Reverb (29 page)

She draws another quick, audible breath. Then she slowly brings her hands to his face, and gently holds his neck and jaw line. “James.”

He grabs her wrists, hard. It pinches but she doesn’t resist as he pushes her back but doesn’t let go, then flips her on her back and moves on top of her again, keeping their bodies pressed together and himself inside of her. He looks down at her now, studies her, his anger gone. He grins, releases a nervous laugh. Elisabeth slowly puts her hands on his face again, pulls him in and kisses him, gently at first, then passionately, and lingering. His hips begin moving, in an ever increasing rhythm. His breath quickens, his muscles tense, his jaw tightens again, but he keeps his eyes fixed on hers. She moves with him, totally wet again with his balls gently tapping her ass, the base of his rock hard cock slamming against her clit again and again.
Don’t come. Don’t come.
It’s not about her this time. She stares back at his gorgeous face, his hair hanging in his eyes, now distancing with mounting sexual tension. She follows his motion, syncs with his rhythm, arches her body to maximize his pleasure and James groans, closes his eyes, throws his head back and opens his mouth as if screaming, though no sound comes out. Elisabeth isn’t sure if he’s experiencing pain or pleasure as he climaxes, his expression masked, unreadable as he empties himself. His body convulses into hers and she spontaneously comes again, pushing herself against him, relieving her tension. James finally relaxes on top of her, and when she opens her eyes to look at him there’s a hint of a grin on his face, and she feels no need for further clarification.

They laid side by side for quite some time in silence. They hold hands.

“There was always this moment of realization that there was no way out.” He whispers. “It happened every time they tortured me, that moment I knew the restraints would hold me, that I was absolutely helpless. There was this weird dual to it. Unmitigated terror. Complete surrender.” He pauses. “It’s what I feel for you now, only in reverse.”

“What?”

“I love you, ‘Lisbeth. And that scares the hell out of me.”

She can’t help smiling, even though she knows he isn’t. She tries to ignore the twisted reality behind his analogy.

Chapter Twelve

Fall blows in cold and hard with an early storm. Rain and wind pound against the thin plate glass windows and doesn’t let up for three days. Outside has been cold, and damp for upwards of a week now, keeping them inside. The trick is amusing Cameron. He colors, he paints, he builds, he makes messes. James holds down the notes and chords and teaches him to strum the guitar. Elisabeth spends hours with him in front of the laptop playing PC learning games from
Curious George
to
Clifford the Big Red Dog
. She and James read to him book after book until their own exchanges take on Dr. Seuss speak. And one more time around the track with Thomas and she’s going to throw that little blue train right out the window.

James stays. He shares her bed every night. The last two mornings she’s woken before him, lay on her side and watched him sleep. This morning he watches her. She opens her eyes and he’s leaning up on his elbow with his head in hand, watching her. His hair hangs in his eyes, framing his sculpted face like a soft, hooded shroud. The pine-filtered sun pours in through the bedroom window haloing him a moment, but it’s short lived. The sky darkens again and shadows the room, and James, momentarily distancing him. A chill passes through her, from the outside in.

“Morning,” he says casually.

“Hi.” She smiles up at him, then Cameron starts crying. “Bye,” she frowns, then kisses him as she gets out of bed and she goes to her son. James stays in bed. As she lifts Cam up out of his crib, she hears the guitar through the wall. James keeps it in the bedroom at night, in the corner next to the closet, practically in arms reach of the bed. She changes Cameron’s diaper and listens to James play, smiles at his choice with the opening pick of the old rock tune,
When September Ends
by Green Day. He switches to strumming and the wall between them buzzes with the guitar’s resonance and his rich tenor as he sings softly. She holds Cam’s hand against the wall to feel the vibration and they both giggle with the shared experience. Remarkably, sometimes James makes the instrument sound as if a full band is backing him.

As she finishes up with Cameron, James stops playing. He has the timing down. She has to give him that. She hears him get off the bed and put the guitar down, then rustling, then a zipper. A few minutes later, she and Cam meet him in the kitchen. He’s already started breakfast. Blueberry pancakes today. And they’re good.

He picks the guitar up throughout the day and fiddles with it, but it’s yet to feel like it’s between them. Quite the opposite. Surprisingly, Elisabeth finds she enjoys being the recipient of his passion. It’s Cameron’s daily lullaby; a soundtrack while reading, or a melodic background behind casual conversation.

They play countless games of Tavli, fondle and tease while Cameron naps, and make love several times during the evenings until she surrenders to exhaustion. Only then does he leave the bedroom, go to the living room and practice, often late into the night.

