Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 13

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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Tiptoe from your pillow
to the shadow
of a willow tree
And tiptoe through the tulips with me

— Al Dublin and Joe Burke, Tiptoe Through The Tulips [song]

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"Information," I offered, truthfully. "I want information."

"Mmm, I like that," he agreed. "And what will you do to get it?"

I took a breath. What *would* I do to get it?

"You don't realize it at first," he narrated, warming to his roleplay theme, "but it turns out that you'll do whatever it takes, won't you." He licked his lips and rubbed his palms together. "Yeah, yeah — but we'll get that that. Oh! Let's think about what you'll let me do to you, for your precious information?" He cackled. "I'll tell you what you *can* do, now, young lady. First of all," he prompted. "You'd better slip out of those clothes and slip into that bath... Let's say I surprise you in the bath. I've got a key to your room, but you don't remember me, so— No! That's too complicated!" His eyes glistened. "Listen... maybe— you realize that you might persuade me better... to give up my... information... if I was the one undressing you?"

"Ohhh!" I responded, a little surprised. Not by his suggestion, per se. I was surprised that I didn't *mind* his suggestion. I was also a little surprised that we'd gotten to this point so quickly, just as I had with Wade. Was it something about me? Was I doing something wrong? or doing something right? Was I navigating the signals the right way? I'm sure there's no manual on how to be a woman, but I felt the need to find someone — another woman — to talk to about this. Lucy's comment about falling into bed like this "not being the normal order of things" suddenly (and inconveniently) came to mind.

Even so, right now, returning to the case at hand, Barney's suggestion sounded good to me. It fit our story. It sounded like fun. I blushed. It sounded like sex.

I enjoyed having sex with Wade, and, as I said, I had a strong suspicion that I'd like sex with Barney even more. AND... we were supposedly engaged, weren't we? So that made it... legit? I imagine we must have done all this before.

It hadn't taken much thought or much time to get the ball rolling... although (spoiler alert!) the actual sex came much later, after dinner. The bath, the dinner — Barney's idea that this was "roleplay" — as it turned out, roleplay was foreplay. Barney liked a long game.

I won't bore you with the step by step, button by button, clasp by clasp of clothes slipping off... toe dipping into bath water... I'm sure you can imagine it well enough, as long as you add an excess of steam, the sheen of condensation, and tiny droplets of water on everything: my skin (my legs! the backs of my hands!), the walls, the mirror, Barney's face and arms...

Even so, even given my willingness, I never expected things to go the way they did. My only experience of sex (the only experience of sex that I can remember) was a simple falling naked into each other. This, now, was radically different: leisurely, stretched out, delayed gratification, the certainty of the coming apex, but no telling when it would arrive. The delay didn't add intensity, stress; not at all. There was, instead, what I want to call a frisson, but a frisson means chills, gooseflesh, a flash of feeling. Imagine that flash, that flush, turned down low, like a hum in the background. It heightened the sensuality of our interactions; made waiting for pleasure a pleasure in itself. Barney took off my dress with painstaking slowness, then got down on one knee to finish adjusting the water temperature. As he knelt next to the tub, he helped me off with my underwear, kissed my thighs and pressed his cheek against them. He made a particular study of removing my bra and adding all the preliminary kisses and caresses he could invent before guiding me into the water. Perspiration poured like rain off his forehead and face, dripping from his chin. Once I fully entered the water, he scurried out to change into a pair of running shorts. When he returned, he sat, sometimes on the floor, sometimes on a chair he brought in for the purpose. I lounged in the tub like an odalisque, sipping champagne... alternating with ice water. I finished off the macademias. Barney's eyes played over me. His hand occasionally dangled in the water, touching me here, trailing his fingers there. His chest was muscular and hairy — but not extremely. Not in a bad way: it was a light covering, not like a rug, not furred. It was just enough; not too much.

What did we do then, the two of us? We talked. And talked. And talked.

What did we talk about?

Of all things, we talked about Mariola. Imagine that! More accurately, Barney talked about Mariola. I listened, I laughed. I asked questions.

