It's three hours, the flight to Aberdeen. Three hours in a body bag. Most keep their eyes closed. Maybe they sleep despite the roar of the rotors. I stare at the floor. Three hours prepared for the worst, hoping to god this won't be the flight when I need to remove a window at speed.
There's only so much the showers on the rig can do. I feel the grit and salt will never leave my skin. By the time I'm peeling off the rubber immersion suit I may as well have not bothered washing, and high on my list of desires is a decent scrub. It'll be a week or more before the North Sea on me is replaced by Sussex.
Aberdeen to Edinburgh, two hours and twenty minutes; Edinburgh to King's Cross, five hours, but I can't sleep. Before the helicopter I bit my nails down to nearly nothing, now, heading south, my fingers drumming incessantly on the armrest. At King's Cross, the Victoria line, half an hour, rush-hour, standing room only, move with the pitch and rattle and roll until SW1V.
One day I'll arrive here to find a new doorman who'll look at me disapprovingly. Not today though.
"A pleasant journey, Sir?" he asks.
"Yes, thank you," I lie, never really used to being a Sir.
"Miss Daler asked that I tell you she'll not be long."
This is unexpected. Still, in the apartment, she may as well be here. Everything is ivory white, and duck egg blue; orchids, driftwood, and glass. It smells of orange blossom and aloe and white ginger. This could be any young woman's home, except for the family portrait which plucks at me and reverberates guilt. I feel my presence like a mess. It's silent, the first time in months I've felt that.
Bag and boots and socks by the door. Watch and wallet in the kitchen. Belt on the bed. Shirt, jeans, shorts. A bruise coming up on my shoulder from lugging my bag all day. A note hanging on a ribbon in the shower, her handwriting barely better than when she was a teenager:
welcome back
with a heart. The steam billows and fills the room, the water stinging my skin, the nape of my neck, and my spine as I lower my head, and stretch out my shoulders. The grey swirl around my feet, flushing darker as I run my fingers through my hair. I reach for a bottle and blink back the mist on my eyelashes to read
fig and lotus body scrub
, a soap full of grit, like the last thing I need. There's another, pearlescent pink and smelling how she does in my mind, smelling how she does to intoxicate, to send blood spiralling away from my brain. There is no descriptive claim, no picture of almonds, avocado, nor coconut, it is aroma incognito, it is girl-smell, the antithesis of the rig.
I'm lathered, of course, when I hear the door and fancy I can hear the click of heels along the hall. My hand pauses, not yet removed, soaping that scent on swollen length. I rinse my hair and face, and feel the cool vacuum of the opened door begin to suck the steam away.
"Welcome back," she says, and I don't turn.
I just listen to her removing her clothes, the soft collapse of fabric on the floor, the clink of jewellery on glass. And then she's there, presence behind me, arms wrapping around ribs, and forehead 'gainst my shoulder blade.
"You smell so good," and "you should take some back with you." Her hand descends to mine, guiding me down and off and taking my place, those slender clever fingers soft and insistent. Then come kisses on my spine, and I wonder if she names the vertebrae, C4, C3, Axis, Atlas at last, her spare hand following up, to my shoulder, my neck, nails raking to my scalp, to close and clench and pull, my head tipped back to her breath in my ear, the quickest elixir as she whispers. "It's always so good to see you back safe, little brother" and, "that's what I thought," as I twitch in her hand. She strokes, turning her head, cheek pressed to my shoulder, both arms reaching around. Fingertips slip in soap from pubic bone to hip then up to ribs, to chest and collar as she maps me anew. But always one hand a constant on my cock. No urgency nor need. She is this shower nymph, cavorting with the water, Poseidon's daughter, but more, Acrasia, since we were teens.
Her lips find my spine one more time, then her hand turning about me as she circles and descends, serpentine, to kneel, release her grip and look up as I see her face for the first time in months. Her dark wet hair slicked back, that bad idea always on her lips, turning up at the corners. The same smile she showed at my wedding, standing beside our parents, when I turned on the altar beside her oldest friend.
Her lips part, and I'm near, so near, but as yet ignored, like she hasn't even considered it. Water trickles her upturned face, and the dare constant in her eyes
tell me to stop
. Closer, her breath on me, and at last she casts her eyes ahead, her gaze tilted to consider my cock, and now, out from her controlling stare, I dare to tease.
"Claire," I say, "I think we should stop."
Her lips part wider, move closer, till I'm all but untouched in her mouth, and her eyes drift back up, lazy and unconcerned. She retreats an inch.
