six PM. She was looking up from Jim’s shoulder to the side of his face. She tried to make sense of the world as it had become in the last several hours. It was difficult to believe it was all real. Only one thing told her it was, she was starving. She was so hungry she couldn’t remember ever being that hungry. She kissed Jim on his cheek and pulled away from him. He opened his eyes and immediately reached for her.
“Where are you going?” His voice was raspy.
“I’m going to make us something to eat.” She touched his cheek with the back of her hand. “What sounds good to you?”
“Breakfast.” He smiled.
She looked at the clock. “It’s after six…”
He shrugged. “It’s Saturday.” As if that explained it.
She laughed. “Okay. Breakfast it is.”
He touched her arm. “Could you bring me some orange juice first. I feel like my throat has been wire brushed and I also really need to take a few pills.”
Lisa suddenly felt sad, deep in her heart. She had become completely immune to the idea that Jim was constantly in pain. She just thought of him as taking pills, for what? For pleasure? She was hit by a new wave of guilt that broadcast on her face. Jim reached up and touched her arm and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“It’s a new day, Lisa.” He smiled. “New beginning.”
Lisa’s lip trembled, a couple of tears sprouted and spilled from her eyes. She sniffed and wiped them away and stood up. She nodded, looked down at her hands, then across the bed to Jim’s table. The water pitcher was half full, but had been there at least all day. “I’ll
get you some fresh ice water too.” She went around the bed and picked up the pitcher and felt Jim’s hand touch her back.
“Thank you, Baby.”
She nodded, but didn’t look back. He hadn’t called her baby in almost ten years. She couldn’t look at him, or it she was going to break open all over again. “I’ll just be a minute.” She went to the kitchen without looking back.
*********
They spent the rest of the night in Jim’s room and slept most of Sunday away. Lisa laid curled up next to Jim, his arm around her shoulders. They were watching 60 Minutes, but neither of them could have said what it was about, because they weren’t looking at the screen much and the voices were just comforting background noise. They had eaten breakfast for dinner again and their plates were clean, save but a slight smear of egg yoke, and stacked on the table on her side of the bed. When the stopwatch ticked down it sort of revived them from their contemplations.
Jim blinked and looked at the TV. “What happened?”
Lisa lifted her head enough to view the screen. “I think Mike Wallace, just made some bad business man very uncomfortable. Or maybe it was a congressman.” They both chuckled.
“You want to watch Battlestar Galactica? That’s a fun show.” Jim was looking at the screen so he didn’t see Lisa’s brief look of horror. She had time to hide her face against his chest before he looked back at her.
“No…” Lisa struggled to keep her voice neutral. She let it be whiny to cover her shakiness. “Then I’d have to get up and change the channel.” She snuggled into him a little closer. “All in the Family is pretty funny. Let’s just watch that.”
“Okay. That works for me.” Jim laid his head against the top of Lisa’s. Neither of them looked at the TV. They were both still exhausted and didn’t even make it through “Those were the Days.” before they were sound asleep again.
********
Lisa heard the sound of static. She smack her lips a couple of times. Her breakfast dinner had become pasty morning breath in her mouth. She opened her eyes and blinked several times. Jim was breathing steady, still sleeping. She slipped out of bed and tapped the power button on the TV to end the rasping blank channel. Then she went to brush her teeth.
When she came back in the room, Jim was awake. She stood still looking at him for a moment and neither felt compelled to speak. Finally Jim did.
“I’m awake.” He smiled. “Any late night movies on?”
Lisa shook her head. “Sunday night. TV’s over and good Americans are asleep.”
He laughed. “I guess we’re not good Americans.” Jim picked up the prescription bottle from his table and tapped out a couple of pills. Then picked up his glass of water to wash them down. Lisa stood perfectly still and watched him do what she’d seen him do thousands of times. This time she sighed heavily to control the lump in her throat.
“Is it bad?” She asked clutching her hands together over her hips.
Jim set the glass down. “It’s been worse.” He smiled. “At least I’m washing them down with water. I haven’t even thought about taking a drink all day. Though I’ve still probably got some in my blood from yesterday.”
Lisa looked down at her hands and forced them to stop fidgeting. “Can I get you anything?”
“Do we have any cookies?” He smiled like a kid. She hadn’t seen that smile in a long time.
