Footsteps in the Dark
His hands pressed urgently against the taught muscles of her stomach and she felt her skin erupt in shivers. Soft lips, hungry tongues groping in the darkness, she pulled him close with the ecstasy of passion. It burnt through her thighs, her belly, she could feel him throbbing against her and helplessly, she released a moan into the night as he slipped inside her. Violently, she met his thrusts as together they moved towards the climax, clenching tight she felt him come within her, just as she too reached that sweaty peak. Unable to control herself any longer, she felt her teeth clamp around the firm muscles of his shoulder as her body relaxed in spasms of lust.
It was a good thing they were friends.
Meredith knew it was wrong. She didn't need the reproachful looks of her roommates over breakfast or the strained smiles of his wife to tell her that. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn't stop, and neither, it seemed, could he.
So it was Meredith Grey had transformed from the inadvertent, innocent mistress to the hard core adulteress. Looking back, she tried to pinpoint exactly when it had changed, when it had all become so fundamentally wrong. Was it that night in the on call room, when, both crushed by the failed surgery of a little girl, they had clung to each other in that secret misery no other person could understand. Had it been before that, those furtive glances in so many corridors, across patient beds, in elevators, or perhaps, it all went back to that first night at Joes.
It was too late, what ever point at which this thing had started, they had passed it long ago, and here was Meredith Grey, in her own bed, in her own house, at three o'clock in the morning with a married man in her arms. In the moonlight she could see the gentle rise and fall of his chest. It was these moments, when he managed to find the peace of sleep that she would lie awake, hating herself for what they did. Like so many nights previously, she slipped from under the covers and groped her way downstairs to the darkened kitchen.
Without switching on the light, Meredith felt her way to the pantry and grasped for a fresh bottle of tequila, it was only after she had closed the cupboard door and taken her first gulp that she realised she wasn't alone.
"Jesus Meredith," His voice was soft, and though she couldn't see him, she could feel the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
"George," Her reply was tight whisper, a confused mixture of surprise and defensive anger which stems from the fear of being caught. Instinctively, she pushed the bottle behind her back, unsure as to how much he could see.
She thought she could hear him coming closer, a soft shuffling movement from the direction of the kitchen table. At last she felt him gently take her wrists in his hands, and ply the bottle from between her fingers. Irrational as it was, she couldn't stop the small, pained whine that left her with the alcohol, like an injured animal or small child whose safety blanket is taken away.
"Not tonight." No matter what this was costing him, his words were firm. For a split second she attempted to pretend this didn't concern her, but there was the gaping hole in her stomach, the guilt eating her from the inside.
"Please," She whispered it, like a plea, like a prayer.
"Not tonight." And she didn't stop the tears as they tricked down her cheeks, where no one could see them. Silently, she understood, and she turned to crawl back to her bed.
The next morning, Derek was not surprised to find Meredith still asleep. She always was and secretly, it broke his heart to smell the liquor on her breath, the unsteady, groggy movements of her hangover. Did it really cost her that much just to hold him. As he did every morning, before she returned to that painful world of her consciousness, Derek leaned over the woman he loved and kissed her forehead.
"I love you Meredith Grey." Then he pulled on the crumpled clothes he had worn the day before and placed four aspirin tablets next to her permanent water glass. A sad smile flickered across his face before he crept out of her bedroom, out of her house, and back to the woman he married.
The only difference, was this morning, she heard him.