by M J Porter
Chapter Three
She met his eyes, defiantly, daring him to question her. He wanted to, desperately. Where had she been?
He glanced down at his closed fist. The blue stone she’d given to him on their last night together hummed lightly and vibrated to her proximity. It distracted him from her dazzling sapphire eyes, which had once drawn him to her, and now did again. He opened his hand and looked at the gem that illuminated his hand in a gentle blue glow.
Immediately he felt her soft hand on his as she delicately reached out and picked up the small stone. It responded quickly to her touch. The glow brightened painfully, and he turned his eyes away from the candescent light, already seeing spots dance before his eyes.
He heard a soft laugh and when his eyes cleared enough for him to see, Sapphire had the stone in her hand and was laughing to herself, as tears streamed down her face. He had an immediate flashback to that fateful night so many years ago when she’d been drenched from the rain that flowed unendingly over her face and skin. Now her tears caused the water.
She’d still not spoken to him, and he didn’t want to break the silence that hung between them. He didn’t want to say the wrong things or act in the wrong way. It was so good to see her, alive and well that he could hear his heart hammering out an unsteady rhythm.
She’d not changed at all. Her hair waist long and blonde, her figure well toned, her eyes bright. He would have liked to reach out to embrace her, experience the thrill of her touch again as when she’d taken the stone. He knew that if he could hold her, take her in his arms, kiss her, and tell her he was sorry, his heart would beat erratically. He didn’t care. He’d welcome the agony of not knowing if it would beat again just to have her in his arms.
The silence between them continued, and he simply stood and looked at her, waiting for something to happen. Eventually, her tears dried, and she picked the gem up, and put it in her mouth. He moved, quickly, to stop her. Maybe she didn’t realise what it was. He was too late; she swallowed, and he could only assume that the stone was gone. He hoped she didn’t choke. It would be terrible to find her again, only for her to die.
Instead, she was suffused with the blue light from the stone, and he remembered the things he’d seen from the rainy night of their youth. The thing that had drawn him to her was a glowing blue light, identical to this one. That was how he’d found her, in the pitch black of the stormy night.
He couldn’t take his eyes from her. The blue light was pouring out of her mouth, her nose and her eyes. It should have been horrifying – a truly frightening special effect from a horror movie. It wasn’t. Instead, it felt right, and it felt natural. Eventually, the colour dimmed and he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a darker blue light settle inside her through her skin, and come to rest, still glowing faintly, where her heart should be.
He reacted instinctively. He reached out, above her gently heaving breasts, and placed his hand over the spot where the faint blue still pulsed. She didn’t stop him. His heartbeat sped up at the feel of her, and he realised that the blue pulse in her chest and his own heart were beating in harmony.
A gasp and he woke, his heart hammering painfully in his ears as he became aware of the sweat sheeting his face and cascading down his back where he lay entangled in the bed sheets.
What the hell was that all about?
At his side, Rebecca didn’t stir at his movements, continuing to snore gently as the sound of the ocean swept quietly through the open patio doors of their honeymoon suite, the grey light of dawn still some time away.
He swung himself free from the silk bed sheets and padded over to the veranda, trying to catch his breath and still his rapid heartbeat.
He wished now he’d not had that other cocktail last night. Perhaps, a little more sober, he and Rebecca wouldn’t have had their silly argument, and he’d not have spent the night dreaming of the woman he’d rejected for her.
His honeymoon was not quite working out the way he’d hoped. The hotel was beautiful, the peaceful beaches a joy to walk along, the sand golden between his toes. But more often than not, he found himself walking the beaches alone while his wife of a scant few days slept off another hangover from hell. He couldn’t comprehend how someone so small could polish off quite so many cocktails in such a small space of time.
That said, he wasn’t unconvinced that she was drinking from the moment she woke, muddle-headed and green, to the moment she passed out hours later. He couldn’t understand it. This was the honeymoon destination she’d cried for, begged to come to. Now she was here she was bored and always moaning that there was nothing to do except drink and bloody sunbathe.
The lazy mornings of lounging in bed that he’d envisioned had failed to materialise, as had the equally sleepy afternoons and evenings. The sex, when they had it, was fantastic, but Rebecca could barely stir herself to kiss him, let alone anything else, and he was sick at heart. His disturbing dream was only serving to highlight how unhappy he was.
After three years of certainty, he was starting to doubt his choice. It was not a happy thought when he’d been married for less than a week.
Moodily he returned to where he’d discarded his clothes only hours before and shrugged into his shorts, t-shirts and trainers. A walk on the beach would calm him. With barely a glance at the object of the escalating snores, he snuck back out onto the veranda and climbed down the short flight of wooden steps, to the gentle beach. On a whim, he discarded his only just laced trainers and left them on the highly polished wooden decking.
