This Mess We’re In – By Elsie

Marlena cuts through the chilling waters, tight strokes, her body one stiff muscle from head to toe. She loves it, the feeling of moving through water, the tightness in her lungs. The complete solitude of being underwater, senses at rest, with nothing but the feeling of the liquid against her skin. Coming up for water, the sun hitting her lightly freckled face, she breathes in lungs full of air. She is mortal again.

 

It is a small moment, but a simple pleasure she enjoys. It is what she lives for these days, without the stress and worry of her old life. It seems so long ago, when she thinks about it.

 

Swimming back to the shore, she walks the short distance to the prone form of a lovely man, sleeping in the shade of a large umbrella. There are books and pens lain forgotten around him, the remains of his days work. Sitting next to his sleeping body, Marlena brushes a small curly lock of hair that has strayed into his eye, watching his face twitch in response to her touch. Unable to help herself, she leans down and kisses him softly, and he kisses her back before falling asleep again.

 

He truly is beautiful, she thinks to herself. And young. Elliott had come into her life in a time of confusion and self doubt. Her life in tatters, her relationship with John all but shattered. She had never expected it to happen, but it did. Brady had been the last straw. Or maybe, she thinks. Maybe they had let Brady come between them. Maybe he was just an excuse to cover a larger problem.

 

In the beginning, their lives had been wonderful. As a young child, watching her parents she had always wondered if it was possible to have that much happiness. And then she achieved it with John, miracle of miracles. They were intense together, driven by love and sex and something more powerful than anything they’d ever known. Their lives had been crazy, exciting, sometimes dangerous, but the flame between them always burned bright. She’d been happy. Oh God, so happy. They’d had it all. But then, over the course of one short summer, it all deteriorated right before her eyes. She had been crazed, scared, determined to hunt Brady and protect the one pure thing in her life, her daughter Belle. And John had been equally determined, in his quest to thwart her efforts and turn a blind eye to Brady’s abuse.

 

But even through all of that, she’d had hope. Misplaced maybe, foolish perhaps. And then came that one, defining night. The fight at Tuscany. Looking back now, it seems impossible to believe that Brady had been the one to end their illusions of a blissful marriage.

 

But Brady had opened up cracks. He pitted she and John against one another. He put seeds of doubt into John’s head about her relationship with Roman. He shattered her own self confidence in John’s ability to love her, made her question her own sense of virtue and mortality. It was the perfect formula for a dissolving marriage. John was cold, unloving, when all Marlena wanted was to be held and loved and safe.

 

After the brawl at Tuscany, she had gone to check on Roman, and to bail out her husband. She hoped they could find some sort of common ground, and certainly they had. John and Roman shook hands, grudgingly, and agreed to keep a distance for the sake of civility. She had expelled a sigh of relief she hadn’t known she was holding. But what happened next, she hadn’t expected. John stood in front of her, and all she saw was hate. His hand shook in a fist, trembling with fury. Though intuitively she knew he would never hurt her, for a small moment, she thought he actually might hit her. She knew he’d be angry, but this was something else entirely. And truly, it had scared her. And judging by his reaction to the sudden fear in her eyes, he was beginning to see what they had become.

 

That had chilled her. For the first time since she’d taken her marriage vows, she felt alone.

 

Perhaps John had known that. Sensed it, perhaps. And perhaps that played a part in his decision to ignore her later that night, and every night following that. And perhaps that was what motivated her to let him.

 

That, she thinks, had been the proverbial kiss of death. After that, they began to live essentially separate lives. But never in front of their friends. At parties and functions and other various outings, they danced and smiled and toasted their good fortune. And they would leave, holding hands tight, gazing lovingly at one another as though they were eager to rush home and make love. But truthfully, they shared tense and silent car rides home before retiring to opposite sides of the bed wrapped in cold, crisp sheets.

 

It became easy, so fucking easy to just ignore him. To make decisions and live her life without consulting him. To announce her plans, and walk right past him and do them.

 

The old John would have been wounded. But they became accustomed to their evenings of frosty silence, and she wasn’t sure he cared at all.

