Reaching Lily. Vivacia Ahwen K
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a surge of angry adrenalin through my veins that one solid punch is enough to propel my bag into the small gap. Good luck pulling it out, Lily. I glance over my shoulder, and am pleased to find the nosy little man behind me has moved on.
Think I scared him.
Good.
Ow. That seriously hurt my knuckles. Punching isn’t my forte.
Are you there, God? It’s me, Lily. God, please let me have these three seats to myself so I can stretch out and sleep.
As though on cue, a glowing – they are so obviously newlywed – young couple, not much older than I, bustle from the line and wedge themselves into my row. She stumbles, because she can’t take her eyes off of her husband, but he steadies her. ‘Careful, Mrs Greene.’
‘Thank you, Mr Greene,’ she says, and giggles. ‘Sweet husband of mine.’
So much for that nap.
See, God and I haven’t been on speaking terms for awhile, and apparently he doesn’t do reservations.
The passengers are not only disgustingly twitterpated with each other, but they’re frequent-flyer smart; clearly seasoned travellers. They knew enough to check in luggage and don’t fight for space, but just claim it. ‘Mr and Mrs Greene’ are lost in each other, smiling, giggling, kissing and half-falling into the two seats beside me, as though I were invisible. They get into some inane discussion about why there was that wacky mix-up in which they were supposed to be flying first class but got stuck in coach. And how they would somehow make it through, because they are ‘together and that’s all that matters’.
I hate them.
But to be fair, at least they’ve the decency to not say hello to me, because faking a smile and stuttering pleasantries at happy strangers is not something I’ve got energy for at the moment. They do see me, sense my solitude, and don’t want to catch any of it.
Loneliness is like cooties.
They are stepping it up now, to the inevitable lip-lock and hands groping all over each other, as though there weren’t another soul in the cabin. Ain’t love grand. Feeling like I’m crashing a party in someone else’s living room, I sit down, turn my back to them and try to look interested in all the nothing going on outside the tiny window.
Wow. My hands are shaking.
Much as I’d like to blame Dorian Holder for the shivers, not to mention the butterflies in my stomach and pounding of my heart, I’m afraid what could turn into a full-fledged anxiety attack is all down to me and my lack of worldliness.
This is my first flight.
Yes, I’m 24 years old, and the only time I’ve ever been on a plane was a field trip in the third grade when they just drove us back and forth on a landing strip in a passenger plane. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to fly anywhere, just that the opportunity never presented itself until yesterday.
There is a static crackle, and a froggy voice says, ‘Welcome aboard Virgin America Airlines flight A300 to the Cyril E. King Airport. Flying time from Boston to St Thomas is four hours and forty minutes.’
Five hours? That’s going to feel like for ever. Why can’t we fast-forward time? I want to get off this plane.
‘Meals and refreshments will be served during the flight …’ The pilot-in-command’s voice fades away as I rest my head against the cool Plexiglas of the tiny window, out of which I will try not to look again for the next several hours. My mind is too cluttered to absorb all the stimuli around me. I busy myself buckling up, as Captain Peterson is now saying something about keeping our seatbelts fastened at all times when some light is on, following with a bunch of stuff about cellphones, safety procedures, upright positions and so forth, while flight attendants are doing some kind of interpretive dance. Holy shit, this is real.
I am leaving.
The bride beside me is unaware that she’s jabbing her elbow into my back while cooing in her new husband’s ear, but I don’t feel the urge to shove her away. Any human contact is to be cherished, right now, and perhaps even a touch of someone who loves someone who loves her back close by will rub off, and I will be safe and loved by proxy. Reverse social cooties!
Nobody knows I am taking off.
Not Gwen, though she hopes and suspects. Not my mom, who would be even more terrified for me than I am. Not even Dorian Holder knows I’m flying away.
There is a roar, a rumble, my insides are pulled backwards and my forehead vibrates against the window. Despite my best intentions, I open my eyes to see Boston shrink and disappear below me as we lift into the sky.
I hate to watch my little world shrink, and squinch my eyes shut once again.
But now all I can see is Dorian’s face, which is hardly reassuring. His chiselled features are so clear in my mind, his wolf-like eyes, his angelic face. It’s as though I could reach out and touch him. He was remarkable, and there’s no escaping him; there’s no changing history. Dorian Holder completely and irrevocably possessed me, and I will forever be a haunted woman.
We were so close. Or at least I was so close.
Dorian. His face, his voice, his touch, his sculpted body, his cruelty, his compassion, his strength, his vulnerability. His secrets. His lies.
I can still feel his touch. My body has memorised and internalised him.
What I wouldn’t give to forget that unreadable expression on his beautiful face when I said the words I will never be able to take back.
How his full lips moved, as though to respond, before he thought better of it.
How I hoped his lips would claim mine in the deepest, most delicious kiss, the way they used to, and how they never did.
How they never would again.
How he looked askance, turned around and walked away without a second glance.
Here’s what else I absolutely need to forget:
Those same full lips, sucking my nipples. Dorian’s tongue flicking across their tips, nibbling, sometimes a little too hard … just how I liked it. His mouth trailing between my breasts, between my ribs, licking my belly, kissing, sucking, inching his way towards my mons. Torturing me. Cupping my ass in his enormous hands, pulling my pelvis closer, burrowing his face into me, slipping his tongue at the very tip of my slit, finally delving deeper, sliding, finding me. Slicking against the left side of my clit, licking faster still, while I pictured hummingbirds and could have sworn I tasted sugar-water in my mouth. Because when Dorian Holder took me, my world transformed. Touch became taste, sound became vision. He fucked me into a straight-up synaesthete.
When Dorian Holder took me, my body sang.
How he tortured me, letting me come so close, then dropped me to the mattress, laughing while I tried to squirm back to him, aching for more. How he pushed my abdomen down, slid two fingers the length of my pussy’s lips. And how he brushed his middle finger ever so lightly against my pink jewel, and I literally begged him to let me come.
He loved it when I’d beg.
I didn’t imagine that part.
I used to imagine a lot of things about Dorian and me, but how he awakened my body is undeniable.
How he awakened my heart is unforgivable.
Oh! Then he would whisper sweet and breathy in my ear, something like ‘Hush’. Or ‘Are you OK, Lily?’ He’d laugh at my frantic nodding, and desperate struggling to free myself. If he was feeling mean, he’d ask, ‘Should I stop?’, knowing full well what the answer was. When he drove me to that mindspace, I became incapable of speech, and I could only shake my head: no.
Sometimes Dorian liked to pull back and watch me weep, particularly when my arms were spread wide in an embrace he would neither answer nor return. Embraces I could never complete while