In Loving Memory Pt. 06

"Fucking selfish bastard," James cursed as his fingers found the silver locket. He yanked hard. It hesitated for a moment before surrendering to his strength. His fingers folded around the cold semi-precious metal. He would crush it to powder if he could.

Semi-precious said it all. That was all her love had been to that man. All she had been to him. And even then the bastard had sought to keep her bound to him...even after death. Just as he had kept his ex-wife in limbo all those years. Divorced but jumping at his peck and call. It was a good thing the bastard was dead because he would kill him for that alone.

But it was the self-loathing that ate at James's guts as he stared down at the offensive object. Eight years. Two worthless bastards that used and abused her. That took a special part of her spirit and heart with them. He had allowed that. He had hidden safely on the other side of emails and texts, afraid that he could never be the man that she needed. While assholes took what could have been, should have been his.

He shook his head as he raged down the stairs two and sometimes three at a time. He flung open the front door, uncaring if he ripped it from its hinges. Doors could be fixed for easier than this type of damage. He covered the distance to the sea in a matter of seconds. He did not even feel the biting cold of the freezing rain that the heavens had unleashed with a vengeance.

He longed for that type of power right now. The power to destroy. But perhaps that was the problem. His own part in her destruction. He waded into the surf, not caring for either his boots or jeans. The waves wrapped about him, tried to suck him down. For a moment it was exactly what he wanted. To simply disappear beneath the raging waters, to be no more.

But she had had one selfish bastard that took the easy way rather than facing his responsibilities, he would not be a coward like that. If he had screwed up, he would find some way of making it up to her, of righting the wrong.

He looked at the silver necklace one final time. He considered stuffing it in his pocket, keeping it as a reminder of his own failings. But just the sight of it turned his stomach. He flung it as far as he could into the surf and hoped that the tides drew it deeper out to sea, never to be seen again.

He needed no physical reminder of what his insecurities had done to her. His first sight of her had been enough. The dark circles beneath those expressive green eyes. The hollow sunken appearance of her cheeks. Her ashen colour. The way that the corset hung from her thinner body rather than embraced and caressed it. The way that she moved about the room like a robot, talking and laughing with people he did not know, but the emotions never reached her eyes. It was a memory that was etched in his brain. He should have said something sooner. Done something sooner. Should have gone to her long ago.

But he couldn't. No, he wouldn't. He had needed to become the man that she spoke about and not the fucked up little boy. The way that she talked about him as strong and intelligent, as special. He felt none of those things. He never had. Different. Alone. A mistake. Those were the only things that he was.

Until they began emailing. James lifted his face to the heavens. Threw out his arms and embraced the storm that raged there even as a more violent one raged inside of him. The great sheets of rain that fell from the sky mixed with and hid the tears that seeped from the corner of his eyes.

"Fucking bastard," he screamed to no one and everyone. The words echoed back to him even as they were absorbed by the surf, the rocks and trees that surrounded him.

He had been no different. He had hurt her just as badly as the others. Perhaps not by callous acts of commission but by omission. What right did he have to hate and blame the spineless bastard for trying to hold on to her? He was no different. Worse even.

He had held onto their friendship like the life line it was for him...no matter the fact that he knew, knew in his heart, that his very presence in her life kept her from ever committing fully to another man. Hell, her stubborn determination to stay with that man was nothing more than her trying to deny how she truly felt for him. And he had not had the strength to tell her that. Or to go to her.

He closed his eyes and just stood in the surf. Allowed the waves and rain to wash him, to cleanse him. He sought peace, quiet in his mind. It was the hardest thing of all to achieve. He had tried meditation. Tai Chi. Hell, he had even flirted with religion, reading the great books of several religions as he sat on the porch and thought of her. But none of it worked. None of it ever had.

The wind whipped around him. It seemed to physically push him backwards. Back towards the house. Towards her. He had a choice to make. Another one. Go back inside that house and face demons that he had hidden from for a lifetime. Or hide away safely as he had tried to in this place for the past three years.

He would never know now what might have happened if he had found the courage to go to her then. When his life started to finally come together. When he had achieved more than he ever thought possible. When he had more to offer than that other man did. But it had not been enough. Fear of rejection...again...perhaps worse than any other...had made him play it safe. Hide away in this paradise that was more tomb than palace.