“No.” She shook her head, looked at him and smiled. “I’m afraid not and I don’t think my baking skills are up to the task.”
He patted the bed beside him. “Then why don’t you just bring me you.”
She hurried around the bed, lifted the covers and carefully climbed in next to him, laying her arm across his stomach.
“You want to listen to the radio.” He said looking down at the top of her head.
“No.” She said with a little shake. “Let’s just be quiet.”
“Okay.” He gave her a squeeze and looked up at the ceiling.
The laid there for an hour without falling back to sleep. Lisa took a deep breath and supporting herself with her elbow leaned to kiss Jim on the mouth. Their lips were only slightly open, but they were moist after one kiss. They hadn’t kissed like that since the accident and they held it for a long time. They could both feel there cheeks blossom like school kids on a first date. Lisa open her mouth a little more and Jim responded by darting his tongue out to meet hers. Gently, not wide and forced. The warmth spread all through Lisa’s body. Her thighs warmed and instead of clinching they wanted to open. They continued to kiss, sometimes just lips, sometimes with tongues, but always gently.
Lisa let her free hand drift across Jim’s chest that was solid from his daily workouts. Jim ran his hand over Lisa’s back and under her t-shirt so he could feel her smooth skin. It was cool and warm at the same time. He let himself enjoy the texture and life it possessed, then slipped his hand under her waste band to feel the curve of her back. He ran his finger gently around the dimples he found there, then let his hand cover her firm cheek. He grasped it and rubbed his hand in small circle before sliding his hand up to her back again. Lisa had been on her own journey slipping under the waistband of his boxers and Jim suddenly realized that she was taking him in her hand and he shut down.
She felt it and pulled away to look at him, but he couldn’t look at her.
“What is it, Jim.” She honestly didn’t know.
“Um…” Jim’s eyes searched the room for something to focus on. Anything but Lisa’s face. “Why, um… Just let me touch you for now.”
“Jim, I want to touch you…” She knew she needed to touch him. She needed him inside her. She needed him to release into her.
“Ah… it’s ah… the pills… and the pain… Probably the booze too. There isn’t anything happening down there.” He risked a glance in her direction. He didn’t see the scorn he feared. He saw compassion and he swallowed hard and looked again. The expression had not changed. Soft, pure, love.
“Could you…” He was finally able to look her in the eyes. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“Just try and we’ll figure it out.”
“Could you sort of hover over me so I could touch you, pleasure you.” Jim looked away and then back again. She could see the hurt in his eyes. Despite what she had said to hurt him, before the accident, Jim had been a very healthy lover. She thought, it must have be crushing to have lost that power. She kissed him passionately and pulled away to look into his eyes.
“I’ll make you a deal. You have to be naked too and let things happen, or not happen. Just know I want to touch you. Whatever that means. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know your a good man.” Her voice fell to a whisper and silent tears formed and spilled a few at a time onto Lisa’s cheek.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known and nothing will change that, because I love you, Jim. I know that now like I’ve never known it before.” She kissed him again and they kissed tenderly for a while. Then she slipped out of bed to pull off her clothes.
The little bit of weight that Lisa had put on had only made her body more inviting. Softening up her lines and making her more subtle and inviting. Jim was lost for a moment in the pleasure of just seeing her stand there showing herself to him. Then she pulled back the covers. Climbed up on the bed, resting on her knees and carefully help Jim out of his pajamas and under clothes. She leaned over him and kissed his chest. Then he pulled her up to kiss her on the lips. She straddled his waist so that he could easily reach her.
“Is this what you want?” She whispered, holding herself up from the bed with her hands on either side of Jim’s shoulders.
“Yes.” He nodded and reached up and stroked her neck where her bruises were turning from green to black. “I’m sorry. I…”
“New day… remember. For both of us.” She leaned down to kiss him and he let his hands slowly move over her shoulders and onto her breasts. He lightly massaged them, careful not to touch her nipples too hard. Lisa flooded with warmth and continued to kiss him. Her thighs spread and her began slowly rock. Jim took his time working his way to her. His middle finger slipped easily inside her she bared down on his hand pumping down slowly to allow his finger to slip in and out and for her to ride his knuckles across her point of ecstasy at just the right pressure. She shuttered and gasped lowering herself gently on to Jim. When he started to move his hand away she stopped him.
