Child of Youth

Chapter 9: Red Regret

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Top: Drawing of Liana, wearing partially see-through towel.

She had never been so carried away before... Literally and figuratively. She felt his hand in hers...heard his heartbeat. And right then she thought that she loved him with all her heart and could never ever stop, no matter how hard she tried. If she wanted to try. She didn't and there was no turning back. She was all in, naked soul and body from head to feet in the deep icy waters of an ocean at midnight.

He was stroking her wrist, kissing her cleavage... It had to stop somewhere. Last thing she remembered she was still wearing knickers. She had felt happy while it happened. She had wanted it to go on and on and on and never stop. At some points, though...she did realize where they were going...and wanted to, knew that she had to stop him.

She was floating off on a cloud to nowhere...her hands were massaging the curve of his naked spine...

And then, in the middle of the night, she sat bolt upright. In shock.

It was then that she realized what they had done.

She frantically jumped around, observing a shadowy figure laying next to her in the moonlight. She couldn't make out ... Then Liana saw that he was naked. Just like she was. No... She was still wearing knickers. Though it was at her knees. And his boxers shorts were drawn down to just below his butt. She would have laughed if in any other situation.

"Paul?" Liana's voice came softly, hoarsely.

He grumbled. Mumbled something in his sleep and turned away from her. But then, a few moments later, to her surprise, his deeper voice answered (lowly.)

"What is it, my love?"

"What have we done?"

"Come again?"

"I never intended for it to go this far."

"I honestly don't know what you're talking about."

"Was it love, Paul? Or... Was it something else? Was it love that made you do it?"

"I don't know. I had to...I...I kind of wanted to...to just be with you. At night. Alone. I wanted to feel you...not your clothes."

"I wanted to touch you too...I want to go on loving you forever, Paul," she whispered, tears dampening the length of her long, black eyelashes. She closed her eyes. The sobs begun to, almost quietly, shake out of her chest.

"I want to touch your body. I want to love it."

"Don't you want to love ... me?" There was a world of desperation and silent demand; an intense and urgent need that couldn't be conveyed in her tone of voice, in the sound of that single sentence. Her heart and mind was full of sounds that couldn't be silenced and it was as if her emotions could drift to his through the small, empty dark space between them.

Liana was so close to Paul. If she could only touch his soul in the way that she wanted to. To tell him why it has been wrong what they did.

10 weeks later, when Liana was sure that she was pregnant, she stood up right after waking that morning, stretched, brewed herself a cup of coffee - they were "rich" enough to buy a kettle by now - and walked over to the kitchen table with a black pen and 6 pieces of paper. She was about to write a letter to her parents about...this. The product of her and Paul's late wedding night, and that's what she intended to call it in the letter.

Liana started one and began over 6 times. She didn't have any more paper than that.

"Dear Family,