Fever Dream Pt. 03

"But I can't marry you now, John. Not after last night..." She said, and while pausing, she reached her hand to cup his cheek, holding his gaze.

"...You are the smartest, kindest, wisest, gentlest and most handsome man I have known these past years. I want you to know that and believe it because there is only one thing in this entire world that could ever stop me from becoming your wife, John."

His look changed throughout from pain to now genuine confusion.

"What is it, my love. What have I said, or done? Please tell me. I truly meant it when I said I would never pressure you to...I meant that I didn't mind that. I've never tried to insinuate anything else. If you've caught me looking at you at any time in a way that makes you uncomfortable, I apologize. I am a man, and of course I notice you for the incredibly attractive woman you are, and if that's it, I'm sorry, and I will better behave myself and my eyes from now on. Truly I will Stella-"

"JACKSON CAME HOME!" she practically shouted. She had to stop the torrent of unnecessary apologies coming from the man she admired. She had seen him look of course, felt his gaze on her body at times, and opposed to feeling leered at, she knew it came from a loving place and always appreciated it from him, even if she couldn't return the sentiment. He had never made her feel anything close to cheap, not ever. Once they were married, she would have gladly let him gaze, even stare, at her body to his heart's desire. In fact, very recently in her most private and serious moments, alone with her thoughts, she entertained ideas of ways without having sex with him, that she could bring him pleasure. Ways with her hands or even seductive words of encouragement while other pairs of hands gave him release, free from the constraints of traditional fidelity judgement or reproach. She would wear whatever he desired to see her in, and always give him a reassuring smile and encouraging words to ease his conscience while another of his choosing brought him what they knew she never could.

But that was before last night.

"Oh, my..." John said, looking utterly dumbstruck, which almost betrayed what he alone knew already. Part of what made Stella admire him so much, and cemented her lifelong loyalty to him was when, very early on in his mentorship, she confided the secret she could never tell anyone else. It was a moment of weakness, brought on by hearing a song that reminded her of Jack, back when she hadn't had enough practice in dealing with it. She told John everything, and contrary to what she expected, he hadn't judged her in the slightest. He just seemed to understand, and she had always been grateful to have someone else in the world who knew.

"Last night. I was out with my family all day, and when we came home, he was just...there. Sleeping. In his old bed." She said, her eyes now glazed over, staring out the window.

"Where has he been?"

"...He joined the Army. He was fighting wars I guess...for the last decade. He married someone."

"MARRIED?" he bellowed, in spite of himself, causing him to recompose.

"Yes. He claims they weren't intimate...that he didn't love her, that they're getting divorced..." she started, ice suddenly tinging her usually low, melodic voice.

"You don't believe him?" he asked, one eyebrow cocked.

"No, I do. Jackson might be able to lie to other people now, but at least he still can't seem to lie to me...he just refuses to answer instead of lie." She almost snapped, venom now readily apparent. She brought her attention back to Johns face now, squeezing his hand with both of hers.

"I'm just so sorry John. I know that yo-"

"Stella, don't. Truly." He almost commanded, suddenly not as much pained as resolute with the news. This was the only outcome he hadn't mentally or emotionally prepared for. He would have been overjoyed at the chance to marry and care for Stella, and sorrowful if she said no, but even if she had turned him down simply because she didn't want to, he would have bounced back fairly quickly, knowing it was a longshot. The one contender he had for her affections returning wasn't one he saw coming, and knowing that she was going to say yes, and seemed to return his admiration and at least part of the affection he felt for her was suddenly almost enough in the face of Jackson's sudden return. His initial interest in Stella's hand was to take care of her, and protect her from loneliness, as much as himself. If the man she truly loved was now back in the picture, he would happily bow out. He loved her enough to do so graciously, to protect her from the pain of unwarranted guilt.

"Honestly, Stella. I am well aware that Jackson's return into your life changes the entire game," he said, both gently and yet with a concise feeling.

