“Azmir, that’s ridiculous. I’d have to pack some things for him. Besides, I could use an overnight bag myself.” Her grimacing gaze seared my profile. I made a U-turn and jumped back on the 405.
We picked up Azna, Rayna grabbed a few things for work the next day, and we were back at the marina in under an hour. I ran her a bath as she played with Azna out in the living room. I was irritated, my mind raced a mile a minute as I sat at the lip of the whirlpool and returned a few e-mails. When the water was done, I set out for the living room to grab Rayna.
“Ready?” I asked her, interrupting her playtime with the pooch.
Rayna’s head shot up and the smile…the pure, unadulterated, and natural glow of her smile caused a tremor in my chest. It slowly dissipated while she looked my way. Damn. She rose to her feet, but not before giving Azna a final rub and mirthful giggle. I waited for her to continue back down the corridor.
She maintained a few steps ahead of me, but when we past one of the bedrooms I yelled out, “Hold up.”
She arrested her stride and turned her head for answers. I turned the nob and opened the door, prompting her to enter in the room. She slowly ambled toward the door and once she arrived, she craned her neck to take a peek. Once she caught a glance of the room, her mouth collapsed and her eyes fluttered. Rayna stepped into the room holding her face. She looked around to observe the bars attached to mirrored walls and angled her head to ceiling to see the high fans. Her eyes darted to the floor to observe the hardwood sprung material. She eventually transferred her gaze over to the two flat screen televisions that mounted either sides of the room and then she landed her attention on the stereo that operated the surround sound speakers, suspended on the walls throughout the room. It was her own personal dance room. At the marina. With me.
She stood speechless for a while. I needed to know what she was thinking. I had to know what she was feeling. But I gave her time to process what this was.
“Azmir…it’s…” Rayna whispered.
“Your own dance room. Here. At the marina.”
“But…why would you go through the trouble?”
“It’s no trouble at all to make you feel comfortable here, in your home. I don’t want you to have to want or need for anything that isn’t here with me. I want you here. Permanently.”
Rayna covered her eyes, taking long minutes to settle her emotions. I’m sure it didn’t help that it was that time of the month for her anyway. I waited patiently. I would always wait for her to adjust to me.
That night, I bathed Rayna and gave her a full body massage to help with her menstrual symptoms before we drifted off to sleep. In our bed. Rayna didn’t speak much. I figured I’d given her lots to think about and didn’t want to disrupt her flow. And besides, I’d said all I needed to say.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rayna
The next morning, I dropped Azna off at my place in Redondo Beach. I needed to be sure that I wanted to try again with Azmir before falling into the same peculiar arrangement that got us into this estranged place we were in. I took off to work and went about my day as usual.
My appointment flow at work was normal and all of the morning patients were familiar, but what wasn’t was my inability to get Azmir’s betrayal out of my head. The visual imageries of him taking her face into his mouth drove me crazy, and wondering how she liked it threatened upheavals of bile from the pits my stomach. I couldn’t shake the fears of upcoming events when they’d be left together alone.
At one point during my third appointment, I had to abruptly leave the room, demanding that my PTA took over. I barely reached my desk before the tears streamed down my face. Breathing became painful and the more that I recalled Azmir’s sweetly making love to me a few days ago, I couldn’t help but seeing visions of him on top of Dawn Taylor.