17. Anouk
Anouk
He nuzzles my hair, holds me, it’s tender and everything I’d hoped for my first time.
“Thank you.” I kiss his chest.
“No, my starling, thank you.” He kisses my temple.
We lie like that for a while, his hand tracing slow patterns on my back, my body still humming with the unfamiliar sweetness of intimacy.
After a moment, he shifts slightly, thoughtful. “Can I ask you something?” His voice is careful. “And you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
I nod.
“How come”—he smiles faintly—“you never had sex before? I mean… you’re twenty-eight, and you’re gorgeous, so….”
It’s a fair question. And it’s not like I haven’t thought about why I never wanted to and how now I finally did with him. But there’s so much of my past tangled up in my reticence to get close to people that I don’t know how to tell him without telling him about my mother.
I haven’t told anyone about her except the cops and Finn. Even the state-mandated therapists and Miss Helen only knew the details from the police reports, not from me. Dot knows some, but again, it’s just the highlights.
It’s not easy to talk about that trauma, but my walls are now down with Luther. I trust him.
“I…you know I grew up in a s-state home.”
He hums his acknowledgement.
“I went there when I was t-ten.” I take a deep breath and sit up, holding up the duvet to cover my breasts.
I want to look at him. I need to see his reaction to my life story, the one that I’m ashamed about, the one that still gives me nightmares, still hurts me.
“Hey.” He cups my cheek. “I can only imagine how hard this is for you. But I promise I’m not here to judge you. I just…just want to know you, Anouk.”
It was the best thing he could have said. He didn’t say I didn’t have to talk to him about it. He didn’t back away from my reluctance. He wants to know my truth, and he’s making room for me to tell it.
“My parents d-divorced when I was like two. My mother…she was a b-bigshot at a bank.”
He takes my hand in his.
“My father was a s-struggling artist who did odd jobs for art galleries on the side. So, she had custody. She had the lawyers.”
The words are taking their time, but it’s not as difficult as I thought it would be to tell him. I’m not choking on the words. I’m stuttering, but far less than I thought I would, talking about the past.
“Cristina…that’s my m-mother. She had a cocaine habit. Outside, she was composed, i-inside….”
He puts a hand on my thigh and soothes.
“She used to forget to feed me. Kept me locked up at home alone. I…she didn’t want to have a nanny, in case they called CPS and my father got me.” I close my eyes and let the old feeling of panic, of remembering being four, and afraid and hungry, subside.
He doesn’t say a thing, just listens.
“O-once she beat me b-badly. She didn’t even r-remember.” The old memories are bringing my anxiety back. “I went to s-school, and one of my teachers made a fuss about it. Mom came and lied. They b-believed her. I was like…five.”
He tightens his grip on me. “Hey, it’s fine. You’re safe now. You’re with me.”
I take a long, deep breath and give him a travesty of a smile. “I hid what she did after that. Even during the supervised visits with Papa. He saw me once a month. I didn’t tell him. Just spent time with him…didn’t let her t-taint that.”
I see something flicker in Luther’s eyes. I see an emotion I hate directed toward me.
“I don’t want your p-pity,” I warn him.
“It’s not pity, Anouk,” he replies gently. “I’m human. It’s compassion. I see little Anouk afraid, and it hurts me.”
How can he always say just the right things, just what I need to hear? It’s a miracle that he knows what to say and how to say it.
“When I was ten, she spiraled badly enough that an ER doctor refused to send me home with her. CPS got involved. Papa got custody while she was sent to rehab.” I pause. “For nine months, my life was…good.”
The rest of the story poured out of me. How she attacked my father and me, killed him, and ended up in prison.
He pulls me into his arms and wraps me tightly.
“Luther?”
“Please, just let me hold you,” he mumbles against my hair. “God! Just let me hold you.”
There’s solace in his embrace, so I stay in it.
There’s comfort in opening up to him, so I tell him everything as we lie back down and he holds me, kissing me, stroking me, touching me.
Intimacy is delicious, I realize and know that it is right with him, because it’s him.
I’m lucky.
“Something broke inside me then,” I tell him. “I started stuttering. When I hit my teenage years, I didn’t date. I didn’t get close to people. J-just Finn and Miss Helen.”
“Who’s Miss Helen?” he asks.
I tell him, and he smiles. “I’m glad she was in your life.”
“Me, too,” I agree.
His eyes widen then, and he frowns. “You kept saying she’s dying that day in the conference room—”
“Cristina is d-dying,” I finish for him.
He shifts slightly. “How come?”
“She’s been s-sick for a while,” I explain. “C-cancer. The prison warden called that day to tell me…sh-she doesn’t have a lot of time left.”
He exhales slowly, absorbing that. His hand stays warm on my back. “That must have been a shock.”
I stare at the wall behind Luther, at the faint line where paint meets the ceiling. “Y-yes. My b-brain did what it always does when something t-too big happens. I w-went numb. I sh-shut d-down.”
“You’re stuttering, baby. Is it because of what you’re telling me, or is it because I’m making you nervous?”
The fact that he asks warms me in ways nothing ever has.
“S-sometimes I don’t stutter at all and then…this is d-difficult to t-talk about.”
“I can only imagine.” He nuzzles my hair. “I think you’re amazing and brave and wonderful, Anouk.”
Okay, so that feels damn good to hear.
He’s quiet for a beat, and then he asks, “Are you going to see her?”
I turn my head and look at him. This is the moment where I see the distance between us—not an emotional one, but experiential—the space carved by different lives.
“I’m not.” No hesitation.
He furrows his brows slightly, not in judgment, but in confusion. “Do you think it might help? For closure, maybe.”
This is the other reason I don’t tell people about my past, because, well-meaning as they are, they say stupid shit like:
You have only one mother.
Maybe forgiving her will heal you.
Blah, blah, blah bullshit.
“I have all the closure I need.” I know my voice is clipped. I can’t help that.
His face changes immediately. “Anouk, baby, I’m sorry."
“She was abusive,” I tell him. “She hit me. She s-scared me. She took things from me that I don’t get back just because she’s dying.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again.
“I mourned my parents years ago,” I tell him. “I did my grieving. This”—I gesture vaguely—“is just a fact. Nothing else.”
He nods slowly, chastened. “I didn’t mean to—”
“I know,” I cut him off. “You’re trying to frame it. That’s normal.”
He looks at me like he’s recalibrating. “You’re right. I come from a world where parents hurt children by accident, not on purpose, as your mother did. I’m sorry, Anouk, that was thoughtless of me.”
His honesty disarms me. “It’s okay. I don’t need closure. I need…what I have now.”
“And what’s that?”
I pretend to think about it long and hard. “Orgasms.”
He looks shocked for a moment and then bursts out laughing. “Those I can provide.” He pushes me onto my back and kisses me softly, his face somber. “I’m sorry for what you went through. My heart breaks for little Anouk. And it swells with pride for the adult Anouk and what she’s achieved.”
I surrender, melt into him, give in. “Thank you, Luther.”
He cocks an eyebrow after a moment. “So…you ready for another orgasm?”
I smirk. “Just one?”
“So greedy,” he says in mock-exasperation. “I’ll see what I can do.”