The Coming of Anna (The Manhattan Series) (10 page)

I get up to go to the bathroom and it feels like every
bruise in my body is screaming out at me.  My eye catches the clock on the bed
stand.  It is after ten!  Why did nobody wake me?

When I wash my hands in the basin in Thomas’ bathroom, I see
a note stuck to the mirror. 

My sleepy baby,
I did not want to wake you when I left.  I have a few things to handle at the
office.  Make yourself at home.  Have Trudy bring you some breakfast.  Promise
me you will stay in bed.  I need you to get well soon.
Love, Thomas

I smile at the note and notice his handwriting.  The man
could have been a doctor! 

I hear a short knock on the bedroom door. 

 “Come in!”

A woman in her late fifties comes walking in.  Her apron is
clean and crisp but from the spot of flour on her cheek it is clear she has
been busy in the kitchen.

I smile at her:  “You must be Trudy.  Thank you for the tea
and sandwiches you left us last night.  I really needed that before coming to
bed.”

A smile breaks onto her face:  “Thomas had told me you were
beautiful.  Now I can see why his mind is suddenly on something other than his
work and golf.”

I blush.

“He gave me clear instructions not to allow you to get up. 
He spoke to his own doctor this morning.  The doctor told him the best thing
for you for the next couple of days would be to rest as much as possible.  And
he made me promise to see that you eat.  So what will it be?  Will you have
some bacon and eggs with toast?  Or would you rather have an omelette?  You are
not one of those funny people who live on fruit and vegetables, are you?”

She rolls her eyes towards the ceiling and I cannot help but
laugh, in spite of a splitting headache.

“No, I love all food.  I love animals but I have no qualms
about eating them.  So don’t worry about that.  An omelette sounds just
perfect.  And some tea if you don’t mind.”

“I will be back soon.”

I lie back on the pillows and the awfulness of the past few
days seem so far away.  Just one knock on my door and how my life has changed. 
How difficult would it have been to get over what had happened to me if I did
not have Thomas to come home to? 

It does not take Trudy long to get back with a fully-laden
tray.

“Here is your omelette.  I have baked some fresh muffins so
I put one of them on the tray as well.  I am famous for my muffins.  There is
some homemade jam and some cheese too if you want.”

She sees me admiring the fresh rose she put on the tray.

“The rose is from Thomas’ garden.  Other than work and golf,
his garden is his passion.  And no matter how he redesigns and changes the
garden, there is always an herb garden for me so I can have fresh herbs for
cooking and a rose garden so there will always be roses in the house.  I think
it reminds him of Katrina.  Come on, eat up.”

She helps me sit up against the pillows and puts the tray on
my lap.  Then she excuses herself. 

While I eat my breakfast, I start thinking about Katrina. 
Is that Thomas’ ex-wife?  He only mentioned her once and never talked about her
again.  And somehow I knew not to ask.  But I feel the curiosity in me wanting
to know more.  Somehow I also cannot help but feel a pang of jealousy.  If,
after all these years he still plants roses in his garden because they remind
him of her, how will any woman ever take her place in his heart? 

Trudy comes to collect my tray again. 

“You can have a bath or a shower if you like.  I went out to
buy you some women’s magazines.  I put them on your bedside table.  I was sure
you would not feel like reading Thomas’ golfing or carpentry magazines!  And if
you would like to watch television, the television set is right across the hall
from the bedroom.  I am sure it will be okay if you make yourself comfortable
in there.  As soon as you feel better, you can take a walk in the garden. 
Thomas’ garden is something to behold.”

Thomas comes home just after lunch.  I am surprised to see
him home so early but the file he has tucked under his arm tells me his workday
isn’t over yet.  But I am happy to see him and to have him close to me.

“I finished up everything at the office that needed my
urgent attention and brought the rest home.  At least here I can keep an eye on
you while I am working.”

