The Fourth Life: Chapter 22 (adult)

Ray Martino opened the door to his office, and said, "Hello, Todd, Blair.  Good to see you both.  What brings you here, together?"


"He threatened to leave me."  She said.


"But I didn't mean it," he said.


"You were packing,"


"I was, but then I unpacked."


"This has happened too many times, now."


"Only twice, Blair."


"That's two too many."


Ray interjected, "Why are you threatening to leave her?  She's your life, Todd.  You said so yourself."


"He says he's becoming Peter Manning."


"She admitted Carlo is after us, if I go, he'll just chase after me.  I think I should leave.  I'm not safe to be around."


"So, leave us alone then, and we have to fight him off without you."


"Call me, I'll hop the copter."


Ray said, "Hang on, you two.  Please."


"Well, now I want him to leave."


"You do?"  Both Todd and Ray asked.


"I do.  He keeps threatening me."


"It's not a threat.  I think it's best.  You'll be safer away from me."


"Why, what did you do?"  Ray asked.


"I blew up at the kids once, and then I had a nightmare."


"Ah.  Was that right before you came here?"  Ray asked.


"Yep."


"So what, he blows up?  I told him before, you blow up, you apologize.  It's not the end of the damn world, Todd."


"Well, if it's not the end of the world, why are we here?"


"We're here because you keep saying you're going to leave us."


"I am!"

"Well then go, and stop threatening."


Ray sat back in his chair, hand to his forehead.  "Excuse me, Mannings?"


"Yes," both answered.


"Can we stop a minute.  Please?  It's like projectile vomiting in here."


"Tell him to stop then.  Something goes wrong, he makes one wrong move and he's all 'Blair, I have to leave you.'"


"What about her?  She makes it like she deserves me to act that way, like it's a normal part of the day.  'Oh, Todd, don't worry about your little old blow ups and the little old tantrums.'"


Ray was shaking his head.


Blair continued, "You know what, go then!  Who's stopping you!"


"Okay, I will!"


They both folded their arms.  Silence held for three minutes, and Ray said, "Are you done now?"


Both said, "No."


Ray said, "All right, for all intents and purposes, let's say you did leave, Todd.  Where would you go?"


"The penthouse."


"Alone?"


"Yeah, who'd come with me, the staff?"


"All right, you'd be alone at the penthouse, the place where you both fell in love over again, or rejuvenated that love, when you first got back.  The place that Blair decorated for you, to be just like it was in 1995."


He softened, "Yeah, so?"


"Alone.  There.  With your hot tub.  And no Blair."


He didn't respond.


"And Blair, if Todd leaves, now that you told him to, you'll be alone with the kids in the new house?  The home he created for you, he built with his own heart and soul, the dream house you always wanted, with no Todd."


She did not respond.  Then she huffed and said, "I didn't tell him to leave, he thought of it first."


Todd uncrossed his arms and said, "You know why, Blair.  I'm afraid.  I don't want to hurt you or the kids."


She uncrossed her arms, and leaned forward, "You won't hurt us, Todd.  You won't.  Give yourself more credit than that."


"I don't want to go, Babe."


"I don't want you to go."


"Come here."


She crossed the office and sat on his lap and they began kissing, and he ran his hands up and down her, as if Ray was not in the room.


"Um, excuse me, guys."


They stopped, looking up, and Todd said, "Yeah?"


Todd woke up, and looked around him.  The penthouse was empty and dark.  He had left Unforgettable and Blair, and his children, in the middle of the night, after another nightmare drew him out of sleep.   He had slipped out, hopefully without waking Blair.  He was in their bed, the one she decorated in scarlet and black, without her.  He could see The Manning building through the window above the bed.  He could see their bathroom, and their hot tub from where he was lying.  He swallowed, and turned on his side.  There, on the nightstand, was a picture of them at the Gold Balloon Wedding.  In front of it, lying and glinting in the moonlight, was Leona's skinner.  He touched it, and somehow it gave him comfort.  He closed his eyes and pictured stabbing it into Carlo Hesser, over and over.  It brought a thrill through him.


