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CHAPTER 16 - ANNA
As horrible as it was, I loved the days after the accident. It felt selfish and mean to enjoy it. I felt guilty for enjoying it while he was in pain, but he was a different person when he was needy and depended on me. I was probably a different person too, being able to concentrate on helping him and making him comfortable instead of working against him and trying to make him uncomfortable as often as possible.
We talked and laughed as people, not as enemies. He even tried to show me how to play the banjo. The six strings were difficult to master, three sets of two, so they could be played as three strings or 6, or combinations in between. His fingers were far more delicate with it than mine, and maybe the fact he was in pain and needed to be more gentle, made him play more gently and soft, and be extraordinarily patient while teaching me.
I would help him to the main house to sit with his father, and he would thank me for the help and I would chide him when he tried to do too much. We were settled into a boring old married couple relationship. Though the desire was still there.
My favorite part was helping him dress- and undress, of course. Two days after he returned to the cabin, I changed the bandages on his wounds and decided he needed a bath.
“What do you think about a shower?” I asked him.
“Is it getting that bad?”
“How to be delicate here? I can live with it, but I’d rather not have to.”
“The lagoon then,” he said, “I can manage my way down there.”
He tried to get up and the pain stretched his face, I got the wheelchair out from the corner, he hadn’t used it yet.
“I’m not a cripple, I don’t need that,” he said brusquely when he saw it.
“You’re not a cripple, but this could help, or I could. You have to at least admit you need some help.”
He looked at me, and clearly I should have pretended it was his idea, or that he didn’t need help, that meanness of a wounded animal showed in his face. But he kept whatever he was going to say to himself, and allowed me to help him. An improvement.
He grabbed a small hand gun from near the bed, “Do we really need that?” I asked.
“I hope not, but better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.” He said.
I walked him the whole 43 steps to the lagoon, he tried to keep as much of his weight off of me as possible, but his face was twisted in pain, and I did my best to make him lean into me. Somehow we made it, and he rested on the sandy shore, and caught his breath.
“I think I can manage from here,” he said.
I laughed at him, “You’re too weak to walk here on your own, I’m not leaving you in the water on your own. Besides, I don’t get to have your body, but I will see it.”
I said the words in my best imitation of him, and he realized what was happening. “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”
“A little more than I should, but I do feel guilty about that.” I told him, truthfully. “Now let’s get you undressed,” I moved to help him.
I peeled his shirt off, delicately, but used every chance to run my greedy fingers over his body. His muscles were coiled like snakes, and when I got to his pants, they were bulging, but he was in obvious pain. I kissed him on the cheek, very unsatisfied, and he slipped in the water. The weightlessness showed in his face, he no longer needed to brace himself for every movement, every shift of weight, his face came back to normal, almost, and he was calmer, weightless as he washed, and floated.
“Soap?” he called out to me.
“Right here,” I smiled, with the soap in my outstretched palm. I deeply wanted to see him come out of the water naked, angrily walking towards me, but I couldn’t be that cruel. I knew how much that would hurt. So when he gave me the helpless look, not yet deciding whether he was going to walk out, or yell at me, I smiled and I slipped in towards him, undressing as I went, watching his hungry eyes. I felt his skin in the water as he grabbed me and kissed me, the warmth of his skin against the coolness of the water and the air. I felt the insistence of his cock against my thigh, but even here, almost weightless, pain tore at his face.
“Feeling better I see?” I told him,
“Starting to.” As he held me closer, and tried to lift me towards him, but he couldn’t quite make it.
“Rest up,” I told him. “You’ll need all your strength soon,” and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheeks, both of us disappointed.
At the same time, we both heard a car pull up outside the gate, and the gate open. His eyes turned to the animal again, caught in a moment of weakness, the gun on the shore, far away, we went still, listening.
We heard muffled voices and a single set of footsteps walking our way, Marcus waded slowly and silently towards the shore. But just as he reached the gun, Sal came through the woods, almost as surprised to see us as we were to see him.
“Sal? What are you doing sneaking around out here?”
“Not sneaking. Jackie is being a pain in the ass, my crew and his crew showed up at the same job. We’re trying to work it out peacefully, without bothering you in your current, difficulties.”
“Me and my difficulties don’t matter, I need to know these things and settle them before they become a problem. Come by later and tell me about it, in detail.”
“You’re the boss.” Sal said and walked off.