There it was: that one pulse of the day where my heart beat the strength of a thousand beats at once. I felt the pulsation spread over my chest and deep into my veins, sending me toward serenity. They say that the heart contains only a certain amount of beats and that our lifespan is predetermined by the strength of that one organ. I decided that my heart and my soul felt revived and strengthened when he was around, even if he was using up valuable beats.
Chapter XXIII
Christmas Wishes
The winter came around again and for the first time, I didn't go home for Christmas. Noah came to me for a week.
I sat at my laptop, with him talking to me on the phone, and we went through the seasonal Internet shop together. I was having all the food and drink we wanted delivered right to the door. We planned to stay in and not venture out at all. He had been working hard all year and the run-up to Christmas was always a nightmare period for me at work. Somehow, I had trained my assistant well enough to leave her in charge for this one week of the year. The rest of my holidays were just days off here and there and I had been most adamant about getting Christmas off for the first time in years! It was going to be perfect and I remember feeling like a child again, so excited at what Santa might have under the tree for me that year!
My Mum and Dad were always on the phone asking questions about the man I was seeing but they did not get very many answers. When I said I was spending Christmas with him that year, they didn't have much else to say except, “Enjoy yourself darling!” I think they might have judged a proposal was on the cards.
On Christmas Day, I woke with my arms around the man I loved and I kissed him.
“Present time, is it?” he asked, growling.
I dragged him on top of my body and he stared at me with wonder. He had become lighter and more muscled but it didn't matter to me what size or shape he was. I adored his smile and his laugh, his scents and his eyes. He did not dare let the covers fall off us; it was very cold outside of our warm envelope. His morning glory soon turned to a full erection as he tilted his head to French kiss me.
He pushed inside me and I came straight away. It had been a long time since that had happened and he noticed. He moved slowly and pushed deeper gradually, filling me so generously.
“I want to be on top,” I said.
He moved into the middle of the bed and we shivered. I held my hands at his hard shoulders while he sat on his knees and drew the blankets around us, keeping our warmth inside.
“What's my present?” he said, with his eyebrows raised and smile clenched as I squeezed my pelvic floor muscles. “God I love it when you do that!” he shouted.
“And you dare ask for a present while you're inside the depths of my belly?” I groaned.
“This is the worst Christmas to date,” he insisted, before kissing my throat.
I threw him backward and underneath all the sheets, in our cocoon, I got him to shift so that he was spooning me. He raised my leg and lifted himself up to kiss my knee, asking me whether that was his present.
“No,” I said.
He asked if my elbow, or my breast, or my throat, stomach or hand or mouth were, kissing each, moving slowly and carefully inside me. I always said no.
“Noah, Noah, I'm almost there,” I said, and he dragged me against his body with swift movements, slapping my backside against his thighs until we cried out together.
“I remember that first night,” he said, huskily, into my back. “My first impulse was to kiss you, but it did not work out like that. That came later. I imagined all kinds of things I wanted to do to you. But, I was taken. I remember crawling up behind you, kissing your neck and feeling like I could rest here forever. I remember thinking you were so beautiful and yet odd, working over a stranger so quickly. I remember feeling overwhelmed. I didn't understand why someone like you wanted someone like me.”
I turned to him and smiled, stroking his cheeks. We were still buried beneath all the covers, swaddled in our protective sphere. Perhaps, it made for admissions. He looked deliciously soft, warm and loving. He kissed my hand and I pressed myself against his body, embracing him tightly.
“I love you so much, Noah. You're my sweetheart. I'd do anything for you.”
“I know, darling. But don't you get frightened? Don't you fear we might hurt one another? Don't you wonder whether love is enough?”
I raised myself up and rested on his chest, looking down into his eyes.
“Yes and no,” I told him, running my fingers through his blonde locks. He had more hair on his head than I but I loved his mane. It demonstrated his virility. “I fear a lot of things. Mostly, I fear never being with you again.”
A lump formed in my throat and I wiped away a tear.
“Charlotte, please…”
“Listen to me,” I said, so calmly, “Noah, if you want to continue like this, then fine, but what I really think and feel is this. I feel that you are more jaded than I because of your marriage collapsing. I feel that you refuse to give her a divorce because it means failure. It means giving up on something you once believed in…”
“That's not it,” he said, stroking my back. He turned his head to the side and mumbled, “After we were married, she just didn't want me as much. She just shut down. I don't know what happened.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, so thankful he was finally opening up.
“It was like a switch had flipped. When she became my wife, she turned cold and started turning me down all the time. We only ever screwed after drunken nights out then. I thought that was what women were like. I kind of got used to it.”
“Got used to it?”
“Yeah, I dunno, I thought women didn't like sex.”
“You were wrong. You know that you just married the wrong woman, right? You married for the wrong reasons.”
