Part III

ANN

From over here, from this side ... it's numb. It's not dealing with guilt because it's so much that it eats me alive from the inside if I were to feel it. It's standing in an oak-floored hallway and trying to remember what I was doing and then trying to remember who I am.

It's staring out a window that's so old the glass isn't perfect and you see the world waver before you. And you think, it looks so much better this way. It's walking over sidewalks that heave and fall as the earth subsides. And you think, life can be like this, where you lay a foundation you want to be solid only to find it's built on something that is still capable of moving around and mocking your arrogance that you ever thought you knew how to really love a man. It's staying in a whitewashed house that needs to be bleached every year or mildew rots the paint. And you think, life's a constant struggle to keep it from being overtaken by your own black thoughts. It can be so much simpler to not care and just let the mildew go.

I was raised in New Orleans, the town that care forgot. When I was younger, I had a teacher who said it should have been the town that forgot to care. A lot's changed. Me most of all. I care to forget now.

Nights mean work. I love nights. It is a time that passes like the blink of an eye. I am doing work I was made to do. It is fast, it is ugly, it is raw, it is immediate. Decisions made and headlines in the morning on my doorstep before I even get home.

Working the night desk was the best thing that could have ever happened to me at this point in my life. I wouldn't have been sleeping anyway so working nights fights my mind's inclination to wait to think on bad things only when the world around me is silent and dark. Now that I sleep in the daylight, I seem to do better. Nothing can sneak up on me in my dreams, maybe.

He haunts my dreams but as it's the only place I have him now, I invite him in each time I sleep. I dream him working. I dream him in the pub. I dream him in his apartment. I dream him dreaming. I have even, once or twice, allowed myself to dream him missing me.

I don't dream him with other women.

Well, no, I have dreamed that. But I wake in a sweat, clawing for the sharp edge of day and reason and consciousness.

My days are full. I sleep after work. I rise to feed Buck, drink coffee, go for a run with Buck along St. Charles, which is unhealthy but so beautiful you forget you're exercising. With so much free time, I devote the rest of my hours until I go to work to helping make my mom's place better. I am doing all those odds and ends tasks that she just kept thinking either my brother would drive over from Atlanta to take care of or she'd hire a handyman. But instead, I make her tackle them with me.

I've chucked the old rocking chairs that were on the front verandah. We went to the farmer's market over in Bywater and found this wonderful porch swing. Over on Magazine, we found a rattan table and fan chair that go with it. I whitewashed them all. My mom and I had a fine time hanging the swing. She said maybe we need a man helping us because neither of us wanted to crawl up to find the joist in the ceiling over the veranda. I said we're two smart women, surely we can do this ourselves. She said if I wanted a man's job, take it. It made me laugh. My mom's still a feisty one.

I found a dirty magazine one of my brothers must have hidden behind the little door leading into that section of the attic that I had to creep through to get to where I could figure out where the joist was. I couldn't wait to mail it to him.

She held the ladder for me as I hung the swing on the chains I'd secured in the joist. I wasn't sure I trusted my own handiwork so it was my mom who tested the swing once we had it mounted.

We've pulled off the hurricane shutters, scrubbed off the wasp nests behind them, wire-brushed the mildew and chipping paint ... it's given the house a brand new look just by painting the shutters. I took pictures when we were finished and emailed them to Johnny just to prove that I am doing something worthwhile.

We are women, hear us roar, my mom said when we got the last shutter reattached.

We are women, watch us diddle over endless paint swatches, I replied. I think I changed the color on the shutters four times before my mom found the 'right' color of off-teal.

And all this time, he has never left my mind for any length of time except when I am working.

I worry over him. I know I don't have the right to, but I do anyway. I want him to not hurt even though I know I've hurt him. I want him to never worry about me even though I know he is the kind of man who will. I want everyone there, at the pub, to take care of him. I want them to hate me because I feel like that's what I deserve.

