The Escape...

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I held back my tears as we kissed for the last time.

He held on, I held on. The longing in his eyes called out to my soul. It had being a sizzling week, a week of not being the boring attorney who had no life outside the walls of the courtroom, the frigid Mary who never had time for fun.  It was a week of being Paula Banks; the single, fun loving air hostess who was on vacation for the first time since she got her job.

Paula who could walk down the beach of a glorious and romantic Island naked; the limitless Paula who danced all night, sang like a bird, hiked fiercely, loved softly and never got high from rounds of liquor with him; the stranger I met at the bar on my first night at the hotel. His name was Brian. A business man who needed a break from work. A work and life he was not eager to reveal to a Paula. 

It had being a week of deceit, my brain judged, but my heart felt otherwise. Despite the lies, it was a week of me living my dreams and not hiding behind rules and sentiments. A week of not being pressured to love or fall in love, of giving and receiving without any hindrance. A week that should be easily forgotten. But what was that ache in my heart as I hugged him to me for the last time?

Paula was supposed to be unemotional and free like the wind but the mask I wore all week and the lies I had spinned could not dull the sharp pain of never seeing Brian again. My firm resolve not to give us another thought could not drown out the rhythm of his breath in my head or the sound of us copulating in ways I had never dreamed were possible. Beads of sweat formed on my brow as I wrestled with my emotions. Thoughts of my strange lover left me breathless.

There was something about that intensely handsome man, something that made me long to run back to his waiting arms and remain his moonlight Paula forever. I found his voice, poise, rich laughter, decorum, dancing eyes, maturity and the way he made me feel like a woman extremely appealing. Those were qualities I have searched for all my life in a man. Qualities Emmy lacked. Emmy! My head swung up as I thought of the man who would be waiting to receive me at the airport. The reality tore my heart to shreds.  

Reality check; I could never be his Paula. My name is Rita Andrews. The smart Attorney, daughter of a millionaire and fiancée to a man she detested. I sighed and closed my eyes. It was not meant to last forever, that voice in my head reasoned. It was only a vacation before my nuptial but our parts had crossed and the thoughts lingered. 

Our several nights of ecstasy raced through my mind as I made my way through the runway for the belly of the airline that would convey me to my reality. Paula was dead and buried or so I thought…