 

She began to get more reckless. She resented the hell out of him. If he was going to believe Brady’s ruthless propaganda, she realized it mattered little what she did. It made her angry. She was sick of being tolerated. She wanted to get under his skin.

 

And so it was fitting when that revenge came to her, in the form of Craig Wesley. The womanizer, the flirt. It had been so easy. It started with lunches, and extra meetings. Sly glances, little touches, gentle massages. And then the working dinners, and hugs that extended past normal friendship.

 

There was pleasure in seeing the resentment in John’s eyes as he watched the two of them together. The look of suspicion every time she came home just a little later than she should have. She was playing him, she fed into it.

 

It was cruel, surely. But she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t forget the way he made her feel. The way it was always about him. His past, his son, his pain. For once, it was going to be about her.

 

It was effective. John hated Craig. Hated the effect he seemed to have on Marlena, the way they seemed to flaunt their flirtations in front of him. The bitter silences turned into roaring arguments. Arguments where he accused them of being lovers, of fucking in their bed. Cruel, insane accusations. It had finally gotten to him after all.

 

Marlena enjoyed it immensely, being able to drive him mad, watching him seethe and turn that anger in on himself. It was the most reaction she had seen in him in a very long time. To inspire so much emotion in John, even jealousy, was powerful.

 

But one afternoon in her office, Craig had kissed her. She was a little drunk from the wine at lunch, and pushing the limits just a little further than she ever had, and he’d responded by pulling her close and kissing her. She wasn’t exactly surprised, but she hadn’t expected John to see it. John, with what she supposed was a peace offering of pink roses, at her door. Watching as Craig trapped her between his body and her desk, his hands on her waist, her ass. John standing stunned, furious.

 

Craig left wordlessly, and John just stared, silent. She’d shouted at him, and they erupted into the usual arguments. She’d laughed in his face and asked him how he dared to question her when he’d slept with Hope on their honeymoon. She’d raged, cut open her wrists and bled out with every single thing that she’d kept inside. Kristen, Greta, Gina, Hope, Brady. So many others. Every God damn one of them. About how she’d contemplated suicide on the night of Bo and Hope’s wedding. About how no one seemed to care.

 

Then he’d surprised her.

 

Marlena had made a move to brush past him and leave, but he’d stopped her. Grabbed a fistful of her hair, and pulled her face up close.

 

“Try to keep your panties on, Marlena,” John had hissed, breath full of venom. “Don’t embarrass us.”

 

That moment, she realized, was something else. She had shaken him off of her, cursed at him and refused to talk to him for days. She shook when she thought back to the look in his eyes, the way her scalp had burned from his force. Her head had ached for days following. It worried her, excited her. It was just too much. What the hell was wrong with her?

 

And then, she left. Packed a bag, and kept away from him as much as she could. Poured herself into her work and her isolation. Already it seems like a lifetime ago. A lifetime since she last slept by John’s side, and so much longer since they’d had that connection of sex.

 

It’d been wonderful at first. She walked around the house naked. Slept past noon. Got drunk on occasion, usually her favorite vintages, sometimes hard liquor. But some days now, the days seem so long, and it’s like she has nothing to truly look forward to. Maybe it hasn’t been so wonderful after all.

 

Elliott stirs, and begins to run a soft hand up and down her thigh. Such a beautiful man. He’d been a patient of hers, initially. She gave him her clinically detached advice on how to handle a stressful career, and in turn, he offered her the comfort of another living, breathing body against hers. The chance to rediscover the sexual woman she once was. Marlena smiles, and gets up, gathering her things. She brushes the wet sand off of her feet before making slow, shallow steps back to the house just feet away. His dark eyes watch her, unreadable.

 

In the bedroom, she thinks of John. Walking hand in hand with him in Hawaii, on a beach much like this. Waking up to flowers, kisses on her neck. His familiar blue eyes. Making love, shaking with the pleasure of it.

 

Sometimes Marlena thinks of these things, of finding him and going back to that other life. She figures it is useless. He’d never have her. These things that once were so much a part of them are no longer real.

