"I want a shower."
"Do you? Really? When you could just stay here in bed with me?"
"Well, I should have a shower."
"I like the way you smell."
"Gross! No, you don't."
"I most certainly do. Your scent, it's addictive." Erik buries his head in the crook of my neck and inhales. "I don't know if it's pheromones or atoms or your essence, I just know I can't get enough."
I giggle, throwing my arms around him, relishing in the simple pleasure of running my hands down his back. "So, what do you want to do today?"
"This," he says, continuing to nestle against me.
"You know we have to go back to reality next week."
"All the more reason to ignore the world today."
"We're pretty good at that," I admit. We've been holed up in our own private world for six weeks now, but it feels like it's only been six days. When we wrapped on set, we were told to go to ground while the edit of the preview was created for the test audiences. The studio didn't want either of us appearing anywhere, so we've taken them literally, renting a boutique farm stay in the rolling hills of the Sunshine Coast, miles from anyone who knew us.
The farmhouse has been meticulously renovated, retaining its vintage vibes while incorporating all the modern necessities like Wi-Fi and a hot tub. Out every window, there is nothing but calm countryside; no other buildings or roads or people in sight. Once a week, a delivery truck rolls up, dropping off food, supplies and wine. Other than that, we haven't seen another human since we've arrived. It's bliss, a world of our own creation, a secluded bubble of sex and love and discovery.
We haven't been bored, not for a moment. When we make it out of bed (which isn't often), we play board games, take long walks, soak in the hot tub for hours, cook extravagant meals, and speak about everything and nothing.
The sex has been wild. Doing the maths, we've made love on average three times a day – five times was our record, and we were so spent afterwards, we slept for 14 hours straight – so our total is well over a hundred by this point. We've had gentle sex and experimental sex, rough sex and lazy sex and everything in between. We've made love in every room, on every surface: the kitchen bench, the porch swing, the uncomfortable occasional chair in our bedroom with inconveniently placed armrests. I keep waiting for our libidos to cry uncle, but so far, it hasn't happened. Sometimes we only have to look at each other with a lifted eyebrow and we're off again.
Even now, we've just made lazy morning love, both of us still half-asleep as we reached for each other, but I can already sense my needy body calling for his again. "Will it always be like this?" I say dreamily, tracing my fingers along Erik's chest, around his nipples and along his naval.
"If I could freeze time, I would keep us here forever," he replies, his hands warm against my back. "But unless we want to become hermits, we'll need to figure out how to make our relationship work with our lives."
"What does that look like for you?" I ask, genuinely curious. "I mean, what's a normal day in your life like right now?"
"I travel a lot. I take the acting jobs that interest me. I live in hotels and go where the work is. I love going out and trying new food and meeting new people. What about you?"
"I'm kinda the opposite? I'm a homebody – I love doing theatre roles because I spend months in the one place, bonding with people, and then if I do another role with the same company, there's often the same people there again and it feels like coming home. I spend a lot of time with Vin and my family, just chilling and making food and watching movies..."
We both go silent as we absorb the differences in how we live. Erik says, "It must be lovely to have family you enjoy spending time with."
"It's just me and mum and my nan, but they are awesome. You'll meet my mum next week at the cast and crew dinner." I pause, knowing this is fraught territory. "What about your parents? Are they coming?"
Erik laughs, a hollow sound. "I haven't spoke to my parents in years, not since I came back from the Philippines the first time. I'd made up my mind to go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to study acting, instead of Oxford or Cambridge to study business, the way my father had planned. When I told him, he cut me off – financially and physically. I made it through university on student loans, cans of baked beans and couch surfing. I haven't been home since and neither of my parents have reached out."
"Oh, my love. I'm so sorry." I curl my arms around him tighter, as if I can absorb his anguish. I'm angry at myself for judging him from the beginning; I'd thought Erik was a congenitally wealthy nepo baby, coasting by on connections and good looks. I hadn't realised he was as self-made as the rest of us.
"I expected it from my father – after all, he's a product of years of conditioning about the weighty responsibilities of the first-born son of an earl. But I thought my mother might have come around. I tried reaching out through her office last year. She sent back an email, dot pointed with all the ways my choices reflected poorly on her. 'How can I explain with a straight face that my son has chosen to prance about playing make believe? Your self-delusion knows no bounds if you believe we could ever be proud of you...'"
Yeah, it's official. I hate Erik's parents, with the burning intensity of a cat trapped in a toilet, all teeth and claws and wild rage and violent thrashing. "I'm proud of you," I say, searching for words to make him feel better. "And you should be proud of you. Look at where you are in your career! And as for your personal life, well, there's this pretty awesome chick who loves you."
