Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
E lijah. Saturday evening
There’s a first time for everything. It certainly was a first for me — my first time fucking someone who worked for me. I fucked the pussy of my employee. And, Corinne was as hot a fucking lay as I’d ever had.
There was a quality about her that I couldn’t put my finger on. It was a pretty ironic way to put it, considering what I actually did put my fingers on — those gorgeous tits and the lips of that fantastically tight twat. There was just something about her that was unlike any other woman I’d ever banged. Whatever it was, I had to have more of it. And, more of it was what I got.
I’ve never been the kind of guy who fucks just once. I love pussy too much for that. Unable to leave it at just one lay on Corinne’s couch, I asked her for another round with my dick inside her pussy before we left for my place. She was as quick and eager to have my boner again as I was to stick it back inside that hot tightness of hers.
My dong was hardening again at the thought of being back up her cunt. I climbed back on top of her and dry-humped her bush to bring my dick back to a raging hard-on, then slipped it back into Corinne’s pussy and banged her for dear life. We turned into a humping, moaning mass of horny joy for a second time in her living room, and for a second time, I squirted a hot jet of jizz into her.
Addie’s pussy just felt so unbelievably good, the pleasure of it almost brought me to tears, and she was almost crying under me. How was it even possible for her pussy to feel so much better than any other I’d ever had? I didn’t know and didn’t care. I ended up in long, deep kisses on top of her while my erection subsided again.
It was almost painful when we had to get up and get dressed again to leave, and we took a long time dressing because we wanted each other’s junk so much. First, we sat up on the sofa, still kissing, and I groped her breasts and fingered her pussy, which was wet with both her juice and my cum, while she fondled my cock and squeezed more little dollops of cum from the tip.
Corinne seemed absolutely fascinated with my dick, as if she had never seen a guy’s dick before. She loved to touch it and play with it, and I had to admit I loved having it played with. I promised her she’d get plenty more such play as soon as I got her naked again at my place.
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At my apartment, Corinne reminded me a bit of Kane that day when he surprised me with a visit. She stood in my living room and looked around at everything, all the trappings of my fortune. She wasn’t being rude or acting vulgar about it, but I could tell that in her head there was a voice going “Oooh” and “Aaah” over everything she saw.
The difference between Corinne and Kane was that Kane actually did have a look of vulgar material lust in his eyes when he was there. Corinne was just quietly impressed, like a lady.
However, a lady was the last thing I wanted her to be for me, and I wanted her going “Oooh” and “Aaah” over my naked body and hardened cock — the stuff that I had under my clothes, not the stuff in my home. I was still as horny as fuck for her, and I wasn’t about to wait a second longer for her than necessary. Gallantly in spite of how horny I was, I took her hand and kissed it, and gestured in the direction of the master bedroom. “This way,” I said, and off we went.
In my bedroom, the clothes came flying off fast. We laughed like naughty teens, tearing off our clothes and not caring where we threw them. Once we were naked, we practically lunged for each other. Corinne’s hands went right to my dick and my balls, driving me crazy with lust.
I started right in, fingering her pussy and groping her ass, which was amazingly soft, and planted a scorching kiss on her mouth. Then, I gave her bottom a playful slap, which made her yelp and giggle, and told her, “I want your sexy ass in that bed.”
She giggled more when I picked her up and wrapped her legs around my side and carried her to my great big king-size bed. We spilled and tumbled onto it, kissing crazily, touching each other everywhere, climbing up to the pillows. We began with me half on top of her, running my finger up and down the opening of her pussy while she pulled at my cock and squeezed my balls.
“I want you to make yourself totally at home,” I told her. “Not just with my apartment, but with my body. Touch me, feel me, all over, everywhere. Especially, my dick and balls and ass. Be totally sexual with me. Don’t hold anything back, because I won’t. I want us to love what’s between each other’s legs. I want my body to be your home and your body to be mine. And, I want to fuck your pussy like no other man has ever fucked you before.”
What went on between us in that bed next was unreal. Corinne took me at my word. She moved down to my crotch and sucked my cock and balls without being asked, and devoured my privates like a starving woman. It was all I could do to stop myself shooting a fountain of cream right in her mouth. Maybe I’d do exactly that later, but right then the only place I wanted to cream was deep inside her cunt — after I ate her out.
