Silver

Chapter 51 - then

We drove to a hotel in his hire car. He carried me over the threshold, placed me on the bed, ordered some food and a half-bottle of wine. We ate cross-legged on the bed, with the plates on our laps, and sipped the wine, laughing, talking. Finally I relaxed.

Hours melted through our hands and dissolved like sugar with every touch and kiss. When Jarvis told me he believed we were soulmates and were always meant to have found each other, I saw orange clouds on a warm summer's evening with bronze around the edges. When he kissed me on the neck, I saw a field of lavender in an electrical storm. When he undressed me I saw the reality of his flesh and felt the confederacy of desire.

This was the alpha phase, user testing on the body centric. Mouths and hands and skin. Kisses everywhere. A new pedagogy in sharing the deeply personal. Timeless and surreal.

I discovered that my first time going all the way wasn't marked by cutting a ribbon or crossing a finishing line. It wasn't uncomfortable or entirely pleasurable. It was something in between. Jarvis finished with a gasp, cradled my head against his chest, his heart beating against my cheek. He caressed my face with his fingers and kissed me lightly on the forehead. A sun shower of lilac fell around me.

'That was my first time,' I whispered.

'What? You're kidding me.'

'No. I'm serious.'

'What about your honeymoon?'

I closed my eyes, realising I didn't feel like talking about it. 'I just wanted you to know,' I replied.

'I'm surprised. But delighted.' He kissed me on the forehead again. 'You're a treasure.'

We lay together for hours. Our time together too precious to sleep. We lay on our sides, we lay in each other's arms, we lay on our backs holding hands. As long as we were connected, as long as we felt each other's skin, we felt as though we would be happy forever.

'You don't think I'm crazy? What I told you about, with how I see colours and things?' I asked, when sunlight was starting to sneak through the curtains.

'Of course not,' he said. 'My brother had a similar thing.'

'Does he talk about it much?'

'He's not around anymore.'

'Oh.'

'He had some demons he was battling with,' Jarvis paused, caught his breath, retracted his hand from my side. 'It wasn't the colours and shapes. He was down all the time. He just didn't find anything worth living for. He was twenty when he took his own life. This government does everything it can to protect us with the microchips. They line our roads with rubber and remove trees from the nature strip, but they can't save us from ourselves.'

'I'm so sorry,' I said. 'Was he married?'

'They'd just had a kid. Even a baby's smile couldn't make him happy. His boy's three now. We still see them quite a lot. His wife is really lovely. My brother was really lucky. Jesus, I'm sorry ... this is a real downer.'

'I can't even imagine. My sister and I are really different ... but still ... she's my sister. Were you close?'

'Really close.'

I did the only thing possible, because there were no words to comfort him. I wrapped my arms around him, drew him close to me and allowed him to cry into my hair. We hadn't slept all night, so the tears flowed easily from both our eyes.