Chapter 28: Forgiveness

Andre spent the next day and night with me, and we ran out of condoms at one point, providing an excuse for us to rest a little while after hitting the pharmacy. We had drinks at the local brewery, then walked around one of the lovely redwood forests for an hour or two. Andre ate my cunt behind some fallen trees, and I blew him to completion right after.

By the time he had to leave, I was rather sore. Andre’s girth was something I wasn’t used to, certainly not multiple times over a short period, so I suppose part of me was okay with a little separation.

I’d fallen fast and hard, though. Moments not spent spreading my cream onto his covered cock were used to lose ourselves in questions about ethics and morality in Victorian plays, the responsibilities of authorship, and the ways fiction can direct reality. I loved those minutes spent talking with Andre almost as much as I did fucking him.

Over the rest of the two-week period with Lacy out of the house, Andre came over several times, though he didn’t stay the night but once more, his son being the excuse for not sleeping over. I guess I understood. He was trying to set an example, and while being out late in the evening was normal, not sleeping at home might have drawn more questions than Andre wanted to answer.

I opened up to him a little bit. Not everything, but I told him, in general terms, how I’d come to blow my chance at Harvard and then moved to California for a fresh start. He was understanding, offering me encouragement, assuring me again that I should consider UCSC, that he could easily get me admitted despite any past issues. The tone of his encouragement, however, quickly changed.

Something in me resisted him before I realized what was happening, and it took a long time to understand there was a deep need Andre was filling in me, one I’d not really known was there, and one I wasn’t certain was healthy to feed. It wasn’t just the sexual release he granted me, or even the intellectual stimulation. I think I started to really look up to him more and more, less an equal and more like a niece and uncle, or, I thought, father and daughter. It honestly started to feel a little creepy, even to me. It wasn’t any one thing Andre was doing, it was more the way he tried to guide my life to get me back on track, forcing my inner adult to struggle with either doing as he wanted or letting my stubborn streak win out. The little girl in me, the one who’d lost her father years earlier, submitted for a couple of weeks and I was taking steps, despite my reservations, towards following Andre’s lead, the man as much a father figure as a lover, and all-too-quickly so.

I suppose if I would have known about littles and daddies and that sort of fetish play, there might have been a thrill to things by taking those feelings to the extreme, but I didn’t. By the time Lacy and Harrison came back from their trip, less than two weeks since the first time I’d slept with Andre, the struggle in me was well underway, even if, consciously, I thought I was happy and content to let Andre direct my life.

Over the next few weeks, Andre had me do all the paperwork for admission, and I dutifully followed along. He organized meetings with decision makers, and I reported as directed. He started commenting on the clothes I wore in public, and I adjusted to meet his desires.

I’d latched on so hard that I couldn’t pull back far enough to decide if I liked the me I was becoming with Andre. It felt okay, mostly, but I started to strangle a bit, like I needed space. I flaked on a date with him one night in mid-September, then another a week later.

To make it up to him, I offered him my ass for the first time.

To my surprise, Andre declined. He simply wasn’t interested. No, it was a stronger rejection. He acted mildly repulsed, lecturing me on the sanitary concerns with all things anal. By the end of that night, after he fucked my puss, still wearing condoms despite my even earlier offer to let him take me bareback, I was questioning my own enjoyment of anal, or anything else beyond the vanilla sex with Andre, which was, unfortunately, beginning to grow stale. Yes, he was a powerful lover, but his routine never changed. He used the same moves, the same order, the same three or so positions. Even when I tried to suggest a different rhythm or new location, coming on to him in his car or in the kitchen, we were pretty soon back into his regular grove, in my bed. The first weekend intimacy in the forest was a decidedly-singular aberration.

I started orgasming less and less with him, despite the fact that, on the outside, I’m fairly sure I was appearing more and more taken with Andre.

Like I said, inside, I was struggling, and only slowly did I really begin to acknowledge our relationship was not going how I’d hoped.

It wasn’t exactly easy to talk about these thoughts with Andre, either. When I describe him as becoming a father figure, it was almost like his need to protect and guide me grew in priority. He lectured or corrected or spoke to me as if the only decision needed was his and not mine. You will get this to him today, yes? Or, I won’t take you to that, it’s not worth your time. Or, You can’t eat that and keep your figure. Yeah, Andre shamed me for eating a cheeseburger.

