by Carmen Reid
He was working on her jeans zip too. Pressing his fingers against the veil of netting he met there, pushing it aside and feeling her.
Saliva ran from the corner of her mouth and dripped from her chin, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered any more apart from the desperate strip of clothes and the fall to the mattress. She was breathless, had no memory of a time before when she’d felt so ready to explode with longing.
His tongue on her neck, her finger in his mouth, his mouth touching between her legs, it all made her come, shudder and come again.
Down on the mattress, he pushed hard into her, came out again, rolled her onto her front, pulled her legs apart and pushed into her again.
His arms locked round her, he gripped her tightly and rocked against her, into her, bouncing her into the tired mattress springs. Face buried in the mildewy nylon cover, she put her hands out behind her, clasped hold of pumping muscle, hard thigh and dug her nails in.
The kiss against her shoulder was harder now, his teeth were gripping, holding her tight. Then he pulled out, came against her, his face crumpling into her neck and loosened hair. He rolled off and fell onto his back, eyes closed, breathing hard, and she envied him the complete release. Still she burned for him. Didn’t think anything would take the burn away. Saw his solid, curl-haired bulk and wanted him even more . . . more. She’d thought that once would be enough, but saw now that, like hunger, it didn’t matter how many times she would eat, she’d still be starving for him all over again.
Rolling onto her back, she felt the wet on her leg. His sperm. His super-fertile farmer sperm. For a moment, she almost considered dipping a finger in it, moving it into the right place.
But what was the point? It wouldn’t do her any good, would it? Sub-fertile, pre-pre-menopausal Pamela. Then the wave of post-sex sadness threatened to wash over her, but Lachlan’s arm fell across her stomach and held it back.
‘You’re very good,’ he said, running the other hand through his hair.‘Phew.’
She felt shy of returning the compliment, so there was silence until she asked: ‘Have you done this before?’
‘What?’ he stalled.
‘You know, this . . . sex with someone other than your . . .’ but he put a finger over her lips to stifle the word ‘wife’.
‘Ha, that question . . .’ He rolled onto his side to face her.‘No comment,’ was his reply with the same ‘dare me’ smirk which had landed her here in the first place. She took that to mean yes.
‘Have you?’ he asked.
And now she saw why it was such a hard question to answer.‘Yes’ wouldn’t be fair to Dave, would make her sound like the brazen hussy she really didn’t think she was.‘No’ might give Lachlan an inflated idea of his importance to her . . . might worry him.
Because she knew already that he wasn’t important to her, couldn’t be. He was sex only, could mess with her as much as she wanted him to . . . but could not mess with her head. Couldn’t go anywhere near her head, her heart . . . her feelings.
‘No comment,’ she echoed and smiled at him. She moved to his face, kissed him slowly on the mouth, then stood up and began to get dressed. But sex only . . . she watched him pull his jeans over his broad legs . . . sex only was very interesting.
They kissed goodbye, threatening to get undressed all over again, and then made their separate ways home.
Moving, as their front doors opened, from the delirious high of secret sex to the shamefaced reality.
Lachlan was met with a stampede of children into his arms and Rosie’s accusation that his phone was off again. Pamela found Dave at the cooker, making stew, ready to fuss over her: ‘All this manual labour, you need to keep your strength up,’ he’d smiled.
Both Pamela and Lachlan had insisted on needing a shower before they’d come back down to supper and their spouses.
Chapter Twenty-five
IT WAS A full fortnight before Lachlan came back to the cottage. In that time, Pamela had worked fast, frenziedly scraping, sanding, papering, painting, thinking about him too much. Finding reasons to go in and out of the bedroom every day to look at the mattress and try to marry the reality of this room with the unreality of what had happened in it. She’d seen him now and then. Out in the fields as she’d driven past, once walking along the road with his sons, casually waving at her. She’d been alarmed at the near heart attack these sightings had caused her. But she left him alone, not wanting to make the first move, or any move at all. Maybe that was all there would be. Maybe she would have to be contented with that, hope that this almost constant, insatiable desire would eventually go away.