By the time the stormy weather finally passes, the three of them are climbing the walls to get out of the house. A few days pass with a breath of summer past, warm and splendidly languid. Then the beach turns windy and cold again, with only intermittent sun through most of October. Their excursions to the beach are shorter each day. Today, Elisabeth gets only a few good shots of James and Cameron running with the kite before losing the sunlight to the darkening sky. They’re back inside within a couple of hours, and Cameron is bored. And so is she.

“Let’s go somewhere.”

“Where?” James sits on the couch, the guitar in his lap. He’s picking at it softly, almost unconsciously, a smooth blues riff.

“Let’s get off this island. Go to the mainland. Down to Athens. It’ll be warmer there.”

“Athens is five hundred miles away.”

“I know. So?”

He gives her a vague smile, shakes his head and then his forest eyes veil, and he gets sucked inside. Lost to her.

Shit.
“James!”

He startles, his eyes flash awareness as they fix back on her. “What?” He’s back in the living room with her, sort of.

“Where did you just go?”

“Down to Athens, with all those people.”

Cameron’s on the floor ripping apart a Lego castle James built.

“Let’s leave in the morning.”

It takes some convincing, but they do. Elisabeth takes the Canon. James flat out refuses to bring Jack’s guitar.

They take the auto ferry across and spend two glorious days driving down the coast of the Greek mainland. She thoroughly enjoys watching James drive, his body an extension of the vehicle, casual but in control, his hair blowing wildly around his stunning face, talking about everything and anything. Driving keeps Cameron entertained, especially when the top is off—he lets his arms fly in the wind, or just stares at the passing scenery taking it all in, or naps.

They stop often, exploring the rich history of the regions they pass through. Up the hill to Nekyomanteion, where they’re awed by the massive stone ruins of the Oracle of the Dead; then down to the Acheron River, where James laughingly mocks her when she refuses to let Cameron wade in the water that ostensibly carries souls to the realm of Hades. They lunch in the beach town of Riza, then roam the ruins of Roman Villas there, then move on to the city of Nikopolis, where they stop for the night. Thick Byzantine walls of stone and brick are crumbling throughout the city, enhancing the essence of its ancient history.

After supper, they stroll along the shore of the quiet Mediterranean. The evening is warm. The sky is violet fading to indigo. Cameron sets a slow pace, stopping every other second to explore a shell or sand crab. She and James meander along the water’s edge. The sea reflects the last of the light and looks like wet stone.

“What does your father do?”

She’s taken aback by the question. He’s never asked about her family before. She’d been careful to avoid the subject of family since their one encounter going down that road. “My dad is a retired English professor. Why?”

“What about your mom?”

“Middle-school English teacher. A brief stint as an aspiring writer, but she never followed through. Why do you ask?”

“You’re clearly well versed in the history of the places we saw today. It was impressive. I was wondering how you come by your breadth of obscure knowledge.”

She smiles at his backhanded compliment. “It has nothing to do with my parents, I assure you. I studied art history in school. And traveled a lot of the world in the last ten years—gathered snippets along the way. My mother prefers her house and her garden. My father reads about places, studies their cultures through their literature, but he never goes anywhere. The man is sixty-eight years old and he’s never been out of the United States.”

“Well, at least they were home at night for dinner.”

She laughs, looks at him, feels him withdraw. He hadn’t meant it to be funny. “I’m sorry. I gather you didn’t grow up in a typical suburban home.”

He smiles, sort of. “For the first thirteen years I did. Wellesley, Massachusetts.” He picks up a flat stone and rotates it between his elegant fingers. “My step-dad was a jazz musician. My mom was a teacher, too, in Cambridge, at Berklee School of Music. I went to Paul Revere Middle School.” He’s in the Way Back Machine, lost to some other time. James throws the stone in the sea with a flick of his huge hand. It skates a dozen times or more then sinks. Cameron’s very excited by this and begins picking up stones and tossing them into the water, but is quickly disappointed his don’t skip. He throws his fistful of stones at the sea in frustration. James kneels beside him.

“Go easy, little dude. Takes a lot of practice.” He picks up a flat stone, places the stone in Cameron’s hand and together they throw it. It skips a few times then disappears into the sea. “That’s how you get good at anything, ya know. You do it again and again. Practice.”

“Do it ‘gen! Practice ‘gen, ‘Ames.”  Cameron goes running around gathering stones, then comes back to James and shoves the rocks at him. Elisabeth laughs when James looks at her with a twisted grin and shrugs. Both of them know Cam can keep this up for a very long time.

