BEDTIME STORIES 7: IF LIVING IS WITHOUT YOU

By DixieHellcat[

This piece is a little different from the previous Bedtime Stories (still NC 17, happily. hehe), so I hope you don’t mind if I accompany you on the journey, dear readers. Think of me as Rod Serling, guiding you through the Twilight Zone.

In BTS 7, we will learn about some incidents alluded to in earlier installments but not told in full. Like in BTS 4, when Ari mentions deciding Clay should get over his reluctance to play a different role in their games, and it ended badly? That whole story is in here, along with some unexpected ways in which our ‘RL’ and their world connect.

To get there, however, we first will take a side trip, through the far past, and through a world foreign to you, a world where Clay and Ari’s romance didn’t go quite as we remember it. Don’t worry; there will be signposts along the way to avoid confusing you. And for ease of reading, the far past will be in this color, while the other-present will be in this color. Color changes will help you until we finish universe-hopping and return to the world we know. Now, let’s step back, and meet a young woman with the power to see into the past, and in this case, maybe somewhere else.

Valencia Barr was alone in the house, sitting at her old desk, when she heard the man weeping.

Strictly speaking, to say she was sitting at the desk was a misstatement. It was the desk she had studied at as a girl, doing her sums and figures and letters, so now as a young woman she was obliged to sit sideways alongside it. A sheaf of paper lay atop it, blank save for the date she had scribed on the first page, September 11 1917. Whether or not to write more was the point she pondered.

At this precise moment in question, Val was tapping the nib of her new fountain pen against her teeth; very unladylike, she knew, but a habit she had acquired from her father when in thought. To be further unladylike, she crossed her legs and swung one, enjoying the feel of her new-fashioned short skirt against her calf. How much more practical it was than those long confining crinolines she had worn as a child! The Great War over in Europe was a tragedy, true, but with so many young American men ‘over there’, women had stepped from the shadows to fill the gaps at home, and with that new responsibility claimed new freedoms. The ‘new woman’, the news reporters called them. Why, in sixteen of the 46 states, women had even been granted the vote. Val supposed she had been ‘new’ her entire life though, thanks to her dear Papa’s enlightened ideas of child rearing.

She smiled to herself, then sobered. Freedom was a two-edged blade: a more conventional girl would never have found herself in Val’s situation, penniless and on the verge of moral ruin, saved only by her father’s good heart. Thanks to him, she had for the moment only to worry about whether to set down all of her sad tale in words, to unburden herself if nothing else, or to bury the past and move on.

About to address her pen to her teeth again, she heard the sound. At first, it was a small, hiccupping gasp, then a low moan followed it. Val was out of her chair before she even knew she had moved. The voice was not her father’s; in the clear California air, she could hear Papa’s Model T coming a mile away. She was quite alone in the house. That meant only one thing: it was happening again.

It was the odd gift Valencia had borne from her childhood, of sometimes seeing and hearing that which was not physically present. Her papa was a progressive thinker, and held it likely that the sights and sounds she reported were constructs of a motherless child’s mind, not mad, merely in need. For a time, she had thought so too; but over the years, she had delved into all that was known of the phenomenon, and concluded that the apparitions were of things that truly once had been. She was, in short, a medium.

She had seen red Indians troop silently through Papa’s orange groves, and once a Spanish soldier standing as though on guard, unseen by the movie makers rushing around a field. Never, however, had she experienced what now burst upon her senses, the deep wails of a soul in grief. It broke her heart, and she determined to go in search of the ghost.

She moved down the corridor, almost a-tiptoe, and laughed silently at herself for creeping as though the sound of her footfalls would frighten a specter away. Yet creep she did, as stealthily as a huntress of old, till she followed the weeping to its source: the shut door of the room that had been her parents’, till her mother’s death. After that, Papa could not bear to abide in it; he had sold or broken up every stick of furniture within its walls, bought himself a narrow monkish bed, and moved into a room down the hallway, nearer to his lonely only child.

The sobs were plain to hear now, heart-wrenching, yet Val hesitated with hand on the brass knob. She was well-studied in the lore of spirit research, and if Professor Myers’ speculations about phantasms of the living were true, might she confront her father’s past self within, mourning his lost love? Steeling herself, she opened the door.

A bed sat in the empty room, looking as real in the sunlight streaming through the windows as the most solid furnishings could have. It was fairly built in the newest style, yet the wood looked oddly aged, its finish worn to a soft sheen. On its side, turned toward the door, sat a figure with head bowed. The red-brown hair was strangely long for a man’s wear, but the sounds Val had heard had their origin there. The form was slender yet muscular, and the hands that clasped a stack of paper fastened along one edge with an intriguing spiral of shiny wire were definitely male, though well kept as a scholar’s.

Two things struck Valencia as she observed, concentrating all her powers of attention to remark every detail. One was the marked peculiarity of the apparition’s garments. His trousers were sewn of sturdy workingman’s denim, and his shirt was undone at the neck like the most common day laborer, without tie or cravat. Yet the jacket he wore was velvet of the finest weave, if Val’s eye were any judge, and she had worked in dry goods long enough to know her fabric. The cut of every piece, though, was unlike any she had ever beheld, be it in salesman’s catalogue or history book.

The other striking thing, when the figure lifted its head, was that it was quite possibly the most stunningly beautiful man Val had ever seen. His face was fair, his lips full, his features chiseled as though by the greatest of classical sculptors, attempting to capture the likeness of a young god in flesh. When he raised one trembling hand to push tumbling hair from his face, she could see his eyes, green with hints of gold and blue and grey, and all a-swim in the tears that spilled from their depths.

He looked directly at her, but appeared not to register her presence. That was not unusual; in real life, she had found phantoms generally seemed unaware of the living, the extravagant fancies of penny-dreadful novels notwithstanding. His anguish pierced Val’s heart, though, and she said aloud, “Oh, how can I help you?”

The young man stared through her, his eyes shining pools of pain, and lowered his head again in unwitting negation, clutching the bound papers to his chest. Val blinked tears from her own eyes—and just that quickly, man, papers and bed, all were gone. Silence reigned again.

Val backed up, then turned and hastened back to her own room to set down the particulars of this most eerie encounter while they were fresh in her memory. [i]So[/i], she thought, [i]now to find who he may be, or may have been rather, so fair and in such despair…What odd clothing, I must be certain I describe it adequately!…And why has he appeared here? This is no old house, to be haunted by griefs past —Papa built it in ’95, the year I was born![/i]

Val picked up her pen and put it to paper with new determination. She loved a mystery, and this handsome ghost in his extraordinary garb tickled her curiosity, while tugging at her heart.

+++

And so we begin. I suspect you have already figured out what house Valencia lives in, and who she saw, but how did he get in such a state? Let us move forward, and see. Small things, missed signals, a game carried just a little too far, can make all the difference in the world…

Until the moment of her death, Arianne remembered with awful clarity the afternoon that everything went wrong.

To begin with, she had had a major case of writer’s block. For days she had been pulling together several ideas for a new novel, but every one of them worked for a while and then faded away, like a stream swallowed by a desert. She’d even toyed with building something out of the stuff she and Clay had cooked up the time they played the kinky little sex game about the gangster’s trophy wife kidnapped by the undercover cop. There might actually be a plot in there somewhere, but if so, damned if she could find it. Maybe the problem there was that memories of that experience squiched her out just a bit. Sure, Clay had been careful and kind, but still, what had possessed her to let him tie her up? It wasn’t safe or smart; but then, Ari had always been told she wasn’t very smart.

This drying up of her literary thought processes seemed confirmation of that dark worry, and she couldn’t even share it. For three days now Clay had burrowed into a mountain of paperwork, orders and printings and sales lists for tour merchandise. He was sure there was something fishy about some of the numbers he was seeing, but couldn’t pin it down. Ari found some mindless chores to do that took her in and out of the dining room, past where he sat with spreadsheets and memos and hard copies of emails scattered across the table and around him like a snowstorm.

Each time she passed she made a point to touch him: flicked his ear, tousled his spiky hair, poked the back of his neck. It was as much to get him away from his obsession for a while, to persuade him to take a break, as to regain some of his attention for herself. “Not now, Ari,” he mumbled, and then, “C’mon, knock it off,” his eyes never straying from the columns of accounting. Ari was unprepared when after one more tug at his hair he flung his calculator down and snapped, “What, am I gonna have to tie you to somethin’ to keep you out of my way?”

She froze in shock, and then ran, startled into flight by his sudden fit of pique. With a whoop, he pursued, and caught her at the bedroom door. The momentum of his rush carried them across the room to land on the big old bed. “Clay, wait, that’s not what I mmmph—“

Before she could protest, he had grabbed whatever lay handy (she couldn’t see what) and tied her hands and feet and knotted a cloth through her mouth. “There,” he said with a satisfied chuckle as he finished by blindfolding her. “This’ll kill two birds with one stone. You can entertain yourself imagining what I might be plannin’ for later; and I’ll have extra motivation to find the discrepancies in these figures, knowin’ you’re simmering on the back burner in here waitin’ for me.” He fondled her breast through her T-shirt. “Although it may take a little longer for me to finish. I’ll be too tempted to take lots of breaks and come watch you squirm.”

He smacked her on the bottom, and his footsteps receded. Ari was stunned. He’d suggested this sort of thing again on occasion, since that first time, but she had always demurred, wrestling with her misgivings, common sense warring with the undeniable arousal of the experience of being taken. Now, how dare he force her into this position? Determined to show him, she thought back to her tomboyish girlhood love of magic, and began to work at freeing herself. Her building anger fueled her efforts, but was joined by genuine alarm when the realized he had, through thoughtlessness or wickedness, not left her the emergency buzzer she had found.

The knots were hasty and sloppy, and in only a few minutes Ari felt them loosen. Quickly she stripped the curtain tiebacks and robe sashes that held her limbs. She strode down the hallway with them in her hand, and flung them down in the middle of the papers on the table. Picking up her current (and empty) writing notebook and her keys, she walked out of the house and drove away without a look back.

