by Unknown
“Absolutely!” Stormy said loudly.
“Shake on it?” Marcus stuck his hand out.
Stormy took it and they started shaking.
BAD IDEA…
...because next thing, he was pulling her into the bathroom and onto his lap.
9
Maybe there’s a self-help group for it
“Double oops,” Stormy said, this time with her back pressed up against a hard metal towel rail on the bathroom wall.
They peeled themselves off each other with a squeaky sound, once again both reeling from what had just happened. AGAIN!
Stormy was almost positive she remembered doing something that might have resembled an actual cartwheel at some stage. Possibly even a headstand and a pirouette.
“I don’t think double oops quite cuts it, Stormy,” Marcus said, wrapping a towel around himself and looking positively sheepish.
“Okay, well, triple-to-the-max-oops,” Stormy countered.
“We’ve got a serious problem here,” Marcus replied crisply, walking out of the bathroom briskly.
“Maybe there’s a self-help group for it. We could get a sponsor and a key ring,” Stormy joked flippantly as she followed him out.
“Sex addicts anonymous?” Marcus suggested in jest.
Stormy shook her head. “This only happens when I’m around you.”
“Really? I doubt that.” The sarcasm in his tone instantly rubbed Stormy up the wrong way, and – still naked – she assumed her hand-on-hip pose.
“What are you trying to say? That I’m some kind of slutty-slut-slut who randomly sleeps with strange men at the drop of a cap?”
“Hat.”
“What?”
“Drop of a hat.”
“Same thing!” she said, stamping her foot and feeling utterly exacerbated by his irritating habit of correcting almost everything that came out of her mouth.
“Not the same thing. Crap, put some clothes on, why don’t you.”
“Fine!” she huffed. She turned back into the bathroom and found the rugby jersey dangling from the light fixture… how the hell had it gotten there?
“You wear both on your head. Caps and hats. Same thing,” she called out from the bathroom as she pulled the dress on.
“Fine,” Marcus conceded. “I don’t want to argue about head apparel. Can we just talk about this thing that keeps happeningbetween us?”
“What is there to say? We keep having sex. Clearly there’s an attraction between us and it’s very powerful and we can’t seem to control it. It’s in our stars.”
Marcus sat on the bed and held his head in his hands. “You seriously never do this with other guys?”
Stormy shook her head as she emerged from the bathroom again, this time fully dressed. “Never. And never like that!”
“Like what?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly very calm sex, was it?”
“No. I guess not,” Marcus responded, smiling a little.
“I mean, it wasn’t exactly gentle.”
“No.”
“It was hot and wild and hard and fast and –”
“Okay, okay, you can stop now! I was there too, I know what kind it was.”
There was a pause as they both thought about their options.
“Me too,” Marcus finally spoke. “I never do this either, I mean. And not like that.”
The wind outside had gotten louder and the sound of the rain pelting against the window forced them to raise their voices over it. “Why is it such a bad thing?” Stormy eventually asked. It was something she’d been thinking about. They were two consenting adults, after all – what was so wrong with them having sex?
Marcus looked up at her. “Well, you and I… We just wouldn’t… I mean…”
Stormy suddenly saw where this was going and interrupted him quickly before he got the wrong idea about her. “Hey, I’m not looking for a relationship with you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No, no, of course…”
“What I’m trying to say is that we’re not going to fall in love with each other. That’s ridiculous.”
Marcus laughed out loud. “No. We could never fall in love with each other.”
Stormy nodded in agreement. “Never. Imagine you and me in a relationship…”
“I can’t even imagine it,” Marcus said.
“Me neither!” Stormy plonked herself onto the bed and nudged him playfully with her shoulder. “Anyway, remember what the stars said: not good in relationships.”
“So… are you saying we just keep having sex with each other?” Marcus asked.
“Maybe – what’s the harm?” Stormy shrugged. “It would be completely unemotional. No strings. No feelings. No one would get hurt because neither of us wants to get involved with each other.”
“Definitely not – I can’t imagine introducing you to my friends or work colleagues, they would all think I’d gone mad!” Marcus laughed a little too loudly. “Or that it was an April Fool’s joke or something.”
Stormy’s stomach dropped. Something in that statement really hurt her. Was she so bad that the idea of introducing her to his friends was a complete joke? Was she somehow beneath him? Did he think he was better than her? “Why, am I a circus freak or something? Beneath you and your kind?” she asked sardonically, folding her arms across her chest defensively.
Marcus turned to her. “No, I don’t mean that at all. I just mean that you’re… different. You’re not really from my world.”
“Oh, right, because I’m from planet Zorg.”
“There is no planet Zorg.”
“There could be, maybe we just haven’t discovered it yet,” she countered.
“Whatever, Stormy,” Marcus sighed loudly. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep on the floor, before we say things that we both regret. We can talk about this in the morning.” With that, he grabbed a pillow and lay down on the stained carpet. There was nothing else Stormy could do but retreat to the bed, even though she wasn’t even vaguely tired.