But he had gone in the end. Her emails and texts had reached out to him, drawn him out of grave that he had crafted for himself. Yes, he had known. Known what he was going to do when he left here yesterday.

Yesterday. Was it really just yesterday? Almost twenty-four hours ago? So much had changed. He had changed. His course in life had changed. Just by meeting her. Then again the course of his life had been changed forever when he 'met' her eight years ago.

He turned and looked back at the bungalow. He owned that. He would have never believed such a thing possible eight years ago. Hell, even five. He was just the geek. The loner. The screwed up little kid that everyone picked on at school. A nobody. He would have probably worked in that damned warehouse and lived with his parents for the rest of his fucking life. If he had not... It had been a long time since those thoughts assailed his mind.

He owed it all to her. Her fucked up belief that he was more. That he was special. That he deserved better. Could be more. As hard as he had fought it, she got inside his mind somehow. He had not even realised it at first.

But slowly, imperceptibly, he had begun to believe in himself. Try to be what she had thought he could be. First he had learned to drive and gotten his first car. Then he had accepted her challenge to take an online course in writing code for the games he loved so much.

He had even gotten a job as a games tester. While it was not much higher paying than the warehouse at least he did not hate it. The more games he tested, the more he thought...I can do better than this shit. He began to play around in his spare time with code and a few months later he worked up the courage to show it to some friends from work. They had loved it. Now the same assholes that had once picked on him at school played his fucking game.

And he owed it all to her. He sighed as he felt the wind shoving him more solidly this time. "All right, all right already. I get your message," he had lost his mind. He was talking to the wind. Or perhaps it was her stupid fate that she always talked about. It did not really matter. He knew what he had to do.

No matter what happened, he was going to be there for her now as she had been for him during all those years. He was going to get her through this just as he promised. He owed her that...and lots more.

The walk back to the house seemed so much longer. The squishing of his boots roared louder than the waves, making a mockery of him. He shivered, noticing for the first time, how cold it really was. He stopped for a moment on the porch, hesitant to spread this mess inside his home. He liked everything neat and orderly. He laughed at the thought, given the chaos that usually reigned in his mind.

Just when he would have kicked off his boots and striped out of his soaking jeans on the porch, the wind shoved him through the door, slamming it closed behind him. He looked around the ground floor, but it was vacant. He heard a quiet sobbing and looked up at the loft. He could not see her from where he stood but followed the sound automatically. Once more he took the stairs two and three at a time.

He stopped at the top of them. She knelt naked still. Her back was to him and the perfect heart-shape of her bottom resting upon her heels was so strong a pull that not even the ice-cold of his jeans could keep his cock from swelling inside of them. Her shoulders were stooped and he could see that her hands covered her face as she cried.

He hesitated again. Was he the reason that she was crying? It was the one thing he had never wanted. What had kept him from her for so long. He did not want to be another one of her mistakes, just another selfish bastard in a long line of them. He did not want to use her, abuse her and toss her aside...or worse yet kept her tied to him through her loyalty even when it hurt her. But he could be there for her now. He owed her that much. And whatever tomorrow held, he was going to find the courage to do what needed doing in this moment.

"You think tears will get you out of your punishment so easily," he listened to the deep sound of his own voice carry about the house dispassionately. "I am a dacryophilliac. Tears just make my cock harder."

She turned around and they glistened in her green depths like the sun glinting off the sea on a calm day giving it a glassy appearance as if you could actually walk on it. He found himself doing just that, walking on water across the room to where she knelt.

"Naked and on your knees is a good start. But I told you that you had to take my belt off and offer it to me, remember?" Silence stretched out for a long moment, filling the emptiness that was his home with feminine power until every centimeter crackled and jumped with its electricity.

In the end, she dropped those eyes once more. Her fingers came up and she began to fumble with his buckle. It was a new form of torture as her fingers brushed against the cool bare skin just above his jeans. But the doors of hell opened up and swallowed him when she whispered, "Yes, Sir."

How could two simple words hold such power? His cock was harder than it ever had been with the surge of power that accompanied those words. He wanted to rip his jeans open, push her back on the white carpet that was getting darker and wetter by the moment. He wanted to do the thing he had dreamed about for eight long years. He wanted to bury himself so fucking deep inside of her that a part of him would never come out.

He felt the strong tug as his belt came free of the loops. He watched as she folded it neatly in half. She held one end of the circle in one hand and the buckle in the other. She lifted it slowly above her head. Her eyes were down.