Like a dutiful daughter, though, for weeks I didn’t outwardly resist, but through September and into October, I began to talk more and more to Lacy about what I was feeling. She encouraged me to talk to Andre, but when I tried to bring it up, each time he found a way to firmly convince me that I was misunderstanding things and that he always considered my thoughts and he really didn’t want to run my life for me. Usually right before suggesting that I’d put on a pound or two and might consider buying a new blouse which fit me better. The term gaslighting wasn’t in my vocabulary just yet, but Andre was a classic gaslighter.

I don’t know why I put up with it for so long. A burning pit formed so slowly in my stomach as to be missed until October, and by that time, Lacy was actively encouraging me to end it with Andre. She noticed changes in my behavior, that I had no more energy for things, that, while I hadn’t descended into the morose depths of the days post-Geneva blowup, I was slipping lower and clearly unhappy.

And then Elise came back into my life and set everything spinning off in a new direction.

The call came one evening in mid-October, after I’d worked a long shift and was relaxing on the porch with Lacy and Harrison, the two still enjoying their monogamous but casual relationship. Lacy answered the phone in the kitchen, then walked back out, looking a little pale. “Uh ... Carrie ... it’s ... it’s Elise...”

I felt my stomach tighten into a sour knot. “Wh-what?”

Lacy nodded, eyes tilted in sympathy, confirming I’d heard her correctly. “I’ll tell her you’re not here, okay?”

I stared silently at my friend, no idea how to proceed. Maybe it was the growing resentment I had for Andre, and for myself, which tempted me to reopen that wound. Maybe, like I had so many times, I needed some terrible spark, no, a roaring, blazing fire to cleanse me, some tragic surprise to send my life in a new direction. I never did seem to get the hang of easy segues through stages of my life nor of the partners sharing time with me. “No,” I told Lacy, standing on shaking legs, “I’ll ... I’ll talk to her...”

“You sure?” Lacy asked, tilting her head further as if she needed to know if I really knew what I was doing.

“Yeah ... sure...”

I went inside, my fingers trembling as I picked up the receiver and put it to my mouth and ear. “Elise?”

The line was silent a moment, so long that I called her name again. A gentle, feathery voice said, “Carrie?”

“Yeah...”

“Hi...”

I don’t know why I just went there, but I felt like she was in trouble, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Elise said slowly, drawing down her tone at the end of the word. “I, uh ... I got your number ... from Donnie...”

I didn’t respond, not sure what the hell was going on or why the woman I loved harder and hurt deeper than anyone in my whole life wanted to talk to me after so long, after what I’d done to her.

“I ... I don’t really know why I called, Carrie ... I ... I guess I just needed to hear your voice right now. Like ... I just need to know ... I just need to know you’re okay, you know?”

“Yeah,” I answered, raspy and dry, “I know ... I’m okay...”

“I, uh ... I heard from Donnie what, uh ... what Geneva said ... about me, and you ... I stopped seeing her a few weeks ago...”

My lip quivered. I knew Lacy was watching me from the doorway, but I ignored her. “Was it true, Elise?” I asked meekly.

“What do you mean?”

“Geneva said ... she said ... that you weren’t over me...”

Silence again and I waited, my heart thumping, my throat so dry that I covered the mouthpiece with my hand and tried to clear my throat. By the time Elise finally spoke, Lacy had passed me my glass of wine and I’d swallowed the rest of it.

Elise’s voice was light and soft and plaintive, “I’m not over you, Carrie...”

I swooned. And not wholly in a good way. That old wound, the one I’d delivered to our relationship as if with glass shards and a rusty axe had never healed for me. To hear that Elise, too, still suffered from it was not a pleasant understanding. I began to sob and Lacy put her arm around me. I finally blubbered a reply, “I still love you...”

Elise was crying on the other end and it was some time before she sniffled and blew her nose and found her voice again. “I just want you to know ... I didn’t call to get back together, okay? I ... That’s not why I called...”

“I know...” I whispered, though part of my brain had already latched on to that long-desired possibility.

“I called because ... I’m going to be near your place in a few days ... I’ve got two seminars at Berkeley on Saturday and Sunday, but ... I’m flying out Tuesday morning...” She blew her nose again and I did the same. Elise continued, almost whimpering, “I just ... hoped ... I just need to see you again, okay, Carrie? I’m not wanting us to go back to ... how things were ... I just ... I miss you so much...”