It was then he heard a sound on the lower level.  He stopped, and froze, listening again.  He heard it, louder this time, and got up, in his silk boxers, shirtless, to go and find out.  He grabbed the knife instinctively.


He crept down the staircase, and when he reached the bottom, the lights snapped on.  It was Blair.  "Is this what you want, Todd?"


***


In the middle of the night, Carlo, unable to sleep, was plotting his next move.  Unsure how to go it alone, he assessed all his options.  With his lawyer now filing an injunction to get the charges dropped, he felt a bit more hopeful than he had before.  In fact, he was downright euphoric.  He began to plan what he would do to rebuild his empire when he was released.  "Manning will not know what hit him," he said, chuckling, "when I show up at his door, and tell that Gothic throwback exactly what I am going to do with that slut wife of his."


His mind wandered to Kathleen Finn, who was also in Statesville Prison, and decided his next move would be to arrange a meeting with her, in the underground section of the prison, facilitated by one of the guards who spoke green.  Yes, that would be next.  He would attempt to glean any information or support from her and her remembrances of her lost child, and then, give her the big news, while seducing her and taking her in the dark, dank recesses of the prison.  "Perfect," he said, "she also will not know what hit her."  After he was done with her, she would be eating out of the palm of his hand.


Then, he would find a way to unleash his secret weapon and bring The Mannings to their knees.


"What lovely plans for my release," he said aloud, and opened the James Patterson novel he was reading.


***


It was almost two in the morning, and Timothy Broderick was working on the research he promised to Todd Manning.  "Good Lord, this is a job for a miracle worker.  I can't find even one crumb leading to information about the ex-Mayor's dead child.  It's as if the child....never...died."  He stopped himself.  Searching death records for the year of the child's birth, he was able to find nothing about an infant dying that was born to one Katherine Dennison, Kathleen Dennison, or any combination thereof.  In fact, there were only two baby boys dead on the day that she claimed her baby died, and none of them were even in the same hospital.  He started to smell a rat, just as Todd did.  He decided that his way to finding more truth was to see Carlo Hesser himself.  He wrote into his planner "go see Hesser," and closed his pen for the night.


A passing idea came to him, and he glanced out his window, and saw the penthouse lights come on.  "I wonder what that lad is doing there, or whoever is there, at this hour?  Since he built the new house, I haven't seen it lit up there at all.  Ah, not my problem.  I suppose.  Perhaps I should text Todd, just in case someone has broken in."


***


"Yeah, this is what I want," he said.


"Fine then, give me a divorce."


"No, I'm not giving you a divorce, Blair."


"If you won't live with us, then you don't deserve us.  You fought all this time to come back to us.  Now look at you.  Over here, we're over there.  I knew you'd leave me eventually, Todd, you always have."


He seethed.  "That's not fair, Blair.  I left you two of those times against my will.  Three if you count this last one."


"Why did you leave tonight, Todd?  I thought we settled everything.  The kids were fine, they're just worried about you."


"I had a dream.  The dream was very real, Blair.  I saw myself killing Carlo.  I saw myself stabbing into him over and over, like some kind of maniac.  I can't be around you and the kids that way."


"Then let's get help.  Heck, I think of stabbing him.  I thought of sticking his head in the barbecue last night.  What does that mean?  That I should run off and desert you?"


"I'm scared, don't you see that?  You, Starr, Jack, Sam, Ray and Sunburst are the most important things to me.  If Sunburst turns out to be a girl, we only need one more to make a half dozen.  It's so pure, so perfect.  I can't let my Hell spread and infect you all."


She was trying to understand, but couldn't.  The only way she saw it was that he needed that purity to help him overcome the Hell.  When she said that to him, he shook his head 'no.'   


She walked up close to him, and her pajama shirt was very low cut.  He could see into her top, and her breasts were pushing against the fabric.  He said, "Don't try this."


