Authors: S Jackson Rivera
“As I said, I’d had time to get to know him. I’d already fallen in love with him. He made me feel safe—even if he really wasn’t. I thought he’d be safe because we were just friends and he was still womanizing . . .” Rhees covered her face with her hands.
“Go ahead, Baby. It’s okay—it’s the truth. It won’t hurt my feelings.” Paul knew that was the reason she didn’t want to finish her sentence.
She nodded but she wouldn’t look up. “Paul wasn’t the kind of man you’d think could ever settle down—settle for just one woman—let alone me. When he kissed me that night, my heart liked it—for about five seconds until my head took over and I started to react in my usual way.
“We talked that night and he started asking me to let him help me through it. I found myself almost wanting him to—I had to stop those feelings the fastest way possible. I had to shut him down with the clearest message I could. I called him the epitome of every reason I had for wanting to wait. I felt so bad for saying something so cruel. I didn’t really mean it—it was just a defense mechanism because I felt desire for him, but I couldn’t allow that.”
Paul thought about that night. How creative she’d been. He’d been persuasive, persistent, but she’d cut him down effectively. She’d spent her whole life perfecting the art of cutting men down, cutting them off at the pass—stealthy and lethal. He understood.
“It was the best thing that could’ve happened to us,” Paul added. “It made me want to change, it did change me, and it gave Rhees the time she needed.”
“You
are
married now. Paul isn’t gay. Have you really thought that through?”
Her eyes shot to her husband. “Thought what through? Since that night, Paul’s been absolutely perfect, more than patient, while I worked through it. I trust him more than anyone. He put up with me when I couldn’t stand anyone, even him, touching me—
until I could
. For the first time in my life, my hormones were connected to Paul instead of what happened in that bathroom. I
wanted
him.”
She went silent as she and Paul watched each other, both uncertain how all that would fit into their relationship now. Paul again noticed the way she’d said,
wanted
, as in past tense, but he didn’t care. He’d finally seen flashes of happiness in her eyes and it assured him she’d be all right. He winked.
Tough as nails.
“Marriage for victims of sexual trauma is statistically a difficult road.”
Paul and Rhees turned their gazes to Keene, waiting for the punch line, not realizing he’d already given it.
oOo
Rhees assured Paul it would be okay to sleep in the bed that night, but he still didn’t sleep well. He worried he’d do what he’d grown so used to doing in his sleep and pull her in to cuddle. Hearing her scream at him to not touch her was something he never wanted to experience again. He held her hand all night, the only part of her he dared to touch.
The next day, after another grueling session, Dr. Keene asked if he could speak to Paul, alone. Rhees agreed and stepped out onto the balcony.
“I mentioned it before, but marriage to a victim of childhood sexualization can be very difficult.” Keene leaned forward, conveying to Paul the importance of what he had to say. “You haven’t consummated this marriage yet. It might be easier for both of you if you got an annulment while it’s still simple and easy.”
“Annulment?” Paul yelled. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“No.” Rhees felt her heart stop.
She heard Paul say the word. The glass door wasn’t as soundproof as she’d expected. Her hand flew to her heart and she had to sit down on one of the patio chairs to catch her breath.
“He lied. He doesn’t want to be married to me now that he knows.” She felt blindsided. Her palms grew sweaty, jittery. The balcony suddenly seemed so far up from the street, she felt like she was going to fall off in spite of the secure railing. She couldn’t stay there any longer. She jumped up and knocked on the door to announce her presence as she opened it.
“I can’t stay out here. I’m sorry. Um . . . maybe I’ll go take a shower.” She ducked her head down and rushed through the room, on her way to the bathroom.
“You okay, Baby?” Paul called after her.
“Fine.” She disappeared as she ran through the dressing room and into the bathroom and then the shower. Frantically, she started turning knobs. She’d never seen so many in one shower, and didn’t know how they worked, but she needed to hear the water, hopeful the sound would drown out any more of Paul’s discussion about how he planned to leave her.
