Sweet Vixen

by Susan Napier

'From you?' That was laughable. 'She's very . . .' 'Sexy?'

  Exactly. Sarah wrinkled her nose.

  'Warm? Loving? Giving?' he continued, arms folded across his barrel chest, a short, almost stumpy man whose flaming hair made such an impact that people usually didn't notice his lack of inches. 'What did you expect?'

  'I don't know,' she repeated and he snorted loudly.

  'What kind of artist would I be if I only painted what people wanted to see? You know the kind of work I do. I've wanted to paint you for a long time, you knew that too. Ever since I saw those of Simon's and was so sure I could do better. I had to wait until he was dead, and until you decided you were mature enough to handle what I might do with you. I'm damned if, after five years of waiting, I should have to settle for half a woman!'

  Sarah looked back at the painting, surprised by his vehemence. 'But she's only half a woman.' The half that operated on instinct, on feeling, that half that couldn't be trusted, the half that betrayed the self.

  'Why do you say that? She knows what she's doing and why. Which is a damned sight more than you do, you're just too damned afraid to admit it!'

  He grabbed her unexpectedly by the shoulders and said fiercely: 'Look at it, Sarah, and like it. It's the best thing I've ever done. You trusted me, enough to sit for me—put yourself in my hands—so trust me now. I wasn't inhibited by living inside your skin—I could see where you wouldn't look. Look now. Be honest. You always used to be.'

  He didn't wait for an answer. He strode out to the deck and vaulted over on to her side. Probably off to raid her fridge, whistling a tuneless song that told Sarah the rest was up to her. He hated explaining his art, declaring it should speak for itself to those who were willing to under­stand. Sarah, at last, was willing.

  For too long she had been afraid, cheated on the courage and strength she had so grimly gained from living with Simon—her medals of honour, dishonoured by cowardice. She had been afraid of the woman who now looked at her with such sensual pleasure in the satisfied smile. Afraid of her power. Afraid of her vulnerability. So, like a child afraid of the dark, she had pulled the bed­clothes over her head and tried to deny the existence of the temptress. 'Don't be silly, there's nothing there' her nurse used to say when Sarah awoke in the dark in the grip of a nightmare. Nothing but herself. The most frightening and persistent fears were always the ones that came from within.

  Since Simon's death her imagination had had a field-day. Her guilt that she had failed him in some way had grown all out of proportion. But what did she owe him now? Only memory, the memory of the good times. To herself she owed life, fulfilment, the realisation of her full potential as a woman and she couldn't do that by refusing to acknowledge her basic drives. She had been frustrated, angered and hurt by the limitations that Simon had tried to impose on her personality, yet here she had been, imposing even stricter limitations on herself in an ulti­mately more damaging way.

  Stepping closer to the mirror-image-that-wasn't, Sarah appreciated for the first time the composed, natural de­licacy of the painted image. A woman welcoming her lover, or perhaps bidding a temporary farewell, quite unselfconsciously—a moment of joyous feeling sus­pended forever.

  If only such moments, such feelings were not so rare in real life. When was the last time she felt happy? Not just content but truly happy, the kind of happiness that grabbed the throat and sharpened the perceptions. It was chilling to realise that the answer was not counted in weeks or in months, but in years. She had held herself in like a tightly clenched fist. . . clutching nothing.

  Be honest, Roy had said, and she was honest enough to admit that these things did not come as a blinding revela­tion. She had known for some time that her life had lost its cutting edge, that she was marking time on the brink of change, waiting for the final push that would provide the impetus to finally free her from the constraints of the past.

  And Roy had given it to her—a gift of all the things that had been unsaid between them. A gift that, in spite ofthat first, nervous rejection, she had never seriously considered refusing to accept.

  For was she, secretly, not curious? She had not allowed herself to be attracted by, or attractive to, men for fear of being trapped again in a suffocating relationship, but the thought of endless, empty, arid years stretching ahead was equally suffocating. Freedom was an internal, not external quality.

  Sarah had experienced, and enjoyed, the physical side of love and knew that her body had needs that were no longer being fulfilled. Simon had been her first lover, and her last. But not the last . . . she had never consciously made that decision. Yet she was too intelligent and fasti­dious to go in for casual sex, too wary to fall in love again so soon. Perhaps the answer was merely to be receptive, to begin to test out those womanly instincts that had been so long ignored.

