Him and Her Chapter 1

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Chapter One

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It was his last cigarette.


He looked at it sadly as he fumbled for his keys. He wanted to leave as quickly as he could, but first he needed a cigarette. Placing it between his chapped, pink lips, he lit it; reaching with his right hand he started the car, an act of instinct, and then shifted it into reverse, leaving her behind.


The night air felt crisp on his face, the lights of the city shining every few blocks like beacons beckoning him away from her house. The lights pulled him towards them, promising him better things, warmer places, as soon as he was away from her.


Her.


Her and her indecisive feelings. Feelings that drove him literally insane, wanting one thing and then something else. Back and forth, back and forth, she bounced, never once asking him what he wanted or how he felt. In her middle age the one person she thought about most was her. She was running out of time, she had said. Children must be in the future, and with him, there was no future.


Him.


Him and his uneasy feelings. Feelings that drove her crazy in the middle of the night, sweat dripping, nails scratching down his back, her body pressed against his, torso to torso, but the same feelings that they felt together in the night didn’t exist to her when the sun rose and she was kicking him out of her house.


His last cigarette was almost gone. This didn’t make him happy, but nothing made him happy. Nothing made him happy but her.


Her skin as soft as the finest silks he insisted on buying her. Her beautifully golden skin.


Her.


She drove him insane with everything that was uniquely, unquenchably her. Down to her very essence no one was quite like her. She was her own being, her own creative, talented, sexy, beautiful, undeniable being.


He could not deny her.


With each phone call at two a.m. she drew him closer to her. He would speed to her, comforter her, love her, make love to her, and then as the sun began to rise, he would leave her. He would do all of this for her, at her request. As he would quietly shut her bedroom door as he had done over and over for three years, she would slowly tear his insides apart. He’d give all he had, all he was and now he was without any of it.


She had taken everything promising so much, but now he was speeding away from her just a hallow shell, a mere shadow of the strong vibrant man he had once been.


She had made him who he was today.


A bitter, cynical, irrepressible man who had hardly anything to live for anymore.


She didn’t love him anymore, she had said as he left that night.


Anymore.


She said it as if she had once loved him with an unimaginable passion. She said it as if she had once loved him so much she couldn’t breathe without him around. She said it as if she had once loved him as he had loved her.


A love so strong willed it took over his being, made him say things, do things he wouldn’t do. A love that made him want to give her everything he had, everything he was just to feel her lips upon his, just to have her hand in his once more. Over and over. A love that was only to be compared to a drug, so addictive so strong, it over took his every sense and over ran his soul. A kind of love that made him, the unobtainable bachelor, want to be a marrying man.


He doubted her love.


He hated himself for doing it, for doubting her, but he truly doubted her love. She knew nothing of this kind of selfless love. She had treated him as a child’s plaything for what seemed like an everlasting amount of time, and now she would dare to say that she had loved him. She dared to say that she knew what love was.


How?


How could she know this thing? This selfless act of undiscriminating feelings that over took him when she was near?


She couldn’t, he told himself.


She couldn’t.


He knew it.


He knew that she couldn’t, he kept telling himself because with each syllable, with each breath he almost believed it.


Well he didn’t love her anymore.


He didn’t want her anymore.


He didn’t.


He didn’t want…


Her.


Her, who tore him from limb to limb and then kindly asked him to leave, his blood dripping onto her beautiful designer carpet from where he was torn by her. How could she ask so much of someone and not be willing to give it in return? How could she act so … so unlike her? So unlike the women he fell in love with all that time ago.


His thoughts were tangled inside his mind to such a sever degree that he no longer saw the lines of the road. The lights were blurs that spread from one side of the road to the other, each white line spread across the road intermingling with the yellow line on the other side. A car horn made a rude noise protruding into his thoughts, trying to awaken him to the dangers that surrounded him, willing to take his life. His hands seemed to know the roads better than his eyes as they guided him to safety at a stop light not far from her house.


He jumped at the feeling of something moving by his leg.


His phone, on vibrate. He couldn’t help but ignore it. Lifting it to where he could see the screen he read the hopeless name.


Her.


Her and her never ending need for the love he possessed for her.


He took the phone in his hand and took a much needed deep breath.


“ ‘Ello?”


“Come back. Don’t leave like this.”


She was saying exactly what he wanted to here.


“I’m on my way.”


He took the very last drag off his cigarette and threw it with a certain amount of ease out the window. He was turning a quick U – turn to speed back to the very place he’d come from, his mind which had only moments before been filled with thoughts of dismay and compelling unhappiness, was now anticipating her conversation. He could not wait to see…


Her.



His key slid smoothly into the lock as it had so many nights, so many times, but he couldn’t think of one time it had done so in the morning. This was uncharted territory for him and oddly enough he was less eager and more nervous than he thought he would be if this had ever happened. He’d played this situation out in his mind many times as he crawled into his bed across the city after a night filled with her.


Softly he scaled the stares with ease. Her door was opened just enough that he could see her sitting up right on the bed, her white sheer night gown glistening in the light of the very early morning. The thin strap of the nightgown had slid down her shoulder causing the front to gape a bit and expose most of her small breast. Had he been coming to her aid in the middle of the night that small amount of exposed flesh would’ve been high on his list of things to explore, but in the dim light that surrounded her, the only thing he wanted to explore was her mind.


He couldn’t understand why she had asked him to come back, there were so many things he wanted to say to her now, things he’d been waiting for the perfect moment to say.


He stood in the doorway and watched her. The expression on her face was one he rarely saw, one of guiltless existence. It was an expression of peace.


“Simon, I didn’t want you to leave for London with the last thing I said to you was that I didn’t love you anymore.”


She said it without even turning her head to meet his eyes. She just continued to gaze at the wall, acting as if she was afraid to face him.


Slowly he made his way across her room to her, shedding his coat and letting it drop to the floor, falling next to the garments she had been wearing when he first arrived. He sat beside her, but couldn’t bring himself to touch her.


“Well… what do you want to tell me?”


“Simon I did love you.”


Did.


He knew it.


“Paula, I guess, I just-“


“I was so afraid to tell you.”


She turned to look at him and that’s when he saw the shiny tracks left by the tears she had cried in his absences. Seeing her so vulnerable he knew he had to reach out to her. He had to touch her, comfort her in some way, the only way he could. He leaned in and kissed her softly on the shoulder. Her body tensed with the contact of their skin, but after a few seconds she gave in and tilted her head inviting him. His lips touched every patch of skin between her shoulder and her cheek until he reached her lips.


“Paula, I don’t care if you love me.”


“Why?”


Her eyes were opened wide, questioning him.


“Because I know that I love you. To me, that’s all that matters.”


“Simon, it’s not enough.”


“For who?”


She paused and began to again gaze at the wall, her head turned slightly away from him.


“You deserve someone who can let you in… and I-“


“Can’t.”


“Si, I just-“


He couldn’t listen to her anymore. He kissed her. Her mouth opened and granted him permission to enter. Slowly she laid back on the bed and he began to feel her pulling him closer to her. She kissed him with such an urgency, something he’d never felt from her. It was a feeling as if she needed him to kiss her. She needed him to kiss her one last time before he left her.


Her.


Oh the things she had put him through, pushing him away time and time again, and then calling him back each time.


Her.


Her and his need for her.


Simon loved her.


“Paula…” he whispered gently.


“Yesss…” she answered in a hushed voice.


“I love you.”


She turned over and let him hold her.


He placed his head behind hers, pulling her as close as possible before they drifted into a lazy sleep.


“I love you too..” she whispered, hoping he would hear, but knowing he was already giving into his body’s great need for sleep.


But he did hear.