An Evening at Joe's (15 page)

"Wouldn't want you to think it wasn't raining," he said sheepishly.

"Let me at least get you an umbrella."

"Too late for that, I'm afraid." He wiped his eyes, looking a little haggard. "Besides, a little rain won't kill me, either. How about you drive while I push from here?"

Alexa climbed into the driver's seat. Her feet barely touching the pedals, she started the engine and stepped on the gas, but the VW made no attempt to move. "Adam," she called out the window, "nothing's happening."

"Are you sure you've got the parking brake off?" Yes, the parking brake was off. She tried it again. The engine roared but still nothing. She could hear his frustration. "Did you put it into gear? It's a clutch car." Oh. She shifted into first and stomped the gas pedal with all her strength. The van rolled backwards, then leaped forward onto the highway shoulder.

"Adam, we did it!" There was no response. She opened the driver's door. "Adam? Adam!" After a long moment, when she began to fear she'd killed him, she saw him drag himself out of a patch of briars by the ditch.

"Go back inside, Alexa," he said carefully. "I'll change the tire."

When he finally got back in the van ten minutes later looking like a broken toy, she couldn't help but giggle. His hair was caked in mud, rainy streaks punctuating the mud-smeared face. His long coat was torn and stuck through with brambles. He glared at her wearily. "Not funny, Alexa."

She couldn't help it. All the tension, all her fear and sadness, and all the feelings she had for this man, feelings that might actually be love if she allowed that, all came spilling out at once and she laughed. She laughed at the little mud-caked clump of his hair that stuck up like Alfalfa's, the twig sticking up out of his collar, and especially the dollop of mud on the tip of his nose. She laughed until it hurt.

"That will be quite enough," Adam enunciated each word, closing the driver's side door with more of a bang than necessary. He didn't look at her. Like a scolded puppy, Alexa retreated to the farthest corner of the passenger seat.

They rode on for another hour in silence—to Alexa it seemed like days—before he stopped the van outside a quaint motel. "Are we here?" she asked brightly.

Adam shook his head. "We'll never make it in time. Might as well pack it in, get some sleep. Start out again tomorrow." It wasn't so much his face as the droop of an ear, the sag of a shoulder that told her how incredibly disappointed he was. She was sure he was disappointed in her, as well.

"Why don't you get us some lodgings?" He indicated the lobby. "I'm afraid I'm not very presentable at the moment." He made an attempt at a wry smile.

"I noticed," she answered, trying to match his tone, and instantly regretted it as he quickly looked away, embarrassed.

The night clerk didn't seem fazed when Alexa wanted a room at four in the morning. She'd filled out the paperwork and he was about to hand her the keys to the room when she stopped him and asked almost shyly, "Do you have... a honeymoon suite?" The clerk grinned broadly, reached under the counter, pulled out the keys to a different room and handed them to her, saying, "Whirlpool. Water bed. Would you like champagne? On the house. . ." Alexa turned toward the front door and Adam's van, wondering if he liked champagne as much as he did beer, and watched him throw their bags to the sidewalk, then slam shut the van door, hitting it for good measure. She turned back to the clerk with a sigh.

"No, no champagne. And maybe you'd better give me those other keys, too."
It wasn't until she'd dropped her bags inside the door and sat on the decidedly not water bed to remove her shoes that she realized she'd given Adam the wrong room. She hoped he'd enjoy the whirlpool. Right at the moment, she wanted nothing more than a good hot shower.

Later, clean and snug in a terry cloth robe, Alexa combed her long, sleek hair in a mirror and thought about her promise to Joe that she'd write. She could see her first letter now. "Dear Joe, we've only been gone a day and already I've disappointed him. I think he hates me now. Please come get me...." She stared at herself in the mirror—trying to see what it was Adam saw. All she could see were the telltale marks of the battle her body was waging with itself, the wrinkles, the stress and fatigue, and worst of all the scars from the tests and the treatments. She knew what Joe's response would be, what Joe's response always was: "There's nothing between two human beings that can't be resolved by talking things out." She thought about it and decided, fine, she'd apologize to him. And then she'd explain that she wasn't who he thought she was, that she couldn't be that person. She wasn't perfect... and she certainly wasn't beautiful. And if he hated her, she knew the way back to Joe's.
When Alexa knocked on the door of Adam's room and got no response, she let herself in with the second key. She was determined to say what she'd come to say, and if Adam was asleep, she'd damn well wake him up to hear it.

But Adam wasn't sleeping.

She found him in the tub, up to the waist in dirty water, trying in vain to get the mud from his hair, looking tired and vulnerable and more than a little bit... lost. Her stern resolve melted at the sight. "I guess I got the one with the shower," she said.

"Alexa." She couldn't miss the way his face lit when he saw her. It seemed his whole body changed, like the weight of a thousand years had been lifted from his shoulders. She moved to him.

"Cleaner water might help," she suggested, unstopping the drain to allow the muddy water to run out. She busied herself gathering soap and towels and shampoo as the water ran low around him and then was replaced by water that was clean and hot.

She started with his head, lathering the short bristly hair on top, massaging deep into the scalp until she could feel him begin to relax. Then, cupping her hands, she scooped up water to rinse and poured it over his head like a baptism, again and again and again, until finally the water ran clear. She breathed in the fresh, clean scent of his hair, her chest rising and falling against the terry cloth robe, as she traced the outline of his ears with a soapy wash cloth. Such wonderful ears, and she explored every wrinkle and fold with her cloth.

