"Jigsaw Puzzle Girl" Chapter 6: Talking

Chapter 6:  Talking

She jumped down off the bed and walked slowly towards the bathroom, pulling her white cotton nightgown over her head and casually dropping it to the floor.  Deliberately she put a saucy little swing into her hips as sauntered into the bathroom wearing only her flowered cotton panties.

Just as she swung the door to the bathroom closed she caught a brief glimpse of David’s face reflected in the mirror watching her little show.  He had one eyebrow arched and a broad smile on his face.  Monica was vibrating with nervous energy, her eyes bright and her face flushed.  She ran her hairbrush through her hair and looked at her nearly nude body in the mirror.  She forced herself to look past the tracery of scars and see the girl underneath.  She frowned at her tiny breasts, barely ‘A’ cup.  The only reason she wore a bra was convention.  There was no need for support.  Her nipples were small and the lightest pink. 

She turned and looked at her waist and butt; before she lost so much weight she had had a cute little hourglass figure but now she could see her ribs and her hip bones stuck out a little.  She had gained back a few pounds under Junie’s watchful eye, but the last couple of days it had been easy to slip back into her old pattern of ignoring her body.  She gave herself a firm look in the mirror, resolving to eat more.  She grinned as she felt her stomach gurgle as if in agreement with the idea.

For a second she debated wrapping a towel around her body to go out and find some clothes, but she shook her head and whispered to the girl in the mirror, “You took off that nightgown for a reason.  Don’t you chicken out on me now.”  Taking a deep breath, she put on a braver smile than she felt inside and pulled the door open and walked out into the bedroom.  David was standing by the bed, wearing jeans and a clean white undershirt.  He was holding her nightgown, gently running it through his fingers. 

Monica froze, her brazen smile faltered and slipped from her face.  Their eyes met and for an instant their eyes met and the world stood still.  David spoke first, he held up the nightgown, “You dropped something.”  And when Monica just stood and stared at him, he spoke more softly, “You are so beautiful.”

A prickle of goose bumps spread down her skin and Monica gave an involuntary little shiver.  She glanced down at her body and mumbled, “Still am pretty skinny.”

“Still beautiful.”

Suddenly feeling awkward, Monica moved to her suitcase and pulled out some clean clothes and quickly pulled them on, “Well, I want to gain some weight.  And I am starving.  You said you would teach me how to cook grits.” 

In the small kitchen he put his arms around her and whispered, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me see you.  For listening.  For loving me anyway.  For being so beautiful.  For being my wife.”

At that moment Monica’s stomach made a very loud growly gurgle.  She giggled, “You are welcome.  Here you are being all sweet and romantic and all I can think about is eating breakfast.” 

He gave her a little tickle, “Okay, I hear you.  Get that image of my sexy wife out of my head and think about feeding her.”  He handed her a box, “These are quick grits, as opposed to instant or regular.  Regular grits take a long time to cook, instant are… well, instant.  I usually buy these kind, they take just few minutes.  Read the directions.  It is not rocket science.  Just keep stirring and don’t get the heat too high.  Don’t burn them and lumpy grits are bad grits.”

The little kitchenette was cramped and they found they were frequently in each other’s way, but instead of being irritated, they found that they took advantage of the proximity to touch and lean against each other.  David quickly fried some bacon and then used the grease in the pan to cook the eggs.  Monica focused on stirring the slowly bubbling white grits.  “These look just like cream of wheat.  My mom used to cook cream of wheat for breakfast for me sometimes, when I was little.” 

“Well grits are made from corn but they don’t really taste all that different.” 

The grits tasted a little bland and privately she thought that she would have preferred hash browns.  She grinned a little when she watched David put hot sauce on his eggs and the grits.  “Do you put hot sauce on everything?”

He took a generous bite of his breakfast and grinned and nodded, “Most everything.”

