by Jan Vivian
‘It’s that soon?’ They had not spoken of it and he had not been told the length of the London people’s stay.
‘Touch me,’ Anna asked, moving the hand that she still clasped to the bare skin of her thigh. ‘I tried not to think of it for long, in spite of Miguel’s reminders that there was still so much to get through.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yeah, but I told him folks could go and take their siesta time if they wanted but I had other plans for tonight. So, I worked on through the afternoon. Everything else I couldn’t keep out of my mind for long…’
Monty again heard the tremble in her voice and looked at Anna for an instant.
‘Crazy isn’t it…me feeling like this and so soon?’ she went on.
‘Stay at my place? Chill out there with me for as long as you can…sleep beside me, if you can. I’d like nothing more…than to love and sleep knowing you’re still there with me.’
‘I’ve thought of little else…’ she replied and looked at him. ‘You say the nicest things…’
‘Sightseeing can wait for the next time…’
When will that be she kept from saying and listened somewhat absentmindedly as Monty now pointed out a few landmarks as they drove through the city’s streets until they reached a suburb that she knew instantly was way beyond the means of an intern’s salary.
‘We’re home! Bienvenido en mi casa, or correctly put…welcome to my apartment.’
‘You live here...alone?’ she couldn’t help but blurt out with ill-concealed astonishment. Anna saw him press the button on another remote key fob; the car slowly rolled down the ramp that led to the door leading into a secure underground garage.
‘Yes, quite alone.’
He wasn’t about to confess to a few girls having stayed over in the two years he’d lived in the city nor that they had left him again, without a trace and scarcely a memory of them to hold on to. Being on the pull was not in his make-up, unlike his closest friend in the city, Tomas Saenz. Thinking of him brought to mind their very different circumstances and choice in female company.
They had met as students at Barcelona’s university a couple of years ago. Keeping in touch was the easy part, even when they’d split and he had taken off to South America where he had done okay, made a small stash that went together well with the family trust that also came his way with exquisite timing.
To his cost and enduring regret, Tomas had stayed behind in Spain when the first breaks in the economy reared up. His out of work friend and his way-ward lifestyle would have to keep a day or more yet; he had a lovely companion to be with and satisfy.
‘I’ll get to explain it all to you later, Anna,’ Monty told her as the car was parked in its reserved space. ‘I worked and also got lucky, in a small way.’
5
The Start of a Loving Farewell
‘May I have some of that luck of yours?’
Anna said it on a disbelieving laugh as Monty opened the door to his apartment and she saw the modern interior bathed in a soft glow from the wall lights. Monty had given a single turn to the main control switch set into the wall by the front door. This single entry point was soon locked once more.
‘I worked and made some of it myself.’ He drew close behind her and embraced Anna. ‘It’s great…a miracle that I have you here with me.’
‘Every moment’s precious.’ Anna moved her head to meet soft moist kisses to her throat and soon clasped his hands to her breasts, felt the gentle squeeze to her nipples then the more insistent press. She needed no persuading and conceded to all he then wanted of her.
‘Touch me…love all of me,’ she said on halting breaths as Monty now moved to unfasten the clasp to her dress that held the straps in place. She chose to reach out behind her to draw him close, to feel the swell of insistent flesh that she had gently but demandingly groped for during the drive to his place in a brazen show of desire.
‘I do this…to you…then…you undress me,’ he kissed to her skin and she nodded dumbly, overcome with longing as deft fingers unfastened her strapless bra and his touch was felt to her belly and up to remove this hindrance to his touch and kisses.
Anna felt him lift the skirt of her dress that hung so uselessly at her waist. Had she stepped into it or drawn it down over her head? She couldn’t quite remember and his deft touches distracted her now. She didn’t care for how she had put it on and he took it off her and cast it aside at her feet.
‘My turn now…my turn,’ she kissed on facing him and tugged at his belt, pulling at his shirt front to draw it free and fumbled free a few buttons before she kissed his skin, felt the brush of blonde hairs to her lips as she moved to kiss his breasts and offer a touch she loved on her; the nibbling kiss on his nipples.
Her clumsy urgency was a hindrance to her progress in undressing him but Monty chose to wait.
‘The best is for me to do,’ she assured him as her fingers traced a path over his taut stomach; she felt the ripple of muscles but her fingers, then both hands, sought her only comfort, his erect trembling flesh. She knelt to kiss and suck on him, offered lambent touches before she felt his hands hold her head in restraint of all that she did on him.
‘Stop, Anna! Stop, Anna…stop!’ He bent forward to kiss her upturned face. ‘There’s a better place for this…’
‘Can you take me there?’
Anna didn’t resist as Monty lifted her up. With a little spring she was in his arms and she clung to him, wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her. With each step he touched where she craved him to be.
‘Okay?’
‘Fingers…lips…tongue…all of you in me…there, in me!’ she gasped out her reply and surrendered to his claims upon her as he caressed with exhorting strokes.
The bedroom was dark and felt exquisitely cool, the coverlet to the large bed cold to her back as they fell down upon it, her legs still clamped about his waist. His outstretched arms bore their combined weight and she marvelled at his strength or, else, he was distracted by all that he sought of her now.
