Thanks for the encouragement. I love this Fandom so much. This chapter has some M stuff in it.
-Why did Rhett take hold of Bonnie almost exclusively, Scarlett? Why did you let him?
Scarlett took a long minute to think the question over - "I think he thought I never wanted her. He thought I was a bad mother to Wade and Ella, not being demonstrative enough with affection."
-You always were rather secretive regarding your emotions
-Do you blame me? You know of my childhood, my mother, my - well, everything.
-He told me that you never wanted her. Bonnie.
Scarlett sighed and spoke slowly now, as if the memories were hurting her throat "I cried the whole day after I found I was pregnant. It happened only three weeks after our two week honeymoon. Ella was bearly a year old, and I was finally happy for five weeks. For the first time in years, carefree and happy. And I was so scared. I knew he left the special forces but you know they never really leave them. So I cried. I hadn't even had the chance to try and say something about Wade or Ella's paternity, and his reaction to him having his own child made it clear that I never will be able to share these things with him, because he'd hate me."
-But then she was born, and he took over her. Why?
-My returning to work made him mad. He thought I'd be a house-wife or at least not worry all the time of making money. That's when he began thinking I had something for Ashley. He is rather obtuse, my husband. And he had erection problems. I think he took it real hard.
-Takes one to know one.
-Don't be nasty with me.
-You gave her up?
-Not really. I figured that he could enjoy her as a toddler, she'll come to me when she becomes a bigger girl. Never thought she wouldn't reach that time. And he blames himself for her death. I told him that it was more than flu or regular sicknesses and he said it was my anxieties talking. He could be the cruelest man.I don't think it would have mattered if he'd have let them check her two months prior. But he stopped talking to me at that point.
-And sex?
-Why is it always about sex for you?
"For me and most of humanity?" The beginning of her words were uttered mildly, and then she shifted and her cheeks became flushed "Scarlett, sex is fun, it's about intimacy with yourself and with your partner, it's about loving. Loving your partner and yourself. You are not a nun! You are not in punishment. And you are supposed to talk and solve issues regarding this just as much as you would solve a money issue. You obviously didn't and you were obviously denying him."
Scarlett moved with unease "I never denied him per se. But after Bonnie was born we had a words exchange, I can't even remember what I said, but it was a catastrophe. He left our room and never came back. Well, except that once. My therapist thinks it's the Post Trauma. It became worse during the pregnancy with Bonnie and after her birth. And I was anxious most of the time. Fearing poverty, fearing death, fearing the darkness at night. After that abortion it was even worse. I was living a nightmare. Life was a nightmare."
"I should have helped you more, but I was selfish," Melanie sighed.
"You selfish? You don't have a selfish bone in your body" Scarlett laughed.
"You really are a dumb bunny" the other woman smiled sadly "I never gave up on my dream that you'll be mine. I love you in the most possessive way. I was even happy that he thought you had a thing for Ashley. I never really thought of you, and what you wanted."
Scarlett's eyes opened "You knew it all?"
The other woman nodded, "Will you forgive me?"
"And if I don't, what good will it do me? You are the only grown up who loves me as it is." Scarlett answered bitterly.
"Kids do love you." she laughed and added "He does love you. He'll return, and I'm setting it right for you. You just promise me that when my time comes, you won't leave me. I want your eyes to be the last thing I see. It's unfair, but I love Ashley the same way you love me or loved Charlie."
"Of course I won't leave you. I love you too. I always have. More than you'll know. You are my touch-stone".
After a long silence Melanie asked "Tell me of that night."
Scarlett didn't need to ask what night she was talking about, she smiled "All the gory details of the ectopic-pregnancy-conception?"
"Especially them." the other woman laughed.
She observed her figure in the mirror. The dress was a work of art. Red feathers around the decolletage, small sparkling stones over the velvet cloth and a glamor that was beyond words. It was spectacular. She had bought it on a whim, and wore it today after a specially brutal exchange of words between them. He had called her a whore. He, who had been sleeping almost regularly at his so-called friend's house every other Sunday?!
The red lipstick was still shining and her eyelashes black and long. She was A Famme Fattale to the bone. Her stilettos could, and most probably would poke a hole in a man's neck, given the right angle and force. She laughed with no mirth.
She had seen the faces in the party. The lust in all the man's faces, and some of the women too. Even that old hag Caroline fondled her too long. She'd let them. She felt the way each and everyone of them tried to take a small portion of her smooth body. Her scent. Her skin.
And Rhett was furious. He said he wouldn't come. That it was her mess to sort. Yet, somehow she knew he wouldn't be able to help himself. He'd expected to see her in her usual boring black dress. But, oh boy, did she surprise him. She let them touch her too much. She never offered her hand or her cheek, but stood like a statue to the point of ignoring the people who seeked to take a part of her. After a half hour of him observing her from the corner of the room she'd come to him with a fake yet frosty smile "Darling, my head is still hurting, you can stay, I'll take a taxi. She knew he wanted to call her out, but with no fear she kissed his lips slowly. she realized her heels were so high that she was almost at his height. She took his face in her hands a deepend her kiss, leaning to him, probing his mouth with her tongue for just a minute that somehow felt loger, allowing him to feel her entire form in a manner that made his crowd shrink with envy. She had left him heaving with a red stain on his lips, and turned from him and the rest of them.
She felt the tears up her throat when she heard the front door. In a rush of pure madness, she decided to provoke him further. To see to what extent she'd be able to.
She ruled against going down barefoot. She couldn't stand too long on those high heels, but the sheer sock in his eyes to see her straighten her eyes at him in the party was worth the pain.
"Had fun?" she asked as she entered the living room.
