DITW 12-8: Orpheus (Patreon)

Kimmy said, “I can’t be absolved for sins I haven’t committed.”

And Josh made no expression of surprise or objection, staying stone-faced. He said, “Consider the sin your repentance.”

The meaning seemed obvious, and yet she wouldn’t allow her acknowledgment. Salvation had always been something she would have to concoct; a scheme she would lead Josh into for his own sake, a path lined with cushions and bumpers. “I’m not sure I understand, Josh, but... Things with Devlin have become too complicated. I can’t do what I think you’re suggesting. You see, this is why I asked you to trust me. That was only a few days ago. What happened to you?”

He shrugged his defeated shoulders. “I wiped the cobwebs away. I see things differently.”

“I’m a spider to you?”

“You spin webs, Kimmy. Without the cobwebs in the way, I can see who spun them.”

“You’re the one spinning webs right now, these aspersions coming off your tongue.” She narrowed her lips in an expression of grave personal injury. “You think I’m trying to get away with something, but all of this is for you.”

“All of it’s for me,” Josh said somberly, “piece by piece, minute by minute, all until it’s too late and I’m immersed, or trapped, or—”

“I’m not trapping you. I don’t want anything for you but good things. Things you want. . . . Devlin wants to hurt you, Josh. I want to save you. I want you at peace and cared for.”

Josh said, “I want the bad made good.”

“What bad, Josh? Holy fuck.”

Josh did that hurting chuckle again, closing his eyes, and she knew what he would say before he said it, unsure how she would respond if he did. He opened his eyes again. “Kimmy, I know you fucked him.”

She blinked and stared as a bottomless chasm cracked open under her footing. She stood stunned and unsure; steady but swayed and wary. The room swam around her stillness.

Was it a trick? If she didn’t fight back, if she didn’t object, would Josh confirm her sins without having to listen to her lies? Was this Josh’s way of ferreting out the truth? Could Josh be so diabolical?

An unexpected calm eased her while what she dreaded most faced her down. They stared at each other like Hong Kong gunfighters. The statement hung in the air, a challenge; a binary blade of time that stretched on and on, yes or no, yes or no, but no answer was good enough. Confirmation or denial were lies or confirmed treachery. And yet the casual ability to obfuscate or to misdirect was played out and worn thin. The available options had attenuated to a single-file path where only truth could remain.

She said, “Did Devlin tell you that?”

Josh acted like he hadn’t heard her. “If you don’t hide it, then it’s for me. If you keep it hidden, it was always for you.”

“This isn’t a game anymore.”

Josh shook his head, and she saw a glimmer of contempt she wished she hadn’t. “I’m not sure it ever really was.”

“Then what was it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, frustrated, gesturing with harsh hand movements. “A charade, a, a play, or...”

“It’s all a game, Josh. We’re playing it.”

Josh looked at her, studying her. She didn’t shrink. “You love it, don’t you? That’s got to be it.”

“I love what?”

“Cruelty, torment. Humiliation.”

“I wouldn’t love it, Josh, if you didn’t love it, too.”

“You said you love it. You like the humiliation.”

“You grant it to me. Right? I don’t do it without your permission.”

“And that’s why we’re here. Mid work week, in a ritzy hotel-suite Devlin booked for some big-shot businessman. A place where you told me the terrible things that happened like they were no big deal. I’m granting you more and more. I grant you everything.”

“And I manifest everything,” she said, more harshly than she’d intended. She softened, touched her neck and looked away from Josh.

He said, “If I told you I love it, then do it for me. We both love it.”

She muttered, “Then there would be no sin at all,” and stared at the floor, seeing all she’d ever hoped for appear before her like in a dream; an escape route. It was all too good to be true, and she couldn’t believe Josh had offered it. Such a devilish temptation. An apple in supernal Eden. A trap.

She looked up and steadied her eyes on his. “This sounds like Devlin, not you.”

“Kimmy,” Josh said, extending his hands to her, looking tired. Like all this talking had run him ragged. “He’s not here. It’s just you and me. You and me alone in this hotel room we’ll never see again.”

“A hotel room you’re not even supposed to know about, Josh. How can you come in here and present all this to me?...”

“Kimmy,” he said again, still standing with his arms held out, encouraging her to come to him. “I want you back. I want you returned. I don’t like where we are.”

There was nothing in his eyes but honest need. Something happened then, a rolling wave enfolding her, Josh’s invitation doing something tremendous to her emotions. The way he stood, the stigmatic pose, the agonal gaze. His eyes throbbed with hurt, and he pleaded for salvation.

