Now She's Gone: A Novel (10 page)
Read Now She's Gone: A Novel Online
Authors: Kim Corum
I loved it when he took control like that. Soon I was naked and pressed up against his fully clothed body. It felt so good, wicked almost. He pulled my legs apart and began to finger me, sliding his finger down between my lips before he parted them and began to lick.
I moaned as he ate me, licked me, sucked me. I bit my lip and stared down at him. He gave the best head of anyone I’d ever been with. And that’s saying something. Frank gave good head but he was no match for Bruce. Bruce just took his time and really, really seemed to like doing it, which is the biggest turn-on of all. Knowing how much they like doing it enhances it. It makes it so much better.
As soon as I began to come, I grabbed him and pulled him back up to my lips. I kissed him with everything I had. We both unzipped his pants and I spread my legs wider so he could get in good. Once he was in, he began to bang me and I mean bang! He loved to drive it in hard and I loved to take it hard. We stared at each other as we fucked. We didn’t kiss, we just fucked. I felt another orgasm coming and I began to pant a little. He knew I was coming and he slowed down so I could fuck him. I loved fucking him. He held on as I pushed up against him and held his dick in me as I rode it. When the orgasm started, he began to move again, pressing his lips against mine until I opened my mouth and sucked on his tongue. I pulled back and stared into his eyes as the orgasm intensified, as it shook me. I began to wail with it, digging my nails into his back. He grunted as he came and then he let out a, ‘Ahhhh!’
That was so intense.
‘Damn, boy,’ I said. ‘You’re good.’
‘So are you.’
We stared at each other and cracked up. That’s the kind of relationship we have.
I had never been so in love before. It was like the others were a prelude to Bruce. He was everything I’d ever wanted in man. He was strong. He was successful. He listened to me talk. I wanted to shout from the rooftops, I love this man! I wanted to tattoo his name on my arm. He was so right for me.
Most importantly, he was good in bed.
His body was so perfect. I would touch him to see if he was real. He was. I could lie next to him for hours and just watch him, watching me. What did he see? What did he see in me? Why did he pick me? He could have anyone and he wanted me. That was miracle in and of itself.
Sometimes when we were in the bathroom together getting ready for bed or work or whatever, I’d stare at him in the mirror. I loved to devour him with my eyes. Sometimes, he’d stare back at me, staring at him, but rarely at himself. He didn’t have one narcissistic bone in his body.
His mother hated me.”
Hate was a little strong. They were just two very different people. It might not have helped matters that Sandy wore a very tight black t-shirt that showed off her superb little belly on the night they met. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her to change it.
“She wanted him to be with some uppity chick or something. Whatever. I didn’t like her that much. I almost broke up with him after the first time I met her. I had procrastinated on it for the entire first year of our relationship. I guess I kept thinking I’d break it off or he’d break it off and there wouldn’t have been a point in meeting his parents. That was time wasted we could have spent in the sack. But then he had to go ask me to marry him and I couldn’t get out of it.
Needless to say, she was not so nice. Me and mothers just don’t get along. To this very day, she still despises me. She apparently thinks I’m not good enough for her son. Maybe I wasn’t. But in her eyes, no one would have ever been good enough for him.”
I hated to admit it, but she was right. My mom gave her hell.
“And after we met for the first time and she made some sort of weird comment, Bruce and I had our first big fight. I mean, we fought all the time, but this was a real fight, a big fight. I don’t even know what started it. It started in the car then continued to his apartment. It was like we were trapped in it and couldn’t get out.
‘You left me dangling there, Bruce! I mean, fuck!’
‘It’s okay! When you get to know her better—’
I stopped him right there. ‘Listen to me. Your mother and I will never get along. Don’t even consider that.’
He just gave me this dumb look. I wanted to slap him.
‘I’m going home,’ I told him and started out the door.
‘You’re not going to stay here tonight?’
