by Carmen Reid
‘You know, would ya?’
‘Alex, I’m married!’ Pamela protested, but they both noted her omission of the word ‘happily’.
Xavier was back with a sophisticated-looking couple in tow.
‘Meet my friends, beautiful new friends from London,’ he told the couple, waving an arm expansively, flicking a spray of champagne into the air.
And so the evening whirled on: meeting more guests, drinking champagne, more cloudy cocktails, touring the paintings with Xavier as an informed guide at their side.
Until, mid-heated conversation, another group invited the three of them on to another party just a few streets away.
‘No, no,’ Xavier protested.‘I was going to walk the tourists around town, show them the best parts of Barcelona by night.’
‘Si, si, choo must do this,’ one of the guests agreed.‘But later. Now we party.’ Xavier asked which they would prefer and just as Alex said ‘Party’, Pamela said ‘Walk about.’
So it was settled: the other guests would take Alex on with them into the social swirl and Xavier would escort Pamela round the town. He held out an arm for her to take and as she bade them all good night, she thought she saw a glint in Alex’s eye that suddenly suggested this had been set up all along.
‘So where to now?’ she asked Xavier as they left the party and hit the noise and glamour of the night-time pavements.
‘Everywhere!’ He smiled and tucked her arm tightly in against his side.
Chapter Six
THEY WALKED THROUGH the night, past illuminated buildings decorated with coloured tiles, ornate carvings, balconies brimful of foliage. Everything seemed so lavish, so adorned. Even the paving slabs had flower designs pressed into them.
Down into the narrow streets of the old town they went, and all the time Xavier held her arm up against him, his fingers tightly locked into hers and although Pamela tried hard not to notice, it was making her breathless . . . dizzy, almost. What did it mean? Did it mean anything at all? Everyone walking past them was arm in arm: teenage girls, middle-aged women, old men. Maybe it meant nothing at all.
But she was so awake, so fizzy, this was what it was like to flirt, to be chemically attracted to a man, to be so attracted that she wanted to bury her nose in his armpit, lick his sweat, delve into every secret, unseen crevice of him.
She was driving herself crazy; thought she really must be going insane.
‘And look . . . look at the curve on this—’ He was pointing out a balcony to her, she really wanted to pay attention to the words, not just the full red-brown lips speaking them: ‘Sweeping, graceful, beautiful, no?’ With the word ‘beautiful’, he held her gaze and she was left wondering, like a ridiculous teenager, does he mean me? Does he think I’m beautiful too?
Because ‘Does he want me?’ was the question at the front of her mind. She was constantly evaluating every moment, making up long lists of arguments for and against. Debating inside her head like some frenzied prosecutor and defence counsel: ‘He invited me out for a drink . . . he invited Alex too. He’s holding my hand . . . it’s a Barcelona thing, look, everyone is holding hands. Look at the way he’s gazing at me . . . maybe he’s that kind of person.‘Well, go on then . . . ask him if he’s married,’ the prosecutor demanded.‘See what he has to say about that.’
Because so far the conversation had been totally lofty: London, Spain, art, design, the party. Not a single personal detail had been shared between them.
Xavier picked out a café and guided Pamela to a small shiny-topped table, pulling back the chair for her to sit on. Then he saw the goosepimples on her arms and insisted on putting his suede jacket over her shoulders.
She couldn’t help thinking how cherished, how cosseted it made her feel, all this Cary Grant-like behaviour. You would practically tell men off for this in London, when actually it was lovely to be treated like this.
Xavier sat down and suggested espressos and cognac. The jacket around her was warm like an embrace, wafting leather and the scent of him.
She wanted to hear him talk, his rich voice and chunky accent pouring over her like caramel sauce.
‘Caramelos,’ the Spanish word for caramels, she got him to say over and over again.
He was laughing but complied.
‘Caramelos . . . caramelos . . .’ He lowered his voice to say it again and she moved her head closer to his.
‘Caramelos . . .’ He was almost at her ear and she dared to move closer.