Johnny and I talk every so often; he's the one I've picked to be my surrogate in watching over Max. But it's hard asking another man about Max and how he is doing. If he is doing bad, Johnny knows it will make me sad. If he is doing too good, Johnny feels it will maybe be worse for me to feel I have been so easily and quickly supplanted. On the other hand, when has Max ever really tipped his hand? Who would know how he really is feeling? I fear he will close himself off from others. This is why I worry even though it is offensive that I think I have the right to worry about him since I'm the cause if he is suffering or hurting.

My other friends there, I haven't even told them I moved. I asked Johnny not to say anything; at least not for a while. Let them go on thinking I'm just away helping my mom with some unnamed need. I know Max will hate to be held up to public pity; I think if they all believe this little lie that it will give Max the space he needs until he is ready to be the one to say I've left forever.

I didn't even tell Chili when he called me to invite me to Max's birthday party. It was the weekend after ... after the real date. Apparently, Michelle had set up a party for his birthday ... I'm not sure how I didn't know about that but considering all that was happening in that time, I probably would have just said to do what she wanted.

When Chili called me, I'd been stowing the last box in the U-Haul trailer. I'd asked a few friends from work to help me; Johnny happened to drive by, saw me and stopped. That's how come he found out. I swore him to secrecy. I made him promise to look after Max.

Moving was simple this time. I spent one day packing my odds and ends in boxes and then that morning, it only took about two hours to load the U-Haul. And then Buck and I took off.

I wasn't taking that much, really. Most of the furniture I'd given to a friend's daughter who was just getting her first apartment. I kept a chair that means a lot to me and I kept a few pieces that had belonged in my family. Everything fit nice and neat into the trailer. Everything but the mess I'd made.

When Chili called me, I had been shoving that last box in. He said about the party that night for Max ... I said I was out of town, unfortunately, needed to go help my mom ... but that Max was going to love having his friends care enough to celebrate his birthday. I suggested he get Max there by just inviting him over for a drink. What else could I do? Max needed to be with his friends.

I was on the road during the party. I drank a cup of coffee in his honor.

Not once have I cried except that moment. I sat in the parking area of a gas station, lifted my Styrofoam coffee cup toward the stars and wished him the life he deserved. And I started crying, feeling sorry for myself. I stopped when I realized that what had happened had really been caused by me, so whatever gave me the right to feel sorry for myself? And that's when I started concentrating more on how it felt ugly and dirty to have ended up being the cause of hurting him. Because I knew I had. I knew he loved me.

So that was it. I just wasn't such a nice person after all and there was a time when I thought I had been. But I'm not, as it turns out.

The other night, there was a killing in my mom's neighborhood. It's one of the things about this city that you have to accept. No one's immune and crime happens everywhere. My mom decided she needed to upgrade her security. I thought about calling Dino but instead, I called a friend who's a cop and asked her to recommend a good home security company.

Everything bad that happens, I hear about it on the city desk at night. My numbness is paying off there. I hear about these things happening and the only judgment call I make is whether I think it's a story or not. I mean, it's interesting. But sometimes, knowing too much means the details fail to move you anymore.

So the killing in my mom's neighborhood only stood out because she read about it. She said, two women living alone need to be extra cautious about their safety with such things happening so close. So I made the call yesterday to the home security company and one of their guys is supposed to come give us estimates. My mom's already got every window wired and she's using grills over the bottom windows and doors ... just like everyone else here. But she let the surveillance contract run out a few years ago and I figured this was a good place to start. So we'll see what the estimate is.

She's pretty well off, of course, but I don't want her taken advantage of. Even by me. It will take me a few months to save my money to have enough for first, last and security deposit before I can even think about moving into my own place. In the meantime, my mom's enjoying having company, I think. She dotes on Buck, she dotes on me. There's a part of me that loves that but there's a part of me that wishes she'd just do what she wants and let us fend for ourselves. I know I've interrupted her normal life, which is full of friends and activities and causes.

