Sleeping Awake (8 page)

Breathing became an irrelevance as he stood on his
toes and stretched, like a god, towards the heavens. He entered the hot tub as
if the clouds had descended to escort him, and a sudden craving for a juicy,
red apple engulfed me as I took in the sight of the curve that extended from
his lower back.

He was too beautiful to be true; an Adonis come to
life. I knew then, as an unseen wind pushed me towards him, that he was the
real reason why fate had made me decide to go to the hot tub instead of
remaining in my dark corner, unnoticed by the rest of the world. I didn’t know
him, but I recognised him.

“Mind if I join you?” I asked. The velvety voice of
lustful honey belonged to a woman transformed, overcome by her maddening
desire. My eyes ran along the contours of his body, taking my time to get a
good look at every inch of the exquisite creature before me. Not even so much
as a scar was to be seen on his figure and his perfection heightened my
arousal. A few minutes ago, I was lamenting the state of my miserable
existence, and now it seemed that after years of imprisonment, I was finally
being allowed to see the light.

Our eyes locked: my blue-greys and his velvet mosses.

He shook his head. “Not all. Free hot tub.”

He had one of those intoxicating accents that made
women watch shows in languages that they did not understand.

I made no attempts to hide the fact that I was watching
him as I got in. Beads of water dripped from his dark brown hair into his face.
The one that attracted me most started its journey between his eyebrows, ran
down to the tip of his nose, and dove into his mouth. I shivered.

I desired nothing more than to trade places with that
droplet and to lose myself in his depths.

“Cold?” He had the kind of smile that would lead the
most innocent astray.

“No.” I took a seat across from him. He was even more
beautiful up close. To distract myself, I reached for my box of cigarettes.

“Dunhills?” he observed. “Only old men smoke those.”

I exhaled and watched as the misty gray creatures
curled themselves towards the starry night. “I can handle a lot more than
most.”

“Apparently,” he said. There was the tiniest of smiles
on his face.

I continued to stare, wanting nothing more than to
know every inch of his skin. I decided that I liked his jaw; it was very
angular. I was almost tempted to trace its shape with my fingers.

“Like what you see?” he asked.

“I do.”

He let out a boisterous laugh. “Are you always this
forward?”

I shrugged. “I’m not into games.”

“Are you saying that you’re easy then?” His right
eyebrow formed into a perfect arch.

“Did those words come out of my mouth?”

“Relax.” He smiled again—that devilish smile, which
brought oh so sinful thoughts of what his lips could be doing to the forefront
of my mind. “I was just kidding.”

“No offense taken.” I tossed my cigarette butt over
the side of the tub.

“I’m Nicolaas, and you are?”

“Noira.”

“So how do you know Bryn, Noira?”

“He’s my best friend so to speak,” I explained. “You?”

“I’m his cousin, so to speak.”

“You’ve neither an Welsh nor an English accent. Where
are you from?”

“The Netherlands mostly.”

I
loved the Netherlands. My father’s family had a farm in Delft, and we’d
sometimes go there when I still lived in France. I smiled as I remembered the
excitement of holding a baby chicken for the first time and my failed attempt
to grow an onion plant. Philippe had promised me that he’d help me with my
gardening on our next vacation in Delft, but that never happened. He left us a
few months later, and we moved to America instead.

I
looked at Nicolaas again and focused on his exquisite face. I didn’t want to
get sucked into the darkness of my father abandoning us. I didn’t like the
tightness that always occurred in my chest.

“So
what brings a Dutchman to New York?” I asked.

He
shook his head. “I’m French, by way of the Netherlands… My father is Dutch, but
my mother is French.”

“Ah vraiment?”
I said.

“Vraiment.”

“Je suis française!”
I replied. The realisation that Adonis and I had
something in common sent my heart on a pounding fury.

“
Quel chance!
Bryn told me to come to the
States for my birthday. He told me that I’d like Americans. He was right.”

I laughed. I wasn’t surprised that Bryn would coax his
cousin to America’s shores with promises of wild natives. “And when is your
birthday?”

“Tonight.” Nicolaas replied. He looked around the pool
area where everyone had more or less coupled off. “This was supposed to be my
welcoming and birthday party.”

“Bonne anniversaire, alors!”

“Merci.”

What
luck indeed that I had shown up at his party.

“Why are you skulking in the hot tub instead of making
merry with everyone else?” I asked.

“Why are you?”

“Crowds intimidate me,” I replied. I could not explain
why I felt the need to be brutally honest with him, but I did not regret my
decision.

“This crowd could intimidate anyone, I suppose.”
Nicolaas observed.

“Hhhmmm…” I replied. “What’s your surname?”

“Armgard.”

I sat up straighter. “
The
Nicolaas Armgard?”

Nicolaas rolled his eyes. “Please don’t tell me that
my reputation precedes me even in the U.S.”

“I doubt that it has,” I said. “I just happen to read
The
Times
whenever I’m with Bryn, and I subscribe to
Le Monde
. You made
a quite a splash in London last year, young man.”

“One could say that.”

“It’s strange that Bryn never mentioned that he was
related to you…” I mused.

Nicolaas shrugged. “We weren’t close until this year.
I had to stay with him for a few months after....”

“After you caused a scandal by dating that male model,
you mean?”

Being the twenty-fifth in line to the Dutch throne,
Nicolaas had absolutely no chance of ever being king and seemed to revel in
that fact. He had a new bed mate every other week, narrowly escaped jail for
cocaine possession, dabbled in bisexuality for a brief stint, and at the age of
twenty-six, refused to heed to the suggestion of his dear aunt, Queen Beatrix,
and find a serious partner. The soap opera that was the House of Windsor could
not light a match to the one that Nicolaas alone had written, produced and
directed for the House of Oranje-Nassau.

