The Early Hours The Friday

Mary pushed her slides under the hall bench and fingered up her mail before she headed up the unlit stairway to her room in the semi-d. The dusky lanolin smell of lamb mixed with cumin and onion and garlic cobwebbed before her, so the kitchen sink was sure to be choc-a-bloc with pans and plates waxed with grease and slippery, translucent slivers of onion. Mary hadn't drunk so much that the smell would affect her, but she noticed it before making the mistake of passing through to the kitchen for a glass of water. She could drink from the tap in her en-suite sink. She reminded herself to be thankful for her decision to move into the pricier room when the Hollander left last month. She was still paying off her Easter hols and the extra expense of the larger room would extend her payments through Christmas, but at least she could imagine she had some privacy. She much preferred a bath to a shower, but at least the shower was hers alone. She could always stay on at Begnachgar when she was desperate for a long soak. The tub in the house was now so grimy she wouldn't want to be sharing it in any case.
After this evening her search for the elderly billionaire might as well begin again, she supposed. She was disappointed, rather than surprised that she wasn’t feeling anywhere near as offended or cross as she aught. The cheek, after all. She unlocked her door.
The "locking-of-the-door" royally waxed her flatmates. “Why is this locking of the door Miss Mary?” Sami would whine. He was a ‘cousin’ of the landlord who used an Irish surname for his business, but was of Middle Eastern origin. “Why is this locking of the door without my cousin to have a key? If there should be emergency of some kind….” The more he fretted, the more reason she had to keep it locked.

And this night she locked it behind her. Leaving the shades up, but pulling to both windows, she fell onto the bed, supine, undressing where she lay, then sliding the duvet over her naked body. A weighted darkness pressed gradually down on her and wakefulness streamed gently out through the soles of her feet, pooling on the floor at the foot of the bed. A sigh, asleep.

Lavender, a bed of crumpled lavender, and pungent rosemary with a whisper of vanilla. Lungs filling with the soothing, mingled frangances. Two hands, large, warm, softly, stroking upwards along the side of her face, cupping over her ears, stroking her brow, cradling her head. Her eyes, open, she saw the sky, a deep blue but filled with stars. She was adrift.

“Mary, you are loved with abiding love. You know this and are unafraid.” Mary, in her sleep, was exquisitely awake to the dreamness of the dream and she opened herself to it. He was behind her, or below her, for she could not tell which way was up, she could not see his face, she could not name him, but knew she knew him.

“Yes.” A soundless yes…….. Go on.

“There is a gift.”

“Yes,” aloud this time, waiting.

His hands slid down her thick, straight, silken hair and under her naked shoulders, warm hands on cooled soft skin. Curving up under her arms his hands floated beneath her breasts, his thumbs looped down to the back of her ribcage. Huge, gentle hands encasing her iin protective armour. Barely touching, yet effortlessly, he slid her up against him, still with her back to him. She was weightless and taut and breathless, filled with fragrances of peace, remembrance and refuge. And in her ear:

“It is yes, Mary? You say yes?”

“Yes. I say yes. Yes”

And the dark was light and the night day and the tears joy and joy tears in a rush, a rush, a rush, a rush, a rush.

“Oh,” a sigh. And another, and "No.”

Mary said, "no."