Not wanting to break his flow, I tried to keep my questions to a minimum. My receptiveness relaxed him, made him open up. He let one story follow another: stories of our childhood, of my family, of the town, of the church, of my crazy mother...

It was perfect, at least as far as filling the hole of my lost memories. He not only handed me the puzzle pieces of my forgotten life; he also fitted them together, one anecdote buttressing another. Barney answered questions I didn't know to ask. In a word, he gave me Deeny. He poured out from his endless supply of snapshots, impressions, and epitomes, summing up my life; my life as he'd seen it.

Before meeting Barney, I thought I only needed to know the details of our fierce argument at the VFW; that the subject of our heated discussion was the one, single bit of information I required of him. Sure, I was curious about our engagement, but not overmuch. I'd already discounted any possibility of marrying a man I didn't know, or at least didn't remember.

Instead, I got an overview of my life, as seen by an interested observer.

He mentioned in passing that my mother called me a scapegrace. I wasn't familiar with the word, but I got the rough sense: "grace" had to be God's grace; a grace I'd escaped from, or missed out on, or maybe even refused.

Barney's version of my life fit with everything I'd heard from Sheba, Cameron, and even my mother.

From a very young age, I was rebellious, confrontational, and often ungovernable. According to Barney, I was famous for speaking out of turn in school, in church, and at home. I was a prankster and a vandal. Several times I barely missed getting into serious trouble, including three episodes in which I very nearly ended up in jail.

"Do I have a police record?" I asked in alarm.

"No, but it's not for want of trying!" he quipped, laughing, cackling, clapping his hands.

I smiled to encourage him, but honestly I didn't find it funny. I didn't find it funny at all.

"So..." I ventured, "those times, those three times, when I sat at the police station while they tried to decide what to do with me: what happened? How did I get off? Did they take pity on me because I was just a kid? Did I convince them that I'd be good?"

"Hell, no!" he snorted. "What are you talking about? Your daddy came and bailed you out! What do you think happened?"

That threw a new wrinkle into my picture of my father. But then, I reflected, "I suppose he followed up with that spare-the-rod business, didn't he?"

"Uh, no, actually," Barney replied, looking thoughtful for a moment. "The only thing he ever said about it was I blame myself — of all things!"

"Hmmph," I responded.

The more that Barney revealed to me about myself, the less I liked this Deeny character. More and more I understood Cameron's suggestion that I not recover my memories.

Barney, on the other hand, found all of it charming, endearing, amusing.

Soon I had a clear idea of what attracted him to me, or to Deeny, the old me — and what drew the old Deeny to him. We went for the wildness in each other; we liberated each other. In his anecdotes we took turns leading each other in and out of trouble. He didn't blamed me for any of it, whatever the consequences. He loved me for breaking convention, for defying rules.

"I never told you this," he confessed at one point, tears forming in the corners of his eyes, "but because of you,I can see outside the box. To tell the truth, I don't even see the box any more. Rules are made to keep us line, to deny our individual success. You taught me that."

Oh, God! I exclaimed internally. I ruined you, Barney, didn't I? You're not the dangerous one — it's me!

Then, of course, he laid out a set of stories in which he attempted to paint himself as just as bad as me.

It was a lot to take in.

I mean, if I went back in my memory to my very beginning, as I sat on the ground in the desert, I would have said of myself that I was a nice person, a good person, a law-abiding person, a person who would want to live in harmony with others. I must have been that way at birth, wasn't I? And then, as I grew, I accumulated bad behavior, antisocial tendencies, selfishness, disregard for others.

And yet, I couldn't blame Mariola or Jesus for all of that. Cameron didn't end up like me.

And so, I had to hope that if my memories did NOT return, that I could stay this way, the way I am now: a part of society, a friend, a neighbor.

Conversely, I also had to hope that if my memories DO return, that I can fend off my old life, my habitual behavior, that it isn't somehow written into the essence of who I am.

At that point, Barney changed the course of his narrative. Did he notice that my attention had flagged and turned inward? Certainly he noticed that I'd stopped laughing. I'd submerged my mouth and simply watched and listened.

It's a good thing he changed tack and took a new narrative direction. Otherwise he'd have left me depressed, or at least very sad. Uninterested in sex, to say the least.