"It also makes more sense of your sudden need to take an extended leave of absence." He added.

"Now, please know that I don't ask this out of any feeling of romantic competition, or jaded ridiculousness. I've known you both since you were born, and I care very much about Jackson. But Stella..." he began, returning to his seat beside her. "...a large part of the trauma from...back than...was the abandoned feelings attributed from his sudden departure. Now I know the rest was more the crux of it, but...well I suppose what I'm asking you is if you are sure you can handle taking him back into your life? Are you sure you can reconcile the immense struggle it will no doubt be? Can you really just take him back, just like that?" He asked, in the calm, confident and gentle cadence she had grown used to.

"Thank you, John, for being worried. Really. After everything, for you to be concerned about that is just...well it is another example of why I admire you so very much. No, I'm not just 'taking him back, just like that'," she said, trying to fully repress the automatic reaction she hadn't felt in so long; the urge to annihilate anyone who so much as hinted at Jackson in a negative way. Mostly, because she knew that John had a concern. "He has a time limit...to tell me why he left. If he doesn't, or can't tell me, then he will leave again and never show his face here again." She said matter-of-factly. John's eyes widened at this.

"That's very...firm of you, considering what he means to you, but that wasn't quite my meaning. Do you still feel...as strongly, as adamantly in love with Jackson? Has ten years done nothing to release your hold on each other?" he asked, now not only concerned, but intrigued.

The question might as well have been if one plus one still equaled two to her. It still caused her eyes to mist and her mind to focus on the question in her heart. She didn't wonder if she still felt the same. The moment she laid eyes on his dark form, fast asleep, she knew that her ardor for him hadn't diminished by any possible measurement. It was like every other moment she had ever spent gazing at him; He was the only person, the only thing she saw and would ever see. She wondered, fearfully, if he still felt as strongly.

"No, John. I love him, and no other." She said, jaw squared and even though she gave off the aura of absolute seriousness, she felt her spirit lighten, and her heart raise off the ground at the declaration.

"Then, of course you have my complete support, my dear. I only ever wish for your happiness. I will be taking over your accounts, personally." He began, his demeanor entirely business, yet not at all curt. She was grateful.

"I assume that you will address your senior team before you go, and leave instructions?"

"Of course."

"And am I to also assume that you still wish to continue to personally oversee yours and your families...substantial portfolios?" He asked, chuckling.

"Of course," she said, a smile returning to her face. She was trying to stay focused on business, but with the heartbreaking part of her business concluded, she was becoming excited to get home.

"Good then. Now let's discuss what's going to happen when you return." He said, and with that they stood side by side over his desk, poured over various documents involving her ascendance to name partner, her new office, staff, company share buy in and even a computer-generated mock-up of the new label of the firm, with her name in equal size and font with the other three name that made up their title. This part above any other business they went over caused a surge of pride and satisfaction. Seeing her name on the side of their building, their stationary, pens, pads of paper, all of it was almost surreal. She had given every ounce of her mind and heart that was not taken by her son, to her career. She often spent entire nights until the break of dawn pouring over charts, papers, numbers with monetary value changing all over the world in real time, perfecting her craft. She dedicated herself to making her firm, and her family, money and she was now one of the best, and most respected in the western United States.

"Well I think that's all, my love...oops," he said, bringing himself up short. "...I suppose I shouldn't call you such things anymore." He said, a sad smile touching at the corners of his lips.

"Oh, John!" she suddenly pleaded, turning to him and throwing her arms around his neck, holding him tight. After a second's surprise, he wrapped her into his gentle embrace.

"Don't you dare stop! Darling. Dear. Your love. I am still all of those things. Please don't shut me out and close me off because of all of this...I don't want how we treat each other to change. I still love you so much, John." She commanded, her voice cracking through her authoritative charade.