I had her stretch out on the bed with legs open wide, and I dove down between her thighs for a long, hot snack on her pussy. She moaned and wailed in what sounded almost like a torture of pleasure at the way I licked the lips of her sex, teased her clit with my tongue, and slipped my tongue into her pussy, orally fucking her. I was used to women getting excited in bed with me, but Corinne seemed to take it to a whole other level, as if it were all new to her. Maybe it was just the newness of being with me.
Whatever it was, she made me feel more worked-up and horny than I’d felt since I was a teenager, and soon, it wasn’t enough just to tongue-fuck her. More than anything, I needed to get my cock inside her. I quickly mounted her again and plunged my boner hard into her pussy.
Our time in bed became a frenzy of fucking. I banged her cunt, and we both cried out from the force and the total pleasure of it. I flipped her over and put a pillow under her stomach, screwing her pussy while humping her sweet, soft ass. The feeling of my pubes rubbing against her ass drove us both even crazier. I moved her onto her side, and we lay like spoons in a drawer while I drilled Corinne’s twat from behind, continuing to hump her ass, and reached around to finger her clit. She went into another spasm of a climax, transmitting her excitement into me and making me squirt another stream of cum into her.
We just went on and on, with Corinne taking me up on my invitation to make my body hers and help herself to my cock and balls. She sat in my lap and rode and bucked with my prick penetrating her from below. I got up on my knees and kept her legs wrapped around me and fucker her that way, as well. We moaned from the wet abandon of my cock moving inside her pussy. For a fourth time, I shot a thick load inside her.
Finally, we became just a tangle of limbs on my bed, and still we couldn’t stop kissing and couldn’t stop playing with the goodness between each other’s thighs. I possessed Corinne and felt her possessing me, in a way that was sweeter and hotter than any other sex I could remember. God, she was just so fucking hot, and I could tell she thought the same of me.
“That just feels so nice,” I said of the slip and slide of her fingers along the length of my flaccid cock. “There’s something about the way you love to feel my tool. It’s like you’re discovering dick for the first time or something.”
Corinne had a reaction to my observation that I couldn’t quite explain. She froze a bit, not releasing my dong from the attention of her very hungry hands, but just suddenly not moving any more. Her skin suddenly flushed pinkish red all over, as if she were embarrassed. After the hours of wild fucking that had just gone in this bed, the last thing I wanted her to be was embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did I make you uncomfortable?” I caressed her boob, hoping a little more arousal would loosen her up again. “Is it just because we’re new together, and you haven’t had dick for a while?”
She licked her lips and replied, “Something like that.”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “The dry spell is over, so to speak.”
Smiling, we pulled closer together. I wrapped Corinne up in my arms and kissed her deeply. She went on making me very happy by continuing to play with my dick and balls. “It’s just… I didn’t know. I had no idea it would be this good,” she said.
“What, getting banged almost senseless by your boss?”
“Well, yes, there is that…”
“I promise we’ll figure out a way to have it not be awkward at work. This is new for me too, like I said. But, we’ll adapt. Really.”
We cuddled for a bit, and I let her have her way with my spent and limp cock. After creaming in her pussy four incredible times, it would be a while before I could recharge, so to speak.
“You know,” I said, “it would be a good idea to…fuel up a bit if I’m going to bang you all night like I said I would. Remember our dinner idea?”
She nodded. “We don’t really have to go out to eat if you don’t want to. We could order in.”
“No, I promised you dinner at a nice restaurant. I like to keep my promises. Now, I love what you’re doing to me down there, but if you could give my dick just a little bit of a break, I could call a place I know and get us in there.”
She made a sort of mock frown, not really annoyed, and released my tool. I kissed her and said, “Stay right there,” and forced myself up off the bed where there was so much bliss.
I felt Corinne raking my ass up and down with her hungry eyes as I went to find my pants where I’d flung them off onto the floor and fetched my phone. Then, with phone in hand, I returned naked to the bed and sat down beside her. She leaned against me and stared at my dick, which was threatening to become a boner again, as I got on the speed dial and called the place I had in mind to talk to the maitre d’.
