Vanessa's Choice

"I was so lonely when Karen approached me. And she was so sweet about the way she did it. I only went to Judith's because I trusted Karen. And, I guess, having discovered sex, really for the first time, I mean enjoying sex, with Karen, I was more open to experimenting.

"Now Judith, she's a professional and beautiful and has a strong personality. I never loved her, not even a little like I did Karen, but she has a power that you've got to experience to believe. Karen told me that some people just have that much charisma. And, I had all these student loans to pay off, and, well, I know that it sounds like I'm making excuses, but the money was good and Judith approved and her approval meant a lot, until Karen left. That really opened my eyes. I never did anything harder than bide my time until I could run away from Judith.

"And then I met you within a few weeks. You've got the looks and the charisma, but there's a light inside you. Judith is all darkness."

Aaron said, "Darkness can carry its own temptations, in addition to Judith's other qualities."

Vanessa nodded. "Yes. I enjoyed being bad, you know, rebellious, for a while. But losing Karen made me realize how negative it all was. Then I found you."

He said, "We found each other."

She nodded. "Yes, that's the way it was. Like a miracle. You understand why I would do anything to protect it?"

"Yes. I don't especially like it, but I do understand. So, where does that leave us? Is this thing with Judith going to stand between us, or do we put it aside and move on?"

She wept again. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed. She croaked, "Can you forgive me?"

His answer showed a keen understanding. "I can forgive you, but can you forgive yourself?"

She continued to weep. He patted her back and kissed her head. "Talk it over with Dr. Cole. You have an appointment on Wednesday?"

Vanessa nodded.

He stood. "You need to rest."

He walked her to the bedroom, pulled back the covers, and got her into bed. He didn't try to join her. He kissed her lips and said, "I'll call you when I have something to report. Until then, do NOT leave this apartment. Do NOT open the door to anybody but me. I'll write Jan's number on the pad next to the phone. If you need groceries or anything else, call her. And under no circumstances are you to keep your usual rendezvous with Judith this coming Tuesday. Any questions?"

She shook her head, like a little girl receiving orders and put up her arms for a hug.

***

She paused. I said, "If he knew about Judith, why didn't he say something before?"

"I asked him that. That's what has me so bothered. No, not bothered, really, but ambiguous."

I pushed. "You need to explain that."

"He told me that his life has taught him to try to let people solve their own problems. At first, before she showed up at my apartment, he didn't care about anything I might have done with Judith. But he couldn't afford to be made a fool. He didn't say 'again' but the word hung in the air without being spoken. I interpreted his answer to mean he was testing me to see what I'd do. It's all so cold-blooded. I don't know what to think."

I suggested, "Well, if you don't know what to think, perhaps we should discuss how you feel. Does any part of you feel comforted that he seems to still accept you, want to protect you, avenge you, and love you?"

"Yes, that's all true. But how do I know I can trust him?"

I couldn't stop myself from clicking my tongue. "You've got to think about that question. What has he done to earn your distrust?"

"He investigated me without my knowledge and consent. He uncovered my past without telling me. He made plans without telling me. I still don't know what he's doing about Judith."

"What do you want him to do about Judith?"

She shrugged. "Maybe I don't want him to do ANYTHING about Judith. Now that he knows about my past, she doesn't have any power over me."

I shook my head and switched off the recorder. "Vanessa, I will remind you that I love you. It's necessary for me to say that before I say anything else."

She looked into my eyes. "I know that. I have feelings for you, too."

I pressed. "But you LOVE Aaron, yes?"

She closed her eyes. "Yes."

I continued. "So, you're feeling uncertain and confused. Chaos is reasserting itself into your life. You're drawn to Judith because her chaos is familiar. It reinforces feelings you've had your entire life. The trouble is that they're all negative.

"Aaron presents a form of order. Do you feel as if he is trying to control you?"

She shook her head. "No. He's not controlling me. But he is trying to control events around me. Judith is, or, I guess, was, trying to control me directly."

I nodded. "Judith treats you like property. Aaron treats you like, what?"

She hesitated. "It's hard to describe. It's like he's trying to protect me from myself, from my own bad decisions. But isn't that a form of judgment?"

