THE AFFAIR (14 page)

“I don’t know.” I lied to him and myself. “When we went in there I felt sorry for all those people wanting to contact the dead, believing in all this. I thought they were all fools and he’d tricked them somehow. I’m just not sure what happened. What if this was staged?”

“How would he have known about Jeremy and Dimitra?”

I looked at Chance but I didn’t answer. His head tilted away from me as his eyes probed me with an intensity that reached the core of my being.

“I can’t believe you’d think I put him up to this,” he whispered hoarsely.

I broke the connection of our eyes. I couldn’t look at him and give him the answer that was swirling around in my head. “You have to admit the way we met is pretty strange.”

“You think I’d go to such lengths to get a woman in my bed?”

His voice was low and guttural, anger fighting with pain. I wasn’t trying to strike out at him. I was only trying to preserve my own sanity. “You got the tickets,” I muttered under my breath.

“You’re right, I got the tickets,” he answered me. He rubbed his palms across his eyes, and then he licked his lips. He kept opening and closing his mouth and his fist. His head moved from side to side in agitation. I knew he was hurting. I also knew he hadn’t done what I had accused him of.

“What about that electrical arc you told me about? You said that it hit me first, then you. I didn’t see it. I’ve never seen anything like that or even heard of this happening. If there’s a connection, I’d say it’s between you and Blaine MaDia.”

I wanted to forget about the arc of energy as I wanted to forget about the tremendous connection I felt for the medium. It was different than the connection I felt with Chance.

With Blaine it was love in its purest form. With this newest stranger to enter my life, I felt an overwhelming sense of loss and unbearable pain. And I felt something more. It was an all-consuming guilt. I felt guilt that I had denied him, shoved him from my memories and guilt now that I had left him once again. My heart felt he was my son, the baby I’d dreamed of since childhood. How could this be possible?

“Why don’t we go back in? You can talk to him. If he can make you see things merely by touching you, perhaps he can take you back to the accident with Viola. Maybe he can show you what you were doing in the seconds before it happened.”

I could feel the hysterical laughter as it bubbled up once again and made its way out of my throat.
Have Blaine MaDia touch me again? Not in a thousand lifetimes.
“Take me home, Chance.”

He started the car, his eyes sad and his mouth tense. He glanced toward me, not meeting my eyes. “I’m sorry I got the tickets, sorry I asked you to go.”

I turned from him to stare out the window. With the slightest effort I could still feel the pain and loss of my other self.

“
Mommy, please don’t leave me again.
” The words rang out in my soul, each piercing me with pain. Was it really possible that Blaine MaDia was my son from a previous life?

Why not
? I thought to myself.
If Chance can be your husband, Blaine sure can be the baby you gave birth to
. I felt my eyes fill with tears, wondering what kind of life my son had had.
My son
, I thought,
Blaine’s my son
. I wanted to stop thinking about what had been. It hurt too much.

“Dimi, are you okay?”

I could clearly hear Jeremy calling out to his Dimi not to leave him, not to die. I clutched Chance’s hand in my own, overcome with unbearable grief.

“Don’t call me that right now. And don’t ever mention what happened today.” With that I closed my eyes and shut Chance and Blaine out of my world for the moment.

My time of freedom had come to an end. I knew I could no longer pretend to be Dimitra, the woman in Chance’s past. In less than twelve hours my husband would return and I would once again have to go back to being a reasonably sane, responsible, mature adult. I could barely remember my years of being Michelle.

I lay next to Chance in his huge bed, caressing his flaccid penis. It was beautiful, all silky and shiny. I’d grown to love it almost as I’d grown to love the man. It was only the night before that I’d decided that I wanted to taste all of him.

He’d made no demands on me. He did as I had asked and never brought up our visit to Blaine MaDia. Instead he held me each night with a determination I could sense.

He was going to put a lifetime of loving into the time we had left. He’d continued to give, laughing away my weak objections until I no longer pretended that I didn’t want him to do the things he was doing to me.

I wanted him. The feel of his hands, his lips, his tongue, but most of all the comforting familiarity he gave me nudged me forward. That and my own guilt over not talking to him about Blaine.

I wanted to give him something I’d never willingly given anyone. We had made love and showered together afterwards. We were just lying there, not talking, enjoying the silence.

The thought of slipping back into my old life depressed the hell out of me. How could I give Chance up? I moved my head to his abdomen and began kissing him, teasing little kisses, not meant to arouse.

His penis quivered and I smiled to myself at the power of my kisses on this man. I took him in my hand examining him, every bump along the ridge of his now hardening shaft. I felt the texture, the softness.

Then I noticed the glistening liquid that had formed around the tip. I touched it, not feeling revolted in the least. I inserted my finger in my mouth, licking away the fluid, wanting to taste that part of Chance.

I was behaving like a child at play with a new toy. There was nothing I didn’t like about it. The feel, the smell, the taste, the feeling of power as I learned what would bring him to his ultimate climax and what would slow it. I almost swooned with the sheer wonder of it.

