Walk on Water (22 page)

So when Luke pushed me down on the pillow and spread my legs apart before positioning himself between them, I actually eagerly raised my pelvis to meet his lips. I wanted him that much. However, Luke was determined to take his time. He began by softly kissing me behind the knees, working his way up my inner thighs, intermittently teasing my labia with his fingertips. By the time he was kissing my abdomen I couldn’t possibly care if my figure wasn’t perfect. He was making me feel like a goddess, cooing my name and other endearments, pushing me to the precipice and then pulling me back again. I wriggled and writhed, but always moving towards him. I draped my legs over his shoulders, pulling him closer to me. Using his finger Luke began massaging my labia, lightly tapping my clitoris. Grabbing his shoulders with my hands I dug into his strong frame and my pelvis thrust upwards again this time seemingly of its own volition. Now his lips were on my labia, then his tongue.

“Oh Luke!” I cried out frantically. “Please, Luke, now! I have to now!”

“Then come for me, baby,” I heard him whisper. “Come for me too.”

His tongue entered me and I gasped for air. My whole body seemed to leave the bed, and I didn’t know where I was until I recognized Luke’s powerful arms around me and felt my face pressed safely against his chest.

“Shhh,” he spoke tenderly. “It’s okay.”

But why was I crying?

“Oh Luke,” I said clinging to him, sobbing against him. “Oh Luke.”

“I know,” he held me tightly. “It’s okay. We’re good. We’re very good.”

Was the iPod still playing? The only music in the world was the beating of his heart.

.

TWENTY-ONE

W
hen I was in college fantasizing about a future with Luke, I would dream about sharing Saturday mornings with him, the two of us in matching bathrobes, having coffee, sharing the newspaper. In my fantasies there would be one of those chrome racks for toast—whole wheat of course—and petite jars of strawberry jam and orange marmalade. There would be kids in the picture too, a boy and a girl, settled in a cozy den watching cartoons. A very American-Norman-Rockwell kind of picture.
Family Ties
and
The Cosby Show
. Nothing like my childhood at all. And nothing like reality. A girl could dream, couldn’t she?

In the early days of my marriage to Robert I had tried to reconstruct the fantasy, recasting the
leading-man-father-knows-best
role with a willing-just-not-able Robert. There had been lots of Saturday mornings for that
us
, Sunday ones too, complete with carefully set tables and impeccably brewed coffee. Mommy had forced me to take
Home Economics
in high school for the sewing, which I had been rotten at, but I had excelled in cooking and entertaining. Maybe I was nervous around Betty Sterling, but I wasn’t completely ignorant at a formally set dining room table. For the most part I had been a good wife, attentive to details, indulging Robert, spoiling him, just not loving him. At least not the way he had needed me to, the way he had been entitled to.

The way I had never stopped loving Luke.

I watched him now. He was wearing dark blue sweat pants and a long-sleeved white t-shirt, reading the newspaper, occasionally drinking from his coffee mug. This Luke was older than my college fantasies had been able to imagine, but he was also more handsome, as if time were his friend. Him and his trend lines. Despite its gray strands, the stubble on his chin gave him a more rugged look. The facial lines, the reading glasses, they made him look mature and wise. The cocky pretty boy I remembered had evolved into the confident beautiful man I cherished. Seated at the kitchen table like this the wheelchair was practically invisible.

But it was of course very real. As were the scars crisscrossing his body. I had touched them last night, caressing and cursing them at the same time, because they had saved him and failed to restore him.

“Just call me Raggedy Andy,” he had said last night. “All stitched together with floppy legs.”

Okay, so it was
Raggedy Andy
and
Little Orphan Annie.
I was still the luckiest woman in the world.

“You’re beautiful, Luke,” I had whispered back, reverently kissing the long scar that ran across the right side of his abdomen.

A long scar also ran up the middle of his back. The metal pins they had inserted to rebuild and support his vertebrae set off alarms in office building entrances and airport checkpoints he had said. Of course the wheelchair did that too.

“You’ve always had a thing for misfit toys,” he had laughed sardonically.

I wouldn’t lie to him and say that he was perfect. He wasn’t. Not anymore. His limitations were obvious. But in truth he never had been. None of us were. It was only that once upon a time he had looked the part.
Perfect.
The handsome nobleman with a kind enough heart to befriend a village peasant girl. If I liked
misfit toys
, it was because I understood them.

Betty Sterling could be right. Maybe I was just this odd little diversion. When it had come time for Luke to grow up, to get serious about his life, he had left me behind. Even if he hadn’t wanted to see me with Robert, the truth was he had discarded me; even including the infamous
it’s-not-you-it’s-me
line. I had made a lot of bad choices with those meaningless words reverberating in my head. It had taken me years to outgrow their impact.

So as lucky as I felt, I also couldn’t help but feel a little—well a lot—cheated too, and yes, residually jealous. I coveted Luke’s years that were also Christina’s. The children she had raised with him, the homes she had made for him, it was all hers. Every success and failure, every happiness and heartbreak.

How long had they been together? I knew from my own experience that big weddings took time to plan. Since they had married so soon after he had broken-up with me, he must have been seeing her while we were together. So in fact Luke must have been cheating on me with her all along. Although maybe I had only assumed exclusivity. I could never recall if we had been explicit about it. In those days mutual monogamy for typical heterosexuals couples had not been a matter of life or death, just one of devotion, or at least respect.

