F DOT LEONORA

When Eliza was younger, she used to spend holidays with her parents in their holiday home. House No. 9 was sold as a luxury accommodation, but ended up being the simple quarters for the help. Her parents did not mind though, and they made it homey if not luxurious in their own way. Floors to ceiling covered with books to begin with, and in every nook and cranny of the house.
It was easy for Fiona to stay there, lost in novels. But when she met Rafe whose parents owned a house further away, she would often sneak out barefoot to meet him. She was in college then, and her parents were very liberal about sex, but she still did not want them to know that she was out all night.
Tomorrow was her flight back to New York which, Fiona had not been at all upset about when she told her. Eliza was sad because she knew she was part of the reason why Fiona did not want to come back to New York.
However at this moment, she was not concerned as much as she would be when she was back in New York. She crept out like she did from house No. 9, but this time she was seeking Oscar.
Lust kept her awake. She had not eaten and barely slept since the reception, unable to focus on anything but having Oscar skin to skin, mouth to mouth…inside her…She was in the lobby of the building before she even remembered to put on her shoes. All she had thrown on was a trench coat and nothing else.
Shanghai was gorgeous at night, she thought in the taxi her body heavy with erotic anticipation against the backseat. Whenever she thought of the city, she would think of Oscar. The same as with Paris. She would always connect them with him. Right then she especially thought of him, as she felt the silkiness of her thighs brush her engorged labia. She did not want to put her hands there, because nothing would feel like Oscar there. Her body though rebelled against her resistance.
Oscar waited for her in the lobby of his hotel, which made her smile. It was some ungodly hour of the morning, when he took her hand she felt contractions between her legs. She had never had this kind of desire for a man before, and it was something that she could barely handle.
In the elevator, his hands were in her hair and her lips were pressed to his chest. He was barely touching her, and she was half ready to come.
When they walked into his apartment, she took off her coat immediately, but did not make a move toward him. She did not want to rush into anything, but she wanted him to know that she was ready for anything, at any time. That she was at his disposal even though her desire was at the brim.
Oscar put his arm around her, and she buried her face in the crispness of his shirt. He stroked his fingers over the side of her face, and she leaned into him even more. Their silence was heavy. All she thought about was she was returning to New York and leaving him an insane amount of miles away.
“Your flight is tomorrow,” he stated softly and she nodded into his chest.
She did not want to ask any questions because they would all lead to answers she knew already.
They stood like that for awhile before her fingers slipped into the opening between the buttons of his shirt. His lips touched her temple with tenderness. The throbbing between her legs murmured deeper and deeper desire, but she had no intention of rushing.
Every gesture that followed was like a ballet. Kisses like a soft moment when the music slows between partners. Her delicate movement around him almost as a secret, his hands and mouth supporting every gesture. Finally, he lifted her and she threw her head back, their game of seduction over.
The end of their performance found them curled on his sheets, bare, pensive.
It killed her not to know when they would be together like this again, but she did not react now. More quiet declarations of love were made when they faced each other, but she could not bear the words spoken now. Spoken now to be left hanging in New York.
When she was on the airplane, her heart raced on its taxi as they lifted, before she fell back in her seat.
Fiona beside her.
“You know it was really awful of me to want you to tell everyone I was not coming back. It is even more awful of me to want to not see your wedding. You are Rafe’s and my sister.” Fiona squeezed Eliza’s hand, and Eliza bit her trembling lip. Fortunately, no tears came to her eyes. She understood very well now why Fiona had been so blasé, as she pressed her head to the cool window of the airplane and resigned to her fate.

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Eliza considered Fiona to be the most sophisticated person she had ever met. After they met Oscar and revisited Fiona’s declaration of love, Fiona never repeated what she said that night.
She’d told Fiona she loved her, and Fiona said not the way she loved Oscar in a drunken haze.
The thought never occurred to Eliza. When she met him, she went with him because she felt pressure. The urge to be perfect, which she was not. She had not expected to meet him in Paris, and Shanghai proved that she had far deeper emotions than she had suspected.
Fiona never mentioned it again, and Eliza tried not to think about it.
So of course it became all she thought about.
The gallery was decorated gloriously for the exhibition, there was flowing liquor as per usual. Fiona schmoozed with the inebriated and wealthy clientele who could buy whatever they saw.
Eliza wandered on her own, letting Fiona work. She always looked at Fiona’s work with admiration, but now she saw things that she had never seen before.
She paused by a ubiquitous untitled photograph in which Fiona looked away from the camera, but her body was completely exposed. Eliza had never acknowledged the sexuality in the photos. Fiona was beautiful, and there were a myriad of men and women around her. No one Fiona ever seemed attached to.
Until she made her declaration a few days ago.
“What do you see?’
Eliza was afraid to turn around and look at Oscar. This was the abandoned corner leading to the stairs that she had thought about in the bar in the other night because they could not have sex. She imagined they could tonight in a stairwell like this. The sound of his voice, and the closeness of his body made her wet.
“I see so much more in her photographs than I did…This particular series has a rawness to it…”
Eliza faced him and the raw desire on his face. She considered what would happen if she put her hand on the door to the stairs. The possibilities she would expose with that simple gesture. She faced the photograph again, Fiona’s body open but tight with unexplored desire.
Eliza wanted to explore.
His hand covered hers on the doorknob when she touched it, and moving as one they opened the door.
The darkness and coolness of the stairwell evaporated, as their bodies pressed together. Their nearness felt like sex. Every part of him that touched her, even his suit jacket and tie sent a shock between her legs. She closed her eyes with longing, realizing fantasy is always better than the reality. They could not push it any further here.
“Fiona said…” She said suddenly and stopped. She did not want to go on because if she said the rest to him, she would be in love with him and she could not commit to that.
Her committment was with Rafe.
She thought about it more now that she was thinking so much about loving Oscar. The decision to marry Rafe had not been one she had had to think about. She had known.
Now she knew something else.
“What?” Oscar asked.
His breathing was labored. She knew that being so close to each other was not the way she should be with him, considering what she was about to say.
“She said I loved you.”
“Do you?”
Eliza buried her face in her hands.
“I’m engaged.”
“Do you?”
She studied his face through the cage of her fingers, considered what her answer would mean and how it would change things.
His eyes paralleled hers.
“Do you love anyone?” he questioned her with almost scorn.
She pounded at his chest, the soft warmth she felt flared up into an intense heat as she pounded and he stood impassive.
“How could I love you!” she spat, her hands hot from pounding his chest and she stopped to cover her damp face with them.
“The same way I could love you.”
She peeked at him through her splayed fingers and considered what he said.
Their indirect confessions were enough. Oscar took her hands and kissed them. Kissed her tremoring mouth, and her cheek that pulsed with emotion.
He loved her. She cared less about what a mess she was, damp made up face in a stairwell where she still could not have sex with him.
He loved her.
That was the brightest picture in her mind, brighter than any of Fiona’s photographs that night even the one in the sun…

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photo courtesy of wiki commons