He suddenly whipped out, pulled her to her feet, and half-carried her towards the bed. ‘Lie down on your back,’ he ordered. He immediately slammed in, kneeling up above her. ‘Put your feet up on my shoulders – yes, right around my neck.’
She felt him lock in deeper, as she raised her legs, arched her pelvis up. He laughed, swept all her hair back. ‘You great lascivious thing, you, shimmying like that! You were a whore – that’s certain – probably at the court of Cleopatra.’
He could no longer talk, was thrusting far too furiously, then wrenching out again; sliding down her body, replacing his wild prick with his even wilder mouth. She remembered the sensations from the picnic, except this time they were fiercer still, and she was crying out, grimacing, about to come herself, when he forced back in once more, now pressing down on top of her, his thighs heavy on her own. He rode her for a moment, sweaty-hot and spurring, then abruptly changed position, again alternating prick with mouth. The two were very different – prick bludgeoning, mouth lapping – though she barely had a chance to delight in one, adjust to it, before he switched again, building up a crazy double rhythm, which skirled to a crescendo.
‘Come on, come on!’ he shouted. ‘Come with me, Tessa. Now!’
She hardly heard the words. She had turned into an animal, one which clawed and bellowed, one which shook its mane, reared up.
‘Oh, beautiful!’ he shouted. ‘Oh darling darling darling! You amazing greedy slut. I love you. I adore you. I just can’t tell you how miraculous it is when a woman comes at exactly the same time.’
She fell back underneath him, but he shifted one last time, lay with his chest between her thighs, hair tickling on her belly. She could feel his heart beating far too fast against her cunt. She had made it pound like that – overtime and frantically. The source of life and happiness had moved down between her legs; powered by Michael’s heartbeat, kindled by his prick. Her own heart drummed in time with his, echoing his words: he loved her, he adored her; she was ‘darling’ three times over – miraculous, in short.
She was also very sore, though the steady rhythmic pulsing helped distract her from the fact. But when he finally sat up, she groped down with her hand, felt the skin tender and inflamed. ‘You must need a special razor, Michael. Your bristles are so tough they’re more like little arrowheads.’
He kissed her as apology. ‘It must be twelve or fourteen hours since I last shaved. I suppose I should shave twice, but even once is such a bore. Hold on – I’ll fetch some ice.’
She tried to stop him, wanted him to stay there, joined to her by sweat and sperm, elation and exhaustion. But he’d already bounded to the kitchen, returning with a beer-mug filled with ice-cubes. He touched one against her cunt; the cold a stab of pain.
‘It’s already damn near melted in just two seconds flat! You’re such hot stuff, my darling, you can even thaw an ice-floe. Look! The second one’s a sliver.’
‘And dripping everywhere.’ She loved the way he didn’t care about the mess; loved that ‘darling’, and even more the ‘my’. And the icy water was exciting in itself, trickling across her labia, running down her thighs. He kept applying ice-cubes, no longer as a compress, but to titillate her now, slipping them right in and down, laughing when she winced.
‘What’s it like, for heaven’s sake? I’m not sure I could bear it on my prick. I envy you, you know. I’m sure women have more pleasure. They’ve got more bits and pieces.’
She bent her legs right up, to try to trap the ice, stop it sliding out. ‘You didn’t do too badly yourself.’
‘No, but once I’ve come, I’ve come. Whereas you could go on endlessly, I bet. In fact, why don’t I bet? If you come again, I’ll buy you dinner out.’
‘I’m too flaked for dinner out.’
‘Well, breakfast out tomorrow, then.’
She half-sat up. ‘D’you mean it?’
‘Of course I do. I mean everything I say.’
She reached down to still his hand, needed a brief respite to take in what he’d said. Breakfast out would mean she’d stay the night with him, share his bed, his flat. She needn’t wait till August; could watch him sleep, watch him clean his teeth, even watch the battle of the bristles.
‘Well?’ he asked, impatient.
‘You’re on,’ she said, moving the ice a fraction, so it was perfectly placed to help her win the bet, then smiling, lying back.
