Holding On To You (16 page)

Slowly, Maddy begins to let the movement of River's hips guide her. They step out into the middle of the dance floor, bodies pressed together as one. She feels her shoulders loosening up in his arms, and something inside her begins to awaken. She can't stand the music, nor can she understand why it's considered music at all, but it's definitely doing something to her. It's making her feel something inside. That and being this close to someone. She hates to admit it to herself, but she's enjoying this. She closes her eyes and rests her head on River's chest, and River guides her gently, moving his hips in a rhythm that either he's somehow able to find in the wall of noise surrounding him, or one that his body naturally beats to. Either way, being held like this, and moved like this, is making her feel safe and anonymous, in a situation that she would normally perceive as neither one of those things. All of a sudden, one of the more energetic dancers bumps violently into the back of River and nearly knocks them both over. He's a big, menacing looking guy, with tattoos across his face and chest.

'Get the fuck out of the way. This isn't a fucking ballroom', he barks at them, ready to insist in a much more violent manner if they refuse.

'Are you alright Princess', River says.

Maddy nods, back very much in the real world again, her tiny short-lived bubble now punctured. She can feel the mounting tension in the room as River and the violent dancer eyeball each other.

'You want to dance like fairies, fuck off somewhere else to do it', the tattooed man says.

River's hand goes quickly to the back of his jeans, but Maddy is even quicker. She catches his forearm and River freezes when he feels her there, surprised by her response time.

'Let's go', Maddy whispers to him, 'it isn't worth it. I'm ok, really.'

'I was enjoying that dance', River says, his eyes still fixed on the giant of a man in front of him.

'Well fucking enjoy it somewhere else', he says.

'River', Maddy says, and eventually he relents, letting her lead him away, while the tattooed man goes back to his violent body jerks, bumping into everyone and anyone he can find. Maddy leads them to the back of the room, past the table with their beers on it, and into an empty space, so far away from the bar and the music, that no-one is using it, and it's highly unlikely anyone will. There, Maddy pulls River towards her and makes him embrace her again. River wastes no time in returning to the rhythm they were working towards before they were violently bumped off the dance floor, while Maddy rests her head back on his chest and closes her eyes, looking for that bubble once more.

'No-one will bother us here', she says.

'I hope not', River says, rocking her gently, hugging her much more than dancing with her. It's a distinction that Maddy isn't bothered by. She's not been hugged like this for as long as she can remember, and she'd forgotten how good it feels.

'I want to tell you my secret', Maddy says.

'I think you already have', River says, stroking her hair in such a natural way, that neither of them have consciously noticed him doing it.

Maddy pulls away from him a little, so she can look up into his eyes. She can feel tingles racing around the inside of her belly as he smiles back at her. 'Is it that obvious, or are you just much more perceptive than everyone else?'

River holds her wrist, making circles there with his thumb.

'Maybe I just know what I'm looking for', River says.

He moves his other hand down to the back of her head so he can cup her neck, and leans in towards her. Whatever it is she is about to say, gets lost forever on River's lips, as he presses them softly against hers, and kisses her deeply and passionately, biting her lip gently before he finally pulls away. Maddy has her eyes closed and her head tilted back slightly. She moves her tongue slowly across her lower lip, as though picking up sugar left by a sticky doughnut, and then bites it again herself. She opens her eyes.

'You probably shouldn't have done that', she says, her heart beating wildly now, and the tingles moving from her belly out across her whole body. River's hands on her skin, both at the back of her neck and on her wrist, feel electric.

'You're probably right', River says, 'but then there's a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't do, and still do because it feels right.'

Maddy is excited and she can't hide it. Her breath has shortened, her hands are trembling slightly, and her heart is beating so fiercely that if it wasn't for the music, the whole bar would be able to hear it.

'Kiss me again, and then take me home before I change my mind', Maddy says, pulling River back towards her.

This time when he kisses her, she makes sure she kisses him back, opening her mouth a little and allowing their tongues to touch. When they do, and she nibbles the end of his gently, she feels a sensation build inside her, that she'd forgotten existed at all.

Nothing has ever felt as urgent. They are barely back in the motel room, before Maddy has ripped off his shirt, and allowed him to guide her to the bed. Insisted he take her there. She has lived her whole life in regimented order, taking calculated risks only when she has to, and never being spontaneous and living in the moment, and there is no way she's going to allow herself to do that now. No fucking way. If there is one thing the last twelve hours has taught her, it's that life is short and unpredictable, and that you better enjoy it while you can, because if you don't, and you spend that time worrying about things instead, what the hell is the point?

Clothes give way to skin, perfect, delicate, soft and supple skin, as River warms her whole body with carefully placed kisses, and pulls her into him. She has never felt so free, so able to let herself go, nor so desperate to do so. She runs her hands through his hair, gripping it tightly to remind herself he's real, and bites his neck softly, much more softly this time than she did in the stolen car this morning. She needs him and feels needed by him in return, and can't wait any longer. She reaches down, excited by what she finds there, and slowly but urgently, guides him inside her. The pleasure is so immediate and the relief so immense, she can't help but cry with joy.

'Are you alright Maddy?' River asks, his breathing hot and ragged, their bodies locked together as one.

'Never. Better', Maddy manages to say, and opens herself up to him fully, while the tears continue to flow.

For the first time in her life, Maddy doesn't feel normal. Which is to say, that she doesn't feel like herself at all. She feels like the woman she always wanted to be, but never thought she was capable of becoming. In all of her adult life, Maddy has been searching for a moment like this, that for one reason or another, just didn't arrive.