Water flowed from several directions, loud and clear, and she backed away until the wall stopped her from retreating further. She covered her eyes with her hands, slid down to the ground and just waited, dreading what she feared would happen next. She prayed over and over that Paul wouldn’t walk in any minute to tell her he didn’t want to be married to her anymore.
oOo
“I love Rhees.” Paul turned back to Keene and resumed their conversation.
Dr. Keene winced with concern. “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
Paul gave him a dirty look. “It is for me.”
“She’s spent her whole life believing she’s dirty and bad. Even I’m amazed at the amount of effort, how creative she’s been at keeping it a secret for so long,” Keene said.
“But now, it’s out in the open. She can start to heal. It’ll be better.”
“It will get better.” Keene’s expression didn’t express optimism. “But let me describe your life if you stay with her, statistically speaking. I see how protective you are of her. You’re going to want to fix her. You can’t. Only she can
do that, but too many of these victims don’t. She’ll accuse you of being controlling.”
“She already has,” Paul said with a chuckle. “Because it’s true, but she’s very good at letting me have it when I get carried away.”
“Okay. Touching has been a problem for her. Your patience with her worked, but even though it may be okay now—or was before this incident, I hope, for your sake, she can reach that point again, but even if she does, it’s possible that it will never be over completely. What seems okay to her one day may not be okay the next. It could change instantly. You could be having an intimate moment, but suddenly, she’ll start screaming at you to stop. You’ll never know when or why.” Keene watched Paul intently as he talked.
“No one seems to understand what I get out of this relationship.” Paul’s frustration came through in his tone. “I’ve had more than my fair share of women. Yeah, for most of my life, sex has been too important, but now,” he said, his voice trailing off. He struggled with the words.
“It didn’t take too long for me to realize I’d rather be with Rhees, without sex, than be without her. My self-imposed celibacy is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Being with her in a non-physical way is the only thing that was ever going to snap me out of my . . .” Paul caught himself. He didn’t intend to be so open. Keene didn’t offer anything to help the awkward silence that had suddenly choked the room, so Paul jumped to finish his thought as quickly as possible.
“I won’t lie and tell you I haven’t had thoughts about it—fantasized about sex with her, but that is not the reason I married her. I’ll manage as long as she’s still in my life.”
Keene watched Paul for a minute but finally started rattling off more reasons why he thought being married to Rhees was a bad idea.
“Self-worth. Victims don’t usually have any. They become cynical, run away from their problems, turn to promiscuity, drug abuse, alcoholism. Their faith in relationships has been destroyed. They struggle to trust anyone. They’d rather be alone or they hold back rather than risk betrayal again. They can’t believe anyone could really love them.
“When they do find themselves in a relationship, they resist allowing those natural bonds to deepen. They won’t have as much to lose when their partners leave them, because they’re sure they will, or they act abnormally desperate to please their partners, trying to keep them. When things get tough, they’ll assume the relationship is over. They may think it’s better to end it before their partner has the chance to.
“They’re distrustful and insecure. It gets tiring, having to prove your love to them, time after time. They accuse their partners of cheating or they act out on a heightened sense of jealousy in bizarre ways.”
“Rhees is not a statistic. In fact, the picture you just painted sounds more like me than her,” Paul said cynically. Keene made a thoughtful face and wrote something down, which annoyed Paul even more.
“Rhees has lived a lifetime of fear and self-loathing. She’ll have to learn a whole new set of thought processes, patterns. Most people struggle to learn a few. I just don’t see her getting past this. She’s structured her whole life around it.”
“This life you say she’s structured around this has been
amazing
. She’s an incredible person. She’s perfect. She’s managed her life through all this shit better than I have mine.”
“Maybe you should share
your
shit with me.” Keene raised an eyebrow.
“No.” This was supposed to be about Rhees, and Paul didn’t like the inference. “And bottom line, Rhees has been affected by this since I’ve known her. I’ve been dealing with it all along—I just didn’t know it. Knowing won’t change anything, or if it does, it can only get better.”
