by Jo Watson
I pulled away quickly and sat back in my chair.
“Thanks.”
“Pleasure.”
This whole situation was just so, so bizarre. Here I was, on my honeymoon, in the most romantic place in the world, with a stranger who had just been gently, and very familiarly, wiping my face clean with his napkin. Who the hell had seen this coming?
Not even my mother’s psychic Esmeralda (real name Mary) had predicted this, not that I placed much confidence in her psychic abilities, but surely something this big would have come through somewhere, considering she “read me” the day before my wedding! My mother had insisted on it. My mother didn’t do anything without consulting her; she barely went to the toilet without a phone call to find out whether her bowel did in fact want to move. I’d never held psychics in very high esteem, especially not this one, who my mother met in rehab. I do placate my stepsister Stormy in the nicest way possible, though. She too professes to get “vibey vibes and the feels” about things. They’re usually along the lines of, “Lilly, you must wear pink today. Or red. Maybe both. Actually, I think it’s green I’m seeing, and watch out for the number 794.”
When Michael and I had first gotten together, my mother was adamant that I get our cards read to make sure we were compatible. Of course I’d said no, but then she pulled one of her famous guilt trips.
“It’s fine, don’t go, it’s your choice. But what am I going to do now? I’ve already paid. Maybe I can get a refund? But it’s fine if it’s not for you, sweetie. Oh my God, but she canceled that other appointment for you! But I’m sure she won’t mind. Like I said, no worries.”
So half an hour later I was sitting in Esmeralda’s “reading room,” a dark and very dingy cottage at the back of her property. As I walked in, I was instantly deafened by the cacophony of wind chimes. Chimes made of shells, feathers, crystals, and the skulls of little woodland creatures hung like bats from her roof. The next thing to assault my senses was the incense that practically choked me, followed by the near heart attack her pet monitor lizard, Sid, gave me as his scaly tail brushed past my ankle.
And there she was, in full chiffon-draped glory, the star, Esmeralda, sitting at her little table covered in black velvet. And you know what it’s like—even if you don’t believe in the powers of the woman sitting across from you fingering a pack of dirty cards, you want to. My mother had obviously told her about Michael, and even though I knew that, I still soaked it all in.
“I see a man. A blond man.” She had a very fake mystical-sounding accent.
Of course, my heart did cartwheels at this point.
“Yes, I see him very clearly now.” She fanned her cards out and moved her fingers around in little circles. “I see your future with him. I see you walking down the aisle. I see he will be very rich one day and you will live in a big house.” I hung on her words like they were a magical rope that would pull me toward a happy future. “Yes, I see three children. I see blond children with blue eyes, and one is a boy and the other two are girls. And you will be very happy and in love forever.”
And of course you want to believe it all, and I did, right up until the second I held that note in my hand. Perhaps I’d wanted the fairy tale so badly that I’d missed something real?
Chapter Eight
The wind had picked up, creating little ripples on the water. I was still wet, and although the breeze was warm, I suddenly felt very cold. I folded my arms across my chest to shield myself from the intensifying wind.
“Cold?” Damian asked.
“Freezing.” I started to shiver.
The man in the black suit returned to inform us that they were expecting a storm and we should get inside as soon as possible. I was surprised by how fast and furiously the storm escalated, beating the sky into a frenzy of raging wind and rolling black clouds. By the time we’d reached our room, the rain was pelting down, soaking our already-wet clothes and hair. We rushed inside and I watched Damian get pulled into a wrestling match with the wind, until he finally managed to slam the door shut.
Thailand was a place of extremes—no doubt about it. Ten minutes ago we were enjoying a warm tropical evening, and now we were watching violent lightning severing a stormy sky. It was breathtaking.
I shivered, colder now than I’d been before, and all I wanted to do was slip into a warm bath, but then I remembered that slightly inconvenient problem—the open-plan layout of the room. I walked over to the bath and Damian must have noticed.
“I’m pretty sure I can resist the urge to look if you want to have another bath,” he said with that devilish, slightly skewed smile again. “In fact, I’d love to have one, too, so I’ll promise not to peep, if you promise not to peep?”
“Why would I peep?” I felt a little uncomfortable with this conversation and its subject matter—casually devising a strategy to get naked in the same room as if we were talking about something as casual as making a cup of coffee. And then, because we were talking about it, I suddenly started to imagine Damian naked. I couldn’t help it, okay? It was human nature, or something. I banished the thought quickly, hoping that my shocked blush wasn’t as visible as it felt.
“Um…” I scanned the room. “Okay, you have to sit on that couch over there with your back to me. And don’t you dare look, not like you did at the airport.”
“Hey, I turned around at the wrong time. It was an accident. Besides, it’s not like I stared.”
“Well, let’s try and not have any accidents happen this time,” I said, turning on the taps.
The bath was enormous, manufactured for optimal romance and relaxation, and stretching out in the warm water was exactly what my body needed. Of course, I made sure that my back was turned away from Damian at all times, and for added security, I’d dimmed the lights. This time, if there were any “accidents,” he still wouldn’t see anything.