We spend the next couple of days together in sweet harmony. 
Thomas goes into work early in the morning and comes home around lunchtime.  He
had his secretary move all his appointments to the mornings so he did not have
to stay at the office all day waiting to see someone.  Every afternoon after
lunch he would have me take a nap.  Then he would sit on the chair in his
bedroom, doing some work.  Later when it was a bit cooler outside, we would sit
in the garden or next to the pool.  I would read and he would finish up the
rest of his work.  In the evenings after dinner, we would watch a movie together
and listen to some music before retiring to bed.

**********

It is Friday morning and I am having a shower.  The bathroom
is filled with steam when Thomas appears in the shower behind me.  He takes the
washer from my hand and starts washing my back.  His lips softly stroke my neck
and I can feel my body waking up to him.  His hands with the washer moves
around to my breasts and he gently starts washing them.  I can feel his erect
penis pressing against my back.  I am already wet for him and I lean against
the wall with my hands, holding my butt towards him.  We have not made love
since I came back from Los Angeles and my body longs for his touch.

He must have let the washer go because I feel both his hands
stroking my butt cheeks.  With his hands on my hips, he lifts me off the floor
slightly and slides my open pussy over his cock.  I gasp as I feel his fully
erect cock slide all the way into me.  My feet hardly touch the floor now but
Thomas has my hips firmly in hand.  With my hands pressing against the shower
wall in front of me and the warm water washing over me, I feel my pussy
clasping his cock.  He is so deep inside me that it almost hurts.  But it is a
sensation of pleasure and deep satisfaction.  Maybe because we have not made
love for a few days, it does not take long for both of us to cum.  As I feel my
pussy rhythmically suck onto his cock, I cry his name.  When we both have cum
and our breathing returns to normal, he folds both arms around me and lies his
head against the back of my neck.  He turns me around and his tongue slowly
sweeps the inside of my mouth.  Then he takes the washer and washes my pussy
before rinsing our juices off his dick. 

I am still standing under the stream of warm water when he
gets out and dries himself.  He takes another fluffy towel and holds it open
for me.  When I step out of the shower, a ray of sunlight touches my skin.  His
eyes widen.

“Anna!   What the hell?”

I see him looking at the bruises on my shoulder.  Then he
turns me around and softly touches the bruise now clearly visible on my back. 
He pushes me away from him a bit and I am sure he can see the bruising on my
upper legs.

My heart beats loudly in my ears.  I had been so careful
about hiding my bruises from him.  I made sure that I was dressed all the time
when he was home.  I scheduled my baths and showers around the times he would
be at the office.  I thought he was still fast asleep when I slipped out of bed
this morning.  And seeing the anguish and horror portrayed on his face as he
looks at me now, I know it was the right thing to do.

“Anna!  Tell me what happened to you.  There is no way on
God’s green earth that those bruises are from falling on a bathroom floor. 
What the hell happened to you in LA?”

I can just stare at him in stunned silence.  The memories
from that dreadful night not so long ago come flooding back and flow into a
contorted mess of pictures and hurt and and tears and screams.  What do I tell
him?

Thomas grabs my arms and I cringe.  He sees the pain in my
face and let go a bit.  My mind is racing through stories and versions of that
night but I cannot seem to make any sense of it.

“Come!”

Thomas leads me to the edge of the bed.  He softly dries me
and helps me put on some clean clothes.  Then he calls down to Trudy to make us
some tea.  When I lie back against the pillows again, he sits himself down in
the chair in front of the bed, his hands clasped in front of him.

“Now you are going to tell me everything.  I could see
something was wrong since the moment I picked you up at the airport.  There is
no way that you just fell and bumped your head.  You are going to tell me the
truth and you are going to tell me now.  The whole truth or so help me!”

I tell him about Anton being on the plane.  About all the
bad memories that came back to me.  I tell him about Anton being in the same
hotel and cornering me into having dinner with the same group of people as
him.  When I tell him about what happened in that bathroom, I cry
uncontrollably. 

Thomas does not touch me.  He just looks at me as the words
tumble from my mouth.  I can see he is furious. 

