Bound For Submission

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

"Who is that?" Betsy asked, looking though the spyglass from the sun porch down to the beach below.

I was preparing chocolate coffee for one of those female tête-à-têtes, that look so cozy on TV.

"Nathan," I replied.

"But who is he?"

"I don't know, some beach bum I suppose. I think he lives over the dunes north of here. He's a bit of an apparition."

"He's queer," Betsy said flatly.

"You mean gay?"

"Not gay, queer in the old sense of the word . . ." her voice trailed away, as she continued to peer at him.

"Why would you say that?" I asked.

"I don't know why, it's spooky, like I'm shivering. Oops!" She turned around with a sheepish grin, and plopped down in one of the wicker settees by the window, looking as if she was trying to hide. "He caught me looking at him." She took a mug of coffee and a handful of tiny cookies from the tray on the table. "So this is what you have time to do as a retired psychologist."

"I've hardly retired," I answered, my cynicism obvious in the sound of my voice.

"Recouping then," she replied.

I knew I liked her mellow sweet voice, the utter calm and acceptance that issued from her comforting tones. I was glad to have her as my first visitor as a single woman. She made the transition with me, all the little steps, seeing it done, finished with an exclamation point. This visit was the final piece. I could be satisfied with what I'd done because Betsy championed me and my cause. The chocolate coffee tasted better because she was lounging comfortably across from me.

"So what happens after Percival?" she asked.

"The institute or the man?"

"The Institute silly."

"Hell, I don't know, at this point I wouldn't try to play shrink to anyone. I know nothing, absolutely nothing . . . a Ph.D. in emptiness, not even pain, just emptiness. How could I ever think of guiding people out of their traumas and depressions?"

"You're thinking too negatively."

"Realistically," I corrected her.

"No, you're so damned negative about yourself, you have far more inside than you think."

I hummed a little tune, my eyes wandering out to the beach where I could see Nathan walking in the distance. "I wish I could find it," I sighed.

"You will."

"Such faith . . ." I shook my head and stared into her green eyes, and at the mountain of bright red hair that crowned her head and at the soft voluptuous earth-mother body that seemed so warm and cradling. I wondered how it would be to be cradled by her.

"You know I can't stay the night," she said.

"What!"

"I didn't tell you earlier, because I still wanted to come, but it's business . . ."

"Damn it, I was really looking forward to a couple days with you here. It's a little lonely."

"Xana, I don't want to judge what you do, but I think closeting yourself up here is foolish. I can't see why you're doing it. You just admitted it's lonely. I think right now, it would be exactly the opposite of what you need. Get back in the city with people. It'll do you much more good."

"I hate the city!" I bellowed.

"Then some place else, some place with people."

"There're people here," I countered.

"Sure," she nodded, "your mysterious Nathan?"

"Oh yeah," I laughed. She looked at me sternly, like a mother hen. "I'm going to town on Monday, the library has something or other going on, and there are things to keep me occupied. I just know that I have to be here, I'm not sure why, but I have to be here. No where else is going to do right now."

"At least you picked a pretty place. I imagine it's lovely when the sun's shining." She looked around the room and outside again, though from the couch all she could see was the dunes to one side of the house.

"I feel kind of funny that you've never been here, after all this time . . . Peter was such a ghoul about some things, like having guests."

"But I am here now," she answered. The lilt of her voice lifted me just hearing it. "Let's get down to that dinner you promised me." As she hugged me on the way to the kitchen, I wished that I could have stayed in her arms forever.

***

With Betsy gone, the impending event of my week, in fact my month, was gone. She promised to return. But on business for four weeks on the east coast, I'd have to wait. I'd hoped to have her with me for some time, to smooth my transition into single life, but it was clear that transition would have to be up to me alone.

It was a sunny day, so warm that I took a book to read while I sat on a low flat rock that jutted out beyond one of the dunes. From there I could hear the waves crashing, smell the salt in the air and feel the sun's warmth on my back. Cory played in grasses around me.

After some time with my head buried in my book, I looked up. There he was again, Nathan, passing silently by my rock.

"Good afternoon," I called out to him.

He jerked at the sound of my voice and turned to me.

"Ah! Cassandra, how are you today?" he responded, breaking into a magnanimous smile, as if he was just waiting for me to speak first.

"Why I'm fine," I answered surprised. So unexpectedly friendly he was.

"Are you?" he answered.

"Well I suppose." I went through a quick but thorough mental process wondering. "I mean for a woman coming off of a divorce," I added.

"But you wanted your divorce, didn't you?"

"God yes!" I exclaimed.

"Then you should be enjoying your freedom."

"I am," I sighed. "It's just taking time, I'm a little numb I guess."

"I imagine," he contemplated as if he was thinking about how a newly divorced woman might feel. He sat down on my rock where there was room enough for both of us and still room enough for a reasonable space between. He looked out to the ocean for some moments, while I stared at him. He was a interesting fellow, staid, substantial, untroubled, were words that came to mind to describe him. There was that feeling sweeping through me again, the same one that appeared when he touched my cheek days before.

