Chapter Five: The Game
Kathy had thought carefully for several weeks about what she would ask if Elliot agreed to play Truth or Consequences with her. Laura, the counselor who had suggested the game, had advised her that the right mix of silly and serious, easy and hard questions was crucial to making it work. The key wasn't so much in having fun as it was in providing enough emotional time outs for them both to regroup between the heavy topics. It was just as vital that Kathy not care about the answers she got so long as Elliot was talking to her. He had to feel safe enough to say anything.
She had initially wondered how chaining her husband to the bed was going to make him more willing to talk to her. Now she saw that, just as Laura had explained, pushing that boundary and convincing him to let himself be physically vulnerable had made him more open than ever before to being emotionally vulnerable as well. It was an incredibly intimate moment, and she knew she had to tread carefully. It was her responsibility to listen to him and pay attention to his reactions because, being the quintessential tough guy, now that he had committed to playing along he probably wouldn't back out, no matter how difficult it became.
She had to shelter him and challenge him at the same time, and she knew that was going to be a tough balancing act. For that reason, she had spent two sessions with Laura over the past week whittling her list down to ten questions Elliot could answer honestly without upsetting her. Since they had started the game, she had added one more, but she would have to see how things went before she threw it into the mix.
After their heavy discussion about her reasons for leaving, it seemed best to start with something silly.
Moving to lie beside him, propped up on one elbow so she could watch his face, she hummed thoughtfully to herself and ran her nails lightly up and down his midline from the notch between his collarbones to his navel. Finally, when he was writhing and panting from the stimulation, she asked conversationally, "Have you bought yourself any new socks or underwear since I left?"
He laughed aloud. "What? Is that really your question?"
She nodded seriously. "Yeah. I know how you are. You'll let it go until every sock has a hole in the toe and the elastic is shot in every pair of briefs. Then you'll go a couple more weeks until you actually have time to go to a store and buy some, so, have you bought any new socks or underwear this year?"
"Yes, to both," he said shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
"Boxers or briefs . . . or something sexyyyyy?" she asked, teasingly dropping her voice to a suggestive tone as she lightly scratched the patch of skin between his navel and his pubic hair because she knew how much it turned him on.
"I . . . like . . . the brand you . . . always buy me," he stammered as his body responded to her attentions, "but when I looked for the tags, they were all torn out! I didn't even know for sure what size I take."
"Well, that's your own fault," she told him, leaning forward to kiss him on the chest.
"Can I help it if the tags itch?" He shook his head. "Anyway, I wound up getting the brand Michael Jordan advertises. Hanes, I think, with no tag."
She giggled, amused by his practical solution. "Are they comfortable?"
"Yeah, now that I have the right size. The first bunch was too small." She laughed at his mortified look, and he joined her. Amused and a little embarrassed with himself, he blurted, "I'm helpless without you."
The laughter stopped abruptly and they smiled sadly at one another. She kissed him tenderly on the mouth and said, "You don't ever have to worry about that again, El. Even if we can't get back together, just call me. I'll always be there for you, ok?"
He swallowed hard, gave her a grateful look, and nodded. "Ok, you too, right?"
"Right," she agreed. After a quiet moment, she smiled at him, sat beside him, Indian-style, on her side of the bed, and said, "Question two. Have the electric and water bills gone down? I know the kids drive you crazy leaving the lights on in every room they walk through and Maureen's hour-long showers left the rest of us without hot water more times that I can count."
To her surprise, he grew serious. "The water bill has gone down some," he said. "There's really no way I could use as much water as you and the kids, but the light bill?"
When he hesitated, she asked, "What about it?"
"It's so quiet and lonely when I get home at night. I turn on all the lights, the TV, and stereo. When I go into the bedroom to change out of my suit, I turn the radio on, and when I'm fixing something to eat in the kitchen, I'll watch the TV in there."
She sensed that he wasn't finished, but was reluctant to go on, so she nudged him with another follow up question. "Does that make it easier?"
He shrugged. "Yes and no. It gives me something besides the house to listen to, but still, at night when everything is shut off, I can feel how empty it is."
"Well, it's pretty full over at Mom's, but you know what?"
"What?"
"There's still an empty place where you ought to be."
He smiled, glad that she missed him, and she kissed him tenderly. Then she moved lay atop him again, pressing her ear to his breast, listening to his heartbeat and the air filling and leaving his lungs. She loved that sound, and the hum of his voice in his chest when he spoke. He seemed relaxed and open to a real conversation, so she asked her next question from there, knowing that it was a tough one and he might find it easier to answer if she wasn't looking at him.
