Your Creation • Zarry

13. Number of the beast

March 2013

That's basically how our nights kept going each and every time we got the opportunity to stay in a hotel on tour. Either Zayn or I would end up sneaking into each other's rooms to hook up, then we would slip back into our own hotel rooms before anyone could find out what was going on. It had become an unspoken ritual of ours that nobody but us knew about and the secret mischief that we were making had become very fun.

It actually was starting to feel like an addiction, a guilty pleasure for us; the keyword being guilty. Not only were we sneaking around on tour but Zayn was also keeping this hidden desire under wraps from Perrie, and neither of us were talking about it when it wasn't happening. It was like this thing that we wanted to do but didn't want to discuss and so we just sort of pretended like it was no big deal. Amongst the sneaking around we were doing there was also some pretty heavy paranoia that someone would find out. Zayn and I just wanted to keep this secret for ourselves and we knew that if anyone discovered it, that it would make things weird or that we would get in trouble because it was not the sort of image people had of us.

Zayn and I were trying our best to act as normal as possible when we were around everyone else and I think we were doing a pretty good job, minus those longing stares that were driving me crazy when I caught myself in the crossfire of his gaze, and in private I kept referring to myself as his mistress, which we both were enjoying more than we should have been. At the time we thought it was fun, addicting, intoxicating, like this thing that you know you shouldn't do but you do it anyway and then somehow it becomes even more exciting. The more wrong it was, the more we wanted to keep doing it.

Not much about our relationship during the day changed because we were so busy and there were still loads of people around us all the time. I didn't want anyone catching on so I tried my best not to hang around Zayn all the time, even though I wanted to, but as time went on I found myself gravitating toward him more, especially on stage, and the energy between us kind of intensified, but luckily no one seemed to notice, I don't think. We were actually quite good at keeping everything on the down low. We thought it was pretty impressive.

I just couldn't wait for those nights when we really thrived. It felt so free just being able to explore that side of me without feeling weird about it and I could tell that Zayn felt the same way. Those nights were such sacred moments for us, those moments when Zayn and I got to be our most honest selves and neither of us could seem to get enough of it.

He and I had a day off in Belfast, Ireland and it was the first time that he and I really got to be alone when it wasn't three in the morning. All the lads decided to go off and do things with their day but Zayn and I had decided to spend the entire time staying inside my hotel room eating everything off the room service menu and watching films all day, and it was nearly perfect.

"We are not watching Titanic," Zayn said as he flicked through the options on the TV.

"What do you have against cinematic greatness? First you shoot down The Notebook, now Titanic? Do you have no soul?"

"No, I don't," he replied, giving me an evil stare.

"666!" I crossed my fingers into an X in front of his face.

"The number of the beast," he replied, quoting Iron Maiden, while playfully shoving my hand out of his face.

"I always knew you were evil."

Zayn had this thing where he would always blame stuff he did on his evil twin named Rodger and he had this fascination with the villains in every comic book series that he liked, so I had always joked around that he was secretly evil, but now whenever I said it and he gave me that menacing sort of look I just started thinking it was really sexy; I couldn't help it anymore.

Another thing about Zayn was how interesting it was that right from the beginning he had been marked as "the mysterious one" in the group because he was quiet, shy and didn't like to tell everyone his business and I suppose in a lot of ways this was also true because there were so many sides to Zayn; his mind was like an enigma, and you always learned something new about him every day. In addition to being so unbelievably pretty, he was probably the most multi-faceted, most fascinating person I had ever met and I liked that he was so many different things wrapped up in one person.

"I think we should just go with Batman Returns," he decided, clicking on the title.

"Fine."

I don't know how Zayn constantly ended up getting his way with me, but it seemed to be the case with me nine out of ten times and I didn't really mind. For me, I was the sort of person who found that other people's happiness made me happy. I liked doing things for people. I valued kindness and politeness because that's how I was raised and nobody ever said a bad thing about someone who was nice. And happiness was the purest, most important emotion anyone could feel and I found that Zayn's happiness was especially one of the best things in this world because whenever he laughed or smiled, he glowed, so I wanted it to exist as much as possible.

It was a bloody miracle that we even made it through half of the film before we couldn't contain ourselves any longer and ended up on top of each other, hands all over each other's bodies like wild animals who had been let out of their cages. When we were finished we both fell back into our usual cuddling position with my head resting on his chest and Zayn's arm wrapped around my shoulder, drawing me in close.

"Not to ruin the moment, but there's something I have to tell you," said Zayn, catching me completely off guard.

"Okay..." I trailed off, wondering where he was going with this.

"Perrie's been asking to come to more of the shows."

"Alright. So have her come to the shows then."

I meant what I said at the time this is why. Although there was this massive part of me that got jealous very easily and wanted Zayn completely to myself, I knew it wasn't going to happen and that was the rational part of my brain speaking. It couldn't happen for many reasons and the first one was because if I had some sort of claim or possession over him, then that implied that there was more to us than just this physical intimacy, which there wasn't. There couldn't be. We had agreed that our relationship was to remain this playful "friends with benefits" type situation only and we had never talked about any other feelings outside of that. It just wasn't a thing. But, at the same time, if I said that just knowing Perrie also got to experience Zayn's touch didn't make my skin crawl, I'd be lying. I just didn't want him to know that.

"I'm sorry," Zayn apologized, sort of resembling a wounded puppy, like he wasn't that thrilled about it.

I frowned, shrugging a bit. I knew that I wasn't going to be the only one in this situation and it was high time that I started getting used to it.

"Don't be. I know I'm not your only, but at least I'm one."

Zayn grew silent just then. I looked toward him and he seemed to be lost in his thoughts, as if he wanted to say something else, but didn't.