The Lover's Children

Chapter 58 – April’s Tears #9

GEORGIE

When we touch, it is the lightest of contacts. A feather’s touch. A butterfly’s touch. A kiss lighter than

the flicker of sunlight on grass. Or water. Or green leaves.

He presses his mouth to mine. Still softly. His warm flesh on mine. And his touch is sweet. So sweet.

He slips a hand to my face, his palm on my cheek. The other slides behind my shoulders, glides down

to settle at my waist, coaxing me closer.

His lips part, but oh, so slightly, tasting me as I taste him. Electricity sparkles through me, leaving me

breathless. Borje kisses me as I have always wanted to be kissed, as I have dreamed of being kissed.

He kisses me as though I were the only woman he had ever kissed. As though I were the only woman

in the world. As though we were the only two people in the world.

It is euphoric. Ecstatic. Everything stops. Everything in the world stops. There is no one but we two. My

head swims. Every detail, every emotion, every sensation is heightened.

Is this me?

Is this really me?

It. Is. Incredible.

If he were the air I breathe, my very oxygen, the moment could not be more intense, more sensual…

More beautiful…

His tongue flicks over my lips, the merest suggestion of what might be to come. There’s no sense of

intrusion or invasion. I shudder as his teeth catch my lower lip. He plucks gently at the flesh, then

releases it as the hand on my cheek slips around to cup behind my neck. Tightening his hold on me,

fingers twining into my hair, he opens his mouth over mine.

I thought I felt his passion before.

I was wrong.

The hand behind me shifts, slipping over my waist and around, gliding upward to settle over my ribs,

under my breast but not touching it.

My heart races and my breathing accelerates, as though he were a musician, playing me, some

composer penning the score: subito accelerando.

The touch, the caress, the moment, is passionate, utterly sensual, utterly sexual, and yet at no point

does Borje touch any part of me that a teenage girl, with Love’s first caress, would think amiss.

Perhaps I moan. Perhaps it is only my breath escaping.

He leads me on a dazzling dance. No, not a dance. A flight. A soaring escape to freedom. It’s

intoxicating. Mesmerising. I have never felt so aware. So alive.

Borje breaks away.

And it’s gone. Done.

The kiss that rocked my world…

As I blink open, his gaze is locked with mine. “You still wonder if there is something wrong with you?”

“Um… no. No.” I’m high. Giddy. The utter clarity of a few moments ago has evaporated. Everything is

vaguely hazy, fuzzy almost. I’m so hot I can’t think clearly. Nerves jabbering, heart hammering, the

blood fizzes through my veins, yammers behind my ears.

What just happened?

Borje still holds me, hands resting loosely at my waist and shoulders. “So, Georgie…” his voice is soft.

“… Where do we go from here?”

*****

KLEMPNER

His hand in hers, Borje leads Georgie to a bench, and the pair sit, loosely embraced, heads close,

talking quietly.

Beside me, Mitch Hmmms. “Now that's a kiss...”

I can’t disagree.

“… You think that’s a man who’s not seriously interested?”

“Perhaps I was wrong.”

“I don’t think Georgie needs your protection. Not from Borje.”

*****

BORJE

The kiss still warm on my lips, I keep my hold loose on this beautiful but bewildered woman.

Her eyes, as dark as her father’s, hold something that I’ve never seen in his: some sense of turmoil. An

utter tumult of the emotions.

Georgie’s long dark hair breaks loose in the slight breeze and she finger-combs it back into order, then

winds a long lock around her fingers. “I’ve never been kissed like that before.”

“I’m pleased to hear it. I’d hate to think I had competition.”

The eyes rise to mine, pits of woe and tragedy. “No. There’s no competition…” She swallows hard…

“No one stays with me long.” The eyes sheen, then fill, then fall.

Is all my good work of the last few minutes about to be undone?

Fuck that…

I pinch her chin, shaking her head gently one way, then the other. “I will. I’ll stay with you. If you want

me.”

She nods. “I do. I do want you to.”

“Well, then.” She’s shivering. I’m not sure if it’s arousal, or nerves, or chill. Or all three. But we need to

be somewhere warmer. “How about a nightcap?”

Her smile grows like some unfurling blossom. “I’d like that.”

*****

PAT

A few days of pleasant anticipation lies ahead of me. Making my plans is always such fun.

Choosing plain joggers and a hoodie in shades of dark grey, and soft-soled trainers, I set out for the

evening.

