Starting up the ignition, I pull out into the Saturday night, San Francisco traffic.
“Where are we going?” she asks as we come to a stop at the first set of lights down the block.
“You need coffee, and we need to do some serious talking,” I inertly mumble my reply. My head propped up on my palm as my left elbow rests on the door; my right hand casually grasping the wheel. I focus purely on the road ahead; unable to reason with myself and look at her, not with the spectacle I have just bore witness to, not knowing what she would have done, how far she would have gone.
What if I didn’t pull up until five minutes later? Would I have heard her soft moans and whimpers coming from that alley? My eyes begin to burn with a new formation of welling tears.
You can’t blame the girl for needing sexually fulfilment, Hayden. You know that is not your department, my paranoia mutters his reprisal gleefully, contented with yet another insecurity he can manifest on.
Samantha sits at a circular table as I steadily place the tray with our two large cappuccinos on the surface. She sits back in the leather tub-chair and crosses her legs, concealing as much as possible with her privation of clothing.
Brimming with anxiety, I bush my tongue across my drying lips.
“Do you know what?” Samantha breaks the awkward silence between us.
Jaded, I lift my head. I’m corrupted by guilt, yet I am not the one who allowed another woman’s mouth upon me.
She stares forlorn at the cups in front of us. “Last night, when you kissed me goodnight…that was my kiss goodbye.”
I gasp. I lost her last night, that kiss was going to be the last time I felt her lips pressed against mine? I shake my head inconceivably. What do I say to that?
“I have been subjected to lies and deceit and I am not going there again. It’s, too painful, Hayden.” Twisting her amethyst ring around her finger, her brow crinkles as I watch her eyes glaze over and transport her back to a wounded time. “It was Jessie that calmed me down––made me rethink. She told me that if you were playing away, why assure me that I could ring you and that you would answer. That gave me back my form of hope. I rang and rang and rang, and then I knew. I knew you would go through the entire deceptive dictionary as your defence.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You know, ‘I didn’t have any reception, my battery was dying’. My favourite one, ‘I didn’t hear you ringing’. I can’t do this, Hayden. You barefaced lied to me last night, how can I believe you. The thought of that woman with her hands all over you and kissing you, you choosing her over me today…” she trails off, screwing her eyes closed; I see her body visibly tense.
Inhaling noisily, I lock my fingers. “Yes, Samantha. I did meet Cassandra…” she cringes and her foot begins to bounce up and down at a rate of knots as I sense her anger growing. “But what you are imagining could be nowhere further from the reality behind it.” I sip at the foam of the beverage.
“If it was purely innocent, Hayden, then you would have told me last night and wouldn’t have kept it a secret,” she glowers.
Oh, how to make her understand?
“I had spent the day in Oakland, with Cassandra,”––she curls her lip and shakes her head with unmasked detestation––“and my mother, at Mountain View Cemetery.” Finally, she stops and fixes her gaze on me, waiting for me to continue. “Today would have been my father’s sixtieth birthday.”
“I had no idea that he was…”
“It is still a raw nerve. I don’t talk about it. For me…it is beyond painful, the demons of my past are something I never wanted to taint you with, Samantha. Anyway, Cassandra is a very loyal, very close, family friend and my mother’s housekeeper.”
Her mouth drops open in shock; her eyes blazing with awareness and remorse…I think.
She shifts in her seat. “I am so sorry…I…” seeing the wall of water in her eyes, she closes them for a brief moment and tears drop from her lids. Reaching over the table, I cradle the side of her face with my right hand. She leans into me and unexpectedly, lifts her hand to encase mine.
“No, no, no, Samantha, please don’t cry. You’re right, I should have told you, but I didn’t want your opinion of me to change because of my past,” I whisper my eyes teeming with warmth and sincerity.
She sniffles and quickly dries her falling tears with the back of her hand.
“I could never look at you differently, Hayden.” I repay her with a tightlipped, sad, smile.
