When he got home, Nick grabbed himself a beer and planted himself in front of his x-box. He raced cars and killed aliens and drank more beer. He mulled over the scene and questioned his own actions. Had he come on too strong? He didn’t think so. They had been working up to this for a month and Grace had seemed as eager to get there as he did. He remembered her whispered, “Yes, please”. And then more of her words came back to him. “I’m not very good at this.” At the time he had been concentrating on other things and had passed it off as mere modesty on her part, but now he wasn’t so sure. He blew up the alien mother ship and headed back to the fridge.
And should he have left? Did he panic? She told me to go, he thought. Yeah, well, you were pulling all your clothes on at the time, whispered another part of his brain. After several more beer and a futile attempt to slay a fire-breathing dragon, Nick threw down the controller and staggered off to bed. He barely got undressed before he fell face down on the bed and passed out.
When his eyes creaked open the next day, he tried to focus on the clock. Eleven something, he thought. He ran his tongue around his mouth. Yuck. He felt like the dragon had slept in his mouth. He hauled himself up and stumbled to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and drank several glasses of water, tossing back a couple of extra-strength Tylenol. He stood under the shower and gradually his mind cleared and he remembered why he was so hung over. Grace! Oh my God, what had he done to her? He wrapped the towel around his waist and headed for his phone.
"Style and Grace. Good morning." Grace's voice sounded hoarse and nasal.
"Hey there," whispered Nick softly. He could hear her tiny gasp.
"Hey," she breathed back. They were silent for several seconds, absorbing each other, re-establishing a connection.
"Are you okay?" he ventured tentatively.
"Well, I look like hell," she said, softly. "My eyes are so puffy, I can barely see the monitor. How about you?"
"I have a hangover the size of Utah," he answered back. There were several more seconds of silence. Then they both spoke at once.
"Nick, I..."
"Grace." He rode over her words. "Bathing suit, beach bag, towel. I'll be there in twenty minutes. We'll talk about this in the water." And he hung up before she had a chance to turn him down.
Grace gathered her things together and went downstairs. She didn't want him to come up to the apartment. Neutral territory was definitely called for until she knew what he was thinking. She couldn't believe how she had panicked last night. Of course, there seemed to be a little bit of that going around in both directions. All in all, a very confusing and hurtful night. She prayed it could be fixed.
Grace chatted with Jermaine for a couple of minutes while waiting for Nick. He inquired after her health, was she feeling all right? Grace knew she looked like hell. She wondered what Nick would think. She saw his car pull up. She said goodbye to Jermaine and went out the door. Nick got out of the car and came around to open the door for her. She looked up at him. He looked as bad as she did. He must have been thinking the same thing because he smiled and touched her face by her puffy eyes.
"We're a right couple of movie stars, aren't we?" she said tentatively.
Nick put his finger on her lips. "No talking. We aren't going to talk yet. We're just going to be."
Grace nodded her agreement. Silence she could do. She had a lot of practice at that.
"But first, you need to know this," he said, and he leaned down and kissed her. Her heart soared.
"Not on the street," she whispered into his mouth.
"Sssshh," he whispered back and kissed her some more. Then he opened the car door and helped her in.
She thought they would head for the marina, but they didn't. Nick drove for awhile and pulled into a driveway. Grace had no idea where they were. She looked at him questioningly.
"It's a friend's house. The boat would have been better, but it would have taken too much time." He got out of the car and came around to her side. Together they walked up to the house. House was too small a word for the mansion they were standing in front of. Nick rang the bell. A middle-aged housekeeper in a grey uniform opened the door.
"Senor Nick," she said. "Come in, come in. He says you go right out to the back. You got your car?"
Nick handed over the keys and led Grace by the hand through the house and out the back. Grace tried to catch a glimpse of rooms as they went by, but Nick set a very determined pace. She caught snatches of rich looking leathers and wood. They went past room after room and then suddenly they were outside, standing on a cement patio that would have allowed a football scrimmage. Steps from the patio led down to rolling lawns. A large swimming pool was visible from the patio.
Grace started in that direction, but Nick stopped her. "Ours is that way," he said and went down the steps and across the lawn. They walked through a garden full of beautiful flowers and plants and turned a corner around a hedge. In front of them was a smaller house - guest house, Grace figured - and another pool.
