Flashbacks and Desire

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX from CAUGHT UP Truth and Metaphor | An Imaginary Tale

Many people read and enjoy my chapters as standalone short stories. They are not. As I lay down my final chapters, I am making a request.

Please do not read this chapter out of context. It relies on all the preceding chapters for clarity. Beginning here would be like catching the last ten minutes of a film.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Here is a link to Chapter One entitled “Petra” and a link to the “Table of Contents.”

Petra

Table of Contents

---

Flashbacks and Desire

36

The maître d escorted them to a pub table in an intimate corner of the bar. Across the room, a talented guitarist performed. The exquisite food, first-class service and overall romantic ambiance were intoxicating. In between courses, Petra snuggled up to Rick. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. In response to his intimate gesture, she hung one of her legs over his.

After dinner, they sat outside talking while another band played cover songs. Without words, he drew her feet onto his lap and removed her stilettos, which she wore at his request. He had been texting emojis of high heel shoes ever since he first asked her out.

“I wonder if he has a foot fetish?”

To complement the black pointy heels, she wore hot pink cigarette pants and a slinky black camisole mini dress. While he massaged her feet, she searched his eyes for meaning. Nothing.

“This is too good to be true,” she thought.

“A guy comes out of nowhere acting like a complete gentleman, finds me so attractive that he wants to be with me all the time, throws money around like there’s an endless supply, and now, he’s giving me a foot massage?”

“What’s the catch?”

Down in the tunnels of unconscious thought, her younger-selves were having their own unique reactions.

“Damn right!” said Twelve-year-old Petra. “This guy is blowing some serious smoke up your ass. Don’t fall for his bullshit!”

Simone, divorced from all common sense, surrendered one hundred percent to his over-attentive affection.

“He loves me.”

Echoing from a distant corner, Victorianna’s small voice whispered, “Daddy.”

The clouds sputtered rain, interrupting his momentum.

“I can take you home if you’d like.”

“It’s probably for the best.”

The rain had bypassed her part of town, a common occurrence along the Florida coastline. In their first week of dating, following the setting of the sun, they spent hours sitting on the beach, getting to know one another.

“Do you want to hang out on the beach before you drop me off?”

“Sure,” he said, pulling into a beach park.

While he grabbed a blanket from the back seat, Petra kicked off her heels and stripped down to her mini dress. As she turned to set her belongings in a neat little pile, Rick, back in the driver’s seat, placed a hand on her waist.

He looked into her eyes and said, “You’re so beautiful.”

Reflected in the mirror of his encouraging words, she became beautiful. Her sudden transformation from an insecure, self-conscious older woman to a confident, alluring goddess delivered the “all systems a go” message Rick was waiting for. In complete control, he placed his other hand on the small of her back and pulled her close, lifting her mouth to his.

His breath was hot against her lips as he drove his tongue into her mouth, caressing every crevice. There could be no mistaking his message. A famished, sex-starved barbarian was devouring the inside of her mouth as if he was eating her pussy. A deliberate, scripted performance; a preview of upcoming attractions.

Twelve-year-old Petra, ever watchful, intervened to the best of her ability.

“Wake-up! He’s seducing you. He’ll have his dick in you in no time. Stop him before it’s too late! What about rule number two?”

Throaty, guttural moans accompanied by a rippling vibration that coursed through her entire body decimated every barrier standing between their mutual desire. In seconds, he had her dress pulled down, exposing her breasts. Rick pinched one of her nipples and put his mouth on the other. Like a wild animal released from its cage, she responded with unrestrained ecstasy.

“Are you about to cum? Let’s move to the back seat.”

He placed his hand on the inside of her thigh and grazed over her pantie-covered clitoris with his thumb. That was Petra’s wake-up call. She pushed him off her.

“We should go to the beach.”

Searching for safety, she wondered, “Where is the polite, caring gentleman who saved me a seat?”

She failed to grasp the severity of his present state. The Hound, a powerful god-like drug, rose from the depths of her soul. With an ancient Siren’s serenading song, the beast seduced him, promising unimaginable heights of pleasure. The intoxicant obliterated every restraint, and he, ravenous, succumbed to its deadly charm.

In layman’s terms: “He was hard for it, wanted it and would have it, come hell or high water.”

The walk to the beach from the parking lot took on an otherworldly aspect. Surrounded by the sweltering Monrovia heat from her childhood, she struggled to stay present. Thick, suffocating air dripped with humidity. Buzzing insects permeated the perfect stillness and wet clouds hung heavy in the night sky, blocking out all celestial light. In the pitch blackness, memories from the Dark Country formed a new reality. Petra, in a dissociative state, could no longer communicate. As Rick guided her onto the blanket, she felt him maneuver her onto her back, but remained helpless, trapped inside a PTSD flashback.