We sip at our cooling coffee. That’s only one mere box. There will be a time in the not too distant future when she will ask more in-depth questions about this conversation…about years ago. Liberation or loneliness…? That is what tonight all comes down to, the start of the future. I could have lost her last night. I shake my head at the unspoken sentiment in my mind, I really could have lost her––I did lose her…I just didn’t know it.
The thought of the pain I would endure if she was to ever walk away without me explaining my trials and tribulations is so overwhelming…it scares me; scares me more than having to unearth those boxes full of memories that I fought so hard to bury.
She
has already tainted so much of my perception of life; I am not going to allow her to sabotage my relationship. This is my second chance. Tonight marks a fresh start––a new slate.
“There was a girl when I was in school. She was the sort that had a new boyfriend every other week, flaunted her body to get what she wanted––lived for the attention. Her name was Addison,” I begin through the trembling of my voice.
Samantha inches forward, placing herself on the edge of the seat and observes me gregariously.
“Her type never appealed to me so I kept my distance. Obviously after high school, you all go your separate ways, and I didn’t see her again.” I peer down at the black, titled flooring. “A few weeks after graduating from Harvard Law, I bumped into her; we went for a coffee, had a catch up like you do. Years had passed; everybody changes, matures and becomes more aware of themselves and their goals after a period of time. And Addison was a clear demonstration of that.
“We became a couple. She was my first serious relationship. I was so overwhelmed that I had finally found somebody and I fell in love quickly.” I swiftly peek up at Samantha and watch her blue eyes warm and glint with curiosity.
Leaning forward somewhat, I cross my arms upon the cold, wooden surface of the table.
“My parents could clearly see that I was happy and they were happy for me. A few months down the line, Addison started to make subtle…suggestions of certain activities and possessions that she desired: vacations in Costa del Sol and The Mediterranean, to designer clothing and jewelry. And because she was my first love, I gave it all to her, she never wanted for anything.”
I hear the air hiss between her teeth as Samantha takes in a breath. She opens her mouth to say something, but closes it quickly, allowing me to resume.
“Like I said, it was my first relationship, I was completely inexperienced. It was my father who had pointed out and explained to me what was actually happening in the relationship. I had my blinkers on I guess, I didn’t want to believe any of it, and it caused a rift between my father and I. It was when we came back from skiing and she told me that she wanted a Porsche, that I began to feel…unsettled and began to see Addison’s intentions clearly. I confided in my father, and he told me that like a child, if I say no and then finally accede to what she desired, she would continue to play on that, use it to her advantage––she would never accept it. I was to say no, and stick by it.”
Samantha takes a gulp of her cappuccino.
Smiling, I lean across the table to her, and brush my thumb over her upper lip to remove the foam that has settled.
“Thank you. You were saying.”
I position myself back into the chair. “For the first time in the relationship, I actually took my father’s advice and put my foot down.” I hang my head and stare at my folded arms. “It was at that point, when everything became…difficult,” I whisper soberly, screwing my eyes closed in the memory of it.
Samantha’s hand reaches over the table, pulling my outer arm forward, and encases my hand.
“What happened?”
I peek up at her form. “I was working at the firm with my father at this point. I told Addison that I was no longer going to pick up the bill for her luxuries. At first she made me feel guilty for not presenting her with her wishes. When she noticed that I was unwavering…she did a complete U-turn.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She became very…condescending, telling me that I was failing as a provider, accused me of living off my parents and questioning my income.”
“How did she reach that conclusion?” she scoffs.
“Wentworth and Associates was built up by my grandfather. When my father became a lawyer, he went to work at the firm. When my grandfather passed away, my father inherited it…”
“So when you became a lawyer, you went to work at the firm with your father.” Understanding, she nods and grins.
“Yes. Even though I was on the payroll, Addison had twisted it completely––made it sound like––and accused me of living off them.
“She repeatedly called me a failure, that I was never going to amount to much, and that she could leave me at any time and be with a better man, one who would provide for her needs.”
Bracing myself, I endeavor to overcome the shame I endure as a man and my voice withers to almost a whisper.
