Total Freedom (Total Freedom Series Book 1)

by Ann M Pratley

  I followed the sound, moving away from the reception and around a corner, into a large room that was set up like a formal lounge, for guests to relax. In the furthermost corner of the room was a grand piano, being played. I couldn't see the player's face as his head was down.

  The music kept going and my mind was working through the notes, trying to identify why it seemed so familiar. There was no singing - only the soft sound of the piano.

  I walked very softly and slowly toward the piano. I knew the music now - it was the last song Craig and I had written together. It was twisted, relaxed - remodelled for a different audience - but it was definitely Craig's music.

  Now, halfway across the room, my heart was pounding heavily and I could feel in my body a sense of feeling so strong. Perhaps adrenaline … perhaps fear.

  I kept walking, the piano player continuing to not see me, with his head down. When he raised his head I could see that his eyes were closed - as always when he was performing, he was feeling it rather than having to see what he was playing.

  Now I approached the piano and stopped, watching him. Maybe two years had passed, but there was no doubt who was sitting in front of me. I didn't say anything, just stopped and watched him as he played. So many memories entered my head then, and the effect was overwhelming on my emotions.

  Not wanting to disturb him, I put my hand up to my mouth, to make sure no audible cry could escape and be heard to him. But I could feel a tear come to my eye.

  His playing was so beautiful. His face was beautiful. When I looked at him I experienced a huge feeling of regret. Over what, I wasn't sure. Did I, in that moment, wish I had let myself be washed along with Craig, as a partner for life? Did I wish that we could have at least not indulged in that hotel room that day, something that may have ultimately driven him to leave? I looked at him now and knew that I still loved this man, and I missed him deeply.

  The music stopped and slowly he looked up. Being a performer, he gave no indication to the guests around us that anything was out of the ordinary. But in his eyes I first saw surprise and alarm, and then disbelief, as he looked at me, silent. He didn't say anything, just kept looking at me.

  Then he moved over on the piano stool, extending a silent invitation, as he started to play a slow, peaceful version of Total Freedom. He started to sing, I think surprising everyone else in the room as much as me. He looked at me, and I couldn't help but be mesmerised by his image and his music. He nodded to me as the time came where I would usually jump in and sing my part of the duet, and smiling at him whilst trying to maintain any emotion, I followed his lead, singing my words in the same soft style he had begun. It was such a different sound to what we had usually presented that I almost wanted to laugh, but it was nice too - our music had been recycled and it actually sounded well suited to the surroundings.

  We worked through the song, relaxing and smiling at each other, and when it ended the guests clapped softly. Craig and I laughed, as he put his arms around me and hugged me.

  Across the room I saw Steven standing in the entranceway and I smiled at him. In all our time together, he had never seen me and Craig sing together. It had been something that he had purposely avoided and didn't want to see. Now, as I looked at him, I wondered what he was feeling. He wasn't smiling.

  I got up to leave, to walk toward Steven, and Craig grabbed and held my wrist, keeping me there, beside him. I looked down at him.

  "Don't," he said, looking up at me. "Stay."

  Oh how I wanted to melt against him, this man who had been my closest friend for so many years. But looking at Steven, I had to move. I could see Steven wasn't going to move. He wouldn't come forward and greet Craig, even though they had appeared to have been okay with each other before Craig had left New Zealand.

  I pulled away. "I have to go, Craig."

  He let my wrist go free. "I will come and find you when I finish my shift here shortly," he said and I nodded.

  * * * *

  Up in the hotel room, Steven was quiet, and it made me, in one way, nervous, but in another way, not focused at all on what he was feeling. We unpacked quietly, each in our own thoughts, me not wanting to ask him how he was feeling, and perhaps him not wanting to ask me the same.

  "I'm going to have a shower," he said, leaving me alone in the bedroom area of our suite. I sat on the bed, numb in feeling as I heard the shower start up. It wasn't like him to go into a shower without at least cheekily hinting that I join him.

  There was a knock at the door and I panicked for a moment, wondering if I should answer it, but the feeling of not wanting to waste any opportunity was too great.

  I opened the door quietly and Craig was there, right in front of me. I stood aside and welcomed him in, feeling nervous and scared of what I was feeling.

  He stepped in and looked around. "Steven is in the shower?" he asked and I nodded, softly closing the door behind him.

  He came up to me, put his arms around me and squeezed me tightly. I could feel through his body a wave of overwhelming emotion - the feeling of a cry trying to escape but him holding it in. Then he kissed me, like a lover, as he had in Australia. It was wrong - I knew it and so did he - but for the duration of the shower running, I didn't want to let this go. He was affecting me, making me feel alive with such a strong desire of wanting. I moaned and he guided me back against the wall, where I melted, kissing him back as passionately as he was kissing me. The result was me feeling invigorated, carried away, passionate and so desiring of him. I could feel it through my whole body. And I could feel him against me, hard and pressing. The sensation was unbearable, but at the same time addictive.

  It wasn't one way - when I found my strength I pushed back against him, matching his passion. In the small space just inside the main suite door, I veered him back so it was now his back against a wall, and hungrily kissed him. He groaned loudly, perhaps in surprise as much as anything, and then the sound of shower running stopped.