+++

Back in the past, Valencia’s search for the handsome phantom continues, and we learn that trust is as much an issue with her as it is with Ari and Clay…

Valencia was close to her father, closer than many daughters, so it pained her to refrain from sharing with him her eerie encounter with the weeping man. He had always seemed unsettled by such reports, however. Furthermore, of late he had fallen in with a crowd of thoroughgoing materialists, including Harry Houdini, who was soon to play in a movie with him. The noted conjurer was vocal in his denunciation of Spiritualists as either deluded or scoundrels, and Val feared her Papa’s thoughts were beginning to lean in his direction. Not that he would ever suspect her of deliberately deceiving him; and he had frequently assured her he did not think her to have taken leave of her senses. Still and all, he simply had never believed that what she experienced was reality, and now more than ever, confiding this to him might place him in a most awkward position. Thus, Val decided it was up to her to discern the truth about her ghostly visitor.

She pored through every book she owned, and took the streetcar to the local lending library for more. The car’s route rattled past Baum’s store on Prospect Avenue, and she was torn between the desire to peer out the window for familiar faces among the workers there, and the blushing wish to hide her own face. The Baums had never known of her humiliation, of course, and had protested loudly when she gave them notice of her intent to depart their employ; but she could in no wise have stayed on, and risked daily crossing paths with Preston, treating with him in a businesslike fashion as though he had never betrayed her so utterly.

The library offered no further enlightenment, so Val took a daring step. She remounted the streetcar and rode on to the University of Southern California, to request permission to use their library. The school was not so grand as its name, nor was the library, being one floor of a dusty building in a field; but the librarian was quite kind and accommodating. In no time, Val was exploring the stacks with a guest reader’s card in hand, alongside a surprising number of female collegiates. Val had yearned to further her formal education, but the Big Freeze of 1913 had killed Papa’s orange crop, just at the time she completed high school, so she was obliged to seek employment to help make ends meet, rather than indulging herself with more schooling.

Of course, Papa was no longer short on money; he was in fact rather famous for the moving pictures in which he appeared, what people were beginning to call a ‘movie star’. Despite that, Val’s pride would not allow her to take advantage of his support and good nature for much longer. She needed to find a way to fend for herself. That was just one more in a queue of concerns she set aside for the moment, to lose herself in the accumulated wisdom and delightful smell of the books.

They held no information that brought her closer to discovering whence the handsome phantom had come, however, and with a sigh she returned to the streetcar stop for the ride home. As she waited on the platform, she noted a handbill posted in the library’s lobby, touting a lecture, open to the public, by one Reverend Dr. Frederick Hermes, late of London and newly come to California. According to the flyer’s text, he would present a program on ‘the integration of the scientific and spiritual aspects of the psychical realm, as revealed by newly elucidated research’.

On one account, Val found herself firmly in league with the outspoken Mr. Houdini—there were indeed a great many folk who claimed special powers, the ability to converse with the dead and the like, who were either fools or frauds. She herself had a certain knack for spotting such, too; they were as plain to her as was blight to her father on one of his Valencia orange trees she was named for. For that reason, she had few friends among the Spiritualist community of Los Angeles, and pursued her studies in solitude; but the sketch accompanying the text on the handbill was of a face that seemed, for lack of a better description, trustworthy. That in itself was saying much, from she whose trust had been so bitterly betrayed. The Reverend Dr. Hermes was not so fine-looking as her ghostly stranger, but his expression appeared thoughtful and straightforward. On impulse she took it down from the wall. The Society for Psychical Research, of whom such high praise is spoken, is headquartered in London, she thought. Perhaps this gentleman is privy to the latest knowledge, something that might aid me in my search. I should like to go and hear him speak.

+++

Ari didn’t come home till late that night, and by then Clay was beside himself. How could she flounce out like that without a word, and then not even answer her cell phone for hours? She had teased him and then run away, he protested when she finally returned; clearly she wanted him to follow. And she ran toward their bedroom, so that was obviously where she wanted him to follow her [u]to[/u]. And she hadn’t run off till he threatened her with payback, so—well, what was a guy to assume?

She sat down on the living room sofa, flipped her notebook open and began to write. “Never assume, Clay,” she said without even looking at him. ‘You know what that does to people.”

He was baffled, and if he were honest, a bit angry. She had responded with such acceptance, welcome even, when he had let his iron self-control slip and displayed a little aggression. It had made him feel so good that she could trust him so, and could love even that part of him that sometimes scared him. Now here she was acting like none of that had ever happened! Inconsistency in people infuriated, and unsettled, him. He knew he hadn’t imagined her delight in initiating that love play, or her surprise, not displeased, when he had taken control of the game from her. Just recalling her wide eyes and her soft gagged moans stirred him. Why, she had bustled around finding them ‘costumes’ to wear, and even that goofy joy buzzer to—

Whoops. That was it, then. He’d forgotten the button. His profuse and sincere apologies went unacknowledged, and maybe unheard. Finally Clay gave up. He could be as stubborn as she. He went to bed, leaving Ari scribbling furiously.

She wished she was writing down something usable, but the truth was, she was filling pages with old song lyrics, snippets of stuff she had read, anything to keep her looking busy, and maintain her attention: a sort of ipod of the mind, to prevent her from blistering him with her tongue. She dozed off on the couch at last, and for the next several nights, unable to overcome the breach of her fragile confidence enough to sleep beside him.

When she did, it was with an idea, a small payback, a way to shove his big feet into her shoes for a few minutes. She woke in the night and found him sound asleep on his stomach, with that disheveled small-boy expression that looked so innocent she almost felt guilty for what she was about to do. It was nothing to feel guilt for, she told herself; it wouldn’t hurt a thing, and might help mend their fractured rapport, if he could really grasp how his careless actions had made her feel. Besides, she had suspected, and hoped, since that first game of sensual control, when she had playfully threatened him with tit for tat, that he might secretly relish the opportunity to yield to her. Quickly she wound a scarf around his wrists and another over his eyes, then nudged him awake.

He screamed. It wouldn’t have roused neighbors, if any had lived near enough to hear, but it was a scream all the same, a wail of sudden terror. Ari tried to explain, but her words didn’t seem to penetrate at all; Clay was too deeply plunged in some overwhelming emotion. He jerked a few times spasmodically against the bonds, pleading, then collapsed altogether. Trembling, he lay still, almost unresponsive, his mouth moving but without sound. Even when she pulled off the blindfold, his eyes looked dazed, as though he barely saw her.

Finally she gave up. He was, or at least behaved as though he was, far too freaked out to get her point. She untied the scarf, and Clay staggered into the bathroom. From the other side of the locked door she could hear him retching. This was just too much. He didn’t have to put on such a catastrophic overreaction to a prank he richly deserved; he could dish it out apparently, but he couldn’t take it. Fuming, Ari sat up for a while, got tired of staring at the closed door and waiting for him to quit pouting and come out, and went to sleep.

She could not see beyond the door, to where Clay huddled on the floor in a corner, hugging his knees and shaking uncontrollably. She did not know he was having the worst panic attack he could remember, because he had never told her about the previous ones. For what seemed days, he gasped for air, sure his heart was about to stop, the unexpected horror playing over and over in his head till he thought he’d lose his mind.

For over a week after that, he locked himself in the bathroom every night, too frightened of a repeat performance to dare return to the bed. By the time he could, Ari was gone, on a book signing tour. She did not ask him to come with her.

Ari returned to LA the day after Clay left on a six-week concert swing through Canada. He had booked it while she was gone. She didn’t know a thing about it until she called his management.

See what I meant about lack of communication?

₊₊₊

Despite her resolve to remain discreet about her latest vision, Valencia felt obliged to tell her father of her intent to attend the lecture at the college. To her surprise, his reaction was immediate, and positive. “I’ve heard that name! Mr. Houdini and another gentleman got into quite a heated discussion about him the other day. It seems this young padre has a good reputation across the water though—high breeding and education—and he’s worked much with men of science. Not all matters that seem ghostly actually are, he says. Of course, Houdini thinks all such concerns are hogwash. I’m not so sure. Why throw the dishes out with the wash-water, as they say? And I have valid personal reasons for my open-mindedness, of course.” He grinned and patted Val’s hand. “This Reverend Dr. Hermes is one lad who doesn’t sound disposed to swallow every table-tipping yarn spun by some old bird.” He chuckled, then grew serious, looking Val squarely in the eye. “What’s got your interest up? Have you had another of those spells, girl?”

To the ear unfamiliar with him he might have sounded gruff, even harsh, but Val knew him to be anything but. “Yes, Papa,” she admitted, and began to explain; but he cut her short.

“You needn’t go into it all. Tch, tch, child. I wish I knew what to make of it. I do know, though, that you’ve cooped yourself up in this house for far too long, and that can’t be of benefit. Go take in this lecture, and perhaps the man can shed some light on matters.”

Valencia did go, and was more impressed than she had secretly expected to be. The Reverend Dr. Hermes was a powerful orator, with great magnetism of presence and noble comportment. His black hair and mustache were immaculately groomed, and his dark gaze held rapt the men, and no small number of ladies, who gathered in the lecture hall, as did his reasoned exposition, leavened with touches of droll wit.

After the lecture, women flocked around him, cooing like birds, many trying to sound intelligent, and few succeeding. Val stood back and watched the Englishman work his way through their flirtatious ambuscades with firm charm. When the last of them fluttered sadly away, she approached. “Reverend Doctor, might I have a moment of your time? I have some questions regarding apparitions.”

He turned with the same winning smile that had disarmed his feminine stalkers, and Val fervently hoped he was not one of those men who thought society ill-served by having ever unchained women from the kitchen and the nursery. His eyes narrowed and sharpened, though, as he took in her appearance, in her best and most professional suit with her notes in hand. Emboldened by his serious regard, she introduced herself. “Valencia,” he repeated with evident interest. “Velvet and silk.”

“Excuse me?” She liked the way his accent softened her name; but one condescending word from him, and she would without fail bid him good-evening and make for the door!

“Velvet and silk. The town of Valencia in Spain is famous for the oranges named for it, of course, but it was built on velvet and silk. The fabric trade supported some twenty-five thousand Valencianos in the eighteenth century. They had an entire district of the city to themselves, the Barrio del Velluters. The subtle interplay of fragility and depth…Ah, but forgive me, my good lady. How may I be of service to you?”

In brief, Val described her observations of the weeping man. Her notes were more to prop up her courage than for reference; his every feature was burned into her mind like a photography plate. Reverend Hermes listened intently. “And the house has no age, you say—well, no houses here in America have much age, especially when compared to those back home.”

