Darque Wants (80 page)

She saw Dorian, hovering above her, making love to her instead of John.

She snapped them open again, surprised at herself. She’d never imagined anyone else before during their sex sessions. She blushed in shame and hid her face in John’s shoulder.

What would sex with Dorian be like? Better than this?

The thought crossed her mind without her having any control over it.

She clenched again, her body tensing up as she tried to fight against the intrusions of the handsome psychic who seemed to be haunting her every waking moment. As she did so, the movement obviously sent John over the edge. He gave a cry and he shuddered, his thrusts slowing right down as he came.

Thena quickly faked her own orgasm, moaning into John’s shoulder with her eyes closed and once again visions of Dorian’s face floating across her closed eyelids.

*****

All that week they worked, and all that week Thena felt she was falling more and more in love with Dorian. On the one hand, she chastised herself for it. She barely knew him, barely knew anything about him; it was ridiculous for her to be having such thoughts and incredibly childish. But then, on the other hand, a part of her always had believed in love at first sight, or had at least always wanted to, making up excuses for herself about why she could never be in a proper loving relationship like Deme was because she was “too involved in her work”, and settling for John when deep down she felt like the two of them could have been much happier with someone else. Dorian had changed her way of thinking, not only about her abilities as a psychic, but also about her love life. She felt a special connection with him she had never experienced with anyone else before, and a physical attraction she didn’t get when she looked at John. It had gradually became obvious that Dorian too, felt the same way, and that attraction and chemistry between them only grew the closer they worked together.

There would be times when they gazed into each other’s eyes for far too long, then hurriedly broke off, both blushing and giving quiet, nervous chuckles as they tried to get back to work and concentrate on what they were doing.

He always complimented her; every time he saw her. He would say that she looked nice, or that her shirt matched her jeans very well, or that her hair was spectacular. They were just little, simple things, but they made all the difference to Thena and made her feel good. John hardly ever complimented her. At times, she felt like he hardly ever even
noticed
her, but Dorian did. Dorian always did. And she noticed him to. She noticed every little nuance of his smile, the creases on his cheeks, the odd speckles in his eyes, the one strand of unruly hair that occasionally flopped onto his forehead, the strong scent of cinnamon from his aftershave whenever he came a bit too close, and his suave style of dressing, on the cutting edge of fashion but without even trying. He just always looked good.

They flirted with each other too; not in an over the top, obvious way, just occasionally, in some of the things they said and the way they said them, she got the impression that they both found each other attractive, and they were dancing round one another, knowing that it was forbidden territory and an area they couldn’t explore.

Even after the single hour that they got to spend together each morning, she would think of him long into the day, and ended up devoting most of her time to looking up the artefacts online and trying to research them more, as well as researching some of the things that they saw in their visions, trying to verify and confirm their accuracy. In the evenings, when she went home, exhausted after her long days at the museum, she would curl up in front of the television and try to zone out. Yet still, her mind would always wander back to Dorian, as if he had some kind of special hold over her thoughts. She had no time to think of John in all of this, and had no desire to see him at all that week. He came in to the office to see her a couple of times, tried to organise some dates or time together. She always managed to give him an excuse and brush him off, leaving him looking more dejected and frustrated with every passing day.

In terms of the visions and the actual work they were doing – when they weren’t busy flirting or looking into each other’s eyes and brushing hands accidentally on purpose – they discovered that if Thena touched Dorian whilst Dorian was touching one of the items, they could both share the vision, could both experience it at the same time. He would pick something up, and she would touch his arm or his hand. They began compiling a document of every vision they experienced from the items, whether shared or otherwise, and at the end of that week the document was nearly four pages long.

Carter shakes the hand of unknown woman.

Young Egyptian boy prays on his knees.

Unknown man and woman steal items from the temple and put them into a small brown rucksack.

Carter poses for a photograph with Lord and Lady Carnarvon.

Egyptian man punches another.

