A Wind Blew Through Me Pt. 06

I held her like that for a long time and she made no move to break the hug. Eventually, I let her go and she looked up at me with a confusing mix of emotions dancing across her face.

She took a breath and said, "Wow. You look like you have quite the story to tell." She smiled at me, but it did not reach her eyes. "And you look fantastic, Greg." She ran a hand down my chest over my shirt and looked closely at the fabric.

"Thank you." I smiled back at her with gratitude. "Oh! Some of Michael's minions are probably on the way up with the rest of my haul..."

She squinted her eyes quizzically just as we heard several sets of footsteps on the stairs outside. I turned around to get the door. Upon opening it, I found 2 men and a woman waiting on the stairs with a rather comical array of bags and boxes.

"Thank you!" I said, ushering them in. "Just put them here." I gestured just inside the door and they began to make a large pile of my new clothes.

Katherine pushed her arms around my waist and peered around my shoulder like a little girl peeking into her parents' bedroom. I could feel her begin to giggle silently against me as the pile grew larger. By the time they had finished putting all the bags down, she had buried her face into my back to suppress her laughter.

When I closed the door behind them, she doubled over laughing behind me. I turned around and watched her with a big grin on my face. Eventually, she picked herself up and looked back at me with barely contained laughter.

"I might have gotten a little carried away." I admitted, chuckling back at her.

"When I handed you a stack of money, I expected you to come back with a motorcycle or something ridiculous like that." She was smiling at me and shaking her head. "Not an entire new wardrobe."

"I'm sorry to thwart your gender stereotypes." I quipped back at her.

She considered me for a moment, the smile still in her eyes. "You eat pussy like a lesbian, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised you shop like a gay man."

"I shopped with a gay man." I corrected her.

"With..." she looked back at me, confused. "I'm trying to picture the day you must have had, but my imagination is failing me."

"Well... I'm happy to regale you, but that might take all night. And I want to hear about your day. And I need a shower. And I'm starving."

She was looking at me mockingly by the time I finished. "Anything else?"

"No, that about does it." I smiled back at her.

"Well, I'm sorry to say I just got out of the shower. I wasn't sure when you'd be back." I noticed with a bit of a shock he was wearing a bathrobe. Not sure how I missed that. "But I'm pretty hungry myself. Why don't you go take a shower and I will see about getting us some dinner."

I could see no reason to argue with that, so I simply wrapped my arm around her and kissed her. I missed her so much. I felt on her lips that she missed me too, which comforted my anxious heart. I smiled at her and began to remove my new clothes, shedding the evidence of my bizarre day and heading toward the shower. I was excited to be clean, but vastly more excited to return and resume my conversation with Katherine.

Chapter 23 - Safe

I emerged from the bathroom, clean, refreshed, and now clad in a matching bathrobe. I found her poking through my comedically large pile of clothes by the door. I noticed she had already hung up the suit bags in the pile which contained my new tuxedo and the two suits I had purchased.

"Dinner is on the way." She said, looking up at me. "And a couple bottles of wine."

She walked over to me and took my hand. "Why don't we sit on the bed?"

I followed her over to the bed and climbed up on top behind her. My breath caught as I stole a glance up her robe as she crawled to the other side of the bed. I wanted to talk to her, to know how she was doing, but I also longed to enjoy her body.

I laid back against the headboard and she crawled over to cuddle with me, resting her head on my chest. She started talking quietly without prompting, "I didn't have much trouble finding work. I met with four clients and was able to lose myself inside of Amy for a while. It gave me some distance to process some of how I am feeling. And I missed you. A lot."

"I missed you too, Katherine. Everywhere I went, people were asking me about you. I had a really great time, but I found myself wishing you were there with me."

We let a silence settle in for a moment before she mused, "I love hearing you say my name. It makes me feel like I don't have to hide anymore."

That was really sweet. I was glad to do anything to make her feel good. I asked, "Do you want to share more about how you're feeling?"

"I was so angry this morning." She started. "I have worked so hard for years to forget all the pain and exploited vulnerability my mother inflicted on me, and it was so frustrating to have all of that rush back at once and overwhelm me. I swore a long time ago that I would never let her hurt me again, and under all that anger was years of pain hitting all at once. I know she didn't die just to spite me, but that's how I felt when I read that message."

