Coming Together: With Pride (3 page)

He hadn't said anything.

"Is your wife at home?"

"No!" he shouted at her. "Just shut up!" His throat tightened at the sound of his own voice, and the tears began to burn his eyes.
We don't shoot people here, Aimee.

He turned off the bathroom light but still couldn't bring himself to turn off the radio. He let it babble on, talking and singing to itself, as he returned the bedroom. The air still smelled heavily of jasmine, and she was standing beside the bed with her hand on the wall.

"You alright, honey bunch?"

At the sound of his voice, she turned to look at him with that fearful trapped look in her eyes again.

"Where is your wife?"

"She's right here, Aimee." He reached over, took her hand from the wall, and held it. "Don't worry so much."

She smiled for him and for a moment seemed to know him again. He gently wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close, feeling the swell of her breasts as she moved against him. She was still a damned fine-looking woman. He should give her diaper a little check before lights out.

It bothered him that she was standing up already. That was a sign it might be one of her wandering nights, and blundering in the dark was how she always hurt herself. There was the little drama of waking up in the night to find her gone from the bed, and then searching the house for her—to see where she'd landed, what she'd broken, or what nasty business she'd deposited on the carpet. Releasing her, he took the edge of her pajama bottom and pulled it out to peek inside. There was a loud whiff of urine. It would be mean spirited to leave it for the home health aide in the morning to change, and the piss would aggravate her rash again, just when it was starting to heal. Too bad if he was tired.

"It's terrible," she said.

"What's terrible?"

"Everything." She waved her hands.

"It's okay," he said. "I won't leave you alone. It's all right."

She nodded. "Thank you."

"Listen, we need to get you changed, and then we'll go to bed. Okay?"

"Okay. I'm sorry. It's terrible."

"It's okay Aimee. We just got to do it, is all. Let's go." He put his arm around her waist, gently rotated her around, and began leading her docile form—a woman with a master's degree in Italian classical literature—toward the bathroom. As they passed the towel closet, he paused and snatched out a fresh diaper from the box.

When the cold floor tiles touched her feet, she hesitated and stumbled a little. He held her firmly by the waist and steered her toward the toilet with the hamper next to it. She allowed herself to be led, and her passive dependence on him he found strangely arousing. On this night with the air full of jasmine, she would easily do anything he asked of her.

It had been hardest for both of them in the beginning, as she felt things fading on her, constantly discovering herself in strange surroundings. Then she rebelled against everything he did for her. A few times, she became violent, hitting him and collapsing in crying fits—in this very room, in fact.

The kids had been pushing her out the door to the nursing home, because they said all it was too hard for him. In a way, it was, but they didn't know shit about hard. Once, he had come home and discovered her in the shower stall, trying to cut off her hair with these big office scissors and muttering something about Dante and the Inferno. She'd taken a swing at him with the scissors when he'd tried to help her. That was what hard really looked like.

Now she was—what? Submissive? Was that what all that weird shit that some people did with the handcuffs and the black leather was about? Just to have a fellow human being go where you lead them?

I can sort of see it
, he thought.
On nights like this, I can sort of see it
. There was definitely something in her gratitude and her perfect trust of him—this kind and familiar stranger who guided her through her fog—that did inexplicable things to him.

He positioned her next to the toilet and the hamper.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You're fine, honey bunch. Everything's fine. Just got to get you changed. Get it done and get to bed.

"Thank you."

He looked up at her in surprise. She had never said that before. For a moment, there was something of his woman back in her eyes, and then it faded.

"You're welcome," he said, hoping she could still hear him before she went away again. He took the diaper, courtesy of Medicare, and unfastened the tape, placing it by the sink. "Here we go. Ups a daisy."

He lifted her arms away from her waist so he could reach her pajama bottoms. Then he remembered that the visiting nurse had said she should try to do these things herself, to keep the motor going as long as possible. She was standing beside the sink, holding her arms out like an obedient child, her good breasts tenting the front of her pajamas.

He spread out the fresh diaper and turned to her, but the words that came out of his mouth were: "We need you to take off your top, honey."

She looked at him blankly, and for a moment, he felt ashamed. But she was looking at him, and he was waiting for her. She lowered her arms and tugged at the hem of her pajama top. As she was lifting it, she became confused and stopped. "Please honey," he said. "It needs to come off. Pop it off for me, please."

"Are we in Mobile yet?"

"Mobile? No, not yet, soon. We'll be in Mobile soon."

She took the hem of her top and lifted it over her breasts, catching it for a moment on the tips of her large nipples, then tugging it over her head and off. Her body was still slender and strong. Her large, matronly breasts rested on her chest, pointing slightly down, but full and glowingly pink. Even in her misery, her fog, and her confusion, she was still the most desirable woman in the world to him. All the more beautiful because they were at peace with each other, and she needed him and trusted him completely.

She had lifted it off for him simply because he had asked her to. She held the top in her hand and waited for him to give her directions. He took it from her hand gently, stuffed it in the towel rack next to the sink, and looked at her for a long time while she waited. He ran his hand gently over her bare belly and savored the soft warmth of it, touching the faint scar where she had had a cesarean for their daughter's birth.

