Cally undid the three buckles, smoothed the duvet and plumped the pillows, and when all was pristine, she sat on the edge and patted the bed next to her.
‘Come here and kiss me,’ she said.
I sat down next to her, a parody of primness, my hands cupped on my legs. She kissed me. It was rather nice. With our lips, we pecked very slowly, very languorously, at each other, our knees tight together, but our hungry hands still tucked tidily away. Here, now, it all seems like the most unbelievable luxury. A whole afternoon, a whole night, to make love, to roam free about each other’s bodies, and not a thing in the world to stop us. And not befuddled with drink and not heavy from food and with none of that reckless urgency that comes from having not enough time and not enough patience.
So I took my time. On that afternoon, I decided, I would submit to being led wherever Cally wanted to take me. Even from the first, I think that she knew exactly where she wanted to go and was intent on showing me all of the sights along the way.
‘May I?’ She tugged at my jumper. It was an old white Aran that my grandmother had knitted for me after I’d left school. It was not as clean as it had once been, but each wine stain, each scuff mark was a story of my life.
I stretched up and she pulled the jumper over my head.
‘That’s better.’ With deft fingers, she started unbuttoning my shirt. Her eyes were focused on my torso and her fingers strayed onto my dusting of chest hair.
‘You’re not asking permission?’ I said.
She looked up and I smiled at her.
‘I should have, you’re right,’ she said. ‘I was just…’
Her eyes strayed back to my bare chest. She kissed my shoulder blade as she eased the shirt off my back.
‘I was mesmerised,’ she said.
She kissed my shoulders and her kisses moved from my neck to my lips and then back to my heart.
‘You’re mesmerising me,’ I said. I could not take my eyes off her lips against my naked skin. ‘And I, can I help you—’
She stayed my wandering hands. ‘No, Kim,’ she said. ‘Leave me be. I’m enjoying myself. It’s been a long time.’
So I submitted.
The window was slightly open. I could see the sea and hear the waves rumbling into the shore; who needs music when you have the sounds of the ocean?
My boots were untied and taken off and my socks followed, and Cally kissed my toes, every one of them. ‘I like your smell,’ she said.
She worked her fingers at my belt, and old brown belt with a thick brass buckle that had been given to me by my father.
She stroked my jeans and raised a coquettish eyebrow. ‘May I?’ she said.
‘Would you?’
One by one, she popped the rivets on my trousers, and then as I straightened my legs, she took the trousers by the hem and pulled them off in one dextrous flick.
Standing beside the bed, she looked down at me. My body wasn’t buffed or ripped and I certainly never worked out, but as I remember it, when Cally looked at me, I think she liked what she saw.
‘I think I’ll leave it at that for the moment,’ she said. ‘I’m going to join you.’
And as she started to take off her top, she was singing very softly. I’d heard the English variation of the song before, but this was the first time that I had heard Charles Trenet’s original French version of ‘La Mer’. She knew every word of it; I could not take my eyes off her. She stood just a few feet in front of me and took off her fleece before letting it fall to the floor. She kicked off her espadrilles, and then pulled off her trousers. I don’t know how she did it, but she managed to make it all look so unbelievably sexy. Firm, solid thighs, a rider’s thighs, well-muscled and used to hard work. She was wearing simple white cotton knickers. I loved that. I longed to stretch out and touch her, and to taste her skin, but I knew that in this first dance, Cally had the lead.
She had on a white cotton shirt and was still singing in French as she unbuttoned it. She unbuttoned the cuffs and then she stepped out of her shirt and towards me. I marvelled. She was quite unlike any of my other lovers. In Cally, there was no rake-thin flesh, no obsession with diet and drink and no absurd quest for the Perfect Size Zero like there is today. Her hips rolled out from underneath the elastic of her knickers, and as for her breasts, they positively strained against the confines of her bra. She was sexy as hell.
She stretched behind her, undid the clasps, and her white bra fell to the floor.
