Shades of Obsession

‘It takes six to
nine days for a bruise to fade.’

Luke has carried
me to the bath he has run and I sit spent, shaking and reeling as, very gently,
he washes me intimately, inserting his fingers, soaping me, removing his scent.

I do nothing.

I feel like a
rag doll.

Astounded at
what has taken place.

The things he
did.

But it’s Luke, I
remind myself and I always let him do anything.

He pulls the
plug and lifts me out.

I stand and he
dries me and then, in a matter of fact way, he dresses me.

He takes a bra and
panties from my drawer and then walks me to the bed and he puts on my blouse
and does it up, then he slides on my panties so they are around my knees and he
does the same with my skirt, then pulls me to a stand and zips my skirt and
then he walks me to my bedside table and that’s when he say it. ‘It takes six
to nine days for a bruise to fade.’ He opens my jewellery box and selects my
watch.

I haven’t worn a
watch in years.

He slides it
onto my wrist and it covers the bruise and I pick up a thick bracelet that Rick
bought me for Christmas one year.

Is there guilt
as I pull it on to hide the other bruise?

Not yet.

Is there shame?

Soon.

Luke has taken
me back to the edge, but it’s a different edge than it was all those years ago.

And that was
just the start he promised - there is so much more to learn, he has told me
– there is so much that I don’t know.

I am too naïve,
Luke has always told me that I am.

I don’t feel
that way anymore.

‘Look.’ He lifts
my chin and I look at myself in the mirror. My blonde hair is in knots and
messy, my face is still flushed and I need to sort out my make up before I go
to pick up the twins but, apart from that, I’m almost back to who I was just a
couple of hours ago.

On the outside.

I look like
Portia – the perfect wife, the doting mum, right arm woman to the school
principal.

The image in the
mirror doesn’t equate with how I feel on the inside,
nor
what just went on in this room.

And then Luke
turns my face to his.

He is the most
beautiful man I have ever seen.

His hair is as
black as night, his skin so pale and he truly is beautiful.

He always has
been.

Dangerous my mother
called him.

Bad for me, my
father said.

He was all those
things and so much more.

I was warned, I
was told and, a long time ago I listened, I conformed.

But now he’s
back in my life and the stakes are much higher this time– and he is bad
for me, he is dangerous.

I could lose
everything to his hand.

I feel sick as
to what just occurred, guilt comes in then and so too does shame and I want him
gone, I want my head back, my normal life to return, but then he tells me that
I am beautiful, in a way that no-one else can, and then he kisses me.

It is a kiss
that claims my mouth, which hushes my racing thoughts, that stems the guilt
that is flooding in.

It is a kiss that
is tender.

I feel myself
buckle again, I am back to being his and there’s nothing I can do. I went
through the withdrawals for months, no years and I’m back to
addicted
again. I feel the flood come back to my bones, to my veins, to my sex, as Luke
kisses me back to him.

And do I crave
the woman I was two days ago? Do I want to go back to how it was before he came
back into my life? Do I crave the safe, seemingly perfect existence my husband
has so carefully created.

No.

In Luke’s arms I
am honest.

I crave Luke.

I crave this, I
crave all we could have had, but more than that, I crave all that he is going
to teach me.

Before …

I have my
earphones in as I jog.

I take the same
route everyday.

Before Rick gets
up.

Before the twins awake.

It’s my hour and
I need it. Just the pavement and my music - just an hour that’s mine before I start
my day.

It’s still dark
and, as I turn the corner, I look up at the hill I will soon tackle with paced
ease. I stop for a moment and have a drink from my water bottle and take out my
earphones, as I do each morning, to listen and watch the breaking day.

The same but different each morning.

This morning the
sky is a dark navy and I stare up and into it and I want to climb up into it, I
want it to lift me away from here, but I can’t think like that, so I gulp some
more water.

Where are the
birds?

Normally they are
deafening but this morning they are silent, maybe I’m early, but I don’t think
so.

I remember
reading that the birds leave before an earthquake, or is it after?

I want there to
be one.

I want the
ground to open up and swallow me into it. I want the earth to split and crack
and for something to give because I can’t go on like this for much longer.

Except, for the
twins
sake, I have to.

I have to
survive this until they are eighteen.

Somehow, I have
to survive.

I break into a
run, which is not part of my routine; it
cannot
be a part of my routine.

It was once.

I used to run at
every chance, I would get up and run at five am, and then do it again a few
hours later - I needed the lactic acid burn and I need it now, I know that I
shouldn’t, but it’s more that I
have
to
-
 
I
am
running from myself, from my life.

Five years and nine months till I can leave him.

