Part Nine: Take Me in Your Arms 

Originally published as a Diary in July 2003; revised in April 2005

 

 

July 2003

ANN

It was playing on the radio as I neared the marina and I have to admit, I was no longer spooked by it all. I was no longer afraid that I was being haunted by the Ghost Of Motown Past and I was lucid enough to understand that I was simply reading into these songs in a way that was colored by how I was currently viewing life. I turned the radio up and sang along; kinda felt like whistling as you walked past the graveyard at night.

 

 

He wasn't expecting me. But somehow, there was the biggest part of me that knew that he'd understand why I felt this way about him. This particular song got right into me and felt like it was ripping me apart. Could he tell I was putting distance between us? Not on purpose and, I swear to you, not through any desire of either of us. It just was. And it was torture to not understand it. It was like I was screwing up the one thing I couldn't afford to screw with.

 

 

In the wake of all that had happened, we were the closest we'd ever been. Why then was it that something seemed to stand in denial and, like the harder I clung to him, the harder I fought whatever it was that was creeping in over me now? God, but I hated feeling this bitchy, bitchy side of me that just seemed to roar out of me at other people lately. It's a resentment and a pettiness I don't remember feeling before and I don't know where it came from and I don't know how to make it stop. I knew I had become one big disappointment to him and I tried so hard to hide my failings from him.

 

At once turning the radio up louder to drown out my thoughts and at the same time causing myself to ache by listening to this song with ears that heard what they wanted.

 

 

There was a tropical storm coming in. It was chasing up the Gulf of Mexico after it popped out with no real warning down by the Yucatan peninsula. First big storm of the season to threaten us. I knew Jack would be here, at the marina, checking the ropes and getting his boat ready for the storm.

 

 

When I arrived, I parked the car and closed it up tight. I went bounding down the steps and noted that the metal dock had risen with the push of water toward shore in advance of the storm's landfall. All around, people were tying down, making fast. I could see that, like me, they had a charge running through them from the storm. There is just something about one of these, a big tropical storm or a nasty hurricane, that makes the air feel like it's got extra ions or oomph or something. You can feel it run through you and you feel a connectivity with nature that is simply amazing.

The boat, his boat, was so neat and its lines were in perfect order. There was a sense of him there but he wasn't aboard. I knew where he'd be. He was helping someone else, one of the myriad of new friends he'd made here at this peaceful marina tucked in the back bay of Bay St. Louis. I smiled to myself over that - Jack! No matter where he was, people looked to him for leadership, liveliness, a giving nature. He was the one. I relied on his strength; I relied on his love. I relied on the ties that bound us. It seemed this storm blowing in helped me understand that.

Rather than look for him, I propped myself on one of the stanchions on the wharf next to his boat's slip. The wind, always playful, was whirling and gusting. I sniffed the scents of ocean, storm and discontent. I turned to look over the water, noting the froth of small whitecaps even in this shelter. For a fleeting moment, I considered leaving and driving to the beach just to see if the water there was furious yet.

But when I turned back, I saw him. Standing a few slips away, shaking hands with two men he'd obviously been helping. The sight of him. His hair loose and flicking up every so often in the wind. He seemed wild. He seemed carefree. He seemed happy.

And then he turned and saw me. I wanted to capture that look forever. The one he gave me that was instant and unguarded. The one that told me he loved me no matter what. The one that came just before he worried about me. The one before he remembered I was not measuring up anymore.

I let him come to me but I closed the gap between us when it was only steps. And I was crying. His greeting was soft, sure, strong. Warm arms around me, welcome body next to mine. I buried my face in his chest and it seemed like I'd never be safe anymore unless this was where I was. And I absorbed how much Jack probably didn't want me to be this way. How much he probably resented having me not be just like him.

And, God, but I was trying. I really was. But every single time I saw him lately? It just seemed to take me a bit longer to find that person inside me that was coping and was happy and was fine. Better than fine. Look what I had. Everything in my life was going so well. I had no reason to be this way.

Inside me, I swallowed in a big breath of Jack. Oh, Jack. My rock. My standard of what I should be. Leaned back in his arms, gave him a brilliant smile and the greeting he wanted: "Here you are! I am so happy to see you, beloved. I heard this song on the radio driving over and it made me think of you. How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You. Do you smoke it, Jack?"

