A Message of Love (3 page)

No, not now. One night at a time.

Jacob had watched his lovely wife slip away in her hospital room on a cold Halloween morning. He’d watched the life flee from her tired, withered body, felt the oxygen sucked from the room. The room that day had been as quiet as the study was now. He remembered holding his breath, listening for her next ragged, uneven breath. Desperately hoping. The hospice nurses hadn’t warned him about the death rattle. He knew it wasn’t fair, but he hated them for it.

That night as he signed the last of the estate documentation, read the DNR that he’d respected but selfishly despised, he’d crawled into a bottle. For the next year he’d rarely crawled back out.

That first year he couldn’t bear to feel the hurt, so he simply tried to drown it. He’d been off the sauce for almost a year now. Karl helped him, Sierra helped more. It helped to have a caring, if absentee, boss.

Now he was trying to see if he could live again, if it was worth it, without her. It was hard, so very hard. All that he thought he knew, all he ever wanted, perished with his beloved wife.

He picked up a letter Mara had left tucked into his mail slot not long after they’d first met. He’d secretly kept it all these years. Jacob hadn’t read it for a long while, but in an effort to find something good to remember, a reason to go on, he’d decided to go through the things that reminded him of Mara. He’d reasoned that if he could revisit those memories, and not flee back to the booze, that maybe, just maybe, he’d make it. He’d read the letter again for the first time on the anniversary of her death - last Halloween - in a desperate bid to pull himself out of his spiral of self-destruction. He’d decided he would only read it once a year, on Halloween.

Jacob waited until the few trick-or-treaters had finished their visits. Why those kids bothered in weather that shitty, he didn’t know. Free candy was apparently a powerful motivator for young children.

Once it was late enough, he locked the door and flipped off the porch light. He sat back down on the couch in the study, the fire crackling while he glanced at those seductive glasses again, deciding whether this time his weakness would win. The letter was folded onto itself in thirds. Mara had been a talented artist, especially with inks and pencils, and on the outside of the letter was one of her favorite illustrations: a gently curved black rose, complete with thorns. With a racing heart and a familiar pain, Jacob opened the letter and read it once more:

Dear Sir,

I’m not sure how this is supposed to work, how I’m supposed to act. So I will just say it. You may have thought to scare me off, to sober me up with the reality of the monster you seem to believe you are. Well let me tell you, you are wrong.

You see, there are some women who would kill to be in my shoes. To have a man as strong, as true, as unbelievably sexy as you tell them what you told me last night. Yes, some women want to hear the things you said! They want to be subject to your lust, your control, yes, even your cruelty. And I am one of them.

You say you want to control me, to discipline me, own me? I say when do we start? I say this even though I’m terrified, wondering if I’m crazy. A lust-crazed slut who has taken leave of her senses. But that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? You make me feel that way. With you I can be free enough to admit it. You said it yourself: Freedom through control, release through submission.

I don’t know what I’m doing, but I trust that you do. I know somehow you’ll understand me. I know you’ll be loving, and I know that you’ll be strict. I know I’ll make mistakes, be thoughtless. You’ll punish me for them, but as long as I know I’m loved, I’ll welcome it. Need it. Lead me on this journey, and love me in your own way.

Scared (and wet),

Your Mara

It still made him hard, still made his heart race, and it still hurt. But this time, it was more bittersweet. He missed her, terribly. A part of him did not survive her passing. But the cliché was true: time heals all wounds - even that one.

His cell phone buzzed, the vibration jarring against the coffee table. He picked up the phone, stared at it, moved to put it down, then looked at it again.

It was a text message. It was Sierra.

“What r u doing tonight Jacob? You should be here with us!”

He’d known her since before he and Mara had first gotten together. She was a friend then, to both of them. He’d relied on her support since Mara’s death, their bond of friendship deepening. Jacob would never admit it to Karl, but he was right. Now things did feel different. There was something. . .more.

Jacob didn’t know what that something was, and he wasn’t sure he should be anything more than a friend to her. He was used to knowing the way, having the answers. That certainty was gone once Mara was gone.

The phone buzzed again, drifting laterally as it vibrated atop the table. Another text.

“Everybody wants to see you - especially me lol”

Most of the office was at a Halloween party that night. He knew Sierra wanted him there. She’d asked if he would make an appearance. He’d never answered her.

Jacob picked up the phone, thumbs tapping the screen.

“Are you drunk Sierra? Do I have to come and take you home?”

He had always felt protective of Sierra, her soulful almost haunted eyes and petite frame brought out an instinctive urge in him to watch over her. It had become more blatant since Mara had died though, almost as if his wife’s passing meant he could be free to fixate on Sierra. It was one of the ways things were different. Protecting her gave him some purpose. She was a beacon, a lifeboat in his sea of despair. It helped.

T
he buzzing phone against his thigh startled him.

“Not drunk - well not quite drunk. Will u come?”

Jacob smiled, shaking his head, thumb whirring. “Nope.”