Memories of the time he and Rhees had spent together ran through his mind and made him smile. “I’ll deal with it, whatever happens. I love her. I’ll do everything in my power to give her whatever she needs.”
“For the amount of money you’re paying me, and the amount of information I’m gleaning from both of you, I’m going to consider you both my patients.”
Paul glowered at the doctor at first, understanding the insinuation, again, but upon reflection, he couldn’t help the slowly forming grin creeping over his face. He didn’t need a psychiatrist, not anymore. Probably—definitely—one might have helped a few years before, but now . . .
“Knock yourself out, Doc.”
Keene harrumphed, a little too sure of himself. “Don’t dismiss the idea of annulment so quickly. Think about it. If your marriage is going to fall apart, it might be best to end it now, while you can still be friends.”
“We won’t fall apart,” Paul said tersely. He’d grown very annoyed with the man charging him a fortune to tell him things he didn’t want to hear.
oOo
Paul heard the shower running and it pleased him to see Rhees finally ready to get cleaned up after so many days, but he worried—she’d been in there too long. She never took long showers. Yes, the hotel had warm water, but still, too long. He fought the urge as long as he could, but finally peered around the corner, just to check on her.
Rhees sat on the shower floor, curled up into the little ball that always made her feel a little safer when she didn’t really feel so safe. She held her head down as water poured over her from all directions in the elaborate plumbing design. Something was wrong.
He inched cautiously through the bathroom to the door of the shower, not really sure what to do, but he couldn’t leave her there like that.
“The water’s warm,” she said, startling him. She hadn’t given him any reason to believe she knew he was there. “My parents showered together almost every day, for as long as I can remember. I thought that’s just what married people did.
“In junior high, I overheard some girls in the bathroom at school. One of their sisters had just come back from her honeymoon and the girl was telling her friends how her sister’s new husband had picked the lock on the bathroom door and climbed into the shower with his new bride.
“The girls all squealed, like it was horrible, or embarrassing or something. For me—I saw nothing horrible about it. I just wondered how they didn’t know that married people are supposed to shower together. Of course, considering my problem with all that, I thought it really was just showering. I’d never thought about my parents—you know.”
She looked up at him, her eyes teary with sadness. “But I’ve always believed married people are supposed to shower together. The cold showers at home are going to kind of ruin it, you know? Even if I ever do get over this . . .” Her voice trailed off, giving way to her weeping.
As she told her story, Paul leaned his back against the wall at the entrance of the shower. He put his hands in his pockets, his head drooped down, and his eyes closed as he listened. He took a long, deep breath and exhaled before he grabbed a towel and walked into the shower, clothes and all. He drew her up from the floor, wrapped the towel around her body and then lifted her into his arms. She wrapped herself around him and he held her lovingly, his soaked clothes and her towel between them as they took their first shower together as a married couple.
Chapter 9
R
hees lay on her side, watching Paul sleep. He never slept so late. At seven forty-six, he finally opened his eyes, but didn’t notice her watching him. He looked at the clock and seemed alarmed until he looked around the room, taking in his surroundings. He relaxed, as if just realizing he wasn’t in their own bed at home. His eyes settled on the drawn curtains making the room darker than it should have been at that hour.
“Huh. All this laying around is wearing me out,” he muttered before he noticed her scrutinizing him. He rolled to face her. “What’re you thinking?”
She shrugged, but her cheeks suddenly felt a little warm. He reached to touch her hair but she flinched and he pulled his hand back with a frown. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I should have given you more warning.”
“No. I’m the one who’s sorry.” She closed her eyes and summoned the courage to speak. “I’ve been thinking about things, about all of it,” she said, quietly. “What Keene said.”
Paul wrinkled his forehead with concern. “The doctor said a lot of things.”
She forced a smile and changed her mind about the subject she’d tried to approach.
