Her heart's deepest desire was to be loved. She wanted to be loved as much and as deeply as she loved. In her innermost secret places, she was a romantic who believed love could fix anyone, heal anything, tie the tightest bonds and give the most freedom. In fact she attached most of her emotions and awareness to love. Very unhealthy, she knew, however her sense of self worth, her sense of belonging, her fear of abandonment and rejection were tied up in love. She couldn't help believing that love would make everything in her world right and whole.
Except love never came. Lust came, cloaked as love but as soon as his lust was satisfied, he went away and she was left alone again holding something broken, that only love could fix. True love. Yet Mia stumbled through life doing all the things everyone else did and it seemed to her that everyone but her had love in their lives. Everyone but her.
She had married and divorced three times and her mother had argued vehemently about each divorce with her. She would always begin with - 'In my day...' In your day mother, women didn't fix their broken marriages or their broken hearts, they just lived with it because they had no other choice. It was better to get divorced because at least you didn't have to look at the cause of your broken heart, day after day, until death do you part.
Mia thought internet dating would be her salvation. If Mr. Right wasn't here, surely he was somewhere on earth and the internet would be able to bring them together.
She signed up on a couple of dating sites; to her dismay when she put in her location and hit search, the majority of the men close to where she lived had signed up under pseudonyms and blatantly stated on their profiles that they were happily married and only looking for some fun. To Mia that was a contradiction in terms. How could someone be happily married and still be looking for sex with other women on the side? In her mind if you were happily married, you remained faithful to your partner.
After a long time, with no luck, she gave up on dating sites and took one of her friends' advice and did a cooking course. No luck there either. Speed dating yielded no results past the first date either.
It wasn't that Mia wanted too much or perfection or was unyielding. Quite the opposite, she gave in too easily. She had sex on the first date and was totally in love by the second, her friends were divided as to whether that was the right or the wrong thing to do.
It was an ordinary Friday, another weekend loomed and Mia felt like packing a bag and hiding in a bush somewhere. Her friends refused to admit that she was doomed and her mother kept pressuring her that it was time to settle down and have children before she got too old. She thanked God that her father stayed out of it but she would have had to have been blind not to see his obvious joy with his three grandchildren from her brother, Mr. Perfect.
The phone was ringing, startling her out of her oppressive thoughts.
"Mia Kimble." She answered automatically.
"Hey, Sis, it's me." Mia sighed inwardly, for what did Darren need a babysitter this time?
"Yeah, you can bring them over, anytime after seven."
"Ouch, that hurt. I don't want your babysitting services this time, although you make it sound as though that's the only time you hear from me." Mia noted the touch of irritation in her brother's voice.
It is the only time I ever hear from you Darren.
"Sorry. I didn't mean it like it sounded. You know I'm always happy to babysit my nephews."
"Urmm..." He grumped.
"So... What are you and Zelda doing this weekend?"
"Well... it's like this..."
Darren launched into a lengthy explanation about booking some kind of white water adventure which they'd later forgotten about when they accepted an invitation from some senior partner at Darren's law firm (where he was a lowly associate) and decided that hobnobbing with the partners would do more to advance his career in the firm than an orange inflatable in churning waters.
"And you don't want to lose your money." She finished for him.
"Not really, we reserved two places obviously. But a client of Zel's snapped up both reservations two weeks ago and then managed to get dumped by his boyfriend on Monday. So, I figured we can stand losing half the money, you only need to pay the outstanding amount which is half the price when you get there. So, how does it sound?"
Like I'm being used again.
"Let me think about it." Mia said sighing at the same time. She hoped Darren Thick-Skull would get the message.
An hour later, her brother called back and Mia had to bite her lip not to shout at him. She didn't have her own office yet, but when she did...
"Good news." Darren said.
"That's fantastic, I'm glad you found another couple." Mia replied, not sincerely because he was a stingy miser when he wanted to be.
"Not quite. I have found a single woman for you." She could hear the pride of his accomplishment in his voice. She rolled her eyes.
"I'm straight, but thank you for thinking of me."
"Tsk. To go with you."
"Wonderful, it's cheaper for two women then?"
"For God's sake Mia, no. I would sue them if it was."
You couldn't successfully sue a piss-up in a brewery. Mr Tax Attorney.
"Ah, one can always hope. Social development doesn't exactly pull in the big bucks."
"Exactly why you should have sorted out your shit with Greg."
Mia slammed the phone down and then took it off the cradle. An hour later she replaced the phone after she had gathered her things and left the office. On her way down to the car park she took her phone from her purse and turned it on.
She had forgotten about Darren and so she cursed when her phone rang and she saw it was him. She answered with an asinine comment on the tip of her tongue.