I said, "He's a man, a powerful and highly capable man, and you're the woman that he loves. He is genetically wired to protect you, mainly because he loves you. What would be easier for him? To save you or abandon you? Given his history with his ex-wife, wouldn't the easy course be the latter? And because he isn't taking it, doesn't that demonstrate his love for you? And he has to consider his reputation. If word got around about your past, how would that affect his ability to do business? I'm sure his plan covers all these aspects."

She thought for a moment. "If that's true, then I've been a fool twice over."

"Nonsense. He's the only man you've ever had in your life as a lover. Given your history, you expect him to abandon you in some fashion, if not actually by severing ties, than emotionally by judging you. You EXPECT to lose him, like you lost your father.

"But he let you try to solve your own problem, giving you only the help you requested, a credit card to seek medical treatment. Only when that failed did he step in, like a strong and intelligent man, meeting the danger to his loved one head on. You need to understand this about him. And you need to understand this about yourself. You didn't recognize it because you have no frame of reference for it. Now you do. So, I ask you again, do you love him? Do you trust him?"

She closed her eyes and visibly relaxed. "Yes. I do. What do you suggest that I do?"

It has never been harder for me to give a patient the advice that she needs. To answer her truthfully meant to cut against my intense feelings for her, to forbid myself further access to her body and to those delicate moments of love all humans need. But, I loved her too much to lie. "You need to show him that you love him. Have y'all had sex since your talk?"

"No."

"Is he in town this week?"

"Yes."

"Go home, invite him over, make yourself as sexy as you can, and fuck him 'til he can't walk straight. Show him that he's the only thing of significance in your world. Can you do that?"

She sighed. "Yes, I will. Thank you Sue."

My face a mask of stoicism, I stood. "Until I see you next week, then."

Session 10

When I let my three o'clock out, the following Wednesday, I found Vanessa standing outside my office door with a broad smile, shining eyes, and bouncing on her toes. Despite her apparent jubilance, she held her hands behind her back. I returned her smile and extended my hand to invite her inside.

She didn't go to the couch or even a chair. Instead, she flung her arms around my neck. "Oh Sue, everything has turned out alright. I have the most wonderful news and I owe it all to you."

She stepped back and showed me her left hand. The diamond must have been ten karats. I'd never seen one so big. "Oh my God. You and Aaron are engaged?"

Her response came out as a squeal of delight. "Yes! Can you believe it?"

I hugged her tight and whispered into her ear, "I'm so happy for you." I released her. "You must tell me everything. Do you want to lie down?"

She shook her head as she sat. "The way he proposed was so romantic. He took me to Chandelier Island, our favorite spot. He made a fire on the beach, played the guitar and sang some songs. The last one was an old one made popular by Eddy Arnold. The refrain goes:

'Say that you love me for a million years.

Then if it don't work out.

Then if it don't work out.

Then you can tell me, goodbye.'

"Then he turned his guitar over and this ring was taped to the back of it. I screamed and hugged him, and cried. After a while, he asked, 'Well what's your answer?' I kissed him and said, 'Yes, but only if you make love to me right now."

"Well I guess y'all did, eh?"

She closed her eyes and sighed and smiled.

"When's the wedding?"

"In a month, right after the new Atlanta store opens. But it won't be anything big. We'll just go to a judge that he knows. Then we'll sail Selene to the Cayman Islands for a month. After that, he promised to build me a big house. But I told him that my apartment would do until we have children."

She closed her eyes, as if dreaming of her future. My feelings were mixed, to say the least. I remained in love with her, but I loved her so much that I rejoiced in her happiness; the paradox of mingled joy and grief. On the spot I decided to name the phenomenon 'Ambiguous Tears' and I began to shed them.

"Oh Vanessa, that's beautiful. And it's perfect for the two of you."

Still in her own bubble, she didn't notice the moisture on my cheeks. I wiped the tears away. "Do you mind me asking about what happened to Judith?"

