Saudade | Loubbie

Chapter Forty Two

"Oh, it's fine." Keanu smiled as he took her hand and kissed it, "Let's just sleep, love."

"Actually can I just take a walk? I need to clear my mind."

"Do you want me to accompany you? It's midnight."

Debbie fixed her robe before she bent down to kiss him on the lips, "Love, I am fine. You have a meeting tomorrow. Sleep, okay?"

"Okay. I love you."

Debbie smiled, "I love you too." But she knew, deep down in her heart that she did not anymore.

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There was moonlight on the ocean. Its glow reflected on the calm water beneath. The wind was sweet and warm - too dulcet for the skin. The curtains on the balcony of Lou's hotel room were dancing freely and there,  behind those cloth was the secret no one should know. The secret hour had finally started and Lou was adamant that she could stand in the darkest corners of Debbie's heart and she would not be afraid; the same with how she was not afraid of the consequences of their clandestine affair anymore.

"Please don't try to kiss Blaire. You'll wake her up."

Debbie moved gently off the bed, "You know you are too protective." She hissed as she stood from the bed and started walking to the couch near the balcony where the blonde was seated.

"Well, it's not being protective. It's a chore putting my baby to sleep." The blonde replied as she gave Debbie a sultry look, "...besides if Blaire is awake, I can't have my time with you."

Debbie drew a smile as she tiptoed towards the blonde. And in a split second, there she was, sitting on Lou's lap, with her hands grazing Lou's chest. The hour was stolen, but the moment was not. After all the heartbreaks, the tears, the longing and the regrets, they both knew they deserved to have that hour. Debbie looked at Lou again, with her eyes too intense and too brown, as if she was telling her all the things that her tongue couldn't utter. The wind whistled and the brunette took Lou's hand, with her own hand trembling and with a certain slow sensuality, she kissed it. The blonde's heart trembled in a slow insomniac pace. The feel of Debbie's lips on the back of her hand was something she couldn't put into words - all she knew was that she held Debbie's head and cradled her in between her arms and on her chest. And on that stolen hour, Lou held Debbie as if tomorrow she would be gone; she held Debbie as if she knew, every flesh and bone of the woman she loved would be turned into dust. Lou held Debbie like how the moon held their secret and she wished, deep in her heart, that she could hold Debbie like that, with no borders, no curtains anymore.

"Are we evils?"

The silence was broken when Debbie looked up. Her voice sounded so much as if she gathered all the worries in the universe. Lou paused and took her in. Are they evils? The blonde didn't know the answer to that, yet she gave Debbie a smile as she held her chin.

"People are all evils, love. Some are just way too evil. And some are just..." She shook her head, her mind cinching all the right words to say, "...just like us."

"If only I didn't give up, didn't left then we wouldn't have to live like runaway felons. I'm sorry, babe. I am just so --"

Debbie stopped shaking her head when Lou put a finger on her lips. The glow and the warmth seeping out of Lou's eyes was enough to calm Debbie's whole shaking existence. In Lou, Debbie settled; in her, she found the peace - the remedy of the chaos she herself created. Lou shook her head at her, her point finger still on Debbie's lips. The brunette fell silent, but the longer she stared at Lou's eyes, the stronger the urge of her tears to get out and slowly, with Lou staring at her, Debbie's tears fell.

"It's all in the past." The blonde spoke softly before she placed a sweet peck on the crying brunette on her lap, "Don't punish yourself."

"I've hurt you." Debbie replied as she wiped her tears with the back of her hand, "I am the reason why we are like this. I don't want to keep you in secrecy, Louise. You deserve to be flaunted. The universe deserves to know that we belong to each other." She sobbed, taking Lou's hand before pressing it against her chest, "They deserve to know that it's you and me. That it's us."

"You can't divorce him right here, right now. Wait until we'll get back to US."

"I'm just so sorry, baby." Debbie cried, her hand coming to caress Lou's cheek before she leaned her forehead against Lou's, with her eyes closed, she added, "I'm so sorry for always fucking us up. I don't think I deserve you. I don't think I --"

Lou cut her off by bringing her face back to stare at her, "Debs, baby, listen..." The blonde started as she looked at Debbie's eyes, into her lips and back to the brunette's soulful orbs, "You deserve me. You deserve every bit of my flesh, my bones. Every fiber of my body and every ounce of my soul aches for you." And when Lou spit those words, it was when her long-kept tears started falling bits by bits, "You deserve me. Every bit of me. And I don't care, baby. I don't care if I am just your mistress, your clandestine lover, your secret. I love you so much that I am willing to be kept so long as I get to have you. I just love you so much and I don't care now. I don't care if all I have are the pieces of you that he spared. I don't care if all I have is a tiny speck of you."

Under the golden rays of the midnight moon, with the calm ocean eavesdropping the vulnerabilities of them both, Debbie didn't need to hear more. On Lou's lap, she claimed the blonde's lips in a scorching kiss. The kiss that deduced all the whats ifs tattooed on the deepest corners of their bones. Debbie's hands slowly, very slowly undid the tie of her own robe and when her robe fell hanging on the lap of Lou, there she sat, on the lap of her ex-wife turned mistress, naked in her full glory.

"I love you, Louise. And I don't care now too." Debbie whispered as she gradually opened Lou's robe with her eyes still locked with the blonde's cyan blue eyes, "I love you that the atheist in me would like to believe that you are God's gift for me."

"I love you, Debs. More than I have ever loved you before. I love you more than my life."

In that stolen hour, with their bodies dancing together in synch, Lou knew that Debbie was her home; that the brunette was the warmth that she would always run to; that Debbie was the rest she couldn't afford losing and that Debbie was the woman she couldn't imagine leaving.

***