Tears flowed as I stared at the wall, a strange sorrow gripping me. I had dreamed again of loss and betrayal and it colored my day grey and dark. My husband would be home soon, and he would see my sorrow. My heart ached, for I knew it would hurt him to see me sad. It always did. He loved me so, this beautiful man I had married. He knew and understood the grief and the pain in me, and he forgave, always. Yet I could not forgive myself for the broken past that haunted me, nor for the intrusion of that grief and pain on our beautiful life together. I was ruining it. I knew it. Still these dark moods swept over me, and I knew they came because in my heart I was tainted and undeserving of the deep love my husband gave to me everyday. Yet despite my revulsion of myself, I yearned for his comfort, his forgiveness, and the love he always gave so freely. I cried with my own shame as I yearned for him to return home.
He knew I was sad today. I had called him, mostly to warn him because it seemed so terribly unfair to ruin his day with my foolishness without warning. At my tenth apology he had sighed wearily saying, "It's all right, there is nothing to forgive." The resignation in his voice as he hung up triggered more fear and a certainty I had driven away the only man I had ever loved, who had ever loved me. I had cried again at that, and cried still, aching and grieving with the certainty of my own unworthiness.
The key sounded in the door and I leaped to my feet, brushing the tears off my cheeks and out of my eyes as if the hideous red swelling of my face would not betray what he already knew, that I had been crying most the day.
He looked at me, and I saw rejection and loathing in his eyes. But he pulled me into his arms and held me softly, kissing the top of my head with the tenderness I had come to expect from him. I knew then the loathing I saw was my own imagination, as ever, born of my inability to forgive my past.
He sighed deeply, then gripped my shoulders and pushed me away from him gently. He looked into my eyes and I could see resolve there.
"We are going out," he said. Surprise made me stare at him. He usually pampered me when I was sad, holding me close, and telling me over and over that everything was fine, that I was ok. This stern resolve of his was new, and suddenly I was curious.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
His shuttered look worried me as he turned back to the door he had just entered. "Out. Are you ready?" I grabbed my purse and left with him, riding silently in the car.
After a few seemingly random turns, he handed me a long black silk scarf. "Tie this around your eyes," he said.
"What?" I stared at him again.
"Just do it," he said, exasperation coloring his tone. So I tied it, wondering what the surprise was and hoping he wasn't taking me to a fancy restaurant because I wasn't dressed for it. After a while, the car stopped.
"Stay there," he said, "I'll come around." He opened his door, and I waited, ears straining. Then my door opened.
"Will you trust me?" he asked. "You know I will never hurt you."
"Of course I trust you," I said, turning to his voice, reaching to pull the blindfold down. He caught my wrist and stayed my hand. I felt a cold bracelet, then heard the clicks of a handcuff closing against my wrist. He pulled me out of the car, kissed my lips softly, fleetingly, before he turned me around firmly, grabbed my other hand, and handcuffed me behind my back.
What the hell? Shock rooted me to the spot. I would have stared if I wasn't blindfolded.
"What are you doing?" I demanded, startled and starting to feel a little scared.
"Trust me," he said again, softly in my ear, before he pushed into my mouth something that I could not spit out. Cold shock iced my veins when I realized it was a gag. Anger followed by fear stung my eyes with tears. I whimpered. "Silence!" He commanded, giving me a hard pinch on the back of my arm. I cried, but kept silent. Trust him, he had asked. He had never harmed me, and I chose then to trust him, despite my fear and confusion. A weight was placed on my shoulders, and I realized he had draped a long coat over me, pulling the hood over my head. I heard him rustling in the car, then close the car door. He grabbed my elbow firmly, but not hard, and walked me forward. I closed my eyes behind the blindfold and walked with him.
I knew when we went inside, though we never paused in our walking, I could feel the difference in the air, and hear the people around. He stopped me, and I heard elevator doors open and we stepped in. By this time my heart was pounding hard and fast, and the gag in my mouth was starting to get uncomfortable, but not painful. The elevator opened and we walked out, his grip on my elbow guiding me through turns and finally to a stop. He opened a door, then guided me through it. It felt like a room, quiet and still.
"Sit." He said, his voice still hard, and cold, and commanding, twisting my heart with fear. I sat. Then he took my leg and moved my foot about a twelve inches in front of me and handcuffed my ankle. My other foot was placed in front of me, about two feet apart from the first and also handcuffed. I sat, unable to lean back, my feet spread apart and bound to something in front of me. I tried to pull my feet back, but they failed to move. My husband removed the gag from my mouth, and while I loosed my jaw he said in the same cold hard voice, "You were crying today. Why?"
"Why?" I repeated dumbly. Silence answered me. I waited but still there was no answer. Finally I said, "Because I was sad."
"Not good enough. Have a better answer when I get back." The coldness in his voice scared me, and he left the room. The tears stung my burning eyes, dampening the blindfold.
I sat in the silence for an eternity. The only sound was the heater warming the room. I shrugged the coat off my shoulders, too warm to wear it. My heart pounded hard and fear twisted me. He hated me, I had driven him to this. This man had only given me love and I was so despicable, so vile, so unable to release my demons that I had driven him mad with my crying and my fears, and how I never fully let go and opened up to him, too afraid the taint within me would curdle his love. As it had.
My heart lurched and tears soaked the blindfold. I sobbed, hunched in the chair, my hands bound behind my back. Unable to even wipe my nose, I sniffled constantly, vainly praying I would not look disgusting when he returned.
He would return, he must return. Trust him, he had asked. But what was he doing? Why had he left? Not good enough, he had said. What wasn't good enough? I wasn't good enough. Of course, I knew that, I had known it all along. Yet even as I thought it, I knew I was lying to myself, twisting his words. He loved me, my husband, he would never say I wasn't good enough. What had he said? He would return, he had said, and something else.
Have a better answer.
The memory doused my tears in a cold wave, as if ice had been injected into my veins. Have a better answer.
Something slid a little inside my head. Suddenly I wanted to please him. A better answer. Maybe a better answer would mean he wouldn't leave me again in the awful silence of this overly warm room.
Why had I been crying? That's the answer he wanted. Why had I? I thought hard, my brain racing, fearing now that he would return before I had a better answer than because I was sad. Sad at what? My shoulders were beginning to ache and my back hurt. I tried to lean back, but that only crushed my hands. No amount of shifting eased the discomfort. It must have been forever since he had left, or maybe it was just a few minutes. Still I had no better answer.