“True,” she smiled. “But no, our house is no older than I. My father came here in 1890 seeking his fortune. He bought six acres of orange trees, about to bear first fruit, from a woman newly widowed and ready to move back East. They thrived, and he sent for my mother and built the house.”

“I see. And your parents still live there, then? And you are in university?”

Val felt herself blush. “I fear not. My mother passed while I was still a child, and my father and I have been each other’s support since then. A freeze several years ago killed his crop, and we both were forced to seek work. I was employed at a dry goods store till recently.”

“How dreadful,” he murmured, “for clearly you are a woman of some intellect. Tell me though, are you still in financial straits?”

“No, Papa took a job training animals for Mr. Cecil DeMille’s new moving picture studio. He is an easygoing gentleman, the very image most Easterners have of a cowboy, I suppose; so he was asked to perform on film, and has become quite well-known in these parts as a result.”

The minister’s eyes brightened. “Montana Barr!” he exclaimed. “I knew the name had a familiar sound to it. I have seen some of his films! Well, well. But back to your specter—he obviously is not a previous inhabitant of these lands; his garments, as outré as you describe them, are certainly those of a civilized man. What his purpose is in haunting your father’s house, alas, is as much a mystery to me as to you. Purpose there is, though, never doubt. There is some way you can benefit him, and perhaps, even, he you. Might I call on you? I should like to inspect the scene of the appearance for myself.” He ducked his head and added, “And I confess, I would be the envy of many if I could return to West Shaftsbury and tell of a meeting with an American cowboy movie star!”

She could not help but laugh at his arch humor. “You would be disappointed, and your friends too, for Papa is no grandee of the wilds! He is a quiet and naturally retiring man, actually. I shall ask his consent for your visit, but I doubt he shall give it; I have never known him to entertain followers of filmed entertainment, and that is how I should have to present you. He is not aware of this latest sighting of mine, and for his own peace of mind, I should like for him to remain so, if at all possible. Thank you for your hearing, but I daresay I can manage the apparition.”

Val was certain she could, too, until she heard the voice. It woke her the following night, singing. The song was not one she had ever heard, beautiful in word and melody, and the voice…It was shattering in its sweep, clear and chilling as a pure stream down from the Sierra Nevada, and at the peak of its highest range it faltered and broke, and fell like a dying bird from the heavens. There was silence then, an awful total silence, and then she heard him start to sob quietly again.

When she was able to control her own tears, she went down-stairs and called the telephone number that Reverend Hermes had given to her. “I have heard the voice of an angel in hell,” she told the startled minister. “Will you come and help me?”

+++

And things continue to slide. You will no doubt recognize some of the situations this segment describes; they also happened in earlier BTS, but in this world they are skewed and twisted, hastening the decline of things, chipping away at trust instead of building it.

As months trudged by, Ari and Clay drifted farther apart. She drowned her loneliness in her work, hoping that finding a new story to tell her readers might make up for the loss of the relationship she had thought she had. An idea for something medieval began to take shape, and she followed it to a Renaissance Faire to research. She made new friends there, and enjoyed herself immensely, especially when several of them coaxed her into the dressing area to try on some of their finery, corsets and all. It felt good, and she felt she looked good in it. She pulled together a costume and attended several functions, gathering background for a novel’s setting, and became a familiar face welcomed by even the hard-core reenactors, who were happy to answer her questions for authenticity’s sake.

The male ones also seemed only too happy merely to be around her. Ari hid her marveling giggles when they tried not to be obvious about admiring her figure and cleavage, enhanced by the corset she had ordered. One young fire-eater in particular developed a fondness for her, and squired her around Faires whenever he could. One mild evening as Faire tents came down, she went out with him for coffee, still in costumes, and they snickered at the stares of the mundanes.

In the parking lot, he tried to kiss her, and tried to explain how compatible they were, how right for him she was. She pushed him away, packed her corset in a box in her closet, and returned to her world. Being a lonely married person was in many ways worse than being a lonely single, and more so after those first months with Clay, when she had believed herself so happy.

She wrote on, usually while Clay was out of town, and traveled for promotion, usually when he came home. On occasion, though, she could not avoid the obligation to appear in public with him, at award shows or charitable functions or music-business parties. The last were the worst. Neither of them had even been big on partying, but Clay’s distaste for them heightened to the point he would barely stay half an hour at an event he was pretty much required to attend. Sometimes, he literally walked out, sitting alone in the car and leaving Ari to make excuses, till she reached the end of her patience and devised some pretext to leave.

He didn’t ask her to go to New York with him at Christmas, when he was tapped to host a live holiday special. She watched on TV, and cried alone, and then dozed off on the couch to dream the kinds of dreams she had dreamed back when her desire for him had been her guilty secret…

His huge eyes begged her to hear him out. “Forgive me, baby, please.” When he held her close she felt safe again, and loved. What exactly he was apologizing for, by this time, she wasn’t sure and didn’t care. “Let me love you, Ari. Let me prove myself again. Tell me what you want. Like our first time, remember?” He had never known their first time together was her first lovemaking, period, but in her dreams he did know, and loved her all the more deeply for the gift of her virginity. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it, I swear…”

She did, and breathed in passion like air, as his tongue and lips and fingertips worshipped her, moving at her order, eager to please her. Then he filled her, taking her over the precipice of ecstasy, where she waited to catch him, his gorgeous face transfixed as he came.

It was always his face she saw, no matter what the fantasy. Even in her dreams, Ari was monogamous, simply because the hell of this whole mess was that she loved Clay still, and with all her being.

Some weeks later, he scored a major coup—halftime at the Super Bowl. Ari shopped, and found a sexy black silk suit that she wore with her corset. The effect was sensational. Men followed her around the stadium practically tripping over their tongues. The power she wielded was almost intoxicating; but the only man whose attentions she craved did not even cross a room to speak to her for most of the night. She resisted the urge to weaken and chase him. He’d always bragged about how stubborn he was; let him see he had met his match in her.

Clay clung to the wall of the party suite while she flirted her way around. She chanced a glance his way at one point, just in time to watch in disbelief as he slugged down something plainly alcoholic. Moments later, he started her way, his steps overcautious and his body tense. He’s drunk, she thought, disgusted. And after all that big talk about not wanting to be what his birth father was. He halted where she sat, scowling down at her, and she would have sworn his right fist tightened as though to strike a blow. Slowly, she stood, the corset lending her a strange grace and erectness of carriage. “Go ahead,” she murmured, so no one else could hear. “You want to hit me? It’ll be the last time. At least be man enough to do it in public. Look at the crowd in here—“

“NO.” The word was strangled. Ari wasn’t sure if it were negation of her suggestion of violence, or refusal to look around him at the jam-packed room. The scowl that contorted his face suddenly seemed more a grimace, almost a look of pain. He swayed a little, and as much as a part of her wished for him to get his comeuppance, the part that loved him could not bear to see him this way. She tried to persuade herself, though, while saying their good nights and steering him out to her car, that it wasn’t love that spurred her. It’s for the kids, the foundation, UNICEF, all those causes he put so much into. To see him wasted in some tabloid would hurt them, and so she had to take things in hand.

Clay was sound asleep by the time she drove home, twitching now and again as though his disquiet haunted his dreams. She left him in the passenger seat to sleep it off, and was nearly ready for bed when she heard him come in. Are you gonna smack me now in private? she wanted to snap, but held her tongue. He only met her eyes once, then averted his gaze and walked into the bathroom. After the lights were out, he slipped into bed beside her. She suppressed a sigh, hoping he wasn’t one of those sloppy slobbery pawing drunks.

When he touched her she lay very still, to see what would happen and what action she should take. She really didn’t want to have to hit him. A few seconds later, his hand crept into hers, lacing fingers, and quaking slightly. Ari let out a breath she’d been unaware of holding. They lay that way for a good while, without a sound, before Clay lifted her hand to his lips, then found her mouth with his. His touch was unsteady and his breath held a hint of hot booze, but she had been so long without him she could tolerate much. And he still had the gift for making her body his own, whether she liked it or not.

Not a word was spoken most of the way, though Ari cried out his name on the waves of her climax. Clay fell asleep almost immediately, his body and face damp with a wetness she could feel in the darkness. It was the first time they had ever made love without the lights on. She missed not having seen his face at the moment of his release, and wondered if he hadn’t turned on the light so he could imagine her someone else. There seemed no evidence of infidelity though, and she looked closely in the weeks that followed, for proof to emerge.

What did emerge was a pattern of sorts. They would go to a function; she would catch him drinking and bring him home. When he sobered up, they might make love, and he would drop into a deep sleep as if escaping from the situation. A couple of times, he woke with a jolt, and a small cry when he saw her bend over him with concern, and scrambled out of bed to another part of the house. Ari was baffled, but she persisted. In October, she made one last effort to please him, arranging for acquaintances of theirs to bring their costumed children over to trick or treat. With the kids, Clay was as tender and patient as ever, but when a dozen parents gathered chatting in the living room he fled to the far reaches of the master bath and did not emerge. Bet he would if we had booze, she thought sourly.

Since she knew nothing of his panic attacks, she had no way of knowing he had been self-medicating them all along. He despised the taste of liquor, but it was the only thing he had found that could numb the terrors that gripped him at their pleasure. It also dulled the pain of his loneliness and shame. His weakness had cost him everything; he couldn’t be the man Ari wanted, so he had to watch as she went shopping for a man who could. Even she could trigger an attack in him now. All he could do was give her what little he had to give, until she found the right place and person, and moved on.

After Halloween, she had had it. For the sake of his career, though, and of his charity work, she would be discreet, and as kind as she could, and not make a big media deal of their separation. She began to quietly research divorce lawyers, and found one she thought she could trust.

Two days before her appointment with him, Ari found out she was pregnant.

+++

Despite her distress of the previous night, Val was actually surprised to wake the following morning and hear male voices in converse down the stairs. She freshened up and hastened down to find Reverend Hermes settled in the sitting room, appearing quite comfortable, and chatting with her father. “Well, there you are, girl,” Papa said. “I thought I would be entertaining your visitor half the day!”

She all but wrung her hands. “Forgive me, Papa. I—“ How on earth could she even begin to explain?

