red Rain: Chapter Eight (F/m)
* * * *
Red Rain

Chapter Eight: Fiddler's Green

   Of all the possible reactions I imagined Camille experiencing when I told
her of the day’s events, a hard, sharp slap to the face was not one of them.

   I staggered back, putting my hand up to my reddened cheek.

   “Camille?”

   “How could you? How... dare you!”

   “I don’t understand...”

   “God Dammit, Jordan!” she bellowed. “What were you thinking?”

   “I... I...”

   “Christ!” she swore angrily, and then dropped heavily into one of the chairs
around the dining table. “She could have seriously hurt you,” she said in a
calmer, sadder tone.

   “I wanted to help you, Camille.”

   “Oh, thank you, Jordan!” she snarled, her voice oozing sarcasm. “Thank you
soooo much! It’ll be such a help knowing I can no longer trust you to show good
sense anymore! It’s such a help knowing that from now on I’ll have to be
worried sick about your safety every time you’re out of my sight!” 

   “I was just supposed to stand back and let her do those things to you?” I
snapped back.

   “Dammit, Jordan! You think she dragged me into those chains?”

   After my “visit” to Hain’s office, I had spent the next six hours almost
continuously on my feet, with a constant throbbing pain between my legs.

   The only thing keeping me standing during that whole hellish time had been
the thought of Camille.

   “What the hell is wrong with you?” I exploded. “The way you’re acting, you’d
think I was the one who did those fucking things to you!”

   The temperature in the room dropped precipitously.

   Camille, looking directly into my eyes, held up her left arm.

   “Jordan, all she did was hurt this.” 

   Before I could even cry out for her to stop, she’d raked the nails of her
right hand down along her forearm, creating five long, thin, red trails along
the soft white flesh. Tiny specks of blood welled up in the wake.

   “Camille!” I shouted in horror. I bolted to her side and tried to take her
injured arm in my hands. Instead, she garbed my hand in hers and pressed it to
her chest, over her heart.  

   “You hurt this,” she said  plainly.

   I wobbled uncertainly on exhausted legs.

   “What was I supposed to do?” I asked, near tears.

   “You should have trusted me to fight my own battles, that’s what!”

   She sighed heavily and looked down to the floor.

   “Jordan, I already have one child whose well being haunts me every night and
day. I don’t need another!”

   “Camille, I’m so sorry, I never meant to -”

   “I think you should go home, Jordan,” she said coldly.

   “Camille?” My voice squeaked pathetically.

   “I’m not breaking up with you,” she informed me wearily. “But, please, I
just need some time alone to think. Okay?”

    “Okay,” I said, the weight of the world settling upon my shoulders.

   I turned and started to walk away. When I reached the front door, I stopped
and turned to her and said weakly, “I really am sorry, Camille.”

   She didn’t lift up her head to look at me.

   “I’ll call you in a few days,” was all she said.

   The rest of that night was unbearably long.

   And it was only the beginning.

   It was amazing how the previous week had seemed to race by so quickly at the
time, yet looking back, which I did a lot of on that Saturday, it felt as
though a year or more had passed.

   I was aware of each and every second as it ticked by with infernal languor
that weekend; a condition only made worse by the fact that I worked the floor
both days - constantly shuttling between helping customers find products they
knew for a certainty existed (but could seldom name or describe) cleaning up
messes, working a register when the lines got too long and lastly putting out
as much backstock as I could in anticipation of the inventory on Monday.

   I didn’t even want to think about Monday. The only good thing about it was
that the store would be closed to the public while we went through and
accounted for each and every item of stock in the store left over on the
shelves from the Christmas boom.

   She didn’t call on Saturday or Sunday, and by the time I set out for what
was likely to be the longest, slowest, most tedious day of the year; my spirit
resigned itself to defeat. I entered the store just before sunup and left long
after the world had gone dark again; taking some small solace in the fact that
since the company wouldn’t spring for overtime, I would be able to sleep in the
next day and still get paid for “phantom hours.”

   I was so tired by the time I stumbled into my apartment, I didn’t notice the
blinking light on my answering machine for several minutes.

   When I did, I got tripped up in a drift of laundry on the floor and nearly
sent myself flying in my frantic dash to get to the phone.

   There were two messages.

   “Jordan? This is Camille. I guess you’re at work.”

   I winced, and grit my teeth as the second message began to play.

   “I’m outside your store, Jordan, but it doesn’t seem to be open today. I
guess you must be somewhere else. Too bad.” Click.

   “No!”

   In a frenzy I grabbed the machine and without even thinking, I hurled it
across the room, where it exploded on impact with the wall.

   I sank to my knees, my chin dropping to my chest, and I began to sob.

   In the midst of my crying, I heard a faint rapping at the door. And then a
muffled voice.

   “Jordan? Are you all right?”

   Camille!

   I jumped to my feet and nearly ripped the door of its hinges in my mad need
to get to her. I think she was shocked a little at just how wild I must have
looked.

   “Uh...” I stammered, trying to calm down. “Please, come in,” I said
clumsily.

   She entered my apartment cautiously and looked around. It was the first time
she’d been over. To tell the truth, there wasn’t much to look at. Cinderblock
bookcases and a beat up futon, an old TV on a rolling stand.