Chapter Seven
Tessa squinted at the alarm clock for the hundredth time since midnight. Still only three o’ clock. The illuminated hands looked ill – a jaundiced sickly green – as if they’d caught some deadly virus, which had slowed them down, made them creep and hobble. She wished she could slow down herself, but she had turned into a fairground – roller-coasters swooping through her stomach, dodgem cars colliding in her head, music blaring out, competing with the snap of rifles, the slam of coconuts; coloured lights flashing on and off.
‘Roll up! Roll up!’ the gypsies yelled. ‘Try your luck. Win a prize.’
She’d won every prize there was, though even the trophies refused to sit inertly on the shelf, but kept glittering and shimmering, spinning with the room. She wasn’t pissed – far from it – or only on weak tea and Michael Michael Michael Michael Michael. She couldn’t say his name enough, longed to shout it from the tallest tower in England; tell the breathless world that he was all-star, superfabulous, alpha-double-plus. If only he’d wake up. It was agony to keep so still, when she itched to jig around the room, and her voice was tripping over itself, wanting to babble and effuse, pour out a Niagara Falls of words. Strange how quiet he was. She had imagined him a restless sleeper, fidgety and tossing, maybe even shouting out in some dark dramatic nightmare. But he’d barely moved a muscle, and his breathing was so faint she kept fearing he was dead. Everything was tranquil, save for her – the hushed garden, sleepy street, dark and silent flat. The last few nights she had also lain awake, sleepless from sheer misery because Michael hadn’t phoned. Now she was jangled by sheer joy because he’d rung every bell she had.
She stroked the lumpy duvet, which was privileged to spend each night caressing his naked body. She worshipped all his things – loved his twisted toothpaste-tube, which had lost its cap and was leaking from the middle; his Family Deodorant, ‘20% free’; his moulting toothbrush and grubby smelly towels. She’d had a bath before she went to bed. The water had been tepid, the bathroom cold and draughty, but she was Cleopatra, immersed in torrid asses’ milk.
She ran a hand across her breasts, then down between her thighs. She was no longer overweight, but voluptuous, majestic. She and Michael belonged together because both of them were big – big in appetite, ambition, achievement, expectation. They had joined all the famous lovers of literature and history; the new Lancelot and Guinevere, Hero and Leander. She kept thinking about Heloïse, wishing she was in the room, so they could laugh and talk together, compare their sensational men. Did Abelard come like Michael did, with those explosive trumpeting cries; had he kissed his mistress in forbidden secret places; sucked ice-cubes from her cunt? No, they’d hardly have ice-cubes in 1117 – though she felt so close to Heloïse, the centuries had rolled back, and she’d become her, in a sense, standing in that Paris house with her uncle, Canon Fulbert, being introduced to the dazzling scholar Abelard. He was thirty-five, she only seventeen – a far more daunting age-gap than between her and dazzling Michael.
But both she and avid Heloïse were very willing pupils. She loved that section of the Historia Calamitatum, where Abelard described the lessons as ‘interspersed with more words of love than words of philosophy; more kisses than construed sentences’. And the next few lines had always turned her on. She could recall them almost word for word: ‘Sometimes, to allay suspicion, I went so far as to strike her – not in anger, but in love; not in hate, but from affection. The blows were sweeter than the sweetest of all perfumes.’ She’d recite the passage to Michael in the morning, and perhaps he’d copy Abelard, beat her w
ith sweet blows.
It was obvious from the Letters that Abelard and Heloïse had been pretty phenomenal lovers – totally abandoned, willing to try anything. Were lots of people like that, or did the so-called average couple settle for much less, trot along contentedly with ‘Rob-and-Gavin’ sex? And if the first was true, then why was life so drab? Shouldn’t people be hosanna-ing, whooping in the streets, grinning stupidly all day; bits of their bare bodies flying off, exploding, from the violence of their comes? Take the dons at Balliol. Nothing seemed to turn them on, save finding a long-lost manuscript, or meeting a fellow scholar who was the world authority on Beowulf, or had an interesting new viewpoint on a minor skirmish in the Wars of the Roses. What about their skirmishes in bed?
