Cliché

by Ryleigh Sloan

  I pulled back and shoved his shoulder. “Can you just try to behave?”

  “Not a chance. Not with you gift-wrapped for me like that.”

  I swatted arm lightly. “You’re incorrigible.” I slipped my hand into his and we made our way up a flight of stairs and into the waiting area. Tables and chairs were placed at intervals in front of the juice bar. We each grabbed a glass of cucumber-mint water and made our way to the couches lining the wall. Kevin walked outside to stare at the view of the golf course and the Waterberg mountains beyond. Chairs were placed on the patio for those wanting to sit outside and watch the golfers but I preferred to stay cool indoors while sipping on my water. My dad would play golf every day of his life if he could but I didn’t get it; people choosing to spend their day smacking at little white balls only to chase after them and smack them away again didn’t seem like a good way to relax to me.

  Two girls came in and headed for the long bench carved out of stone and lined with cushions in beige, burgundy, and chocolate. They took turns taking photos of each other and I smiled at their antics over my glass.

  The short girl with blonde hair streaked with turquoise and green spotted Kevin leaning over the balcony and elbowed her friend taking a selfie. They whispered and gestured. The girl with the dark hair frantically shook her head when the blonde stood and pointed to Kevin. I knew what was coming next and watched as the blonde made her way over to him. He turned as she approached and smiled at her; I swear, if she was wearing panties they’d be sitting around her ankles. He nodded his head and walked over to the bench, positioning himself between the two girls. The brunette looked mortified and could hardly get her camera positioned so she could take a selfie of the three of them. Smiling, I walked over.

  “Hey, would you like me to do that for you?”

  The girl just about dropped her phone in her haste to hand it over to me. Taking a few steps back so I’d get them all in the pic, I positioned the phone. Kevin draped his arms around their shoulders and pulled them close. I fell in love with him all over again. I loved that he knew how much a moment like this would mean to the girls and that he didn’t mind taking two minutes out of his day to make their year.

  I snapped about fifteen shots of them beaming like their smiles were going to take off their faces.

  “Okay girls, give him a kiss.”

  They looked at me and then at Kevin, eyes wide and hopeful. He chuckled and pulled them in closer. The girls each gave him a kiss on his cheek and I snapped the shot. Faces blushed deep crimson and beamed like their Christmas, Valentine’s, and birthdays were all wrapped into one. I handed the girl her phone back and Kevin chatted to them for a few more moments, then walked over to me.

  “If you’re gonna keep giving away free kisses like that I’ll be collecting payment from you,” he teased.

  I wrapped my arms tighter around him and looked up at him. “I’m happy to start paying up now.”

  A door to the left opened and the therapist walked out.

  “Mr. Peyton, we’re ready for you now if you’d like to come through.”

  Terrific timing.

  “I’ll collect later.” He winked. “With interest.”

  The glorious scents of melded massage oils greeted us as we walked into the room. Soft Thai music played in the background and I found I relaxed despite myself. Massages had never been my thing. I don’t know if it was the idea of stranger’s hands touching me or if it was the expectation that I should relax but they’d always had the opposite effect on me. For this reason, Kevin had booked me for a hand massage and himself for a neck and shoulder. The masseuse introduced herself and the other girl already waiting in the room and told us they would give us privacy to undress. She pointed out the hooks behind the door where we could hang our gowns and told us we could cover up with the towels provided. I couldn’t understand why I had to take the gown off for a hand massage but figured the long sleeves would get in the way. The masseuses left the room and we slipped out of the gowns. I took a moment to appreciate Kevin in his black boxer briefs but then quickly hopped on the bed and covered myself with the towel.

  Kevin chuckled as he lay face down on the bed, the towel covering his ass and turned his head towards me.

  “I’ll bet you anything those girls are out there playing rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to touch you,” I teased.

  He leaned on his elbow. “More likely it’s you they’re fighting over.”

