Remember the Time (12 page)

Kate looked into his gray eyes with their frame of dark lashes and was frightened by what she saw. She quickly stood. Mike took her wrist, and repeated his question.

“I—I don’t know. It’s just that lately … Mike, I feel so lost.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “And I can’t remember him anymore. Not really. I can’t even remember what it felt like when we made love.” Her eyes filled.

He was standing in front of her now and he took her other hand. His voice softened. “Katie, that’s God’s way of telling you to start feeling something new.” He placed her hand on his chest. “Can you feel my heart beating? It means I’m alive.”

She stared at his hand covering hers. Her pale skin pressed against his tanned chest felt right. Too right. The tears spilled over her cheeks.

“Kate, what are you feeling right now?”

“Guilt,” she answered, her voice thick.

“What else?”

“I’m scared.”

“Of me?”

She shook her head. “No. Of me.”

She finally raised her head to look at him. Her eyelashes clung together. Flakes of mascara mingled with the tears under her eyes. Slowly, cautiously, he brought his mouth to hers, and against her lips said, “It’s okay to be scared, Katie. It just means you’re alive, too.” Softly kissing the corner of her mouth, the hollow of her cheek, he tasted her tears and savored them, a salty delicacy. But she was pulling away from him.

“Don’t do this, Mike.”

“Why, darlin’?” He brushed a lock of hair away from her cheek.

“Please try to understand. Paul is the only man I’ve ever been with.”

“Paul is dead, Kate.” He was trying to understand, and failing. “You’re still young. Are you going to keep yourself locked away from life forever?”

She didn’t answer him, and he finally said, “Go home, Katie. Think about what I said. You know where to find me. I’ll always be here for you. You must know that after twenty-one years.”

She took her hand from his and left him standing in the living room. Mike couldn’t help thinking about the tower room. If he could only penetrate those walls that
surrounded her secret place, he felt sure he could set Kate free.

He ran a trembling hand through his hair, the ache for her worse than ever.

Kate lay in bed, confused and afraid. Mike’s closeness had let loose a feeling she’d reserved only for Paul. It had been so long that she thought she’d forgotten what it was like to want to be touched. But Mike’s lips on hers—that brief kiss—brought it all back. The few times Kate had allowed herself to become lost in the memory of Paul’s lovemaking—when her hand would slip down between her legs—had left her feeling so desolate that she’d even denied herself that small release anymore.

Now she didn’t know what was going on inside her. The little voice said,
“It’s time to admit the truth.”
But at the moment, Kate didn’t want to listen. And so she questioned it.

This need she felt: was it real, or was she simply, and finally, lonely? And was that a good enough reason to go to Mike? It hardly seemed fair to him. He wanted so much more from her. He deserved so much more. And if she were truly his friend, she’d make him see that. Fŕiends were supposed to tell friends when they thought they were making a mistake, weren’t they?

But Kate suddenly recalled the warmth of Mike’s chest under the palm of her hand, and she involuntarily gasped.

Paul took Kate’s virginity on their wedding night. The years leading up to that night had been difficult, to say the least, and Kate had always been amazed at Paul’s self-restraint. Not that he didn’t try. Not that he didn’t push it as far as he could. On those occasions, when he’d
beg her, it didn’t take much more than a few strokes of her hand to bring him off.

Paul Armstrong liked—no, loved—the idea that Kate was his and no one else’s. Never was. Never would be. Along with all his other talents, he was an accomplished lover. It didn’t occur to Kate to wonder how he’d become so accomplished. Like many women, she assumed that a man just knew what to do. That it was an inherent ability. And Paul didn’t shake that assumption. When they’d talked about sex, usually in the backseat of Paul’s car after another window-steaming necking session, the questions Kate asked were vague and fairly innocuous. “What does it feel like when I do this?” “How many other girls have you done this to?” She took it for granted that he’d done most of it before. Except for the big “It.”

