Entwine (22 page)

“Just give me a minute.”

He bent and latched onto her tit, sucking one, and massaging the other with his hands. His tongue flicked her nipple, and his fingers transferred from her breast in to pinch her other nipple. Sarah ended up clenching her thighs around his waist, rubbing her wetness on him like she was marking him. She tried to stop pulsating but the magic he produced heightened her arousal, and was too great for her to control her reactions.

She slid her hand down his chest, his waist. “Now.”

He grunted and then picked up his length, and waved it on the skin around her opening. Both Sarah and Malik looked down, moments from being connected.

His lips were a breath away from hers, his eyes wide and taking hers in as he thrust into her. Sarah’s eyes popped wide, and she shuddered, her hips buckling with the size of him entering her. He began kissing her and she lost herself, slipping her tongue around his, and deepening the kiss as they pumped their hips together and back.

Malik’s hands cupped her ass cheeks, and Sarah dipped back to rest the back of her head against the mirror behind her. Angled away from him, the apex of their arousals met closer, and she closed her eyes, letting her thoughts of Malik working his and her pleasure fill the images in her head.

She started tensing around him, and couldn’t hold any longer, the pressure making her skin slick and her whole body hot, though she was completely naked.

“Go, baby. Come,” he said, still pumping.

She allowed his words to let the switch in her flick, like permission, and she shuddered around him, bringing her hands to paw at the hard surface of the mirror behind her, to press hard into something, to alleviate the feeling shattering her apart inside.

“Fuck, Sarah,” Malik said, “You’re so beautiful like that—oh, fuck. Sarah, I’m coming.”

“Do it,” she pleaded.

“Shit,” he said, tightening his hands at her ass, and frantically pounding into her. “I’m coming right now.”

She felt him pulse and his movements slow until he slowly slipped out. Moments later he turned away to the toilet roll, to fix himself up. Sarah slipped down to the ground, but had to hold on to the railing at the wall when her legs trembled and wouldn’t hold her up. When settled, she pulled her panties back up, and was finishing tugging her singlet down as she saw Malik fit his T-shirt down over his abs.

“Did I just mess things up between us? I couldn’t stop myself,” he said.

Sarah expelled a long breath, taking her time to let her head clear. “I couldn’t stop myself either.”

• • •

NOW

When Sarah stepped out of the disabled toilet block, she smoothed down her hair, fearing it was all stuck up and messed from being rubbed against the door, the mirror,
him
. Out of the corner of her eye, she peeked up at Malik. He was trying to conceal the same cheeky grin she was.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I really need to explain things to you now, before you start wondering how far you need to get away from me.”

“I didn’t say that, Malik.”

He didn’t answer, or say where he was taking her, and, too embarrassed by what just happened, she didn’t repeat herself, and just let her burning questions eat her up.

After the walk through the revolving doors, she spotted Malik’s black XR6 Turbo parked behind her little vehicle. They looked cute lined up together.
Who’s car should we take?
she wondered. Sarah detoured to the cars, but Malik’s hand found hers, and pulled her back towards the sidewalk, heading in the opposite direction.

“It’s not far. We’ll take the tram and walk.”

The day was perfect for it, too. Sarah checked the time, noticing it was brunch-time. The sun was out today and the clouds were sparse. It was a bright light, not a hot one, so she pulled out her sunglasses from her bag and slipped them on. Malik found her hand afterwards, but now that she had breathing space, Sarah’s mind had churned out horrible and even more hurtful flashbacks from last night, when she’d seen what he was doing with Alyssa, and she needed space. Even though it was one handhold, Sarah didn’t want to touch him now, and she sighed deeply when thinking back to what she had let go too far in the toilets.

Her body still craved him, but Sarah needed to be a level-headed grown up woman. He was not right for her in a relationship, if last night was his true nature.
Ergh, and I kissed the same lips
she
did.

Sarah started gathering clues as to where he was taking her once they hopped off the tram. They walked along the path to the station entrance and down the stairs. It was Sunday morning, and beside the hours before, closer to dawn when services started up, it was the quietest she could imagine the station being. A voiceover called out the next train to depart was the 10.20 am, and only two people got on the carriage. Malik and Sarah crossed over to the same platform where they met, and sat down on a bench between the spot she was spying on him, and where he’d secretly seen her, too.