Wisely, he turned instead to stories about other people. People we knew — or at least, people *he* knew. People I don't remember. He called them "the gentlefolk of Mayberry" — a reference lost on me.

Barney is a born storyteller, a raconteur. I did say he's a charmer. He sketched out the members of my family for me. He described the church people and the Sunday service. He stood and gave a comical impression of the preacher, which I imagine was true to life: the Reverend's pompous stance, his exhortations, his farfetched alliterations.

Barney graphically described three of Mamma's elaborate hairstyles, and imitated her voice to a T. He got me laughing again.

After all that, I had a sense, a picture, a feeling, for my family, and for the town of Mariola. As much as Barney appeared to love the place and its people, his word paintings didn't draw me back there.

I had a much clearer idea as well of what I didn't like about the church. Although, I have to say, Barney left me with the strong suspicion that if he was truthful with himself, he'd admit that actually likes church life, and only pretends not to, for my sake.

Then Barney complained that his jaw was tired, and he prompted me to talk. He asked about the accident, about the hospital, about Thistlewaite and the policewomen. He tried to puzzle out the disappearance of the two men, but of course he got nowhere. Like Cameron, he didn't see any real mystery in how I crossed the desert and lost my clothes. Those two particulars seemed par for the course in his eyes.

By the time we waded through all that, I was more than ready to get out of the tub. I was fully cooked. The air was not as steamy as earlier, but it was certainly hot. The water still held some heat. My soak made me sleepy, but I didn't want to sleep. I needed food. But before getting out of the water, I took a breath, held it, and slid my face under the water, feeling the hot oily water on my face and covering my lidded eyes. It seemed to penetrate my skin, the residual heat radiating down to my deeper layers, while the oils caressed and healed the surface layer. I kept my eyes shut and drank in the sensation. The tub was long and deep, a perfect measure. I didn't need to bend my knees to submerge myself. It was wonderful.

When I lifted my face from the water, Barney scrambled to his feet and said... something. I didn't catch it, there was still water in my ears, but I couldn't ask because he left the little room. I didn't blame him; the air was awfully close in here. It had gone from steam room to sauna.

I stood slowly, lightheaded from the long bath. After rubbing most of the water out of my hair with a thick towel, I pulled on a knee-length, white bathrobe. Way too heavy for my rubescent body and the oven-like room. I slipped my hands into the pockets and flapped the robe, like a pair of wings, to generate a breeze to cool my glowing skin.

I turned on the fan, to draw off the heat. We tried to use it earlier, but the motor was unpleasantly loud, making conversation impossible.

Still flapping my wings, I emerged from the bathroom. Barney wore the same shorts as before, but he'd pulled on a gray t-shirt. Standing next to him was the same bellhop as before. Now he had no need for x-ray glasses; the only way I could have been more naked was if my robe dropped from my shoulders and fell to the floor.

If the bellhop's eyes were big as saucers earlier, now they were as large as dinner plates.

"Jesus!" I shrieked, and flapped my bathrobe closed, clutching it tightly to me. "Barney, why didn't you tell me he was here?" and to the bellhop, I said, "Sorry!" He shook his head and muttered, "No problem! No problem! My fault. All my fault."

Barney handed the man another tip, and watched in amusement as the poor boy stumbled to the door and fumbled it open. The moment the door clicked shut, Barney guffawed, "Wow! You really made *his* day! That was bold of you, very bold!"

"Why didn't you tell me he was there?" I repeated. "What the hell, Barney?"

"I *did* tell you," he retorted. "I waited until you pulled your head out the water and told you. I said, 'oh, room service is here'. Didn't you hear him knocking?"

It sounded plausible. He sounded sincere. In the end, I didn't really care. It's not as though I lost something or hurt someone. It was hard to be angry with Barney — at least the way he was behaving right now. I knew we'd fought in the past, though. I'd seen the video. That image of me screaming, full-bodied, brimming with anger and frustration, was vivid. It stayed with me. It was even more of a mystery now, now that I'd formed an utterly new picture of Barney as the good person in our relationship, and me the wicked one. I needed to know what the fight was about, and now, while my emotions were bivouacked in a no-man's land, or demilitarized zone, there was probably no time better to get into it.

