“It’s me, but it’s also Alexa. I had to put up with a lot of nagging before she gave up and let me throw my mix of antiques and moderns and weird art together. It was my compromise. If it were up to her, it would be as sleek and cold as a Bauhaus showroom.” She took a sip.
“Were any of those paintings on the wall yours?”
She looked at him and away. “Ah. No. Mine’s more therapy than art for public viewing.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, drinking their tea.
“I was wondering about your muffins.”
“Wha–? “You want the recipe?” She took a warming sip of her chai, meeting his eye playfully over the rim of her mug.
“Yes, actually. But that’s not the point. You said baking was easier than shopping, but… I have the impression it was more strategic than that.” He studied her reaction.
A slow smile spread across her face. He was smarter than your average bear. “You got me. It’s well worth my trouble to bake muffins just to fill the space with the scent of cinnamon, apples, vanilla and such. It does wonders for reconciliation.”
He shook his head. “And here I was, thinking how charmingly domestic you were, and you’re experimenting in human engineering.”
“It works.” She shuddered with silent laughter.
He leaned toward her, laying his arm along the sofa back behind her shoulders and gave her a heated look, fluttering his eyebrows suggestively, and wobbling his head. “Is it that you are liking your chai, lady?” he asked in a deep, seductive voice with a fairly decent imitation of Lali’s accent.
She sat upright, mock indignation on her face, and a laugh building deep in her belly. “You’ve used my own devious methods against me!” They laughed together, and she relaxed into his arm and smiled up at him, exhaling. How could she be afraid of him? She’d never known a gentler, kinder man. “Very therapeutic.”
Their eyes met and held, and she felt her breath shorten and her heart accelerate. She inhaled his warm, clean, masculine smell, blended with exotic spices from India. The heat of his arm at her neck and his spicy breath on her face mingled, and her mind filled with the embroidered images of Indian maids and men in tangled embraces. The mix was intoxicating.
Earnest, he searched her face for clues. “I know I shouldn’t do this, because of your guy…” He swallowed. “But if I kiss you again, will you shout at me and storm out into the night?” Her nostrils flared, an arrow of heat slicing through to her core. She was still afraid, but tingling with anticipation, too.
“No,” she whispered. “Um. That’s… over.”
His eyes darkened to steel, gold stars reflecting the crackling fire. He closed the short distance between them and touched his lips gently to her mouth. It was electrifying. At first she didn’t move, but then she responded, returning the press of his kiss. He pulled back slightly, dipping his head. “I was unkind to you Kate. I was cruel. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way.” He stroked her face gently, lifting her chin up so he could gaze into her eyes.
Dark memories flashed in her mind, jumbled together, slashing and tearing at her peace. Irrational. Stop. Just forget. “Simon, I— ” She trembled again.
“Don’t fear me, Kate,” he whispered against her lips, “I won’t hurt you again. Let me show you.” He kissed her eyes, her nose, her cheeks and ears. He laced his fingers in her hair and drew it away from her neck, planting kisses there.
A soft moan sounded deep in her throat and she dropped her head back into his cupped hand, allowing him closer and he devoured her softness.
“I want you, Kate. You have no idea how much I’ve wanted you since I first saw you again.” He kissed her again and this time she surrendered to his plundering tongue, allowing hers to dance and parry, and lost herself in the soft wet interior of his mouth. They tumbled back onto the cushions of the sofa and it seemed as though the years slipped away and they were as intimate and hungry for each other as they had been in their optimistic and innocent youth.
As his hands roamed over the contours of her body, she was amazed that the chemistry they had known sixteen years ago was undiminished. They may be different people now, mature, shaped by their separate lives, but their bodies, ah, their bodies remembered. They were made for each other.
He deftly unbuttoned her blouse and slipped a hand inside, stroking his nails lightly over the silken rise of her breast.
She gasped. “Simon, please… ” She arched upward, meeting his straining desire and he bent to kiss, and then lick, her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, and the softly rising mounds of her breasts.
