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Emily hurried out of the office, her head down and her throat thick with unshed tears.
What was it with her? she asked herself wretchedly, five minutes later as she hailed a taxi. She wasn't a young girl with emotions so new and raw that she overreacted to every sucked-in breath! She was in her twenties and divorced, and she and Marco had been together for nearly three years, the intimacy of their sex life having given her an outward patina of radiant sensuality. It had been so palpable in the first year they'd been together, one of her clients had told her semijokingly. ‘Now that you're with Marco you're going to start losing clients if you aren't careful.'
‘Why?' Emily had asked.
‘Jealousy.' had been the client's succinct answer.
Emily remembered how she had smiled with rueful acknowledgement. You mean, because I'm with Marco and they'd like to change places with me?' she had guessed.
They may very well want to do that, but I was thinking more of their concerns that their husbands might be tempted by the creamy glow of sexual completion you're carrying around with you right now. Emily.'
Emily remembered she had blushed and made some confused denial, but the client had shaken her head and told her wisely. You can't deny or ignore it. That glow shimmers round you like a force-field and men are going to be drawn to you because of it. There is nothing more likely to make a man want a woman than her confident wearing of another man's sexual interest in her.'
She doubted that she still wore that magnetic sexual aura now. Emily admitted sadly. That was the trouble: when you broke the rules, it didn't only make you ache for what you didn't have, it also damaged what you did.
The taxi driver was waiting for her to tell him where she wanted to go. She leaned forward and gave him the address of Marcos apartment. Marco's apartment, she noted—for that was how she thought of it. Not as their apartment, even though he had invited her to make it over to suit her own tastes and had given her a lavish budget for its renovation. Material possessions, even for ones home that evoked deep-rooted attachments, were nothing without the right kind of emotions to surround them.
Why had it had to happen? Why had she fallen in love with Marco? Why couldn't she have stayed as she was thrillingly aware of him on the most intimate kind of sexual level, buoyed up by the intensity of their desire for one another, overwhelmed by relief and joy because he had brought her from the dark, wretched nowhere she'd inhabited after her divorce to the brilliant glittering landscape of unimaginable beauty that was the intimacy they shared together? Why. why. why couldn't that have been enough? Why had she had to go and fall for him?
Emily shivered, sinking deeper into the seat of the taxi. And why. Having fallen for him did she have to torment herself by hoping that one day things would change, that one day he would look at her and in his eyes she would see his love for her? The hope that, one day it would happen sometimes felt so fragile and so unrealistic that she was afraid for herself, afraid of her vulnerability as a woman who needed one particular man so badly she was prepared to cling to such a fine thread. But what else could she do? She could tell him honestly, how she felt.
Emily bit her lip guiltily aware that she wasn't being open with him. Because she was afraid in case she lost him...Why was she letting herself be dragged down by these uncomfortable, painful thoughts and questions? Why did they keep on escaping from the place where she tried to incarcerate and conceal them? What kind of woman was she to live a lie with the man she loved? What kind of relationship was it when that man stated openly that there was no place for love in the life he wanted to live?
The taxi stopped abruptly, catching her off guard. She didn't really want to go up to the apartment, not feeling the way she was right now but another person was already hurrying purposefully towards the taxi, wanting to lay claim to it.
Emily got out and paid her fare to the driver, shivering as she waited for her change. Her stomach had already begun its familiar nauseous churning this time, it had to be a result of Marco's rejection of her appeal to him, though she had to admit she had also felt too nauseous to want any breakfast this morning. She was definitely beginning to feel slightly dizzy and faint as well as unwell now.
Psychosomatic, she told herself unsympathetically as she headed up to the apartment.
It had started to rain while Emily was getting out of the taxi. Yes the miserable weather was adding to her feelings of lowness. Why couldn't she talk to Marco? They were lovers, after all sharing the closest of physical intimacy. Physical intimacy—but they did not share any emotional intimacy. Emily’s experiences as a child had made her wary of appearing needy. It was now second nature to her to hide the most vulnerable part of her true self. Only in Marcos arms, at the height of their shared passion, did she feel safe enough to allow her body to show him what was in her heart, knowing that he wasn't likely to be able to recognise it.