In the distance, she observed a young father searching the sand for seashells with his four-year-old daughter. The little girl, enraptured and filled with joy, radiated innocent adoration. She squeezed her daddy’s giant hand and gazed upward with a pure, heart-wrenching reverence at the man she loved most in the world.

“This is our little secret. You mustn’t tell anyone.”

He focused all of his attention and affection on his daughter. She was his, and he was hers. That was how it started; her sexual relationship with The Hound.

Rick pulled up her dress and slipped his hand into her panties. The beach, vacant except for the father and his daughter, filled with bystanders approaching from every direction. Overwhelmed and terrified of getting caught, she froze.

“People can see what you’re doing. Get off me!”

Her deafening command went nowhere. It rattled around the interior walls of her skull, silenced by a paralyzing fear. It was no use. The flashback held her immobilized body hostage.

She was a little girl on the beach with her father somewhere on the Liberia coast. “Daddy” was having his way with her. She knew it was wrong enough to fear someone seeing them, but had no physical or mental ability to stop him.

In a sudden release from the episode, Petra pulled her dress down.

“Take me home. I need to go home.”

The next morning, in keeping with her primary rule, Petra told Rick, “I had a PTSD flashback last night. This is all moving too fast. Please stop pressing through my boundaries. I’m begging you.”

She had allowed her secondary rule to be broken, and it was impossible to put the genie back in its bottle. That tiny taste of tongue at the auto parts store had been like a key placed in the lock of Pandora’s box. His advances the previous night and the magnitude of her unbridled sexual desire had flung the box wide open. Everything she had worked so hard to suppress was revealing itself, attracting unwanted advances, drawing them in like a moth to a flame. She wanted Rick to understand that while her sensuality appeared enticing and delicious, it was, in fact, dangerous.

“My father was a sex addict, and I was Daddy’s little girl. I expect there will be more flashbacks. Are you sure you can handle that? Your friendship means everything to me and I don’t want to lose it.”

“Look,” he said, somewhat irritated.

“I’ve done the work. My childhood issues no longer bother me and I talk with my therapist regularly. I can handle it.”

Georgie was judge and jury concerning love and authenticity in a sexual relationship. His bullshit detector smelled a rat.

More concerning than Rick’s questionable motives was Petra’s physical reaction to his advances. The Hound had overtaken her body with powerful electrical pleasure currents. He had weaponized Rick’s touch and was using the depth of his baritone voice to ensnare her.

“You have no idea what’s happening to me.”

He didn’t, but whatever it was; he was all in.

Georgie sat back, gave The Hound a long leash, and monitored the situation. After all, the PTSD episode was not his doing, nor The Hound’s. It had sprung up of its own accord and shut down the previous night’s festivities with no effort on his part.

If Georgie had investigated further, he would have discovered that Victorianna was confusing Rick with her father. In almost record time, Petra’s youngest and most primal splintered-self had manifested a hidden memory as a three-dimensional time and space reality which raised an interesting question.

“Do suppressed subconscious memories influence our external reality? If so, to what extent?”

Rick desired to see her again that evening. He planned to go back to the East Coast the following day. She wanted no part of fancy dinners, dates, or romantic sunsets. She was off balance, out of control, and unsure of herself. Yes, she wanted to see him, but she needed a break from his sexual advances.

“There’s an excellent Friday night AA meeting in Santa Rosa. Do want to go?”

“Sure. What time should I pick you up?”

“That’s okay. I’ll drive over.”

“I’d like to show you my condo. Why don’t you stop by before the meeting?”

The best thing about his place was its location across the street from a gorgeous beach. Although he owned some expensive furniture and artwork, his condo was disorganized and had a frat-boy vibe. He apologized right off the bat.

“I asked my decorator for pool hall chic.”

“He doesn’t have a decorator,” said adolescent Petra. “Unless he thinks a salesperson at the furniture store qualifies.”

One could easily picture a “pool hall chic” bachelor pad. This was not it. She showed him pictures of her mid-century modern apartment.

“Maybe you’d consider helping me decorate?”

“I could definitely give you a hand and keep the theme masculine. I’d need to do something if you want me to stay over.”

“I’ll give you free rein.”

Familiar with Rick’s tactics, a romantic post-meeting dinner was inevitable. Wanting to go straight home, she brought over a bowl of fresh blackberries with a homemade cashew cream topping sweetened with dates.

