Golden Threads

Golden Threads

Stepping out into the afternoon sunshine, Terri winced and pulled her
shades down out of her thick hair to cover her eyes. She gave her head
a small shake and struck off in the direction of the nearest tube stop.
Luckily her apartment building wasn't too far from one, so she only had
to endure the sweating crowds for a short time.
She kept her mind active with unkind thoughts about people and their
lack of style, self-respect and shame in some cases, until she managed
to crawl onto a carriage and breathe a sigh of relief.
The train was uncharacteristically cool and she was able to bring her
self under some kind of control. What she was about to do would take
guts and determination, and a strong sense of staying power - things
that she was not known for. Impulsive was how her mother always
described her. Act first, think later was her father's opinion. She
would not allow herself to think of them, as today would be hard enough
without thoughts of her father's immediate disapproval and her mother's
sad and pitying eyes.
The train plunged her into blackness as it entered the tunnel. She
began to shift slightly on her seat as the stop she wanted was the next
one, and she did not have time to miss it and have to walk back along
the streets to where she had to be.

He loves to walk in the park, holding her hand. He wears a thick
winter coat with an even thicker polo-necked jumper. It is deep bottle
green, the one she gave him for Christmas. She strides along, content
to follow his lead, happy to laugh at his jokes. The wind blows her
fur-trimmed hat down the park, between the avenues of naked trees. He
runs after it, full of concern. She smiles as he retrieves it. They
laugh.

Terri leapt from her seat, eyes moist, making it out of the doors
seconds before they closed. See? I can show my emotions. I am in touch.
She did not rush back into the sunlight. Glancing at her watch, she
knew that she had a few moments that she could claim as her own. She
climbed slowly up through the levels and corridors, stairs and
escalators until she broke back into the street. People here seemed to
mill about, lulled into some kind of stupor, as if the sun and the city
combined to create a bizarre semi-organic, semi-ersatz soporific.
Through these people Terri made her way toward her friend Lucy's
house. She pulled out her small, palmheld mobile and within 3 touches
of a button the phone began connecting her to Lucy's home phone. As it
rang, Terri silently thanked the marvels of speed-dialling. As the
phone clicked and she heard Lucy's machine-repeated message, she
silently cursed the ubiquity of voice messages.
"Luce, darling, its me. Pick up if you are there." She paused for a
moment. "Fine. Listen, I'm coming round now. Meet you there. Please
Luce, I need to speak to you."
She snapped shut the phone, cutting off the connection. Turning into
one street and another, she made her way to the Georgian terrace in
which Lucy and her husband Jeremy had their home. She past flowering
cherries with their pale white blossoms drifting in the lanes and
blocking the gutters.

He loves the late spring with its air of freshness. He loves the
smells of the spring flowers coming from the street vendors. He loves
daffodils best of all. She buys bunches of Ice Follies, Mounthood and
Cheerfulness, filling the flat with their delicious smells. He says
that it reminds him of his childhood and his Grandmother.

Finally she spotted the blue-trimmed house down the street and made
her fitful way to the gate. A riot of purples, blues and lush greens
meets her eyes, gave her temporary relief from her troubles. Phormiums,
alliums, and clumps of large aristea swept past her as she wound her
way down the garden path to the front door. Terri ducked her hand
behind a large pot that sported a clump of fine bamboo and clutched the
key that was left there. Again she thought that it was stupid that
Jeremy still left a key in such an obvious place, despite the crime
rate spiralling in the local area. It was so like him. Just as it was
like her to make such grand sweeping statements.
She opened the door and pushed it open. By now she had gotten used to
Lucy's taste in interior design, having spent time with her sharing a
flat at University and then sharing a house with two other people some
years ago. The hall looked like it could have some straight from a
centre-spread of Wallpaper; it reeked of designer influences. She
dumped her bag and headed straight for the kitchen.
"Jeremy always insists on freshly ground, blended coffee in the
mornings. He can't abide that instant garbage."
For such a career-orientated woman, Lucy could have made Emily
Pankhurst turn in her grave at some of the comments she made. Now,
however, Terri found herself cursing at Jeremy's obsession for the
correct way for everything to be done. Terri called it neurotic, Lucy
found it endearing. There would only be one reason for Terri to
tolerate Jeremy's behaviour if she was living with him. A reason that
she had got only once and was now denied forever by the boundaries of
friendship. Jez had the largest, thickest penis of any man that Terri
had ever had the fortune to sleep with. He was also the most ardent of
lovers, demanding her satisfaction before he let himself go.
She made herself some tea, again cursing Lucy's lifestyle. Not one
proper tea-bag could she find in the cupboards. Camomile, peppermint,
green leaf, blackcurrant and summer fruit. She settled for peppermint,
hoping that it would relax her. Grasping her solid mug, Lucy's one
concession from student life, Terri went into the living room. Again,
this could be lifted straight from a photo spread in any number of
upper-middle-class design magazines, and probably was.
She curled up in a deep armchair in a shade of deep claret and sipped
her tea, wondering if Lucy would be home soon. She looked at the table
and saw that the light that indicated messages was not blinking, but
glaring red. That was good; it meant that either Lucy or Jeremy had got
her message, but had not erased it. It also meant that one of them was
probably on their way home now.
Just as she bent over to see if there were any interesting notes next
to the phone, it rang and shattered the silent afternoon. Terri
wondered if she should answer it. What if it was Lucy responding to her
message? But what if it was a client of one of them? She decided to
wait until the machine clicked in.
"Hi, Terri are you there?"
Terri picked up the phone and switched the machine off. "Lucy!"
"Hi darling! Listen, I'm on my way back now. I can't spare you long
I'm afraid, I have a client meeting back here at three thirty."
"Ok. See you in a bit, sweetie."
"I'll only be about 10 minutes, ok?"
"Love you, bye-bye."
Terri put the phone down and glanced at her watch. It was a little
after 2:30 now.

