A Final Valentine

"That last doesn't make any sense to me," I admitted. "Why would she be horny? She should be glad I'm not forcing myself on her. She should be reveling in being free of sex."

"Some, even most maybe, do," Angela said. "And she might once she has more distance between her and what she endured. But, there have been some studies that point to hyper-sexuality, in the short-term at least."

"Good God, why?!"

"That, I never was able to get a good handle on," Angela admitted. "Some reported a feeling that if they couldn't do anything about it, they might as well enjoy it. Others seemed to feel it was a game of some sort. That they were somehow taking back what had been taken from them. And, it was a pretty small cross-section that responded that way to begin with. Probably others actually feel that way but are too embarrassed to admit they like sex since it's linked to something that was forced on them. And, too, it's not usually much talked about because the majority and much more vocal members of the groups absolutely do not want to discuss or even acknowledge any desires."

"That makes more sense to me," I said. "I just have a really hard time imagining a victim craving anything remotely similar to what they experienced."

"Stockholm syndrome," Angela shrugged. "Adapt to survive. I don't pretend to have all the answers. Even if I had been through it myself, I wouldn't pretend to know how everyone would react to the same thing. But, the research pretty well indicates that some are driven to suicide, some struggle with a hatred for anything having to do with sex and their own drives become non-existent, some achieve some sense of normalcy, and some become hyper-sexual, even becoming predators themselves. If you don't agree, do your own paper and publish it to refute established psychological findings. But, your buddy there is a textbook case of hyper-sexualization or I don't understand the term.

"In fact, I would bet the farm she makes a pass you can't ignore sometime today," Angela went on. "And I think you should let her succeed if she does."

"What?! No! Not just no, but hell no!" I shouted. "I am not going to do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because of you!" I shouted. "I don't want anyone but you!"

"I'm dead, my love. I can't give you what you want. I can no longer give you what you need."

"Don't you think I know that?!"

"Then, what would be the harm in taking what she offers?"

I forced myself to calm down and think coldly and logically. I didn't want to. I knew that holding so tight to the ghost of my dead wife wouldn't be what she wanted. But, damn it! What about what I wanted?

But, arguments based on emotion had never swayed Angela once she got the bit between her teeth. And I knew it wouldn't now. Even if she was a fair shade, a ghost of her real self or some mixture of memory and dream fabricated in my own head.

And besides, it wasn't as if she could force me to move on from her if I didn't allow her to. So, what would be the harm in playing out the argument to its bitter end?

"I don't buy that she is serious," I said. "Hell, an eighteen-year-old hardly knows who they are and what they want even when they haven't been subjected to what she has. I'm not about to take her up on some offer she doesn't really mean and climb aboard for a couple of minutes of rutting."

"You've never managed just a couple of minutes in all the time I've known you," Angela laughed. "More like a couple of hours. But, you aren't paying attention. I said she would make a pass at you, you couldn't ignore. I don't mean verbally. I mean she will be more aggressive since her verbal attempts have fallen flat and even her silly little game of jilling off next to you didn't get the results she was after. Let her be the aggressor, at first at least. Let her set the tone, be the first to initiate touch. I'm just saying you should allow yourself to enjoy it when she does. I know I don't have to tell you to make sure she enjoys it. You've never failed there. Either from my own experiences or from reports."

"Huh?" I blinked, shifting gears at her final sentence. "What reports?"

"Beka and Kim, silly."

Shit!

"You, uh, you knew?"

"Well, of course, I knew. Why do you think Beka moved back to Tennessee and Kim headed off to New York? I let them know their services were no longer required and they could get the fuck away from my man."

"I'm sorry, Angela. I'm so sorry."

"There's no reason for you to be," Angela shrugged. "You were honest with me right from the very start that you didn't think you had it in you to be monogamous."

"But, I did try to be," I said desperately. "I did try. I wanted to be. For you."

"I know you did, you sweet man," Angela said as she cupped my cheek and gazed into my watery eyes. "And I'm sorry. I told you before we were married that I would be open to other partners in our bed and then got cold feet. I agreed to it because I thought that was the only way I could have you, but then I wanted to keep you to myself. Beka and Kim... Well, I set you up with them. I thought maybe I could try, but then I chickened out. I was getting older, you see. And I was afraid you would want them more than you wanted me."