“No… leave it inside me.” She took a couple of quick breaths. “I just need a moment to let the feeling go through me.” She took another breath. “Am I too heavy on you?”
“No, your fine. Your skin against mine feels wonderful.” He ran his hand across her damp back.
Lisa smiled. After a few more breaths she rose up and kissed deeply on the mouth. Then she straightened up supporting her weight with her knees. When Jim started to touch her again she took his hands away and put them on her breasts. Then she supported herself with her hands on the bed and lowered herself onto Jim. He was completely flaccid. She let herself enfold him. She was warm and wet and easily slid up and down on his timid shaft.
“Lisa… nothing’s going to happen.” Jim tried not to frown.
“Shhhhh…” Lisa put her finger to his lips. “This is wonderful, just like this. If this is what it is, I’m happy.” She continued to slide against him and grind the tip of him into her pleasure. Soon he was just hard enough that she was able to get him inside her and she squeezed and rotated her hips. He wasn’t even sure when the change actually happened, he just realized that he was hard inside her. When he felt her shuddered with pleasure, squeezing and shaking him inside her, he released as he never had before. Fully aware of every atom in his being and every inch of Lisa’s warm flesh. They melted into each other and for that moment Jim was not crippled, there was no pain, there was only pleasure, and his two self’s were one inside of Lisa.
… And a million miles away, Apollyon smiled to himself, because he had taken Lisa’s evil with him and it tasted like ambrosia on his tongue. She was her purest self. The beautiful perfect being she would have been if she had been born into a perfect world. A world where she hadn’t been spoiled at an early age by a bad man that she’d never told anyone about. A world where she didn’t have a selfish mother obsessed about the wealth she felt cheated by not having and thought she was entitled to. Who didn’t see the changes in her young daughter, because she didn’t care to look. Who instilled in her that only fools and idiots married for love.
Money was the only reason to marry and that little hot spot between her thighs was the ticket to get it. Her mother raged at her surroundings and the man she had been chained to until it was too late for her to capture a good prospect. She wanted Lisa to find a fortune and funnel that money back to her, to pay her back for giving her life to raise Lisa.
No she was no longer changed by all that, because Apollyon had taken it from her when he drank the evil it had created from her soul. She was the person she was meant to be and she was doing just what she was supposed to do for Apollyon. Just what he told her to do while she slept. She was fixing her life with her damaged husband. Because they couldn’t know. They wouldn’t know. Well not until he was ready for them to know and he came to claim and collect his child.
Jim came back to reality slowly. Like a whale rising up from the ocean depths after a long, deep, dive. His eyes were fully open and his jaw slack, as he was breathing through his mouth. His face hurt and that was unusual. He was highly immune to pain. He had been in so much pain, for so long, that it no longer had the same reality it once had. He lived outside himself, as if he was a second person, also him, but not.
He was aware of the other self, who was in a lot of pain, but that self was no longer him, so he didn’t feel that pain directly. While he lived as this other person, that was the celestial him, that person, was detached from his physical form that was enduring his pain for him. The him, that lived only in his mind, had no physical self. The pain in his face was different though he could feel it. It was new. It almost felt good to have something new. Something that he could feel directly. Something that was his, that made him more real, the self that lived in the mind.
Through all this reflection he was unaware of the presence and pressure at his side. He blended it in with the blankets and pillows, he propped himself with, to be able to rest in the least painful position. It was a long, stray, blond hair tickling his face, another new feeling, that made him aware of Lisa. He turned his head enough to see her. He was so stunned by her presence he was incapable of having a reaction other than to look at her as if she was a phantom. He studied her like a scientist discovering a new life form. He didn’t feel any emotional reaction, just curiosity. Her eyelids were closed and rubbed red at the edges. Her nose tip was also visibly raw and flushed.
The lines he had started to see forming at her eyes and mouth seemed to be gone. He realized her face muscles were relaxed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her and the muscles in her face weren’t pulled tight. If he ever had. Even when she was a teenager there always seemed to be a tightness in her face. The reality of her presence slowly crept into his consciousness. He remained still not wanting to wake her, as if doing so would make her disappear.