“I really was made to feel less of a man. Base. Wrong for wanting sex.”
“She's crazy, Noah, trust me.”
“It's not as easy as that to reconcile,” he said, turning to me with anguish in his eyes.
I smoothed my palm across his cheek and kissed him.
“Tell me,” I whispered.
“I'm a romantic at heart. I thought it would last forever. I put up with a lot. She cheated on me with my own brother! She left me to be alone because she says that is better than being with me.”
Brother?! It anguished me that he was still so cut up about a woman who clearly never carried even one per cent of the feeling I did for him.
“Please can I be honest?” I said. I was feeling brave.
“Okay,” he said softly, tucking hair behind my ears.
“One day from now, when you're ready, I want to marry you and be your woman. I'll wait as long as it takes. I love you. I mean it. Don't assume you know the gravity of my words. Please, please, I would die if you ever left me. When you're not here, I ache for you in the night. It wakes me up and I can never get back off. Please, Noah, say there will be a day. Say there will. Hold me.”
He squeezed his arms around my body as I lay on top of him and he said, “I hope there is a day. I want that too. But, I want you to see, that when the gloss of a relationships fades and the sex dies and the familiarity sets in, all this that we have enjoyed will vanish. All that we continue to enjoy goes.”
I sat up and looked down on him. I cupped his chin and kissed him powerfully, and told him with certainty and vehemence, “That first night was the truest we ever were, as ourselves. I was me and you were you and yet we still ended up together. It was pretty great then. It always will be. As long as you let me be me again! You gave me a chance to be me! Don't you see! I love you for that! I love you dammit and I want you as my husband and my love and my one and only!”
I was shaking with my exclamations by the end of that speech.
I threw myself off him and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door. I started running the bath and sobbed my heart out on the floor. I shuddered with the strength of that outburst. He crept in with
in a few minutes and dropped to his knees on the floor to wrap his arms around me, telling me to shush.
When I was quiet, he told me, “She aborted our baby. It made me wonder for a long while why someone would do that to another human being. I thought I must have wronged her so badly for her to do that. So you see, it's not you I fear, it's myself and what I'm capable of and what I might do. I love you, I do. You changed me that night from that lecherous, vile fat bastard to what I am now.”
“Why did she do it?” I whispered.
“Because we were already over, really, but also because she didn't want a child of mine. Simple as that.”
“Oh.”
He turned the taps off and we got in together. With my back against his chest, his arms swaddled me blissfully. We bathed in silence for a while before I asked, “Do you want your present now?”
“Yes, okay,” he said.
“There was a night when I got drunk, remember, do you remember?”
“Yes, darling, I remember. But?”
I turned to him, facing him, stroking his brow.
“I hardly drink nowadays. It takes a bad effect. I vomited the next morning and stayed in bed for three days after that, remember? With you, looking after me? You couldn't leave me. We thought it might develop into something.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, mentally recalling all the wonderful lovemaking. “I took the week off to be inside you, didn't I?”
“Yes,” I said, and smiled, placing his hand on my tummy. “In there, that's your present.”
He sat stiff as a board, not moving, frozen in shock.
“I'm pregnant,” I said, and his jaw dropped. “I'm sorry, but, I am. I did three tests. I never thought it would be possible.”
I was shaking with nerves. I was so emotional. His face turned from shock to pure love and he pulled me against him.
“Oh god,” he said. “Oh god,” and we cried together.
“I love you,” I reasserted. “I love you, Noah.”
“Yes, I know. I love you darling,” he said, shaking with glee. He couldn't stop laughing and choking on tears.
“I was going to wait a couple more weeks until telling you because it's still so early but I couldn't wait.”
“I'm really happy, I am,” he said, and pulled me in for a kiss.
The Chambermaid would immediately cease work, of course. She was as good as dead and buried as far as we were concerned. That Christmas was the most glorious and wonderful time of my entire life. Each time he made love to me then, it was with increased intensity and wonder. I loved him enough to carry his child, sail away into the sunset, and give up everything I knew. I trusted him completely. I felt suddenly sure that everything was going to be alright. He spoke to my parents for the first time and we told them the news. We planned for him to move in with me and travel back and forth but work mostly from his Nottingham offices. I would tell my boss immediately so she could make sure I was on light duties, and Noah and I would go to all the doctor's appointments together.
We had already started implementing all these changes when I lost the baby. I was only around six to eight weeks gone but it was horrific. It happened at work and an ambulance came. Noah wasn't with me but he dropped everything in London as soon as he heard and started making his way up. In the hospital, the doctor tried to tell me that these things happened all the time and without reason. He told me not to assume it was anything to do with my past illness. All I felt was numb. I waited for Noah to arrive to take me home. He was cool and calm when he got there, holding me like he was my gladiatorial saviour.
“This doesn't change anything,” he said.