Maddy grips the pillow, River's hips, anything at all in reach, as the waves of pleasure hit her harder than she imagined possible. In her handful of previous sexual experiences, Maddy was never exposed to anything like this, and certainly didn't ever come. She'd had what would probably be best described as conventional, purposeful sex, without passion or feeling, and so far away from the moment she was now sharing with River, that it would be unfair to call it sex at all. She had no idea it could feel this good, or that it had the power to make everything else in your life seem so completely insignificant in comparison.

River feels so incredible inside her, she doesn't want their moment to end. She doesn't want him ever not to be there. She has never felt this close to anyone in her life, and can't believe it's happening with the man who only this morning was a stranger, robbed the bank she wasn't meant to be in, and took her hostage.

It's closing in on them, little by little, beat by glorious beat. They come apart momentarily, and then together again, this time Maddy on top, to ride them home. She stretches her hands out across the muscles of his chest and arms, the contours of his perfect body, that make him look like a fallen angel. He places his hands on the soft peach-like skin of her bum, as she rocks back and forth, not so much pushing her as just following her rhythm closely, supporting her, and letting her know he's there.

She pushes into him, taking him as deeply as she can inside her, and then allows her hips to roll back, each thrust pushing them that little bit closer to heaven.

Her eyes sparkle at him, the almond flecks catching the moonlight that seeps in through the gauzed curtain, in a way that makes them look like as yet unclassified precious stones. She was beautiful to him fully clothed, a nervous bundle in the trunk of a stolen car, or outstretched on the dirty carpet of the floor of the bank he chose to rob, but now, fully revealed to him, literally and emotionally, she is a more majestic creature than any he can ever remember seeing. To him, she is perfect. Fragile, broken, haunted by the past in exactly the same way that he is, but perfect nonetheless, perfect in every way possible, and beautiful not in spite of what has happened to her, but because of it.

They are peaking together. It's something River has never experienced before, and certainly nothing Maddy has knowledge of either. It's as if they know each other inside out, know what it is they both want, and they can communicate it to each other without the need for speaking. As ridiculous as it sounds, it's almost as if they were destined to find each other, because this kind of unspoken bodily coordination is rare enough between couples that have been married for years, let alone two people who have literally just been thrown together.

Maddy presses her hands down onto his chest, and arches her back. It's coming, and there is nothing either one of them can do to stop it. They hold each others gaze, ice cold blue and hazel flecks, while the truth and the fearlessness of that truth flies between them. After today, nothing will ever be the same again.

She can't help but scream. The sensation is so overwhelming, and the relief her body feels so magnificent, that she can't do anything else, but let it run through her. For a while she's swimming, or dancing perhaps, she isn't sure. Moving from one heartbeat of pleasure to the next, she's not quite anything really, apart from a bundled mess of tingles and electrical activity, just a feeling of happiness now, where the complexity of a life, and everything that came with it, used to exist instead. She feels like nothing more than a sensation, carried along by the force of her orgasm, like a feather swept along by the breeze, and nothing has ever felt better.

River kisses her neck, moving gradually towards her earlobe, and little by little, the feeling of his lips on her skin begins to bring her back down to earth. She purrs pleasurably, readjusts her head, and slides her hand down across the skin at the side of his torso. River isn't usually ticklish, but he moves quickly to stop her, his body notably more sensitive than usual. He's never experienced sex like it, and certainly never orgasmed quite so strongly. With Maddy convulsing on top of him, he almost matches her for duration, coming back down to earth only a few seconds before she does. If he believed heaven existed, he'd have thought he'd already found it.

Maddy buries herself in his chest like a cat getting ready to sleep, and River places his hand on her back to lock her safely inside his embrace. She finds his free hand with one of hers, and holding the same pose they did on the dance floor earlier, he turns her wrist over to the light, running his thumb again across the faint scar that remains there.

Chapter 12

River runs towards Lightning again, only he's not nine years old this time, he's twenty seven. The sky is blood red and hangs around him ominously, clouds as thick as gorse bush threatening to cover the whole world in rain. Lightning is there at the edge of the trail that runs towards his house, but his house is no longer where it should be, the bank sitting there instead, Buck Tavern soaking up the sun on a lounger just outside, laughing at a joke only he knows the punchline to.

'Lightning, hold up boy', River says, and the horse looks to him but doesn't come. Instead, he turns sideways and begins to trot away. There is a hole the size of a dustbin lid in his belly, out of which his intestines are falling slowly. River tries to run faster, but each step he takes does nothing to the distance between them, until eventually, almost suddenly, he's standing over the horse, who now lies dead in the grass in front of him. Desperate to get as close as he can to his beloved friend, River doesn't notice the pool of blood below him. He slips uncontrollably, and trying to balance his fall, he accidentally puts his arm through the dead beasts chest. Frightened, he pulls away, only to find himself in a different place entirely. He's in the bedroom he grew up in, a featureless shack of a room, with a metal frame bed, a collection of blankets instead of a mattress and holes in the wall where the plasterboard has come off and never been replaced. He looks at his hand, and then immediately forgets why it was important to do that. Something else is important here instead.

'Dad', he calls, as he walks, somehow knowing exactly what he is meant to be doing, but unable to stop it, as though he's watching a film he's seen a thousand times before, and no matter how much he shouts at the telly to advise the hero within, there is absolutely no way to stop him. Outside of his bedroom, the rest of the house is derelict, apart from a room at the end of the original plot, where the wooden door swings and crashes against the frame, in a breeze he can see but can't feel.

He walks towards it, stepping through rubble and broken pieces of a former life, guided by something outside of his control. There is no reason for this room and his own to be standing, while the rest of the house lies in shatters around him, the dust of which has clearly settled a long time ago. The room he heads towards and can't stop himself from doing so, he recognises when he gets there. It's his fathers.