‘I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.’
It took me a moment to put two and two together: his answer with the uncertain expression on his face. And I wasn’t sure if I was more embarrassed or weirdly… flattered. I sat up a little, still on top of him, and grinned crookedly. ‘Don’t tell me you’d feel tempted in a bed like that?’
‘I’d be tempted anywhere if you’re there too, Pica.’ His fingers were exploring under my collar. The hairs beneath it stood on end, and I shivered and felt a swell of heat at the same time.
Without stopping to think, I bent down towards him. My hair grazed his cheeks, my lips brushed his face. I kissed the scar on his temple, his cheek, the corners of his mouth, then themouth itself. Cliff wavered briefly, then pulled me in closer. The kiss tasted of honey, and felt like it, too–warm, soft, golden and… healing. All lingering trace of unease, fear and stress dissolved, purely because he was kissing me. Because his teeth were tugging gently at my bottom lip, because his hands were wandering all over my body, pressing me to him firmly, because I could sense every part of him, absolutelyeverypart, and because, strangely, it let me sense every part of myself as well. Everything Ashton had jumbled up, his touch slid back into place. Everything that last night’s revelations had stirred up inside me was smoothed out under a pleasantly heavy blanket of warmth and… desire.
I sighed against his lips as he slid his hands underneath the hem of my sweater dress. Instantly he stopped and jerked his head aside. Worried, I pulled back. ‘What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong?’
‘No. It’s just—’ He broke off and ran a hand through his hair, then pressed his fingers to his eyes.
‘Cliff?’ Gently I took his wrist and guided his hand away from his face, trying to catch his gaze. I couldn’t, because it was fixed on his own hand. Only, it didn’t feel that way to him. My chest tightened when I realised that was exactly the problem. ‘It’s about what he did, isn’t it? Blake?’
He strained at his hands until I let him go, but when I began to slide off his lap he held on to me. ‘What I told you on that football pitch, it wasn’t a lie,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Those memories are real. And they’re in me, because they were in him. Because they were his deepest, core memories. The ones he… liked the best. The ones he savoured, over and over again.’
‘So you remember all his experiences too?’ Perhaps it was true, then, that our memories were bound to our bodies. Perhaps they embedded themselves in our cells as well as in our minds. It seemed only logical, after all, that they would leave their traces everywhere. The way that certain scents or tastes could evoke an intense emotion associated with them, even though we might not be consciously aware of where it came from. Memories were more than just images of the past: they shaped the way we moved through life. What we saw, felt, thought, existed differently because of the things we had experienced. And Cliff… Cliff had experienced more than other people. It must be confusing, carrying so many memories around with him, many of which weren’t even his.
‘No, it doesn’t work quite like that. As the soul’s energy fades, so does the body’s capacity for memory. Let’s put it like that. Only shreds remain. A scent triggers a familiar feeling. You see a place and you remember abruptly what it looked like the last time the body was there. And… you remember the things that shaped the original soul most deeply. Often, the good things and the not-so-good things balance each other out, but with people like Blake… even his best memories are cruel and dark. Theyallare.’ He leant his head back against the armrest, swallowing. ‘It’s as if my soul is in this container, and the images are ingrained into its walls. So it feels as though they’re burnt into my retinas, overlaying the way I see the world.’
I wanted to touch him, but didn’t dare. ‘That must be awful.’
He twisted his lips into an unconvincing smile. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Cliff.’ I hesitated briefly, then raised my hands and cradled his face. ‘I know you think you deserve this, but that’s not true.’
‘It’s fine,’ he repeated, closing his eyes as I stroked his cheek. ‘Just… this, this isn’t.’ He took my fingers away from his face, interlacing them with his own, as if the trace warmth of my skin made him feel guilty.
‘Why? It doesn’t have anything to do with you. They aren’tyourmemories. They aren’t thingsyoudid.’
‘But they’re the same hands.’ He smiled bitterly, holding them up as if expecting me to see the guilt on them as clearly as he did. ‘It’s the same mouth. The same body, Mabel. How can I touch you with it without thinking about everything it’s done in the past?’
I studied the despairing look on his face. The face he thought was someone else’s, although all I could see was him. His way of smiling, so enigmatic, as if secrets were hidden inthose dimples. His way of looking at things as if he saw more than others did, because his gaze bored beneath the surface. The way his brow furrowed or his jaw tensed, or the tip of his nose crinkled subconsciously. His habit of brushing back a lock of hair from his forehead or stroking his fingertips along his scar. All of that was Cliff, none of it was Blake, that was for sure. And when we were together, he was never rough or selfish. In every kiss, in every touch, I could tell he was paying attention to what I liked. He would never have done anything I didn’t want. In fact, he’d donelessthan I wanted. So why did he seem to despise himself for things he hadn’t done?
‘It’s not just that, is it?’ I realised. ‘It’s not just about what he did. It’s also about what you… might do.’
Reluctantly, he met my eye. ‘Genetics is a complicated thing. Not even we really know what effect it has on our souls when we occupy a body. Nobody knows how much of our personality or our actions are influenced by our physical form. Like taste preferences, for instance? That changes every time. There are some things we can’t control.’
‘Like an aversion to raisins, for instance?’ I remembered the forlorn look in his eyes when he told me he wished he liked them. It was only dawning on me now that it would have been a sign he was still himself.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a sad smile. ‘Exactly. So…what if I’ve changed in other ways, too, and I don’t realise until it’s too late? What if that violence, that darkness… that urge, what if it’s rooted in this body? What if it originates deep in these cells? What if I suddenly lose control?’
‘Does that mean you haven’t had sex since you’ve… been like this?’ I had understood by now that his friends only organised parties to feed unnoticed on the souls of unsuspecting guests, not because they were after anything else, but that didn’t mean they all refrained. Their souls might have been old, but their bodies, at least here at the university, were in their twenties. I was pretty sure that at least some of them had… natural urges to grapple with.
Cliff’s smile deepened. ‘It’s only been two years, the blink of an eye for me. And before that… I’ve inhabited the bodies of some pretty amoral people in my time, but the memories were never like this. It’s never been this intense, this bad.’
‘Even so.’ I was watching him, intrigued. ‘There must be…hormones circulating in this body, right? Don’t you ever want it?’
He laughed and pulled me suddenly close, burying his face in the hollow of my neck. ‘After everything I’ve just told you, you’re still thinking about that?’ His breath tickled my skin, as heat began to spread downwards from my belly.Deep, deep down.Especially when he looked up and stared into my eyes. ‘And yeah, I want it, Mabel. I want it every time I look at you. When you rub your lips together to blend your lipstick. When you’re thinking and you get this look on your face, so rapt and focused. When you give me your opinion, because you’ve got so many fucking opinions. I find that pretty… attractive.’ There was still the trace of a laugh in his voice, but it sounded oddly harsh in a way that made me uneasy. Which is…frustrating.
I swallowed. ‘Is that so?’
‘Mhm.’ He stroked his thumb over the curve of my lips. ‘And obviously I want to when we kiss. When I touch…you.’
I felt a clench between my legs. I wanted to touch him too. Needed to touch him. After everything he’d told me there was so much to think about, but right now I wanted something else. I wanted to feel. I wanted to feelhim. ‘So… just theoretically speaking, of course… do you want to right now?’ I had to know if it was just me. ‘I know a lot has happened and it’s all really confusing and chaotic and crazy, but do you want to, even just a little bit?’
His fingers skimmed my cheek to reach my throat, my neck. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I really do.’
I put my hand on his. ‘But you’re afraid.’
