by Tammy Bench
There was a long pause.
‘I do.’
‘Baby, I’m not stupid. I know you’ll have to make things right with your husband and after what happened tonight I also know I’ve screwed up beyond redemption. I live in the real world and I know what works and what doesn’t. But I do need to see you – if you will see me?’
Silence again.
‘Hell, what have I got to lose?’
‘Give me the address and I’ll be there in five minutes,’ he ran down the stairs and grabbed Neil’s car keys and opened the front door. He looked again at the alloys with big scuffs and chips all over them. He hadn’t seen it yet – all good things come to those who wait – he swallowed quickly and dismissed the uncomfortable thought.
‘It’s 32 Anderson Drive, near the tennis centre. But make it ten minutes I have to clean my teeth too and get dressed. I’m in bed, in my pyjamas.’
‘Leave them on,’ he started the car.
‘Are you already in the car?’
‘Yep – get brushing,’ he said and hung up. He put the car in gear and started the drive to her sister’s house. Adrenaline of a different kind powering his actions now. He needed to get to her.
He was down, but he wasn’t out… and he wasn’t done yet.
“YOU AIN’T JUST WHISTLIN’ DIXIE”
Saturday 7th August
She jumped out of bed and pulled on a cardigan over her thin camisole top, she didn’t bother with a bra. Her Ugg boots over her pyjama bottoms made her look like a Cossack dancer. She brushed her teeth and then her hair. She quickly applied mascara to try and go some way to hide her hours of crying. She looked like shit. But it was dark and a car would offer very little light, so she may well get away with it.
She crept down the stairs and looked out of the kitchen window. She saw his car parked at the kerb. His interior light was on and he glanced towards the house. She put her hand up to him, picked up her phone and borrowed a set of keys from the hall table. She quietly shut the door behind her and tip-toed down the gravel drive.
She studied his face in the dark, through the car window… and that was enough. She was young Alice again. He was nearby, she was looking at him and suddenly everything got fuzzy around the edges. No peripheral vision, just one singular thing pulling her body without ever asking her brain if it wanted to go along for the ride.
When he had said to her that he had ruined his chances by half-killing Stuart she hadn’t corrected him. It probably should have been the case. But walking towards him now she couldn’t think about anything more terrifying than leaving him again, even if she had to.
He reached over and opened the door for her.
‘You really screwed Neil’s wheels,’ she smiled at the rhyme in spite of herself as she got into the car.
‘It’s been an expensive trip. New alloys and bedroom door.’
She turned to him and gasped, ‘Oh my goodness that looks painful.’
He smiled sarcastically, ‘yeah, I think it’s going to leave a little bruise.’
‘Sorry,’ she said for what felt like the tenth time. She met his gaze, smiled a little and he smiled back.
‘I’m sorry for letting him get to me. It’s just what he said about your daughter and everything else. I’m too old to be doing stupid things like that though – I shouldn’t have hurt him. You didn’t need that.’
‘I didn’t, but it’s done now. It would’ve been horrible either way. If I had left him, he would have found out about us sooner or later and the reaction would have been the same. More than the cheating it was who it was with that hurt him the most, I think.’
‘I can understand that I suppose.’
‘What’s the plan, Chambers?’ she asked with a smile. She was beyond upset and concern now, she may as well just live for a bit longer with him and add a little more onto the guilt pile for tomorrow’s harsh light of day reality check. What genius said things always look better in the morning? She had a sinking feeling it wouldn’t apply to her situation in the slightest.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he gripped the wheel and she watched his fingers move over the new leather and his left hand drop to the gear stick. She was always transfixed by him. Whatever he did, however bad she felt, it never failed to surprise or intrigue her. Watching him do the most normal things pleased her on a level she didn’t understand. Stuart was right, she was obsessed with this man.
‘It’s been so long since I last watched you drive.’
‘Watched me drive?’ he raised his eyebrows.
‘Shut up,’ she smiled, ‘you know what I mean.’
‘Would you believe me if I told you I still have the same car?’
‘No.’
‘I do. She’s still going,’ he glanced in her direction.
‘That’s kind of strange – but I like that you still have it. It’s how I always pictured you.’
‘I always pictured you with long hair and a school uniform. I had been selling you so short, if only I had seen what your beauty had grown into sooner.’
‘How have you stayed the same? Not aged?’ she asked.
‘I’ve aged. I think they call what you are suffering from ‘eye of the beholder syndrome’ it’s very common in matters of true love,’ he joked.
‘Is that right?’ she said shaking her head.
‘The only cure is a course of rigorous sexual therapy, followed by long years of living in close quarters with the object of your desires. Only then will you see the man exactly as he is… so I’ve heard anyway?’ he shrugged.
They drove for about ten minutes and when she realised where they were heading she smiled. This was where he wanted to say goodbye?
He didn’t bother to indicate to turn left into the school driveway. At this hour they were one of the only cars on the road anyway. He pulled into one of the parking spaces but left the engine running for the heater, it was a chilly night and they both had forgotten coats.
‘So?’ she turned to him.