 “Precisely,” Nicolaas replied. “Cambridge seemed
as good as any place to lay low for a while.”

“Are you still dating men then?” I asked. Nicolaas had
disappeared from the papers after he had caused a scene during Paris Fashion
week last year. He’d caught his model boyfriend fiddling with the hairdresser
backstage and was photographed being tackled to the ground, the cutting sheers
that he’d attempted to attack them with in his hands for the world to see.

“I most certainly am not,” he replied. His face
contorted into an unreadable expression.

“And is this a permanent or a temporary thing?” I
inquired.

“That depends on why you’re asking,” he answered.

I closed my eyes. My mind drifted towards thoughts of
my delicious, Adonis-like creature. I was on a tropical isle where he was the
apple dangling temptingly before me and all that I had to do was reach out to
touch him and damn myself to hell.

“And now that you’ve discovered who I am and gotten my
attention, you’re going to fall asleep on me?”

Still watching the apple before me, I replied, “I
always had your attention.”

“Like I always had yours?”

I opened my eyes, smiling. “If possible, you are
becoming more and more attractive by the second.”

“Et toi.”

He was a magnetic pole slowly reeling me in. I felt
the tug and wondered if he felt it as well.

For a brief moment, I thought it possible that my
hidden self had remained dormant waiting for such a moment such to be released.
I became Lady Lazarus in his eyes, pulled from my secret depths. I wanted to
damn myself to whatever tortuous hell awaited the decision that I made, and I
hoped that he wouldn’t fail me by cowering under my prowess.

“When do you leave?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Whenever I decide to. I don’t really
have a plan for this summer besides not ending up in the papers again. Why?”

“I have a crazy idea.”

Nicolaas grinned. “Excellent. I knew that you couldn’t
be Bryn’s best friend for nothing. What is it?”

“We should test the zodiac together.”

“
Pardonne?”
His brows knitted instantaneously.

“You’re a Cancer, and I’m a Scorpio,” I explained.
“We’re perfectly matched according to the zodiac.”

“Ah, je comprends.”

“Et alors?”
I demanded.

“Et on fait quoi?”

“Whatever you want,” I replied.

I wasn’t entirely sure what had come over me. Maybe it
was the withdrawal talking. All I knew was that the tug was hooked under my
navel, practically ripping me in its effort to get me over to him. I wanted to
spend my summer in bed with him.

My proposition would have probably been seen as
reckless by my multitude of psychiatrists and other well-wishers. However, my
progress towards sanity was the furthest thing from my mind. If it were to be
insanity at the expense of fulfilling my most ardent desire, then I would
gladly welcome the straight jacket to swim in Nicolaas’s mossy depths.

“Et si j’ai une copine?”

“Do you?” I asked. I could have cared less about any
woman waiting on him in France, but I refrained from telling him so.

“No, but don’t you care that I’ve slept with men?” He
folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. I suppose that not many women would have
been fond of that.

“Well that depends,” I said, smiling coyly. “Were you
a Top or a Bottom?”

“Obviously I topped.” He sniffed.

I tried not to smile. He was so cute when he was being
haughty.

“No,” I replied. “I don’t care that you’ve slept with
a man.”

“Really? You are possibly the most fascinating person
whom I’ve met,” he said, smiling.

 “I like to think of myself as highly evolved,” I
quipped. Despite my loving our banter, I was getting a bit antsy. I wanted to
seal the distance between us. “Do you want to do this or not?”

Under the water, my arms crossed as I waited for him
to make his decision. Nicolaas looked neither intimidated nor panicked as his
eyes assessed me.

I felt the tug again, more like a stinging bite this
time, and resisted the urge to give in to my desires.

He shrugged.
“Pourquoi pas?”

And just like that, Adonis became mine and mine alone.

“Good,” I said rising. “I can think of a much better
way to celebrate your birthday.”

“And which way is that?” Nicolaas asked. There was a
cautious excitement hidden just beneath the surface of his voice.

I was led by the whispers that swirled and formed the
link between us. His fingers singed me as they held the small of my back and
the currents gave me courage.

“I
really
like your jaw,” I whispered, using my
fingers to trace its smooth surface.

“You do?” He sounded like a child in rhapsodic awe.

I nodded. “And your lips…”

My fingers ran lazily along his bottom lip; electrifying.

“Mmm…What about my lips?”

His breath on my fingers was a succulent appetizer.

“I want them.”

Nicolaas pulled me on to his lap. I could have died
from the jolt that rocketed through me at his touch.

“For as long as we’re testing the zodiac,” he said,
“they’re yours.”

I did not hesitate to pull his face closer to mine and
capture his lips. My fantasies failed to prepare me for the blessed moment when
our lips finally touched. I thought that getting what I wanted would have
satiated my desires, but somewhere in my calculations, I detoured towards all
things wrong.

I sensed that I wouldn’t feel fulfilled once that
pinnacle was reached and ecstasy erupted. I couldn’t foresee myself just
walking away from Adonis and never looking back. There would always be that
longing, that feeling that I never got enough.

This reality made me want to pull away and run all the
way home until I was once again in the safety of my dark room, but even if I
did give into the fear, I knew that it was too late. I felt it as our tongues
partook in a sensual tango and the rhythm pulled me in a new direction. In all
my wildest fantasies, never had I imagined a moment like the one that I shared
with Nicolaas.