Her own eyes swelled with emotion, probably going just as pink as Josh’s were. She strode to him and plunged into his embrace. Josh folded his arms around her.

His voice was low and strained by emotion. “I want everything to be like it was. I want you back.”

Her chin was on his shoulder, eyes staring into the bedroom, at a bed she might sleep with Devlin on. Even though it was the last thing on her mind today, Josh wanted it. Needed it.

And she needed it, too.

Not the indulgent sexual pleasure Devlin provided, but some sort of perverted rapprochement for the man she loved. And had betrayed.

She said, “It can’t be the way it was, Josh.”

“Why not?” His voice now had thinned to a reedy croak.

She stepped back, dabbing at her eyes with the pads of her ring finger. “It’s not there anymore, Josh. We can’t be there anymore.” But before he interpreted her words as a cancellation, she continued, “I want us together. I want us tighter than ever. We’ve been dancing around each other. I’ve been afraid to tell you things and you’ve been afraid to tell me, too. Afraid to admit what you crave. Fully crave. Tell me your secrets. I’ll grant them. I’ll grant them in trade for your love. I want nothing more than for us to buy a house, for us to have a family”—she lay her hand on her chest—“that’s the only thing I think about these days.”

He said, “I don’t care about a house. I don’t care about material things. . . . But I want you... And I want a family, too.”

She pressed her lips together to prevent a broader smile from spreading across her face, the broad smile likely leading to a bubbly divulgence of what lay within her belly. The life that grew inside her was Josh’s.

She said, “But, Josh, nothing has changed. Nothing will have changed. I told you you had to trust me. I told you you had to let me figure this out.”

“Figure what out, though, Kimmy?”

“I’m talking about me and you.”

“You can’t figure us out only by yourself. You’re not going to consider me? That’s not fair. You know I consider you. If you consider me, then you have to listen.”

She tried to reason with him. “But when I listen, you say things like sin is penitence. Zero times anything is zero.”

“That’s it exactly. Zeroed. I’m offering a zeroing to you. But while I’m offering it, you need to know that I need it. I can’t go on without it.”

They stared at each other a foot apart. She reached for his hands and took them.

He said, “If I said you knew I wanted it before I did, would you understand?”

Her lips pursed into a dimpled, disbelieving line. “And the sin is the penitence.”

Josh said, “Zero times anything is zero.”

She dropped his hands and staggered away, putting her wrist to her brow like a Victorian lady seeking a fainting couch before imminent collapse. She laughed at herself then and went to the same window from where Josh had peered down onto the street below. Idle shoppers with idle lives walked the streets in busy fashion, upscale Torontonians darting from storefront to storefront, shopping bags packed with luxury goods. She chewed her cheek, then turned to face him again.

He was ready for her, saying, “If Devlin walked through that door, would you do it?”

“Take absolution.”

“Get absolution.”

Josh had defused so many of her arguments. There was no more she could say. No more schemes or lies to be spun from her devilish mouth. It hung agape and her eyes darted like they looked for an exit. But the exit was right before her, rolled out red-carpet style by the very man she wanted preserved. She said, “You know I only ever want the best for you.”

“Even when you sinned.”

She didn’t know how to respond. Josh didn’t want the truth. She would deliver it to him now, as hard as it might be, but his ears didn’t want to reconcile such heresy.

She said, “Is Devlin coming through that door?”

“If he does, what will you do?”

“Did you go to him last night?”

“I wouldn’t go to Devlin for the antidote to any poison. I’d rather die.”

Her shoulders relaxed and her posture slumped. She sagged, her knees supporting her weight, one hip shooting out. “You’re crazy, Josh. You’re so crazy.”

“And you drove me to it.”

“Don’t try to wound me,” she whispered.

Josh put up his hands, waist high, showing his palms. “I’m not trying to. Listen, Kimmy, I can’t go on the way it’s been. I can’t go on knowing unconfirmed truths. I want them wiped away. I want them wiped from my mind. Erased from the books. I want them to exist like they were mine—like they were always mine. That the things you did, you did for me and not for yourself.”

“I said don’t wound me. I would never in my life want to hurt you.”

Josh put up his hands again, left them there, speaking softly. “Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe. I can’t think. You have me twisted in knots. And I know I like it. Or at least I think I like it. Or at least you think I like it.” His hands dropped to his sides.

“You do like it, Josh,” she said. “I wouldn’t do it if you didn’t like it.”