He loves giving her trinkets. She takes the gift, a small gift-wrapped
box, long and thin. He grins, urges her to open it. She does, and
reveals a black case. She opens it, lifts the lid. It is a delicate
silver Dior watch. She squeals and holds him tight. He kisses her. She
lifts it up to reveal a message inscribed on the back of the face.
'Darling T, Always and Forever, Love D'

A key in the door, the harsh banging of the door ricocheting off the
interior wall, broke her reverie, startling her.
"Fuck. Shit. Oh, hey Terri."
"Hi Jez. What's wrong?" She smiled as she spoke, helping him
disentangle himself from his many bags and tubes.
"Fucking clients, that's what's wrong. Fucking bored middle-aged
fucking housewives. Oh yes, they want my services alright! Fuckin'
hell. You'd think that I was some kind of stud service!" He carried on
with this speech as he carefully stowed the contents of some of his
bags and carefully placed the ones that Terri had held in their
neurotically kept places.
Terri laughed. This was Jeremy's constant moan. He was often hired for
more than just his architectural abilities. But how could he possibly
expect anything else? He played both rugby and football, swam and spent
time working out at the gym. His body was broad and well-muscled, his
face wide, open and not out of place on several of the Greek friezes
Terri had once seen at the National Museum.
His shoulders seemed to be constantly trying to burst out of his shirts
and his giant cock could easily be seen pressing up against the front
of his trousers. Add to this the fact that he refused to have his
fringe cut so that it mostly obscured the top of his eyes, and women
seemed to throw themselves at him.
As she had done at a party. He had responded exactly as she had planned
to her low-cut, hi-exposure dress and flirtatious comments. They had
fucked each other brainless that evening, her relishing every inch of
him, feeling every part of him. That had been only hours before Lucy
had introduced him to her as her fianc?. Neither of them had ever told
Lucy what had happened. Neither of them could admit to each other that
they still found the other attractive.
"I'm sorry, look, I'm all sticky, do you mind if I take my shirt off if
I get you a drink?"
Terri shook her head. "Of course not, it is your house."
"It is. Are you waiting for Lucy? Has she called?"
"Yes and yes. She'll be here soon, she said."
He looked her in the eye. "Are you ok?"
"Not really, but I'll be fine. I'm going away for a bit."
"It's that bastard Drake, isn't it?"
Terri shook her head, lying to Jeremy as she knew she could.
"If that cunt has hurt you . . ."
"Jeremy, please." Terri secretly found it so arousing that Jeremy was
so protective of her. "Stop, ok?" She laid a hand on his bare arm,
feeling the soft hair under her palm.
He had taken his shirt off. She stared for a few moments at his bare
chest, covered as it was by a thin cover of dark hair. Terri looked
away, not trusting herself right now.
The phone went again, interrupting their silence. Jeremy reached
it.
"Hello? . . . Oh hi darling. . . Yeah, ok. . . I'll tell her. . . Ok. .
. Love you too . . Bye Darling."
He replaced the receiver. "That was Luce, she'll be about another 20
minutes. Something to do with her boss and a new client or something.
Anyway, she said that she was glad that I was here to keep you
company."
He called to her from the living room to where she had remained in the
kitchen.
"I'm gonna grab a shower. I won't be a sec, ok?"
"I'll be fine." As she listened to him going upstairs, she thought of
him getting undressed, freeing himself once more. She heard the water
start to run. What was going on in her head? Not more than two minutes
ago she had been filled with her resolution, consumed by the thoughts
of Drake and the times that they had shared. Now here she was getting
turned-on by thoughts of her best friend's husband.
Forbidden fruit. Her one weakness. Employing the same ruthless ambition
that she had displayed for most of her life, Terri slipped off her
shoes and padded upstairs. Jeremy had left the bathroom door ajar and
she could see him lathering himself up. He stroked his penis
delicately, slipping his hands around his heavy balls and between his
ass cheeks. He had his head thrown back in pleasure.
She stood there for several minutes, watching as he rinsed himself off
and simply stood beneath the gushing faucet, eyes closed, letting the
water gush over his year-round tan. Terri smiled as she saw that his
once almost-neon glow-in-the-dark tan-line had gone. More health club
than Hawaii, she thought.