  She shivered. What would it be like? She asked silently of the enigmatic painted image in front of her. To feel another man's hands upon her body? To reach out and touch, be touched? To offer herself up to the drenching sweetness of male invasion? The prospect both excited and frightened her, but she no longer feared to 'think it. She smiled into the dark, desirous eyes.

  'Hello, Sarah,' she said.

  Out on the balcony she found Roy wolfing salami, cheese and olives. 'For breakfast?'

  'And last night's dinner, and lunch yesterday. I was busy. I finished the McKenzie portrait, did you see it on the other easel.'

  'No.' The word spoke volumes.

  'Well, it's not as good as yours anyway.' Roy grinned.

  'I've decided I do like it.'

  'What made you change your mind?' he asked, in­nocently, knowingly.

  ‘I like it. But. . .'

  'Ah.' He sighed. 'You're going to raise the spectre of that promise.'

  'Do you mind?' The private part of her still rebelled at the thought of the public speculation the portrait would cause if shown in Auckland. Roy's work inevitably attracted a lot of publicity. If it hadn't been so. . .good . . .

  'No.' He scrubbed some crumbles of cheese out of his beard. 'Actually I had decided to send it over to Tony when I was still halfway through. I knew it was going to be special. My market in the States is pretty strong at the moment, it'll fetch a far more inflated price there than here.'

  'Mercenary beast. That's me you're blithely offering for sale.'

  'Tony’ll make sure you go to a good home, a very expensive home.' He rubbed his hands together and cackled. Sarah gave him a friendly thump.

  'So my cowardice is doing you a favour.'

  'If you were such a coward you wouldn't have sat for me in the first place.'

  'The honour was too great to refuse,' she said gravely, and was amused to see the worldly Roy, used to critical acclaim, flush at her sincerity.

  'Your freckles are joining up,' she said innocently and found herself bundled across to her own balcony.

  'On your bike, brat, I've got work to do. Oh, by the way . . .' Sarah paused. 'My hot water heater went on the blink again last night. Can I use your bath until I get it fixed?'

  'Well, get it done by a registered electrician this time,' said Sarah with a long-suffering sigh, 'not a mate's mate. And maybe you'd better stick to showers, last time I recall being locked out of my own bathroom for hours at a time while you turned yourself into a wrinkled prune.'

  'But a clean prune, love, and didn't I clean the paint off the bathtub when you asked?'

  'The place stank of turps for a week,' said Sarah, unmollified, and they parted with grins, Sarah lazing around until two o'clock, when she left for Julie's party feeling very light and carefree.

  The Somerville's house was a low L-shaped bungalow with a lounge that opened on to a stretch of glazed quarry tiles spreading around the rectangular pool, which was screened from the neighbours' backyards by a high wooden fence.

  Smoke was rising slowly into the still air from the corner barbecue as Sarah slipped in through a side gate. Most of the thirty or so people present seemed to have taken adv
antage of the trio of changing cubicles to strip down to bare essentials and Sarah had to pick her way over prone bodies scattered around the pool as she headed for the shade of the vine-covered pergola which jutted out from the house. Julie was there, organising drinks at the bar.

  'I thought you weren't coming. Where have you been?' she demanded.

  'You said any time after noon.'

  'Did I? Well, you're here now. Help yourself while I farm these out.' She picked up a tray of drinks and carried them off, leaving Sarah with the distinct feeling that she had been very relieved about something.

  Mindful of the heat and the way these parties stretched, Sarah contented herself with a fruit punch and moved over to watch the dying moments of a violently disorga­nised game of water polo. She could see Keith and Marie in the middle of the mêlée, slugging it out, and Keith's wife, Danielle, splashing around, helpless with laughter at their antics.

  When the game broke up Sarah decided to take advan­tage of the lull and grabbed an empty cubicle, changing into a plain, streamlined one-piece bathing suit.

  The water was deliciously cool on her hot skin and she swam languidly up and down the pool a few times. Though the heat of Auckland's summer sometimes palled, swimming never did and Sarah tried to do a few kilometres every day, at the beach or a local pool.

