One-man Woman

by Jessica Ayre

  Derek braked to a halt in front of a white wall topped with wrought iron fencing. 'We'll stop here.'

  Jennie could make out a small sign on the side of the wall announcing a hotel.

  'For the night?' she queried.

  He looked down on her. 'Yes,' he answered harshly. 'But don't worry, you'll have your own room.' His voice sounded bored.

  'I didn't expect anything else,' she replied. 'But you do realise I haven't penny or passport on me?'

  He shrugged, 'Greater problems have been surmounted.'

  He took her bag out of the car and she noticed that he had his own smaller one with him. Had it all been planned? Jennie was puzzled. She followed him into the small hotel, its tiled floors colourful with Arabic patterns and sparkling with cleanliness. While he fulfilled reception formalities, she glanced round the immaculate lobby. He returned quickly and handed her a key.

  'I'm going to have dinner on the terrace in a little while. You can join me if you like.'

  Jennie shook her head, which had begun to throb again.

  'As you wish.'

  They followed a suited man up a flight of stairs and along a corridor. Derek opened the door of a room, deposited her bag and ushered her in.

  'I'll be next door, if you want me,' he said, his voice distant as he strode away.

  Jennie switched on a bedside lamp and looked cursorily around the room before she threw herself down on the wide bed. Derek's behaviour was a mystery. Why bring her here when he was obviously totally uninterested in her presence? She thought of his coldness, his distraction and uncustomary rudeness. She was now totally dependent on him, quite oblivious of her whereabouts and penniless to boot. A knot of reaction mixed with regret formed in her stomach. That very morning he had looked on her with such tenderness that she had almost thought… but no, she refused to pursue that track.

  She got up and looked in her bag to see if it held a nightdress. It did, and she wondered briefly if Derek had packed for her. She took off her clothes slowly, noticed a door and opened it to find a small tidy bathroom. She ran a bath and lay down in its soothing depths, trying to still the beating in her head. When the hot water had cooled perceptibly around her, she got up, towelled herself dry and slipped into the pale cotton nightdress. Its folds fell loosely round her as she walked towards the window of the small room. Next to it she noticed a glass door which led out on to a tiny terrace. She opened it and stepped out. The air was chill and Jennie thought she detected a scent of pines. She breathed in the sharp fragrance deeply and then, feeling cold, went back to the bed and cuddled in its softness. Sleep seemed far away and she simply reclined there, unable to stop the many images of the last few days from pervading her mind. Foremost among them was one of Max and Derek sitting side by side in the cafe. She smiled to herself. If nothing else, Derek had certainly cured her of Max.

  A knock at the door roused her from her thoughts.

  'Come in!' she called.

  The door opened on to a white-shirted waiter carrying a silver tray. Behind him came Derek.

  'I thought you might like a little food, after all,' he said.

  Jennie sat up. The smell of the food made her realise she was very hungry. 'Oh, yes, please!'

  Derek grinned. 'I'm glad to see the stint in hospital hasn't ruined your appetite.' He poured her a glass of wine. 'Drink this, it will do you good.' He looked at her lazily. 'Mind if I keep you company for a while?'

  Jennie gestured towards the chair by her bedside. She could feel his eyes on her as she focussed her attention on the tray in front of her.

  'Does your head still hurt?' he asked gently.

  'A little,' she conceded, meeting his eyes.

  His face was level with hers now and she noticed the dark shadows under his eyes, the tautness of his mouth. Her eyes travelled downwards to his tensed shoulders and her heart went out to him in all his pent-up masculinity.

  'You look worse than I do,' she said softly.

  'It's been a rough day, with one thing and another,' he took a large sip from his wine glass, 'but I'm glad that that Max creature has left you capable of noticing.'

  Jennie winced at his words and at the sight of the sardonic gleam in his eyes.

  He brought out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. 'May I?'

  She nodded.

  He lit up taking a long slow puff and breathing the smoke out thickly.

  'Did I snap at you before?'

  Jennie found herself giggling. 'Yes, you certainly did.'