But then one evening, just as she’d finished cleaning up and was all set to go home, the door scraped open and Lachlan called out her name.
She wasn’t sure how to greet him. No way did she want him to assume he could turn up when he pleased, lock the door and have her.
‘Hi there.’ She crossed her arms and squared up to him.
‘Hey baby.’ Yuck, yuck, he would have to stop calling her that.‘I’d have come to see you before, but I’ve been very busy. Season in full swing.’
‘You don’t need to apologize to me – I haven’t been pining for you over here or anything like that.’
‘No?’ He was smiling, pretending to sound a little disappointed.‘It’s a great evening. D’you want to come out for a walk?’
‘A walk?’ No! She didn’t want a walk. She wanted him to drag her into that back bedroom again where they could strip off all their clothes and . . .
‘I’ve never taken you through the fields. Never shown you the farm properly. And I’d like to. C’mon, it’ll be fun.’
Little smiley smirk with that. What was he suggesting?
She switched off all the cottage lights, locked up, phoned Dave and told him she was taking John out for a drink, not liking at all how easily the lie came. Then she followed Lachlan out over the fields.
Velvety, luminous blue of a summer evening, the swoop of birds still busy in the sky, the last of the golden sunlight fading down over the higher ground ahead of them. But still warm enough for her to be walking in her vest top, him in his T-shirt.
They were climbing a long, sloping strawberry field, heading far away from the farmhouse with lights lit, Rosie waiting for her husband to come home. Pamela couldn’t quite brush the thought away.
The day’s picking over, the tractor and trailer were still in the field and stacked high with crates, boxes of plastic punnets. Pale pink and yellow picking baskets were piled into a heap beside, a few baskets visible in the rows where they’d been abandoned.
He was talking about varieties: which would be picked when, how he could now begin the crop in early May and continue right through till September. She wasn’t really listening, just wanted to know when he was going to stop talking and kiss her.
‘And over here, the polytunnels—’ he was walking towards tall, head-height, plastic tunnels which ran the length of the field.
She didn’t care, she really didn’t. Why did he want her to follow? Why was she out here while he talked about strawberry crops and pretended nothing had happened?
‘Look,’ she said, peering into the long, white interior of the tunnel where strawberry plants were growing rampantly on hip-high tables, ‘if this is your idea of foreplay, Lachlan, it really isn’t working for me.’
He was already inside, plucking little berries, storing them in his hands.
‘Whoa . . . thanks for the tip,’ he said and turned to face her with a smile which looked almost embarrassed.‘Come and try these—’ he held out his hand.‘They’re my best ones.’
She stepped into the tunnel and walked towards him, immediately aware of the clammy heat and a smell of strawberries so strong it was almost a flavour, undercut with the clean, green of their leaves.
Right up close to him, she watched him put a berry into his mouth and hoped she knew what he was going to do next.
He bit into it, then put his mouth against h
ers, passing the fruit to her. With a clumsy fumbling she found all the more exciting, he pulled off her vest, then her jeans but kept his clothes on. Damp, crushed berries were pushed into her bra and into her pants, where he moved them against her with his tongue. He lifted her up so she was sitting on the table in amongst the plants and rolled a strawberry with his fingers against her. Down there. Over and over, whispering into her ear: ‘Please can I come inside now. I’ll be very careful.’
‘Not yet,’ she whispered back.
He leaned against her, nudging into her, unfastening her bra, and she could feel him, swollen, pressing up underneath her.
‘Not yet . . .’ she said again.
His fingers melting against her, melting her down: ‘But you’re just about to come . . . Wouldn’t you like to come with me?’ he urged.
She moved to the edge of the table so she could slide him inside: ‘OK then,’ she pressed the words right against his ear.‘No need to be careful.’
His grip on her buttocks, burningly tight. Her first, then him gasping, pulling her into him, wrapping arms round her, squeezing her breathlessly hard until he came too. When he let go, she fell back against the table, feeling the squash of strawberries under her bare skin.
