Chapter 42: Envelope of Love

Friday 19-Oct 2007

Chris tried to watch the show; it was an awesome performance, the story line was even relevant to Shahia's life, and the music was spectacular. On the other hand, so was the girl next to him. She leant forward, absorbed in the show, and her dress fell forward from her chest a little; he could almost see her nipples. If she leaned just a little bit more forward — she was looking at him, the minx; she was doing it deliberately!

During the interval, she asked in an innocent tone, "Chris, why are you having trouble focusing on the show?" and all he could was stutter. At least she found it funny.

They were the subject of intense stares while they stood in line to get a drink. It was hard to know if it was because they were recognised or because Shahia was just so beautiful, and it certainly didn't help matters that she was still so excited that she couldn't stand still, and danced gently against Chris while they waited to get served. It was the same after the show, and she knew she was driving him mad.

They were still talking about the show when they got in the limo. The character Christine had this delicate vulnerable desirability, which Shahia showed sometimes; it appealed to him in some base way he didn't really care to examine. Chris thought that the woman who played Christine in the show didn't quite capture that part like in the movie, but she sure nailed Christine's indecision, her inability to pick between the smooth rich guy, and the passionate darkness of the Phantom. Shahia told Chris that she wouldn't have been able to decide either, "but I don't have to because you've got just the right amount of passionate darkness for me."

When the limo driver wanted to know where to go, he asked Shahia. She gave him a smoking look, and said, "You; I want to go to your bed."

There was a red rose stuck to his door. How cute. His mum really was that confident, huh?

Inside the room, there was a little present on the bed, and a pile of towels next to it. Shahia rushed over to the bed and showed the present to Chris. It had both their names on it. "Can I open it? Can I, please?" Chris smiled, so she opened it. It was a beautiful flowing wrap for her with matching t-shirt and boxer shorts for him. She turned to him.

"Your mum, she's so special!"

He smiled, though he wasn't sure quite why. Odd kind of present to get that response.

Chris sat on his bed. "Shahia, something we need to discuss — how do we do birth control?"

"I've been on the pill since Jerry started showing interest in me."

Oh. That made a lot of sense. But it kind of ruined the mood for Chris a bit.

When Shahia saw that, she came and sat on his lap, looking into his eyes. "You stopped Jerry. I don't think you've ever really grasped how big a deal that was for me. And you've done so much more. You. Are. My. Hero."

She kissed him passionately. When they came up for air, she continued.

"I gave your mum a special birthday, really pulled all the stops out, so I could tell her just how important she was to me. So what do you think I could give you for your birthday that tells you how important you are to me?"

There was only one possible answer, and Chris was about to say it, but she put her finger in his lips, and then stood up. Standing in front of him, she lifted her arms to her shoulders and slowly pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders. When she lowered her arms, the dress floated slowly down her body.

Chris gasped. All she was wearing now was a miniscule pair of lacy black underwear, and he was awestruck. She'd looked impossibly beautiful in the dress, but this was even better — way better. Then he noticed a tiny little card hanging from a top corner of the g-string. She moved closer to him, and he looked at the writing on the card. "Happy Birthday. Yours Forever. Love Shahia."

After that he tried to remember his mum's advice about making it good for her, but she'd had the same advice too, and he had no chance. They looked each other in the eye, and he saw the nervousness, the excitement, the pain, and the pleasure in her eyes. And then he couldn't focus anymore...

When it was over, he went to move off her, but she held him tight. They stared in each other's eyes and stroked each other's face. Chris had heard that the first time was only a beginning — and it had certainly seemed quick and confusing — but, still, by his mum's standard, this blew his mind: he was just so full of love for Shahia, and he could see in her eyes that the feeling was mutual.

Shahia went to clean up, but he wasn't ready to let go, and they ended up falling asleep still tightly entwined.

Saturday 20-Oct 2007

They weren't used to sleeping in a bed with someone else, and this was just a single bed, so they woke each other up sometime during the night. Naturally, they did it again.

When Chris woke in the morning, she was lying on top of him, face down, his leg between hers and her face on his chest. Gradually he manoeuvred so that he had his arm free from under her, and started stoking her bum with both his hands. He'd wanted to do that for so long...

That woke her up, and she stared dreamily at his face, stretching her neck to kiss him. "It's for real isn't? That feels so good."

"Yeah, hotbuns."

She smiled at him, and then remembered where he'd used that name before. She smirked, and then said, "Here? Now? Again?" Then she smiled broadly. "Great!".

Chris was ready, so she just slid across him, and they were joined again.

Afterwards, she just lay there on him, with him still inside her, staring at him. After a while, he realised that she was crying. He ran his hand through her hair.

"Why are you crying?"

"Oh, Chris, it's just so good. How can we ever part again? I just can't bear it, to know that I'll have to let you out, stop holding you. I can't do it."

Chris knew exactly how she felt. "Yeah, I feel it too. Let's just stay right here, you and me, joined forever. No one will mind."

They kissed, slowly and leisurely.

"Actually, I've got something for you."

She wouldn't move, so he wriggled himself to the very top of the bed, and tried to reach into his desk drawer. When he felt himself start to slide out of her, she hit him. "No. What do you want?"

"The white paper bag."

She gave it to him, and he opened it. Inside was a pair of black silicone wristbands with the words "Chris & Shahia Forever" in white.

He'd had them made back in August in a shopping mall, and they'd been sitting in his drawer since then. He'd gotten them out about once a week, and dreamt of how she'd respond when he gave them to her.

He showed them to her and then said, "We're only nearly seventeen, so we're too young to get engaged. But this is forever, I can feel it, and I know you can too. So I thought we could wear these — they'd mean the same thing — that one day, we'll get married. Shahia Esfahani-Baracat, please marry me one day?"

