DO NOT DISTURB
I smile, am I his girl? A frisson of excitement runs through me—he makes me feel like a schoolgirl.
I put a key to my apartment on your keyring.
Please use it.
XXX
I scroll through the next few messages between us.
11.15 am to Adrian: Get me a coffee while you’re out.
I keep scrolling through, nothing interesting here.
Monday 7.30 am from Adrian :
Are you expecting a text from Cinderella?
Huh, Monday morning, that’s after he left me. Was he waiting for me to call? Surely not. I frown, that’s confusing. I exit the messages and go into the images. There is a photo of me asleep. I’m naked so it must have been Sunday night. Hmm, happy with that shot just quietly. Then there are five photos of me from the wedding in which a face–splitting smile breaks my face. A photo of Adrian sticking his finger up at the camera, obviously unimpressed. Ten photos of horses and then there is a photo of a beautiful blonde girl with one of the horses. Who the hell is this? Maybe the photo is of the horse. To my dismay the next photo is of the girl on her own, smiling. She’s…stunning. It’s a natural shot taken outside, maybe on a picnic blanket. Another few photos of horses and then another photo of the blonde, on a boat this time. What the fuck? Who is this girl? He told me he doesn’t date. Was he lying? Going on picnics and boat rides is definitely a frigging date in my books. There are a total of twenty photos on his phone and this girl makes the cut and now I can’t even ask who she is because I’m not even supposed to know she exists. I click out of the phone in disgust with myself. I tell my clients every day, ‘Don’t snoop because you will only upset yourself. If you don’t have trust in a relationship then you have nothing.’ What a crock. I get my glass of water and drink it at the sink while I calm myself down. She’s probably a friend. My gut instincts tell me otherwise. What an idiot, why did I do that? I amble back to the bedroom and walk around to Josh’s side of the bed. As I go to switch off the lamp I see Joshua’s clothes on the floor. I pretend I don’t notice and go to pull back the blankets.
“Pyjamas off,” he says darkly. I smile and raise my eyebrows. “From now on, our bed is a pyjama – free zone,” he breathes.
“It is, is it?” I raise my eyebrows. Our bed, I love the sound of that.
“And why can’t I wear pyjamas?” I slide them off and sit on the side of the bed. He runs his hand from my bottom up my back to my neck and grabs my nape and pulls my head back by my hair. “Because, I don’t fuck in pyjamas,” he breathes into my neck as he bites it hard. I close my eyes as goose bumps spread over my flesh. I do so love dominant Mr Stanton. Thank god he came to visit me tonight. I was beginning to worry.
I wake alone… again. However, I feel a lot more optimistic than I have since last Sunday. At least I now know that I didn’t imagine it; there was something there. His brief shut–down of his defences last night allowed me to see a glimpse of the man I miss. He’s struggling with this as well, I think. I stroll out to flick on my coffee machine and find a note on the kitchen bench.
Slept in, early meeting
Josh xx
I pick up the note and smile. Things are looking up and he gave me two kisses. Maybe there is hope after all, hope for what though I’m not sure. I spend all day daydreaming and reminiscing about the night before, hardly wiping the smile from my stupid face. At work in my break I do the unthinkable, something I haven’t allowed myself to ever do. I google cousin relationships. I am astounded to find page after page on the subject. Is this for real? For half an hour I sit transfixed to a website called Cousin Love with tears running down my face. Story after story of forbidden true love. People who have done nothing wrong but fall in love with the wrong person—actually wrong choice of words, a person their family thinks is wrong. A lot of the stories mirror ours in that they hooked up and fell in love in their teens and tried to suppress it, only to have the feelings reappear in their twenties. Like me, most of the people haven’t come out to their families for fear of persecution. I read the list of famous people who married their cousins:
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip
Albert Einstein
Greta Scacchi
Kevin Bacon
Rudi Giuliani
Jesse James
Franklin D Roosevelt
Thomas Jefferson
Charles Darwin
Jerry Lee Lewis
Johann Sebastian Bach.
Hmm, some of the most brilliant minds of all time were attracted to their cousins. I’m not a freak. The Queen of England is married to her cousin. Who knew? I leave the website with a heavy heart but feeling somewhat comforted to know I am not alone and that others feel the same. I just wish I knew how Josh felt, I mean really felt. I know he adores me, but is it enough? Adore is not love. As much as I wish it were.