He felt the sad loneliness of the house then, and resolved to do something about it. He laid the phone on the coffee table and walked to the bar. His keys were laid in the usual place - a ceramic bowl one of Mara’s art students had made for her. At the other end of the bar was the Glen.

His cell vibrated again. He paused a moment, then retrieved it from the coffee table.

“What will it take to get you here?”

His thumb was tapping out a response, when the cell phone went off again. He canceled his message and clicked over to her text. He stood still a moment, his throat working.

“Some encouragement lol.”

Below the text was a picture of a maroon skirt being pulled down in back, the thin line of a bright orange thong plunging between the tanned upper swells of feminine buttocks.

“Yep, she’s drunk,” he said.

Jacob wasn’t sure what to make of it; she’d never sent anything like that before. Though the image made his pulse quicken, he had an idea about what needed to be done. He grabbed the keys.

As he pulled on his heavy leather coat in the foyer, the doorbell rang.

“What the hell,” he muttered under his breath. “A little late for candy huh kids?”

He opened the door, candy bowl in hand, ready to bawl them out if they stood an inch over 4 feet tall. Only the big kids ever came calling that late.

What stood on his porch was not a child dressed like a lion, not a 12 year old in a plastic Dracula cape, nor a teenager lazily masquerading as a hobo.

It was a woman. A beautiful woman.

“Hi,” Jacob said.

She simply stood there, gazing at him. She was wrapped in a long, dark, shroud. He couldn’t place exactly what it resembled at first. This was one of the hidden advantages of a female best friend: a source for obscure (to men, anyway) fashion knowledge. Then he remembered. It looked like a cloak.

The light over his porch was dim, so the details of her looks were muted. She had dark hair, but he could not make out the color since the shroud covered it as well. White flakes of snow were beginning to collect on the top of her head and along her shoulders. A few danced at the end of her long eyelashes. Her eyes were luminous, twinkling pools.

He was still for a few moments, feeling the urge to say something, to fill the silence. Then she spoke.

“Hello. I - I need some help. My car died on the highway, and I seem to have lost my phone. Would you mind if I came in to use yours, and maybe warm up a little?” Her words quavered a bit as she spoke. She was shivering.

“Uh, okay,” he said, stepping aside. Letting complete strangers inside his house was a completely alien concept to Jacob, but he felt an odd thrilling comfort in her presence the way a hot stove feels to freezing hands; to touch it is too much, but to be close is bliss. She remained planted on the porch, utterly still, her gaze never leaving his face.

“Please come in,” he said. “It’s freezing.”

He waved his hand, beckoning her inside. She followed, moving swiftly past him down the hallway and into the study beyond.

“Make yourself at home,” he muttered, brow furrowed, closing the door behind her. Her scent was left in her wake, and he thought it was wonderful.

He found her standing in front of the deck doors, looking out at the snowfall. Jacob grabbed the cell from the coffee table, reaching with it toward her narrow back.

He cleared his throat. “Here’s the phone, ma’am.”

She didn’t move a muscle. After waiting for several moments, he set the phone on the bar next to her.

“How about something to warm you up? Coffee?”

Nothing. The woman stood as still as a statue. It only half registered on Jacob’s consciousness that despite the warmth of the room, the snow on her hood and shoulders hadn’t melted yet. He retreated to the kitchen and poured her a mug, his hands shaking slightly.

When he returned to the study she had at least turned around, and dropped her hood. Her features were classically beautiful: slim nose, strong cheekbones, and as his gaze met hers, liquid eyes that reflected the dance of the firelight within them. Those eyes were unlike any he’d ever seen. He was dimly aware of handing the hot mug to her, but all he could take in were the depths of color in those eyes.

He watched her plump crimson lips say: “Thank you, Jacob”, but no sound registered. He felt as if he were dropping into a trance, limbs heavy, his eyes unblinking. His skin tingled, like stepping out of a warm house into the icy winter air.

A small, strident part of Jacob’s consciousness was yelling, screaming, that something was very, very wrong. Telling him, begging him to get away, fight back - anything.

Fight back against what?

She knows your name, Jacob.

He took a step backward, feeling as if he were standing knee-deep in wet concrete. With Herculean effort, Jacob tore his gaze away from those shimmering violet depths, and looked over at the bar. The .45 semi-auto was just under the top shelf.

“You won’t need that,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. A lovely sound.

He looked at her again, shocked at the ease with which his gaze locked back with hers, like a compass swinging back to true north.

“How do you know my name?” His voice sounded muffled to him, like hearing speech through a thin wall.

She flashed a devastating smile and the effect was instantaneous. His skin went from a tingling to a hot, overwhelming sensitivity, as if he could sense the pressure of the very air in the room. He felt a growing heaviness in his groin.

She didn’t answer his question. “My name is Elira, Jacob. It’s very nice to finally meet you.”

Jacob’s consciousness was fighting a losing battle, his will wilting away by the second. He couldn’t move his legs anymore, though he grunted with the effort to do so. It was as if the connection between the mind and legs was simply disconnected.