She was crying again. She stared into Chris's eyes. "I've worried about what to say when you asked me this. I worry so much that you've abandoned your youth because of the baggage that I carry. You're sixteen, and you're asking me to marry you. That's not right."

This wasn't really a surprising response. "I worry about you because you never had any choice. It just happened to you, the worst disaster anyone could imagine. Unlike you, I have a choice. And I choose you."

"Then, yes, Chris Mackenzie. One day, any day you ask, I will marry you."

They were still joined, and so it wasn't really a surprise when they were at it again. This time, he saw it in her face when she came too. Eventually, she was able to speak again.

"Oh, Chris, that was incredible. And see, we never need to part. I really can't face the idea." She sighed, then showed him the wrist band. "This is comforting, makes me feel wonderful and safe, and owned by you. And I know that we'll have to part eventually. But I don't know if I can sleep another night without you."

"I agree. Shall I move in with you, or should you all move in with us?"

"How much I'd love to move in with your family! We all love you all. But there's so many problems with that, and we're just not free to do it. And there's no space for you in our house. You know my bed is narrower than yours, and my room is already crowded with Maria. Anyway, what would your parents say?"

"I think we've firmly established that I'd do it even they disapproved."

"And I think we've established that we love them a great deal, and it would be a real big problem if they disapproved."

Chris nodded. She sure was right there.

They couldn't resolve it right then, and since Shahia reluctantly admitted to being more than a bit sore, they decided it was time to emerge. At that point Chris realised just how insightful his mum's present was — Shahia had nothing else to wear.

By the time they finally went downstairs, wearing their presents, they had proved that it was possible to shower, shave, get dressed and all that while remaining in contact at all times.

It was mid-morning. Chris's mum and dad met them at the bottom of the stairs and they shared a big group hug. "Thanks so much, mum and dad," said Shahia. "The whole night was so wonderful."

They had a long peaceful lunch, mainly characterised by Jay, Hassan, Bec, and Alyssa taking turns with Maria to sit on Chris and Shahia's shared lap. Then his dad sent the kids off to play and asked them to look after Maria.

A serious meeting? Why? Chris shared a look of concern with Shahia.

His dad started it. "Chris and Shahia, we decided a long time ago that we aren't ready for Chris to move out yet."

His mum laughed at their expressions. "We're sure you were talking about that this morning."

Chris and Shahia shared a rueful look. How had they guessed?

His mum explained, "Your relationship was so intense, so deep at so many levels, and you waited so long. It was obvious that once you did become lovers, it would be very serious, a huge explosion. You haven't even stopped touching at all since you came downstairs. We figured that once you discovered how magical sleeping together is, you'd have a hard time sleeping alone."

Chris realised that both Shahia and he were nodding their heads.

"And it's an obvious conclusion that you can't all live here, equally as obvious as the fact that you would come here last night."

Shahia asked the obvious question. "If all that's true, why did you help us do it?"

His dad answered that one. "You can't hold back the tide, Shahia. If we tried, it would only have generated trouble. But we didn't want to — there's no doubt that you're ready for it in your hearts.

"Anyhow, it's time for a story. Just listen for a while.

"There was this working bee, see, where all these kids stood up and did adult jobs. And there were all these adults standing around at the end of the working bee, wondering what the hell had just happened. And we kind of got this idea that if you kids could do what you did, then just perhaps we could step up and solve the bigger problems.

"So we had this kind of informal meeting while you were playing footy, and then watching the match — you guys never even noticed it. And the question was, how do we solve Shahia's real problems? Well, it was tough. There were two big problems, locked up with each other, and apparently insoluble.

"The first problem was Shahia's house. On the one hand, it was a huge asset. It had held you together, kept the department from breaking you up. On the other hand, it was a huge problem; right at that time, because the kids had just invested that working bee in it, and under no conditions could we take anything away from that. But living in that house made custody unresolvable, and custody was the second big problem.

"So we knew that we had to find custody for you; we had to find some family that could take you all in, and they had to be in the area somewhere, and they had to be able to manage the very important and sensitive question of who is the actual mother of the children, Shahia, or the family mum — who has the final say?

"So there was obviously only ever one candidate family. Everyone knew that, most of all, Mum and I."

Chris's eyes widened in surprise. He'd thought of this, of course, but he had been just too afraid to raise it. Shahia was just as surprised as he was, and looked at him in shock. He smiled at her, and touched his wrist band to hers, a gesture he meant to calm her down. It seemed to work.

"Shahia, we had decided in July, while you were with us on the farm, that we wanted you and your kids to be part of our family eventually. In fact, Mum said to me that it would happen after that first evening you came to visit. We wanted it ... but there were so many problems. Anyhow, back to my story.

"So there was an obvious candidate family, who was keen. But there were two problems. The first was that our house isn't big enough. But that's just a money problem so we could at least do something about that."

"But you said we were broke after buying this house!" Chris exclaimed.

"Well, not broke, but certainly chained down, unable to buy another house. So it was a tricky discussion. At that working bee, there was clearly a will to make something happen with real money, and clearly a family that was willing to pay the price of taking Shahia and the kids. But we would also benefit substantially in financial ways, and we were leading the discussion — it was tricky, though we paid for more than our fair share of the working bee costs, which helped. These things take time and consideration, even with someone so skilled as Mr Cartwright smoothing the discussions.

"Another problem was you two. It was obvious as daylight to all of us that you would either be lovers and one day married, or it would soon go to hell in a spectacular way. And you were just waiting, both of you scared to cross the line and find out. We were fairly sure what the outcome would be, but this was one hell of a risk. Enough to wait till today, even after everything else that has happened.