Skin burning, fire rolling though her body making her heart pound and her breath short. She ached in a way she barely understood. The pull was strong to turn the car around, to speed back through the darkened streets of Santa Teresa, back to her. The mantra she intoned beneath her breath alone keep her white knuckled hands clasped on the steering wheel heading towards home.
"Ivan and Cadu. Ivan and Cadu." she repeated. "Ivan and Cadu, Ivan and Cadu."
Her son, her husband. She tried to picture them, her men, the two most precious people in her life and she couldn't. They felt like an abstraction. What was real was Marina. Marina, a vision in that thin strap dress that clung to her curves, her brown locks tumbling silk like down her back, red lips pulled slowly through white teeth as her eyes devoured her. Predatory eyes that threatened to unpick the fabric of her life because in them she saw what Marina wanted to do to her and she couldn't deny it any longer - she wanted her to do it. They promised her pleasures, wild, salacious, heady pleasures that would make her toes curl, that could shatter her and as afraid as she was, she wanted it more. She wanted to feel what it was like, to be that brave.
She should have been more wary, coming in on a Sunday evening to catch up on her work. She should have been more cautious when Marina called her down to help her choose a photo for that article, she shouldn't have let her voice drop into that thrumming frequency that spoke of longing and desire. And when Marina had asked her to dance she shouldn't have blushed and said yes. But night was an inviting seductress, blending dreamscape with reality in a way that could blur even the most resolute boundaries of right and wrong. It had made her sink into Marina's embrace, made her shudder at the delicious sensation of those lips on her neck, making a burn ignite with an intensity she couldn't dismiss. Music had woven its pierd piper spell on her. If Marina had kissed her as she held her tightly, their bodies flush, she wouldn't have stopped it. Not this time. She would have wrapped her arms around her neck, pulled her closer. She would have forgotten everything but that moment, she would have given herself willingly because she wouldn't have been able to remember why she'd resisted for so long when it was so inevitable. But Marina had held the space, a hand cupping her face, a thumb slowly stroking her cheek, she'd simply looked at her. Clara saw in those eyes something more than just lust. It was something deeper, fuller. She wanted to look away for what she saw frightened her more than the promise of what salacious things this woman might do to her or the realisation that she wanted it, but she couldn't. Riveted she watched Marina watching her.
At some point the moment had ended. Marina had smiled, breathed and stepped back as the music died away leaving them with silence, standing across from each other.
"Thank-you, Clarinha." she'd said.
Clara had wanted to protest, to reach out and place her fingers around a wrist and pull her close again but she stood frozen by forces that cancelled each other out leaving her rooted to a spot that was intolerable. She'd smiled awkwardly, she'd looked at her watched and mumbled something about Cadu. She'd escaped but her thoughts stayed behind to linger in the space between them, like incense smoke that curls lazy, caressing her mind like a lover's touch, whispering tantalising possibilities.
Somehow she made it home to a father and son asleep in their bed. She slipped into the bathroom, shedding her clothes to stand naked, she looked in the mirror and almost expected her skin to be red hot but it wasn't. She looked the same on the outside but on the inside it had changed, the landscape of her world burned ferocious, destroying, making ashes of her life, making her seem stark in the bathroom with it's cool blue tiles and overhead lights. She'd overstepped the boundary tonight, even if she couldn't acknowledge it, even as she pushed it away. She'd betrayed Cadu as surely as if she'd kissed Marina, climbed the staircase to her bedroom, laid herself out, supine on the bed to be taken.
The phone rang, it's shrill tone bouncing off the walls, making her jump and scramble to answer.
"Yes?" she breathed.
"Clarinha." said the voice at the end of the line. "I wanted to make sure you made it home okay."
"Yes, yes, I did..." Clara said and she closed her eyes because that voice was moving through her, down to that place between her legs that was already aching with need and she leaned on an arm next to the sink.
"I miss you..."
"I... miss you too." Clarina she wanted to cry because it was all too much, too beautiful and real, too complicated, too impossible and she didn't know what to do because what she knew to be the right choice was also wrong in so many ways. Because it was inevitable that she would end up making that choice because it was impossible not to but she couldn't let go just yet, even if Marina's voice was like silk in her ears, honeyed, seductive.
"I have to go." she choked out and hung up before the break in her voice betrayed her. The tears splash hot on her face as she climbs into the shower. She braced herself against the wall, the water sliding down her heated body, rivulets that all led to the inevitable place, drawn down by gravity. Her hand descended down the plane of her belly, through the thatch of hair, fingers sliding back and forth between her folds, her inside clenching and she groaned, fingers pushing inside, slick with want, the unbidden memory of their bodies pressed together as they swayed, of parted lips against her skin, brief flashes that were enough to tip her over the edge into a climax that shuddered through her, leaving her knees trembling. She slid to the ground, the glass cool against the heat of her skin and was still a moment as she dew breath and as her heart slowed. The jets of water on her skin could do nothing to wash the ache away, she still felt it, only slightly dulled, and she knew she couldn't got to bed like this and lie next to her family while she ached for another. Her hand cupped a breast, fingers pinching a nipple, the other making circles around her clit. The previous orgasm had barely dissipated but already she could feel her body's response. She tried not to think of her, not to remember the goosebumps where her finger tips had grazed her shoulder, where once lips had pressed to the corner of her mouth, that spot that still burned when she though about it. She tried not to think of words whispered in her ear, hot air caressing, thrilling, the seductive sway of Marina's hips, a hand caressing her back, breast to breast. She failed. Those images, sensations rose up and her hand moved erratic between her leg. She imagined how it would feel to lie in Marina's arms and feel soft lips against hers, how it would feel to have Marina's fingers inside her. She remembered warm brown eyes holding hers, looking with such tenderness and compassion, such love. She came again, silently screaming a release she'd not dared give herself before because if she knew that if she did...everything would change.
Relief..
Lassitude enveloped her body and she rested limp on the shower floor waiting for her body to normalise. It was satisfied for now. After a moment she stood again, soaping away all traces of her betrayal, as if a shower could wash her soul. It couldn't, of course. The changes wrought in her were indelible, but she scrubbed with the vigour of someone who hoped that the heady moment they'd shared that night could be watered down to something she could manage – a dance with a friend. A dear friend, but just a friend. This release, nothing more than a physical need after months of stress from Cadu's condition and their marital troubles. Not fueled by a desire for Marina.
It was a thinly veiled lie. So thin it cracked from the thumping of her traitorous heart, engorged and heavy in her chest.
She couldn't face the idea of sleeping next to her husband and her son. She took a pillow and a blanket and made her way to the couch. When she slept it was a heavy, deep sleep, blessedly dreamless.