His eyes were still the least bit clouded with worry but his grin was genuine and thrilled. "I am so very pleased to see you here, Ann. I thought it would be several more days still. Is it good news then that brings you back to me so quickly this time?"

"Yeah. Everything went great." Reaching my hands up to take his face. "I missed you so much. You have no idea."

"Indeed," he murmured to me, that husky voice of want. "Allow me to escort you to a place where I may demonstrate the depth of my joy to find you here with me again. And I shall endeavor to allow you to return my favors, my little dear."

I tried not to hesitate. I hoped he didn't notice. Just a trifle ... and then I took the proffered arm and let him lead me into the boat. He was first down the ladder to the cabin; I was walking down, my hand in his, letting him guide me. Almost to the bottom and I felt him lean up and over me to grab the cabin door and overhead to close them behind me.

He took forever to lower himself to the floor before me. It was like slow motion; watching his chest descend before my eyes until his face was even with mine. And there I stayed, two steps up the ladder and, for once, finding myself at his height. We stood there, just staring. I reached out to smooth his hair back from where it scattered across his countenance and he grabbed that hand, pushing it into his face, closing his eyes to just breathe in the scent of my skin. I shut my eyes and called up my reserves. I knew what he wanted from me.

He wanted me to be free again. He wanted me to be open with him again. I never knew what I wanted anymore. Sometimes it seemed easier to be that woman with others with whom I had never been before. Sometimes it seemed impossible to think I'd ever worried that he would want me again. I was keeping secrets again; most of them, I was keeping from myself.

A sudden bout of hard rain dashed down upon the boat. It sounded so loud. I jumped and laughed. "Wow. This storm is going to be something, isn't it?"

"We can leave soon and go to the safety of home, but I was hoping ..." He stopped and gave me this shy smile, like he wasn't sure he should say what he wanted. But I already knew and so I leaned in and kissed him. A gift.

The gift of me. Just for him. 

"Let's stay, Jack. Let's ride it out here. It's just a tropical storm. It would be so exciting, don't you think?"

"Indeed. There is nothing like it, my little dear. But ... would you not be scared? Even a storm such as this can have moments of concern."

"You'd keep me safe though, wouldn't you, Jack?" 

He looked away from me. "In my own clumsy fashion, that is all I have been trying to do, Ann. Yet I seem to recall that ... Amorata, I find myself uncertain as to how I may be of service to you lately."

"Service? That's what you think this is? You servicing me?" His eyes flickered up to me and I registered the confusion there. And I heard myself in my own ears and felt like trash ... it wasn't only strangers I'd been so bitchy to these last weeks. I reached over and put my arms around his neck. "Oh, Jack. Forgive me, beloved. I'm just tired from the trip. Please ignore me when I'm like this. Just hold me."

But his arms seemed tentative and I felt tension in his body. I forced myself to do what I needed. Inside my head, I played a slow song to dissipate my raging anger and eased my body into his. Lowered one hand and ran it slowly down his chest. Felt his breathing stutter when my fingers reached his waist and sneaked under the hem of his shirt and stroked over his warm skin.

He took a chance that I meant this. He was so eager for me to mean it, to want it. To want him the way I always had. He leaned in against me, pressing me back into the ladder. His mouth found mine. Finally. I sucked in on his tongue; gentle, rhythmic, inviting. Heard him groan in supplication and his hands began to explore me.

The song in my head played on. It was what I'd begun doing with Jack. Like a distraction. A way to not let my mind notice that I seemed ... off. That's the best I can describe it. Like there was only part of me engaged when I was with Jack this way. I tried to distract the part that wasn't engaged with Jack by singing to it and hoping it short-circuited these weird things it kept wanting to think about and feel.

 

 

Oh, God! Where did that come from? I searched inside my internal jukebox for another song, panicking that it was this sad thing I thought of in this time. I'm happy, I yelled inside, where is this coming from?

Jack felt me, felt the hesitation, and I could tell he did.

