King of Her Desire

42

In case you're pissed off that I did a "fade to black" on that Japanese bathtub thing, we didn't do anything in there, Elliott and me.

It's like trying to take a bath in a barrel. And she was having a really bad "dysesthesia" attack—an "MS hug" is what Gerri called it.

That's when her muscles tightened up so hard around her torso that she could hardly breathe. So I had to be super careful. The slightest touch could set off waves of searing pain.

The only remedies—oxy only dulled her senses--were things that might temporarily calm her and her nerves down some. That's what the "barrel" was for. To let her sit in hot water up to her neck when the pain got really intense.

I couldn't even massage her or anything. So we just sat there sipping this really sweet wine that she likes while I tried to keep her laughing.

And I told her about Toby, too. Thinking his pain would distract her from her own for a bit.

It was a story she knew, of course. She sighed and shook her head as she listened. And closed her eyes and laid back against the cushion thing I'd put behind her and said, "It's absolutely terrifying, that long, slow fall when the phone stops ringing. Especially for the young ones. Because you've had success at an age when you can't process it. It's just this amazing ride—you're invincible! You're immortal! Everyone loves you—of course you know better, even as a child. But that just makes you cling to the illusion more desperately. You know it will end...just please not yet."

And of course I felt like a dick then. For blowing him off instead of trying to understand all that. But she turned around to lean back on me while I let some more hot water in. Joked about how we were going to be "soup" if the water got any hotter.

And I could the tension in her voice when that hug tightened up. But she'd just keep talking away to keep from giving in to it. Her way of saying "please not yet."

I didn't want to give in, either. But I worried about her the whole way back to Tucson. No—I was scared the whole way. Waiting for my cell to ring. For Gerri to tell me something awful had happened after I left...

So I really leaned into the sight of Sochi standing there watching the train pull in just grinning from ear to ear. She looked like a city girl this time. Skinny jeans and a little cropped top. But that hair was down—she knew I loved that.

And she grabbed my hand as soon as I got to her and said, "Surprise for you!"

"Uh, oh..."

"No! Good! Hurry!"

I just laughed and let her pull me to the Uber she'd come in. She wouldn't let me hire cars anymore. She was learning to take the bus, even, to avoid things like that. Talking to people she met on the bus stops. Brave little babe.

We pulled up to this art gallery not far from the station this time. One of the last galleries left from before they priced out all the starving artists and musicians and long-time locals from downtown and started cramming huge apartment buildings into every spare inch of space they could find.

The gallery was covered with amazing murals. In fact, the whole front of the building was an optical illusion that made you feel like you were actually walking into one of those pyramids down in Mexico.

And when we got inside, she yanked me over to this big space where it looked like someone had taken a hammer to three of her big pots.

And she laughed when I said, "What the hell happened here?"