She’d been swapping beds all night – from Headington to Newcastle, then on to Scotland and the Highlands, travelling several thousand miles in Michael’s zizzy car, while the clock-hands scarcely crawled. They’d been hurtling along motorways, hair streaming in the wind; switchbacking on mountain passes; overtaking all the timid Sunday drivers, breaking every speed limit. And she’d done so much parachuting, she was already an instructor, helping Michael open up the ’chute as they jumped hand in hand from Everest, harnessed front to back. They had made love as they floated down, forced into extraordinary new positions, and having to be quick – which was also new, and wonderful.
She rolled over on her side, her body nudging Michael’s. How could she wait till August, when just one night was lasting a millennium? Perhaps they could go sooner, if only for a weekend. He could show her round the hospital, let her see the flat. His car should eat the miles up. They might do Headington to Newcastle in four hours, even less.
‘Michael,’ she whispered; had to wake him up.
‘Mm?’
‘Are you asleep?’
‘I was.’
‘I thought I heard you say something.’
‘Well, I was talking in my sleep then.’ He stretched and yawned, shook himself, sat up. ‘What in God’s name did I give away? I hope it wasn’t anything incriminating.’
‘You said I was the most amazing bloody woman you’d ever met in all your life.’
‘Liar!’
‘So it isn’t true?’
‘Kiss me and I’ll tell you.’
‘Well?’
‘That didn’t count. I need a longer kiss.’
‘Only if you shave.’
‘No fear! It’s still pitch-dark. I’ll shave at seven, and not a jot before.’
‘Seven? Why so early?’
‘I told you. I’m on duty.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’ She tried to quash a twinge of apprehension. What about their breakfast out? She’d had it at least twenty times in fantasy – scrambled eggs with caviar at some posh upmarket hotel; a picnic breakfast lying on her back, with Michael filling both her mouths; breakfast in a workmen’s caff, with black pudding and fried bread. It wasn’t really the food she wanted, whether snobby or plebeian, but more of Michael – and the all-important assurance that he kept his promises.
‘Ssh. Go to sleep,’ he murmured, sounding half-asleep again himself.
‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can. In exactly half a minute you’ll be out like the proverbial light. Dr Edwards says.’
‘So how did you sleep?’ Michael reached across to turn the alarm clock off. Light was filtering through the curtains, dappling the drab walls.
‘I didn’t.’
‘’Course you did.’
‘Not a wink.’
‘So you disobeyed my orders?’
She nodded, shook her hair free.
‘The penalty’s a kiss.’
She climbed on top, complied.
‘Christ, Tessa, let me go! I can’t do my ward-round with a hard on.’
‘Your ward-round?’
‘Yes. Eight-fifteen sharp. And the registrar’s a real stickler for time, so there’ll be all hell to pay if I’m late. Can you put the kettle on?’
She didn’t answer, couldn’t trust her voice to hide its disappointment. She could hardly argue with a ward-round, yet if he broke his word on minor matters, then how could she be sure she’d ever get to Newcastle?
‘And make the tea really strong. I feel half-dead this morning.’
Half-dead, when she was soaring on cloud nine? – cloud ten, eleven, twelve, in the middle of the night – although now she’d nose-dived back to rocky treacherous earth. ‘Breakfast out’ had shrivelled to a cup of tea and a hunk of mousetrap cheese, eaten on the run.
She pulled her clothes on miserably, didn’t want Tristram to find her in the altogether, if he strolled in to make his own tea. She had heard him coming back last night – a crash, a belch, a muttered curse – then silence once again. She ought to wash, but Michael had already commandeered the bathroom, and she didn’t feel he was over-keen to have her share the basin or his private morning rituals.
She buttoned up her dress, finger-combed her hair, which looked a total mess, as limp as she was feeling. She slunk into the kitchen, washed three cups, hunted for some bread – which she found with the saucepans, underneath the sink – put it on to toast, while she removed six clammy tea-bags from the chipped and lidless pot.
‘Can I smell buttered toast?’ asked Michael, breezing in, still naked, but now shaved and spicy-scented.
‘Yes. I made some extra for Tristram, in case he …’
‘Tristram never eats, and we won’t want it either. We’re going out for breakfast. Or had you totally forgotten?’
She put the teapot down, had already poured their tea. ‘But you said you had a ward-round.’