Before she could even try, he stood from his usual chair and engulfed her in his embrace. “Darling girl, you should’ve wakened me! How could I have slept like an old stump, and you all atwitter in the next room! I make a poor father, don’t I?”

“Papa!” Val gasped. “Not at all! You work so hard though, and you need your rest…and I thought sure after the turn I had, I would be awake all the night…and, well, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect—“

“You didn’t expect the Limey to appear on your door-stoop with the crack of dawn,” Reverend Hermes finished with a note of wry good humor. “I fear, however, that I could not dissemble to the good Montana Barr regarding my purpose here.”

“Now I already told you, padre, call me Frank, for it’s the name my mama gave to me.” Val was surprised more still at her father’s equal dose of humor in response. “That ‘Montana’ stuff is only for the film folk.”

“Hm, ah, yes. Well, a rose by any other name, and all such. At any rate, Miss Barr, I was obliged to explain your concerns to him. But,” he held up one finger at her startled little cry, “I also took the opportunity to share with him some of the more recent advances in science, which may not yet have disseminated to your region, and which have a bearing on the manifestations of your gift. Mr. Rudolf Steiner, for instance, is a philosopher who has thought and written extensively on matters of the mind; and while I cannot concur with some of his theories, he is an intelligent man. No one, he holds, has sufficient knowledge of the world’s inner workings to say with perfect certainty that anything at all is impossible.”

“And I must confess, he has a point,” Papa conceded. “So, the long and short of it is, the rev here tells me you had seen a boy here, outlandishly dressed and weepin’ his heart out. No wonder you were so overwrought—you’ve such a soft heart, girlie.” Val managed a smile. “And this now, last night, someone singing?”

Val nodded and explained briefly. “Hopefully you will not think it improper of me to ask this of you, now, since your father is here to chaperone and so not leave any openings for idle talk,” Reverend Hermes asked, “but may I see the room where these prodigies occurred?”

She led him up the stairs and to the old master bedroom’s door, noticing her father halted in the corridor. The two young people stepped inside, the reverend scanning the empty walls with curious eye. “Sadly, I confess I am at a loss as well to explain,” he said. “The attraction appears not to involve the space itself. Perhaps, then it is you the spirit was drawn to. What activity were you engaged in at the time you first heard the weeping?”

“I was…at my desk, writing.” He was silent as though awaiting more detail, but Val did not provide it. There were things regarding the end of her relationship with Preston that even her father did not know, and the less said the better for all.

“Hm. Well, contemplate that, then, and mayhap an answer can be found. Would that I could be of more help.” They exited the room and returned down the stairs. “I should take my leave of you both, now, with my profoundest regrets for my uselessness.”

“Oh, nothing of the sort,” Papa scoffed. “Have you time to stay for dinner? It’s only now mid-day, and it’s good to have an opportunity to hear some new talk from an educated man of the world. Good conversation and good food, that’s the mainstays of life, I say.” Val held her breath; secretly she hoped the reverend would assent, and he did. He was a man most attractive in many ways, and as badly as her previous efforts at relations with men had fallen out, it would be nice to spend just a bit more time with him in a setting of safety.

He agreed, and she hurried off to the kitchen to put on an apron and survey the selection. In no time she had assembled a light mid-day meal, and joined the men. Reverend Hermes was indeed fascinating, as he shared accounts of thinkers from all over Europe: stories of a doctor named Freud from Vienna who insisted that dreams held secrets that even the dreamer himself knew not, or a Dutch man of science who suspected that time itself was no more than an illusion. “Old Shakespeare was right then,” Papa commented as they tarried over coffee. “There truly are more things in heaven and earth than we think. It does me good to exercise my brain when I can.”

“Indeed, and it shows in your daughter’s intelligence,” Reverend Hermes praised, and Val blushed. “I should be going, as I have another lecture to deliver this evening. Again I apologize, Miss Barr, and wish I could have been of more help. After your call, though, it was incumbent upon me to come and attempt to be of aid. I’m crushed that you thought so ill of me that you did not expect me to come!”

It was humor again, she was sure, but she blurted, “It was not that at all, I only…well, I have had experiences of late with men who promised things and did not deliver them. So it is I who must beg your pardon, for maligning you in my thoughts.”

“Bah!” Papa snorted. “That lout Preston Taylor, leading a gal on and then dropping her as though her heart was of no consequence. You should’ve shown him the door sooner, Val my girl, but who can say?”

Val held her peace, but the paleness of her face, after her girlish blush, must not have escaped the reverend’s sharp eye. “Forgive my forward speech, but you seem troubled by the very mention, Miss Barr. Might a man of the cloth ask why, and if I can be of service in that way at least?”

She wanted to trust him, but she feared how the truth might wound her dear papa. Still…she had been about to write it all down, even if only to burn or bury the pages, when the weeping man had first appeared. Had her pain somehow called out to his? “Preston Taylor courted me for some months, and then told me he was married, and his wife was back East.” Papa nodded. “But there is more, Papa. I did not tell you all…when I learned the truth I said I would send mail to her, to tell her what tricks he had been up to, and he…he threatened you, Papa. Or your career, rather. There are publications that write about the actors of films, gossip about their lives, and Preston was acquainted with a writer at one. He said he would tell them that Montana Barr’s daughter had courted a married man, and committed all manner of indecencies, and that they would print it all, and ruin you.”

Val hung her head to evade her father’s gaze, but he would not be denied. “That villain!” he growled. “Valencia—look at me, girl! Why did you keep such a thing from me? Have I earned such distrust from you?”

“No, Papa!” she cried. “I’m sorry. It was not distrust, you must know that! You gave up so much to raise me alone, it horrified me to think my poor judgment could replay you so poorly.”

“Oh, good heavens!” Papa retorted. For a moment she feared from his tone that he was truly wroth with her, but when she finally dare look up, his stricken face told her that as ever, his gruffness sheltered his more tender emotions. “What would move you to blame yourself for that varmint’s deceit? Bah! And as for those scandal-chasing yellow journalists—who pays them any credence? Their paper’s good for lining a packing box, but not for much more!”

Papa’s touch on Val’s shoulder was a pleasant and comforting surprise, but not as surprising as what occurred next. Reverend Hermes came out of his chair and knelt before her, clasping her hands in his. “My dear, dear Miss Barr,” he said, his voice betraying a quaver, “I am so sorry. Forgive me, if my words drove you to bare your soul unwillingly. Far be it from me to cause you more pain.”

Touched, she squeezed his hands. “Ask no forgiveness of me, good sir. The truth will out, as the Bard said.”

His dark eyes were large and moist with feeling, and they held hers for far longer than she expected. “Right,” he said finally, his tone steady again and crisp. “Well, then,” he continued as he stood and brushed the knees of his trousers. “When you first encountered the phantom of the weeping man, you were debating how to proceed with regard to this matter?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Val replied, feeling both relieved and oddly uneasy. It was easier now to resolve her heart’s ache at the remembered past, but that ache was being supplanted by a new and sweeter one, kindled by the warmth of the pastor’s look. “In times past, I have found committing sadness or anger to paper to be an aid to their release.”

“Ah, a literary lioness!” His smile widened and she returned it. Then his brow furrowed in thought. “Hm. While it is sadly enlightening to contemplate the depths to which a scurrilous git of a man may sink to conceal his attempts at infidelity, I confess I do not yet see how that fact furthers our pursuit of your haunting. The song you heard, you are certain it derived from that same source?” She nodded. “How did it go? You said it was unfamiliar to you, but do you recall any of it?”

Val flushed a bit. “My singing voice is sorely limited, so I’ll not do justice to the song or the singer; but as to my recall, I could not forget so fey a sound.” She coughed slightly into her pocket handkerchief to clear her throat, and then sang softly, “Oh, I can’t forget tomorrow, when I think of all my sorrow, when I had you there but then I let you go, and now it’s only fair that I should let you know, what you should know…I can’t live, if living is without you, I can’t live, can’t give any more…” There she halted. “The refrain repeated, but higher, and more powerfully, than I can muster; before the singer began to weep anew; and by the sound of his weeping I knew him to be the same man I had seen before. It was a sound to break your heart.”

“Your tuning was heart-breaking enough, my girl.” Papa dabbed at his eyes with his bandana. “How is it I never knew you had a voice as fair as dawn’s little birds?”

“I agree!” the reverend affirmed, and Val suppressed a sudden urge to giggle. “But none of this makes any sense!” His unexpected outburst of frustration, grasping for knowledge and understanding, was strangely compelling, and she could not remove her attention from his form as he began to pace and talk. “I have heard music from round the world, and never have I heard that tune, or those words coupled to another melody. How is this possible?”

Suddenly, the science he had shared earlier returned to Val’s mind, and met the mystery there, and their result left her lips in a rush she could no more control than her breath.

‘Perhaps,” she said, “because it hasn’t been written yet.”

+++

Ari was beginning to show in late winter, when American Idol called and asked Clay to perform on their finale. They had a stunt in mind, they said—a no-talent little guy who fancied himself a Clay impersonator, who they wanted to surprise with an appearance by the real thing. Ari didn’t like it, and she said so; as far as he had fallen from the man she thought him when they married, she still cared deeply for him, and for his career.

Typical of his recent demeanor, Clay was tight-lipped, but unbent just enough to assure her he had no intention to let the show mock him. Exactly what he had planned, he wouldn’t say, and she didn’t keep trying. He seemed uncomfortable talking to her now, and frankly even being around her. The comments he had made now and then as she’d grown large were clear enough, though. Her weight had always been a sore spot with her; one thing she liked about her corset was the way it cinched in the weak places, and she had watched her diet like a hawk for months when she and Clay had first started to have problems. That wasn’t an option now, but she refused to endanger her child for her pride or even her marriage. If he left her, she would at least have this baby to live for.

Pregnancy wasn’t kind to Ari, on the whole. She tired easily, and got little work done. On the afternoon of the AI finale, she lay down to nap, with her seven-month-big belly lying beside her, and didn’t wake up till almost air time. Angry, but determined to put in an appearance, she threw on some stretch pants and a big silk shirt and headed for the theater. Traffic was heavy, and she only arrived as the show was ending. Making her way to the after-party, she halted inside the door and scanned the milling crowd.

