Peace Returns

However, that was one addiction she also saw less and less need for. Somehow, Paul became all that Trinnie needed in the form of a lover. Trinnie said goodbye (or, in truth, "hello") to Gavin, Paul's best friend from college, who she had been making love with on an occasional basis for so long, well ever since that acrimonious argument between Paul and him, which was when she first met Gavin. And all that was left to satisfy her lust for pleasure was Paul. Okay, she also had the occasional snort of coke, but most of the fun that Trinnie had was with Paul and no one else.

As she settled down naked in Paul's arms, the sounds of the Dave Holland Quintet emerging from the Bang & Olufssen speakers, passing a cigarette from lip to lip, Trinnie felt at last the peace that had evaded her for so long. Somehow, as far back as she could remember, everything had been a progression leading step by step from her ragged disease-ridden beginnings where she had been placed so carefully by the policeman who had dragged her corpse there from the ambulance, to this moment now, where the peace she had once only attained fitfully before extracting heroin from her veins was now solid and real. And as she regarded Paul, who smiled back at her, a hand cupped around a nipple, while she stroked his tumescent penis, she compared their love with that which she'd had with so many others. It was true that, by being circumscribed by Paul's rather unadventurous sexual preferences, their love had less of the sense of danger or passion she'd experienced with other men. But whereas in the past, she had found his reluctance to even engage in such relatively innocent variants as anal intercourse a sufficient cause for contempt, now she saw it as just a part of his character. After all, no other lover, including Jayne, had expressed as much love with his tongue nor could anyone else succeed in bringing her to such spasms of ecstasy without the assistance of drugs, just with his teeth, tongue and lips around her vagina.

Trinnie hugged Paul close to her. She knew now she was truly in love. Her drugs, her casual lovers, her degeneracy behind her. From now on, all she could see was a future of love and passion.

This was her moment of peace. This was the zenith of her life. She just wished there was some sense, in the vagaries of time and space, that this moment could last forever.