Tamara didn’t even try to deny the truth. If they’d just fucked, she could’ve tried, but their experience combined enough sensuality with too much powerful emotion to deny. When she didn’t answer, his smile widened.
“I knew it,” Wulfric said with a happy tone. Within minutes, his breathing shifted and he slept. In his arms, pinned against his chest, Tamara cried. He wasn’t supposed to know and she hadn’t meant for this to happen. He deserves better than me. He doesn’t know what’s best for him. I want him. God, I need him but I can’t have him. I’m a worthless mess and he’s better without me. I can’t live my life in this same old shitty neighborhood, this horrible town. I should leave, pack my bag and take a bus anywhere else.
Tears came, because love hurt. She learned that lesson when her brother died. If you cared, if you loved someone you put a knife at their disposal so they could cut and wound with it at will. Her father used his well, and he’d slashed her deep with his words at Anthony’s visitation. Afterward, she built walls against her parents to protect herself and for three years, no one but Wulfric could get close. Then he got the job at the bread bakery, gave up college and pissed away his future. When a friend told her he’d been hanging around Players while she checked out customers, it was the last blow.
His refusal to go away, to leave her to waste away in her self-built prison, rankled. Yet, deep within Tamara always knew he’d be there if she needed him. She hurt him, no doubt about it, and maybe even used him but if he hung around, she couldn’t give him up.
Now I’ve done it. More tears followed and she cried herself to sleep, waking with her hair matted and with Wulfric gone. Tamara stretched out her hand and found the space where he’d lain still warm, but when she rose to search the apartment, he wasn’t there. For a moment, she thought he’d gone because she somehow offended him or maybe he’d suffered second thoughts––until she found a note propped up on the kitchen table.
“Tamara, I had to go work but I’ll catch up with you later. Love, Wulfric,” she read aloud.
Just like him, the note made no demands but said everything important. Tamara read it again, in silence this time and then folded it with care. She tucked it into an inner pocket of her purse and checked the time. In about five hours, she had to be at work too. As she pulled on yesterday’s clothes, Tamara considered a shower. She needed one, because a powerful aroma of musk, sex and sweat wafted upward from her body, but she’d clean up at home. Without bothering to make coffee or eat anything, she snitched a soft drink from Wulfric’s fridge and headed out.
At the tiny little house where she grew up, Tamara unlocked the front door and tiptoed inside. This early, she didn’t expect to find either of her parents awake or alert. Her dad sprawled on the sagging couch and snored as she walked past. Although she didn’t bother to check, her mom should be in bed, huddled under a mountain of dirty blankets, sleeping off last night’s binge. Tamara gathered clean garments and headed for the bathroom. After a long, hot-as-she-could-stand shower, she did laundry, including her red hood.
Just before she headed out the door to work, planning to walk the long blocks as usual, her mother staggered out in a stained nightgown. Tamara watched as her mom fired up the first cigarette of her two-and-a-half pack a day habit. “Jeez, is it so late already?” her mother asked, coughing, her voice harsh and thick. Some people called it a ‘whiskey voice’ but Tamara could vouch her mom’s came from vodka instead of bourbon.
“Yeah, I’ve got to be at work in a little while,” Tamara said. Her mother reeked of booze, of stale body odor, unwashed bedding, a faint stench of vomit, muscle rub, and under it all, the strong scent of Tabu. “I’ve got to run, Mom.”
Her mother glanced at her through blood-shot, bleary eyes. “Okay. See you tonight.”
“I’m working a double shift, so it’ll be late.”
With that Tamara dashed outside, glad to inhale the fresh air to clear her lungs, and started walking. Until now, she’d been on auto pilot since leaving Wulfric’s apartment. Five years of living in denial and building walls taught her to block out anything to survive. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about making love with him or what it might be like or how she’d face Wulfric. He knew now she cared and somehow she doubted he’d believe her denials, not after their intimate round of lovemaking.
They couldn’t just return to the place they’d been two years ago––or could they? Tamara had no clue, and she feared finding out. If they couldn’t, she’d rather not be aware. Maybe she should just shut him out again, ignore his calls, run when he came to find her and leave town. She could, but Tamara admitted she didn’t want to do any of those things. She ached to run into his arms, to hold him and kiss him and tell him how much she loved him.