Mercy (33 page)

“Even if it’s not perfect,” he said, “if you enjoy it, if it makes you happy, then it’s a good thing.”

* * *

I thought a long time about the things Dr. Rob had told me, and by morning I’d decided to call Matthew, but I didn’t do it that day or even the next. I was afraid of taking that step off the precipice, afraid of trusting him again. But I was just as afraid of living my whole life without him when I needed him so much. I was afraid to call after the things I’d said to him. I was afraid to call because of the chance, however small, that he would not take me back. And I was afraid to call because, suddenly, I was starting to show.

I know, silly vanity, but what on earth would he think when he saw me? I wasn’t even five months along, but small and slim as I was, I already had a noticeable bump. My slender, muscular body was one of the main things he liked about me, and I was no longer anywhere close to sleek, with my belly sticking out strangely and my muscles weak after months of forced inactivity. Dr. Rob said he still wanted me, that he missed me, but would he really want me like this? I couldn’t even have a few drinks to muster up my courage, so for two nights I just stared at the phone.

“Call already, Lu,”
Grégoire
chided me on the third night. “Enough. Pick up the phone and call.”

“What if he decides he doesn’t want me anymore?”

He laughed. “For God’s sake, believe me, that’s not going to happen. He wants you back like mad.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know, G? Have you been informing on me too?”

“He might have called me a few times. Checking up on you. We’ve talked.”

“You two! You both ought to be ashamed.”

“Just pick up the damn phone. Do you want me to dial for you?”

I sighed. “Yes, actually. I’m shaking too hard to do it myself.”

Grégoire
picked up the phone and punched in the numbers. It didn’t escape me that he knew them by heart.

“He loves you,” he mouthed, handing it over. I waited with the phone to my ear as it rang. I hoped to get his voicemail so I could just leave a message. But no, on the fourth ring he answered, his deep silky voice in my ear.

“Hello,” he rumbled anxiously. “Is Lucy all right?”

I was thrown for a moment, but then I realized I was calling from
Grégoire’s
number, that he would assume I was him.

“This is Lucy,” I finally managed to say, and I hated how scared I sounded. I said it again louder. “It’s Lucy.”

“Lucy. Lucy, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

There was a short silence, a slow, soft sigh.

“I’m glad you called me. I’m so glad. I’ve missed your voice.” He paused. “I’ve missed everything about you.”

I was crying by then, hard enough that I almost hung up because I just couldn’t get any words past my lips, but
Grégoire
nudged me insistently.

“Talk!” he ordered, gesturing to the phone.

“Matthew...” I whispered through tears.

“Yes, honey. I’m here.”

“I miss you, Matthew. I need you, I think. I’m sorry I said those things to you.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes, Lucy. I’m leaving right now.”

I handed the phone back to
Grégoire
, wide eyed, terrified. Frantic with relief.

“He’s coming now.”

He smiled. “Figures. Should Georges and I go out? Give you two some privacy?”

“No! Don’t leave me! Just...don’t leave yet.”

“I won’t. I’ll be here if you need me, but you and he need to talk. So dry those tears and buck up. Be brave.”

I went to the kitchen and guzzled some water trying to calm myself. It occurred to me just as Matthew knocked that the pajamas I had on showed every bit of my strange new shape.

“Jesus,” I said, hiding behind the counter.
Grégoire
was already opening the door. Matthew shook his hand, but he was searching the room for me. He looked as amazing as ever, his piercing eyes, his virile body, the same intent swagger as he crossed to where I was ducking behind the counter.

He took me in with one sweeping gaze. “Come here.”

I straightened slowly, tried to stand and present myself to him the way he’d taught me eons ago. He pulled me into his arms carefully like I was a delicate thing, and I suppose I was. My leg still wasn’t completely healed. Although his hands on me weren’t rough or grasping, they were possessive, undeniably possessive, and I felt as soon as he touched me that I was his again.

“Lucy,” he sighed so softly that
goosebumps
rose on my skin. His hands cupped my face, then ran down over my shoulders, my pregnancy-inflated breasts, and over the curve of my hips. They stopped on my little baby bump and his fingers spread out there, broad and warm.

“Lucy, my God. Look at you.” He fell to his knees and put his head right against me like he wanted to hear the baby inside, or perhaps feel it there. My hands curled in his hair. It disturbed me to see him kneeling at my feet, the supplicant for once, the one without the power. I wanted to give it back to him immediately.
Take me, Matthew
, I wanted to say.
I’m yours.
The moment I’d seen him in the doorway I’d known I was his and that I always would be as long as I lived. Dr. Rob was right, we belonged together.
If you enjoy it, if it makes you happy, then it’s a good thing...

