“It's not as easy as that.” She sighed and looked at him. “I don't think you understand the kind of life I've led, and I don't think I could explain it.”
“Then why not go on from here? Isn't that possible, and leave the past behind you?”
“Maybe.” She wasn't sure it could be done, but she was willing to try it. He reached out and kissed her gently at first, and then suddenly with more passion. He had wanted her for weeks, months, since the first time he'd seen her, and now he couldn't hold back. He peeled her clothes from her and dropped his own, and carried her to her bed, where he began making love to her. But she lay distant and cold, and secretly frightened. Some of the things he did to her were the same things that Maida and Georgine had done … and some of the other things reminded her of the boys who had raped her the day after Maida and Georgine left. It was too much to overcome, even with a good man like Adam. And it didn't take him long to realize that she didn't want to go on. He pulled away, still throbbing with desire for her and unable to understand what had happened.
“What's wrong? …” His voice was hoarse, his eyes bleary with unspent passion. “I want you so much.”
“I'm sorry …” She whispered the words, and turned over on her side, staring at the far wall, wondering if she would ever be normal. Perhaps she would never overcome the past. She was twenty-five years old, and she was beginning to suspect that. There were too many people left that she hated … Arthur Patterson … Jack Jones … the boys who had raped her … Maida and Georgine … Eileen. the people at juvenile hall. and in the far distance, even her father. It was too big a burden to carry around and still allow her to function as a woman. “It's not you,” she tried to explain. “I just can't.”
“Why? You have to tell me.” He was trying to sit calmly at the edge of the bed, trying to reach out and understand her. And she sat up quietly and turned around. Maybe it was better to shock him than to hurt him.
“I was raped a long time ago….” She didn't want to say more, and hoped that would be enough, but of course it wasn't.
“How? … by whom?”
“It's a long story.” And which one should she tell him? Maida and Georgine, who were the first, or the boys who had come later? Or Jack who had done his best to precede them all and then had beaten her to within an inch of her life when he didn't get what he wanted. They were all possible candidates for the role, but she couldn't even imagine Adam able to withstand any truth she might tell him
“When was it?”
“When I was thirteen.” That much was true at least. They had all happened before her fourteenth birthday. She took a gulp of air. “And there hasn't been anyone since then. I guess I should have told you.”
“Christ.” He looked deeply shaken by what she'd said. “It certainly would have helped. How was I supposed to know something like that?”
“I didn't think it would matter.”
“Oh really? You were raped twelve years ago, haven't had relations with anyone since, and you actually thought it wouldn't make a difference? How can you do that to yourself, and to me, for chrissake? What about counseling? Have you had a lot of that since then?” He assumed she had, of course, everyone he knew was in therapy. He'd gone right back to his own shrink as soon as his wife left him.
“No.” She spoke very calmly, and got up to put on a bathrobe. She had a long, languid body and beautiful graceful legs that made him ache with wanting her again, but he tried to force himself not to think about it.
“What do you mean ‘no’? You got help after the rape, no? Yes? Right?”
She smiled at him. Hardly. “No. Wrong. I guess I didn't need it.”
“Are you crazy?”
“All right, let's say it wasn't available to me at the time.”
“Where were you? The North Pole? Where is there in the modern world that therapy isn't available?” Oh God, he understood nothing of what her life had been like. Therapy? Where? In Louise's home, or at juvie?
“I told you, Adam.” She was getting annoyed, but he was getting frantic. “I don't want to discuss it. It's too complicated.”
“Too complicated or too painful?” She averted her eyes, so he couldn't see the pain he had already inflicted.
“Why don't we just forget it?”
“What, the relationship? Why? You're not a quitter, Hilary.” Now he was sincerely angry. She would have done anything for her job, but not for him, or the relationship they might have, if she was willing.
“Why don't we just forget the problem, Adam. It'll go away by itself eventually.”
“Really? How long's it been now? Twelve years, you said, and I wouldn't exactly say you're cured. How long would you like to wait for it to ‘go away’? Thirty years maybe? Or how about fifty? You ought to feel a lot better by then, and Christ you'd only be sixty-three, you could have a great sex life, Hilary, be serious!” He took her by the hand and pulled her down on the bed beside him, but he wanted too much from her, and Hilary already knew she couldn't give it to him. He wanted everything, heart and soul, commitment and marriage and children. She could sense that in him, he wanted everything his wife had taken back and more. And she knew for a certainty that she didn't have it in her. She had nothing left to give him. All she could do was take, or maybe extend herself for a little while, if no one asked too much, but the rest was gone. All her love had been given too long ago, and all her energies were reserved for where she was going at the network. “I want you to go into therapy.” He sat staring at her, as though announcing he wanted her to have brain surgery, and she had no intention of obliging him. God only knew what they'd find there.
“I can't.”
“That's bullshit. Why not?”
“I don't have the time.”
“You're twenty-five years old and you have a problem.”
“It's not one I can't live with.”
“You're not living, you're existing.” But slowly, she was getting angry too. He had no right to make judgments on how she was living, just because she didn't want to make love with him.
“Maybe it'll get better.” But she didn't sound as though she really cared and that disturbed him.
“By itself?” She nodded. “I doubt it.”
“Give it time, Adam. This is only the first time.”
He sat silently for a long time, watching her. He saw more than she wanted. “There's a lot you're not telling me, isn't there?”
She smiled, sphinx-like. “It's not that important, Adam.”
“I don't believe you. I think you live your whole life behind a walled fortress.”
“I used to … a long time ago….”
“Why?”
“Because there used to be a lot of people out to hurt me.”
“And now?”
“I don't let them.”
He looked sorry for her, and leaned down to kiss her with a gentle hand on her shoulder, as they sat on the edge of her unmade bed, where their passion had been so unsuccessful. “I won't hurt you, Hil … I swear …” There were tears in his eyes, and she wished she could feel something for him, but she couldn't. She couldn't feel anything for anyone, and she knew that now, except perhaps if he awoke some unborn passion in her, but she couldn't imagine that either. “I love you …”
She had no answer to those words, and only looked at him sadly. And then he smiled at her and kissed her again. He understood, and that touched her. “It's okay … you don't have to say anything … just let me love you….” He lay her back against the pillows, and gently sculpted her body with one finger, drawing it close to her center, and then moving it away, drifting around her breasts and all the way down her belly, and then up again, touching her with his tongue and his heart and his fingers, but with nothing else, and after hours of it, she was writhing and begging him for something more, but he wouldn't do it. Instead, he let her feel him, and touched her gently with his throbbing organ. He ran it over her like a satin hand, and she bent down and began to kiss it, and touch him gently until he was writhing as she was, and then first with his lips, and then with his fingers, he touched her and felt her grow frightened and rigid.