by Hildy Fox
Lahra took his hand, happy to feel the warmth back in him. "Hi there, Wally," she whispered through her smile.
Wally's eyes opened slowly and found Lahra. His moustache, poking out either side of an oxygen mask, curled upwards a little. "Hey, Doc," he said weakly.
"I sure hope they have peppermint tea in this place. Looks like you'll be here for a little while. Are you feeling okay?"
Wally's eyes rolled sarcastically. "Fantastic," he strained. His grip on her hand tightened a little. "Thank you, Lahra. Thank you for coming."
"Don't thank me. Thank Marcus Dean. He was the one who saved you." Lahra could see the confusion on Wally's face. "He was very brave. A regular hero." Yes, Lahra thought. Marcus had been a hero for doing what he had done. If it weren't for him, she wouldn't be speaking to Wally now.
Doctor Ayres gave Lahra a silent signal. Lahra looked down at Wally and rubbed his hand. "I have to go now. I'll come back tomorrow, okay?"
"Doc, wait," Wally said with as much urgency as he could muster. "The Miracle. Go and check..."
"Check?"
"The flood. See if the Miracle's okay for me. Please."
Lahra smiled warmly at him. No matter what Wally asked of her right now she would have done. "Sure. I'll go straight away."
"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you."
His eyes drifted shut once more, and Lahra let her hand linger on his for a few moments before leaving the room.
She stood in the corridor, suddenly not knowing what to do. The tension of the last couple of hours had begun to ease. But now a new tension began to replace it. It was Marcus. Everything had changed so much, so quickly. She had gone from complete rage to absolute ecstasy to total anxiety, and now found herself stranded in an emotional limbo.
She had been prepared to sacrifice love to save the Miracle Cinema. But now Marcus had risked his own life to save Wally. How could she bring herself to fight a man who had so heroically saved the life of her most loved friend? His act had made it impossible for her to win. She would not be able to oppose him. And because that meant the end of the Miracle, she would also not be able to love him.
Something drew her further down the corridor. She knew that Marcus was behind one of these doors, but she didn't know which. She went to one, and carefully peered through the small rectangular window into the room beyond. He was there. Lying back on a bench while a nurse and doctor wound a bandage around his foot. She looked at him. At the broad span of his shoulders. At the dark, boyish hair. At the fine lines of his face. And though he couldn't see her, she looked into the magnificent eyes that had first signalled the assault on her heart. A wry, sad smile tipped the corner of her mouth.
"Goodbye, Cary," she whispered.
Then, knowing everything was lost, she made her way to the exit. Her gratitude for saving the life of her friend would take the form of her absence. Now, and during every moment of the Miracle Cinema's demise.
NINE
The streets of Riverbank were gone. The Doyle River, fed by the Severence River at River Fork, and a big spring melt, had broken its banks and engulfed a vast region of the Charlotte Valley. Most flooding had occurred to the north, but the south, and Riverbank, hadn't escaped nature's unpredictable power. Water a foot deep coursed its way along thoroughfares, between buildings, over parks and gardens. Townsfolk, shocked by how quickly their world had changed, roamed the streets as they tried to come to terms with the devastation.
It was still raining, although not as heavily as before, as Lahra parked her car between two enormous earth moving machines in front of the Miracle Cinema. This time she wasn't afraid to step out into the water. She was more afraid of what she was going to find inside the cinema.
In the dim light she could see that the water level had reached the frosted glass doors along the front of the building. The footpath she had walked upon so many times felt alien beneath her feet as she made her way through the water to the side of the cinema and down the alleyway that led to the rear. It was very dark and her progress was very slow, as each step she took felt blindly for submerged obstacles. To trip now could be harmful, even fatal.
Finally she arrived at a door near the very end of the alley—the emergency exit located in the stalls beside the screen. She knelt, plunging her hands into the water and reaching downwards, until her fingers hooked under the inch of space beneath the door. It had been at least ten years since Wally had shown her this trick, and as she grasped the bottom of the door firmly and lifted with all of her strength she prayed that it still worked.
There was a clunk from the other side, and with a slight pull, Lahra swung the door open.
The sensation of opening a door in water was a strange one, but once the slight current got hold of it the door opened itself. Inside it was black, but Lahra ignored the trepidation she felt and shuffled forward. She found the steps that led down to the next door, thankful that there were only three of them. The water rose to her knee with the first step, her thigh with the second, and her hips with the third.
Her outstretched hands felt for the swinging doors that opened to the auditorium as she moved slowly forward in the pitch darkness. Memory told her that she should have hit them by now. When at last she did, her heart slowed a degree with relief. She hooked her fingers between the doors, and pulled them open.
An eerie green light fell across her from within, radiating from the exit light above the door. She waded into the cinema, almost not believing the surreal scene that greeted her. The front row of seats was completely under water bar an inch or two. The gradient of the auditorium revealed an extra inch of seat for every row going back. Exit lights burned above the foyer doors downstairs and in the balcony, bathing everything in the same dim, green glow.