She spread her arms out into the plants. Sex without crying . . . she could do this.
Looking up at the blank white sky of plastic above her, she asked him: ‘What are we doing?’
‘Playing,’ was his answer.
‘Playing a very dangerous game,’ she replied.
‘No.’ He pulled her up and helped her back into her bra.‘Fun,’ he said, handing her the vest top.‘We’re only here for very quiet, secret fun.’
Pamela took Alex to the top of the hill above Linden Lee. Her friend complained all the way up about the steepness of the walk.
‘This is far too much like exercise, I’m not liking it one bit, you know,’ she whinged.‘When do we have the cigarette break?’
‘At the top,’ Pamela promised.‘The view is worth it, honestly.’
‘If I turn around from here, I can see the view. It’s not going to be any better from up there,’ was Alex’s response.
‘Oh come on. Think of the sense of achievement.’
‘Oh, arse to that.’ But Alex carried on walking. More like trudging.
Another perfect summer afternoon, just a handful of soft white clouds set against the blue sky.
When they reached the top of the hill, Alex threw herself down on the grass, flat on her back and scrabbled in her pockets for cigarettes.
‘Isn’t it a bit wet down there?’ Pamela asked.
Alex struck up a light and inhaled.‘Come on, get down here beside me, tell me what’s really going on out here in your rural idyll.’
‘Ha.’ Pamela did as instructed: lay down on the long, spiky grass beside her friend. Impossible not to stare at the sky from here, watch the clouds chasing past, melting, forming into different shapes.
‘That one looks like a man smoking a pipe – look at it.’ Pamela pointed.
Alex did, but decided: ‘No, more an elephant, really.’
‘Oh yes. And now . . . turning into a face with a huge chin. If you concentrate on clouds long enough you can make them evaporate. Apparently.’
‘Depending on how many drugs you take, probably.’
‘No!’ Pamela protested.‘I read about it . . . cloudbusting.’
‘OK, so you and Dave? Do you come out here of an evening and cloudbust?’
Pamela considered the question for a few moments then confided: ‘Dave and I don’t do much together of an evening any more.’
‘So the big plan . . . moving up here and sorting out your marriage. How is that going?’
‘I can’t say it’s going very well.’
‘Aha.’ It had not been hard to guess, Alex had noticed that Pamela didn’t have much to say to her husband, how she even seemed to avoid eye contact with him and now spent as much time at her work as possible.
‘Has it been like this for a while?’ she asked.
Pamela kept her gaze on the clouds, appearing calm and not nearly as upset about this as she had been in the past.
‘I’m not exactly helping,’ she answered finally.‘Not helping at all. I’m seeing someone else.’ She wasn’t sure if she wanted to confess this yet, invite an opinion on the slightly crazed turn her life was taking.‘Well . . . not really,’ she added quickly.‘Very casually.’
‘You are?’ Alex couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
‘Yeah. Nothing serious. Just sex,’ Pamela said, trying to sound as offhand as she could.‘Not very nice of me, though.’
Alex leaned on an elbow and looked at her in shock.
‘Just sex? What kind of sex? Wild sex?’ she asked.
Pamela smiled.
‘Not very nice of you at all,’ Alex agreed.‘How did this happen?’
And so Pamela told her, realizing as she spoke how much she wanted to talk about Lachlan. Enthuse, unburden herself about this man who was taking up almost all her thoughts, but until now had remained a complete secret. It was a relief to confess, to confide.
‘My God,’ was Alex’s verdict when the story had unfolded.‘You have a secret lover . . . I can’t believe it. Can’t believe it! You!’
‘Why not me?’ Pamela wanted to know.
‘You’re too nice,’ Alex told her.
‘Am not.’
‘Are so.’
‘I don’t think sleeping with someone twice makes them your secret lover though, does it?’
