She's crying.
I honestly wasn't expecting to see Michelle on my doorstep tonight, but here she is, her blond hair matted and her face red.
The big brown eyes that are starting to swim through my dreams are huge in her face.
She looks devastated, haunted, and I reach out for her before I can think.
"Ray," she sobs against my chest as I fold her in an embrace. "Oh, Ray."
I hold her tightly and hear myself murmur soothing things against her temple. Since when am I soothing?
I open my mouth to ask her what happened, but before I can utter a sound, she raises up on her tiptoes and kisses me.
Suddenly, I don't care what happened.
All that matters is that she's here and she's kissing me and her fingers are undoing my shirt, my belt, reaching inside the hated black pants I wear every day.
And then I feel her fingers encircling me, feeling how much I desire her.The other hand, the one that's not driving me out of my mind, remains clutched in a fist at her side.
Her name is a pagan litany on my lips and we fall to the ground there in the front hall of my shabby little apartment.
Her dress has no buttons or zippers; it's just a tight tube of crushed red velvet that slides off of her as I tug at the straps.
I kiss the hardened peaks of her breasts as they're revealed and she gives a little gasp. She always does that. Like she's surprised by the way I make her feel.
Maybe she is.
I kiss the satiny flesh of her stomach and then move lower, tasting her very essence.
She moans and one hand reaches down to stroke my hair.
I can feel her start to shudder under my lips and suddenly, I'm posessed by this need to be inside her when she comes.
Standing, I grab her by the shoulders and pull her up with me. Clearing off the hall table with one sweep of my arm, I lift her and sit her on its top.
Her eyes are glazed and her tongue darts out to wet her lips.
Groaning her name, I wrap her legs around me and enter her quickly, maybe a little harder than I should.
As we make love ( can we call it that?) I grip her chin in my hands and stare into those dazed eyes and wonder why this woman needs to lose herself in me.
And am I losing myself in her?
When she release hits her, she gives a hoarse shout and that sends me spiraling into my own orgasm.
She sags against me and I hear a faint "ping."
Out of the corner of my eye, something shiny winks at me from the floor.
A wedding ring.
Danny's wedding ring.
I pull away from her, feeling dizzy and confused, and, suddenly, very sick.
God, what's happening to me?
I lean down and pick up the ring, feeling the gold, still warm from being clutched in Michelle's hand.
The whole time I was making love to her ( and yes, I will call it that) she was clutching that bastard's ring.
She's watches me with blank eyes as I hold up the ring.
She's still sitting on the table, leaning against the wall.
"He set me free," she says in a sing-song voice. "It's over."
"When?"
Her eyes are still vacant as she looks at me. "Tonight. Just now."
I take a deep breath and try to get some control over the emotions that are pushing through me like a riptide.
"Is that why you came here?"
She's silent for a long time.
Then I realize she's not looking at me at all. She's looking at the ring.
"I don't know," she says at last. "I needed...something."
"You needed to be fucked," I say harshly, hoping to provoke shouting, tears, anything but this emptiness.
She doesn't shout. She doesn't cry. She just sighs wearily and slides off the table, picking up her dress.
I watch her slide it on and begin to put my own clothes back on.
Finally, she raises her head and says distractedly, "Thank you for thelamp."
"You're welcome," I say tersely.
"You're right. There is too much dark for you to hold off alone."
I look at her, her flat voice making me go cold inside.
"See, the thing is, Ray, the lamp can't help. And you can't help. My whole life, I was afraid of the dark and now..." she trails off and takes the ring from where I dropped it on the floor. "Now I realize that the dark's all in here," she touches the fist holding the ring to her heart. "And there's no way to hide from that. And there's no way to light it."
I move towards her, not sure of why, and touch her hair. "I can light it," I tell her, wanting desperately to believe it.
She shakes her head and, at last, the tears come.
Not in torrential sobs like before, just a steady, silent trickling. "No, you can't. You said yourself that you were the darkness too."
I grab her arms, out of control at the thought of losing her. If she goes back to her old life and leaves Danny's, then she leaves mine too.
"I didn't mean it," I tell her. "I <I> was <I> the darkness, Michelle. But you...you changed that somehow, I know you did.I feel like...I feel like we're the same now."
She stares at me for a long time, her tears still flowing. "You're wrong. I haven't changed you."
She turns away and places her hand on the doorknob.
"Did you ever hear that you're not supposed to try to swim out to save a drowning person, Ray?"
"Yes," I say, confused.
"Why shouldn't you?"
"Because...because the drowning person will latch onto you in their panic and-"
"And you'll drown, too," she finshes, turning to me, her eyes tired. "So we are the same now, Ray. We've both drowned."
She turns and walks out the door and I listen to her footsteps as she moves down the stairs.
And I know she's right.