"Question three," she spoke quietly, "rumor has it you've come close to getting suspended a few times lately. What happened?"
Elliot held his breath, wondering what 'rumor' she had heard about his gradual meltdown over the past year. Only Olivia and Cragen knew about his seeing Dr. Rebecca Hendrix, though he was sure the rest of the squad had noticed the benefits of her help. Then again, the station was a gossip mill, and anybody there could have heard something about the various sticky situations he had gotten into. Kathy was friendly with the wives of a few of the station's uniformed officers and a couple of guys he had risen through the ranks with who were now detectives with other squads, so there was no telling what she had heard or how much of it had been true.
He debated passing this time, enjoying the feel of her hands sliding up and down his ribcage as he considered it, but this was the first hard question she had asked. It would be cowardly to duck the initial challenge. Besides, there were probably more sensitive topics to come, and he was only allowed to pass once.
"El?"
He sighed, feeling the effort it took to inhale deeply with her weight atop him, enjoying her hair tickling his shoulder as his breathing shifted her slightly, and he told her he'd had a rough year.
"First, I had a victim accuse me of . . . improper behavior," he said. "She was a troubled young woman. The charges were dropped. That was right after you left."
"You sound ok with that," she observed, skimming her hands up and down the length of his arms, brushing lightly over the tender flesh on the insides of his biceps and causing him to shiver.
"Yeah . . . it happened . . . it's over . . . everything's cool," he gasped, and wished he could bring his arms around her in an embrace.
"Good, I'm glad it didn't cause you too many problems," she said. "What else happened?"
"What makes you think there's more?" he asked, trying to sound a little wounded.
She chuckled and scattered his chest with kisses. He closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of her hair. "I know you," she said. "You do what it takes to get the job done, and sometimes that means playing fast and loose with the rules."
"Yep, you know me all right," he conceded, but didn't go on from there. He had figured out that she was using her touches and caresses to keep him talking without using her follow-up questions. He was impressed with her strategy and wanted to see what she would do next.
"Sooo . . . " she said, leading him to the next incident as she put her mouth over one of his nipples and proceeded to tease him.
"Ohhhhhhhhh," he moaned, part of him wishing he hadn't waited for this, but most of him glad that he had. For several moments, words were beyond him, but slowly he adjusted to the higher level of pleasure and began to speak breathlessly again. "A couple . . . of months ago . . . I went undercover . . . without Cragen's permission."
"And . . . " She turned her head to rest it against his breastbone again and waited, her thumb now tracing circles where he mouth had been.
There was a long silence, but this time Kathy said nothing, did nothing to push him forward. She could tell that the experience had been difficult for him but that he would say more once he had his thoughts in order.
Finally, his chest rose and fell with a sigh under her ear and he said, "The guy I was after, he didn't take the bait, then later, on his own, he grabbed a girl. I managed to help her escape before he . . . did anything, but that kid was traumatized because I didn't have my suspect covered."
"Elliot, I'm sure . . . "
"Please, Kathy, don't say anything," he interrupted brusquely, not wanting her to try to make him feel better about what he had done. "You weren't there, you don't know."
She looked up at him, and despite the shame he felt, he made himself meet her gaze. "It was my mistake," he said, "my fault, and I have to live with that. So does she, but she is alive, and he is back in jail. There's some kind of justice there, and I will deal with it in time."
He could see in her eyes that she knew there was more, and he held his breath, hoping she wouldn't pursue it. He could tell her about the girl, what had happened to her was just a mistake, mostly out of his control. What the shrink had said to him about his anger problems, though, and what Ray Schenkel had said about the two of them being alike? Brothers under the skin, he had said. That had hit too close to home. He couldn't even think about it without feeling slightly ill. And there was no way in hell he was going to talk about the snarling, growling, feral animal that had come from within him when he'd finally gotten loose and almost choked the life out of Ray while making his escape. He'd scared himself with that, but buried it inside, at least for a while.
"Ok," she finally agreed, placing a tender kiss on his lips, and he couldn't help but sigh in relief. "Anything else?"
He hesitated, tensed, squirmed a bit. "Yeah."
She waited for him to continue, acutely aware of the struggle within. She knew he'd been holding back about the undercover assignment, but maybe that would make it easier for him to tell her about whatever else was troubling him now. Very deliberately, she placed one arm on the mattress on either side of him, cradling his body to hers, and she closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest again trying to simultaneously give him the emotional distance and the warm, loving support he needed to get through what he had to say.
