Virgin

by Georgia Le Carre

  He laughs. ‘It’s fucking branded on.’

  I pick up a handful of sand and let it flow through my fingers.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Ria had not asked me to use the upstairs bathroom. Would we never have got together?’

  He takes my hand in his. His touch is soothing. ‘I always dreamed of what it would be like to be with you. We didn’t hook up by accident. I was always looking for a way to make you notice me. You had me from the day you lifted your skirt and showed me your polka dot panties.’

  ‘I didn’t lift it and show it to you,’ I protest indignantly. ‘I fell down.’

  ‘That’s what they all say.’

  ‘Oh you are big-headed.’

  ‘That’s what they all say.’

  ‘Oh!’ I slap him around the head and he pushes me on the sand. The sex is gentle. The sea. The sand. The orange sky. They were all witnesses. They would keep the memory of my love for this man if by chance I am not able. Inside my belly, Tommy kicks lustily.

  Take care of Daddy, if I am not around.

  THIRTY

  BJ

  I buy her flowers and watch her stroke them as if they are hurt children she is soothing. Since that night in the caves with Jake, I don’t tell her anymore how much everyday hurts. She is dying right before my eyes and there is not one damn thing I can do about it. I want to bellow. I want to howl. But it would frighten her. She looks at the calendar with joy. She is another day closer to her goal. I look at it with terror. I am another day to closer to finding out how much of her the cancer has eaten.

  How much is left.

  She hides things from me. I know she has written letters for Tommy. Eighteen. To be given to him on his birthdays. She gave them to her mother. I accidentally overheard her conversation. The intolerable pain of that discovery is impossible to describe. I wanted to go and fight ten men. I wanted to hurt someone the way I was hurting. I went into the bathroom and made a hole in the wall. It hurt like a mother. But it dulled the other pain.

  Sometimes, when I have to share her with her family, I feel resentful. I feel as if they are stealing my time. What little is left.

  I don’t know how much more I can take of any of these feelings.

  Everyday she makes me touch her belly. But I don’t know how I feel about Tommy. He’s my flesh and blood. He’s mine and there is a connection, but there is no love in my heart. There is no place for him. For me there is only Layla.

  I cannot love anyone else.

  Not now.

  Not yet.

  Maybe because my heart has been ripped open and I’m bleeding. Maybe that’s it.

  After that night at Heat Exchange, I’ve never gone to a club or a strip joint. We entered the VIP room. She got out of her little dress, opened her legs wide, showed me her pussy, and asked if I wanted to touch it outside of work, and I felt nothing. Just disgust at myself. My dick was limp. I paid her and left. I knew when I walked out of that door that I had gone to the wrong place. What I was looking for could not be found in a bar or a strip club. Instead I retreated to a place where I’d found solace in the past. Somewhere I could not be found. In the darkness of the old smugglers’ caves.

  Bob Marley is singing, No Woman No Cry. The calendar reads Ten Days More. And oh yeah, its got a drawing of a happy face next to it.

  THIRTY-ONE

  LAYLA

  Tomorrow is the big day. Because I opted out of a biopsy that could cause me to miscarry, it will be like opening Pandora’s box. They will do a biopsy on everything in my uterus to assess how bad the situation is. Immediately after, they will operate to remove the baby and perform the hysterectomy.

  They don’t know how long I will be out. The cesarean will only take 45 to 60 minutes. It’s what needs doing after that’s the unknown factor. I think I am too numb to feel afraid.

  My bag is packed. It is an optimistic bag. There is chewing gum to help speed the process of bowel function returning to normal after a cesarean birth, compression stockings, sanitary towels, and a pair of champagne glasses.

  How strange, then, that it feels as if I am packing never to return.

  We have a quiet dinner early, as I am not allowed to eat after 8pm. I eat lightly and BJ doesn’t eat at all. We talk a little. We stare at each other a lot. As if we are never going to see each other again. We end up in the bedroom. That afternoon I had taken the time to scent the place with aromatherapy oils, scented candles, and made the bed with silk sheets that I ordered from the Internet. By the bed there was tray of fruit and a big beautiful box of chocolates.