Monica forced herself to eat a few more bites than she really wanted and drank a tall glass of whole milk.  She felt uncomfortably full.  “That was good.”  She looked out the window.  The wind was still blowing but the rain had stopped, blue sky showing between the ragged clouds chasing each other across the sky.  “Let’s go for another walk before it starts raining.  It will help me digest.”  She rubbed her stomach, “I feel like a snake that has swallowed something a little too big.”

David chuckled, “You can’t gain all that weight back in a day, Pretty Girl.”  He stood up and picked up their plates and put them in the sink.  “Don’t worry about it so much.  I would love you, skinny or fat.”

Hand in hand they spent all afternoon walking for miles down the beach, watching the waves for whales, sea birds, and seals.  When their legs got tired they would find a quiet lee from the constant wind, Monica huddling close in the warmth of his arms.  There were a few moments when the sun actually came out between the clouds and shown down hard enough that Monica could feel its warmth on her cheeks. 

After the intensity of their morning, they naturally fell into simpler, lighter talk.  David told her stories from his childhood in Louisiana, spending time on his grandparent’s horse ranch.  She learned he was the oldest of five children.  His father had worked oil fields in Texas, and they had moved frequently.  There had been many times that David and his brothers and sisters had been sent back home to Louisiana to stay with their grandparents while his mom worked to find a new place for them to live.  Monica could tell that in David’s mind, his grandparent’s horse ranch had been his anchor and he always called it home.  His grandfather had been a local sheriff’s deputy and a deacon in the church.  His mother had been a school teacher but had given up many jobs as she made a real effort to keep her family together, pulling them up and moving them to follow his father as he moved from one oil field to the next.  And then when David had been only eighteen his father had died unexpectedly of a heart attack and they moved back to Louisiana for the last time.

He had known Irene his whole life.  She had actually been a remote third or fourth cousin, and they had gone to the same church.  Shortly after being married, David had joined the army and had been trained to become a military policeman.  After being an MP it seemed natural to continue his education in law enforcement after he was discharged.  He worked part time as a deputy in the local sheriff’s department and took night classes.  He was recruited to join the FBI while he was still finishing his degree.  

Monica drank in the stories of his large and closely knit family.  It was an unfamiliar world filled with Aunts and Uncles, dozens of cousins, and innumerable more distant relatives.  Somehow the loss of his father, while obviously a significant tragedy in his life, was buffered by the large and loving family that came together and naturally took care of their own.  She had been an only child, the accidental result of an anonymous one night stand.  Her mother had been a foster child and there had never been any relatives and few friends.

Monica had filled her pockets with treasures by the time they had made it back to the long stair that led up to their hotel.  She sat down on the lowest step and hugged her knees up to her chest.  She pulled out a handful of rocks and was looking at them, “I never had any family.  I will never remember all those names.” 

“It will be fine.  They will be a little surprised at our age differences, but I know they will accept you just fine.  I will get a lot of teasing from my cousins about this, but they will be sweet with you.  To tell you the truth, I always got the ‘when are you going to find a good woman and get married again’ lecture from my sisters.  They were constantly inviting ‘really nice ladies’ over for dinner when I was in town.  This certainly has shut them up.  I imagine that the whole family is buzzing with questions at the moment.”

Monica froze, “You told them?”

“Of course, it’s a family kind of thing to do, Pretty Girl.  I called my sister, Susan, the day we were married.  She is the second oldest after me and has kind of taken over as matriarch.  She gave me hell about ‘eloping’ as she calls it.”

“What did you tell her about me?”

“I told her I had met a beautiful woman named Monica and fallen in love.  I said that we had gotten married and that we were on our honeymoon and that we would come visit once we figured out exactly when that would be.  I told her I was retiring from the FBI and that we did not have any specific plans beyond taking our time and having a wonderful honeymoon.”

“She didn’t ask about me?”

“Of course, she tried to find out everything about you, but I just told her she would have to wait and ask you those kind of questions.  I did tell her that you had not been married before and that you didn’t have any children.  She was most interested to find out if you were a good Catholic girl and came from a good family.” 

“Oh dear.”