Nick led her by the hand up to the door of the house. He opened it and took her inside. He showed her to the bathroom and handed her her bag. "Get changed. Meet me at the pool."
Grace quickly changed into her bathing suit. She had no idea where she was or what was going on. But Nick was obviously in charge. She left her clothes neatly piled on the bathroom counter and went outside.
Nick was already in the pool, doing laps. She went over to the shallow end where there was a set of wide steps. She dipped a toe in - of course, the temperature was perfect. How could it not be in this location!? She walked in up to her waist. Nick saw her and swam over. He took her hand and led her into the deep water. It felt so good. She swam out and then did a surface dive going all the way to the bottom. She surfaced and shook her head, smoothing the water off her face with a hand. Then she started swimming, up and down the pool. He swam beside her. Up and down. Up and down. Not racing each other, just keeping pace, slow and steady. Up and down.
Grace kept this up until a twinge in her right ankle told her she had done enough for the day and she abruptly pulled up. Nick stopped immediately.
“My ankle,” she said, “I think it’s had enough for now.”
Nick swam to the stairs. He sat on the bottom one, in water up to his neck. He motioned for her to sit beside him. He leaned back so that his head was resting on the step and his body was floating in the water. She did the same and they lay together for awhile. His hand reached out and took hers. They entwined their fingers.
"Tell me," he said. "Tell me what I did wrong last night."
"Nooooo," she whimpered. "It isn't you. It's me. I can't...I don't..."
"Is it because of the...?" Nick did not want to say the ugly word.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Did you want to be with me?" He looked at the sky. Please, God.
"Yes," she wailed in anguish. "Yes, I did. I do. You should have just kept going. I would have been fine."
Nick pulled himself to a sitting position, bringing her with him. Without letting go of her hand, he stood and walked up the steps out of the pool. Grace had no choice but to follow him.
Nick grabbed two towels off the table and handed her one. They spent a minute drying themselves off. Then he took Grace by the hand again and led her to a lounger sitting in the shade. He made her sit down on it. He walked up and down in front of her, opening his mouth and then closing it again, as he searched for the words. He stopped and looked down on her.
"Listen to me, Grace Barrett. I don't want you to be 'fine'. I don't want you to 'let me' do something if you can't handle it. Don't you get it? I love you." Nick dropped to his knees in front of her. He took her face in his hands and said each word slowly and clearly, "I...love...you."
The whole world disappeared. The gardens, the pool, everything but him. All Grace could see was him. She put her fingers up and touched his face, to make sure he was real. She closed her eyes and then opened them again, afraid that in the interval he would have disappeared. But he hadn't. He said it again, "I...love...you."
Grace nodded slowly. Her fingers moved over his face. She couldn’t make them be still. By touching him, she could keep him real. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. She tried again, but nothing happened. It was okay, though, because Nick could read her lips. He could make out her ‘I love you’s as clearly as if she were singing them. They sat together saying it over and over to each other, holding each other’s face in their hands, until finally, her words had sound. Then his mouth covered hers and there was no sound again for a few minutes.
Nick moved back from her. He sighed. Monumental, stupendous, fantastic, but...
Grace sighed too. This was going to be embarrassing. Talking about sex was not easy for her.
"Did you and Matt...?" Nick did not know how to start this conversation. He sure didn't want to start it with another man's name, but he couldn't see how else to begin.
Grace nodded.
"But, how?"
Grace's voice was a whisper. "He just kept going."
"But Grace, didn't he know you were afraid? Didn't he know you wouldn't like it?"
She nodded again. "Yes, but..."
I am going to kill him, thought Nick. Kill him dead.
Grace took a deep breath and stood up. "Nick, this is going to be embarrassing and hard for me to say. But I am going to try, because we need to get over this. I need to get over this. So please, hear me out. Don't interrupt me. Okay?" Now she was the one pacing back and forth.
"Back when Matt and I first started going out, I didn't want to do anything. I was afraid to be touched. Matt was very patient with me, just like he was when I wouldn't talk. And gradually, he got through to me. I was able to hold his hand and let him kiss me and kiss him back. And it kind of went on from there - touching and things. And eventually, we got to the point that you and I were at last night. I could do everything but..." she paused. "But I...I didn't want him inside me."
