no guilt

I heard him whisper it. I figured he'd say he didn't mean for me to hear it, but of course he did. He was starting something.

After a difficult evening at that charity auction, smiling and schmoozing and looking good, small-talking all night with assholes half my age, I felt entitled to peace and quiet when we got home. I knew I didn't have even one more conversation in me, not about the dry cleaning or the Mariners game or the kids or, well, anything. I was talked out. But I heard what he whispered at my back, loud and clear.

"I wonder if you meant it." That pissed me off.

"What did you say?" I flipped over to face him but rolled inside the bedclothes, wrapping myself like a cocoon, stealing any possibility of duvet or flannel sheet for anyone but myself, and surely not for him. "If I meant what, Michael? What is it that you doubt I meant?" It wasn't really a question. It came out icy, an accusation.

But Michael took the bait. I nudged back instinctively, dangerously close to the edge of the bed, as he leaned in closer. I didn't mean to be so hostile, but he was pushing at me. Hadn't I just performed for him all evening long?

"Well, it seems we are on auto-pilot these days, doesn't it?" He sounded less hostile than resigned. "I mean, I was just wondering whether you meant it, when we got married. Whether I was worth it, whether I'm worth it still, what you have to put up with."

"Oh, Michael, come on. Are we really gonna have this conversation right now?" I was honestly confounded by his questions, but at least they kept my irritation at bay, at least for a moment. Why was he saying this? He had even turned off the television, like he meant business. I mean, he knew I had made my choices, and this is what I had signed up for, wasn't it? "What do you want me to say here?"

"Christ, I don't want you to say anything. I'm just asking you a question." He sighed and pushed back his hair, his signature move. It was cute and always worked. It was working now, I realized, as I felt myself calm a little. "I know you hate those events and I appreciate you doing it. I really do. I just feel like, well, I feel bad. You know, I just feel guilty, like you're being squandered or something."

"Well, Michael, that's ridiculous. Guilt is stupid. Knock it off." I couldn't help freeing my arm from the blankets so I could brush that errant long hair from his forehead. I intended it as a gentle move, indicating a shift, a truce, maybe. He responded with a kiss to my cheek, and I saw the brief twinkle before he turned his eyes back down to study the stitching in the duvet.

"I can't help it. I'm watching you all night, doing your thing, you look fantastic, you're smart and charming. Then you come home, you're spent, you hate it, you hate me. I did that to you."

I knew it. I knew he felt guilty. From my perspective, he provided. He worked hard and was so talented that his firm was now the premiere ad agency in all of Seattle. It took a lot of effort on his part, and on my part, in keeping appearances, in looking just right. Which sucked. But it paid for everything we had, for us being able to provide for our boys. More than provide for them, really.

It was obvious how it ate away at Michael, though. The firm life, the concessions, it was huge. He felt guilty about what I had to put up with, but I had some guilt of my own.

"No artist should feel guilty, Michael. Like, if you start a painting and you don't like it, you don't finish it." I said it with confidence, such certainty, even though I just pulled that right out of my ass. Where did I get that? No matter, I could see Michael thinking it over, trying to figure out what the hell I was trying to say to him. "Right?"

"Ah. Yeah, right." He sat, still up on that elbow, lanky hair flopped sideways across his head. The way I liked him, a little messy and rough at the edges. I just let him sit and think. I wasn't sure what we were talking about, and apparently he didn't know, either. At least that leveled the playing field.

After several long minutes, Michael swallowed in that way he did when I knew he was about to say something. That sound meant he was being careful with his words. "So what are you saying? I feel like you're telling me maybe I should quit the firm, go back to my own design work. Am I right, baby?" He looked up, right into my eyes, and I could feel that look shooting down through my limbs and back, landing in my abdomen. "Tell me, baby. You mean that?"

"Yeah. That is what I mean, Michael. Why are we still doing this?" Wanting him to hear me, and wanting him to want me, too, I pushed off the covers and cuddled close, nestling in his arm, throwing my leg over him. When was the last time we lay together like this? He shifted to accommodate me, his arms wrapping around me, squeezing me so tight I lost my breath for a moment.

"I mean, fuck the firm, Michael. We are fine, you've worked so hard, we are gonna be fine. Don't you think it's time to throw off those chains and get back to art? Your art?"

He grabbed me hard, pulling me up on top of him. "Yeah, baby?"

"Yeah." I shifted, hitching my hips to connect with him, seeing in his eyes that he felt it, too. I leaned down to kiss him and it was all over. "Don't finish it, baby. Start over. No guilt."

With apologies to the brilliant Michael Webb, this story is a response to, or maybe the next chapter of, his story "Did You Mean It?" Michael gave me my prompt this week in the Indie Ink Writing Challenge: "No artist should feel guilty. If you start a painting and you don't like it, you don't finish it." (Truman Capote) And I challenged Pamela with "We dance to free ourselves from the room." (Wild Flag, "Romance")