One Day in December(34)

Through the window I can see the black spindle outlines of the long-tail boats anchored just off the shore in readiness for the morning, and the pitch-dark sky overhead studded with a myriad of diamond stars.

‘I can’t remember the last time I felt this peaceful.’

Oscar takes a long drink then puts his beer bottle down on the floor before he replies.

‘I think I might be insulted. I was hoping you were outrageously turned on.’

I laugh softly into his chest and prop myself up to look at him. ‘I think I could be.’

One arm still bent behind his head, he slides his free hand round the back of my neck and tugs slowly on the string ties of my bikini top. It falls when he lets go, and he doesn’t take his eyes from mine as he reaches lower between my shoulder blades to finish the job.

‘Now I’m outrageously turned on,’ he says, tracing one fingertip from the dip between my collarbones to the button on my shorts. He swallows hard as he looks at my bared breasts. A breeze catches the wind chime hanging from the corner of my shack, a soft glitter of bells as he shifts slightly, pressing me back into the beanbag as he draws my nipple inside the heat of his mouth. Jesus. Aching, spiralling lust unfurls octopus-like inside my body, its tentacles licking fast along my limbs, heavy in my abdomen, fast in my chest as I push my hands into the thickness of his hair and hold him to me. I never thought I could feel like this for someone other than Jack, but something about being here with Oscar has freed me.

He reaches for the button of my shorts, lifting his head to look at me before he goes any further. I’m relieved he’s that kind of man; even though his breathing is shallow and his eyes are begging me not to stop him, I know that he would, and that’s enough.

‘Do you have a condom?’ I whisper as I stroke his hair, praying he says yes.

He moves over me, his chest on mine, and his kiss is so unhurried and exquisite that I wrap my arms round his shoulders and hold him to me.

‘I think so,’ he breathes, then laughs shakily. ‘I just hope it’s in date.’ He reaches into his back pocket, kissing me some more. Laying his wallet on the floor beside the beanbag, he flicks it open and pulls out a silver foil packet, checking it before he presses it into my palm for safekeeping.

He sits up, and this time he doesn’t pause over the business of unbuttoning my shorts. His fingers are sure and steady, working them down my hips until I have only my small, yellow bikini bottoms left.

He spreads my thighs and kneels between them, then splays my arms wide and pins me lightly in place. ‘Do you know what you are?’

I stare up at him, unsure what he’s going to say.

‘A fucking sexy starfish.’

I close my eyes and laugh, and then I gasp, because he’s lowered his face between my legs and I can feel the heat of his mouth moving over the silky material of my bikini.

There isn’t one atom of me that wants him to stop as he discards what’s left of his clothes. For a second we hold a silent conversation with just our eyes. I tell him that I know he’s running away from the responsibility and stress of the city life awaiting him back in London, and he tells me he can paper over the cracks in my heart and make me better again. We make each other promises even though we pledged that we wouldn’t, and then he settles over me and I forget about everything but now.

Later, I wake and find him sitting on the steps of my shack watching the beginnings of another pink and purple dawn.

I sit beside him, an elephant-patterned throw pulled round my shoulders, and he looks at me sideways.

‘Marry me, Starfish.’

I laugh softly and get up to make coffee.





29 November


Laurie


I’d planned to go home a few weeks ago, yet here I am still in Thailand, still with Oscar.

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. Who knew? I think we’re both living in denial, completely unprepared and unwilling to return to the world we belong to. But who’s to say that you have to belong to somewhere for ever, anyway? Why do I have to belong to England, when everything there is grey and confusing and difficult? Were it not for the people I love, and my promise to Sarah, I’d stay here on this beach and have a dozen little babies, though not with a Thai monk. Back in England, Mum reports, the rain has settled in for the long haul, like an unwelcome relative at Christmas, but here when the rain comes it’s fast and furious and then gone in a blink, shoved aside by the sun. I don’t think I’ve ever been colder than the day Jack kissed me on a London backstreet nearly twelve months ago, and I don’t think I’ve ever been warmer than I am here on Koh Lipe with Oscar. My blood is warm, my bones are warm and my skin is warm.

Sometimes, when we’re lying on our backs on a beach or reading in a hammock or falling asleep in bed, I lie and listen to the gentle rush of the sea meeting the shore and I imagine we’re castaways, washed up on a desert island, left to spend the rest of our days eating fish we’ve caught and having sweat-filmed sex. Every now and then we’d hear the petrol rumble of a plane’s engine in the cornflower sky above, and we’d hide in the shelter of the treeline rather than write SOS in the sand.





12 December


G’day from the bottom of the world, lovebirds!

Hope you’re not freezing your tits off too much up there, ha ha!

Australia is heaven on a stick. Jack has gone completely native, I’m going to buy him a hat with corks on and call him Crocodile Dundee. He even went and checked out a radio station in Melbourne; seriously, if they offered him a job I don’t think he’d ever come home again. Except, ha, get this! He’s MORTALLY TERRIFIED of snakes. I didn’t know until there was a tiny one on our balcony last week and he practically screamed the place down. I had to coax him down off a chair with a brandy. It’s a good job he’s got me to protect him.