"I thought I would have felt something more than I have, that I'd have cried. I expected to burst into tears when I arrived here. But there haven't been any." I looked out to the ocean, hypnotized by the surf, drawn into an altered state where my thoughts were immediately transformed into words. I looked at Nathan. His face expressionless, but open and caring, like a good psychologist I suppose, or maybe just a good friend. "I expected to react differently. I mean the man and his life was my life for seven years. You'd think that I would mourn the loss. I guess as stages of grief go, I'm in that numb place. I imagine before long, the emotion will be pouring out and I won't be able to stop it." I stopped talking thinking he was likely bored with my rambling, though if he was, he didn't show it. "I shouldn't go on like this," I said grinning.

"It's no matter to me," he said sincerely.

"Thanks. I had a friend visiting, I'd hoped Betsy and I could have talked this out for a few days and I'd be closer to feeling something again, but she had to go."

"Then maybe she wasn't the one to bare your soul to."

"I guess not, at least not now. You want an apple?" I offered him mine. His kindness and good humor made me feel less reticent than I might have felt with another stranger. In fact I realized that the conversation was a welcome change from my lonely self-imposed exile.

"No, thank you," he answered.

I put the green fruit to my mouth and took a crunching bite. "I hope I'm not boring you," I said as I chomped away.

"Not at all," Nathan said.

"It's why I'm here, to take a well earned rest, before I start the rest of my life. I guess I'm lucky to have this place. That was a coup, wrestling it away from Peter. He didn't even want it, but he was full of all kinds of reasons why I shouldn't have it. Still trying to control me, he said I needed to stay in the city. I was too fragile to be here on my own. I wonder sometimes if he was right, and I'm just doing this out of spite. . . . anyway, it's not turning out the way I thought it would. Maybe there's just too much fog, it desensitizes me. It doesn't even depress me, it just numbing."

I watched Nathan's eyes, they were so penetrating and soft at the same time. I'd never seen eyes like his. I felt as if I could stare at them forever. A seagull flying overhead grabbed my attention, and looking in the distance as the bird flew off, I could see the fog already beginning to creep down the coast.

"Look at it, it's just hanging their waiting," I said.

"But it's not the fog that numbs you," Nathan quietly interjected.

I nodded my head agreeing. "No, you're probably right," I admitted, "but it sounds like a good excuse."

"May I make an observation?" he inquired.

"Sure," I answered, curiously.

"Your numbness? It has nothing to do with your divorce."

"Really? Why do you say that?" I asked curiously.

"From what I see . . ." He looked me over from head to toe. "You're dead from the waist down, nearly from your throat."

"What?"

"Dead, asleep, paralyzed inside your body," he explained.

"What a strange thing to say." He certainly had a odd way of putting things, I wasn't sure what he meant."

"No life force," he added.

I smiled thinking he was making a joke. "Sounds critical." Life force, that kind of terminology always made me either laugh or wince depending on my mood. I didn't give into new age hoopla; its jargon sounded as stupid as most psychological jargon was sounding stupid to my now cynical ears.

"It's not life threatening, but it could be damaging to your soul," he said.

I eyed him carefully, trying to understand why our casual meeting had taken this abrupt turn. He eyed me back with a most peculiar look, one that shot right through me, one that knew me as only someone very close would know me. I shivered. Even in the warm sun I felt myself going cold, very cold. My hands were like ice. It was the strangest sensation. One minute hot, almost flushed, the next feeling like a blast of winter had just penetrated my skin.

"How can you know what's damaging for my soul?" I asked. I'm not sure why I was even continuing the conversation, except his manner was almost fatherly. His soothing voice seeming to mesmerize me into believing, or at least hearing his odd evaluation of my present dilemma.

"It's not hard to see, Cassandra, you're transparent."

I laughed. "Oh, I'm sure Peter would agree with you there," I exclaimed. "Though I bet he'd have a different conclusion."

I thought I saw him smile, but it was so oblique I wasn't sure. "You're suffering from damaged thinking," he continued. "Too much modern psychology."

"Ah, you're one of those people that thinks all psychologists are fools?" I said.

"I haven't met a psychologist yet that wasn't a fool, or at the very least foolish."

"And what do you base that opinion on?" I challenged him.

"What I see and what I hear and what I sense."

"Now you're sounding like a psychologist yourself," I observed. I was beginning to relax again, though in addition to the coldness, there was a disturbing agitation inside me that I couldn't quite name.

"All you have to do is feel the truth and you know."

"Is that how you divine your answers to life's questions?" I asked.

"The truth's inside you, I think it's the best place to look, don't you?"

"That's a cliché Nathan, you don't know how many times I've heard it. Of course the truth's inside me, but looking inside myself has always tied my thinking in knots," I charged with a well charged voice. I was irritated. Not so much with him, but the whole damned frustrating process of self-discovery that had left me standing while others had climbed aboard bandwagons of enlightenment, and appeared flying into futures grasping the great truths of existence as if they were plainly written in their thoughts and easily understood.