A highly emotional tale told in mostly first person, which amps the emotion. It's a story of Michelle and Larry Powers. It's the study of a marriage when when one partner is betrayed, no less by a mate from a past life.
Excerpt
TO LIVE AGAIN
Blood was everywhere. The smell of copper filled my nostrils and I gagged. My hands were covered with the warm sticky substance and my eyes burned with tears from the pain of leaving my beloved. One look at my husband Jeremy and the truth was evident. I was dying. His fear wiped away my own. I had to be brave for him. My dear sweet husband, my soul mate forever and ever.
He was holding me in his arms, his own hands covered in my blood. His tears ran freely down his brown cheeks as he struggled with what he knew but couldn’t accept. And he obviously ached from the knowledge, determined to heal me, unwilling to let me go. It was apparent our gifts would not help. In all of the world there was but one mystic with powers great enough to combat the inevitable, but he was too far away and my link with him was weakened by the loss of blood. I gazed on my husband. His pain was more than I could bear. I listened for sounds of the baby I’d just given birth to and didn’t hear him.
“Jeremy, the baby,” I said with all the strength that was left in me. “I want to see our son. He’s not crying. Bring him to me, please.”
For the longest time Jeremy didn’t move. He was holding me so tightly that the bones in his hands were pressing into the small of my back, revealing his desperation. He seemed determined to link with me, have me take from his life force to sustain my own. He would die for me. I knew that as surely as I knew I would never allow it.
“Jeremy, bring me our son,” I said, pushing him away from me. “Get the baby,” I cried, desperate to hold our son.
I waited, praying for just another breath. I couldn’t die before I touched my son, made sure he knew he was loved. I passed my hand over his limp little body. “Breathe, little one,” I urged, “breathe, and live.”
I stuck my bloody fingers into his small, silent mouth, pulling out the remnant of the hard birth he’d endured. “I love you, my son,” I cried. “I love you.” Then I gave him the only thing I had left to give, his birthright. My gifts.
“Love him,” I urged my husband, pulling him toward me, laying his hand on the son I knew he no longer wanted. “Promise me you’ll love him. It wasn’t his fault. I wanted to give you a son. Love him as I do, Jeremy, and take care of him. Do you promise, Jeremy?”
“I promise,” he said with a steady stream of tears cascading down his brown cheeks. My heart broke anew for my husband’s pain. I clutched his hand, kissed it with lips that even I knew were chilled and I placed his hand on the back of our son. I blessed them both, loving them, pledging to love them always, to find them in the next life.
With my lips pressed firmly to my baby’s, I breathed the last of my life’s breath into my son. I could feel my spirit leave my body. Blood filled my lungs and I choked.
I woke gasping for breath, tears streaming down my face.
“Are you alright? Did you have the dream again?” Larry asked.
“Yes,” I answered, looking at my husband Larry, feeling dazed that one moment I was with a man I knew I was married to, the other part of my soul, and the next I was in bed with this man I’d been married to for an entire lifetime. I trembled, shaken by the intensity.
“Larry, it didn’t feel like a dream.” I wanted to explain but he shushed me as he usually did.
“It has to be,” he asserted. “You’re not crazy enough to think it means anything. Go back to sleep, honey. It was just a dream.”
“Larry, it was real.” I pleaded with him to listen. “I don’t know how, but it was real. I lost my son, I lost my baby.”
“Your son is alive and well, Mick. Derrick is fine. Now stop this nonsense and go back to sleep. You need your rest.”
His voice was stern, a bit of the anger, the disappointment he felt at my continuing to have the dream coming through in his words to me. In the beginning of our marriage, he’d comforted me. Now he merely wanted me to stop the dreams. As if I could.
I lay back down afraid to sleep. I’d had some version of this dream for most of my life. Even as a child I’d dreamt of my husband with hair the color of night and our baby son, and my heart ached for both of them. I wanted to find them.
My mother had taken me to a shrink, demanding that I stop my nonsense, stop my obsession with the voices I heard calling to me. So I had. At least that was what I told her. But it hadn’t mattered; when my parents’ marriage fell apart my mother blamed the collapse on me, on what she called my craziness.
For a while the dreams came less often and were less vivid. My life was so busy, consumed with everyday problems, a husband, children and a job. I had no time for the lover in my dreams, no time for a child I’d held for only a moment, a child to whom I’d given my dying breath. Still, I grieved, but I grieved alone, afraid to have Larry call me crazy as my mother had.
Eventually I slept again, and the next day my husband and I woke at the same moment. It was the day of our twenty-sixth anniversary. I could tell in his eyes, in his kiss, that the memory of the dream lingered with him and it hurt him.
I felt that he blamed me for having the dream and I knew that for the rest of the day I would walk on eggshells doing everything in my power to make him happy. Denying my own truths would do that. I was very aware of that fact and I resented it. But like everything else in my life, I would shove my own feelings aside. Larry’s wishes would come first. They always did.
We gave each other several kisses and wished each other a happy anniversary. I knew my husband was still upset over this part of me that he wished he could banish. I couldn’t blame him. I had no business dreaming of another man, real or imagined.
