Hypnotized

and semen?’ she teased.

I couldn’t show her how disturbed I was. I had to be normal. I opened my eyes and smiled down at her. ‘What would you like to eat?’

‘I’d like to go out to a place where they serve cocktails in jam jars. Do you know such a place?’

‘I do indeed.’ And I couldn’t resist slipping a finger into her lovely pussy.

She giggled.

My finger was still inside her when we were interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing. She jumped guiltily. ‘That will be Ivana. I had better not take it, I don’t want to lie to her about where I am or who I am with.’ She bit her lip. ‘She doesn’t know about us.’

My gut constricted! I pulled my finger out of her and she sat up and pulled her skirt down over her hips. My first instinct was to shout, Don’t tell her, don’t tell anyone yet. There’s so much still behind the veil.

My horror must have shown on my face.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said with a small smile. ‘I’m not going to tell anyone. I know what they would do. They would disapprove and try to stop me from seeing you.’

I felt relief pour into my gut. Like a condemned man who is given one more day. I knew the reprieve would be short-lived and I had to get to the bottom of the white owl before anyone found out about us. We were not being discreet. Something told me I had very little time left.

I took her to Carambas and like a lovesick fool watched her eat and drink many margaritas. I knew other men were looking at her with desire. She was the cool ice-queen. So unknowable. So mysterious.

My hands went around her waist, possessively, pulling her to me. She was mine. She laughed and pulled me to the small dance floor where we bumped hips and pretended to do the samba and the merengue and the rumba. She was light and it was easy to carry her really high and swing her around my waist or pass her between my legs. She seemed so happy creating hard-on’s that she would have to pay for later. I looked into her flushed face and her shining eyes were silvery and I wished it could always be like that.

She smoothed the fabric of her skirt and I remembered the first time she did that. When Beryl had engineered us into having tea in my office. Then I had watched her hands, white and fragile, and struggled with the intense desire to cover them with my own, to protect her from all the demons of her past. Now I reached forward and placed my hands over hers. They were so small they disappeared completely underneath mine.

She looked up surprised. ‘What?’ she asked.

I shook my head. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

A young girl, possibly still in her teens came up to our table. She was pretty much wasted. ‘You’re Lady O, aren’t you?’ she shouted above the music.

I felt a tremor of fear run through Olivia. She turned to me like a child. I smiled reassuringly as if I were her parent.

She turned to the girl. ‘Yes, I guess I am,’ she said.

The girl said. ‘I’m so glad you’re OK. After the accident, I mean.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Oh and I really liked that green dress you wore to the Ascot races last year.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Ok then byeeeee,’ the girl called as she was pulled away to the dance floor by one of her friends.

Olivia turned to me.

‘You did brilliant,’ I encouraged.

She smiled.

And WHOA sunlight suddenly burst into my heart. I was shocked by the intensity and force of the sensation and I think I made up my mind then. I was going to destroy all the records. I was never going to tell her about the abuse or the Invisible Society. Her brain had hidden it away for a reason. She was happy. She was no longer that person. Why bring it back? I helped Maria to remember and where did it get her? In the middle of a bonfire, that’s where.

Perhaps it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Let the white owl remain in the past. Perhaps the white owl didn’t even exist anymore. Perhaps it was even a figment of the other Olivia’s imagination.

It would be untrue to say, “I dreamed you.”