She paused and took a deep breath. "I think it's made me realize it was foolish to try and hide from this pain all along. Whether I hate them or not, those feelings are a part of me, and when I hate them or run away from them, I'm really just hating and hiding from a part of myself. I suppose that's the real tragedy for me. That I let this woman take a part of me and hide it behind my fear and anger for all these years."

She sat up and looked at me, soul-deep sorrow in her eyes, "It hurts, Greg." A pair of tears fell from her eyes onto my robe. "It hurts that my own mother treated me like shit when I was helpless to stop her. That she ripped away everything I loved. My father. My friends. My aspirations. That she used me and manipulated me for something as stupid and selfish as her fucking addiction. That I had to run away into this cruel world when I was young and dumb and in agony just to get enough distance from her to have some hope of putting myself back together."

She was sobbing now, barely getting the words out and resting her head on my chest. I gently stroked her hair and let her cry.

"But," she stopped crying, took a deep breath and looked back up at me, "I did find a way to put myself back together, eventually. And I'm proud of the person I've become, even if the world has contempt for me."

"You're the most remarkable person I've ever met, Katherine. Fuck what the world thinks. You are so strong, so determined, and yet so hungry for any chance to be kind. Most people don't get the chance to see past what's on the outside of you, which is remarkable, but the ultimate irony is that the person inside those beautiful eyes is the most beautiful and admirable thing about you."

She looked back at me, a potent mix of emotions dancing in her eyes. "I've been so afraid to let anybody get close enough to me to hurt me. Like my mother did. Like others have along the way. But it feels so good to be seen and understood, to be loved and respected, to be free to express even the most horrible things I think and feel, and to trust that you will look back at me with love and understanding and encouragement."

Her expression suddenly flashed to anger. "I'm not blind to the way people look at you when we're together. They make so many assumptions about both of us, but nobody seems to be able to comprehend why I would spend my time with you. I'm really interested to hear the story behind your shopping excursion today, but I want you to have no doubt about this: I spend my time with you because you are a beautiful person, and because you make me feel safe to be myself. I've had every kind of man there is, some more beautiful than I am, and some that I found to be physically repulsive. You're the only man I have met that makes me feel this way. I'm with you because there's a lot more to you than meets the eye, and because you've always been able to see past the surface of me."

I bent down to kiss her, and at that moment, there was a knock at the door. These service workers sure had a way with timing.

I jumped up and opened the door to find Ralph holding a stack of plates, and a bag slung around his shoulder containing the wine bottles.

"Good evening, Sir Greggory." Ralph said. "Where shall I put your dinner?"

"That's alright, Ralph, I'll take it." I held out my arms and he relinquished the stack of plates. I set the plates on the bed behind me and went back for the wine.

"Enjoy your meal." He said cordially, looking at me, then Amy, and finishing with a slight bow.

"Thank you, Ralph." I said, nodding at him and closing the door. I locked it behind him and set the wine on the writing desk near the door. I found a pair of wine glasses packaged in the bag with the bottles, freed them from their packaging, and inspected the bottles.

Before I got a chance to take a closer look, Katherine said behind me, "There's a pretty good Chardonnay, and a half-decent Zinfandel."

I looked back at her and we smiled at each other for a long moment. I responded, "I'm going to guess you want the Zinfandel."

She nodded, and I set to work opening the bottle. "Shall I bring the bottle too?" I asked as I was removing the cork.

She giggled knowingly and replied, "It won't be far."

I poured a generous serving into both glasses and rejoined her on the bed, handing her a glass. I mounted the bed carefully to not disturb the plates, and Katherine handed me one of the plates.

We removed the plastic cloches together. It was nothing so spectacular as the meal last night, but to our hungry eyes, it looked and smelled wonderful. On the plate was a grilled chicken breast, spackled in some sort of herb rub, a healthy portion of asparagus, and a small mound of rice pilaf. We both dug in greedily.

"So..." she started between bites. "All I know is you were meeting a mysterious figure named Royce."