But— first things first: I was hungry, and the discussion could wait until after dinner.

My skin felt smooth, refreshed, wonderfully clean and hydrated. So damn hot, though, that I ate dinner without any clothes, and without any feeling of embarrassment. Like Eve in the Garden. (If I had my little book, I'd write that phrase down!) Barney kept to his shorts and shirt. We had steaks, baked potatoes, and green beans. Barney's choice. Along with a bottle of cabernet. I only drank half a glass. Same for Barney. He knocked the cork back into the bottle and set it aside.

Much of the time we were silent, both of us, and it was fine. After dinner was done, neither of us wanted the dessert: a double-chocolate cake. We didn't ask for it; it came with the dinner.

"I was hoping to get... information... from you," I reminded him.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I forgot. All that steam sapped my energy. So... what? I think you better ask me questions, if you really want to know something particular. I could just start talking again, but I don't know what you want. Besides, what's left to tell? Honestly, I forgot we were playing that game, anyway."

"Can I ask you some questions? For real?"

Barney turned one of the armchairs to face the window and its view of the river, and sat down. He lifted his heels and rested them on the window sill. He patted his lap with his right hand and held out his left by way of invitation. I took his hand and sat in his lap. I felt surprisingly comfortable, at ease, especially after I nestled in and rested my head on his upper chest and shoulder.

I asked him how we met. How long we'd been seeing each other. I asked him to describe his proposal of marriage. I asked what he did for a living. I asked about his family: his parents, his siblings. He answered frankly and freely, although he wasn't at all expansive. Just the facts, the bare facts.

Then... one last question: I asked what we'd fought about, next to the dumpster, behind the VFW Hall.

"Oh," he groaned in protest. "Do we really have to do this now? When we're getting on so well?"

"Yes," I told him, lifting up my head so I could look him in the face. "But I doubt that I'll react the way I did before. Tell me the whole thing, as if I really have amnesia, like I know absolutely nothing about what happened."

He studied my face for a few moments. Then he lifted my left hand and rubbed my naked ring finger with his thumb, considering. After a deep breath, he began:

"Okay. Here goes. You and me, you and I, we have a open relationship. I mean, within reason. We don't go crazy, though, right? Neither of us are tramps; we don't sleep around indiscriminately, but there's always the option, if we want to go for it, okay? We don't give each other shit about sex with other people, as long as we don't rub each other's nose in it. It can be tricky. Sometimes it's a tight-rope walk, but as long as we don't make each other look or feel foolish, everything is cool. Are you with me so far?"

"So far, yes."

"Okay... the thing we fought about is... Well, it's kind of a natural next step. It started when I asked you whether you knew what polyamory is."

"I don't," I told him.

He paused. He looked into my face, perplexed. I pointed at the bump on my forehead and said, "Amnesia." He seemed doubtful, even confused. He still didn't believe me.

"Okay," he continued, but gingerly, cautiously. "I asked you whether you ever considered a relationship with three people instead of two."

"You mean a threesome? Two men and one woman?"

That gave him pause. "No," he said. "That's what you said last time. And the answer is no. This isn't about sex per se. It's a way of living, a way of life. I was proposing that we live together: you, me, and another woman." He watched my face, ready for the worst. When I didn't react, he continued. "Polyamory is multiple intimate relationships. I asked if you could share me with another woman, on a—" he gestured vaguely— "well, on a permanent basis."

I thought about it for a moment. "So, three of us. We'd live in the same house?" I asked, to clarify.

"Yes."

"And do you have another woman in mind? Someone specific?"

He scratched his neck and studied my face. He was stumped by the fact that I wasn't reacting the way I had by the VFW dumpster.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"See... here is where you started breathing fire," he said, clearly uncomfortable, not ready to jump back into the fray.

"Is it someone I know? I mean, if I had my memories, would I know her?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Oh, yes, definitely. You know her. It's Dana Rampiri," he answered, and held his breath, watching me.

"I don't know who that is," I informed him.

"Oh, shit!" he exclaimed. "Come on!" He looked me hard in the face. I shrugged. I said, "Sorry! Amnesia!"

