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Sinfonia de la Inamorata
An Interlude for Sweet Lovin'
Movement Three
III: Mondo Crescendo Fortissima DS Al Capo Ad Libida
"You bastard!" came the shriek from down the corridor. There was the sound of breaking glass and a tray of metal instruments hitting the floor and scattering across the tiles.
A swinging room door popped open then shut, ejecting a tall, bearded, graying man into the hallway. He leaned against the door frame, his head down on his forearm, breathing hard, possibly sobbing a little.
"Drummond! Hey, man! What's up?"
He started a bit at the touch of Sappho Tarkasian's hand on his arm. He turned to face her, a look of stark panic on his face and incipient tears in his eyes. "She's gone nuts, Sapph."
The dark Emissary captain didn't need a name to know who "she" was. There was only one pronominal female in Drummond's life and she was Gabrielle F. Dolly, the most beautiful and most tempestuous woman in anyone's experience.
Sappho also had a good idea what had occasioned this particular tantrum and knew that, with the best will in the world, her friend couldn't win through this time.
"Go get a cup of coffee. I'll talk to her."
"B-but..."
"Go! It'll be OK."
Drummond nodded. He turned, shoulders slumped, looking defeated and hopeless, and trudged off down the hall. It broke Sappho's heart to watch him go. He loved the little doll so much. But this was a woman thing and she knew things would work out in the end. She sighed and pushed the door open.
"What? Are you trying to kill him? Or just drive him away?"
Dolly was lying back on her bed, her white silk gown in disarray all around her, her legs half exposed, one breast nearly out of the neckline, her hair, which had sometime that day been neatly pinned up, was in snaky flyaway scraggles around her head. Her big green eyes were red-rimmed with sad puffy lids, her button nose red and swollen, her soft skin pallid and waxy with sweat, her wide bow mouth downturned and thin-lipped with a mixture of anger and sorrow. A shredded tissue was in one hand, and a heavy book was in the other. She looked ready to blow her nose on one and throw the other.
"If you throw that at me, you little ingrate, it'll come right back at you. I'm not some pussy-whipped boyfriend that you can kick around and break my heart like you're doing to that poor bastard that's in love with you!"
"Oh, Sapph, I don't mean to hurt him!" Dolly wailed and fell back on the bed, drawing her knees up to her chest, her face wrinkling up like a crying baby's.
"Then why did you? He was out in the hallway crying his heart out. He doesn't know whether to shit or go blind! And frankly, I don't know why he's put up with you this long."
"But Sapph! I was..."
"Poor baby! You were just raped yesterday. Do you think you're the first woman in history that ever got fucked when she didn't want it? By somebody she didn't love? Maybe even by force? Yeah it hurts! Yeah it fucks with your head big time. Are you going to let it ruin the one good thing you have in your life? Are you going to chase away the one person in the world who loves you more than life itself... who would gladly die for you? What's that all about?
"He needs to help you so badly it hurts. He doesn't know what to do. He wanted to kill a bunch of somebodies yesterday. Did you happen to notice that? He was bloody-eyed berserk with rage. Cut one fucker's head clean off with that sword of yours. Then he had to deal with that queen bitch clone, (I hope somebody wasted her ass but good), to save your life.
"I heard him complaining later that Mick got all the fun. Mick got to work out his aggression and kick some butt. Good ol' Mitch, ol' stable Mitch got sent back in there today to do the housekeeping. He had to spend eight hours in that room where they raped you -- the woman he loves -- and he had that deputy police commissioner on his ass all day. And he couldn't do one fucking thing about it.
"I was with him doing my Emissary thing. I watched him. I wanted to puke, just out of solidarity with a fellow woman person, but him ... he had to keep it all bottled up inside for the good of the Center. And he's in love with you, the poor bastard. He couldn't wait for quittin' time to come here and make all nice and sweet for you. And he put his own needs on hold to make sure things were OK for you -- li'l ol' precious Dolly -- and what do you do? You attack him the minute he walks in the door.
"Dolly, he's a man! You know: the most simple-minded creature in the universe? You can't confuse 'em that way. It makes 'em crazy and they start to hurt things. You got one that's gentle and loving and cares about you. That's rare. It's not good for the rest of us to have the gentle ones turned mean. You can't do that!"
"I thought you'd understand!" Dolly wailed.
Sappho went to her side and gathered her up in a hug.. "Oh, Baby Doll, of course I understand! You hurt inside and you want to cry and you want to kill something. You don't know what you did to deserve this and you feel like you're worth about as much as a very small mouse turd. You don't want anyone to ever touch you again, especially not sexually. You worry that your lover won't want you any more. And the contradiction of those two things makes you crazy. Plus, in your case, you've been so doped up with hormones that it's a wonder you know your own name.
"What they did to you there is ten times worse that having a strange dick forced into you, but it sure doesn't feel like it right now. And your mood swings wildly from one heartbeat to the next... and... Oh, yeah. I understand. But you're supposed to be a big girl, now. And part of being a big girl is that when you love somebody and they want to help you, you let them. And you tell them what hurts so they can at least try to fix it. You don't throw stuff and scream at them and confuse the hell out of them. Right now, Drummond's wondering what he did to deserve this and if anything can ever be the same between you and how you're going to react the first time he touches you... "
"But he made love to me right after... to save my life..."