Even though we practically lived together, I never let the lease go on my apartment. I think I was afraid of something like this happening. And suddenly, it was all too much. The house. The ring. His love. His mother. All that. I didn’t know if I should go through with it or not. It scared the shit out of me. Not the marriage part, but the idea that once we were married, that was it. What if he stopped loving me? What if he left me like my father had left my mother? I couldn’t stomach the thought.
‘No, I’m not, Bruce. Not tonight or any other night.’
Needless to say, he was shocked.
‘Why? Because I made you have dinner with my parents? That’s what you do, Sandy! You have dinner!’
It wasn’t that. It was just time to leave. None of my other relationships had worked out and I didn’t really expect this one to, either. And I was tired of lying to him about being a stripper and going to school. I wished I’d just told him what I was and not been ashamed of it.
And his parents weren’t that bad. Yeah, his mom was a super bitch, but so was I. She was actually kind of pathetic. She wanted to be ‘classy’ (a word I hate) or something. And his dad was just a regular guy who worked as a foreman in some factory. Bruce was her pride and joy. She wanted him to marry some girl with ‘connections.’ I understood that. She wanted to have class by association like lots of people do. But that’s not what I was about. I sure as hell didn’t come from any money and I’d probably never have any, either. So I wasn’t good enough for her son. And there it was. That was the way I saw it anyway.
So, I told him, ‘Look, Bruce, I can’t do this. It’s not in me. I’m not interested enough.’
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I’ve always regretted saying that to him. It really cut him to the bone. But I knew I’d have to cut to the bone if I wanted him out of my life. I had to be mean so he’d let me go without a fight.
‘What?’ he asked quietly. ‘What do you mean you’re not interested enough?’
‘I mean, I’m not putting myself through this kind of shit just so you’ll break up with me and go with someone your mother wants you to. I’ve seen movies, I’ve read books. The trailer park girl always gets dumped.’
‘You’d break up with me just like that?’
I looked away from him. It was already killing me. But I’d lived through it before and I knew I could get through it again.
‘You don’t know me, Sandy. I would never do that to you. I’d never hurt you. And I don’t give a shit who my mother wants me to be with. You know, she didn’t even want me to go to college. She told me I was wasting my time and I needed to get a job with my dad and settle down. When I became successful, she was shocked.’
‘I’m sorry, baby. It just ain’t in me.’ I started out the door. He came up behind me and put his arms around me. I said, ‘Don’t.’
He turned me around and brushed his lips against mine.
‘Don’t. Bruce!’
He started to kiss me.
I pulled back. ‘Don’t do that either.’
He slipped my jacket off.
‘Come on! I gotta go!’
‘I’m not going to let you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I love you. And you love me and nothing else matters.’
I stared into his eyes and said, ‘Don’t lie to me, Bruce. Please don’t do that to me.’
‘I’d never lie to you, Sandy. Never.’
And I knew he wouldn’t.
“Will you marry me?’
He just said it, so matter of factly. Will you marry me? Like he was saying, ‘Will you get me a cookie?’
‘I already said yes once.’
He nodded. ‘I know. How about tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’
He grinned and said, ‘Yeah. We could fly to Vegas or even Hawaii and do it.’
I pulled back and stared him dead in the eye. ‘You mean it?’
He nodded.
Ummm… Vegas or Hawaii. Vegas. Hawaii. Hawaii!
“Hawaii!’ I squealed. ‘Take me to Hawaii and make me an honest woman!’
And we did it the very next day. We flew to Hawaii and got married. His mom almost died. My mother was never happier.
But I knew if we hadn’t done it so quickly, I would have found some excuse to break up with him because of my insecurities. Maybe he sensed that. Maybe he just didn’t want to wait. Maybe he was tired of sleeping over at my apartment and wanted to consolidate. Who knows?
I never regretted it.”
Well, that was good to hear.
“I’m back!
Hawaii was great. We spent about a week there. We almost got caught having sex on the beach, which, by the way, is also a really good drink I discovered there. We got tight on it. We also got loose and had sex everywhere. And all the time.
Adjusting to married life wasn’t so hard. Married life. Another set of words that makes you cringe when you say them. Married life. You are now married and thusly, done. No, you’re in purgatory. You’ll never get out! Run for the hills!
