Love's Illusions: A Novel (7 page)

The morning was beautiful with multiple shades of pinks and yellows beginning to peek up over the horizon, gleaming as it pushed the darkness away. He kissed the top of my head while I rested on his shoulder, neither of us speaking, just enjoying the sound of the waves hitting the cement wall at the end of the sidewalk, and the wind rustling through the leaves of the trees in the park behind us. It was a rare morning for Chicago in the fall – cool, but not too cold; light, but not too light – that elusive time when it’s not night and not day, when the air carried a faint mist and smelled of winter weather to come, but somehow was still suspended in the relative warmth of fall.

Michael broke the silence asking, “How did things go with Bernie?”

I felt my body tense a little – he felt it too - before I answered, “Okay, we talked for a while – it was good to see him again – then I went home and went back to bed. I was still hung over and needed more sleep.”

“Yeah, I tried calling, but the phone just rang – so I figured…” His voice faded off.

“Sorry, I unplugged it – I guess I forgot to plug it back in when I got up,” I murmured as he shifted his shoulder under my head and pulled me closer.

After another, shorter silence he continued, “Want to tell me what he said?”

“Not right now, let’s just watch the sun come up, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered to the top of my head and once again the only sounds were those of the water lapping against the sea wall and the wind rustling the trees, blocking out the city noise as well as all the thoughts in my head.

As we walking back to the car, I looked at Michael, and said with as little emotion as I could manage, “Bernie says Stephen’s back in town.”

Drawing his brows together almost reflexively, Michael nodded and unlocked the door of the Mustang for me. As he got in and started the engine, he gave me an understanding smile, “I think we both need some more sleep,” he said.

It was well past noon when we both started to stir. I had finally fallen asleep in my favorite position – my head cradled in the small of his shoulder with his arms holding me, and our legs knotted together around each other, me playing with the hair on his chest. Normally on Sunday mornings after having a filling breakfast at the diner, we’d spend the time before falling asleep continuing to wind down, toying with each other, but that had not happened this time. Michael seemed a little distant – like he was deep in thought when we arrived at the apartment, and even though I did my best to distract him, stroking the inside of his thighs and fingering his cock, he was only interested in whatever thoughts were occupying his head.

As I dozed off I wished I hadn’t said anything about Stephen being back in Chicago. Michael knew more about my marriage than anyone else I had met in the last six months, and he had not seemed bothered by it. Maybe it was that Stephen was gone, that I had no way of contacting him other than to call his mother’s house (and he knew how I felt about talking to that woman); maybe somehow none of it had been real to him – God only knows I was trying my hardest to make it all unreal for myself; maybe we were just too busy being stoned and fucking for him to pay attention, but whatever it was, this was the first time he had refused my attentions. Neither of us had ever talked about our relationship being any more than an extended one-night-stand. I mean sure, I had sensed it changing from just screwing to something else, more like making love, but he knew I was married… So what the hell was the problem?
Goddamn it… why did I tell him?

Sleep seemed to have done the trick for Michael. Whatever had been bothering him the night before had evaporated, at least for the time being. “Want to come to the garage with me today?” he asked as he cozied up behind me in perfect spoon-like fashion.

“Maybe; are you working on the Mustang or bike or are you meeting someone there?” I replied yawning.

“I was going to change the sparkplugs on my bike.”

“Hmph… that sounds terribly exciting.”

He snickered in my ear saying, “Liar… I just thought it would give us a chance to talk… You could hand me the wrenches.”

“Right, you know I don’t know one wrench from another.”

“I’ll teach you,” he replied, and I could
feel
his smile against the back of my head.

Hesitating a moment as I opened my eyes and started to stretch I said, “I have to do the laundry – I’m out of clean underwear.”

“Now that’s what I call an exciting Sunday afternoon,” he chuckled.

