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I grabbed a carafe of wine from the refrigerator and downed a glass quickly, taking several deep breaths to calm the roar that had driven me into the night. The door bell rang. I don’t know why I was so surprised to see Will standing there, but I was.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, pushing his way inside.
“I decided that the party was just not for me, so I left.” I tried to sound calm, when I wasn’t calm at all.
“We went together,” he reminded me. His stared at me with steely eyes.
“I didn’t want to spoil it for you. I’ve spoiled so much for you lately, I didn’t want to do it again.”
“You unthinking bitch!” he suddenly blurted out, scowling as he did. He rarely scowled. “You think I’d stay and fuck a room full of people not knowing where you are?”
“But you were so excited.”
“Of course I was, only a dead person wouldn’t be excited in that house, it’s a sexual playground. But I took you there for you, not me, and you know it. And now you play games with me, running off without a word.”
“I’m sorry, we just seem to want different things,” I pleaded.
“What the fuck!”
My lord, he was angry! The closest breakable thing in the room was a vase of flowers on a table by the door. He picked them up and threw them at the fireplace, the ceramic vase crashing in pieces against the marble. I backed away.
“Don’t worry, I don’t strike women.” Some of his anger had dissipated, though I could sense his rage still churning beneath the surface.
“Will, we’ve tried, how many times? It’s not working.”
“Because you won’t let it work,” he lashed out. “You ask me to try all these scenarios, to take you places, to play your roles, and then you back down from them over and again, as if I could be jerked around forever.” His anger was on the rise again.
“It’s just not working for me,” I tried again.
“Because you won’t let it.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You have no problem with the kink. But I do. The fantasies are made up, in my head, where they’re meant to stay. You expect me to be some kind of slut!”
He paced the room agitated and fuming. “You’re impossible, totally impossible!” Suddenly he whirled around and slammed his fist against the closet door. The plywood splintered but he ignored the cuts to his hand. With his back still turned, he breathed deeply to regain his composure, but it wasn’t a calm and gentle man who turned to me and spoke. It was as if a wall of ice separated us. Cold and steely eyes gave out no warmth at all.
“You asked for this. You wanted to travel in the world of your fantasies. I couldn’t care less about going there. Well, I’ve taken you, but you don’t experience. You judge. And you know what’s saddest?” His eyes pierced through me like lasers. “What’s so sad is that though you judge the players, what you judge most is yourself. You won’t allow yourself to enjoy what you desire most. You’re stuck in some antiquated version of right and wrong that’s driving you crazy. And as long as you do that, you’ll continue to be miserable.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wound it around his hand. “Well tonight you can be miserable alone.”
He turned on his heel and was out the door before I could begin to fashion a reply.
I looked at the shattered ceramic in a thousand little pieces on the floor, the hole in the closet, the violence, the passion. I began to clean feverishly as if it would erase the night and everything he’d said.
What was worse was that for the first time, I realized how much I loved him. What’s more, I knew he loved me. It showed in each piece of broken vase, each torn flower, each splinter of wood on the closet door that had torn his hand, each word of rage that lingered in the still air.
First admissions of love can be painful. I discovered that as I listened to him in the apartment below, slamming doors, pounding and cursing. How many things were broken, smashed against the walls because of me, beautiful things he treasured? Ruined because of me.
What had I just thrown away?
Chapter Ten
His knock at the door came early. I’d been up only long enough to throw on a robe, gather the newspaper and put the coffee on to brew. I didn’t expect to relish any of my morning ritual, after three hours of sleep at best, and a night full of tossing and turning.
As he looked me in the eyes, I felt again that dangerous intensity deep within me, that energy that had bound us from the beginning starting to have its affect on me again. He was calm, collected, though tired.
“May I?” he asked. I moved aside to let him in.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“Sure.”