A little shy when it came to talking with Paul about his experience, she had no qualms about asking Mike. And Mike, trying to be true to Paul and Kate at the same time, would answer with vague references to other girls, always assuring Kate that she was the one Paul loved, so what difference did it make what he’d done before. “But has he ever slept with anyone?” she’d insist. And Mike would answer as truthfully as he could, “No, he’s never slept with anyone.” Kate placed all her trust in them both.

In her bedroom, with the door locked, Kate had pored over a well-worn copy of
The Joy of Sex
. She thought she knew all there was to know about making love. But nothing prepared her for the night of January 6, 1977.

Nervous, but not frightened, she steps out of the bathroom of their honeymoon suite wearing the peach silk gown she’s ordered from Victoria’s Secret. Paul sits on the edge of the bed, and holds out his hand to her. Accepting it, she lets him pull her down to the bed, and then he stands and removes the royal blue satin robe she’s given him. Kate has never seen him completely
naked, and she can see he feels at home with his body. It’s perfectly proportioned. An athlete’s body
.

He sits next to her and his eyes drift down the length of her and back up, to meet her eyes with a smile. “God, you’re beautiful,” he says, his fingers tracing the skin just above the bodice of her nightgown
.

Kate feels a moistness between her legs, and a surge of heat somewhere deep in her belly. Reaching up, she pulls his head down to kiss him. His tongue delicately explores her mouth and she moans. The months they’ve been apart, while he played in the minors and then winter ball in Mexico have left her senses deprived. This is a new Paul, this man who takes his time. There is no sense of urgency to his attentions. He seems content to tease and stroke and kiss until she can’t take it anymore
.

Her own hands pull her nightgown above her hips, as she begs him, “Please, Paul. I can’t wait anymore.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he says
.

His fingers open her, and she feels the first insistent pressure of his penis. She opens her legs to accommodate him, and gasps as he pushes against her. The pain is sharp and she cries out, as he slips in deeper
.

He was holding himself above her, and now lowers himself until his mouth touches her ear. “Bear down, Katie,” he whispers. “We’re almost there. I love you.”

And Kate pushes, allowing him to fill her completely. He doesn’t move until he feels her muscles relax, accepting him, and then he begins a slow rhythm. It doesn’t take him long to come, groaning her name against her neck. He holds himself inside her for a long time, and then slowly pulls out, watching her grimace in pain
.

Holding her face, he traces his thumbs over her cheekbones, as he says, “I’m sorry, Kate. It’ll get better. Trust me.”

“I know,” she says with a shaky smile. “I do.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She can hear water running in the bathroom, and he comes back out with a washcloth and towel. The warmth of the cloth
soothes her and she closes her eyes, as he gently washes the blood from her thighs and towels her off. He bends to kiss her belly. His fingers outline her hipbones and then slowly caress her hips and buttocks. He kisses the tops of her thighs, and she sighs. His hands move to her knees, slowly pushing them apart, and his lips find the velvety skin that is the inside of her thighs. He softly bites the smooth flesh and he hears her make a small noise. Raising his head slightly, he sees her eyes open, a look of embarrassment on her face
.

“It’s your turn, Katie.”

Her eyes widen as she understands what he means to do, but before she can protest, his warm mouth surrounds her. This is heaven, this liquid stroking, and she closes her eyes again and gives herself up to him. The room fills with her soft moans. She wants more and pulls her legs up. He devours her
.

Kate’s hands find their way to his head, urging him to go deeper. “Oh, Christ! Christ, Paul …” Her body has gone rigid and then the waves of her orgasm begin
.

The sounds she makes are primal. Paul has never heard anything like it and Kate has never felt anything like it. And then he hears her say, “Paul, I want you inside me.”

He covers her with his body, entering her, whispering, “Oh, Katie … you are amazing.”

She lost track of how many times they made love that first night. The next morning she wakes before Paul. Kate looks over at his long, lean body draped across the bed. He is dead to the world—utterly at peace. He is beautiful, and he’s hers
.

She grows warm remembering the things they’ve done. God, it had been wonderful. Everything she’d hoped. Kate yawns and stretches, smiling. Then she quietly slides to the edge of the king-sized bed, puts her feet on the plush carpet, and tries to walk to the bathroom
.

