Pinch Me

  On FetLife, they had each other listed as sisters on their profiles.

  That did nothing to soothe the ugly jealously trying to ooze its way through Rob’s soul. Laura hadn’t had such a visceral reaction to him.

  Then the ugly jealousy tried to spawn a whole lot of dark, nasty eggs of doubt.

  Tony put his hand out and caught Rob’s arm. He waited until Rob finally looked at him. “Women relate differently than we do, okay?” he quietly said. “It’s not a personal statement against you. And she’s known Shayla a few months longer than she’s known you. Try not to read too much into it.”

  Rob slumped against the wall. Tony was spooky like that in his ability to read and relate to people. It was one of the reasons people liked him so much, and why his classes in communication and negotiation in the lifestyle were so popular.

  “What if she never remembers me?”

  Tony’s expression softened. “She will. Just give her time.” He stared through the window again. “The way she looked at you before all this? You are her heart and soul. You will be again. Love like that doesn’t just disappear.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  After a few minutes, Tony nodded. “Okay, let’s see if that did any good for either or both of them.”

  * * * *

  Laura hated that she couldn’t coax any concrete memories from the abyss to go with the overwhelming emotions swamping her.

  The only thing she knew for certain was she did love this woman, and that she was a safe person to confide in.

  “I can’t remember anything,” Laura tearfully whispered. “I can’t remember Rob or you or your husband or anything.”

  Shayla stroked her hair. “I know. Rob told us. It’s okay. We’re here for you. You’re not alone.”

  After a few minutes the men returned. Rob walked over to her while Shayla stepped into the bathroom to blow her nose and wash her face.

  “Are you okay?” Rob asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah.” She looked up when he didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to voice his question. “No new memories. But,” she quickly added when disappointment flowed across his face, “it’s like when I met you. I feel something, I just don’t have the memories.”

  Before he could step away, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. After hesitating, he draped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair.

  As she closed her eyes and deeply inhaled, she pictured a laundry room, where she stood holding her face pressed against a shirt she had to put in the wash, one of his, maybe.

  She pulled herself from the vision. “It’s a yellow jug,” she softly said, surprising herself.

  “What?”

  She didn’t want to look up or let go, afraid to break whatever tenuous connection she had with the delicately sprouting memory. “The laundry soap. It’s in a yellow jug.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Tony spoke from across the room. “I once read that the sense of smell is very powerful in anchoring and triggering memories.”

  She pressed her face more tightly against Rob’s stomach, against the firm abs that no doubt lurked beneath the fabric, and deeply inhaled again.

  Warm, slightly musky, and…

  “Coconut?” she asked, mostly to herself. “Coconut body wash.”

  She felt him exhale sharply, as if someone had punched him in the gut. “Yeah. Your favorite.”

  After a few more minutes, she released him and wiped at her face. “Sorry. That’s all.”

  He caught her hands and gently kissed them. “Hey, it’s a start.”

  Bitter disappointment coursed through her. “It’s not very much.”

  “Don’t be hard on yourself,” Tony cautioned. “Don’t push yourself. They’ll come back when they come back.”

  “If.” She looked at him. He was setting the food out on the rolling bed tray table.

  He shrugged. “What comes back will come back. We’ll help you make new memories, if that’s what it takes. Somehow, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. You’re a strong woman. Your body is trying to heal right now. I can’t imagine you not getting your memories back.”

  Shayla returned from the bathroom, her face freshly scrubbed and devoid of makeup. Laura realized Shayla hadn’t been wearing any makeup when she arrived.

  In a flash, the words were out of Laura’s mouth before she knew she was saying them. “Tony, why don’t you let her wear makeup?”

  The three of them froze, staring at her. Tony recovered first. “What?”

  Laura turned on the bed to face him. She didn’t miss how Shayla was now totally focused on Tony. “You don’t let her wear makeup?” It was more a question than a statement.

  Tony’s gaze darted to Shayla before returning to her. “That’s not true.”

  “But she has to ask?”

  He set down the food container he’d been in the process of opening. “Rob?”

  Rob looked clueless.

  Tony sighed. “Shayla and I have a very close relationship,” he carefully said. “She asks me my opinion. My opinion is she’s beautiful without makeup. If she wants to wear makeup, that’s her choice.”

  Shayla rapidly nodded.

  Laura processed that while Tony continued setting out the food. His answer didn’t feel exactly like the truth. Then she got a strong whiff of the dinner and her eyes dropped closed again as she deeply inhaled, her previous train of thought completely and aromatically derailed.

  “Eggplant parm,” she practically sighed, the picture of a restaurant’s dining room coming into view in her mind’s eye. “Sigalo’s.” She realized what she’d said. “Is that right? It just popped into my head.” She looked at them.

  Maybe Tony is right about the sense of smell triggering stuff.

  Everyone nodded. “That’s right,” Rob said. “It’s your favorite.”

  Tony handed her a container. “And a batch of their famous garlic knots,” he said, holding up another container. He opened it for her, revealing it was crammed full of the bread.