  'I guess I should apologise,' he stubbed out his cigarette. 'I was in a foul temper. And that Max of yours didn't help. I'm a little more human now.' He suddenly smiled the golden intimate smile which sent tremors through her.

  'I'll let you sleep now. See you in the morning.' He blew her a kiss and left the room.

  Jennie turned over on her side, her heart full of unexpressed emotion. How she would have loved to run her fingers through his hair, smooth that tensed brow. But no, she stopped the flood of emotions which suddenly filled her. Better to keep a distance, she reminded herself, and then smiled. A friendly distance.

  No sooner had Jennie opened her eyes that next morning than a knock sounded on the door, followed by the appearance of a young girl bearing a breakfast tray. She deposited it on the small table, flashed Jennie a smile and disappeared. Shafts of sunlight streaming through the wooden shutters dispelled Jennie's semi-consciousness and reminded her of where she was. She rubbed her eyes, watched the strips of gold playing over the room and stretched languidly before rising to examine the breakfast tray. She drank some coffee, nibbled at the rolls,- then lazily went to run a bath.

  Derek's voice penetrated her reverie as she lay in the foaming water.

  'Are you ready?'

  'Give me fifteen minutes!' she called back, and rose to dress.

  As she looked in the small dressing-table mirror, she tried to work out what day of the week it was. Time, of which she was usually so aware, seemed to evade her in the Sicilian sun. Now she had lost track again. Was it Saturday or Sunday? She shrugged. She was at Derek's mercy whatever the case. Dark pockets of blue circled her eyes and made them stand out strangely in her brown face. She donned her sunglasses, threw her few possessions into the bag and shut the door of the room quietly behind her.

  Derek was waiting in the flower-strewn front garden. His long legs stretched in front of him, he was leaning against a railing and seemed to be lost in thought, unaware of her until she was upon him. Even then it seemed to take him some time to remember who she was. It made her angry.

  'Hello,' he said at last. 'Sleep well?'

  'Like a lost soul.'

  He arched an eyebrow. 'Well, we're stealing a holiday today, so that should raise your spirits.'

  'Do I have a choice, or do I simply do as I'm told?'

  His eyes flickered over her. 'Do as you're told, woman,' he growled, his voice contradicting the sudden merriment in his face. She bowed low. 'After you, oh, master.'

  Derek flung their bags into the car and climbed in, stretching over to open Jennie's door.

  He watched her swing into the seat and then bent towards her to remove her sunglasses. 'Let me look at you properly.' He gazed critically at her face. 'Hmm, not too bad for the victim of a Sicilian mugging,' he said reflectively.

  'I'm thrilled to have your approval, kind master,' she glared at him.

  A devilish twinkle came into his eyes. 'Come here, you little wretch!' He pulled her towards him, his grip tightening on her wrist as she resisted his pressure. Jennie struggled and then let him have his way, lying impassive in his embrace as he planted a savage kiss on her lips. He let her go, his eyes amused.

  'The return of Diana. Book One, Chapter Three: Feeling insulted by her partner's inattention, haunted by images of the past, our young heroine…'

  Jennie raised a hand to fling a slap at his face, but he caught her wrist in mid-air. 'Uh-uh, no more of that, remember? Or I may just respond in kind?'

 
She looked at him aghast.

  Derek chuckled, 'No, in fact it's not my way. I'd prefer to leave you stranded—penniless, passportless—on some lonely mountain top. Now that would be my idea of just punishment for ungrateful behaviour.'

  Jennie reached for the car door. 'You might as well just leave me right here. I'm quite capable of making do.'

  He pulled her back on the seat and looked at her sardonically.

  'Of that I'm only too well aware… But since I'd rather not have to extricate you from any more nastiness, why don't you just stay here and listen to orders.'

  'You pompous, patronising, arrogant…' Jennie spluttered.

  He passed a long finger sensuously down her cheek. 'I know, I know—pompous, patronising, impossible bastard.' His eyes gleamed with mirth, but his voice was kind now. 'I'm joking, Jennie. Why don't you just settle back and save your energy? It's going to be a scorcher of a day.' He started the car and pulled away from the whitewashed hotel.

