Signs Ch. 02

"I...I just can't do this any more, Jay," she said, tears welling in her eyes. "I miss you so much when you're away. It hurts too much to keep saying goodbye."

Even though he had believed it was coming for more than a month, the statement hit him like a punch to the gut. "Why didn't you say anything before now? How many times did I ask you something was wrong?"

"I couldn't tell you over the phone," she said, the tears spilling out over her cheeks. "I had to see you one more time."

"So I don't have any say in this?" Jay murmured, turning away to avoid breaking down himself.

Hannah sniffed, running the back of her hand across her eyes, "What are we going to do? You can't move here, I can't move to you. How long do we keep living for one weekend a month?"

"What if I found a way to come down here more? It's not like this situation is forever. Maybe there's a way for me to move when things are a little different for me. You know how much I love you. We can't end it like this."

She looked at him hopefully for a moment, then her expression hardened.

"I'm sorry, Jay. I love you but I can't keep doing this. You don't know how hard this is for me. I want there to be an answer, but there just isn't one. I've never loved anyone the way I love you, but I can't keep doing this. It's not fair to either of us."

Jay wanted to argue, wanted to tell her she was making a mistake, but he knew she was right. He couldn't talk her into uprooting her and the kid's lives, exposing her to a court fight with her bitter ex. He couldn't leave the best job he'd ever held and his only daughter. If she couldn't be happy with this life, he couldn't ask her to continue doing it.

They hugged, whispering their love one final time, then Jay grabbed his bag, turned and walked away. He couldn't even force himself to look over his shoulder as he entered the terminal. Slowly making his way toward the gate for the last time, he tried with all his heart to convince himself he'd done the right thing.

>>>>>>>

The noise in the bar was so loud that Jay was forced to lean closer to hear his friend.

"I still can't believe you haven't moved on," Nick scolded him, shaking his head. "She was great, but there's lots of fish in the sea."

Jay smiled wearily. "That's easy for you to say, considering all the fishing you've done."

They shared a laugh, before Nick's expression turned somber. "Seriously, it's been a year. What are you waiting for?"

"Who said I'm waiting?" Jay said with a shrug. "It's not like I haven't talked to a woman or been out on a date."

"Please...who are you talking to?" Nick said cynically. "The next time you actually try to get somewhere with a woman will be the first time in as long as I can remember. Are you waiting for someone to fall into your lap and say hello?"

"Hmmm," Jay mused, ducking a playful punch from his friend. "Do you really want to talk about this, or are you just being nice?"

"Sure, tell me what's going on."

Jay took a deep breath. "I'll tell you something I have never told anyone before," he said, a sudden air of seriousness. "I never dated a single woman who made me feel like it was OK to be myself in my entire life. Hannah opened my eyes to everything. That I could be myself and still be the man she wanted me to be. I did things with her I used to think only happened in porn stories, but they all felt normal, an extension of the way we felt about each other."

"Nick, how many women have given you shit about checking out some other girl while you were with them?"

Rolling his eyes, Nick answered, "About all of them."

"Well, Hannah used to walk with me and point out women for me to check out. I took her to my favorite strip club, where my favorite dancer took care of her. Afterward, I had the wildest sex of my life, and neither of them has stopped talking about the other since then. The thing she wanted to try most was to be with another woman. The thing is, she could have done it any time, but she wanted it to happen with me there."

Nick laughed. "OK, so the sex was off the charts. That's not a reason to get hung up on a woman for life."

"No, you're missing the point. Yes the sex was great, but that's not what made her special. It's just the easiest thing to explain to my friends. The truth is, I never really understood what trust was before I met her. I always assumed it meant you didn't have to be jealous, or that your partner wouldn't lie to you. She showed me it's something completely different."

Nick gave him a curious look, but waited for him to continue.

"I trusted her fidelity. We saw each other for one weekend a month, but I never doubted for a second that I was the only man in her life. I believed in her so much that I encouraged her to go to strip clubs to get dances by the hottest women she could find. She trusted me so thoroughly that she gave me permission to fool around two different times, as long as I promised I wouldn't fuck the girl. Can you imagine that? Her trusting me to do anything else I wanted, but believing I would stop short of fucking in a room with no witnesses...and you know what? I did."

He took a quick drink, before continuing.

"The thing that I never understood was how important it was to trust someone to believe in you. I could tell her anything. Not only did she never judge me, but it made her believe in me more. Every time I asked her to try something, she did it without question. Then she'd make sure I knew how much it meant to her that I trusted her with my inner most desires. She loved me taking charge, and encouraged me to say and do anything I wanted. You know the funny thing?"

"What's that," Nick said, leaning forward.

