Eutopia (First version)

Chapter 16

Jinn took Eutopia’s face with tender hands and his eyes were smouldering coals.

‘You dream of me?’ he asked with a serene tone that didn’t match his intense expression. Eutopia nodded, sliding her palm over the back of one of his hands as they lay hot against her skin.

‘Yes,’ she breathed, sapphire eyes searching his in the hope of finding some unspoken answer in the depths of Jinn’s steady indigo gaze.

‘I thought you did,’ he smiled, offering no further explanation.

‘But I don’t understand,’ Eutopia said, sitting up and turning to face him, pushing herself off from the knobbly bark of the willow tree behind her that she could feel through the thickness of Jinn’s hoodie she still wore. ‘I don’t get it. My dreams… they’re just dreams,’ she shook her head, causing tangled tresses, dry from the lake water now and half restrained by her ponytail to fall around delicate features that were puckered with bewilderment. Jinn’s hand left her cheek to brush lightly at a fallen lock of hair, his eyes lowered to study the way the ends curled around his fingertip in thoughtful silence for a long time.

‘Do you remember that conversation we had not so long ago, about how you wished you were from some other place, some other time?’ he ventured. Eutopia narrowed her eyes, taking him in at an angle as though his profile might reveal the hint of a lie, or at least some sort of humour in his words as she sensed what was coming. ‘Well you are,’ he finished simply.

‘What?’ Eutopia asked with disbelief, feeling her scepticism obvious in the set of her jaw.

‘You have lived before. A long time ago,’ Jinn could see that he was losing her, the incredulity etched in every line of Eutopia’s frame as she raised herself to her knees with muscles tensed and ready to catapult her away from him for the third time that night. Did she never get tired of running, he wondered? She was like a skittish woodland creature whose first reaction to anything new and uncertain was to bolt. Preserve the self. Jinn could understand that but he had waited so long, so long for this moment, he couldn’t let it slide now. As much as he hated to prevent her from anything, to fight against her instincts, his fingers closed lightly around her wrist. ‘Please, just hear me out.’ Jinn sensed her hesitation and imagined he saw her make an effort to smooth her bristling at his restraining hand and so he continued quickly, his words tumbling over one another to begin with in his urgency to keep her attention. ‘It was 314 AD, Constantine the Great was Emperor, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity after winning a battle following a dream he’d had in which God had told him he would win. My name was Alexis back then and Liviana, my sister for all intents and purposes, and I, we had it made! We were new and exotic, welcomed into Rome with open and curious arms at a time when newness was invited. The old gods were still very much worshipped but there was a niche for us. At first we sat back, observing the Roman way of life from a distance until we gradually immersed ourselves completely into the culture. We rented a villa, one of the most luxurious that money could buy and we threw ourselves into being like them, so much so that we lost our way. Liviana became consumed by the material lifestyle, her sight misted by all that glittered and her tongue sharpened on the backs of our slaves and their idolisation of her.’

‘Whoa,’ Eutopia interrupted, fingers pressed against her forehead in a bid to smooth the frown lines that creased her brow, ‘whoa, whoa, whoa. Just stop.’ Jinn did as she asked; his hands lay impassive, clasping each other as his huge forearms rested on his thighs. ‘Slaves?’ Eutopia asked, cocking a brow quizzically, ‘Rome, 314AD? You seriously think I’m going to buy into your kinky historical stories, Mr Fifty Shades? You sound like the voice over for some cheap SciFi flick.’ She seemed half amused as her lips curled gently up into a tiny smile. ‘So what, I was one of those slaves and you were my Master, which is why I’ve been dreaming about you and you seem so freakishly familiar to me?’