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"When I was a boy, Michel and I knew not to say a word when my parents yelled at each other. Sometimes, that's all it would be – just yelling. But sometimes, he'd hit her," he says, "and we knew if that happened to get out, fast, because he never hit her only once. And sometimes, he’d go after Michel, so I’d step in between them and I'd get it instead of her or him. When we hid, I always took a knife with me, just in case he came after us."
I picture it in my mind's eye, the two boys running for safety. The father slapping the mother, pushing her, hitting her. An overwhelming feeling of sadness fills me – I don't want to hear the story, but I can't help but listen.
"One night, when it started, after he came home really drunk and belligerent, I took Michel and we went to the bedroom and climbed beneath our bed. He came looking for us, couldn't see us and was too drunk to bend down and look under the bed, so I knew that whenever he came home like that, to grab Michel and hide under the bed. This one night, when we were twelve, he grabbed the knife from me and slashed me. You might think my scar is a battle wound I got fighting a war but you’d be wrong."
I lie on the floor, my eyes closed, tears on my cheeks, picturing the scene in my mind, and my heart breaks once more for him. I slide out from under the bed and crawl into his lap, my arms slipping around his neck. He pulls me tightly against him, his face in my hair, his lips against my neck.
"I'm so sorry," I say, unable to stop my tears. I just hold him tightly, wishing that we lived in a different world and that none of this had happened.
"I don't want to scare you," he says, "but you have to understand this is serious. This isn't a democracy, and you don't have a vote on what's done. You don't even get to complain about my decisions."
I don't say anything, just hold him, unable to get the image out of my mind of him as a little boy lying under his bed with a knife in his hand, protecting Michel from their drunken father, bleeding from the wound on his face.
After a few minutes, he takes my arm in his hands and runs his fingers over my skin.
"Eve." He bends down, covering the cut with his mouth, licking it and it's so sexual, I can't help but respond. "Why do you hurt yourself?"
"Because I'm such an idiot."
"Shh," he says and takes my face in his hands and kisses me softly. Soon, the kiss becomes more intense, his arms more tightly around me, pulling my body against his.
When his hand reaches up under my dress, which has bunched up around my waist, touching my bare skin, I gasp and pull away, but he keeps me there, his cheek against mine, his hand on my skin. His breathing is heavy in my ear.
"Still not interested?"
"Julien, I-" I say, trying to find the words.
"No, it's OK." He pulls away, his hand withdrawing from under my dress. He takes my hand. "It's late. You're tired. Go to bed. I have to go out anyway."
I nod and wipe my eyes.
He stands and holds me in his arms for a moment then he releases me and leaves me alone.
When he's gone, I slip into the shower and wash off the tears from my face and dust from the floor under the bed then brush my teeth, staring at the red eyes and nose of my reflection in the mirror. I slip into my nightgown and go outside, tiptoeing to my bed. As I lie under the covers, I remember our kiss in the bedroom, how tender it had been at the start, and how both of us moved so easily into desire. The natural thing would be for me to have had sex with him, and I once more shut him out – even after he opened up and told me about his own pain. It makes my throat tight with emotion, my heart filled once more with regret.
I wake in the middle of the night, uncertain of what woke me at first, and then I realize Julien's standing by the bed, just watching me. I close my eyes quickly and try not to give any sign that I'm awake. After a few moments, he leaves and goes over to the seating area, sitting in the darkness facing the windows.
As I lie there wondering what he's doing, why he isn't asleep, I remember his kiss, I remember how passionate he'd been and how willing he was to let me decide, not pushing any longer. Maybe he does care about me just a little. Maybe more than he expected.
I feel so incredibly lonely lying there in the huge empty bed with him sitting all alone just a few yards away. In truth, I realize I want him. I want to have him on top of me, I want to feel his skin against my skin, to kiss him, to feel him inside of me, in my mind and in my body. To feel that sweet oblivion with him that I felt with Michel.
He's not Michel. He's himself. I want him.
I fight with myself, torn between desire and guilt. But the overwhelming sense I have is one of want for him, a need for him that finally overcomes my sense of what's right, what's acceptable.
Breathless, I slip out of bed and remove my panties, dropping them beside the bed, determining to leave my anxiety behind as well. I cross the floor to where he sits. When he sees me standing there, he startles a bit.
"Eve. What's the matter-"
I kneel down between his thighs, my arms slipping around his waist. He exhales loudly as I press myself against him and his hands slide down my back, then up beneath my nightgown and along my back.
"Oh,God," he says. His hands slip back and he pulls me closer. We stay like this for a few minutes, not kissing, just touching, and I can see his startled expression, and it sends a thrill through my body.
"How did you know?" I whisper, watching his face, remembering the words he spoke to me in my apartment when he broke out of the SCU. "Why were you so sure this would happen?"
He shakes his head.
"I didn't know. I only wanted. And when I want something," he says and runs his hands up along my back again. "I do everything in my power to get it."