He wanted to understand, relish, the phantasmal moment before she vanished. It was a battle to wrap his head around her being in his bed. The last time he had touched he was sure that he was going to kill her. The long desired feel of the tender flesh, of her neck, in his hands was something he had often thought of when she stood over him. Bitching that her life was not the one she had planned. As if he was living his best life and she wasn’t. The only reason he had not snapped her neck was that he wanted to take his time. He wanted to see the life draining from her face. He wanted her to know that he was killing her and he wanted to see the life slip from her eyes as he slowly increased the pressure of his fingers.
He realized that he was grinding his teeth and his lip was curled and his nostrils flared. His breathing had also began to rise to harsh gasps. Then he realized his right hand had started to rise for her throat. It shook him deeply and he lowered his hand and took control of his emotioms. It had truly scared him that he was capable of what he had fantasized and would have done it if she hadn’t managed to have stopped him.
He took a long slow breath to calm his thumping heart that was pounding in his ears. He had never wanted to hate her. He had fought it for as long as he could. Slowly it had come over him and taken him, controlling his every thought of her. He knew that she went out drinking and could only imagine what happened when she did. He would fantasize that one day she would kill herself in a drunken stupor driving home. He felt the anger rising again and he pushed it down with more slow breaths.
This face snuggled beside him did not belong to that Lisa. It belonged to the Lisa he had once loved. The Lisa that could be vulnerable. The Lisa that believed in him. Encouraged him. The Lisa that had professed to love him. He let his mind be blank. He just looked at her and pretended that it was that Lisa again. He didn’t know why she had crawled into bed with him, but he was going to pretend, until it ended, that the girl that he had loved had come back to him.
Then he felt something else that felt new. If not new at least so far in the past that it seemed new. He felt his heart breaking. Breaking at the love that he thought he had found and then lost. Breaking from all the lost years. All the pain they had inflicted on each other. Breaking for dreams crushed and hope lost. His eyes filled with tears and he began to shake as he fought to keep himself from sobbing.
It was at that moment that Lisa’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at Jim’s face and felt everything he was feeling and felt the same and her eyes filled with tears as well.
“Jim… Jim… I am so sorry…” It was all she could say before her sobs and shaking took control of her. Jim reached up with his right hand. The hand that moments before had risen to strangle her and he cradled it at the back of her neck to pull her to him and put his lips on her forehead, kissing her. Her openness and pain brought his emotions under control and he continued to kiss her face and her tears. He turned, as well as he could, on his side to hold her and let her bury her face in his neck and sob. He stroked her hair and rocked her.
“It’s okay… It’s okay… I’m all right.” He whispered, rocking her in his arms. Ignoring the pain in his back and hips.
Lisa pulled away enough to wipe her tears and snot with the back of her hand. “I’m so sorry…” She burst into a new round of sobs and Jim pulled her close again. Whispering to her. Stroking her back. Rocking her. Telling her it was going to be okay. It went on for several minutes until she pulled away and proped herself up with one arm and tried to wipe her face with her free hand. Jim reached over to his bedside table to get the box of tissue that lived there and handed it to her. Lisa took it and sat up on the bed, turning half away from Jim towards the wall. One leg over the side, one tucked in to hold her up. She took several tissues to blow her nose and wipe her face.
“You must think I’m a monster… You must hate me so much…” Her body began to shudder again and she grabbed fresh tissues to cover her eyes which were now swollen and bloodshot.
Jim rested his left hand on her thigh. “I don’t hate you…” Jim realized only after he said it that is was suddenly true. He didn’t hate her. He loved her. He had always loved her from their first moment together. Not the bitter shrew of a woman she had become, but this girl, this girl sitting beside him on his bed. This vulnerable, beautiful girl. “I love you, Lisa… I always have.”
Lisa pushed his hand off her thigh. “Please don’t say that… Please don’t. I know you can’t feel that way. Not after the way… the way… I’ve been.” She sobbed, but quickly got control of it and blew her nose in the balled up tissue she’d been blotting her eyes with.
“It hurts too much to hear you say it, knowing you can’t possibly mean it…” Jim let it go. He sensed there was nothing he could say at that moment that would help anything. She threw her spent tissue on the floor and took a fresh one. They sat in silence for a while. Lisa blowing her nose and wiping her eyes then holding her hands in her lap and staring at them. When she had finally got herself under control she spoke again.