Egyptian woman washes her feet.

Carter looking angry and shouting at someone (unknown)

Lord Carnarvon talking to unknown man in a hush, their heads bent and arms wrapped around one another. Seems serious and/or private.

The list went on and on. Gradually, they went through and crossed out all of the visions from Ancient Egypt. Those weren’t relevant to what they needed and they didn’t want to get mixed up. Some of the visions were useless and made no sense in reference to any of the others, but some seemed to be connected, and now began the process of drawing parallels, putting the pieces together like a gigantic mysterious jigsaw puzzle. Dorian felt they had exhausted all possibilities from the artefacts, and Thena was beginning to agree. They had touched each one of them what seemed like dozens of times and the visions were beginning to repeat rather than develop or renew themselves.

They both agreed they would meet up at some point over the weekend to get their heads together and delve into the visions, wading through all the items on the list.

That Friday night though, it was Thena’s sister Deme who came round, not Dorian. The visit was unexpected and unannounced, but she was carrying two bottles of wine under her arm so Thena certainly wasn’t going to turn her away.

“This is a surprise,” she smiled and let her in, closing the door behind her.

“Yes, well, I had a call from John earlier,” said Deme with a sigh. “And I promised him I’d try and sort things out.”

“Sort things out? What d’you mean?” Thena followed her through to the kitchen to get some glasses for the wine.

“You’ve barely said two words to him all week.”

“And you would know this because?” She raised an eyebrow and popped the cork, pouring them both a large glass of white.

“Because he told me.”

“Well, it’s not true. I’ve definitely said at least two words to him, possibly three.”

“This isn’t funny, Thena,” laughed Deme.

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Because you always make me smile. Seriously though, he says you haven’t even been meeting him for lunch break.”

“I’ve been kind of busy,” Thena shrugged, putting the wine in the fridge to keep cold.

“Doing what?”

“Me and Dorian are working on a sort of…project…together.” She suddenly realised she didn’t actually want to go into details, even with Deme. It would make them both sound like mad people and besides, this was Dorian’s private endeavour, something personal to him. She didn’t want to go spreading his business about.

“Dorian? Is that that weirdo psychic guy?”

“He’s not a weirdo!” Thena protested. “And yes.”

The two of them moved through to the living room and sat down on the sofa, cradling their wine and continuing to drink as they talked.

“You’ve been seeing him regularly then?”

“Yeah, like I said, we’re working on a project together. He comes into the Museum every day.”

“Well, I think you need to spend some time with John. He’s really worried about the state of your relationship.”

“Yeah, so am I, to be honest,” sighed Thena, taking a large gulp of wine.

“You are?”

“Yep. I’m really just…starting to doubt things between the two of us…even more than I was previously. I don’t even
want
to see him. I don’t even miss him. And all I can think about is Dorian. I even thought about him the last time me and John had sex.”

Deme’s eyes widened. “You thought about Dorian whilst you were having sex with John?”

“Yeah.”

“God, that’s really bad, Thena.”

“I know. Like I said, I’m kind of concerned that things aren’t working out between us.”

As the night went on, and more wine flowed, Thena just couldn’t help bringing up the topic of Dorian.

“I think he might be the one, Deme…I’ve never felt like this about anyone before.”

“Oh, gimme a break,” her sister scoffed. “He’s not ‘the one’. You hardly even know him.”

“Yeah, I know, but – “

“No but’s. This is just a short term crush, that’s all. You’ll get over it. You shouldn’t let it stand between you and John being happy.”

“I think it might be more than that though…”

“Oh, just shut up and have another drink…” And once again, her glass was refilled to the top.

The two sisters had easily got through the wine, and as Thena hadn’t eaten yet, the alcohol went straight to her head. Before it was even ten o’clock, she was drunk, and Deme was helping her get to bed, staggering with her down the hall, with Thena leaning on her sister for support.

