Author's Notes: One of my writing groups has been issuing challenges for words and sentences that haunt them. This time it was my turn, the words coming from a song that has nothing to do with being haunted by anything: Sweetly broken and wholly surrendered SO many images that come to mind when those words are heard and/or seen and I have had a scene running around in my brain for nearly the last year. It is a missing scene from "Puzzle Pieces" and has to do with an attempt to reclaim a marriage nearly broken apart by violence, mistrust and lies. Oh yeah - nekkid body parts and references to sex ahead - Consider yourselves warned!
Sweetly Broken and Wholly Surrendered
She knelt on the bed, the expensive silk of her robe gathered in the arms she wrapped protectively about her waist. Long hair that curtained bare flesh moved with each apprehensive breath she drew. "Do you truly hate me so?" she wondered. She worried that she no longer pleased him, the landscape of her body changed, softened by the gift of love. She watched as he slowly turned around, his own robe open, the landscape of his flesh also changed, marred by the flash of steel and the heat of fire.
"No," he said softly and she watched as he turned his head to look away from her and out into the distant starry night.
She hung her head for a moment, gathering courage, before raising it again. "You do," she said in a tone of voice devoid of emotion – she had known it would come down to this. She watched as he turned back to her.
"I do not hate you," he said and his expression changed, hardened, as the muscles at the sides of his rippled with barely restrained emotions. "I just … I just …"
She shifted her weight a bit, unwilling to draw the robe back up over her shoulders. "You are still angry with me."
"I am angry!" he admitted between clenched teeth. "Is that what you wanted to hear?" He began to walk toward her. "I am angry with you." Two more determined strides and he stood before her. "And I am angry with them!"
She would not let him see her fears. Not this evening. She reached out a sure hand to trace the long scar that extended from side to side just below his ribcage before raising shimmering eyes to his face. "They have taken so much," she said gently. "Do not let them take this, as well!"
He could never resist the allure of the soul that shone through those eyes. "I do not want to give them this," he replied as he began to willingly drown her eyes. He swallowed hard. "But I am afraid." He finally said the words aloud.
Wisdom had taken hold in her heart and mind over the past months and she held her tongue to let him speak.
"I am afraid because a part of me is still angry with you," he said, the sorrow in his voice piercing each and every one of her own fears. He reached out a tentative hand to brush a stray lock of hair from her shoulder. "I am afraid that I may not be able to control my anger and I will hurt you."
"You are the one person who could never hurt me," the certainty of her soft words a healing balm to them both.
He could no longer meet her eyes and lowered his own to look at his hands, the fingers that would not be fully healed for another year. "I cannot …" he began and closed his eyes, the words of a madman ringing in his ears mixing and mingling with the terrifying images of his own making. "What if I cannot … what if there is nothing …"
She opened her arms, the robe falling away, exposing her vulnerability to the uncertain stranger standing before her. She moved forward slightly, her hands going to his shoulders, strong and sure. "No longer shall I play the game of 'What If'," she said and smiled as his eyes began to slowly open, looking at her, over her. "I know it shall not be as it once was." Her hands slipped beneath the sleeves of his robe, running down his arms, slipping the robe from his body. "We must start again at the beginning." Her fingers came to rest on the waistband of his pants, still, waiting, in control.
It was a beginning again. It was another night of apprehension and expectation, fear and pain, desire and love, all tossed together and jumbled like a ship upon stormy seas. Now she was the certain one, unafraid of the pain, the hurt. Now she looked at him with a fire that he had once commanded. Yet she was still the one to trust. She was still the one to look to him for guidance. She was still the one to believe that he would not betray her, that he would honor her vulnerability, that he would never hurt her.
"Are you certain?" he wondered, even as his hands reached out for her, cupping her face, following the lines of her neck, tracing downward. He smiled as fingertips found softer, rounder flesh - where a tiny blonde head was often seen also seeking life and love – a sibilant intake of breath a welcome, familiar response to his touch.
"Only for you," she breathed, leaning into his touch, her lips tracing the scars beneath his collarbone. "Always and only for you." She leaned back on her heels, the merest of touches all that was needed to bring him with her …
Christine snuggled into Raoul's side, her legs intertwining with his, a satisfied sigh escaping her lips. She had wanted to stay where she had been, her body covering his, the heat from his skin burning away the last of her fears, their hearts pressed together, beating as one. She had wanted to protect the fragile magic they had begun to rebuild but the body beneath her own was still as fragile as that magic so Christine had kissed warm lips before moving off gently and finding that her body still molded so easily into his. Christine raised her head slightly to kiss the strong jaw line under which it rested and encountered a salty wetness that caused Christine to open her eyes and lift her head.
"Raoul?" Christine asked.
Raoul remained silent, lying on his back, staring at the wooden medallions inlaid into the ceiling.
"What is wrong?" Christine worried as she raised herself up on one elbow.
Raoul opened his lips but no words came out; he just shook his head.
Christine placed a soft kiss over Raoul's beating heart. She felt fingers entwine in her hair and once again raised her head to look into her husband's face. She found her breath stopped as she noticed a familiar man staring back at her from sparkling blue eyes.
"You have done the impossible," Raoul told her.
"I do not understand." Christine looked pleased but confused.
Raoul took his wife into his arms, kissing the end of the nose that was the exact nose that graced the face of their child. "You have broken my fears." Raoul smiled broadly. "They did not take my life." Raoul's voice caught in his throat. "They have not won!"
Christine could not help the tears that escaped from her own eyes. "I surrendered to you on a night much like this almost three years ago." She sought and found a lingering kiss. "Now we have surrendered ourselves and our fears to each other." Christine laid her head down, moving it slightly so that it rested over the heart that beat in tune with her own. "And never has anything been sweeter or more perfect." She let out a very long sigh, trying to still the shaking that had suddenly taken control of her limbs. "I love you," Christine said softly and then louder and louder. "I love you! I love you!" Until the joy could not be contained and she broke into laughter.
Raoul tightened his embrace about his wife's soft frame and joined in her laughter, laughing until the relief had dissipated into the warmth of the dark night. "I do not know what I would ever be without you," Raoul said as Christine gave a watery sniffle and drew a deep breath. "I love you."
They rolled together as one, Christine spooning herself into her husband's embrace, the rhythm of his moving chest against her back, a comfort like no other. Raoul drew the covers up about them and Christine drew his arms tightly about herself.
"I love you," she heard breathed into her ear as her eyes closed.
Sweetly broken and wholly surrendered, Raoul and Christine found their way to a land of no more fears, no more anger, where the renewed promise of all that could be greeted them with open arms.