When I get up, it's mid-day and I wander down the back stairs into the kitchen, like always. My mom's got coffee brewing for me, like always. Buck's already been fed and he's outside in the yard, which I have to remember to tell my mom that we can't do that because it's going to get too hot for him before too long to leave out for any length of time.

I'm looking out the window at him; he's laying in the shade, not a care in the world. I feel like going outside and playing with him but I'm dressed in only a ratty t-shirt that I like sleeping in. I bought this t-shirt when I was in college and still remember that I bought it the day I was hired for the student newspaper. It's been washed so often that it's softer than soft but it's also short enough that it just barely covers my private bits.

"Oh my. Ann, go put some clothes on. I have a guest here just now," my mom says, coming in behind where I am standing by the sink.

"The security guy is here already?" I ask, thinking I should really get dressed and be there when he gives the estimate because I should help her decide what to do about all the options I know he'll give.

"No, he's not coming until tomorrow. But go get dressed. Wear something nice. And then come join us. I'm fixing us a cold shrimp salad for a late lunch and I want you to come dine with us."

Okay, so I know what this is. She's got one of her friends who's dropped in. That means one of those 'visits' with a garden club-type lady ... the kind that used to make me want to scratch my eyes out when I was in high school and got stuck doing the polite daughter routine. What I need is to not be rude but to have a ready-made excuse to leave the clucking party as soon as I can bolt down some lunch. So I go through this instant mental list of the projects I still want to do around the house.

And if I do this convincingly enough, even my mom won't guess that I just don't want to be forced to sit and smile all afternoon as I listen to gossip and what is wrong with all the men in the world that not one of them has asked a nice smart girl like me to marry him. Of course, I've matured enough that it's been years since I've responded to things like that by anything other than a distracted and indulgent smile. When I was young and very sure I knew everything, I used to upset my mom's friends by saying that marriage didn't interest me in the least because I had things to do with my life and that didn't include becoming some man's property. But in the back of my mind, I was always adding that I was never going to become some man's punching bag.

"I'll throw on some shorts. I want to get out and start cleaning the deck today since it's not raining. So I'll just come in for lunch with the two of you and then sneak off when it's appropriate. How's that?"

She looks a little flustered, glances back in the living room where I assume her friend is. Then back at me. "Well, I think you should wear something nicer. Or at least do your hair up cute like you had it the other day ... in a ponytail, remember? And wear some lipstick. At least make them nice shorts. Maybe wear that darling red cotton shirt I got you the other day? You look so nice in red."

I roll my eyes. "Mom. I can't scrub the deck in nice clothes. And I am not going to ... Look, I'll be presentable, I promise. I wouldn't embarrass you. Okay?"

It takes not that long. Quick shower, jump into work clothes that consist of worn khaki shorts and an old tank top so I can work on my tan while I toil outside. No shoes, of course, because I have been reverting to childhood. But I do my mom's idea for the ponytail because it is easier and quicker. No makeup because I'd be sweating it off in five minutes once I get to work. But I figure ... I am clean and I am dressed in a way that makes my escape more likely when things get tedious.

By the time I make it back downstairs, the kitchen is empty so I figure Mom has already brought the lunch in to the dining room. I go in with a sweet, daughterly smile on my face because I really do love my mom enough to enjoy that she wants to show me off to her friends.

It isn't a woman friend.

His back is to me.

I would turn around and run out of there except my mom sees me, so he knows I am there by her reaction. He rises and turns ... I don't know what to do.

My mom says to come and join them. I am staring at his shoulder and trying not to crumble. The hurt nearly overwhelms me. I have no clue as to whether he is scowling or smiling or just staring at me with no emotion on his face.

A recent lie I'd told my mom flashes through my mind. I'd come in from a run with Buck. She had just blurted out this question: who is he? And I had said that not everything is caused by a man; that sometimes, it's the woman who's at fault. And I thought that was cruel of me to say but I didn't realize how cruel it was until I saw her face. I didn't mean you and Dad, I said softly, because he was clearly the bastard and you should have left him long before he died. She looked away from me. I told her that whatever she thought was going on with me, it wasn't. That I had just come home for the job. That I had not been involved with a man before coming home; that I'd only been having a series of casual relationships so there was not any kind of a 'man issue' involved.

