by Primula Bond
His face was a mask, like one of his own sculptures. Only for a second. His eyes had dropped backwards into his skull as if they were looking along a tunnel. His eyes weren’t on me, they were on the tableau of us all, but he pushed himself off the panelled wall and came towards me.
‘That’s my position, surely?’ He copied my stance by the mantelpiece, elbow crooked, legs crossed nonchalantly at the ankle. ‘The head of hearth and home?’
I laughed again, but this time my laugh was low and perfectly calm. I turned my body towards my husband and laid my hand over his. But every part of me sang as if I’d been stung by nettles, because Stuart was here now, on the other side of the room. Suki started to chat, her voice a little higher than usual, and the cobalt blue eyes of her brother roamed the room so subtly that no one else would know it, fell on his father, his sister, the furniture, and at last on me, each part of me in turn, savouring toe, wrist, hip, mouth, oh God, and breasts. I was being surreptitiously stripped.
I smiled widely at John while his son looked at my breasts and my nipples stiffened and pushed at the soft cashmere, so wicked to be so turned on in that room, with those particular people, at that significant moment, nipples shooting the message through my body that I desired my stepson.
‘Dad said you were worried about the lunch,’ Suki said, taking the champagne out of the bucket. ‘You dashed out into the cold to feed us.’
‘Yes.’
‘No need.’ She nudged her father’s arm, making him spill a little of his drink. ‘Stuart can do it.’
John slid his fingers out from my hand and tapped them restlessly. ‘Stuart? Would that not be a bit of a busman’s holiday?’
I noticed a cleft in Stuart’s chin. John has one just the same.
‘No more than you coming home to sculpt your beautiful wife every night.’
There was another hush, like the pause before a wave turns. He made the word ‘sculpt’ sound filthy.
‘I don’t work any more. Didn’t Suki tell you?’ John held his hands up like surgeons do once they’ve scrubbed in. ‘These are useless now.’
‘Not useless, Johnny,’ I tried to say, but I was studying Stuart’s shoulder, where the yarn of his fisherman’s sweater was unravelling.
Suki wagged her finger. ‘You look like a Victorian patriarch, Dad, glowering from the fireplace like that. You know, asking if Stuart’s intentions are honourable.’
I glanced at Stuart and he at me, tiny unknowable glances already perfected.
‘I should have been here this summer to ask you. I heard you married Florence virtually the moment you met!’ Stuart’s eyes snapped towards his father. ‘Who knows? Perhaps I might have stopped you.’
‘But can you blame me for wanting her? Look at her.’
And all three Floyds looked at me.
‘But you also had a deadline, didn’t you, Dad?’ Suki broke the silence, holding her glass tightly in front of her mouth. ‘To finish the sculpture for that facial scarring exhibition –’
I let my breath out sharply, blowing my hair from my face. ‘Thanks for that, Suki.’
‘I don’t blame you at all, Dad.’ Stuart stared frankly at my face, my cheek carved with the pattern of a shattered windscreen. ‘You were lucky to get there first.’
‘Ours was the star exhibit,’ John replied quietly. ‘And once I’d tasted her body there seemed no point in waiting.’
I blushed hot. Maybe we all did. I don’t know if he looked at me then because Stuart and I were staring at each other again as if staring might go some way to satisfying the gnawing hunger.
‘No, Dad,’ Stuart said quietly, ‘no point at all.’
‘And so now,’ I said, turning to leave the room again, ‘we are going to have a bloody good weekend. That right, Stuart?’
‘Absolutely right. But only if I can help with the lunch.’
‘Us youngsters have to be off in the morning. Big reunion. I’ve organised a parade of old flames for Stuart to re-ignite.’ Suki perched forwards on the sofa as if she’d been trying to grab him, but already Stuart was following me out of the door. ‘So there’s not much time for catching up.’
‘Well if my son’s busy getting to know his stepmother,’ my husband said, rousing himself, ‘Suki and I had better take a walk together.’
‘Is Stuart what you expected, Flo? Or should I say Florence.’ Suki flung her scarf round her neck. A tassel caught me in the eye. She came closer. ‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? I’m so proud of him.’