‘Caramelos,’ he whispered against her lobe, choosing the moment to slide a hand onto her leg and pull her in.
He kissed her ear first and she felt as if an electric shock had been administered. She turned to kiss him back and their mouths pushed together, his tongue searching for hers.
Pamela had been utterly faithful to Dave for twelve years, so the shock of kissing, tongue kissing, someone new was almost too much to take in. And then they were talking again; Pamela so stunned, she even wondered if she had made it up – the kiss.
‘Pa-me-la,’ she heard him say.‘Lovely name.’ And it was, the way he said it, like caramela.
‘Are you married?’ she asked him. She’d wanted it to sound casual, but instead it came out bald. Bubbles popping, spell breaking, coaches turning to pumpkins . . .
He raised an eyebrow slightly, put his hand over hers and waited for a long moment before replying: ‘Does it matter?’
‘Well . . . yes! I think you’ll find somewhere in the small print, you’re not supposed to kiss other women.’
He waved his hand as if he were batting a fly out of the way.
‘You are married too, yes?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said but didn’t tell him Dave’s name. That was the kind of callous harlot she was turning into by the second.
‘Of course,’ he said, then leaned over, put his hand at the back of her head and drew her in for another kiss.
‘Dave,’ she said in the daze of the aftermath.‘Someone called Dave. I mean, my someone is called Dave.’
She wondered if it was possible to have a heart attack induced by kissing. His hands were on her hips, moving up and down against the silky fabric. Stroking, persuading, making her feel more turned on, more breathless than she could ever remember.
She was going to drown here, slide under the table in a faint with longing for him.
‘Is this hurting you?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Is this hurting Dave?’
‘No . . .’ with a little less certainty.
‘It’s not hurting me or my wife. They are hundreds of miles away and we are just kissing. Like friends.’
Their lips touched again, slowly, softly. It wasn’t true, she had never kissed any friend, ever, like this. But his words made her feel better.
When they finally broke off, she watched him gather up his glass and drain the last of the brandy from it. He took a smooth brown wallet from his inside pocket, put a note down on the saucer with the bill. Then pulling her close to him, he suggested they walk back to the hotel.
Xavier gripped her hand, folded her arm under his. Laughing, he pointed things out on the way, Pamela desperate for another kiss, just one more mouthful of him. Hoped maybe it would happen just once before the hotel, in the cover of darkness. They kept walking past dark doorways, narrow alleyways, and she prayed that he would pull her into one of them, put his hands all over her. Have her.
Began to think she was delusional and deranged. This charming, urbane man wasn’t going to drag her into a dark corner for ravenous sex, and was that really what she wanted? Really?
Wasn’t this just some charming grown-up fantasy he was spinning along with her? Two consenting adults on a harmless, flirtatious, wonderful night away from home. That was what he meant, wasn’t it? With his ‘not hurting’ rules?
But what felt frightening was how much she wanted him. Desired him. Was turned on by his laugh, his smile, his warm grip on her arm, the rumple of his white shirt. Good grief!
She did
n’t think she loved Dave any more. There it was. The fact she had been denying to herself for so long.
Throughout their many years together, of course she had sometimes noticed other men, looked at them too long, thought about them too much, even dreamed about being with someone else, very occasionally, but this was hot Spanish flesh, pressed against her arm, kissing her on the lips, taking her back to her hotel. Someone she would strip off her dress for and make love to, if she dared . . . if he would let her.
She thought about his wife, picturing a glossy brunette in a pink dress, with cleavage and beautiful children. There wasn’t a hope. She was obviously crazed. This was flirting, kissing and fun. There was probably a Spanish word for it. A ‘when the cat’s away’ saying. And really, wasn’t it so grown-up?
Her impression of Spaniards was that they seemed to be playing by such old-fashioned, chivalrous rules . . . and it worked! You married, had your children young, lived next door to your mother, then had your career. Your husband was a perfect gentleman who complimented other women and indulged in a little flirtation and mouth on mouth when he was away. Everyone was happy. The sun shone all summer long, you ate olive oil on your bread and tomatoes, never got fat and didn’t peg it early with some horrible stress- and pollution-induced tumour.