‘Yes, I think you’ll find it does.’ Alex lit a second cigarette and after a considered inhalation told Pamela: ‘Well, first of all . . . I’m bloody jealous. I’ll tell you that for free. I’m the single person here, I’m the one who should be having secret lovers and wild sex. You seem to have forgotten a minor detail: you are still married and I think you’ll find that secret lovers are against the rules – will in fact cause all kinds of nasty problems.’
‘Secret lover is married too. So no-one’s going to find out. It’s our secret. It’ll be fine,’ Pamela argued.
‘Someone always finds out,’ Alex warned her.‘And I never knew of any extra-marital affair which ended in “fine”. They just don’t. They end in mess, shouting, chaos, tears . . . everybody hurt. Nothing fine about it at all.’
‘Oh, don’t be so disapproving.’
‘But you are eating between meals,’ Alex insisted.‘You’re hoovering up the chocolates when it’s just about dinnertime and I know it’s delicious but it’s not good for you and someone needs to be boring and point this out.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Pamela’s smile fading now.
‘If you have man trouble, another man is hardly ever the answer. And I’m saying that based on years of experience. What about Dave?’ Alex asked.‘Doesn’t he deserve a bit better than this. If your marriage isn’t working, shouldn’t you be talking to him about it?’
‘That’s all very easy to say . . . talk to him about it. You know what a state we were in back in London, screaming at each other all the time. Here, at least we’ve stopped rowing.’
‘And started shagging someone else,’ Alex cut across her.‘That’s not better for him, is it?’
‘You know, I didn’t exactly expect you to be the high priestess of long-term love.’ The telling off starting to rankle with Pamela.
‘Me . . . no,’ Alex had to admit.‘But I really like Dave and I’m willing to bet the entire contents of my van that he loves you.’
‘Hmmm . . . And why am I even telling you all this when I know next to nothing about your love life?’ was Pamela’s rather flippant reply.
‘There’s no big mystery—’ Alex waved a hand about, understanding clearly that she was being asked to back off.‘People came, people went. Some were very important to me, some weren’t. There hasn’t been anyone important for a while. But I don’t feel worried about that. Something will crop up. Always does. I’m sligh
tly in love with my vegetable delivery man,’ she said with a smile.‘I was so inspired by Dave’s vegetable lecture, I signed up for this weekly scheme and every Tuesday afternoon, Andrew is delivered to my door, fresh carrots in his arms – and he wears shorts! All year round, apparently. We could do with more of that. More men in shorts. But, you know.’ She looked over at Pamela, more serious now.‘I sometimes think I should just have stayed with my first love. I mean, if you’re two highly developed individuals you could go through all the experiences with one person, all the different relationship stages and phases, instead of having to move on to other people to experience them. It would be so much simpler.’
‘But maybe much more boring,’ Pamela added.
‘Well, I don’t know. When you get stuck in a rut with someone, you’re probably both going though the motions for each other, when really both of you want to change, and you probably just should. But it doesn’t always have to be about splitting up. You could move on to another phase together.’
‘I thought you didn’t want a significant other?’ Pamela asked now.
‘Me? No.’ Alex stubbed out her cigarette.‘But I’m always very sad when people mess up their big, important relationships.’
‘Ah.’ Pamela’s head seemed to droop.
‘What do you want to do?’ Alex asked her.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Maybe you have to think about that instead of getting your brains blown out by secret lover.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Why don’t you open a shop?’ Alex said after a while.
‘A shop!’ This was a surprise.‘What would I want a shop for?’
‘You know, a farm shop. Dave’s veg and his berries when they get started and many lovely, glamorous things which you and I could scour the countryside to find.’
‘You think you can solve my marriage problems with a shop?’ Pamela wasn’t sure whether to laugh or get angry.
‘No, I’m just pointing to a gaping hole in the market. I mean where do the good people of Upper-Much-Shitey-Town . . .’
‘Alex!’
‘Or whatever it’s called . . . Where do they go when they want lovely things? An unusual lamp, an embroidered bag, a hand-knitted baby’s cardigan . . .’