In a few minutes I ended the call and said, “ Ta-daa! It’s done. We’re in.”
“Just like that?” she reacted, impressed.
“Yep,” I said, giving her a peck on the lips. “Just like that. It’s good, getting fucked by a rich guy, isn’t it?”
We had a little laugh about that and pulled into a kiss. I felt the blood rushing back to my privates. “If we’re not careful here,” I warned her, “I’m gonna get another hard-on, and we’ll miss our reservation.”
She bit her lower lip and rolled her eyes to one side as if to ask whether missing the reservation would really be such a bad thing.
I grinned sexily at her. “You are such a naughty girl. I love it.”
Laughing again, we somehow managed to get out of bed and get dressed again, looking forward to peeling off all our clothes for the night later on.
_______________
On the elevator ride down to the lobby, Corinne asked, “Where are we going, anyway?”
“This really, really nice place in the business section of town,” I replied. “You’ll like it. It’s in the lobby of a five-star hotel.”
“Really?”
“Sure is. As a matter of fact, if we decide we just can’t wait to drive all the way back here for more fucking after dinner, I could get us a suite upstairs.” Nudging her with my elbow, I said temptingly, “Five-star accommodations, just as good as my place. A whole night of fucking in a hotel bed. And, in the shower.”
She responded with a smile that was so different from the demeanor of the “wholesome girl next door” that I’d taken her to be. I devilishly twitched my eyebrows back at her and gave her another nudge, tempting her a little more.
It was all going so well. It was one of the best, sexiest times I’d ever had with anyone. I was seeing some really great possibilities with Corinne. I was starting to believe there was a real future in front of us — a future full of the best sex that either of us ever had.
Naturally, when we got to the lobby, there had to be something to break the spell.
Earlier, I had feared the worst about Kane. I had feared that he would always keep turning up again and again, whenever I least expected him and least wanted him. And, it was the worst possible time to learn how right I was.
As soon as Corinne and I stepped off the elevator, we heard the loud, rude, raucous hammering on the front door and that voice ringing out, partly muffled, from the other side of it.
“Elijah! Let me in! Didn’t you hear me ringing the bell, man? Let me the hell in! Come on, man, don’t blow me off! Let me in!”
Corinne and I both froze in our tracks, looking at the locked door and who was right outside pounding on it. She shot me a worried look. I felt myself go pale looking back at her.
The banging on the door was totally unwelcome after the banging that had gone on in my bedroom. Kane saw us through the glass door pane and glared in at us, pounding on the frame.
“Damn,” I muttered. “ Now? ”
“What’s wrong with him?” Corinne asked.
I was tempted to ask, How much time do you have? But we had no time at all, not with my crazed “buddy” thumping the front door like a wild man.
“Stay behind me,” I told her, staring across the space between where we were standing and the door where Kane pounded. Nervously, she took a step back to where she could see over my shoulder.
Her voice tense, she asked, “What’s he going to do?”
My fists flexing, I answered, “He won’t hurt you.”
Kane bellowed through the door, “What the hell are you waiting for, dude? Let me the hell in NOW!”
His shouts put a dryness in my throat and a coldness on my skin. The only thing worse than a crazy bastard is a crazy bastard who makes demands. “Stay there,” I said to Corinne. Bracing myself for the worst — which, coming from Kane, could be really bad — I went for the door. He stopped pounding on it, but kept glaring crazily through the glass, at my approach.
Flinging open the door, I decided that the only way to deal with Kane was to put him on notice from the very first second that I wasn’t going to have any of his crap tonight. “Kane, what the hell?” I snapped. “People live here!”
He stomped inside, shoving me aside and fixing his stare right on the frightened face of Corinne. “I know people live here,” he growled. “I’m not interested in people.”
Going back as far as I did with Kane, I’d seen him all kinds of moods. And as of now, I couldn’t believe the stupidity and blindness of my younger days when I actually thought of the sleazy mess of a human being in front of me as a “friend.” I hated what it said about me back then that I was ever friends with this wild-eyed monster. I knew him when he was happy, usually because of some shady or larcenous thing that he’d profited from or got off on. I knew him when he was sad, usually because of his absent lowlife of a father or his stoned, drunken mother. I knew him when he was scared, and when he was mad. And, I knew him when he was on something.
