–Do you sometimes think what we’re doing is wrong?†Godric whispered.
Helga had her eyes closed. She preferred keeping them shut, even though the candles had long since gone out, and morning was yet to light up the room. The darkness meant she was more aware of the sound of Godric’s deep, heavy breathing, more aware of his earthy warm scent. So different to Salazar, with whom she sometimes felt the need to place her hand on his chest to check he was still alive, his breathing was that quiet, and he always smelt of the exotic oils he had shipped all the way from Arabia.
–Helga?†Godric asked, and she felt the bed shift as he rolled onto his side, and then felt his warm, slightly rough finger, brush away the tear on her cheek. –Why--are you--†He sounded so upset, so confused, poor lamb, but then so was she.
–I’m fine,†she said, contriving to smile for his benefit, though whether he was caressing her with his eyes open or closed she had no way of knowing, and didn’t want to know.
Helga rolled her head to one side, and felt Godric’s palm cup her cheek, thumb stroking her skin. His hand then moved upwards, fingers running through her blonde hair. He liked doing this, having said several times before that he enjoyed lengthening the strands of hair so that they were spread across the pillow.
There was something so intimate about the gesture, that her –I’m fine†suddenly tasted horribly insincere, and she felt compelled to reply to him.
–I do think this is wrong. Often. But--it feels so right.â€
–We should feel guilty,†Godric murmured, pressing his lips to her brow, as his other hand moved to her collar bone, to where the sheet covered her body. Helga felt her heart begin to thump with anticipation, even as she felt, for the first time in the many months they’d been making love, a twinge of guilt.
Neither she nor Godric had meant for this to happen. His wife had been visiting her parents, Salazar had been visiting his, Rowena had long since gone to bed, and she and Godric had been drinking wine and watching the moon move across the sky.
How strange, Helga had said, that you never notice the movement it makes, and yet you if look away, for maybe only a few minutes, when you return your gaze, you find it in a different place, though there is no trace of it having once been where it was before.
Godric had nodded and said, yes, that’s true. Things are often like that. You’re not quite sure how they happened, or when the point was that you could have made them happen, but happen they had.
And just as that celestial body worked its way across the sky, somehow she and Godric had moved closer together, without either really knowing how or why, just as neither were really sure who kissed who first. And soon their minds were not concerned with when the point had occurred that they chose to sleep together, but only the fact that they now were, and that the warmth they’d always found in each other’s company, was suddenly blazing into the white hot heat of passion.
She’d said, –Your wife,†as she helped pull his shirt over his head.
–Salazar,†he’s said, as he slid his hands beneath her skirt.
But that was the last thought they gave their partners.
Afterwards, they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, and when a weak autumn sun had woken them, they had not felt ashamed. On the contrary, sobriety and daylight did nothing to dampen their lust, but instead they’d made love again.
And so it continued. They were careful, knowing what would happen to all their relationships, with the other’s partner, as well as their own, but could not keep their hands off each other, regardless of how wrong they knew it was.
How strange, Helga had thought, that you could know something in your head, but not feel it in your heart. This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, she would think, over and over again, but somehow she could never really feel it.
–Yes, we should feel guilty. Why don’t we?†Helga said, even as Godric’s hand travelled down her body.
–I don’t know,†he murmured, hand pausing. –I don’t know.â€
–One day they’ll find out,†Helga said, suddenly opening her eyes and seeing Godric’s wide open, drinking in the sight of her as if it was the last time they would be together. As if he knew, without asking, about that inexplicable twinge of guilt she’d felt.
–We can’t let that happen,†he said roughly, pressing his lips to hers in a deep kiss. Helga hooked her arm around his neck, pulling him on top of her, and responding to the kiss as if it were their last.
–Then we should stop,†she said breathlessly, once their lips had parted.
–I don’t think I can do that.†He sounded so scared, of his own lack of control, of his inexplicable lose of nobility, of his passion for her.
Helga didn’t know whether the fact that she replied, –Neither can I,†with an equal intensity, should scare them all the more, but didn’t care, as she sat up on her elbows and kissed him harder, clinging to his broad body with her narrow arms, and wondering when had their kisses become this desperate, when had they started making love like it was the last time?
It was almost as if they knew that Salazar had seen them by the lake the other day, and that he had told Godric’s wife, and that come morning she would open the door and see her husband lying next to her friend.
Maybe if they had known all that, then they wouldn’t have been together that night, and everything would have been very different, but then maybe things would have been just the same.