“Michelle, I’m thinking maybe you should see someone. Those dreams of yours are becoming more frequent. I don’t understand why you’re having them. Maybe you’re not happy with me, with us. There has to be something going on.”
I looked at Larry, about to tell him that I wasn’t happy, hadn’t been happy for a long time. His next words stopped me before I could arrange the words I wanted to say.
“Of course you’re happy,” Larry declared. “Who wouldn’t be? We have a good solid marriage, four beautiful daughters, a handsome son and wonderful grandchildren. You’d be crazy not to be happy.”
And that was what stopped me. I’d be crazy not to be happy. I’d be crazy to keep thinking of this dark-haired lover, this child that had never existed.
“Anything special you want to do for our anniversary?” Larry asked, giving me the look that said he did. He wanted to make love and I knew it was in part because he loved me, in part because he wanted to drive the thoughts of another man from my mind and my heart.
So we did. We made love and I clung to my husband as memories rolled over me, memories I couldn’t shake. A supreme knowing filled me. This time I could not push it away. Something was going to happen to tear apart our home. I could feel it with every atom of my being and I didn’t know if I could stop it. I didn’t even know if I wanted to stop it.
We exchanged no gifts, no cards for our anniversary. We simply made love, made that our declaration. Larry thought we had everything that we needed; he thought we should save our money for the kids, help them out, not waste it on useless gifts when we already had everything that we wanted.
The only problem was that I didn’t have everything that I wanted. The home and cars meant nothing. I wanted to feel validated. I wanted to stop feeling dead inside as if I’d lost something very special to me and would never find it. I wanted to talk about this with my husband without fear that he would want to commit me. I wanted to find one person who understood what I was saying, who didn’t think I was crazy.
Larry had an entirely different view of our marriage. He was happy. We were friends, we enjoyed each other’s company and we had sex regularly. The only fly in the ointment was my dreams, and those he dealt with by reprimanding me, advising me to get more rest, to stop watching romantic movies that were putting crazy ideas in my head.
I suppose that was our main difference. He felt my dreams were something I needed help for, and I felt they were more. There were many times I felt that if Larry would simply talk with me about the dreams I could put them into proper focus. But he either couldn’t or wouldn’t. And what I felt in the end was cheated.
There are times I can’t imagine my life without my husband Larry at my side. Then there are other times that I don’t know how I can continue another day, another minute of the sameness.
Thoughts of Jeremy and our son haunted me constantly. I tried hard to keep it from Larry. I had to. I wanted to keep it from myself. I wanted it to end. Sometimes I wanted my very life to end.
The day after our anniversary, I had an eerie, weighted down feeling. At the time it didn’t seem exactly like depression, but now I’m not so sure. I had to fight to remain in my own body. I continually felt a tugging of my spirit to leave. I’m not sure anyone can understand this unless they’ve lived through it, but that’s the only way I can describe it.
I truly believe that if I had not fought against the sensations that day, I could have closed my eyes and died.
I knew this. I was fully aware of my feelings. I knew it the same way I knew many things in my life. And like the other things that I knew, this too I shoved away from me.
I decided to make a short run to the local grocer for a few things I didn’t really need. I felt a sense of urgency, that if I didn’t connect with other living, breathing humans, my husband would come home to a cold wife, stiff with rigor mortis. So, I grabbed my bag and left.
The brightly lit store did little to lift my spirits. I was randomly picking out items, trying to prolong my time there, not wanting to go home alone to an empty house. I thought of Viola, the old woman I’d hit with my car six months before when I was leaving the grocery store. I’d seen her for only a nanosecond before she bounced off my car. Instantaneous guilt filled me. Why hadn’t I seen her? I gripped the handle of my cart, trying desperately to keep the memories at bay, knowing it was to no avail.
I shivered, the sensation going all the way to my spine. I again saw the blood, heard the fragile bones as they broke. I stopped in the middle of an aisle and wiped away the tears that always accompanied the memory.
“Don’t move, don’t try to talk.” I whispered, going down on my knees beside the limp body, grasping the elderly woman’s hand. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you in time. I’ll get help,” I said, reaching in the pocket of my jacket for my phone.
“What’s your name?” I asked after finishing the call, wanting to keep the woman as calm as possible.
“Viola.”
“Viola, you’re going to be fine. Help will be here soon. They’ll get you to the hospital.”
“I don’t have money for a hospital,” Viola answered grasping my hand. “I don’t have insurance.”
“Ill take care of everything, I’ll make sure your bills are paid. I’ll come visit you, make sure you have what you need. I promise,” I said, clutching the woman’s hand in mine meaning every word that I spoke.
It had seemed an eternity before the paramedics wrapped Viola up and carried her away on a stretcher. I’d stayed behind to talk to the police. And then I called Larry, frantic for him to meet me at the hospital. Larry told me to stay where I was, that I was too distraught to drive and at that point I was. So I waited for him to come.
When he did, I began babbling almost incoherently, so glad to have him at my side. “Larry, they took her to St. Mary’s.”