"She always knew that I'd do anything to make her happy. All the fantasies we talked about, all the crazy-assed things we did together, I did them because I knew they were what she wanted. I listened to her and used what she told me to find ways to make her happy. Being able to do that made me happy...made me feel like a man for the first time. She trusted me to do what was right, so she gave me control. I used that to make her happy. It was perfect."

He paused to take another drink. "She was something I never expected to find, and I'm not going to find it again."

"Come on," Nick chided him. "Do you really believe that?"

Jay stared at him intently. "Nick, it took me twenty five years of dating to find her in the first place. Now I have a kid, an angry ex who loves to fuck with my life, and I'm not as young as I used to be. All that, plus about a hundred annoying habits I've picked up over the years. I'm not saying I give up, but what are the chances in the next few years I'm going to find someone else who makes me feel remotely close to the way she did?"

Jay bowed his head, staring at his drink intently. "I'm forty-three years old. How much longer before it's too late to even start that kind of relationship?"

"Maybe you've built this up to more than it was because of the situation," Nick said carefully, watching his friend for a reaction. "Did you ever think that it was never that way on her end? Maybe you're creating some fantasy that reality can't compete with. I've dated a lot of women and I've never seen what you're talking about. I hate to say this, but maybe you're waiting for something that doesn't exist."

Jay stared at his drink, letting the statements roll around in his head for a long time. Finally he lifted the beer to his lips and downed the rest.

"I ask myself that every day," he whispered, barely loud enough to be heard over the din of the room.

*******

Two hours later Jay turned the key in the lock, then leaned heavily into the front door. It swung open to the darkened apartment, where no one was waiting... even a pet. He let it swing closed behind him, reaching blindly for the light. Turning it on, he dropped his coat over a chair and fell into his recliner, where he sat quietly, pondering the troubling conversation with his friend.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and laid it on the table next to him. Staring at the device, he wrestled with himself as he often did, longing to pick it up and call her, just to hear her voice, to see if she was okay. He resisted the urge, as he had been doing for weeks, knowing that each time he spoke with her, the conversation would be painfully mechanical, a hollow reminder of the passion those calls used to engender.

Reaching for the remote instead, he switched on the television. It was a reminder of how much more successful he had become, having a fancy entertainment center with a big-screen plasma TV. None of that really made a difference in how lost he felt though. Not just alone, but unsure about what direction his life should proceed in.

He had been so sure that his future lay with her...it was like he couldn't trust his own judgment anymore. The thought had shaken him to his core in the last few months, even more than how desperately he missed her. He thought that he had finally reached a point in his life where he understood where he was going, only to have that belief rocked by self-doubt.

With a sigh, he flipped through the channels finding nothing to watch. Finally, took a deep breath and hit the play button. The DVD player turned on, showing a hotel room with a view over the bed. Within seconds, music started in the background.

Then Hannah stepped into the picture.

With an audible sigh, he watched as she did a strip-tease for the camera, then lay back on the bed waiting for him. As the characters on the screen made love, Jay was forced to relive how much he missed the sounds she made when she was aroused. The way he had been able to raise her to heights she had never reached before. How adorable he found it that the back of her neck would become bright red when she was excited; a tip-off that she was close to an orgasm. Her musical laugh and the way it always made him smile. The way he could feel the tension drain from her body after a particularly long intimate encounter, or when would give her a thorough massage.

He watched on the screen as she came over and over again, the sound of her voice breaking as she tried to catch her breath between orgasms, until finally he allowed himself to seek his own release. They collapsed together on the bed, holding each other and whispering things below the level of the recording. Shaking his head in frustration, Jay reached for the remote.

"This isn't healthy," he scolded himself. "You've got to stop dwelling on the past. Maybe Nick's right that I'm just wishing it was the way I remember it. What if I'm still that stupid kid with all the romantic ideas of how life is supposed to be, too caught up in something that doesn't exist to just be satisfied with what's real? I passed on so many chances with women who were wonderful and who loved me, just because it didn't measure up to some bullshit fantasy I'd created. I waited all that time, and what do I have to show for it? Maybe I am just an idiot."

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by something on the screen catching his eye, and he immediately hit the pause button. Studying the scene, he could see himself on screen looking away as he pushed her to another climax. Jay studied Hannah closely, noticing the expression of joy and unrestrained love on her face as she looked up at him, although she knew he couldn't see. He hit play and watched as she pulled him close, squeezing him tightly, her face reflecting the same glow his did when she wasn't looking. It struck him like a fist.

"I knew it," he whispered to himself, a sense of calm washing over him as he studied her face. "She did feel the same. Nothing else matters...I know she felt it too."

He turned off the TV, rose and wearily made his way toward the bedroom, feeling a return of some of the confidence that had eroded due to months of uncertainty.

"I might not ever find it again, but at least I had it for a little while. If I had settled when I was younger, I never would have known what it was like." The realization brought on a contented smile.

"It was worth every second of the wait."