Disclaimer: "You Can Thank Me Later" is not mine and I don't intend to make money with this. But Diane got into my head & I had to release her somehow. My story continues where the movie ended, and I tried to find the rhythm of the movie and the voice of the characters. I hope you'll enjoy.
(Originally posted on LJ, this story is rated M or MA. If you don't know the movie with Mary McDonnell, you may not understand this or the context.)
AFTERSHOCK
Diane was standing next to him holding his hand through the ceremony.
Funerals.
She hated funerals. She had hated those Roman catholic funerals she remembered from her childhood days. Jewish funerals though, weren't much better.
But she would be there for him. Nonetheless.
This wasn't about her feeling uncomfortable. This was about being a shoulder to lean on for Eli.
He needed her. And it felt good to be needed – however tragic the circumstances.
Standing there, by his side, feeling his bones trembling slightly, their son offering his support to them – Diane felt surprisingly calm.
The presence of Eli's family usually stirred a feeling of uneasiness in her which didn't matter right now. Instead, Diane's thoughts and heart were occupied with Eli's coping with his father's death.
She knew that he hadn't been too close to his father. They had spoken, once in a while. Mostly on the phone. And he had never been particularly fond of her.
She had actually only talked to him on Hanukkah all those years ago. The day when they had been invited to that family dinner. Her mother-in-law had complained about her gaining weight before they had announced that she was pregnant.
She would never forget that day. The piercing gaze of Eli's parents, the endless lecture of his father's in particular. One hour, 13 minutes and 5 seconds of lamenting about responsibilities, the necessity of a stable home, decent jobs, a good neighborhood and marriage.
Diane shook her head.
It was then that all their trouble had started. Living by the rules. He should've known that this wasn't the fabric she was made of. And neither was he.
It had broken them. It had torn them apart, step by step. Until his fear had overruled his creativity and her frustration had turned into greed.
His decision to teach full-time and her being pushed into giving up painting, had resulted in a silence and emptiness neither of them had been able to cope with.
So Eli had stopped to pay attention to her and she had acted on her feelings of loneliness when Edward had approached her.
She usually tried to avoid the memories of that day. But she hadn't been able to forget it since Simon's recent therapy session.
After years of burying her feelings about that incident in the back of her mind, she had been forced to confront herself with that day. With her actions. And it had all surfaced. The shame. The guilt. The tears.
And it had freed her in a way.
The memories had always been so blurred.
She had only remembered her exhaustion. Simon resting after hours of crying and weeping and being cranky. Eli hadn't spoken much to her. He'd been wrapped up in his work, hardly paying attention to her falling apart. Edward had complimented her. He had surprised her – having entered their home without permission because the door had been unlocked. She had left the shower, wrapped in her bathrobe and pajamas, her hair wet and long when she had put the kettle on the stove. And when his eyes had lusted after her, caressed her the way she had wished Eli to touch her for weeks, she had acted on a moment of weakness. A moment she would curse herself for ever since.
She truly didn't remember how fast things had gone. Suddenly, he had been so close, wrapping his arms around her, whispering those words of appreciation into her ears. He had stolen a kiss from her, almost vile. And they had started to move. The kitchen was too small, the living room was out of the question, and she would never have entered the bedroom with him. She still didn't know why they had ended up in Simon's room. She recalled having heard him, her immediate reaction being to look after him. But her mind had been so distracted. She had longed to be touched like a woman for so long, and Edward's hands knew exactly which buttons to push in that moment.
Her mind had been switched off somehow. It had been as if the world around her didn't exist. It was hard to explain, and something Eli would never allow her to analyze or talk about.
She had never forgotten the look on his face when he had entered the room. The horror, the frozen mask of pain.
And she remembered how she had covered her body with a blanket, how she had tried to speak to him and that her tongue had been paralyzed.
After the silence, after the comfort of a longing touch, she had heard Simon cry again. And Diane had kicked back in. Reality had dawned on her. And she had been appauled – at Edward, at herself, at the situation.
But no one ever gave her the chance to talk about it since. She had tried. She had tried to make up for it, to pay her dues, to overcome it. She hadn't stood the slightest chance.
The silence between Eli and her had been too big enough even before that day, and his disappearance and ignorance afterwards had only increased their pain.
So she had pushed any thought about that day, any sparkle of memory to the back of her mind until it had resulted in an attempted suicide and, ultimately, in their divorce.
She wondered, if now, after ten years of knowing that their love was deep but their hearts broken, they would accept their flaws and be able to live on.
Eli squeezed her hand, ripping Diane out of her thoughts. The feeling he transmitted reassured her of his need for her.
She smiled. More to herself than to the words the Rabbi said about her diseased father-in-law.