Stop it! Stop thinking, stop feeling. Just do it. Do it for him. Shit! When had this become my mantra when I was in Jack's arms and knew he wanted to make love to me? How could I be failing him this particular way?

Deep breath. Forced smile that he'd feel against his lips. Hands on his ass to drag him in against me. Moving against him. Sighing deep. Hoping to God I was getting wet. Worried I wasn't. Worried the worrying over the wetness would make me dry. Please, not again.

His hands. How I loved them. I concentrated on how much I loved the feel of his hands on me and I started yanking off my shirt. Trying to speed this up. Wanting the sense of urgency.

His mouth. How it was against my skin. I delved into my memory banks for all the times it had taken nothing but his mouth to make me drip in anticipation.

His cock. How it came to life in my hands, like now. Reaching for it, undoing his zipper while he murmured against my neck. Its length, its beauty, its girth, its devotion.

Telling him to help me, to strip me the rest of the way, to take me. Now. Please. Fast. Hard. Quick. Giving him what he wanted, what he needed. It was for him.

And he didn't seem to know that. He based his knowledge of me on what we'd had before I had ceased ... what had I ceased? Feeling? Caring? Wanting? Didn't matter. What mattered was that he was able to press me into the ladder, pull my legs around his waist, shove himself inside me and pump and thrust and drive and ... not stop until he thought I was coming. And only then would he come. I didn't realize until after, when he was holding me and I felt his seed dripping from me, that he'd made almost no noise when he came. Just this grunting groan. Ah, fuck. But he had come, right? What more did he want from me?

In return, I got the comfort of him. I got to hold on to his strong, steady body. I got to be kissed. I got to feel my ability to be stronger grow the longer he held me safe. I got to pretend it wasn't a weakness that I seemed to only be getting weaker around him. I got to ignore how that seemed to make me angry with him. I wanted to be like him and I was beginning to resent that I was failing ... one more failure.

He let me go and I pulled away; went in the little bathroom there on the ship and cleaned up. Avoided looking in the mirror at the woman standing there. When he took his turn, washing with the door open, I set about in the galley. Fixing him a snack of sandwiches, chips and beer. He had gotten more used to modern food and I had gotten more used to caring for him.

We ate in virtual silence. Pretending we were listening to the news channel as the storm updates came in. Jack was plotting the storm's path and projections on a chart. He showed me what he thought would happen. He suggested we leave; our final chance to make it out before the water was pushed over the roads leading out of Bay St. Louis. I wanted to stay. I hated being at home. I wanted to stay where we were instead.

"I want to experience this, Jack, riding out a big storm on a boat with you. I mean, I know it's not the same as when you were on the open ocean in the Surprise but it's the closest I may come," I said, grinning at him. "We'll be safe and snug tied up here. And the marina's so protected. We may never have this kind of chance again."

And so we stayed. We listened to the radio. We played cards. He tried to teach me to play darts. I tried to learn. I asked him to teach me about sailing. We started with learning the names of the sails. He had to admit, I was not the most apt pupil he'd ever had. Just marginally better than Stephen, I agreed.

In one of the lulls between feeder bands, right before the biggest band was supposed to come in over us, something happened between us that was my fault. Perhaps it was born of my frustrations but in the moment it happened, all I felt was angry. After it happened, all I felt was guilt. God. More guilt. More failure. How much more before I broke?

We were curled up on opposite ends of the little built-in couch. Reading. A feeling of waiting in the air; a growing current of anticipation and energy on the wind that rocked us even between the wicked winds of the rain bands. I felt his hand on my calf and ignored it. He rubbed it up to my thigh and I felt him shift over to me.

"Oh, Jack, come on. Give it a rest, okay?" I snapped out to him.

He looked at me like I'd just punched him then retreated to his side of the couch.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I'm just ... I mean, we just did it and I ... I don't know but it just seems like maybe we should be thinking about other things. Like the storm or ..." My words trailed off as I heard myself sounding so hollow.

He cleared his throat. "Never in life would I mean to be such a brute. I have some understanding, my dear. You have been through so much with everything that has happened and ... I so wish you would do as I have asked and take some time to recuperate."

"Recuperate? From what?" Sharp voice sparking out at him.