He loves to spend time on the beach. He sleeps there, in the sun,
shining with sunblock. She loves to see him sleep in his Speedos. She
snuggles up close to him on the quiet private beach and strokes his
chest. He grins and wriggles. She laughs and leaves him frustrated as
she swims.

Jeremy shifted position once more and Terri took her cue to go back
downstairs. She padded down the thick carpet and back into the living
room. She was determined to put all thoughts of Jeremy out of her head,
swapping one man's naked form with another's. Not that it mattered, she
supposed, Drake was just as much out of reach now as Jeremy ever was
and is. What was wrong with her? One minute she is ready to take on the
world to get Drake back, and then she is overcome with lust for another
woman's husband.
That is why I'm here, Terri reminded herself. I love Drake. I will get
Drake.
"Terri darling! Are you still here? God, sorry I'm late, such a rush to
get out of the office, and then through all that lunchtime cross town
traffic. Honestly, I don't know why I even bother, I really don't!
Anyway, how are you, sweetie?"
Effusive, elf-like Lucy with her bobbed dark brown hair bouncing in
time with her words.
"Fine. Um, Jez is upstairs getting dressed. He said he needed a
shower."
"He's home already? I expect he's meeting a client this afternoon." She
went over to the stairs and shouted up. "Jez? Darling! I'm back. I'm
chatting to Terri, ok darling?"
Terri heard his reply, muffled as it was by distance and various
soft-furnishings.
"Ok, babe. I'll be down in a bit. Just getting changed."
Lucy came back and sat next to Terri. "So what's up, darling?"
"I guess you heard he's gone to LA."
"Drake? But why?"
"He says that behind my eyes I'm hiding, and he tells me I pushed him
away, that my heart's been hard to find."
"No please, tell me everything! I see that he's been back to his old
tricks. Why do you let him screw you around, Tee? You know what it's
like." She leant forward, placing a concerned hand on her friend's
knee.
"I knew it! That little bastard!"
Terri and Lucy turned at Jeremy's explosion. Two pairs of eyes widened
in appreciation of Jez' body. He was naked except for a pair of black
Armani tanga-style briefs, super hi-cut, exposing maximum flesh, while
containing his large cock and balls. A damp towel was wrapped around
his neck and was held with one end in each hand. The hair on his
thighs, Terri noted, was still damp.
"Jez, please. It's not like that! It was me, not him. He just told me a
few home truths."
Terri stood, shook her curls out of her face and grabbed her bag that
was now placed by her feet. She went to the door.
"Look, I know you're late for your parade, Luce, and that you came to
make sure that I'm not running. Well I ran from him in all kinds of
ways. I guess it was his turn this time."
She turned to her friend, a look of determination on her face. "I'm
going to find him, Luce. I love him. I need him."
"Bullshit. You feel a dependency for him, his strength. You know that
he actively feeds that desire."
Terri gave a small sharp grin. "You'd know all about feeding people's
desires, wouldn't you, Jez? I'm going now. I'll call you Luce."
With that Terri turned on her heel and stalked down the path, leaving
both the front door and the gate wide open.
"You know what I've never figured out?" Jez asked Lucy after they had
gone back inside and were both stood in the kitchen.
"No, what?" She pottered around, tidying and straightening pots and
containers.
"What the hell does she see in him, anyway?"
"What she wants to see." The hint of bitterness, of anger in her voice,
the impression that she was speaking from experience, drew his
glance.
"A man to end her loneliness, someone to fill the emptiness of her
existence with all the richness of those feelings for which the human
spirit was created. When the colour goes out of a woman's life and the
romance shrivels, she hungers to be important to someone again. Hungry,
she dreams.
When a man comes along and pays attention to her, feeding that hunger,
she believes - because she wants to believe, because she wants her
dream to be real. She refuses to consider that his only desire may be
to take advantage of her, that to him is a cheap thing, because that
would destroy her dream.
Men prey on such women. They are chameleons, changing colour to be what
the woman dreams.
Ultimately, the delusion on both sides becomes the only thing that is
real."
She turned to Jez. "You know what I've never figured out?"
"No, what?"
"What was her last crack about? You know, the one about you feeding
people's desires?"
Jeremy fought to keep his expression neutral and shrugged. "I don't
know. She's your friend, Luce; you should know what her head is like.
She probably didn't mean anything. Or maybe it was because I wasn't
exactly dressed for company when I came down."
"Whatever." Lucy put the unkind thoughts and suspicions out of her mind
once more. "I've got to go, darling. See you tonight." She stood on
tip-toe and planted a small kiss on her husband's lips before rushing
out, grabbing her bags and speeding off back to her appointment.
Jeremy was left alone in the kitchen. He scrubbed his face with his
hands. That had been too close. He knew that Lucy would never forgive
either of them if she knew what had happened between them. Nor would
Terri forgive him if she found out about the kiss that Drake and he had
shared all those years ago.
Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't have met
Lucy. Sometimes he almost wished that he hadn't. At times, in the dark
of night when he woke from sleep for no reason, all he wanted to do was
grab Drake and . . . no, he was married to a woman whom he loved very
much. He shouldn't even be thinking these thoughts. His cock, however,
wouldn't be told.