I managed to get those words out before collapsing against him. Overwhelming guilt filled me. Why hadn’t I seen her, why hadn’t I at least sensed her? I had always been good at sensing danger. There were too many questions I didn’t have the answers to. So I closed my eyes and prayed for the woman to be all right.
I didn’t open my eyes again until the car stopped and Larry turned off the ignition. Again I prayed for the strength to go into the hospital and see the old woman. When I opened my eyes, I blinked several times in disbelief, then looked at Larry. He’d taken me home.
“Larry, why did you bring me home?” I asked, dumbfounded as to his reasons.
“Come in the house, Mick. We have to talk.” He answered me in a tight voice, alerting me that something was wrong.
As an attorney, Larry was concerned with our legal liabilities, I wasn’t. We fought about my wanting to keep my promise and go to the hospital. At one point, he physically held me down. That surprised the hell out of me. In all our years of marriage, Larry had never attempted to use brute force against me. For weeks, we fought about my going to see Viola, until at last out of sheer exhaustion I gave up, and then gave in.
I knew Viola was part of the reason that I was feeling disconnected. I had hoped that I could escape thoughts of her by running away from my home. No such luck.
I wished I’d had appointments, doctors to call on, but my calendar was clear. I had the day off. There wasn’t even a reason for me to go into the office. But regardless of that I found myself wishing that I had gone to work just to be around people. I didn’t need to be alone. I thought about calling Larry and asking him to come home, but right then, his was the last face I wanted to see. No, I’d have to wait out the feeling of dread alone.
I hated this position I’d willingly placed myself in when I married the handsome go-getter who’d promised to protect me always. At nineteen, that had been exactly what I wanted to hear, what I’d always dreamed. Larry was my black knight.
Somewhere along the way my dreams changed. I no longer wanted to be protected or to have my decisions made for me, but I’d failed to notify my husband of the change. So, I unjustly blamed him for a situation I could have taken control of at any time. The problem was that I hadn’t learned that lesson soon enough.
It was only when I hit the dreaded forty mark that I really became aware of my growing resentment toward my life, my family, my husband and most of all, toward myself.
I’d turned into my mother. I didn’t want to rock the boat, to fight, to have it escalate into divorce as my parents’ marriage had. No, I wanted my marriage to Larry to be forever. I didn’t want to be crazy and alone so I kept my feelings bottled inside.
If it had not been for that little old woman darting out into the path of my car, maybe I could have lived out the remainder of my life this way. But it had happened. I was being haunted by a woman still alive.
The smell of the blood that oozed from her body assaulted my senses on a daily basis. Her pitiful cries, the look of pain and shock in her pale blue eyes never left me. And with the memory, the dreams returned in full force.
Viola’s clothes spoke of poverty, and her words had confirmed it. Her main worry, despite my continued reassurance, was how she could afford a hospital visit. My promise that I would be there for her had brought a weak smile to her pale lips.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she’d said, squeezing my hands, her wrinkled flesh covering my own. It was only then that I noticed the trembling in my hands.
It was Viola’s touch that I felt now as I stood in the store trying to control the bizarre feelings taking over my body. I felt as if I’d betrayed the old woman by never following through on my promise. I’d left her thinking I would be there for her. I’d failed her and I’d failed myself.
I needed something to chase away the thought of Viola and her raggedy coat and the sight of cans of tomato sauce flying up in the air and landing on my car, eggs breaking and pooling into a gooey mess.
I couldn’t shake the memory. I looked down at my own cart filled with only the best the store had to offer, things I gave no thought to purchasing.
It hit me how hard it must have been for Viola to scrape money together for the meager groceries in her bag.
“My food.” I thought I’d heard her say those words but I was never sure.
Michelle, think of something else, I scolded myself. Viola is in the past. Keep her there. So, I thought of my children, all grown and moved away and I thought briefly of my grandchildren. I knew this wasn’t an empty nest feeling, because the kids got on my nerves and I was glad when they finally left. As for the grandkids, my rule was two hours, then back home they went. Nor did I encourage spending holidays with us.
Larry had laughed at me when I shared my feelings with him. He thought I was teasing. Why, I don’t know. I told him in the most serious fashion. But he couldn’t accept my feelings, I suppose because he loved them so much and enjoyed their company. Several times a year he always planned trips for us to see the kids but at the last instant I usually told him I had an emergency at work and couldn’t go but that I’d make it up to him when he returned.
In my job as a medical sales representative that excuse was as flimsy as the nightgown I’d always wear for Larry on his return.
The kids enjoyed having their father to themselves and I enjoyed not having to visit them. Funny thing, as much as I wished for time alone, I couldn’t wait for Larry to come home. Maybe I was a bit crazy.
Chapter Two
I met Chance when I was shopping for my husband’s dinner. Can you imagine the irony in that? In his name? Anyway, when I could malinger no longer, I at last paid for my groceries and made my way toward the exit.
The sky had been a beautiful cerulean blue when I went in, but now it was an angry gray. Fat drops of water began to plop down as I left the store and by the time I was halfway to my car, the rain was pouring down in buckets. The paper bag I’d opted for in the store quickly became saturated and collapsed, spilling my groceries under cars and into the greasy puddles.