"Go away, Scarlett. Or I will." his voice was low, "I have no problem whatsoever leaving the house again, if this is what it would take. And I know you hate it. Only God knows why, but you do, don't you, my little slut?"
She smiled a fake smile "A slut, am I? You fuck that red haired woman regularly and I'm the whore? Does it stand for her, darling? Or do you just stay there?" She could be just as cruel. She walked around the room and smiled again "I know she has other men too. She might be right. Maybe I should try it too."
"You? You can't even handle a man who wants you. Your own husband-" he did not intend to say that and her answer that was fired as fast as a bullet hit him hard.
"You want me? You're too scared to kiss me let alone fuck me. The all mighty Rhett Butler, a pussy cat."
"Scarlett, don't provoke me."
"Why not? You call me a whore?! You want this whore, don't you, well come on - take what you want, I'm sure your touch is as good as anyone else's, and Lord knows -"
He slapped her and she fell. She felt the metallic taste of blood in her mouth and she laughed at him, or was it at herself?
"Is that all you got? You see, you don't want me, you want that stupid wench of yours. You haven't answered my question, does she make your cock stand, or does she wait masturbating until that little blue pill does its magic?"
He grabbed her arm and whispered through clenched teeth "Don't provoke me, Scarlett."
She didn't blink, but she felt she had lost. She turned to leave "My, you are an ass, Rhett. I'm offering myself to you on a gold platter, and you don't want me to provoke you?"
She was leaving the room when she heard him ask "Are you?"
She stopped and turned to him - "What?"
He was silent again looking at her with that odd look.
"Am I what, Rhett? Spell it or I'll go. I can leave the house too, you know?" her voice was loud and shaky.
He hadn't responded. She went to the front door, but he put his hand over the hand that was meant to open the door and asked her nervously "Are you offering yourself to me?"
They were both drunk, and she was always bolder than him, so she kissed him.
She took him by the hand to the library and initiated a kiss once again. She decided to forgo the stilettos and suddenly she was herself again. Short, barefoot and went down on her knees to open his pants and remove his boxer shorts. It was soft and small as she'd expected. Her eyes went to his and she saw a small tick in his face. She whispered "It never bothered me to do a little work. It won't take more than little work. You do know that?"
She put him in her mouth and stirred it with her tongue. She hardly ever did that before. His face was bland and she wanted to break his resolve to remain detached. She felt him respond in her mouth and heard him "God, Scarlett, what are you doing to me? I didn't think it could"
She moved backwards and undressed slowly in front of him, dropping her garments one by one to his eyes, never leaving his gaze, "Sure it could stand for me. It always has, hasn't it?"
She sat on the table and opened her legs "Have me."
That took him down. Hours and hours he made love to her. First there, in haste, on the table. When he was about to erupt she stopped him and whispered "Don't, not yet. I want more of you."
He stopped and looked at her hesitantly. She realized she'd have to spell it out for him "I want you to make love to me," she choked but went on and said "I want only you. Always have." The disbelief was all over his face, but the tears were running down her ivory cheeks staining them with rivers of black maskara "Do I need to beg?"
That woke him up and stirred him from inside. For once he felt a maddening sense of power.
"You want it." He stated softly.
"You. I want you," she answered, straightening her eyes to him, so as to remove all doubts. She should have known it would take more. He was a wreck. And she was a mess. Had been a mess for four years now.
She proved him wrong. He could perform with some work on her side. Once and twice, and then at dawn again, she woke him, once again with her mouth and hands. She was no longer drunk and he knew it. Yet it didn't sink in.
"Want a body massage?" she asked "I saw a youtube-" he smiled. She covered him with grape oil, warming it first in her hands slowly covering him bit by bit. "Turn on your belly" she ordered him. She saw it was standing again, but she wanted to touch him. She lay on his back and began gliding on him from top to bottom. When she arrived at his buttocks she decided to test him further and massaged her way gently down to his anus. She heard his gasp as she began tickling it with her tongue, she went down to his toes, biting and nibling each one.
She pressed a finger to a point near his ankle and told him matter of factly "It will help your erection. I read of several pressure points like these. We can do that, if you'd like."
As she went up his body once again and began rubbing his huge back with her hands and breasts, he turned to her and lay on top of her kissing her. It was so easy to slide him in, and so the dance began again. She was thin, he easily turned her on her belly and raised her bottom up coming inside her again and pounding her with a vigor he'd forgotten he'd ever had.
She could hardly walk the following morning, but he was gone. Ran away and this time with her sick toddler. The child that always went down with something. He wrote he took her to Florida, until the weather improved.
Six weeks later Melanie called him and made him return. "An ectopic pregnancy," she explained over the phone. He kept cursing himself on the plane. Holding a sick child to him. The sun did no good. Scarlett was right. The child needed a full physical check. He'd been running away for so long.
The Scarlet he found was not the same woman he'd left six weeks prior. She was a ghost of herself, but as she saw Bonnie she began barking orders "Take her to the ER at once. She is apathetic. It's not tiredness, Rhett! Melanie, Have you no eyes?!" she looked accusingly at Melanie "You are supposed to see this, Melly. Go with them. There is nothing you can do for me here and I can't move yet. Go! And keep the phone available."
Cancer.
Stage four.
A violent sort of leukemia.
The words palliative care never meant less relief. He heard her scream one long piercing howl of a wounded animal. But the following weeks she was there. Standing like a lioness. Changing infusions, rubbing her child's joints, singing and carrying her from place to place to try and find a miracle.
He had thought she loved her less. One evening Ella was complaining and he heard her answer "She needs me more, love. I'm sorry, my love, but she needs me more. You do know that I love you all the same? My big brave girl."
He was sinking.