“Two Kirs Royales”, he orders, without consulting her.
“Yes, Sir.” The waiter bows and disappears.
He gets to his feet again. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”
“Of course,” she smiles.
“I shan’t be long.”
He returns almost immediately. Together, they sip their Kirs Royales, marvelling at the precise weight of cassis to the ecstatic laughter of good champagne. The blight of tiredness is no longer upon her. Her face looks lifted and open again. It has lost its stiff look of self contemplation. She is fascinated by the crowd, by its self-important to and fro. They talk animatedly, like the old friends they are, making plans.
“Were we right to keep tomorrow secret, do you think?” she asks.
“Yes,” he replies. “The whole thing will be fait accompli. Let the others quarrel all they like later. It will make no difference.”
She smiles wistfully. “Sad not to be sharing the experience.”
“We will share it,” he reproaches, “with each other.” He pauses. “Besides, it’s nice to have a secret.” He raises his glass to her and his blue eyes fold in delicious laughter.
“Let’s go,” he says, as the waiter approaches to take their order for replenished glasses. She stands up obediently.
“Where to now?”
“I thought we might have a look around the hotel, and then take in a film.”
All the delight of communication has returned to her, the glowerings of age fallen from her. Suddenly, she resembles a little girl, trusting and joyous, the single pink rose still fixed to one side in her hair. She wears a long sleeveless shift of pale grey silk that flutters, graceful and fluid, as she walks; on her feet lilac leather shoes with “cigarette heels”.
*
They take the lift to the fifth floor, to emerge on to a well padded corridor, decorated with gilded lamps and expensively framed prints. “I love this secret, sumptuous language of luxurious hotels,” she breathes. They turn to their left. The numbers vanish before them in a fast perspective, set on doors as emphatically and solidly framed as street doors, each evocative of hallowed, private residence. He holds her hand warmly in his. They turn a corner to find themselves abruptly at the corridor end. She automatically swivels on her heels, about to retrace her steps, then hesitates, sensing him no longer with her. He is standing, fumbling with a plastic key, which he attempts to slot into the lock of the last numbered door. A green light flashes in his hand and the door opens. Suddenly he is caught, reflected repeatedly in a sequence of mirrors.
“Is this sufficient new framework for you?” he asks, with a smile.
She retraces her steps hesitantly, frowning slightly. “That is not what I meant,” she says.
“No, I know it isn’t,” he replies soberly. “Nevertheless, what do you think?”
His eyes scan hers searchingly. For a few shuttered seconds, the sweep of his glance over her is almost disdainful.
They enter the room and the door falls back emphatically on its hinges, locking them in with the sound of finality. A bottle of champagne, two glass flutes, and a cornucopia still-life of fruit await them, set on a pink marble-top table. Round-armed, pneumatically plump sofas, dressed in an extravagant chintz of yellow chrysanthemums on a pink and turquoise ground, appear to come-dancing against the pale green acres of deep pile carpeting. At the windows, overlooking the distant, miniature joggers in Hyde Park, a similar coloured chintz is fashioned into heavily swagged, golden tasselled curtains. A giant television screen bids them welcome, its Ceefax letters flickering uncertainly. Her lover flings his jacket into a chair and kicks off his shoes. Without consulting her, he switches the television to adult movies, discarding the rest of his clothes as he does so. The bed, a broad, palatial canopy of sweet scented linen, dominates the room, creating an Alice in Wonderland effect. He hugs his naked arms affectionately around her shoulders as he manoeuvres her towards its smooth shoreline. He lifts her dress carefully over her head and shoulders.
“Let us see if we can learn something new,” he says.
Two immaculately beautiful women, one blonde, one with red hair, appear on screen, rhythmically fondling each other’s breasts, in close up. The film, German made, is diligent in its approach, evoking a certain militarism, even in sensuality. The women, both enamel perfect, grind and purr at each other, seemingly unimpeded by their elaborate corsetry and high-heeled PVC boots. Their bottoms below their black basques are smooth and round, their smiles joyously fixed and inviting. They pout their passion through barriers of bright red lipstick. Their finger tips, enhanced by long garnet nails, render their hands incapable of picking up coins, but do not impede them from joyfully scratching and irritating the lengths of each other’s skin.