“I’ve been watching you sleep. Wondering how you can possibly look so dang good, even with your mouth all hanging open, the drool dribbling onto your pillow—”
“I do
nawt
drool.” His brow creased as he flashed her cautioning eyes with a cocky smile.
She smiled for him again and took his hand, pulling it to her face. She tucked it under her cheek, hoping he’d forget how she’d just rejected him seconds before.
“Did you come to any conclusions?”
“About how you can look so good when you drool?” She almost laughed.
“Watch it!” he growled, pretending to be angry.
“I don’t want to talk to Keene today.” She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She’d wanted to lighten the mood, but she just couldn’t with so much running through her head.
“Okay, um . . . that’s good—” She’d surprised him. He hadn’t expected to have to tell her so soon. “I mean, since he told me, just before he left last night, um, he has to get back to the States to check in on his other patients,” Paul lied. He’d told Keene they wouldn’t need his help anymore. He was still stewing about the doctor suggesting he give up on Rhees.
Annul our marriage—like hell I will.
“We’ll find a new doctor. There’re other doctors.”
“I don’t want a new doctor.”
“Okay.” Paul tried to hide his disappointment. “We can call him—talk to him on the phone if you need him—the hotel phone. We’re going to have to buy new phones at some point.” Paul thought of all the things he still needed to do since the hijackers had taken their phones, their wallets, their lives. He’d been so worried, he hadn’t thought about taking care of anything except Rhees.
“I don’t want to talk to Keene anymore either.”
He reached over and gently pulled her to face him, suddenly more worried about her reasons for not wanting to see Keene than his own. “Why don’t you want to talk to him? He’s supposed to help.”
Rhees couldn’t tell him she didn’t want to continue working with the man who’d conspired with her husband, in any way—she didn’t hear the conversation so she didn’t know to what extent, but she’d heard the word annulment. He and Paul had discussed ending her marriage. She shrugged. “I’m tired of talking about it. I’m just tired of talking, period.”
“Okay.”
She watched as his tongue slipped across the inside of his cheek and then flicked over his lips. They puckered a few times. He was nervous.
“How about today,
I
do the talking then?” he finally offered.
“That’ll take all of three minutes.” Her smile returned—a genuine smile.
“Oh, yeah?” He gave her another warning glance, which made her smile spread even wider.
She nodded, very deliberately, letting him know she didn’t think he could do it.
“You’re going to have to tell me to shut up, because I won’t stop talking until you beg me.”
“I can’t wait to see this, or
hear
this, I should say.”
He winked, but then he just watched her for a while, taking her in, stalling.
“I thought you meant you were going to
talk
, with your
voice
, not just your beautiful blue eyes. I know they speak volumes, but—”
“Okay, okay.” Paul chuckled. “So the story, as I’ve heard it told many times over the years, and as I grew older, I started inserting a few of my own opinions about what might have really happened, goes like this.” Paul took a deep breath.
“I told you, my dad, Laird, was the stereotypical surfer from L.A., and Caroline Sutton, my mom, was a wealthy,
old money
girl from Boston. She’d graduated college and was about to start medical school when she and some friends took a trip to California, and that’s where my parents met.
“Dad worked at Universal Studios running one of the rides when she and her friends showed up at his station. He always said she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. She took his breath away. Well, he put my mom on the ride, told his co-workers he was taking a break and jumped into the seat next to her, separating her from her friends, and off they went. He followed her around the rest of the day.” Paul had taken a strand of Rhees’ hair and twirled it around his finger as he spoke. “Said he didn’t care he wouldn’t have a job to come back to the next day, because she was worth it.”
“They were from completely opposite worlds, but they ended up in Vegas, married. How’s that for a love story, huh?” He sounded a little cynical.
Rhees nodded, listening carefully, thinking how romantic it did sound. “We’ll have to make something up. I don’t want our kids to know what you thought of me the first few weeks.”
“You mean lie?” His brows furrowed in mock offense. “You think I would lie to my own kids?”