Avoiding my eyes. "In my day, we recognized that such ... upsets as you have experienced could be the cause of ... What I mean to say is that a woman's more fragile disposition... is so easily affected ... perhaps take to your bed a few days? Perhaps a tincture of laudanum?"

"Laudanum? You think I need laudanum?" My voice was soft and it might have given him this impression that he was safe to venture down a path he never had before with me.

"Perhaps you need more red meat? Spot of port? Heats the blood you know. It is natural for a woman to feel less inclined amorously at certain times." Now he was just blithely and gaily tromping through a dangerous minefield without a care in the world.

"Less amorous?"

"My love, surely you can see what I do? You have become less ... amenable to my advances of late and you seem to ... What I mean to say is that ... Perhaps the reason for your lack of enthusiasm to a good romp, so to speak, relates to fatigue?"

I looked at him coldly. Chose my words for maximum ability to cut him off at the knees because in just those few moments of this discussion it had become obvious to me that I wasn't fooling him anymore. Honestly, I am not sure if it was him I was trying to hurt.

"You know, Jack, maybe it's not me. Ever think of that? Sometimes women like a little less cut and thrust - you ought to have learnt that from your wife."

The color seemed to drain from his face. I saw in his eyes just how well those words had done their job - tears formed and before he could rise to leave me, I realized he was crying.

And then the bad part of the storm hit us. It came in almost to the moment Jack had predicted. The thing I remember the most was the noise of the rain and the scream of the wind.

Loud enough to drown out the heaving storm inside me. Pulling me back from where I'd been headed ... making me remember this about Jack: he was a man who would not be goaded into fighting a woman. We might disagree at times, we might even bicker as all couples do. But a real down and dirty fight with a woman, even a woman he was as free with as me? Never. It was the one type of battle from which he'd retreat with honor and without a moment's hesitation.

The boat, even tied as securely as it was, began to ride waves I'd never felt hit this marina before. The wind ... so loud against the hull. The rain sounded like it was trying to hammer us to pieces. I stood and looked out one of the side windows. It was so dark and yet it was only about 2 p.m. The rain was thick, but through it I could make out the shore and the trees were whipping about wildly in sporadic gusts.

We both jumped when we heard this loud boom against the prow. I looked at Jack and he was already heading for the cabin entry.

"Where are you going, Jack?" I heard the note of panic in my voice.

So did he. It might have been the only reason he turned and looked at me. "I must check the hull, my dear. Whatever hit us may have done damage. I shall not be a moment."

And he was already up the stairs; water poured hard in the cabin as he slid the door open and slipped out, closing it behind him. I tried to listen for his footfalls as he made his way forward. I could barely make them out over the noise of the storm. It seemed to me that hours passed and Jack was still out there. I started pacing in the cabin and visions of disaster loomed like abject reality before my mind's eyes: Jack, drowned; Jack, unconscious; Jack, bleeding; Jack, gone.

I only snapped back from that imaginary pit because I'd learned that if I pinched the skin above my knees hard enough, it would bring me back to reality. Pain as the reality drug. What a concept.

But Jack was still gone and I was really frightened. What would happen to me if he'd been swept off the boat in the wind and rain? Who would protect me anymore? Who would let me strike out at him like a blind fury only to open his arms to me whenever I reached for him? Oh, Jack.

Not much thought went into it for me. I put my entire strength behind getting the cabin entryway open. The wind was so strong and it was clamping it shut. By the time I finally got it open wide enough to squeeze myself out, my entire upper body was soaked. Seconds after my feet touched the deck, the rest of me was wet through and through.

My hands shielding my eyes, I strained through the rain, now coming at me in an almost vertical line. I could barely make out his form; it looked like his arms were hanging onto the mast and he was faced directly into the teeth of the storm. I yelled to him but he could never hear me over the wind. It howled around us like a living beast of prey.

Don't know why but the next thing I remember is looking at my hands. They were clutching the metal handholds along the port side of the boat. I was about half way to where Jack was and I was frozen in place. Terrified. Unable to move.

I screamed for Jack. He didn't hear at first and then suddenly he turned toward me. His eyes widened and he yelled at me to stay where I was. I watched as he let go of his grip on the mast and for this fleeting, insane moment, I thought he might fly away from me. But Jack moves sure-footed like a cat when he's on a boat and he was down from the top and coming along the side to me in a trice.