  I laughed as the masseuses entered the room. A tiny Pakistani woman walked over to Kevin’s bed while the mocha-skinned girl came to stand next to me. I was impressed with their level of professionalism. Neither of them acted like they had a celebrity in the room with them. Either they had been warned to be on their best behaviour or they saw enough famous people that one more didn’t rate in their day.

  “Claire, I’m Thandi, I’ll be your masseuse for today. Would you mind moving down and resting your head on the towel?”

  I moved down a smidge and she covered my eyes with the corners of the towel. For a moment a feeling of claustrophobia nearly overtook me, but I concentrated on the gentle notes of the music and it helped. I could hear Thandi and Reneshri, Kevin’s masseuse, move around the room, then a strong scent of camphor and something else equally potent hit my nostrils.

  “Breathe deep for me, Claire.”

  The scent was almost overpowering but as I inhaled I felt my airways clear.

  She rubbed her hands together. “Again.”

  I breathed in deeply again.

  “And one last time.”

  I inhaled the scent through my nose one last time and then the aroma became less distinct as she moved away. When she came back to my bed, she busied herself with taking my arms out from under the towel. She lifted my hands and her fingers gently rubbed them with an abundance of hand-cream mixed with oils. The feeling was out of this world. As she rubbed my hand, it felt as though every single muscle in my body was relaxing simultaneously. Her hands moved up my arms and then back to my hands and I couldn’t believe how quickly I was relaxing. For the next twenty minutes, she massaged oils and creams into my arms and I felt myself drift off into that space where you aren’t asleep but you aren’t awake either. The combination of her hands, the relaxing fragrances as well as the music lulling me into a near coma. My arms felt too heavy for my body and if she’d asked me to lift them in that moment, I wouldn’t have been able to.

  She lifted my arms and slipped what felt like a rubber glove with bobbles on the inside over my hands and moments later, I felt tiny tingly pulses in my hands.

  “Claire, I’m going to leave you now, okay? I’ll be back in a while.”

  I wanted to nod my head but that didn’t seem to be working for me, so I grunted out an okay. The door opened and shut and then I heard it click as the lock slid in place—securing our privacy.

  I heard Kevin shifting around and then his lips pressed firmly against mine and I smiled against his mouth. “You’re supposed to be relaxing.”

  “This is how I relax.”

  I felt the towel move off my body and my skin broke out in goose bumps when the cool air blew over me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, trying my best to sound affronted. I wanted to remove the towel from my eyes but the rubber gloves made it impossible. I suppose I could have sat up, but I was revelling in my relaxed state.

  “Taking advantage of a perfect opportunity. Be right back.”

  Moments later I felt his hands on my knees. They felt slick with oil and the scent of coconut filled my nose; surprising, since all the other scents in the room were much stronger. It had to be the fact that I was “blindfolded”; I was more aware of my surroundings now that I couldn’t see and was so relaxed. (That or my senses were overly heightened by Kevin’s proximity.)

  His slick hands worked up my thighs, his fingers gently kneading the oil into my skin. He wasted no time spreading the oil all over my legs with his palms, paying special attention to the muscles
on the inside of my thighs. He gently spread my legs until my feet were dangling over either side of the massage bed. With my eyes covered and my legs spread to max capacity I felt so open and exposed; it was a heady feeling, both equally unsettling and completely arousing.

  “Kev, we’re going to get caught.” I started to sit up but a gentle hand pushed down on my chest.

  “No, we’re not. We’ve got this room to ourselves for half an hour.”

  “How do you know?” I hated to doubt him but the idea of anyone walking in while I was in this position made my palms sweaty.

  “Because I arranged it.”

  I tried to sit up again as I felt my skin flush with embarrassment. I was mortified, they were probably all out there guessing at what was going on in here.

  “Don’t freak out. I told them you were extremely stressed and needed the extra downtime after the massage. They think you’re in here sleeping.” I had no choice but to settle into the bed once more when his palms slid over my ribs and across my tummy, his fingers stroking me into complacency. Part of me wanted to be annoyed that he could bend me to his will so easily. The other part, the one that wanted to surrender, did just that. I didn’t want to be in my head right now. I wanted my body to take over. I wanted Kevin to take over. To possess and own me.