  “Oooh!” She grabbed three and jammed one into her mouth, letting out a soft moan as she carefully chewed. Her jaw still hurt like a bitch, but she would willingly endure the pain so as not to have to eat hospital food. “That is sooo good.”

  She didn’t miss how the other three intently watched her as she chewed. “Are you going to eat or let it go cold?”

  Shayla kicked off her shoes and settled, cross-legged, on the end of the bed, facing Laura and using the other side of the bed table for her food. “I’ll make you a batch of my dark chocolate Buckeyes and bring them in tomorrow,” she said. “They’re one of your favorites.”

  That sounded familiar to Laura, but no memory accompanied it. “What are they?”

  “A peanut butter mix covered with dark chocolate,” Rob said. “You love them.”

  “Am I allergic to anything?” She didn’t know why that thought emerged out of left field, but something about peanut allergies had suddenly sprang to mind.

  “No,” Rob assured her. “You get seasonal allergies sometimes, and sometimes to dust, but nothing serious.”

  “Oh.” She dug into her eggplant parm and closed her eyes as she chewed. “This is amazing,” she softly said, her previous thoughts about Shayla and makeup completely set aside in the face of the best meal she’d ever eaten in her life.

  That she could remember up until this point, at least.

  “I’m surprised I don’t weigh three hundred pounds,” she said after savoring another bite.

  Rob smiled, but it looked sad. “You’re out scuba diving many weekends. Or teaching in a pool. Taking care of the boats, hauling scuba tanks, jogging, swimming—you’re pretty active. This is the least active you’ve ever been since I’ve known you.”

  “I don’t relax?”

  “Sometimes. Not willingly.”

  She looked at him as she forked another bite into her mouth and carefully chewed. “Do they have pictures of Italy on
the walls? Paintings? No, wait…” She closed her eyes. “Murals.” She opened her eyes again to look at everyone.

  They nodded. “You love their murals,” Rob confirmed.

  She stared at the food, the tears taking her by surprise. “Why can I remember stupid stuff like laundry soap and restaurant walls and not anything about people?”

  The men flanked her on either side while Shayla reached across the bed tray and held her hands. “We’re here for you, sweetie,” Shayla assured her. “Tony’s right. Don’t try to force things. That might make it harder. Go easy on yourself, okay? We’ll be here every step of the way with you.”

  “We promise,” Rob said.

  “Yep,” Tony echoed.

  * * * *

  Laura took her time eating, savoring every bite. It didn’t matter how many times she’d supposedly eaten this dish before. She appreciated every nuance of flavor.

  She wished Shayla could spend the night with her there at the hospital. More guilt she wouldn’t readily admit to Rob, but she suspected she’d spent many long hours with the woman, baring secrets and their souls together.

  Rationally, she understood she shouldn’t feel that way. The doctors had gone out of their way to explain her memory might return in odd spurts, or all at once, or not at all.

  But that she’d had this reaction to Shayla and not Rob unsettled her. It didn’t shake her trust in Rob, but it did make her wonder if Rob didn’t know all the secrets of her soul…before.

  It also made her wonder how much she’d confided in Rob…

  Before.

  And if things in their relationship had really been good…

  Before.

  …or maybe they’d been better for Rob than her, and she’d never said anything.

  She’d have to wait until she could talk to Shayla in private. She suspected the woman likely held many of those clues.

  They stayed until after ten o’clock. She started yawning, and Shayla was actually the one who called it a night despite Laura wanting her—all of them—to stay.

  Tony and Shayla both hugged her, with Laura eliciting a promise from the other woman to return the next morning to stay with her. Then they left, giving Laura and Rob a little privacy.

  She held out her hands to Rob, a little thrill running through her when he stepped into her embrace. She once again buried her face against his stomach and breathed in deeply, hoping for another insight.

  Nothing.

  She sighed, then remembered her question.

  “Did I used to wear a necklace or something?”

  She felt his body tense a little. “Why?”

  “It feels like I’m missing one. I keep finding myself reaching up to my neck, like I’m used to playing with it.”

  She didn’t mind it when he kissed the top of her head. “Yes. Apparently your attacker stole it.”

  “Oh.” She felt a keen sense of loss, even though she had no memory of it. Of its own volition, one hand went to the base of her throat. “What did it look like?”

  “A lot like the one Shayla wears,” Rob mumbled into her hair. “I got it for you because you loved hers so much. I promise I’m going to get you another one, sweetheart. I will get you another one.”

  Her eyes squeezed closed. “He took everything from me. And that, too. How much more, Rob? How much more did he steal from us?”

  His embrace felt like a safe harbor in which she could hide from the swirling vortex of a storm she found herself trapped in. “He can’t take our love, Laura. That’s ours, and ours alone.”

  The idle thought crossed her mind that she wished she knew whether she was a religious person or not, and if she found comfort in prayer.

  * * * *

  Rob wanted to spend the night there with her and knew he couldn’t. He had to go home and take care of Doogie, for starters.

  And she needed time alone to process the day.

