Saturday, December 28, 2013

Clear and Bright: Chapter Thirty Six: More Than Enough



"Don't make light of the way I love you, Claire."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not, Jaimin. I'm trying to–"

"You're trying to get your way, but–"

"I swear I'm doing it honestly."

"You wouldn't go all day without eating."

"Not usually, no... but I did. Today."

"Claire, if you're–"

"I'm hungry." And you know you can't ignore that. Or "And cold."

And he doesn't for a single second, the cold part, anyway, and in less than, has his coat off and is wrapping it around me, and with his arm around it, is leading me up the walk and through the front door.

And once we're behind it, but only just, he looks at me. Hard. Searching, I know, for truth. And since I know he'll find it, I stand motionless and wait.

It takes only seconds for him to find it, and though it angers and annoys him that it existed for him to, he doesn't waste so much as a breath on it. "Is there anything here that I could turn into any semblance of a meal for you? Or even that you were going to attempt to not do for yourself?"

At least he still has his sense of humor. But then again, he was simply stating my never questionable truth... as he interprets it. I don't happen to think there's anything wrong with cheese sandwiches, and have, in fact, often considered them meals.

Of course, that was before I had my own personal chef–who would never–at my beck and call. "I didn't bring any bread and cheese, if that's what you were indirectly asking. I didn't bring anything, because I wasn't planning to... well, I didn't plan this at all." This, that I don't want to focus on again yet, since I finally got him to take his off of it.  "There's probably some spaghetti in there, though. In the kitchen, I mean. And, yes, the kind that comes in a box. And probably a jar or two of the sauce you–"

"Will NEVER let touch your mouth."

I love you... "But there isn't anything else. And I'm hungry. And you don't want to take me home..."

"That's not true, Claire," he says simply.

And I don't need him to say more than that. I don't need him to clarify which part of what I said isn't, even though he turned and walked right back out the door to, I have no doubt, prove to me what else might not be.

Which is why I stay where I am. In the exact place where he left me. And do so without so much as a whisper of smothering panic. Because I know he'll come right back. And would never not. He'd feed me that jar of sauce before he'd leave me, hungry or not.

But he meant what he said, and comes back quickly just like I knew he would. And with a box of his own, that, after turning the lock on the door, and pausing briefly to look at my still-wet canvas, he carries straight into the kitchen.

And this time I follow him.

Because after what he just saw, I don't want him out of my sight. Or hearing distance of my mouth.

Which will have to wait to try to explain, because his is moving. "Not even any flour, Claire?"

"Flour?"

"Yes, flour."

"No... I wouldn't even know what to do with flour. Is it something important?"

"It is to someone who was determined not to cook you pasta that came out of a box."

"Oh." I eye the tomatoes he just pulled from the one he carried in and try a smile. "I promise not to tell anyone, especially since it's my fault that you have no choice. If you're willing, that is... to set aside your chefly pride to prevent me from starving."

"You could have not starved a lot more decadently if you'd have–"

"I know," I say before he can finish. "I put the clouds over my own head today."

"Because I put something over it."

I nod, too stunned by his admittance, though vague, to speak. And by his surrender of that pride I mentioned, as he pulls the box of spaghetti from the open and mostly empty cupboard and lays it on the counter with a pained and heavy sigh. Before he finally nods in return and then turns away from me, finding a large pot in a lower cupboard and carrying it to the sink.

He doesn't turn to look at me when he speaks again. "Don't worry, I'll feed you without you having to talk to me. Or be close to. You can go back to your painting. Unless you're afraid to turn your back on me."

Oh, Jaimin... "I'm not afraid to do that," I tell him, and move closer to him. Closer and closer until I'm right behind him, and close enough to touch. I keep my hands on his coat that's still around me, and wrap it tighter around, as if it were his arms and not just what kept them warm before it made me, and rest my head against his back. "I'm only afraid of how you might interpret it if I did. If I was ever stupid enough to do such a stupid thing."

He doesn't say anything, and I feel the struggle that his silence is for him in his body. In its stillness but not. And when he finally moves, I think he's going to turn around and pull me into his arms that I'm so desperately craving. And so painfully aching for...

But desperate and painful are all I get to feel, because he only reaches forward to turn on the tap in front of him.

