She: Part 2 (47 page)

“
Gemima
,” Logan cries, closing in on his orgasm, and I remember,
Oh
,
yes
,
that
’
s my name
.

My body’s not used to being worshipped the way that Logan worships it, nor driven to such heights, but he proves to me for the umpteenth time that we can reach these new heights together. The seconds keep on passing and the pleasure keeps increasing and before I know it I’m screaming into the bedding once more. I feel myself tightening.

“
Ah
!” Logan groans loudly, on the verge of releasing himself into me, and a few perfect thrusts later he orgasms, shaking behind me. His movements, his sounds, and the feeling of his hands gripping me are enough to send me soaring. My body takes flight in pure euphoria as I come for a second time, calling out effusively.

Celebration sex really is the best, I muse, feeling utterly sated. “It really…
really
sucks to be me,” I pant once more, allowing my body to go fully limp.

Logan laughs airily, his full weight on me, his hands gently caressing my thighs and backside as he comes down from his high. He pulls out of me and rolls onto his back, breathing rapidly. “You’re so damn good at that, Gemima,” he tells me.

“
Me
?” I practically shout. “Logan, I swear, you have more self control than a monk!” I exclaim, prompting him to burst into a fit of laughter. “OK, no, probably not a monk,” I amend quickly.
Get your facts straight
,
Gem
!

“I think,” Logan stammers, “I think we’ll have to learn to agree to disagree on that particular subject.”

I stare at him for a long moment, before shaking my head at his suggestion, making him laugh even more. In my mind, to my body, Logan is a sex-god. It’s as simple as that.

I clamber over him to reach my aromatic cup of coffee. Although astounding, the jolting movement of Logan behind me hasn’t exactly soothed my hangover. While my headache is all but gone, no doubt due to the overload of endorphins that I’ve just had, that bilious, gluggy feeling in my stomach is crying out for help, and I’m hoping that coffee will be my saviour.

When we’re both fit for movement once more, we migrate to the kitchen, wolfing down an enormous breakfast, waiting to hear back from Karen. After her confirmation that Taylor
won
’
t
be joining us this afternoon, we have a hasty shower and dress in suitable theme-park attire, Logan’s dark jeans and deep-red sweater inadvertently matching my black skinny leg pants and red and white polkadot jumper. If I’m going to Disneyland I might as well as dress the part, I tell myself. All I need to complete my Mini Mouse outfit is a headband with mouse ears on it; those shouldn’t be too hard to find, I think excitedly.

* * *

Hours later, we soak in the warm water of my bathtub, Logan sitting behind me, as I lean back against his broad chest, my head on his shoulder. His breathing is slow, steady, and even and I’m almost certain that he’s fast asleep. I move to the side slightly so that I can peer up at him.
Yup
,
he
’
s out
.

He looks so handsome, even in slumber, and so much more at ease than earlier when, true to his word, he accompanied us on a roller coaster, and while his bad history didn’t stop him from having a good time, his hangover definitely did. The erratic swirling motions weren’t a good mix after a night like we had, and although Logan was able to contain his nausea, I wasn’t so lucky. Surely, I can’t be the
only
person to have ever thrown up in those pristine flowerbeds that they have at Disneyland, I wonder, still feeling embarrassed about it. We left soon after, before I could be arrested for public vomiting, which I’m actually paranoid is a real offence.

We dropped Karen and Abby back in La Défense, confirmed with Logan’s parents that only
they
would be joining him on his trip to Marseille tomorrow — due to an apparently unprecedented Taylor Tantrum that happened while we were gone — and then we drove to mine. Some soothing tea put both of our stomachs to rest, and our relaxing bath has done the rest.

At least it
was
relaxing, until my mobile phone starts ringing loudly from within my pants pocket piled on the floor. Logan stirs behind me. Sloshing water everywhere, I hurriedly lean halfway out of the tub to retrieve it. It’s Amber.

Settling into the water once more, I answer in a hushed voice, “Hey, baby momma.”