‘How am I doing so far?’ she said.
‘Pretty well.’
‘Can I join you?’
‘I’d like that.’ I stretched a hand up to her. ‘I’d like that very much.’
I lay back on the bed and Cally lay on top off me, her warm skin pressed hard against mine. She kissed me, our legs locked with each other and for a moment we writhed.
We kissed again and she broke off and she smiled at me. ‘I don’t know about you,’ she said, ‘and this may sound a bit previous. But I’m…’ She kissed me again. ‘I’m very excited at the prospect of making love with you.’
‘Are you now?’
‘Very,’ she said. ‘But, actually there is one thing: the petit mort, if you don’t mind me calling it that.’
‘I don’t mind you talking about my little death.’
‘The other words for it are all so coarse.’
‘I’ve never thought about it like that, but you’re probably right—’
‘Will you humour me?’ she said.
‘How.’
‘When it comes to your petit mort, you must first have my permission. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Good.’ She clapped her hands. ‘But let me tell you now, Kim, that that permission will not be given lightly.’
‘But there is going to be some tit for tat isn’t there?’ I asked. ‘You’re also going to be asking for my permission?’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘Excellent.’
As we kissed, our hands roamed free about each other’s skin. For a moment her fingers strayed teasingly beneath my boxers. There was something incredibly erotic about the thin strips of cotton that still divided us.
Slowly our lips strayed from mouths to necks and chests and belly buttons and knees, with lingering tongues that promised so much yet never quite touched.
I don’t know how it would have turned out if I had had my way that afternoon, but I think that after perhaps an hour or so of licking and stroking and teasing, then I might have suggested that it was time for the coup de grace. But not Cally. Her kisses had wandered all about my body and she had come back up for air, while I was burning with desire, like a tinder-dry forest that needs but one single spark to start an inferno.
‘Fancy a beer?’ she said.
It was not remotely what I’d expected to hear, but I submitted.
‘I’d love a beer,’ I said.
I watched as she sashayed over to the icebox by the sink, her gorgeous rolling hips lilting from side to side. She stooped deliciously and retrieved a single bottle of beer. She opened it, brought it back, and then straddled me as she took a deep sip from the bottle. She leant forward, her full breasts trailing lightly on my chest, and kissed me, the beer trickling from her mouth into mine.
What a way to drink an entire bottle of beer. I was as putty in her hands.
I smelled something in her hair. It was like pine resin in a verdant Spanish forest on a hot summer’s day.
‘Is that turps in your hair?’ I asked.
She took a lock of hair and sniffed. ‘It’s like artist’s turpentine,’ she said. ‘It’s Damask resin, a varnish. It’s a bit more gummy, like a globule of tree sap.’
‘A globule of tree sap?’ I echoed. ‘That’s a nice turn of phrase. And what other smells do you have about you?’
‘Let me see,’ she said. And she started to sniff at her hands and her forearms. ‘There’s the white spirit, rather acrid, chemical, gets you right at the back of the throat.’
>
‘For cleaning your brushes?’
She nodded before sniffing her wrist, and when she could find nothing new there, she stretched to the floor and picked up her Musto. She put one of the sleeves to her nose and inhaled.
‘Ah!’ she breathed and she inhaled again. ‘Musty and sweet. Linseed. Useful for diluting the paint mix.’
She thrust the sleeve under my nose and the smell brought back memories of summer holidays in the Cotswolds and fields of grey-blue pastel flowers. ‘Cricket bats,’ I said.
She’d found another smell on the collar of her fleece. ‘And beeswax.’
‘Like honey mixed with turps.’ I’d never dreamed that a single item of clothing could have held such a wealth of smells. ‘What’s that for?’
‘Makes the paint more opaque. Gives it a soapy texture.’