  Just as she was contemplating getting out, she saw

  Steven Somerville come out of the house with Max at his side. Since he had told her to use his name, she had slipped surprisingly easily into the familiarity in her mind. The verbal barrier remained as yet insurmounted.

  Although Sarah had suspected he would be here today she still felt an unpleasant little shock of surprise, and floundering, nearly choked on a mouthful of water. He was wearing only brief navy swimming togs and had a towel slung over his shoulder as he stood talking with Jack a few feet from the pool. Sarah trod water, allowing herself a critical study; there was little enough to criticise.

  There wasn't an ounce of spare flesh on his body and although he didn't have a tan, neither did he look un­healthily pale. His olive skin had a natural dark cast that indicated that when he did tan he would do it easily and quickly. Although he was slim he had a hard muscularity; his chest was broad with a fine smothering of dark hair which arrowed down to the flat plane of his stomach. Sarah's eyes slid over narrow hips and strong, lean thighs and she felt an odd feathering sensation inside as he changed his position slightly. He was very nearly naked and for one traitorous instant she wondered what he would look like without that brief covering.

  The dark head turned casually towards the pool arid Sarah hurriedly turned and swam to the far end. She didn't want him to catch her staring. Mind you, he was probably used to it. It was that arrogant assumption of his that so got on her nerves. She hoped that her new, fragile awareness of herself as a woman wasn't going to manifest itself in mentally stripping every man she looked at. Especially a man like Max, who was overpowering enough covered neck to toe! What had she hoped to discover, anyway? Some hidden defect? A beer belly or knobbly knees? Instead he was like a fined-down version of Michelangelo's 'David'.

  She rested her folded arms on the edge of the pool at the deep end and sought to return her thoughts to the mun­dane by chatting for a few minutes with Marie, who was dangling her feet in the water and munching on a thick, juicy barbecued steak. When she got up to go and refill her paper plate Sarah was left alone and reluctantly pushed off to swim back down to where she had put her towel. Halfway she came face to face with Max doing a slow, well-disciplined crawl. She returned his pleasant greeting calmly and continued on her way, but he turned to accompany her.

  'I watched you from inside, you're an excellent swim­mer. Do you swim a lot?'

  'Quite a bit. There's a beach on my back doorstep,' she replied politely as she reached the steps.

  'You're lucky.' He forestalled her intention to get out. 'I enjoy it too, but I rarely get the chance. When I do, I like to do it in style. I take my boat out on a long cruise and spend as much time under the water as on it. Have you done any scuba diving?'

  Conscious of the silver drops slithering from wet sinewy shoulders through the dark curls on his chest, Sarah struggled to keep her eyes level with his. They showed an unnerving tendency to drift downwards.

  'I've had the opportunity but it's never really appealed.'

  'Afraid of getting out of your depth?' The familiar mockery was a relief, sparking as it did familiar annoy­ance. 'I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you prefer the shallows. But you should try diving, it's quite an experience, you might even surprise yourself.'

  'No thanks,' she replied tartly. 'As you just pointed out, there are all sorts of nasties lurking in the deep.'

  'I'm sure a water-baby like you would have no trouble outdistancing any. . .er. . .devils from the deep,' he said, amused by her little dig. 'If you wanted to, that is. Or aren't you as confident in the water as you'd have me believe? Another false trail?'

  Unsure of what he meant, Sarah frowned. Standing waist-deep in water, hair blue-black in the sun and wet face sponged of several years' age, he did not seem quite as intimidating as usual. Or perhaps it was Sarah who was nöT her usual self. She was seized with a sudden reckless­ness, a desire to beat him at his own game of double entendre.

  'So confident that I don't feel the need to constantly prove myself. That's the prerogative of the male ego,' she drawled sweetly.

  'You have a thing about the male ego, don't you?' he replied smoothly. 'How about indulging mine. A race? There and back. . . if it's not too much of an effort for you,' he added drily.

  'No. But it might be for you. Are you sure you're up to it?' That seemed to strike a nerve, for the amused eyes hardened.

