I push myself back into my seat and pick the side of my thumbnail.
“When she uncovered the fact that my father was leaving the firm to me in the event of his passing, her attitude––although still remaining the same in certain aspects––became fractionally lighter. She continued to water the sowing seeds of my failure, and then said that my father would be disappointed in me because I would ruin everything. So that buried the seed further into my mind. She gave me a choice either: take over the firm and fail, running two generations worth of blood, sweat and tears into the ground––”
“Or?”
“Or, I sell it off. Take everything that my grandfather and my father worked so hard for––the reputation––and sell to the highest bidder. Four months later, my father passed. I still blame myself.” I stare at the polish table, feeling hollow.
“How can you blame yourself, Hayden? It wasn’t your fault, these things happen.”
I shake my head, and snicker inwardly. “My father kept telling me over and over to leave her, to get on with my life, start a new promising life with someone deserving. But I didn’t…I couldn’t. Addison had me believing that I was lucky to have her, that she was the only woman in the world who could tolerate me––like she was doing me a favor, I suppose.
“The night he died…we had an enormous argument. He told me that the only weakness that I was showing was that of not leaving her. If I couldn’t summon the strength to get out of the abyss I was in, then I was weak. I hated him for that, I felt as though he was agreeing, confirming that I was worthless––my own father. I left the office right after he had said that. Before I left, I told him that he was dead to me. That night when he was on his way home, he was in a car accident.”
Tears begin to fall again. Pulling my hand away from the table, I brush away the warm streaks that trickle their way down my face, irritating my flesh.
“Oh, Hayden, I’m sure your father would have known that you never meant it,” she hums, but her words fall on deaf ears.
“Addison was there to console me as I grieved. Before he was even cold and in the ground, she asked me what I intended to do with the firms future. I refused to sell up.”
“I bet she was fuming, the gold digging bitch,” Samantha gushes keenly and I cannot stifle a smile as my heart flutters with her immediate, defensive choice of wording.
“Addison is spiteful and cruel, Samantha. She couldn’t just say, ‘that’s it, we are over if you’re not selling’. That would have been too presumptuous for her.”
“What did she do?” she cringes.
Unfaltering, I hold Samantha’s gaze. “I came back home and found her on the couch, fucking the only friend that didn’t entirely turn on me when she was accusing me of beating her.”
Samantha’s eyes divert down to the table, her mouth set in a firm line. Her disconcertment is palpable.
Tracing the tip of my forefinger around the circumference of the coffee cup, I tilt my head down, blending myself into the periphery of her vision and coaxing Samantha to look back up at me.
“So that is my past, Samantha.” She finally lifts her head, and holds my gaze. “My cards are on the table. I no longer have any secrets from you. But please, don’t look at me any differently,” I grimace, feeling the wrinkles deepen between my eyebrows. “I am still me. It is you which has given me inner strength and helped me find hope again; the reassurance you give me every day when you smile at me, the way your eyes betray your desires when you glance down to my lips when we talk, the way you appraise my body––not looking at me in disgust. The way you breathe me in when your hand glides over my chest and my heart, the way that you writhe beneath my body as I bring you your release and the way you call my name when you have found it… that is all I need, to assure me that it’s me that is making you happy and not my money.”
Samantha rises from her seat, steps around the table and lowers herself into my lap. “Hayden, I am so, so sorry. I jumped to conclusions. This is my…” her eyes roll as she searches her mind for the correct words, “my way of coping.”
She wraps her arms around my neck, and I snake my arms around her waist, locking my fingers together on her hip.
“You have had the same effect on me, you tell me that I awoke those feelings back in you…Hayden, you have done that and more to me. I have changed. I am not this,”–– releasing her arms from around my neck, she gestures down at her attire in one swift motion ––“Samantha Kennedy anymore.”
Freeing my clutch from around her waist, I frame her face with my hands and pull her forehead down to rest against my own. Closing my eyes, I revel in her intoxicating, sweet, candy-like scent.
“Oh, God, how I must have come across with that guy at the club…”
I open my eyes, and I’m instantly met with large, shining, topaz irises that searches mine with resolve. Her focus varies from my eyes, to my mouth and back again. She licks her lips, and I mimic her motion.