I had the front of her Musto to my nose now and was picking up the smells of the paints themselves. I’d thought that they would smell the same, but each had its own peculiar aroma. The creamy sweet smell of titanium white and the more acidic smell of Indian yellow, which was the colour of bright turmeric.
Towards the zipper, where she’d leaned against the easel, I came across a rich vein of umbers. ‘I like these.’
She took the Musto back and held it to her face. She knew the oils without even having to open her eyes. ‘Burnt sienna,’ she said. ‘Raw umber. Oh, and that’s burnt umber, redder, chocolatey.’
She thrust the fleece back under my nose. ‘By the zipper. It’s like damp undergrowth.’
‘Mulchy wood chips.’
Cally looked at me, arch. ‘All this talk of paint. It reminds me that…’ She kissed me. ‘We need some oil.’
She broke off to start nosing through a cupboard by the sink. ‘Olive oil?’ she asked. ‘Sesame oil? That might be nice. White wine vinegar? Red wine vinegar? Or even malt vinegar?’
She squatted down and I gazed at those solid, firm thighs. She was rooting through a cupboard under the sink. ‘Never seen this before,’ she said, holding up what looked like a small brown medicine bottle. ‘It must be Fiona’s.’ She squinted at the stained label. ‘Coconut oil! Perfect!’
She asked me to lie on my front and, well trained and obedient, I submitted. I could hear her rubbing the coconut oil into her hands and then Cally’s strong fingers began working at my neck and my shoulders and down the spine of my back.
‘It might be easier if I helped you off with your boxers,’ she said.
‘I thought you’d never ask.’ I lifted up and my boxers were eased down my legs. Her hands lingered for a moment at the bottom of my spine before moving to my legs and the backs of my knees. She was humming to herself, very happy with her work.
‘And turn over,’ she said.
I turned over. She had taken off her knickers and she was naked and she was lovely.
She was sitting astride my legs. We both admired each other, eyes dwelling on supple skin and curves that dimpled.
She leant forward and took a pinch of my stomach between thumb and forefinger. ‘What it is to be young,’ she said.
I cupped my hand round her waist. ‘What it is to be beautiful.’
She laughed and busied herself with more coconut oil. ‘You’re a charmer.’
‘Kiss me.’
Cally looked at me in query. ‘I thought I was in charge.’
‘So you are.’
And this time, with the oil and with her lips she led me to the very brink. But not quite over the edge. I was only just coming to appreciate what a skilful practitioner she was in the art of love.
She gazed at me.
‘I like that look of hunger in your eyes,’ she said.
‘I’m hungry.’ I stroked her breast. I wanted her.
‘Oh you’re hungry?’ she said in mock surprise. ‘Well, let me make you a sandwich! I have ham. I have pickles. I have tomatoes and lettuce and mayonnaise and several pots of mustard!’
I groaned and I smiled. I don’t know how long we’d been in the beach hut, but it must have been several hours.
But my darling Cally knew what all women know: when a man is hot with desire, you can lead him any which way you please. You can do with him what you will. He is a rubber band that you can wind around your fingers and knot and stretch and play with to your heart’s content. It is an extraordinary power, and a woman knows it. But once a man is spent, once that rubber band has snapped, that power dissipates in a moment. We men are like balloons. You can blow the balloon up with all your might, and you can let the air out, and you can keep on blowing until the very fabric of the balloon is quivering with tension and you can let the air out again. And, if you have a mind for it and if you have the patience, you can string it out for hours on end. But when, finally, you’ve had the explosion and the hot air and all the noise, as we all know, the game is over.
Cally was rummaging by the sink. I watched her.
‘I can feel your eyes on me,’ she said.
‘I can’t look at anything else.’
She came back to the bed with a tray and on it were two rolls, some home-cooked ham, tomatoes, lettuce and, just as she’d said, a selection of pickles and mustards. She sat cross-legged at the end of the bed with the tray in front of her and would look at me occasionally as she made me a ham sandwich.
‘What do you want on it?’
‘I want everything.’