She didn’t watch the show, but a big man, prematurely graying and rather handsome, had garnered a good deal of attention and flashbulbs, so she guessed he might be the season’s winner. Most of the media was circling around another man, however. His back was to Ari, but she could tell he was tall and impeccably dressed in a brown suit. His dark hair was fashionably shaggy and his shoulders broad. He laughed as the camera rolled, then half turned to speak to someone. Ari noticed two things right away: the woman he was speaking to, and who was giggling and nuzzling against him, was Paris Hilton; and the man held a drink in his hand.

Then he turned a little farther, and she recognized Clay’s face. Quietly she turned, trying not to draw attention (which wasn’t easy for a pregnant woman in stretch pants, surrounded by the glitterati) and waddled back outside, and asked the valet to bring her car around.

She drove for a while, with no particular destination in mind, and ended up at the beach. It was a deserted area she liked to visit to write, especially since Clay’s loathing of water meant he would never follow her there. Too plump with baby now to heft herself up to sit on the hood of the car, she sat behind the wheel, with the door open so she could listen to the comforting shoosh of the ocean. Many thoughts drifted through her mind, and finally she reached for the empty notebook lying in the passenger seat. All her notebooks had been empty of late; if she couldn’t get some writing going, she would have to find a teaching job to pay her bills if she left Clay. In spite of all the conflict that had gone before, though, she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave him.

She wrote:

Hello, baby girl. Actually, I hope you never read this. I hope I’m able to wad it up and throw it in the trash sometime soon. If you read these words, that means things ended badly between your father and me, and the more I think about it, the less sure I am that I want that to happen. Just in case, though, let me explain.

I was a virgin when I met Clay. I talked a good game, but I’d never been with a man. He was the most unique person I had ever known, both sweet and strong, shy and silly, gentle and aggressive. I liked that. I loved him. I married him, and we set out on a journey of discovery, so to speak, to find out how to make each other happy. But something went haywire. My childhood made it hard for me to trust. I thought I could trust Clay, but …one day, he did something, to me, without asking me, or checking in, or even giving me the option to refuse; and the trust I had been nurturing like a small tender plant died.

Since then, the bonds between us have raveled. I can’t give him the acceptance he needs, and I think probably he has found it somewhere else. He likes his drink, and his flirting, and he likes things his way. I don’t know whether he likes me much anymore. But I want you to know, baby girl, if you read this, that on this night, 2 months before you are supposed to be born, I still love your daddy very, very much. If the man awaiting your birth were the man I believed him to be when I married him, he would be the most wonderful father to you that a little girl ever had.

I can’t give up without knowing whether that man exists, or ever did. I’m not walking away without a fight.

There hasn’t been much communication between us, and that needs to change. As I write this, I am sitting by the sea watching the waves roll in and out, and I’ve decided I’m not going out without having things spelled out for me. I’m going home, and try to talk to him, and see what happens. And as I said, baby girl, I hope to dispose of this page before you are born, and to welcome you into a house full of love.

Love, your mommy.

The sky was clear but moonless. Ari focused on the narrow road before her as she climbed back up from the coast into the hills toward the old house she hoped would be a home for her baby and her heart at last. Deer are far too fast though, and when one leaped out in front of her she could not stop in time. The air bag inflated and struck her with a thump. Dazed and unable to see, she could not keep the car from sliding off the road and down an embankment.

It finally came to rest against a stand of trees with a jarring crunch, and she tried to crawl out. It took a while, but she managed, swearing to herself with what breath she had; which wasn’t much, given that her abdomen was throbbing with every movement from the impact of the bag. She pulled out her cell phone, but the steep slope blocked her signal. She swore a bit more, and started to look for a way up. In her normal condition she could have climbed it easily, but not now, and especially not when she suddenly cramped and felt a whoosh of hot liquid between her legs. Shit, is that my water breaking??

She looked down. It was worse. In the flicker of the tiny flashlight on her key chain she saw red. Afraid now, she struggled to hoist herself to someplace where she could get the phone to work, her strength ebbing by the second. At last, a beep rewarded her, and she dialed, not 911, but the number she had first programmed into the phone the day she got it. She fought to hold onto consciousness as it rang and rang, terrified he wouldn’t answer. “Yeah?” he said finally, his speech slightly slurred.

“Clay, help me…”

“Ari? Where are you? You were supposed to show up, you know.”

“I don’t know where…the car…help me baby, please…”

“Huh? Okay, seriously. Where are you, Ari? What’s up?”

“Can’t…oh Clay, I’m scared…I love you…” She blacked out to the sound of him calling her name with a fervor she hadn’t heard in a very long time.

The signal cut out, and by the time police tracked her car, it was too late.

+++

“Not written yet?” Val’s papa frowned. “What on earth?”

“Well, we know no one lived here before us, no one who could possibly answer to the description of the man I saw. This house didn’t exist before. But…folk tend to think of ghosts as earthbound souls, but then why do they never respond when I see them? It seems more as though a window opens, and I catch a glimpse of the past.”

“Ah! Your theory is most enlightening, and to me, far more consistent with a compassionate God,” the reverend said with a dawn of understanding.

“And if the men of science you spoke of, Reverend Hermes, are correct, perhaps things yet to be exist already, in some form; thus, why could windows not open there as well? Maybe that song is unknown to us because it hasn’t yet been written. Maybe those clothes that look so strange are so because the designer hasn’t yet conceived of them.” Val caught her breath as the full impact of her theory struck her a-borning. “Perhaps this time I saw the future rather than the past. Perhaps that man will live here, one day. Perhaps that weeping that so wrung at my heart won’t occur for twenty years, or fifty or a hundred!”

The room was silent as a tomb for a moment, and Val regretted her outburst; surely they must now think her quite mad. Then Reverend Hermes began to applaud quietly. “Splendid, Miss Barr! Quite splendid! And if that is the case—“

“Then it may explain why I saw and heard what I did. If the future has possibilities, but is not yet etched in stone as the past is, then the purpose for my experience becomes clear.” She took a deep breath, aware of the burden devolving upon her. “I saw it so I could change it. There is something I must do, something that may prevent that unbearable grief from its now-appointed time.”

“But what?” Papa wondered.

“I can only guess, Papa, that it must be what I was considering not doing when the specter first appeared.”

+++

People who knew Clay said later that they never saw him smile after the night Ari and their unborn daughter died. Oh, there were the fake smiles he pasted on for publicity, but everyone knew better. His fans talked about it on their message boards, agonized over ways they could console him, and he appreciated their efforts; he really did, as useless as they were.

He rarely left the house. When the label called about doing promotion for the CD he had just finished recording, he told them to junk it. They threatened to sue. He didn’t care. Finally when their calls grew too maddening to bear, he called a couple of friends, went into the recording studio he had built in the basement, and recorded ten songs, stuff he remembered hearing on the radio as a kid and liked. He sent the audio files to the label and told them to put them out on their CD. Somebody there pulled a few new songs from the original recordings, added them, pressed the discs and sent them out. There was little input from the label; they made hardly any effort to market it. He didn’t care about that either.

Several months later, he got a call from Africa, from a man he had met who operated an orphanage. He asked Clay for help—could he send donors their way, to hire escorts to move children to safety, a route that skirted dangerously near a war zone. Clay made some phone calls, and got them some money, and then got on a plane and delivered it himself.

There was still a media buzz around him, the high of his reappearance on Idol and his new look, followed almost immediately by the crash of his pregnant wife’s death and his retreat into seclusion. He wouldn’t talk to the press, which made them even more eager to follow him around, when they could find him. Staying away from the crowds of press and their lurid questions kept the panic attacks at bay, without liquor, and he had sworn over Ari’s grave he would never drink again, no matter what.

When a party prepared to set out from the orphanage, Clay got into the ratty old truck they drove and went with them. While the reporters milled around, left behind and furiously wondering how he had given them the slip, the truck was stopped miles away by a gang of armed militia. The situation looked grim, until Clay snapped. He got out and angrily confronted the thugs, waving his arms and shouting, as the truck escaped.

His bullet-riddled body was dumped along the side of the dusty road, and was found several days later. The resulting outcry brought in the UN in force to stop the fighting, and donations to the orphanage and others like it from Clay’s grief-stricken fans built clean sturdy new structures for children without parents to grow up in peace and security. One was named in his honor.

In the will he had written and left with his mother before flying to Africa, Clay had asked that in the event of his death (a fact he spoke of with eerie certainty, in the document) he be buried with a piece of paper, stored carefully in an envelope in the table beside the bed he had shared with his wife. The paper was crinkled from being read over and over, and creased where Clay had finally torn it from Arianne’s notebook, and folded it and carried it with him. In places, the ink was splotched from tears, and one line was highlighted in yellow:

on this night, 2 months before you are supposed to be born, I still love your daddy very, very much.

+++

Okay, so now we know what Val saw, and how it all ended…but what can she do to change the path that leads to the future she saw? How can she stop that first crack of distrust, the wedge that drove into the marriage and eventually destroyed Ari, Clay, and their baby?

Val spent the next two days casting her experiences into words and putting them to the page. She held nothing back, and told the unvarnished truth about her hopes, fears, and griefs. Her father did not ask to read it. Neither did Reverend Hermes, although she asked his counsel regarding some points, and one in particular.

“Should I address it directly to the man I saw?” she asked.

“I think not. Your idea is such a paradox, you know; if this works, and that grief, whatever it is, does not befall him in the future, then, why would there be a specter for you to see, and thus be impelled to do this? But then, if you do nothing, perhaps it will happen, and you will see him and thus—oh, bother! I must stop this, it is making my head hurt!”

She laughed. The reverend had made her laugh more in the past four days than she had in months. “You probably are right. If I say ‘oh, and by the by, I have seen you, whoever you are, in a most mournful state, so beware’, might I not cause exactly what I wish to prevent? And too, it might not fall into the right hands immediately, so how can I say ‘you there, you handsome man in the velvet jacket and worn worker’s trousers’? I should terrify any man who reads it and owns a velvet jacket!”

The reverend chuckled. “Oh, and he is handsome, think you?”

“Well…yes. Although you are too, and unlike him, you are flesh and blood.” Val bit her tongue in horror; but he only smiled briefly and lifted an eyebrow.

“I like how you think, Miss Barr.” That was all he said, but his quiet praise warmed her, and she was silently glad she had taken the leap of faith to trust him. That was, after all, what much of the treatise she had just written boiled down to, and she hoped it would achieve its goal.

