Devil In The Waters 10-3

The suit brought her to Italy. She told him about it.

“You didn’t bring the suit I bought you. I saw it in the closet.” Josh said nothing.

They lay on the bed together, both facing the same direction. She stared at his back. He’d removed his suit jacket after he’d held her while she cried, wearing his white dress shirt and suit pants now. The sunlight had crept down the wall outside the window, the angle lowering, the color deepening. Traffic was quiet. She rubbed her face and stared at the too-close-to-focus bedding for a long while, her mouth working around with nervous tension.

After a while she said, “That was the hardest part about you being gone.” The suit.

Nothing. No movement. She knew if she peeked around his shoulder she would find him awake, eyes open and staring at nothing, hearing her but unresponsive. His back moved with his slow breathing.

How could she explain it? The sight of the beautiful tailored suit she’d bought Josh—left behind and hanging in the closet in its protective bag—amplified tenfold the notion Josh had abandoned her. She was the suit in the closet. Left behind and forgotten. But no, not forgotten. Unwanted. Unneeded. Forsaken.

To explain it would illuminate the reason she would feel such worry, such shame. Guilt. Further admission of her devastating crimes.

By now it was clear: Josh knew she didn’t hide her underwear in Devlin’s couch. Josh knew it but didn’t want it to be true and had blinded himself to the truth. Deafened himself to it. He’d thought it was all a game and that’s where he wanted his existence to remain.

And now he’d gone mute, as well.

Josh’s wounding was so grave he couldn’t acknowledge the truth. If he did, the shards she’d broken him into would cleave away and shatter on the floor. Her eyes went wet again, and her face scrunched as she began crying once more. All she wanted to do was touch his back—but his possible reaction scared her out of trying.

This time Josh didn’t comfort her. Didn’t hold her while the tears flowed.

She said, “I can’t be without you.”

Still nothing. She rubbed her cheek on the bed, drying her eyes, her heart wedged high in her throat. “I had to come, Josh. I’m sorry I had to come.” Her voice was a thick whisper now.

When he still said nothing, she craned her neck up toward the pillows—they were nearer the bed’s bottom, both of them wearing their shoes with their feet hanging off the foot of the bed—and regarded the black and white photograph of some Roman sculpture, maybe Zeus.

“Will you talk to me?”

Josh said nothing and she was sure he wouldn’t. She would return to the airport and go home and suffer in their apartment, hoping the man she loved would return from Rome to her. But knowing that was impossible. Why was she even here? She didn’t think it was selfish, but Josh’s reaction proved she was.

Then Josh spoke, his voice flat and lifeless. “What do you want to hear?”

That you still love me. That you don’t hate me.

“I want to hear your voice.”

Josh shifted to get more comfortable but didn’t roll over. He said nothing.

“If I touch you are you going to m-move away?”

Josh shook his head, then rubbed his brow, sounding troubled.

Her hand went out but stayed an inch from his back, afraid he would recoil at her touch, afraid he would spin around and tell her to go. Hearing him tell her she should never have come broke her heart. As her shoulder began to ache from holding her arm out and aloft, she held her breath and allowed her hand to come in slow and hesitating contact with Josh’s back. Even to her, her touch felt disingenuous, conniving. How would Josh feel?

* * *

The lost time in Cayman. That’s what he thought about, staring at the blank wall. Sitting at the villa and awaiting her return. And Devlin’s photo of Kimmy standing in his Cayman hotel room. That’s where it had happened. Whatever happened, that’s where it started. He knew it. Devlin fucking told him by showing his friends a picture of Josh’s wife when they were all in the private room at the strip club. All of them making fun of Josh, all of them knowing their good buddy Devlin had even fingered this man’s wife earlier in the day and taunted this dipshit husband—to their delight—by making him smell his wife’s pussy on his fingers. What a fucking joke he was. What a fucking dupe.

Three men making fun of a boy.

A boy who pretended to have a woman.

Kimmy touched his back and his skin crawled. Now he comprehended her bewitchment.

But her fingertips pressing his back, the warmth of her touch were welcome. A surprise. Something changed in him when he felt her touch. His heart throbbed; an ardor bloomed in his chest. Not for her. For himself. An empty sort of manifestation only meant to show him what he deserved. He deserved love. He deserved honesty. He deserved truth and fidelity.

But what had he got?

Whenever he tried to face it, it wasn’t there, like whipping around knowing your stalker had crept up behind you with a knife raised above to plunge in your back... And only finding an empty road, clouded with fog and a ghost of laughter.