 

She looks at her hands as she towels dry, zoning in on her left hand. She took off her wedding ring only a few weeks ago. Not purposefully, but as she washed her hands in the bathroom, as always. But this time, she didn’t put it back on.

 

It still sits on that counter, untouched.

 

Picking up a comb, Marlena works it through the salty tangles in her hair. She wonders about whether it is time to take that final step. To contact her lawyer and have papers drawn up. Or contact a counselor to see if things were worth saving. She thinks about John’s reaction, about whether he will care at all.

 

Elliott comes up from behind and wraps his strong arms around her waist, placing small kisses along her freckled shoulders and up her nape. Hands cupping underneath her full breasts, feeling the weight of them in his palms. A gentle knee between her legs. His touch is so different to John’s. He wants to make love, she can feel his erection pressing into her backside. But her thoughts of John have spoiled her mood. Instead, she takes him to the bed, and works him over with her mouth and hands, until he is spent and releases into her mouth. He wants to pleasure her in return, but she refuses. She wouldn’t be able to orgasm in this state.

 

Later, Elliott showers and packs a few of his belongings and leaves. He has to leave the country, and finish the musical composition he has been working on recently. They say goodbye at the door, she isn’t accompanying him to the airport. They kiss a little sloppily, and after he turns away Marlena shuts the door. She doesn’t wait to see him leave in the cab.

 

Alone again, she turns on a few lamps around the house and waters a few of her plants. Reheats a bit of yesterday’s pasta and sits down to a quiet dinner and a glass of Pinot grigio in the patio. It’s dark now, and she can barely see the waves out ahead of her. There is a strong breeze. This feels like loneliness.

 

Back in the house now, she decides on a bath. It has been a while since she’s had one. Walking up the stairs, she strips off the white sundress and sandals, walking to the bedroom in just her underwear.

 

She is only three steps in when she freezes, her clothing falling from hands.

 

John is there.

 

She is able to stifle the scream that threatened to leave her, but gasps loudly at the shock of his presence. He is sitting on the bed, staring straight at her. Right there, on the twisted sheets where she pleasured Elliott just hours ago. Dark shirt and leather jacket. Not saying anything. His eyes are just like she remembered them to be.

 

After her start, she straightens, hands on hips. She won’t let him intimidate her. Head tall, she barks out a demanding, “What are you doing here?”

 

“I wanted to see you,” he starts out low, “I wanted to see it for myself.”

 

“And what would that be?”

 

“To see if it was true that you were fucking some punk young enough to be your son.”

 

“Get out,” she is shaking, “Get out!” more forceful now.

 

John bolts upright from the bed, stalking towards her. Hands on her forearms, digging into her flesh, bare breasts up against him “Where is he?” He lets her go with a slight shove, moving into the bathroom, looking into the closet, searching everywhere.

 

Marlena crosses her arms across her chest, feeling vulnerable now, but attempting to keep her confidence, “Do you mean Elliott?” she graces him with a false smile, “You just missed him. But he should return next week. I’ll let him know you stopped by to see him. Now kindly get out.”

 

But instead, he shrugs off his jacket, and tosses it onto the bed. So casually, just like that. It infuriates her. “How did you get in?”

 

“It wasn’t hard to pick the lock.”

 

That isn’t news to her. She knows he has his ways. “Well,” Marlena grabs a bath towel from a nearby dresser, “Now that you know it’s true, you can leave.” She turns her back to him, walking away towards the bathroom, “I’m going to have a bath. You can let yourself out.”

 

“No you aren’t.” He moves now, hand on her arm again. Grip tighter than before.

 

“Oh really?” she is testing him now.

 

“You’re going to be honest with me, Marlena,” he moves in close, his breath hitting her face, hot. “You’re my wife, and for once you’re going to be fucking straight with me.”

 

“Fuck you!” She blazes, shrugging him off, “How can you come here and ask me that? How can you stand there and tell me that I have to be straight with you? What makes you so special, huh? After everything you put me through,” pacing now, skin flushed and hands balled into tight fists.