‘Yes. He’s gorgeous. Exactly like your father.’
‘Here that, Dad? You’ve got competition.’
A blush scorched the edges of my scalp. ‘Competition?’
‘Well, Dad got the trophy wife, but Stuart’s the rising star. Everyone in Scotland’s talking about him.’
‘Scotland?’ John and I spoke in unison.
‘Didn’t we tell you? He’s not going back to Australia. He’s staying in Edinburgh with me.’
In the kitchen, Stuart was sharpening a knife.
‘His tiramisu is wicked.’ Suki giggled. ‘So who’s king of the heap now?’
‘Don’t be silly, Suki!’ John opened the front door and the wind barged in. ‘No one can hold a candle to my wife. And what’s the point of tiramisu? This is Britain, not Sicily.’
‘More’s the pity,’ I said, laughing into his cheek.
John rested against me briefly, then he was gone.
‘He’s worried that you and Stuart won’t get on. So make it work, Flo. OK?’ Suki leaned into the kitchen, one leg up behind her in a coquettish ballerina pose. ‘Sure you want to be stuck in here, honey?’
Stuart didn’t answer. I banged the door shut, and somehow my hand landed on his chest.
‘What’s your scent?’
There was no need to keep staring at him. Those cobalt eyes. Those curved lips. He was John, thirty years younger. A great wave of regret washed over me. But here was his son, real, warm, and drawing me like a magnet. I could feel his heart racing.
‘Something citrus I picked up in Morocco.’
‘It’s like the bouquet in a Benedictine. Makes my nose prickle.’
He laughed, a deep reverberation under my hand. Then he swung the rucksack. ‘I’m afraid I’m very sad. I bring my own herbs. Do you mind?’
I shook my head, letting him go. I swung one leg across the breakfast stool. ‘So chicken OK?’
‘No time. We’ll have smoked salmon for lunch. And my gift to you and Dad. Figs.’ Out of a brown paper bag rolled green and purple ovals. He picked one up, made a cross over one end, then squeezed the other end. The green skin of the fruit puckered and ripped slightly, and there was the moist redness of the innards, studded with tiny seeds. ‘These Greek ones are in season now.’
My whole body felt loose, as if I could fall off that stool any moment. My armpits were damp, my breasts were tingling. Up between my fidgety legs, my pussy was getting wet.
‘I lace the figs with honey, mascarpone, if there is any. Some liqueur. So sweet,’ he said, scooping out the flesh and letting it ooze between his fingers. ‘Try it.’
I smiled as juice dribbled over my bottom lip and on to his finger. He wiped the finger across my mouth again so that my lips yielded and opened. He pushed his finger in between my teeth. I tasted the mixture of clean skin and moist fig. My heart was racing. I whimpered as I sucked his finger right in to my mouth. His mouth parted, lips glistening as he smiled and pushed it in further. The rush of desire knocked the breath out of me.
Then he pulled his finger out with a sticky sound. I sat up, crossed my legs primly. Cleared my throat as if everything was just dandy. Slowly, nonchalantly, he put the same finger to his own lips and licked it. My pussy clenched tight. Moisture seeped into my knickers.
‘And what will you do with the poor chicken?’ My voice was husky as he backed away to the table.
He bent to chop the green herbs, coiled in that way chefs have, feet dancing impatiently. Dark strands of
hair fell over his eyebrows. He wiped at his forehead with his arm.
‘Marinade until this evening.’ He made incisions in the plump flesh, and started to rub a butter and herb mixture all over the chicken. Into the cavity between the bird’s legs. His fingers were long. ‘It has to go in deep. It’ll taste orgasmic, you’ll see. Push gently like you’re making love to the bird. Never fuck it.’
I closed my eyes as the word drove in to me. I tipped my head back on my neck, ran my tongue over my lips. It’s how I used to pose when I was modelling lingerie. But that was simulating excitement in a studio full of cameras. There was no simulation here. I was ready to come right there on the stool.
He washed his hands. My whole body tightened as he moved back across the floor in slow motion, hands still wet, so close I could see the boyish flush streaking his face.
‘They’ll be back soon.’