David laughed and put his arm around her, “You are not the first non-Catholic girl a guy has brought home to the family.  I have kind of stopped worrying about what religion it is.  It seemed to me that god was there no matter where I looked for him.  I got into the habit of going to lots of different churches as I traveled with the agency.  Speaking of which, it will be Sunday day after tomorrow so we should look around and find a local church.”

Monica looked a little shy, “Um… okay.”  She and David had spoken many times about her beliefs.  He had never pushed her to change but had seemed interested in hearing what her thoughts and feelings on the subject were.  Her mother had sent her to Sunday School when she was little and had made her say her prayers at bedtime but after she had gotten to be a teenager she had stopped attending church.  She believed in God but beyond that she was confused and had a lot of questions.  The idea of going to a church filled with strangers seemed a little intimidating.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but it is a habit I plan to continue.  It would make me happy if you would come with me.”

“Could I buy a dress to wear?”

“Of course, but you will find that most churches are open to anyone and will welcome you.”  He chuckled, “But you are right, I usually put on my work suit to attend.  It just felt respectful.”  David shaded his eyes and looked at the sky, stood up, and held out his hand, “Looks like the rain is coming back.  Let’s head inside before we get soaked again.”

Manipulative

So expanding upon being a passive aggressive bitch and being cool.

I have been cool... distant.  I like that word distant.

Once a long, long time ago I heard, or read, or dreamed this thing about emotional distance in relationships.  There is this concept that each person in a relationship is comfortable with a certain emotional distance... some people need more, some people need less and in each relationship an agreed upon (either openly or tacitly) distance exists.  And if one person in this little game moves too close the other naturally backs away.

It is a dance, a cosmic dance with two hearts revolving around each other, a binary system, each drawn to the other, irresistibly attracted by love and desire; yet simultaneously trying to leave orbit for fear of crashing too hard against the other, kept at a safe distance by our own momentum and fears.

In most relationships there is a pursuer and a retreater.  I do know that when I withdraw 'He' pursues.  In the old D/s relationship he would have been all over me, physically intrusive but now, lately he has been disturbingly affectionate.  I have been on the receiving end of so many forehead kisses that I am feel a little sticky.  All unexpected, blindsiding nasty sarcasm has vanished.

I don't like it.

The whole dynamic, him being obliviously callous leading to me withdrawing causing him to pursue feels horribly manipulative.

I would love to be able to talk, to tell him how I feel but it has never worked, never ever once.  Trying to talk to him about how his behavior impacts my feelings is disastrous.  He denies that he did it.  He argues that I do not feel the way I feel.  He has in the heat of the moment, for the sheer sake of winning an argument has gone so far as to say he does not care how I feel. 

I would love it, if when he says something that hurts me, I could say ouch and he would say, "oops" and maybe even a "sorry" and then we could move on.  Because 99% of the time it is such small shit that I wouldn't even remember it for more that the minute it took to happen.

But his unholy love of arguing makes communication into a freaking minefield.    

If we could have a D/s relationship he could just declare what the rule is.  "Every Tuesday morning thou shall wash the garbage can with bleach and dry it manually with three paper towels.  Or, "I have decided that from now on you will not put any wet garbage in the garbage can ever again."  Clear, clear expectations.  Then if I failed to meet these expectations and he barked at me with that nasty, sarcastic tone, I would know that he intended to hurt me, to punish me, correct me.  And within the D/s dynamic, I would want that, want to be held to a standard.

But it is not a D/s relationship, and not once during the years of trying so hard to make it happen he never once stated his rules, his expectations.  Not once.

So without communication or rules, I am reduced to passive aggressive manipulative bitch.  It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

Comfortable?

Hard to believe it is already 21 days into this new year.  I am still managing to get some writing done almost every day.  Today I started scribbling on a little note pad when I would get a few free seconds here and there in the course of my day and I remembered how that cognitive shift would help me get over the rough spots of a day at work.  And oddly with a pencil and little notepad, with the sounds of upset children echoing off the rafters, the ideas flowed better than they have in a quiet house sitting in my most favorite of happy places.  Perhaps comfort is not the best catalyst for creativity.