I stood for a moment, soaked to the bone, watching my dinner scatter like so many pearls from a broken strand. I started to cry. It wasn’t so much the food or the wasted money, but in that moment those scattering groceries represented my life and my emotions.
I saw tomato sauce flying in the air, eggs breaking, though I had bought neither. I could no more escape my feelings of guilt for not going to see Viola than I could escape my own flesh.
So I did the only thing I could. I cried harder than I ever had in my life, in the rain, in the parking lot, my arms outstretched to the heavens. At first I didn’t notice the man retrieving my items and placing them in a double plastic bag.
When he handed the plastic bag filled with my groceries back to me, I saw sympathy in his face and his eyes and cried harder. For a moment he looked confused. Then he put his arms around me and held me, pressing my head into his chest.
I held on to him as if my very life depended on it. Despite the cold rain, I felt an electrical energy emanating from his body and twining around me. I felt as if I had come home at last. Strange, but it was how I felt.
For long minutes the rain poured down over us. I truly wanted to stop crying, but the fact that I was crying in the rain, in the parking lot, with a strange man comforting me, made me cry more.
At last I gained control and lifted my head from his chest and looked at him. There was an expression of awe on his face, of wonderment. “Do I know you?” I attempted to smile, but the intensity of his look prevented it.
“I’m sorry about this.” I waved my hand around attempting to convey to him that I was not usually a woman given to hysterics.
“Are you better now?” he asked.
“I think so, but I don’t want to be alone.”
I forced myself to look, really look, at the man standing in front of me. He was tall, almost as tall as Larry. That would make him close to six feet.
His hair was jet black, like a raven’s, and had the tiniest sprinkling of gray around the temples. The rain had plastered his shirt flat against his chest and abdomen, revealing that he was lean and muscular.
I examined his face. Strong chin, a mouth that was firm and inviting, tiny laugh lines etched into the contours.
But it was his eyes that gave me pause. I’d been attracted to Larry because of the beauty of his golden brown eyes. This man standing before me possessed without a doubt the most captivating blue eyes God had ever bestowed on a human. I’d never seen that particular color on any living being. I gazed into their depths and became lost. I pulled back to get a better look at the total man. His skin was the color of heated gold from his obvious tan. In spite of the cold rain his touch was hot and inviting. But none of those things were the reason behind my actions. There was something familiar about him and it frightened me.
I closed my eyes against the rush of unexpected emotions. I knew I needed to get a grip, yet my head was spinning and for no known reason, I felt a surge of pure joy overtake me. I was relieved when he spoke.
“You look as if you could use some company. Would you like to go somewhere and have a cup of coffee…maybe talk…a little?”
“You’re right, I could use some company.” I was no longer sobbing, just crying quietly now. I took a good look at this man who’d taken the time to comfort me.
For the first time I noticed something behind the intense look in his eyes. He was in pain. I wanted to do something to help, anything to take away this stranger’s own pain and sorrow.
I wanted only to comfort this man. He felt familiar to me, this stranger who’d shown me such compassion. This time there would be no call to ask my husband what I should do. I would do what I wanted.
I felt him pulling away from me and I backed away also. Maybe I’d only imagined the intense heat searing me. Despite the chill of the rain I could feel heat rush to my cheeks and was glad of my olive complexion. My blush would only be internal for feeling stupid in mistaking a stranger’s kindness. We gazed into each other’s eyes for maybe five seconds.
“Do you believe in fate?”
He asked me this only a moment before I found myself in his arms again, his lips covering my own, tasting the rain on his tongue and the sweet mint of his breath.
His mouth filled me with a heat that I knew but had abandoned long ago. It was as if I had found my life again. I no longer wanted to die.
I don’t remember putting my groceries in my car, but I must have, because later I took them out. What I do remember is the man silently holding out his hand to me. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me. And I wanted him.
I do remember him opening the door of his Jeep Cherokee to let me in. That was the first moment I became conscious that I was soaked. I worried about ruining his seats. He smiled at me and kissed my hand.
I truly wish I could say that I was so overcome with passion that I was unaware of what I was doing, but that wasn’t the case. I thought about the book and later the movie, The Bridges of Madison County, and how I had argued that the woman had no right to cheat on her husband, that he’d done nothing wrong, that she just wanted to have an affair.
Well, I was now that woman. My husband by the usual standards is the ideal mate. He loves me, of that I’m sure. He provides a good living for us and he’s the perfect father. In fact, I think the only thing about our life that bothers Larry is my “flights of fancy,” as he calls them. He’s teasingly told me on several occasions that he would never commit me, that he’d take care of me himself. I know he means it as a joke but the possibility of it happening is always with me. Now I no longer cared. It didn’t matter.
While I was sitting in a Jeep with a man whose name I didn’t know, I knew it didn’t make any difference. I was going through with it.
The thought of asking him to get condoms crossed my mind. I briefly thought of AIDS, then how irresponsible I was being. I could be driving away with a serial killer. I just wanted for once to do something that had not been pre-approved by my husband. Besides, I knew instinctively that this man wouldn’t hurt me. There was some connection to him that I felt in my being.