“Forgive me, Hayden. I meant what I said in the car; I can’t get you out of my mind. You have given me a conscience, Hayden. I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you. The mere thoughts I have had all day of Cassandra touching you and––”
“Samantha, they were thoughts. I actually saw that guy’s hands on you, your lips on his and…” feeling the bitter taste rising again, I trail off.
Holding my head up, I maintain eye contact. “Please, I need to know, Samantha. Apart from that oaf; did you do anything, with anyone, at any of the clubs that you had gone to?” I hesitate, cringing as I dread the answer, anticipating that cold, sharp twist of the knife in my heart and my stomach.
Capturing my face in her hands, she scrutinizes me deeply, intensely, sincerely and slowly begins to shake her head from side to side.
“No, Hayden…I couldn’t. Apart of me hoped that I was wrong with your secret rendezvous, and I couldn’t contemplate how much guilt I would bear, if it was actually me that fucked us up,” she whispers and I relax instantly, exhaling the breath I was unaware that I was holding imprisoned.
Samantha leans down to me, her lips brushing against my own. She pulls back and gapes at me, asking for my permission, and for the first time all night, my mouth curls into a face-splitting grin that reaches my eyes. I nod my approval, and she leans in again, kissing me reverently. Our tongues brush and graze against each other as they caress.
But the vision of her tongue massaging against the man not forty-five minutes ago charges its way to the front of my mind, making my heart, stomach and spirit sink to the depths of the Atlantic with their icy surrounds. I pull away.
Unwilling to cause another dispute, I choose to keep my thoughts hidden, and offer the simplest smile I can conjure.
“Excuse me, sir.” I turn to face the young lady, wearing a green apron that is tied around her waist. “We’re about to close,” she mutters, looking shy and embarrassed.
Pulling my arm up, I glance at my watch, 11:00 p.m. Samantha pushes herself out of my lap, and gathers her purse from the back of her chair.
“I am so sorry, I didn’t realize the time,” I apologize.
Pulling my wallet out of my breast pocket, I tip the young waitress before twining Samantha’s hand in mine. Steering her out into the mild air of the late San Francisco night, we make a beeline to the car, for me to fulfil the promise I made to Jessie: to make sure I brought Samantha back home safely.
Samantha spends virtually the entire journey back to Fillmore Point gazing broodingly out of the window. I idly wonder how she doesn’t feel queasy watching the buildings pass by at such a speed. Pressing my hand above her knee, I offer frequent, reassuring caresses, which pulls her from her rumination––if only for a few moments. She smiles wistfully, before resuming being sucked into the black hole of deliberation.
Besieged by an amassing of indescribable sensations, I utilize the silence that falls over us like a thick, winter blanket, to comprehend exactly what has occurred in the passing hour or so. I no longer feel as though I dwell in the state of tension with the presumption that she will leave, having discovered the layers that make up the man that stands before her.
I fear the humiliation of life as a man abused and manipulated at the hands of a woman will never fade. But the assurance now offered, knowing that I have spoken about it, have relived it as I gave the words life is proof that I do possess that strength that I never considered I had.
I glance up at Samantha as we pull into the parking lot of the Fillmore Point Center. Shifting in my seat as I turn off the ignition, I reach out to tuck her hair behind her ear and lay my hand against the side of her face.
“Thank you, Sam.”
“For what?” she snickers, shaking her head in confusion.
“…For accepting me…all of me. I was scared I was going to lose you if you found out.” I trace the seam of my bottom lip with the tip of my tongue and glance down at the soft, fair flesh of her thighs. “But the thought of losing you before snatching the opportunity to fill in the blanks of my past, which could have consequentially avoided that hurt…” I shake my head with calming lucidity. “That is something that I would have regretted until my dying day.”
While she glances down at the gearshift, I bush my thumb pad over the shape her mouth, her lips so soft beneath my touch. Privately wishing that I could wash away the remnants of the kiss she shared with another only a while ago.
She peeks up at me, and her rueful expression has me marveling whether she has read my private, depressing musings.
