Generational Sins (23 page)

"Kat?" he said. I barely heard him.

"Kat, we're going out to my parents’ chalet. Now." The command in his voice partially registered.

"I don't want to go."

"I don't care. Enough is enough, Katlyn. I know that you miss your father, but he would not want you to waste away like this. It's nuts."

I didn't respond. He grew tired of waiting and he carried me to his car. He spent the whole car ride shooting me worried glances that only managed to further irritate me.

When we finally arrived, he carried our bags into the house and then came back for me. He sat me on the couch and knelt at my feet.

"I'm sorry to have to do this to you, Kat," he finally said, "but I promised to take care of you, and I'm failing. I need for you to snap out of this, and I will do whatever it takes to get you through this. Do you understand?"

"I'm fine, David." My standard response. It was easier than arguing.

"No, you're not. Do you remember your safewords?"

Yes, I remembered, but I didn't want to play. I just wanted the grief to consume me. My dad had raised me by himself; I had never known any other family. He taught me to ride a bike, to shoot a gun, to microwave baked potatoes and make mac and cheese. He called every week that I was at school just to make sure that I was still carrying my pepper spray. How would I manage without him?

I heard David mumble something along the lines of "God forgive me" and then he turned me over on the couch. I was far too weak from refusing to eat, and I didn't put up much of a fight. David took me over his knee and began to spank me with his bare hand. I was wearing the holey sweats that I had been wearing for the last three days and he didn't even bother to remove them, simply pushing them down to my knees instead. He spanked me through my underwear, but they didn't provide much barrier.

I was irritated by the first ten. I wanted to go back to my dorm and go to bed.

It started to hurt around fifteen, but he wasn't hitting very hard.

He took a break at twenty and ran his hand gently over my warm skin, which only succeeded in annoying me further.

"Damn it, David. I want to go home."

He struck me again, this time harder, and I yelped in surprise. He did it again. I felt this set. I tried to fight back, but I was no match for his strength. He held me across his lap with one arm and spanked me hard with the other. The tears finally came about fifteen strokes into the second set. He did not relent.

He went in sets of ten after the first forty, and I lost count. After a while all I could think about was the fire on my backside. I couldn't think about my dad. I couldn't see the pity in the other police officer's eyes. Couldn’t hear their heart-felt condolences.

At some point I began to scream. I could hear it, but I couldn't make it stop. My whole body was racked with sobs and all I knew were David's hands. They had brought that terrible burning pain and now they were holding me, safe and secure, as I sobbed and screamed into his shirt.

I don't know how long he held me that night but at some point I exhausted myself with tears, and he carried me upstairs. I woke twice from terrible nightmares that I could not remember, and David held me again as I cried.

When the morning light finally filtered into his bedroom I felt as if I had been purged of a terrible demon. I was still sad and my heart ached every time I thought of my dad, but for the first time in weeks I was hungry. David listened to me as he sliced fruit and flipped pancakes. I told him story after story about my childhood. I told him about the threats my dad had made to every boy who came within ten feet of our porch. I told him fishing stories, exaggerating them the way that my dad always did.

David smiled and filled my plate over and over until I ran out of stories to tell him. I used an entire box of Kleenex as I talked, but David just moved the garbage can closer to me so that I wouldn't have to get up to throw them away. I alternated laughing and crying at my own memories. David laughed with me when I told him about the time that I knocked my dad off of a horse.

When I was finally full of breakfast and empty of grief, David joined me at the counter. "He sounds like an incredible man, Kat and I know he would have been proud you."

I nodded my head and tried for a weak smile.

David and I spent the rest of that weekend recovering. It was too cold to do much outside, but we curled up by the fire and played cards. I felt human again.

On Sunday we drove back to school, and I was faced with the reality that my grades were probably not recoverable. I took the rest of that semester off and tried to determine a new course of action. David stayed by my side every step of the way.

David and I got home an hour or so after we left the most horrifying Thanksgiving dinner of all time. He was doing a good job of trying to hide it, but I could tell that he was a mess. His father had really fucked him up this time, and I had no idea what to do about it.

I needed David to know that I was safe. I was mortified by his punishment at the dinner table, but I knew that it was much harder for him than for me. It didn't really hurt physically, but it would take its toll on our marriage. It was David who really needed the aftercare this time, and I was unsure how to provide it.

David sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. Silent tears were steaming down his cheeks. I had never seen him look so lost. I wormed my way into his lap, and he cried on my shoulder. "God Kat, I am so sorry. I've failed you so badly."

"Shhhh, you haven't failed, David. It's okay. I'm still here, baby."

"Why haven't you left me, Kat? I'm not good for you. This is too dangerous."

"I love you, David, and I'm staying."

I gently kissed his tears away and slowly undressed him. He did not protest, but he wasn't actively participating either. Typically, I was not comfortable in the more aggressive role, but I didn't see any other way to comfort him. Pressing my lips to his, I tangled my fingers in his hair, pulling him to me.

Silently asked him to open his mouth to me, running my tongue over his bottom lip. He complied, and I invaded his sweet mouth. I lost track of time as we kissed, deeply, intimately.

After what felt like an eternity I pulled away from his soft lips and went to run a bath. I knew that a little hot water would not cure the kind of ache that he was suffering, but it would probably make me feel better, and it was something to do. While the tub filled, I added bubbles and undressed.