“Okay. Let’s see what you’ve got. The stones need to be flat like this one, and this one, and this one. This is no good. Let’s get rid of these. We’ll throw these three, and when they are all gone, we’ll head back. Okay?”

“Okay, ‘Ames.” Together they throw in three more stones, with James counting them down through the last toss.

“Good job. Let’s go.” He swings Cameron onto his shoulders and they head back to the hotel. Her ‘little dude’ is all worn out and lay his head down on James’ head. Cameron stares down at her and gives her a sleepy smile, then closed his eyes. Again, it strikes her how madly in love she is with her son.

“I never anticipated what I feel for him.” She walks close to James but they don’t touch. “I was expecting him to demand my time and attention, my affection, consume me with concern for his welfare. And I was okay with all that. But what I never expected is how much I need him.” She strokes his soft round cheek. “I got
so
lucky.”

James holds Cameron’s wrists to steady him while he sleeps. “He did, too.”

It’s dark when they get back to the hotel. James gently puts Cameron into the portable crib, and tucks the blanket around him with care, making sure it covers his shoulders but not his face. He stands, watching Cameron sleep. “You know,” he says after what seems like quite a while. “Who you love may be chance, but
how
you love clearly isn’t. Your attention to his care, response to his needs, your constant concern for his safety and well-being—your
actions
show him he’s loved, which will give him a solid foundation for life. Cameron’s very lucky, indeed.”

James just gifted her, perhaps the greatest compliment she’s ever received. She pulls his face to her and kisses him, trying to transfer all the respect, all the love she feels for him right then. He responds in kind, and they made love into the early morning hours, until they both finally collapsed into a comatose sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

They trudge across the white sand surrounded by orange hills lit by the late day sun on their way back to the Jeep. Cameron’s on James’ shoulders, his preferred perch. Elisabeth keeps pace with James, a weighted silence between them.

They’d been exploring the sandstone inlets of Tourlida beach a few hours north of Athens. James stopped on a whim, but Elisabeth gets the feeling there’s more to it than that. He’s been engaging less and less the closer they get to the city. She was sure she’d lost him to himself completely until he suggested stopping at the orange cove, but then they didn’t exchange five lines during the entire hour they were out there under the turquoise sky.

They finally get back to the car. James buckles Cameron into the baby seat and gets behind the wheel. Elisabeth puts the day pack in the back of the Jeep, gets in the passenger seat, and they’re on their way again. She thinks he’s consumed, deep inside his head, and it startles her when he speaks.

“I want to talk to you about something.” He stares straight ahead, his eyes on the road. “I’m telling you this now because if my past comes back to bite me in Athens, you’ll want to know why. You deserve to know why.”

Elisabeth feels the ground slip away, as if the car is gliding, sliding out of control. He glances at her then looks back at the road and releases a quivering sigh.

“After my parents were killed, I was sent to live with my real father on a Gothic estate in England. At least, that’s what I thought was going on. As it turned out, I ended up living with my whacked-out half-brother and Castlewood’s staff. My father was the invisible man.” Quick frown, then it’s gone.

“I was sent away to school. And I became invisible, too. Tried to anyway. You know, like when Cameron closes his eyes he thinks we can’t see him. Well, I did the same, with music. If I let it absorb me, then I couldn’t feel anything around me, anything at all, like it wasn’t there, because I wasn’t. I was inside the music. Outside was harsh, scary, lonely, lonely, lonely. Music sheltered me. So I let it consume me.” He shrugs. “And I did whatever it took to feed the addiction.” His expression softens to remorse, then flat lines as he crawls inside his head.

She draws a breath but holds it.
Don’t scream
.
Just don’t let him get lost.
“Was music all you were addicted to?” She recalls him telling her he was arrested for drugs.

“Yes.” He keeps his eyes on the road. “But to maintain my obsession, I did a bit of speed. Quite a bit, at times, actually. Which, in a round about way is what got me into this mess...”

There are times during his telling that Elisabeth wonders if he’s sane, if the bizarre series of events over the past two years had actually happened to him. There are moments when her belief in the truth he speaks leaves her afraid of him, scared of the part of this man that can kill. And there are times of raging anger at the people who brutalized him, traumatized him, and left this talented, beautiful man so lost.

“I couldn’t get out of there, ‘Lisbeth. I couldn’t get them to stop.”

“Why?” she hears herself whisper. “Why were they doing this to you?”