‘Which is why we’re having breakfast in the hospital canteen. I reckon that still counts as ‘‘breakfast out’’, although I must admit it’ll be mainly stodge and grease, rather than strawberries and champagne.’ Michael picked his cup up, blew on it, then swigged. ‘But to show you what a splendid chap I am, I’ll throw in a second breakfast, a proper ritzy one. You can have it on credit, an IOU, which you can hold me to, as soon as I’m less busy.’
‘Oh, Michael …’
‘What?’
‘I love you.’
‘No you don’t. I’ve told you that as well. Now, hurry! We’re leaving in five minutes, and I loathe unpunctual women.’
She ignored her own tea, darted to the bathroom, borrowed deodorant and mouthwash, then skewered all her hair on top. She frisked back to the bedroom to secure it with the bandeau, found Michael in his shirt and pants; the brawny, hair-fleeced, long brown legs slightly braced as he fiddled with his tie. She knelt between them as he’d instructed her last night, head tipped back, mouth open.
‘Hussy! Fucking whore! Christ, I wish we had more time. You should have woken me in the night.’
‘I did.’
‘You’re right! I must have been a total fool, or only half-awake. Okay, you can hold me to another come, on credit. I seem to owe you quite a lot already. Now, get up from your knees, before you drive me wild, or get me sacked for neglecting all my patients.’
She felt pretty wild herself, as they drove up to the hospital – wild with crazy joy again. He didn’t break his promises, but honoured them twice over, which meant the ‘week or two’ in Newcastle could spin out to a month or two, then maybe Christmas, Easter, and a second blissful summer.
She was astonished at the difference in the hospital. She had seen it only once, arriving on her bike in a grey remorseless downpour, and shrinking from its ugliness – the white-tiled squarish blocks like some monstrous public lavatory. Now it was shining in the early morning sun, and the man at the reception desk smiled instead of scowling, as she followed Michael through the door and up the stairs, and into the canteen.
Michael slowed his canter to a jog-trot, waited until she’d joined him at the counter. ‘I’m afraid it’s really grotty here. And it always smells of curry and fried onions, even at tea-time, when they’re serving currant buns. Eggs and stuff for you?’
‘And fillet steak?’
They laughed.
‘Right, grab a tray, and some knives and forks. Oh, hell! There’s Princess Pam.’
‘Who?’
‘Pamela Griffiths-Wharton. You met her at the flat last night – with Pete. Peter Foster-Clarke. They’re more or less engaged. Pete and Pam, the double-barrelled prats.’
Tessa stared at the blonde goddess, although she no longer looked a goddess, with her hair scraped back, and her figure swamped in an over-large white coat. ‘Why’s she wearing that white coat? I thought she was a nurse.’
‘No, a doctor, though a lousy one. I can’t stand her, to tell the truth. Let’s dive into that corner and maybe she won’t see us.’
Tessa bit into a mushroom, relishing its taste. Nothing smelt of curry. The breakfast was delicious, and her pleasure was completed by the fact that she didn’t have a rival any more. In the middle of the night, she had pushed the blonde off several beetling clifftops, but now she could first-aid her, offer her sweet tea. Easy to be magnanimous when Michael couldn’t stand the woman.
She loved the fact he’d made her part of his world; brought her here to eat her eggs and bacon among the white coats and the uniforms. Admittedly, the place was almost empty – only the odd nurse coming off a night-shift, two or three dishevelled-looking doctors, and a group of porters relaxing in their shirtsleeves. And it wasn’t exactly the Ritz, with its polystyrene ceiling and moulded plastic chairs, but, as he’d said himself, it was still ‘breakfast out’ – another helping of Michael, another promise kept. She totted up the score: two breakfasts now, one brunch, one picnic lunch, one dinner out, one supper in – last evening – and one whole night together. By the time she returned to Oxford in October, the numbers would have rocketed to a hundred meals, a hundred thousand comes.
She glanced around the room again, eager to absorb every tiny detail, store them in her mind – the plastic plants, the stained and shabby carpet, the blue stripes on the curtains, the deep scratch on their table where the Formica had been gashed. She adored this place – scratches, stains, the lot – because it was Michael’s milieu, part of Michael’s life. She beamed at Princess Pam, who had spotted them at last, and was waving a languorous hand.
Michael, Michael Page 11