I have to do something. I can't stand here like an idiot. I can't believe I'm dressed like this in front of him. I look at my mom for help; in that one silent exchange between us, I know that she has already known that I had lied to her when I said there was no man at the bottom of how haunted I have been since coming home.

She says to come sit down and join them. I realize this is the second time she's said this. I glance at Max. He's in full stoic mode. "Hello, Max. I didn't realize you were here."

"Your mother invited me to stay for lunch." He says it very properly, all clipped words and unemotional.

"You should have called and let me know you were coming," I say, suddenly getting a bit of a spine. 

"Would you have seen me if I had?" he asks me, his voice low but not giving an inch.

"Of course."

"Then what harm is there in how I have done this?"

What can I say? After what I've done, he gets all the 'get out of jail free' cards and I wouldn't ever call him on this, would I? So I acquiesce and go sit by my mom. She's serving shrimp salad ... cool and creamy ... on a nice bed of lettuce. I think about how Max can only eat so many salads before he craves red meat. I notice his hand playing with his fork. My mom says to eat and would anyone like some nice French bread that she picked up this morning.

My mom carries the conversation. She brags on me and tells Max about how great I'm doing at work. I wish she'd stop but then it'd be too quiet in there. She tells me that Max only flew in the night before and that he's not yet had the chance to get around the city so instead of cleaning the deck, maybe I could show him around this afternoon. I say that I'll go in the kitchen to make some more ice tea as the pitcher on the table is almost empty.

I wonder why he's here. I dread why he's here. 

MAX

Chili Palmer called me the afternoon I returned home from Las Vegas. I saw his number in the window. I knew why he was calling. I would not deny him the opportunity to chastise me, to take Ann's side in this. I wanted him to do that. I wanted to tell him how very wrong he was. I would have relished facing him on this. A chance to do damage when I was feeling raw and angry to be once again presumed to be at fault.

Instead, there was no recrimination. In fact, he only called to invite me to join him and Michelle for a drink that evening at the pub. A drink to honor my birthday. He mentioned, casually as if he truly believed it, that he had spoken to her and knew I was alone as she was visiting her mother for a while.

So she had lied to him. I wondered why. To save her own face, no doubt. To slip away, determined to let no man ever interfere. 

I had watched her that morning. I had driven by her apartment building. Friends of hers were helping her stow items in a trailer attached to her car. Johnny Ryan had been helping her, too.

So she was leaving, with no hesitation. She had not even let the corpse of what we'd had cool.

I would move on as well. She was not worth more to me than that.

By the time Palmer calls, I have been sitting in the middle of an empty house for two hours. I had bought this house for her. What a fool I was to have done this. To have thought that I had only to give her a place to make a home and that this would be another way to show her how life as my partner would be.

The utilities are not on. I think on this when I notice the chill in the air. I never notice such inconveniences unless I am with her because she gets cold so easily. If she were here with me, looking this place over, she would hug herself against the cold. I would have taken off my jacket to give her more warmth if my arms were not enough.

I would have given her everything. She didn't want it. I will never understand modern women. They fight nature. Men and women were made to cleave, one to the other, doing for each other. Modern women apparently feel this is degrading to them when a man would lay the world at their feet. They would rather be out there fighting the world on their own, I suppose.

It had never dawned on me that she thought so little of me. That she had not been as honored to be loved as I was to love.

She isn't the only woman I've met since coming here who has proven to me that there is really no room for me in this age.

I stand and go to the large glass windows overlooking the yard where I had thought I might plant a garden and where Buck would play. In my day, a man and a woman honored each other. Selene ...

Selene. I feel your loss this day in a way that robs me of the desire to be strong. Why was I deprived of my reward? Why am I not with you and my son?