“This is so delicious!” he said, placing his in the refrigerator. “I’ll save it for later.”

Clearly, these were two very different people. She was a designer at heart. Her surroundings were strategic and ordered. A balanced and calm environment with everything in its place. He was comfortable with chaos. He liked restaurants and high-end cuisine. She liked home-cooked, clean food. Petra tried to point out these fundamental differences, but Rick assured her that her way was better and healthier. This caused her to believe that he intended to make room for her gifts, talents and preferences and that he would appreciate a woman’s touch.

They had an hour before it was time to leave and moved onto an extravagant vintage leather couch.

“This is lovely.”

Without warning, he unhinged the back of the couch, transforming it into a bed. Kneeling above her, he grabbed her foot and pressed it against his groin.

“Look into my eyes. I want to cum.”

Petra lost her grip on reality. A translucent mask fell over Rick’s face and he disappeared. In its place, the face of her father.

“Look into my eyes,” said Daddy, as he ejaculated on her.

Real or imagined, Rick’s eyes emanated the same frightening, self-serving lust. No love, no intimacy; pure objectification.

Somehow, she remained present.

“Hey, something’s wrong… I’m not seeing you. It’s my father’s face… It’s his eyes staring at me…Please…stop! You’re acting just like him. Stop it! I’m having a flashback. Please…stop!”

She found it unusual that she could articulate her needs from inside a flashback. For the first time, it did not consume her. She remained conscious inside the memory as an observer and maintained a separate sense of self. That was genuine progress. Maybe the PTSD diagnosis was not a life sentence.

Ignoring her pleas, he continued to rub her foot against his crotch as he locked eyes with her. The look on his face horrified her, but again, she doubted her perception of reality.

“Stop gaslighting yourself!” screamed Twelve-year-old Petra from the tunnels below. “He’s a monster. He’s just like Dad.”

Though too deep and obscured to hear, Petra felt her younger-self’s voice like a thunderous wave. She kicked him off with the foot he was holding.

“I need coffee. Will you drive?”

On autopilot, she chatted her way through coffee and the ride to the meeting. Plopping down on a chair, she took her first full breath. Her usual demeanor at meetings was upbeat and engaged. Not that night. She sat in silence as her energy drained steadily onto the floor. When it was over, she dragged herself outside and waited on the back bumper of Rick’s truck.

“I don’t feel well. I need to go home.”

She didn’t look well. Her face was ashen and drawn. Two episodes, two nights in a row. It was beyond her ability to process.

Rick planned a three-week stay on the East Coast. Following a brief return to the Panhandle, he would leave again for a ten-day trip to New York.

Petra, scheduled to work several days at The Market, one of her three jobs, needed to stabilize, and nothing is as good for that as hard physical labor in the customer service industry.

She had mixed feelings about the relationship. The episodes were brutal and yet; she knew deep down that she had to face the monsters from her childhood.

“Still, is it too much too soon?”

“Is Rick capable of not only withstanding the assault but also remaining sensitive?”

It felt like an unreasonable expectation.

“What if I’m nothing more than his current drug of choice? After all, he’s a recovering alcoholic with the disease of always wanting more. And what about this intense chemical cocktail being generated between the two of us?”

She couldn't think straight.

He texted her the following morning.

“On my way out. Call me when you get off work?”

One of the strange things about their burgeoning love affair was the coming together for a few days, followed by long separations. It was as if the universe was propelling the relationship forward at supersonic speed. During the separations, they spoke honestly and frankly about topics they might lack the courage to discuss in person.

Case in point, Petra’s constant questions about his motivation.

“Are you sure you want to go through this with me? I mean, you see how messy it is.”

Annoyed, he reminded her he had been in therapy for years, had worked through his own PTSD episodes stemming from his brutal childhood and, in case she had forgotten, he had thirty-two years of sobriety under his belt.

“Well, okay, then.”

Along with the serious questions regarding emotional sobriety, they had unabashed talks about sex and desire.

Rick proposed she visit his place in Jupiter.

“It’s full of New Yorkers, so the vibe differs from the good ole boys on the Panhandle.”

Spending the night implied intimacy.

Twelve-year-old Petra, her voice muffled by Simone’s longing for affection and Victorianna’s fear of abandonment, reiterated her position from exiled obscurity.

“He doesn’t give a shit about you. It’s all a lie. You’re being played. He’s already proved me right. All he wants is sex. Wake the fuck up!”

The train bound for collision gained momentum.

