Author's Note: A deep appreciation and thank you to my readers for giving me the motivation and discipline in writing this story. I found solace in writing this chapter although I know that it is not yet the happy ending. Do feel free to tell me what you think about this chapter. Any mistakes are entirely my own.
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Chapter 8 - I Have to Leave You
I had always loved warm weather; the type of warmth which surrounds and embraces me in its entirety. I was born in the tropics of southern Thailand, and due to a deep clinging of the past I could never truly let go of what were the vivid memories of my childhood. The only thing nice about growing up was the sultry balm in the air. Perhaps then, due to my own idiosyncrasies, I could never truly acclimatize myself to the changing seasons of northern Europe. I had often caught the chill and I did not like it one bit because I had allergies the whole year round. Even though I had a sharp sense of scent, I was not spared from a chronic stuffy nose and the resulting high pitch sounds in my right ear which manifested from my blocked passageways. Having endured this for years, it became part of my life, and on the rare days when my breathing was entirely unobstructed, I did not feel like myself anymore.
I was certain that my sensitivity to scent and sounds were honed despite of my chronic allergies. What little scent and sound I was deprived of made me yearn for it more. I was good in manoeuvring through the depravation of what I did not have, and this later became a strength of mine. I felt the world around me wholly revolving around the perception of my honed senses. They had started with a disadvantage but they became resilient as time went by.
I was quite a sickly child and my mother had always reminded me of it; and of the burden I had been to her. When I was convalescing, I was basically left alone to my own devices. I had no toys to play with and nobody who could placate and flatter me, to put it in Mr. Boardmann's terms. So I toyed with my surroundings. At a young age, I scented how sterile and stuffy a hospital dormitory could be as I listened to the shuffling of footsteps outside the room along with the low whispers of doctors. My sensitivity pulled through to become my secret weapons, unbeknownst to others. Because of extreme loneliness, I became perceptive over time. I was alone with my thoughts. Senses were my closest companions; and they were my formidable coping mechanisms. They worked to soothe me when I felt the slightest discomfort or boredom.
I was also very much aware of scents in nature because they were the best thing around me. The musky saturation was my saviour; it made me happy. Knowing that the impending rain not only cleansed earth, but washed away my sins, I felt renewed. The sounds of the wind; how they had lured me to serendipity. I felt all forces of nature with me. The more volatile they were, the more alive and imaginative I was. They made me stronger than I could be. Without my sense of scent and sound, my world would have been dull.
As morning beckoned through the window, the scent which I so loved filled the bedroom. The musky saturation roused my body into a warm tingling sensation I had not known before. It seemed so alive and I wished that it were so. I inhaled its depths of muskiness without wanting to exhale. And I felt the tremendous warmth all around me which served to assuage my loneliness. It felt so nice to be unafraid of anything and to feel sheltered from the unforgiving world. I felt like a caterpillar in a cocoon, not ready to make its way out into a realm where there was nothing I looked forward to. Every day was approximately the same for me- day in and day out; until my days were enriched with Mr. Boardmann's presence into my colourless life.
Spring was still far away for me- I was now the proverbial caterpillar nesting in the cocoon. My pillow was dreadfully comfortable; spurring me along as I buried my face deeper into it; into this cocoon of darkness which desired nothing of me which I could not give. It felt so good. The musky saturation had never welcomed me more. I sighed contently; refusing to open my eyes just yet. I flung one arm across the bed; and the bed itself had never been more accommodating to the contours of my body.
My feather pillow seemed to yield to even my slightest movement and the pressure of the mattress adjusted itself to accommodate my body's contours whenever I wriggled and stretched. Languidly, I opened my eyes to the new day, scrutinizing my surroundings. I was in my safe haven- this was my room and I was in none other than my dear bed. Because I felt so safe, it took me a while to realise that my right arm was flung awkwardly around a man's firm but yielding chest, and that my head with my terribly tousled hair had wildly settled on top of his sturdy shoulders. My right leg was thrown across his lower torso and legs whilst my left arm and leg were pressed against his side ribcage till they were slightly damp from the heat of both our bodies. I had basically huddled to him as if he were my last lifeboat for survival. I did not cuddle him gently like a child would a big teddy bear. It somewhat seemed that I had him in my grasp in a most undignified manner.
I was all over him; that of this troubled and disturbed man. Somewhere in the night, I must have shifted in my sleep and wriggled my way towards him, like the caterpillar not ready to transform into a butterfly. I was not ready or willing to be awakened from my slumber. I was content in the realm of dreams; and that was with him; the Mr. Boardmann whom I had been so affected by unlike no other. It did not matter if he were troubled and disturbed. I was caught in the web that I weaved for myself. I had helped him, and in the process, he had pried my wounded heart open.
I was not wholly surprised that he seemed to have mimicked my acrobatic movement. His strong, lean arms formed a clasp around me. His intertwined arms had enveloped me as we slept, serving only to push me closer to him. His action made sure that I was kept close to his side and it afforded me no escape, given his raw strength and great capacity for force. He had embraced me in his sleep too. I had known that he was a very expressive man and naturally this freedom of expression would be exposed in his sleep. He just could not help it.
There was nothing sexual in his gesture. I felt moved because he did not hold me in a sexual way. When it came to him, I was ambivalent about sexual intercourse, even though I did feel the rise of desire within me. I kept it under wraps and controlled because it did not feel right somehow. But I knew we had to get there somehow. We still had three more weeks to go before the month was up. He had it all paid up front and I wanted to fulfil my end of the bargain. Sex was expected and it should be provided. I wondered how long he would wait before he got fed up with my reluctance for sex, or in the escort industry, we called them excuses. Deep down, I knew I should not put it on hold any longer. He had been very patient with me. Even so, he had also refused sex initially, and he did play a part in my reluctance too. I theorized that it went wrong from day one.
After he had told me about the purported miracle business proposal, he had wanted sex. I had resisted initially. Later because I feared him, I had tried to fulfil his need for sex by doing what was expected of by a woman in my profession. Yet he had stopped me midway when he noticed that I was afraid and forcing myself to go through the mechanical motions of foreplay. I was forever grateful for his intervention because it would have spoilt our... I was not sure but it came closest to awkward friendship which had flourished between the both of us.
What I had said was true about wanting the night to be pure where we both paid homage to the moon. However I was also concealing the painful truth from myself. Much as I was afraid of his dark moods, I was also terrified at the idea of consummating our relationship. I could not bring myself to engage with him in that way because of my emotional vulnerability. It was the oversharing of personal details which had done it in for me.