Sarah brought up her feet to rest over the edge of the bench, and grabbed the ends of her shoes, holding her heels close, and resting her chin on her knees. She wanted to ask why the hell Malik went and ruined something so magnificent between them. That’s how Sarah would describe what they had; great, beautiful, immense. All the ways to describe magnificent were what he was to her. He was this outside thing, grand and too much for little ol’ her. Guess she was so blinded by his positives, she didn’t see the snake crawling up behind her, ready to strike her down.

“Alcohol is my kryptonite, Sarah. I’m an addict. I don’t want to drink, but I take one at a time anyway, because I can’t help it, and one drink isn’t that big a deal. Then one becomes five, becomes ten, and … and I’m not the man you should want. I’ve spent years drinking away money and my life. I’ve been sober for three years now, but fuck, doesn’t matter to Alyssa. She knows my weakness. She doesn’t care.”

Sarah swallowed, and felt her body shudder afterwards. She turned her head, needing to see Malik.

“I can’t even explain to you what happened. I’m obviously fucking kidding myself—I’m not over my addiction. I don’t remember why I had one drink, or when I kept having more. I didn’t have any on me and yet I got so trashed … I can’t even explain to you why I went out of my way to have a drink. I just …”

He growled and buried his head in his palms, obscuring all of his face but his ears, which had a red tinge to them. She heard his laboured breathing through his thick fingers, which was followed by yet another frustrated growl. He jolted up, turned, and hammered his fist into the beam behind their bench seat. His fist must have been white with the tension, soon to be red and bloodied. Sarah wanted him to stop, but her legs were too shaky to stand, her thoughts whirring.
Will he be too overpowering to stop? Will he not recognise me in his rage and hit me?
She sat there, wide-eyed, and unsure what to do.

Malik’s breaths became angry puffs. Sarah felt his hurt aching in her heart. She couldn’t take him back, but she did pity him, and felt sorry that he’d tried his best to conquer those demons her and her mother had pitied in this poor stranger, ones that still crept up on him.

Clearly, Sarah was as magnificent to him as he was to her. But now it was ruined, changed by one weak night.

Not seeming to stop anytime soon, she came behind him and held one hand tightly crossed over his upper chest, and one tightly around his waist, jolting into his curved body shape from behind with his thrust. He stilled, dropped his forearms against the beam, and sunk his head between his arms. Sarah thought she heard a whispered sorry, but he said louder, anyway, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. That’s still not nearly adequate.”

After a few minutes passed, he did a few laps up and down then sat by Sarah again. Sarah had her hands gripped over the edge of her wedges, and her knees tucked up.

He swivelled her by her ankles so she faced him directly. Sarah removed her sunglasses and couldn’t help but sweep her gaze up and take in Malik, a tortured man.

“I understand letting go of your inhibitions when you’re drunk, but God, Malik.” Sarah sighed. “I’d kiss a guy I was too shy to say hi to, or get up and dance in front of a crowd when I’d never have the courage to before, or something else crazy, but they’d all be because, secretly, I wanted to try it. You can’t tell me inside your heart you don’t feel something for Alyssa after you kissed her and were all over each other.”

“I barely remember it. It’s all woozy. Just all one continuous lump of fucking up.”

“Did you touch her after that, or sleep with her?”

“No, I fell asleep, nothing happened after that.”

“But you remember me seeing you?”

“It’s clear. Your face. It was like you’d seen a ghost, and then had a huge punch to your chest, and then were trampled all over, all in your eyes and expression. That’s crystal clear. What isn’t, is everything else. I didn’t even have the urge to drink. I was with Lucy, and any time I have her, she’s all I think about. I love making my daughter’s days with me as special as I can, so she has something to grow up with.”

“And Alyssa? The hell, Malik. You can’t imagine how much it hurts.”

“Excuse me sounding rude, but I can. My wife, the love of my life, and my everything, at the time broke my heart. She left me alone, and I was this person with nothing left. I haven’t come here to launch into a string of denial claims. Alcoholism will always be the part of myself I have to keep a lid on, and hold locked down. I was fine when we met. Fine for years.