Right now, from the hopped-up look in Kane’s eyes and his attitude — part caveman, part spoiled brat who wanted what he wanted when he wanted it — there was no doubt in my mind that he was on something. And from what those hopped-up eyes were focused on, in the only way that he was able to focus now, it was obvious what it was he wanted.
And, what I was damned if I was going to let him get.
I could both hear and feel the fear in Corinne’s voice when she took another wary step back and said my name. “Elijah…”
The look on Kane’s face turned my stomach. “Corinne. Hey, how’s it going? You’re looking so pretty tonight.”
He took a lurching step in her direction. I put myself between them. “Look, we were just on our way out. You ought to get going, too. Someplace where you can lie down and sleep things off.”
Kane actually laughed at that — the most sickening laugh I’d ever heard. “Lie down? Lie down? Hey, that’s a good idea. Let me just have a word with Corinne.” He shouted over my shoulder. “Hey, Corinne!” I didn’t have to turn around and look. I could feel her cringing at him.
When Kane tried to take another step and actually reached out his arm for Corinne as if he could stretch for her, I blocked both his step and his arm. The drug-soaked dickhead actually looked at me as if I were the one with the problem. “Elijah, what are you doing, man? I just wanna talk to your pretty, pretty girlfriend, here? She’s hot, man. You can see how hot she is…”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I said. “Just like I can see what kind of shape you’re in. Just step back, okay?”
“I can’t step back, man. I just wanna be friendly with her, that’s all.” He called over my shoulder to her, “Babe, I just wanna be friends!” I could feel Corinne not just cringing now, but flinching.
“Elijah, he won’t go away,” she said, more scared by the second.
“Yes…yes, Corinne, he will,” I said. “He’s going away, and you’re getting back in the elevator and going back up to my floor, right now.”
Getting more frantic and more frightening, Kane barked, “No! She can’t go now! I want to talk to her! I want to show her what a babe she is.”
He tried to step around me and get to her, and again I blocked him. When he reached out his arm again, still seeming to think he could stretch and lay his hand on her, I blocked his arm and this time I held it.
“She’s not a babe,” I told him, as deadly serious and as disgusted as I’d ever been about anything in my life. “And, you’re getting out of here.”
“Yeah, with her!” he half leered and half laughed.
“No, by yourself. I mean it.” Kane struggled and tried to pull his arm from my grip as I called back, “Corinne, back in the elevator, now! And, call 911!”
More sickening than ever, Kane gave a lusty, drug-soaked look past me at Corinne. “She doesn’t need 911. I know what she needs. Just give me a chance, Elijah, just a chance.”
I held his struggling arm like a vise. “You’ve used up all your chances. Corinne, did you hear me? Move! ”
From behind me, I heard her uttering, “Oh… oh… ” But, I could hear her moving back in the direction of the elevator as I’d told her to do.
Kane tried harder to pull himself free of me, and I got more worked-up myself, recalling that certain drugs could give the user a surge of increased strength or make them think they were stronger. Whatever he was on, it was making Kane as potentially dangerous as he was crazy and strung-out. No decent girl should be anywhere near him under any conditions, but especially now.
“Babe, don’t listen to him! Don’t go away!” Kane called. “Let’s be friends! You’re friends with him; let’s you and me be friends, too! Come on, Corinne, be friendly…”
“ Shut up! ” I shouted at him.
“Don’t talk to me like that!” he growled at me. “She can talk to whoever the hell she wants to talk to.”
“Well, she doesn’t want to talk to you. ”
“Let her speak for herself!” he sneered.
Since I wasn’t letting him pull away from me, he decided to try to charge right through me. The two of us ended up grunting and bellowing in the lobby, Kane trying to lurch and lunge forward, me pressing him back. We did an angry little dance, back and forth, back and forth, until I heard Corinne’s frightened cry behind me, followed by the sound of the elevator door sliding open, then sliding shut. Only when I was sure that the door was shut with her behind it did I allow Kane to wrench himself, sputtering with anger, from my grip.
