Authors: Carmella Jones
After she’d finished putting away what little food was leftover from lunch, she steeled herself. So far he’d done all of the act himself. He’d been the actor and she’d been pulled along. She knew somewhere in her that she shouldn’t want to be pulled along – that she should resist. But instead it felt much more necessary to her to be an equal partner in the play they were putting on, if they needed to put anything on at all.
And so, as confidently as she could, she walked up to Chris, and asked him with only the slightest of trembling in her voice, what it was he wanted to show her.
They kept up the charade walking through the hall, talking about closets and carpentry and design. It wasn’t a good charade – workers here tended to be passers through, and generally didn’t care much for personalizing the space to that degree. And when they did, they never really asked if it was ok.
Then again, it seemed to Annabelle that the idea Chris would be a ranch hand here was patently ridiculous. He was built for it, it was true. He had the strength and the endurance. He filled out the de facto ranch hand uniform exactly the way you’d hope, and he was at ease with the horses and the equipment. He’d grown up here in ranch country, and he knew how to fit in in those ways. But to Annabelle he was decidedly different from them all, and it amazed her that any of them would buy that he was one of them for a minute. He was more. Couldn’t they see instantly that he was more than that?
When they got to his room, they walked in, and without thinking, Annabelle closed the door behind them.
They were silent for a moment. They’d gotten alone in a room together so quickly after his arrival, but it had been such a long time, Annabelle still didn’t know what to say. She had had too much to say to him for too many years to know where to start.
So instead, he started. Not with speaking, but with moving.
He stepped forward, close to her, into her space, and Annabelle noted with surprise that she wasn’t stepping back.
He put his hand to the side of her neck, the way he always used to, and rubbed her cheek with his big, rough thumb. She didn’t try to remove it.
He bent down to kiss her, bringing his lips gently down her hers. She didn’t resist.
She drank him in. He tasted sweeter than any other man she’d ever kissed. She’d thought over the years she must have exaggerated – that his kiss wasn’t so soft, or so tender. But it was. It really
was.
Five years gone and still her mouth knew his like it had been only this morning she had last kissed him. The kiss she’d tried to give him that he’d interrupted and turned from under the tree was now being given, and it lifted a weight from her shoulders she didn’t know she’d been carrying. She felt light on her feet, and her hands had pins and needles shooting up and down them.
And then she felt his hand on her shoulder, touching the strap of her dress with gentle pressure, edging it off…
And the spell was broken, and she pulled back, gingerly touching the strap he’d tried to remove as though he’d hurt her.
“I’m married,” she said, and the words hung in the air for a moment until he dismissed them with a smile.
“You don’t say?” he asked. His voice sounded, for the first time she’d heard today, like the boy she remembered, grown into a man. A little bit playful, but with a steadiness underneath it that had always made her feel safe and grounded.
He moved closer to her now again, not reaching out to touch her, but indicating with his body what was on his mind. He came just an inch away, his hands held just a breath away from her body. He stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity, until Annabelle couldn’t help but desire his hands on her again. Her body called out for it, even as she knew she was the one who had pushed him away.
“And is he want you want?” Chris’ voice came to her, so quiet and deep, and so close to her ear. His hand was on her waist now, without her knowing how or when it had gotten there.
She drew back.
“He’s a sweet man. A
good
man,” she defended her husband.
“And is this what you want?” she said, searching Chris’ face. “You wanted out of here, and the one good thing I thought about you leaving like that was that at least you got what you wanted.”
Chris’ face fell, dumbfounded.
“What I want?” he asked. “How is that what I want? I wanted you. I still want you. I’m back for you, make no mistake.”
Annabelle had known, somewhere in her, that this had to be true. Of all the places he could go, with his experience, of course he wouldn’t have come here if it weren’t for her. Even if he wanted to be a ranch hand as he had been when he was younger, then there were better ranches than this to go to. He was here to get her. He was here…
The thought was too big, but she forced herself to acknowledge it.
He was here to
take
her.
She stepped backwards, closer to the door, reaching blindly for the knob.
“I have to go,” she said. She no longer thought of her marriage. She no longer thought of her morals. She thought now only of the sixteen year old girl she had been, crying her heart out in the car in front of what had been his home, accepting that he had left her.
“I know you do,” Chis said. “But you’ll be back.”
Annabelle shook her head. No, no she wouldn’t be. She couldn’t be.
She opened the door, and slipped out of it, taking care not to be seen heading back to her big empty house, with her sweet, dull husband, who didn’t deserve a wife so callused as she had been.
----------------------
The next day at breakfast, Annabelle looked for him. She couldn’t stop herself. It was a force of the earth. It was a magnetic pull. Her eyes went to his body. Her eyes went to his face. Her eyes went to his dirty boots, and his slightly-too-tight jeans, clearly bought before the Seals had put some muscle on him.
But she only let herself look sometimes. She limited her exposure. It was, she thought, eerily similar to the way her sister always talked about quitting smoking. Just wean yourself off of them slowly, she had always said. Cold turkey is impossible, and you’re much less likely to succeed.
So she looked only when she could not stop herself, and figured it would get better with time, and she would be able to look less and less, until she could accept his presence there but not be drawn to it. And in time, she knew, when he understood that he wasn’t going to get what he came for, he would leave. And when he did, this time, she would be ready for it.
