Arsen: a broken love story, стр. 68

But that’s the thing…

It isn’t about the thrill anymore, the high Arsen makes me feel whenever he makes me come, or the numbness he provides me. Now it means something.

We ride together in the car in silence. He has an arm around my shoulders for the entire ride, sometimes leaning his cheek on top of my head, sometimes kissing my hair, inhaling the smell of it…I want to drown in the current of tenderness flowing between us, but what if he can smell Arsen on me?

I keep my head reclined on his shoulders with our hands linked together. It is uncomfortable with the console between us, but that is the last thing on my mind—I just need to feel him close. Looking at our hands intertwined makes me feel as if I am being sucked into a black hole of sorrow and pain. I know with certainty that this is going to be the last time Ben and I ride in his car together like this.

I lift my head and look out the window for a moment. The moon looks red tonight. Beautiful.

By the time we are home, our masks long gone, I’m about to tell Ben that I am going to take a shower, when he takes my hand in his and makes me follow him to the kitchen without saying one word. After turning the lights on, he lowers his body and embraces me in a hug so fierce in its nature that it leaves me breathless and a little shaken. When he opens his eyes to look down at me, he shatters me.

“How about a glass of wine?” he asks softly, smiling sadly at me.

I can’t do this tonight. I can’t do this to Ben. But I already have. Returning the hug, I stand on my tip-toes and kiss his chin as I feel a full blown panic attack coming on. I can do this. Just don’t think about it. Talk to him tomorrow.

“Would you mind if I shower first?” I need to take a shower and wash Arsen off. Will the guilt of what I have done wash off too? I doubt it.

When I’m out of the shower, Ben has changed into sweats and a Columbia t-shirt and is cooking something.

“Dinner?” I ask.

“Yes, I’m starving. I don’t understand how people expect men my size to be satisfied with hors d’oeuvres. It boggles my mind.”

Ben and I hardly speak through our late meal, but I don’t mind the silence. The last thing I want to do in what will be our last night together is make small talk. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to drink the wine he served me. I just want to watch him. Memorize the patterns of his dark stubble, the way his dimple peeks at me every time he chews, begging me to kiss it.

After I help Ben remove the dishes from the table, I start to wash them. The hot water burning my hands is a welcome relief. Nothing like physical pain to numb you. The haunting voice of a man singing about how he can’t take his eyes off of his lover envelops the whole kitchen. I close my eyes and get lost in the singer’s melancholy voice telling his lover that without love there is no glory.

With a knot in the back of my throat, I feel Ben’s warm arms wrap around my waist from behind. Letting go of the dish, and wiping the soap on my yoga pants, I bring one hand behind his neck, pulling his face closer to the curve of my neck as my other hand rests on top of his on my stomach. With my back against his front, we sway to the gentle rhythm of the music…slowly…tenderly. Ben kisses my neck, my hair, behind my ear, showering me with kisses that feel final.

The knot in my throat keeps getting bigger and bigger until tears fall down my cheeks. Treacherous tears. I don’t know if Ben sees them. I don’t care. I just want to get lost in his touch, in his warmth, in him for one last time.

When the song ends, I turn around as Ben lets go of my body. Bending down, he lifts me with ease into his arms. Saying nothing to each other, I put my arms around his neck, and rest my head on his shoulder as I inhale deeply into my lungs, trying to absorb his smell. As he carries me, I can hear his breathing accelerating, becoming strained, and somehow I know it isn’t because of my weight.

He can feel it too.

Our last night.

Our grand finale.

I want to say something, but I can’t find the right words.

It isn’t until we make it to our bedroom, and he places me tenderly on the bed, that I know I have to stop whatever is about to happen.

But I can’t…

And not because I care that Ben may erase Arsen from my body. I don’t fucking care about Arsen at this moment. I can’t do it because I don’t want to sully Ben with my body. I don’t want our last time together to be the day I let someone else come inside me while panting his name in an empty room.

Slowly, Ben removes our clothes until there’s nothing left between us.

“So beautiful…” he whispers hoarsely as he runs a hand over my breasts. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

I’m about to stop Ben when he leans over me. What I see punches me in the gut, leaving me speechless. Taking my hands in his hold and looking down at me, I see the glimmer of tears in his eyes as he whispers against my mouth, “Please, Cathy…not tonight. Not tonight. Let us…let me just kiss you.”

He kisses my tears away, licking them off my face and swallowing them as if they are his own.

“It’s always been you, Ben…” I choke as deep emotion overpowers me. I want to tell him that it will continue to be him forever, but that would be a lie.

Ben lowers his forehead to press against mine. I feel the moisture from his tears, my tears, our tears. Together.

“I don’t want tomorrow to fucking come, Cathy. I’m afraid.” His voice is hoarse with pain as he pleads. He bends down to kiss my lips, my eyes, my temples, my nose. I try doing the same as my arms and legs wrap fiercely around his body. I want to consume him, absorb his body in mine and keep him that way. Just the two of us, filling each other, surrounding each other.

Holding both my hands over my head, he looks down at me as he slowly and gently slides inside me. He looks so lost, so hurt, so vulnerable…it is so tender, so sweet, and so painful. Our emotions guide us through the dance of two bodies trying to communicate at their most honest, vulnerable, basic, and raw moments together what they can’t with words.

I love you.

Please forgive me.

Don’t leave me.

How could you.

I hate you.

I love you.

I will fucking die without you.

You are mine.

Only mine.

I belong to you.

Only you.

It is beautiful. It is soul shattering. It is good-bye.

Late Sunday morning. I watch as my husband’s large and powerful body falls to the ground in surrender.

Broken…by me.

“I fucked Arsen,” I tell him quietly.

Earlier that morning.

After taking a shower, I wrap a towel around my waist and make my way to bed where an exhausted Cathy is currently sleeping.

Cathy.

My past, my present, and my future—my forever.

Or so I thought.

Watching her sleep with messy hair and no makeup in the aftermath of having fucked all night long, she can still manage to rob me of breath. I bend down and kiss her lips, lips that look red and swollen, and this time I know that I’m the reason behind it and not him. Cherishing the moment, I let my mouth linger on hers as I close my eyes and inhale the smell of jasmine and sex branded on her skin deeply into my lungs, savoring that, for once, she doesn’t smell like him. I grind my teeth and think back to all the times she’s come home, pretending to be too tired to stay awake and keep me company. Or on the few occasions when I’ve reached for her at night, and she turns away from my touch because she doesn’t feel like fucking, all the while smelling like a different man.