He took a staggering step back, staring at me with burning eyes, wiping his lip with his sleeve. He sounded like a rabid animal. “Elijah, what the fuck, man? What the fuck did you do that for? Why’d you make her leave?”
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” I shot back at him. “Coming in here hopped-up on God knows what, trying to go up to Corinne like she was some kind of a whore. What the hell, you idiot? What the hell?”
Kane became livid at me and pointed a shaky finger. “Who do you think you’re talking to? Where do you get off, talking to me like that? What is it, you think she’s too good for me? I’m not good enough for her? HAH! ”
All the bitterness of a life full of wanting, of resentment of the whole world, of sleazy attempts at shortcuts to something better came into his voice. He would have been pitiful if he weren’t so disgusting.
“She’s too good for the likes of me, but you’re good enough for her? Who the hell do you think you are? You’re no better than me. The things we’ve done together, the places we’ve been together — no fucking way are you better for her than me!”
He stepped to one side, a bit shakily, and I thought, or hoped, he might just keel over and pass out, but it was no such luck. His growl and sneer almost turned to a sob. “I could make her just as happy as you can.”
“No, you can’t,” I said, as firm and steady as he was seething and strung-out. “Not a girl like her.”
“Why not me?” he said plaintively. “Why not her?”
“Look at yourself,” I said.
Kane slapped himself on the chest with both hands, almost like a gorilla. “ What, ‘look at me?’ Tell me that. What’s the difference between me and you? What is that? The clothes, the money, the apartment, the fancy car. Take away all that and what are you? You think you’re not still just like me? I knew you before, man. You and me? I knew you without all that crap.” He hit his chest again. “We’re the same, Elijah. We’re the same! ”
“No,” I said, resisting the impulse to pity him. “I could have been just like you, but I’m not, and I never will be. I’ll never go your way.”
The way Kane looked at me was something new. It was filled with rage, with fury at everything that his life had been, but also the deepest, most cutting pain that I’d ever seen from anyone, ever. It was as if he were seeing me for the first time and seeing everything he would never be because he wanted it, but deep down knew that he would never have it in him to get it. And at that moment, my old “friend” truly hated me.
“Don’t say that to me!” Kane roared. “You are me! I am you! You bastard! Don’t you ever try to fucking tell me you’re better than me! We’re the same, you hear me? We’re the same! ”
Something broke loose inside him, as if the rabid dog that I’d sensed in him had been chained up in a yard full of weeds and trash, but the chains were rusty and he’d strained against them so hard that the weakest link finally snapped, and the rabid dog, barking at the top of his lungs, growling and foaming, finally broke free.
He lunged at me. The next thing I knew, he slammed hard into me and we both went flying back onto the carpeted floor of the lobby. I don’t know how I managed to escape cracking open the back of my skull, but there we were, grappling and thrashing at each other on the floor.
Kane ranted, “I never had a damn thing in my fucking life! Look at you! You’ve got it all! Son of a bitch, you’ve got it all! What have I got? What have I got? ”
We rolled around on the lobby floor. His face was twisted into some insane, furious caricature of itself. I had him by the wrists, and he tried to tear himself free, probably wanting to punch and pummel me into the carpet. But with a good grip on him, I managed to fend him off. When I pushed up at him, the force of it carried us into a roll of straining arms and kicking legs. The sounds of his bellowing, babbling voice filled the lobby with an unholy din, mixing with my own grunts of resistance.
The noise we were making was now disturbing some of the people in the apartments on the ground floor. I heard doors opening and other agitated voices. I heard someone tell someone else to call 911 as I’d told Corinne to do.
She must be back upstairs on my floor right now, standing outside the door to my place. She didn’t have the key, so she couldn’t go in. She must be pacing the hall, or standing there, scared and worried, probably afraid to go anywhere else. And, it was this drug-soaked jackass’s fault. It was as if I were now fighting with every mistake I’d ever made in my life.
I managed to get a knee up into Kane’s chest and push him off me that way. He went flying back onto the carpet. We both sprung back up at the same time. He lunged at me again and swung at me. I dodged; he missed. I got him by the arm that he tried to punch me with and shot my own fist forward, hitting him in the stomach. He staggered back, puffing furiously, and I hoped the force of my blow would deck him. It wasn’t happening.