   And of course the smashed remains of my answering machine lying in a jumble
of plastic on the floor. 

   “I... I’m sorry,” Camille said, sounding embarrassed at the sight of the
wreckage. “The lights were on but the sign said closed and I didn’t see your
car until after I’d called and was driving off - you’d parked so far away - I
should have called back...”

   “No... it’s okay. We’re supposed to park like that, give the customers the
good spaces...”

   “Oh, I see.” 

   We hovered around each other awkwardly.

   “So...”

   “So.”

   “Well, you’re here. That’s a good sign, I guess, right? I guess that means
you don’t hate me.”

   “Jordan, my... caring for you was never at issue. That wasn’t what I needed
to think about.”

   “Then... what did you need to think about?”

   She sighed and sat down on the edge of the futon.

   “Actually, most of it was about what you said about them being the masters
and me being the sub. About me being a whore.”

   “Camille! I...”

   “I know what you said, Jordan! And...” her voice softened, “...it meant a
great deal to me, okay? But the fact is that I don’t think being an artist
means you can’t be a whore as well. In fact, just the opposite. Look at all the
people who make commercials or greeting cards or even most movies these days.
Think about all the talent and creativity given by God that gets squandered in
the name of taking home a regular paycheck.”

   Her voice trailed off and she stared into space for a moment.

   “I think my whole life people have looked at me and seen what they wanted me
to be instead of who I am. My dad wanted a son so badly, and for years I tried
to be one for him! Stacey wants somebody to blame for everything that’s ever
gone wrong in her life. Samantha....”

   She sighed sadly.

   “She’s probably the only one I’ve ever said no to, Jordan. She wants a
kindred spirit so badly, someone to share her dark little world with. And when
I wouldn’t, she found a way to get to me.”

   She looked me dead in the eyes.

   “And you nearly gave her a second.”

   Before I could apologize yet again, she spoke.

   “And of course my clients! I always fooled  myself into believing that
because I was the one wielding the whip, I was the one in charge. But now I
have to wonder if on some level I didn’t just start doing this professionally
because deep down it’s become ingrained in my nature to meet the expectations
of others.

   “And... I’m tired of it. I’m tired of fulfilling everybody’s fantasies.”

   Her eyes suddenly seemed to open up onto depths beyond anything I had ever
imagined.

   “I have fantasies of my own, Jordan.”   

   I hesitated. Everything I wanted to say seemed small and stupid and rash.

   Finally, I said, “You know I love you, Camille.”

   She sighed and looked away into the corner.

   “I know, Jordan, which is why this is so hard for me.”

   “I... I don’t follow you...”

   “Jordan, I care about you so much, but I don’t think you’re the one who can
give me what I want.”

   “What I need,” she amended hastily.

   “Why?” I asked, fighting back tears.

   Her eyes swung back to meet mine, looking hurt and fearsome.

   “Because of that stupid fucking stunt you pulled on Friday! You told me once
you were never a jock, but going to confront Sam in her den like that was such
a totally fucking jock thing to do!

   “And don’t you dare try to say you did it for me! I neither asked, wanted or
needed you to go there. It was all your bullshit macho pride that drove you,
and don’t try to deny it!”

   This time I was the one who looked away.

   “When I looked into your eyes, Jordan, I thought I saw something. Something
special, something different; but you proved that you’re just like the rest of
them: possessive, arrogant and selfish. How can we be equals if you don’t think
I know best how to run my life? 

   “And if we can’t even be equals, Jordan, then you certainly could never give
me what I want right now. It’s not in you.”

   “I could try!” 

   “It wouldn’t be real.  You’d just be doing it to appease me. You’d just be
tolerating it to indulge your kinky girlfriend.”

   “That’s what people do, Camille! They compromise!”

   Her eyes burned into mine. I’d never seen her angrier or more hurt.

   “Not everyone, Jordan.” she said coldly. She stood up suddenly and brushed
past me as she walked swiftly for the door.

   When I heard the knob rattle, I spoke out in a loud, clear voice.

   “If it were as fucking easy as all that, you’d have found someone already!”

   I turned around. She was standing as still as a statue. I could hear the
ragged hitch of her breathing and the rattle of the knob as her hands shook.

   “Wouldn’t you?”

   “Maybe I would,” she said in a whisper.

   “Camille, maybe I don’t really understand what it is you want. And maybe I
can never really give it to you. But love you enough that I’m willing to try.
I’m willing to make an effort. And that has got to count for something!”

   She turned slowly, visibly upset. She looked down at the floor, she
swallowed hard, her lip trembled and her hands balled up into little fists.

   I took those shaking fists in my hands and said in as gentle and soothing a
voice as I could, “Please give me another chance.”

   I reached out and gently passed my hand through her hair, caressing the side
of her face.

   “Please let me try to fulfill your fantasies.”

   “It would be so hard for you, Jordan.”

   “Then I’ll be like Boxer in Animal Farm: ‘I will try harder!’”

   “Camille,” I said softly, “I don’t want to lose you!”

   “Then you’re a fool!” she sobbed, and threw her arms around my neck and
kissed me.