When he reached me, he put his mouth to my ear and told me to let go of the rail and hold on to him. I searched his eyes; shook my head. Too afraid to act in my own best interests.

"I have you, amorata," he told me, his mouth against my ear, his arms around me. "You may let go now. I will protect you. You are safe with me."

And I think that's when it came to me - like a bolt from somewhere that revealed something to me and ... but, anyway, here it was. An acceptable fear. A way I could be scared in front of Jack and he would not think I was disappointing him. And I could get his comfort and not pay any price for it.

"I'm so scared, Jack. Don't let go," I yelled into his ear, wanting to be heard over the wind.

"I know, my love, I know. But you must release your hands and I will take you back to the cabin. Let go now, sweetheart."

I kept my eyes on him as I released my hands. Absorbing his strength. His essence. My rock. My only guide through this storm.

When I was free of my hold, he had a firm grip on my hands. My knees started shaking as the boat rocked hard and banged into the wharf. He dropped with me when I fell to a sitting position, unable to face the prospect of walking back to safety. I might have been able to crawl.

He scooted toward me and pulled me into his body. I put my face in his chest and he bore the brunt of the wind's fury, shielding my body from it.

Trying to distract me, trying to show me the time to accept this fear was now. His mouth against my ear. "In all my days aboard Naval vessels, do you know that there has always been a certain quickening to my very blood to find myself sailing in the most horrible conditions? I wonder, my love, if there is any way you could understand that feeling? That I would endure the vilest cruelties nature can produce for a sailor and yet feel an exhilaration to bear witness to it? Does that seem possible to a woman such as you?"

My eyes opened and I moved my head until I was nestled in his shoulder. Looking out at the wind and the waves from the safety of Jack's embrace. "Tell me what it feels like to not be afraid."

"I did not say I was not afraid. Ann, I believe I would have been the sorriest fool to not have felt fear when faced with such danger. The proof of a man faced with such is to not allow his fear to keep him from doing what is needed to survive the storm. Do you smoke my meaning, amorata?"

"I want to face this storm, beloved. But I cannot do it without you holding on to me."

"Let me help you feel its power from a place of safety. I will never let you go but you must trust in that. Can you do that?"

"Yes. It's what I have to do to survive."

"Just so, my little dear. Now, I have you and will not let go. Kneel up here against me. Ah, exactly right. You are so brave, my love. Now, let go of me. Raise your arms into the wind. Give yourself over to the storm. Let it do its worse to you. You will see that you have more power to control what it does to you than you realize."

I swallowed hard against the pressure of the wind on my chest. Closed my eyes tight and raised my arms away from his shoulders. The wind caught them and shoved them back, but I quickly reclaimed control of my arms. It felt like I was flying. I felt my hair whipping around me. I felt the sting of the rain. I felt the pure electrical charge of a dangerous tropical storm lashing its way across the coast.

Something in the wind. Something in the rawness of the fight between Mother Nature's elements and me. A wildness that seemed to zap into me through my fingertips and travel instantaneously down to my chest. I heard myself howl at the storm. A liberated voice, wild in its release.

I felt Jack laughing against me as he clutched me to his chest. I looked down into his eyes; blue-green depths I depended on, a light I shone in. His hair was soaking wet and blown into abandoned majesty in the weather. He looked more alive than seemed possible. He seemed pure male. My body slid down to where I could take his face in my hands and kiss him with a blissful lack of inhibition.

"You look so beautiful like this," he told me as we muttered against each other. "Why is it that the longer I love you, the more beautiful you become to me?"

There was a current in the air. I wanted him. Had to have him. He caught whatever was happening and nearly carried me back to the cabin opening. His big arms made brief work of wrestling the door open and he prodded me down the ladder before him. I was on him even as he was trying to close the door behind him. Pulling on his belt. Rubbing my face against the seam of his pants, enjoying the familiar gathering hardness still captured within. Each step down the ladder he took, I inched his zipper down a bit more. By the time he reached the floor, I had my hands on the part of him from which I was most in need of affirmation.

