Author's note: Thank you, as always, for your excellent support! I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far and please stick with it.


The urge of alcohol, propelling their desperation, found them almost losing control on the stairs. There was a heady desperation to their love making this time, a primitive familiarity he felt entitled to. He bent her over the couch, claimed her, and enjoyed her sobs of completion.

When midnight came around again they lay side by side in the island of his bed, sheets hot and quiet. Finally he climbed form the bed and went to the kitchen, allowing her time to compose herself. In the bottle rack there was a Scotch - a gift from Andre when they'd parted ways - and he took that and two crystal glasses to the bedroom. She was wrapped in the sheets, her legs stretched out against the whiteness.

He admired her for a moment from the door and she smiled when she caught him. Here she was, lying in his bed, in his world and yet she was already slipping from him. What they had done – what they were doing – was treason.

"You're embarrassing me," she whimpered, pulling the covers up around her body with a pretty and shy smile.

They were fuzzy with booze – their edges a little more blurred and their inhibitions a little less alert.

"Why?" He came towards her and set the glasses and bottle down on the floor, unsteadily, "You're beautiful."

"I am not," she shook her head and laughed, settling down again amongst the sheets.

"It's a matter of opinion," he sat down on the edge, "And my opinion is all I have. You are here in my bed and I guess that makes me have the strongest opinions."

"I am not like you," she motioned with her hand to his body, "I cannot walk about like that."

"Like what?"

He asked rakishly, enjoying the blush creeping up from her chest to her face. It seemed she blushed a lot when she was with him and it pleased him to see it. He bent and poured sizeable measures into the glasses.

"You know…"

"I don't," he handed her the glass, careful that the golden liquid didn't slosh onto the sheets.

For all his effort it ended up there anyway.

"Naked," she mumbled softly.

"Say that again?"

He laughed at her embarrassment and watched as she took a large gulp from her own glass.

"No I will not," she said, lifting up her glass, "Are you thinking to loosen my tongue?"

He said nothing – none of the things it came to his mind to say – but he smirked suggestively anyway.

He pulled the sheets away from her weakly battling fingers, and traced his thumb across her abdomen. Bending he kissed the soft skin there, knowing she was watching him the entire time. Perhaps it was irreverent or unfair but he couldn't help but relish her body as it was.

This body she'd given to him, this body she'd take away.

"My opinion should be made fact," he lifted his face to look at her and rested his chin on her stomach, "And loosening your tongue might do you some good."

"Do you ply women with drink often?"

"Usually before I take them to bed," he answered, tickling the indent of her hip.

"A sure way to make the woman in your bed feel special," she said dryly, leaning her head on her hand.

"You're the only one I have ever wanted in my bed," he said gently, crawling up to come face to face with her, "And that's the truth of it."

"Then you're a fool," she said and took another drink, "I don't know if I can tell you. If I can talk to you about this."

He held up his glass, aware that her pain seemed suddenly to have multiplied. He set his glass back on the floor and touched her hair gently.

"I've always wanted your body," he said honestly, "But I've wanted you more than I've ever wanted your body. I want you to talk to me, like you do in those moments when you think no one is watching you."

There was a full silence, the type heavy with thought and unsaid words then. She took a deep swig from the glass.

"It's so difficult," she lay back on the pillow, "I can't define my marriage. I can't explain it. There are times I care so deeply for him and times I hate him. It's so…so complex. I always thought I was fitter than that though, that I was better than an affair. I hate him Joseph," she took a deep breath, "But I have grown to love him too as a friend, a brother. A brother I want to kill. I…I sound absolutely insane."

"It's not easy to explain," he said softly, "I don't know if the language has been invented."

"It's not as easy as love and hate. It's something in between, tangled up with respect and duty and history. Joseph, I never thought I would break my wedding vows," she whispered, the Scotch ribboning her words together, "I never thought…I used to look at those women I knew who did so, who took lovers, and think I was better than them. I'm not."

He examined her for a moment, "Then you're not. But for the first time, in a long time, you're happy?"

"Yes."

"Well then," he touched her fingers, "Clarisse, we have done something wrong. There is no point in pretending otherwise. But we've wanted it for years and it would be ignorant to ignore that too."

"Yes."

"You just keep saying yes," he said it gently, but with an undertone of frustration.

She sighed, "It's all I can say."

"I'm sorry," he touched her shoulder, took a swig from his own glass, "I don't mean to lose my temper."

"I'm frightened," she whispered, "When we go back-"

"I know," he interrupted bluntly, knowing these words had to be said, "I know we can't continue."

She shook her head, "No."

There was a different kind of silence then, the kind that was full of grief that hadn't fully been discovered.

"It will be difficult," he said, still hopeful.

"No," she drained her glass, "No it will be impossible."

Setting her glass aside she crawled towards him and wrapped herself around his body, her mouth seeking out his. There was something of grief in their lovemaking; a pain that hadn't been there before.

In the late darkness he pulled her towards him, wrapping his hands around hers. The sense of the ending was heavy in the air.

"It's okay if it's impossible," he said softly into the dark.

"It can only lead to misery," she answered, after what felt like forever.

"Then that's our punishment."


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