"And both of you were in shock and it didn't seem real, did it?"
"Well, no. It didn't, but..."
"But nothing. He may be easily confused, but he's no dummy. He knows that you will react differently today than you did then. He's ready for that. He just can't handle the kind of violent head games you're playing with him right now. And, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't blame him a bit if he left you."
"He wouldn't. Never."
"Don't bet on it, girlie. As much as he loves you, there is such a thing as self-preservation. You can only reject him so many times before he begins to accept that it's what you really want. Sooner or later, you'll reach his limit. I have no idea what his limit is. Do you?"
"I... I... " Dolly could only shake her head.
"It never even occurred to you that he might have a limit, did it? You just thought you could load him up with all your shit forever and he'd just keep coming back for more because your pussy is just so magic he can't live without it?"
"God! It sounds so crude when you put it like that!"
"Does, doesn't it? But you gotta realize that it's the truth. No matter how you dress it up with romance -- and, trust me, I am the world's original romantic fool -- no matter how you dress it up, that's what it comes down to. You know that from that Kama Whatsis you're translating, right? He wants to screw your brains out. He needs that. If you don't give him that, he'll look elsewhere. Oh, sure, he'll hang on because he thinks he ought to. But he's hard-wired to act that way and no amount of civilizing influence is going to change that once you take away the magic of your pussy. And no matter how special you are now, you're just like every other woman that ever lived, sooner or later your tits are gonna sag and your arms are gonna flap like turkey wings, and you won't be able to turn him on just by stretching your back. And when that happens, there'd better be more there than just a fun time doing the belly bump, or he'll be gone, 'cause there won't be anything left to hold him. The first thing there has to be between you is trust. He trusted you. He walked in here emotionally naked, stripped raw, and you dumped all over him. No matter how good your reasons, you hurt him bad -- right where he lives. So now you gotta ask yourself: how much does a long-term relationship with this particular guy matter to you?"
"So what do I do now?"
"Atta girl! When he comes back up here, he's going to apologize. He won't have the slightest idea what for, but he figures he did something to deserve it. Accept the apology and prove to him that you love him. Let him hold you. It'll do you good anyway, but it will heal him more than anything you could say. You both need that right now."
"Then what?"
"Just take it one day at a time. There's good counseling available for partners of rape victims. Make sure he gets it. Support him in it. They'll help him resolve issues it may be hard for the two of you to work out between you. Make sure he supports you, too. But I'm pretty sure he will-- it's in his nature to be that way, and he loves you too much not to. But don't try to feed him any bullshit. And don't pull the stoic warrior attitude, either. The toughest women in the world can get their heads fucked up by being raped. You're gonna have a lot to work through. You've got people around you that love you and care about you. You'll get through it if you let them help you... starting with that man of yours."
"Sapph...?"
"Hmm?"
"You know all this, how come you're not still married?"
Sappho laughed bitterly. "How do you think I learned all this?" Then she sighed. "No... it's different for me. I didn't have a partner like Drummond is for you. And, to tell the truth, Drummond might change. Men do, you know. We do, too. It's a crap shoot. What looks good now may not look so good ten, twenty years down the road. You never know.
"But there's something else. Something I realized about myself. I'm gay. I'm tired of fighting it. It's what I am and there's no point in trying to paper it over and pretend I'm something I'm not."
Dolly looked thoughtful. Then: "I learned something about myself... Gods! was it just the night before last?"
"What's that?"
"I was in a situation where I had to take the lead -- sexually -- and I realized that I've got a little butch in me."
Sappho laughed. "Tell you a secret. And if you ever tell him I told you this, I'll kill you with my bare hands. We had a lot of time to talk on the site cleanup today and we got onto some pretty strange subjects. Drummond said you went down on him. And he liked it. Said he didn't want to. Didn't want to do that to you. But he said he realized that he had to try to enjoy it for your sake. And he did! He said it made him realize that he has a little femme in him."
Dolly laughed. "He didn't!"
"Yup," said Sappho laughing. "Then he said -- and this is an amazing insight for a guy -- he said that he figured there was a little butch and a little femme in everybody. That everybody wants to be a top once in awhile and everybody wants to be a bottom once in awhile."
"Why's that amazing? Seems kind of obvious to me."
"Did it seem that obvious to you the day before yesterday? Before you had your little revelation."
Dolly gave a wry grin. "No, I guess it didn't, did it?"
"Me, I figure these little divisions are kind of artificial anyway. That nobody's all of one thing or another, and the enjoyment you get out of life is proportional to how open you are to being a little different every once in awhile."
"Wow. So, Sappho. Can you do me a big favor?"
"What's that?"
"They won't let me out of here. Can you go find that big lunk and tell him I want to apologize?"
"No. But I'll go tell him that you need him to hold you. How's that?"
"Sounds wonderful." And Sappho got the treatment with the megawatt smile and understood once again just what it was that Drummond saw in this tiny bundle of trouble.
Even if she's not my type, she thought as she headed out to find him.
Next: IV: Duets ... First Movement | Previous: II. An Air on a Single Heartstring