“But then I met you. I didn’t realise I needed all of you to myself. And that has made my last week the happiest since … since I can’t remember being that happy, it’s been so long.

“I can barely stay here with you, knowing I’ve hurt you somewhat, like I’ve already been hurt. I hate her. I deal with her, but I do not—in any way—have feelings for her. You have to trust me.”

“I did. I really did. But maybe what you told me was the insecurity of a reflection deep inside you that you haven’t acknowledged yet. I’ve never thought about anything other than being with you.” Sarah pushed back, and faced the train tracks again. “So maybe it’s you who has to think if you ever really wanted me, or the idea of me. Maybe you suggested what we are, is nothing more than a whirlwind, because it’s what
you
really believe. You need to do some thinking if you don’t understand why you did what you did with your ex. As you once said to me, this isn’t a game to me. So don’t play me around.”

“I meant it.” His lips pressed in and his chin quivered. It wasn’t that he was about to cry. More like, Sarah could picture him, dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around her legs, his cheek pressed against her thighs in desperation. “I feel
nothing
for her.”

“Excuse me for doubting that.”

He shrugged, nodded, downcast.

“If I can’t trust you, and you don’t know what’s going on with why you did what you did last night, what hope do we have?” She threw her hands in the air.

Sarah stood. She had nothing more to say, and didn’t want to risk his grovelling changing her mind. He held out his hand to hold her, but she stood back.

“I’m sorry. What about what we did just before? You can’t say that wasn’t incredible.”

“It was, but we’re too compatible, yet incompatible. We do what we feel, not what we think we should. And right now, we need to think.”

“Let me make it up to you.
Properly
. I love you.”

“Please, Malik. Don’t react. Think about this. It’s not just you who’s been hurt badly before. I need you to be sure, and trustworthy. At the moment, I’m not sure why you said you’d never lie to me. Seems like a thin promise now.”

Sarah walked down the platform and up the steps to take the train back. She didn’t turn, didn’t hear Malik follow, and didn’t know where to go from here.

At least he still respected her wishes above his own wants—which hurt her like a heel thrust into her throat.

PARENTING

NOW

Sarah drove home, feeling like her body and mind were in two different places. She felt like an empty shell, but tucked inside her head was a load of pain and betrayal, so great that she wondered why her body was made to make her feel so low. The train ride had passed neither fast nor slow, the drive was peaceful and uneventful, and when she stepped into her house, it was quiet, save for some rattling coming from the kitchen.

Sarah dropped her handbag beside the entryway and rushed up to her room. She didn’t want her mum seeing her dressed like this, or to start talking and asking things before she was ready. In her room, Sarah stripped her jeans, top and her make-up. She re-dressed in drawstring pants, a tank top, and piled her hair in a bun on top of her head. Still hearing the fan from over the stove and her mum bustling around in the kitchen, she headed there. Now ready, she figured some of her mum’s baking had to help. Even a little bit.

“Sarah!” her mum cried. “Hi.” She swallowed and licked her lips, turning down the heat and resting the wooden spoon in the saucepan. “It’s just Bolognese sauce, to store away for when we make pasta.”

She flapped her hand, like it wasn’t anything to worry about. She leant over the kitchen bench and motioned for Sarah to sit down on a stool. Sarah sat, glad to be able to sit somewhere and not feel like she was in a spotlight.

“Coffee, juice, water?”

Sarah salivated, thinking of something to drink. It was too early for something as bland as water, but she could definitely go some juice. “Any OJ?”

Her mum came back with a full glass. It was the pulp type, and Sarah relished the tangy taste of the orange juice and pieces, closing her eyes and gulping it down in one go.

“Do I have Drunk Sarah or Hungry for Breakfast Sarah?”

“Well I’m not drunk,” Sarah said.

Her mum turned and took out a fry pan, eggs, and some rashers of bacon. She kept her eyes low, out of range of running into Sarah, which spurred Sarah to sit up and think. Damn, she realised, just now, that she’d insinuated she was hungry for breakfast, but that wasn’t only it. Her mum pushed a plate with bacon, eggs and toast toward her, with a side cup of refilled OJ.