‘Love time…’
‘Yes…so don’t go, Monty! Leave it,’ she whispered hoarsely keeping him close. He had whispered that he leave and take care of things, put on a condom…for her sake. ‘I’m counting on you this time…and after last night.’
She clung to him, rose to kiss Monty deeply before guiding firm flesh to the place she craved it to be, offering cries of elation and encouragement as she bucked and clawed, kissed and was kissed until…
‘What have you done?’ she screamed out in consummation. ‘You’ve found me…loved me!’
Anna felt the sweat on his skin, licked and sucked it as she luxuriated in their body heat, aching from exertion and continued longing. How was she to make up for this when they were separated? Now, she breathed out in contentment and slowly relaxed, stroked the skin of his back and nestled in his embrace until he thought to move from her.
‘Don’t leave me,’ she pleaded but still felt the glide of his flesh as he withdrew from her.
‘You’ve wrecked me,’ he said on kissing smiling lips and saw the glow of contentment in her eyes.
They were spent.
6
Reality Check
Anna was the first to wake from their sleepy indolence. She stroked Monty’s side and moved her wondering hand to his belly, choosing not to touch the flesh that she had craved to know again and that had pleased her.
Instead, she clung to him and took in the scent of his body and their love-making. She would leave in a few hours and have this alone, memories of moments spent beside him, to remind her of what had been so passionately and inventively discovered. She’d miss his chatty irreverence and argumentative ways of it, his keenness to debate the issues facing the business and his ideas for some meaningful progress that affected his career, his life, perhaps them as a couple.
She turned to peer into the gloom and felt Monty move.
He stretched languidly before reaching out to
press a light button beside the bed. A soft glow lit the bedroom and the crumpled sheets on their bed and what he had drawn over them.
Anna now noted the wall of glazed brick through which the light was cast. This screen separated the bedroom from a shower and wash area. Another barrier, low and covered in patterned tiles screened the toilet from view but offered scant privacy, not that it was any longer of concern. Monty had taken pleasure in every part of her body.
She nestled against him clutched a hand that Monty offered once more before entwining her fingers with his.
‘Hungry?’ he murmured on a yawn. ‘Do we feed the need?’
Anna laughed against his skin. ‘Do you need the boost?’
‘No…’
‘Being with you has been special…do you know that? We’ve had wonderful times together…’
‘We’ll have others…’
‘When?’ she asked startled to hear him say it so easily.
Monty had no answer to that.
‘I’ll go and prep something for us…some fruit, a glass of wine or whatever else you would like.’
‘Apart from being here, you mean?’ Monty had risen from their bed and she looked up at him, at the slender gloriously fit body of the guy she had clung to.
‘Let the thought go,’ he replied, ‘there’s time to be here or do you want to go back? I’ll stay at the hotel with you…’
‘What! And confirm to the others what a time I’ve had with you?
‘It’s legal…’
‘True, but it’s not approved of. People talk…’
‘And I say to hell with all of that! It’s the twenty first century…’
Monty left her to recover all of the clothes they had so hastily taken off each other.
‘Remember these?’ he joked upon his return. ‘I see that your dress is still in one piece…I think.’
She saw his mischievous grin and kicked the sheets off the bed before stumbling towards him. His eyes followed he gentle sway of her breasts and ripple of her thigh muscles
‘You’re nothing but a tease…’
‘And you’re beautiful.’ He embraced and kissed her. ‘I’ll miss you….’
‘Sh! Sh’ she kissed but repeated his words. ‘I’ll miss you…someone special.’
Monty heard the break in her voice and held her close before making a fuss of her as she recovered her bra and nicks, telling him as she did so that she might as well dress for dinner.
‘If you must,’ he smirked.
‘I’m a well-brought up girl…
‘With wild and passionate tastes…’
‘For someone I’ve met who’s special…and that I didn’t know was here. You’ve made everything a wonderful surprise.’
She felt the sting of tears and pressed shut her eyes.
It was all so damned sudden and inexplicable but she had been taken in by his boyish charms then his loving ways. It was so disconcerting. These things weren’t supposed to happen quite so soon, were they? Nor did they belong to the modern ways of it. You didn’t go showing the gentler and caring side to your nature quite so soon, did you?
That harsh and remote way of dealings between people belonged in another world, the business world in which they were both making their way. She was more successful but a look around his apartment soon informed her that Monty was doing more than just getting by.
There remained much to learn of him and the time to do so was running down.
7
The Long Goodbye
The morning’s review meeting was agony for her; she appeared business-like and matter of fact, spoke to others and behaved as normally as circumstances allowed. Monty was in the room; avoiding his glances was the most difficult thing to achieve of all. If she did sneak a look his way she would take in every detail, how he had dressed, walked and talked in his soft English voice. It contrasted with the guttural, seemingly colder, tone that he deployed when he spoke Spanish. He switched effortlessly from the one to the other; she had even heard him speak in the Catalan dialect.