During their daily talks, he would always describe something he would like to do to her body. A single sentence interjected in the conversation with his baritone voice. It drove her to madness. Her body would respond just like it did that night in the truck, even without his touch. His voice and his choice of words sent shock waves of intense pleasure throughout her body. Ripples of ecstasy from her sex organs up her spine and out through the top of her head.

“Damn, Rick, what are you doing to me?”

In actuality, Petra’s lust-driven response held only a minimal connection to him; instead, it arose from The Hound’s new found freedom.

She woke to a text from him.

“I miss you. I love you. Can I call you my girlfriend?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“I want to be with you. Come to Jupiter.”

This time, she surprised him.

“I can visit for three days when you get back from New York.”

Doing the math, that was almost four weeks away. She asked him about his place in Jupiter. It sounded just like his condo in Santa Rosa.

“If you really want me to visit, it has to be in a hotel. Somewhere neutral. Does that work for you?”

He hung up. Less than one hour later, he had booked reservations at The Jupiter Spa and Resort. He also arranged an appointment for a massage and a facial. She telephoned Luna and told her what he’d done.

“That’s amazing. He’s such a great guy. You deserve it!”

With a projected date for sex on the books, their talk became even more explicit, stopping just short of actual phone sex.

As if all that was not enough, Petra, in a vision, revisited the location Simone dragged her to when she hijacked her mind. As a mere observer, she felt neither uneasy nor afraid.

Simone and “The Boy” sat at the end of the dock. They had their arms around each other, holding and comforting one another. Each was in a dissociative state, fleeing some brutal form of abuse. It appeared they had met and connected many times on the wooden dock. It was their special place in an alternate reality; a safe retreat when all hell broke loose on Earth. Peering over the still water of a surreal lake, they found their breath and gathered enough courage to go on.

She told Rick about the vision and he did not dismiss her. Maybe he thought it polite to humor her. He had an earthy and grounded three-dimensional spirituality, rooted in the practical principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. Part of her thought his belief system was a perfect fit. It created a harmonious balance that offset her meanderings through alternate dimensions. Petra’s spirituality, one might say, floated in the clouds of her imagination.

On her first couple of dates with Rick, she experienced an eerie combination of memory and foreshadowing as they watched the sunset over the Gulf. And again, in Watercolor, when he pulled the truck over to the side of the road. Out of the window, on a picturesque dirt path flanked by mossy beds, a child’s bike lay on its side, the back tire spinning slowly to a stop. The path led to a long dock overlooking a lake. The scene sent familiar chills up her spine and the image seared itself into her memory.

“Is Simone manifesting components of her fantasy relationship in my world?”

“What if she’s creating unbreakable psychic ties to Rick?”

“Has she decided that he is the grown-up version of her imaginary best friend?”

Petra studied Rick’s face and wondered if some part of him had experienced a sense of déjà vu as well. She thought about dinner at the restaurant bar. How she had cozied up to him and draped her leg over his as he pulled her close. The experience felt instinctive, as though performed countless times before. She wondered if he would one day wake up; if he would remember her and comprehend their deeper connection.

Simone’s fantasy infected Petra’s reality. She resisted the temptation to discuss the vision further, reasoning that it might remind him of the comment she made about similar childhood dysfunctions manifesting in intense physical attractions.

Like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water, she slowly marched toward destruction. She was falling in love with Rick under Simone’s masterful hand. An undercurrent of unhealthy dependency formed beneath the surface. A bizarre and unsubstantiated fear of losing him, either to death or incompatibility, developed inside her. The looming physical intimacy troubled her; it wasn’t him, but her own dysfunction that generated the fear. She declared war on her demons.

“After all, I’m a sober and spiritual person, aren’t I?”

If she failed to overcome her past, he would abandon her. While she tried her best to address her limitations, Rick was busy orchestrating his own scripted fantasy.

Petra began spending more and more time in altered states of consciousness. Her gifts appeared to be growing faster than she was. She kept the bulk of her journeying into other realities to herself, as people often equate clairvoyance with mental illness.

Time dragged by and their longing overwhelming them.

“What if you return for a few days the week before you go to New York?”

Rick liked the idea and devised a plan: “We should take your Camry for a long drive. A car needs to be driven hard for its vehicular health.”

“Are you saying I drive around town like a little old lady?”

He refused to take the bait.

“There’s a cool historic town two and a half hours east called Apalachicola. What if we drive over there for oysters? Do you want to stay overnight?”

Petra thought, “Who exactly needs to be driven hard?”

---

If you would like to support my work, I invite you to make a donation. “Buy Me a Coffee” is a friendly metaphor, not real coffee. Each “coffee” is $5 and you can buy as many as you like. It is a one time much appreciated gift. Thank you for caring!