Ocean Of Need

💛 37 ❤️ Say My Name

6th May Cont...

I switch off the shower, wrap a towel around my body. The silence is pure. No footsteps, no brush strokes, no kettle boiling or knife scraping on the canvas. What can I hear? Birds singing outside, the soft crumble of waves on the shore, a dog barking in the distance. That's it.

He must have gone, and much as I thought that would be for the best, somehow I am doubled over, staring at the floor, as if life has punctured my stomach and the air has escaped in one thudding note.

'Lilah?' His voice carries around the bathroom. 'What is it? Did you hurt yourself?'

'I thought you'd gone,' I gasp.

'Gone? Why would I go? It's me and you Lilah, it's always going to be me and you.'

I straighten up, look directly at him and say, 'My name is Elizabeth, or Libby for short. I am not Deborah, not Lilah. I'm not an artist or a poet, not really. I don't know what I am.' I sound broken. In the moment that I should feel more me than ever before, I can't remember who I am. The footing on my life is lost. I've been running for so long that I haven't had time to grow or heal or any of those things I see other women doing, I am an empty vessel - I am the thing I've been denying.

My eyes are on his searching for something, not knowing what it is I need from him.

His face is like a mask as he says, 'You may not be called Lilah, but you're still my little pet, my little doll, my partner. You are an artist and you are a poet. How can you say you haven't been growing? That's all you've been doing since I met you. You've grown into your own idea of what a woman should be, what a poet should be. You are art. You love in a way most won't understand. You do know who you are, you are mine and you are yours.'

I stare back at him, all my words floating on an ocean of need. I walk into his arms, holding him closer than skin, I say, 'Say my name... My real name... Please.'

'Elizabeth,' he says and a sob breaks from my mouth. He walks me back to the bed, sitting on the edge of it repeating over and over again, 'Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, my Elizabeth. I love you Elizabeth.'

We lay together on the bed. My tears are dry now, and my head is on his chest, listening to the smoke he inhales circling around his lungs and then being expelled back out of his body.

'We need to get out of here,' he says.

'Run?'

'No,' he laughs. 'We need a drink, a change of scenery. Change of perspective. Then we can think about wether we run or not. Right now no-one knows who you are. If we run, questions will be asked. If we hold our nerve we can move when the time is right.'

I need to know who he works for, but somehow the question is lodged in my throat.

'Ask me,' he says.

'What?'

'Whatever it is that's running through your mind. Ask me.'

'Who do you work for?' I say it so quietly that I wonder if he's heard me.

He takes another long, deep drag on his cigarette and says, 'It's complicated.'

I snort at that, and say, 'Of course it's is.'

'No, I mean it Elizabeth. Right now it's safer if you don't know. But as soon as it's safe, I will tell you. I'll tell you everything.'

'But you're not an artist?'

'I am an artist. But being an artist in San Francisco doesn't pay the rent.'

Another question is fighting to come out of my mouth.

'Ask me,' he says.

'Do you have a family?'

He sits up in surprise, his eyes wide as he says, 'A family? No. I'm not like you. I wasn't born into this, I fell into it. Started earning decent money for the first time in my life, and thought, fuck it. There's no other way I'm going to be able to spend any time painting. I promise you Elizabeth, I'm not from a family, I'm not your enemy.'

I hold my hands up in front of me and say, 'I didn't mean a criminal family, Mac.'

'No? What did you mean?'

'I meant, do you have an actual family? Are you married with kids? Is that where you disappear to? Is that why you can't call me?'

'What?' he splutters, 'No. No, I don't have a family, I don't have kids. I only have you...and my work...and my art.'

My face breaks into a grin, his follows it, and then his grin is on my grin, and we're kissing and laughing and rolling around on the bed, like two puppies play fighting. I wrap my legs around his waist and he stands from the bed, lifting me with him, then standing me back on my feet.

'Come on baby. We're going out. We need to eat, and if I have to eat one more of your omelettes it will fucking kill me!'