Page 68 of Chaos Theory
I try not to dwell on the nagging worry that Josh, in spite of all his reassurances, was clearly not one hundred per cent certain of Kobi’s safety until this very evening. But can anyone really be one hundred per cent certain of anything?
I showed him photos of Kobi’s new modifications, but he just laughed and said it wasn’t a big deal. He could easily restore Kobi’s legs. I tried to argue that maybe Kobi didn’t need legs after all, but Josh didn’t want to get into it. He just kept praising me for my ‘breakthrough’ with Kobi.
He was so elated at dinner that I decided not to mention the video footage in the online newspaper after all. Maybe it’s not always best to rip the Band-Aid off all at once. Maybe sometimes it’s better to soak in the bathtub for a very long time, until the plaster gently surrenders itself and slips beneath the suds unnoticed…
‘Maeve!’ Josh’s voice brings me back to consciousness.
‘How long was I asleep?’ I slur. I sit up in the armchair, check my face for drool.
He rolls up his sleeve with apparently great effort, taps at invisible buttons on his watch for an age.
‘About two minutes,’ he says eventually.
We both start laughing.
‘Come on.’ He reaches out his hand.
I achieve verticality with what I hope is some dignity. I think about Kobi and his mobility challenges. I think about how Kobi has led to me being here, right now, at this very moment. Being here, with Josh.
‘Oh, bad news,’ he says with a hiccup. ‘They just told me the elevator is out of service. We’ll have to take the stairs.’
‘But my room is on the third floor,’ I say.
‘Mine is on the fourth.’
He opens the door leading to the staircase so I can go ahead of him. The staircase is old-fashioned and narrow and we have to go single file. He follows close behind me. It reminds me of going up in the round tower at the Viking Museum. We near the top of the second flight. I stumble slightly, grip the banister. He puts his right hand on my hip to steady me, his left hand on mine.
I feel the heat and spin around to face him. We’re eye to eye, Josh one step below me. Nobody speaks. I lick the corner of my lip tentatively. I feel as if I’m falling into his eyes.
I kiss him, or maybe he kisses me – it’s unclear but unimportant right now. It’s a good kiss, followed by another and another. Soon his arms are around me and I melt into him. I put my hands under his jacket, exploring the muscles in his back.
‘Will you come to my room?’ he says.
‘No,’ I murmur. ‘Mine is closer.’
We kiss-fumble our way along the corridor to room 301, torn between getting there fast and devouring each other right here in the corridor.
‘You’re amazing,’ he tells me between kisses. A memory of Shane’s face flashes in my mind, but Shane is very far away now, probably in the arms of the objectively beautiful Sandra Smith at this very minute.
I swipe the door with my key card three times before it opens. We fall into the room and pull at each other’s clothes, haphazardly attacking buttons and zips in no particular order.
We reach the bed. I stumble over hotel slippers and fallbackwards, landing across the end of the bed. I bring Josh down with me. He lands on top of me, which is right where I want him. We both laugh, catch our breath for a second.
Suddenly, he pulls away from me, rushes to the bathroom. I hear him splash water on his face. When he returns, he silently scans me from head to toe. I try not to remember Kobi scanning me in a similar way in the Clare Arms Hotel.
I let my mind go blank, cede control to my body. I admire Josh’s precision-engineering skills as he now devotes equal attention to all my sensitive areas, in rotation, for equal amounts of time, probably.
Maybe, finally, this is the right place, at the right time, is the last rational thought I have before I surrender to shuddering pleasure.
THIRTY-NINE
Friday, 11am
Heading for coffee now. See you there?
I press send on the message to Josh and pick my way through the dispersing crowd in the main auditorium after the first conference talk of the day. I’m feeling the chasm of the three hours since I last saw Josh, when he pulled me to him and kissed me deeply before leaving my room this morning. I swallow now, remembering the electricity that lit through me, right down to my toes.
As I make my way through the hotel lobby, I spot the armchair I briefly fell asleep in last night and hope no one here today saw me do that. People mill around me, clustering into groups and talking loudly. I wonder if I should try some networking.