"Not here. Not this time," he said, his voice firm. He picked me up and carried me forward to the small sleeping cabin. Inside, the bed stretched the width of the space. He tossed me down and began stripping off my wet clothes, pausing only to throw them out the door into the central cabin.

He kept batting my hands away from his body; not undressing himself until after he'd gotten me naked and ordered me to lie back and wait for him. But I felt feral and as soon as he crawled over me, I came up to meet his body, wrapping myself around him and letting him lower us both to the bed. His weight pressed me in to the mattress; it felt like the most delicious bedevilment. Undulating under him and feeling how I was keeping time with the chaotic movements of the water against the boat.

We moved against each other; simply feeling skin on skin, wet on wet. Whispering nonsense. Relishing contact, unfettered by unnamed fears that had come to take this part of me away from him. Turning over and over on the bed. Laughing at the sheer joy of playing together in this adult game.

Coming for him when he ordered it. His mouth plowing over my sex, devouring any remnants of my will as it sucked and licked up my juices. Calling his name loud enough to be heard in the height of what was happening outside this spot that belonged only to us.

Feeling him turn me over and bring me to my knees. Loving the strength and determination of his desires. He knew just what he wanted, how he wanted to take me. God. It made me drip even more for him. His thighs between mine forced me to widen my stance. I put out a hand on the gentle slope of the ship's side and arched my back.

With this obscenely masculine growl, his hand shoved in over my sex. He rubbed me hard with the heel of that hand even as his other hand fell hard just above mine on the ship's side. "Take me, amorata. My prick. Put it in. Do it now, my love. Now."

I reached back and grabbed him. Jerked him just to feel him; I loved to touch him. But when he grunted in annoyance, I brought his head toward my opening, rubbed it in my moisture and then slowly inserted it in me. Had to stop at the feel of it and a shiver raced through me. God! I could feel him!

Bracing himself on the hand leaning against the side of the boat, Jack put his other hand on the side of my hip and began working his way into me. Just on the needy side of impatience, letting me feel his struggle, showing me he was still in control no matter how his crude groans might have made anyone else feel.

And then we reached it. That place you go together. When it's right. When it's so good you can taste your coming long before you get the satisfaction of its reality. Pumping in me, steady, firm. Picking up the pace, harder, wilder. Varying his movements and pace, panting, thrilling. Electric currents gathering inside and needing release. Needing to come. Needing it so bad ... the first time in so long to feel this free of fear, this intent on this purpose, this quiet in my head. Blessed silence within the awesome noise of the storm. A memory I would never forget and never understand.

Coming on his cock. Real. Sure. Loud.

Feeling him come inside me. Spasms rocking us both. Hot. Hard. Louder than loud.

Collapsing to the bed. His body, welcome to me. Take all of me. No one else would ... could ...

Crying into the pillow. Letting him believe it was only due to the overwhelming nature of what I'd just felt. And me, left in the end to not understand how I could snap back into that person who had such trouble living up to his expectations. Like I'd clapped my hands twice and the genie put me back in the bottle.

He held me for so long. The storm's worst winds were long gone. I never slept. Just let him hold me as he took his time in slumber. Slipping out from under him when I realized there was no more noise outside but the gentle patter of huge plopping rain.

Normal rain.

Back to normal rain. 

Back to not feeling. Back to wanting blessed silence and having to make do with drowning out as many of the unwelcome noises in my brain as I could.

I was standing in the galley looking out the window when he finally found me. The sun was setting. There was damage everywhere but nothing mortal. I was crying and didn't want to be. Nothing made sense to me anymore. Have you ever been so confused you only knew if you stayed where you were that you would cause more damage than if you kept moving? A moving target. Like you can even outrun yourself? I never have said I made sense.

His arms came around me and I refused to lean back into him, sitting on one of the high stools behind me and wanting nothing more than to make me feel safe.

"Something's wrong, Jack. And I swear I don't know what it is. But this I do know. It's not you. It's not us. It's me. I ... I just ... If I knew, I could fix it. I know I've become such a disappointment to you. It hurts me more than you'll ever know to see the way I am making you feel."