He nodded, looking up my body. That’s how young men look. Like boys, like it’s still so new. The present before it’s unwrapped. He pulled me close. Closer. I was grasping for breath.
‘Dad was right. You are pure alabaster,’ he said, lifting a strand of my hair away from my face. Away from the scar. He looked at it without flinching. ‘I can see why he fell for you.’
But the shadow of his father didn’t stop the next thing happening. I lifted my face and he smothered my mouth with his, all hot wet lips and teeth and tongue.
‘Oh Christ, Stuart, we can’t, we –’ I tried to stop, honestly I did, but all I could see were those eyes and that face, so beautiful and familiar yet so bloody young. He pulled away, and that sweet, genuine effort clinched it for me. I needed that cold space between us, that empty space between my legs, I needed it filled, and so then we were tangled in the kind of violent, greedy, blood-letting kiss that makes you go deaf and blind.
‘Not enough time, oh God, no time.’ He slammed me back against the ancient, sturdy fridge and inside it wine bottles rattled. But we went on kissing, his tongue ramming into my mouth, me unable to breathe, my pussy throbbing and aching for him now that it was grinding against the rough fabric of his jeans, grating the tender lips so that they eased open to rub the sore clit inside. He ran his hands under my sweater, squeezing my breasts, making my skin shiver, but that wasn’t enough, he unhooked my bra expertly and why oh why did an image flash up of him undressing younger women before I had the chance to find him, his first girl, first love, first fuck – but then he was kneading my breasts, flesh yielding like dough under his hands and I moaned as he lifted my breasts like two warm cakes and kissed them, running his tongue over the pale skin, then circling each raspberry nipple, tasting everything like food, and he moaned, too, sucking one dark nipple into a point, shocks of pleasure streaking through me, then sucking the other, two tight beacons burning hot, showing the world how bad we were being.
‘Did he touch you like this the very first time?’ He squeezed my cheeks between his hands. ‘When he was sculpting your lovely face? Did you fuck the first time?’
‘Yes,’ I said brutally.
‘Christ, how am I going to bear it?’
The wildness and fury was just like John that first time we fucked in his cold studio. Desperate laughter coiled in my chest.
I gasped, pushing his mouth back onto my nipples. ‘What can’t you bear?’
He bit me, hard, then still sucking he flipped my skirt up round my waist, then sank his fingers into the soft flesh of my butt cheeks to lift me so that I was forced to wrap my legs round him. God, he was strong. My pussy slicked open against his stomach, moistening the lacy knickers as my skirt drifted round my waist.
‘The jealousy, Florence. You, in his bed, night after night. The fucking jealousy!’
I kissed him, tangling my fingers in his hair. I wanted to hear more.
‘That he got here first, met and married you before I got the chance –’
‘You’re not making sense,’ I laughed softly. His words were shadows of my own. We were rocking together against the fridge, his cock hard in his jeans. ‘You’ve met me now!’
‘Yes, but it’s too late! He’s got you. He’s got you to touch, to fuck, whenever he wants, and I –’
I tightened my thighs round his hips and reached between them to unbutton his flies.
‘And you, my darling, are fucking me right now!’
He groaned and dug his fingers into my butt cheeks, easing them apart, and then his fingers were in the damp crack between them, searching and sliding over my tender flesh, slipping easily in and out of my wet cunt. I was seething with excitement now, opening myself wider to swallow his fingers, to grip him, grinding my cunt against his sweater, smearing it with my pussy juices as I wound my fingers in his hair to smother him between my damp breasts.
He groaned unevenly as his fingers slid in and out of me, releasing more of my strong, musky scent, driving me wild with wanting. I slid my hand into his jeans and found his cock, hot and hard. We were both gasping and grunting like animals, slamming and banging against the fridge. His teeth nipped again and again at my nipples.
Suddenly we could hear, far below on the cliff path, the murmur of voices and my heart plummeted.
Stuart lifted his head, lips wet with sucking, and we stared at each other, eyes glittering in the fading afternoon light. I was quivering violently now, with the effort of gripping him and with the ferocious desire to have him, right there in his mother’s kitchen.