The last part sounded like the Angela I knew, but the rest didn't.

It was true she had initially said she would be alright with sharing me with other women. I had still been learning to love her when I had asked. No, when I had demanded that would be the only way we could ever build anything long term.

Later, I wouldn't have said no if she had wanted to, but I was fine with having her and only her if it was a choice between her or anyone else. But, Angela had been adamant that she wasn't willing to share.

To have her saying now that she not only had known about my two brief affairs, and was not only alright with them but had actually set them up in an effort to meet my early demands was all the proof I needed that this wasn't real. That the Angela before me was some figment of my imagination and my own mind trying to put words in her mouth and attribute emotions that had never belonged to the real Angela.

I pulled my hand from hers and took a long wistful look intended to be my last.

"I'm sorry. I miss my Angela," I said. "And I will never stop loving her."

And turned my back and walked away from whatever that was I left behind.

--Day Four--

Accepting that hadn't been Angela cost me something. Spending time with her, talking with her, making love with her in those dreams had been something I looked forward to each day when I laid down and closed my eyes. I'd sort of known all along that she couldn't really be there. It just wasn't possible. But, I had wanted to believe. I had let myself... No, I had made myself believe.

If it weren't enough she had been reft from my life, now she was gone from my dreams as well. It was as if I had lost her a second time.

I wasn't angry, exactly. Not even frustrated. But, it was more than just sadness. Angela would probably have been able to put a word on the feeling. She always was much smarter than me.

Whatever label I couldn't place on the feeling inside me, I didn't hesitate to take it out on the girl when she woke up while I was outside with Bitty. I wasn't mean or nasty. I just pushed her harder. And kept my distance, both physically and otherwise.

After making, and eating, her own breakfast, the girl cleaned up after herself as well, putting the leftovers in the refrigerator with snow on the pot lids and washing her dishes.

Bitty, most likely sensing something was wrong, had finished her can and come to sit with her head in my lap as I smoked while the girl did her dishes.

I had done my morning wake-up routine before taking Bitty out. I'd had to. But, I wasn't really feeling like doing my more serious version. It was still overcast and with the heavy curtains and blinds over the windows, which I was loath to open and release what heat we had, there wasn't enough light to read comfortably even if I had been able to bring myself to find a book I'd already read two or three times to read again.

And I was not, most definitely not going to go back there and lie down in the bed just to have her lie down next to me and stick her fingers up her cunt. Fuck that. Fuck that sideways.

The girl finished her dishes and came back into the room to sit down and look at me for a long moment. I half expected her to ask me what was wrong.

Why the hell did women always have to ask that? As a man, if I had wanted her to know what was wrong, I would have damn well told her what was wrong. When I was ready and not a moment before. If I didn't tell her what was wrong, she could just know it had nothing to do with her. But, I'd never met a woman who could just leave it alone.

The girl didn't ask me what was wrong.

Instead, she stood up and pulled that t-shirt over her head.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm supposed to exercise every day," she signed back. "Three times each day. That's what that book said. If I exercise in my clothes, then they get sweaty. And then I have to wash them. I don't want to have to wash them. So, I take them off so I can exercise and sweat. And then I can shower and put them back on."

I wanted to argue with her, to tell her it wasn't appropriate for her to be naked. But, it's always difficult to argue when the bastard (or bitch) uses your own argument against you. And that was one of my three arguments why I went naked usually.

But, that was different. I only did it when I was alone in my own home. I had worn the same pair of shorts for the entirety of her stay to avoid being nude in front of her.

And besides, she was a girl.

I took too long wrestling with my own hypocrisy and she had set the shirt aside and stripped out of the pajama bottoms as well.

Well, fuck it. It wasn't like she was all that great looking. Hell, she looked like someone had popped a skinsuit over a skeleton mostly.

It helped if I told myself that.