My head is on the glass and I see shadows play in the reflections that float in and out of focus on the glass. I see Selene. I see Marcus. I see myself so far from them.

What have I done that is so wrong to deserve this fate? To be in this age where a woman I love runs away from me? She is not the first. But she is the last. I won't try again. If it is not to be her, then I will never give that part of myself to another.

I find my thoughts drift to what she said to me. To the way it felt to hear that she had been turned away from me by thoughts planted by Uma. What have I done that is so bad, so evil that this woman would destroy a love she knew was more valuable to me than anything?

She knew, as I do, that Ann has long ago convinced herself that she does not wish for a permanent relationship with a man. She must know that I have changed Ann's thoughts on this. Whether married or not, Ann has begun to really trust that we are meant to be together forever.

We were, rather. Until Uma stepped in and planted the seeds of doubt ... until she gave Ann reason to lose her trust in me. 

Uma did this on purpose. To destroy me.

She has done her job well. The man I was, exists no longer. That man had hope and faith and love of a woman so special and true. This man now sees that he is meant to be alone.

Why have the gods chosen to play with me in this manner? If they can bring me from the brink of Elysium's door into this barren world, why can they not at least restore me to an age where I may find a woman to love who will be honored by that love?

Why am I here where I will never fit in?

I close my eyes when the shadows blend into dark. And then I wander back into the bedroom where I had stood one day with an agent listening to her describe where the bed could go. I had a vision then. I had no reason to doubt it. A vision of Ann, there. Smiling at me. Reaching for me.

My hand goes out, an involuntary movement. Reaching for her.

She's gone.

And there is one person who purposely set that in motion. Uma.

Anger fills me in a way it hasn't in a very cold, long time. Before me is my hatred for what Uma's done. My mouth fills with bitterness for having tried to make things better with her recently and this is what she does to me in return.

I have a need to expend this anger but have no recourse. Then I remember that Palmer has invited me to the pub. I look at my watch; it is nearly the time I've agreed to meet him there. I will go. It will be good to show Uma that her best efforts to destroy me have only left me resolved to go on. I will not let her see the pain her actions have brought me.

When I get to the pub, the lot is full. Entering, I am greeted with confused images and a cacophony that is a wall between me and the revelers before me. There are new decorations. Music is louder than even before.

People are dressed ... even more bizarrely than I can take in. They appear to be in togas, some of them. Others in various modes of semi-dress. None of them are dressed in modern garb, I realize. They are lounging about on floor pillows, forsaking the booths and stools before the bar. A few of the women are dancing, as if showing off for their men. I frown in distaste for it takes another moment to realize ... this is supposed to suggest a Roman orgy and I realize this is all done in my name.

Just then, Chili reaches me. Greets me ... he is clad in some outfit that even my old friend Commodus would have found gaudy. Michelle appears before me, offering a drink in a golden chalice ... she is clad in black, her eyes done in the motif I recognize as Cleopatra.

They drag me into the midst. Toasts are offered. Paul swirls past me dressed as some Catamite version of a gladiator. He invites me to change into some cheap garb he's holding up to me that appears at first glance to be the closest they could come to what I wore as a slave.

I grit my teeth; swallow bile. I smile, nod, acknowledge. However, I will not mock my own blood and bitter past by playing the part that any sentient being would know would be a black memory for me.

They press packages upon me, gaily wrapped, given with hopeful smiles. I flash on Ann's face the last night I saw her ... her fingers tracing over the words on the silver cuff she gave me for my birthday. Where is she this night? Is she safe? She would resent my concern but it will always be there for her. Thoughts of her are all the more painful as they come to me amidst the laughter of our friends who do not know she is gone from me.

My glass is kept filled. I ask for wine; a bottle appears in Michelle's hands. She fingers my tie, asks if I am sure I wouldn't like to change to join in. I smile, say I am flattered they went to this trouble for me.