I knew he was crying right along with me. I knew why. He must have been so tired of the way I kept disappointing him lately. I turned to hold him and tried to find a way not to be letting him down this badly.

"What will you do?" he asked me and I wiped away his tears.

"I don't have a clue. But I won't stay here and make you miserable. I'll figure this out, Jack. I promise. And when I do, I'll come home."

His arm grabbed around my waist and held me tight to him. His face was buried in my hair, his mouth near my ear. I could feel his breath on my neck. It took so long and then he whispered, "Stay with me, amorata. You have to stop running. Perhaps I have not been more than the most ineffectual and callous of men, but I have tried to ... I know you do not want me to, as you put it, smother you but, my love, I feel you need my protection."

"Please try to understand, Jack." Whispering it to him. Feeling this bone deep. "I love you so much. I am just so tired of disappointing you."

His lips against my neck and his arms tighter still around me. Not letting go. Giving me a hoarse whisper and I could hear his strength of conviction. "I am not disappointed in you, Ann. Tell me why you have decided that I am."

"God, how can you not be, Jack? I have tried so hard to be just like you and I have done nothing but fail."

He sat up from me and his hands held my face so I'd look at him. "Why would I want you to be just like me, my dear? The very thing I treasure about you is the differences between us. Do you not think being two peas in a stewpot would be boring?"

"Two peas in a stewpot?" From the midst of tension, I felt laughter come bubbling up inside me. "Perhaps you meant two peas in a pod?"

Giving me this grin before sobering to say, "I have failed you, that much I do know. But I will do anything, amorata, all you have to do is tell me. My methods for facing what happened are not yours. I have a lifetime of living with violence. You do not. That is a significant difference between us.

"You haven't failed me, Jack. It's just that ..." I looked deep in his eyes, trying to find my way. All I saw was him. "If I tell you, Jack, then you'll realize all I ever was ... was a fraud. You think I am a strong woman. I actually used to think that about myself. But I found out during the kidnapping that I'm not, not when it counts. I ... I did ... things ... and I felt ... I just always thought I'd be brave, I guess."

"In this moment, show me you trust in me. I will listen with an open heart. Tell me." I turned in his arms and tried to pull away but he pulled me back against his chest. I felt his chin on my shoulder and his arms clasping around my chest.  This hard voice of Capt. Aubrey ordered me, saying, "Tell me. Say it aloud and let us be done with it."

I looked out the window and fixed my sight on a light off near the harbormaster's building. And I made the choice to stop running. To stay and fight to find myself here in his arms.

"Tell me, Jack. The truth? Were you afraid when you came to get me? When you went to find Terry?"

"I was only afraid I would find you dead. That was my greatest fear." 

"And yet, you found the ability to act even though you had fear. What if I told you, Jack, that I didn't? That I was too scared to even think? That I was so scared that I ..." Looking out at the light and trying to forget. "I am consumed by that fear; it has never left me. As if I cheated death and so it stalks me and if I ever sit still, it will claim me. I am also consumed by the shame of how I reacted. I am not the woman you thought I was. I never had courage; not when it really mattered."

He made these shushing noises at me; he could tell I had started leaking tears again. I let him rock me in his arms, let him tell me that the only thing that really mattered was that I had been strong enough to survive. But, you see, he doesn't really know, does he? He wanted to, though. I knew it as soon as he tried to ask me ... he didn't have experience in dealing with a woman who would not give up these kinds of secrets unless directly provoked.

"Have you ... Were you ... What I mean to ask, my little dear, is ... should you ever wish to tell me ... that is, as it were, if you ever felt you could trust in me in this way ... Forgive me, amorata, you must find my bumbling ways of little help to you." Clearing his throat and shifting about on the stool, sounding nervous all of a sudden. "If I may be permitted this liberty, my love? Perhaps the problem lies not in those events but in whatever it is I cannot fulfill for you in their aftermath?"

I sighed and closed my eyes. God, he was so convinced he was failing me; he was so confused that he'd done something wrong. Could I tell him what was really haunting me if for no other reason than for him to finally see that the truth was that I wasn't running from him, I was running from the moment I would see how he would feel about me if he knew? No one else really knew much of what had happened; no one had ever asked me. I knew Terry thought he knew some of it and maybe he did, but we never discussed it. The only other witnesses were dead. Could Jack ever forgive me that losing hope and losing my courage happened in one crystal moment?