He spoke quietly to the doctor in a separate room for quite some time. He emerged with my things and walked me out toward the car. When we got there, I burst into tears and let my anguish flow. He tried to stop the torrent of hurt but he couldn't. In the end, he just drove until we got to the flat. He carried me inside and put me in bed. He made some calls in the next room and then joined me. He rolled me toward his chest and stroked my hair, and I stared into space.
“Nothing has ever hurt this much,” I said.
“I know, my darling. I know. But I'm here. I won't leave you.”
“Noah…” I choked, and cried my heart out until I fell asleep.
Where did that leave us? Noah and me, I mean. I really didn't know and didn't consider this until some days later. He had cancelled work and was spending the week at mine; making calls, tapping at his laptop, angrily shouting when something didn't go his way. It was a few days before I managed to get myself out of bed and see what all the fuss was about.
I padded toward him in my pink silk pyjamas (his Christmas present to me) and sat on his lap. He was drawn around the eyes, and wearing scruffy sweats. I kissed his cheek and held my arms around him.
He relaxed and buried his face in my shoulder.
“You look gorgeous, Charley. You wear these so well. You're an angel,” he said, and kissed my forehead.
“I love you,” I said, and settled in the nook of his neck. “What are you doing?”
“Playing bloody war games. Stupid pricks I work with. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. I may as well do it all myself!”
“I think we both need a break. Get away, from everything. I'll ask. I'm sure they won't be expecting me back in work anytime soon. Do you think you could wangle something?”
“Umm,” he moaned, and kissed my mouth. “I love you too.”
“Time off?” I demanded, almost.
“I'll see what I can do,” he relented.
“I think we need it, Noah. Please.”
“Sure. Okay. You're right.”
“We need this, trust me. I need you and only you. Just a week. Fly me somewhere?”
“We are in January, you know…”
“We'll go to the travel agent. I have enough to take us to the moon,” and he ran his fingers through my hair.
“You're a fighter, Charley.”
“I'm just trying to get through the day right now.”
He lifted me up and carried me back to bed, holding me under the covers.
“Does it hurt?”
“The pain in my heart or the other?”
“Both.”
“Both are a dull ache that might never go away.”
“I'm so sorry, Charley,” and he shed a few little tears.
“Thank you,” I told him.
Chambermaid's Rule No.5
There's More To It Than Pokery
Not so long ago, there was one Initiate who was like a closed book. I couldn't find a way in. He didn't speak much, couldn't even really look at me and seemed so uncomfortable to be even in the same room as me.
I paced a little, hands pressed together, trying to decide upon a plan of attack. A thought occurred to me.
“Why are you really here?”
“He told me you would sort me out,” he said.
“But I only deal with people who need a bit of something to spice up their sex lives. You haven't yet been plucked, have you?”
“What the hell do you mean?” he asked, misunderstanding my archaic language.
“You're quite virginal?” I asked, after realising poetry was lost on him.
He stood gormless, embarrassed and ashamed; his silence confirmation enough.
“I don't deal with virgins, darling. I… this is not my territory. Did he realise that you were?”
“Yeah. Told him so. S'why he sent me to you.”
Swine, I thought. Noah was deliberately testing me and I could almost sense his thoughts speeding their way to me from wherever he was, for he would know what I'd be facing at that precise moment in time.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three,” he mumbled.
I stared crossly and he admitted, “Twenty-seven.”
“Right, so why are we here? In this predicament, at your age?”
“Just can't find the right girl.”
“Have you ever seen a girl naked?�
��
“Err, one. And, oh, my sister…”
“You into that, are you?”
“Bloody hell, this is awful. No, I'm not! I just had a bad experience. It was a while ago…”
“Tell me. You'll never see me again after today. You may as well just spill. Call me your sexual counsellor for the day.”
“This girl, I'd been seeing her a while. It was…” he stammered.
“I'm unshockable,” I said, encouraging him to tell me all.
“I thought we were really going somewhere. We had a lot in common, the kisses were amazing, it was… great. I thought I might even love her. We were at Uni. She was a year older than me. I guess, it was nice just having a girlfriend, really nice, and I got my hopes up. We were about to do it one night, our first time. We'd been clubbing, were a bit drunk and it just seemed like the right time.”
I had some idea of where it was all going but I reeled back my inquisition, allowing him to get it all off his chest.
“We started kissing, touching, and everything, but I was really, really drunk and well… unable to. I tried to apologise, but she wouldn't have it. She tried to… she tried to rape me despite me being useless. I had to fight her, physically fight her, to get her off. It traumatised me. I never saw her again. I avoided her like my life depended on it. Whether it was drunken tomfoolery or not, I never could forget the way she just tried to force herself on me. It was… horrible and disgusting. The look on her face when I said no…”
A Fine Profession (The Chambermaid's Tales Part One) Page 29