She laughs happily at her new name, a sound that causes a broad smile to spread across my face. She then bombards me with questions about last night and I keep my answers short so as to avoid waking Logan fully. I then request that she tells me everything about her and Seamus’ double date with Layla and Patrick, and her detailed account means that I don’t have to say another word for the next five minutes.

It doesn’t sound like it was a huge success, and certainly not something that Amber wants to do again. It turns out that Layla didn’t make a very good impression on her. “She’s fake,” Amber tells me. “No one is that happy all the fucking time,” she says in explanation. When she’s finished giving me all of the gossip, she then gets down to her real reason for calling. “As of today, I’m six weeks pregnant, so this is a curtesy call to let you know that you should stop taking your pill
now
, and then maybe our babies will be born close together…”

I smile to myself as I consider her words, thinking over the last several weeks and realising that I haven’t had a period since before my first lunch date with Logan. “You’re right,” I mutter to Amber, “I do need to stop taking my pill, but not so that I can get pregnant. It’s time for code-red,” I say,
code
-
red
being our slang expression for
period
.

“
No
!” she says stroppily, making my smile grow even more.

“We don’t want babies,” I tell her for what I feel might be the millionth time. “But your persistence is admirable,” I compliment her. “Why don’t you start pestering Layla and Patrick to have a baby instead?” I then tease.

She lets out a huffy sigh which makes me laugh out loud. “Alright,” she
finally
concedes, “so you’re going to condemn my first born to be a loner,” she says dramatically, “but maybe I can convince you when I’m pregnant with the second?”

“Maybe,” I say, though I’m doubtful. Then, something on my hand catches my eye under the water, and I tell her, “I’m going to hang up, send you a photo, and then call you back, OK?”

“You don’t have to hang up to send a photo, Gem,” Amber informs me.

“
I
do,” I say pointedly.

She laughs, “Oh, yes, I forgot — your technology capabilities are limited.”

“Exactly,” I laugh too. I hang up and snap a quick photo of my engagement ring, momentarily marvelling once more in its beauty, before double checking and then triple checking that there are no naked body parts in the image, no reflections from the water or from any mirrored surfaces around the bathroom. Once the photo has the all clear, I message it to Amber, then I wait for twenty seconds before speed dialling her back.

When she picks up I can hear her sniffing, and I grin into my phone.

“It’s beautiful,” she cries. “Oh, I’m
so
happy for you, Gem.”

“Likewise,” I tell her. “That video of your ultrasound had me in tears,” I confess.

We chat for a further ten minutes about the many beautiful and blessed things that both of us have going on in our lives right now. Then, after agreeing to catch up later in the week, I say goodbye, hangup, drop my phone onto the pile of clothes next to the bathtub, and sink back under the water, relishing its warmth. Logan’s arms close around my middle.

Peering around at him once more, I murmur, “Sorry for waking you.”

“That’s OK,” he says sleepily. “I like hearing you talk to Amber,” he says, a small smile playing on his lips. “Is code-red your period?”

“Yes,” I giggle, totally unabashed that he knows what it stands for; it’s not exactly a subtle nickname. “I should have it by the end of week,” I tell him, and he nods drowsily. Tired or not, Jerry would never react so nonchalantly about my period. He used to imply that I was
unsanitary
during this time of my womanhood.
Immature prick
!

“Is it painful?” Logan checks, his eyelids heavy, his hands caressing me just below my bellybutton, as if preparing to massage it better.

Despite enjoying his touch, I say, “No, baby, not usually.” But I can’t help grinning, “Though if you’re offering this type of massage, then I’m happy to pretend.”

He chuckles, burying his face into my neck, and breathing me in. “Anything to make you feel good,” he murmurs, before sleep claims him again.

This time I follow his lead, lolling back against him. He won’t be here when I wake up tomorrow, I tell myself as I drift off to sleep; we’ll be apart all day until bedtime.
I
’
m sure I
’
ll manage to survive
, I muse with dozy sarcasm. It’s only one day apart, after all, and how bad could that possibly be?