 

“We’re married Marlena- “

 

“This marriage is a sham!” Her eyes narrow to mere slits. “It has been since you fucked Hope on our honeymoon. You didn’t have the decency to be honest with me then. What makes you think you’re entitled to that?”

 

At John’s lack of response, she lets out a sardonic laugh, and looks to the heavens, “Besides, since when did you even give a shit?”

 

That grabs his attention. “I gave a shit.” He raises his voice, spitting the words at her like bullets, “I always gave a shit! God, I love you!”

 

“You had a funny way of showing it, you know,” she is trying hard to ignore what he has told her. “You don’t get to love me anymore, John. I’m a whore, remember. I’m-”

 

John lunges for her again, slamming his body into hers, until they are both laying on the bed, John towering over her startled frame. “Stop it!”

 

“No! No!” She is fighting against his grip, “That’s what you told me, right? You had me pegged, congratulations. I’m fucking around on my husband because I’m a selfish bitch.”

 

He pins her arms to her sides, stopping them from flailing, “Why did you leave?”

 

“Because I loved you and you hated me.” She tells him, quite simply. There are no tears, just a matter of factness that conveys her resignation to their failed marriage. She can feel him shaking, and she is suddenly aware of the force of his grip. “Oh God,” she breathes, “you’re hurting me.”

 

John is silent for a moment, before lowering his head and letting his hold go slack. He shifts his weight so he rolls off of her, and settles onto his side just beside her on the bed, facing her. “How did we end up like this?”

 

Marlena doesn’t know how to answer that. Or maybe she doesn’t want to revisit that. She mirrors his position on the bed and faces him, hugging a pillow to her chest, partly for cover, and partly for a sense of comfort. “Why are you here?” her tone is softer than it was just seconds ago, “Why now?”

 

“We were happy,” he begins. “And I was so angry with you. I’m tired of being angry Marlena. Sometimes, I find it difficult to even remember why I resented you in the first place.” He brushes a lock of hair that is partially obscuring her face. “I was beginning to forget your face. That scared me.”

 

She can feel her cheeks burning, and for the first time in so long, she feels too exposed. Marlena can no longer maintain eye contact with him, and looks somewhere, anywhere, but his face. “I hated myself. I didn’t like what I had become. So many people were angry with me. I let so many people down. It’s a hell of guilt, you know, living with that.”

 

“Why him?”

 

“I guess I was tired of feeling unwanted.”

 

“Does he make you happy?”

 

“He keeps me warm.” A beat. “Does it bother you?”

 

“I’d be lying if I said no.” John admits, “We went crazy out there, you and I.” And truthfully, they had. Everything about that awful time snapped them both. “I never stopped loving you, Marlena.” It is almost a whisper.

 

The words cut her, she almost doesn’t want to hear it. “Don’t say that.” She shakes her head, “We can’t ever go back to that.”

 

“I know.” John understands that isn’t an option for them, not after everything they’d said and done to one another. “I don’t want to go back. We’re not the same people anymore. But loving you is the most powerful thing I’ve ever known. I think that’s worth fighting for.”

 

“You don’t mean that.” It’s not true, she repeats in her head. Over and over.

 

John can see the doubt in her eyes, and it’s as if for the first time he really sees her. The insecurity, the utter sadness. He did this, he planted that seed. She thinks it’s her fault, but all this time it’s been his burden of guilt, his cross to bear.

 

“I said a lot of things I didn’t mean,” John admits, sullen. “We both did.”

 

“We meant them at the time.” Marlena takes a long, shuttering breath. “We nearly killed each other in the end, you know.” She twists the edges of the pillow. All of this honesty is making her fidgety.

 

“Do you still love me?”

 

“How can you ask me that?”

 

“Answer the question, Marlena.”

 

She digs her hands into her tousled hair, not wanting to have this conversation, furious that he is asking her these things. “But that’s not what this is about.”

 

“Why does everything have to be so complicated with you?”

 

“Because that’s just the way it is with us!” Marlena can feel her brain pounding in her skull. “Don’t you ever wonder why it has always such an uphill battle to be together? Don’t you ever start to think that maybe, just maybe, we weren’t supposed to?”