Her shoulders started to shake. Nick made a move to stand up, but Grace shook her head firmly and held up her hand. "He understood and we found other ways. We used our hands...our mouths." Grace stared at the ground. "But he really wanted to. He told me that our love wouldn't be complete until we did it...that way. And he tried persuading and cajoling and even threatening to break up with me. He even tried to get me drunk once."
Dead. Dead. He's dead. The corners of Nick's vision were bright red with anger.
"And I wanted to. I wanted to get over it. I wanted to please him. And I tried. We would make love and I would think 'I can do this. Tonight, I can do this', but at the last minute I'd say no."
She was silent for a moment. She raised her eyes to his. And in a small flat voice, she said, "And then one day, he just lost patience."
I am going to kill him. I am going to kill him. Nick fought to keep his anger under control. He was afraid he would take it out on her. Don't move, he told himself, don't move. He nodded at her because he was afraid to speak. Go on.
"He told me that I wasn't the only woman in the world who didn't like to have sex, that I wasn't the only woman who had ever been raped and I should take the opportunity to have a man who really loved me erase that memory. He told me that I wasn't totally frigid because he could make me...um...have an orgasm..so as long as I was getting mine, he should be getting his. And he didn't just want it the way I was willing to give it to him. He wanted to be part of me. And that with time, I would learn to enjoy it." She paused. "And so I stopped saying 'no'."
Grace knelt down before Nick. She picked up his hands and looked deep into his eyes. “And I wasn’t trying to say ‘no’ to you last night. You should have just kept going.”
“Kept going?” Nick jumped to his feet and shouted at her. She recoiled from the power of his voice. “Grace, last night I saw terror in your eyes. Didn’t I? Tell me.”
She nodded.
"And you did not want me to...be inside you, did you?" He tried to control his voice, but he couldn't.
"I...I..."
"Did you ever get used to it with him? Did you ever learn to enjoy it?" He was shaking.
They looked at each other. He took her face in his hands. This time, he whispered, "Did you?"
Slowly, she shook her head. "No."
"And can't you see what a betrayal of our love that would be, if you did something like that or worse, 'let me' do that when you really didn't want to? When it frightened you?"
"But I want us to be together. I want us to try. I want..."
"We'll get there. We will. But we are going to take this ever so slowly. We will spend the night together. We will be naked. We will drive each other crazy. We will satisfy each other. We will do as much as you want. But only as much as you want. Do you promise me, Grace? Only as much as you want. Do not think you will be pleasing me if you do something you do not want to do. Do you understand?"
She nodded. "I promise."
"Good," he said with finality. He dropped his hands from her face.
"Nick?" She picked up his hand. "You know that part about driving each other crazy."
"Yeah," he nodded.
"Could we start now?"
******************************Nick took Grace by the hand and led her into the house. She followed him into a bedroom at the back. He walked over and pulled back the covers. When he turned back to her, she was naked. He pulled off his swim trunks. They stood facing each other.
Tentatively, they reached out and with their fingertips they touched each other's face, then neck, then shoulders. Grace stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around him. She kissed his throat and his chest. His erection was pressed between them. This time, it was her turn to push him backward to the bed.
Nick lay down on his side, making room for her. They faced each other and touched each other all over, testing the limits. He slid his fingers between her legs and massaged her centre. He went to put two fingers into her, then hesitated. He looked at her face. Grace nodded. He moved his fingers in and out and then back to her pleasure spot. Grace reached down with her hands and stroked him, cupping his testicles. Then she slid down the bed. She kissed his chest and licked her way down to his navel. She used her tongue to circle it and dart in and out. Then she moved further down and put her mouth over him.
Grace used her tongue to circle the head of his penis. She continued cupping his testicles, gently rotating them in her hand. She sucked gently on him and then harder. Sounds came from deep in his throat. When she felt him nearing the end, she raised her head. She moved back up his body.
Grace moved close to Nick, placing his penis between her folds. She slid back and forth. Nick got the idea and pulled her under him. Then he moved back and forth over her, careful not to enter her. The friction of his wet erection against her center caused her to come almost immediately and with a shudder and a gasp, Nick was not far behind. His hips bucked and his juices spilled out onto her stomach.
Nick threw his head back and emitted a long, low moan. Then he looked down at her face, at her half-closed eyes, her head back, her lips slightly parted. He put his mouth close to her ear. "I love you," he whispered.
"I love you too," she whispered back, and felt like half a woman.