He glances at her then, his expression masked again. “Ostensibly, for my ejaculate.” Then he half-laughs, in a disgusted sort of way, focuses back on the road.

The lamb from lunch rises in her throat, burning hot and greasy, and her entire body flushes as she swallows it back. How better to mess with a man’s sanity than through his sex?

“I’m not sure why,” he continues. “I don’t know what they did with it, but they took it from me every month or so. They put me in a padded cell, for a week, sometimes longer, pin me down and get me off, one way or another, regardless of my resistance. Parker, a nurse in common confinement, told me they were selling it, that five hundred years of royal lineage was valuable to the right sort, but she could have just been messing with me.”

Tell him to stop. Shut up!

No. Don’t.
He needs to say it. She needs to hear it to begin to understand.

“It got pretty far out there, more and more warped. They kept me restrained for days at a time, completely incapacitating me, leaving me open to repeated rape, by staff at first, then others I didn’t recognize. And filmed it all.” He shudders, shakes his head. “Towards the end, a couple months before I sliced my wrists, a seemingly endless parade of women started mounting me, torturing me until I ejaculated into them. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if it was for some internet porn site, or some sort of twisted power trip, or they were looking to get pregnant, or they just wanted to screw with my head. I don’t know. But on the beach that day, when you asked me if I had any kids, well, I can’t exactly be sure, now can I?” He stares straight ahead, blinks, and tears slide down his face.

Look away.
If she looks at him, she’ll cry. And then they’d both be crying.
And what the hell good would that do?
So she stares out the passenger window at the picture postcard coastline, and swallowing repeatedly. “I’m sorry, James.” She can’t look at him.
Don’t cry. Don’t let him see you cry
. Anxious to the extreme doesn’t touch what she’s feeling.

“I’m sorry, too, Liz, for not telling you sooner—giving you the knowledge to make a wiser choice than getting involved with me.”

She looks at him then. He stares at the road, his long lashes made even longer, darker with his tears. “I made the right choice, James.”
Don’t look away. Help him.
“The problem is you’re still out on a limb. If you don’t deal with this you’ll be running from it the rest of your life.”

“What would you propose I do at this point?” He grips the wheel with both hands and she sees his jaw tighten, his cheeks hollow.

“I don’t know. Maybe you should confront your father. Find out why he did what he did, if he knew what was happening to you after he had you set up?”

“What difference would that make?”

“Well, if he got you into this mess, maybe if he knew what happened, he could get you out of it. I absolutely refuse to believe that any father would knowingly condone the torture of his son.”

“I’m not going back to England, ‘Lisbeth. Even if I managed to get to Edward before they arrested me, my father may not believe me, or care, get me thrown in jail, or even worse, sent back to Langside.”

“What about the States? You can go back to the States, ask for sanctuary, get a lawyer and a good private detective to prove you were set up, and fight him on legal grounds.”

“How am I supposed to do that exactly? It’s my word against his. The investigation showed that I’d been using when I was arrested. A case can easily be made that I had speed on me. And dealing isn’t a huge leap from possession for most people. Anyway, none of this is relevant. I’d never make it to court. They’d send me back to England the moment I set foot in the States as James Whren.”

“They can’t just extradite you. You’re an American citizen. You have rights.”

“Yeah, that’s what I used to think.” He sighs. “Look, I can’t handle going back to that hospital, or even prison for that matter. I’d prefer dead.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I won’t go back there, ‘Lisbeth. I can’t let them do that to me again.”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear anymore. How important could Cameron and I possibly be to you if you’re so keen on killing yourself when faced with a little adversity?”

“
A little adversity?
” He flashes her a look like hate, then looks back at the road.

“You know what I mean. I need you to listen to me very carefully now.” She hopes he can hear her through his anger. “I promise you I will never let it happen to you again. You are not alone this time. You will not disappear off the face of the Earth with no one searching for you. There is not a court in any land that can convince me you belong in a mental institution, or even in jail for that matter. I’d go to the press, to my contacts with the state department, to Amnesty International if that’s what it took. I promise you, I will not let them lock you up and throw away the key. It will not happen again. Do you hear me?”

He doesn’t say anything. He stares straight ahead and drives.

“I need you to give me your solemn oath that you will never try and take your life again. I need that commitment from you,
no matter what
.”

He grips the wheel so tight his knuckles are white. “Don’t ask me that, Liz.” He doesn’t look at her.