He knew what she was doing, the look of understanding in her eyes just before she closed them had told him everything she was thinking. She wanted him to feel safe talking to her, wanted him to know that, whatever he'd done, she would always love him. He smiled slightly, wondering how he had got so lucky.
"I screwed up," he said softly. "Cragen should have suspended me. If I had been anyone else, I think he would have. I'm lucky I still have a job, Kath."
He trailed off. He knew he could tell her about Pete Breslin, but it was hard. The aftermath of that case, of what he had done, had brought up so many painful memories, forced him to confront so many feelings he had been hiding from his entire adult life. He knew he was a better man for it, and he was finally dealing with some of the issues that had driven Kathy away to begin with, but it was still so painful he didn't know if he could do it.
Kathy lay there, eyes closed, listening to her husband breathe. She could feel the tension in his frame, the rigid hardness of his muscles and knew he was struggling. The fingers of her right hand toyed with the hair under his arm. She could smell his scent mixed with the soap from his shower. She turned her head, kissed him on the collarbone, nestled her cheek back against his chest, and exhaled a thin stream of air across his nipple. "What happened, Baby?"
Her calm, encouraging tone did it for him. If she had been curious or impatient, he would have ended it right there, but she really just wanted to hear what he had to say. It didn't matter what had happened, so long as he was talking to her about it.
"You remember . . . " his voice was raspy, full of emotion. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Remember Pete Breslin? My radio car partner?"
"Mmm-hmm," she hummed against his chest.
"His son, Luke, was the perp in one of my cases." He felt her tense against him, and knew she wanted to know what the boy had done, so, instead of making her ask, he offered the information freely. "He'd been having some problems, not all of them his own fault, and he lost control and beat up a girl. At the bail hearing, Pete found out he'd been taking steroids. Luke was released into Pete's custody, and Pete took him into the men's room and beat the hell out of him."
"Oh, Elliot, is he ok?"
He nodded, feeling her hair brush his skin and wished again that he could hold her. "They both have issues they need to work out, but yeah, they're going to be ok."
"Then, how'd that get you in trouble?" she asked, never losing sight of the real topic. He smiled, realizing she had asked more than two follow-up questions, but figured it was ok because he had gotten into a lot of trouble over the past year.
"When I saw what he was doing to Luke, I . . . I beat the hell out of Pete," he confessed, his voice rising in register as his throat constricted. "I . . . um . . . I . . . I totally lost my mind."
He stopped a moment, trying to regain some composure, and Kathy looked up at him. She cupped his cheek with her hand, kissed him softly on the mouth, and said, "Shhhh, it's all right. You can tell me."
"He, um . . . " His chest was tight, voice still high and breathy. He stopped and swallowed. "He could have pressed charges, I would have gone to jail. He was down on the floor, unconscious, and I just kept hitting him and hitting him until some guys pulled me off. Oh, Kathy, I'm sorry," he gasped, overwhelmed by the shame.
"Hey, shhh, it's all right, El," she soothed him. "You're doing fine. Shhh."
She sat up and cradled his face in her hands and then ran them down his neck and chest, all the way to his waist, smoothed them up his ribs, and up the length of his arms. Stretched out over him, she entangled her fingers with his and kissed him perhaps a dozen times on the mouth, cheeks, forehead, eyelids, and hair.
He clutched her hands painfully, and his eyes kept squeezing shut like he was trying not to cry. She had never seen him so open, so vulnerable, and to her surprise, she didn't like it. He needed to be strong for her, and, as much as she wanted him to confide in her, she had never wanted to take that façade of strength away, it was too much a part of who he was. He deserved to have some part of himself that he kept to himself, and she needed him to have that. Pulling one hand free, she reached over to the nightstand for the key to the cuffs. When she couldn't manage to grasp it, she moved off him to stand by the bed.
"Kath?" he gasped, and opened his eyes to look for her. She saw fear, shame, and confusion, along with a myriad of other emotions, and she knew she had let him down. She hadn't expected this particular question to be so difficult for him, but she never should have let things go this far. She could tell he was dangerously close to giving up something he would rather hold back.
"Shhh, it's all right," she told him again. "I'm here." She unlocked the cuffs, frowning at the red marks they had left around his wrists, and climbed back in bed beside him.
As soon as Kathy lay down, Elliot put his arms around her, buried his face in the curve of her neck, and inhaled her scent. It was enormously comforting to be able to hold her and to feel her holding him, to feel her hands rubbing slow circles on his back. All of the anxiety and tension just flowed out of him, and with a few deep breaths, he was in possession of his faculties again.
