Trying to Throw my Arms Around the World

Choices

Choices

“Hello stranger,” Eleanor said. “I was beginning to wonder if you still lived here.”
“I’m not going anywhere any time soon. You can be sure of that.”
“Oh dear, I recognise that look. You’d better tell me all about it over a bottle of wine.”
“I spent a weekend in paradise only to land in the Monday from hell.”
“Did my darling niece have anything to do with that by any chance?”
“It’s all my own doing, Eleanor. I’m more than capable to fuck up my life without Lucy’s help.”

While draining glass after glass of wine I explained my current dramatic predicament to Eleanor, who, against her usual calm nature, became visibly agitated.
“You have to talk to Lucy, Lee. This is preposterous. It’s just not right.”
“I know it’s wrong, but it’s my own fault.”
“Give Lucy some credit. She’ll understand. She can put your personal history aside.”
“I don’t want to badmouth Lucy in front of you, but no, she can’t.”
“Two things, Lee, two simple facts. One, Lucy is your boss and it’s her job to protect you from unethical situations like this. And two, she loves you. For some reason, you have stolen her heart.”
“It can’t be for my strict adherence to a strong moral code.”
“Allow her to help you. She’ll sever the contract immediately if you tell her the truth.”
“She’s a business woman, Eleanor. Joan Harris is bringing in a lot of cash for BTG at the moment and I screwed that up. Lucy’s initial idea was to extend the contract.”
“Lucy’s so much more than a business woman. You know that.”
“Asking Lucy for help would be wrong on too many levels.”
“It’s your call, dear, but this doesn’t have to be a done deal.”

I went up to my room and sat there for a bit, staring at nothing, just waiting for time to pass and a bout of divine inspiration to wash over me. In ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have thought twice about accepting Joan’s offer. She demonstrated a distinct flavour for kinkiness in the bedroom, a taste I didn’t necessarily share, but, as far as I knew − and I only had one night to go on − it remained on the right side of hard-core. But, another woman, another game. With her dramatic exit last Friday, Joan had given me the impression that she wanted Lou and me to get together, but, of course, it wasn’t that simple. It never was. She needed to control me one final time, make clear who was in charge, make me understand that Joan Harris was not a person you simply said no to.

I couldn’t tell Eleanor but, for all I knew, Lucy could make me the exact same counter offer. And in the end, it all wouldn’t matter, because I still would have lost Lou. The chemistry between Lou and me had been instantly electric, unstoppable, undeniable, but even more so, for me, it had been a reality check. It showed me, for the first time since meeting Claire Burns that Sunday in 2002, what acute attraction, the kind that almost certainly ends with love, was really like. It wasn’t getting the hots for a married Manchester housewife, nor rekindling a dead-and-buried love affair with an ex-lover. It certainly wasn’t cultivating a crazy crush on my therapist, nor was it hopping into bed with my boss whenever the need suited me. It definitely wasn’t getting lost in a secret impossible romance with a room mate, nor being blind-folded, cuffed and whipped by my hard-boiled trainer. For the first time since arriving back in London, since Claire had emptied my heart of all emotion, I had felt it again, with Lou. That deep longing that takes seed in an unknown part of you, in a place so unreachable you only notice when it’s too late, when you already know that you’ll miss something unmissable when you don’t let this person into your life. As I sat there in my room and the darkness slowly took over, immersing me in an irreversible sense of doom, I realised I had made the wrong choice. I should have picked Lou instead of my job.

To be continued…