A feeling of sadness began to mingle with the power and I felt a crushing sensation in my chest. This would be all that I would ever be able to give Chance. This was not my life.

I felt the beginning of his release. It began much as the rumble of a volcano. His grunts of pleasure, primal. His hands twisted in my hair trying to pull me up as he growled, “I can’t hold it back any longer.” I wanted so much to take his seed inside me in this manner.

I did attempt to do it, but the force of his release and the hot, thick, salty liquid caused me to gag and pull away. I did hold him in my hand as he came, stroking him as his body jerked toward completion.

When he was still at last, I slid into his arms and held him tightly, crying softly for what I had lost, for what I had found, and for what I would lose once again.

“And you’ll still have those things. Dimitra, I never lied to you. You’ve known all along that I was looking for you. For you, Dimi, not an affair.”

He pulled away from me. He was right. I’d allowed him to believe I was willing to give him what he needed by my actions of the

past nine days. I had in essence abandoned my family. Why shouldn’t he think I intended a future for the two of us?

I glanced at the clock. Seven
A.M
. “Chance, we don’t have much time. Please, let’s not spoil it.”

He looked at me for a long time, not speaking, just looking. My stomach began to knot up.

“Shall I go back to calling you Michelle? Can you so easily forget who you really are? How are you going to get your answers, Michelle?”

I cringed a little at his steady attempts to incorporate our past and present. I knew it was a deliberate move on his part. I didn’t want to be Michelle. For Chance I wanted to be Dimitra. The Dimitra of his past.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get the answers.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Damn,
I thought to myself. How am I going to do that? Chance had tried several times to introduce me to regression therapy. I’d refused, not wanting anything to get in the way of our stolen happiness. Somewhere within myself I knew the nine days we’d spent in heaven would never be duplicated.

I cringed inwardly. I’d wasted so much time, so many opportunities when I could have accepted Chance’s help.

He could have helped me find out what I was doing in the few seconds before I hit Viola. For a moment I wished we had tried regression. But after that debacle with Blaine, there was no way I’d wanted him to even broach the subject.

Chance had introduced me to a love so powerful that I believed it could survive the ages. And he’d given me pleasure and by so doing taught me to give him pleasure in return. But leaving my life forever? That I’d never meant to do. I’d only intended to take a little vacation.

I sat up then and returned his look. “The past nine days will be hard enough for me to explain. What do you think my husband would do if I told him I wanted to make it permanent?”

“He can’t stop you. He doesn’t own you.”

“He doesn’t own me, but I made promises to him also. He has a right to expect me to keep those promises. Besides, Chance, I’m a big part of his life. What would he do without me?”

I looked away from Chance. “Larry doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of the house or paying the bills.”

For the first time in weeks guilt assailed my conscience. I had sent Larry away to care for two small children alone. He was ill equipped for the job.

“You’re thinking about your husband now, is that it, Michelle? He’s coming home and now you want me to vanish into the background.”

I watched as he climbed out of the bed, his back to me. He was wrong. I didn’t want him to fade into the background. What was I supposed to do, meet a man I’d loved for more than half of my life at the airport with divorce papers?

“You don’t have to worry, Michelle. I told you I would never force you to do anything and that includes loving me.”

Ouch
. “If you meant that to hurt, Chance, it did.”

He turned and gave me the oddest look before asking, “Is this a game to you?”

I watched the differing emotions swirling across his face. I had been flippant on purpose. I wanted him to react as Larry would have. I wanted him to give me the silent treatment. That I would have been able to handle. I could have walked away from Chance and never looked back.

He walked toward me, a puzzled look on his face. He stopped only when there was no longer any space separating us.

“I promised to be your friend. That offer still stands. We’ve loved through many lifetimes and we found each other again in this one. That reason alone makes me happy.”

He wasn’t happy. We both knew it. He was hurting, but had decided not to burden me with his pain.

“Chance, Larry doesn’t deserve this.”

“I know he doesn’t. Then again, neither do we. I wish I could say I’m sorry I didn’t stop us, but it would be a lie. I’m not. I am sorry that you’re now feeling remorse that you allowed me to love you, that you allowed yourself to love me. The last thing I want for you is to have you feeling guilty over leaving me.”

I watched as he attempted a smile. As always, he was right about my feelings. I was consumed with guilt. In the back of my mind I’d known this moment would come. Still, I’d allowed him to shower me with love. I’d devoured it and him, taking, hoarding it away to last me during my remaining years with Larry. I was no better than a common thief.

“Don’t be sad.” He smiled warmly at me. “At least I found you. I know now I’m not crazy, that the last twenty years I’ve spent alone has been worth it.”

He touched a finger to my lips, his eyes locking with my own. “If you like, I’ll still help you figure things out about Viola.

“That’s as far as I think you should go with this regression. After you find what you need I want you to be happy with your life. At least we can still see each other as friends. I can still see you in my office. As for our being together, well…” He looked away. “As long as you’re back in my life, I’ll wait. I’m sure we’ll meet again in another life.”