They even went to church. It was all so 1950s, but modern, done with assurance and panache, she concluded. Just as Xavier swept her into the lobby and demanded both their room keys from the concierge.
Loudly, unembarrassed as they waited for the lift, he asked if she would like to see his room.
‘It’s on the sixth floor, with a wonderful view of the city.’
The doors opened and they stepped into the shiny metal lift before she’d made a reply.
When the doors closed, he smiled and at last kissed her again, pressing his mouth against hers, sliding hands against her breasts and then, the satin offering no resistance, down her dress.
‘Oh,’ she heard herself breathe into his ear.
The dress was so filmy he could move to the one tiny part of her which longed for him without a whisper of guilt.
The numbers stacked up as he touched her. Her eyes closed, Pamela leaned back against the cool wall and felt his mouth on her neck, her legs tensing involuntarily. Four . . . five . . . six . . . the lift lurched to a stop just as she shuddered against him. Her eyes pinged open with the doors.
He took her hand and led her out. He walked backwards so he could draw her towards his room without breaking their gaze. Maybe he knew her reluctance to be a bad person was going to surface any moment now.
‘I should say good night,’ she said at his door and made an attempt to pull her arm out of his hand.
But he held onto it tightly and told her: ‘It’s OK. Just come and see the view.’
‘No. I don’t think I can.’
‘OK, Pamela, caramela . . . shall we say good night?’ He touched her forehead, ran a finger over her lips and then smoothly, she would think later, very smoothly, just a little too practised, he kissed her, gathered her up with one arm, squeezing her against him as his other hand slipped the card into the door to pop the lock.
So with the kiss, she was spun gently into the room. Her eyes fixed on the spectacular view and when the door closed behind her, it closed on the great swarm of choices and feelings and fallout raging around in her head. She made the decision to leave all that out there on the other side just for now. Her dress slid to the floor and she let go.
Chapter Seven
FOR A LONG time Pamela lay in the bed awake, watching Xavier sleep beside her – deep brown limbs thrown carelessly over hers – and wishing that all this could be hers: living in Barcelona with this dream of a man . . . a man who looked good in white linen . . . a man who smelled and tasted wonderful and yet of himself. As if he’d absorbed mint, limes and suntan oil and was breathing, exuding them back.
She put a hand on his back and stroked the warm skin. He was extraordinarily appealing.
Much earlier on in the evening she had worried that Xavier was a serial philanderer who did this all the time and that she was just falling for a routine. And when he closed the door of his hotel room, she realized this was exactly what he was. And realized also how much she wanted it. Wanted a practised, deceitful man to get physical with. Saw how her sex life with Dave, with all the pregnancy issues hanging over it, had become so mentally complicated that even the slightest manoeuvre meant something else. It was a minefield so difficult to negotiate, no wonder they preferred to turn off the lights, kiss chastely on the lips and try to fall asleep.
But this! He had been superb. The lean, brown body . . . sexy, persuasive whispers . . . condoms at the ready. He did this all the time. But she didn’t feel used. Oh no. She’d taken advantage of him. Flirted, flirted, teased, made him work so hard to please her, to have her. There were stubble scratches all over her thighs to prove it.
Can the reality ever be as good as the fantasy? Oh yes! For at least one night, it can.
But she knew she didn’t want to wake up with him in the morning, or for Alex to suspect anything either. So now it was time to go.
Pamela slipped out of the bed, retrieved dress, underwear and heels and scribbled just the words ‘Good night, goodbye, Caramela x’ on the hotel notepad beside the phone and left. Back to her own room, to the shock that it was 5.30 a.m. and to sinking shoulder-deep into hotel bubbles to replay the adventure in her mind.
She lay in the bath giggling, hardly able to believe what had happened. She felt extraordinary. She’d just had sex with a stranger, over and over again, and it had been wonderful, incredible, ecstatic and yet terrible. Awesome. She wanted to laugh, wanted to shout, but that might wake Alex and she knew already that this was her very own delicious secret. No-one else would know about this. That was the rule, the marital infidelity code. We’re all grown-ups having our fun. If everyone is grown-up and behaves, no-one needs to get hurt. Ever.