After that, she had no memory, only impressions of frenzied tearing of clothes and tumbling among cushions onto the rug by the hearth, where they abandoned themselves to their mutual passion. She could only wonder what intriguing, metaphorical names the Kama Sutra had for the way their bodies meshed, like two parts of a whole, limbs entwined, blood throbbing and pulsing, joined. In due course, they found sleep tangled like sesame and rice in their discarded clothing, drenched in perspiration, spent, the fire burning low and warming their slick skin.
Some time in the middle of the night, there was a screech and a thump on top of them, followed by a crash, awakening them with a start, her heart thundering. “Wha– ?” Kate bolted upright, disoriented. “Where?”
Simon laughed. “It’s only Lucy, my cat. She hasn’t been fed her supper tonight.” He dragged himself up and to the kitchen to feed her, returning to find Kate shivering amongst the pond of discarded clothing and strewn cushions, staring dazedly at the last glowing coals in the hearth. “Let’s go upstairs and get comfortable. I’m too old for this.” He reached for her hand and pulled up her lax form and she followed him up the stairs, admiring the green-gold highlights the streetlight picked out along his lean limbs and the smooth rise of his muscular shoulders and bare buttocks. He led the way to his bedroom, where, softened by sleep, they made love again, slowly, hypnotically, and deliciously, and fell asleep again, her head nestled against his shoulder.
~*~
What do you want from me? Simon’s voice emerged as a growl from between tightly clenched teeth. What do you want from me? His face bore down on her, inflamed with rage, his eyes cold and hard as ice, lips pulled back in a sneer. His words cut her like a knife, and Kate felt a sharp searing pain rip through her, welling up from her deep dark hidden center. Hot tears erupted and squeezed out from behind her closed lids onto her cheeks, and an anguished sob wracked her body.
The force of it wrenched her upright, and sitting in the bed, shaking, her throat tight with the pressure of unshed tears, she surfaced, panic-stricken, from the nightmare that had returned after many years dormant. It left her in a cold sweat, shaking, dizzy and nauseous. Grey pre-dawn light filled the dim room like a gauze shroud.
Beside her, Simon mumbled and rolled over, his arm reaching for her, and sliding off her rigid side, back down, slack onto the rumpled sheets. He didn’t wake. She must have dreamt of sobbing aloud. His face was serene in slumber, his short blond waves pushed this way and that, his lips slack and sensual. He was such a beautiful man.
Waves of heat reverberated through her body, remembering their night of passion. How could I do that? This was Simon Sharpe. How could I resist? This was Simon, after all. Her Simon.
Kate sat quietly, wiping her wet eyes, measuring her breathing as she was taught to do, soothing herself, listening to his even breathing, a comfort. After some minutes, her tears abated and she was able to reflect calmly on the dream. It used to come more often, and during her training and therapy, more and more often, with more detail as she revisited her trauma.
It was only with Rose’s help, and careful recounting of the details of the dream that they were, together, able to understand that Kate had transferred suppressed memories of her high school rape to the painful, stupid encounter with Simon years later. The convoluted twists and turns of the human mind baffled her still.
Sleeping with Simon
, making love to him again after all these years, must have triggered those memories again. Thorough analysis and careful reconstruction of the two, completely separate and unrelated events had allowed Kate to pulls the strands apart and come to an understanding. With Rose’s help, she was able to see how her pain and humiliation at Simon’s rejection and his baffling anger and harshness when they were supposed to be making love—but no, that was her fantasy. That night, that was only a fuck. A desperate one for her, in her deluded attempt to win Simon back. For him it was— well, now she understood a little better, a bitter and resentful one. A tortured one. A tortured fuck.
Well if that wasn’t a good enough clue as to why the encounter had allowed deeply suppressed memories to surface of that rape in her last year of high school, then nothing was. A mirthless, silent laugh shook her. At least she could see the irony in it now.
Rose said that it was common enough, for memories of a traumatic event to be completely suppressed for years, sometimes forever. It was the brain’s way of protecting itself from what it couldn’t understand, couldn’t handle. She supposed that was true. For all her smarts and ambition as a young woman, she had been remarkably naive, sheltered and immune to the harsh realities of the world. Who knew that a high school graduation trip to Greece could provide such a rude awakening for a small town girl. Too rude, apparently. She’d shut it away. Until Simon, unwittingly, had unlocked the door.
