Marina Stories

Chapter 7 - She is back inside me

She checked the time again. She was lying on the couch, tried to take a nap but her mind just won't rest. She closed her eyes, and the memories came back, always in the same sequence, every time more and more lucid.

"Come on it's just one coffee, it's not like you would be cheating on your wife"

Carina kept on reading the same message again and again. She smiled to herself.

She looked around the hospital and closed her eyes for a second, her natural habitat, she was tired but fulfilled, full. Her new research was going fantastically, she was getting so much praise from her peers. Her son was growing to be such a great teen, he was 13 now and he was a great student and a fantastic athlete, like his mother. Maya. Maya. Maya was the only black spot in her life right now. Black spot. Hmm, seemed like a harsh word, Carina thought but that's how it seemed. She and Maya had been distant for some time now. It had been a very heavy year for Maya, she was stuck in the captaincy, she did everything right, yet no promotion again and again others were promoted, while Carina was getting one accolade after another at work. She was also super busy this last year and Maya had to carry the weight of being constantly there for Andrea too, while Carina was traveling around the world and the US to showcase her research. It was weighing heavily on Maya, Carina could see it, but she didn't have the time anymore. Talk after talk Carina grew tired of it. She would get over it Carina said to herself, and read the message again.

Tenco was his name, and he has been around her for some time now. Some Italian friends introduced her to his art and she and Maya visited his show, he was a photographer, illustrator, the latest in a thing to do lately, Carina smiled to herself. He got her number from someone, probably a friend, and he kept sending her messages in order to meet. He didn't have many friends in Seattle he said and would like to expand his social circle. They both loved art, and he would non-stop say how much he would like to photograph her. He was Brazilian and Carina loved to talk to him in Portuguese, she was fluent after all. They would start messaging each other, good mornings and talk about their day. Until he started asking her out, for a coffee as he said. He has been flirting with her, for over a week now, making his messages slightly sexual, Carina wasn't open to them at first but then she would start answering the same way. She looked around again. It's just a coffee she said. I could use my break and go have a coffee.

"Ok, apenas um café, eu só tenho uma hora de intervalo (Okay, just a coffee, I only have an hour break)"

And that's how it started. The one coffee became a coffee almost every two days and then lunch and when she will steal time from work and then when Maya and Andrea would go camping one weekend, he asked to photograph her in his studio. And Carina knew where this was going, she was aware. But she went. And one Friday afternoon for a photographing session became two days non-stop fucking. And she was aware what it was at stake, but she wouldn't stop it, she won't stop it. Instead, they were getting more and more comfortable and open, and she told Amelia about it and then Teddy. Amelia couldn't believe it and then tried to make light of the whole thing, they even went out for dinner a couple of times, but Teddy, Teddy warns her. She warns her. Are you sure about this? But Carina wasn't thinking.

Maya was distant and in her own head and Carina all could think was how he was making her feel, wanted, lusted. It wasn't love. She knew it. Looking back at those months, she knew it. It was at the right time, of her confidence being so high and she felt invisible. And he would tell her how gorgeous she was and how beautiful and he made everything sexual. He was also younger and tall and strong and made Carina feel so powerful. So no, she didn't stop it. She didn't. She became arrogant about it, bringing him to occasions Maya was there too. Yeah. She didn't think how deep in a hole she was getting and how she would get out. She felt it would end as it started.