He returned hours later, not sure what he’d find, but feeling calmer about his strange dream. He’d managed to reason it all away as a sign of a little too much alcohol, and a little too much stress, and he was even prepared to accept responsibility for the argument of the night before. Anything for an easy life.
The sand beneath his feet had soothed his soul, and the slowly rising sun had bathed him in a light so bright that he’d felt cleansed by it.
Walking back through the small crowd of people sunbathing on the isolated beach, he’d felt a silly grin light his face. No matter what, he was still ecstatic to be married. Last night was just a slight hiccup. He’d make it better if he needed to, or he’d hope that maybe, just maybe, she’d drunk too much last night to remember their argument.
Maybe she’d still be in bed when he got back, and he’d be able to climb back into bed with her and wake her up slowly by littering kisses along her back or her neck. He felt his excitement rise as he walked, and then tiptoed quietly through the open bedroom window of their beachside hotel room.
He looked first to the bed hopefully, but she wasn’t there. He walked to the bathroom only the door was open, and she wasn’t inside. Turning full circle, he looked all around the room for any sign that she may have left some tale-tell sign of where she’d gone. Finding none he felt his hard one good mood evaporate. Where the bloody hell had she gone?
He sunk into the comfortable armchair in the room and closed his eyes as he ran his hand over his face. Why was this all going so wrong?
She was still smarting about her supposed friend's comments about the wedding that had cost him and her parents a small fortune. She’d barely relaxed once on their ‘perfect’ honeymoon, apart from when she’d drunk so much as to be barely coherent, and last night, he’d snapped at her. Fed up with her partying and seeming inability to spend any time alone with him. When she drank in the hotel bar, or at one of the local tourist bars, she always surrounded herself with other couples, or even worse, single men. Where were the romantic, leisurely dinners, and the even longer and lazy days spent lying on the perfect and secluded beach? He wondered why he’d bothered with all the overtime to pay for the damn holiday.
Tears filled his eyes, as an icy fear gripped his heart. For all his stern talking to himself this morning, and his hard-won optimistic outlook for the rest of the day, it appeared that he’d wasted his time. It was midday, and he knew where he’d find her – at the
hotel bar. Whether he wanted to find her or not was another thing entirely.
Grabbing a bright striped beach towel from the side of the veranda, he strode down to the beach. He was buggered if he was going to wait around for her to appear, all red-rimmed eyes, and staggering on her unsteady feet. He would leave her alone. He would not be the one doing all the running and apologising after all.
He picked a spot on the beach close enough to the room that he’d hear when she returned, but far enough away that it might look as though he was ignoring her. Laying the towel on the beach, he slipped his sunglasses from the top of his head and shielded his eyes from the bright sunlight before sprawling on his back, using his arm as a pillow. The sound of the waves gently snaking up the beach, and the almost silence of the day soon lulled him back to sleep.
Again he dreamed, and in his dream, the two sisters were strangely intermingled. It wasn’t Rebecca he had stayed with, but Sapphire, and it was Sapphire he now married and lay ensconced in his honeymoon bed with. Her long blond hair tickled his face as she lay in his arms, or astride him, or beneath him. Her soft voice spoke only of love, and there were no recriminations about a wedding so small it had only involved a handful of people. But then, Rebecca strode into the room, shouting and red faced, her anger a palpable tension in the air. He didn’t hear the words she spoke but neither did he need to. And then she disappeared into thin air, and he was left again with only Sapphire and her soft words of love and her gentle touch.
He woke slowly, savouring the dream, enjoying the tranquillity it had brought him. He smiled as he woke, happy again and for a moment, forgetting that his dream was not a reality.
At his side a soft, warm body was moulded around him, a hand delicately working its way up and down his naked sun-drenched chest in hazy circles. He smiled with pleasure turning his head to kiss the blond head beside him.
A sharp gasp escaped his lips when he discovered the hair was auburn, and abruptly he remembered everything. Rebecca heard him and looked at him with longing in her eyes.
“I like it when my touch has that sort of effect on you,” she giggled, turning her head so that he could smell her alcohol-infused breath. Pleased that she’d misinterpreted his reaction, he groaned aside his frustration at her early drinking, and instead asked the more pertinent question.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Well, I missed you this morning and thought that you’d probably be at the pool or having breakfast, so I went to find you. Only you weren’t there, and somehow, I found myself in the bar again.”
She giggled at his words, and he closed his eyes in a calming effort. He didn’t want to argue again, and her presence next to him made him fairly confident that she’d forgotten all about it. Deciding that sometimes silence was best, he turned towards her and gently nibbled her nose. She giggled again in response and hoisted herself up on her elbows to kiss him deeply on the lips, her bikini clad body warm against his own. Groaning with the suppressed desire of the last two days, it wasn’t long before, even on their secluded strip of beach; it was time to move inside their hotel room.