He stood up and looked deep in my eyes, and I looked back at him just desperate with love. He kissed me, hard, gentle, soft, deep, just kissed me and kissed me and kissed me again. He drew me close until I was wrapped tightly in his arms, body to body, and the little round body between us both.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, breaking away from my lips. “I’m really so sorry for what I did. You’re right. It was terrible, and hypocritical of me. It was the worst kind of dishonesty, when I demanded the truth.”

He sighed and took my face in his hands, his thick, gentle fingers threading through my curls. “I owe you truth,” he continued, “so here’s the truth. I’m happy you’re growing our child. I’m sorry that I didn’t give you a say in it. I hope you’ll forgive me for that. But I won’t ever leave you again, Lucy. I love you, and I can’t really live without you. I’m going to marry you and we’re going to have a baby. And that’s, finally, the whole truth of it.” By this point, tears were running down my face and he put his cheek against mine so it grew wet too, then he rubbed it against my hair. His fingers tightened in my curls so I felt it, felt that insistent pang of pain. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, Lucy. I don’t know how else to love. But I promise I’ll take care of you forever, if you’ll just give me the chance.”

“I thought you didn’t love me because I’d been raped. What about that?”

He shook his head against my hair. “I didn’t understand. I just didn’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t because I thought you wouldn’t hurt me the way I wanted to be hurt.”

“Is that why, though, Lucy? Is that the reason you want to be hurt?”

“I don’t know,” I said, crying against his shoulder. “Does it really matter, Matthew? Does it really matter in the end?”

He thought about that for a long moment, then sighed so I felt his breath against my ear.

“I think the only thing that matters is that, from now on, we tell each other only truth.”

I clung to him and he held me and soothed me while I soaked his shirt with tears.

“I’m...I’m afraid,” I stammered, my voice trembling.

“I know it,” he said, smoothing my curls. “I know.”

* * *

So back I went, from
Grégoire’s
to Matthew’s, that very night. Matthew insisted he wouldn’t sleep another night away from me and our child, and I was overjoyed to have my master back giving orders again. He came to my little room and helped me pack up everything, my very few things in my two suitcases. His eyes lingered on the Grecian Urn poem.

“Do you know why I gave you this?”

“No, Matthew, I don’t. Maybe because it talked about truth and beauty, and it was meaningful to you.”

“You were meaningful to me. Even back then when I was still in denial of how I felt about you. How much I loved you. Did you love me back then?”

I didn’t even consider lying.

“Yes, I loved you long before then. Desperately.”

“Me too,” he said. “I loved you from the start. I loved you when we sat in that coffee shop talking, and you blushed and stammered and tried so hard to tell the truth. I loved you when you danced that night at the Gala. I loved you that day we spoke in the hall, when you tied your little shoes up without looking down once.”

“You loved me then? You didn’t even know me.”

“But I did, Lucy. Just like you knew me.”

I sat beside him and we looked at the poem together.

“If you had told me the truth then,” I said, “I would have run away. If you had told me all that was going to happen between us.”

He laughed. “I still would have caught you. I wouldn’t have let you get away.”

We said our goodbyes at the door. I thanked Georges and
Grégoire
with tears in my eyes for the love and support they’d given me when my life had been off the rails. But now I finally felt I was back on track again. I hobbled to Matthew’s house and he carried me up to his bedroom and there were
Pietro’s
paintings of me just as before, all three in a row.

I stared at the paintings while Matthew slowly undressed me, ran anxious fingers over me like I might still try to get away.

“I’m yours, Matthew,” I whispered. “Please take me. Like you used to.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

And he didn’t, even though he loved me for hours. He made love to me until I was falling asleep in his arms and still he made me come, made me thrill with his mouth, his fingers, his cock inside me. We fell asleep still connected, and I woke up the next morning in his insatiable grasp.

So life went on between us, thrilling and wonderful as ever. I rested during the day while he worked. Mrs. Kemp spoiled me rotten, coming and going and clucking over me constantly. Kevin drove me wherever I needed to go, and Dr. Rob came to see me as always. I thanked him gratefully the next time I saw him for giving me the courage to call.

Matthew and I stuck to our pact to tell only truth to each other. We had long revealing talks in his bedroom—well,
our
bedroom now—while I lay cradled in his arms. My old life, dancing and the secrecy of pain, was replaced by a new world of honesty and warmth. And love. We’d talk for hours with his hand resting on my swelling belly, and the baby grew and began to move inside me while my leg knit together like new.

And of course we found ways to make love, to have sex, to fuck, to do the things we had to do. It wasn’t always easy, and it was downright awkward as I grew bigger, but he still fucked me and beat me and bedeviled me until I came. Matthew hired a private obstetrician who came to the house, and who was let in on our games so there would be no need to explain away the marks. On the plus side of this open communication, the physician was able to offer frank advice of how far we could go and still be safe. “The baby is exceedingly well-cushioned,” Dr. Stein would say to Matthew with a wink, “so if she misbehaves, you give her hell.”