If one of my daughters had done something so incredibly dumb I would have read her the riot act, and I did attempt to do so for myself. The hotel was only a couple of blocks away, right in my own small town where anyone could walk in and see me, but I truly didn’t care.
I didn’t care at that point that my thick, cinnamon- colored dyed hair was soaked and tangled and falling in heavy curls down my back and over my face. I didn’t care that I was a total mess and that the desk clerk looked at us curiously.
I knew the stranger had signed us in as Mr. and Mrs. and I got a tingle. I might as well have stepped in front of a moving train. That was the impact this stranger was having on me. For some idiotic reason, though, it felt right. I felt as if I were truly his wife, his mate, and that this was a proper thing I was about to do. I wasn’t about to commit adultery. I was only going to make love with my husband, my true husband whose name I did not know.
Inside the room I sat on the edge of the bed in my wet clothes. He went into the bathroom and returned with a stack of towels. He held out his hand to me and I stood, again knowing what he wanted. I lifted my arms as though I were a child and allowed him to undress me.
He toweled my body dry so gently that I would have thought I was in a dream if not for the surge of desire filling my entire being. I wanted him physically and spiritually, not in a religious sense. I mean that I wanted his spirit to mate with my own.
I admit I felt better dry, and I smiled at him. He smiled back, took another towel, and began drying my hair strand by long strand. He kissed each blotted strand, touching it as though he was remembering doing it before.
He moved from my hair to my ears, drying them, kissing them, touching them. He did this over every inch of my body.
“I was beginning to think I would never find you again,” he whispered against the small of my back, but I heard him. I didn’t question what he meant. I knew.
I was trembling so hard that he pulled away to look at me. “You’re not afraid, are you?”
“A little.”
His smile was my reward. My fears drained away, leaving me feeling wild, decadent, and free. I took a towel and did for him what he had done for me, drying his body, kissing him tenderly.
My fingers searched his body furiously for landmarks and craters I evidently knew existed. I had made love with this man many times before. I shivered, wondering how that could be possible.
One of us pulled the covers back from the bed. I’m not sure which of us, only that suddenly we were under the covers holding each other, touching, and we were both crying softly.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said to me.
“And I’ve been trying to find you,” I answered.
When we came, it was together. I knew then what it was I’d been missing, what my husband who I knew without a doubt loved me could never give me. He could never give me this supreme feeling of connection, but it wasn’t his fault.
We lay together for the longest time, still touching. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” I said to him. I didn’t want him to think I was some kind of tramp.
I started to pull away and he tightened his arm around me. He had a strange look in his eyes. “This is not the first time we’ve made love,” he said authoritatively.
“What are you talking about?” I turned so that I could look in his eyes. These were my feelings, my thoughts. How was it possible that he was having them?
“What are you talking about?” I asked again. I don’t know you. I don’t even know your name.” Yet the feel of his skin under my fingers called me a liar. I knew every cell in his body. Intimately.
“Can’t you feel it?” he responded. “Our meeting was not an accident.”
The strange thing was that I knew it wasn’t an accident, but to admit to what I thought it really was would mean that my life would now take on a different meaning. I had to do something to pretend that my life hadn’t just changed forever. I wanted to believe that his words gave me reason to worry, that perhaps I had just slept with a stalker, no matter how incredible it was. Maybe I had better think of some way to escape. I had to believe that the words this stranger spoke made him sound like a nut. If I didn’t, it would mean that I was nuts.
“Are you saying you planned this, that you’ve done this type of thing before?” I was offended and wondered how it was that he happened to have plastic bags.
He stared at me a moment before answering. “I didn’t plan today. In fact, standing in the rain getting soaked was the last thing I had on my mind.”
“I sat in my car watching you. I saw you coming out of the store and your bags break. I never intended to get involved, but when you stood there crying, I watched people walking away from you, looking at you strangely. Before I knew it, I was out of the car, running into the store to grab plastic bags.”
He looked me over, his voice sounding insulted. “No, I don’t remember having done this, if you mean by this, our meeting in the rain.” There was a slight shift in his body. His eyes softened and his lips stretched into a smile.
“It was fated for us to meet. I’ve been waiting years for you.” His eyes were smiling at me yet his words to any sane person were those of a person that definitely belonged on Prozac. And I was trying to the best of my ability to be a sane person.
“What’s your name?” It was a little late to think of getting acquainted, but I still needed to know who I’d slept with, so that when I went to confession I could tell on him also.
“Chance.”
I looked at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
He hopped out of the bed and walked across the room, lean and muscular. I feasted my eyes on his beauty, on his strength, not feeling ashamed, not minding that I was a middle-aged woman with not so firm breasts and an extra twenty pounds on my five-five frame. I didn’t care. I felt beautiful and I knew he found me beautiful as well.
Chance brought me back his wallet. I examined the picture and the name. Chance Morgan? I held my left hand out for him to examine. “I should have told you this sooner but I’m married.” He merely smiled. Okay, I thought, this joker has more problems than I do.