I jump into my memory of the night of Saturnalia; how Ann trusted me to bring to life a rite of value to me. How she joined me. How she let me lead her. How she honored me that night with her belief in me and her wish to give me what I desired of her and to take what I offered in love. I look at my hand gripping the chalice; I see the wine goblet from that night.

Ann would never have let them do this. She would have known it would offend me. This is a travesty of the tackiest image imaginable to me. How could they think I would be honored by their cheap and tawdry displays of modern arrogance and their smug feeling of superiority over rites and times they consider barbaric? At least when we conquered a people, we treated them with respect. We did not bastardize their beliefs and their rituals.

None of these people know me. This could not be more apparent. I do not belong here. I belong in my world. For all the barbarism of my time, at least I understood it and there I thrived. I had everything there. I have nothing here.

As soon as I can, I let them all go back to their childish behavior without me. After greeting everyone, I slip away, taking the wine bottle with me. In a back booth, I find respite from the fools. Can they not see that I am alone? Does no one even care where she is? Perhaps Chili has spread her lie about visiting her mother and they are none the wiser. Of course, they are also blind.

Just then, I catch sight of Uma. She is clad in something that even a whore in my time would have found beneath her. Of course, Uma knows this. She has dressed herself this way on purpose. This insult is her message to me that she has triumphed and believes I can do nothing. She should have considered whom she was crossing.

She comes near, gathering glasses from tables, dancing around lewdly. I stare at her, wishing I had a way of hurting her as she's hurt me. I yank down the knot of my tie; this modern mode of dress; at least I honor it. Uma knows very well how to honor the ways and mores of my time. Her part in this cannot be forgiven as I can overlook the ignorance of the others in here.

It is Uma who is to blame for what has happened. She is the reason Ann has left me. She is the reason Ann ran away, like the deer we saw on her birthday. Crashing away from me; no longer trusting the man she knew loved her above all else.

I blink away any emotion and focus my anger where it belongs. On the woman who has ruined my life.

She eyes me, contempt written on her face. I will her to come closer. To face my reaction to what she's done to me. And she does ...

UMA

The joint was jumping as you can imagine that evening. What is it about putting on a costume that allows us to lose our usual inhibitions and behave in a way we never would normally have done? Some of us, however, would be equally outrageous whatever they were wearing. Paul was just unbelievable, wearing just a few thing strips of leather and a posing pouch and walking around completely at ease with himself. My word, he has a wonderful bum and great legs, too.

We were running out of glasses so I ducked under the bar and ran about collecting those filling up the tables. My little slave girl's tunic, far too short on the thighs for decency, was attracting a few comments from men, so I started to dance about to avoid the hands that were grabbing for a feel as I passed. That's when I saw him watching me.

You would not have believed it was his party. Sitting at a booth alone was Maximus the Moody, drinking from a bottle of wine and giving the proceedings a jaundiced eye. Okay, it was a pretty tacky theme but has the guy got no sense of humour? Isn't it about time he got that stick out from up his arse?

I felt his eyes before I saw them in that way you always know when someone has you fixed in their gaze. They almost bore a hole right through my back. I turned and made eye contact and saw something intense and smouldering in his eyes. I shivered. I had seen that look before.

In retrospect, I should have known something was wrong from the malevolence of his unguarded gaze but, in my usual fashion, I rose to the challenge in a foolhardy manner, making it worse rather than ignoring it. After all, what did it matter if Maximus looked at me as if I was dirt on his shoe? He no longer had the power to wound me anymore.

Yet I still would not let his poor regard for me go unremarked. I wonder what that really says about us?

Placing the trays of glasses down on a nearby table, I affected a coquettish, saucy swagger and skipped over to his table, giving him a twirl. "Would I have passed muster? Would the general have had me sent to his quarters for later? At your command, master..."

His reaction was so fast and brutal that I was completely taken by surprise. His hand snaked out and gripped my wrist, jerking me towards him and hurting my arm. With the slightest of pressure from him, he forcibly sat me down facing him and used his hold on my wrist to drag my face close to his. "Oh yes...you look like a whore tonight... whereas most nights you just behave like one..."