With nothing behind him, he could only look inward. Pin some blame on himself. Had he pushed Kimmy into it? Had he made her think that’s what he wanted? Were his own perversions at fault? How much blame did he deserve? The male part of him shouted: None! Fuck that, you bitch, this voice said, she’s a cunt! But it was too easy to think like that. That was neanderthal shit. Knuckle dragger shit. That was Rumble talking. Josh Waters was a sophisticate. Or a chump.

Since he hadn’t shrugged away Kimmy’s touch, her hand roamed, smoothing up to his neck, over his shoulder, her slender fingers gripping his upper arm and holding him. Great. Her left hand. Her fucking left hand with his ring on it.

He folded his right arm trapped underneath him, across his chest and held only the ends of her middle three fingers. With that gesture Kimmy scooted closer.

It was too much. He abandoned the bed, getting up and walking to the window, leaving her alone to hug herself and hide her face away.

He said toward the window, “I think it’s better if I’m alone right now.”

Kimmy sniffled, rubbing her face. She sat up on the end of the bed. “I can get a different room,” she said.

“You could, but...”

“Who are you here with?”

He turned around and put his back to the wall beside the window, the glowing light falling on Kimmy’s legs and feet. “Not anyone you know,” he said. “Not the people I work with. Harmeet’s here, but you don’t really...”

She looked up, a little hopeful. “I like Harmeet.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same. He’s my boss. This isn’t...”

Kimmy looked down, her face sullen. What did she think, this could turn into a fun time, that all the Swanson gang and her could go out for drinks?

Very quiet, she said, “We could have dinner tomorrow. Just you and me.”

“I really have to concentrate. This is a big deal for me. I have to be on top of my game. I don’t want to be distracted.” He sighed and shook his head, looked aside to the window out across the terra cotta roofs. “Especially if we’re down to one income.”

Kimmy said nothing as he lost himself in that easygoing outside world, thinking of times he’d dreamed of traveling across Europe, of having a girl at his side, thoughts he ached for back before he had Kimmy. Then something occurred to him and he looked over to Kimmy. “We’re not down to one income?”

* * *

She didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to explode what might be substantial progress here. “I didn’t... We can...”

Josh’s brow lowered into a puzzled line. “How are you here, then? You just didn’t go in, you didn’t quit?”

“I... It’s...” She stopped talking, sighing, putting her hands on her knees and squeezing. She waited a beat before looking up to meet Josh’s eyes. “If you tell me to quit, I’ll quit, Josh.”

He stared at her with incomprehension. All that she’d built in the last hour crumbling as his jaw sagged and his lips parted. He sighed a profanity, pushed his fist into his brow, shaking his head and grumbling. She hunched over, making herself look as small and frail as she could.

Josh raised a shaking hand formed in a claw, then scrunched it in a fist, his features condensed to frustrated anger. “This is what I mean, Kimmy. Distraction! Now I’m wondering how you didn’t quit. I’m wondering how you didn’t quit last fucking week!”

His voice grew loud and angry and she jumped to stand, going to him. He shied away but didn’t stop her from taking hold of his lapels again. “I’m sorry, Josh, I’ll quit, I’ll quit. Don’t be mad.”

They were close, their mouths only inches apart. But Josh took hold of her wrists and loosened her grip, pushing her hands away.

He wouldn’t look at her, only saying aside, “Can I be alone?”

She folded her rejected hands across her stomach. “Why?”

She’d boxed him in and he had nowhere to go. He wanted to reject her again, wanted to look out the window, or move to the bed, but she’d closed his avenues of escape by sealing him near the end of the long and narrow hotel room. She backed away, gave him space.

Josh stepped past her and across the room, and she could sense his anxiety lessening as he fled from her. Just a few feet away and he was already clearheaded. Back to her, he put his hands on his hips, head bowed as he tried to gather his thoughts. She let him keep his space and stayed where she was.

At last, he said, “Get another hotel room.”

She gasped a silent sound, her spine going buttery for half a heartbeat. “Okay. Yeah, I will,” she said, sidestepping around him, heading to the door, not wanting to blow whatever it was she’d gained here.

He stopped her at the door, saying, “You shouldn’t have come, Kimmy. But you shouldn’t go. If you go now, it’ll only make it worse.”

She leaned her back on the wall, holding the door lever, rotating her grip on it, knowing she should just go and leave him alone, that would be the better thing, the wisest thing, but she couldn’t stop herself, turning, getting him to face her, saying, “Josh, look at me. Please, look at me.” And when he did, she said, “ I’ll do anything to make you happy. Anything.”