I hear a whispering in my ear and feel a hand moving up and down the side of my body as I lay, just woken, eyes still closed, on the bed. I feel his body behind me, my mouth curves to a smile, and I feel the intensity of the moment increase. Strong hands are holding my hips from behind, and soft words are filling my mind with happiness. "I love you. I love you," he says. "Forever."
I reach behind my head and put my hand in his hair. I feel his face slide into the curve of my neck, smell his sweet breath on my face, feel the heat of his body up against mine. The stillness of the room makes me think I can hear his heart beat, the electricity between our bodies makes me think I can keep my eyes closed and become part of him.
I hear a whispered song from the radio and let the words hit my heart, word after word... "Spent enough time in your arms to know... just where I wanna be..." I smile wider. "Been with you enough to know... just why I need you... Baby I'm right beside you... All I need is a little more of you..." My fingers come away from his head and take his hand off my hip, caressing, intertwining, feeling. I feel his lips kissing my neck, my shoulder, my back. Soft kisses, peppered with soft words and a soft tongue.
The happiness in my chest fills me so completely that I think I could explode, and as I think more and more about that feeling, it feels harder and harder to breathe. As my body stiffens, I shift uncomfortably. He senses my sudden change and I sense his immediate response. My hands are grasping for him now, my breath ragged, my mind unsure. I feel him simultaneously pull away from me while pushing me away from behind. I fight to keep my mind together, to keep his hands on me, to keep my hands on him. But I can't turn around. I go to cry out and nothing comes but tears and pained pieces of words.
I am sweating when I wake. Sweating and shaking, struggling to breathe. I look next to me and see the person there. It's not the person from my dreams. I get out of bed.
It's been almost a year since I've seen him. Since he whispered "Shit" while looking at the sunrise with me, since walking out of the door, and down the aisle with somebody else. I spent months trying to piece myself back together, and even more time than that trying to keep myself that way. It was all gone. Everything but the nightmares.
I never went to the wedding. I couldn't bring myself to see him, feigning, or worse –
meaning
– happiness, with her. I couldn't look her in the eye, couldn't look my friends in the eye, because I knew I had the look of someone eternally changed and different. People would ask, and even without my answer, people would know. So I left that morning, citing a death in the family to the first person I saw, handing over an envelope with money and lost words. The last day of my happiness was the first legal day of theirs. Even now, I put my hand to my stomach to slow my breathing.
There had been men since him. Every one of them attractive, some of them probably more so than he was; but none of them smelt the same or spoke the same. None of them looked at me that way, none of them felt like he did. As imperfect as the situation surrounding us was, it wasn't until those two nights that I knew what right felt like. And now that I knew, wrong felt almost violating.
The man sleeping in my bed now was beautiful. He was tall and strong, sculpted in the form of some beautiful Greek hero. His name was Kostas, but everyone called him Jon and he was the eldest son of my current boss, Greek shipping god Stavros Niarchos. We'd met at a company party after he'd moved to America, and after months of little appetite following the abandoned wedding, I apparently looked good enough for the beautiful John to sleep with.
At first he didn't understand my quietness, my reservation, my distance when we were in bed. But after some time, I told him about Christian and he understood. After that, things felt better to me. Jon would knowingly give me a smile as I stared blankly at the wall during their weekly management meetings, or put his hand on my back in a way that let me know that he was there for me. On the rare occasion that we went to a social event together, I could almost feel a protectiveness about him. We became closer and closer as friends, and eventually as lovers, and I felt a comfort in being with him I hadn't felt since that day last June with Christian.
I stare into the bathroom mirror, marveling that such a disheveled and hideously sad looking person could ever attract another human being, especially one so attractive as Jon. Even if he didn't have the looks that I imagine could have rivaled Eros, he had the bank account to warrant significant attention from every female you've ever heard of in a years worth of any women's magazine. Perhaps that's what kept me on the ground with him: looking in the mirror as I brush my teeth. My hair is a knotted mess on the top of my head, my remaining eyeliner is making it look as though I have blackish-blue bruises along my lower eyelids and I'm naked with the exception of my underwear. I laugh a little, silent laugh, wipe the makeup off my eyes and bend over to spit into the sink when I feel his big, strong hands on my ass. My body trembles as I shiver from their warmth.
"I should be lucky enough to see you this way every morning," he says in his deep, raspy, accented voice. I feel his warm, wet lips kiss my back, just above my underwear. I pick my head up, wipe my mouth on a towel and look back into the mirror. I catch the fading of his smile, and see his black eyes settle on my mouth. He brushes his teeth as I reassess myself.
"I would agree with you and insert a joke here, but" I look back at myself, "this isn't very funny..."
He wipes his mouth with the towel, tosses it aside and I see his eyes travel from my reflection in the mirror to my shoulders and down my back to my ass. He looks back up at me, pats the hair on the top of my head and says "I would call you cute right now but," his left hand comes in front of my body and feels my tit as his right hand and his eyes move to my ass, "there's too much hot here."
I roll my eyes, half smiling, moving out of the way of the sink for him, but not before his arms wrap around my body, his hands caressing my stomach, and his mouth catching me on the throat; I feel his hot tongue for a split second. He feels my shiver with his hands and I look into the mirror to catch him watching my reaction. My smile disappears as he stares at me, looking me in the eye as he slowly and softly runs his lips and tongue up my neck to my jaw line and then back down again. I reach up behind me and put my hand in his hair, running my fingers through, then pulling a little. He pulls away from me a little, first looking at the front of my body from the mirror, then holding my hips with both hands and looking at me from the back.
"Oraios," he whispers, his deep, scratchy voice barely making the word discernable from a breath. I smile, not looking at him, having found out the meaning of this word a few months ago from his brother Thano.
"Oraios. Bella." Thano said, his accent heavier than Jon's.
"Yes, that's what I'm asking, what does it mean?" I laughed, restating the question.
"No, no, Bella. Oraios. It means beautiful. In Greek. Just like your name in Italian."
"Oh," I said, not knowing how to respond. Jon had taken to calling me this whenever he saw me, never bothering to call me Bella anymore. I should have put it together.
"Where did you hear this?" he asked me. I looked at him, hesitating for a moment before saying that I'd heard it somewhere in a conversation and didn't know what it meant. Just as the last word was out of my mouth, Jon walked into the office.
"Thano. Oraios, good morning," he said winking at me and walking past us down the hall. My face turned bright red as I glanced at Thano, who had now crossed his arms and was leaning up against the wall, smiling at me.
"A conversation? Perhaps this conversation was taking place outside of the office, ha, Bella? In, let's say, your apartment, or perhaps, Jon's?"
I covered my eyes and walked away, listening to Thano laugh under his breath.
Now, in my bathroom, I can't help but smile as Jon kisses me again and again on my back, his hands slowly and softly feeling every inch of my body as he whispers over and over "Oraios... oraios..." I can feel his fingers hook into my underwear to slowly move them down my hips, then his whole hands wrapping around my ass to push them off. They fall around my ankles and I move my feet to kick them away.