I rolled over facing him now, ran my hand over his strong shoulder and down the length of his arm feeling the gentle curve of his muscles, continuing my exploration over his hard, lean thighs. Michael lay still, hardly breathing. He kissed me deeply, for a very long time, holding me as close as possible to him, our hips pushing together. I lowered my head, kissing his shoulders, chest and perfectly flat stomach as my fingers found the soft inside of his thighs, making their way through his thick, dark pubic hair to cup his balls. I moved, pushing his back flat on the bed and rolled on top of him. His hands embraced my face, smoothing my long hair back so he was looking me in the eyes.

“You’re beautiful babe,” he murmured. I gave him a half-curled smirk in return. “No, really, I mean it – you’re beautiful.” His hand held my hair at the back of my neck as he pulled me down on top of him.

I was right. We weren’t just fucking anymore – we were making love.
God help him
.

The weeks seemed to fly by. I stayed stoned as much as possible, one of the best things I could do to keep from thinking about Stephen being back. Before I knew it, Thanksgiving was looming, and my parents were asking if I was going to make the trip back home for the holiday. I hadn’t been home since September 1970, when Stephen and I got married, well over a year ago, far longer than I had ever been away from them before. My grip on reality was tenuous at best, slipping more and more with each passing day, and even though I knew I needed to face them, to talk to them, tell them the truth about what was happening with Stephen and me, I just couldn’t. In case I was wrong, I couldn’t take the chance of turning them against him – they loved him too. I hated lying to them, but I couldn’t talk to them – not yet. Luckily, Mary Beth had decided to stay in Chicago for Thanksgiving, so I was able to successfully sell a story about not wanting to drive all that way by myself for such a short time, and air fare was too expensive, but I would come home for Christmas.

When Stephen and I were in high school and applying to colleges, we only applied to places that were at least a thousand miles away from Boston, no East Coast schools. I couldn’t go anywhere that was within easy driving distance of Weymouth – Stephen and I planned to live together, and I couldn’t risk any surprise visits from my very prudish parents. We both applied to the same places – one of us would not go without the other – so when The School of the Art Institute of Chicago accepted both of us, the decision was already made.

I was getting good at lying, or at the very least, keeping things from them at this point. Growing up in their house hadn’t been easy, but certainly wasn’t as bad as a lot of the homes I knew of – Stephen’s being at the forefront of that list. My parents argued constantly – I swear it was every minute of every fuckin’ day! They would argue about everything, they would argue about nothing – I honestly don’t remember what the arguments were about, but by the time I met Stephen at 15, I was dying to get out. Stephen provided that escape, that relief from the constant turmoil at home. Yet, as I began to spend time at his house, his parents furnished me with a first-hand view of what a truly fucked up family looked like.

I now remembered all the warning signs; all the things I ignored at 15, 16 and 17, flashed back in my mind – I knew there was
no way
I was going to repeat that shit in my life. One minute his parents would be together, then his mother, Virginia, would get pregnant and have another kid, and then the next minute his father would get drunk, upset the kids and take off again. I wanted some stability, consistency – some happiness. Because of his mostly absent status, I never got to know Stephen’s father very well, but from what I heard, I was
not
missing anything. His mother bounced from one self-made problem to another; as far as I could see, she used people, even her children, mostly to connive money out of one person or another since she was always broke. ‘Boyfriends’ would come and go; Virginia dumped anyone who didn’t put enough cash in her hand. There was no way I wanted anything to do with a life like that.

No, no, my parents are like saints compared to his,
I thought
. Why the hell can’t I just talk to them, they’d understand. No, not now…
After all, I truly didn’t know what was happening. Stephen had certainly never admitted anything; maybe what Bernie had seen, and what Joe had told me, was all some kind of bullshit. If I could just talk to Stephen, without arguing, maybe there was some way we could work it all out. When I got married it was forever, at least in my mind, and I wanted that life back. Why tell them something I wasn’t absolutely positive about. Besides, what if my parents blamed me? They knew me – they’d see it was somehow my fault. No, I couldn’t go home now – I needed more time, staying in Chicago for Thanksgiving was the right thing to do.