"Thank you," he whispers, pulling me closer. "I hate that I still care about what they think, because you're right – I have so much to be proud of. But it's near-on impossible to stop caring about their opinions of me. After all, it's what every child wants – to hear their parents say that they're proud of them. It's a fundamental need to feel seen and appreciated, especially by the people who brought you into this world."
"You can borrow my family," I say. "Meet my mum at the cast dinner – she'll adopt you instantly, I promise."
Erik kisses the top of my head. "Wouldn't that make us siblings, of a sort?"
"I thought you aristocratic types loved some incest in your family trees – did you know Henry the Eighth was related to all six of his wives?"
He laughs, the cloud of sadness caused by the conversation dissipating. "Well, I hadn't planned to ever get married once, let alone six times – but if I did, I'd prefer her to be from a completely different lineage than my own."
"I think I might know a girl who fits that bill..." I allow my voice to deepen, signalling a turn in the conversation. Against his side, I scissor my leg over his, my hand roaming lower on his torso. "Of course, you'd need to make sure you were compatible in other ways. King Henry divorced Anne of Cleves because they didn't have chemistry."
"I didn't know history could be so stimulating," he says, gasping lightly as my fingers find him.
The side of my brain that's normally in control wants to make puns, but feeling Erik warm and firm in my hard, physical evidence of his desire for me, everything else falls away. His hands find my body, and this is all that exists, him and me. There are no future worries about how our lives will mesh, the success of the film, his parental rejection. There is only the feel of our skin, the sound of our breath, the need for each other that overrides every other sensation and thought.
I straddle him. We're both naked – we're naked most of the time here – and the feel of his body against my intimate flesh causes me to mew, helpless and unbidden. As I sit up, Erik suddenly scoots down the bed, positioning his face beneath me. I've never felt so exposed; I should be ashamed but I'm not. I want him there as I kneel above him, my hands braced on the wide wooden headboard. My fingers grip the ancient wood as Erik kisses and licks and sucks. I can feel how he worships me, love in his every motion, and it winds my body up, twisted in ecstasy, ready for release.
Heat builds in my core, something dark and coiled. Erik's fingers press into me, working every sensitised nerve, and everything shatters inside me. The orgasm rips through me, powerful, pulsing, unrelenting. I scream with abandon, never more grateful for our isolation because if anyone could hear me shrieking and shouting Erik's name over and over again (interspersed with colourful language that would have made a rugby player gasp), they'd rightfully call the cops for a welfare check.
As my brain finally returns to my skull, I pull Erik up the bed until he's seated. In record time, I grab a condom and fit it over him, then I sink onto him. Both of us moan in relief. Erik leans back against the bedhead, his hands fitted over my breasts as I ride him rhythmically. Our lips crush together, we breathe the same air as I allow my body to convey everything he means to me: I love you, I want you, I'm proud of you, I'm yours.
"Mila!" My name, ripping loose from his throat as he clutches helplessly at me. "Oh, god, Mila!"
I bite his bottom lip and squeeze my inner muscles, gripping him, embracing him. He roars, as lost in me as I am in him as I feel him pouring himself into me. "I love you, I love you, I love you," he says, rocking slower with each iteration as his body is finally spent.
"I love you," I say, wrapping myself around him. We are perfect. We are everything we need. We can survive anything. I believe in this. I believe in us. Whatever comes next, as long as we're aligned, our love can outlast the stars.
"Where did you go?" asks Erik, his voice shaky, his hand cupping my chin in curiosity.
"Hmm? Nowhere. Just thinking." I'm not sure why I don't want to share my thoughts. As positive as I am about our future, saying it out loud is different. I don't doubt him; I doubt because the world has taught me that all perfect things are inherently ephemeral.
"About what?"
"About how much I want a shower," I laugh, rolling off him. "And I don't care how much you love my pheromones, if I don't cleanse, I'm going to end up smelling like a dirty cage filled with horny hamsters – and that's not my fav odour, to be honest."
"I'll allow it," says Erik with a sinful smile. He rises, his body glorious in the morning light, his renewed desire for me evident. "As long as I can join you...?"
I shiver, overwhelmed with love and sensation and hope. "You're insatiable," I say, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the bathroom.
"Only when it comes to you and that body of yours," he replies.
We enter the shower, and in only minutes, the steam and soap and sex have washed away my doubts. We're going to be okay. We're going to be this way forever. I know it.
*
"I want a shower."
"That wasn't the question, Mila. I asked if you wanted to kiss me."