Having reached the end of the street where her friend lived, Terri
found herself in a quandary. She didn't actually have to do anything
right now. She had a few hours before she needed to even start thinking
about leaving for the airport. She could either go home to her empty
flat and wait with bags already packed or she could catch a taxi or the
tube and head into town proper and do a little shopping. Terri sighed
and for a moment her body sagged. She really hadn't stopped since she
woke that morning - rushing around, trying at first to locate an errant
Drake. After finding out that he had flown out of the country no less
earlier that day, she then called several travel agencies and booked
herself - first class, naturally - on a flight that evening to Los
Angeles.
Her plane would arrive in LA at around seven forty-five pm, local time,
after a flight of almost eleven and a half hours. She wasn't looking
forward to it, she didn't like flying all too much, but Terri told
herself that she had to do it. It was the only way that she could win
Drake back.
She looked at her watch and cut off any thoughts of the flight for now.
She applied a little of her mother's determination and saw that she had
a little under an hour and a half to kill - not as much as she had
initially imagined she was pleased to note. In fact, if she caught a
taxi back to her flat, she could pick up her cases and then called
another taxi to pick her up and take her to Heathrow, that would leave
her a comfortable wait in the airport bar before her flight was called.
She smiled a little at her planning and quickly scanned the street for
a stray taxi. She realised that she was still too far in the
residential area to see one.
Terri pulled out her mobile phone and switched it on - she only turned
the thing off when she was in a personal meeting. The screen glowed
with the fact that she had 6 voice-mail messages and a number of text
messages. Those could wait until later, she thought as she dialled the
London Directory Enquiries to ask for a cab company.

He hates travelling by public transport - says that it is cheap and
nasty - but says that 'For Hire' taxis are far worse. It is as if you
tried to hire a limousine, but could only get a Ford Fiesta. She sighs
and agrees offhandedly, too engrossed in lovemaking to offer a polite
enough response.

"Directory Enquiries, how may I help?"
"Hi. Have you got the name of a taxi company?"
"Which one do you require?"
"Well, how many are there out here?"
The operator sighed audibly. "Where are you madam?"
"No need to be rude. Just put me through to one, ok?"
The operator worked his magic and Terri soon heard the automated,
staccato voice of a lady telling her the number. She thanked her
journalist training for the ability to memorise numbers
instantly.
Dialling again, Terri quickly looked around for a street sign and house
number to tell them to pick her up from immediately when she noticed
where she had walked. Terri and Lucy had never really voiced the fact
that the house she had bought with Jerry was a mere handful of side
streets away from the house that Terri and Drake had first met
in.
At the time Terri was living in a house-share with two Dutch twins,
rather unimaginatively named Helda and Heidi. She'd only been there a
week or so, and was still finding her newfound independently-funded but
elegantly-heeled feet, when the three girls decided to throw a big
party for all their College buddies. It was at this ill-fated party
that Drake and Terri were thrust together.