We sat in complete silence, and I tried not to make any sudden movements that would draw additional attention to me. “How’s the bath?” he finally said, which I was glad about, because it was all starting to feel pretty damn capital A.
“Good.” Monosyllabic answer. I didn’t want to encourage too much interaction in my current state of total and utter nakedness.
“Good.” A monosyllabic answer back.
Then more silence.
Is there some foolproof method for diffusing an awkward situation? Are there no self-help books about this common subject? The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Awkward Situations.
I could really use a few tips right now. A joke, maybe? I was terrible at telling them. And what kind of joke; I didn’t see “Knock, Knock. Who’s there?” doing the trick. Perhaps if we listened to music? But I didn’t have any on my phone and my iPod was at home, and I certainly didn’t want to listen to Depeche Mode in case I felt an uncontrollable urge to slit my wrists. Perhaps I could steer the conversation in another direction. “So what about South Africa’s current turbulent political climate and the upcoming general elections? Death penalty perhaps?” I was fast running out of ideas when…
CRASH!
“Holy fuck.” I instinctually screamed and leapt out of the bath as it felt like an enormous bolt of lightning hit our room. The thunder was deafening and everything went very bright. Luckily, in that moment, I’d remembered something from my science class about water and lightning not being the best of friends—and it was this thought that had sent me scrambling for dry land. Everything then went very black as all the lights flickered and died.
“Are you okay, Lilly?”
“Um…” My heart was pounding. “Well, I didn’t get hit or anything.”
“It felt like it hit the room,” Damian said, clearly sounding unnerved.
“Where are you?”
I looked into the darkness—my eyes had not yet adjusted and it was pitch black. “I don’t know.” And then I suddenly realized that I was completely naked. I gasped. “Oh my God!”
“What?” The concern in his voice was clearly audible.
“Nothing, nothing,” I replied as quickly as I could. The last thing I wanted to do was remind him of my nakedness.
But…oh my God, what if the lights suddenly went on?
Terror took hold of me, and I strained my eyes against the darkness trying to see something, anything. But everything was so black and I was completely disoriented. There was a towel on the bed, that much I was sure of—but I had no idea in which direction the bed was, or even where the bath was. I decided to guess and started crab walking to my left very, very slowly. Shuffling one foot in front of the other and waving my arms around in the air in front of me. I inched my way forward, until I felt a pain in my leg. I’d walked into the corner of the coffee table, and hard.
“Ow!” I cried out loudly, wincing in pain.
“What happened?”
“I walked into something.” My leg was throbbing now.
“Just stay where you are, I’m sure the lights will come on soon.”
That’s exactly what I was afraid of.
And then I heard it, the upward lilting inflection in his voice that made me realize he knew what was going on. “Oh, I see,” he said.
God I was embarrassed. The last thing I wanted was for him to start thinking about me naked. And I didn’t want to wonder whether or not he was and have him wondering if I thought he was being a pervy naked thinker or—crap! This was awkward.
“I was looking for a towel,” I said authoritatively.
“I’ve got one here,” he said, and I heard a bit of shuffling.
“Why have you got a towel?” My tone sounded accusatory because for a split second I imagined him taking mine on purpose.
“I was going to bathe, so I took one.”
“Oh. Right.” Another silence, and I could practically hear the cogs in his brain turning.
“I could bring it to you?”
“Why don’t you just throw it to me?” There was no way I wanted him anywhere near my nakedness.
“And how do you plan on finding it?”
He had a good point.
“Why don’t you just wait until the lights come on. I’ll keep my eyes shut.”
“No way!” My tone was forceful. “I’m not standing here naked.”
“Well, then let me bring it to you.”
I was hesitant to accept his offer, but I didn’t see an alternative.
“Fine, but—”
He cut me off. “No groping,” he said, and laughed.
“And keep your eyes shut, in case the lights come back on.”
“Sure.”
Damian started to move toward me, and I could hear him as he bumped into things along the way.
“Say something to me, Lilly.”
“Hello, I’m here.”
I could hear Damian changing direction, and he was definitely getting closer.
“Again,” he said. He was very close now.
“Hi.”
“Right. I’m going to hold out the towel now. I think you’re close enough.”
I hoped he didn’t touch me. I covered my boobs with my free arm and tentatively stuck my other arm out. I waved it about, expecting to bump into him at some point—but I didn’t.
“Where are you?” My arm was moving from side to side.
“Here!”
He was close, but clearly not close enough. I cautiously took a tiny step forward, not knowing that he’d done the same, and suddenly jumped as I felt something hit my stomach.
Damian responded instantly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. Sorry. I…I didn’t hit you anywhere…um…?” His tone was hesitant and I knew what he was trying to say.
“No! No! It was just my…never mind.”
“Okay,” Damian said. “I’m going to hold my arm out very still and you can find it.”