She did want for some way to convey to her readers in the future that she knew something of their world, and after much pondering she seized on a small strange gadget that had impressed itself on her mind. “See, it is functional too,” she explained while she punched holes along the edges of her papers and wound a fine strand of wire through them to hold them together.

“I suppose,” her father grumbled. “Not very practical though, unless one could perhaps build a machine to do it.”

Val carried the little note-book she had thus made into the master bedroom, knelt on the floor, and set it gently down in a hole created by the lifting of a board. “Do you think this the best place?” asked Reverend Hermes.

“I can think of no better place,” she replied. “It is the one place we know him to be, and so the most likely spot for him to find it.”

The reverend and Papa fitted the board back into place as best as they could, with much tugging and grunting and mumbling. “Neither of us is a woodmaster,” Papa panted. “Like as not it’ll warp and pop up one day.”

“Then let it,” the reverend replied. “Perhaps that too is a part of the plan.” He stood and wiped his brow; then, as Val had asked, they both stepped outside, leaving her alone.

She looked around the silent, vacant room. “You poor dear. Perhaps you haven’t even been born yet…Ah, God, please let me have read the signs aright. Let me have done the right thing, to succor a stranger in his anguish.”

After another moment or two, she too left the room, closing the door, leaving it as her father had left it. Years passed, and owners came and went, until a day early in the next century…

+++

Reverend Hermes was right, by the way, as far as was known in his day, about the ‘time paradox’. The idea of many universes, each differing slightly from the next, and the idea of actions, even just one small action, changing the course of events, wasn’t known back then. Valencia’s gambit, if it worked, would not exactly alter the future, but the path of things, from one possible future, to another.

Now we’ll take our last jump, and no more playing with text colors. We’re back on familiar ground now, and I turn you over to a narrator whose voice you know well. Oh, one more thing: SMUT ALERT!!!!! (hehe)

To begin with, I was having a major bout of writer’s block that day. I hate that, because every time I get stuck I have these horrid visions of never being able to come up with another word anyone is going to want to read, and ending up living under a bridge someplace, heating Beanie Weenies on one of those buddy burners we used to make in Girl Scouts out of melted candle wax and corrugated cardboard and an empty cat food can.

I had several ideas, but none of them were going anywhere. If something didn’t give soon, I thought I might have to resort to constructing something out of the kinky little game Clay and I had played some time back, about the old gangster’s trophy wife and the hot stud cop. It was something I had avoided pursuing, though not because it had squiched me out (although there were moments I had to wonder what had possessed me to let Clay tie me up!). I had accepted that slightly twisted side of myself, and the fact that surrendering control to him turned me on in a big way. Really, I hadn’t followed the story line onto paper, simply because it was something just the two of us shared, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to let anyone else in on it. Yeah, call me selfish.

The heck of it was, I usually batter down the wall of block with Clay’s help, but I didn’t have that available just now. He had been buried for the past two days in paperwork, trying to scope out some irregularity or other in the handling of swag, also known as tour merchandise. Even now it looked like a trash can had exploded in our dining room, with him in the middle chewing on a pencil and mumbling to himself. So, just to avoid staring at the blank page in front of me (staring just makes matters worse), I started doing some mindless chores, moving stuff from here to there.

Every time I passed through the dining room Clay looked more and more annoyed. It appeared he needed a break as badly as I had…and to be honest, I was feeling a little neglected too. (See above comment about my selfishness.) Maybe, I thought, I could kill two birds with one stone: by distracting him for a while, both of us could return to our tasks with fresh eyes.

The next time through the room I tugged at his hair. “Not now, Ari,” he muttered, intent on the pages before him. Not now, my ass, I thought. The next time, I flicked at his ear; and the next time I tickled his neck. He let out an explosive huff of exasperation and turned in his chair to glare at me. “Am I gonna have to tie you up someplace to keep you from buggin’ me?”

Well, now…that was unexpected. I froze for an instant—and then stuck out my tongue. “Promises, promises.”

I started to saunter away, but was startled again by the squeak of his chair. Shit, he was coming after me! I squealed and bolted, with Clay in hot pursuit. He caught me at the bedroom door: not a conscious decision on my part to run that way, but hey, maybe my subconscious was more in the mood. The momentum of our dash carried us both across the room toward the bed, but suddenly he yelped and let go of me. I landed on the mattress in a heap, and looked up to see him grab one foot and bounce around the room on the other, making faces. “Dom and dork just don’t mix,” I observed snarkily.

‘Oh—thanks a lot!” he panted. “Ow, ow…shit!”

This looked legit. I got up. “Sit down there, doofus, and I’ll be right back.” I hurried to the kitchen for some ice and grabbed a wash cloth to put it in on the way back. ‘You better not be fooling me.” He wasn’t; when he took his sneaker off his big toe was already red and swelling a bit. I sat down on the floor beside him, and put the ice on it, and felt awful. “I’m sorry, honey. I was just trying to get you away from that stuff for a while.” I kissed his injured toe lightly, then replaced the ice.

“Don’t be sorry. I was the one actin’ dumb and not watchin’ where I was goin’.” He made another face, then grinned sheepishly.

“What did you stub your foot on?” I asked.

“Knowin’ me, I fell over my own two feet.” That wasn’t the case, however. I lifted the rug inside the door and found some floorboards had sprung up. “Remember that little earthquake they talked about on CNN, that happened here while we were back in North Carolina last month?” Clay said. “Maybe that jarred those loose.”

‘Maybe so. We’ll have to get them fixed as soon as we can though, or we’ll both be tripping over them.” I pushed at them futilely a time or two, then caught the glint of something shiny beneath.

“What are you doin’?” Clay yelped when instead of pushing I started to pull them farther out of place. For reply I reached into the space under and pulled out a sheaf of paper held together with a crude spiral binding. “Hey…treasure map, maybe?”

I giggled and flipped it around till I found where the neat writing began. Settling down on the floor with my back to the footboard of the bed and Clay’s foot in my lap, I began to read aloud, and the story I read was amazing. “Okay, so what the real estate guy told you about this house being built by a silent film star really was true!” We both sat spellbound as Valencia Barr told us her story, hidden all these years, but in many ways as contemporary as our own experiences.

“Oh gosh!” Clay exclaimed at one point. “They had tabloid writers even back then! Unbelievable.”

I read on through her account of her father’s stumbling into stardom, at the very dawn of Hollywood, and was stunned at her description of her boyfriend’s hiding his marriage, and his threat to feed lies to the yellow press and ruin her father’s career if she went to his wife. “Wow. Who could make up anything better than this?”

Clay shook his head. “Truth is stranger than fiction, all right. So how does it end? What happened to her?”

I perused the final page. “Here’s the last part: “After much debate within myself, I disclosed these circumstances at last to my father, feeling remorseful that I had jeopardized his wellbeing by my actions. For his part, he assured me that I had done no such thing. Thus, I conclude that I shall close the book, so to speak, on this sad chapter of my life and proceed. Toward that end, I commit the facts to print; both to allow myself a material means of releasing them, and to, perhaps, benefit one who may find them in the future.

To that one I would say, this is what I have learned: Be discerning in bestowing your trust, but be not overly dubious of all folk. There are those who show themselves worthy of your trust. Do not wound them by withholding yourself. By the same token, if you would be trusted, it is required of you to prove yourself deserving of it, and not be a weak or inconstant support to one who relies upon you. Do this, and you will save yourself much regret.

I have learned to my cost who I should not trust. Now, I hope I have found someone I should, and will endeavor to prove that point.”

Clay listened intently with lips pursed. “Wonder what that means.”

I shrugged. “Don’t know, but I’d like to. Maybe I can do some research on her, and find out.” I folded the pages together to protect them. “If for no other reason than that I think I remember reading the spiral notebook wasn’t invented till 1920 by some guy in Australia. It would be cool to find proof an American gal beat the men to this one.”

My attempt to move Clay’s foot so I could get up and stow the little book safely away was intercepted when he scooted up and caught my hands in his. “My wife, student of female history-makers.”

“And student of much other stuff,” I grinned as he kissed me. “Are you going to go tackle those numbers again now?”

“I guess I’d better. Actually I think I’m close to figuring the mess out.. IF a certain someone keeps her hands to herself. Maybe I should make good on that threat.”

“You wouldn’t!” I gasped, doing my best to sound utterly appalled, instead of intrigued.

He chuckled evilly, but then sobered. “Not unless you wanted me to. You know that. As our wise new friend from the past said, if you trust me, I’m not about to do anything to change that.”

Looking deep into his beautiful and earnest eyes, I grinned. “Wouldn’t do you any good anyhow. If you tied me up and left me I’d just get loose in a few minutes.”

“Would not.”

“Would too. I was a big magic buff. I read all of Houdini’s biographies and learned how he escaped. I bet I could do it.”

One eyebrow hiked and an wicked half-smile quirked his cheek. “What’ll you bet me?”

Oh, my. Don’t dare Clay to do anything. I should have known better. A hint of excitement quivering inside me, I considered my options. “If you tie me up and I can’t get loose before you finish your paperwork, you can have your way with me.”

“Oh, for pete’s sake. Like that’s a punishment.” I felt myself flush and giggled. “Or anything but a given, for that matter.”

“And if I can get loose, I get to tie you up.”

The starch seemed to fall out of his smile for a moment. I couldn’t exactly describe the change in his expression, but the smile that returned was different, tenser. After our first playtime, I had hoped from his reactions that he’d let me have a turn sometime; maybe the thought made him a bit nervous. I resolved that I would prove myself as worthy of his yielding to me, if and when I got the chance, as he was of mine. “Deal.”

I nodded once, and got up to put the small notebook in a drawer of the dresser. Clay went to a drawer too, the one where I kept scarves and underwear and socks and the like. He took gentle hold of my shoulder and pulled me toward him with one hand, directing my hands behind my back. With his other hand he fished a short silk scarf out of the drawer. I sighed expressively and rolled my eyes. Though my back was turned to him, the mirror above the dresser clearly showed me his response; he pursed his lips in thought, returned the scarf to its place and rummaged around some more. Finally he emerged with an enormously long satiny robe sash, and I tried not to grin. He had fallen right into my trap.