  ‘Do you know?’ he whispers to me. ‘The sexual texts from The Ming dynasty regarded a woman’s sexual organs as a crucible or a stove from which a man could cultivate vitality.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ I say biting my lower lip.

  ‘Yeah. Want to try something Ming?’ For a moment the old BJ glitters in the candlelight. Tonight he is strong and powerful and I am putty in his hands.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Get totally naked, then shake your whole body; your legs, your head, and your sweet ass. Afterwards, sit down cross-legged on the bed and invite me into your body.’

  So I shake my entire body, sit down, and ask him to come into me. He takes off his clothes, muscles rippling across every part of his body, and his cock standing to attention like a good soldier. He comes to sit in front of me.

  ‘When I exhale, you inhale and vice versa. Pretend that you are able to take that breath you inhaled from me down to your sex organs.’

  As he breathes out, I find myself breathing his breath into my body and down to my sex. Up so close he nearly takes my breath away. He is such a magnificent specimen.

  Slowly, I become conscious that I am sharing all of me with him and he is doing the same. The realization makes my skin super sensitive, as if an electric current is running through my body.

  He stares into my eyes. ‘Now kiss me and share your breath with me.’

  So we kiss and kiss and kiss and the strangest thing happens. I don’t believe woo-woo stuff but suddenly, amongst the scent of the candles and aromatherapy oils and the silk sheet under us, we become one person. And I’m not even talking about BJ and I. I’m talking about BJ, Tommy, and I. Suddenly we are joined in a kind of magic circle. All of us linked forever. No matter what happens after tonight, we will always be together.

  And then I am back in my physical body, on my hands and knees, reveling in the muscular caress of his shaft. He is like he was in the old days, before the cancer. Raw and unbelievably passionate. I feel his large hands on my body. Touching, claiming, branding. It is as it was on our very first night.

  The orgasm when it comes is so shattering, so incredible, so crazy I can’t even scream.

  ‘Wow! That was so … mind blowing,’ I pant breathlessly.

  He turns his raven eyes to me. ‘You’re mind blowing.’

  ‘So are you going to honey talk me now?’ I tease with a smile

  ‘Why not? You are everything I could have dreamed of. You’re a cool, cool girl, Layla.’

  I look into his beautiful eyes. How I love this man. I take his warm, rough hands in my own. ‘No matter what happens tomorrow, you know, I’ll always love you.’

  Something sad and dark crosses his face, but he hides it as quickly as it showed itself.

  ‘Are you ready for your goodnight kiss?’ he asks lightly.

  As he has done from the day we got married, he opens my legs and lingeringly kisses me right in the middle of my sex.

  ‘Good night, my darling,’ he whispers softly into my core.

  QUOTE

  “Jump into the angry abyss with a smile on your face.

  This how magic has always been created.”

  —Shamans

  THIRTY-TWO

  BJ

  Her eyes look like they are lit up from within and her skin is actually glowing. I remember something that scares me out of my wits. My grandmother once told me that a few hours before dea
th the person always glows. You think they are getting better, but they are really just preparing for the final journey.

  We are at the hospital. Her family is gathered outside. They have said their well wishes and now it’s my turn. Only I can’t say anything. I am too afraid I will break down. I can feel my insides sloshing hotly. I have never been so frightened in all my life.

  ‘You will tell Tommy that I love him and I always will,’ she says. There is slight tremor to her voice and fear in her eyes. She is just as terrified as I am.

  Fuck, I can’t do this. ‘Fucking tell him yourself,’ I say.

  ‘Say something nice to me,’ she says softly.

  But I can’t. If I stop being a son of a bitch I’m going to howl my eyes out. ‘When you get out of here, I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’re gonna need stitches.’

  ‘I said say something nice.’