He turned away, but then turned back and stepped toward her. “That’s it. That’s what I want to hear. That’s what I need to hear—”

“But, Josh—”

“Kimmy, please.” He held her upper arms, adamant eyes on hers, firm but not strong, wavering, on the edge of defeat. “You don’t know how it’s been. The pain I’ve hidden from you.” He bit his lips, and she got the sense he was ready to cross a line he’d feared to cross, knowing he couldn’t go back to the other side once over it. “I followed you downtown. I followed you downtown to The Royal York one night and lurked and suffered and wondered what could be happening up in those luxury suites behind my back. You alone with Devlin up there.”

Her heart began thudding, imagining the ensuing pages of Josh’s surprising new story, one revealing a tale where he’d known her sins this whole time. “You did?”

His eyes dipped. “I felt small and like I didn’t matter and...”

When she squeezed her eyes shut, they leaked. Tears went down her face in quick rivers. “You matter more than anything.”

Josh could barely speak, his throat pinching his voice tight. “I always knew what you were doing, but I told myself it wasn’t true.”

She bit her own lips, preventing them from blubbering as more tears streamed. She touched his cheek, stroked it. Then she offered him his own escape. “That was part of our game.”

Josh answered in a rush. “It was, right?” His voice had cracked, his eyes bleary and pink. He was crying but keeping it together, his cheeks blooming red swatches.

She nodded, then opened her mouth to speak, but only a quiet, pained cry escaped, one she cut off, embarrassed by what it revealed.

Josh’s kiss came with sudden surprise, more welcome than any gesture she could remember. They kissed, and the more they kissed, the more she needed. Their abrupt connection, one that arrived in a moment where she felt lost with him, close but drifting apart, raced her heart. It came on a tender reed, the delicate and caring touch of his lips like an innocent but urgent request.

The request grew more heated when Josh sensed her desperate kisses in return. Her hands went to his neck, and Josh’s went to her waist. They staggered until her back touched the partition wall next to the archway between lounge and bedroom. She rubbed his warm neck, stroked his chest, grabbed the lapels of the tailored suit jacket she’d bought him. Their kissing didn’t stop. It grew more heated, their breaths scoring through their nostrils. Josh pressed his body against hers, pinning her to the wall. It was masculine and resolute, but still unassertive. His hard bulge pressed into her stomach, and it surprised her. But how would it surprise her? Shouldn’t she expect it? This was who Josh was. And it was proof of Josh’s determination. This was no longer some timid ruse where he cajoled her into playing along with the things that lurked in his shadows. He was done playing around the edges of the fire, and now he was sure he could walk barefoot through it, his hardened soles ready to brave the coals.

New love blossomed in her heart, bright green buds flowering in pale pink. With it came a soaring desire to please him. To reward him. To grant to him the things he feared he wanted.

And to do it would make him whole.

She grabbed his erection through his pants, and he tightened and groaned. She kissed him harder and Josh’s lips grew mushy as she controlled him with the grip she held on his stony member.

“I hate him, you know that,” she whispered, stroking her hand up and down, turned at an awkward angle. “I always have.”

“I want you to release me. Can you do that?”

“I’d do anything you asked, Josh.” The flat of her forehead rested against his, the tips of their noses eclipsing. “Do you love me?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love you.”

Josh could be here if he hated her. He could be here to do her harm. Here for revenge. Here to humiliate her in return. But Josh didn’t have malevolence in him. Josh didn’t think the way she thought. And that was why they were both here. She’d brought him here, hungry and wheedling for the dark things he craved. And offering salvation in exchange. It was the very same thing she’d sought all these last days and worried how she’d get it.

She saw him in a whole new way. Still the same man, but one buoyant with a strange honor, a strange perseverance. A true dedication to her. And she felt the same way for him, despite the bad she’d done. She’d never wanted her man to hurt. The moment Devlin shone his devilry Josh’s way, the game had changed.

So much wickedness arrived through her own hand, but Josh had imbibed it with a dark thirst. Had her badness come first, and Josh’s acceptance spoiled to some sort of rotten enjoyment just for the sake of survival?

She was sure that wasn’t it. Josh hadn’t adapted to her. She’d adapted to him.

In his eyes right now, she saw hope. And in those churning, hopeful waters swam murky shapes of the hurt she’d caused him. Josh never deserved any of it. Her hands went to his cheeks, and she kissed him once more, this time slow and tender.

When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “Do it now, and it won’t matter if you’ve done it before. And I won’t ask you. The sin is penitence.”

She closed her eyes and touched her forehead to his again.

The sound of the room’s electronic door lock clacking was like a gunshot, and at once her stomach flinched and her chest tightened with dread. These were the sane responses.

A raunchy greed slithered down low, lusty snakes in concertinaed twists and coils. Familiar yet so unexpected. Welcome, but repudiated.

If this was Josh’s thirst, she would slake it.

They both turned to the opening door.