In truth, she didn't really look that bad. In fact, the kid looked a little bit like a shorter, thinner version of a porn star I'd seen a bit of before losing the internet. Riley Reid or something like that. Except, of course, for that lousy haircut, this kid had given herself or someone had. And not having any piercings or tattoos.

Nothing against this kid or that Riley kid, but my tastes just ran more to a woman I wasn't half-afraid I might break.

The kid ignored my scowling fugue and fell to her exercises. I was pulled out of my introspection as I tapped an arm or a leg to correct her form.

And insisted she attempt ten more of each exercise than she thought she could do.

Worn out and trembling, I sent her off to the shower as I reached for the last kretek in that pack. And found myself eyeing her retreating backside.

Even with quite a bit of my muscle mass fading, my forearms were still as big as that kid's thighs.

No. Even if it hadn't been for missing Angela. Even if it hadn't been for being leery of the kid's own past. I just couldn't see ever being with anyone like her and either of us getting more pleasure than pain out of it.

No matter what my dick thought of watching that ass sway with each step away from me.

Or the smell of pussy it gradually dawned on me I was smelling beneath the acrid fumes of my cloves.

I shook the head on my shoulders and adjusted the one in my shorts and tried to think of how I could keep distance between us. Maybe the second-bedroom-slash-library was warm enough she could move back in there.

The girl was in the shower, with the damn shower curtain still all the way opened, and that damn rose-flashlight pointing right at her as she worked one hand in her crotch while the other looked like it was trying to pull her nipple off as she leaned her shoulders against the shower wall with one foot up on the rim of the tub. She didn't even slow down, judging from the sounds that just became more frenzied, as she saw me pass and I hurriedly turned my head away.

The room with the books and couch was still cooler than the one with the bed. Which made sense since the curtains were thinner. But, I decided the cold might just slow her roll a little.

Once more, I peeled the top two layers off the bed and then took a third for good measure. Rather than just piling them on the couch, I made the couch up for her. And set her book and that little dog statue on the blue-light-special coffee table sitting in front of it.

That chore finished, I walked back past the bathroom, carefully not looking in the door, to sit in my spot, read a bit by candlelight on an old broken-spined Jim Butcher novel I'd snagged, and smoke another while I waited to inform her of the change.

"Why?" She asked once she was out, dry, and clothed and I filled her in on the change in room assignments.

"Because, I figured both of us would be a little more comfortable not sharing a bed," I signed back. "At least, I know I'm not comfortable having you so close. And I'm sure you aren't either. Or shouldn't be."

"Why wouldn't I be? You've been really nice to me. Much nicer than anyone has. And you are nice looking for an old guy and don't smell like rotten sausage. And it's not like I'm afraid of you even if you were going to hurt me."

"Still," I signed. "You can have the couch to yourself. I can have the bed to myself."

"Whatever."

I watched as she turned and stalked off to her new spot and tried to work how just many different ways she had insulted me. Or whether I should even feel insulted since, except for the last, it was mostly true. I could still snap her neck like a toothpick, though. Might if she kept pushing me.

Bitty wasn't pleased with the new arrangements and kept wandering back to check on our guest, out of her sight as she was, and then wandering back to check on me. She was even more anxious when sitting got to me and I blew out my candle to go stretch out on the bed.

On my way past, I glanced in at the girl. She was wrapped in the blanket and two comforters I'd put in there for her and was reading with the book on her knees, that stupid rose light in one hand, and her toy dog in the other.

I wasn't tired. Not even weary, much less sleepy. But, my muscles and nerves were complaining and I needed to get them to relax.

I dozed off briefly somewhere between getting my legs stilled and working my way up my back and torso. Not long. Not long enough to dream, thank God. But, long enough I figured it must be time for the kid to eat again.

The kid had set the book aside and wrapped up like a burrito with just her face sticking out.

"Time for you to eat," I signed.

"Not hungry." Her hands disappeared back inside the covers as soon as she had communicated.

"Didn't ask," I signed. "I said it's time for you to eat."

She threw the covers aside and stalked past me rubbing her arms. Well, if she was cold, standing in front of the stove to cook herself something, and then eating a hot meal would warm her up.