The kitchen is quiet but for the sound of the water filling the pot. And it bothers me, that deafening silence, because I know how much it bothers him, but I don't know what to break it with. What to try again to.

We have a lot of things to talk about. Things that paint us both in an unflattering light. And a just plain wrong. But at this moment, I'm not sure that shining an even brighter light on any of it is a good idea, or one that will help us.

Once full, he moves away from me and carries the pot to the stove, still without a word, and without so much as a glance at me before or after, and I can't bear it anymore. Being so near to him, so within his line of sight, and not hearing or feeling or seeing myself in it.

"I like it when you watch me," I say. "When you can't take or keep your eyes off of me. And when you don't want to. And choose not to...

"I like it so much better than this."

"You came here because I was watching you, Claire," he says to that, finally breaking his silence. "And because you didn't like it."

He wasn't so selfish as to withhold his eyes from me as he spoke that truth I can't argue, but now that they're on me just the way I wanted them, I don't know what to do with them.

Or exactly what to say to him. "I know that looking at me isn't enough. That seeing me in front of you isn't, no matter how real and absolutely belonging to you I am. Or how needing of you I am..."

"Needing of me because you're hungry, you mean."

"No... not because of that," I say. And then add "Not only, not ever only" when those eyes I love so much challenge me to tell the absolute truth.

And he doesn't say anything to that so much more I tried to give him, and only stares at me, telling me that it wasn't enough.

"We're getting married here," I say now, and tear my eyes from his to look out the window to the not in bloom yet field beyond it. "Right out there...

"And what I need... is for us to do that purely. And honestly. Unless, of course, you don't want that anymore. Or me..."

"Is that what you believe, Claire? That I don't? Or wouldn't, just that easily?"

"No."

"Yet you said it. Made it a real and ridiculous possibility by speaking it out loud."

"You've told me many times never to turn myself off to you. I was merely following your orders, in a purely honest way, and letting you hear everything, even if what was in my stupid head was wrong or ridiculous in every."

"Your head isn't stupid, Claire, and I'd never call it, or you, that."

"No, I know you wouldn't. But, Jaimin, doing what you did... above it and behind my back... told me that you think I am."

"If that's what you heard, then there's something wrong with your ears."

"No, I don't think that there is. I think there's something wrong with your mouth."

"Well, at least you're finally willing to admit that."

"You should have told me, Jaimin. And given mine the chance to tell you no. Or say anything at all."

"So should you have today."

"You're absolutely right about that. I should have. And I admit that whole–and broken–heartedly. And sorrowfully. But I shouldn't have to. Admit or feel any of those things... because you shouldn't have given me a reason to."

"I'm not sorry that I installed the cameras, Claire. I can't feel sorry for needing to see you, always, in one perfect and beautiful piece."

"You know that I'm not perfect, Jaimin. You even admitted it just a minute ago... that there's something wrong with me... with my ears...

"And you've never really held back from me that you thought there was something wrong with my head, whatever terminology either of us use or used, now or ever, to describe it.

"And lets not forget about my mouth... that–"

"Should have told me how you felt."

"Yes, should have. Should have and didn't. Just like yours should have but didn't tell me what you'd done. Or were planning to before you had."

"So that yours could tell me no. Pointlessly, I might add, because I'd have still done it. And, if I had already, not have undone it."

I know that, but still... "But not having had the chance, not having been given one by you, to say anything, or feel about what you'd done or would have done anyway, even if you'd told me first... Jaimin, you didn't give my head or my heart or my ears any chance at all to think or feel or hear anything real or right, or even not ridiculous. You left me all alone, while not at all, to interpret it my own way. And you know me... far too well to have risked that happening. And happening to us."

"And you know me, Claire... far too well, too, unfortunately for you, and well enough that you should have stayed and fought."

"You mean pointlessly?" I ask him.

But it doesn't reach his ears in the way that I meant it, or meant for it to. "Staying would have been pointless? I see."

"No, Jaimin..."

"I never thought a day would come when I'd wish you would lie to me, Claire... but one has. It's here..."

"Fight, Jaimin. Not stay... FIGHT. It would have been pointless for me to fight with you about it, not stay to. Knowing you is knowing that. And that's all I was saying. I say enough stupid things on my own, don't try to help me. Please, don't ever do that."