“I’ve been married twenty-six years. Yesterday was my anniversary.”
“And today you wanted to die. You came to the store because you could feel yourself giving in to the sweet invitation of death. You had no idea that you were searching for me until you found me, but then you knew. I saw the recognition in your eyes. I felt it in your touch, in your response to me.”
Oh God, what was happening to me? “What the heck are you talking about?” I asked.
“Tell me you don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you, but you’re scaring me.”
“What would you like for this to be?”
“I’d like for you to be just a little bit crazy maybe. It would make all of this easier for me. Listen, are you…are you on any kind of medications?”
“No medications, anything else you want to know?”
“I was going to ask if you’re nuts, but thought maybe I shouldn’t, just in case. Perhaps I should be nice to you until I return to my home, my life, and the safety of my husband’s arms.”
“Is that really what you want after all the time we’ve wasted not being together in this life, to just leave me and return to your home?”
His eyes suddenly looked so sad. I felt I had betrayed him, and in a way that hurt more than what I had done to my husband. I had denied the life that Chance seemed to be remembering.
“Deny that you wanted to die.”
I got out of the bed then, keeping a wary eye on Chance. It was time for me to end this fantasy.
“Listen, Chance, thank you for this afternoon.”
I once again felt shame snaking through my body warming my skin, making me feel flushed and vulnerable. I gazed at him, seeing something that I could swear was love in his eyes and rushed to finish the statement I’d started. “I mean, for picking up my groceries, and for letting me cry on your shoulder, but I really have to go now. My husband is waiting for me.”
I replaced my still damp clothing and glanced at my watch. Ten P.M. I couldn’t believe it. Where had the time gone? Had I really made love to a stranger in a hotel room only a few miles from my own home? A stranger that now claimed we’d done this very thing countless times?
I didn’t know what to say. What does one say to a lover they don’t quite know?
“Listen, it was nice meeting you.”
I made my way to the door, for the first time wondering if Chance were married, if he had a wife who could be waiting for me in some hidden corner of the room. I shivered at the thought until it became real in my mind. I was thinking at any moment she could spring up, grab me, and plunge a knife into my body. I imagined my husband’s shock. The newspaper would spread the news for days. Our town didn’t have very much action. A woman murdered by the hands of a stranger she’d picked up in the parking lot of the grocery store would be very big news.
My husband didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve the snickers of having to bury an unfaithful wife. I knew it would worry him that I’d been unhappy enough to do this. I didn’t want him to think that this had been going on for months or years. I had reached the door when I felt the tears starting up again.
“Dimitra,” he called out to me. “What’s your name this time?” he asked. His voice was pleasant, not threatening in the least.
I turned around sharply. “My name’s Michelle. Michelle Powers.”
As I was looking at him, a strange sensation laid claim to my soul. Dimitra, the name he’d called me gave me pause. I rolled it around on my tongue. That name was familiar to me.
I wanted to back away from Chance, yet at the same time I wanted never to leave him. I felt what he was saying was true. This stranger had a claim on me.
“Well, Michelle, I’m sorry I made you cry. I can tell you’re frightened and have no idea what I’m talking about. I also know you’re wondering what you’ve done and if I’m going to stop you from leaving.”
He smiled then. A sadness that broke my heart filled his eyes. I remembered him holding me in the rain and suddenly it was crystal clear. There was no way this man Chance would ever hurt me, or had ever hurt me.
“I have to go,” I said to him, then remembered that my car was still in the parking lot.
“If you’ll close the door so I can get dressed, I’ll take you back.” He offered.
I closed the door rather sheepishly. I had been about to make a grand exit without transportation. “I should call my husband.” I looked at him as though for approval before reaching for the phone. I dialed, waiting impatiently for Larry to answer.
“Hi, Larry.” My voice sounded low and muffled as if my mouth were stuffed with cotton. I breathed easier as Larry didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
“Hey, where are you?”
“My friend Peaches is having some trouble with her husband. She needed to talk.”
The lie slid out of my mouth so easily that I almost thought it was true, until I looked at the rumpled sheets.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s been better.”
The concern in Larry’s voice was not making me feel the guilt I should be having right about now. I was only glad that there was no Peaches. No one to bring into my lie. No one that Larry would ever see, or talk to, to either confirm or deny my tale.
“Did you eat?” I didn’t know what else to say to him.
“No. I was waiting for you. I didn’t see anything on the stove.”
I felt a flush of anger. Couldn’t he do anything without me there? “Why don’t you make yourself a sandwich?”
“What do we have?”
“There’s ham and turkey in the fridge.”
“Do we have any soda?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
I had gone past annoyed at this point, but as I watched Chance dressing, I subdued my tone. “Larry, why don’t you check?”
“I could just wait for you to come home.”
“I may not be home for hours.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Are you waiting for me to make you a sandwich?”
“Well, I like the way you do it. Plus, I was thinking maybe we could have some desert. You know the kind I mean.”
He laughed then and I lost the last vestige of control. I was in a hotel room liberating my spirit with a stranger. I didn’t want to consider having mundane chores waiting for me at home.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
I glanced at Chance underneath my lashes. He was pretending not to hear my conversation. I said a hurried goodbye to my husband and hung up the phone.