That was the moment when the light broke upon his face. He realized, he understood, he finally got it: I really, truly, didn't remember anything. So he explained, with a little more ease.

"Dana Rampiri is engaged to be married... to your brother Nate."

I couldn't help it: I burst out laughing.

"Why are you laughing?" he demanded. He wasn't sure whether to feel offended. "Don't you believe me?"

It took me a while to stop giggling. Then he made a confused face, and it set me off again.

"Okay," I asked, when I was able to stop. "So, Dana: is she up for it?"

"Oh, yeah," he responded, nodding his head enthusiastically.

"And what about Nate?" I asked. "It all sounds pretty complicated."

"Oh, yeah. Nate is all for it. A hundred percent. See... Nate travels a lot for work, so it makes sense that Dana would live with you and me. That way she isn't alone when he's gone, and of course, when he *is* home, she's there for him, and he's there for her. Nate is definitely good with it."

I pondered the proposal for a few moments. "You get the best of the arrangement, though, don't you?"

"How do you mean?"

"How do I mean?" I laughed. "I get one man: you. Nate gets one woman: Dana. You get two women: me and Dana. And, you get more of Dana than Nate does."

"Well," he pointed out defensively, "Dana gets two men, right? Me and Nate." I mused over it.

"Also," Barney added, "Not everybody *wants* more than one partner."

That stopped me. "That's true, I guess."

"Besides, if other people wanted to... join..."

"Oh," I said. "Like a commune?"

He sighed. "You said that last time, too. No, not a commune, as such. More of an intentional community. That's actually a thing. That's what it's called. Adults, couples, families, living together. Of course there'd be rules and all that. I mean, though, if that happened, it would develop slowly. And it wouldn't be a sexual free-for-all."

I wasn't so sure about the "developing slowly." It could easily catch on like a brush fire. But that wasn't what I wanted to know. I gave Barney a searching look and asked, "So, this is what we fought about? This is why I ran away?"

"Yes," he said, still watching, worried that I'd explode again.

"And what exactly set me off? At what point did I lose it?"

"When I said that Dana was, uh, the other woman."

"Hmmph," I said. "Why? I mean, if our relationship is all open and all that?"

"Yeah. Um, see... it's because of your brother. At first you said I was cheating on your brother, as if that was even possible. Or, better — you said I was deceiving your brother, which I wasn't, and that Dana... something about butter melting in her mouth, or *not* melting in her mouth... I've never understood that phrase. Anyway, you took everything the wrong way — sorry! but you did! As if all three of us betrayed *you*, all at once. A conspiracy. You started making all kinds of hurtful accusations, based on nothing—" Barney warmed to his topic.

"Okay, okay," I told him. "Don't go back there. We're here now. You explained, and I listened. Okay?"

"I guess," he said slowly. "So, what now? I mean, are we good? You and me?"

"You and me and Dana and Nate?"

"Well, uh, right now, I'm only asking about you and me."

I fell quiet. I wasn't sure what to say — or more accurately, how much to say. Unfortunately, the longer I was silent, the lower Barney sank. I could see his thoughts on his face: It's over. I know it; it's all over.

"Look, Barney — I hope you can believe me, but I swear to God, I don't remember anything that happened before last Tuesday, before the accident. I don't remember Nate or Dana or our discussion — let's call it that. All I know is what I feel right now and what I remember from the past few days. Because of that, I can't commit to a life with you. At least not right now, not the way things stand. Maybe after my memories come back, we can pick things up again, if you still want to, but I can't promise anything right now."

"What if your memories never come back?" he asked. "Where does that leave me?"

"I don't know," I told him, and my answer made him sad.

"But see...," he began after some rumination, "I won't even *know* whether you remember, unless you tell me. It's just... not fair."

I was still there, resting on his lap. He was a study in melancholy. Mr Glum. I stroked his hair, as if he were a pet. The thought made me smile, little flashes of a smile, and then before I knew it, I kissed him, right on the mouth... and that's when the next phase of the evening started.

One kiss followed another. Each kiss deeper, warmer, more passionate. I felt his body warming to me.