  ‘It’s hard to say something nice when you are bleeding out.’

  ‘Oh darling.’

  The nurse comes in. ‘It’s time,’ she says.

  I grab Layla’s hand.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ she whispers. ‘I’m not.’

  I want to cry. I want to envelop her in my arms and not let them take her away, but I let go of her hand and watch them wheel her through the swing doors. I stand there, lost and frightened in the empty room. I am so fucking frightened my breath comes out in a huge heave through my body. I feel a hand touch me. I turn around

  ‘Come with me,’ Jake says. His voice is firm and authoritative. And like a lost child I follow him outside. I feel hollow and emasculated. I let her go. She could die on the operating table.

  I should have told her that she is one in a billion.

  Epilogue

  BJ

  “Not to dream boldly may turn out to be irresponsible”

  —George Leonard

  There are fresh flowers on the grave. My mother must have visited earlier. I stand by the headstone and I feel a sense of serenity. For the first time in my life I feel at peace. There is no hate, no anger, no pain, no hurt.

  All the lost jigsaw pieces of my life have come together in a brilliantly beautiful mosaic. Only now, I can see why that red piece happened, or why that blackness had to be right there, where I thought it should not be.

  Now I see how perfect it all is.

  There is a small ladybug on the black marble of my father’s gravestone. I get down on my haunches and watch it. A gust of wind comes and it flies away. I touch the stone. It is warm from the morning sun.

  I never thought the day would come when I would forgive my father. It reminds me of what a man once told me. He was a heroin addict.

  ‘I am not to be reviled. I’m to be pitied. You have to walk in a man’s shoes before you judge him,’ he said.

  I didn’t understand him then, but I do now. I know that given the right circumstances, I could have been my father. Maybe I wouldn’t have battered Tommy, but I wouldn’t have loved him. Without Layla, I would have been dead inside the way my father was.

  He was not to be reviled, he was to be pitied.

  I turn away from the grave and walk towards the car. I have to stop by the local store and get a carton of organic milk for Layla. I haven’t told you what happened, have I? They wheeled her into the operating theater to do the biopsy, only to find no tumor during the ultrasound. It had shrunk to nothing. They couldn’t believe it. They probably still can’t. They didn’t even have to perform a Cesarean. Layla had been right all along. She never stopped believing. She made the miracle happen.

  Layla carried our baby to full term.

  Tommy was born a healthy, lusty baby weighing 8lb and 2 ounces. A bundle of joy.

  It’s a beautiful day, so I park the car and walk down the road to the corner shop.

  ‘Coming for your milk, Mr. Pilkington?’ Mr. Singh calls.

  ‘Yup,’ I say picking up a carton.

  ‘Tell your wife, organic yogurt coming next week.’

  I grin. ‘That’ll make her day.’

  ‘Yes, yes, your wife very interested in organic things. She always looking for seeds. I tell her, I bring from India for her.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr. Singh.’

  ‘No problem.’

  The bell jangles when I close the door. I light a cigarette and smoke it on the walk home. I kill it outside the front steps and chuck it into the bushes. I fit the key into the lock, open the door, and step inside.

  Layla is coming down the stairs. She breaks into a smile.

  ‘Hey,’ she calls gaily and runs down the rest of the way.

  I watch her approach, a sunburst in my heart. ‘You look good enough to eat.’

  ‘Never mind that now. I’ve got a secret to tell you,’ she whispers.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  She giggles. ‘It involves adding to the world’s overpopulation problem.’

  My eyes widen. I feel ten feet tall. I put the bag of milk on the floor and move closer. She smells of milk and baby powder. She starts laughing as I pick her up by her waist and whisk her into the air and whirl her. Round and round we go until we are both dizzy.

  ‘You made me dizzy,’ she says laughing.

  Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.

  She. She is the meaning.

  -The End –

  This book is dedicated to

  Gianna Beretta Molla.

  Took the same decision as Layla, but did not survive.

  Gianna was canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 2004.

