Thrown (14 page)

‘I saw a piece of glass on the sidewalk and I picked it up and looked at the sharp edge. I remember sitting there looking at it for a long time and thinking one thought: this can make me feel. Using this piece of glass, I could feel pain but I would be in control of it. I was’t in any danger of being hurt emotionally because I would be in control.

‘So I cut myself.

‘I dragged the glass across my upper right arm and then I felt the pain that I knew I should be feeling. My daddy had just died. I wept.’

Stoker strokes my cheek with his thumb and I realize more tears are streaming down my face. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, grabbing a tissue from the nightstand and wiping my eyes.

‘There’s no need to be. It sounds like you had a terrible time. It isn’t your fault for finding a way to cope that involved hurting yourself like that.’

‘It didn’t end there, Stoker. That was just the beginning. Even though cutting myself with that piece of glass let me release my emotions about my dad, the emotional numbness returned afterward.

‘So every time something happened that I thought required an emotional response from me, I cut myself. It was the only way I could release the emotional response I thought was required. If a boy at school was nasty to me, I came home and cut myself so I could cry. If I got a bad grade on my homework, I cut myself. It was the only way I could feel like a normal human being.

‘My mom met Frank and we moved in with him and his daughter Julie. My life got a lot worse. Julie hated me. She was older than me and she spent the whole time bullying me. Frank was distant from me. He had no interest in me, any more than I had in him. All the time I was having such a hard time, I didn’t realize that Mom was spiralling into depression. I think Frank ignored it, hoping it would just go away.

‘A year ago, it did go away. Mom cut herself too. But just twice. Once down each wrist.’

‘Amy, I’m so sorry.’

I wipe tears from my eyes. ‘We all have our share of tragedy. You’ve had yours. But the way I handled it all through my life has left scars, Stoker. Physical scars. By the time Mom died, I was an expert at cutting myself. I wasn’t using glass anymore, I had razor blades and iodine and bandages. I never showed my arms to anyone, not even Dell.

‘But if you and I are going to be intimate, I can’t let you sleep with me not knowing what I really look like.’

‘Amy, it doesn’t…’

‘No, don’t say it doesn’t matter because it does matter. I want to be yours completely and that means I can’t hide myself from you.’

He looks at my arms, still covered with the sleeves of the cardigan.

‘Amy, if you think this is going to change anything, you’re wrong.’

‘You can’t say that until you’ve seen them.’

He raises himself up a little on his knees and he places his hands on the edges of the cardigan. He gently pushes the fabric down my arms. As the first white line is revealed, I close my eyes, knowing that there are many more ugly lines crisscrossing below that one. Stoker pushes the sleeves all the way to my elbows. I’m totally exposed to him now. All of the ugliness bared before his eyes.

He leans forward and kisses the scar on my right shoulder. Then he moves down to the next ugly line and kisses that too. ‘I want to kiss away all your pain,’ he whispers, pressing his lips against every scar I have ever inflicted upon myself since I was twelve years old.

By the time he moves to my other arm, I am sobbing with relief and joy.

He finishes kissing my arms and looks into my eyes. How have I found him? How have I found the most caring, adorable man in the world?

‘There’s no need to hide yourself, Amy. Never hide yourself from me.’ He loosens his tie and pulls the knot until it falls open. He begins to unbutton his shirt and says, ‘Now it’s my turn. I told you when I was thrown from the car, the glass cut me along my back and side. I have scars too.’

He opens the shirt and all I can see is his flawlessly muscled chest and the tight abs I saw the first time we met. Then he pulls the shirt off and throws it to the floor and I can see the healed scars running down his side.

He turns slightly to reveal the lines down his back. They aren’t hideous and I don’t find them ugly at all. They are a part of Stoker and I can’t find any part of him ugly.

He cups my face with his hands again, his thumbs stroking my tear-stained cheeks gently. ‘We both have reminders of our pasts that we’ve kept hidden. But there’s no need for that anymore.’

