Hello Stranger

She laughed again. “See if you’re still saying that after eating my chicken salad ones. I didn’t know vegetables when I was a kid you know,” she said. “I got a Saturday job at a cafe once and I mistook a cabbage for a lettuce and put it in someone’s sandwich, for real. Doh.”

I’m glad she wasn’t looking at me, because the love in my eyes would have surpassed every expression of love she’d ever known.

“Here it is!” she announced when the store came into view, and the white rabbit was off hopping, even before the car was properly parked, racing off to the trolley bay and beckoning me after her with a Cheshire cat smile on her face.

I followed her. I helped her. We stocked up the cart with loaves of bread and piles of cheese. With ham and chicken and salad, and strawberry jam, and a whole host of snacks to go alongside them. Then wine, bottles and bottles of wine, and bags of tea, and jars of coffee and gallons of milk.

The car was rammed full of supplies when we set off to my place, and I was still smiling, picturing Mum’s face laughing along with the spectacle of the last-minute banquet arrangements. The front door was open wide when we arrived, people milling around and chatting. I was usually the most pedantic of parkers on the driveway, but today I pulled the car up on the front lawn without giving a shit for the grass.

We rushed the shopping into the kitchen with hellos and Chloe was a whirling dervish as she set up the sandwich bay on the countertop, flashing me one of her pretty smirks as I rolled up my sleeves to help her.

“No,” she said. “Your place isn’t here, Dr Hall. It’s out there… with your guests. With the people who want to see you.” She was already getting the ham out of the pack and poked her tongue out. “Clear off, please. Your mum would be loving them being here.”

She was right. Mum would have loved people being here.

I didn’t try arguing with the bouncing bunny, just kissed her on her forehead before I left, and if I’d have believed in a heaven, I’d have believed in one right then.

But there wasn’t a heaven. Not for me. That hadn’t changed. Despite just how much every single part of me was desperate for that girl to be at my side for every single moment of my life, nothing had changed – my gemstone of an angel needed to fly away and leave me behind.

But I couldn’t do it. Not anymore. I couldn’t send my angel away.

Her sandwiches were incredible, even the chicken salad ones, and her teas and coffees were perfect. She dished out the food and her laughter along with it, listening to everyone’s stories of Jackie Hall with a shimmer in her eyes.

And so did I.

I listened to everyone’s stories of Jackie Hall with a shimmer in mine.

It was long past sunset when the last of the guests finally said their goodbyes and left us to it. Chloe was already in the dining room collecting empty glasses from the table, the industrious little white rabbit still bouncing around the room. But no. No. Not now. I couldn’t take a single second more without her body next to mine.

Heaven. It’s not the afterlife. Not for me. It’s the stunning power in the here and now, the passion and the primality in people’s flesh when the need for closeness eats them alive.

Glasses went crashing from Chloe’s hands as I grabbed her from behind and spun her into my arms. My mouth pressed to hers with a ferocity I’d never known, breaths frantic as I backed her up into the counter, sandwich bay be fucked.

And I was done.

In that moment my rationality and my reservations were all gone, crashing onto the floor tiles along with the fragments of broken glass, pulse racing as I kissed my way down her neck, seeking more, more, more.

Chloe was a shining light in my world, and she blinded me. In that kitchen, with the carnage of my mother’s goodbye all around us, that beautiful creature blinded me with her light.50ChloeSo many feelings spinning inside, tumbling together. Hurt and love and grief and relief. I couldn’t kiss him hard enough. I couldn’t tear his suit from him quick enough. My hands were a complete contradiction of strong and stumbling, both at once.

He slammed me back against the counter and the leftover sandwiches shunted into the wine bottles, the whole load clanking and rattling.

Like my heart.

My heart was clanking and rattling too.

His skin was burning, his mouth was hot, his breaths were frantic and so were mine, hands heavy and desperate. With him I was always desperate. He hitched me up on the counter top and the sandwiches scattered. My fingers sank into the mess of a platter as my back arched, thighs trembling and spreading as he slid my knickers down my legs. He nipped at my tits first as I moaned for him, his teeth gripping tight and tugging. He kissed down my scar, peppering my imperfections with pure damn lust, and then he pressed his lips so close to my clit that I bucked against him, begging for more. Always begging go goddamn hard for more.