He closes his eyes and it takes the air from my lungs. "Or that. Please, more than anything else you could ever do, not that...

"You'll break me, Jaimin. You'll–"

"Never do that, Claire," he says in a voice broken with understanding. And with guiltless guilt. "And what I did was just another way of me not."

"As you interpret it."

"Yes, as I do. And desperately want you to."



                                                                                ~




He sits with me as I eat, but that's all he does. Well, that, and cringe every time I take a bite. Which is so unnecessary...

Because the pasta may have come from a box, but what he did with it was done with love. And his brilliance, of course.

"I like it, so stop making that face."

"You're hardly a tough critic, Claire."

"You want critique? Because I can give it... because it's by no means perfect."

"Then by all means critique away."

"There's something wrong with it. Something... missing."

"Yeah, it's called freshness."

"No... it's called YOU."

"It's the same thing."

"No it's not. Because your interpretation of my critique is wrong."

"I assure you it isn't."

"There's nothing wrong with the way it tastes, Jaimin, though I promise you my tongue knows the difference between it and your fresh. Pasta, I mean, before you interpret that wrong."

"I told you I know your faces, Claire. And how smart you are. I wasn't going to interpret either incorrectly."

"Good. I'm glad. Now, back to my critique... there's nothing wrong with the food. The wrong is the way you served it to me."

"Would you have preferred it in a bowl?"

"No. The problem isn't the vessel. It's more the utensil."

"You can't eat spaghetti with a spoon, Claire. The utensil is the correct one."

"I'm not making myself clear. It's not the utensil so much as it is the hand that holds it. And delivers what's on it to my mouth."

His eyes fall from my face to the fork in my hand, and I know he understands now. Not that it gets us anywhere. "I think the hand that holds it is perfect. And the right one, on this particular evening."

"I don't."

"You don't have to go that far, Claire."

"It's not far to go, Jaimin. Less than a single step, actually. And far less far than where we are now because I went far too already."

"You went where you needed to go when you came here."

"And I'm trying to tell you where I need you to go now. You know, now... after you found me here where I was wrong to come alone. Alone without you, specifically. Which hopefully I didn't really need to clarify at all."

"You alone breaks my heart, Claire. The mere thought of it... but the reality of you alone without me..."

"Is a reality that you made not. And that I love you for. More than I've ever loved you for anything before."

"I was just being me, Claire. Me that loves you too much, and–"

"You could never do that. Love me too much. Never, Jaimin."

"Too wrong, then."

"No... not that, either. But maybe you could love me not enough."

"Whatever I've done wrong, Claire, please don't interpret it as that. Because that–"

"Then feed me. This food that you think is beneath me. And beneath you. With your hand that you think is the first. Think wrongly, to be absolutely clear.

"Feed me, Jaimin. Please. And show me that you do love me enough to. And that you still believe that I love you enough to let you."

"I know that you love me, Claire."

"I should think so."

"And you know that I love you."

"Yes. I DO."

"And that."

"I absolutely do. Just like you do–absolutely–how much I love getting my way."

"Yes. That would, in fact, be impossible to misinterpret, even for me."

"So, what are you waiting for?" I ask him, willing him with the simple question to let us go back to where we were before I came here. And before there was nothing over my head–that I knew of–except for sunshine and a few occasional (interpretation be damned) storm clouds.

And he takes the fork from my hand. Very gently, I might add. And then his eyes from me one more time, watching his own movements with intense focus, before extending his surrender–and the beneath us both sustenance I forced him to give me–to my mouth. "Just for you to open, Claire."






                                                                            ~




"Even if your flowers were in full, splendid bloom, you wouldn't be able to see them in the dark, Claire."

I turn my gaze from the kitchen window to where he stands at the sink, his on me instead of his task. "Don't be so sure about that, sweetheart. My sense of sight is extraordinary. Especially in splendid darkness."

"I think I believe you, actually. You know, since you're marrying me. If I can presume you still–"

"PRESUME. And give credit where it's due. To me. 'I'm smart' credit. Because only a stupid person–girl–a complete and utter idiot of one, wouldn't marry a man who does all of the cooking AND washes all of the dishes after."

He gives me a very brief glimpse of cocky, with an also very brief, but very effective in its brevity, glimpse of You're going to get it, and then turns back to his task of cleaning up after my (only by my interpretation) late night dinner.

