IN BED WITH THE BOSS

Scott drank his tea. It was very comfortable here by the fire-warm and welcoming. If only his head didn’t feel as though someone had jammed it in between a giant nutcracker, and in the process managed to take away some of the thoughts and associations and familiarity which made him what he normally was.

But how did he know what he normally was? He didn’t know what to believe. He still had childhood memories. He knew his family and his job, but most memories of the past months were missing so he was confused. He put the cup down and looked at Vivian, which was halfway to a cure in itself. She was wearing a soft wool dress, the color of blueberries, and her hair was loose-like the moon against the backdrop of a nearly dark sky. Her legs were spread in front of her and she had kicked her shoes off. He might be only two days out of a coma, but that didn’t mean that all his senses were dead. He might have a little difficulty wanting food as he usually did, but the stirring leap of awareness and the pounding of his heart made him thank God that a very important part of him was still very much alive.

“Vivian?” he called.

Vivian had seen him watching her, studying her in a way she had not seen him do before, except perhaps when they’d been in bed together. His eyes had darkened and suddenly she was reminded of how long it had been since they had made love.

“What?” she said huskily.

For a moment, he almost forgot the question, but with a steely determination he dragged it back out of the reach of growing desire. This was too important to wait. He would not forget anything else; he had forgotten enough. And then it occurred to him that his ability to make love might have been affected. His mouth hardened. Like hell it would!

“How would you describe me? Normally? I mean… when I was with you”

Vivian saw the perplexing pattern of emotions which had flitted across his gorgeous face-expressions she had never seen there before. There had been uncertainty and concern and then the familiar steely resolve.

“Well, you’re Six-three, black hair-”

“Not the way I look-hell, Vivian! I remember all that. I can see in the mirror and have enough imagination to realize that my face isn’t usually black and blue and swollen to twice its size! I mean, how would you describe me-the man. If you’re my lover, then you must know me better than anyone else.”

The irony of his remark didn’t escape her. If she told him that she suspected no one really, really knew him, because he always kept something of himself back-then would that sound like a criticism? And what right did she have to criticize him?

She loved him, didn’t she, in spite of that? She couldn’t make him into a more emotionally giving person just because that suited her template of what her true-love should be. You couldn’t control the way someone was, or adapt them to suit your fantasies.

“What kind of a person are you? To me….” she mused. “Well, I think you’re very hard-working. And disciplined. And focused. You’re very successful. People respect you-”

She was still rambling and she knew it, but she couldn’t help it.

“You make me sound like a machine,” he said, and a note of something like bitterness crept into his voice. “Is that all you see… or saw me as? And you still haven’t answered my question.”

Her voice softened. “Oh, you’re no machine, Scott-I can assure you of that.” She drew a deep breath, because this kind of thing wasn’t easy to say, out cold, from the other side of the room-to a man who technically was your lover but who didn’t remember a thing about you. “You’re a warm, giving lover.” She swallowed. “The best lover I’ve ever had.”

As a testimony it was curiously lacking, and his mind was too tired and too befuddled to put his finger on exactly what it was. Vivian rose to her feet, an anxious look on her face.

“You’ve tired yourself out. You need to rest-”

“I’m not a damned invalid-” he began.

“Well, yes, Scott” she said firmly, coming to stand over him, a stern expression on her face. “Actually, you are at the moment. And if you want to get better, you’re going to have to do exactly as I say… and what your mother and sister say too. The doctor told us to tell you that.”

“And if I refuse?”

Then we will hire a nurse to look after you. Someone like Sandy.”

Scott shuddered as he remembered Bossy-voice and imagined just how much she would crack the whip.

He stared at Vivian . There was something awfully appealing about such an ethereal-looking beauty coming on to him like a school-marm, but something here definitely did not compute. The felt curtain across his mind twitched by just a fraction.

“I’m not used to being told what to do by you, am I?”

She shook her head. “Not by me, not by anyone.”

“Was I a tyrant…. To you… Vivian?”

For a moment she forgot that he was an invalid. “I’m not the kind of person who would go out with a tyrant,” she said drily. “No matter how gorgeous he happened to be.”

“So you think I’m gorgeous, do you?”

It was, she realized, the first time that she had ever dared tell him anything about the way she felt since the accident. “You aren’t bad,” she said grudgingly. “When your face isn’t bruised and battered.”

He laughed. “And I’m definitely not a tyrant?”

She pretended to consider this. “Out of ten on the tyrannical scale, you would score a fairly modest rating of three.” She took a deep breath. He seemed to want to hear the truth, so surely she should give it to him. “As you know, you are master of your own kingdom, Scott” she said slowly. “That’s all. You live life entirely on your own terms.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Maybe not to such a great extent.”

She seemed to be talking about herself. He wanted to ask her more. Like why-but an overwhelming lassitude had started to seep into his bones. He closed his eyes and yawned.

“Now you really are going to bed,” she said severely.

The eyes flew open and there was a mocking look glinting in their depths which made Vivian’s heart turn over. Come back to me, Scott, she pleaded silently. Please come back to me.

Until the awful thought occurred to her that this new Scott was infinitely softer, more malleable, and far easier to relate to.

What if the old Scott came back and she found that she was no longer prepared to cope with the relationship on the old terms? That they had broken up. But that was jumping ahead a step too far.

“Bedtime,” she said unsteadily. “You need to rest. I’ll go check if your mom needs some help.”

———-

For the next couple of days Scott recuperated, using the most powerful method of recuperation which existed.

He slept. For hours and hours at a time, tucked up in his big four-poster bed.

Vivian found out that she absolutely loved his mother and sister. Felicia McCall was warm, caring and welcoming, while Sara McCall was a bit quiet but friendly all the same. They loved Scott, and she envied the warmth in the household. She considered Scott lucky to have such family members.

Scott was recovering, but he still spent a lot of time in his room. The first time she had taken him up there, she had watched him carefully, to see if there was some kind of reaction to her, But there had been none. No stirring of memory- though that did not mean that he’d been indifferent to her body. No way. He had laconically raised his dark eyebrows over tired eyes.

“Going to join me, Vivian?” he yawned.

Vivian bent her head to pull back the duvet, not wanting him to see any trace of vulnerability, or sadness. What she wouldn’t have given to have climbed in beside him, wrapped her naked body next to his and hugged him tight. Not wanting sex from him, just closeness and wanting to give him comfort in return.

But she could not envisage a scenario where they went to bed without making love-it was not that kind of relationship anymore, and besides they were in his mother’s house. Scott loved sex. Well, so did she, for that matter-especially with him-but sometimes she found herself wishing for the intimacy which came without having sex.

Not for them the lazy familiarity which came from being totally relaxed in each other’s company. There had always been reservations, barriers between them. Her wishing he would let his guard down and him always being wary of giving too much away. And although their relationship had been satisfying-there had never, not once, been a shared vision of a future together.