Speaking of comfort... "He" really got under my skin yesterday.  It had been a good morning.  Comfortable.  I had slept well, my cold felt finally, completely gone.  It was garbage day, so I busied myself carrying all the garbage out to the cans.  At the bottom of the kitchen garbage can there was some really noxious liquid and I commented to "Him" as I was washing the container out, "Man there is something really stinky here."

And rather than sympathizing with me for having to do the dirty job, he said in a very accusative way, "Well, don't put the bag in it when it is wet."  He was seriously sarcastic and nasty.

Surprised by his tone, I turned from where I had put the clean can upside down over the sink to dry while I was at work and defensively said, "I wasn't going to.  Look, the can is drying out right now."

And rather than compliment me for the wisdom of my actions, "He" went "MMMM HMMMM" in a manner that indicated that he somehow did not believe a word I was saying. Nothing gets my back up quicker than being accused of lying, or being deceptive, nothing. 

What the fuck?

I got up in his face and said, "Exactly what do you mean by talking to me like that?" 

And that gigantic asshole went, "MMMM HMMMMM" again.

Looking back, I can tell he was wanting to goad me into a fight.  And "He" loves to fight.  And I don't often give him that very often anymore.

I left for work without another word spoken, but the tension was at max.

And I have been extremely cool ever since.

Because I can be a seriously passive aggressive bitch.

"Jigsaw Puzzle Girl" Chapter 5: Touching

Chapter 5: Touching

They sat, side by side, watching the television until late into the night.  The wind shook the hotel from time to time and rain rattled against the windows.  Monica did not know when she fell asleep but thin gray light came through the windows when she woke, curled on her side with David spooned warmly up against her back.  His hand was resting lightly on her belly, gently holding her up against him and she could feel his breath on the back of her head, gently stirring her hair.  Monica felt a rush of emotion, happiness and gratitude to David for his patience, and to her relief a soft sensual enjoyment of the sensation of his body against hers.

She gently put her hand over his and pressed it down, and snuggled back against him more tightly.  Her night gown had bunched up around her hips in the night and she could feel the bulge of his erection against her bottom through her panties.  David tensed and tried to move back but she held tight to his hand.  His voice was strangled, “Monica…”

Her voice was soft and warm, “It’s okay.  It feels good.”  Gently she took his hand and began to rub it in slow circles on her belly.  “I like that.”  She sinuously ground her bottom against his heat.  “Don’t you like the way that feels?”

His voice was tense, “Yes, but…”

She twisted around in his arms and touched her fingers to his mouth.  “Shhh… I want to make you feel good.”  She pressed her lips against his neck, and then whispered, “Could you take off your undershirt and…?  I want to touch you.”  She slipped her hands down to toy with the elastic of his boxers.

He was tense under her hands, “Monica, Pretty Girl, are you sure?  You don’t have to.”

“But what if I want to?  I love you.  This part of making love does not scare me.  It would make me happy to know that I made you feel good.  This does not feel like rushing, it feels right.”  She slipped her hands up under his shirt and ran her fingers through the soft hair on his chest.  She murmured, “Oh good, I like men with hair on their chest.”  She pushed his shirt up and rubbed her cheek over the tickly hair on his chest. 

David chuckled, “Enjoy the chest hair, Pretty Girl; I seem to have a lot more there than on the top of my head.” 

Monica tugged impatiently at his shirt, “I like your bald head.”

David awkwardly pulled his shirt off and Monica pulled back and looked at his chest.  His brown face and arms contrasted sharply with his white chest.  He had a light sprinkling of hair across his upper chest and Monica noted that a few of the hairs were white.  He had broad shoulders and a flat hard stomach.  She curiously touched the hair, and then leaned down and kissed his shoulder.  She could feel that his body was tense and she smiled softly as a tiny quiver shook through him.

When her lips traced down and found one of his nipples and gently kissed, she felt his breathing stop for and instant and she looked up to meet his eyes watching her.  She lifted her lips from him and blew softly on the damp flesh, and smiled softly.  “Pretty good shape for an old man.”