An all-night cafe across the road from the Sapphire Club gives me a vantage point. The angle’s not

great, but I can just about see the front entrance if I pick the right table. From there, as I come off the

late shift, ham and eggs with plenty of coffee keeps me going. And the sports channel gives me the

excuse to stay.

So I hang, taking in more caffeine than is good for me, surfing on my phone.

Just after 4 am, All Kinds Of Girls! blinks out and the assorted compañeros stagger out in various

shades of intoxication, mostly on the arm of whichever whore-monger has paid them for the privilege.

Doubtless, they’ll be paid for a different kind of dancing now.

Danielle, if that’s her name, exits in the company of some john at least a head shorter than she is.

From the way she gushes over him, I’m guessing his wallet offers more than the rest of him.

Lily leaves with another girl, the pair stepping out smartly as they make their way toward one of the

poorer residential quarters. In the dark, I don’t get a good look at her companion, but her hair is visible

so I guess she’s either fair-haired or blonde.

The night workers are wrapping up. The day workers will be in their beds for a few hours yet. The

streets are as empty as they’re ever likely to be in this part of town with only the occasional passing

car. I follow, some distance behind, on the opposite side of the road, my hood up, the slight sound of

my footsteps probably masked by the click-click of their heels.

After only a short distance, the two part company. A few muttered words and a ‘Night, Ginny…” Lily

turns off, climbs stone steps. At the door, keys in hand, she pauses, turns, watches.

‘Ginny’ walks on a couple of hundred yards further before also stopping at steps, this time descending

to a basement flat. She also turns back. The pair wave at each other, then each unlocks and enters.

It can’t take long. I wait. Sure enough, after a minute or so, a bulb dangling on a cord blinks on at a All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

central window on the third floor. Another half a minute, and the window to the left lights up. A female

silhouette moves across the light, then draws down a blind.

Casting a look right, then left…

No one else around…

… just on the off-chance, I pad up the steps, to the door. To one side a panel of faded names and

cracked doorbells lists a dozen names. Tracing up the labels, I find 3a: J Ramirez and 3b: L Thomas.

L for Lily?

Or Ramirez for a sultry-eyed Hispanic type?

Still…

I know where you live now.

Do you live alone?

*****

JAMES

The cool damp from the morning has made itself felt, and my bad leg aches abominably. It warmed up

nicely with the afternoon, enough to open a window and let the air in. Nonetheless, settled now into my

armchair by the hearth, the leg propped on a footstool to bathe in the glow of the flames, I’m

comfortable. I don’t want to move.

April is a lovely month, but it still can carry the last kiss of Winter.

Roll on May…

Only a few days now…

A knock from the front door.

Damn…

Who the hell’s that?

The knock repeats.

Ah, fuck it…

And I’m about to go answer when… Michael’s voice. “I’ll get it.”

Footsteps down the hall…

Michael again. “Hi. Were we expecting you?”

Then another voice…

More footsteps, followed by Michael’s head poking around the door. “James, a visitor for you.”

“Oh? Who is it?”

But before he can answer, a figure enters behind him: tall, Scandinavian-blond, well-dressed and well-

scrubbed. “Good evening, James.”

“Borje…” I start to rise from my seat, swinging my leg down, then curse under my breath as a spiteful

little nip of pain skitters up my thigh. A slow breath, then, “Georgie's not here. So far as I know she's in

the hotel.”

He gestures me down. “James, please don’t get up. And it’s you I want to see. If you have a few

minutes, I’d like a word.”

“Oh? What about?”

He pauses, glancing to Michael.

Michael dithers, then, “I’ll, um… I’ll catch you in a while.” He exits, closing the door quietly behind

himself.

I wave Georgie’s beau to the settee. “You’d better sit down.”

Borje takes a seat, tugging his trousers up at the knee, a reflexive movement I’m sure he doesn’t even

realise he’s making. Leaning back, casual, he drapes an arm over the back of the couch.

I sit back myself, easing my leg back onto the stool, letting out air as the discomfort subsides. “So,

Borje, what can I do for you?”

He speaks slowly, the words measured and deliberate. “You’re aware, of course, that I’ve been seeing

Georgie?”

Resisting the impulse to growl, “I’m aware of that, yes. For several months, in fact.”

Another pause. Borje measures me with his eye. “James, you’re not quite friendly to me over this, are

you?”