“I’m not going anywhere,” I told her firmly.
“Okay then, here’s what I’ve never told anyone, and then, I really need you to go, and I’ll see you at work in the morning.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“You wanna know my story, Holst? You wanna know why I’m so fucked up?”
“Kather—”
“When I was fourteen, I fell in love with an older man. He took my virginity, and we carried on a relationship for just over five years, until he left me when I was twenty.”
“Katherine, please…I—”
She dropped her fork to the plate and continued. “I had to keep it a secret, but I knew what I was doing. I went into it knowing exactly what dating an older man meant, but I loved him, Holst. I loved him in a way I’ve never loved since, and probably never will again.”
Her head dipped lower, and though her voice didn’t betray the emotion, I watched her tears hit the table and plate in front of her while I remained silent through her colossal admission.
“He was loving where my dad was cruel. He told me I was beautiful, inside and out when neither one of my parents ever had a kind word for me. I told him my dream of having my own café, and he told me never to let that dream die, and never, not once, did he make me feel useless.” She raised her head, eyes glassy with tears. “I asked him if he would come back for me. I gave him…everything,” she said as she shook her head, and, in her utter disbelief, told me what I already knew. “He never came back.”
And that was when Katherine fell apart. I had no idea how long she’d been holding onto that pain and the secrets that kept it buried, but telling me was huge, and the catalyst had been the berating phone call from her dad.
Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but to me, it felt absolutely right when I moved to her, one arm behind her back, the other beneath her knees, and carried her into the bedroom.
Katherine
The door was wide open, the bed unmade, because I’d been up before the sun that morning. I’d been nervous, because it was Bear Claw’s first day. I lived alone; I could be a pig if I wanted to. But at the moment, I didn’t care about my bed. I didn’t care that I was being carried in the arms of this man, my business partner, an acquaintance who I’d just shared my deepest, darkest secret.
Part of me wanted to scream each and every emotion I was finally allowing myself to feel for the first time in years, but all I could do was weep.
He laid me in the middle of the bed with such care, so gentle, his touch feather-light as he carefully undressed me. I had no energy to fight him, and, more importantly, I didn’t want to. I was so tired of carrying this burden, this pain…
Tired of being alone.
“Holst?” I asked, the raw sound of my voice sounding foreign to my ears.
He stood at the side of my bed and undressed. His shoes and jeans first, followed by his boxers. As he pulled off his tee, starting at the bottom and lifting it over his head, the evening summer light bathed his naked body in a warm, pink glow.
“Shh,” he cooed softly.
“Mark…I mean, Goya…he’s a good man. Despite the attitude he gives off, he really is a good guy. I knew he was in love with me. I pushed him to say those cruel things.”
He kneeled on the side of the bed and situated himself beside me, lifting the sheet over us both, brushing his knuckles over my cheek.
“No, baby,” he said, letting his fingers drift through my hair. “He wasn’t what you needed, and you knew it. Even worse, so did he, but instead of admitting defeat, he threw it in your face, and his aim was true.”
I didn’t acknowledge what he said, but he was right.
“Why are you here, Holst?” I asked quietly.
He pressed his naked body against mine, the feel of him, strong arms, lean body, muscular thighs…just enough hair on his chest to make him the ideal man for me, and the beauty of his cock the answer to my hedonistic prayers…it was as if I’d found the perfect fit.
He pulled my hand from under my cheek and laid it against his chest. I let my fingers slide through his hair, feeling the planes of his body when he said, “It isn’t just that my cock gets hard when I see you; it’s not just sex. It’s that my heart starts beating faster. Probably for the first time ever, just the thought of you makes my heart beat faster, Katherine.”
“You hardly know me,” I replied to his amazing statement.
He lowered his forehead to mine and took a breath. “I have to ask you something, baby, and I need you to tell me the truth.”
“Okay,” I nodded and closed my eyes.
“How much older was he?”
For the first time ever, I felt shame about my past when I told him, “Fifteen years.”
I felt his heart begin to race, but outwardly, he remained calm. “This man had you at fourteen. That would’ve made him about thirty?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Did he tell you he loved you?”
“All the time.”
“Do you understand he was a predator?”
I didn’t answer him.
“Katherine, he preyed on a girl—”
“It wasn’t like that, Holst.”
He moved his head to look at the ceiling and then came back to rest against my own again.
“I’m a thirty-six year old man. The idea of taking the virginity of a fourteen-year-old, no matter how close she is to fifteen,” he breathed. “Jesus. Imagine for me…and I need you to look at me…now.”
I didn’t do as he asked.
“Open your eyes so I know you hear what I’m saying.”
“Please stop,” I begged quietly.
He then requested calmly, “You opened the door for me, now let me the fuck in.”
At those words, I opened my eyes.
“Imagine,” he began quietly. “Imagine we’re at the shop and a group of girls come in after school. Imagine I say to you, ‘See that girl? She’s probably a freshman. I bet I can get her to fuck me. All I have to do is tell her she’s beautiful, earn her trust, tell her I believe in whatever the adults in her world don’t. Daddy issues? Even better. I can train her to do and say and obey my every word.’”
“Stop,” I sobbed.
“To understand a predator, you have to think like one, and I might be able to appreciate the beauty of a younger woman, but I would never fuck a child, Katherine.”
“I can’t…let him go,” I sobbed, and when I did, he wrapped his arm behind me and pulled me even closer.
“Listen to me,” he said gently, taking care, being firm when he needed to be, because he knew it was the only way I’d hear him. “This is you, and this is me. We have an obstacle standing in the way of an ‘us.’ I want this, whatever’s happening here, I want it, and I believe you do, as well. Am I wrong?”
“No,” I replied. “You’re not wrong.”
“Then you should know, I will be relentless in my pursuit of you and in the destruction of that obstacle.”
“Why?” I whispered again.
“Because I’m about to claim you, to make you my Katherine,” he whispered against my mouth. “I’m going to slide inside your body, and when I do, there’s no turning back. I tasted you and plan to do it again…often…and I will not abide any other man to eat you, to fuck you, or make love to you as I plan to do right now.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“Tell me you understand,” he demanded.
“I understand.”
“When the time is right, you say the words, and you do so without fear and without that other man in your bed. I will not share you with his ghost.”
I swallowed as my body shook against him, but I nodded my consent.
“And when that time comes, if you let me fall in love with you, Katherine, you have my word I will never leave you.”
“Fuck me,” I begged.
“Not tonight,” he replied. “Tonight, I show you how a man makes love to a woman.”