He leapt forward again, fist-first, aiming for my jaw. I blocked that fist, but to my surprise, he managed to get me with the other, right in the stomach the way I’d gotten him. It sent me toppling onto my back again, and Kane was ready. He made another leap, aiming to land on top of me, but I managed to roll to one side. He made an impact like a sack of potatoes falling, while I scrambled back to my feet.
Giving him a chance to recover was something I couldn’t afford. I grabbed him by the collar and one arm while he was dazed and hauled him up, dragged him to one side, and slammed him up against a wall, not far from someone’s open door where the occupant of one of those lower apartments stood nervously in the threshold watching this brawl that belonged in a shabbier part of town.
Kane struggled against me and let out a beast-like noise. Pressing him into the wall, I said, “Are you gonna calm down now?”
He didn’t answer me in words. He kicked out at me and got me in the shin. Shouting at the sudden pain, I half leapt and half staggered back, releasing him. Kane whirled around and lunged at me again. He swung out with a fist once more, and this time, damn him, he connected and caught me right in the jaw.
To the sound of shouting and shrieking from my ground-floor neighbors, I toppled back. My only advantage was that I was not hopped-up on whatever Kane had taken, so I was in my right and proper mind, while he was standing there with his fists knotted and his brain cells swimming in chemicals. That was what enabled me to jump back to my feet quickly enough to get back at him.
Before his own reeling mind could react, I landed one blow on his jaw and another on his stomach, giving him the old one-two. He let out an “OOF … ” sounding like some character in a comic book, and sailed back onto the carpet.
Kane lay there, struggling to get back up and not managing it. Still wary of him, I kept my fists ready. I still resisted the urge to pity him as he sounded both furious and ready to cry.
“I could make her happy. I could be good to her. I’m just like you, man. We were always just alike, you and me. I’m just like you; really, I am…”
There were still people standing in the ground-floor apartment doorways, watching the whole thing. I could only glance at them, silently apologizing. From outside, maybe a block away but getting closer, came the sounds of sirens. This was the kind of neighborhood where the police showed up quickly, which was the one good part about this whole freaking stupid thing.
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Corinne sat on the couch in my living room, her arms wrapped around herself. I stood watching her, hating myself for the way she looked, feeling like the lowest excuse for a human being who ever lived.
“He’s someone from my past,” I feebly explained.
She kept herself wrapped up in her arms. I wanted to offer to hold her, but I was afraid of how she might react. After what she had just witnessed, after seeing Kane the way he was and knowing what he wanted to do to her, without her consent, in that state, she didn’t need to be touched by anyone else just now. I was sure the thought of being touched by anyone, including me, after what happened in the lobby, made her feel dirty and ashamed.
I hated Kane. I hated myself for exposing her, even unintentionally, to that.
In a scared voice, Corinne asked, “What was he on? He must have been using something, right? What was he using to get like… that? ”
Bitterly, I shook my head. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just wasn’t about to let him anywhere near you. Corinne…I’m sorry. I really am. I’m just so damn sorry.”
She lifted her head just enough to see my face and no more. She gazed up at me with eyes raised exactly enough to get a look at my eyes, and looked pained and scared just from doing that.
I wanted to ask her if she held me responsible for that sick episode. Again, I was afraid. Just to hear her possibly telling me it was all my fault, and having to defend myself from that, shredded me inside.
“He’s a part of my past, Corinne,” I offered as a feeble-sounding excuse. “For a few years, I was away from here and had a different kind of life than I have now. It was a life that I’m not proud of, and he was at the center of it.
“There were some years, to be honest, when I let him lead me around by the nose. Wherever he led, I followed. And, I shouldn’t have. But, I thought my life back here was dull and full of too many rules and too many expectations. With him, there were no expectations except for him and me and the crowd that we ran with going after whatever we wanted and doing whatever we felt like doing.”
She lowered her head again. I wanted to offer her a drink or something, but I didn’t know if she would accept it. She didn’t seem to want to look at me. She listened, but she didn’t look. I didn’t know what to do for her.
“After a while — and after getting into all kinds of trouble — I started to see what the rules and expectations were for. They weren’t about restrictions and answering to other people. They were about keeping life sane and decent.