‘So,’ he replied, ‘this was our place, Alice. This is where we met, this is where we fell in love and it’s also the place…’ he stopped and pointed towards the playing fields where her heart was broken, ‘we nearly killed each other when I walked away from you.’
She looked out onto the pitch black field. He was parked here the night he had done it and she had watched him drive away feeling like the world had just pulled the rug out from under her feet.
‘Do you really want a repeat of what happened, Tom? Because I don’t think my heart can take it.’
He shook his head.
‘What then?
‘I want to erase what happened there.’
‘You can’t erase history,’ she replied sadly.
‘But we could re-write the scene, tweak it and maybe we would be able to remember things differently from now on?’ he turned his head and caught her eye, ‘I don’t know about you but that day was one of the worst days of my life. I think about you crying and the things we said and I hate myself. This week has been so unexpected and so fucking unreal. I want to remember this, the way we are now when I get home and not what happened here the last time.’
‘How do you plan on doing that? It’s been that way for so long. Okay, we’re different, but I still sit here and feel the same loss. I’ll always feel it when I think about this school.’
‘We make a new memory,’ he half smiled, ‘and we do it here, there…’ he pointed to the playing field again.
‘You want to go over there and say goodbye in a way that will make it all better?’
‘I know it sounds crazy,’ he waited for her reply.
‘I’m wearing pyjamas. It’s freezing, not to mention stupid o’clock in the morning,’ she frowned at him.
‘That’s what’s stopping you?’ he asked, his eyes twinkling cheekily.
She felt a bit like a party pooper, but shrugged.
Tom shoved the car into reverse and pulled out of the space quickly. He turned the car in the direct
ion of the playing fields and looked towards her flashing a wicked grin. He revved the engine and gunned the car forward, up the kerb, over the path and onto the grass.
‘You can’t do that, Tom… oh my god, what’re you thinking!’ she shouted and laughed at the same time.
He drove fast onto the middle of the field, churning up mud as he went. He swung the car around to face the way they had come and pulled the handbrake up to help them stop. She bounced back in her seat and stared at him with an open mouth. They were parked in exactly the right spot.
‘Now you’re warm, no one can see your pyjamas and we’re where I wanted us,’ he laughed a little, ‘I haven’t felt like that in quite a while. Maybe I should do bad things more often…’
‘Oh my God,’ she said again. She looked around them quickly, convinced security would be patrolling or the police would whizz around the corner any minute with their blues flashing.
Tom turned off the headlights and let everything fall dark and silent.
They were probably safe.
‘You’re crazy,’ she looked at him.
‘So you tell me.’
‘Don’t change,’ she could feel tears threaten in her eyes but blinked them back.
‘I couldn’t anyway,’ he answered truthfully.
‘I’m never going to be able to forget you, Tom,’ she said out of the blue, the words taking her by surprise, ‘all these damn years and I’m still in love with my English teacher – you could write a book about it.’
‘I will never forget a single moment that we spent together. I never hoped to even wish for a week like we’ve had. I didn’t think I’d still feel the same about you, but I do and if it’s possible I think I love you more.’
She turned to him and studied his profile, she wanted to touch his lips and feel his thick hair under her fingertips.
‘Life has a way of standing in our path,’ he looked out into the darkness.
She nodded sadly, ‘Yes, it does. I think it’s because the universe acknowledges that we’re a wrong fit, but refuses to give up hope that we’ll ignore her advice and do what feels right to us. That we just might be pre-destined to be together. It’s like Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit – the minute we taste it everything around us seems to go to shit. All accept the glorious taste of the succulent ripe apple, lingering just long enough to leave us wanting it forever,’ she grinned at him.
‘Nice analogy,’ Tom said and reached for her hand.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said quietly.
‘Who’s the apple?’ Tom asked.
Alice smiled, ‘you are.’
‘No, you are,’ he corrected her.
‘Maybe we’re both apples?’ she laughed.
‘Maybe you’re the whole damn orchard,’ he watched her closely as he spoke the words. Her eyes met his and she turned away quickly. Tom would never stop. She had panicked because within seconds she felt the age old pull in her gut, the light tap dance of butterflies over her skin and her heartbeat quicken.
‘Why’re you afraid?’ he whispered, ‘there’s nothing we can do that is any worse than what we have already done,’ he picked up her other hand and held them between both of his.
She didn’t look at him, ‘Tom, I’m not afraid I’m just…’ his warm hands distracted her from what she was saying, ‘…complicated. I’m complicated.’
‘I think in this place,’ he looked around the confined space, ‘we’re only Tom and Alice. Nothing is complicated within the realm of us.’
‘Just everything outside of us…’
He nodded, ‘yes.’
She looked up at him and intertwined her fingers with his. She felt him squeeze her hand gently. He stared at her with the eyes of a sea god, so blue they still shone in the relative darkness. He moved closer to her face and she didn’t turn away.
