A Kind Of Healing

I’ve been pretty much out of it this last week. The break-in has affected me more than I would have thought possible or reasonable, but I have been unable to concentrate on anything as the events of that night, and of my uncontrolled temper tantrum a couple of days later keep playing over and over in my head. That I had taken it out on Heather was the worst thing and as a punishment to myself I had been avoiding any sort of physical contact, or even eye contact, with her. We quarrelled and squabbled over petty, pointless things.

Friday was a blessed relief. A public holiday. Normally we would have packed up and gone to the summerhouse the night before but, with the weather not altogether great and a mountain of work to catch up on, we decided to stay home and use the fact that we would be undisturbed to get a load of it out of the way. We kept out of each other’s way, got a lot done and went to bed relatively early. Still no intimacy.

We were open on Saturday, and it was a busy one what with Mother’s Day and Confirmations taking place in town the next day (Confirmation is a really huge rite of passage thing in this country, on a par with Bar Mitzvah or First Communion, but with the difference that the whole of a school year gets confirmed in the space of just a few short weeks in the spring over the entire country).

We went down to the summerhouse after we had closed in the business, still bickering and sniping at each other as we drove, until we came within about a mile of our destination when we agreed that the whole point of going down there was to leave our troubles behind in town and that if we were going to bring them with us we might just as well turn back there and then. So we buried our differences right there and had a pleasant evening just relaxing and looking out over the sea. A very calming influence, the sea.

”Fuck me” she said as we laid side by side in bed that night.

I didn’t know how.

I know that sounds stupid. It looks stupid as I read back what I have just written, but that’s how it was. I didn’t know how to, where to start, how to break down that wall I had put up around me.

She slowly ran her hands over my chest and as she caught hold of one nipple I suddenly knew what I wanted.

”Hurt me” I pleaded. ”Pinch it, twist it, pull it, bite it, anything. Just hurt me”. To feel pain is to feel alive, I reasoned.

But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. It’s not in her nature.

Instead she turned to me and wrapped her soft arms around me. So soft…I’d forgotten just how soft she is. Her legs intertwined with mine and I lay passively as she pressed her body to mine and engulfed me in her softness.

And then we made love. For the first time in a week. For the first time since we had fallen asleep, sated, in each others arms only to have that sleep shattered as surely as the glass in our front door was shattered.

...And healing has begun.

This is what £2500 ($4000) worth of armoured glass looks like after the bad guys have had a go at it. Just about ready to chuck in the skip, but not before our insurers have had a few well-chosen words with the company that installed it as to why they were able to knock it clean out of the door frame so easily.