  Jennie kept her eyes straight ahead of her, only daring to glance at him once her face was well under control. The sunlight illuminated the burnished gold of his hair, his eyes were intent now on the road. He seemed to be encased in a magnetic charge, so strong that Jennie found herself putting out a hand to touch his shoulder. It made her skin tingle and she drew away.

  He glanced at her briefly and took her hand, holding it firmly in his.

  'Better now?'

  She nodded.

  'I'm taking you to one of my favourite places, so keep your eyes open to the present, please.'

  Jennie was suddenly aware of the peacock blue sky above them, the purple and pink flower-strewn hills, the town carved like stone out of the mountain top receding in the distance. She leaned back in the seat and took a deep breath.

  The road wound before them, shimmering in the heat, and as the sun rose higher in the sky, a pale violet haze seemed to swim over everything. Soon, almost as if they had crossed an invisible line, the landscape began to change. Wild flowers gave way to golden wheatfields iridescent in the sun. The air took on a dusty dryness as if it were filled with wisps of straw. In a little valley, where Jennie thought she made out the strange shape of a carob tree, Derek pulled up at a petrol station.

  'Drink?' he offered.

  'Yes, please.' Jennie felt a midsummer thirst parching her tongue.

  They walked to a small bar at the side of the station and he ordered two tall glasses of a white icy liquid. Jennie sipped in a sugary sweetness, and grimaced.

  'See if you can guess what it is.'

  She shook her head. 'Milk, perhaps honey?'

  He laughed, 'And almond juice.'

  She drained her glass and the waiter brought another. Watching Derek, tall, broad-shouldered, leaning lazily against the counter, his face smiling as he exchanged words with the waiter, a strange dreaminess overtook her. Words of a biblical ring came to her mind, she had no idea from where. 'When the sons of gods came down to the daughters of men.' She wanted to pinch herself to see if she were awake, but the dreaminess persisted, followed them back to the car and stayed with her as they sped along the heat-glazed road. All at once she thought she could distinguish the sea, calm as the sky in the distance, but with a still deeper shade of blue. The land had taken on a limestone configuration and on the top of a bluff stood a small cottage—perched precariously as if it were about to drop over the side at any instant-bordered by bent pines.

  'So desolate!' Jennie breathed.

  Derek followed the line of her gaze. 'It's a little hamlet, appropriately named Chaos. Would you like to make a detour?'

  Jennie shook her head. 'I don't think so.'

  'It's the birthplace of the playwright Pirandello.'

  Jennie remembered the name vaguely. 'He must have had a bleak existence.'

  Derek chuckled wryly. 'Produced good work out of it. But look ahead. There's Agrigento—our destination.'

  Jennie thrilled at the name of this Athens of Sicily. The city lay in spirals before them, rising in limestone tiers like a dusty wedding cake baked in the noonday sun. But the wonders of the site were not matched by the city itself. It was quite unlike what Jennie had imagined, the streets busy with lorries, many of the buildings modern, and crammed with shops and cafes.

  Derek noticed her disappointment. 'Time goes on,' he remarked, 'but if you close your eyes you can still breathe in the Attic stillness. And just wait until after lunch. No disappointments then.'

  He parked on a crowded street and led her towards a restaurant. 'I'm afraid it's pasta or rice, unless you'd rather picnic?'

  'Oh yes!' Jennie's eyes lit up with excitement.

  She trailed after Derek as he went into numerous small shops, bought bread, salami, cheese, fruit, a bottle of wine, and then bustled her back into the car.

  'Now, young lady,' he said, winking at her, 'it's off to the vale of temples.' The car curled along a modern road carved between sweeps of delicately flowering almond trees and olive groves.

  Suddenly Jennie gasped. Before her were the columns of the antique temples striding out of the terra-cotta earth as if it had given birth to them with no help from man. Each twist in the valley seemed to display another, bathed in a calm untouched by time. Derek parked the car and they followed a path, fragrant with the scent of thyme and sage, until they came to the side of an ochre-coloured temple which seemed strangely both grand and intimate. Derek spread a blanket in tall grass replete with purple and yellow flowers. When Jennie offered to help, he waved her off in the direction of the temple.