‘I’ll bet you do.’
Cally’s strong thumbs peeled the roll open, and then with a fine French blade she smeared on butter and pickled walnut and mustard and mayonnaise, and topped it off with two thick slices of ham.
She passed me the roll on a plate. ‘Eat,’ she said. I waited until she had made her own roll.
I was suddenly very hungry. We ate in silence, looking at each other, her feet straying up towards me to stroke my knee. It was one of those sandwiches which needed two hands to keep it all under control, and even then the mustard still dripped onto my chest. She watched it, her roll suddenly forgotten.
‘I like that look of hunger in your eyes,’ I said, echoing her words back at her.
She nodded at me. ‘Very good,’ she said. ‘I am hungry.’
She took another small bite from her roll, but she was now watching my every move. I sensed a turning of the tide. Because although I was not spent, I was quite deliriously content, with food in my belly and the promise of all that was yet to come. Cally watched as I swallowed down the last of the roll. I wiped my lips with my fingers. She put her half-eaten roll onto the tray, put the tray onto the floor, and then she pounced. She was a very strong woman. She was on top of me and she was licking the mustard off my chest.
And so it started all over again, with the teasing and the dinking, only this time, for the first time, it was I who took Cally to the very brink.
‘Please?’ she said.
‘Are you begging me?’
‘I might be.’
Our eyes were but a few inches apart. She had this lazy smile on her face.
‘I’m begging you,’ she said. ‘Please, Kim.’
‘Very well.’
And hand in hand, over the edge of the abyss we went, freefalling through the air to our little deaths as the sea rushed up to meet us. And when we were done, and when all that we were left with was that calm sweep of the sea, we lay on our sides and cupped each other in our arms.
Cally stroked my nose, her forefinger running along the bridge of my snub. ‘That was something.’
‘That’s an understatement.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘That was quite something.’
‘That was quite exceptional.’
She kissed me, moistly, lovingly, on the mouth. ‘And I hope it will be the first of many other somethings.’
I looked at her and then I stared out of the window. It was late afternoon by now, and our fire in the dunes was long burned out and our food long ago eaten by Goldilocks and the bears. I smiled to myself in perfect ecstasy. This woman, this calm, confident bea
uty, she wanted more of me; and I most definitely wanted more of her.
CHAPTER 11
We spent the night together in her beach hut, with candles on the shelves and the breeze blowing in through the window. We made love again, though this time without quite so much time taxiing down the runway, and once again we were airborne and laughing and gazing at each other with such utter adoration.
What a splendid thing it is to be in love, when the slate is wiped clean and when all those past hurts and shattered dreams are forgotten in an instant.
We ate rolls and ham, and when the ham was finished, she opened up a tin of sardines, eating them whole and the olive oil dripping down her chest and I licked off every drop of it. I don’t know whether it was our love making or Cally herself, but I was suddenly ravenous. I ate a tin of corned beef with my bare fingers, dipping it into one of the chutneys and then tearing off great chunks with my teeth. It was not elegant, far from it, but it was in keeping with the general earthy mood of the evening.
And when we’d drunk the beer, we started on the red wine, and had drunk nearly two bottles of it before we made drowsy love for a third time, and yet again, she showed me sights that I had never seen and things that I had heard tale of, but had hitherto believed were the most fantastical fictions.
What I remember about it was that it was all so very good natured. There was no shyness, no awkwardness, no desperation to please; right from the first, it felt in the natural order of things to be there lying in bed with Cally beneath me. And how refreshing it was to find a woman whose libido matched my own. Cally revelled in sex for its own sake. Never once did she use sex as a carrot and as a reward for good behaviour, and nor, indeed, did she ever withdraw her sexual favours on account of behaviour unbecoming. Rather, sex was there to be enjoyed, savoured, and in our time together, we gorged ourselves upon each other until we were sated to the last drop.
The Woman Who Knew What She Wanted Page 15