“You’ll be alright,” laughed Deme as she pushed her floppily onto the bouncy mattress. “Just sleep it off and sober up, and things will seem better in the morning.”

“But John…” Thena slurred. “What are we gonna do about John? And Dorian?”

“Forget Dorian. I’ll text John and tell him we’ve had a chat. And make sure you pay him some attention next week, mm? Maybe go on a date or two?”

“Mmmm…” mumbled Thena, already closing her eyes and beginning to doze.

Deme chuckled and tucked her into bed, pulling the covers up to her neck. Then she grabbed her coat and quietly let herself out of the flat, locking up and posting the keys back through the letterbox.

Thena had barely had time to fall asleep though, before there was an urgent knocking on the door. It took her a while to come round; the alcohol sending her mind into a fuzzy haze that was difficult to rouse herself from, but whoever it was, was persistent and they clearly weren’t going to go away.

“Alright, I’m coming,” she found herself yelling as she stumbled out of bed, blearily wandering down the hallway to the front door and promptly stepping on the keys Deme had posted. “Ow!” She bent to pick them up and unlocked the door.

Dorian was standing on her doorstep, looking extremely excited, with wide eager eyes and a smile that was instantly dropped as soon as he saw Thena.

“Oh God, you don’t look very well. Is now a bad time? Should I uh…come back tomorrow?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes and trying to sober up a bit. “It’s just…had a bit too much to drink, that’s all, come in…” She stepped back and allowed him access to the flat, then wandered off to grab herself some water from the kitchen. She drank down two glasses in a row then carried a third to the sofa where Dorian was now sitting down, getting out his notes.

“I got something else from the necklace,” he was saying excitedly. “I just had to share it with you, I couldn’t wait.”

“What is it?” she asked, plonking herself down next to him.

“I saw his face. The face of the killer.”

“You did?” Suddenly she was all ears, and didn’t feel quite as drunk anymore.

“Yeah, it was like…this time, I was seeing it from my grandmother’s POV, rather than looking
at
her. It was as if I
was
the necklace, viewing everything from around her neck upwards. And I saw him as he came closer to her, hovered over her, a cold, malicious smile on his face.” He gave an involuntary shudder. “It was definitely him, it was definitely…” He paused, overcome with emotion, raising one hand to his eyes and turning his head away. “We’re close, Thena,” he mumbled quietly. “I can just feel it. We’re close.”

Thena really felt for him. It was easy to tell how this whole thing was affecting him. She reached out her hand and placed it over his other one. There was a jolting flash in her mind of two other people holding hands. Or was it them? Either way, it passed quickly enough and for a moment, the two of them just sat there in silence. She continued to hold his hand, her thumb brushing over the skin, back and forth, back and forth.

He turned his head back towards her again and smiled warmly. “Thank you for being there for me.”

“It’s fine,” she smiled in return. “It’s my pleasure.”

Suddenly, she got the almost overwhelming urge to kiss him. Maybe it was just the alcohol talking, or maybe this was simply the moment she’d been waiting for, for quite some time. Those perfect bow shaped lips of his seemed to be even more enticing and inviting than they usually were. She’d been able to ignore them previously, but now, sat there on her sofa after a few drinks, they seemed impossible to resist and yet, it wasn’t just a simple animalistic desire to dominate and have him, it was more than that. She liked him, genuinely liked him and in the midst of all of these emotions, she noticed that he was doing the exact same thing as she was; looking at her lips as if he was thinking along similar lines. She felt her heart do a somersault in her chest. Did he want to kiss her too?

She inadvertently squeezed his fingers through her nervousness and he brought his eyes up to meet hers, smiling. Then he was back to staring at her mouth again and, within a matter of seconds, he had began to move his head forwards, taking the initiative to go that one step further and give them what they both obviously wanted. Thena could feel her stomach tingling, the sensation spreading straight down to his toes and up again in a deep seated, pleasurable shudder as their lips finally met.