David did not say anything but his hands gripped her and pulled her face up to his and this time when they kissed there was a gentle urgency to his lips, and when she opened her mouth to him, his tongue was quick to meet hers.  He lay on his side facing her, and her head lay on his outstretched arm.  His other hand was gently twined in her hair, trapping her face to his, as their tongues met and danced.  His skin felt hot under her hand and as she stroked the palm of her hand down the plane of his belly she could feel the ripple of his muscles as a tiny convulsion shook through him. 

Her eyes were closed and still locked in their kiss; Monica let her hand slip lower.  Keeping her hand outside the fabric of his boxers, she carefully, almost cautiously she traced the contour where his belly met his thigh.  David pulled his face from hers and whispered hoarsely.  “Pretty Girl, exactly how far is this going to go?”

A tiny wave of nervous reluctance flowed through her, making her body tense but she pushed back at it.  “Could you just let me touch you, with my hand?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“David, please, I want to.”

David reached down and pulled the blankets up over them up to their shoulders and looked into her eyes, and then nodded.  She could sense his uncertainty and shyness and somehow that made her feel bolder.  She reached down and traced the outline of his erection through his underwear, and then pressed against him with the palm of her hand, gently pressing his hardness back against his belly.  She looked at his face.  His eyes were closed but his eyebrows jerked and he inhaled sharply the air hissing across his teeth. 

Tentatively she worked her hand inside the waistband of his boxers and curiously touched the spongy tip and lightly explored.  She was pleased to find that he was circumcised.  It was hard to maneuver her hand and she tugged impatiently at the elastic of his last article of clothing.  He lifted his hips, letting her ease them down but did not reach to help.  When the underwear were down around his thighs he settled back down and lay on his back, his eyes shyly closed, one arm still holding her cradled against his chest. 

Monica lay her head down on his shoulder and gently ran her fingers over the length of him.  She let her fingers measure his length and then wrapped around his girth.  He felt big, bigger than she had experienced before.  She resisted the urge to push down the blanket and look, but she sensed he needed this little bit of privacy to feel comfortable enough to lay back and surrender to her caresses.  She smiled secretly to herself; there would be lots of opportunities to explore further.

As she gained confidence, she wrapped her fingers around him and began to rub up and down, her movements deliberate and rhythmic.  She could feel his body tense and trembling.  Her arm was starting to feel some fatigue, the muscles aching and beginning to burn, when David reached down and covered her fingers with his own, squeezing them a little tighter and urging them to a faster pace.  A little rush of exaltation shot through Monica when he tensed and she felt the spasms of his ejaculation pulse under her hand.  His body sagged and a slow deep exhalation accompanied his release. 

She pulled her tired arm up and wrapped it around him giving him a fierce, happy hug.  “Thank you for letting me do that.”

David tried to talk but coughed and had to clear his throat, “You took me by surprise there, Pretty Girl.  I was not expecting that.”  He began to contort a little and Monica realized he was using the sheet to wipe up and then he eased his underwear back up.

“Did you like that?”

He stilled and she could feel him searching for words.  “It felt nice.”  His voice was a little neutral. 

“You didn’t like it.”  It wasn’t a question.  A soft wave of confusion and disappointment flowed over her body, draining away the feeling of happiness.  She tried to slip from the bed, wanting nothing more than to flee this suddenly embarrassing situation.  “I’m sorry.” 

David caught her and pulled her back to face him.  His hands on her holding her were gentle but very strong.  “I did not say that.  It just surprised me and I guess I was a little embarrassed.”  When Monica tried to turn away, but he held her and whispered, “Pretty Girl, look at me.  Don’t pull away.  Please, listen.”

She looked up at him, her lips quivering.  His eyes were very serious.  His voice was soft, “Ready to listen?”  When her head nodded reluctantly, he pulled her to his chest and began to speak.  “This is going to be a long speech, better get comfortable.”

