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Is real life contaminating our fairy tale romance with all its ugliness?
In the six years we have been married, not once has that ever happened. Until today.
Doubts. They seep into your bloodstream, they plague every unused crevice inside your brain with revolving questions and no real answers. Is love a strong enough glue to put me back together again? Is the love between Ben and I strong enough to keep us together and our marriage afloat?
When our eyes connect, I see danger, and maybe something exciting. Something forbidden. Some basic instinct in me instantly recognizes that this man doesn’t make love to a woman. He fucks her.
“I’m Arsen,” he said, still shaking hands.
“Why don’t you smile like that at me?”
The look in the eyes of that young girl reminds me of a time when looking at Ben made me believe that the answers to life’s secrets could be found within him. That he was my answer to everything. Sadly, I’ve come to discover that such a notion is not only false but impossible. No one has all the answers to solve the big puzzle that life is, and it is even less likely that another person can offer them to you.
“If you ever feel like you need to talk to someone…if you ever feel like fear is making it hard for you to breathe…talk to me. I’m here for you, Dimples. I’m here.”
“Maybe…but, what if I don’t need saving?” I say. “Even if you didn’t, I’d be there for you.” He retorts. “Oh, this is getting interesting.” I lean even closer than before. “Arsen, my knight in shining armor.” “Only for you,” he answers, but he’s not smiling anymore.
“Told you. I’m here to save you.”
“I need you now, fuck my damn conscience. I can’t take it anymore. I need to be inside you right now. I want you naked beneath me. No more games.”
“I want you,” he whispers in my ear.
I feel him inside me, outside me, everywhere and beyond. I feel him in my soul.
“I hope this proves to you how much I want you. You belong to me. Only me.” At a loss for words, I nod. I’m his girl.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I kissed you on the street.” “Have sex with me?” I ask. “No.” He bites my lower lip. “Make you mine.”
Love can destroy you. Love can erase you. Love can heal you. Love can reinvent you, And, if you are lucky enough, Love can make you whole again. That’s what Cathy has done to me.
She changed the biological makeup of my broken body, embedding herself into my DNA, slowly healing me with her smile, gluing me whole again with her love.
But the day I met you, something changed in me. I don’t believe in love at first sight anymore, but I can tell you that from the moment we kissed, I felt as if I had been awakened from a numbing stupor.”
“For the first time, in a very long time I felt alive.”
“My beautiful girl, you healed me. You made me believe in love again, and I love you.
I want you. All of you. And no one else.”
“Are you mine, Cathy?”
“This belongs to me. Only me. You hear me? This is mine.”
“If he’s so fucking perfect, how come you’re talking to me and not him?”
“Please, don’t leave me little one. Don’t leave us.” We need you.
“You see, she’s this pretty little thing. Fucking beautiful, really. And she has dimples, the prettiest fucking dimples you’ve ever seen. But she’s married, loves her man, and that doesn’t work for me because I want her. Really fucking bad.”
When our eyes connect, we stare as if the world didn’t exist around us. As if it was only the two of us. Fire and Ice.
“No, it doesn’t make me feel better, but I can’t fucking get you out of my head. And I’ve tried. Trust me, I’ve tried so fucking hard. But seeing you here,” he pushes his body against mine, “I know one thing. And I’m fucking done pretending, Catherine. Hell, I fucking missed you. I need you.”
“What if I told you that I don’t care that you’re married? I don’t mind sharing. What if I told you that I’ll settle for fucking you once? Just once where I’ll make you come so hard on my cock that you’ll forget that you’re married and beg me for more? And if you’re a good girl, Dimples, you may get it again before I let you go back to your husband, sore between your legs because I fucked you so good.”
Smiling, I look into Ben’s eyes, and I discover what the secret to life is. Love. It reveals itself within his gaze, it echoes with his touch, and it etches itself with every kiss to my soul.
It is exactly in this moment, when I’m looking at life slowly seeping out of me, that I willingly jump into the dark abyss of hopelessness. Misery welcomes me with its dead arms, despair freezing my heart.
My heart is broken, my dreams and hopes shattered alongside it. Even though the healing process has begun, and I know I will heal eventually, I will never be the same. I will never be the Cathy I used to be. She’s gone. And in her stead, there’s me. The leftover. The burnt ruins.
With Arsen, I can be me.
If I leave with Arsen, I will be turning my back on my marriage and Ben once and for all. If I leave with this man with the blue inferno in his eyes, I will burn until there’s nothing left of me.
I don’t know how I will face him, kiss his lips, taste him in my mouth, when all I want is to taste someone else.
“I am sorry. I am so fucking sorry for not being able to give you...but you are enough. You are more than enough for me. You’re my fucking world, babe. And I need you back. Please stop shutting me out, I can’t take it anymore.”
“Own me, fill me, break me, repair me, complete me. Do whatever you want to me. Just stay with me. I need you. I need to be able to live. I need my life back, I need you back.”
“The feel of you…” he whispered in my ear, “I want you so damn much. I don’t think I have ever wanted someone as much as I want you.”
want her to be free of whatever still haunts her. I want to be the temple that she seeks solace in. I want to be her damn savior. I want to help her heal.
I shout her name as she screams mine and just like that we come together, as one entity, one body, one soul. I look into her excited eyes, and my mind finally acknowledges what my heart has known all along as the truth—I’m hers. I belong to Catherine. And I want her to be mine, only mine.
“I want you to be happy again, Catherine. I really do. And I want to be part of the reason that you are.”
There are no tears shed, no blood spilled. Nothing. Just the truth between us. And it hurts. It hurts so fucking much because there’s nothing I can do to change it. Nothing I can do to make her not love her husband and love me instead. Nothing I can do to make her leave him and take me instead. Nothing. I’m bleeding out for her.
And now I have to face the music. I have to make a choice once again. And it doesn’t matter what choice I make. Which path I choose to follow. Either way, I will break my own heart. I will lose a part of myself. But I think I already have. I love two men.
“I want you to remember that once we get to the party…I now have you branded on my lips.” He leans towards me and whispers roughly in my ear, “You are mine.”
choose Arsen. I choose him.
“No. Never. You’re mine. All fucking mine.”
“I can’t, I can’t. I thought I could share you, but I can’t. Please…leave him. I need you, and I know you need me too. You need me. Be mine...” he says gruffly.
“When you go back to him, remember that I am inside you…that you belong to me.”
“It’s always been you, Ben…” I choke as deep emotion overpowers me.
“I don’t want tomorrow to fucking come, Cathy. I’m afraid.”
