Burning Moon (Wattpad Version)

Alternative Ending- Chapter 23 (Lilly finally finds Damien!!)

I suddenly thought about the fairytales that my mother used to read (slur) to me when I was small. Rapunzel waiting in her tower for the prince to climb her hair and save her, Sleeping Beauty waiting for true loves’ kiss to rouse her from her long slumber and Cinderella, waiting for her shoe bearing hero to find her and carry her off to happiness ever after.

And that’s what I wanted, my very own fairytale ending. Except that in this case the tables were totally turned and the roles had been royaly reversed. Instead of the brave prince traversing continents on his trusty stead to win the heart of the princess, I was doing that. How very feminist of me! 

But in all those fairytales, with their many happy endings, there was never any mention of sex. After the prince saved the princess and took her off to his castle for the happily ever after part, there was never any mention of the steamy sex that happens somewhere between ‘happily’ and ‘ever after’ I would imagine.

And I was hoping there would be sex.

Preferably a lot of it.

In the past year- very surprisingly- I’d found myself turning into quite the sexual being. A woman that liked to keep abreast of all the new sexual trends, I was forever buying the Cosmo to see what the latest sex position was, or what new  way there was of ‘doing it’; on the beach, in public, with leather, with lace, blindfolded or with the lights on. It had been a whole year since that night with Damien, and believe me, I'd thought about it often.

About three months ago, I'd been in a CD store looking for some TV series anesthesia that I could escape to the couch with, when I saw an advert for the new Depeche Mode album and obviously thought about Damien instantly!

The thought set me off. Suddenly my hormones where raging like a teenage boys, because in the middle of the shop, surrounded by shoppers I suddenly started imagining- in extremely graphic detail I might add- sex, with Damien. I couldn’t help it. And the more I tried not to, the more the images flashed through my brain. I broke out into an embarrassed cold sweat, convinced that people around me must surely know what I was thinking about and fled the store as fast as I could, setting off the alarm at the door because I had forgotten that I was clutching onto an unpaid box of Dexter season 5. I felt physically flustered after that, and actually had to go to the bathroom and splash some water on my face.

 Oh God, and now I was starting to think about it all over again. But thankfully, just as I was imagining Damien’s hand on my (beeeeeeeeep) I felt another hand on my shoulder, and was pulled back to reality. I looked around slightly flustered and noticed that a small hive of activity had broken out around me.

Surprisingly Bruno seemed to be quite the organizer, and in under two minutes he had hailed a taxi (a proper one, one with four wheels and real doors that opened and closed) loaded our luggage into the boot, given instructions to the driver, brought snacks and ice cold Beers and was ushering us into the back seat while talking loudly in French.

And then we were off.

It all happened so quickly, from being inside the strip club to being inside a taxi speeding through the streets, sipping a beer and eating wasabi flavored nuts out of a tin and chattering away to Red about the excitement that lay ahead of us. We were headed off the island of Phuket this time and onto the mainland of Thailand, to an area called Phang Nga. Unlike the big white tropical beaches and crystal clear waters I’d seen before, this place was known for it’s dense tropical jungle, wild raging rivers and impossibly high waterfalls. I was excited to see this other side of the country.

The drive out of Phuket wasn’t that long and we soon came to the great Sarasin Bridge at the Southern most tip of the island, an impressive 700 meter long bridge that joined the island to the mainland. A few more hours later and we arrived at our final destination, just as the morning sun was beginning to light up the sky. Even though it was morning, the humidity and heat was already scorching and we felt it the second we climbed out of the air-conditioned taxi.