12. Jungle

I
feel unnervingly alone when I wake up on Monday morning, and instinctively I reach for Logan. It’s only after swatting my hand up and down his side of the bed that I remember that he’s not here. I can vaguely recall him whispering goodbye several hours ago, but sleep had me in such a tight grip that it could’ve been a dream as much as it could’ve been reality.

Drowsily, I check my phone and find two text messages from him, one telling me that his plane is about to leave, and the second informing me that it’s landed safely in Marseille. I type back a
good morning
greeting and then resign myself to conquer the almost unavoidable Monday morning blues.

The continual flow of messages between Logan and I as I get ready for work undoubtedly keeps my mood bright, and yet I can’t shake the feeling of something being
off
. There’s an eeriness that follows me around the house, which gets so bad that I begin to chide myself for behaving so childishly just because Logan isn’t here. It must be his absence that’s got me feeling off-kilter, I think, yet that’s no reason to stop functioning like a proper human being.
Jeez
,
get a grip
,
Gem
, I order myself, downing my morning coffee before sending Logan my last message of the morning:

*About to leave for work. Will call at lunchtime. Love you, Leary x*

I step out of my little cottage and almost laugh at the weather — it’s dark and foggy and so perfectly in keeping with my odd mood that it’s comical. I walk along the little pathway to the elevator that takes me down to the underground garage, and it’s only once the elevator doors have shut, when I’m rummaging around in my handbag for my lip balm, that I realise that I’ve left my phone on the kitchen counter.

I can’t possibly endure an entire day without it, I’m not too proud to admit that, and I have every intention of going back to get it until the elevator doors start opening at garage level and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Fuck
, I think, as chills take over my body.

I don’t know why it happens, but it does — I go back in time, twenty-three years to be exact, and I’m sitting in the back of my father’s car, minutes before he took his last breath. It’s the same feeling, the same coldness, and the same sense that something
wrong
is about to happen. I feel the terror that coursed through my younger-self and yet I have
no
idea why this memory is occurring now.

I look up and see my neighbour, the male half of the couple who lives opposite from me, standing outside of the elevator doors, waiting to get in. His head is down and as my eyes scan his body, I see him tucking something under his shirt into the belt of his trousers, hiding it from my line of sight.

You have to get out of this elevator
,
Gem
, a voice in my head tells me, and I remember that I’ve heard that voice before.
You have to stay in the car
, it told me twenty-three years ago. I did as it said back then, too young to have any other choice, but I can’t leave now, he’s blocking my exit. Him, and the firearm that I’m almost certain that he’s carrying.

My breath catches in my chest.
Double fuck
!

I hate knowing this feeling; it’s like I’ve travelled into the middle of a memory. The air down here is deathly cold. It’s not right, it’s not natural. I can barely breathe it.

My neighbour looks up, his eyes pierce mine, and I
know
I’ve stepped back in time.
Oh my god
! My heart lurches uncomfortably and it takes everything in me not to gasp. I’ve seen eyes like that only once before, mere moments before my father was killed. They’re hallow, soulless, utterly empty eyes, and I abruptly realise that the eeriness following me around this morning wasn’t about Logan’s absence at all. It was pure foreboding, but my mind couldn’t explain it, so it fabricated an explanation instead. A reasonable response, I think, considering that I never,
ever
thought I’d feel like this again.

Short, shallow breaths are all that I can manage.
Get out of the elevator
, I hear once more.

This can’t possibly be happening, I tell myself. My adult-self kicks in and I instantly reject all of the signs, all of the warnings, and all of the feelings of deja vu; it’s just
not
possible, I try to convince myself.
He
’
s not carrying a gun
,
Gem
. I’m going to get my phone, I think stubbornly.

Yet as my neighbour steps towards me, so too do I step towards him. We move around each other, our bodies centimetres apart, swapping positions until he’s inside the elevator and I’m outside of it, even though I don’t feel like it’s
me
that’s making my body move. I’m being pulling and pushed and moved by something else. Intuition perhaps, or a primal survival instinct, or something altogether more inexplicable?

“Passez une bonne journée,” he says behind me as I walk away.
Have a good day
.