Page 36 of In Love With a Master (Interview With a Master 2)

The unstoppable urge to come swept over me, as though I was turning to ice. It began as a clenched jaw, then I felt the tension of it flex the muscles in my chest and arms. I felt my breath seize in my throat and then every fiber in my lower body strung tight so that when I exploded deep within Leticia I was rigid and locked in a paroxysm – a convulsing seizure that left me breathless and reeling. The blood pounded in my head, and my vision swam. I felt myself tumbling – falling down a deep dark tunnel, overwhelmed by a sense of satisfaction and completeness so that for many moments I struggled like a drowning man before, somehow, I clawed myself back to the surface of consciousness.

Leticia was laying on her side, calm and quiet, her breathing steady. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back. Tenderly, I unfastened the catches and freed her arms. She was gazing up at me, her expression serene and peaceful. I lay down beside her on my back and she wrapped an arm across my waist and molded her body to mine. I felt her breath on my chest like a warm desert breeze.

For long moments we lay in silence. I flicked off the bedside lamp and a blanket of darkness wrapped itself around us. Leticia sighed – a blissful sound, and then she said in a small quiet voice, “Jonah, let’s pretend this will last forever.”

Chapter 24.

Leticia lay sleeping peacefully beside me, as I stared rigid and tense at the ceiling. My hands were balled into tight fists, my jaw clenched. Every muscle in my body was under stress.

I lay with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Nightlight filtered in through the bedroom window but beyond the glass a howling wind swayed through the trees and cast grotesque shadows into the bedroom.

I barely realized.

Leticia’s words haunted me, tearing at my soul.

I lay unsleeping throughout the night, appalled and stricken by the unspeakable cry of my conscience until the first rays of morning broke across the horizon and I faced the new dawning day with cold despair and dread.

Chapter 25.

I was in the kitchen, sitting in the gloom of early morning when Leticia appeared uncertainly in the doorway.

The morning was crisp and clear. On this side of the house the sun’s light had yet to reach above the distant mountains – the kitchen was cold, and still held the gloomy shadows of the previous night.

Leticia was wearing one of my shirts like a short dress, the sleeves bunched up to her elbows. Her hair was a tousled tangle, and her face without makeup looked innocent and sweet.

“Jonah…?”

I was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, watching tendrils of steam drift up from the mug. My eyes felt as though someone had thrown a handful of grit into them. I felt impossibly tired. I rubbed at the unshaven stubble across my jaw and my hand felt the bones of my cheeks made into harsh angles. Under the touch of my fingers my face felt gaunt and haggard.

“Come and sit down,” I said simply.

Leticia came to the edge of the table like a timid forest animal. Her face filled with concern. “Is everything alright?”

I ignored the question. “Would you like coffee?”

Leticia shook her head. She sat down across the kitchen table from me. She drew her knees up to her chin and hugged her hands around her legs. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, intuitively sensing my grave expression and made concerned by it.

I cleared my throat. I sat rigid at the table. I stared across the space to Leticia and said slowly, “I have a lot I need to tell you. A lot that needs to be explained – things that cannot wait. Please don’t interrupt me, I need to get this said.”

Leticia nodded solemnly. Her face had turned pale and a shadow of worry moved behind her eyes. She took a deep breath like she was settling herself… or maybe preparing herself.

I stared for a long moment down into the mug before me, but the answers weren’t there. I lifted my eyes back up to hers.

“Trigg lied,” I said flatly. “She lied about everything, Leticia. She lied about the size of my tumor, and she lied about my chances of living. Trigg told me the tumor was too large for surgery. She told me I had less than two years to live. It was all a lie – a deliberate lie to manipulate me, and make me dependent on her.”

The shock registered slowly on Leticia’s face, her expression one of disbelief that transformed into a look of incredulous horror. She stared at me, aghast. Her eyes became dazed and wide and I saw a glistening well of tears that made her eyes swim.

“Are you sure?” she asked in a whisper.

I nodded. “I’m certain,” I said and my voice was inflected with sudden bitterness. “My doctor – Dr. De Niro – went over the latest MRI scan with me. The tumor I have is much smaller than Trigg led me to believe.”

“The bitch…!” Leticia gasped.

