Page 65 of Letters From Victor

Victor groaned, a deep, guttural sound, and his rhythm faltered. He drove into me with short, desperate strokes, and he swelled and pulsed as he exploded inside me.

Waves of warmth radiated from our joined bodies, with Victor draped on top of me, his weight a comforting burden as we both struggled to catch our breath. Perspiration trickled off my back, and his heart pounded against my shoulder blade. The once-cool leather was now warm and sticky against my skin. Black-and-white specks danced in my periphery as my head spun.

Victor kissed my neck, my shoulder, my back, his lips soft and contrite after the mauling he had given me. He finally pulled out—slowly, deliberately—sending one final shudder through my exhausted body. I collapsed onto the sofa, limbs heavy and unresponsive, as he sank beside me. He pulled me into his arms, and I nestled against his chest. The warmth of his skin seeped into mine, and a drowsy contentment washed over me.

We lay in silence, our breathing gradually returning to normal. I traced lazy patterns on his chest with my fingertip, feeling the rise and fall of his ribcage, the softness of his skin overlying the hard contours of his muscles. He stroked my hair,then moved his hands to caress my back in long, soothing swipes.

“Will this be enough to last you?” I asked, my voice a whisper, hesitant to break the sweet tenderness that enveloped us. “For the next two months?”

Victor tilted my chin up so that I was looking into his eyes. They were softer, the fierce hunger temporarily sated. “Not in the least.” His voice was tender, yet there was an underlying tension that made my heart tighten in my chest. “After that, I can’t bear to be away from you for two minutes, let alone two months.”

Victor trailed his fingers along my arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. “Every inch of you is perfection,” he murmured, his voice vibrating against my ear and down to my core. “A goddess walking the earth.”

A flush of warmth spread across my cheeks and chest. I was too tired to move, but the embers of desire flickered back to life at his words. He kissed my forehead, then my nose—each peck laden with an affection that made me ache in a different way.

“I don’t deserve you,” I whispered, stilling the patterns I’d been drawing on his chest. Doubt gnawed at the edges of my satisfaction, threatening to consume it whole. “You know that, don’t you?”

He stroked my hair, his touch as light as a summer breeze. “It’s the other way around, angel. I’m just a poor sinner, and I’m not worthy to even be in the same room as you, much less have the pleasure of utterly consuming every bit of you.” He nibbled at my ear, making me shudder, then pressed a worshipful kiss to my lips, silencing any response that may have been there. “You deserve every happiness,” he whispered against my mouth. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it.”

INTERLUDE

Frank Jr.

June 2012

The doorbell rang, its chime bouncing off the empty living room walls, startling me from my concentration. I set down the cut crystal vase I’d been wrapping in newsprint and wiped my hands on my jeans.

“Coming!” I called toward the door as I stood and stretched. My back throbbed from sitting too long. I waded through a sea of boxes and packing paper. My hips were stiff and ached with each step.Damn. Getting older was a pain. Literally.

A young man in a red polo shirt stood on the porch, beads of sweat trickling down his brow from beneath his backward-turned baseball cap.

“Dragon Wok?” he said, holding up a plastic bag filled with small white cardboard containers.

“Yeah, right here,” I replied, fishing in my wallet for cash. I handed him a twenty. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks, mister,” he said, already halfway down the steps.

I closed the door and inhaled the piquant aroma of General Tso’s chicken and pork fried rice. One nice thing about beingback in Southern California—the food was so much better. Except for barbecue. My stomach growled in anticipation. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, too consumed with the task of dismantling my mother’s life piece by piece.

In the dining room, I cleared a space on the cluttered table. Empty silver-plated photo frames and crumpled tissue paper formed a haphazard centerpiece. I opened one of the takeout containers and scooped up a bite with a pair of chopsticks, too hungry to bother with a plate.

The house felt cavernous and hollow without Mom’s things in their rightful places. The walls, once adorned with paintings, photographs, and eclectic art pieces, now stood bare, like stripped-bark trees in winter. Each room echoed with an almost tangible silence.

I’d been at it for two weeks, and each day followed the same pattern. Mornings were spent sorting through Mom’s belongings—deciding what to keep, what to sell, what to donate, and what to throw away. In the afternoons, I boxed everything up and labeled it. Evenings, I collapsed from exhaustion—too tired to think, too sore to sleep.

And then there were the nights.

When the house was finally still, I read.

The stack of letters from Victor to my mother was the last thing I had expected to find hidden away in her closet. I thought I’d known their whole story. Not even close.

Victor’s words were almost lyrical—a quality I hadn’t at all expected. He had been an artist without doubt—his photographs were stunning and could have filled galleries if he’d ever sold them—but I’d never pegged him as a poet.

My eyes wandered to a photograph on the sideboard—one of the few I hadn’t packed away yet. It was of Victor, taken in the mid-to-late sixties, around when I graduated from high school. He was fifty or so in the photo, yet still every bit the dashingrogue he’d been in his youth—tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair slicked back with streaks of gray at the temples. He wore a charcoal suit and a slim burgundy tie, his trademark pencil mustache as precise as an artist’s stroke.

Mom had placed that photo at her bedside the day Victor died back in 2006. He’d lived a full ninety years—fifty-four of them married to her.

I finished shoveling a mound of fried rice into my mouth and wiped my lips with a paper napkin. My mind drifted back to the letters, to Victor. In them, he was the same man I’d known all my life, yet more. More passionate, more vulnerable. The depth of his love for Mom was staggering, and reading his words had reopened a well of memories.

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