He sniffled once or twice, and then moved so that he could look Kathy in the eye. Giving her a lopsided, slightly embarrassed smile, he said, "I, uh, I'm sorry about that."
She smiled back, caressed his cheek. "It's ok, you have nothing to apologize for."
They lay close together, each of them breathing the other's air, and the intimacy gave him the courage to say more. "I . . . I can't talk anymore about what happened," he told her, "but it made me start seeing a shrink."
He noted her raised eyebrow, but was gratified that she didn't seem disappointed in him.
"I don't have a standing appointment or anything like that," he explained hastily, "but when I start feeling bad, I talk to her, and it helps. I told you earlier that I have changed, and that's part of the reason why. I, uh, I've had problems for a long time, Kath, probably since before we were married, and I just kept hiding from them."
"I know that, Elliot," she said and planted a row of little kisses on his jaw line. "Why do you think I was always trying to get you to talk to me?"
"I never meant to shut you out, Kath."
"No, but you tried so hard to keep all that misery inside."
He sighed as her hands began to knead his bottom and without really meaning to, closed his eyes and started to rub softly against her. "I still might not be able to talk to you, you know."
"As long as you're talking to someone, I don't care."
Surprised, he stopped his gentle thrusting motion and opened his eyes again. "You don't care?"
She bit her lip and shook her head. "Don't sound so shocked. You're not the only one who has changed in the past year. The counselor I've been seeing, works primarily with the families of service men and women, police, firefighters, and other public servants in dangerous jobs. She helped me understand that there are things about your job that you really shouldn't want to tell me. I want to know that you're taking care of yourself, but I don't need the details anymore."
He scooted just a little bit closer, wrapped his arms just a little bit tighter around her, so he could press the entire length of his body against hers. He had always wanted them to be close like this, and now he wanted them to be closer. He wished there were some way he could draw her into himself and have her right there with him, under his skin, all the time. Of course, there was a way for him to give her a little bit of himself, and that would be almost as good.
"So," he asked a little cautiously, "do you have another question?"
"Huh?"
"I think you were on number four," he reminded her.
"You mean you still want to play?" she couldn't help sounding shocked and a little excited.
"I want to try," he said, "if you have some more fun questions, and maybe a couple more serious ones, but no more handcuffs, my wrists hurt and my arms ache."
"Ok, no more cuffs," she agreed, and after a thoughtful pause, added playfully, "but I want you to lay on your hands to reduce the temptation to try to resist any consequences."
"What makes you think I'm gonna have to face your consequences?" he asked.
She grinned. "I told you, I know I have one question you won't be able to help lying about."
"So you say," he told her, interlacing his fingers behind his back and laying down on them, "but I think you're wrong."
She had him bend his knees and place his feet flat on the mattress, and then she positioned herself between his legs. For a few minutes, she alternated between caressing his muscular thighs and touching him in places that made him whimper and squirm. When he had a glazed look in his eyes, she asked him her next question, another silly one.
"How many loads of laundry did you ruin before you figured out how to do it right?"
He grimaced at the oddball query and said, "None. I know how to do laundry. I washed all my own clothes when I was in the Marines."
"Yeah," she agreed, "but everything was green."
"It was not," he argued as she sat with her hands resting on his knees, "and anyway, who do you think did all the washing my first two months out of the Corps when you were working days and I was unemployed?"
"Ohhh, you mean when all my undies turned pink?" she teased. "That was you?"
"That was one load," he told her defensively, "and I told you a red sock had stuck to the inside of the washer and I didn't get it out."
"Uh-huh. Ok. I believe you." It wasn't the height of sincerity, but neither of them really cared.
Kathy smiled, Elliot blew her a kiss, she kissed the inside of his knee and began stroking his inner thigh. Gradually, she worked her hand higher and higher until if she went any further, she wouldn't be touching his thigh anymore. If the motion of his hips and the state of his arousal were any indication, he was quite enjoying himself. He was totally relaxed taking whatever pleasure she cared to give him, and with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, he was humming tunelessly to himself. She almost laughed aloud as she thought about the reaction her next question was about to produce. After a few more minutes of intimate touching, she spoke.
"So, do you think about sleeping with Olivia often?"
"What? No! Never! Jeeze, Kathy, she's my partner!" The lie fell from his lips almost too easily, probably because he'd been planning to use it for the seven years since he'd met the beautiful woman who had become one of the most able partners he'd ever had.