Lahra turned to the giant, blank screen behind her. The screen that had given her her love for the movies. From Dr Zhivago to Out of Africa. From Adam's Rib to When Harry Met Sally. She had seen hundreds upon hundreds of films played up there, their magical sights and sounds enveloping audiences time and time again. But now there was only silence. And the only things enveloping the theatre were floodwater, and the ghostly, green light.
She made her way through the still water toward the foyer on the other side. As she walked up the aisle the water became shallower, and when she stepped into the foyer it was only ankle deep. The staircase rose to her left with the promise of dryer surrounds, so she went to it, leaving the wetness behind her.
She didn't feel the cold. She wasn't aware of her drenched clothes. As she stepped onto the balcony and looked out over the watery stalls her only feeling was one of surrender. The last glimmers of hope that despite everything there still might be a way to save the cinema were well and truly banished by what she saw here now.
Then, as if the water that had overrun all in her life wasn't enough, she felt tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. This time there was no holding them back. Never again would she be so foolish to believe that life had happy endings.
"Lahra!"
The call, reverberating urgently through the auditorium, made Lahra jump. The acoustics of the auditorium made it impossible for her to gauge where the voice had come from, only that it was downstairs. Nor could she tell precisely whose voice it was, though logic suggested it could be only one person. She waited breathlessly in the semi-darkness for the caller to show himself.
"Lahra, where are you?"
It was him! It was Marcus! How had he known where she was? How did he get here so quickly? By the sound of it he was down in the emergency exit, which meant he'd be inside any second. The thought crossed Lahra's mind to hide before he saw her. To avoid the confrontation that would mean having to admit defeat to his face. To avoid letting him see the tears that flowed freely down her cheeks. But it was too late. As blurred as her vision was, and as dim as the lights were, she could see Marcus wading into the auditorium below.
His eyes caught her immediately. "Lahra, why did you run off like that?" he asked, half out of brea
th.
"How did you know where I was?"
Marcus pulled himself out of the water onto the small stage in front of the screen. "I checked on Wally. Lahra, why did you go without saying anything?"
"Because," she began, trying desperately to not let her voice tremble, "because I couldn't bear to face you. I just couldn't. Why did you have to follow me?"
"Why?" Marcus echoed back to her. "Because I love you, Lahra! I'd have followed you to Timbuktu if that's where you were headed. I didn't fully realise it until last night, but it's like nothing I've experienced before. You probably didn’t notice it, the day I was siphoning petrol for you… our hands touched. And something lit up inside me. I knew something very different was happening. You probably don't even remember..."
Oh, but she did remember. How could she ever forget? It was a moment of affirmation, of certainty, a moment which said loud and clear that all the feelings that had begun to stir the moment she'd looked into Marcus’s eyes weren't just simple physical attraction. Perhaps she didn't recognise it at the time, but when their hands had brushed together it signalled the workings of a powerful binding force over which she had absolutely no control. Yes, she remembered. The feeling had surged through her heart like a subterranean river, and it had only taken a matter of days to flood her entire soul.
"I don't want you to love me," Lahra said sternly, backing away instinctively. This was exactly what she had wanted to avoid. Now not only did she have to abandon her love for Marcus, she had to endure the knowledge that he felt the same way about her. "You can't love me."
"Lahra, didn't you hear what I said? I love you! I hadn't planned on telling you quite like this… but I guess it’s kind of fitting."
Lahra didn't want to hear any more. His words were hitting her like arrows. Why did he have to follow her here? Here, of all places! She moved further away, up the steps to the very back of the cinema. "Please don't say any more. Just leave me alone. I just want to be alone."
Marcus obviously had other ideas. "I was going to wait, to surprise you, but there's no point now. When I went to see Bob Moses today, you're right, I was asking him to make sure he didn't take any action on the Miracle Cinema. Because he didn't have to. I told him that the planned redevelopment wasn't going ahead. I'd changed my mind. I told him I wasn't going to demolish the Miracle. I was going to restore it."
The words floated up to Lahra so easily that she was certain she'd heard them wrong. A dizziness struck her, and she slumped into a back row seat and closed her eyes.
"Lahra? Lahra, wait there!"
She heard a splash, followed by movement through water. Then sloshing footsteps, and those same feet bounding up marble stairs three at a time. When she opened her eyes again, there was Marcus, walking onto the balcony and striding up the steps directly towards her, his shirt and pants clinging to his masculine outline and glistening in the dim light. He sat in the seat beside her and took her by the hand.
"Are you alright?" he asked softly.
Words failed to reach her lips, so she nodded instead.
"Lahra, I know I've hurt you more than anybody deserves. But believe me when I say I felt every bit of your pain. The closer I came to starting work on the Miracle, the more I realised I couldn't do it. Because from that first meeting on Valley Bridge I'd started to fall in love with you. And the stubborn fool that I am, it took me this long to wake up to myself. I only hope that you can forgive me. There's nothing I wouldn't do to ensure your happiness. There's nothing I wouldn't do to keep from losing you."
Lahra let his words caress her as she searched his beseeching eyes for any trace of deceit. Surely none of what he was saying was true. Surely this was just another one of his tactics, somehow taking advantage of her vulnerability. Surely...
