Into the Darkness
A Resurrection Story
“Kiss me,” she says.
I sit still, terrified of my desires. Outside my hotel bedroom, the sunlight bounces off the white concrete. It is hot. Reddening people walk, unaware that I can see them, that we can see them. They walk by, clutching their ice-cream or cold beers. I feel the cotton bed-sheet beneath me, soothing and smooth. I try to tell myself nothing bad could happen to me here, not while I have the cool embrace of the white sheet to protect me.
Keeping my face turned away from hers, I watch through the window at the small kids as they run and jump into the pool. The sunlight catches their splashes, painting rainbows over the walls. Their laughter is the song of innocence. Somewhere out there, my delicate flower, my jewel and my pride plays too. I was only supposed to be going back to the room to fetch her inflatable toy.
He made me go, of course he did. Sitting on his sun lounger like it was throne while I went to and fro for whatever it was he wanted.
“Mummy will get it,” he had said from behind his shades.
His belly, rounded and pale and hairy, was being ferociously sucked in. It was like he was imploding. I turned, a good little wife, ready to obey to do as I was told by my husband, ready to begin the walk back to the hotel room. It was then that I noticed the young woman. She was slender, pretty and beautiful in her bikini, sunbathing on the poolside lounger next to us. She was lovely; of course he was attracted to her.
“No-one else will ever want you,” he always told me. Once, twice a week or a day or whatever.
From nowhere, my memory of him trying to look slim, with his unsightly, bulging stomach sucked in, bubbles up as a giggle. In that hotel room, hidden from the real world, I have the space to recognize him as he is: ridiculous. Shocking me, the question of who would ever want him dashes across my mind.
But outside, by the pool just a few minutes ago, he had still got into my head. He had made me obey him as easily as if he controlled me. Once he demanded that I run an errand for him, of course I would go. I began the long walk back to the room.
“Wait!”
It was a gentle voice but still it carried over the shouts and screams of the swimmers.
One of the other women in our group got up and followed me along the poolside. She is always quiet in company, just like I am. I always felt that we could be friends, if only we were allowed the space to get to know one another. Her husband was a big guy, short-tempered and always angry, looking out accusingly at the world from under his bramble-black eyebrows.
We had never really even spoken, me and her.
Together, we had walked along the puddly tiles beside the pool, still wordless. Yet it had been good to be with her. There was a calm coming out from her, the glow of a candle.
I had felt safe and warm.
‘So, this is what a friend feels like. I had forgotten.’
Then, when we were in the room, she had spoken. Those two words. I felt the urge, the desire, the passion. Years ago, I had made vows and promises. I still wanted to honor those, although I could not explain why.
Nothing in the way he treats me should make me want to resist her.
I can tell from the movement of the bed that she is now standing up. She moves over to the window. Her hands touch a curtain, and she pauses. There is a sudden, decisive jerk and the glare is gone. I can hear her breathing. I can hear us breathing. We are in the dark now. The dark that protects us. The dark that means that no-one knows. Our very own dark, which, keeps us safe.
I hear her again.
“Kiss me,” she says.
