Chapter 32
CARPET BURN
“I can,” Zane said. She could barely see him in the nearly absolute darkness, but she could tell that he was sitting up. “Glass of water, maybe?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I probably just need to sit. I don’t want to wake Jade, but I—” She stopped.
“Can’t sleep, eh,” he said. “Me neither. Come sit by me, if you like.”
She did. He put an arm around her, then pulled the throw over both of them. His side was solid and warm, so was his arm, and her tension was possibly lessening.
“Better?” he asked after a minute.
“Yeh,” she said. “You’re like a weighted blanket.”
“A what?”
“People use them for anxiety. I don’t normally have anxiety, but sometimes …”
“Widow,” he said. “Single parent. I get it. And if you can’t afford the anxiety in the moment, you feel it later.”
“Yes.” It was an exhalation. “At least I think that’s what this is. When I close my eyes, I keep seeing—”
“What?” he asked. And when she didn’t answer, “Telling could make it easier. Want me to go first?”
“Yes.” Another sigh. He was so warm. “Please. And I know men think they’re not allowed to be scared, but is anyone so tough that they’re actually not scared at a time like that?”
“If anybody is,” he said, “it’s not me. Going up that hill, trying to get everybody else out of there with us … I’m not likely to forget that anytime soon.”
“You were able to save the people around you, then.”
“Yes. No.” He was the one sighing now. “We were able to get everybody who was right there, because there were dozens of us. We didn’t feel like we had time even to run around the corner, though.
When a few of us ran down the motorway to the CBD in the dark, later, we saw wrecked cars down the slope, as if they’d been washed down there.
We saw the news, too, because the electric didn’t go out where I was. We knew what had happened.”
She paused a moment, then said, “What did the news say?” She wanted to know, and she didn’t.
“That people were washed away. That people were trapped in buildings, or crushed. What you’d expect. Bad enough to hear, but not knowing where you and the kids were … that was the worst. When I was really scared? Running to find you. The longer it took, the worse it got.”
“I was so glad.” The tears were right there, welling up on cue. “When you told me you were coming. That was …” She had to take a breath, and the lump in her throat was huge. “I can’t even describe that. And then there was the aftershock, and I didn’t know— I wasn’t— I couldn’t—”
The tears were here, and she couldn’t stop them.
She was glad for the darkness, because she was sobbing now as she hadn’t let herself before, because she’d had to focus on the kids.
She’d thought, Later. Later, you can fall apart.
Right now, you have to focus. You have to do this.
But later, eating dinner, having a quick shower, in bed with Jade, she hadn’t felt able to cry.
Not if the kids would see. Not if Jade would see.
And now, there was no holding back the wave.
He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t pull away.
He just held her through the storm, and when she was shuddering in its aftermath, he was still holding her.
“One sec,” he said, as she was trying to wipe her face.
He took his arm away, and she thought, Don’t leave me.
Even to get a towel, or whatever you’re doing. Please, stay. Stay and hold me.
He didn’t leave. He pulled off his T-shirt and handed it to her. “Wipe your face on this.” Matter-of-fact. Sensible.
She did it, and that was better. “I’ve wrecked your shirt, though,” she said, still sniffling a bit. “You won’t have a spare, because you don’t have any of your things.”
“Nah. I’ll borrow one from Dad in the morning.
” His arm was around her again, and she curled up under the throw and let herself be held.
“I’m thinking there’s more than that, though.
More than being alone on the street with the kids.
Not that that’s not enough to be going on with, but I think there’s more.
You went down and collected those people on the waterfront, brought them back up.
Something like that doesn’t leave easily. Stays in your mind, eh.”
“Yes.” It was all she could say for a minute. “That’s what … that’s the thing I keep seeing when I close my eyes. Not what could have happened. What did happen.”
“Tell me.”
She did, or she tried to. The frantic urgency of shepherding the scattered, terrified crowd to the museum doors, shouting the one word again and again.
“Tsunami! Tsunami!” Their faces blank, then filled with horror.
The sight of them hurrying along the pavement, up the stairs, and the kids and old people who couldn’t hurry fast enough.
And her coming along behind, knowing the tsunami was out there, dreading that icy grip.
When she’d know she was dying and wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. The terror of that. The helplessness.
“The worst, though,” she said. “The worst is …”
“You can say,” he said. “It won’t leave until you let it out.”