“She would tease me…sexually. Always dressing seductively, touching me––general cock-teasing. She would do it so bad that I wanted to explode at times, but she would turn her back and leave me be. I wasn’t permitted to relieve myself of the discomfort. And she found amusement in my predicament.” As the humiliation resurfaces with a vengeance, I focus on the glowing reflection of the overhead lights upon the polished table surface.
Swallowing hard, I grimace as my vision is hazed with mounting tears. “She would use sex as a reward. If I was good and treated her how she wanted to be, she would give me sex. But because of the constant teasing…” I sheath my teeth with my lips, the lump swelling in my throat halting my words. Closing my eyes, the tears are freed while my body shakes from the internal chill.
Samantha rubs her thumb over my knuckles. “It is okay, Hayden. I’m here, I am not going anywhere.”
I sniffle before continuing. My voice is hoarse and broken.
“Because of the teasing, I could never…” I shake my head again, discerning the same hopeless, impotent feeling I became accustomed to. “I couldn’t perform properly. I would climax prematurely, and she would…” further tears roll down my cheeks. “…She would look up, and just laugh.”
With my eyes screwed tightly, my blood runs cold while the baleful sounds of Addison’s manic laughter haunts my mind, how I would bury my head into the crook of her neck and apologize profusely for my failing.
“Oh, the laugh was the worst sound; so menacing and patronizing. And the callous and unforgiving look in her eyes. She would constantly tell me that I was a failure not just as a provider, but as a man. That I could never satisfy her, and that she had more orgasms with her previous partners than what I could ever dream of giving her. And she made it obvious that she was sleeping with numerous others behind my back; using her sexuality to get things from them, while I continued to offer her love and affection.”
My shyness begins to make way for curiosity, and I peek up at Samantha. Her expression horrific, yet sympathetic, her eyes shimmering like long-lost crystals dancing on the seas surface.
“When you question and mock a man’s sexual performance, it makes you feel inadequate as a male; you feel as though you truly cannot do anything right, the one thing that comes naturally and you can’t fulfil it. Samantha, you have to understand, being belittled emotionally and sexually is difficult enough. We are raised in a society where the male of the species is deemed to be authoritative, in-control and strong…so when you realize, and can admit to yourself that you are being abused by a woman…it completely strips you. You feel weak, you feel worthless, inadequate and incompetent. You start to believe and feel like the failure that they continually tell you that you are.”
“Hayden…” Leaning over the table, she dries my tears and frames my face with both of her hands, then softly kisses my forehead. “You are not a failure. You are a successful, generous, caring, loving, gorgeous man, who knows how to please a woman, trust me on that,” she reassures me, before sinking back in her chair.
“The story isn’t finished yet,” I smile sadly, wishing that this story never existed to have to be told. “Addison took it a whole new level. She began to self-harm. She would throw herself down the stairs; get people to hit her, to bruise her. Then, she would tell people that I was the cause of her injuries. She turned everybody against me; I lost close friends because of the malicious allegations that fell from her mouth.”
“Why on earth would she do that?”
I cock my head ingenuously. “If she could get the son of the most successful Law-Firm in San Francisco to be held in one family for two generations pulled through the mud with allegations of Intimate Partner Violence, or IPV…imagine what would happen to the firm as a result.”
Samantha shakes her head again, the situation unfathomable.
“She stripped me down: emotionally, financially…sexually. I had no social circle anymore––she turned them all against me with her venom. I was a shell, constantly on autopilot. I couldn’t concentrate; the paranoia is something that I still battle with, the nightmares, I had no hope left. Some scars cut deeper than blood and flesh, they seep into us, they alter our mind, our psyche…they become manifestations. Our own personal inner demons, purging us to our own, living Hell. I would avoid any form of female contact because of what Addison repeatedly told me I was.
“Samantha, when you are in a situation where there is a form of abuse, even if the abuser is no longer in your life, you still have to battle with the demons that they created.” I reach over with my right hand and cup the side of her face. “But it has become easier, because of you,” I grin with gratitude and Samantha’s lip curls to mirror a fainter expression of my own.