Drake was in Heidi's Engineering Class so she had invited this
charismatic stranger to the party. Along with the entire rest of the
student body it seemed to Terri as she glanced through the kitchen door
to the dancing minions in the living room. She picked up the plate of
canap?s and began to walk through the open door backwards so nobody's
flailing arms would disarm her. Unfortunately also coming through the
door, preoccupied with a wine stain on his shirt, came Drake. The
inevitable happened and they met with a bump, causing Terri's freshly
microwaved puff pastry parcels to slide off the plate onto the floor
and the plate itself to crash onto the carpeted floor with a
thud.
Her heart racing, Terri turned quickly, one foot catching the hem of
her long and rather impractical skirt, pitching her headlong into
Drake's arms. They often joked afterwards that it seemed that Barbara
Cartland had scripted the entire affair - either that or their
relationship had been fated.

Fate. What a load of shit, Terri thought as she waited for her taxi,
engrossed in her nostalgia of drunken fumblings with Drake, his
subsequent cooling off and them getting together, breaking up and
getting together in the years that had followed. Terri had told herself
that he was no good, and she would find a new man who had been deemed
'good enough' for her by her friends. Every time it was her running
from him, and he would somehow make her come back to him. Jez called it
emotional blackmail, Terri knew. And now he had run from her, finally
pissed off with her constantly unsettled behaviour.

The horn of the taxi broke her concentration. "Taxi for Miss.
Baker?"
Terri didn't smile as she told the driver that she was, indeed, Miss
Baker, and they were to proceed to her apartment building to collect
her bags and then to Heathrow airport post-haste. She shuddered
mentally at hearing one of her mother's saying's pop out of her own
mouth.
The taxi wriggled its way through the traffic, crossing lane after
lane, stopping and going at endless sets of traffic lights, whizzing
past honking and impatient drivers, leaving behind acres of pedestrians
enjoying the sunshine.
The driver stopped at the specified building, the change in engine
noise breaking Terri's silence. "I won't be one second."
The key slid into the lock and turned with a click. Terri pushed the
door open onto her silent flat. She stepped over the mail that had been
delivered that afternoon and carried herself straight down the wide
hallway. Upon reaching her central lounge area Terri stopped at her
hardwood table. On it sat a note from Lucy.
"Terri darling. Just a quick note to say good luck in LA. I'll look
after the flat while you are gone! Call us when you get there! All my
love as always darling! Luce xx"
Bless her dear little heart thought Terri. Lucy wanted her to find
Drake, and Terri knew why. Rather unkindly, Terri believed that it was
so she would then stop sniffing around after Jez. Little did she know,
Terri told herself with a thin smile.
The taxi horn leant her speed and she grabbed her bags quickly,
swinging the larger leather sports bag up onto her shoulder and seizing
the small black Gucci bowling bag. She ignored the thought that the
sports bag was Drake's and he had bought her the Gucci bag a handful of
days ago.
Once more the taxi drove through London's streets and out to the
airport. The taxi driver unloaded her luggage and left her at the main
entrance. In some kind of daze Terri checked herself in and her larger
bag was taken to be ready for loading. Clutching the small bag as if it
were a life-preserver and she were already adrift in the Atlantic,
Terri made her way over to one of the large windows that allowed her a
view across the tarmac runways and access roads.
She could see her plane. An Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 passenger.
One glance at the board in the hall told her that it was on time and
boarding would begin soon.
Terri asked herself a myriad of questions: why was she following Drake
halfway around the world when his very departure told her that he
didn't want to be found? Why did she keep running and then going back?
Did she love him then? Would he be pleased to see her? How would she
find him?
Terri grimaced at the direction that her own thoughts were going in. A
creeping doubt and a nebulous sense of wrong began to cloud her body,
almost as if a cloud of noxious gas were beginning to surround her
after seeping up between the tiles.
She heard the announcement for final boarding of Flight NZ 001 to Los
Angeles. Terri took one last look out of the glass, her mind suddenly
set, her entire body certain for the first time in her life on what she
truly wanted.