I held up my hand. “There’s more,” I sighed. “Trigg was medicating me for headaches – headaches that I never had. The medication she was giving me was actually causing the headaches and the seizure – Dr. De Niro believes Trigg induced that seizure. He believes she caused it to happen at a time when she was nearby so that she could save me, and make herself indispensible.” I glanced away for a long moment and then drew my eyes slowly back to Leticia’s. “She was playing a dreadful dangerous game with my life.”

Leticia looked speculative, and then said with some intuitive feminine knowing, “Trigg loved you, didn’t she?”

I inclined my head. “We had a brief affair before I met Caroline.”

Leticia smiled faintly, as though unsurprised. “And Trigg wanted to keep you for herself, so she convinced you that you needed her.”

I nodded. “And it worked,” I said. “Until Dr. De Niro sent the scan from the clinic and all my medical records to a surgeon in New York. I spoke to him, Leticia. He believes he can operate. He believes I have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the surgery and living a long full life,” I said. “He is flying here today and I am going into surgery tomorrow.”

“So soon?” Leticia’s voice was alarmed.

“Yes,” I said. “The surgeon wants to operate immediately. Any delay at all will increase the risk.”

“But you have a chance, right? You have a chance to live, Jonah.”

I nodded, but said nothing.

Wonder and relief chased away Leticia’s dread. A single tear spilled over the lashes of her eye and ran down the smooth curve of her cheek – but it was a tear of joy. Her eyes became bright and alive and there was a hitch of breath in her throat, like the sound of a suppressed shriek. Overcome, she reached out her hand towards me. “Jonah, that is wonderful,” she breathed. “I am so happy for you!”

I shook my head, didn’t take her hand.

I sat back in the chair as if to give myself space – as if to keep my distance.

“There’s more,” I said. “We need to talk about us.”

In an instant, the ominous sound of my voice transformed Leticia once again. Her hand on the table lay motionless, and then slowly she drew it back and covered her mouth with it.

I lifted my eyes to hers and my tone was as grim as that of a judge pronouncing a sentence of death. “Leticia, I have to end our relationship. I’m sorry – I truly am – but I can’t see you again after today.”

Leticia flinched. She recoiled in her chair as though she had been struck. She shook her head slowly as though she was denying the words to herself. “But Jonah…”

My eyes became hard as stone. I felt my jaw clench. I felt suddenly cold with dread.

“It has to be this way, Leticia,” I went on resolutely. “What you want… what you want from me – I just can’t give it to you.”

Raw pain and anguish seeped into Leticia’ eyes. Her shoulders began to slump and her expression became blank and remote. She stared, but not at me. She was staring past me, her eyes lost into empty space.

“It’s not just because I may die in surgery tomorrow,” I explained. “I’m not shutting you out to protect my heart or yours. It’s more than that. You want me to love you, but I

know that I can’t.”

Suddenly Leticia seemed to come alert. She sat upright in the chair, feet planted firmly on the ground and she leaned forward to reach out to me.

“Jonah, I don’t understand. I know you don’t love me yet, and I accept that. But I haven’t given up hope. I haven’t given up hope that – in time – you will learn love. You will learn to love me. Every moment we spend together, both in bed and out, helps strengthen that connection we have.”

Leticia stood up suddenly and her expression became beseeching. “Dammit, Jonah! Don’t you dare tell me that you don’t feel the connection we have! Don’t you dare try to tell me that you don’t have feelings for me. I’ve seen it in your eyes, I’ve heard it in your voice, I’ve felt it in the way you touched me!” She was leaning over the table, panting. Her expression was tortured with the sudden desperation of her emotion.

I sat back. I didn’t move. I stared up into Leticia’s face with sad, empty eyes.

“I’m not denying any of that, Leticia,” I confessed heavily. “I won’t deny that I care for you, but I can’t deny a deeper truth either.” I closed my eyes, rubbed at a swirling dark pain in my head, felt the cold cramping clench of a fist squeezing tight around my heart. “Leticia, there was something I said during our interviews – something I told you that has been haunting me ever since. It’s something I can’t deny because it is an eternal truth that I believe, and that dooms us.”

Leticia frowned, and I could see behind her eyes her mind replaying my words, as though searching her memory without success. She glared at me, shook her head in confusion.

“I told you that women marry men hoping their love will change them, and it never does. The man never changes,” I said with finality. “I realized that no matter how hard you try, and no matter how much I want to feel love… I just won’t change.” My voice was rusty and strained, racked with a pain that seemed to paralyze me.

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