Goosebumps rose up on her bare arms and back, and she shivered. She lay back and pulled the covers over her naked body, laying apart from him. She turned onto her side and stared at his sleeping face in the shadows of his room, remembering that night, re-examining it in a new light.
Kate had been beyond thrilled at the invitation to the party at his house—actually at his house—she was intoxicated and dizzy with anticipation. It was his twenty-first birthday. Alexa had reluctantly agreed to go with her, a comfort and a safety net. Other than crossing paths on campus, she hadn’t seen him socially in almost two years, though she knew his every move. This was momentous.
Once there, she searched the house for him, prowling like a hungry lioness. She was fixated on Simon, her longing eating her alive, utterly obsessed.
Already slightly disoriented with drink, she could see him sitting in a chair, staring back at her, the hunted, his body pulsing nearer, farther, nearer, farther, the cinematographic effect of some psychotic director’s vision, as though she focused the scope on her weapon, zeroing in on her prey. Everything but him was lost to view, to focus, to comprehension. Him, only him. She studied his features as they became magnified, exaggerated, distorted by her thrall. Was he as perfect and beautiful as she believed? He was brooding and dark and seemed mesmerized by her staring. They exchanged no civilities. They’d both had plenty to drink. He stood up portentously, not breaking eye contact, and she followed him—sensuality and seduction lost, into his bedroom. Why was she here? She didn’t know the answer now. Maybe she was already on the verge of a breakdown, and her encounter with Simon was just an unfortunate coincidence.
She remembered, much later, that she and Alex had walked a long, long way home, in the wee hours of the morning, the sky fading from black to violet to blue, even as her ego disintegrated into a heap of fine grey ash. Her life, after that night, was an enourmous gaping hole. A deep depression set in, and that was the start of her slippery slide down the road of a mental breakdown.
She shivered again, inching closer to him for warmth. Sleepily, he rolled on his side and wrapped his arm around her, drawing her closer, pulling her into the heat of his embrace. She nestled there, feeling safe, for the moment. Part of her wanted to confide in him and share her experience. Perhaps it would help him understand, and perhaps even forgive, her erratic, bizarre behavior with regard to him and their relationship, both back then, and now.
Eventually, with help, she’d come to understand that her whole relationship with Simon was doomed. She’d used him as a crutch at a vulnerable time, as an escape from what happened in Europe. That spring, her self-esteem was at an all time low. Simon appeared as her knight in shining armour. How could she ever see him in any other light? He was just a man– a very young one. It wasn’t fair to him. And it wasn’t a real relationship either. It could never be.
But those were her darkest days. Did she really want him to know that about her? She’d never told anyone, except Rose and now, Alexa. Certainly not Jay, or any other lover. Easier, in fact, far better, to walk away now. She might be healthy now, but somehow, when it came to Simon, she felt so fragile. She could never allow herself to be that vulnerable again. Every moment she spent with him brought those memories closer and made them more visceral, less abstract. They would always be a part of her, she realized. How could she ever trust her own attraction to him? Her motives would be forever muddled in her mind. She would be better off a long way from him, and he would be better off without her, she thought as she finally drifted back to sleep.
The second time she awoke, for the moment forgetting the dream, it was because something was brushing softly against her thigh, tickling. Calm now, she opened her eyes slowly, taking in the clean, bright square room. She tried to understand where she was. Soft brown walls, bright white ceiling and trim, sheer luminous curtains in the large, traditional window to her side, billowing gently in the warm air rising from the heat register. In the center of the ceiling, an elegant, old-fashioned Depression glass and bronze light fixture hung, partially obscuring a white plaster medallion. Simon’s bedroom, she realized, the night before flooding back in awesome detail. It– Simon’s cat?– tickled her again and she reached down to touch it. Instead, she found her hand suddenly in a warm firm grip.
“Don’t touch that unless you’re prepared for the consequences.” Simon’s hoarse, sleepy voice, warm against the top of her head, contained laughter.