On the verge of wrangling insecurity out of rapture, I got up from the table and went to get the coffee carafe. It was time to change the subject.

“Thanks, babe,” Luke said to me as I refilled his coffee mug.

I smiled at him. Let bygones be bygones, right? So Luke had betrayed me once, why dredge up something hurtful when I could choose to be happy? Luke had made a life without me, and technically I had done the same without him.
Technically.
And now he was back.

This morning I was wearing a pair of his pajamas, because my clothes from yesterday were tumbling around in his washing machine. During our college days, my chest measurements would have prevented me from wearing Luke’s shirts, but over the years he had built up and I had slimmed down, resulting in his pajama shirt being roomy enough for me even at the dreaded bust-line button. The green cotton pajama cloth touched me all over comfortably, affirming for me that what had happened last night was completely real, that I had spent the night in Luke’s bed, in Luke’s arms. And now we were having coffee in matching mugs and sharing the newspaper. There was even whole-wheat toast, although minus the wire rack and the jam was blackberry. It was absolutely better than a dream.

And if a wheelchair must be a part of it, then so be it. If the whole reason I finally had this second chance with Luke was because Christina had abandoned him when he had needed her most, then so be that too. If I was only here because I amused him, entertained him, like his mother had said, if I helped him to feel better about himself, then okay. The only thing that mattered was that I was getting to love him again. That I was having my Saturday morning with Luke. I smiled again and gazed contentedly out the kitchen window.

“You can tell me,” Luke said. “I won’t tell anybody.”

I hadn’t noticed but he had lowered the newspaper, removed his reading glasses, and was now watching me.

“Tell you what?” I asked, my smile rivaling the Cheshire cat’s.

I was in a kind of
Wonderland
after all.

“What you’re thinking,” Luke replied. “Why you’re smiling.”

Because God really does answer prayers
, I thought but did not say, even sometimes granting us the desires of our hearts. Such a confession would merely sound corny to a
social Christian
like Luke. He’d be very polite about it, he always had been, but he would think I was naïve.

“Afterglow,” I replied coquettishly instead, choosing to sound sexy instead of grateful.

“It doesn’t have to be
after
yet,” he said, a small smile tugging at the corners of his gorgeous mouth.

I beamed at the not-so-subtle invitation, eager to climb into his lap. Perhaps he would allow me to touch his penis this time. Last night when I had reached for it he had moved my hand away.

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” he had explained.

As if that could have possibly happened. He had brought me to multiple orgasms until I had been little more than a clinging, quivering mess. Now I completely understood the
hype
.

“But I want to please you too,” I had whined.

“You do, baby,” he had reassured me tenderly. “I swear you do.”

“Did you…” I had stumbled. “I mean…”

“When you’re kissing me,” Luke had helped. “Especially on my chest, but everywhere really, I get this sensation, like an ocean wave coming over me, only it’s warm and it feels good. It feels wonderful.”

Perhaps that should be enough, but I still wanted to touch his manhood, wanted to feel it inside of me again even if he wasn’t able to drive it there on his own. I supposed it was a joining thing, something about our bodies locking together in this primal sacred way. I had read enough to know that Luke probably couldn’t ejaculate anymore, so I wasn’t worried about getting pregnant, and besides I had an IUD now. I was just greedy and wanting everything. But I wouldn’t rush it. I’d bide my time and have every single bit of him when he was ready to give it to me. I couldn’t bear the thought of his manhood, or rather this most basic symbol of it, being left out of our lovemaking forever.

“Even though my children have fur,” I now playfully deferred. “I do have parental responsibilities. Their little kibble bowls are probably pretty empty by now. And the litter box is—”

“Got it,” Luke laughed, holding up his hands to stop me. “No need for details.”

“But I could come back later,” I offered—hopefully.

He wheeled his chair closer and kissed me, and I savored the taste of the Kenyan dark roast on his tongue.

“The Grecian Urn for dinner?” he suggested, slipping his hand underneath the pajama shirt to fondle my naked breast.

With the wheelchair I supposed his hands could never be soft again, but then again perhaps a man’s shouldn’t be. Luke’s hands were hard and warm, and my breathing changed. Agatha and T-T would be okay until lunchtime. They’d just have to be because I was the one
starving
again. I would plan better for them next time.
Next time.
It was already the
next time
.

“Can’t you make us grilled salmon like before?” I countered as my dark walls throbbed in hot anticipation. “I’ll bring the wine.”

“And something suitable for church tomorrow?” he wanted to know, pulling me to sit in his lap.

He was asking me to spend the night again! With my pajama-clad legs draped over the right wheel of his chair, I giggled in his ear as he rolled us back to his bedroom.

“Absolutely!” I replied.

.

TWENTY-TWO

M
ommy warily picked at her starter salad with her fork as if the Longhorn Steakhouse I had persuaded her to go to was not to be trusted. Mommy was a creature of habit for the most part, just as she had raised me to be, and this wasn’t Red Lobster after all, so she was sulking. A little amused by it, I watched her turn over a romaine lettuce leaf that she had coated in ranch dressing.

“I don’t think the salad is fresh,” she complained as she moved the examined and rejected leaf to the rim of salad bowl.