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Smith drops down into the seat across from me again. As if he didn’t just throw a whole table across the room. “What bad things are there to say about you?”
“My fouetté turns were sloppy that day,” I whisper. “She was right. I had a sprained ankle at the time, but still. She wasn’t wrong.”
Silence ticks by. I can see his mind working.
His distress is made obvious in the way he shakes his head, chest lifting and falling faster, faster. “You are too hard on yourself. The lies you’ve told are hardly worth mentioning.”
“You’re living in an abandoned warehouse, locked away from the world—and I’m the one who is hard on myself?” The beginning of a smile transforms his whole face. Just a nanosecond of reluctant amusement and he’s suddenly gorgeous. The moment is fleeting, yet it leaves my heart racing. “What do you consider a lie worth mentioning, Smith?” I ask, my curiosity multiplying by the second. “Tell me.”
Restless, he sits back, his wall of chest and stomach muscles flexing in the light. He bounces his leg for a moment, then pushes back to his feet, turning away from me with crossed arms. “My mother said she would come back one day and she never did. I don’t remember how old I was. We didn’t keep track of those things. But I wasn’t taller than Baker yet, so I was probably six or seven.” He clears his throat hard. “She lied. Just like they did…”
“Who are ‘they’?”
Enough time passes that I’m not sure he’s going to explain. Then, “When Baker was in high school, him and his friends were always messing with girls. Going home with them after school or taking them down to the lake. To kiss. Mess around. They made me their lookout. I made sure to let them know if someone was coming, especially one of the girls’ fathers.” He pauses. “The girls would get my brother and his friends so worked up they were half out of their heads. They would tease them, let the boys think they were getting sex and then change their minds. I wanted no part of that…letting someone have control over my mind and body. So I stayed away from that shit.”
I have a bad feeling about this story.
There is a rock sitting in my stomach and it gets heavier by the second.
“One day, the girls…they didn’t change their minds. My brother was in one car with a girl, his friend was in another. With a different girl. And I got distracted with collecting glass on the edge of the water. I use it for…” As if catching himself, he shakes his head. “Anyway. My brother got out of the car with the girl just as her father pulled up. And she was laughing, fixing her hair—it was obvious what they’d been doing.” A pause drags out. “But she told her father that I forced her. She said it was me. And the other girl came out of nowhere saying I did it to her, too. My brother’s friend was long gone. Took off because he didn’t want to get in trouble.” His swallow is audible. “Next thing I know, I was locked up. Assigned a lawyer. They found my artwork. All the smashed bottles. And they called me violent. I have always been…quick to hit my boiling point. I have a temper. My outbursts didn’t do me any favors on top of my size and strength, plus the lies they told about me. So I was institutionalized. For years.”
Tears are collecting in my eyes. I’m shaken on his behalf. I can see him as a teenager, head and shoulders above everyone else. He’s fearsome, even when he’s sitting still. I can easily imagine him being accused of something he didn’t do and his demeanor making it possible to believe any mistruths about him.
Something doesn’t quite sit right about the story, though.
There’s more here. Maybe more that Smith doesn’t even know.
I’ve witnessed Baker’s behavior with women.
I’ve been on the receiving end of his cruelty. His manipulations.
Smith believes those girls are responsible for his mistreatment, but I have a feeling Baker is involved in more ways than one.
Furthermore, my heart and my gut are telling me that this giant man is telling me the truth. The truth he believes. Even after he confessed to me that he has a hard time controlling his impulses. He controlled them around me, didn’t he? When he realized I would not enjoy myself during sex, he stopped. He looked ready to die. And now, my sympathy is a swarm of bees, buzzing in my middle. My hands are trembling with the need to touch. To comfort.
To show him what good in another person feels like.
To soothe and heal and…maybe find out something about myself in the process. Ignoring this attraction to Smith isn’t working. I’m ten times more restless now than I was when he started the story, my nipples in hard points inside my leotard, my sex pulsing where it presses to the chair. I’m scared. I’ve never done this before.
But there is an intuition whispering in my ear telling me…
This man is important. To me. I’m still going to run back to the city at the earliest opportunity, but before I go…I can’t shake the feeling that this is exactly where I’m meant to be. With Smith.
With a hard swallow, I push to my feet and coast in his direction, raising a hand, hesitating, then laying it on the smooth, muscular breadth of his back.
“M-make love to me.”
He wheels around, lustful and incredulous at the same time. “I don’t know how,” he says raggedly, already backing me toward the mattress.
“We’ll learn together.”
Four
Smith
I can’t believe this is happening.
Does this mean she believes what I told her? That I’m innocent?