“Oh, shit,” she says through clenched teeth
.

Her thighs feel like rubber, and what is going on between her legs? She feels like she’s on fire. She begins cautiously waddling the twenty long feet to the bathroom, when she hears Paul
chuckle. Kate stops and turns. “What are you laughing at? You did this to me.”

“I didn’t hear any complaints at the time.”

She makes a face at him and continues on her journey
.

Returning to the bed takes nearly as long, and as she climbs in, Kate sees his erection. In mock terror, she says, “You put that thing away! It’s a lethal weapon.”

Paul scrambles across the bed and pins her down, while she screams and pretends to faint
.

“Now I have you right where I want you,” Paul says, biting her neck
.

Kate opens her eyes and smiles. “This is right where I want to be.” She takes his face in her hands and looks into his hazel eyes. “I love you, Paul. Thank you for being so patient. I know it’s been hard for you.”

He runs a hand over her shoulder and down her arm and, in a husky voice, says, “Baby, you were worth it.”

“Paul?”

“Hmm?” He takes his eyes off the curve of her breast
.

“We’ll always be together, won’t we?”

“Always?” he repeats lightly. “Man, that’s an awful long time.” Then he sees she is serious. “Katie! I promise. Always.”

For Kate, life with Paul had been about trust, with a capital
T
. She’d trusted him to love her. Period.

She hadn’t seen his body before their wedding night, and he hadn’t seen hers. The two-foot-long scar down her back, which she hid from everyone, was the ruler with which she measured trust. By the time she’d reached high school, only two people that mattered knew about the scar: her parents.

Kate viewed the scar as a flaw. A constant reminder that she was somehow different from everyone else. She’d watched with envy as the other girls in her eighth-grade gym class importantly hooked their white cotton bras around their chests, while she sat on the sidelines,
her upper body constricted by plaster and gauze. In high school she still only filled an A cup, and she blamed the body cast for stunting her growth. She couldn’t seem to see past her small breasts and disfigured back.

Her classmates envied her fiery beauty. Her teachers couldn’t praise her work enough. They couldn’t know that her self-assured spirit was a cover. Kate never thought of herself as attractive and didn’t believe the compliments she received, despite her gracious thank-yous. And she just knew that the boys who wanted to go out with her wouldn’t give her a second look if they’d known about the scar and her barely-there breasts. She felt like a fraud in a 36B padded push-up bra.

Kate didn’t tell Paul about the scar until the night he asked her to marry him. She’d actually cringed as she’d said, “There’s something you need to know about me, and I’ll understand if you want to back out.” But he’d grinned, saying, “If I had the scar, would you stop loving me?” “No,” she’d answered. “Well, then quit being such a doofus, and say yes.”

Paul didn’t care that it was there, just that it was part of Kate and that it had hurt her. On their first night together, it took much coaxing on his part, but he finally got her to turn over. It was an angry-looking mark, nearly two inches wide. “Katie,” he’d said. “You must’ve been incredibly brave to go through this. If I had known you then, I would’ve told you how proud I was of you.” And then he’d kissed the length of her spine, bringing tears to her eyes.

Kate lay in her bed thinking about the blind trust she’d placed in Paul. Even when he gave her cause to lose faith in him, she never wavered. She became like a dog, beaten by its master only to wag its tail in acceptance the next time it was stroked. As hard as she tried to break the habit, Paul always came back to stroke her. And she
always accepted him, because her doubt in her decision to marry Paul—that maybe she was
still
a fraud—brought with it guilt and, ultimately, refutation.

The little betrayals never meant as much as his love for her. Of this, she was certain. But that much trust had taken so much out of her. After his death, it was hard keeping the faith. God had let her down. So had Paul. But Kate saw where her loyalties lay and she preferred to blame God. It was easier than admitting she’d made an enormous error in judgment.

And now, she didn’t want to put her trust—her Self—in anyone’s hands again. Kate knew it wasn’t Paul’s memory she was trying to preserve, but her own. Mike had just scared the hell out of her. Why was the truth so much harder to believe? She wanted to go back to that safe place called Denial.