David looked empty and exhausted by the time I retrieved him. I led him to the bath and he followed like an abused dog. It tore at my heart to see him so defeated. Granted, this was far from a pleasant evening, but we would survive. I was strong. I just needed to prove it to him. I straddled him in the tub and laid my head on his shoulder with my arms around his neck.

"David, I know this evening was impossibly hard on you, but you need to know that I'm okay. We're going to make it. It's less than a year."

"He'll never stop, Kat. We'll never escape him."

"Don't say that, David. It's not true. You'll finish your degree, and then we'll take your mother and leave."

"She hates me."

"Who?"

"My mother. My own mother thinks I'm a fucking monster Kat, and it's true. I am a monster. I promised to protect you, and I can't."

"Yes you can, and you do. And, your mother doesn't hate you, she just doesn't understand."

"It was just a glass of wine, Kat. I thought he was going to kill you."

"But he didn't, David. You saved me. I'm fine. Don't let him get to you like this. Don’t you dare let him win."

He moved his wet hands to my hair and held me close in the warm water. "I love you, Kat with everything that I am. I need you to be honest with me – do you think we should leave now instead of waiting? I know it won't be easy, but I can't stand to see him touch you again."

"No, David. I think we should stick to the plan. It's only three more times that we have to see him – Christmas, our engagement party, and the wedding. He can't do much at the parties so really it's just Christmas that we have to worry about. We survived Thanksgiving. We can survive Christmas too." A cold silence filled the room, and I could tell that David doubted our ability to make it through another holiday.

"I just won't spill any more wine," I teased.

I felt him smile against my shoulder. "Only you could joke about this," he said. "You're incredible."

I brought my lips to his neck and tasted the sweet patch of skin there. "You know... you did give me a nice warm-up spanking, but it wasn't very gentlemanly of you to leave me unfulfilled. You should finish what you start."

"Are you calling me a quitter, Mrs. Paulson?"

"Mmmm, I might be."

"We'll see about that." He connected his lips to mine, and then curled his long fingers around my thighs, lifting me to the edge of the tub. He spread me wide, and I clung to the cold porcelain as he penetrated me with his fingers. His lips closed around my clit, and I was coming in a matter of minutes.

We made love four times that night, as if working our bodies harder might somehow exorcize the demons from our minds. It worked for me, but David was not so easily cured. He tried to hide his pain from me, but despite his flawless acting, I knew that he was walking a very thin line. I was beginning to doubt his ability to make it through the Christmas holiday without a serious mental breakdown.

His father began calling more frequently in December. They had long talks behind closed doors, and David stopped telling me what they were discussing. I think he was trying to shield me, but it only added the burden to his shoulders and increased the distance between us.

My cell phone rang at 4:00 on a Tuesday in the second week of December. I recognized the call as the Paulson household.

"Hi, Ellen," I answered.

"Hi, Kat. How are you?"

We chatted for a while about flowers for the wedding, and I did my best to keep up my end of the charade we were all playing. Like always, however, I knew that Ellen didn't want to tell me about the florist. Every statement she made was laced with regret over her own wedding and the marriage that had held her captive for so long.

She was mid sentence when I heard a door slam. What was that?

"Oh God." Ellen's voice was barely a whisper. "He's home early."

An angry growl came through the phone followed by a sharp crack and Ellen's scream. "You stupid bitch..." was all I heard before the line went dead.

"Ellen? Ellen!" It was no use. The connection had been broken. What was happening? She needed help.

I dialed David as quickly as I could. He was still in class, but he would be done in twenty minutes or so. Should I call the police? Someone needed to be there for her. I had to get him out of class. We had to go down there.

Grabbing my keys, I ran to my car. I knew which building David's class was in but not which room. Hopefully I would find him.

I jogged down the halls of the old stately University building, ignoring the odd looks of the people I passed. Most of the classrooms were empty, but I could hear a lecture at the end of the hall. It sounded like a medical class. I hoped it was the right one.

I swung around into the doorway and scanned the faces for David. The professor stopped mid-sentence. "Can I help you miss?"

David was already out of his seat, pulling his bag over his shoulder.

"Kat?" he said coming to me. "I'm sorry, sir," he said to the professor, "it must be an emergency."

The professor waved a hand at him as we left and returned to his lecture.

"It's your mother, David," I said, pulling him to the car as quickly as possible. I recounted the phone call as David drove like a bat out of hell. I had no idea what we were going to do once we got there, but I knew that we needed to be there as soon as possible.

Time passed, after my father’s death, and I began to feel normal again. David went back to his typical school routine, and I looked into my options. I no longer had the privilege of my scholarship, so I busied myself with determining how I might pay for school and what I would do. My dorm was paid up until the new year, so I stayed where I was and applied for new grant money at less demanding schools.

I hated to leave Harvard and its excellent education, but it seemed very impractical now, and I didn't think that I would have the focus and determination to complete an Ivy League education without my dad. I enrolled in Plymouth State University instead, and found enough funding to cover my education, food, and housing. The life insurance that my dad left would provide adequate gas and spending money.

I had been pre-med at Harvard, but I'd lost my desire to practice medicine with my dad's death. The thought of delivering bad news to my patients’ families became unfathomable for me. It was David who first encouraged me to become a teacher. He returned to my speech from that first semester again and again as an example of how I could be really wonderful in front of a room full of people, when I stopped being afraid. I wasn't sure that my friends were right, but the though of encouraging young minds and mentoring today's youth towards science and mathematical professions was appealing to me. Most of my credits were in Biology so I decided to change my major to Science Education.