Second Time Around. Portia Da Costa

a “golden couple.”

      He’s golden in his own right now. It’s in the way he walks and in his gilded, sun-bleached hair. He doesn’t need me anymore. He doesn’t need my ambition for him. He never did.

      “What do you want, James?”

      I finally face up to him in the lobby. He’s still holding my wrist, the grip light, but I can’t seem to shake him off. I can’t make myself want to shake him off. And how is it he seems taller now than he did? A grim thought needles me. Did my constant drive forward diminish him somehow? I have a horrible feeling it might have done. It seemed like the right thing at the time, but with hindsight, I can see that free of me, he’s flourished. He’s proud and strong and utterly male and sexy.

      All I ever really wanted but was just too blind to see.

      I open my mouth, to say I know not what, probably an attempt to be more amenable, perhaps show him that I’m trying to grow too. But he places the fingers of his free hand over my lips for a moment, and the touch of them makes me shake, literally shake.

      James seems to note this. His fingertips smooth across my mouth, and insanely, I’m tempted to kiss them. Too late, he’s drawn back.

      “Well, I’m pretty sure I want to fuck you, Willa,” he says conversationally, then he pauses, does a thing with his tongue around his lower lip that looks positively obscene, “but before that…well…you’ll have to come with me and see, won’t you?”

      My world reels faster, harder.

      “But, James,” protests old me, still trying to shake loose, and trying to cling to some semblance of control and normality, even though I don’t want it, I don’t want it, I don’t want it! “We can’t just walk out on the party. People will talk.”

      James smiles, wide, his white teeth dazzling against his tan. He’s relaxed, unfazed by the kind of crap that he used to just accept from me. He was always too weary of it to fight it then. But now he’s like a dynamo, humming with energy.

      “So let them.”

      He’s still not letting go, and the Willa of old, who just won’t quit, gears herself to struggle and assert herself. But then the rapid tap, tap, tap of high heels behind me makes me turn, anxious, intrigued, grasping at a moment of respite. Whoever it is, she’s in a tearing hurry.

      It’s Caitlyn, the caterer, and she’s dazzling eyed and happy, a broad smile on her face. She looks literally illuminated. What’s all that about?

      “Where are you going, Caitlyn? Are you leaving the party already?” I ask, aware of James watching me, not her. “Is something going on?”

      “Yes…yes, it is,” she hurls over her shoulder, dashing for the open doors and the large chauffeured car I can see beyond it. “But I can’t explain because I don’t know what it is yet.”

      Suddenly, I want what she seems to have. An adventure, something sexy and new and mysterious. And I want it with my ex-husband, with James.

      “Look, James, let’s go and have a quiet chat somewhere. Drinks maybe, and a bit of dinner? The restaurant at my hotel is quite good. Then perhaps afterward…”

      He looks at me, still smiling that devastating but secretive smile. The one that tells me my efforts to steer the situation are meaningless. He tugs lightly on my hand.

      “Yes, let’s go somewhere. But never mind drinks and bits of dinner. We need to get a few things straightened out first.”

      I’m totally disorientated. This is a man I’ve known for years, and yet he’s a stranger. His touch makes me all wound up and twittery as if I’m with a movie star or some other celebrity, or just some man I’ve fancied for years and years but never actually met before.

      I don’t think I’m “me” at all, either.

      For the first time in our relationship, I follow him silently. Almost meekly. He looks over his shoulder, and winks, his smile slow and knowing as he heads for the stairs.

      At first I think we’re heading for the dorms, empty now, out-of-term time, but within seconds I realize where we’re going. It’s the old music room, one of our favorite haunts from our time here. It was never used much, even back then, as they’d just refurbished a much larger room, with better acoustics, as a music laboratory.

      It’s small, shabby, with stained wooden paneling adorned by a selection of dog-eared posters. A few rows of chairs, some askew now, facing the wrong way. There’s an air of forlorn neglect about the place, dim and dusty—but somehow, against the odds, a strange electricity too.