Swift punishment yesterday as I was given a time and told to be there or he would make everything go away.
Including Henry.
Including Cole.
He loves to exploit my addictions and my fears, reminding me how fucked I am. That's why we live like this in the first place. It's not only because I can't manage my grief, it's because I can't manage my drive.
I sneak out at two-forty-five and he is waiting by the side door. I'm not even capable of navigating my own driveway now? His concern is that I'd just walk off the wrong side of the cliff instead of facing the consequences for being disrespectful to him and to his brother's memory in front of someone he has to do business with. Big business. It's a smaller, more compact offense if it were a cleaning person or Luke. But he's trying to buy some more property. His reputation has to be flawless.
Good luck with that, I tell him as he grips my elbow and steers me roughly to the boathouse. Once there the door is locked and I am shoved down the hall. The door is locked after we enter his room and for good measure he turns off the lights and ties me down.
Hello, Cole.
He calls me Baby Girl and I realize I don't have to give up a thing, I can still be their sugar baby and I'm not going to be punished so much as rewarded, so much as given a little time with the original number-one ghost and that no one's going to tell me I'm crazy, or making a mistake or wallowing.
Don't hold back from me, Bridget, he instructs and he finally lets me loose. Eyes blue-black, hands rough. In the dark the devil becomes the ghost and the hunted becomes the haunted. Cole looks so beautiful here in the dark. He is predictable and violent. He is affectionate and sick. His moves are deliberate. Just enough to hurt. Just a little bit, building on tolerance, biting back tears. My limbs shake as my hands explore. He smiles in the dark endlessly, as if it's carved upon his face while he encourages me. Just a little more, come on. Do this for me. When I explode into cries of relief he refuses to allow it, covering my whole face with his hand, turning me down and holding me there.
By the time he is finished with me, ready to go back inside my brain where I keep losing him, I am destroyed and thrilled with it. But he pushes me hard once again and just as I start to break he pushes a little harder, making sure I do and then he backs off and returns to his gentle clasp, slowing to a crawl, affectionate to a degree that might just make me question everything I think I already know.
It isn't punishment, he tells me, shaking his head. Just memories.
He bends my head all the way back to kiss my throat and when he lets go and I look at at him again he has changed back. His hair is darker, eyes are lighter and he is bigger. Reality mixes with dreams and makes the color of night. Hope mixed with faith and buried in selfishness ends any chance of change for any amount of time and he fires up again, this time in flat-out brutal greed. This time when I go to cry out there's no sound, only his harsh breathing in my ear. He slides me back down until I am pressed against his chest and he laments how long six weeks truly was without me this way, in the grand scheme of things and that there most likely isn't anything I could do that could make him love me less, including withholding my love from him.
It isn't love, I tell him, shaking my head. Just memories.
Even better, Caleb says as he stops smiling in the dark. He leads me back out into the early sunrise, unlocking doors, stopping to turn back and kiss my shoulder, kiss my cheek and then at the door he stops, not planning to go any further but watching to make sure I go the way I'm supposed to.
I turn back. What do I tell them?
Tell them I'm taking care of my brother's wife.
I turn again to head across the drive. The response is futile but accurate. The fallout will be swift but it's still worth it. You can cut out sugar but it doesn't mean you'll lose your taste for it. I can cut out Cole but I still want him just as much as ever. I guess everyone wishes that could change. Sometimes I do but then again sometimes I don't and I'm fine with things just the way they are.