"Look at me," James felt as detached from that voice as he did the life he had known before her. Like it was someone else and he was just looking on.

She lifted her eyes slowly. He smiled at how wide they got when she reached the bulging front of his jeans. The quick intake of her breath caused his cock to jump. It was both pleasure and pain...just as this woman herself. Her front teeth played with her lower lip, biting it until he feared she would draw blood. "Fuck woman! I said me. Not my damned cock."

Her head shot up then and their eyes met. A thought occurred to him. One that left a nasty taste in his mouth. But one that he had to know the answer to. "When was the last time you came, Claire?"

Her eyes dropped to the floor again. That told him all he needed to know. But still he pressed his point. "Look. At. Me." He waited for her to obey. Something inside of him knew she would. Even as hard as he knew this was for her.

Her bottom lip trembled as she stared up into his eyes. "How long, Claire?"

She started to look down again but stopped herself when she realised what she was doing. "I don't remember," she whispered.

His fingers laced through the long locks of auburn hair at the back of her neck. He knew he was tugging too hard. Knew he was causing her pain. But pain would give her something else to focus upon. "How can you not remember? Have you masturbated since he died?"

She tried to shake her head from side to side, but his fingers trapped her. "No," she whispered.

"Again? You let another of these fucking bastards do that shit to you? Get into your mind like that? How could you? You know how fucking hard it was to get them back after that first asshole. Why would you let this one do it to you too?"

He shook his head as his eyes bore into hers, tried to look into her soul. She tried to look down and he tugged harder. So hard that tears swam in her eyes...whether from the physical pain or the emotional he did not know.

"Sex isn't everything," she stammered.

"Bull shit," he spat. "Sex is a hell of a lot for a woman like you."

The tears slipped out of the corner of her eyes then. "You mean a whore. Go ahead. Say it. A whore. WHORE. Nymphomaniac. Slut. Slag. Say it, James. You think it, just like all the rest. Something worthless to be used and tossed away. Never good enough for anything more. Never worth actually loving."

"Fuck, Claire. You know I don't think that." His fingers loosened in her hair. Pushed her away as if he could push her words away as easily. But her pain hung on him. Wrapped about him. Ropes and chains tighter than any he had ever felt. They pulled at his mind and his heart.

She did drop her head then, staring at the pool of dark sea water against the white carpet. "I know what I am. I hated those words you know. They were always hard limits. Except he never allowed me any hard limits. I used to cringe every time he said them. But he would tell me they were just words, nothing more."

She looked up at him as tears swam in those green depths, "Except I don't have to tell you how much words can hurt. Eat at your soul." She sighed, "Especially when you know they are true."

James dropped to his knees in front of her. His fingers laced through her hair once more. This time more tenderly as he lifted her face to his. "No, Claire. You are no man's whore. You are a woman. With needs all your own. There is nothing wrong with that. It is how it is supposed to be."

"Needs that others used to control me. To use me." She shook her head, "No, no more. I would rather never come again than be used like that again."

"Don't be stupid, Claire. It doesn't work like that. You know your body has needs." She shook her head so violently that his hand dropped from her face.

He stared eye to eye with every insecurity he had left. Every demon. He was afraid of disappointing her. Of failing her when she needed him most. What if...

Those words rang in his mind. Bounced off his skull and echoed through every neurone in his brain. All the what ifs of the past eight years were rolled into this one.

But he had to try. His arm wrapped about her as he drew her against him. She shivered. Was it from the cold wet of his clothes and body? Was it from fear? He could empathise with that one. Was it from the feel of his still rock hard cock pressed against her? He wanted to think it was from desire. Even a fraction of what he felt. What he had fought for eight long years.

"Open your legs, Claire."

She shook her head and brought her hand up between their bodies. She shoved at his chest. "No, James. Not you too. I know what I said. But I can't. Not with you." She looked up. He saw the pleading in those eyes, "I can't. Please understand. I can't."

He knew. The words just came then. "You made another promise once, Claire."

She frowned as if trying to remember. There had been so many empty promises between them over the years. But this one was not going to be one of them.

"You said that if I found the courage to meet face-to-face you would make me a man. Teach me all I needed to know to please a woman." His hand on her waist drew her closer. He lowered his head slowly. This time she did not try to pull away. "I'm holding you to that promise, Claire."