People assume the more rope the more secure the restraint, but my reading had taught me that just the opposite was true. It looked impossible, to the average man, for Houdini to escape from 100 feet of rope, but the length provided plenty of room for slack; the great magician’s problem was more keeping the loops from falling off his body before the appointed time. Same applied on a smaller scale here. I helped things along a bit; as Clay wound the sash around my wrists I closed my hands into fists and tensed my muscles. By the time he finished, I thought I might actually have to hold onto the bond to cover my tracks! “That’s it?” I asked archly as he inspected his handiwork.

“Not even close.”

“Oh, so this is a competition?” I kidded.

“Yeah, it is, and one I don’t intend to lose.” Gee, he was taking this seriously. I almost hated to bust one on him…almost. I don’t brag, though, unless I can back it up. He dug in the drawer and pulled out my black silk scarf and the trick hand buzzer that went with it. This time I hiked my eyebrow as he slipped the buzzer on my finger.

“You’d better not be thinking about sticking that rag in my mouth and leaving me in here by myself. If I got nauseous or something you’d never hear that joy buzzer all the way in the dining room.”

Clay returned my own roll of the eyes. “I wouldn’t leave you in here anyway. How dumb do you think I am? I know that wouldn’t be safe. And besides, I want you where I can keep an eye on you. I want my prize.” Now, I was sure I could read his intensity—it was as much anticipation and arousal, I thought, as male ego. My own excitement rose in pitch to meet his, and I watched entranced in the mirror as he looped the scarf through my mouth and secured it. Politically incorrect in the extreme, probably, but I’d have been lying to myself to deny what surrendering myself to him this way did to me; like making me sweat just a bit, and moistening the space between my legs in expectation.

“Now, since you admit you like this part…” Again, he dove into the drawer and brought out a larger red scarf. Puzzled, I observed as he folded it in half at the corners, then brought the short point up to make a wide strip. “You said you study a lot of stuff—well, so do I.” With a quick movement, he stepped behind me holding the long ends, laid the cloth over my lower face and chin and pulled. As he tied the ends high behind my head the scarf pressed my jaw closed around the gag already in it, and suddenly I could only grunt. “You also always say you like for me to surprise you…Surprised?” Uh, yeah, I was. Damn, he could pull the wildest stuff out of his hat, and the most unexpected! “Ari? This is okay, isn’t it? You’re not scared?”

I shook my head and murmured a sigh when his fingers stroked my cheek. When his touch moved downward to tease my breasts through my T-shirt, I completely forgot I was supposed to be planning an escape. “I like it when you squirm and MMMM like that. Means you’re likin’ what I’m doin’, right? I may never get this paperwork done. I’ll have to take lots of breaks to watch you wriggle, and hear you make those sexy noises. And make you make some more of ‘em. Of course, if I don’t finish my work then, I may have to punish you for distractin’ me.” I shivered, and his hands slipped farther down to my hips. “I promise, it’ll be a wonderful punishment.” He tickled my ribs and I giggled, although that consisted mostly of snorts through my nose. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?”

“Uh-uh,” I managed, and groaned softly again when he turned me around and kissed my helpless mouth, his lips warm through the silk that silenced me.

“Come on, and prepare to be punished,” he chuckled. He grabbed some more scarves, smacked my bottom playfully and herded me out the bedroom door and down the hallway into the living room. As he directed me to sit on the sofa, I tried to reconstitute the goo my brain had turned into. The goo, for my escape to succeed, should be limited to my panties.

Our couch is unusually long and wide. We picked it for those reasons, because it reminded Clay of the huge sofa backstage at American Idol, the only place he could catch a nap during those frantic first days of his fame. So I would have plenty of room to move, and once I got my hands free, I could hang onto the sash, wriggle a bit and give him a little show, before I snuck up on him and took my sweet revenge. As usual, however, Clay threw me a curve, when he blindfolded me, and then pressed me gently to lie down. He pulled my shorts off, then crossed and tied my ankles. That, at least, I should have expected; he knew I could walk with my feet tied side by side. Besides, he liked to keep my legs open so he could tease my crotch, and naturally did so, thereby soaking my already damp panties and making my plans ooze out my ear again for the moment. “That lovely imagination of yours is already workin’, isn’t it?” he muttered, his breath hot. “You just lay right here and imagine some more, wonderin’ what I may be plannin’ to do with my pretty trophy, and how long it’ll take me to get my work done …and whether I’m maybe watchin’ you struggle around and lose your bet, instead.”

“Hmph,” I retorted and heard him laugh. God, I love his laugh, even when it’s totally squeaky and dorky; which it never is in situations like this.

“One more thing, just to make sure you stay put. If it works, and you’re not too uncomfortable.” He pushed me onto my stomach and I lay there a moment, baffled again, until his hand closed around my ankles and lifted them up off the couch, bending my knees. Something soft wound around them, and then around my wrists, and I let out a sudden startled grunt as I realized he had tied them together! “That should keep you in one place, till I come back to claim my prize.” I worked my shoulders, rocking back and forth to tell how much length stretched between arms and legs. This was a twist that might mess things up, and I grunted angrily. “Ari, are you okay? That doesn’t hurt, does it? Ari?”

When he pulled my blindfold down his face was worried, and I couldn’t be mad at him. After all, what would I lose if I lost this game? Nothing, except maybe my voice for a day or so, from the way he would make me holler as he made me come a half dozen times or so…when he was darn good and ready to let me come. He asked again if I was okay, and I nodded. His eyes held mine, till I crossed mine, and he giggled. “Translated, go away, so you can convince yourself you can’t escape?” I made an infuriated little snort and he blindfolded me again, then kissed my forehead. “Remember, I can see you from the next room just by leaning back in my chair, so don’t be afraid, baby. I’ll keep you safe. Just relax and think about how nice I’m gonna make you feel in a little while.” One big hand kneaded my butt, and I moaned deep in my throat and writhed against the cushions beneath me as I heard his footsteps recede.

I was tempted to throw the fight, just for the pleasure he’d be sure to provide me. But I had my pride, and now it was piqued. I really wanted to prove I could get loose, and give him a little surprise. He said he didn’t like them, but he should realize some could be very nice. Granted, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, since he had agreed to the terms; and I didn’t intend to get very elaborate. Making him squirm with frustrated desire while I took my time about pleasuring him sure sounded like fun, though.

Before I could do that, I had to actually get loose. So, as they say: no shit, there I was. Hog tied on my sofa in a T shirt and panties. At least Clay had made another mistake, by tying the blindfold over my eyes too tightly. That left spaces down the sides of my nose so I could see somewhat. Thus, if he approached while I was working to free my hands, I would know to conceal my activity. It wasn’t going to take much work, if the extra volume of the other tie didn’t get in the way. And as it happened, it didn’t. In fact, once I twisted my wrists enough to bring the knot in the sash into fingers’ reach, I was actually able to use my feet to pull the bonds off my hands! Almost too simple.

I lay still and listened: no footfalls. Time was of the essence now, though; the next time he looked and didn’t see my feet sticking up in the air wiggling uselessly, he’d come to investigate. I pulled the blindfold off and untied my ankles. The gag could wait a minute. Rolling off the sofa, I crouched and crept to the door, peeking around the frame. Clay’s nose was deep in his stacks of papers again. Perfect. With scarves in hand I stepped around the doorway, slid up behind him, and whipped one over his eyes. He yelped; his pencil went flying and he grabbed for his face, which let me catch his wrist in the loop of another scarf and pull it behind him. Then, of course, he reached back there with his other hand, which was exactly what I wanted him to do so I could catch it!

With him caught for the moment I fought with the scarves around my head and won, after half scalping myself on one. I was going to have to have a talk with him about catching my hair in his knots. No talking right now, though, except for a little gloating on my part. “Told you. Now who’s got the prize, huh—“

“Ari! No,” he gasped. “Please, stop.”

“Sore loser?” Not that I really thought he was, but I had to tweak him a bit.

“No—no—“ He was panting for breath, jerking against the scarf around his wrists. “Oh…please, baby, stop it…make it stop…I thought I could do this but I can’t…”

Those did not sound like the vocalizations of arousal, even if he was caught off guard. “Clay, is something wrong?” I pulled the blindfold off and was startled; his eyes were huge and terrified. He was shaking, and now I was getting a little frightened too. I untied his hands. He clutched his chest like a man having a heart attack, then buried his face in his palms, still trembling. Unnerved, I swung a leg over and sat across his lap. When I put my hands over his to try and calm him down he jumped, and then clung to me. Through my thin shirt I could literally feel his heart pound. “What is it, baby? What did I do?”

“Can’t talk,” he whispered. “Just hold me…please.” We sat that way for quite a while, and when he finally lifted his head where he had hidden his face in my shoulder, both face and shoulder were damp.

“Oh, my God.” I fought back my own tears of fear and confusion. “What just happened? What did I do? You know I’d never ever hurt you, or scare you.”

“It’s not your fault.” He took several deep breaths. “You didn’t know. I never told you.”

“Told me what?”

“I…I had…have, I guess I should say now…these spells. The first one happened at the hospital after my stepfather died. I get really afraid, and my heart bangs like it’s going to stop, and I get the shakes and I can’t breathe. I’m sure that makes no sense to you—“

“Yes, it does, Clay. I know exactly what you’re talking about. You have panic attacks? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“After that first one, I only had them occasionally. Usually it’s when I’m in a crowded place. Remember the reception after I sang in Washington for the Fourth of July? When I wanted to leave right away? I almost had one then.” He avoided my eyes. “I kept hopin’ they wouldn’t come back, and…I guess I didn’t want you to know how weak I was.”

“Ohh, shut up! Weak? For crying out loud. My cousin’s father-in-law had them, and he was a paratrooper in Korea. He said the only thing he could imagine comparing it to was being shoved out of a plane without a chute, except he thought a panic attack was worse. It has nothing to do with being weak.” I hugged him fiercely to me. “It’s a chemical imbalance, like diabetes. There are medicines that can control it. So get thee to Dr N’tukidem, ASAP, my dear. I don’t know if she’d treat it herself, being our primary care doctor, or refer you to a specialist, but either way, you do not have to live in fear, or be ashamed. And we probably should find you a good therapist to work with, too.”

