Six

Take it from me, folks. Until you have lain, rug burned, post-coital, possibly frostbitten, in a fire-engine red foyer with a man with only one eyebrow, you have not lived. In the intensity of emotions, the only time I can relate it to was when I was fourteen and had the flu, yet decided I was well enough to go on a bike ride, crashed my bike and fell on the crossbar, thought I smashed my balls all the way into my throat, staggered home crying, and lay for the next half an hour puking my guts out, bruised, with a bag of frozen peas on my bleeding balls. It was that intense. No, really.

Since he hadn’t said anything, I decided it was up to me to open the conversation. It was either “hello,” or “I’m leaving tomorrow evening,” or “see, I so did not freeze my wonderfulness off.”

“Are you cold?” he asked suddenly.

“Well, not after that,” I replied. I still had to broach the whole leaving idea. “Um, Miro?” I squeaked. He raised his head from the carpet and looked over at me.

“Yes?”

“I have to leave tomorrow evening.”

It was like I had dealt a crushing blow. I almost saw him wince and was ashamed of myself. But really, was I just going to up and leave?

“Sure you don’t,” he said, still with that same dry humor.

“Um, yes I do."

“No you don’t.”

“Miro, my coach will rip me apart with his bare hands and eat me if I overextend my Olympic break. He will use my calf muscles to make jerky. It will not be pretty.”

He sighed. “Then you do.”

“God, I’m sorry. But I can’t help it. On the nineteenth of March I come back here. And the twenty-fourth you come to Ottawa.” I had to stop talking. It wasn’t the same.

“You know what? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you really just don’t get it,” he sighed, getting up and stalking off.

I could have shot myself right then and there for making him say that.

I had almost twenty-four hours exactly before I had to leave. One more dinner, one more breakfast, one more lunch, one more night of sleeping in his bed, close to the warmth of his body. Screwing three more times. Two more incidents of mixed nausea and abject horror when I saw his arms. Seeing once more the fear in his eyes when I touched his arms that terrified us both.

I was slowly beginning to learn his rules. I could not, under any circumstances, take off his shirt. I could not touch the inner side of his arms. I could not give mention to his arms. Strangely, I didn’t want to do any of those things. All I wanted was to find comfort in his body, in talking to him, in lying next to him covered in a sheen of sweat.

He drove me to the airport in mostly silence, waiting at stoplights and I listened to the inner workings of the car, the hummings and little noises. We drove into the parking structure, heavy cement pylons emanating cold air on the outside and slight warmth on the inside.

“Hey, um, why here?” I asked stupidly. I’d seen the ‘Kiss and Fly’ signs and I had wondered why he hadn’t gone there. I had assumed he was going to, well, kiss me and drop me off. He shrugged.

He found a parking spot and parked the blue BMW. He turned it off and I knew that in a few moments it would begin to turn cold inside the car.

“Well, I suppose I ought to go then.” But I sat like a rock, unmoving, not wanting to. I looked over at Miro, who was staring vacantly at the windshield, but I could see the tiny flickering of pulse at the corner of his throat, growing quicker and quicker. Then, without warning, he leaned over and kissed me hard.

I craved the sensation of lips against lips, pulling his mouth ever closer, panting, wanting. I shuddered with sensation.

“I—I—I—my plane, going to miss it,” I breathed softly.

“You won’t. You have two hours,” he said into my ear. His warm breath tickled my eardrum, sending shivers up my spine and throughout my body. Lust and warmth filled my body, filled my mind with him and only him, and somehow, somewhere in my brain, something clicked.

“Um. There might be people around,” I groaned.

I saw enough of his face to notice the glimmer in his eyes and the grin on his lips.

“Lay back.” I did. The shirts came off (well, my shirt, at least), the pants came off, licking, nipping, biting. I died a hundred thousand deaths in his arms, sighing, letting him do the work. Letting him coax my body. It was all I wanted at the moment. It was all I could handle at the moment. It was all I could ever have at the moment.

Forty minutes later I was replacing my clothing, stealing kisses, trying to cool myself down a little bit before a two-hour plane ride wherein my seatmates would definitely not enjoy the man next to them sweating profusely. Social graces and all that.

“I fly.” Breathe. “Back.” Breathe. “Here.” Breathe. “I think the nineteenth.” Breathe. “And on the twenty-fourth you come to Ottawa.”

“Are you sure?” Miro leaned back in his seat, calm in the knowledge that he had not only just finished driving me insane, but could now go home and rest, damn him.

“Um, I think. Possibly.” Brilliance, eh?

“Good.” He kissed me again. Why? Did he not know I was trying to be productive and actually make my flight?

“Ok, so, um. See you then.” My tongue was struck absolutely dumb. Words which could flow in my head suffered a roadblock on the way to my lips, and traveled down to my hands, which promptly touched his hands, then his face.

Then bolted from the car with my suitcase, followed by the rest of my body.