Just One Night, Part 3_ Binding Agreement(46)

“But you are breathing, Kasie,” Simone says. She rubs her hand up and down my arm in an act of comfort. “You’re breathing through the pain.”

I nod and then collapse again in tears. But this time I have Simone there to hold me.

Simone. My sister.





CHAPTER 17





DAYS PASS INTO weeks, weeks into months. I don’t hear from him. The wound stays where it is, carved into my lungs so I feel it with every sigh.

But I don’t sigh quite as much anymore.

Initially I thought Simone’s suggestion that I start my own business was silly, even stupid. Isn’t that why Robert and I had broken up? Because he wanted me to play by my own rules and I had wanted to play by rules that were already set in stone by others?

It took me a few weeks of unemployment to realize that no, that wasn’t it at all. Robert had wanted me to play by his rules. Dave had wanted me to play by rules that were set in a different time, in a different place, in a world that only truly exists in those men’s clubs he can’t get into anymore.

I don’t want that either. And that’s when I realize that for once in my life I don’t have to live in the extremes. I don’t have to make fear my lover but I don’t have to run from it either. If I can just face it, a little at a time, find that illusive middle ground . . . that place where you set some of the rules but not others . . . then maybe I’ll be okay.

So I take the leap, decide to work for myself. I start small, a little office leased out of a big building. I seek out clients whose profits are still modest, businesses with untapped potential, fledgling entrepreneurs whose ideas can be spun into gold. I give them my ideas and they give me their money. And little by little the success grows, slowly, like drip-brewed coffee. It takes a while but the unhurried process just makes the coffee a little richer, better, and a hell of a lot more satisfying.

Simone and I have gotten into the habit of hanging out once a week. Sometimes we have dinner. Other times we wear our tightest dresses and go to the most exclusive lounges in LA. I let the men look, enjoy their attention, but it stops there. I have boundaries again, but they’re my boundaries. The only expectations I’m trying to live up to are the ones I’ve set for myself. It’s a completely new experience for me and at times it’s unnerving. I still occasionally doubt myself and wonder if I’m doing something wrong. But the men at the lounges admire me, my friendship with Simone has strengthened, and my new clients respect me. The mistakes I’ve made have not led to the ultimate rejection. I have not been erased . . . not even by my parents.

Yes, they still call me daughter. We speak every few weeks, never more often than that. They don’t understand me but they’re afraid to question the change. Afraid I’ll mention Melody again. So in that way perhaps fear is still working for me, finding dark ways to keep my parents’ disapproval at bay.

I get through my days just fine. It’s the nights, when all the lights are out and I lie alone in my bed, it’s only then that I find myself sighing. That’s when the pain seeps in through the cracks under the door.

Sometimes I talk to him. I tiptoe out to my tiny backyard still dressed in my nightgown. I curl up on my patio chair and stare up at the moon. I ask him what mysteries he’s seen since we last spoke. I ask if he’s angry. If he’s hurt. When I’m feeling bitter, I ask if that rock he calls a heart still beats for me. I ask if he ever tires of all the worshipers, if anyone or anything could ever understand him as well as the ocean. All those witches and tribes of men who dance for him, give him offerings and songs, do any of those gifts compare to the tidal waves I gave him?

And then I close my eyes and feel my tides rise. I imagine him standing behind me, his hands in my hair, then my shoulders, finally sliding to my breasts, toying with my nipples until they’re as hard as his heart.

I hear his whisper in the sounds of the wind. “One more hurricane, just for us.”

And there, in my backyard, he comes to me, illuminated in the darkness. I slip my hand between my legs, the nightgown gathering around my thighs, and I feel his mouth work its way down my spine, across my hips. I feel his hands caressing my stomach, holding my waist, strong hands with a tender touch.

My legs fall open, inviting him to dip into my waters. I’m wet, ready for him, eager and available. When I run my fingers along my sex, it’s his tongue I feel, toying with my clit before sliding inside of me, tasting me, making me tremble.

And then he raises himself up, makes a trail of kisses along my hairline, my jaw, my cheek. He bites down gently on my lower lip. Yes, this is where we belong, right here, wrapped up in the cool breeze of early spring. I look up and all I can see is the deep purple midnight sky. With few stars, the light of the moon drowns them out, all but Mars with its red glow.