"Of course, my love. I'm so happy you feel that way. I just thought...well I didn't want to assume anything-"

"Stop!" she said, leaning back so she could look into his eyes. "Don't. Our dinners, our time spent, are some of the happiest moments of my life. Truly, and I don't see any reason why you and I shouldn't still have dinner or take in a play or do whatever you like every now and then. I love spending time together, John. I hope you never suspected that I was ever just pretending to enjoy your company." She said, nervously searching his face, waiting for validation.

"Of course not, Stella." He said, feeling happier than he thought he could, given the disappointment he'd been handed today. It seemed like so long ago already. Her genuine affection for an old man like him was truly a ray of sunshine in what he had been afraid was going to be a torrential downpour of sorrow and rejection. She still wanted his company in her life, and it was a shot of light into his heart.

"Good." She said, and in a surprise move to both of them, she followed a sudden impulse to cradle his neck with one hand and kiss him softly but fully on his surprisingly warm lips.

It lasted only 5 seconds, and then she pulled her lips away, but it was more than he'd ever dreamt it could be. He was suddenly overcome with a warm joy throughout his body. The most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on, a woman he'd watched grow in many ways throughout her life, had given him something he had only hoped and dreamt of in his most private and quiet moments. A kiss with genuine love. It might not have been a kiss of desire, of lust, of romance, or of any other kind he had longed for from her, but he would accept the token of pure love with glad arms.

"Oh, Stella. Oh, my dear." He said, still stunned, with tears now coming from the corners of his eyes.

"You deserve so much more than that, John. I wish I could give it to you, but that is the best I can do. I hope, in some way, that it was enough to show you how dear you are to me." She said, her voice tense with emotion.

"Stella, I would have waited until my dying breath for just such a kiss and it would have been a life worth living. Thank you, my dear."

They held each other for a few more moments, both holding on tight to the happiness of the moment while looking out the windows towards the sill rising sun over a bustling coastal city far below. They both knew, in their hearts, that the kiss had been one of goodbye, although neither would say it out loud. Goodbye to a complicated pseudo-romantic relationship. Goodbye to a marriage proposal. Goodbye to one dynamic, and also greetings to a new one. One of reverent admiration and deep friendship that neither would ever betray. They would always be there for one other, in every way they could. It was a promise, sealed with a kiss. A kiss that for different reasons for both, and yet with a unison acceptance, neither would ever forget.

They parted, John walking her hand in hand to the door of his office. As he opened the door and she was about to walk out it, she suddenly stopped, turning and closing the door again.

"John...all those years ago, when I confessed about Jackson and I...our love...why didn't you freak out? Why did you...take that kind of news the way you did. You were so understanding, so open. How? Its incest...people are supposed to think we're sick or twisted...freaks." She blurted out. It was a question that had bothered her since the morning after she told him. She had told him everything, too. She didn't hold back. She had always wondered.

He hadn't been expecting the question, at least not at this moment. His usual inclination would have been to deflect, but that would be an insult to her absolute honesty with him.

"I wasn't always an old man, my love. When I was younger than you are now, I had a cousin that id never met before. She came with her aunt to visit out family in Zurich, where we spent our summers during my childhood. We fell madly in love. We spent a very...passionate summer together, and ultimately a very short summer. We parted afterwards, and due to my own cowardice, I never contacted her again." He told her, regret coloring his voice.

"Why don't you contact her now? If it was true love, it's never too late to at least reach out, be friends at the very least." She almost pleaded, a strange hint of fear in her voice.

"Oh Stella! Sometimes I forget just how young you truly are...I'm afraid it is much too late for anything like that." He chuckled, his smile warm yet sad.

"Why?" she whispered, her eyes suddenly in tears.

"She died, my love...cancer. Almost a decade ago."

She was about to launch into some semblance of an apology and condolence, but his hand swiftly reached her lips, stopping her with a sudden intense and serious gaze.