“Come on, I promised Jessie I would get you home safely.”
“Oh, Sammy, thank goodness you’re alright.” Jessie throws her arms around Samantha’s neck while I shut the apartment door. Crossing my arms, I rest against the cool surface and watch on as the once overwrought atmosphere is sliced with the blade of relief.
Samantha stiffens, and with palpable reluctance, coils her arms around her roommate. Within a moment or two, Samantha eases into her embrace and unfalteringly returns the gesture.
Jessie is the first one to pull away. With her hands clutched on her shoulders, she holds Sam at arm’s length and visually examines her face, arms, and legs. Once satisfied with the absence of any findings, she cups her hands on either side of Samantha’s face, pressing some of her wavy, auburn locks flush against her cheeks as she grasps her jawline.
“Hayden, I need to talk to Jessie a moment. If you want you can go on into my bedroom,” Samantha mutters as Jessie remains attached to her jaw.
“Okay.”
Stepping away from the door, I walk past the women at the end of the dining table, and begin to approach the hallway to Samantha’s room.
“Hayden,”––I turn on my heel and face the embracing couple––“Thank you, for bringing her back safely,” Jessie says with distinct appreciation.
“I told you, Jess; even if I had to scale the entire area of San Francisco, I would make sure she was safe,” I grin and leave them to their tender moment. I have a feeling they may have certain words they need to retract.
Entering the room, I flick the light switch and peruse the surroundings: her white, wooden bedroom furniture, the lilac wall in front of me, adorned with four asymmetrical canvases which hang above her headboard. Fitted together, they display a pink orchid. Adjacent walls are artic white and enhanced with the presence of a lilac border. Beneath the window along the left wall, lay a white chaise lounge. In the light of day, the sun which glares through the window rebounds against the dressing mirror upon the table––opposite the window. Her stool sits tucked beneath the dresser, and has a single crystal like stone embedded in the center of the lilac cushion. And a subtle, lilac, glass chandelier hangs overhead. When lit, it creates a dreamy-like effect against the diaphanous purple curtains.
I take a seat on the edge of bed. The framed photograph on her beside unit of us along the waterfall hooks my attention like fish to bait. Seizing it in my grasp, I stare at it intently, remembering those three perfect days…the apprehension and degree of frailty she exuded whilst she bared her all to me––permitting me to observe her naked body in the beaming light of day, the tenderness and unspoken meaning that shadowed the sex on our last night.
I close my eyes. The image of the embrace I regarded tonight floods back involuntary. The mystery man kissing her neck followed by her soft, gaily chuckle. Their lips pressed against one another while he hooked her leg around his hip. All in public display––the brazenness she wields holds no bounds.
Soon, the echoes of her carefree, malevolent monotone charters its way past the visual repeating itself ruthlessly in my mind. The wicked twist of her mouth as she grinned in self-satisfaction at the act she engaged in, through my awareness.
Opening my eyes, I recognize the sudden feeling of consternation intensifying and pressurizing in my body as I perceive the circumstances as they now stand in their simplest form.
I trail my fingertip over the photograph.
The wicked and promiscuous traits of my ex-partner––which were a catalyst to my current hindrances, and something I have fought hard to escape from––are reflected in my lover. The manner of action and voice that Samantha exhibited tonight is the most unnerving prospect I have had to face. She is an echo of someone that I strive every day to forget and to hate.
The proverb,
if you play with fire, you’re going to get burned
, are the only words ringing in my ear as I patiently wait for her to return to me.
ELEVEN
---------------------
SAMANTHA
I’m unable to speak a word a word on the journey back home. Sheer, undeniable awe…that is all I can say. The courageousness that has come from the man sat beside me, a man who was made to believe that he was as weak as they come. I vaguely shake my head. Words fail me, but my emotions run deeper than I ever considered possible. I want to wrap my arms around him, kiss him and hold him from now until eternity, and even then, an eternity wouldn’t be long enough.
Alongside the veneration that burns within my chest, my mind influences reasoning, to which I take under silent consideration; Hayden has all of his cards out on the table for me, a new slate with complete honesty. Shouldn’t I offer him the same courtesy?