The lovers lie naked in bed, legs intertwined, the design of their bodies set, like an interlace brooch, against a vast canvas of pristine whiteness. He plays caressingly with the pinks of her upturned nipples. They half watch the screen in cynical bemusement. At a crucial moment in the film’s plot, when the shapely German nymphs have exhausted all opportunity to either sip at or gladly fondle one another, and are about to resort to whips, two men suddenly arrive on screen, as if from nowhere, both of them equally anxious to get the job done efficiently and well. The lovers abandon the longueurs of their kisses and sit up to watch more closely, taking extra sips of champagne. The male German stars both boast wondrously long penises, which extend from their groins to mid length of their thighs. Their eager, super-fit bodies, shiny with oil, appear to consume the two women. All four of them look so deliciously healthy. Yet, no matter how ravished and excited into gargoyle features their faces appear, no matter the studied rubbing, sucking and cooing of their polished frames next to those of the two varnished women, these admirable penises remain unmoved, swinging lazily from side to side, like lost skeins of wool, not even a hint of stern precision. In exasperation, her lover reaches for the channel changer to switch to its alternative. Briefly, the screen goes blank. She laces her slender arms round his neck. He lifts her on top of him. She slips between his thighs, the warmth and scent of their flesh igniting between them. The television screen flashes into brash colour.
This time the players are Spanish and the casting is both more rudimentary and innocent, the storylines pathetically contrived. A dark-haired girl, with a mole on her lower cheek, goes shopping with her cyclist boyfriend to buy a new pair of jeans. She steps behind a flimsy curtain to try them on. The man is excited and cannot wait. He battles first with his conscience, and then past the curtain to join her. He takes off his shirt and unzips his flies. His back is stroked with dark hair. He unhooks her bra, allowing her swollen breasts to fall heavily in his hands. They make love there and then, he standing, knees slightly bent. She wraps her legs round his waist, like scarves. He takes her nipple into his mouth and she gasps in pleasure. Their tongues interlace. The rhythm between them grows faster, faster. The woman, racked with pleasure, begins to lose control. The shop assistant, hearing the sounds of her abandon, pulls back the curtain. Rather than outrage, she too wants to join in. The first girl subsides in the man’s arms. She sits down to catch her breath. With her smiling permission, her boyfriend now turns his clever attentions to the more slender figure of the yellow-haired shop assistant, one of whose front teeth is missing.
In spite of the baldness of the plot, the screen comes to life, underscored by the truth. These men and women with their half perfect bodies, too short, a bit fat, nevertheless move with recognisable passion. The delight of voyeurism is achieved. Their passion communicates itself to the lovers. His hands stretch yearningly to caress her. Their bodies arch in an ache of anticipation. The familiar minuet of their love begins, and they drift into private oblivion, slipping between the silken Dorchester sheets in half mimicry of the screen, whilst performing their own singular truth.
*
A little later they sleep contentedly in one another’s arms, cocooned in honeyed silence, no phone,
no knocks on the door.
“Will that do for today?” he asks. “Have I succeeded in altering the frame?”
She smiles up at him indulgently. How very handsome he is, her own sweet love.
A note of severity interlaces his look of contentment. He turns towards her, suddenly serious. “Are you quite sure about tomorrow?” he asks. He watches carefully for every nuance of her reaction.
“Completely sure,” she replies, her eyes meeting his. “Ten-o-clock at Marylebone registry office. I promise to be there.” She pauses. “I wonder who our witnesses will be?”
He smiles gently. “Two strangers.”
*
He reaches for the phone and orders a supper of chicken in aspic to be sent up to their room. They eat it dressed in the warm hugs of white robes, smiles slipping between them like long hugs of happiness.
From THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE
Nikki Gemmell
Nikki Gemmell is a bestselling Australian author who has written nine novels and four works of non-fiction. Her work has been internationally acclaimed and translated into twenty-two languages. Her distinctive style using the second-person narrative has earned her critical and popular acclaim in France where she is seen as a female Jack Kerouac. She has been hailed as one of the most original and engaging authors of her generation.