"And I'm saying I want a shower." I hugged myself, backing away from Erik. But the trailer was small and there wasn't anywhere to hide.
"Mila, please." Erik didn't follow me; he just spread his arms open helplessly. "Can we talk? Properly? You asked me what I want from you – and I do want to kiss you, very badly - but the answer isn't that simple. I will explain it as best as I can if you'll let me."
"I hear you, Eton," I said, grasping for a shred of my pride – difficult when I was still bedraggled, tear-stained and shaking with need. "But I want a shower before I do anything else."
"As you wish," he said softly.
I weighed up options for a moment; I could shower in the trailer, but the walls were thin, and the thought of Erik being mere meters away from my naked body was a scenario I wasn't comfortable with in my current state. "Would you drive me home, please? I'll shower and we can talk." Wendy was with Vin, so my house would be empty. We would have privacy to rip off the bandage and finally get down into the festering wound that was our failed relationship.
And maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to call it closure and finally move on.
I threw on a robe over my wet clothes as Erik brought his car around. I'd expected him to drive something swish, a car fit for a flashy footballer with cash to burn or a high-end eco vehicle from a company that made nerd-boys wet themselves in excitement. Instead, I hopped into a modest, nondescript hybrid – albeit one with heater leather seats that kept me from freezing as we drove back to my house in silence.
Inside, I quickly showered and changed, opting for a velour tracksuit in aqua. The soft fabric was exactly what I needed after a whole day of being wet and uncomfortable. It was also a completely unsexy outfit, designed to remind Erik (and myself) that we were there to talk and nothing more.
Sure, Jan...
As I entered the lounge room, I found Erik standing awkwardly beside the couches. He gestured at the coffee table. "I took the liberty. I hope you don't mind."
"Nope. I've never needed it more." I reached for a wide-brimmed glass and took a healthy swig of the red wine. "Thanks."
I plonked down on the couch, a big squishy beast designed for cuddles and comfort. Erik sat stiffly on the occasional chair opposite me. He ran his hands over the armrests, his eyes faraway. "This chair... It looks just like the one from the farmhouse... Do you remember?"
"I do." I remembered everything about that place, our sanctuary for six weeks. The way the sunlight hit the wide wooden bed, the colour of the kettle in the kitchen, the pattern of the tiles in the shower. Every detail was burned into my brain, a perfect, painful branding of a time and a place that I'd wished could have lasted forever. When I'd seen the chair in an op shop, a replica of the one that had stood in the corner of the farmhouse bedroom, I'd bought it without hesitation – although, the older I got, the more I questioned how the hell we'd ever managed to shag on the thing.
"Those weeks, Mila... They were the happiest I've ever been – before or since."
His confession hit me like a wet tea towel; an unexpected slap followed by a dose of disbelief. "You're Erik Brear, mega movie star and heir to an earldom," I said, bitterness in my tone. "I have to believe that you've done far more exotic and exciting things than shack up in a farmhouse with a moronic teenager for a month."
"Please don't talk about yourself like that," he said gently.
"Oh, but I was a complete moron." I took another large swallow of wine to temper down my rising emotions. "Because I was dumb enough to think those moments we shared were real - that we were real."
"We were real."
"I don't believe that."
"Why not?"
I pushed to my feet, suddenly angry. "Because if we were real, you never would have moved on so fast!"
"I resent that, Mila. I was utterly destroyed when we broke up." He stood up as well, agitated hands bolted to his hips.
"Uh, you didn't seem that destroyed when you brought Kitty DeMille along to the premier as your date. Sorry, but I don't see how sticking your tongue down the throat of a French Grand Slam hottie in front of me exactly backs up your claim of being 'utterly destroyed.'"
God, it had been absolute agony to sit in the same row as Erik and Kitty at the premiere. Normally, a screening like that would have been awful because every moment was spent wondering if the audience liked you at all. Instead, I spent the whole time wondering if Erik had ever liked me at all.
"I'm not proud of that decision," he said, his lips sucking at his teeth, his old tell. "I wasn't thinking straight. I assumed you would have moved on, that you'd bring someone new as a date. I knew it would break me to see you with someone else. Kitty was just a shield."
"Well, she felt more like a sword. And I had more respect for you than to bring a date – as you'll recall, I brought my nan as my plus-one." No regrets there; Nan died only a few years later, but she dined out on the story of her big Hollywood premiere outing on a weekly basis until she passed.
The underlying truth was that I'd been almost catatonic with grief after our breakup. Vin had to peel me off his bathroom floor so the makeup and hair artists could work their magic to make me presentable enough to face the world for that one night. Finding a date was the absolute last thing on my mind.