To tell him ... to see his reaction ... would he pull back from me? What would his face tell me? What would I read in his eyes if he knew? Start with that crystal moment, I told myself, and see what he feels in the knowing of it. I turned, put my hands over his heart and said it plain, with little emotion. Just said it ... and studied him as he absorbed this.

"It's hard to explain but I have times lately when I don't believe I'm alive, Jack. I imagine it's because there was this moment when I knew I was not going to survive. I wasn't a person to them; I was only a tool to weaken Terry. After the phone call, they talked about me like I wasn't there. Rawlins raised his gun and aimed at me. He barely looked at me. Just said I'd outlived my usefulness and he wanted to begin cleaning up the mess. All I could see was the gun. It was the moment I knew I was already dead. His finger started pressing down on the trigger. I saw it. My mind went blank. I always thought in moments like that, you'd see your life or you'd pray to God to take your soul, or something. I didn't do anything. And then Raul shoved his hand and the shot went wide. Raul said to leave me alive because Terry would not give the bank codes without seeing me. He's the only reason I'm alive. Raul, I mean."

Jack's face turned almost white before it began to redden a bit. He understood the implications, he visualized the moment; it fired his fury; it inflamed his natural instincts to protect and to punish. It hurt him to hear it, it hurt him worse, I think, to realize just how close I'd come and just how defenseless I'd been.

It was his honest reaction. My sweet Jack, my dangerous Lucky Jack, my masterful Captain Aubrey. All sides of him were angry over what I'd described. And it hurt him in that way men have when they are unable to protect someone they love ... as if it strikes at their very virility and masculinity.

I stroked his face and reached for him. We hugged and held on. Whispering against his neck, that place I loved to touch with my lips, "Beloved, I don't know why I can't let what happened go. But telling you, don't you see? I don't want to hurt you that way. It's not the answer either."

"It can be if you will help me be the man you need in this time. This is like a storm for us, amorata, do you smoke it? Sometimes when sailing through a storm, one must be willing to try what may seem to be desperate measures. Whatever you are doing now is clearly not working. Perhaps there are ... other, shall we say, events that transpired that you would ... something you may wish to tell me but feel you cannot and yet perhaps you would find me more receptive than you might realize? But if that is not the answer, then take a different risk, my love. What have you not tried yet that you may be willing to consider now?"

"Oh, Jack! I love you so much. Just to know you'd be this willing ... but I ..." I hugged in around his neck and buried my face in his hair. It hung loose around me, like a curtain I could draw over the pain for a while. "But you've given me something to think on. There is a way to face all this that I hadn't thought about until just this moment. What you've said ... getting through the storm. There are people who would know how to do that for me. Guess I've just been too buried in all this to realize what I needed to do."

It was like a light went on for me. What I'd been trying to do was so 'me' in one way: I have the hardest time being strong enough to be weak for a while. It's the way I was raised, I'm sure. Independent, expected to look out for myself, a sign of something lacking in you if you asked for help too often. Something almost morally corrupt about admitting a mental instability.

Never considered that I had another choice in this time. That maybe I had to choose a new path to find myself again. But what Jack said, it made me think about how much I was tired of being a victim. And, just that simple, I made the connection. I was a victim. A bad crime. An act of violence. Several of them, in fact. It's the answer I think, like Jack said ... I had to be willing to try something else.

That evening, I called a friend from my old days in the victim advocacy fight. No details, just told her I needed her to recommend someone ... a therapist. Don't think me odd, but just saying those words was a real stretch for me. Of course, maybe that explains a lot, hey?

I made an appointment for the next day with the person she recommended. If I was going to stay and fight this battle here, I needed someone capable of coaching me. That wasn't ever going to be Jack. I love him to death and back, but there were just some things that I would never have been able to tell him. Not with how he'd reacted to me telling him about almost being shot. One of us suffering was enough; I didn't want him to be contaminated with all of it. Not like me.

So this is where I am now. Here. But also out there. Looking for the 'me' I want back. 

 

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