Chapter 3 #4
Felicity went back to her own apartment on Friday morning.
She and Taylor were planning to have dinner with friends.
It had been a nice holiday spent with their respective parents.
Felicity and Dominique had picked a date for their Paris trip and booked a flight, the week after Thanksgiving.
Violet had called after they got home from the movie.
She said she was having fun in Boston, the Thanksgiving meal was warm and friendly and unruly, which was very different from her mother’s more formal traditional meal, and they had all gone skating together that night.
Dominique was sorry to see Felicity leave on Friday morning, but Dominique had errands to do, and Bill came by late that afternoon, and it was nice having time alone with him.
He kissed her, and sat down comfortably on the couch nearest the fire, which Dominique had lit before he arrived.
The house looked warm and cozy and as elegant as she was.
He always felt as though he were meeting her in their private paradise.
Her home was a haven for him, as was their relationship.
He felt at home the moment he came through the door, and she sat down next to him and he put an arm around her and told her that he’d had a nice time with his boys.
“How was it for you with Felicity?” he asked her, as he sipped the glass of his favorite wine she’d poured for him. She always kept a few bottles on hand of the Chateau Haut-Brion that he loved.
“We had a good day too.” She smiled at him. They were always so comfortable together in their stolen moments. “I’m taking her to Paris to look for a wedding dress,” she said, and he was surprised.
“You’re not designing one for her?”
She shook her head. “She wants something simpler. I could do that for her, but she wants to pick it herself. Whatever makes her happy. She says she wants something very plain.” He set down his glass and kissed her then.
He was happy to see her. The holiday meals Eileen organized were always stiff and cold.
She didn’t have Dominique’s magical knack to make people feel at home, and as though they were special.
But he loved being with his boys, who were full of their tales of college.
Bill was very close to them, and he liked Dominique’s children too.
He was always under her spell when he came to see her, and alone on Friday afternoon, they disappeared into her bedroom and made love until he had to leave to go home.
He wanted to spend a little time with his sons before they went out with friends that night.
He only stayed for two hours, but Dominique was always grateful for the time they shared, and they both felt a warm glow as he kissed her again passionately before he left.
Not being together all the time had kept their relationship fresh and exciting.
She was naked under a pale pink satin dressing gown when he left, still hungry for her and sorry to leave.
“I wish I could stay,” he said to her in a whisper as he nuzzled her neck.
“Me too,” she whispered back. She was tantalizing in the satin dressing gown, with the silk of her skin soft to his touch.
She gently closed the door behind him, and went back to lie on the bed where they had made love only minutes before.
She was going to be alone for the rest of the weekend.
He would be back on Tuesday night, which was how their relationship had run for sixteen years, in little bits and moments, passionate visits, and warm, cozy evenings.
He was the person she loved and trusted most, other than her children.
They got along so well, and sometimes she wondered if it was because they spent so little time together.
They always left each other hungry for more.
And yet he lived within the confines of his earlier commitments, imprisoned by his good intentions, honor-bound to stay where he was.
He no longer tormented himself or Dominique with dreams of leaving one day.
He accepted his situation as irreversible now, and so did Dominique.
He couldn’t change it without damaging everyone involved.
But beyond the bleak landscape of his home life were explosions of sunlight and joy whenever he saw Dominique, held her in his arms, and made love to her.
He loved talking to her, and they both accepted the reality that they would never have more than they did now.
It made every moment precious, and they savored their time together.
Their relationship was a fine golden thread that bound them to each other, fragile as a spider’s web, and solid as a rope that held them fast. She no longer hoped for more from him, and told herself it was enough.
She answered some emails that night, watched a series she liked on TV, wrote some letters, and made lists of things to check out for the wedding.
She always found ways to fill her nights and days until she saw him again.
Bill was the love of her life, and she was the light of his.
It was how the days and the years had silently slipped past them for sixteen years.
But there was no way she could compete with Eileen’s thirty-six-year hold on him.
It was a life sentence for him, legally and financially, without pardon or escape. And a sentence for Dominique too.