Sparks

Chapter 14

Fourteen

James didn't say a lot after that. He looked weary as he picked up my legs once more and rubbed the tender flesh of my ass, noting that I winced as he did so. He warmed the area up with his hands for a good few minutes before I felt compelled to speak. I needed to get this over with.

"Do you still want me to count?" I whispered. If he did, I was in trouble - I had no idea what number we'd ended on, and the thought of going back to the start was unbearable.

"No. This finishes when you cry. You can either look at it as a personal challenge to have the sorest backside in the UK, or you can give me what I want and then try to get some sleep. It's up to you, Lois. It's four am now, but I can and will go as long as it takes to get you to that place."

"I don't want to go there," I whispered. It wasn't the pain I was frightened of, it was the tears. Once they started, it was almost impossible to stop them.

"I know you don't, Lois, which is why I'm being upfront with you. You need to go there. Daily. It's going to hurt you, psychologically, but that's nothing compared to what's going down once you begin this op. All I can do is prepare you for it, and I'm telling you that you need to get comfortable with tears. I'm here for you. I won't let you fall. You can do this."

"Remember, you asked for this," I whispered.

"No, you asked for this, Lois, and it will probably rank as one of the craziest things you've ever done." His hand began slamming into my rear with frightening intensity, and I couldn't catch my breath. The man was serious about his threat, and if I ever wanted to sit down again, I needed to give him what he wanted and quickly.

My mind fluttered back to Kiel, against its better judgement. I'd already compartmentalised him to a back locker of my brain, and he'd been filed under 'Deceased. Do not open.' There was no other option that would give me what James wanted, though, so I had to open the box of worms and take the inevitable suffering that would accompany it. Even so, my fingers hesitated as they grasped the lid of my memories. Whilst the box wanted to be opened, the lid burned my hands. As I fought to prise it upwards, an incandescent light began to spill out everywhere, and then I was everywhere and nowhere... all at once.

The tears were almost instant. In my head, Kiel was very much alive and well. He was wrapped around my body, his legs entangled between mine, our naked skin deliciously warm under the thick double duvet that encased us lovingly in its grasp. I felt his arms wrapped around me, one gently kneading a breast as the other reached between my legs. The divine feeling of contentment was fleeting. I tried to cling on to it as long as I could, but once the box had been awakened, it could not be stopped. There was one moment of transient pleasure, and then all the awful crap that had been violently squashed into that box exploded.

There was the cop knocking at my door who'd barely been able to get a word out edgeways without stammering. The horror on his face as he delivered his message would always stay with me. I'd almost felt sorry for the poor bastard, but at that moment in time, I had bigger things to worry about. My rug had just been yanked out from underneath me, and nothing would ever be the same again. The horrors didn't stop there, though.

It had been a fatal motorcycle accident. The death had been instant, so the officer told me, which in turn meant it had been messy. I'd always told Kiel that his bike would be the death of him. It had been a Ducati Streetfighter, and it was his pride and joy. He drove the thing around like it had rocket boosters, but the last person he'd ever listen to would have been me. He knew best. Most of the time he did, but not on that cursed day.

When I got to the coroner's office, I asked if I could see the body, but he advised me against it. Basically, they'd had to scrape Kiel up off the ground and he was virtually unrecognisable. The decision was mine at the end of the day, and he didn't make it for me, but I decided that viewing a mangled lump of flesh covered in blood wasn't going to help with closure. Besides, I'd seen enough death in my lifetime. I had no desire to stare it in the face yet again, knowing full well it would haunt my dreams.