  'I'm up to anything you can deal out,' he told her and the words were barely out of his mouth before she was off. She had no intention of giving him any advantage, fair or unfair, and thus had a fractional start. She deserved it, she told herself, for all the times he had taken unfair advan­tage of her, knowing she was battling to stay polite in the face of his mockery, yet still pushing, pushing until she cracked and lost her temper. He always looked trium­phant when she snapped or got flustered.

  She turned at the wall still ahead but he quickly moved up beside her, cutting through the water with an ease that spurred her to fresh effort. His strength was superior but Sarah was quick and light and very much in condition. She was a mere hand's touch ahead when they made the steps again and both rose up, sparkling wetly, to face each other.

  There was laughter and desultory clapping from the rest of the party and a few shouts of 'viva women's lib' and Max waved away the catcalls with a joke.

  ‘I think she went easy on me.'

  'Of course I did,' Sarah taunted, elated. Victory over him gave her fierce pleasure. 'I didn't want the male ego to suffer too much damage.'

  'And provide my psychiatrist with more work? You obviously have hidden resources, you're constantly sur­prising me. Congratulations,' he told her flushed, trium­phant face.

  'For surprising you? Or for beating you?' Sarah dared.

  'Both. How many more talents are you hiding? One thing at least, that's no longer hidden—you're in excellent shape.'

  He leaned slightly towards her, placing a forefinger on her shoulder and running it lightly down to the crook of her elbow. She could hardly believe her eyes when he put the finger to his mouth and tasted the water he had stroked from her arm. The lazy flicker of his tongue seemed an intimate suggestion and the look in his eyes confirmed her suspicion that he had made the gesture deliberately, to disconcert her. He did. She could almost feel the rough, moist warmth of his tongue on her skin; the sensation was indecently real and her reaction was to dash water against her arm, washing his touch away.

  'And I've discovered that you're not invincible after all,' she returned quickly, ignoring a prickle of unease at his rather smug smile.

  'Did you think I was?' he asked softly. 'I freely confess
I'm not. But remember, that I don't like to lose too often. It brings out the devil in me.' She didn't think the devil needed bringing out! 'Come on, come and dry off.'

  'I want to stay in a bit longer, ' she protested, automati­cally wanting the opposite to what he said.

  'Really?' He looked sceptical. 'AH right, I'll join you.'

  For a moment they stood engaged in a silent tussle of wills before Sarah gave in. She had won, she could afford to be gracious . . . this time. She followed him out of the water and held out her hand for the towel he stooped to pick up for her. But instead of handing it over he held it against himself, just out of her reach, and stared at her body.

  Sarah tensed, this wasn't an idle glance, and was fiercely glad that she had not worn a bikini. If she had looked down she would have been aghast to realise that the wet green suit revealed more to the experienced eye than even the skimpiest of bikinis. The shiny, silky fabric clung lovingly close, outlining every curve and hollow like a second skin. Although it took an almost superhuman effort she remained, hand patiently outstretched, as if she didn't give a damn that he was looking at her.

  She was momentarily distracted from her agonising self-consciousness when she noticed a faint, almost imper­ceptible tracery of scars radiating down from underneath his left arm. They were thin and pink and quite obviously permanent. Simultaneously Sarah felt a pang of sympathy and a grim satisfaction that he was flawed, albeit it a small way.

  When he moved he took her by surprise, throwing the towel around her shoulders and pulling her close.

  'That suit is rather like you,' he murmured close to her ear. 'Misleadingly demure; until studied in detail.'

  He held the ends of the towel more firmly, as she wriggled, then stiffened into stillness as her damp thighs brushed his hair-roughened legs. He was so close and she was electrically aware of what seemed like acres of bare skin, his and hers.

  'Don't be embarrassed,' he continued smoothly, watch­ing her blush with interest. 'You have a lovely body. You should wear less more often.'

  She gasped and he let her go with a laugh. She went straight back to the cubicle where she peeled off the offending suit and used the towel roughly, externalising the tingling feeling. Wretched man! He hadn't seemed very put out at all by his defeat, considering the way he had reacted to her questioning his capability. He should have been annoyed, not amused. She could handle his annoyance, it even made her feel superior in fact, but that way he had of smiling as if at a private joke, a joke on her, was infuriating.