“Promise me. There is no space for compromise on this.” She glares at him. “I’ll keep at you until we have an agreement. And the only acceptable resolution is your word that you’ll never attempt suicide again.”

“You really are relentless.”

She smiles. “You don’t know the half of it.”

He seems to soften, but still does not look at her. “You have my word.”

She lets the silence ride for quite some time. Cameron naps on as the sun sets and lights up the golden hills of swaying grass before dropping into the sterling sea. She thinks about what James told her, what it must have felt like to be raped and tortured. She pictures him tied down, helpless, struggling, crying, trying to scream. No wonder he’s so afraid. And so full of rage.

“My mother is convinced that family is the most important thing there is in life.” She isn’t sure she has his attention but talks anyway. “You wouldn’t believe the tantrum she threw when I told her that Jack and I were moving to Israel for a few years. She raised me under the guise that friends come and go, but family is for life, the only people that you can count on to be there for you always. And to a large degree, she’s turned out to be right.”

“Not all families are like yours, Liz.”

“I know that. Quite frankly, even my mom wasn’t there for me a lot of the time. But overall, I know she and my father love me, as I love Cameron, that unconditional love that parents feel for their children that supersedes all others. And I think that’s what she meant about family always being there, that their
love
would always be there.”

“Cut to the chase, ‘Liz.” He gives her a weary smile. Both hands are still on the wheel but he isn’t gripping it so tightly, and his jaw isn’t clinched anymore.

“Do you really think that your biological father doesn’t love you?”

He sighs heavily. “If he does, he sure has a fucked up way of showing it.”

“Isn’t it possible that he had you arrested to save you from what he perceived as the same fate as your half-brother?”

“I don’t know.”

“And isn’t it possible that he has named you the sole heir to your family’s estate because you are his son, his blood, but also because he believes in you, trusts you, loves you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Damn it, ‘Lisbeth. What are you getting at?”

“If you knew your father’s intention came from love, would that temper some of your anger, at least towards him?”

He pulls the Jeep over suddenly, turns off the engine leaving the keys in the ignition, gets out and walks a few yards in front of the car without looking back. He stands facing the setting sun, clasps his hands on his head as if to hold himself to the ground. Still, he does not look at her. She checks Cameron quickly to make sure he’s still sleeping, pulls the keys and pockets them and goes to join James.

Tears slide down his face and drip onto the soft dirt at his feet. “I don’t know how to answer you. I don’t. I hate him. It’s true. I do. Don’t ask me not to.”

“I’m not.” She’s afraid to speak, afraid of hurting him anymore. “I’m trying to broaden your view, give you some space for forgiveness.”

“Fuck forgiveness.” He glares at her, then shakes his head and looks away, out across the golden hills to the azure sea beyond.

“I love you, James. More than I ever really knew was possible. But the love I give I want back in equal measure, and I expect no less extended to my son. And how can you possible achieve this when so much of you is consumed by anger?”

James rubs his eyes dry on his shirtsleeve, blinks her into focus and connects. Softens. Smiles. “I love you, ‘Lisbeth. And Cameron too, unlike any other love known to me—without reservations, withholding nothing. Hope that’ll be enough for you, because I don’t know if I will ever achieve a resolution with my father.”

“I’m not asking for a resolution, James. I’m asking you to consider, just consider, forgiveness.”

“I’ll consider it, if that’s what you need.”

“Thank you.”
It’s what
you
need, honey.
She doesn’t say it, of course, but she can’t help shaking her head as she hands him the keys and walks back to the car, completely spent.

He walks back to the Jeep a few minutes later and glances at her as he gets in, his expression back to masked, unreadable. Then he starts the car and they’re on the road again. He focuses straight ahead, doesn’t look at her, doesn’t speak unless spoken to, and then only with monosyllabic responses even after they get into Athens, check into their hotel and settle for the night.

They stay in a small bed and breakfast near Kolonaki Square, a block from where she spent her summer there all those years ago. The whitewashed flat has only four tiny bedrooms for travelers, but the charm is in the trellised courtyard in back of the building, rare for the middle of the city, and shrouded with bougainvilleas blooming bright pink flowers everywhere. The old stone wall surrounding the courtyard keeps Cameron in check, so Elisabeth and James linger over their coffee and scones in the morning. They hang out that first day, passing the time at a local park, exploring the expensive shops, galleries and boutiques of the neighborhood, then relax during the afternoon hours of siesta while Cameron naps, play Tavli and soak up the sun. In the evening they go to The Achilleion Café in the square, feast on roasted lamb with peppers and olives, and listen to the bouzouki players.