Amazingly, he saw her nipples swell and respond to him. He let out his breath, which he discovered he had been holding, and his hands were trembling as he caressed her.

"Doctor?"

"No, Aimee, it's just me."

"Where is your wife?"

"You're my wife, Aimee. You're my wife, and I still love you fine."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right." She was standing like one of those topless marble statues she had doted on when they went to Italy on vacation.
Those are the good nipples that nursed our babies
, he thought.
She let me taste her milk when they became too full. Those were good times when she was nursing. We could fuck bareback without the condoms, which neither of us liked. Her breasts were so big and full, and she was so heated up on hormones that she came real easy and came good and hard, too. When she came strong like that, those nipples would squirt everywhere, and we'd laugh. That was my Aimee. She came a lot in those days, and there were nights she could just about wear me out
.

He stood in front of her and admired her semi nudity. "You remember that island—What was it, Bisentina something? They had that little hotel we were at. The power blacked out, and we went into the garden in the middle of the night, and the sky was full of stars. No, you don't remember any of that shit, do you?" His hands reached out to her breasts and caressed them, but she seemed not to notice and looked away from him while he lovingly ran his hands over her. "The garden had those very same jasmine vines climbing the walls. You smelled that jasmine and pulled me down onto the grass. You did all the work that time. You pulled down my pants, and took one eyed jack, and sucked him 'til he was hard enough, and took off your panties, and slipped him in good and solid with people eating in the café just on the other side of the wall. And when you came, you were so loud those Italian men heard you over there, and they stopped eating and really applauded for you. That's when you got interested in the jasmine vines, I'll bet.

"You were always a great fuck, Aimee. Did you know that, honey? You were the most fabulous piece of ass any man ever had, and you were all mine. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

"I know. I worked there."

"Well anyway, you were pretty hot stuff in your day."

She smiled. "Okay."

Her skin seemed to heat at his touch, to flush pink and glow in the fluorescent light of the medicine cabinet. He teased her nipples, and they began to stiffen and rise under his fingertips, blossoming amidst the goose bumps of her aureole. She seemed to notice for the first time what he was doing to her. She lifted her breasts and held them out to him like a gift in both hands. He took one in his hand, hefted the warm bulky feel of it, and placed his lips softly over her nipple.

"Bobby?"

Bobby was their son, whom she had breast-fed over thirty years ago. He had no idea what she was thinking, this woman who had once wanted to try out as a porno star, but his thoughts were filled with the tension of her nipples as they stood out fully. Taking the weight of her other breast in his other hand, he buried his face in her generous bosom.

Again, a whiff of urine rose, and he felt like cursing God.

He released her breasts and turned his attention back to the business at hand. The bottoms would have to come off, and the diaper would have to be changed. He picked up the new diaper and held it up for her to see. At the sight of it, the bright glow that had been rising in her eyes also seemed to vanish.

"Got to do this thing, Aimee. Okay? Got to get it done and go to bed. Get you cleaned up and ready for bed."

"What about Mobile?"

"I don't know anything about Mobile or Atlanta or any of that business." He felt himself choking up again.
God damn it!
He didn't want to cry in front of her. It would upset her terribly. "I just… I can't… just fuck it. Just fuck it, okay? We need to get you changed."

He took the top of her pajama bottoms and lifted them up and out. She stood straight as if trying to be helpful, and he walked them down first one leg and then the other, lifting them past the crinkly edge of the diaper, and down and down, past her mighty thighs and her knees to her strong, honest calves.

He patted her calves firmly. "Lift up." She became confused and tried to sit, and he grabbed her and lifted her up. "Lift your leg." She tried to sit again, and he grabbed her and pulled her up. "You got to lift your fucking leg, dummy."

She just stood there, and suddenly he just wanted to smack her a good one. He wanted to slap her hard and discovered his hand raised against her to do just that when he caught himself. He turned away and felt the hot tears begin, while behind him she stood, baffled, with her top in the towel rack and her bottoms bunched around her knees, looking like some lost and molested child.

He put his hand to his eyes and hid his face against the shower curtain, trying to quiet the sobs of his weeping. His shoulders shook, and he pressed his face against the plastic, waiting to calm down. Behind, he heard sounds of Aimee moving and the sticky snaps of tape. He took a deep breath and wiped his face on his sleeve. When he turned and looked, she had the wet diaper off and was holding it out to him. She was looking at him with great concern. "Thanks," he said, taking it from her and dropping it in the hamper.

She held out her arms to him. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's all so shitty."

He put his arms around her, and they held each other. She was warm and big and sumptuous, and he loved her all over again. And he grieved for her. She relaxed against him and, after a moment, he felt able to return to the business at hand. She was still wearing her pajama bottoms around her ankles. Gently, he patted the back of her thigh, and she looked down. He put his hand behind her knee and pulled up, and she understood at last and lifted her leg. He pulled her bottoms off, and she lifted the other leg and stepped out of them. He stuffed them on the towel rack with their top.