‘Christ, Florence, what are we going to do?’ His gorgeous face was so close to mine. ‘I have to stop –’
‘No, you can’t. Be quick.’ I kissed him hard. He paused, then his tongue pushed hungrily around mine and I let my feet drop to the floor and we staggered backwards to the table.
I barely felt the scratch of rough wood against my back as we fell and he reared over me on his hands and knees. I unzipped his trousers and there was his cock standing hard and straight and there were my legs, hooking him into me.
He shoved me hurriedly across the table. Something else made of china toppled off and smashed. Above us as my head jammed over the edge I could see elongated splashes of boeuf bourguignon, all across the ceiling. Our bodies were stuck together now and we both breathed in and held it as his cock slid into me. I was so wet, but my body gripped him, held him tight inside, my arms and legs were wound round him as if welded to his bones and his hands were still squeezing my breasts, pinching my nipples as he bit and licked at my neck, pausing to listen, and then we were rocking wildly together, his cock thrusting up and through me and filling me totally.
Outside the voices were closer but we still had time and though it was wrong it felt right. No way could we stop. My body sucked in my stepson’s cock, scraping across the table as he fucked me. I squeezed him harder until he groaned and shuddered and then I was too excited to hold back and I ground myself against him, coming and coming, scratching his lovely back to give him something to remember, as every bit of me would remember him, and then even as we leapt apart and got shakily back on our feet the ecstasy, in me at least, kept coming in waves until we could breathe again.
John and Suki were climbing slowly up the cliff path. My mouth was bruised. We stood inches apart, upright like soldiers.
Suki looked up to open the gate. Saw us side by side in the bright room against the darkening world outside. John waved but the vigorous gesture took his balance. As if he’d got older in the tiny hour that he had walked with Suki along the beach, now he sketched an old man’s dither in the lane, his feet treading water to turn him, his hand gripping out for Suki. Or for me.
He saw us framed in the kitchen. Maybe he could see how our lips were wet. And his face froze.
‘He’s old, and he’s ill,’ I told Stuart as Suki opened the door and let in the chill. ‘And I love him.’
‘I love him, but I love you too,’ Stuart said, peeling away a sliver of smoked salmon. ‘So I’ll wait.’
The Glass-blower
JENNIFER DIDN’T KNOW WHAT the hell she was do
ing on a singles holiday, let alone in Venice of all places. Everyone on the trip denied they were looking for love, or even sex. Just enjoying the view with like-minded people. But why else had they paid through the nose to join a dating agency? Why else were they spending a long weekend traipsing round the most romantic city on earth?
And what a motley crew they were. At least Jennifer had a couple of broken engagements under her belt, and could prove, if necessary, that she’d lost her virginity. This lot were like some kind of sociological experiment deposited from outer space. The men were like defrocked priests, blinking dazedly in the cold light of real life. And the women were like kids playing dress-up in their too tight clothes and too bright lipstick.
And yet. Like the animals in the Ark they were, stealthily, pairing up. Keith and Vince, the accountants, had been seen slurping oysters in a dingy waterside bar with Serena and Alissia, the highlight-flicking chalet girls. And Michael, the psychotherapist, had definitely copped off with Jane the violin teacher. You could tell by the love bite.
‘I’m not sure I can stand it another day. Don’t know why I signed up for this in the first place,’ muttered Jennifer to Hazel, the pale gardening columnist, as they sat on the windblown Zattere fulfilling the pizza-eating section of the itinerary. ‘Ain’t never going to have sex again at this rate, let alone find the man of my dreams.’
‘Forget romance, then,’ replied Hazel, licking olive oil off her lower lip. They both stared through the steamed-up window at a huge cruise ship plying down the Giudecca canal, dwarfing the city.
‘Concentrate on finding pure sex, do you mean? Because I’m frustrated as hell! It’s been months –’
‘Me too!’ Hazel blushed, then laughed. ‘But what I meant was, we’re all desperate now we’re forty, but that’s no reason to be a quitter.’
Jennifer hadn’t realised how husky Hazel’s voice was. In fact, she’d never heard her speak before. The heat in the restaurant had made her cheeks glow, and the oil had made her normally chapped lips glisten.