“Jim… I woke up this morning, by myself, in the Shangri-La motel. Hungover and hating myself for the person I’ve become.” She paused and ran her hand lightly over his chest without looking at him. “For the way I’ve treated you.” She gave him a quick glance and quickly looked away. Lisa felt no shame in her edited, information withheld, version of the truth. She wasn’t going to hurt Jim more by telling him she had cheated on him. That was her burden. There was no purpose in telling him. He’d made it clear he wasn’t going to divorce her no matter how she acted. So there was nothing to be gained by telling him now that she wanted things to change. It hadn’t been the first time, but it was going to be the last.
“The only thing I could think of was that I wanted to be with you. I wanted you…” She began to shudder, but pushed on, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I wanted you to look at me the way you used to look at me… When you… when you… loved me…” Lisa body shuddered as she fought to keep from sobbing again.
She glanced back at Jim and she saw it. That look. Those soft, kind, blue eyes. That look of total acceptance and love. She couldn’t breathe. Her mouth would not open. Her lungs would not expand. Her body shook against the vacuum formed at her lips. Jim opened his arms to her and she collapsed and she let him cradle her into his shoulder. Still no air came though her mouth was open and her body shook. Jim stroked the back of her head and gave her a squeeze.
“It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” He held tighter as the sob broke free from her throat and she gasped for air. He kissed the top of her head and rocked her gently. “Everything is going to be okay.” He said it over and over again until she believed it and she quieted and snuggled into him and after while, holding each other like they’d never let go, they fell asleep. At least for now, Lisa could believe that everything was really going to be okay.
**********
Lisa’s eyes blinked open about six PM. She was looking up from Jim’s shoulder to the side of his face. She tried to make sense of the world as it had become in the last several hours. It was difficult to believe it was all real. Only one thing told her it was, she was starving. She was so hungry she couldn’t remember ever being that hungry. She kissed Jim on his cheek and pulled away from him. He opened his eyes and immediately reached for her.
“Where are you going?” His voice was raspy.
“I’m going to make us something to eat.” She touched his cheek with the back of her hand. “What sounds good to you?”
“Breakfast.” He smiled.
She looked at the clock. “It’s after six…”
He shrugged. “It’s Saturday.” As if that explained it.
She laughed. “Okay. Breakfast it is.”
He touched her arm. “Could you bring me some orange juice first. I feel like my throat has been wire brushed and I also really need to take a few pills.”
Lisa suddenly felt sad, deep in her heart. She had become completely immune to the idea that Jim was constantly in pain. She just thought of him as taking pills, for what? For pleasure? She was hit by a new wave of guilt that broadcast on her face. Jim reached up and touched her arm and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“It’s a new day, Lisa.” He smiled. “New beginning.”
Lisa’s lip trembled, a couple of tears sprouted and spilled from her eyes. She sniffed and wiped them away and stood up. She nodded, looked down at her hands, then across the bed to Jim’s table. The water pitcher was half full, but had been there at least all day. “I’ll
get you some fresh ice water too.” She went around the bed and picked up the pitcher and felt Jim’s hand touch her back.
“Thank you, Baby.”
She nodded, but didn’t look back. He hadn’t called her baby in almost ten years. She couldn’t look at him, or it she was going to break open all over again. “I’ll just be a minute.” She went to the kitchen without looking back.
*********
They spent the rest of the night in Jim’s room and slept most of Sunday away. Lisa laid curled up next to Jim, his arm around her shoulders. They were watching 60 Minutes, but neither of them could have said what it was about, because they weren’t looking at the screen much and the voices were just comforting background noise. They had eaten breakfast for dinner again and their plates were clean, save but a slight smear of egg yoke, and stacked on the table on her side of the bed. When the stopwatch ticked down it sort of revived them from their contemplations.
Jim blinked and looked at the TV. “What happened?”
Lisa lifted her head enough to view the screen. “I think Mike Wallace, just made some bad business man very uncomfortable. Or maybe it was a congressman.” They both chuckled.
“You want to watch Battlestar Galactica? That’s a fun show.” Jim was looking at the screen so he didn’t see Lisa’s brief look of horror. She had time to hide her face against his chest before he looked back at her.
