I’m in a cab because my car is at the office: I didn’t want to go get it before going home when I’d come in on the train from Baltimore.
"Those aren’t the little things, miss," he tells me. "They’re the things you take for granted, sure, but they’re not the little things."
I have to think about that for a moment.
"I suppose you’re right."
Why am I talking to the cab driver?
"Did the two of you have a fight?"
Yes. I cheated on him. I didn’t mean to, and I didn’t sleep with someone, but I betrayed him.
I acted like I was unattached.
Tim Bayliss is everything Jack’s afraid of, because he still thinks he doesn’t deserve me. Bayliss is young, attractive, too damn charming for my comfort, has a career he’s dedicated to, single, and worst of all, is clearly interested in me. Just the sort of man Jack thinks I should want, is afraid I’ll realize one day is what I want, and leave him. I went out with Bayliss that night anyway, and Jack hadn’t known where I was, and we’d fought. And I went to Baltimore and acted like I was available. In front of people that know both of us.
And yet I’m in a cab on my way to Jack’s at 2 in the morning, because I got back from Baltimore tonight and I took a bath and went to bed and tried for 3 hours to fall asleep and just couldn’t do it because Jack wasn’t there with me.
The cabby hears none of that.
"We did...we had a fight," I reply at length.
He’s looking at me through the rear view mirror.
"Mind if I ask what about....?" he prompts, and I know he is asking for my name.
"Claire."
"Vic. Mind if I ask what about, Claire?"
And I realize why I’m talking to Vic the cabby: I need to talk to someone about this...don’t necessarily want to get into it with Jack when I get there. And I’m trapped in a cab with this man, and he seems like a nice, sweet man in his 60s, and he’s interested, or at least politely appearing to be so, and he reminds me of what my father would have looked like at this age.
I was stupid.
"I hurt him... I went out to dinner with someone else...it wasn’t supposed to be a date, but it was, really, and I did it out of spite, because we’ve been having some problems lately, and I needed to lash out. He doesn’t understand why I’m angry with him ... and to tell you the truth, I don’t honestly know myself."
"So then why are you on your way to his house at this time of the morning?"
That’s an easy one: I need to be able to sleep tonight and I can’t do it alone.
"I couldn’t sleep."
"Does he know you’re coming? If you’re arguing, you might not be getting much sleep tonight."
"He doesn’t know. I have a key. All I want is to go in and get in bed and go to sleep. He may not even wake up."
"The two of you should talk it over, if you love him, if he loves you."
"I know. And I do love him. But sometimes...he exasperates me so."
The cabby is laughing at me.
"Wouldn’t be love if he didn’t, honey."
Normally the endearment would offend me from such a casual, fleeting acquaintance, but in this case I find it charming and sweet.
"Guess you’re right, Vic."
He pulls the car over and we’re in front of Jack’s building. I hand him the fare and a substantial tip and open the door.
"I’ll watch until you get into the building."
"Thanks, Vic. And thanks for listening."
"Good luck, Claire, I hope you can work things out."
So do I, I think as I shut the door.
I run up the stairs, slinging my bag over my shoulder and carrying my work clothes on a hanger.
Joey one of the night-watchmen buzzes me into the building.
"He’s home, isn’t he, Joey?" I ask as I walk in.
"Yeah, went in a coupla hours ago, Ms. Kincaid."
"Thanks."
In the elevator, now, and hoping Jack’s asleep. I crave his warmth and security but I don’t want to deal with the crap I know we’ve got to get through. Or at the very least, if he isn’t asleep, please don’t let him throw me out on my ass.
The damn bulb above Jack’s door is still burnt out. The super obviously thinks the task a low-level priority and Jack is just obstinate enough to let it go.
"That’s what part of my rent pays for," I was told when I suggested he change the damn thing himself.
With the light out I have to fish around in my purse for my keys. I can hear the things jangling in there but I can’t seem to find them. Finally I feel cool metal and pull them from the purse. I have to set my things down in order to find the keys that unlock Jack’s locks. I pray to God he didn’t put the chain on tonight...he rarely does anymore.
He didn’t.
I set my bag on the couch and lay my clothes over the back of it, remove my coat and do the same with it before I go on down the hall. The reading light is on next to Jack’s bed, but I can see he’s asleep.
He doesn’t wake up when I turn the light off and so I walk around the bed avoiding the spot I know from previous sojourns in this very room creaks. I’d lost the clogs in the living room and stand in the dark of his room stripping off my jeans and sweater until I’m not wearing anything but a pair of cotton underwear and a tank top.