 

“I thought a lot of things, but that was never one of them.” Marlena’s admission is slightly shocking to him. So many times he had resigned himself to not having her, but there was never a time he didn’t yearn for it.

 

“I think maybe… I don’t know, maybe we were apart too long. Maybe we grew apart. You expected me to be a certain way, and I couldn’t live up to that. So many times I poured myself out to you, and you brushed me off. It just… God, that fucking killed me.”

 

“I replay that day in my head all the time,” John starts. She knows what he’s talking about. The day she left him. “I can hear you telling me all of these things. Painful things. I can see you crying. Telling me about how you wanted to die. And then I see myself, and I get sick.”

 

She knows all too well, because she has replayed that memory in her head just as often. “I almost did it you know. After Bo and Hope’s reception I had Maggie take me home. I couldn’t sleep and I took some sleeping pills she had given me. A whole handful of them. But I couldn’t do it. I made myself throw them up.” Her eyes lose focus as she begins to remember, voice soft. “I was so damn tired. Sometimes I think I still am.”

 

His chest constricts painfully, just listening to her describe it. That image has haunted him for so long. The thought that she was so close, that she believed the only way out of this mess was to go to sleep and never wake up… it is unimaginable to him.

 

“I want you to come home.”

 

“That won’t solve anything.”

 

John swallows hard, his voice slightly trepid. “You’re talking about Brady.”

 

“I’m talking about a lot of things. Brady was just a slice of that.”

 

“I kicked him out, you know.”

 

Marlena’s head snaps up at that, surprise all over her face. “You did?”

 

“For a long time, I felt so much guilt over him. He never got the chance to know Isabella. I blamed myself for the way he turned out. I hated that he resented me. I thought that if I showed him understanding, he would change. But he didn’t. In fact, quite the opposite. He tried to convince me to draw up papers to dissolve our marriage.”

 

“Oh,” is all Marlena can muster in response.

 

“He started taking down all of your pictures in the house, and putting pictures of Isabella around. A woman he doesn’t even know. Belle was livid. With him for trying to erase your memory, and with me, for letting him. She told me that it was my fault you had left. A seventeen year old girl had to tell me that.” John laughs a little, sullen. “I think that’s when I fully realized that I enabled all of this to happen.”

 

“You’re not entirely to blame,” Marlena tells him. “I knew how to push your buttons. I knew that my going to Roman for help would kill you. I knew seeing me with Craig would eat you alive.”

 

“I know.” His breath quickens a little when he thinks of these men, how they wanted Marlena. How close he came to losing it all. How much he lost anyway.

 

And then, he kisses her. Just like that. He is on top of her, pressing hard into the mattress. Not like the other times, like all the thousands of other kisses they have shared over the years. Not like that at all. It is at once insistent, demanding, angry, loving, reverent. It is an apology. It is a promise of things to come. He saliva tastes like love and sorrow. As she begins to respond, she remembers the lust they once had for each other. Marlena feels her eyes begin to burn with the sting of tears, and she can barely catch her breath. She wants more.

 

Marlena tosses the pillow she had been holding, removing the barrier between them. He quickly pins her down with his weight, feels her nipples rubbing against the stiff fabric of his shirt. She tries to loosen herself from him a little, to be able to wrap herself around him, but he doesn’t let her. She can barely move as he begins to move against her, his erection straining against his jeans, hurting her as he starts to thrust. She cries out a little at that. The friction between them almost makes her cum.

 

Marlena can hear herself begging him, whimpering with excitement. His hands are all over her now, forceful, grabbing at her skin, her breasts. She is his, this is his flesh, she is his wife. Everything about his movements is about possession. She can feel his hand moving inside her panties, cupping her, his fingers digging inside. Feeling it sting because she wasn’t quite ready for it. Marlena hisses her pleasure, over and over.

She is able to move a little now, and struggles to remove his clothing. She wants to see him. He reads her movements and grants her that much, helping her remove his top and undo the buttons on his jeans. Marlena deftly pushes them down his legs with her feet. It’s all coming back to her. She feels him ripping at her panties, tossing them somewhere across the room. Oh God, she wants him.