“When I finally started to see how sane and decent my life wasn’t, I wanted something else. So, I came home and my brother-in-law, though he didn’t have to do it, let me go into business with him. That’s when it all got better.”
She let out a little sigh, and then she pressed her lips together. I couldn’t tell whether she was accepting my words. This whole scene felt so much like the way it ended with Kathleen and me, and with Corinne, it hadn’t even gotten started.
Needing to fill the silence, I went on, “I thought that life I used to have was over. I thought it was all done with and behind me. But, of course, it had to come back.
“ He had to come back, envying me, wanting what I had, which he hadn’t earned. Thinking he could just buddy up with me again, and some of what I had would rub off on him or I would give him some of it. Thinking he could lie to me that he was clean. And, resenting me. I knew better, as soon as he showed up, and I didn’t know how to get rid of him. And then…this happened.”
She found her voice, and when she looked up again, this time she looked me full in the face. It wasn’t as encouraging as I hoped it would be.
“How do we know he won’t keep coming back?” she asked.
“I’ll press every charge against him that the law will allow,” I promised. “Disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, aggravated assault, possession and use...whatever I can get on him, I’ll get on him and make it stick. I will never, ever allow him to hurt you, Corinne. Ever. ”
“You said there were other people like him that you used to…associate with,” she recalled. “How do I know none of them will show up? How do I know they’re not just as bad?”
“I haven’t heard from any of them in years,” I tried to assure her. “They’re all out of my life.”
“So was he.”
“They’re no part of my life any more. And, I’m not who I was then. That’s all over and done with. I’ve changed. People can change, Corinne, and I have, I swear it. I swear on my life, my bread, my blood, whatever you want me to swear on, I’m not who I was. No one and nothing else from that part of my life is ever coming back.”
She didn’t smile. The shadow that seemed to have fallen over that beautiful face that had looked up at me with such passion and joy when we were in bed, didn’t move. I wasn’t reaching her, but I didn’t know what else to say or what else to do.
I felt myself losing her, and it was killing me.
There was a terrible, helpless silence. Finally, I couldn’t help putting the words for what was happening out into the air. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
She shrugged, expressing how futile it must have felt for her. I looked for any sign that she might believe me. There wasn’t any.
“Elijah,” she said, “until a little while ago, this was the most wonderful day of my life. It was more wonderful than you could ever know, and more wonderful than I could ever tell you. The two of us being together, at my place, in your bed…no one has ever made me feel so…I can’t even…” She choked up, words failing her, and I shared the feeling. “I can’t explain how you made me feel, and what I started looking forward to. And then, he… ”
Like me, she couldn’t even say Kane’s name after that. I was lucky she even wanted to say my name.
Corinne lowered her head once more, a gesture that absolutely killed me. The damage was done.
Again, I put out unthinkable, painful words; words that I should never have had to say. “You don’t feel safe with me now, do you?” She shook her head no, and something just shriveled up inside me. “Now that you’ve seen this part of my past, and I’ve told you how things used to be with me, it makes a difference. I can see that. You won’t look at me the same way anymore. You won’t feel the same way around me. It’s like something’s broken, and I don’t know what to do or how to fix it.”
She faced me again and there was a tear in her eye. Whatever was left of my heart was crushed, knowing that my past had put that tear there.
“I want us to go on,” I said. “But, we can only go on if I know you don’t have any doubts about me. We can only go on like we’ve been today if I’m sure you believe my past is just my past, and you can find it in yourself not to be afraid of me. If you’re suspicious about him, or some other part of my past, coming back, then it can’t work.
“I’m asking you, Corinne, can you let go of your doubts? Can you be with me without being suspicious and scared, even a little? Because I can’t live with just part of your trust. I have to have it all.”
She opened her mouth to say something, and just for a second I had this little flicker of hope. But, there was no hope in her expression when she opened her mouth. She closed it again. She just shook her head, not wanting or really needing to say what she was thinking.
I rode the elevator with her back down to the lobby and waited with her until the cab that I called showed up. I kept an arm’s length or more between us the whole time, and we hardly said a word.
At least, she let me pay for the cab to take her back to her apartment.