I was bawling again and I told her, “Okay ... yeah, okay ... I ... I want to see you, too ... more than anything...”

“Right, um, so, I...” Elise said, trying to formulate a sentence, “I’ll call you ... maybe ... Monday? I ... Maybe we could meet up ... if that’s okay...”

“Perfect,” I told her, more enthusiastically than anything I’d said in weeks, “that would be perfect! Oh, Elise ... yes, please come see me...”

“I will, I promise ... just, Carrie?”

“Yeah?”

“I meant what I said ... I didn’t call to try to get back together, okay?”

“I know,” I mumbled quietly.

“I hear it in your voice ... you hope otherwise...” she told me.

I didn’t tell her that, despite her clear statement, I could hear the same when Elise spoke. “I just need your friendship, Elise ... that’s all I want right now...”

“Alright ... and I need your friendship, too ... Monday, then...”

“Monday...”

She let out a long sigh, sniffling, “I still lov—” Elise stopped herself before completing what would have been the happiest sentiment I’d heard in a very long time, instead correcting her words and stammering, “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay...”

I hung up the phone and Lacy wrapped me in a hug. She’d heard most of the conversation and she knew the impact it had on me immediately. I cried gently against her shoulder and she shushed me quietly until I got myself together and wiped my nose, apologizing for drooling on her sweater. Lacy drew me a hot bath and I shed my clothes as she left the bathroom, soon sinking into the silky, soapy water and letting myself try to relax.

Elise. That one word, that one name, held the weight of all my worth. All my highest highs, and, even more certainly, my lowest lows. I’d destroyed the trust she had in me, destroyed a friendship and a tender loving union I’d been chasing ever since. I thought for sure there was no more Elise in my life, but my world had changed in one five-minute phone call. Elise had called me. I had always assumed it would be me trying to claw back our friendship, our love, and I’d come close many times, never quite allowing myself to do so. The guilt I had, the shame, the horrifying self-doubt I’d created for myself by breaking my promises to Elise were much easier to bury in my past than to consider reliving by making contact.

Yet, my former lover, my former love, had felt the need to make sure I was okay. That I was still alive, still willing to speak to her. As I soaked in the bubble bath, I felt my shame and guilt turning sour, more so than usual. I should have been the one to reach out to her, to apologize again and again, to offer anything to make things right, not that I ever really could. That she thought of me, that she cared for me, enough to swallow the hatred she must have had for what I’d done to her, enough to call me and ask to see me ... I didn’t deserve Elise one bit.

I’m not over you, Carrie.

That hit me so hard and I cried until I had nearly sunk low enough to drown in the tub. Lacy knocked and came in, “Oh, Carrie ... Sweetie...” She wrapped an arm over my shoulder and held me, kneeling down, until I was able to pull myself up and step out of the tub. Helping me into a robe, Lacy handed me a couple of pills to help me sleep, then covered me up when I crawled into bed. Whatever was in those pills, it shut me down quickly, though my dreams gave me no respite from my emotional agony that night.

The days until my planned reunion with Elise were difficult and long. I worked, I went through the motions a couple of evenings with Andre, submitting to him and, as was typical in those weeks, didn’t orgasm. I faked them, though, not willing to let Andre see what our sex life had become. To him, I had devolved into his pet, of sorts. An ersatz daughter who somewhat-reluctantly welcomed his intimacy. Not that there was anything suggesting incestuousness in our relationship, but I could not shake the sense of father and daughter in the way he had largely commandeered my life by that point. If I wasn’t at work, chances were good that I was doing whatever Andre had told me to do, be it reading certain authors, filling out new admissions forms, or, as happened the day before meeting Elise, turning onto my back, rolling on his condom, spreading my legs, and letting him pound me until he filled his rubber inside me.

I didn’t tell Andre about the call from Elise, nor did I explain how I was to meet her on Monday afternoon near Berkeley. I knew it was an act of rebellion, a personal boundary I’d failed to tell him existed between us. He’d consumed so much of what I used to think of as my own life that I was fighting back, in this small way, protecting what little I could from his constantly-growing domination of my decisions.

I took Monday off work, Lacy hanging out with me that morning as I restlessly paced and told her about Elise. Not that I offered anything Lacy hadn’t heard a dozen times, but I felt the need to explain things, again, to my friend. She listened politely, never offering advice but instead, just provided a friendly ear for my nervous recitations of happier times spent with Elise at Bitterwood.