The atmosphere in the room was so tense, you could feel it crackling in the air, and Stormy desperately wanted some kind of a distraction from the thoughts disrupting her usually happy ones…
She was thinking about him: the sex, the way he drove her crazy and how they argued all the time. How he’d insulted her. It had hurt, but it was not completely unfamiliar to her. People often made the wrong assumptions about her. She’d had a tough life, she didn’t earn a lot of money, sometimes she’d had nowhere else to stay but on friends’ couches – some people saw that as weakness. She saw it as freedom.
“A-choo!” Marcus sneezed loudly over the howling wind outside. “A-choo! A-choo! A-choo! A-choo!” It sounded like he was having a full-blown sneezing fit now.
“Are you okay?” Stormy asked, leaning over the edge of the bed and looking at him.
“I have… A-choo!… dust… A-choo!… allergies, the carpet… A-choo!... it’s… A-choo!”
Of course Marcus had allergies, it made perfect sense. “Fine, I’ll take the floor, you take the bed.”
“I could never do that… A-choo!… still a gentlemen… A-choo!”
Stormy sat in silence, contemplating the solution. The bathroom floor was too hard for someone to lie on. There was only one small bed…
“Get up here, we’ll sleep head to foot.”
Marcus squinted up at her through red-rimmed, puffy eyes that were starting to water. It was clear that it would only get worse if he stayed on the carpet all night.
“Fine,” he sighed.
The bed was tiny, and trying to fit both of them on it head-to-foot was proving impossible. She practically had a toe up her nose, and every time either of them moved, they were assaulted by a heel in the head.
“This isn’t working,” S
tormy finally said after feeling his foot grinding up against her forehead. “Just get up here.”
“I’ll sleep on top of the blanket,” he said as he shifted.
“Fine.”
Marcus turned around and lay next to her. The bed was so tiny that their bodies were pushing up against each other, but at least she was under the blanket. They lay there in silence, listening to each other’s breathing and the rain whipping against the window. Eventually, he heard Stormy’s breathing getting longer and softer as she fell asleep. He couldn’t seem to drift off, though, and found himself lying in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t know how long he’d been lying there like that when suddenly Stormy turned over and her arm flopped across his chest.
He squirmed uncomfortably, trying to shift it without waking her, but when she stirred she only tightened her grip and her head came to rest on his chest.
He froze, stiff as a board, as she cuddled into his side.
But then Marcus surprised himself as his arm came around her. He surprised himself even more when he stuck his face into her hair and inhaled her smell. And he was positively astounded when he found himself maneuvering into a position that allowed him to wrap himself around her. She let out a small sigh and moved even closer to him.
What the crap was he doing? He had absolutely no idea. But for some reason, she felt so warm and comforting.
Without thinking, he planted a tiny, soft kiss on her forehead and closed his eyes.
10
Red, flashing warning signs
Stormy dreamed that she and Marcus were kissing. Not the kind of kissing they’d been doing – the hungry, messy, desperate kissing – but the other kind.
The soft, gentle, slow kind.
The kind loaded with meaning and feelings.
In her dream, they were lying in bed, holding each other like lovers who’d spent the night together. The sun was streaming through the window and onto their faces, and it felt like they could lie there for an eternity. Their eyes were closed and she felt his hands come up and pull her shirt off over her head. She reciprocated, pulling his off too, and their chests were bare, naked and pressing into each other. There was no frantic urgency this time – it was slow, delicious, gentle…
“WHAAAA!” Stormy screamed and went tumbling backwards out of the bed.
“WHAT?” Marcus woke with a start and scrambled out the bed too.
“What the fricking hell!” Stormy screamed at him as she pulled herself up into a sitting position.
“What?” Marcus looked confused and frightened.
“You took my shirt off! And you kissed me!”
“I didn’t kiss you!” Marcus objected, touching his lips. But Stormy saw a look of surprise cross his face as he realized that he tasted her.
“That was real…. It wasn’t a dream?” he asked. It was obvious that he’d been having the same dream as Stormy.
“NO! You kissed me and tried to undress me while I was sleeping.”
“Excuse me,” Marcus protested angrily. “You were kissing me back, and I’m not wearing a shirt either. You took it off.”
Stormy paused, her eyes slipping down over his chiseled chest. Goddess, she would never get over how perfect his body was. “Okay. Good point. So we both took advantage of each other,” she admitted.
“Jesus, this is crazy, you know that? We can’t even control ourselves when we’re unconscious,” Marcus said, sounding exasperated. She watched as he started rummaging under the blanket for their shirts and tossed Stormy’s back to her.
She nodded and slipped the rugby jersey on. “It is.” She touched her mouth, a sudden and rather horrifying thought striking her. “Eeew, I can’t believe we kissed with morning breath.”
Marcus shrugged. “I can’t believe we kissed at all.”
Stormy suddenly realized that the room was much quieter than it had been the night before. As if reading her mind, Marcus climbed out of the tiny bed and opened the curtains. Bright sunlight streamed in – it was as if the storm hadn’t even happened the night before.