I chucked over my food, remembering Royce and all the oddities he paraded into my life today. "Yeah, Royce was something else. Think Michael Cane in a paisley suit."

She choked on her rice as she laughed at my description. "That's a fantastic picture, but how in the world did you end up meeting Michael Cane in a paisley suit?"

"Fantastic question." I observed, pausing to take a bite. "You see, I came downstairs perhaps 20 minutes after you left and asked Michael if he could help me find somewhere to pick up a couple of suits."

She looked at me, utterly confused. "Ok... so many questions. Let's start with this: what possessed you to ask Michael for fashion help."

"I didn't put a lot of thought into it, to be honest. I guess I had this lingering feeling of awkwardness following our dinner last night. You always dress so perfectly, and I just feel like a hopeless slob next to you. And I think that reality magnifies the insecurities I already feel standing next to you. So I guess I thought I might feel better if I had some decent clothes."

She nodded slowly at me as she ate. She observed, "I'm guessing you've never had much reason to think too hard about what you wear."

I nodded back at her in agreement. "Yeah, I can't say I ever gave two shits about it until you blustered into my life."

She looked at me thoughtfully and said, "I'm not sure how to feel about that. I don't really have a choice but to spend a lot of time and money on my appearance. So, I guess I'm a little jealous. But, thinking about it more, I guess I'm a little sad for you too. Like, did you go your whole life not thinking about taking care of yourself?"

I looked down at my mostly-empty plate. I felt a little stupid when she put it like that, but I knew she wasn't trying to make me feel bad. "Yeah, I guess I did."

She put her hand on my arm and I looked back at her. She said, "Then I'm glad you asked for help." She paused for a long moment and continued, "But how did you get from finding a couple suits to meeting with Royce?"

"Ah!" I said, the wackiness of my day rushing back over my self-consciousness. "Another excellent question. After I made the request to Michael, I went into the common room to get some breakfast."

"Right." She said, nodding. "The Australian Interrogation."

"Precisely." I confirmed. "So, after a bizarre breakfast-time conversation in which I was met with incredulity at the notion that a girl like you would be staying with a slob like me, I returned to Michael, who explained that he had called in a favor with some guy named Royce. He didn't explain much beyond that, other than to rush me out the door and ask me to trust him."

The confusion on her face was beginning to diminish, but she nodded at me to go on.

"So I got in the car, which conveyed me to a Café in town where I was to meet the mysterious Royce."

"That Michael..." she started. "He is something else."

"He certainly is." I agreed. "So, I met Royce, who was an old Brit clad in a Paisley suit. Royce is a Stylist, which I was not aware was a thing one could be."

She was smiling now. "Did he give you the lecture about finding your style?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Is that in the standard repertoire of Stylists?"

"You could say that." She said mysteriously.

"Well, then you can probably guess the sequence of events that followed." I responded with an equal measure of mystery.

She looked back at me unfazed, "How exactly did Michael convince this man to see you out of the blue? Stylists are usually equal parts pretentious and cantankerous. I'm betting he leaned a bit further toward pretentious, being a Brit. Either way, they're not generally the type to drop everything to meet a random American."

"I am beginning to suspect Michael exerts some sort of supernatural power over the inhabitants of this town." I answered flatly, "The only thing I do know is that he hooked Royce in with a tale of our romance."

She looked off into space considering for a moment. "Yeah... I can see that working."

"Royce was a pretty cool guy all things considered. He brought me to an extremely flamboyant quasi-midget Francophile named Jean-Pierre, who found me most of... that." I gestured to my pile of packages.

She laughed out loud and almost spilled her wine.

"He might be comedically pretentious, but I felt damn good wearing those clothes. Like a new part of me came alive."

She smiled at me compassionately. "Yeah, it can feel pretty great to be comfortable with your clothes."

We had both finished our dinner, so I gathered her plate and cloche and set the dishes on the writing desk by the door. It felt so good just telling her about my day, and hearing about hers. This feeling of closeness, reveling in the joy of openness with another human being, was beginning to feel normal.

Chapter 24 - Little Johnson, Foy Fred, and the Weird Couple

I took a deep drought of my wine and jumped back on the bed. I turned back to her and said, "I seem to recall being promised the scintillating details of your escapades today."