I gasped at the insult that he had hissed into my ear and wriggled to try and free myself from his grasp. But all I did was find myself even tighter held.

"What did I ever do to you to deserve this from you? I should take you at your word. Go drag you upstairs and show you what a man of my day would do to a woman who dared cross him. But you would probably enjoy it too much..." he sneered.

"Let go of my wrist...!  What is the matter with you, you crazy bastard...? You're hurting me...!"

"Hurting you?" he laughed. "I thought you were the one skilled in torture? No man could ever know the ways you can tear a soul apart..."

"WHAT?" I sat back stiller now, stunned by the sheer vitriol of his outburst. I know we were hardly friends but for him to speak of me in those terms was simply unfathomable. And why now? Recently we had seemed to have declared a truce. We didn't spend much time together and rarely spoke more than hello, goodbye but there had been no bad vibes between us. What did he think I had done?

"Are you drunk? I don't understand. I'm sorry if you think my costume and what I said was mockery but it wasn't meant to be. Just let me go and I'll keep out of your way. I was only going to wish you happy birthday..." I struggled to escape his hand again but he closed his fingers tighter.

"Ann has left me because of what you said. As if you hadn't chosen your words carefully knowing the damage they would cause! You destroyed Ann's trust in me. Why would you do that? Just for sport? It is not enough that you break me once but you have to make sure I never get any peace. Is that it? Or are you so convinced of my danger to womankind that you seek to protect your friend? She did not need protecting from me. She is not you. She knows how to love a man...you...well, the only thing you have ever loved, is yourself..."

He still has the power to wound me. I realized it then. Some people always know just what will pierce the veneer of steel that you coat yourself in. Maximus' blade can rip through anything and bring the mortal blow. I said nothing at first as the effect of his brutal comment hit me. I suppose it touched that sense of failure that I have always had. Why do I never manage to keep men in the end? Why do they always walk away? How have I failed to make them feel whole?

I do not know how to love. Other women seem to manage that very well but I am unable to give a man even that much. And why is this? In the immortal words of someone who once tried to love me: Because I love myself too much. I am selfish.

The extraordinary thing is it isn't how I feel. The very opposite. I feel that I am never good enough. But perhaps we always lie to ourselves most of all?

"That was uncalled for. I am not to blame for everything. I do know how to love a man. Ask Andy. He has no fears about my love..."

Maximus sneered. "That boy? That trinket? That plaything? The little lap dog? Who amuses you for now? How long before we see his life blood pumping out as you grind him beneath your heel? When someone better comes along....Do not try and claim that you and he are equals or that he is the man who holds your heart. You are incapable of such a relationship. Your heart is stone. And you lack the courage to love a real man who might be able to control your willful ways..."

"...How dare you! How dare you speak to me of things about which you know nothing...How dare you speak of Andy like that...he is more man than you will ever be!"

"Oh yes? Pardon me if I find that a little hard to believe..."

"...It depends what you judge a man by....he may not have the ability to drive a sword through another man's heart and merely spit and walk away...or bring death and destruction to innocent people....but he knows what you never did...that love does not mean conquest...ownership...subjugation... He knows that love lies in what we give, not what we take. I don't think that was ever a lesson in the Roman schoolbook, was it?"

We stared at each other in the most blatant hostility. My eyes were pricking with tears. But it wasn't the pain of my bruised wrist, still held in a vice-like grip. It was his blade that had sliced into my heart at his words. For somewhere within me I knew he was probably right. I am no good for any man. And I damn near broke his heart. But I had always believed that somewhere within him, he had a memory of what we had been together when together had been good. His cruel taunts showed me that he had no such recollections. He hated me now. Hate is hard for anyone to take, especially when I felt such a different emotion towards him. I just felt regret.