Yes, this was clearly a better plan, and a few seconds later I had safely retrieved the towel and wrapped it around myself. I sighed with relief. And thought I heard him do the same.
“So now what?” I felt so much better with the towel around me, but I couldn’t just stand there waiting for the lights to come back on.
“If you give me your hand, I can lead us back to the sitting area.”
Damian didn’t even give me the chance to respond, because a second later I felt his arm bump into mine, and our hands meet.
I remember the first time I held hands with a guy. At the time, it was the most thrilling and sexually charged thing that had ever happened to me. It was with a pimply boy called Charlie Lieberman, who sat behind me in math. One day I felt a tap on my shoulder and a little note suddenly appeared in my lap.
Lilly,
Do you like me, or like me, like me? Tick the box.
Like me ☐
Like me, like me ☐
Charlie
I ticked the second box and suddenly we were boyfriend and girlfriend. Which basically meant nothing. But after a few months, we went on our first real date. And when I say date, I mean that we went to a movie with a big group of friends—and we were chaperoned by my brother and future sister-in-law, who sat two rows behind us.
Charlie and I sat next to each other, and the atmosphere was electric. We had both strategically placed our hands on the armrest just a few inches away from each other—our little fingers almost touching. We must have then spent the next ten minutes moving our hands toward each other at a snail’s pace until they finally touched. From that point, I think it took us about half an hour to finally do something that resembled holding hands. And even though I was only thirteen at the time, it was the most physically intense moment of my little life.
We sat there in silence holding hands, our eyes glued to the screen, not daring to look at each other. I can’t tell you what that film was about because all I could feel was Charlie’s hand. That was also the first and last time I felt it because soon after that he dumped me for Melanie Andrew. (Bitch.)
That day at the movies, with Charlie’s hands in mine, I had felt something real. Something extremely potent. Because there’s holding hands, and then there’s Holding Hands (with a capital H). And you can instantly feel the difference.
Well, I instantly felt the difference…
Damian intertwined his fingers with mine. His thumb, instead of going straight to the top of my hand, slipped itself, oh so slowly, across my sensitive palm. I felt my breath quicken. I loosened my fingers so that they could gently slide down the length of his, until our fingertips brushed each other. We both moved our fingers simultaneously, letting them slip up and down, curl around and stroke.
We finally reached the couch, and I sat down. Our fingers untwined themselves and I suddenly felt a rush of intense guilt. As if I was cheating on Michael. Not that I should care, but I did. My fingers were still tingling and I wanted to see the look on Damian’s face. I was very glad that the darkness was concealing mine: my blush, my smile. I wondered if he was smiling, too. Under the shroud of darkness, everything felt so much more intense. The silence was deafening, until he spoke. His voice was soft, low and gravelly. It sounded different.
“Lilly?”
“Yes, Damian?” I whispered.
More silence.
The anticipation was killing me. What was he going to say?
“Yes, Damian?” My voice was even softer this time.
The silence throbbed in my ears.
But he said nothing.
I waited for what seemed like forever. And then I heard him.
“How’s your leg?”
Huh?
“My what?”
“Didn’t you bump your leg?” At first I didn’t know what he was talking about, and then it clicked.
“It’s fine.” I snapped at him as anger bubbled up inside me.
I was angry. Furious even. But it wasn’t at Damian. I was angry with myself for letting my thoughts go somewhere they shouldn’t have. I was being such a moron…what was I expecting him to say to me? That he liked me? We didn’t even know each other, and I had a fiancé. Well, at least
I had one…
Clearly I was suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. I was obviously still in a state of shock and it was seriously impeding my judgment and turning me into an utter idiot. What the hell was I doing with this guy? This was the second time tonight we’d held hands, and it was entirely inappropriate and weird and wrong and strange and all those kinds of words.
I heard a buzz and the lights flickered back on. I blinked several times as my eyes adjusted to the brightness. Damian sat opposite me, looking in my direction, and I quickly averted my eyes, furious for what I was letting myself feel.
“What’s wrong? You look angry?” Damn, I hated that he was so observant. This was something completely new to me. Michael was as observant as a doorstop. In fact, I was always having to spell things out for him.
“Nothing.” I spat the word out quickly but I didn’t really mean it. “Everything’s wrong, okay? It’s all gone so, so wrong. How has it all gone so bloody wrong?” I paused. I felt angry and victimized by the world.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see he was looking at me curiously.
“Can I make an observation, Lilly?”
This statement made me nervous, but I agreed.
“You’re not actually as powerless as you think you are.”
“What?” I snapped at him yet again. I didn’t know where he was going with this, but I had a very strong feeling I wasn’t going to like it.
“Well, you keep saying how you feel everything is going wrong, how the world is conspiring against you. I think you have the power to change that.”
He was making no sense. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re stronger than you think. You made the decision to come on your honeymoon alone, that’s a pretty brave move—I don’t think there’re many women who could have done that. And maybe what’s happened to you is a good thing—”
I cut him off. “How the hell can any of this be a good thing?”