  As he drove through the darkness his mind drifted. To the last time they’d made love.

  He never imagined as he’d held her wrists pinned over her head, her legs wrapped around his hips as he slowly thrust, patiently waiting for her to come first, that it might be the last time in a long time.

  Their bodies fit perfectly together. As if made to be together. Despite his profession he never dreamed a future without her was something he might have to contemplate this soon.

  He could still envision the unfocused look in her eyes, the way her lower lip caught under her teeth, hear her soft gasps at the bottom of every stroke as his cock filled her and he bumped against her clit.

  The way she felt when she came, her cries of pleasure as he hurried to catch up and join her.

  Nothing had ever felt as right in his life as loving her. Making love to her.

  Owning her.

  And now…

  Now their entire future was a huge, murky if instead of the certainty he’d known not even a week before.

  And seeing her battered face, even if she did get her memory back, could he ever bring himself to lay a hand on her again? Even when, before, she would sometimes playfully beg for her daily spanking? When, before, she would tease him if he didn’t leave bruises on her ass after a scene?

  Doogie eagerly awaited his return. He walked the dog before stripping and stepping into the shower in an attempt to relax.

  Closing his eyes, he turned his face into the stinging spray. Even here held countless memories. Of pushing her up against the wall and fucking her brains out while she begged for more. Or fisting her hair while she gave him a blow job.

  Everywhere lay memories of not only her and their love, but of their dynamic. The plastic storage bins of toys and implements under the bed, and his rolling black suitcase in the closet that held rope and implements and other toys and went with them to the club. The tube of lube on the bathroom counter for when he decided to fuck her ass in the shower.

  The bottle of soap under the bathroom sink they used to clean their toys.

  The matching black leather leash and collar in the bedside table that had never been around Doogie’s neck, and yet were well used. Along with several wooden spoons and bamboo spatulas that would never be used in the kitchen.

  Not for cooking, at least.

  I just want her back. However I can have her, I just want her back.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, Laura woke shortly after six, before rounds started, and managed to get out of bed and make it to the bathroom without assistance. Idle thoughts played through her mind. One of them, she wondered if she was normally a morning person or a night owl.

  Once dressed in clothes Rob had brought for her the day before, she stood staring out her window at the parking lot. Apparently her room faced north. It looked like the sun was coming up to her right, and this side of the building remained cast in shadows.

  When she closed her eyes, a mental image of early mornings spent on a boat, on open water, came to mind. Trying to catch the slippery tail end of those memories is what occupied her thoughts when she heard a knock on her door.

  She turned as the deputy assigned to morning guard duty stuck her head in. “The hospital chaplain is here and wanted to know if you’d like him to come in.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Do you want me to come in with him?”

  Laura shook her head. “No. I think I’ll be all right, but thank you.” It hadn’t taken Laura long to process that uniformed deputies were safe. And to look for name tags on anyone wearing medical uniforms or scrubs. As long as a man fit in those two categories, she forced herself to stay calm.

  And Rob. And, after last night, Tony.

  Chaplain Ben Pelletier was an older man, with a kind and gentle face mirrored on the official hospital ID he wore clipped to his shirt pocket. Laura felt at ease right away as he sat in a chair next to her bed.

  “I know it’s early, but they said you were awake so I figured I’d stop by. Nancy Russell suggested maybe I should come talk to you. See if you wanted a
friendly ear.”

  “I have to be honest with you, Father. I don’t know what religion I was, if any.”

  He laughed. “I’m not a priest. You can call me Ben, or Pastor Ben, if it makes you feel better. I think my wife wouldn’t like it if I was a priest.”

  He got her laughing, which hurt her ribs but felt good to her soul. He stayed, talking with her all during morning rounds and breakfast, chatting, exuding gentle patience while she quizzed him about local places and events, hoping anything would jog her memory.

  Eventually, he turned serious. “I’m also a counselor, if you feel you need to talk to someone. It’s not uncommon for people who’ve been through serious trauma to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes it doesn’t show up right away. In your case, you’ve got other things to focus on right now. It could catch you by surprise.”

  “All I care about is getting my memory back.” She thought about Rob, about Carol, about the pictures they’d both shown her.

  About Tony and Shayla.

  She sensed Rob held something back, but didn’t know what. That feeling conflicted with the innate sense of trust she had when she thought about him.

  “And what if it doesn’t come back?” he asked. “That’s a possibility, and one you should consider. In that case, you really should talk to someone about it.”

  She frowned. “I will get my memory back. Most of it, at least. I know I will.” Although she didn’t know, not for sure.

  Yet a stubborn tenacity rolled through her. Not getting her life back wasn’t an acceptable option to her.

  “If nothing else, you might want to go for Rob’s sake.” Her surprise must have shown, because he smiled. “I know him from here at the hospital. He’s a good man. Very devoted to you. If you have any doubts about him—”

  “I don’t.” Now that she said it, she realized she felt it. Truly felt it.

  Still, little niggling things. Not about her love and trust for Rob, but…something.