‘Alice, I’ll never give you up, you know? You might be a thousand miles away from me but in my heart you’ll be right here,’ he leaned in and kissed her lips so softly for just a few seconds. As he pulled away she followed him, her eyes were closed and everything about him filled her mind. His smell, his taste and the smallest touch of his skin, no amount of tender goodbye would be enough to sate her appetite for him.
‘I never wanted you to,’ she whispered as they parted.
She would never love or want anyone as much as she loved and wanted him. Honour and loyalty paled in the shadow of a truer love, as it probably always should. Nothing he could do would ever change the way she felt about him. For as long as he lived she would always be his to command.
‘I’m leaving in a matter of hours. I don’t want to go, but I have to. The thought of not seeing you again is scaring me like you…’
She stopped him with a second kiss. ‘Don’t think about that. Tom, we’re here together and if we truly only have a few hours left together, we should make them count,’ her eyes moved over his face quickly. His strong jaw flexed and his dimples appeared as she moved back from him.
‘You want to do this now? Here?’ he said feeling puzzled and promptly cringed at his comment.
She smiled at his look, ‘there’s not a second in your company that I don’t.’
Alice reached up and slipped the cardigan from her shoulders.
‘I should have done it here, that night, when every part of my body was screaming at me to lie you down in the rain and make love to you. My student? My lover? It shouldn’t have mattered. Look at how little our age matters now. But instead my head had said leave…’
‘A new memory then?’ she blinked.
He grabbed her arms and pulled her on top of his lap. His large body beneath her made her feel powerful. He fixed her with an emotive gaze that radiated sexual possession and male heated pride. Making her yearn for him to touch her properly. She traced her hands over his chest and his own pulled her towards him forcefully.
Her breath caught in her throat.
He nodded in agreement, ‘a new one.’
Tom reached up and slipped the straps of her top over her shoulders. The thin, feather-like silk fell away from her body pooling at her waist.
He smiled. Then he leaned forward and drew her nipple into his hot mouth. Slowly he pulled on the sensitised flesh and his tongue traced circles over the tip. Her head fell backwards and she felt herself respond to his exquisite ministrations with primal force. She felt reckless already and he hadn’t even undressed. Her own reactions scared her, he scared her and losing this feeling terrified her.
His warm hands played up and down the flesh of her back, as his mouth continued to push her closer. He kissed the side of her breast and upwards towards her neck, she leaned her head back further offering herself to him.
‘You smell so good,’ she sighed as he kissed his way along her jaw.
‘You smell like prey,’ he growled biting her ear lope gently.
Another stab of arousal came at her.
‘Tom, I think I want to tell you something… I don’t know if I do though?’ she breathed heavily and wriggled a little on his strong thighs and he responded by thrusting upwards against her playfully.
Why was she still talking? Why did she have this need to spill all her secrets to him, embarrass herself and spoil the moment?
‘Oh?’ Tom pulled impatiently at the elastic waistband of her pyjama bottoms and she lifted herself up to help him, he pulled them over her bottom and cupped her in his hands.
She unzipped his jeans, prising the stiff material apart, ‘I can only orgasm with you,’ she paused for a moment and wondered why she had said it as a throw away comment. He abruptly jerked her backwards to look at her face. His eyes narrowed, ‘I can’t orgasm through sex without it being with you...’ she confirmed quickly.
Tom held his breath, if she had actually counted the seconds before he spoke she was sure it would have been a record or something.
‘I… are you serious?’
‘Unfortunately,’ she replied, ‘you’re the only man that does what my body wants.
For years I thought you’d put some kind of Irish spell on me so I only responded to your touch.’
A gust of wind coming at them across the open field rocked the car and made her tremble.
Tom shook his head slowly, ‘…no spell.’
‘Anyway where were we?’ she grabbed his hands and placed them back to her waist. Tom didn’t continue though. He left his hands were she had put them and he just stared at her.
‘What?’ she bit her lip and waited.
“AND NOT THE WORDS OF ONE WHO KNEELS”
Saturday 7th August
Floored. All the fancy words in Tom’s head and that was the one that best described the way he felt as she whispered a simple truth in the dark grey moments before dawn broke.
He watched her little face trying to gage his reaction. She waited a long time before she asked him what he was thinking and even then he didn’t know how long it was before he answered her.
She was truly his.
Not only in his dreams or in a jealous figment of his imagination. She was his in reality. She had to be? She had just told him what he always wanted and prayed to be true… that they were meant to be, right from the very start.
How was it possible for a woman as passionate as Alice to feel this way with only him?
He wasn’t stupid, it wasn’t about what he did to her, it was about herself and how her mind let her feel when they were together. He wasn’t a biologist but he was sure hormones and endorphins played a part too.
But the little fact remained the same.
Yours.
He wanted to squeeze her and kiss her and spend every Christmas with her forever. Travel the world by her side and treasure her honesty, beauty and laughter above all other things.
Shit, his marriage hadn’t worked because of her and now her own lay in tatters because of him. Separated for over a decade and still they craved this. They had unlocked her body together on a school trip, one cold night in November, so many years ago. Together they still had the power to surprise and satisfy each other.
Had they been subconsciously searching and waiting for this day?