If that were only true. I never felt so alive. When I would wake up and see him sleeping beside me, I’d have to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Corny, I know, but that’s exactly how I felt. How could this great guy want me? Me? It just didn’t make sense. I always thought I’d end up with some bum. They always say girls pick guys like their fathers. Bruce was on the other end of the spectrum from my father. They were nothing alike.
Of course, there were things he did that annoyed the hell out of me. I’m sure I annoyed the hell out of him, too.
The first time I realized I was, in fact, married was one morning I had just gotten out of the shower and was combing my hair. Bruce came in, kissed me on the neck, went to the commode and took a piss. Just like that.
I was, to say the least, aghast. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?!’
He just stared at me, half-mortified and half-amused. That’s married life in a nutshell. You stop caring about doing stuff like that around each other. He, obviously, stopped caring first.
We also took naked Polaroid’s of each other. That was fun.”
I thought about that. Where were those things?
“I was going to show my girlfriends the pictures of Bruce one day but when I went to get them, they were gone. Mine were still there, though. When I asked him about it, he said, ‘I dunno.’
I know he threw them out.”
She was going to show naked pictures of me to her friends? What the hell?! And, yes, I did get rid of them.
“I just wanted to share his beauty. And none of them believed me when I told them how big his dick was. I had proof and he had destroyed it. That got on my nerves so bad.”
Anyway, we had a lot of fun at first. Then he began to work. He worked all the fucking time. Work, work, work. When he came home, he could barely carry on a conversation, let alone a night filled with sex.
But that’s what being married is all about. You get it all in the beginning and then squat.
I know he worked all the time because he had accumulated a lot of debt from the house and from the firm. That was okay. I just missed him. When we first started seeing each other, we saw each other every day. After we were married, he had to fly here or there or go there to some construction site. I knew he was working for us, to secure our future, but I kinda looked at him as being my fuck buddy and my fuck buddy was too busy to fuck. He kept telling me things would slow down and he had to do as much as he could while his firm was ‘hot.’ I understood. I completely understood.
He said, ‘These things come and go. When they settle down, we’ll have more time. I promise.’
I felt bad for even bringing it up. He worked his ass off. He really did.
Bruce had insisted I give up my ‘cocktail waitress’ job and I told him I’d decided to quit ‘school.’ But anyway, I did and got a job assisting this guy named Fabulous Freddy, an interior designer.
I worked with Freddy for about six years. Freddy was great. We had so much fun but he went out of business and I didn’t feel like finding another job, so I didn’t. Bruce loved the idea of me being home and I loved the idea of sleeping in every day. So there you go.
I guess I should stop beating around the bush and write this part now. We’d been married about four years when I got the call. I knew it was coming. In the back of my mind, I could always feel it. The call came from my friend Kelsey from back home.
When she called out of the blue, I was ecstatic. I hadn’t heard from her in years. ‘Kelsey! How have you been?’
“Oh, fine,’ she said and sighed. ‘Listen, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, but I figured no one else would.’
‘What is it?’
I heard her take a deep breath and she said, ‘Your father died.’
Your father died. Dead. Gone.
‘Did you say…?’
She took another breath and said, ‘Yeah. I didn’t know if anyone contacted you or not.’
Oh, no, they hadn’t. Who would anyone contact me, his only child? It wasn’t like I was important or anything.
I remember sobbing, ‘Oh, God, Kelsey, don’t tell me that!’
And she started crying with me and I think we sat on the phone for two hours crying our hearts out.
The thing was, I had always intended on finding him. And I’d just waited too long. I felt so guilty for letting him die alone. He was by himself in a hospital room with no one to call. With no one to hold his hand. I’ve never forgiven myself for that. Sure, maybe he didn’t really try to keep in contact with me or anything, but my daddy never had a chance. He didn’t have an education. He didn’t have shit but his good looks and they will only carry a person so far. His looks made it easy on him with the ladies and hard on him with the men. No one would give him a chance to do anything because they were so afraid he’d steal their wives.