“No…” Lisa struggled to keep her voice neutral. She let it be whiny to cover her shakiness. “Then I’d have to get up and change the channel.” She snuggled into him a little closer. “All in the Family is pretty funny. Let’s just watch that.”
“Okay. That works for me.” Jim laid his head against the top of Lisa’s. Neither of them looked at the TV. They were both still exhausted and didn’t even make it through “Those were the Days.” before they were sound asleep again.
********
Lisa heard the sound of static. She smack her lips a couple of times. Her breakfast dinner had become pasty morning breath in her mouth. She opened her eyes and blinked several times. Jim was breathing steady, still sleeping. She slipped out of bed and tapped the power button on the TV to end the rasping blank channel. Then she went to brush her teeth.
When she came back in the room, Jim was awake. She stood still looking at him for a moment and neither felt compelled to speak. Finally Jim did.
“I’m awake.” He smiled. “Any late night movies on?”
Lisa shook her head. “Sunday night. TV’s over and good Americans are asleep.”
He laughed. “I guess we’re not good Americans.” Jim picked up the prescription bottle from his table and tapped out a couple of pills. Then picked up his glass of water to wash them down. Lisa stood perfectly still and watched him do what she’d seen him do thousands of times. This time she sighed heavily to control the lump in her throat.
“Is it bad?” She asked clutching her hands together over her hips.
Jim set the glass down. “It’s been worse.” He smiled. “At least I’m washing them down with water. I haven’t even thought about taking a drink all day. Though I’ve still probably got some in my blood from yesterday.”
Lisa looked down at her hands and forced them to stop fidgeting. “Can I get you anything?”
“Do we have any cookies?” He smiled like a kid. She hadn’t seen that smile in a long time.
“No.” She shook her head, looked at him and smiled. “I’m afraid not and I don’t think my baking skills are up to the task.”
He patted the bed beside him. “Then why don’t you just bring me you.”
She hurried around the bed, lifted the covers and carefully climbed in next to him, laying her arm across his stomach.
“You want to listen to the radio.” He said looking down at the top of her head.
“No.” She said with a little shake. “Let’s just be quiet.”
“Okay.” He gave her a squeeze and looked up at the ceiling.
The laid there for an hour without falling back to sleep. Lisa took a deep breath and supporting herself with her elbow leaned to kiss Jim on the mouth. Their lips were only slightly open, but they were moist after one kiss. They hadn’t kissed like that since the accident and they held it for a long time. They could both feel there cheeks blossom like school kids on a first date. Lisa open her mouth a little more and Jim responded by darting his tongue out to meet hers. Gently, not wide and forced. The warmth spread all through Lisa’s body. Her thighs warmed and instead of clinching they wanted to open. They continued to kiss, sometimes just lips, sometimes with tongues, but always gently.
Lisa let her free hand drift across Jim’s chest that was solid from his daily workouts. Jim ran his hand over Lisa’s back and under her t-shirt so he could feel her smooth skin. It was cool and warm at the same time. He let himself enjoy the texture and life it possessed, then slipped his hand under her waste band to feel the curve of her back. He ran his finger gently around the dimples he found there, then let his hand cover her firm cheek. He grasped it and rubbed his hand in small circle before sliding his hand up to her back again. Lisa had been on her own journey slipping under the waistband of his boxers and Jim suddenly realized that she was taking him in her hand and he shut down.
She felt it and pulled away to look at him, but he couldn’t look at her.
“What is it, Jim.” She honestly didn’t know.
“Um…” Jim’s eyes searched the room for something to focus on. Anything but Lisa’s face. “Why, um… Just let me touch you for now.”
“Jim, I want to touch you…” She knew she needed to touch him. She needed him inside her. She needed him to release into her.
“Ah… it’s ah… the pills… and the pain… Probably the booze too. There isn’t anything happening down there.” He risked a glance in her direction. He didn’t see the scorn he feared. He saw compassion and he swallowed hard and looked again. The expression had not changed. Soft, pure, love.
“Could you…” He was finally able to look her in the eyes. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“Just try and we’ll figure it out.”
“Could you sort of hover over me so I could touch you, pleasure you.” Jim looked away and then back again. She could see the hurt in his eyes. Despite what she had said to hurt him, before the accident, Jim had been a very healthy lover. She thought, it must have be crushing to have lost that power. She kissed him passionately and pulled away to look into his eyes.