  I pulled back from Craig and looked at him. He was giddy, making me smile. I saw him come back to reality and he started to open his mouth, as if to say something. I quickly put my fingers over his lips and shook my head.

  I walked through the room and opened the balcony doors, walking through to where a small table and chairs were. He followed me and sat down, and I could see him focusing on recomposing himself, as I did the same. I had so many questions for him, but where to start?

  Before Steven came out of the bedroom, Craig had begun the conversation - a normal, small talk conversation to relax everything. To hide what was really going on inside my mind, heart and body.

  "How was your travel over?" he asked, and I smiled as I began conversing with him at this relaxed, unemotional level.

  Steven came and sat with us, him and Craig shaking hands and acknowledging each other. It wasn't a comfortable situation, but conversation did flow and whatever each of us was feeling, was well hidden.

  After a while Craig looked at his watch. "I have to go to a wedding rehearsal," he said and turned to me. "Will you walk me out?"

  I nodded, not looking at Steven to see if he approved or not. In so many things I bowed to his wishes and thoughts, but not this. This was for me, and it was something I needed to do.

  I kissed Steven. "I'll be back soon," I said and Craig and I walked out.

  Once outside the door, I looked at Craig. He knew I was looking at him and he subtly shook his head, in warning that we weren't yet out of view of Steven, if he looked through the peep hole in the door that showed almost the whole hallway of that floor. Once we got in the elevator, I could see him visibly relax as he turned to me.

  "I can't hug you here - I work here and everyone knows me - but know that I want to," he said, as we rode the elevator to the ground floor.

  I nodded.

  At the ground floor he led me through a closed door and into another lounge, similar but smaller than where he had been playing earlier, but with the same beautiful old furniture, set up in small clumps of
groupings that inspired private conversation.

  "Don't you have to go, Craig?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "I do, but not for another half an hour," he said, taking my hand. A simple pleasure of warmth and comfort, that brought out emotion in me as I felt tears strain. "I just wanted to be able to sit down with you alone for a while," he said quietly.

  We sat down, close enough to be close, but not so close that if someone walked in it would look suspicious.

  He looked at me. "I am sorry, Debs. I promised you I would write but I didn't. It wasn't because I didn't want…" he started and I cut him off.

  "It doesn't matter…" I said, loving looking at him.

  "Yes, it does. I left Dunedin, determined to forget you completely - that was what I wanted. I felt like I couldn't breathe, seeing you all the time, and wanting you…" He paused, looking down. When he looked up at me again his eyes were glistening.

  "I wasn't successful in forgetting you," he said, with a small, forced laugh. "Always, I have missed you."

  "But now you are getting married, which means you have found love … right?"

  He seemed confused for a moment, like he was trying himself to assess something.

  "I met my wife to be, Gabriella, in London. We lived together as flatmates for eight months, and then when she said she was returning to Italy to be closer to her family, she asked me to come with her, so I said I would. I do love being with her - and I think over time I could come to really love her - but we are getting married because she is pregnant. Don't get me wrong - we get on well and we are both committed to making it work for the sake of our child, but it hasn't been a natural love between us."

  He was looking at me seriously now, and I didn't push for conversation to get more information out of him.

  "You are going to be a great dad. You may not have been living with us, but you did help me to raise Chris, and she really came to love you," I said, smiling. "All will be well."

  He continued to look at me seriously. One of the things I missed about Craig, I realised, was the way he looked at me. No-one else - not even Steven - had ever looked at me with the level of intensity Craig so often did.

  "I wasn't sure whether to send you an invitation or not … I didn't know if I could handle seeing you again. But I am glad you are here." He paused. "I might not be able to spend time with you at the wedding. Gabriella does know about you - I thought it best that I share with her, before we left London, that I had feelings for someone else. I don't know how that might pan out at the wedding," he said, smiling sheepishly.

  "But she knows I am coming, right?" I asked, a bit alarmed that I might have come all this way and not be welcome at his wedding after all.

  He smiled. "She does. She is fine with it," he said, laughing slightly, and tacking on to that, "knowing you are going back to New Zealand afterward."

  I laughed with him. It wasn't really a funny moment, at a serious level, but yet Craig and I did both see a humorous side, in that we both had partners who probably wished we didn't get on like we did.

  He became serious, looking at me deeply.

  "But how have you been, Debs? You were pregnant when I left - was it all okay?" he asked and I nodded.

  "Everything was fine. Our daughter, Samantha, was fine and I was fine."

  He paused for a while, in thought.

  "And was she born when you expected her to be?" he asked, hiding the real question behind his words.

  "She isn't your daughter, Craig. I was already pregnant when you and I were together."

  He nodded, sadly, and I wondered how often he had previously considered the possibility of my having been pregnant to him. Of he and I having a child together.

  "And you? Have you been happy since you left New Zealand?" I asked him.

  He looked up at me and smiled.

  "I have met some incredible people, and visited amazing places. But I have missed you so much."

