yacht and so was almost permanently outside. He was the strong, silent type that Edie always fell for and mostly spoke in monosyllables, barked out in his deep, seductive voice. He rarely smiled and when he did it was sensually lopsided, as if only the right side of his mouth could be bothered to make the effort. He was utterly gorgeous and Edie was not only determined to snare him but also not to share him.
Little by little, perhaps not as swiftly as she had hoped, she was reeling bad boy Vuk in. They’d had sex a few times, each time better than the last; Vuk’s hard, strong body the perfect complement to Edie’s willowy, lithe limbs. Even to think about his white teeth on her breasts, his strong tongue probing between her thighs, his thick cock pumping into her, made Edie wet and set her clit throbbing in anticipation. He could circle her wrist with his thumb and forefinger and pull her towards him as if it were no effort whatsoever, could pick her up and throw her onto the bed as if she were nothing, could part her legs and pull them over his shoulders like she was a rag doll with no strength of her own. The power he had to dominate was dangerously attractive. But Edie still wasn’t sure she really had him where she wanted him; namely committed to some kind of a relationship with her.
It would have been good if Vuk had been there to see how those boys had ogled her, to imagine how their dicks swelled in their swimming trunks, to feel the same himself. That would have been a minor triumph. In Edie’s experience, there was nothing better than jealousy to make a man keen. But Vuk was nowhere to be seen, his comings and goings on the resort always erratic, his schedule impossible to pin down.
Edie just had to hope he hadn’t bumped into Laura.
***
Finally, the sun shifted to the far side of the beach and the orders diminished. Edie threw her pad and apron into a heap in the kitchen and, shouting a hasty farewell to Stefan and Milan, set off as fast as she could bear in the still intense heat. As she walked, the sweat gathered on her back and chest and trickled down her spine and between her breasts. It was boiling.
In her room, she saw with relief that Laura was not only still there but still sleeping, face down, one slim, delicate arm flung out of the bed like the boom of an idling sailing ship. No sign she’d encountered Vuk or anyone at all. She looked as if she’d been asleep for ages. Edie sighed with relief. She dug around in the tiny fridge that nestled in one corner and pulled out the vodka she had stashed there. She’d bought cups of ice from the restaurant, and a water bottle filled with fresh lime juice. Mixing the drinks, adding sugar and stirring, she watched as the white crystals slowly dissolved. She slurped a mouthful; delicious. Putting the glasses side by side on the upturned crate that served as a bedside table, she sat down beside her twin. She shook her gently. No response. She tried again, more vigorously, and added in a little tug at her long tresses of brunette hair. Laura muttered something that sounded a bit like ‘fuck off’ but did not open her eyes. Exasperated, Edie stuck her fingers into one of the glasses, retrieved an ice cube and shoved it down the back of Laura’s T-shirt.
‘Christ!’ Laura’s cry was bloodcurdling. ‘Shit! What the fuck ….’
Edie fell onto the floor, clutching her sides and gasping for breath as the laughter spewed out of her.
‘Sleeping beauty, it’s time to get up! There’s fun to be had, drinks to be had, boys to be had. Every moment you’re snoring is a wasted moment.’
Laura rubbed her eyes and wiggled her back, standing up to let what remained of the ice-cube slide out of her T-shirt. She shuddered.
‘Oooh, that was actually quite nice. It’s bloody bugger hot around here, I must say.’
‘Yup. And you being here is just going to make everything even hotter. Drink up.’ Edie handed Laura her vodka and lime. ‘Ziveli.’
They lifted their glasses and drank. Laura exhaled loudly and shook her head. ‘Wow. That’s strong.’
‘That’s just for starters. Now you need to get yourself all tarted up cos we’re going out.’
Edie threw Laura a faded beach towel. ‘The showers are at the end of the block.’ She looked around her, located a bottle of shampoo and chucked it in Laura’s direction.
‘By the way,’ she added, as Laura turned to go. ‘How on earth did you find your way here? I didn’t give you the precise address. And where did you come from, where have you been the last few months?’
‘My very own personal, inbuilt sat-nav, little sis.’ Laura had been born first, by ten minutes or so, and never let Edie forget it. ‘I could track you down anywhere.’ She twirled the shampoo bottle round and round in her elegant hand. ‘But – questions later. Right now, I need to wash. I can smell my own armpits and that’s not even the worst of it.’
Laura glided out of the room and Edie drained her glass, still not quite believing that her twin had appeared as if from nowhere. She pulled a bundle of clothing out of the canvas shelving that was all she had for storage and dumped it onto the bed. By the looks of it, Laura would definitely be needing to borrow clothes – she didn’t seem to have anything with her; her pack couldn’t hold much more than a few pairs of knickers. Make-up, she always helped herself to anyway. Men – the same. Edie stopped short at this thought. Not Vuk. She was not giving up her claim on Vuk. This time, Edie would make sure she kept the big prize for herself.
When the barrel bombs came to their neighbourhood, Fatima and the girls were not there. They had gone to visit friends in another suburb. They heard the explosions as they travelled home but explosions were nothing new so they tried to ignore them. You could never tell exactly where the bombs were falling anyway; sound ricochets and distorts, making distance incalculable. It was better to assume – to hope – that it hadn’t hit your street, your home. Inuring yourself to the violence, the terror, the bloodshed, was the only way. So many times already it had been someone else’s turn to take the brunt of this insane and insatiable war. Fatima gathered the twins protectively to her as the taxi proceeded through the deserted streets. For so long the fighting had taken place elsewhere and perhaps they had all assumed it would continue to be so even whilst knowing that there must surely be a limit to how often they could escape it.
As they neared home, it seemed that that limit had arrived. The taxi driver pulled over abruptly and told them it was finished; he would go no further. As if in a dream, Fatima got out of the car and pulled the children after her. She had had no phone call from Fayed, her husband, or his parents or brother with whom they lived, so she assumed things were all right at their place. But as the three of them stumbled onwards, picking their way through rubble, choking on dust, tripping in potholes, it was clear that their neighbourhood had been the target. And that it was bad. Really bad. She tried to remember what Fayed had said he was doing that afternoon, where, exactly, he would have been. Had he been planning to spend the hours that she and the girls were out at home? No, Fatima was sure he had mentioned popping into the office – his accountancy premises that were in the downtown business area about twenty minutes’ drive away. He would have been far enough away to have avoided danger.
‘Mummy, where are we going? What’s happened?’ asked Marwa, always the bolder of the twins. How to answer such questions? With the truth: ‘I do not know’, or with a platitude, blatantly untrue, ‘Everything’s fine, don’t worry’? However much parents across the land tried to shield their children from the dreadful events that were occurring, it was