Lesson 70
you had better have a millstone tied to your neck
and be thrown into the deepest pond than become
a taker of opium
Walking to his flat. Not daring to talk; holding hands, tremoring, wet.
*
His rooms are spare and neat, like a monk’s, with a few beautiful objects from his travels here and there, and small stacks of paperbacks and some black and white postcards on the walls. He does not intrude heavily upon the space.
His bed’s surprisingly big. You turn off the lights. Where to begin, you are the teacher and before you is the blank slate: God, the responsibility of it. You gather your thoughts, you mustn’t rush. You don’t want him experiencing anything of the hurt or disappointment you’ve so often felt. How many women get the chance to do this, with a man, to break their virginity? It must be utterly memorable for him, something to savour for the rest of his life.
You tell him you want him to lick you, slowly, the inside of your wrist, and you push up your sleeve like a junky preparing for her first shot. Gabriel looks at you. He bends, hesitant. His tongue tip glides up your skin in one even, barely there line. Your eyes close, you let out a small gasp, his tongue stops. You take off his jacket, you unbutton his shirt, you find him, his vulnerability. His chest is cathedral-wide and your hands span its breadth like the vaults of a ceiling and you feel his galloping heart and you place your right palm over it, reading the race of it. He smells clean, pleasantly so, you can’t catch anything of his real scent. His body is young, not quite finished, it feels strangely untouched, maybe it’s the hesitancy in him, he’s all caged up. Your lips walk the softness of his inner arm, slowly, daddy-long-legs-soft, climbing the paleness. You look up and smile reassurance and for some reason you hold his head like a mother with a child and he begins to say something and ssssh, you whisper, no talk and you hold his face in the clamp of your palms and he’s concentrating so much, so intent, ssshh you whisper, ssshh, and kiss him slowly as if all the world’s tenderness is gathered in that touch and as you do it your hands snake softly to the eroticism of his hips.
You kneel, unbuckle his belt.
*
His penis curves gently to one side, it’s large; it always surprises you how big they can get. He is looking down at you, he is breathing fast.
You hold him, you lick him, soft, so silky soft, the tip.
He laughs nervously, he can’t relax. He tries to push you off. You propel him, gently and firmly, on to his bed, on his back. Remove your clothes, quick; wet, so wet.
You sit, very slowly, on to him.
Ease down, slowly, feel him all the way. And then you just sit, for a moment, you are filled up and you smile into his eyes and very slowly you tighten your muscles and gather him inside you: you feel Gabriel with your skin. He looks at you, all wonder and surrender and shock, and you throw your head back, you can’t look at him any more, you need to savour this moment alone. You keep on moving on him, slowly, rhythmically, with your eyes shut, ssh, you tell him, sssh, as he begins to say something, as you talk to him through your skin, you lean forward, you brush your fingertip on his lips, sssssh.
And then he comes.
He’s appalled; it’s so quick.
You smile, you stay sitting on him, feeling him in you, feeling him go soft. This, too, is delectable. Your hands fan upwards on his belly and his chest, savouring his surprisingly soft skin, untouched for so long by any other woman and you bow your head and kiss him, in gratitude, on the cleft of his neck. You didn’t orgasm, you didn’t learn anything new but it’s a start, a lovely one: for it’s the very first time you’ve been totally in control. Women bare rule over men.
You climb off him. Stretch languidly, your palms turned to the sky as if they want to push it up. You feel like a cat on a favourite armchair it’s never usually allowed on, thrumming with warmth and sunlight.
*
Gabriel rolls over on to his stomach. You walk across to him, lie beside him; your fingertips slip over each bump of his spine.
There was another time, he says, without looking at you. Your hand stops. It was my twenty-first, he says. I got drunk. My parents had thrown a big party for me. There was this girl, just some girl, a family friend, she was drunk, too, and we went up to a bedroom at the top of the house. But as I tried to go inside her I just... went limp. All I could hear was Clare’s laughter. I couldn’t go on.