“I’ll make you a deal. You have to be naked too and let things happen, or not happen. Just know I want to touch you. Whatever that means. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know your a good man.” Her voice fell to a whisper and silent tears formed and spilled a few at a time onto Lisa’s cheek.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known and nothing will change that, because I love you, Jim. I know that now like I’ve never known it before.” She kissed him again and they kissed tenderly for a while. Then she slipped out of bed to pull off her clothes.
The little bit of weight that Lisa had put on had only made her body more inviting. Softening up her lines and making her more subtle and inviting. Jim was lost for a moment in the pleasure of just seeing her stand there showing herself to him. Then she pulled back the covers. Climbed up on the bed, resting on her knees and carefully help Jim out of his pajamas and under clothes. She leaned over him and kissed his chest. Then he pulled her up to kiss her on the lips. She straddled his waist so that he could easily reach her.
“Is this what you want?” She whispered, holding herself up from the bed with her hands on either side of Jim’s shoulders.
“Yes.” He nodded and reached up and stroked her neck where her bruises were turning from green to black. “I’m sorry. I…”
“New day… remember. For both of us.” She leaned down to kiss him and he let his hands slowly move over her shoulders and onto her breasts. He lightly massaged them, careful not to touch her nipples too hard. Lisa flooded with warmth and continued to kiss him. Her thighs spread and her began slowly rock. Jim took his time working his way to her. His middle finger slipped easily inside her she bared down on his hand pumping down slowly to allow his finger to slip in and out and for her to ride his knuckles across her point of ecstasy at just the right pressure. She shuttered and gasped lowering herself gently on to Jim. When he started to move his hand away she stopped him.
“No… leave it inside me.” She took a couple of quick breaths. “I just need a moment to let the feeling go through me.” She took another breath. “Am I too heavy on you?”
“No, your fine. Your skin against mine feels wonderful.” He ran his hand across her damp back.
Lisa smiled. After a few more breaths she rose up and kissed deeply on the mouth. Then she straightened up supporting her weight with her knees. When Jim started to touch her again she took his hands away and put them on her breasts. Then she supported herself with her hands on the bed and lowered herself onto Jim. He was completely flaccid. She let herself enfold him. She was warm and wet and easily slid up and down on his timid shaft.
“Lisa… nothing’s going to happen.” Jim tried not to frown.
“Shhhhh…” Lisa put her finger to his lips. “This is wonderful, just like this. If this is what it is, I’m happy.” She continued to slide against him and grind the tip of him into her pleasure. Soon he was just hard enough that she was able to get him inside her and she squeezed and rotated her hips. He wasn’t even sure when the change actually happened, he just realized that he was hard inside her. When he felt her shuddered with pleasure, squeezing and shaking him inside her, he released as he never had before. Fully aware of every atom in his being and every inch of Lisa’s warm flesh. They melted into each other and for that moment Jim was not crippled, there was no pain, there was only pleasure, and his two self’s were one inside of Lisa.
… And a million miles away, Apollyon smiled to himself, because he had taken Lisa’s evil with him and it tasted like ambrosia on his tongue. She was her purest self. The beautiful perfect being she would have been if she had been born into a perfect world. A world where she hadn’t been spoiled at an early age by a bad man that she’d never told anyone about. A world where she didn’t have a selfish mother obsessed about the wealth she felt cheated by not having and thought she was entitled to. Who didn’t see the changes in her young daughter, because she didn’t care to look. Who instilled in her that only fools and idiots married for love.
Money was the only reason to marry and that little hot spot between her thighs was the ticket to get it. Her mother raged at her surroundings and the man she had been chained to until it was too late for her to capture a good prospect. She wanted Lisa to find a fortune and funnel that money back to her, to pay her back for giving her life to raise Lisa.
No she was no longer changed by all that, because Apollyon had taken it from her when he drank the evil it had created from her soul. She was the person she was meant to be and she was doing just what she was supposed to do for Apollyon. Just what he told her to do while she slept. She was fixing her life with her damaged husband. Because they couldn’t know. They wouldn’t know. Well not until he was ready for them to know and he came to claim and collect his child.