  His fingers moved over my hips and down the sides of my legs, his palms stroked over my inner thighs in slow circles. My breaths laboured as his hands got closer and closer to where I needed them to be. The effort it took to not grab his wrists and place his fingers where I could feel my flesh swelling had sweat breaking out over my skin. The increase in chill between my legs let me know just how wet I was for him and I bit my lip to stop myself from begging him to slide his fingers in me.

  Suddenly, his fingers stopped working and I waited, thinking he might be adding more oil.

  “Fuck, your pussy is beautiful.”

  Everything south of my hips clenched when he hissed out the words. His hands were on me again, more urgent this time but not rushed, worshiping me. They slicked over my sex, his thumbs sliding over my opening then brushing over my clit, one thumb after the other in a figure eight. I squeezed my hands into fists and fought to keep my hips still. I moved my fingers to my eyes, wanting to remove the towel so I could see what he was doing.

  “Leave it.” His hands stilled and I obeyed, writhing shamelessly against his fingers. Desperate for the friction. He took mercy on me and rubbed his thumbs over my lips. So, so close to slipping inside and easing the ache pulsing deep within me. He massaged me mindless, rubbing his oil-slick fingers over my engorged flesh until my legs started shaking and near silent whimpers echoed in the room. I felt his thumbs spread my lips. Heard his sharp inhalation and felt his fingers tremble ever so slightly over my flesh. Then his fingers were in me, fucking me with abandon as I clenched exquisitely around them. He leaned over me, taking my peaked nipple into his warm mouth and sucking in time with his plunging fingers. There was no slow climb, no warning build, nothing to prepare me for the crest and crash. I cried out and his mouth covered mine, absorbing the sound as tears slid down my face and into the towel.

  I twitched beneath his hands as he coaxed every last tremor from me. He continued to place gentle kisses all along my face, each one saying more than a bible on love could express.

  He placed the gloves back on my hands and covered me with the towel. He lifted the corner of the towel covering my eyes and I was surprised to see awe instead of the smirk of satisfaction I’d been expecting and which, to be fair, would’ve been well deserved.

  “I think our time’s nearly up.”

  “Pity that.”

  He chuckled, then kissed my lids and placed the makeshift blindfold over my eyes and padded across to his bed.

  “Hey,” I whispered, which, considering what had been coming out of my mouth five minutes ago, was ridiculous. I sat up, leaving the towel that covered my eyes on the bed and holding the one covering my body against my breasts. “What about you?”

  “This one was for you.”

  I loved him so much in that moment I felt like my chest was about to crack open, it was so full.

  “I’ll make it up to you.”

  His lips curved at the corners. “You bet your ass you will.”

  Epilogue

  Warm vanilla-scented water lapped at my breasts and soothed my tired muscles. I rested my head on a towel, eyes closed while I waited for Kevin to get back from his conference call.

  The last week we’d been blissfully uninterrupted; the signal out here at Zebula was spotty at best, which may have something to do with the Waterberg mountains, but I wasn’t complaining. It was great to be tucked away with Kevin, alone and inseparable. That, however, ended a few hours ago. Kevin was about to start filming a new movie in a few weeks and he was expecting a conference call over at the main reception to finalise some details for the first scene. They were shooting in Canada, which was currently reaching highs of -19 degrees. I was not looking forward to the cold. That’s exactly why I’d spent the day next to the pool, soaking up all the rays and writing.

  Writing wasn’t something I’d ever aspired to do, it wasn’t even something I’d given a moment’s thought to, but after Kevin and I got back together I’d felt an overwhelming urge to put our story on paper. Call it therapy, but writing about everything I’d experienced and felt when I believed I’d lost Kevin helped me not only process any residual feelings I had from the time we were apart, but also helped me to process the changes to my life now that Kevin and I were officially a couple. It was a complete lifestyle adjustment. Kevin still did what he could to keep me as far removed from the limelight as possible, but the press were still the press and they pretty much hounded us for months in the beginning—hence the trip to the bush to decompress.