"That was uncalled for, I apologize." He said hurriedly, then quickly continued.
"For my sins, you and Julie go, I'll pick up the bill." Darren said trying to sound magnanimous about it.
"Oh, so Julie, whoever she is, is Zelda's friend and you just screwed up, now you're fixing it or you're sleeping on the couch?"
"For your information, I only sleep on the couch... Never mind. Will you go? Please?"
"You're on the couch."
"Fine I'm on the fucking couch, will you save me?"
"No."
"Mia!"
"Youre an ass Darren."
"Incorrect, sister. It's ass that I want. Save me, I have been punished enough."
"Darren, you better make this right or you will masturbate to porn for the next three months." He mimicked his wife's I-want-to-fuck-you seductive drawl. Something he'd learned not to toy with, and for the millionth time Mia wished she could drop her voice into that guttural tone which seemed to work on everyone Zelda met. Mia couldn't help smiling as she approached her little blue car. Her brother was a slave to his wife's voice.
To depressed to continue playing games, she sighed again and agreed to go on the trip. It was with relief that Darren said he was emailing her with all the particulars immediately.
Exactly ten hours later she and fifteen other city yahoos were standing in the freezing cold hour before dawn, listening to a madman who was walking up and down the line he had them form. He had obviously been a sergeant of some kind, probably in the marines, the way he was shouting. For equality he had three other guides with him. That's what they called themselves, guides. They would be guiding the yahoos down the white waters of the river and help them make camp this evening.
They would get anyone who fell out of the inflatable back on. Nobody else was to go diving overboard to help their fellow man or woman. The marine sergeant vividly described the perils of doing so and the four serious faces staring at them brought home the fact that they weren't in Kansas anymore and this wasn't a yellow brick road.
Just as the sky turned light purple before the sun peeked its face over the horizon, the yahoos collectively pushed the inflatibable craft into the river. Not one of them screamed when they felt the freezing water. Mia was so proud of them all. The guides then moved some people around for better balance and having all taken up oars they hesitantly began to paddle this stretch of the quiet green river.
Not ten minutes later they heard the distant rumble of thunder, which signaled the first stretch of white water up ahead. As they grew closer the guides started shouting at them to increase paddle speed where instinctively Mia wanted to start reverse paddling. Ignoring her instincts, she paddled furiously and tried to listen to what all the guides were shouting. She could only make out a few words now as they came around a choppy bend and hit white spray full on. The inflatable rose up to about vertical and then plunged until it was vertical again going down this time.
A wall of water hit her in the face and she coughed, swallowed and spat, trying not to drown while still inside the raft and smacking her paddle somewhat uselessly in the spray. She kept paddling the spray until her stomach rolled with the raft and she found herself paddling churning water. At that point Mia began to think that it was more important to try to stay inside the inflatable and stuff the paddling. But the guides continued to shout at them to paddle and with one more gut churning vertical roll, they were through the rocks and as suddenly as it had begun the the white water stopped and they were swiftly paddling away from it on green water once more.
"Fuck!" She heard a voice behind her exclaim in a whisper. She turned and grinned at the man, her thoughts exactly.
This form of terror became terror and torture as the sun passed over them in the sky. Two people had been rescued. Six arduous stretches had been navigated. Mia's arms were dead. Her shoulders were screaming in pain. She had lost all function of her stomach by the third churning pool of hell, loss of speech occurred by the fifth scrape with death and she was holding on to what was left of her brain by what seemed to be a single thread of insanity.
With what was left of her neck muscles, she looked around at the others. They too looked like the living dead and Mia almost burst into tears of happiness when the guides told them to paddle for shore. As they grew close, a guide jumped out and walked ashore. He threw a line back to the inflatable which another guide caught.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the raft was moored and the guide told them they could get out onto the dock or jump in the river and cool down. Most people opted to just fall back into the river, Mia amongst them. This time she blessed the coolness of the water.
She was grateful that the guides did most of the work setting up camp. All the yahoos really had to do was set up their own tents and thankfully the guides realized that most of the women didn't have the strength left to do even that and helped them.
The guides explained that the showers and toilets were a little way down the path that cut through the lovely wooded area surrounding their camp. If she wasn't in so much pain she might have appreciated the beauty of the area more. However, someone had asked about hot water and apparently the showers were full of it.
Mia stood in her shower cubicle letting the hot water pound her back and shoulders, every other woman did the same. Julie stood next to her, breathing out sigh after pleasurable sigh, just as she was.
"If Zelda ever does this to me again, I'm firing her as my friend." She told Mia as she turned so that the water could massage her shoulder.
"If Darren ever does this to me again, I'm firing him as my brother." Mia replied and then she turned as well.