Barney lifted me from his lap to the bed. In an instant he was out of his clothes and lying on top of me. Slowly we began, and slowly the tempo increased. I squirmed and tensed and arched my body and ran my fingers all over him. We carried on for what seemed a very long time — a long, hot, glowing, passionate time, until eventually neither of us could go any more. "That was great," he murmured, out of breath. He rolled off me and after ten minutes Barney was deep in the land of dreams.

It was good, sex with Barney. Very good. It was better than good. Better than sex with Wade, which was saying a lot. Barney and I have a physical chemistry that you can't buy in a bottle. His skin on my skin... mine on his... gives me a sensation so extraordinary that must be unique. I mean, unique to him and me. I doubt that even he and Dana have that same feeling, when skin touches skin. I'm sure that other sets of people out in the world find the same experience. It must be rare, but it must happen. It doesn't make us soul mates, but it does make us — what? Sex mates? No. That sounds cheap. It sounds tawdry. We have a physical affinity. It doesn't make us soul mates; it makes us a chemistry set. I smiled at my own foolishness, and I liked it. Barney and I are a chemistry set.

It's possible that that's all we are. I don't know at this point.

I got up, cleaned myself, brushed my teeth, and examined my face in the mirror. I wanted to make some sort of wise comment to my reflection, but unfortunately I had nothing particularly wise to say. I only found myself wishing for a cup of coffee, as late as it was, but didn't want to go to the trouble of making one, so I climbed back in bed, and stared at the ceiling.

Now I have all the pieces that *I* need, I told myself. I don't have any of the answers the police are looking for. I certainly don't have the recovery that Thistlewaite so earnestly predicted. Be that as it may: I'm ready. I'm good. I'm ready to be me, just as I am right now, knowing only what I know here in this moment. I'm in a place where I can live and move forward without worrying whether I ever remember. In fact, I'm fine with never remembering.

Starting here. I'm starting here, right where I am, just as I am.

Of course, after making that declaration, I fell soundly and perfectly asleep.

When I woke, I found myself still on my back in exactly the same position, in exactly the same spot in the bed. Pre-dawn light softly lit the windows, and I considered my situation, congratulating myself on what I'd achieved. I think this is called self-actualization, I told myself, and if it's not, I don't care. I like the sound of the word.

Barney was dead to world, utterly asleep, relaxed, inert as a slab of beef, if beef could snore like that. I smiled to myself. It felt pretty damn great to be me at that exact moment in time.

And that's when it happened. In an instant.

The word self-actualization triggered it. Not that I achieved it, or even knew exactly what the word truly meant, but first came the word, and then comically, I had a song in my heart: If I Only Had A Brain. Amused, I let the words and music silently, internally, play:

I'd unravel every riddle
For ev'ry individ'l
In trouble or in pain

With the thoughts I'd be thinkin'
I could be another Lincoln
If I only had a brain

That's when it hit me: I remembered.

I remembered everything. All my memories returned. Everything, all at once. Not in a flood, though. Not as a sequence of pictures — flashing or flowing or streaming. Quite simply, a toggle flipped; my store of memories went from unavailable to available.

Yesterday, the inside of my head was a vast unfurnished library: room after room of empty bookshelves and abandoned storage units.

Today: boom! All the shelves, all the rooms, are full. The storage units are back online. As though the moving van arrived and unloaded. Now, whatever I wanted to remember was there, free, for the taking. Anything!

My name, for instance. What about that?

Perry Mason? I shoved half my fist in my mouth to keep from laughing. Now I understood. Thistlewaite will flip when I explain.

Then, as Thistlewaite rightly said, "one string pulls another": I saw everything that everyone was waiting to know: It came, playing back to me, playing backwards, starting from the accident. The car rolling over and over, the collision, me hitchhiking holding the big black umbrella, the night I spent in Hugh Fencely's car, shivering naked under a scratchy woolen blanket. All the questions the police wanted, answered. I had the answers now.