You wing your arm across him, you squeeze his shoulder. Gabriel turns to you, he props his body on one side with his hand on his cheek.
So... thanks, he says, awkward, shy. Then there’s a pause, and his impishness slipping back. What happens next?
You shake your head, you cover your eyes, you laugh: no, no no, we have to stop, all right?
Excuse me, madam, but you are not leaving this flat.
Lesson 71
those who eat too much should remember that
they are robbing those who have not enough
Walking by the river to the tube.
The Thames the colour of cold milky tea.
Feeling intensely alive, as if years have been stripped from your body. Feeling engorged between your legs, plumped, softened, filled up. Smiling into the impatient dusk and flitting your fingers to your nose at the cocktail of smell, at the stamp of two bodies upon them.
Feeling as exhilarated as a teenager who’s just finished the last of her exams, and the glorious stretch of the summer holiday is ahead of her.
*
But that night you’re awake, vastly awake as Cole presses his trusting warmth into you. His hand rests on your hip and your eyes are owl-wide with this appetite for something else unleashed, it’s all violent and terrible and exhilarating within you. Did Theo ever feel like this? Did she have guilt? Would she now happily resume her life? For you’d dreamt not so long ago of one transgression, just one, stemming the tide of marital disintegration and flushing you out, so you could begin, afresh, your married life; and never look back.
Your teeth nibble at a stubborn flap of skin on your lip, they nibble until there’s a warm rush of blood in your mouth.
Lesson 72
it is everyone’s duty to be kind to and help her
fellows as much as possible
So it begins.
A weekday afternoon. Once a week. Always Gabriel’s flat.
You’re a good teacher, you always have been, and now after years of being the good teacher you don’t want to just give, you want something back. There’s one condition, you make it clear from the start: this arrangement must not, in any way, intrude upon your regular life. It’s the only way you can make it work. When the lessons
come to their end you will both disappear back into your worlds so that in the future, if you ever pass by chance on the street, you will not acknowledge each other or what you have done during these weekday afternoons in his flat. This will free you to explore exactly what you want. There’ll be no photographs, no letters, nothing concrete about any of it, nothing to seize as proof. Memory is all that either of you will be allowed to keep. The rules come quickly and clearly, and make it easier to justify what you’re doing.
*
Once a week. It’s the only time you meet. For the rest of your waking hours you feast on the memory of what you’ve done.
The throb of that.
*
He opens the door in his suit, always, as if he’s just come from work. The air in his flat smells of inner London, of too much traffic standing still and the taste of iron is in your mouth. Business people walk by his ground-floor window, chatting on their mobiles, in their clattering heels and brisk shoes. It makes the lessons seem more wilful, childish, indulgent, like a sunny afternoon stolen from work, spent, secretly, at a film. But worse, much worse.
*
So, week by week. Slowly, you do not hurry. You feel you have all the time in the world to savour each other, having rushed in with that first, miraculous fuck: it was just a start. There’s so much to learn, now. For both of you, for as you teach him you’ll be teaching yourself although he doesn’t have to know that.
A rough agenda is set.
One, the removal of clothes. You learn his skin, inch by inch. He, yours.
Two, the touching, the licking. Exactly where you want. The lobe of your ear, the tip of his tongue on your upper mouth. The skin below the vagina, it’s tender rim, your clit. You tell him exactly where you want him, you guide him, instructing him to slow down or not stop or don’t move or stay on track. And with that, finally, as he listens intently and does precisely what you want, you have your first orgasm and a whole new world is opened up: your eyes are clenched with the warm flooding wet and you scissor on the bed and arch your back, trying to squeeze the last shudders out or prolong them, you know not what, and still the implosions shoot through your belly and then soften and stop, and you can’t move, you’re drained, all you can do is lie on the bed and laugh, in shock. Gabriel looks at you. My God, he says, my God he repeats. You sit up. Run your hands through your hair. You have to concentrate: this can’t be just about your pleasure, it’s Gabriel’s turn. With him giving you so much you want to present him with a flooding of delight back: you have a goal, for the very first time in your life, to see a man completely laid waste.
Desire Page 63