“I think you might want to take a shower.”
Chance’s gaze found mine. I didn’t know what to say, how to answer him. I’d completely forgotten that I undoubtedly smelled of sex.
I started for the shower, then paused. “Chance, is this the first time you’ve made love to a woman of color?”
“A woman of color? What in the world does that mean? Like I said, I’ve made love to you a million times before, in many skins. Surely you’re aware that in each incarnation it’s our soul that returns. Our bodies are merely vessels for our souls.”
“So your answer would be yes?”
Chance laughed. “My answer would be yes. I have loved you in all your glorious skins and I have loved you in every corner of the globe.”
“Were we ever in India?” I don’t know why I asked but the words just slipped out.
“Yes, we lived several incarnations in India. Our bodies never bothered either of us before. Does the difference in the color of our skin bother you in this incarnation?”
A flash of my dark-haired husband came to me and the poverty of India. Could it have been that country I’d seen in my many dreams? “No, Chance, it doesn’t bother me.” He was eyeing me strangely.
“You’d better go ahead and take your shower. I’ll dry your clothes with the blow dryer,” he offered.
Half of me wanted him in there with me. The other half wondered if he would toss the dryer into the shower and kill me in that fashion.
He laughed aloud. “Michelle, I’m not an ax murderer and I’ve never done anything like this before. I promise, I’m not going to do anything to you.”
I didn’t want to take my clothes off for two reasons. I wanted Chance again and I was afraid of my feelings. Never in my entire life had lust ruled. I had never really known lust until now. God, I prayed, help me please. Something is happening and I can’t control it.
I didn’t look at Chance, but went instead to the bathroom, removed my clothing and called out to him to come and dry them. The sound of the dryer made me pause and for a moment I peered over the shower curtain at this man, Chance, drying my clothes.
I watched as he held my blouse in his hand, running the hair dryer along the creases of the soft material. He was using his fingers to push away the wrinkles. I smiled to myself at his actions.
He held my blouse to his cheek and I saw him close his eyes for a moment. He had a dreamy look as though he was reliving a very pleasant memory. When he reached for my pants, I closed the curtain. I felt like an intruder on his life.
Suddenly it was more important to me than ever that he not think me a slut. But how could he not, when I’d done things with him that it had taken Larry years to persuade me to do. And with Chance I was the initiator. I’d wanted him and all the things we’d done. Sure I’d done them with my husband but I’d never really wanted to. I glanced at Chance once more, wanting him so badly I ached inside. Think I was a slut? I knew I had just become one.
“Chance…,” I stammered, “I swear, I’ve never done this before.”
“What? Taken a shower?” He chuckled low and I realized he was trying to put me at ease.
“I’ve never cheated on my husband, nor have I wanted to.”
I continued applying the bath gel liberally to my body. I had to keep my hands busy in order to talk. I had to make him understand what I’d done was so unlike me, to simply walk away with a stranger and make love with him. Even my fantasies had never included anything so decadent or dangerous.
“Chance, I’m a prude.”
For a moment I thought of all the things I’d done to him, with him, and I blushed crimson beneath the hot water. The heat my brown skin usually kept buried combined with the hot water and covered my body inside and out. My explanation was wrong and so was my reasoning, but something was beginning to take hold, some knowledge of who this man Chance might be. I couldn’t stop the loud sigh that escaped my lips.
“If anyone else had done this, I would be the first to condemn their behavior. I can’t believe I acted with such random disregard for my very life, or for my husband’s.”
“How do you mean that?”
I heard the hurt in his voice, hurt that I recognized. I didn’t want to say it, but it was truly what I was feeling. “You could have some disease that I have now gotten. For all I know you could even have AIDS.”
There were other things I wanted to say to him, but I managed to keep my mouth closed. What was I going to do for the next few months when my husband wanted to touch me? How was I supposed to get him to wear a condom for his own protection?
I heard the curtain being pulled away. Chance was standing there, a frown on his face.
“Do you think I hop into bed with every woman I meet in a parking lot?”
“I don’t know. I know nothing about you.”
“Michelle, you don’t have to worry. I don’t have anything.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“I guess you’re just going to have to trust me, aren’t you. You really don’t remember me, do you?”
There was sadness in his eyes and in his voice. The combined forces struck fear once again in the marrow of my being. I wondered why he kept saying that. I had never met him. Yet on some level I felt I had. But if I so much as gave the thought a chance to grow, I feared I would go insane.
“Michelle, I assumed you came with me because you remembered. I never thought you were a slut.”
I started to interrupt when he held up a hand to stop me.
“I’m not talking about this life, but a past life. We’ve spent many lifetimes together. You’ve been calling to me and I’ve been searching for you. For my wife.”
Okay, now it was time for me to end this madness, to get my wet, naked body out of the shower. It was time for me to return to my home, to my husband and my life.
“Chance, what you’re talking about doesn’t make any sense. I would have to be crazy to believe that,” I said and shivered, thinking of what Larry would say to me if he ever found out. He would definitely have more than enough evidence to commit me.
