The Long Hot Weekend Pt. 07

"Whatever drugs you're on," she said, "you might want to ease up just a little. Not that I don't mind the occasional indulgence, but you look like a man on the verge of burning out." I smiled at the joke and she frowned. "Are you alright? You were burning up while we were... You're not sick, are you?"

I shook my head. "Gilly?"

"Left already. She could hardly walk..." Penny walked over and sat next to me. "She's gone home to get some rest. I suggest you do the same."

I nodded. Then I frowned. "Got to clean up."

She chuckled. "Well, rest for now at least. Thanks for this. You're... not at all like your brother describes you."

"Better or worse?"

"Definitely better. But it's probably not a good idea to do this again. He can get possessive... this was fun, though. And I figure you're owed."

"Owed?"

A shadow passed over her eyes. "I mean, it's like I said last night. People like you and I, we need to do something for ourselves."

"What do you mean?"

"Well-" She hesitated. And then she said, "I thought you knew."

I was about to ask, knew what? when my mind finally made the connections. Phrases cascaded down around me all at once, raining down against my mind like hell-frozen hail.

I know you two have been having problems.

She's away on business until Sunday, right?

No, don't come pick me up. it's fine.

I don't like the way she treats you.

Daniel always gets what he wants.

"Where are they?" I asked.

***

I was halfway out of Canary Wharf Station when the heavens opened up.

A handful of droplets at first, little more than spittle that warned of the coming flood; and then, as though some spiteful god had opened up the floodgates, it poured down all at once. A roar began all around me, a thousand thousand tiny drumbeats of impact as the air turned to water and motion. I was drenched in a handful of heartbeats, my shirt soaked through, my hair plastered down around my ears.

The temperature plunged, the oven-air washed away by the storm like a sputtering flame thrown into a river. My sweat was sluiced off me, replaced by a cool, frantic cloak of ice-water that dissolved my shirt and turned my pants into rough, constricting fabric. A minute after the storm started I was shivering, my arms clutched close to my chest.

I stumbled on. A wind picked up, a chaotic, dancing mess that seemed to dart and push and shove at my burnt-out body from every direction at once. The rainwater gathered in the gutters in great rivers that no storm-drain could hope to contain, spilling in triumph into roads and walkways.

By the time I reached the hotel every part of me was drenched. I stepped into air conditioning one degree warmer than artic and, teeth chattering, asked my questions. The girl at the front desk was bored or underpaid or perhaps she simply found the whole matter amusing but she surrendered their room number with nary a muttered complaint. I reached the lift and ascended. My mind was a blank, dead landscape beneath which great titanic things wriggled and writhed and fought.

I reached the door and knocked. It opened. Daniel blinked as he took me in. Those black-ice eyes stared into my own for a handful of seconds.

Then he smiled like a kid who'd just stolen some candy. He stepped back and allowed me to come in.

Janice was there, of course. Naked, her hair tousled, her skin shiny with sweat. She gasped and then moved to cover herself up before glancing at Daniel; and then, in response to some unseen communication, she relaxed, dropping her hands away.

My insides were rotten ice, swirling and mixing into a frothing, spitting mess. I said, "How long?"

Another look. Then Janice said, "A couple of months."

A couple of months. When we'd been dating for six. I should be angry. I didn't feel angry. I just felt cold; a frozen landscape gathered around a tiny, single flame. "Why?"

Janice frowned as though she didn't understand the question. I didn't really expect her to answer. I didn't really want one. It just felt like the sort of thing that you say under the circumstances.

It was Daniel who spoke up, his voice pitched in that jovial tone he always used when he twisted the knife. "Well, what did you expect? I mean, in a way you should be thanking me." He chuckled. "I've been making sure that she sticks around. God knows you were never going to do that. You should be thanking me," he repeated, and I wondered for a second if he would force me to do just that.

I took in a deep breath. "It's okay."

"Good," said Daniel, "because I really care about your-"

"I'm breaking up with you," I said to Janice.

"Why?" She was smiling now, mirroring Daniel's easy confidence. It was a cold little thing that seemed to seep the last of the warmth out of the room. "Look, just because I'm doing this doesn't mean that-"

"I'm not breaking up with you because you cheated on me. I've been cheating on you this whole weekend so I can't point fingers. I can't even pretend the fire had anything to do with it by the end. I'm breaking up with you because I don't love you and you don't love me. I don't think you ever did."

"You cheated on me?"

I couldn't help it. The giggle spilled out of my mouth, flash-fire fast and something inside of me thawed just a little. "Goodbye."

I turned to leave.

Daniel blocked my way. "Stop."

"No." I tried to push past him but he was a frost-covered mountain, immovable and vast. He filled the doorway, cutting off my path out.

"You're upset," he said, in a tone used by adults talking to children. "I get that. But you shouldn't do anything hasty. I've always looked out for you, haven't I? So I don't want you to do anything you'll regret." That smile never wavered, never shifted. The smile of a lion dictating terms to a lamb. The smile of a six-year old bully in the body of a twenty-eight year old man. Pale. White. Like sculpted ice. "Now apologize for Janice. Go on."

I felt his will, his gravity, press down on me, heavy and cold and brutal and I felt it grasp around that flickering ember inside me, smothering it like it always did-

But for the first time in my life the flame did not die out.