"Alexa..." Adam said, his voice huskier now. She placed a finger over his lips, quietly shushing him, and began washing his face, bathing him like a baby, tiny, circular motions above his brows, beneath his eyes, across his cheeks. She could feel the blood pulsing in his temples. Then down the nose—a very nice nose, a splendid nose— and across his lips. She wanted so badly to linger there, to kiss those lips, to finally taste Adam for the first time, but she continued on. Down the chin and under, small tentative swirling motions of terry and lather. She heard his breath catch and felt his entire body stiffen as she reached a sensitive area around his throat, and then he relaxed, as if giving himself over to her touch.

She dug the washcloth hard into the muscles of his shoulders. His bulky sweaters and baggy coats had hidden a finely muscled torso, an athlete's body, or a dancer's body. So many things to learn, so much to discover. She could feel his breath slow and deepen as her fingers moved across his chest leaving soapy trails. She rinsed it carefully and laid her head against it as she reached for his arm. His other hand came up to clutch her head closer to him and he buried his face in her hair, inhaling until she thought he'd burst and exhaling with a sigh as she continued down his arm with her ritual cleansing. Each finger she washed individually, lingering on the sensitive webbing between them. She fought back the urge to take a finger in her mouth to suckle.

She stopped in surprise when she encountered the tattoo on his wrist. "I didn't realize you had this much of a past," she murmured. The words came out breathier than she'd intended.

"You have no idea," he responded, gently. She followed the outline of the tattooed circle with a corner of the washcloth. It fascinated her, its very existence hinting of the secrets she longed to know about her mysterious Adam. Impulsively, she kissed the mark that spoiled the perfection of his body and heard him gasp as she traced the winged symbol with her tongue. He reached out for her then, pulling her into the tub with him.

They kissed. A deep, soul-exploring kiss. A kiss that seemed to lock them together for eternity. He was at once gentle and savage, aggressor and supplicant. And when he finally released her from the kiss, she knew her world had changed forever.

He rose from the tub and scooped her up in his deceptively muscled arms like an infant, soggy robe and all, as she gazed into his bottomless eyes with amazement. He carried her to the waterbed of her honeymoon suite and lay her gently upon it, staring at her with wonder as well. She saw him fully at his most vulnerable—Adam/Adonis indeed.

Kneeling beside her, he reached for her robe and she tingled as he pulled it off her shoulders, pushed it away from her breasts. But she stopped his hand as he moved to untie the sash. "Adam, no..." she begged, "please..." She turned away slightly.

As if he hadn't heard her, he continued to carefully untie the sash, removing the robe from her abdomen. Placing an arm around her waist, he bent and began gently kissing her scars. Slowly, he moved up her body, kissing the tender spot between her breasts, the base of her neck, her throat, her lips, her nose, and finally her forehead. She was crying as he said, "You are the most beautiful woman in the entire world, Alexa, and
nothing
will ever take that away from you."

Tears streaming from her eyes, she reached out for Adam and pulled him onto the bed beside her. Maybe tomorrow they would see the Grand Canyon. For the rest of tonight, they had other wonders of nature to explore.

Alexa's sodden robe clung to her, tangling around her as he laid her gently on the bed. Her skin was flushed delicate pink from her hairline to where the tops of her breasts were revealed by the folds of the robe. He leaned down to kiss her throat at the join of neck and collarbone, his other hand going to part the robe tentatively, afraid it was too soon but unable to resist. She didn't shy away; she arched toward him with a tiny moan of pleasure as his mouth moved across the line of her breasts. He moved his hand downward, pushing the robe aside, and felt her freeze beneath his touch as his hand brushed lower on her stomach.

"Adam, no... please." It was a plea, a sob, and he froze in place, horrified by the reaction he'd provoked. He started to back away and then he saw it, the tracery of puckered red lines and chalky white patches, the scars that had made her try to turn from him. Medicine had come so far, he knew, and yet the marks left here by oncologists and chemotherapists looked to him no better than the burns and bleeding scars left by shamans and charlatans of earlier times. They had kept Alexa alive, but at what price? She was afraid to look at her own body, afraid to share it with the man who loved her.

He couldn't let her see the anger that filled him. She'd think it was directed at her. She'd never believe there was a man who could see past what was happening to her. And from what he'd seen of the world, he couldn't blame her. Men of his apparent age of barely 30 who would have known her for what she was, loved her for as long as she had, were few and far between.

Then he saw the resignation in her eyes, the slight turning away, her hands moving to pull the robe back together. He didn't let her do it. He kept his hand on her abdomen, keeping her in place. She was so tiny that his oversized hand all but covered her from hip to hip. Wordlessly, as softly as he could, he ran a finger along the crescent curve of a neat ridge of scar tissue that traced the lower edge of her belly, just above where the silken blonde triangle disappeared under the folds of the robe, and felt her shiver in fear and pleasure. He leaned in to kiss just above his hand, running a line of kisses up her body, between her breasts, as slowly as he could bear to. He stopped when he reached her face, raised himself up to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her fists clenched hard at her sides. So filled with rage and sorrow, she couldn't make room for joy.

He was good at being what people wanted him to be, at telling them what they wanted to hear. It had kept him alive more than once. He wanted to do it for Alexa now, to say whatever it would take to soothe away her pain and sadness, to restore her for just one moment to the woman she had been a year ago, before she had known how mortal she was. But he didn't know what to say, wasn't sure there was anything good enough, cute enough, wise enough, to heal her. So he just said what he was thinking:

"Alexa... You are the most beautiful woman in the world. The most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Nothing will change that. Nothing."

He heard the sob that broke his voice and cursed himself for it, for not having the strength to hide it from her. But she reached for him then, tangling her hands in his hair, pulling him down onto her with a fervor that surprised him. This time, when his hand slipped between them to push the robe aside, she did not resist.