Pulling the covers back, I ease myself down onto the bed and cover myself. My back is to him and I scoot backwards, until I feel him against me. In sleep, he drapes his arm over me, and I welcome its weight. It feels like it’s been years since I’ve been here with him, and I appreciate the peace of being in his arms without all of heavy stuff. I keep telling myself I’ll think about that tomorrow, or I won’t be able to sleep.
It’s funny how something as simple as an arm draped over you, as a warm body pressed against you, can relax you when nothing else can. Jack’s even breathing is soothing, and I concentrate on it, on the slow, level inhalations and exhalations.
I can feel sleep beginning to descend on my brain, feel my limbs getting heavier, and my eyelids, too. I love Jack, more than I think he realizes right now, and it’s gotten to the point, I know it now, that even angry, even hurt and confused, his presence is natural to me, now: natural, and necessary.
"His breathing, Claire", I correct myself..."just listen and don’t think."
Shear force of will allows me to close my mind off to everything but Jack behind me, his arm heavy on my waist, his slow breath warm on the back of my neck, sending Goosebumps down my spine even as a warm glow begins to run through my veins.
I feel heavy...my body, my brain, my eyes.
Jack’s breathing sounds farther away, now, and the room seems even more dark than it had before. I can barely hear him now, just feel the warmth, his warmth, against me and all around me, and into this warmth I let myself sink, let myself be engulfed in it like someone relaxing into a warm tub.
Jack’s warmth is all now, just Jack’s warmth all around…
*****
She amazes me sometimes. She forgets I’m a light sleeper. I should be angry with her, I shouldn’t be pretending to be asleep as she takes her clothes off by the side of my bed. I should be sitting up, accusing, but I can’t seem to do it. Can’t seem to muster the cynicism and anger as she crawls into my bed and snuggles back against me, taking hold of my hand as I drape my arm over her warm body.
I’m intrigued by this turn of events.
We left each other on shitty terms two days ago and she headed to Baltimore, straight into the lion’s den, straight into Tim Bayliss’ lair.
Why am I acting like she did something so treacherous?
"Because she did lie to you, you schmuck," I tell myself.
Well, not ‘lie’ exactly, since she did tell me about it after...but it felt like a lie. I suppose what I felt at the time was not that she had lied to me then, but that the fact that she could so easily accept a dinner invitation for another man seemed like a betrayal of all we’d had together. Like her love for me had been a lie.
But then if that’s the case, what is she doing here?
I snuggle into her and then lie completely still. I don’t want a fight, now. I don’t want a fight because lying here with Claire in my arms, the past couple of weeks seem like a dream, an unsettling dream that is over now that I’ve woken up to the woman I love in my bed. And at the same time I know that this is really the dream, because in the morning we’re going to wake up and we’re going to have to deal with what’s been happening between us, try to pinpoint when things first went awry (but if she’s here, I suppose, we really can’t be that far off track...taking a detour, more like, and a rather bumpy one at that), and try to figure out what we need to do to make it better. Work can’t suffer, and I can’t say that in the past weeks it hasn’t, because Adam has called us on it.
And we have to work this out because I can’t go through all of this again.
I love Claire, I know it, and I know she knows it. Or did, at least. I’ve never loved anyone I wasn’t supposed to love because of family bonds before, not even my ex-wife, the mother of my child.
It’s funny when you find love in the last place you wanted to find it, and don’t mistake me: when Claire walked into my office, so young and poised and trying to appear arrogant, love was the last thing on my mind. Lust was there, sure, but I never wanted nor expected to fall in love with her, but now that I have, I’m not letting go lightly. 50-odd years to find the woman I’ve been waiting for. And despite recent appearances to the contrary, Claire is the woman I’ve been searching for my entire life.
This is it for me.
And so I hold her against me quietly, listening to her breathing, knowing from experience when she is asleep, as the tension in her body leaves and she sinks into the bed farther, sagging back against me more.
"I love you," I whisper.
And as easily as I woke when she’d opened my front door trying to be quiet, I feel myself dozing off. I have trouble keeping my eyes open and I listen to Claire’s soft breathing, feeling the way the breath moves through her body and her hair smells so good against my nose and her body is warm against mine and I know in the morning we’re probably going to fight but for now she feels so right in my arms that I snug…
*****
I don’t get much more than 3 hours sleep, but that’s better than I would have done in my own bed. I wake up and I’m wrapped in Jack’s arms, only I’m facing him now, and my head is resting in the crook of his chin and I can hear his heart beating beneath my ear.
I tighten an arm around him, then bring it back to rest on his side, and I realize suddenly that Jack isn’t wearing anything, which I hadn’t noticed last night, but then, when I’d finally laid down in his arms, I’d fallen asleep rather quickly.
"Morning stranger," I hear him say.
"You’re awake," I tell him, which is obvious. "You’re not too mad at me, are you?"
"For Bayliss, or for being here?" he asks.