Oh!
“I thought you were still asleep.” He released her hand and she felt the weight of his arm across her as he pulled her, rolling her body toward him, his hand gliding down her bare back to her butt cheek beneath the sheet, and pulling her tighter. His morning erection, not a cat after all, was now trapped between them, pressing insistently against her abdomen. A coil of sizzling heat unfurled in her center.
Tipping her head back, she gazed into his eyes, which shone a bright, translucent pool blue in the morning sunlight from the window behind her.
“Good morning, Kate.” He smiled sleepily and kissed her. Her body took off without her permission, her insides liquefying and boiling, her heart accelerating, without regard for her earlier resolution. Last night’s passion reverberated in her veins, and throbbed between her legs.
“Aren’t you worn out?” She smiled.
“Not at all. I’m just getting started. You?” His face questioning.
“Noooo. Not—” He stole her breath with an urgent kiss and her heart leapt to her throat, drumming its demands.
He pulled back, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “Tell me about the tapestry. The four embraces.”
She scrunched her eyes tight and huffing out a tiny laugh, smiling. “Er, okay. Let’s see, at the top, there was ‘the twining vine’. Beside it, ‘climbing the tree’.”
He screwed up his face and rolled his eyes to the ceiling as if trying to remember the images over the table last night. “Right. I remember.” He gave his head a little shake, and bent to trail tender kisses down her neck, and along the top of her breasts.
She shivered, and an arrow of heat shot down between her legs, pulsing at the memory of their ardor in the night. “In the bottom left corner, was ‘sesame and rice’, I think, but I’ve never been able to figure out if they mean plants or food.” She recalled the two recumbent bodies, their arms and legs tangled.
“Now we’re coming to my favourite,” he said. “It seems the most romantic. With the woman curled in the man’s lap, their arms enfolded so tightly.” Simon met her eyes, naked and clear.
“The last one represents �
�milk and water’. It’s the embrace of a man and woman very much in love. ” Kate recalled the figures’ aquiline noses and foreheads touching intimately, eyes locked, and her heart squeezed with longing. She cleared her throat, looking away.
“So you’ve taken a course on the Kama Sutra, too?” he teased, caressing her ribs with a feather light touch.
“Nooo. Just a little light reading.” She smiled, and could feel the heat rising into her cheeks, competing with the flush that radiated outward from his fingertips as he traced a delicate line down her thigh. “Haven’t you? You’re the Eastern mystic.”
“I never considered the Kama Sutra mystical,” he murmured, his lips against the skin in the hollow between her ribs.
“O-oh. It’s a very philosophical document. It states that even an ignorant man can gain respect if he knows the sixty-four ways.”
“I see. I’ll have to look into it. Obviously my studies are incomplete.” He pushed himself up above her, his shoulders and chest flexing as he nipped at her upper lip, licking and kissing, his need as demanding and impatient upon awakening as the morning sun straining on the horizon. Dropping to his elbows, his mouth moved down her neck and throat to lick and nibble her breasts, and in seconds she was moaning with pleasure and arching in anticipation as he slid slowly inside her. Every cell of her skin where they touched ignited. Her body was awake and alive and aching for his in a way she hadn’t known for years and years. What was it about him that unraveled her? He was refreshed, and his stamina renewed. They made love languorously, luxuriously, savouring each delightful sensation their bodies created in each other, and came together in a long, slow breathless crest of satisfaction, his blue eyes dark and intense on hers.
Afterward, they remained joined, legs tangled, their breath mingled, panting, grinning foolishly until their hearts slowed and they became drowsy again. “Now we are sesame and rice,” he mumbled, his eyes closed. They lay motionless in the beam of sunshine that stretched across the creased white sheets. He caressed her skin slowly, sleepily, exploring each curve and crevasse, sliding down and then up, teasing her nipples. His interest quickened, and amazingly she could feel him swell again inside her as he moved his lean hips and long thighs back and forth. Kate was amazed that Simon seemed ready again so soon. How many minutes had they lain here? Ten maybe. He seemed tireless.
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