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Later, as the two of them were walking companionably back through the village to Leigh s house, the girls skipping ahead of them, Leigh asked, ‘You seem preoccupied. Is something wrong?’
Debra started to shake her head and then caught the wry look Leigh was giving her, and admitted instead, ‘Sort of.’
Hesitantly she explained the situation which was developing between herself and Marsh.
‘So?’ Leigh pressed her when she had stopped speaking.
Debra gave her a puzzled look.
‘Debra,’ Leigh told her in obvious amused exasperation, ‘I don’t think that many women would consider having a man they’re physically attracted to, and who’s obviously attracted to them, a problem.
‘In fact, most women’s worry would be that lie didn’t want them, not that he did.’
Debra flushed defensively.
‘I’m not like you, Leigh,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not interested in... in passion.’
Leigh had stopped walking and Debra had to stop as well.
‘You mean that you’re afraid of experiencing passion, don’t you?’ Leigh challenged her. ‘Debra, for heaven’s sake, you’re denying yourself one of the most intense and special human emotions there is...’
‘In your book,’ Debra told her fiercely. ‘I’m not like you, Leigh. I don’t want that kind of intensity in my life. It’s... it’s so destructive.’ Leigh’s face shadowed.
‘You’re thinking about Paul and me, aren’t you...about our divorce? But, Debra, it was out of Paul’s and my desire that the girls were conceived. Out of your so-called destruction...’ Tears clogged the back of Debra’s throat as Leigh told her quietly and sincerely, ‘It’s true that loving Paul, that wanting him caused me intense hurt and pain, but I’ve never regretted loving him, Debs, and I’d go through ten times that amount of pain rather than never experience the joy of loving someone so completely... of wanting them so completely.’
‘But I’m different. I don’t want that experience.’
‘Don’t you?’ Leigh challenged her. ‘Your mind may not want it, Debs, but your body, your senses, your emotions are telling a different story, aren’t they?’
Unable to contradict her, Debra turned away and started to hurry after the girls.
There was a sharp pain inside her chest. She wished Leigh had never raised the subject. She ought to have known that her stepsister wouldn’t understand, but then, as Leigh caught up with her and said gently, ‘Everyone’s afraid of commitment. .. of loving someone and of losing them. It’s a fear we all share, Debs,’ she realised that she had misjudged her.
‘You’ve never been afraid,’ she responded unsteadily.
‘No?’ Leigh gave her a wry smile. ‘Jeff wants to marry me. I know I love him. The girls adore him... and he certainly loves me and them, but I can’t say yes. I am afraid, Debs, but listening to you has suddenly made me realise how destructive that kind of fear can be, and how hurtful. It isn’t Jeff’s fault that Paul stopped loving me and left me. Because my trust in Paul was misplaced, it doesn’t mean that I can’t trust Jeff.
‘You can’t make plans for a watertight life,’ she added as they reached her small house. ‘It isn’t a column of figures where two and two’s always going to equal four.’
By concentrating on keeping her two nieces amused and illicitly awake while she was babysitting, Debra managed to convince herself that she was far too busy to think about Marsh.
But she dreamed about him that night; dreamed that he was holding her, kissing her, and that she was clinging to him, pleading with him, whispering to him to hold her and touch her, her subconscious allowing her senses and emotions the freedom to express their needs, which she denied them in her conscious state.
Fragments of her dreams which had lodged themselves in her memory came back to disturb her once she was awake.
She paused, shuddering a little as she brushed her hair, her reflection in the mirror of the bedroom which had been hers while she was growing up eclipsed by the hazy, vague images surfacing from her dreams.
Images in which she clung to Marsh, her body closely entwined with his, eagerly absorbing its intimacy, her face rapt with passion and desire.
She had never seen herself like this before, never created or felt the need to create this other Debra, her hair a wanton tumble of dark blonde silk, an erotic contrast to the lean male body against which it fell, her own body taut, yearning, trembling in the extremity of her need, and on her skin the sheen of her desire-induced perspiration. Her nipples taut and hard, dark with the blood that pulsed beneath her flesh, but most disturbing and unfamiliar of all was the expression on her face, the taut, shivery urgency of her breathing, the words of need and desire that floated through her memory, incoherent pleas, whispered phrases, things she had never imagined herself capable of thinking, never mind saying.
It wasn’t real, she reminded herself shakily. It was just a dream. It couldn’t happen. It must not happen.
‘That was a wonderful lunch, but what we all need now is some exercise,’ Leigh announced firmly next day.
Debra protested that she was too full even to think of moving, and then reluctantly got to her feet, following Leigh’s example.
‘Never mind the washing-up,’ Leigh instructed their parents. ‘We can all help with that when we come back. Let’s make the most of the sunshine and enjoy it. We needn’t walk very far. Just down to the river and back.’