“I don’t know about all that.” He had brightened at my ready acceptance, but now he frowned. “Nobody in my family’s ever been to a shrink, or anything.”

I pretended to pull at my hair in exasperation. “Clay, a therapist is trained in how to handle these kinds of diseases, and can train you in how to do it too. If I wanted to learn to make pottery, I would take a class from a potter. If you want to learn to manage these symptoms, then along with taking medicine, you probably need to ‘take classes’ from an expert.” That explanation made him pause with his mouth half open, and whatever argument he was about to muster didn’t emerge. “I’m sorry for whatever I may have done before that made you feel you couldn’t tell me; but can you trust me on this, now?

“It wasn’t trust, Ari! I swear it wasn’t. I want to be strong for you. I want to take care of you. And I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t.”

I took Clay’s face between my hands and made him look at me. “Excuse me, but marriage is a partnership, mister. Equal time, and all that. You take care of me just fine. And you need to let me take care of you sometimes. Got it?” I hung onto the tough tone for just that long, before the tears came again. “God, I’m so sorry. I’d rather get shoved out of a plane myself than to ever scare you or make you cry.”

“Shush. Don’t beat yourself up, darlin’. You couldn’t’ve known.” He put his arms around me and squeezed me. “I think maybe I’ve always felt this nervousness on some level, even though it never came out till I was grown. Maybe it’s why I hate surprises so.”

“Maybe so. And I thought I was so smart, pushing you to see that you shouldn’t mind surprises. Lesson of the day for Arianne: don’t try to change the person you love. Just love him.” I sniffled, and he rubbed my back and whispered soft words of absolution. Then he stopped and pulled away.

“You got loose,” he said, as though it had only now occurred to him.

“Uh, yeah,” I grinned. “Although you can still punish me if you want to. I suppose I richly deserve it.”

“No, you do not.” He kissed me. “But the punishment I’ve got in mind now has nothin’ to do with tyin’ up and teasin’.”

We left the scarves scattered where they had fallen, like the papers Clay had been perusing, except for the one I used to wipe the tears from his cheeks. He did the same for me, and we made our way back to the bedroom. Clay walked slowly, a hint of tremor still evident in his legs, and I suppressed new tears at my stupidity.

“I’m so sorry,” I began as he sank onto the bed. “Oh, what am I saying? Sorry isn’t nearly enough…is there anything I can do to make up for what I’ve done?”

“Yes, there is. You can hush with the blaming yourself. Although if it’s really tormentin’ you so, I could do something. For instance, I could always spank you.” Suiting action to word, he pulled me down over his lap and smacked my bottom lightly a few times, while my throat-choking emotion dissolved into shrieks and giggles. “Now,” he continued as I rolled over, “can we consider that particular karmic debt paid off?” I nodded. “Good. So if that is settled, and you have what you need, could you give me something I need?”

“Anything.”

He clasped my hands and I sat up. “Just hold me,” he said quietly, almost pleading. “Just love me, Ari. That’s all I’ll ever need. I can’t imagine how I lived before you, or how I would be livin’ now without you.”

“Me too,” I whispered. “Never be afraid of that, Clay. You will never be without me.” We lay down together in quiet for a while. His chest pressed to mine, I scratched lightly at his scalp, and he sighed and relaxed in my arms. “How about a back massage?” I suggested.

“Mmm, that sounds good.”

I found some vanilla lotion in the closet, slipped off his shirts and began to knead his shoulders, back and upper arms as he lay on his stomach. The tightness of his muscles started to melt beneath my hands, and I thought that he would probably fall asleep right there. Instead, after a few minutes, he stretched and grunted happily and rolled over. “Your turn.”

I didn’t expect that, but I didn’t argue. Tossing my T-shirt aside, I lay down on my tummy and let him work me over. In nothing but my panties, much more of my skin was accessible, and he accessed it, his fingers squeezing gently in my thighs until I nearly moaned with pleasure and wriggled against the mattress. “You’re makin’ those noises I like again,” he rumbled. “Tryin’ to tell me somethin’?”

“Absolutely whatever you want, sweetheart. I am silly putty in your hands.” He giggled. I rolled over, and couldn’t help but notice his jeans were striving to contain some serious interest. I poked teasingly at it, and he almost blushed. “Silly putty which appears to be having some results that aren’t very silly.”

“Nope, not silly at all.” His lotion-slick hands found my bare breasts and made me moan some more. I unzipped his pants, and after only a few strokes inside his boxers I had him gasping and moaning too.

The remainder of our clothes quickly took flight, and our mouths met in mutual need, breathing love and desire as we fell back onto the bed. The shock of his unexpected attack, and my guilt at causing it, had doused the ardor built by my brief struggle in captivity, but now it came roaring back. “Ohhh Clay, I…oh please…come inside me, I need to feel you…yes…”

“Yes…ohh Ari, I love you…” He filled me and we moved together in dance toward release. Slow as a waltz, then quickstepping, we directed each other with the pleas of our words and writhing bodies, till we both climaxed with cries of relief and joy, and fell together. He lay for a while, still inside me, and I reveled in the joining; then he started to kiss my body, pressing his lips to everything he could reach, smacking and nibbling as if tasting my sweat. I felt my body begin to respond anew, and was about to ask him to move the attentions of his mouth south, when to my delight I felt him stir inside me, beginning to dance anew toward that summit.

Later (much later) we were snuggled up and I was starting to nod off, when Clay mumbled, “You got loose…how’d you do that?”

“Magicians never reveal their secrets,” I said with tongue in cheek.

“Mmm, okay. I’ll just have to research my methods more thoroughly before the next time.”

+++

And he did, and the next time we decided to get kinky, I was in some kinda trouble…which we both enjoyed immensely. I don’t know if he took an online course from Bondage U, or just dug out his old Boy Scout manual and studied knot-tying, but I was well and truly captured. Not that there was anything wrong with that, especially with so amorous and tender a captor.

The events of that day had long-lasting results. Our primary care physician, a cheery and frighteningly brainy Nigerian lady, tried Clay on a couple of medications before they hit on something that controlled his panic attacks with a minimum of unpleasant side effects. He complained of dry mouth and occasional drowsiness, but nothing much past that, thankfully. When he wrote a book about his experiences, he alluded to the DC episode, and some of his fans caught it, but nobody made a big deal of it. Eventually, he felt secure enough to mention it in public, and the resultant outpouring of support from Clay Nation was moving.

For my part, I confessed my writer’s block worries to Clay, and between the two of us we sent it packing. I spun a tale about the mobster’s wife and the cop (Sabrina and Carl, if you haven’t read the book yet) and it met with good reviews, stuff like ‘this is how edgy erotic fiction should be written’. We snickered together, and our lives and careers meandered on.

The meander turned into a mutual happy dance when I got pregnant, tempered for a while by my anxiety about being the mother to Clay’s child that it, and he, deserved. I needn’t have worried though. The instant I heard Deborah Faye’s first cry, I was hooked. Clay, needless to say, was the most doting and marvelous daddy any baby girl ever had, and we squeezed all the family time we could in between concerts and films and books.

One story that was never far from my mind was the one Clay and I had discovered that day under the floorboards of our old house. Whenever I had a chance, I searched for more information about Valencia Barr, her father, and the remainder of her life after the sad incident she had recounted across decades to us. I admit, part of the reason was that statement I had made on first reading; the tale really was better than fiction, but I dared imagine I could shape it into something the public would like to read. To do that though, I had to know how it had ended, and if any family still lived, in order to ask their permission to use their real-life ancestress as a character in a novel.

Finally, a trip to the post office brought the link that made it a whole. I tore into the flat package in the car, before even leaving the parking lot, and then hurried home in excitement. Clay was plopped down in the back yard, sitting cross-legged in the grass while Dede toddled around pulling up whatever flower or leaf caught her fancy and bringing her trophies to her daddy to proudly display them. I paused on the screened back porch to admire the giggling girl child, and the handsome man with skinny legs and glasses and long hair, and smile at how much I loved them both. “You know,” I called as I went outside, “you can’t tell people you don’t know what color your hair really is anymore. Since she takes after your coloring in most other ways, I’d say she’s a dead giveaway.”

“Probably,” Clay agreed.

I sat down beside him in the grass with my parcel under my arm, and Dede rushed to me squealing mamamama, her honey-blonde curls dancing in the sunlight. “Oh, you can’t fool me, missy. You’re daddy’s girl all over, aren’t you?”

“Da!” she agreed, clambered into his lap and promptly fell asleep.

“That works,” I said happily and dug into the fat manila envelope. “I got this from Valencia Barr’s great-grandson today.”

“Whoa, no kidding?” Clay sounded as excited as I felt. “So she married, I guess. Maybe it was the guy she referred to in the notes. What’d he send you?”

“The rest of the story. She stayed in California the rest of her life. She got to go to USC after all, and graduated, and ended up with a PhD teaching psychology there.” I scratched my head in thought. “You know, now that I think about it, I think one of my professors went to USC. I should get in touch and ask her if she remembers a Dr. Valencia Hermes. Wouldn’t it be something if there was a connection?”

“It would. Hermes? That’s a weird name.”

“She married a minister, of all people, from England, no less. Who knows how they got together; but they spent the rest of their lives together, had six kids and, like, nineteen grandchildren.”

“Sounds like a good marriage, all right.”

As evening shadows started to lengthen, I stood up and Clay carefully handed Dede up to me. We took her inside and tucked her into her little toddler bed; she’d just recently outgrown her crib, and it was folded up along one wall, ready to be put away. I wondered if we would need it again, if other children were in our futures, and if we would be blessed with descendants who recalled us with the fondness and detail that Valencia Barr Hermes’ had her.

In our bedroom, I dug out the little notebook and reread the last page. “I’d offer you a penny for your thoughts, but considerin’ inflation, that’d be an insult,” Clay said as he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me.

“I’m happy she found someone she could trust, after getting screwed over. Her great-grandson said he had read one of my books, believe it or not, and that the family would be honored for me to tell her story. I can’t help but think there are other people out there who could learn from her words.”

“Like we did,” Clay said softly in my ear. “I come in here and read it sometimes, too. It’s weird, but I feel…close to her, somehow. It’s like she was talking straight to me.”

“To us,” I corrected him. Tucking the book safely away, and the mail package alongside, I turned and kissed him.