Erik's face creased in sorrow and guilt. "I am sorry, Mila. I was a fool that day, and a bigger fool to let you go in the first place."
"Erik..."
"Please, let me speak." It was a plea, not a demand. He had reverted to the lost young man I'd once held after Maria's funeral, no trace of the suave A-lister in sight.
I nodded, and he continued. "I know that it may not seem like it, but everything I've done over the last few years has been to find my way back to you."
"Why?" I had so many questions following his statement, but I'd read somewhere that starting with why was always the fastest way to cut through the bull and get to the heart of things.
"Because I want to get back what we lost, Mila. I want us back, the people we were back then."
"That's a problem," I said candidly, "because I'm not that person anymore. I'm older - I'm a mother and a business owner now, I've grown in so many ways." I rubbed my protruding belly, so different from the flat stomach I used to sport. "Including physically. You want someone back who doesn't exist anymore."
"I don't believe that."
"What, about me growing physically? I don't want to shock you, dude, but I'm definitely a different dress size than I was back then. God, even my feet are bigger – I gained a whole shoe size after being pregnant! I had to donate all my expensive shoes to charity – do you know how upsetting it is to try and Cinderella your foot into a Manolo Blahnik that used to fit you like a glove-"
"Mila." He stepped in front of me, holding out his hands in an offering. "Yes, we've changed. But I don't believe that the girl I loved has ceased to exist. I can still see her. You still sing instead of speaking when you get flustered. You opt for humour at every opportunity, regardless of the circumstance. And you still light up every room you walk into."
I didn't have a response. I'd lived a lifetime since we'd broken up, but he was right: I hadn't fundamentally changed.
"Something else is the same," Erik said, closing the space between us. "I still love you, Mila."
"Stop that," I said, snapping my fingers in his face, like I was trying to wake him up from a trance. "That's not fair. You're just being cruel."
"I love you."
"Erik, don't-"
"I love you, Mila Martinique."
I had to shut him up, before my poor heart completely quit, booked a ticket for Vegas and ran away to join Circe du Solei as a silks performer. "I'm ready to answer your question now," I said, reaching for him. "Yes, I want to kiss you."
Now it was his turn to stare at me in stunned silence. "Please don't tease me."
"I'm not." I wound my fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, the same move that used to bring him to his knees, gratified to watch his eyes roll up in pleasure. "I want to kiss you. You want to kiss me. Isn't there a simple solution?"
He groaned as I traced the lines of his beautiful face with my fingertips. "Mila... I have more to tell you..."
"I don't want to hear it." My control tower had been hijacked by horny zealots with only one thing on their minds. "I'm sick of over-thinking everything. I'm sick of second guessing and debating and analysing. Just kiss me, Erik. If you still want me, show me."
He wavered for a second, enough time for me to watch his eyes darken with desire. Then, he surrendered, falling into me. His mouth found mine, our first kiss in almost a decade, and suddenly, I was nineteen again, helpless in the arms of this man. Our lips parted, the same breath passing between us as we found our rhythm again, our hands everywhere.
I'd dreamed about kissing Erik again more times than I was comfortable admitting. None of my fantasising had come close. He tasted the same, the scent of his skin overwhelming my senses. His fingers still knew how to touch me, skimming along the lines of my cheeks, trailing along my neck, winding in my loose hair. I whimpered, lost in this moment even as I knew it would be my ruin, undoing all the barriers I'd put in place for years, leaving me defenceless.
Erik broke the kiss first, resting his forehead against mine. "Mila... Please. Let me make love to you. Let me show you how I feel."
All the horny hijackers in my control tower cheered. I gave up, saying, "Take me to bed, Eton. If that's what you want."
"I've never wanted anything more."
This changes nothing, I told myself as I grabbed his hand and led him to my bedroom, ripping off his shirt along the way. This was closure, a fling with an ex, two consenting single adults enjoying themselves, one last opportunity to shag the movie star rotten and give me more fuel for the masturbatory fantasies in my single future.
But as we reached the bedroom and I looked over my shoulder at Erik, all I could see was the love in his eyes, the same way he used to look at me and I was lost. And even though I knew I should have shut things down right then, I shut the door to my bedroom and pulled him into me.
Just for one night, I could pretend that nothing had ever changed, that we had survived, that we'd lasted forever, exactly as I'd believed we would.
Hello, hello! Are you still reading and enjoying? Please leave me a vote before you move on with your day :)
And a question for you, gorgeous reader - you can have 6 weeks in an isolated farmhouse with the celebrity of your choosing. Who are you taking? Pop your answer in the comments!