“Well, at least there’s some good news – the storm seems to have passed. Maybe we can catch a flight out of here today after all,” he said, gazing out. Stormy couldn’t help but notice how the sunlight played off the natural highlights in his hair. She was noticing far too many things about Marcus all of a sudden – those eyes, those perfect kissable lips, those really big manly hands, those… Stop! Think about something else.
Stormy got up and walked over to the window. Even though the sun was out, there were signs of the storm everywhere. The streets were littered with garbage and a few more unusual items – a rouge garden chair, a grocery trolley and a mannequin, which looked very disturbing, sprawled on the curb in an oddly contorted pose. A few palm trees had bent and some had even fallen over. Huge puddles of water filled the road and water was gushing like raging rapids out of drainpipes.
“So what’s the plan, then?” Stormy finally asked.
“Go to the airport, and see if we can get a flight out of here. I need to buy a new phone, too. We have the rehearsal dinner tomorrow and the wedding the day after – if nothing else goes wrong, we should be able to make it to both.”
“Careful what you say – don’t tempt Fate,” Stormy said, rapping her knuckles against the wooden window frame superstitiously. “But anyway, that’s not what I meant,” she added, turning to him with a pointed look as she tried to convey the real meaning of her question telepathically.
“Oh!” Marcus finally clicked. “That… I don’t know.”
“Well, we have two options, really,” she declared, holding up her fingers to count them off. “One, we keep doing this. Two, we put an end to it immediately, and make a pact that it will not happen again. A real pact that we stick to, not like before.”
Marcus looked at her like he was considering the options. “Well, we’ve both agreed that we’d never work in a relationship,” he said finally.
“Never,” Stormy nodded in agreement.
“And I don’t want stuff to get complicated between us.”
“Definitely not.”
“So let’s put and end to it. Draw a line in the sand. For real this time.”
“I can deal with that,” Stormy replied.
“So it’s a deal: no more kissing and touching, and definitely no more sex.”
“Right – let’s shake on it,” Stormy said, extending her hand. “But for real-zees this time,” she echoed Marcus’s sentiments. Marcus looked at it hesitantly, and Stormy had a sudden flash of what had happened last time their hands had touched – five seconds later, she’d been straddling him. She quickly pulled her hand back again. “Um, how bout we give that a miss – no touching, starting now.”
“Okay. No touching,” he agreed.
An hour later, they were at the airport, receiving some more bad news.
“What do you mean, no flights today?” Stormy could see that Marcus was getting worked up.
“I’m sorry, the runway has sustained damage from the storm, and we have some communications knocked out,” the battered-looking desk clerk explained. She looked like she had spent the morning being yelled at by frustrated tourists – which she probably had, Stormy thought. Her aura was giving off a distinctive dark non-glow glow. Stormy felt sorry for her.
“I’m sorry, sir, there is really nothing we can do,” she apologized again.
“We have a wedding to get to in Prague.”
“May I make a suggestion?” the desk clerk asked. “Moi airport in Mombasa is operational, and there are international flights taking off from there. A lot of passengers are driving there to catch flights, but you’d better book now as they’re filling up fast. The drive is about six and a half hours and if you leave now, you’ll get there before it’s dark. I’m sorry… We just don’t know when we will be oper
ational again.”
Marcus sighed. “Would you be able to phone and arrange a flight and a car for us?” he asked her, and she nodded.
There were bonuses to being abusiness class passenger, Stormy reflected as the desk clerk immediately picked up her phone – the airline staff were really keen to help you.
Stormy wandered away from the airline counter – after closing her eyes quickly and sending some positive vibey-vibes to the woman behind the desk – leaving Marcus to organize their transport, and looked around the airport. People were camped out on the floor and on chairs, and many of them looked like they’d slept there the night before. She adjusted Marcus’s tracksuit pants, hitching them higher up her waist – they were far too big for her, but she was tired of looking like a stripper, so she’d rolled the legs up and fastened the front with a belt. She was also wearing another one of his shirts.
“Okay, there’s a flight to Dubai tomorrow morning, then a two-hour stopover, and on to Prague,” Marcus reported, catching up to her. “If we do that, we’ll just make it to the wedding rehearsal. We should arrive with a few hours to spare, but that’s the best we can do. I’ve arranged accommodation in Mombasa for the night… separate rooms this time. And in the meantime, let’s buy a phone and some clothes for you.”
“I don’t have the money for new clothes.”
“Here,” Marcus slid a credit card out of his wallet and offered it to her.
“I’m not taking your money,” Stormy said, folding her arms across her chest.
Marcus shook his head. “Stop being so stubborn. Take it. Buy yourself a few outfits.”
“No! What I am wearing is fine, thanks.”
She felt Marcus eye her up and down. “It’s swimming on you, those pants are about to fall off. And if that happens, it might just land us in more trouble.”
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do,” she conceded. Careful not to brush his fingers with hers, she took the credit card he was still holding out to her.
“I’m going to buy a phone, and some food and drinks for the journey. Meet back here in an hour.”