She was glad that Eli allowed her to share this with him.
His pain. The shock. The grief.
His phone call forgotten now, she had known that he still loved her – by the sound of his voice. And she was glad that he hadn't only accepted her kisses as a proof of her love for him, or her passion, but also her care.
When the family gathered in the family mansion after the funeral, saying good-bye to the guests for what seemed to be endless hours, Eli began to be unnerved by his siblings.
His sister had embraced an exceptionally strong dramatic aura for the day, and his fist was still itching to meet his brother's jaw. So he avoided to speak to him whenever possible.
When most of the guests had left, and only a circle of close friends remained as willing shoulders to cry on for his mother, Eli sneaked into his father's office. He closed the door quietly behind him, and closed his eyes at the familiar scent that seemed to be held captive in the room.
It was only a couple of minutes later that Diane was scanning the house for Eli. She tiptoed around her sisters-in-law as best as she could, and was happy to see that her son was involved in mourning audibly with his grandmother.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
Sometimes she wondered if Eli was actually a member of this family or if he had just chosen to play a joke on her by choosing them.
She turned around to check the kitchen and found Edward, hitting on one of the servants for the day.
He excused himself for a moment to speak with her, following her to the bathroom where she had hoped to find Eli after all.
"Diane."
"Edward." She said with a cool voice, not even bothering to hide her annoyance.
"What is it, Diane?" Edward put his arm around her waist.
Shrugging it off right away, Diane put as much distance between her and her brother-in-law as he allowed.
"Stop that! Can't you even keep your pants up on the day of your father's funeral?"
He smiled, trying to flirt with her.
Diane waved him off. "Edward, really. Leave me alone!"
He shrugged. "Alright. But don't say you didn't get your chance."
"Oh please! You are pathetic!"
"You didn't think so all those years ago." He obviously thought to be successful with that line, which annoyed her all the more and broadened his grin.
"Why did you bring that up just now?"
"Eli did. In the hospital. He still doesn't seem to have gotten over it."
Diane looked at him for a beat.
"Where is he now? Did you see him?" She asked calmly, ignoring his remark and his renewed attempt to flirt with her.
Edward shook his head. "I haven't seen him much today. He's always been a loner on funerals."
"I know." Diane whispered and continued her search.
"It's not that you're still married to him, you know!" Edward almost yelled after her, his eyes locking on his next victim already.
When Diane opened the door to the office of her recently deceased father-in-law's, she realized that she had only been in that room once. And that seemed to have been in another lifetime now.
She popped her head through the door and saw him sitting in that huge leather chair of his father's behind the desk.
She looked down the hallway to see if anyone had followed her before she sneaked through the crack of the door. She closed it behind her without the slightest noise and walked over to the desk, her heels making a muffled sound on the rich carpet.
When she reached the desk, she walked around to sit on it. Eli, meeting her concerned gaze, smiled at her.
"How did you know I was here?" He asked quietly.
Diane shrugged. "I didn't. I was looking for you all over."
He nodded.
"I'm worried about you, Eli." Diane's voice dropped two levels, her eyes sad and dark. "Talk to me."
He leaned forward and put his hands onto her thighs. "I'm fine."
Diane gave him a faint smile. She let her shoes fall to the floor and rested her feet on his lap.
"No, you aren't." She whispered. "And you don't have to pretend with me that you are."
Eli moved his hands north and south of her knees, caressing the slender length of her legs, closed his eyes for a moment. They flipped open again when she spoke to him in a shy voice.
"Why didn't you ever speak to me about it?"
He held her gaze, seeing tears emerging from the depth of her soul.
"I never found the right words to ask."
Diane sighed with a desperate chuckle. "You are a writer, Eli. You create the most beautiful poems."
"For you I do." Eli brought his hand to her cheek, pulling her closer to him, and caressed her skin.
"I am sorry, Eli. I have been ever since it happened."
"It's ok now." He said soothingly.
"No, it's not." Diane returned with a broken voice. "I want to put this behind us."
He smiled, allowing her to go on.
"Why did you call me, Eli?"
"I don't know." He was honest. He didn't. Then.
"You do know that I love you, don't you?" Diane whispered while one of his hands continued to caress her cheek and the other came to a rest on her thigh.
"I know." He gently pulled her to him, his hand guiding her face down to meet his lips. "I know that now."
Closing her eyes at the tender passion in his kiss, Diane moaned her frustration into his mouth.
"Eli, talk to me."
She detached herself from his lips and began to move one of her feet over his chest, drawing circles on it.
"What do we do now?"
"What do you mean?" Eli grinned.
"Your mind asked me to leave your life, your heart asked me to stay."