When he saw Kathy's knowing smile, his heart started to pound. She had predicted he would lie to at least one of her questions, and she had been right. Worse, he could tell from her expression that she knew this was the one.
So why wasn't she mad?
She gently straightened his legs, placing one on either side of her. Leaning forward, she kissed him tenderly on the mouth, then she lay on top of him once more and blew in his ear. Maybe she didn't know after all. He allowed himself to breathe again, which was no easy task with his wife's weight compressing his chest.
"You know what?" she whispered in his ear.
"What?" he breathed back, almost believing she was going to say how happy she was to know she was the only woman he thought about that way.
"I really think a lie like that deserves some consequences," she purred and slithered down his body until she was kneeling on his legs, pinning them just above the knees.
"What? No! Kath, wait!" He was much stronger and could have easily fought her off, but that would have been cheating. "How do you know I'm lying?"
He didn't think her grin could get any broader when she said, "For starters, you just asked the wrong question. If you were truly innocent, you would have asked what makes me think you're lying."
She was stroking his skin again, making it hard for him to concentrate on the conversation, but he did manage to string together a single coherent thought. "Don't play games with words, Kath."
"I'm not, El. I just know you. She's a stunning woman, and you are a healthy, virile man. There would be something wrong with you if you spent that much time working with her and didn't fantasize about her once in a while. As a matter of fact, if I was wired that way, I'd think of sleeping with her."
For a flash of a moment, he felt incredibly aroused by the thought of seeing his wife and his partner, the two women he loved most in the world, together, then he remembered where he was and what was about to happen. He watched her, wondering what kind of consequences she had in mind, wishing he'd placed some kind of restriction on what he'd have to endure and for how long. As her hands worked their way delicately up his inner thighs, he began to get an inkling of what was coming.
"Look, Kath, I don't know what you think you're going to do to me," he wasn't ready to beg, yet, but he'd certainly try to reason with her, "but she's my partner, I don't . . . Aaaugh! Ahhh! Ha, ha, ha! Oh, stop it. Kath! Aack! That tickles! Ho, ho, ho! Please, stop!"
He laughed and giggled uncontrollably, hating the girlish sounds she elicited from him, but he was unable to control himself. She was the only person in the world who knew where his ticklish spot was because no one else had ever had the occasion to touch him just there on the curve of super-sensitive skin between his thigh and his pelvis. She had discovered it quite by accident when they were teenagers petting each other in the back of his car, and his reaction had been so loud and so sudden it had startled them both. Even he had not known he was ticklish until that night, and it was a secret they had both delighted in sharing.
"Kathy, oh! Ha, ha, ha! God! No! Oh, ho, ho! Please, stop!" he pleaded, his dignity forgotten. A few seconds ago, he could have pushed her off, but her torment had already reduced him to the consistency of Jello. All he could do now was beg.
"Mercy!" he gasped, hoping that would do the trick.
It did, for a moment. "Ready to fess up?" she asked, the terrible, delightful motion of her hands stopping for a moment.
"I was trying to tell you . . . I don't think of her . . . that way . . . because she's my partner, I have to work . . . with her," he said as reasonably as he could while he struggled to catch his breath.
"Liiiiiarrrr!" she taunted in a singsong voice and began tickling him again, just lightly running her fingertip along the crease in the skin at the inside of his hip joint.
"Oh! No! Ok, ok, yes! Yes, I do!"
"Often?" she demanded.
"Once . . . in a while," he confessed, still struggling for air, grinning despite himself. She had been right, he kind of liked the consequences, so long as he didn't have to endure them too often or for too long. "But only . . . like I think of . . . blowing the kids' college funds on a Harley."
"I knew it!" she crowed, then her expression suddenly changed to one of consternation.
"You 'think of blowing the kids' college funds on a Harley'?" she asked in surprise. "You mean a motorcycle?"
"Yeahhhh," he said longingly, his eyes drifting shut as he talked. "One of those big-ass touring bikes guys ride across the country when they hit their midlife crises and want to find themselves again . . . I think about what a great, uh, ride it would be, and then I realize how much it would hurt everyone I love and I forget about it again."
He opened his eyes and was surprised to find his wife grinning at him. "What?"
"A great ride?"
"What about it?"
"Olivia or the bike?"
For one second, he was mortified, and then he burst out laughing. "Yeah!"
It took about half a second for her to get his meaning, and then she flopped down beside him on the mattress and dissolved into giggles. He rolled over and pulled her into another hug, and once their laughter had dissipated, they just lay quietly together for a long time smiling at one another and remembering what it felt like to fall in love.