“Mr. Compulsive Liar? Yes.” She giggled and then noticed the warm expression on his face when she did.
“Only every time the opportunity presents itself. Duh.” He chuckled but then he rolled onto his stomach and rested his chin on his crossed arms, staring at the headboard for a few seconds. He glanced back at her from the corner of his eye.
“We won’t need to lie,” he said solemnly. “They’ll know you as well as I do, so they’ll understand completely how the magnitude of your greatness just scared the shi—
crap
out of me.”
“Oh, gosh.” She rolled her eyes, not convinced his plan was better than hers. “Sorry, I interrupted. Please continue.”
“Well, you might have guessed, but my mom’s parents weren’t terribly happy about the surprise their daughter brought back to Boston with her. They agreed to pay for med school, you know, so the little hiccup in her life called a bad marital choice, a manifestation of her apparent temporary insanity, wouldn’t derail her entire life, but they pretty much disinherited her. They’d hoped she’d miss the lifestyle and come to her senses, divorce him—but they didn’t know my dad. He doesn’t go down without a fight—he doesn’t go down, period.”
“Mom got pregnant with Pete right away.” Paul rolled onto his side and gave Rhees a knowing look. “I suspect dad had something to do with that.”
He’d made Rhees laugh. “Of course he did, silly.”
It took Paul a second to catch up—he didn’t really hear himself, but mostly, he’d been mesmerized by her laughter.
“Well, yeah,
that
too.” Paul chuckled and actually looked embarrassed. “I meant the
strategy
of how it happened, not the basics of human reproduction,” he said, still laughing at himself to keep her laughing. He couldn’t believe how good it felt to hear it.
“Dad jokes about poking holes in all the condoms—he jokes about it, but if he thought mom had doubts about the kind of life he could give her? If he thought there was any chance she’d give in to the pressure her parents put on her to annul the marriage or divorce him—he wanted to keep her, and dad always gets what he wants.
“He knew how much medical school meant to her, bragged to everyone about the smart girl he’d married. ‘Beauty
and
brains’, he always said. Mom countered by telling people dad was the smart one, that she was just smart enough to recognize a smart man when she saw one. Mom was—
is
very intelligent.” Paul paused. “Most of the time.”
“That’s where you get it from then.” Rhees lightly tapped his temple. “You’re smart like your mom.”
Paul blinked a few times. “Mm, maybe—I don’t know.” He exhaled loudly, frustrated. He’d never had to explain it. “I used to tell myself it was more like mom and dad, added together, and then some. Rhees, I don’t talk about this. No one knows.”
“Pfft. It’s obvious. You’re freakishly intelligent.” She smiled at him, beaming with pride.
“It’s not obvious.” He narrowed his eyes. “That’s the point. I work too hard to make sure people
don’t
notice. I guess I am intelligent, and I may even be a freak, but I learned a while ago, not to put too much stock in myself.” He made a few more faces, suddenly agitated with himself.
“It’s hard to turn it off, to think about normal, good—not worrisome, problem solving shi—
stuff
. . .” He paused and closed his eyes. She let him have a minute to his thoughts. She was so good about that, as if she knew when he needed time to try to slow it all down. Thinking of her was definitely one of the good things to think about—most of the time. Lately, thinking about what she was going through, not so much.
“My family has an idea, I guess. I think my dad knows more than anyone.” He thought about it. “Since I didn’t speak until I was older, people underestimated me. It didn’t take me long to figure out I preferred it that way, so I only gave as much as I wanted them to see. Every teacher, anyone else who started to suspect, I
allowed
them to know I was the smartest kid in school, but at the same time, things got weird whenever they started to suspect I might be the smartest kid in the world.” Paul’s eyes flashed to Rhees. “I’m kidding. I wasn’t—I’m not.” He got quiet again.
“So you’d do something to throw them off your scent. Have sex with girls under the bleachers, intimidate people in the halls, get suspended from school, hop freight trains.”
He grinned, amused she remembered, but ashamed as well. He nodded.