But she knew. She knew that every word of what he said was straight from his heart. She could hear it in his tone. She could see it in his face. She could feel it in his touch.
And a moment later, she could taste it in his kiss.
Before that moment, Lahra had never truly known what tenderness was. She could barely feel his lips on hers, but she knew she was being kissed. She knew from the way her stomach revolved uncontrollably inside her. She knew from the way her heart seemed to beat in every part of her body at once. She knew from the way her abdomen sparked and erupted, engulfing her in a heated desire.
Their arms encircled each other simultaneously, and they embraced as if there would never be another. "I love you," Lahra whispered, holding him closer still. "I can't believe how much I love you."
Marcus kissed her neck lightly, his lips plotting a path along the soft skin beneath her jawline. She bent her head back, inviting his kisses to take a wider path, and when they did, a shiver of anticipation ran across her from head to toe. Her hands ran up and down his back, and across the broad shoulders that all but surrounded her. His lips came to her ear lobe, his soft breath sending fresh ecstatic quivers through her.
Her hands found the expanse of his chest. So many times she had wondered what it would be like to run her hands over his hard body, but no amount of imagination could prepare her for the sublime reality. She let her hand roam freely over his neck, then down across his chest, inside his soaking shirt, to the hard jut of his nipple.
As if she had found a hidden trigger, he suddenly pulled away from her, running his hands up through her hair, staring needingly into her eyes. How beautiful his eyes were! The shortness of her breath grew even shorter as he slipped her jacket from her shoulders, removing it altogether and flinging it across the seats in front. The rapid rise and fall of her chest called out to him to discover her wholly as a woman.
With barely any effort he lifted her out of the seat, and sat her astride him. He kissed her firmly on the mouth, then softened a little to let his teasing tongue explore her lips with slow, deliberate caresses. She seemed to be trapped in a constant shiver, despite the heat that burned deep in her abdomen like a furnace, fuelled by his every contact. Goosebumps contracted her skin in waves, tightening her breasts into sensitive points and arching her back.
She knew that they were rapidly approaching a decisive moment. They could stop any time until then. Stop, and attend to practical matters such as dealing with the flood, organising accommodation for the night, or even simply finding something to eat. Then Marcus began to unbutton her shirt, slowly, deliberately. She ran her fingers up through his hair and felt the cool air touch her exposed skin as he opened the shirt completely. In one quick movement he pulled her close to him and pressed his cheek against her chest. The moment had arrived. And in the next split second, she happily let it pass.
She released him long enough for him to slide her shirt effortlessly off. Only her bra separated her swelling breasts from his touch. A touch she so desperately wanted, so desperately needed. He kissed her across her chest, burning kisses that sent flushes up over her neck. She threw her head back in delight as his tongue began tracing her skin along the cups of her bra, stopping every few seconds to nip at the soft flesh. His large hands felt their way up her tingling spine as his tongue teased the firmness of her nipples through the lace. His fingers flicked behind her, and suddenly her breasts fell free of their containment.
She watched his full, wet lips kiss each breast in turn in ever-decreasing circles, refusing to take her nipples between them, prolonging the anticipation for longer than she could withstand. She watched his tongue move slowly, tantalisingly, in a tight ring around the tip of her breast. And then his warm mouth was upon her, doing things with his lips and his tongue that took her to the very verge of swooning. Through dreamy eyes she watched his hungry action for as long as she could before she had to close her eyes and surrender to the complete desire that had taken hold of her.
With every motion of his tongue, with every caress of his hand, dormant urges were coming to life within her. The heat between her legs had awoken a sensitivity she barely remembered existed. Through her jeans, through his pants, she could feel his n
eed for her. His teeth bit down into her breast, stopping at the threshold of where pleasure became pain, and she involuntarily moaned.
Her hands went to the buttons on his shirt. She needed to feel his skin against hers, hard against soft, man against woman. She pulled the wet shirt back over his shoulders, panting heavily, and as he finished taking it off she cupped each side of his chest in her hands and leaned down to kiss him. It seemed impossible, but every contact with his lips raised her to an even greater level of euphoria. His arms free, they enclosed her, and she hesitated a moment before relenting to their pull, letting her nipples rub gently on his body. Finally she fell against him, their bare chests coming together like warm magnets. She began to feel a tension building inside her that before too long would demand release.
Swiftly and smoothly, without breaking the intensity of their kiss, Marcus stood, lifting Lahra above him without the slightest exertion. Giddy with pleasure, she let herself slip down, feeling his excitement slide over her own. Her mouth went instinctively to his chest, too affected by his spell to be artful about her motions. If she could she would have simply pressed so firmly into him that they merged as one, so that they may experience every part of each other, all at once.
Like some erotic dance, he moved behind her, his fingertips running a course from her shoulders onto her breasts as he went. She leant back into him as he pressed forward, their bodies slotting together as if they'd been designed as a pair. He kissed the nape of her neck as his hands reached around and massaged her breasts, slowly and firmly. A rhythm was being established between them, a primordial beat to which they were responding as one. His hips pushed into her slowly, repeatedly, his hard yearning against the curve of her wet jeans alerting her to his intentions, intentions she shared in breathless anticipation.