“It’s the—” Another breath. “The ones I didn’t get.
There was a family. A little girl in a pink jacket.
She was about Georgia’s age. Olive had a jacket like that when she was little.
There were other people, too. There must have been twenty, two dozen, something like that, but they were too far away.
Just … just too far. If I’d yelled louder, though.
If I’d run just a bit farther. I close my eyes, and I see that pink jacket.
I see that family facing the wave, holding each other, maybe grabbing a post and trying to hold on, and being ripped away anyway.
I see that mum trying desperately to save her baby.
And all the others, too, all the people I couldn’t get.
Even though I didn’t actually see it at all, because I was climbing the stairs, trying to hold up this old man, to help him go faster.
I see that, and I see the wave coming, but mostly, I see all those people. All those people I didn’t save.”
Her chest and throat hurt like there were jagged stones in there. She wanted to cry again, but this was too big for tears.
Zane’s arm tightened around her, and he was smoothing her hair back with his other hand and kissing her forehead, his lips gentle.
“I know,” he said. “I know. I was carrying an old man, myself. I wasn’t able to see the others, the ones we left behind, thank God.
And you had to save yourself, too. Sounds like you barely managed it as it was.
You were brave to go out there. Brave to stay out there and get them.
Brave to come last, holding up the weakest one. ”
“I had no choice,” she said. “Or it didn’t feel like it. I had to try.”
“Because that’s who you are,” he said. “That’s the kind of mana you have. I don’t know what you do about the rest of it. Let yourself grieve for the ones who died, I guess.”
“I know life isn’t fair,” she said. “You know it, too. But sometimes …”
“Sometimes,” he said, “it’s even less fair. Sometimes it’s terrible. But you coped. You did more than that. You helped. You did everything you could.”
He didn’t know what else to say, so he kissed her.
On her forehead again, and when she turned into him, on her cheek, and then the other one.
His hand on her face, her skin so soft, and he was kissing her mouth.
The way he’d done before, and nothing like that, because the tenderness was an ache in his body.
Her hands on his face now, her lips moving under his, and he wasn’t thinking anymore.
He was kissing her deeper, kissing her better, pulling her closer until she was splayed over him.
He was falling back onto the couch, and she was going with him, on top of him.
Her hand on his chest, and her mouth over his now, taking over.
Feverish. Ravenous. His hand under her PJ top, sliding up to touch a full breast, and the way she gasped into his mouth when he did it. Pulling that top up and over her head, trying to roll with her. Trying to get over her.
He fell straight onto the floor, and she fell right on top of him.
“Bugger,” he said. “OK?” Trying to feel for any injury.
She said, “OK there, anyway.” Some laughter in her voice, because, yes, he had a hand on her breast again, and he wasn’t checking it for injury.
He was laughing, and she was, too, their bodies shaking. Her forehead against his, her mouth touching his, and then they weren’t laughing anymore, because he was over her now, the way he needed to be. Trying to touch everything, and feeling her doing the same.
It wasn’t civilized. It wasn’t beautiful.
It was pulling at each other’s clothes, wrestling them off, then groping for each other in the dark.
Constrained by the coffee table on one side and the couch on the other, but unwilling to stop long enough to shove the table away.
Her hands on his hips, and him wanting nothing more than to slide straight inside her.
Wait, he tried to tell himself. Wait. He hadn’t … They couldn’t …
She was pulling at him, though. Pulling him into her.
Wait.
“Wait,” he said.
“Wait?” she said. “Wait?” It came out as more of a gasp. “No. Now.”
She’d never been demanding in bed, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to think about whether it was a good idea, or whatever else he wanted to stop and consider. She wanted to do this.
“Wait,” he said again. “I need to …” He rolled to the side and must have bumped into the coffee table, because he swore. She wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t.
His hands at her waist, pulling her up. “On the couch.”
“I don’t care,” she tried to explain. “About being comfortable. Come on. Please.” Begging, and she didn’t care about that, either.
“Sit there.” But he wasn’t coming with her. Why wasn’t he coming with her?
When he pushed her knees apart, she started getting the picture. It was so dark, and she couldn’t see him, but her hands were on his shoulders, his back, running over the bunched muscle there as he kissed her inner thigh.