The little shit came back with two of my cups of noodles, one for each of us.

"I'm not ready to eat," I signed. "And that's not enough for you."

"All I want," her fingers snapped at me. "All I'm used to. And if it's time for me to eat, then it's time for you to eat, too, Daddy."

"Don't call me that! I'm no one's father."

"Well, you're acting like one. More of one than I ever had. And why do you care anyway?"

"Because my wife would want me to try," I signed. "And you should be glad. If I hadn't been worried about what she would think, I would have left you in the snow. Broken and bloody so you couldn't follow if that's what it took."

"I thought you were my friend? Is that what you would do to a friend?"

"How can I be a friend to someone acting like a fourteen-year-old petulant child?"

"Eighteen!" She all but screamed in that flat voice. "I'm eighteen!"

"You aren't acting like it," I signed. "You are acting like fourteen. Which if you will think about it is all I said. I didn't say you were fourteen. I said you were acting like a petulant fourteen."

"Why did you kick me out of your bed to the other room? I was comfortable there."

"Well, I wasn't. I don't even know your name. Maybe it wouldn't matter to any other guy, but if I don't even know your name, I can't be comfortable lying next to you in bed."

"My name is Angela," she signed, spelling out the name. And then said it aloud. "Angela."

The world stopped for a moment as flashes of cold and heat washed over and through me before settling on fury. I fought the urge to grab the little shit by her neck and ass and pitch her out the door. With a stiff kick to speed her on her way.

"Not funny!"

The kid paused and studied my face in obvious bewilderment.

"Wasn't trying to be funny," she signed. "That's my name. Angela Susan Locke. Why? What's wrong?"

"That is... was my wife's name. Angela."

"Oh. You hadn't said."

Had I not? Surely I had at some point. And even if I hadn't, it was right there in two of the papers hanging in frames on the wall above Angela's table. Our marriage announcement. And her death certificate. The kid could easily have read it at some point. Probably while I was asleep. And I pointed it out to her.

"I wouldn't do that," she signed. "That's a good way to get hit, looking at things that don't concern me. That was how I got my ribs cracked the first time. Because I was looking at something they didn't think I should have been. You learn not to be curious. Besides, do you have any idea how many Angelas I have known in my twenty-two schools? It's not a rare name."

The kid had a point. My Angela had often lamented the fact her mother hadn't gone for something like "Moon Unit" so at least she wouldn't be looking up along with ten others every time the name "Angela" was called.

I knew I was taking my cynicism to ridiculous lengths. But, I wasn't sure I trusted the kid. Not with her purported age. Not with her purported name.

And, hell. For all I knew, the glimpses of her past could have been pure fiction. I mean, really. Just how much bad shit could happen to one person anyway?

Ok, so she never knew her father and her mother was killed when she was young. And not a single solitary relative could be found to take her, so she had gone into the system. That shit happens all the time.

But, come on! It was the new century. While there was still some abuse, both sexual and physical, happening, there were watchdog groups that would have been all over her story the first time some new teacher or caseworker, still new enough they squeaked when they turned around too fast and hadn't had time to become jaded, noticed something. Shit like she described would have been gobbled up by the newshounds and internet fairies. Politicians would have rallied like flies to a manure pile the first time she said, "he touched," without waiting to find out just what was touched.

And I had been chewing it up. Hook, line, and sinker.

Well, not anymore.

I wasn't going to go so far as to kick her out since the snow was still about her waist. But, I wasn't going to be led along the garden path she'd been taking me through either.

"Whatever you say, kid. Eat your lunch."

I wasn't hungry and really didn't want it, but I didn't want to waste it either. So, I forced myself to choke down the noodles she had brought me.

And paid for it.

It was all I could do to hold it back as I reached for a smoke despite her not being finished.

"Sorry," I signed at her as soon as I stopped choking. "I shouldn't have tried to eat."

"Why not?"

"My stomach. I have trouble keeping food down. These help or I wouldn't have lit it with you not finished eating."

The kid, Angela if she wasn't lying, studied me as she took another bite and then another.