He leans forward and his lips meet mine. We kiss with an urgency that comes from having shared our secrets and now needing to share a physical need for each other. My hands go to his strong shoulder and his muscles feel hard and solid beneath his taut skin. He strokes my arms as our lips move together and his fingers trace carelessly over the scars, the light contact rendering every tragic memory associated with each scar harmless. All the tragedies written on my skin are part of the road that has led me to this moment on the bed with Stoker. I wouldn’t change any of it. The road has been difficult but this destination feels perfect.

Stoker’s lips move to my neck, sending shivers through my whole body as he places little ghost kisses over the sensitive flesh and moves down to my shoulder. His hands are on the sides of my dress, sliding around to the back in search of the zipper. I feel like all of my nerves have come alive and the signals they are sending to my brain are like delicious bright sparks of pleasure.

He finds the zipper and pulls it down slowly, his fingers stroking down my bare back. I press my body against him, my breasts touching the hard muscles of his chest. He pulls gently on my dress and it slips from my shoulders. I take my hands off his shoulders for a moment to allow the straps to pass over my arms. ‘Let me get this off properly,’ I whisper.

I slide off the bed and stand up, wriggling my hips to allow the dress to fall to the floor. My black panties and strapless bra barely cover my body but I want to show Stoker all of me because there are no secrets between us now.

His hands go to my sides as I climb back onto the bed and we kiss again, hard and deep with our tongues playing together. My whole body feels ultra-sensitive to every touch of Stoker’s fingers as they stroke down over my hips and thighs. I gasp at the sensations building up inside my body and I feel like I’m losing control but I love it. It’s a new experience for me because I spend all my time unable to feel emotions unless I cut myself but now it’s like a floodgate has opened and I’m drowning in feelings.

My hands go to his trousers, fumbling at the button and catch that keep them closed. He helps me and with a simple one-handed manoeuvre he has unfastened the pants. My hand delves inside and I feel his hardness against my fingers. He groans and I stroke him slowly, trying to enflame the same feelings in him as he has sparked in me.

He unhooks my bra and removes it slowly, as if savoring the anticipation of seeing what lies beneath. As he uncovers my breasts, his mouth goes to the engorged nipples and suck them gently, making me arch my back and whimper. My hands work on him more firmly, squeezing and teasing and making him breathe harder, his breath arousing the hard tips of my breasts.

His kisses lay a warm trail of sensation down my stomach to the hem of my panties. He takes them between his thumb and forefinger and slides them down my thighs. I’m totally revealed to his gaze, a gift to him waiting to be claimed.

‘Please, Stoker,’ I whisper, ‘I can’t wait any longer.’

He slides off the end of the bed and removes his trousers and stands there naked for a moment. The fact that he is excited by me, scars and all, makes me feel a liberating sense of relief. Stoker reaches inside his jacket on the chair and brings out a foil packet. As he opens it he says, ‘I’ve been carrying this around since last week.’

He comes back onto the bed his warm body pressing against mine from thigh to chest. I’ve never felt so close to anyone. I never want to feel this close to anyone but him.

His lips come down to mine and I am lost in his kiss as he enters me.

We groan together and experience the most intimate coupling two souls can share.

I hold him to me, my hands stroking down his back, along the scars.

He kisses my neck and my shoulders and arms and he drives himself deep inside me.

I’m drowning in a sea of pleasure.

And when he cries out and explodes within me, I explode with him, my inner muscles locking him inside my center.

And I realize I am sobbing with the glorious exultation of release.

*

Stoker

She lies sleeping next to me, her breathing calm and deep. We lay together for hours after we had sex and Amy fell asleep on my chest. I stroked her hair and enjoyed the feel of her body pressed against me, feeling her chest rise and fall with her breathing as we cuddled. When my arm went dead, I moved her slightly to her side of the bed and lay here watching her.

The blanket has fallen from her shoulder slightly, revealing some of the scars she was so afraid of me seeing. They are part of her; they tell her story. Just as mine tell of my own personal tragedy.

I feel a bond with Amy that surprises me in its intensity. This is no summer fling. I’ve never felt this way for any girl. Ever.