He wouldn’t. Not first thing. Not before she’d even done anything to …
Oh. He would.
And he knew how to do it.
Oh.
My.
God.
When her thighs started stiffening, he got his hands on the backs of them and pushed them up. She made a sound, and he realized she’d been trying to be quiet. He didn’t say, “Don’t try. Let it go. Give it up,” because he didn’t need to. He just increased the pressure and the suction and the pace.
She went up like a firecracker, and she exploded just that hard. Shaking. Gasping. And, yes, making some noise.
He should do it again, but he couldn’t wait another minute. He needed to …
She was still gasping. She was also sliding off the couch and onto the floor. He couldn’t see, so he had to feel for her.
She was on her hands and knees.
Did his brain say “condom”? Maybe, but he wasn’t listening. He couldn’t. That’s because he was already inside her, and already losing his mind.
Hotter. Wetter. Deeper. He had a hand on her now, helping her out, and she was making more noise.
Gasping, then keening. The sound was muffled, because she must have a hand over her mouth, and the excitement was rising higher in him.
Her other hand must have collapsed under her, then, because she was on her elbows and knees, and oh, God. Oh, bloody hell. Oh …
She went over again. She pulled him right along with her.
Explosion.
It was a long time before either of them spoke. Zane’s body was heavy over hers, and she couldn’t care. If he’d been a weighted blanket before, he was so much more than that now.
When he finally moved to roll off her, she said, “No. Stay.” So she was capable of forming words.
He must be on an elbow, because his weight was less, but he was still there. A hand pulling her hair back from her face, another kiss on her temple. She said, “I love it when you do that. When you kiss my face.”
“Mm,” he said, and did it again. “We slipped up, eh.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “And I don’t care.”
“Our secret,” he said.
“Yes.” It was all she could manage.
“Doesn’t have to be secret, of course. Not if we don’t want it to be. Because I’m going to want to do this again.”
Oh. They were talking. Pity. She didn’t want to talk. “I know,” she said. “But it’s … it’s late. And I … I don’t know.” Whether I can handle this, she didn’t say. I’m too raw right now. I don’t even know what I feel. I just know it’s too much.
A change in his voice, then. “Your choice, of course. And I didn’t use a condom.”
“Oh.” A lurch of fear. “I … I should be OK. It’s not the right time. Or not the wrong time, I guess.” Now, she did get to her knees, and groped for the couch, too. She’d have groped for her clothes, but she had no idea where they were.
Zane was beside her now, pulling the throw over their bodies. The night was cold, because there was no heat. She felt it now as she hadn’t before, or maybe that was the fear.
“Oi,” he said, groping for her hand, then lacing his fingers through hers. “If anything happens, we’ll cope. We both know how.”
“Y-yes.” If only she could ever recognize what she felt at the time she was feeling it! “I know you’re right. Of course. I know. And I—I guess I don’t have to tell you that I couldn’t have a disease. As I haven’t—”
“Oh, bugger,” he said. “Oh, bloody hell.”
“What?” Serious alarm now. What? He had an STI? You’re joking, she wanted to say, but who would joke about that?
“It was your first time since your husband died,” he said. “Wasn’t it? You’ve said something like that.”
“Well, yeh.” She pushed at her hair, confused again. “Why?”
He groaned. She was still totally confused, but when he said, “Because I’m meant to do it better than that, your first time. Not on the floor, anyway, and not more or less like a wild animal”—well, she had to laugh, didn’t she?
“Zane,” she said, “do you actually imagine I’ve had better sex than that?”
“What?” He was the one confused now, wasn’t he? Unfortunately, she couldn’t see him.
She liked it when he put his hand on her face, so now, she put her hand on his.
It landed on his nose first, but points for effort, maybe.
“You were brilliant,” she said, her heart squeezing, for some stupid reason.
She kissed him on the shoulder for good measure.
She’d have kissed his cheek, but it was hard to reach.
“Although I think I have a bit of carpet burn on my elbows and knees.”
“Shit,” he said. “Sorry. Like I said, I—”
She was still laughing, somehow. “Nah, boy. I’ll take that carpet burn. And I think I can sleep now. Maybe you can, too.”
“Yeh.” He was smiling, she thought. “I reckon I can. And Skylar?”
“Yes?”
“You’re one hell of a woman,” he said. “So you know.”