I count in my
head as I pound the pavement, as I pick up pace and my muscles fire, properly
fire, for the first time in years.

Sixty nine
months.

The world moves
faster when I’m running - maybe I can speed up my life? Maybe I can break the
monotony by breaking the sound barrier. It’s all there, just faster - I nod to
the man who walks his dog and there’s that car again, with its engine idling,
the driver just sitting waiting, for
whoever
it is to
come out. All is the same as it always is, just faster.

I regret running
though, not because it’s dangerous for me, more because I’m back at my house
too soon and for a moment I think about not going in, that I could just keep on
running.

But I don’t.

I get in the
house and I am breathless –I kick off my runners and climb the stairs, I
step into my bedroom and Rick’s still asleep.

I run my shower
as I strip off and then I step in and wash quickly and dress - maybe I can have
a cup of coffee on my own before Rick gets up?

‘Portia…?’ he
rolls over as he starts to wake, he sort of feels the bed, he’s heard me, he’s
half asleep and I stand in our bedroom and freeze. I don’t want him to know
that I’m in
here,
I want him to think I’m still out
jogging.

It’s been two
weeks since we had sex and I know that he wants it.

It, not me.

They’re two very
different things.

I know I can’t
avoid it much longer, I know it will be tonight.

I hate it.

I hate that this
is what it comes down to, me tiptoeing out of the bedroom just to avoid sex
with the man I’ve been married to for thirteen years.

I hate sex.

But I didn’t
used to.

There’s a stir
of a memory that I cannot visit, a pull low in my stomach that I felt when I
looked to the sky and I simply can’t go there.

I cannot let
myself remember.

Not yet.

But I can feel
it building.

I try to ignore
it.

I wake the twins
and I get on with my morning and I smile when Rick comes downstairs and I make
him his coffee. ‘I won’t come home after school, I’ll just see you there.’ He’s
all showered and shaven and wearing a suit because today’s his big day –
a nice massage for his already overinflated ego - it’s the monthly PTA and
they’re asking for nominations to be on the committee.

‘Make sure you
get everything on the list…’ He reminds me.

‘Of course.’ I
smile, but inside I’m bracing myself for his next words -
and bring the receipts.

‘And bring the
receipts.’

So he can check
them.

He checks
everything.

I want to throw
his coffee in his face, but I just pass it to him.

I just do my
best to get through my morning.

You guys are the
reason I am here, I think to myself as I drive them to school. I chat to Gina
for a bit and then head to the hairdressers so that I look nice for the PTA
meeting tonight and then I head to the shops.

Monotony is my
routine.

The store is
quiet and I test a lipstick on the back of my hand – it’s a red lipstick
and not one that I’d usually wear.

I’m beige and
neutral.

I glance at
myself in the display mirror, I see my long, freshly washed blonde hair and
yes, I look nice.

 
Rick likes me to always look nice.

He likes our
house to look nice and the garden to be well maintained.
 
I have to keep myself well maintained
too - he complains if I gain a couple of pounds, we have an image to maintain,
he reminds.

And so I
maintain it.

I just don’t
know that I can for much longer. There is an anxiety building in me, one that
says I can’t wait till the children finish
school, that
I can’t maintain the façade for much longer.

I stare in the
mirror and I see my green eyes dart as the ever present panic starts to build
– I want to smear the red-lipstick on, I want to go over the edges, I am
gripped with a need for escape but every exit is blocked by Rick….

But there has to
be something for me.

There has to be…

 
I see glitter return to my eyes and then
I look out to the aisles.

I know what I
want, I know what I am going to do, but I can’t risk it again.

I mustn’t.

Yet, somehow I
know that I will.

I am already
there! I am caught up in the rush and there is no stopping
me
now.

I put the
lipstick back and push my full trolley along the aisle.

There is no-one
around and I move to the condom display and I stand for a moment as if
carefully choosing – I pick up a tube of lube and then put it back and
then another, only this time I pick up two.

Only one is
returned to the shelf.

It’s for
me,
this is for me, just me.

I’m about to
turn, to go, my heart is pounding right up to my throat, I want to get home, I
want to be home so that I…

 
‘I have a suggestion.’

I hear a very
deep voice and I still, just at the sound of him, just as the very male scent
of him reaches me. But it can’t be him I tell myself… my imagination is playing
overtime and, given where I’m standing, it’s probably some perve.

‘I don’t think
so.’ I don’t look over my shoulder, instead I take my trolley and make to walk
off, but he halts me then, his fingers are very firm and tight on the top of my
arm, they’re hurting in fact
–
 
and
I know then it is him, he’s
the only one who has ever touched me like that.