"Both, either..."
"For being here, no, though I’m curious. You’ve been pissed as hell and giving me the silent treatment since before we’d ever heard of Detective Bayliss ...were pissed that I didn’t ‘trust’ you...I’d gotten the impression you didn’t want much to do with me anymore, other than what work required.."
"I’m sorry about that, Jack. Something’s bothering me and I haven’t been able to figure it out yet and I’m not altogether sure it’s entirely to do with you, although I do wish I could help you get over your insecurities where I’m concerned...it’s inevitable that I’m going to have some male friends...I don’t want you to feel as though I’m walking out on you when I get together with one of them."
"Why did you sneak into my apartment at just before three in the morning?"
"You were awake?"
"You woke me unlocking the door."
"I’m sorry."
"Don’t be... but you can answer my question."
"I couldn’t sleep at my place and I can always sleep here."
"Oh."
We’re skirting the issue at the moment and we both know it but right now it doesn’t seem to matter. The same spell that brought me here, the same thing that made me feel comfortable and that had allowed us to sleep in each others arms without a fight was wrapping around us again, and though we know there are some wrinkles we need to work out, there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that we will, and so neither of us has a problem with it when the words cease and we’re lying in Jack’s bed staring at each other across the space of inches.
I’m suddenly acutely aware of Jack’s nudity again as he shifts slightly in my arms and the evidence of his arousal --probably the involuntary reaction of male anatomy in the morning-- brushes against me. When I feel him brush against my leg, I can see the look of pleasure flash briefly across his face and before he can open his eyes I’m pressing my lips against him, pushing the problems back again as he kisses me, his hand slipping over my hip and around until he’s sliding it down the back of my panties and stroking my behind with his hand. A thrill runs through me and it suddenly doesn’t matter that this is just another way of the two of us putting it off: we still haven’t ironed out the wrinkles, but I know that we will.
I’m sure of it.
I hear him whisper my name against my neck and he’s pulling me over on top of him and sitting up, kissing me again, holding my face in his warm hands. I give into him and wrap my arms around his neck, feel his hands lowering to the bottom of my tank top and I raise my arms as he draws it up over my head, cupping my breasts in his hands before I’ve even brought my arms back down. I gaze down as he lowers his head and soon I feel a sharp throng of pleasure course through my body as his lips close over one of my nipples while his fingers work the other into a taut peak.
We haven’t been together since the night before Tim Bayliss walked into our lives and so it doesn’t take us very long before foreplay becomes a nuisance, a chore to be gotten through before more pleasurable activities can be brought on. Jack lifts his head from between my thighs and grins up at me as he begins to work my panties down: he’s been sucking and nibbling on me through my panties, driving me absolutely crazy.
I don’t even see what he does with the fragile garment before he is over me.
"I love you," he whispers, and I know he means it, that the words aren’t empty.
"I love you, too," I whisper back, and I can see that he believes me because the worry falls from his face.
He’s staring down at me and not going forward, though I need him to, desperately, and can tell he needs it, too, by the sweat beaded on his forehead. I reach down and he’s clutching himself, poised just about to slide into me, and I wrap my hand over his, drawing him forward and down, guiding him home.
I moan when he’s all the way inside of me and we begin to move together quickly, and he’s kissing me again, kissing me as he slides in and out of me and I feel my limbs tingling and my body shaking and I feel like he’s melting into me. He feels so good over me and I feel myself beginning to crest, feel my body begin to shudder as he continues to move, moving in me until my orgasm has subsided and I’m halfway to another one as I recover and realise he is still sliding into me. I open my eyes and see the look of sweet concentration on his brow, the tender smile playing at his lips as he wraps his arms under mine and brings his hands around to my shoulders, gripping them as he thrusts into me faster and harder.
I cry out as his body begins to spasm and he jerks inside me, and holds himself still, pouring his seed into me as my body spasms again, and I contract and release around him.
He groans heavily and I hear him moan my name softly through the fog that had descended over my brain as I climaxed the second time.
He rolls away and pulls me into his arms.
"Let’s call in late for work, Jack," I say, when I can. "I don’t want this crap hanging over us anymore. Let’s go get some coffee and take a walk in the park and talk."
Jack nods and grips the back of my neck and kisses my forehead.
I know now that our conversation, while important, is just a formality. These particular wrinkles will be ironed out today, because I can see by the look on his face that he’s prepared to be honest about what he’s feeling with me, and I can do nothing but offer him the same courtesy.
I love him, you see, and even if I forget it sometimes, even if he pushes me away, that won’t change. As long as I can lay in his arms and feel safe and at peace even when we’re in the midst of a maelstrom of issues calling into question the very strength of the fabric of our relationship, I know that Jack and I will be okay.
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