And for her this was entirely a one-off. It was in another country. And besides, the man was married.
There were some things you could tell your new best friend about – like the fact you’d been inseminated with an anonymous donor’s sperm. But frantically hot sex in a hotel room with a Spanish design dealer – that was private. She wondered how often she would think about it . . . and also wondered, with a lot less giggling now, if she and Dave should call it a day. Maybe it was sensible. Maybe there was still time to find more Xaviers, to catch up on some of the experimental stuff she should have been having in her twenties and see what else was out there.
When she finally got out of the bath and dried herself, she felt sorry that the smell of her lover, bergamot, limes, sweat, muskiness, was washed away. Lover! Dave had once been a lover of a very different kind: young, romantic, poetic, the type of guy who’d always brought his soul to bed with him. Somehow they’d outgrown all that without moving on to something more adult . . . more sexy. And now it was as if they didn’t know how to begin.
A bottle of Alex’s body lotion stood at the edge of the bath. Pamela pumped out big, creamy handfuls of it and rubbed it over her soft, loved-up body. When she stroked round her breasts and her stomach, she forgave them a little. She had begun to so hate this body for stubbornly refusing to reproduce, but after tonight, she felt a little better. Tonight, she had remembered what else it could do. How sexy a very sexy man could find breasts, a rounded stomach, big handfuls of bum.
Creamed, soft and naked, she fell into her own bed at last and slept, slept and slept as if it was her last night on earth and there was no reason to get up ever again.
Alex’s voice was in her dream before she heard it consciously.
‘Hello, helloooo there. Wakey, wakey.’
When Pamela had broken the surface of sleep and struggled up into awake, she saw her friend sitting on the edge of her bed, armed with a bowl of coffee.
‘It’s our last day,’ Alex said.‘I didn’t think you’d want to miss all of it. It’
s lunchtime. Spanish lunchtime . . . so that’s quite a lie-in you’ve had . . . Sooo?’ She raised an eyebrow, gave a hint of a smile and asked, when her friend was upright with the sheet tucked round her and the coffee in her hands, ‘How was your tour of Barcelona?’
‘Very interesting,’ Pamela managed as evenly as she could. The desire to dance about the room and shout: ‘I got laid! By the most beautiful man! Like I’ve never been laid before!’ was still there, was surely creeping like a grin across her face right this moment and Alex was going to guess . . . and must not be allowed to know.
‘He was charming, Xavier. I had a lovely evening.’
‘Hmmm . . . and? And? Why were you not here when I got in at 4 a.m.?’
‘Oh, we walked, we had coffee, drinks, more coffee, you know . . .’
‘So nothing surprising . . . nothing unusual . . . nothing at all out of the ordinary to report?’
‘No. Well . . . obviously I don’t go swanning round Barcelona on the arm of Spanish male perfection every night of the week – but nothing like you’re thinking,’ she even managed to sound a little stern with this.
‘Well, no, I don’t mean . . .’
‘He’s happily married, to an actress,’ Pamela lied and hoped that would be an end to it.‘Now, tell me all about the party.’
And as Alex did, Pamela got out of bed with the sheet still tightly clasped around her so that none of the bites, scratches and scrapes on her white skin were visible.
She only saw Xavier once again, on the following day, where she had first set eyes on him: in the breakfast bar. Although Alex was still upstairs packing, Pamela had decided she needed breakfast before the trip to the airport.
Sitting down with her plate and coffee cup, her eyes had flicked up and round the room, maybe in the hope of one last look, one last reminder of what she had enjoyed.
When she did see him, she felt a jolt of excited surprise. She loved the fact he was exactly the same: ironed polo shirt, pastel blue this time, navy sweater tied over his shoulders, sunglasses perched in his black hair. He was looking at the paper, and just as she was about to wave, call his name, do something to raise his brown eyes to hers, he looked up and saw her.