She smiled at me playfully. "It's probably not as interesting as you might think. But yes, I did promise something along those lines."

I tilted my head questioningly, "Well? Don't be a tease."

She stared off at the wall, recalling the events of the day. "The first one I saw, let's call him Little Johnson, was an older guy, pretty overweight. But definitely loaded. He's in car dealerships. Sounded like he owns half the dealerships on the island. Anyway, he talked for 45 minutes about how obnoxious his wife is and how idiotic his assistant is and I did my best to make him feel heard."

I nodded at her sardonically, "That is definitely not as interesting as I was expecting."

"You're telling me. Anyway, he wanted me to dance for him and give him a blowjob. The dancing part I nailed, but I didn't deem him Little Johnson for nothing. And it didn't help that he was fat. But I got the job done."

"Of course you did." I responded with a slow nod.

"Right." She agreed. "The second one, I'll call him Foxy Fred, he was something to look at for sure. And he was all about the sex. He said maybe 20 words to me, a welcome change of pace, and then we went at it for an hour and change. Not the most conscientious lover, that Fred. He didn't share your affinity for pussy, so while I wouldn't call him lazy, I was mostly along for his ride. I like that kind of thing more than I liked Little Johnson though. It was nice to see Fred enjoying me, even if I was not always enjoying myself."

"That's a little more on the scintillating side." I remarked with an interested smile.

"Yeah, well, the last one is definitely the kinkiest." She said with a mysterious smile.

"Last one? I thought you said you saw four?" I asked, a little confused.

"I can't get anything past you, can I Greg?" She shot back mockingly. "Yeah, the last one was actually two. A married couple actually."

"That is indeed pretty kinky." I agreed.

"I'm not going to come up with alliterative pseudonyms for them. It was a little weird, even for me. The wife wanted to watch the husband fuck me. That's a pretty common thing, so whatever. He was definitely enjoying himself, but then she started saying all kinds of crazy shit to him. I tried not to pay much attention to her because I already had a weird vibe from them. But he seemed to like whatever she was doing because he went at me harder."

I looked at her with a what the fuck face and she shrugged at me before continuing, "So eventually, the wife wanted to do a sort of 69 with me while her husband fucked me. So I ate her pussy while she sort of played with my clit with him fucking me. I was pretty into that; I'm not going to lie. They made me cum a couple of times before he ran out of gas. They were pretty fucking weird, but they are the only ones that got me off all day, so I guess I shouldn't be too hard on them."

"I can't say I've ever experienced a threesome, but it seems like it is very likely to be weird." I mused in response, curious about her thoughts.

"There's a lot more vectors of weirdness with 3 people, that's for sure. But if you've got the right 3 people, it can be fucking fantastic. All 3 definitely have to be into each other for it to really work, so I don't think most straight couples can make it work just because whichever direction you go, the sexual dynamic between two of the people will be weird, which is likely to make the whole thing weird."

I loved listening to her talk like this. It was arousing, but it was also fascinating to hear her perspective.

"We should try it sometime. I'm sure I could find someone we would both be into. My personal favorite flavor is 2 men on me, because there's a lot of unique sexual possibilities there and I love pretty much all of them. But for that to work you have to find 2 bi men, and how often does that happen? I can carry another girl and a guy fine, as long as the other girl is into me at least a little bit, and I've found most of them are, even if they claim to be straight."

I smiled and shook my head. "It's hard not to be into you, Katherine. The Australian guy at breakfast outed himself as gay, and he was fawning over you. Hell, Jean-Pierre was gayer than Liberace and by the end of it he was fawning over the story of you."

She gave me a wide smile and responded, "I tend to have that effect on people. It's a pretty useful trait in my line of work."

At this point we found ourselves cuddling on the bed, bathrobes still on, but my heart was beating faster and I was ready to make a move on her.

"So, what do you think" she said softly, "was my day as scintillating as you hoped?"

"I love listening you talk about sex. So yes, thank you. And yes, I would be more than happy to try a threesome with you sometime."

"Are you thinking a man or woman?" She asked simply.