She refocused her attention on me. "It all worked out better than I expected. Aaron really is a genius. He planned all along to have Judith deported back to the Soviet Union. After all, she was here illegally and operating a criminal business. His investigators found out that she had a Swiss bank account with more than a million dollars in it and that it had been growing with extra deposits over the past five years. The money certainly came from her prostitution business. And they found out that she had never filed a tax return. That was the key to his plan.

"He's friends with the sheriff in the county, you know, where Judith has her house. Aaron's support helped get him elected. He knew that the sheriff couldn't act on the information Aaron had gathered because it came from a burglary. And arresting and trying her for prostitution would result in a huge scandal throughout South Mississippi, probably even get into the national news. And Aaron didn't want the IRS to get involved. The tax problem was his trump card.

"Aaron's investigators broke in again and examined Judith's ledgers closely. They found two regulars that had quit going there and questioned them both with the implied threat of exposure. I don't know if Aaron suggested that to those men, but he can be ruthless when dealing with a problem.

"Anyway, the first one had been divorced by her husband and she didn't have the spare money for Judith. The second one was named Sara. She's the woman who fondled me the day after Karen left while I put on her makeup. It seems that she had asked Judith about me repeatedly after I left and Judith got shitty with her and told her not to come back.

"It turns out that Sara hated her husband and only stayed with him because she had no place else to go. Now she couldn't go to Judith either and she'd started drinking too much. So Aaron's men offered her a deal.

"They promised her a life estate in a condo in the Caymans, all expenses and upkeep paid, and two thousand dollars a month in a bank account there in her name. All she had to do was sign an affidavit that she had paid Judith for sex on a regular basis and tell details about the times and amounts of money so the affidavit would correspond with Judith's ledger. She would give the sheriff the affidavit and he would treat her as an anonymous source when he applied for a search warrant. With the warrant, he could legally get Judith's documents.

"Of course, Aaron told him exactly where to find the documents and no questions about how he knew, wink, wink. The sheriff would have Judith cold on prostitution. Nobody wanted to have a scandal, so Judith would be encouraged to accept deportation back to the U.S.S.R. Judith would be gone and the sheriff would be assured of Aaron's support for re-election.

"The genius part was holding the IRS over Judith's head. If she didn't fight deportation, Aaron's contacts in the Immigration Service would be kept in the dark about the Swiss bank account and that would keep the IRS out of the whole business. So, even if she went back to Russia, she'd be able to buy her way out of the murder charges. Everybody involved with that thirty year old case is probably dead already. And if they're not, their memories will be easy to discredit.

"It all worked out. Judith is gone, Sara is in the Caymans, and there'll be no scandal. It all happened last Wednesday while I was talking to you."

I asked, "But what about the file Judith had on you?"

She looked smug. "When Judith came to Beauchamp last Tuesday for the rendezvous I skipped, Aaron's black bag team broke into her house again and took my file and made sure there was no other evidence about my past activities there. When the sheriff executed his warrant Wednesday, he found plenty of stuff, but nothing about me.

"The authorities couldn't get Judith processed and sent back to Russia until a few days ago. I called him on Wednesday like you said. But he said he was busy and couldn't come over until Friday. Turns out, he was in the middle of finalizing the 'Judith arrangements.'

"When he got to my apartment, he found me all sexy and ready for love, so he waited til afterward and then told me everything. The next day we sailed to Chandelier and he proposed there on the beach."

I gazed into her eyes and hid my sadness behind a smile. "So, you get a storybook ending after all."

"Oh no, not an ending. A beautiful beginning."

She grew pensive. I asked, "What's the matter?"

She met my gaze, leaned forward, and caressed my cheek. "I'm gonna miss you, Sue. You've saved my life. I'll never be able to repay you."

My heart hammered at her touch and tears welled in my eyes again. My voice quavered when I spoke. "Helping you get a chance at happiness means more to me than you know."

Tears leaked down her cheeks. She had chosen Aaron and we both understood that was her heart's true desire. I loved her too much to get in the way. We stood. She put her arms around my neck, opened her mouth, and kissed me deeply, as a lover should.

She broke the kiss and whispered, "Please don't forget me."

I murmured, "Never. I couldn't if I wanted to."

We hugged one last time and then she left.