“Something like that, but you see through me, always have.” Paul averted his eyes, uncomfortable with the idea, but then grinned self-consciously again. “You know me better than anyone. How did I possibly convince you to marry me?”
She made a face, teasing him, as if to say she wondered the same thing, but then she smiled warmly. “That is exactly why I married you—because I see all the many, wonderful talents and qualities that make you, you. I love everything about you,
almost
everything.”
He glanced sideways at her, waiting for her to qualify the last part of her statement.
“I love you because of what’s in here.” She placed her hand over his heart.
“You like big, empty holes where hearts should be, huh?” He frowned, and she mimicked his expression, positioning herself to make sure he’d see how he looked. She was so cute, even when she was about to scold him—especially when she was about to let him have it.
“You are ninety-eight percent perfect, but the last two percent is absolute
bull-arkey
.”
“
Bull
-
arkey
?” He pursed his lips, trying not to laugh.
“Yeah.” Rhees tried to ignore him in favor of getting back to her point. “I love you anyway, but
that
is definitely one of the things I could live without.”
His brow arched, questioningly.
“Your refusal to see any good in yourself.” She slapped her finger over his lips to hush the smart-mouthed retort he was about to make. “—And don’t
e-ven
try to tell me there is no good. I know better.”
He pursed his mouth and licked his lips, thoughtfully. He conceded—to save an argument. She smiled because of her small victory and it made him smile too.
“You’re the boss,” he said, making her giggle. He watched her, enjoying the smile on her face.
“So, what comes next?”
He rolled onto his back, raised his good arm over his head and rested on his palm.
“
So,
dad stayed home to care for the baby while mom worked away at medical school,” Paul jumped back into his story where he’d left off. “I came along two years later, fast for someone as busy as she was. Then Mary came along during mom’s residency. Mom had to be gone a lot, but ole Laird was a great dad, just a big kid himself. We had so much fun together—even more fun on the rare occasion mom could break away and spend time with us.”
Rhees smiled, watching Paul’s eyes sparkle at the fond memories. So many times, she’d thought of Paul as a big kid too. With each passing minute, listening to him, watching his expressions, she knew why she’d fallen so hard for this man. She wondered how she’d wound up afraid to
love
him, again—well she knew how, but looking at him now, being next to him—she longed to have those feelings back. She made up her mind. She’d do whatever it took to get that desire back as soon as possible.
“Whenever mom had time off, dad would drive us to the beach, and we’d hang out all day. I think that’s how I developed my love of the ocean. It fascinated me. I never grew tired of our beach days.
“Sometimes we’d have to go to my mom’s parents’ house for these parties. ‘
The Big-Ass House
’, as my dad called it. Dad hated them, but mom . . . didn’t. They were the one way she had to stay connected to what she’d lost, and I think dad felt threatened. I remember my parents fighting about it.
“I didn’t talk until I was older, the end of kindergarten. I could have, I just didn’t want to, and when I did, I regretted ever starting. As soon as I opened my mouth, the girls realized there was nothing wrong with me, after all. That’s when they started chasing me.”
“Why did you decide to talk? If you always could, but chose not to, what made you change your mind?”
“Mmm.” A cute smile spread across his face. “I just got so freaking tired of Taye doing the talking for me.”
“You’ve known Taylor that long?”
“Yeah. I know he’s obnoxious, rude, and crude, but he’s always been there for me in a way that never demanded anything I didn’t want to give, in return. I never had to work at that friendship. Taye was just there, no matter what. Rhees, his madcap antics kept me sane when nothing else made sense. The way my head works, sometimes I get . . . I don’t want to get into that.
“Suffice it to say, Taylor never got tired of me. He treated me like shit when I needed it, which I did, too often. My brother Pete, my sister, they were my world, but the older we got—things changed. I don’t know what would have happened if it weren’t for Taye—David and Bryce too. I didn’t know them until junior high, but my friends kept me . . .” He paused. “Now
you
do, even more.”