As quickly as he had taken hold of me, he let me go, as if my touch had suddenly seared him. "Get out of my sight before I..." he spat at me.

And I ran.

Ran through the crowded pub floor, glasses forgotten, thankful that no one seemed to have observed the scene, pushing past people, my head down so they could not see my tears. I ran behind the bar and made for the stairs at the back, brushing Paul away as he noticed me and came to ask what was the matter. Ran pitter patter up the stairs to the safety of my room, and went into the bathroom to sit on the floor in the corner in a huddle as far away as I could be from Maximus. But still I felt his cold stare boring into me, heard the bitter rasp of his deep voice and felt the rough grip of his fingers. My wrist was bruised; it still ached as I rubbed it in my other hand. My heart pounded and my blood ran cold as ice. I wept uncontrollably, a mixture of despair and pain and fear.

It was a very long time since Maximus had made me cry and I had thought I never would allow him to again.

"Uma? Uma? Open up! Open the door! What's the matter? What did that fucking bastard say to you?"

I heard Andy's voice at the bathroom door. I should have known he would have observed the incident. His eyes never stray far from me, like a faithful guard dog. A trinket. A plaything.

"Go away, Andy! Just leave me alone!"

"NO! Don't do this, Uma....let me in....what did he say to you? I should go and lay one on him...he made you cry...he has no right to make you cry..."

It occurred to me that Andy might well do something completely stupid like take Maximus on - and that in this frame of mind, Max would probably tear him apart. He was spoiling for a fight. I would not let Andy be the bait to ease his adrenalin high. Racing to the door, I turned the key.

"Please, don't get involved...he'll hurt you...you mustn't try to make an issue of it with him..."

Andy held me gently me by the upper arms and looked closely at my face. His eyes scanned down until he saw the bruising already swelling on my wrist, clearly the mark left by a man's fingers. "Jesus Christ...I'll kill him..."

"NO! NO!" I begged. "He wants someone to do that. He's itching for a fight. Ann's left him. He's like a wounded bear. Please, Andy...leave him be! You would only get hurt and then I would have something much worse to cry about..."

I could see that Andy was angry and that he felt he ought to put Maximus' lights out - but - as with all men- he knew the chances of him getting even close were slim to nothing. That is hard for a man to accept, especially when he sees his own woman, the one he should protect, has been abused in some way by another man. My own anger flared at the way Maximus had emasculated him simply by his arrogant assumption that he could treat me any way he liked even there in my own property, amongst my own friends- before my own boyfriend.

But Andy is no fool and he could also see that I was frightened even more by his threat. He sat me down on the bed, brought me a glass of water and then knelt down beside me, taking my bruised wrist and bathing it in ice water before binding it. "You better not use that for a while... What did he say to you, baby? Why did he make you cry? Why does he hate you so much?"

I stroked his cheek. "Just don't ask me to tell you. It's not a very nice story and I won't discuss it with anyone. Even you. There's nothing really to tell. We went out for awhile, fought a lot and then broke up bitterly. He has a very low opinion of me. He now believes I set out to poison Ann against him. It isn't true but he can bloody well believe what he damn well likes..."

"What does he think of me?" Andy asked shrewdly.

I shook my head. "I don't know. He didn't say," I lied. There was no way I was repeating what he had said about Andy. A boy. A plaything. A lap dog.

But Andy gave me a look as if he didn't believe me. I told you he was no fool. "I wish you would confide in me. He has no right to speak to you like that. And I will talk to him. Not tonight. Not when tempers are frayed and when others are trying to celebrate his birthday. But I will speak to him when I am ready and tell him to leave you alone and keep out of our life. I have the right to do that much..."

I nodded and he lay down beside me, cradling me in his arms while I cried softly, the haven of his arms the sweetest place in the world to me. I don't deserve him. He puts up with it all and stands by my side whatever I do.

How long before we see his life blood pumping out as you grind him beneath your heel?

Dear God, don't let me ever hurt him. Not like I hurt Maximus.