But since there wasn't much of a mess to tend to, he's finished quicker than quickly. And behind me quicker than that, the towel he dried the dishes with still in his hands. Still in his hands and twirling... twisting around itself between them... the glimpse of You're going to get it getting clearer, and utterly impossible to misinterpret.

Or so I thought.

Because when he extends it to me, I don't feel the slightest sting. Or burn. Or sharp pain of any kind. Because when he extends it to me, he does so with it still in both of his hands. His hands that raise up in front of me and fall back down behind, the tightly twirled and twisted towel between them used only to pull me to him. And hold me there, tightly up against. "I do all of the cooking because I love you," he declares with pride.

And though I know more 'declarations' are surely coming from his always generous, to say the least, mouth, I can't resist interrupting him. "And yourself."

"Well, enough to never let you attempt to do any, or call anything you might be brave and foolish enough to ever dare to anyway, YES..."

Meanie...

"And for other reasons we're both fully aware of...

"But I do all of the dishes because I love your brilliant and delicately so hands, and don't want to see them wasting their aforementioned delicate brilliance on unnecessary, menial tasks that I could, and do, gladly perform."

"Remember that tomorrow when it's toilet scrubbing day."

"Consider it remembered."

"And by all means disregard my interruption and continue your sweet appraisal of my brilliant and delicately so features."

Yes, I'm a brat, we know this already.

"I had every intention of it, Claire." As does he, who I don't think is going to hold it back from me now, based on his change of demeanor and tone. And grip and pull on the towel that still holds me to him. "And while you may think you're about to hear an appraisal, sweet or otherwise, of your extraordinary in all ways to me mouth... or your extraordinarily PERFECT ass... my mind is at this moment on your feet."

He did have them in his lap, and in his masterful hands, just last night, but still... "My feet?"

"Yes, your feet. That, though they are, in fact, delicate, I don't find to be as equally brilliant. Or brilliant at all, to be exact, at least on this day."

On this day? What... Oh. Because on this day they

He finishes my thought aloud. "Because on this day–"

Or starts to anyway, before I do so he doesn't have to. "They ran away. From you. And your brilliant, though not always, or possibly ever, delicate, eyes, which I love.

"And I promised you that I, and they–my feet, which are stupid, by the way–never would."

"I didn't call them stupid, Claire."

"You could. I wouldn't argue it. Or stomp them in any sort of tantrum or fit."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that last part, because you not stomping them will keep them delicate. Because when we get home, I may feel it necessary, and be unable to not, to take all of your shoes away. And you stomping them in all of their bare and delicate glory, may–"

"You won't have to," I declare with as much passion as I've ever spoken any other words to him. "I promise you won't."

With my mouth. That, like my stupid feet, should have never come here. To be held, like the rest of me against him, in his unyielding need for me. And under his unyielding gaze. Both of which I never want to be free of.

And the second of which I should never have tried to get out from under. Or misinterpret in any way. Because there's only one interpretation that truly matters, and it's his.

And just the way, the more than enough way, that he can't help but love me.





2 comments:

  1. Oh, Jaimin.

    And oh YOU, Ms. Masen. For continuing to write in such a magnificent way that I am completely and utterly torn in my thoughts and feelings about this chapter. And the events enclosed within it.

    I have a love hate relationship currently. With our leading man. Part of me loves his obvious dominance with the issue and part of me wants to hit him. Lol. I can completely understand why he's upset. She probably should have stayed to talk, especially knowing how much and how deeply he loves her. But ... If he wouldn't budge, wouldn't change his mind - or his actions - the words would be wasted in a way. He's clearly made up his mind about the situation, and like it or not she'll be watched. But I get it, he wants to know if he's upset her and he wants to know how she feels.

    My heart melted when he caved and took the fork. And continued to melt as he held her against him and they exchanged words. And, as always, it will melt continuously between your updates because I can never quite stop thinking about and appreciating these two and the future that awaits. Bare feet, cameras, boxed pastas and all.

    I'm eager to see where they go from here. How they move on and if he will ever be willing to budge. Or if she will ask for that.

    As always, thank you for bestowing this incredible tale on us. And for bestowing your presence in my world. It would be a very dark and unpleasant place without either of those gifts. :)

    xo

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