  I’d written for about an hour, the words flowing out of me and onto the page with ease. It wasn’t always that way, but sometimes it was like the chapter wrote itself, especially the emotional chapters—the ones where I felt like I was shredding my heart and laying it in tiny pieces on the paper. I doubted I’d let anyone besides Kevin read it. It was just too personal. As it was, it was tough letting Kevin read it; giving him access to my deepest thoughts, my highest highs and my lowest moments made me vulnerable but it was also good for us. Kevin knowing our time apart was just as hard on me as it was on him cemented our relationship and went a long way to allowing us both to heal.

  I pressed my toe to the tap; a tiny bead of cool water ran down my foot and I sighed. I could honestly get used to this life. No clock watching, no urgency, no deadlines and expectations. Just Kevin and nature and time. I loved my job, I really did, but being away from the rat-race and being able to write whenever the mood struck, had me thinking about what I really wanted to do with my life. I may not be ready to let the world read Kevin and my story, but now that I’d started writing, the bug had bitten and I had a ton of ideas.

  “Water good?”

  I opened my eyes. “Heavenly. Join me?”

  I sat up and scooted forward, allowing him room to slip in behind me, then I settled back against his chest.

  He sponged water over my shoulders and breasts, the scented water running in rivulets over my skin, then kissed me right on the spot on my neck that made goose bumps erupt on my flesh despite the warm water.

  “Claire.”

  “Mmm?”

  I felt him tense behind me and turned to look at him. Gone was his teasing demeanour from a moment ago and my stomach twisted.

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t lose you.” He looked pained and I twisted in the tub, kneeling between his legs. I cupped his face in my hands.

  “Hey, it seriously wasn’t that bad. Everything worked out. I’m…”

  “I’m not talking about last night,” he interrupted. “Although…when I think of you wandering about the bush in the dark…” Yesterday, Angela, our pregnant neighbour, and I had taken a walk and gotten lost. It was like the s
un had fallen from the sky and for a couple of hours things had been scary. Thankfully, Kevin and Angela’s husband had found us on one of the trails, a little shaken up but none the worse for wear.

  Kevin’s hands settled at my waist. “I never want to feel how I felt the night you left me at the concert. I never want to feel that lost or empty or alone again. Claire, you are my home, my more, my everything.” He ran a hand impatiently though his hair. “I’m sorry, I wanted to come up with a profound speech, something worthy of you and what you deserve but I’m not good at this shit, y’know, I make a living following a script.” He smiled ruefully and I held my breath. “I can’t promise I’ll always say or do the right thing and I can’t promise your life with me will be easy but I can promise you this, I’ll spend the rest of my life working to deserve you. You’re my one and only, Claire, let me be yours.” He pressed his lips to mine in a sweet kiss and when he pulled away to look at me I noted the glisten in his eyes. “Will you marry me?”

  I watched his throat work a swallow and he didn’t take his eyes off me. Nerves danced in his and it made me love him even more. I moved closer and kissed him, not caring that the bath wasn’t exactly the softest surface to be kneeling on and this position wasn’t exactly comfortable. I kissed him until the warmth in my belly spread through my body. I kissed him like it was our first and last kiss while this moment imprinted itself on my heart.

  I crawled up his body and straddled him, feeling his erection pressed between my legs while his arms pulled me closer but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to meld into him, I wanted to become part of him. I paused for a breath and I swear he wasn’t breathing.

  “God, Claire, you have to answer me.”

  “I thought I did?”

  He looked like he was in agony. “Please just say the words.”

  I moved closer still and nuzzled his neck. “Yes, Kevin, I’ll marry you.”

  His breath expelled in a rush and he kissed me hard while he lifted my hips and slid into me. Water sloshed over the bath while I rocked into him, taking and giving in more than the physical sense. I didn’t realise I was crying until he kissed the wetness from my cheeks. When I came, it wasn’t hard or earth-shattering but it was intense. It felt different. I felt different. I’d let go, knowing I was truly his. And he was truly mine.