  “Lord, keep your grace in my heart. Live in me so your grace be mine.

  Make that I may bear everyday some flowers and new fruit.”

  Gianna Beretta Molla, 1922-1962

  CRYSTAL JAKE

  BOOK 1

  Acknowledgments

  I sincerely hope I don’t leave anyone out, but no doubt I will. And when I do remember I will give myself a hard time and make it a point to mention you in the next book.

  Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Nicola Rhead, Caryl Milton, Elizabeth Burns, Sue Bee, Cariad & Nichole from Sizzling Pages, B.J. Gaskill, Rene Giraldi, Chelle Thompson, Sandra Hayes, Terry & Donna Briody-Buccella, Tina Medeiros, Sharon Johnson, Tracy Spurlock, Simona Misevska, Irida Sotiri, Lan LLP, C.J Fallowfield, Drew Hoffman, Nadia Debowska-Stephens, Maria Lazarou & Nancy of Romance Reads.

  Quote

  Ha, ha, ha, bless your soul.

  You really think you’re in control.

  Well…

  —Crazy, Gnarls Barkey

  Prologue

  Crazy

  ‘NOOOOOOO,’ I HOWL, but there is gravel or grave soil in my throat, and nothing other than an ugly, dried-up rasp travels out of my mouth. My head shakes back and forth like a mindless wind-up toy. Even my body is denying the horror before my eyes. Without warning my knees buckle under me, and I find myself in a heap at the doorway of his flat. Frantically, I begin to crawl toward him, screaming, babbling.

  I can’t lose him! Not him! Oh God, not him. Please. Not him.

  Two feet away from his body and it occurs to me: this is just a nightmare. Of course it is. It has to be. Any moment now I’ll wake up. And the first thing I’ll do? Call him and tell him how much I have missed him, how much I love him.

  I feel the floor scrape against my bare knees. It isn’t a nightmare. It is real.

  We haven’t spoken for two weeks. I had exams and when I called his mobile, it went straight to voicemail… Shit excuse. I should have called again, I should have emailed. Why hadn’t I? I should have known.

  I hunker down over his body, my pose ungainly, heavy, that of a suffering beast. My buttocks hit the floor and my legs fold up and cross under me. I press my fingers against my open mouth and stare at him. His lips and fingers are blue and the rest of him is ashen and still. He can’t be dead.

  It can’t be real!

  The stillness of a dead body is impossible to describe. And yet when you see it you refuse to b
elieve it. You always think it is a trick. A mistake. A ploy…. But a needle is embedded in his arm, which is blackened with the skin stretched and unreal. It looks as if it belongs elsewhere. That is not my brother’s arm. I know my brother’s arm as intimately as I know my own.

  My breathing is shallow and trembling. I suck a huge burst of air into my lungs and pull the offending needle out. My stomach twists. It should never have entered his body in the first place. I throw the syringe away. It hits something and rolls on the wooden floor. It also leaves a tiny hole in my brother’s flesh that does not bleed. I swallow hard. My hands are shaking badly.

  That means he didn’t suffer, a voice whispers in my head. He did not even have time to pull it out before he was gone to wherever it is he went to.

  Oh God! He is nineteen. He can’t be gone.

  CPR. I should give him CPR. There must be something I can still do. I grab his shoulders and try to drag him across my thighs, but his body is so heavy, so cold, and so stiff and foreign that my shocked hands fly away from his shoulders as if they have touched fire. I gaze at him as he lies unmoving. The blood that ran without rest during his short life has stilled within his veins. Everything has cooled and hardened. He is like a piece of wood.

  With a sob of intolerable, indescribable anguish I reach for him and with every ounce of my might I drag his cold, dead weight toward me and lift it onto my lap. I touch the soft brown hair that flops across his forehead and it feels different. His scalp has hardened and changed the lie of his hair. I caress his hair, his face, his hands. Holding his head pressed against my stomach I close my eyes and begin to rock him the way a mother would comfort her distressed baby.