He looked deep into her eyes, and detected that vulnerability of hers he so often had observed to surface when she had tried to talk to him about that day all those years ago.
He paused.
"Diane, I can't keep up with the way you need me."
She blinked, a sparkle of sadness visible in her eyes.
"I can't deal with having your passion without being allowed to have your soul."
She tilted her head, switching into her seductive mode.
"Diane. Don't."
"You don't want me?", she asked hoarsely.
"Of course I want you. But I want you in my life. I don't want these games anymore."
"Then what do you want?"
He pulled her into another lingering kiss.
"I want what we had. I don't want breaks or interruptions or bad words. I want you. On a daily basis. With your thoughts, and your attitudes, and your laughter. I don't only want to have sex with you – I want to make love to you. I want to see your face when I wake up. I want to feel your embrace through the night. I want you to inspire me to be the writer that I can be. I want you to push me, to drive me nuts, to keep me sane. I want you to know that I forgive you, and I forgive us. I want a second chance – a second you & me, a second life."
He pulled her onto his lap.
"I want this, all of this, and all of you. Now. With all the imperfection, with all the tears, with all the pain and all the passion."
He kissed her deeply again and whispered his words onto her skin.
"I want you to allow me to be part of your life again. I don't want you to feel guilty, I don't want you to give up or to repend. I want to meet you eye to eye. Like the day we met. Equal. Passionate. In love."
And she began to cry.
"And I want this for the rest of our lives. And if I should ever wish to reconsider, I want you to remind me of today and kick my ass."
Diane allowed the tears to run down her face, resisting the urge to sob or flee. Instead, she answered him in a broken voice, avoiding his gaze.
"Eli, I can't give you what you're looking for."
"I know that you can." He kissed her. "And I know that you want to."
He paused, giving her time to consider his words.
He began to caress her waist, and smiled when she brought her lips to the sensitive skin on his neck.
He sensed the difference immediately. Her kisses were deeper than he remembered from their weekly get-togethers. And he felt how she opened her heart to him again.
She had always oozed a special form of vulnerability when she had allowed him to see her soul. A vulnerability that came with layers of complexity, passion and laughter.
She was on the verge of losing herself in him again – like she had done so all those years ago, when they had shared their dreams of leading an artistic life together – committed to themselves and their art alone.
Eli smiled. His hands began to sneak underneath her sweater, and he enjoyed the feeling of her moans against his jaw line.
He met her lips, hungry for her love, hungry for being with her again – reunited, not only as lovers, but as Eli and Diane.
And when she moaned his name, the feeling that nestled in his heart was indescribable and comforting.
"Marry me."
He hadn't intended these words to escape his lips, but it was as if he had no control over his actions. Especially not when she was giving herself to him so completely.
Diane stopped. And Eli instinctively held her closer, fearing that she might hide again – that she might close her heart again, shut him out, in fear of being rushed.
But she leaned back to meet his gaze. A teary glint in her darkened green eyes, he knew that she wasn't shocked or appalled, nor rushed or panicked.
She smiled at him, her lips barely curving up, giving him a lusty look instead and filling his heart with a yearning he had suppressed for so long.
"I love you, Diane."
Stealing another hungry kiss from him, she kissed her response onto his flesh and began to unbutton his shirt.
Eli grinned.
He knew how she switched into her seductive mode when she tried to avoid a topic. But this felt different. It was different.
The way her hands explored his chest and tugged at his belt. The way she responded to his touch on her skin. His fingers loosening her bra to get better access to her breasts. The way she arched against him, her moans hoarse and layered.
There was more than just her desire for him in her moans. The sound of her voice was softer and free from haste.
So he smiled, slowly pushing her skirt up to her waist and burying his face in her breasts. Feeling how she began to remove his pants, he assisted her for a moment before she became one with him on his lap and rested her arms on his shoulders.
She leaned in to kiss him again, her tenderness merging with her passion while she found a rhythm with him that was less needy but intimate instead. And they took their time to enjoy each other on common ground again, proving their love while seeking bliss and joy with one another.
Eli kissed her neck when she buried her head in his shoulder at the waves of satisfaction that overtook her body. Her moans filling the room, Eli reveled in the taste of her on his lips and the high expression on her face.
Her scent bewitching him, he whispered his love onto her cheeks when he followed her release and snuggled her closer to him in the aftermath.
He continued to shower her with kisses, triggering a happy giggle in her and a purr. He smiled, whispering lines onto her skin that were born out of the moment, reassuring her of his love.
Like raindrops on a sweltering day
Your kisses ease my pain
And make me long for more of both
The heat and the storm
The sound of bliss escaping your lips
Matching the songs of the angels
When I touch you and we melt into one
I know that you are the heaven for my soul
Fin