I remembered Hugh Fencely. Vivid, in my mind's eye. I *was* the last person to see him. Plain as day, as he was carried off—

"Oh, shit!" I exclaimed aloud, and immediately clamped my hand over my mouth. My stomach spasmed; I thought I might vomit. Smothering my own gasp, I bit down hard on my finger, desperate to keep silent. My other hand dropped to the bed, and accidentally grazed Barney's naked back. My head jerked left, staring at Barney, whose sleeping face was thankfully turned away from me. I would have screamed bloody murder if I'd seen his face. As it was, my eyes popped open to three times their normal size, and trembling, I shrank back from the vision of Barney's head, his shoulders, his muscular torso, his waist... all that naked skin! I scrabbled desperately sideways, crab-like, in the bed, recoiling in horror.

Without meaning to, I scrabbled myself right off the edge of the bed and onto the floor, bumping the back of my head noisily against the bedside table. Damn it!

Miraculously, all my noise, movement, and whimpers hadn't woken him. Barney hadn't even stirred. And yet, although I was pressing my luck, I couldn't help crying out softly, "I'm really in the shit!"

Then, softer, I whispered to myself. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! What am I going to do?"

If I wasn't so afraid of waking Barney, I would have lost my mind right then and there, and turned into a quaking puddle of fear, confusion, and terror.

I couldn't fall apart — at least, not yet. First I had to get the hell out of that room, out of that hotel.

More easily said than done.

I shook so hard, there was no way I could stand, so I scurried on all fours into the bathroom and hauled myself to my feet by clutching the sink. I watched myself in the mirror frantically freaking out. "Okay, okay, okay," I told myself, over and over. "Okay, okay, okay!" After three more sets of "Okay, okay, okay!" I managed to switch to telling myself, "Keep it together! Keep it together! Keep it together!" and then at last, fiercely whispered, "Get dressed, get out, get dressed, get out!"

And that's what I did: still whispering my magic formula to myself (get dressed, get out! get dressed, get out!) I quickly, quietly gathered my clothes. Frightened out of my wits, I pulled my underwear on backwards — and almost left them that way. But it felt too weird. My follow-up was the struggle to NOT put my bra on inside-out. I nearly did the same with my dress. The whole time my eyes were locked on Barney's sleeping form, fearful that my shallow breaths would wake him. If I could have dressed in the hallway, believe me, I would have.

In spite of my shaking, in spite of my disorientation, I managed (with re-tries) to pull my clothes on properly, but oh Lord my poor clothes were funky as hell after all the action they'd seen yesterday. And sure, it wasn't only the clothes that smelled bad: I needed a shower, as well. I smelled of Barney: his scent, his sweat, all mixed with my sweat and the remnants of the fragrant bath oils.

My hair needed a good brushing, but I didn't dare take the time; I couldn't risk making the noise. (I didn't have a brush, in any case,)

After setting my shoes by the door, I searched in a panic for my bag. I couldn't find it anywhere until I realized I was clutching it in my left hand. I shook it stupidly for no good reason, then opened it to make sure my phone and wallet were inside. Anything else? "Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!" I cried out in despair as I spotted the little black box at the bottom of my bag. "God! God! God!" The damn engagement ring!

Then, I had my first coherent thought: At least there was one door I could close for good, right here and now. I fished the engagement ring out of my bag, and took a sheet of hotel stationery from the desk in the room. I wrote Sorry! at the top of the page. I checked that the ring was safely inside the box, and set the box on the page, as a very expensive paperweight. Okay — no one needs to tell me: Sorry! hardly covers what I've done. Worse yet, I knew Barney would take my "Sorry!" to mean Goodbye!

Of course, that *is* what it meant.

Then, once again feeling very much the heel that I am, I eased the door open, using every ounce of quiet-ness I could muster. I slipped through, holding my breath, and finally closed the door with supernatural gentle silence. I didn't make a sound, apart from a final click! that made me wince.

From there, barefoot, I furtively scurried to the elevator, grimacing at the impossibly loud ding! when it arrived. Clutching my shoes in my hand, I shot quickly out the hotel's front door, ignoring the startled staff's early-morning greetings and offers of help.

Once outside, I breathed a little easier, but I didn't stop at the entrance.

I escaped along the river way, holding my breath and running silently, on the tips of my toes, although the time for tiptoe was long passed.