 

His hips between her thighs now, so long since he has felt the silk of her skin against his. Memorizing the look on her face. So long since she has looked at him with anything but disgust.

 

It hurts as he pushes into her, and not just because John is bigger than Elliott. He sinks in, feeling her all around him, like liquid heat. At last, she feels full, complete. She never knew how much she missed this until now.

 

He moves now, pounding into her for long agonizing moments, grunting his pleasure. Trying to banish those before him. Making sure that Roman, Craig and Elliott are nothing more than distant memories.

 

She feels him searching her face, looking into her eyes. One of his hands spiders across her cheek. Strong, and purposeful, like he is. Just like before. Looking for that deep connection between them. Her eyes meet his and she feels it, right there, hovering between them like some living force. It’s perfect.

 

He paws at her breasts, grabs at her thighs, squeezing until it hurts, his hands leaving white prints in her pink flushed skin. Everywhere and anywhere he can get his hands on. She loves it, clawing at his back, running her mouth along the side of his face, biting into the hard stubble of his cheek, leaving marks.

 

Panting as they find their rhythm, hard and fast. Crying as he hits that spot that makes them shiver. Feeling him deeper than she ever has. Feeling her clamp down so hard he thinks he will die. The pleasure of being inside of her.

 

His sweat mingles with hers, his face scowling from the exertion now. He is so close. Marlena is below him, clinging to the sheets, calling to God, her body writhing in fast waves. A part of him not quite believing that he is with her like this. Amazed that they are connecting. She is with him, every step, every stroke. He can feel her shaking from the force of her orgasm, alternating between whimpering and crying out. How he loves that sound.

 

And then John’s vision goes black, and he roars with his own release. His seed spurts inside of her, hot, burning like acid. She is milking him dry, wanting it all. It drips down her thighs and onto the bed. She can feel it cooling on her skin as she comes back down to earth.

 

Afterwards they lie still, cuddling, just holding on for dear life. She doesn’t want to let him go. John links their hands, and kisses her, much different now. It is slow, long, and sweet, and oddly more intimate than having sex. His tongue is in her mouth, sucking, loving hers. She traces the lines of his tattoo with soft fingertips, not being able to see it from this vantage point, but knowing intuitively that it’s there.

 

“I do,” Marlena runs a hand over the bruise on his cheek that she has given him. John looks at her, confused. “You asked me if I still loved you,” she continues. “I do.”

 

John grabs her delicate hand in his larger one. “You took off your wedding ring.” There is no reproach in his voice, just a statement of fact.

 

“It’s in the bathroom on the counter,” Marlena is quick to explain.

 

“I almost threw mine into the river,” John tells her. “I was at our pier and I had gotten as far as taking it off. But I couldn’t. I came here to find you instead. I had to know that we were still a possibility.” And just then, he sits up from the bed, puts on his jeans, and begins to gather the rest of his clothes, scattered around the floor.

 

She watches him in silence. “Where are you going?” Marlena eventually asks in a small voice, suddenly afraid.

 

“Back to the penthouse.” John does the buttons on his shirt and slips on his leather jacket. “I’m going to wait for you to come home.”

 

Marlena breathes easy at that. He is going to wait for her to return on her own terms.

 

John starts to walk across the room, her eyes watching his every move, but stops just before leaving the bedroom. “Are you going to come back?” Despite this one amazing moment between them, he still needs reassurance. He has learned that Marlena is anything but predictable.

 

“Oh yes,” Marlena smiles. “Just when you least expect it.”

 

Hearing that is enough for John, and after one last glance he leaves. She listens for his heavy footfalls down the stairs, his shutting the front door. Getting up, she goes to bathroom and puts on her wedding ring for the first time since she removed it weeks ago.

 

Walking to the window now, standing naked except for her ring, her neck and breasts stinging from the bites. Marlena watches as John drives away towards the city, until she can’t see him anymore. This, she thinks, could finally be the perfect marriage.

 

~~~~~ The End ~~~~~