"Try what?  If you really want to leave us, then leave us, and divorce me, Todd.  That's the only way.  We're not going to be married, living apart.  I've been there and done that, and its not what I want anymore.  I want to be free, if you're not going to stay with me, then you need to let me go.  But let me tell you one thing, Todd Manning, if you do this, you will have said once and for all that we don't belong together, and that all we mean to each other is not worth fighting for.  Do you understand?"  Her finger was in his face.


"Don't point at me that way, Blair."


"Then you don't leave us.  If you do it means we were never worth it in the first place."


"You're better off," he said, and she pulled back her hand to slap him.  


He caught her hand and she said,  "I hate you for doing this!"  Her voice strained, and he fought her hand back,  "You're just afraid, you're afraid to raise your sons, you're afraid to love me, you're afraid to be loved.  Nothing is perfect, God damn it, nothing is, except..."


"Except you and me?"  he said.


"You fooled me into thinking that, yeah.  I was scared when you first came back Todd, " she was crying, "I was afraid to believe in us again.  And now, it's all I have, and you're taking it away, because you're afraid of what it means to get well and get better and for us to actually be normal.  That scares you.  It scares me, too.  Now, the only way I will walk out this door and never look back, is if you look right at me and say, 'Babe, I don't love you.  I don't love the kids.  I don't want your love, and I want a divorce.'  And if you can't do that, then you've got a fight on your hands." 


She broke down, and pulled her arm out of his grasp, and pushed by him, standing at the wall of windows, looking out.  The city was beautiful at night, as it always was.  


She turned around unexpectedly.  "So go ahead, say it!  Say it now, Todd.  Say that you don't love me!"  she was screaming, "Say that you never meant any of it.  Say you want..."


She did not get a chance to finish and he was on her, kissing her mouth with everything in him.  He fumbled for the edge of her top, and pulled it up over her head, fastening his lips to one of her nipples and caressing her between her legs.  She said, "It's so good, Todd, love me, more," and he hoisted her up against the glass.  She pulled his trunks down, and his length sprung at her with want and rigidity.  She gasped, and clutched her fingers into his hair, the other hand stroking the length of him, and heard him whisper, "I love you Babe, I love our children, I need your love, I need you."  He moved against her, rubbing his body up and down hers.  She encircled him with her hand, sliding it up and down, whispering, "Yes, love me, Todd," and his stomach tightened and flexed.  


Within moments, he had her pressed against the glass, hard, and was inside her, unable to wait.  His movements were abrupt, wild and intense, and she wrapped herself around him like she was part of him.  She said, "Say it again, all of it."


"I love you, I love our kids, I need you, Blair," and he shifted, carrying her over to the couch and lying her on it.  He was above her now, "I love our life, I love how you feel, I can't stay away from you," he said, and slid deeper within her.  As he pumped into her, he ran his fingers over her neck, and face, fondling her chin and rubbing under her eyes with his thumb.  He put his thumb against her mouth, and she took it, sucking it.  He let out sounds of pleasure, and each thrust brought her closer to ecstasy.  She moaned, "No leaving."


"No leaving," he said, and pulled out of her, holding back.  Puzzled, the exquisite feelings halted, and she looked at him, questioning.  He pulled her to him in one fell swoop, and carried her up the staircase.  Putting her on the bed, she turned over and crawled to the headboard, where she put both hands on it to support herself.  He came up behind her, and ran his hands over her bottom.  His fingers touching her the way she loved and wanted, he entered her from behind.  She pushed against him, and seconds later, she squealed in delight as he brought her to climax with his fingers on her, and his body buried deep in hers.  The sensation of her pulsing around him pushed him over the edge, and he finished, pulling her closer and holding her, as they both collapsed to the bed.  He was over her like a comforter, moaning in a sigh, his arms around her.  He turned to his side, bringing her with him, and spooned behind her, as they both attempted to catch their breath.


"No leaving?" she asked.


"No leaving."


"Ever?"


"Ever.  You feel so good," he said, stroking her hair.


"You do, too.    Especially since you've gotten downright talkative...You're so damn sexy, Todd, it's hard to be angry with you."


"Yeah, but you were."  Then softly, "You make me feel.  Always have."


"You make me loved."


"How about a bath?"  he asked.


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