  'Have a walk round Concord. Its harmonies may soothe' you,' he said playfully.

  Jennie climbed up steep slabs of steps and entered the columned interior. She drank in the mysterious stillness of the air, passed her hands over the sturdy columns, their surface rough with age and thousands of small shells. Everything—the sweep of the hills around her, the glimmer of the distant sea, the monumental columns—was enveloped in a dreamy haze which seemed as old as time itself. She walked slowly, intensely conscious and yet somehow dazed. The sensation of a hand on her shoulder did nothing to disturb her. She took the hand in hers and continued walking, slowly, rhythmically matching the steps at her side.

  'You look like some ancient nymph—no, perhaps the priestess of some antique cult.' His voice was low.

  She smiled from some distant sense of repose.

  Derek had stripped down into white shorts, his feet bare on the stony earth. His eyes above his bronzed cheeks were as blue as the sky. She looked at him as if he were some emanation of the temple itself, some mortal fathered by an impetuous antique god. Languorously, she trailed a slender hand down his shoulder, over the muscles of his golden chest. His eyes flickered and he stopped her hand, taking it in his to lead her to their grassy nook.

  He had spread the centre of their blanket with napkins on which the small heaps of tomatoes, olives and oranges shone with a blaze of colour.

  'A repast for the gods,' said Jennie, suddenly shy.

  'Or peasants,' he chuckled as he stooped down on the blanket. 'Have you got your bathing suit on? It's hot.'

  Jennie nodded and stripped down to the white of her bikini. Derek's eyes caressed her lazily.

  'These pagan sites have an overwhelming impact,' he warned sardonically as he pulled her down next to him. She flushed hotly and he laughed. 'They make one ravenously hungry!'

  He broke off a piece of the large round bread and handed it to her with some slices of salami and having poured some wine into two plastic cups, served himself. They bit into their food, the sun hot overhead, the cicadas filling the air with their cacophony of sound.

  'I can't imagine why Empedocles would have wanted to throw himself into Etna with all this around him,' Jennie remarked suddenly, the thought having come to her from nowhere.

  'Perhaps he got tired of thinking with his blood, of the eternal strife of opposites, the war of the sexes. That's how he saw the world. You know, he thought the most perfect form in nature was a tree,
because it combined both male and female.'

  Jennie looked at the man at her side, this stranger so close to her who seemed to know so many things.

  'But perhaps he just got tired of looking at the riot of colour which originally covered these temples. No terracotta warmth here when the temples were in use, but garish colour, painted statues. Poor Empedocles!' Derek laughed as he caught her looking at him strangely.

  'How do you know all that? About Empedocles, I mean.'

  He grinned, 'My parents made sure I went to university, ma'am. Read philosophy, I did. Does it show too much?'

  'Hardly ever.' Jennie caught his tone and laughed.

  'Good, because I'm really much more interested in you at the moment, though God knows why, given the way you usually respond to me.'

  Before Jennie could find a suitable reply, his arms were around her, his mouth strong and sweet with wine on hers. She opened to his kiss as if she had waited for it for an eternity, blissfully unaware of her previous resolve.

  'That's better,' Derek murmured in her ear, covering it with kisses that sent tremors leaping through her. She let her hands glide over his back, moaning softly as she felt the texture of his skin, satin-smooth over the taut muscles, and when he found her lips again, his kiss seemed to reach her very core. He cupped her breast and fondled its delicate curve, all the while leading her fingers along his chest. With a mind of their own, they strayed to the burnished mass of his hair, traced the outlines of his brows and rugged jaw. A low groan escaped him and his, firm thighs wound their way round her. As his hardness enveloped her, pressed against her, she could feel passion melting her limbs so that her blood became part of his, part of the earth, the sky, the sun, the small flowers, at her feet, the stridulation of the cicadas.

  'Damn!' he cursed suddenly and rolled off her, his breath uneven.