Coda

On May 1, 2009, I received a letter. The return address said, "Vanessa Wilson '' and gave an address in Port City. I recognized it as her old apartment building, or, I should say the new building constructed after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the old one.

Over the years, I had read the occasional newspaper article about Aaron. The opening of a new store here or there, the birth of twin girls named Adele and Annette, the sale of his business to a large national chain, his establishment of a charitable foundation. Aside from the birth announcement, there had been no direct mention of Vanessa, only the comment that he had sold his business in order to spend more time with his family. Finally there was the notice of his sudden death last year from a heart attack. It stated that he was survived by his wife and daughters and that the daughters would take over the running of his foundation.

I sent Vanessa a condolence card and a large bouquet of flowers to the funeral. She sent me a thank you note signed, "Love always and forever, Vanessa." I didn't attempt further contact, mainly because of the thrill I felt at the signature. I tried not to hope that she still had feelings for me, knowing that, if true, it would drive me to act upon them. If it weren't true, for it had been more than twenty-five years since we'd seen each other, then I would appear to be a vulture pecking at the corpse of a forgotten romance at a very inappropriate time.

But now, this letter. My heart hammered and my hands shook as I opened the envelope. It contained only a short note:

"My Dearest Sue,

I've been in deep grief for the past year. I'm lonely and I miss you. Would you please visit? I've moved into the new building where my old apartment was. I have the whole top floor. I always keep Wednesday afternoons open, I guess in memory of our old appointments. I'm a creature of habit." She signed it, "With love, your Vanessa."

I held the note to my breast, closed my eyes, and sighed. Could it possibly be true? Did she want to renew our relationship after twenty-five years? I shambled to the mirror and examined my face, scrutinizing the crow's feet at the corners of my eyes and the frown lines on the sides of my mouth. I thanked God that I still had my figure. Should I go to the salon and have the gray washed out of my hair? Should I apply enough foundation to hide the wrinkles?

I decided against those surface expedients. Vanessa always prized naturalness. Shallow attempts to hide my age would disappoint her. One of the things she had liked about me was my lack of vanity.

My hands shook as I wrote a one line response. "I'll be there this coming Wednesday, May 6^th, at our standard time, 4:00 p.m." I signed it, "Yours, now and forever, Sue."

On Wednesday I had to constantly pull my foot off the accelerator to get down to the speed limit. Forrestburg is only eighty miles north of the coast, and the four lane state highway runs right into Port City, terminating at the highway that runs along the beach. I turned right and drove the two miles to the apartment building where Vanessa lived.

I wore my hair down, parted on the right, and with the sides held back by a pair of barrettes, keeping it out of my eyes but leaving plenty to cover my ears and drape my shoulders. It had always been straight, unlike Vanessa's wavy locks. I had considered curling it but decided against that. Likewise, I wore no more makeup than usual, though I did paint my lips with a dark red gloss.

I chose a red dress, one that I used for date nights with others, some men, some women. Red always looks good on a woman with black hair. It fit my figure tight but not uncomfortable. Under the dress, I wore a red bra with sheer cups so my nipples showed through, flesh-toned thigh high stockings, sexy red high-heeled sandals and no panties.

While dressing at home earlier, I felt bold. But now, as I reached for the doorbell, doubt assailed me. Did she only want a familiar face with whom she could talk frankly? If that was so, then my blatant attempt to be sexy was exactly the wrong thing to do. How could I have been so thoughtless? How could Vanessa's allure hold me in bondage for a quarter of a century? How could I be so damn stupid?

I started to turn and leave when the door opened. There she stood, hair and makeup perfect, barefoot, and wearing a thin coral colored robe that came down to mid-thigh. I could see she wore no bra. She raked her eyes down my body and back up, smiled, and threw the door wide. She said nothing before grabbing my hand and pulling me inside. She shut the door with her foot, hugged me around the neck, and put her open mouth on mine. Her tongue probed while she ran the fingers of one hand through my hair and squeezed my butt with the other.

I pulled open her robe. I hadn't gotten a good look at her body because I had been staring at her face before the kiss began. Now I explored her flesh with my hands. Neither her breasts nor her rear were as firm as before, but I didn't care. Her skin was as warm and smooth as ever.