Stephen had been back in Chicago since the beginning of October, almost two full months now, but he still had not tried to contact me.
Where the hell was he? What is he doing? Who is he staying with? No one has seen him except for Bernie… What is going on?
Ever since Bernie told me he was here, I had been like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof. When the phone rang, I was petrified it would be him; then when it wasn’t, I was upset that he hadn’t called. I tried to force all thoughts of him out of my mind, but the only time I was successful was when I was stoned or in bed with Michael. And Michael:
Christ, what would I do without him, and what am I going to do with him.
He knew I was an emotional train wreck, just one short track from plowing over the edge and bursting into flames… a head rush; that’s what I was… I was a popper waiting to be snapped into some unsuspecting soul’s nose. My nerves were shot.

Actually plunging over the edge may have been a relief… at least it would be over. As it was now, my life was like one long, continuous,
slow motion
train wreck with a new car running off an unseen cliff every day, forming a multi-car pile of rubble in the valley below. I couldn’t control my thoughts; my thoughts were controlling me. The Jackie I thought I knew was unrecognizable, even to myself. I was just waiting – waiting for what, I had no idea, but whatever it was, it terrified me. I hated every waking second of my life.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and if I was being perfectly honest, no one wanted to talk to me either – at least not when I was straight. Why would they? I was miserable, grouchy, sarcastic, critical of everything and everyone and totally self-deprecating. My memories all seemed to be conspiring against me, pulling me down into a hole filled with nothing but emptiness. I could push that blankness, the hollowness of the chasm in the depths of my gut, away with grass or Quaaludes. When I was stoned I could accept that I was somehow to blame without feeling the pain of it being all my fault. When I was stoned I could push away all the random thoughts of being alone for the rest of my life. No one would love me – I was just a bitch who drove her husband into the arms of… men. When I was stoned, I didn’t question myself as much about why I hadn’t known what was happening. When I was straight, I couldn’t come to terms with my thoughts. If he had been having an affair with a woman, then maybe, just maybe, I could compete.
But how the hell was I supposed to compete with a man?

I would lose myself screwing Michael – there were no pretenses with him, no holding back. Sometimes it felt like he was as desperate as I was, trying to escape demons of his own or maybe just help me slay mine. He had always been a bit of a chauvinist, making decisions for me,
suggesting
what I should and should not do… the more morose I became, the more possessive he became. I would wake in the morning feeling him pushed, hard, against me and slowly make love to him without ever fully waking. Then a few hours later, as we settled in for the night, he would take me with a fury that lit both our souls on fire, like he had to somehow own me. It was as if he was determined to pull me out of the darkness I was digging deeper and deeper into every day. Michael was being wonderful. I knew he wanted me to talk more, to let him know what was going on inside my head, but the problem was… I didn’t know myself, and none of the feelings I could express made any sense – everything was contradictory, every thought hurt. So since he couldn’t get inside my head, he settled for being inside me physically.

Right now all I wanted oblivion – I kept pleading with my mind to please, please go blank… begging it for some peace. Michael couldn’t provide true peace, but he could provide oblivion, and he made sure I got exactly that, but not too much. He was my lover, my friend, my dealer and my self-appointed protector – all roles I allowed him to play. I appreciated being ‘protected’, but Goddamn it, I could handle myself. Not only was I trying to sort out having a gay husband, it felt like I was being pulled apart by time too… independent ’70s feminist by day; ‘50s woman pretending to be helpless by night… except that I really did feel helpless in this battle with myself. I felt a certain degree of safety when I was with Michael or was at The Canteen. Part of me knew it was an illusion, that it could, and would, all fall apart as soon as I straightened up the next morning, but, for those few hours, I could pretend – I could hide in plain sight, standing in front of the world, and no one would be the wiser, not even me.

School didn’t help. I forced myself to stay straight long enough during the day to make it through classes. I tried to immerse myself in my art work, to express whatever was going on in my head, but fashion design and textiles didn’t lend themselves well to exploding brains hanging from the ceiling, and fantasies of overdosing on the street corner. Nothing inspired me, nothing distracted me. I spent my days lifelessly going through the motions just waiting for the next car on the train to topple over. My marriage to Stephen had ended in the spring of my sophomore year. I have no idea how I managed to complete that second year of school successfully, but the way I was going now, I wouldn’t make it through the third.