I dared a glance at Chance. “This is crazy,” I repeated. Besides, I’m not sure I believe in past lives.”
“Are you saying you felt no connection to me, that there’s nothing about me that appears familiar?”
The answer required no thought. Yes, of course I felt a connection to him. I don’t think I would have been able to make love with him if I hadn’t. I was hoping that knowledge would allow me to be able to sleep at night. Maybe then I’d be able to forgive myself for walking away with a perfect stranger.
“No, Chance. Nothing.”
“Then why did you come with me?”
He was staring intently at me, his blue eyes warm, his face curious. I wanted to lie, had planned on it. Then a picture of the two of us together in the motel lobby flashed before me. I remembered the way I’d felt when I saw him sign us in as Mr. and Mrs.
“You want the truth?” I stared back into those blue eyes that appeared to be penetrating my soul. He didn’t answer. What was he going to say? ‘No, tell me a lie.’
“I felt disconnected there in the parking lot, and somehow going with you felt like the lifeline I needed.” I reached for the towel and wrapped myself in it, moving as far away from Chance as I could get in the small bathroom.
“Do you mind if I dress in private?”
I held my hands out for my now dry clothing and put them on in the cramped bathroom. I was an adult. Playtime was over. No matter how I sugar coated this, I had committed adultery. My sins would follow me, of that I was sure. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d blatantly lied to my husband.
I wanted to tell myself that telling him I was with a friend was far kinder than telling him the truth. Surely that little lie shouldn’t count. But what of the bigger lie, the one I didn’t want to acknowledge. It hung at the back of my mind fighting to get out as I attempted to fight the overpowering feeling I was having for Chance. I couldn’t deny the hunger raging in my veins and in my heart for this man. When he’d closed the bathroom door in order for me to dress, I’d felt an undeniable loss followed by a sense of love as powerful as I’ve ever felt for Larry, maybe even more so.
Chance was no longer the danger. I was. And I didn’t know what to do other than leave. Loving a man I didn’t know, that was crazy I tried to tell myself as the ache in my heart grew. I was acting like a love struck prepubescent girl. I needed to rationalize this out. This had nothing to do with my feelings of familiarity concerning Chance or his talk of reincarnation. It was simply because in such a fragile emotional state he’d been there when I’d desperately needed a way to live, a reason. Of course I would form an attachment. After all, how many strangers would take the time to comfort a hysterical woman and hold her to them while she cried in the rain? That was all there was to it, a romanticized gratitude.
Now dressed, I entered the bedroom grateful that Chance had dressed while I was in the bathroom. I wondered if he had anyone at home waiting for him since he’d not bothered washing our combined smells from his body.
“Are you ready?” I asked. He looked at me before smiling and answering me.
“Yes, didn’t you think I’d be? Or did you think perhaps I’d try and convince you to stay?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, I wouldn’t have. I was prepared to call and ask my husband to come for me if you weren’t going to take me back to my car.”
“Why not a taxi?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Are you telling him where you were tonight?”
“Why hurt him? I never plan on seeing you again.” I noticed the smile creasing his handsome face. He didn’t believe me. He walked toward the door, then turned and held his hand out to me. “You never answered my question. Do you believe in fate, Michelle?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well, I do.”
Chance tilted my chin upwards, his gaze locked on mine, and he kissed me slowly. Energy fused us together. I wanted to sob, ‘Oh my God, I found you.’ But I didn’t. I held those words in as the electrical charge filled me. His touch, his look, his love, I knew it. I needed to back away from him now, or I’d never be able to leave him. I could feel the sorrow welling upwards in my being. Sorrow that seemed to date back farther than I’d been alive. Instead of moving from him as his arms wrapped around me I held on to him for dear life, until I was finally able to plead softly in a whisper in his ear, “Please release me.”
His fingers trailed over my back, each touch igniting another part of my soul that had been dead. Tears streamed from my eyes as he slowly moved away. From somewhere the knowledge came that I’d not been asking him to release me from his embrace but from something much larger. Nothing in me wanted to leave him, everything screamed out the knowledge that was finally staring me in the face, the knowledge that I knew I was not ready or able to accept.
“I believe we were meant to be together in this lifetime as we were in the past.” Chance leaned into me and whispered. “I don’t believe I found you in order for you to leave my life.”
We walked from the room together. I felt safer now out in the corridor hearing other people’s voices, couples maybe. Or could there perhaps be other strangers behind the doors making love in abandon with people they didn’t know, as I had done? I prayed there weren’t as many fools out there as I’d been.
We were both silent as he drove me back to the parking lot. It was only as I put my hand on the handle to open the door that he stopped me.
“Michelle, we will see each other again. It’s our destiny.”
“I’m not giving you my number.”
“I don’t need it. Just as you appeared in my life today you’ll reappear.”
He attempted to brush his lips across mine, but I moved away. In a matter of seconds I was in my car ignoring him staring after me. I had to race home while I was able. It was only my head that wanted to return home.
My heart and soul wanted to remain with this man Chance. My spirit wanted to run as far away from my husband and family as I could get.
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