Monica snuggled up closer, hiding her face against his neck.  She nodded and mumbled, “Okay.”

“I have already told you that the only woman I have had sex with was my wife, Irene.  I said that we were pretty conservative sexually and that we did not often have sex and that toward the end of our marriage we did not have sex at all.”  Monica nodded against his chest.  “We were both raised with conservative, strong Christian beliefs, Irene especially.  I know that does not mean that we believed sex was bad but neither of us had much information.  We only had conventional, missionary intercourse.  We were both raised to see sexuality as just a means of procreation and I think that somehow both of us felt like anything,” he paused groping for words, “…anything, creative, was somehow perhaps sinful.” 

Monica inhaled wanting to interject, to protest, but before she could speak, his arm tightened, his words stopping her.  “Please, let me finish and then I will listen to you.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you.  That was a long time ago.  After Irene and I grew apart, stopped being intimate, I started taking work assignments that kept me on the road a lot.  I learned a lot about the world but somehow had this opinion that the world was going to hell in a hand basket, that I was right and the rest of the world was somehow a decadent, sinful place.  I went through a lot of years feeling a lot holier than the rest of the people around me.”  His voice turned light and he drawled, “I had a hell of a big stick up my ass.”

Monica giggled.

“Then Irene got sick.  I came home to nurse her and be with her.  We may not have been close but, damn it, I still loved the hell out of her.  We had about a year together and toward the end there was no real reason to be stiff or shy.  Somehow having death sitting with you makes all that shallow stuff go away.  Irene told me how guilty she felt about never being ‘a good wife’ to me, and I realized that my thinking had probably been a way for me to deny my own needs and feelings.  Because the real truth was I did want to have sex, I had lustful thoughts all the time.  It was a very deep dark dirty secret of mine that I was the same sinful, decadent animal like all the rest of the world that I was so judgmental about.”

His arms held her tightly, preventing her from escaping as he said the next words.  “During that year, she was too sick to have intercourse.  But she offered to do what you just did.  I refused to let her touch me.  At the time I thought I was somehow being gentlemanly, gallant.  But now I know that I was denying her the chance to somehow show her love for me, to give me something.  It was only after she was gone that I realized I was being selfish, selfish and afraid.”

Monica was struggling in his arms, trying to talk, to apologize.  “David, oh my god, why didn’t you say something?  I wouldn’t…”

His fingers found her lips and covered her mouth.  He gently hushed her.  “I know now that making love is an important part of being in a marriage, that it is a way for people to show their love.  So when you asked if I liked it, I was still dealing with a lot of stuff, guilt about how I had refused Irene, shyness about my really wanting it, embarrassment about my body, and most of all difficulty admitting that I really liked it.  Hell yes I liked it.”

Again Monica tried to talk, “But…”   She tried to pull back, look in his face.

“Not yet.  I’m on a roll here.  I have just a few more things to get off my chest.”  When she had settled and her body softened against his once more, he continued, “So you see, I really don’t know anything about making love.  I think I only saw Irene without her clothing once in the whole time we were married.”  He paused and then took a deep breath; Monica could feel him strain to say the words, “So I don’t have a clue about how to be a good lover to you.”

He gave her a squeeze and then pulled her up to look in her face.  “And that’s about all of it.  Thank you for listening.  So, what was it you wanted to say?”

Monica sat there and stared into his eyes and blinked, suddenly and completely at a loss of words, “Um… um… I forgot.”  Then she began to giggle at the situation.  Impulsively she threw her arms around his neck and began to cover his face with little kisses, whispering, “I love you.  We will work it out.”

His arms gathered her up and gave her a fierce hug, and he murmured in her ear, “You are an amazing girl.  I am so lucky to have you.”  He chuckled a little, “You will have to teach me a lot.”

“As long as we keep talking and are honest, everything will be fine.  To be perfectly honest, I am not sure exactly how this patched together body is going to work anyway.  We will just have to figure that out together.”  Monica squirmed a little and began to untangle herself from his arms, “And right now this body is saying, must pee now!”