"Hush, my dear. Don't shed tears for my own failures and regrets. You are leaving here to embark on a difficult journey of your own. I know you well enough by now to realize you expect justice done for Jacksons sins against you. But at the same time, you long for his love and affection again, and to give of your own to him, as he has no doubt experienced some kind of war induced trauma of his own, not unlike yours, over the past years away from you. You will have to decide which is more important to you now. Justice for his wrongs, or the love and longing you both have and crave from each other. It will be a razor's edge you are about to walk. Too far on either side could bring you both to ruin. Take great care, Stella..." he said, his eyes somehow becoming more serious, leaving her rapt with attention.

"...Do not shut him out, not matter how hurt you are. If you truly want to be together again, you both already have a lifetime of secrets and lies ahead of you. Don't let the secrets and lies be between you, and don't let resentment fester in your hearts. On the same token however, don't lower your expectations with his explanation either. He must answer for what he has done to you. I know, it sounds like an impossible line, and I don't envy your position. Embrace him in your heart...but keep wary mind...at least until he gives you the answers you need to move forward, together."

In just a matter of moments, the man she'd turned to, leaned on, and grown to genuinely care for had given her quite possibly the most important and meaningful counsel she had ever received. He had dried her tears, mentored her through school, hired her and couched her for her entire career thus far, and yet he had never given her more to think about than just then.

She suddenly found herself finally at a complete loss for words.

"Go now, dear. Take the time you need." He said, releasing her to what he knew to be an uphill battle with an uncertain conclusion.

CH. 14

She left the room feeling somber. Her teams were briefed, and she was out of the revolving glass door of their glass building within twenty minutes. As she got into her sleek yet understated BMW SUV and drove out of the parking structure, the fog of emotions and the weight what came next moved to the forefront of her mind. She had been full to the brim with anxiety and heartache at what she had to put John through, but as it turned out, he took everything better than she could have ever dreamed. Not only was he still her trusted confidant and friend, he told her everything she didn't know she needed to hear.

It was perfectly understandable to react the way she had at finding him last night, she knew. One second, her entire life made sense. She had a routine. A physical and emotional one. If she had to describe her life in word, it would be measured. She had learned the skill in the psychiatric hospital those first 2 months after he had left and had since incorporated it into her entire life. Everything was deliberate. She learned to speak in rehearsed, measured tones. She moved in deliberate, measured ways. She even dressed and did her makeup and hair in moderation. She always went for pretty, but not gorgeous. Alluring, but not outright sexy. Form-fitting, but never skin tight; measured. That measured control had encompassed every aspect of her life now. Last night, she had acted anything but.

It made her feel alive.

Suddenly she became aware of something; something sitting deep in the core of her. Something that she'd kept buried. It was like an ember. Now that she noticed it, she felt that it had been smoldering, smoldering all these years. The more she thought on it, she could faintly recall the feeling of letting it ignite, of letting it burn freely, like when she was young. It was a perfectly content fire, crackling with the steadfastness of her devotion. The constancy of their loving dynamic. His gentleness and her hardness. His empathy with her single-minded focus on his welfare. His acquiescence to her wishes and her control of their doings.

But then another memory came to her as she drove on. A memory of a night she vowed not to remember. A night when, from somewhere deep inside, even at her tender age the fire inside started blazing. The night it became an inferno, threatening to engulf her entirely. A night when her calm, cool control suddenly melted off of her in the heat of absolute desperation, a desperation that could only be quenched by the physical passion she had been denied her entire life. But something in that fire had only just begun to change her in that distant moment, and it was a change that took hold not merely in her only. The gentle, mild boy she loved had turned hard, rough and fierce. The control she had quite suddenly become weary of had shifted in that moment to him, and he had taken it in mere seconds, wordlessly commanding her submission; a submission that fed the inferno within her to a titanic level foreign to her. She had suddenly wanted nothing more than to obey to anything, everything he would ask, or charge her to do for him. But the moment was just as fleeting in its time as the thought of it was now. The tender night they spent was everything to her still, but the nagging thought of 'what if' was now growing, festering like a weed in her mind.