I tell him how I spent the night at the airport and then
went to another hotel that morning.  About how the pharmacist got me a doctor
and the doctor said I had a concussion from the fall.  And then I came home to
him.

“Are you sure he did not rape you?”

“No, he was too drunk.  He surely wanted to but he could not
get it up.  That is what made him even more furious but that was also what
helped me get away from him,” I sob.

“It does not matter that he did not succeed at raping you. 
He is not getting away with this.  He is going to pay.”

“Please, Thomas.  It is over.  Nothing really happened.  He
was so drunk, he was out of his mind and all I suffered was a concussion and a
few bruises.  If everything had to come out everybody will know that I had an
affair with a married man.  Even if it was not my intention because I did not
know he was married, who do you think is going to believe me?  It will ruin my
reputation and probably destroy his family.”

“Are you seriously covering for him?  Anna, are you
serious?  What the fuck?”

He grabs his keys.

“Where are you going?”

“I am going to deal with him in my own way.  I am telling
you, he is not getting away with this.  No man treats a woman that way and goes
on with his life like nothing has ever happened.”

I hear him slam the front door just as Trudy walks in with
the tea tray.

**********

It is hours later when Thomas comes back.  I did not know
what to do.  I wanted to go home but Trudy would not let me.  I spent half the
day with the kind housekeeper, telling her about Anton and everything that had
happened with him.

“I saw the bruise on your back that first morning while I
fixed your pillows and I knew you did not just fall.  But I did not say
anything to Thomas.  I thought you might have already told him everything and
he was just not telling me the whole story.  My dear, you have nothing to feel
ashamed about.”

She gave me a motherly hug.

“Leave it to Thomas.  He will fix it.  Maybe, in a way, it
will be healing to him as well.  Maybe somehow this will help him put Katrina
in his past forever.”

“Thomas has mentioned Katrina to me only once and he never
spoke of her again.  What happened between them and where is she now?”

Trudy is quiet for a long while.

“I am not surprised that he hasn’t told you everything about
her.  I don’t think he has ever discussed it with anyone.  The wound in his
soul was too deep.  But I hoped it would be different with you.”

She looks at me and I can see she means it when she says: 
“The day Thomas tells you everything about Katrina, you will know that you have
his whole heart.”

With that she leaves me alone with my own thoughts.

Why is everybody so secretive about Thomas’ ex-wife?  What
could be so terrible?  She must have hurt him terribly in some way; even more
than I first thought.  But unless he opens up to me, I will never know what
happened between them.

I have no idea where Thomas is or what he is doing.  Somehow
I cannot imagine that he just went to work and is continuing his day as if
nothing had happened.

My day is a nightmare.  Even though I am in Thomas’ house,
surrounded by all his things, I have never felt further from him than today.  I
now know that I love him like I have never loved any man in my life.  But in
fact he is nothing more than a stranger I had made love to.  He had said so
many times that he loves me but still he cannot share the whole him with me.  I
might have his body and even his thoughts, but his heart will probably always
belong to Katrina.

Knowing that is the way Thomas feels I cannot stay in his
house any longer.  Trudy told me not to leave but she does not understand.  I
cannot be surrounded by his things, sleep in his bed, knowing his heart is not
mine. 

My bag is packed and I walk out onto the balcony.  Should I
wait until Thomas comes back?  It has been hours since he left.  I haven’t been
able to reach him on his cell phone and his secretary said that he will be
unavailable for the rest of the day.  Trudy does not want me to leave, but I
cannot just sit here and wait. 

I call a cab and go downstairs to wait for it.  When Trudy
sees me with my packed bag, she just shakes her head and leaves the room,
muttering something about “the young people of today not listening to their
hearts”.

When I hear the car outside, I take my bag and walk out on
the front porch.  It is not the taxi.  It is Thomas and while he gets out of
his car, two other cars pull up behind him. 

“Where do you think you are going?”

“I already called a cab.  I am going to my place.”

Two men join us on the porch as Thomas takes my bag from my
hand.  Trudy appears in the doorway and Thomas tells her to cancel the taxi. 
Then he turns to me.