She had worn it before, but had chosen the white and lemon yellow patterned shift dress for the flight home late in the afternoon; white midi-heeled shoes and a white leather envelope clutch bag were great accompaniments. Even in making her choice of them she had heeded Monty’s advice; ‘go for the best leather goods you can find while you’re here’. In straightened times the retailer was glad of her custom but didn’t cut the deal she had sought to haggle for.
Watching him gather and re-check his papers for the meeting she thought, quite suddenly, he cares too much. But why think that, other than she was leaving and would miss him, the guy with skills that she did not possess, and yet, she was ‘management’, a young high-flyer. She had strayed, had been pleasurably diverted from nearly everything, or so it seemed, by the guy she had heard so much about. She held down a job that Monty could only dream of but she also knew him to be fiercely ambitious, more through words than actions. He had even told her that providing written proof and acting on it was better than talk alone. ‘Bragging’ was the word he’d used of another’s behaviour when closer inspection revealed things weren’t quite what they seemed.
Could that be said of them and their intense, but all too brief, love affair? Yes; all she really knew about him was a fiercely ambitious streak, a loving and passionately beating heart and a touch to her skin that she craved.
What a time to think of this!
And yet, she couldn’t help but wonder why he did not move on to a company where his talents would be recognised; she knew the answer to that without recourse too much thought. The client list at AB was envied by many in the marketing and advertising world, both here and in the UK. He would move on when a portfolio of truly measurable success could be laid out before a prospective employer.
The diverting times spent with him had not distracted her completely from what could be seen and heard in the office. She had taken the opportunity to discuss, far too briefly with Jamie and Malcolm, the merits of an assignment that Monty had brought to the business. The inside lead had been obtained simply; Monty worked-out at a gym also used by a great contact. But, he had kept that news to himself and for far too long. The true scale of what he knew, and took his time to reveal, had wound Miguel’s clock and the word had reached her that Monty, or Barnardo as Miguel continued to call him, was being side-lined.
Childish as it all was, Monty had to continue knowing his place or work at the margins. Even if he had brought in the deal, Miguel’s patriarchal ways of it would have to be obeyed. The lesson to be learnt was there for all to see, Miguel had disclosed to Malcolm.
As she looked at him she knew why Monty did it, clung to his belligerent ways. He could afford to. A private income, a source of money and security to be envied if his apartment was anything to go by, allowed him to play roulette with his job. Monty did not flash his money around but she had seen, and known so passionately, of his self-belief. It was impossible to deny the effect it had upon her but his ways were dangerous to a promising start to his career and the keeping of continued support from the company as his internship drew to a close…in a matter of months.
All she could do was to observe him as the meeting began and to hope that Monty’s undoubted language skills and business qualifications would be given their due. Juanita was good, undeniably, and local; Monty was in a different class but not so pliable. Juanita knew that the world outside the window was tough for her countrymen and she would do all that was necessary to keep hold of a precious and hard-earned income.
On local issues she had no say; what happened to Monty might well affect her too.
♥
‘Will I see you again?’ she asked.
Anna’s lips trembled as she said it. They just had time to snatch lunch together before she had to return to the hotel, collect her bags and take a taxi to the airport. He had been discouraged from annoying Miguel and taking the afternoon off to drive her himself.
‘Yes,’ he said
quickly, ‘only I don’t know when. Did you know that Malcolm and Jamie wouldn’t be leaving with you?’
‘No,’ she said and touched his knee under the table. Monty took hold of her hand. ‘Make ‘when’ sound like ‘not yet’, please? I could take some holiday and we travel around…do this again and so much more?’
Monty leant towards her and kissed Anna’s lips. ‘I’ll call you the minute you get back…Skype you. We see and we talk that way.’
Anna nodded. ‘Tell me how it goes…the meeting was pretty rough. I got the message you are being watched.’
Monty shrugged. ‘I live by the day…’
‘Alone again…’
‘Sh! Don’t go and remind me of that.’ He looked at her as he sipped on a lemonade drink from the can. ‘We had special times…but now, and for a while, I see what gives with Miguel and my place here. You go back and continue being the success you are. Don’t risk that…’
‘Risk? Am I taking a risk by being with you or taking an interest in you and what happens?’
It was the first time they had really spoken of such things, a life outside of work affecting their careers.
‘No…oh, I don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘Today’s been tough…in so many ways and we’re only half way through it.’
He began to munch on the sandwich he’d ordered and Anna picked at the small bowl of salad but neither of them had much appetite. Finally, he took hold of her hand once more and they sat in silent contemplation, watching the people pass by their table under the dappled shade of the trees.
‘There’s no one else. I don’t know if I told you that?’ she now said.
‘You did. The same goes for me…’
She had spoken in a voice that sought some certainty of the feelings he now had for her after all that they had shared and she had confessed to. An established career, a place that she could call her own in spite of an eye-wateringly large mortgage, some great girl-friends o be with – she had a support network of a kind but she valued a special kind of love that meant sharing with another. She didn’t go for the furtive existence some had, the taking of another’s husband as a lover or co-habiting and being ever watchful in case you lost sight of the exit sign. New love and life, please!