  I moulded both of my hands around one of his and lifted it up to kiss it. I could feel wetness on my hands and realised that he was silently crying.

  "Debs," he said quietly, looking up into my eyes again. "I'm not married yet. I still love you so much … and I know, without any doubt, that you are the only person I am meant to be with. We could still be together. I could come back to New Zealand and we could raise the girls together…"

  I looked at him - this man who had always given me so much and even now continued to want to give me so much. In a fuzzy dream in my head I could see his vision - he and I just leaving this place and going off together, leaving Steven and Gabriella behind. And maybe if it had been that easy, and I really didn't have any sense of right and wrong inside of me, I could have ventured into something like that with him. I knew that right now, looking at him - such a beautiful man before me - but it wasn't how things were and we both knew it. There were other people involved now - children - and they didn't deserve to be hurt by our actions.

  "No, you know things aren't as easy as that…"

  He looked at me so intently then.

  "Is there any part of you that loves me and thinks that you and I would be happier together than you and Steven have been?"

  When he asked me that I let a very fast course of memory flow over me and I was reminded of early on in my relationship with Steven, how possessive he could be and the stress he caused on me because of it, even though of course I had always had the choice to end things with him. But then I also could see what an amazing father he was, and how different he had become since being able to walk again - there were so many good things in both of these amazing men.

  I wanted to avoid this question but at the same time, knowing that I might not see Craig again after this day, it felt hugely important to be honest with him and answer him as best I could.

  "There is absolutely a huge part of me that wishes that you and I had had the opportunity to be together - properly," I started, putting my hand up to his cheek and forcing the two of us to look at each other, eye to eye. "My love for you is ingrained - it is deep seated and well chiselled into who I am. And at any point before Chris was born, if you had really, seriously, asked me if we could give things a go, I might have considered it, even with my fear that it would ruin our friendship."

  I paused, taking time to make sure my words were accurate and easily understood by him with no misunderstanding.

  "You and I getting together wouldn't make us happy now - I know that you love Chris as much as I do and you are not someone who would bring sorrow on a child. And perhaps we could get together and eventually both of my daughters would come to regard you highly and accept the situation, but it is a risk that I can't take. No matter how much I love you, I will not risk messing up my children's lives."

  Out of nowhere he gave me a look of hope.

  "But your daughters will grow up. What about then? What if I come back when they are grown themselves and have their own lives to live?"

  I looked at him with a huge feeling of sadness inside of me. He put ideas to me that were so attractive, but yet so unrealistic also.

  "And what till then?" I asked him. "You stay single, not living your life for the next 15 years? Craig, you have the opportunity to be happy with someone, and to be a real dad to your own child."

  He nodded and pulled away from me, once again putting his head down, looking downtrodden and beaten.

  "Okay," he said quietly and we sat like that for a while longer, each in our own thoughts.

  Craig looked at his watch suddenly, putting a new air about him - like he had finally accepted what I was saying. "I do need to go now," he said. "Your mother is nothing compared to Gabriella's!" he said, laughing nervously.

  We both stood up and he pulled me into a hug again.

  "I won't be here tomorrow so won't see you next until the wedding," he said.

  He put his hand up and stroked my cheek before leaning in and kissing me quickly and lightly on my other cheek.

  We walked out of the room and Craig
closed the door behind us, before giving me a slight nod.

  "I will see you in two days," he said and turned to walk away, heading for the front entrance of the hotel.

  I watched him go out the doors and down the steps to the street. He didn't look back, and for me it was like another moment of being deserted by him.

  * * * *

  I walked into the hotel room and found Steven standing out on the balcony, watching out over the street. At hearing the door, he turned and looked at me, and walked back inside.

  Catching his eye, I wondered what he would expect me to say, but without speaking he came up to me, put both of his hands on my face, and kissed me. I could sense his power now and realised how strong he had become as a person, compared to when I first met him. He was no longer timid - right in this moment he knew what he wanted to happen, and while I knew that if I said an absolute 'no', he would stop, I let him lead me, surprised and excited by his confidence and assertiveness.

  Steven kept kissing me, while undressing me, and when I was naked he pushed me back on the bed, leaving me so he could undress himself before lying on top of me, pinning me down but only pleasuring me with his kisses and hands. He wasn't going to hurt me, but in this moment I knew that what mattered to him was that he was the one in control. He did not know he was building on a footprint of passion that had been awakened earlier by Craig, nor do I think he would have cared. My desire was again awakened and I forgot about Craig for that moment - perhaps that was exactly what Steven had intended.

  Regardless of why, I was greatly excited by Steven's forcefulness. He wasn't usually like this, and it was like a stimulant for me. I could easily stay like this all day, I thought to myself, as he lay on top of me, moving, touching, rubbing. But he pulled away from me, told me to get up on my knees, and eased into me from behind. Starting to move slowly, he quickly picked up not only the pace but also the power with which he was pushing into me. He wasn't going to be gentle - and he intoxicated me with the feeling of being slammed into so heavily. It was the first time we had ever been together, during which I felt like he was completely detached from me. But it didn't matter - I felt like I was hypnotised and enthralled.