He frowned and glanced back toward the bath. “I’m sorry?”
“What did your wife do to make you fall that in love with her? Be so devoted to her? I mean, even that first night I saw you, when I wasn’t covered with bruises . . . you left me at the club. Most men would have come in and we would have . . . we woulda been together and not because you paid for me.”
Putting the skirt back, Butch wandered up to the bags and the shoes, although he didn’t see any of the thousands and thousands of dollars of high-end luxury goods. Even as his fingers brushed over the Hermès and the Louis, he was picturing instead the first time he’d seen his Marissa. It had been back at Darius’s house, back when the place had just been a flophouse for the Brotherhood. He’d been waiting in an elegant parlor to find out if he was going to be killed by what he assumed was a group of drug dealers—when bam! His life changed forever.
Marissa had walked into the archway, wearing a chiffon gown that belonged on a queen, her long, fair hair down to her hips, her clean, ocean scent tantalizing him. She had been so beautiful and so sad at the same time, an ethereal goddess he was not worthy to gaze upon.
And then she had looked at him.
“Nothing,” he said in a gravel voice. “My wife didn’t have to do anything. She just walked into my sight and I knew. Everything about her was perfect as far as I was concerned, and absolutely nothing—nothing at all—has made me question that perfection since.”
“How long have you been together?”
“Three years.”
There was a soft sound of water, as if she were moving in the tub. “And you’ve never had an argument?”
“Not really. I mean, if we disagree, we don’t get angry. We both just want to figure out a compromise so we can get rid of the tension.”
“Does she dress for you? I mean, is that how she keeps your interest? Does she change her lingerie a lot? Do you role-play for sex?”
Butch regarded the racks of clothes, all the colors and fabrics, the styles and cuts, the eras, represented in the collection.
He shrugged. “She could be wearing a burlap sack. A ten-year-old T-shirt. A pair of long johns or a polyester track suit. It’s not about what she has on. And role-play? I want her. Anything else is inferior so why would she dress up for me?”
“She must do something. Her hair—what does her hair look like?”
“You’re searching for a physical explanation. Something tangible. You’re not going to find it because that’s not the point.” He touched his cross through his Under Armor. “It’s like faith. It just is.”
When Mel fell silent, he was happy enough to let the subject drop. Except then the scent of tears got his attention.
He looked back over to the tub. Mel was still staring straight ahead as she cried in silence, her tears landing in the water.
“Mel,” he said softly. “Please let me call that doctor friend of mine? It’s a female and she’s very good.”
“No.” She wiped her face and looked down at her fingertips. “I just wasn’t enough, I guess. For him, the one I love . . . at the end of the day, he just didn’t want me. It’s a hard truth to accept. And you’re right, I’m looking for physical explanations because I’d rather there be something more external for why he didn’t love me back. Something less about the inside of me. You can change your clothes and your hair, put on a different lipstick, do your nails a different way. But when it’s who you are, you can’t really work with that, you know?”
“But maybe it was on him. Maybe he wasn’t ready. Maybe there was something wrong with the bastard.”
“The one he ended up with is nothing like me.”
“So his picker is wrong.” Butch went over and sat down in an armchair that faced away from the tub. In that huge mirror, on the left, he could still see her in the bath, though. “I know this is hard. But you’re blaming yourself for something that may not have a damn thing to do with you. I know it sounds like wicked bullshit, but it’s his loss and I hope he regrets it for the rest of his natural life.”