***

I don't remember hitting him. I just remember realizing that his smile was the worst thing I had ever seen in my life and I wanted it smashed, obliterated, burnt to ash, melted down into spring slush. From what I gathered I didn't really hurt him; just surprised him. Made him step back for a second. Made him angry.

I remember him breaking my jaw in only in the broadest of terms; pain and impact and a hideous crunching noise accompanied by a spike of agony while someone shrieked and yelled in the background. I don't remember the ambulance summoned by the other guests; I was pretty much unconscious by then.

I woke the next day. Max was there; had been there since she'd heard. I told her what happened and she burst into tears, blaming herself for not telling me earlier. He'd told her about Janice, of course; had told everyone else but me. I think he was saving it for a special occasion like my wedding; or perhaps he would keep it going for years and years, giving her kids for me to raise. It was hard to explain that I forgave her with a broken jaw and a painkiller haze but I managed well enough. I knew what it was like to live in his grip, after all.

I lay there on the bed with no job, no flat, no girlfriend and a broken jaw. I wept with relief; hot, beautiful tears.

Despite Max's urgings I never pressed charges. I'd swung first, after all, even if it was plain to all that his actions went far and beyond self-defence. Besides, pressing charges would mean that I might have to see him again and I was utterly, utterly done with that. I didn't want revenge or to prove myself better than him- at least, better by any metric he used. I just wanted him erased from my life, his presence burned away, cauterized, gone.

A fox caught in a trap will gnaw off its own leg to escape. A hated job and a faithless girlfriend were, all things considered, a much better bargain.

He called me a dozen times afterwards. Sometimes threatening, sometimes angry, sometimes conciliatory; just the once, apologetic. The funny thing was that he actually called more times than Janice did. In the end I changed my phone number.

Dad called once when my jaw had healed. I screamed at him a lot and hung up.

Max and I keep in contact. We didn't start the grand love affair I'd always assumed we'd have; once I'd gotten years of repressed lust out of my system we turned out to work out better as cousins than lovers. We keep in close contact and see each other at least once a week. She's dating someone and I'm more happy for her than I am jealous. I spent Christmas with her and Aunty Senna-

(Where we played the ongoing game of Fuck Your Cousin in as Many Places as You Can Without Her Mother Finding Out. Like I said, we didn't start a grand love affair. Fun, though? Sometimes we had a lot of fun.)

I didn't bother trying to find work in banking again. Daniel had, in one of his many messages, made it clear that he had shit on that particular bed. Oddly enough Gilly came to the rescue, putting a good word in for me at a small accounting firm. The work pays peanuts compared to what I did before but the working environment is great and I actually feel like I'm where I belong. I thanked Gilly for her kindness over the course of a weekend. A very fun, very kinky weekend. Max helped.

I'm taking a writing course. My teachers tell me I'm pretty good.

When Sanaya vanished for a month I got worried. In the end she contacted me. Whatever I'd done to her mother had either loosened her up a little or sufficiently scared her that she allowed us together- so long as her grades stayed good. We had a discreet friends-with-benefits relationship for the better part of four months before she asked a boy in her class out. I suppose that whatever she was hoping to get from me she got. For what it was worth I was happy to give it.

The nameless girl from the Friday night turned out to be a Canadian named Cynthia. We went out on a couple of dates before we agreed that great sex was pretty much the only thing we had in common. The last time I saw her was four weeks ago when I got a drunken series of texts that were the result of a particularly bad breakup; I ended up consoling her, nice and hard, several times over the course of the evening.

I never saw the flame-woman again.

Perhaps Max was right and she had never been anything more than a hallucination caused by the heatstroke and stress and a lifetime of suppressed desires. Perhaps she'd been real and something Sanaya and I had done in Thomas's apartment had broken the spell. Perhaps she could have only ever lingered in that strange, once-in-a-generation heatwave and the rain had washed her away. Perhaps she'd had her fun with me and left on her own accord once I was close to burning out.

Perhaps she'd just shown me what I had needed to see.

All I know is that as long as I live I will never, ever forget those three days. Three days of madness; three days of passion; three days that burned my old life to ash; three days of flame that blazed brightly and then vanished, never to be seen again.

Well. Mostly vanished.

I'm sitting at a bar in Soho with a pint in my hand. It's cold; the last freezing fingers of winter clutching the city for dear life before spring pries it loose. I'm with some work mates but I'm not paying attention to them; I'm paying attention to the girl talking to her friends on the other side of the bar. She's slim like a bird, her hair a shock of blonde so pale it's nearly white and trimmed into a pixie-cut that reminds me of dandelions. She's skinnier than I'd normally prefer but she moves with a lightning-fast energy as though infused with spark of joy and her smile shines bright in the dim pub light.

The sight of her is like pure oxygen on old embers. And so I reach out and let the heat of my flames touch her. Not a raging inferno, not an all-consuming flame; a hearth-fire, warm and gentle. A suggestion, an invitation instead of a searing demand. That's all that left.

It's enough. She stops her conversation mid-sentence with her friend and scans the crowd as though looking for a friend. Her eyes fall on me and she smiles for a heartbeat before looking away. When she looks back her eyes smoulder.

I make my apologies to my friends and wander over to her. We'll spend the evening getting to know each other in the best possible way. And if the night is cold and cruel, well-

We can make our own heat.

***

I hope you enjoyed the story! Please feel free to post constructive criticism. My updates might get a little patchy due to some (very happy) real life stuff, so I hope you will be patient.