Spin (Deleted Scene)

Deleted scene from Spin

 

When I got in the loft and heard the shower running. It had been a long night that had bled into morning, and I could stand a little affection before going to work on no sleep.

I peeled out of my clothes, put my hair up and went to get in the shower with Daniel.

Steam fogged the room, but he was not in the shower. I heard his sobs before my eyes located him crouched naked on the floor.

“Jesus, Daniel!”

“Get out!” His face was a bloated mess. Tears and shower steam wet his cheeks. He could barely speak he was crying so hard.

I got on the floor with him.

“Out!

“No!” I put my hands on his cheeks and he pulled them away. He looked like he’d been sobbing for hours. He never cried, not once in seven years. I had no idea how to react to his level of pain.

“I swear to God, Theresa.”

“I’m not going to leave you sitting here sobbing on the floor. What happened?”

He stood up and left. I turned the shower off and followed him to the bedroom, where he was getting dressed in a big hurry. Sweatpants and ratty t-shirt. I hadn’t seen him wear that stuff in over a year.

“Daniel, please. Tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m not okay.”

“What happened?”

He strode down to the living room, not looking at me. I caught him at the front door. His face was red, and his sobbing started again; big, hitching sobs that would dehydrate, blind, bloat. I tried to put my arms around him, but he pushed me away.

“Don’t follow me,” he said between snotty sobs. “Please.” He walked out.

I was left in a two thousand square foot loft, alone, with a partner in emotional agony somewhere. I had to help him, but didn’t know where to start.

I took a deep breath.

His immediate safety, first. He couldn’t drive in that state. His car keys were on the sideboard where they belonged. Done. His wallet was gone, so he had that. I looked for his phone, but couldn’t find it. That must mean he had it, good. I called Gerry thinking he could find Daniel, then hung up. I had to think before I went to his political strategist with an emotional breakdown. Gerry was trusted, that I knew. He’d handle it right, but this seemed deeply personal.

I ran upstairs to get clothes on so I could take a jog around the corner to find him, I heard something buzz in his dresser. Damn, he’d forgotten the phone. Now I’d really need to go get him.

It was Gerry. I picked it up.

“Theresa here.”

“Ms. Drazen. How are you?” Gerry’s voice was clipped and polite. He was a gift of an strategist. All business and deadly efficient.

“I’m fine, thank you. Dan is in the shower. Can I have him call you back?”

“Sure. Just a routine schedule shift. Nothing important.”

“Thanks Ger.”

I paused before I hung up. Should I tell him? Would ten minutes to try and find my fiancé be too much to ask? I might find him and whatever it was could remain private. Would a little time make that much of a difference in the overall scheme?

I hung up, and when I did, I saw his texts, and though I didn’t think anything or them, or intend to snoop, a word caught my eye.

I am done playing second fiddle

What could that mean?

And that was that. I may have thought for a second about respecting his privacy on the way to violating it, but it didn’t stop my thumb from finding Clarice’s texts from the previous day.

on the couch with my head back over the arm. I spread my legs and open my mouth. Which is it Mister Mayor?

I’m putting my cock down your tight little throat

Oh baby you’re so good and hot. You take that cock and put it in my mouth. All the way down. You squeeze my throat so it’s tight around your meat

I need to see you tonight you filthy  fucking whore

I shook so hard I dropped the phone.

My eyes went wide staring at the grey rectangle on the carpet, the evil thing. My hands flew over my mouth, as if I’d been the one to say those words.

To Daniel.

My man.

My body went stiff and my sinuses tingled. I couldn’t breathe. Then the tears came. Silent, fat, flooding tears, before the consequences of what I’d seen even hit me, they came. My chest filled with something too big for it. Too much air, or water, or hurt. I hadn’t yet told myself what those texts meant, I only felt the invasion of my life as a rock thrown on a still pond, rippling outward in successively smoother waves, until another boulder was thrown in. The image of Clarice bent over the arm of the couch, with her face up and her legs spread while Daniel jackhammered her throat. The image roiled the lake entirely because I saw only his face saying “yes yes yes” and looking down at her with pleasure, gently stroking her hair away from her mouth so he could fuck it harder. As much as the vision hurt me, I played it over and over in my mind, rewinding the most painful parts, until I was on the floor in a fetal position, wailing at the loss of everything I loved.

***

I managed to crawl to my phone, but it took forever, because I kept having to stop so I could breathe through my tears. Jonathan had texted me, and though he would be the person most sympathetic, the person I should call first, if I knew my brother, he’d find Daniel and ruin him. I didn’t want that. It meant this wasn’t all getting explained away. It would mean I couldn’t go back to who I’d been two hours before.

So I called my sister, Margie. Thirteen years older, and the master of her domain, she’d know what to do.

***

When Margie saw me on the bathroom floor, naked, crying so hard I’d thrown up, she gathered me in her arms and let her business suit get stained with my tears and snot.

“Is anyone dead or hurt?” she asked like a police dispatcher.

I shook my head because I couldn’t speak. She didn’t ask another question, just held me, reaching up for a big towel and draping it over my naked body. She called her office and cancelled everything, and even though asking questions was her job, she didn’t lay one down for an hour and a half.

“The phone,” I croaked. “On the floor. Don’t bring it in here. Look, then burn it.”

I got up when she was in the bedroom looking at the phone. At the thought of her seeing those words I almost fell down again. Only by bracing my arms on the sink could I continue to stand.

“Okay, I got it,” she said when she got back. I didn’t expect to be ashamed by what he’d written, but when I saw Margie’s face, I clutched my towel around me. She put her hands on my shoulders. “This is not your fault.”

I was going to answer that it was. That if I’d been dirtier, more aggressive, a better lover….but the door opened downstairs.

“You stay here,” she said, and before I could disagree she was gone in a fireball of righteous anger.

I leaned on the door jamb.

Voices, downstairs. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I stepped into the hall, then to the top of the stairs. Daniel was at the entrance, still in his sweats, crying jag walked off. And what had he been crying over?

What wouldn’t he cry over, being stuck with me, Ms. Gag Reflex.

“Let me talk to her,” he said

Margie had her fists on her hips. “About what?”

“That’s between she and I.”

“What’s between you and I is first. And what comes between us right now is get the fuck out.

I took another step down, and I must have entered his peripheral vision, because he glanced up. I realized I was naked but for the towel over my shoulders.

“Tink,” he said.

I slipped the towel under my arms, covering myself from his gaze. He stepped toward the stairs and Margie put her hand on his chest. “Don’t.”

I couldn’t speak. I wanted him to explain it all. I knew he could. There had to be some misunderstanding, his face said there was. I loved him so much, cutting him out hurt more than what I’d seen.

He took Margie’s wrist and pulled it down. She pushed against him and said something in his ear. He cast his eyes down and listened, his body going from rigid to slack as she put her hand back on his chest and whispered to him. I took another step down, hoping to hear, but before I got far, she dropped her hand.

He was free to come to me, yet he didn’t.

“We’ll talk, Tink. I love you.”

Then he turned and walked out. When the door clicked shut, I crouched on the stair and wept all over again.




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