I settle down in the bed and place an arm around Amy’s waist.

She’s very different from the frightened girl who stood on the porch of Promise House over a month ago. She’s come out of her shell, developed an attractive confidence.

I liked her then when I first saw her but now I am falling for her hard.

It’s a new feeling for me and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to handle it.

One day at a time seems like the best idea.

Settling against her naked body, I kiss her shoulder lightly so as not to wake her and I join her in the land of dreams.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Suspicion

Amy

On Monday afternoon, I sit in the swivel chair behind the counter replaying my encounters with Stoker over and over in my head. The climb up the cliff trail where he first took my hand get a lot of repay value, and so does standing at the top of the trail feeling the sea breeze cool on my face while Stoker continued to hold my hand. Our first kiss in the cave was amazing and I feel touched that he would let me into his secret life so soon after we met. And the night in the hotel room was amazing.

The bell over the door rings and I look up to see Peter Macbeth coming into the store. He nods as he comes through the door and comes over to the counter. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Anderson. Looks like we might get a storm tonight.’

‘Good afternoon, Detective. Yes, I think you’re right.’ Dark storm clouds lay across the sky like an ominous warning of something to come.

‘I have some news for you. We’re abandoning our investigation. There isn’t enough evidence to suggest anything other than you aunt somehow fell from that path. I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I also thought you’d be happy with that news, I know how shocked you were the other day when I said we were investigating her accident.’

‘Aunt Beth is still dead. Knowing it was an accident doesn’t change that.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss. Truly. I know the police force might seem faceless and uncaring to some but we see victims of tragedy every day and the hardest part of our job is getting used to it.’

‘I’m not sure I could do a job that made me desensitized to people’s suffering, Detective.’

He nods slowly in agreement. ‘You’re probably right. Do you mind if I buy some more books while I’m here?’

‘No, of course not. That’s what the shop is for.’

He smiles and walks to the stack of detective novels.

I watch him as he picks through the old paperbacks and I wonder if I should tell him my own theory on Aunt B’s death. Is it better that everyone thinks she had an accident when I think the committed suicide?

Does it even make a difference? As I said to Macbeth, she’s still dead either way. Nothing is going to bring her back now. All of this later investigation isn’t to help the dead any, it’s so we the living can make sense of what happened and continue our lives with some sort of closure.

But if I know the truth, isn’t telling the police the right thing to do?

Do I know the truth? My theory is based on circumstantial evidence just as much as theirs is based on a lack of it.

Macbeth chooses two novels and brings them to the counter. ‘Is your assistant not working today?’

‘You mean Dell? She’s gone back to America.’

‘Oh, I see. She seemed like a nice girl.’

‘Yeah, she’s my best friend.’

‘It must be hard having a friend so far away.’

‘It is. Definitely.’

I ring up his purchase and he hands me a five pound note. ‘Keep the change.’ He turns for the door.

He opens it and the bell rings and he’s about to step out onto the street.

‘Detective Macbeth.’

He stops and faces me. ‘Yes?’

‘Have you considered that Aunt Beth might have…committed suicide?’

He comes back inside and closes the door. ‘Does something in particular make you say that?’

‘It’s probably nothing.’ It isn’t nothing; it’s something that doesn’t fit, doesn’t make sense. It means something.

‘You can tell me whatever you like, Amy. What might seem trivial to you could fit with other evidence and break the case.’

‘It’s just that. The day before she…died…Aunt B put her cat into a cattery. It’s as if she knew she no one would be able to look after him until I got here a week later.’

‘You mean like making sure her affairs were in order?’

‘Yes. If she was…killed…then that part doesn’t make sense. If she was in danger, she wouldn’t just put her cat somewhere out of the way, she’d call the police. I know Aunt Beth. She wouldn’t hesitate to call you.

And there’s no reason for anyone to hurt her. But there
is
reason to suspect that she might have ended her own life.’

‘Really? Go on.’

‘My mother…Aunt Beth’s sister…did the same thing a year ago. Took her own life, I mean.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.’