But her looks didn’t get any less frequent. She looked only as often as she absolutely couldn’t stop herself. But the looks only increased over the week that followed.
She knew him again. She was remembering the little things that had grown hazy over the years. The way he played with his hair with his hand, for example. It looked a little bit strange, now that the hair he used to play with was so short, but he still did that. It had been one of the first things she loved about him when they were too young for her to even put a name to her feelings.
And she noticed new things – things he had gained from his time away from her. He always sat so that he could see all entrances to the room, any room he was in. He was always scanning the room – always vigilant. And he had a sadness that came across his face suddenly, only very rarely, and was then gone again in a moment. It was small, but it had never been there before.
The routine that had seemed like a little death to her everyday suddenly became full of meaning and irresistible. Every single day, she would cook the men breakfast, lunch and dinner. And that meant every single day she would see him. Her heart had been out of it for so long, but it was back in it now. There was a purpose to what she was doing.
She felt the failure of her plan. She knew her reservations were disappearing, even as she kept telling herself that she should be strong and stick to her better judgement. But the death knell of her good intentions was sounded when she overheard Chris speaking to another ranch hand while in line for food.
The ranch hand was asking Chris what he intended to do on his day off, which Annabelle couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized would be the next day. Chris, for his part, raised his voice so that Annabelle could hear, and so that Annabelle would know he intended her to hear.
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll head in to town. I’ll hole up in my quarters. There are some things I’ve been meaning to do for an awful long time, and I think it’s time I got them done.”
Annabelle’s heart began to race. Her longing had grown over the past week, it was true, but it had grown into a steady, aching longing. It was the longing after those things that you can’t have, but with you could. And in an instant, it turned into excitement. The possibility was in front of her, now, of truly being with him, and her body knew before she did that she wouldn’t be able to stay away.
-
The next day, she made breakfast, excited to see him. What would pass between them in glances, now that they both knew today would be the day? Now that they both understood what was always going to be between them was actually about to come to pass?
But he wasn’t there, and it left her desperate – more desperate than she wanted to believe she was. Her body began before her mind. She felt herself on fire even before she saw him, and all these men in the room that she was feeding felt like they were intruding in what they couldn’t know was going on. She couldn’t wait until they were gone. She knew she had to wait until they had left to go to their day’s work, so she busied herself with little things, her mind racing.
It took the men a lifetime to leave, but finally the last of them was out. She forced herself to wait a few minutes, so that there was no chance of one of them coming bounding back in, having forgotten something or wanting one last slice of toast.
It was, without question, the hardest thing she’d ever done.
When she was satisfied that they were completely gone, she began her trek to his room, walking as slowly as she would, which was nearly running. She found his door and paused for a moment, catching her breath from the excitement. She could feel her own pulse in her body, distractingly strong.
When Annabelle stepped into the room Chris was sitting on his bed, with his feet propped up on one end. He was browsing a book that looked like no light reading, and Annabelle wondered how he could focus on anything with what was about to happen between them. She didn’t feel capable of reading a cereal box.
“Close the door,” he said, only his eyes averting from the book. She’d come into the room breathless and unable not to move, but he was still and calm.
She closed the door, and it seemed to trigger him to sit up.
“Is there something that you want?” he said, each word daring her to say it. But Annabelle found she couldn’t speak.
Instead, she nodded.
He raised his eyebrow, pretending not to understand.
“I want you to say it,” he said.
Annabelle struggled to find the words.
“I want…” she began.
Chris stood, and stepped towards her. He was close to her without touching her, as he had been the other day.
“What do you want?” he asked, and his voice seemed almost cruel.
She’d spurned him before, in this very room. The thought came unbidden. She’d had to, didn’t he know that? But still, what if he spurned her, now? Would he do it?
“Oh please,” Annabelle said, “please I want you.”
The tension released in his body, there so close to her, she could feel it, but then she felt his hand grab her hair at the base of her neck and pull her back, forcing her face up to look at him.
“And your husband?” Chris asked. “Do you want your husband?”
Annabelle shook her head. No, no of course she didn’t want him. But her head shaking wasn’t enough for him. He was waiting, expectantly for the words.
“No, of course I don’t want him. How could I want him?”
“And have you slept with him? Since I came back have you slept with him?”
“No!”
The word came out of her mouth quickly, this time. She hadn’t even realized it had been true until she said it out loud. She hadn’t let Jason touch her. It would have felt wrong. It would have felt untrue to Chris.
He was satisfied with her answer, and finally he pulled her close to him, tick up against his body. She could feel his heart beating in his body. She could feel each new muscle his time in the Seals had given him. It was the body she knew better than her own five years ago, but it felt different.
Then he forced her back, so that he could look at her. She hated not being able to feel his body – not being able to feel the bulge between his legs and know it was for her. But she loved feeling his eyes on her. They felt like they were seeing through her. She was fully clothed, in the dress she’d worn for his arrival the week before, but she felt naked already.
Suddenly, without warning, his hand was on her shoulder, on the strap she’d denied him to remove. He’d not only moved it, but he’d torn it.
He moved closer to her.
“I thought of you in this dress every day for the first month after I left,” he said. “I want it gone.”
Then he stepped back.