by Tess Stimson
“What do you have to be sorry for?”
“For not appreciating you the way I should. For not being grateful for what I have. For not telling you that I love you often enough. And I do love you, Mal.” His expression is suddenly hunted. “I love you more than I can tell you. I don’t ever want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me—”
“Don’t laugh. I mean it, Mal. Sometimes things happen—people make mistakes—and you don’t realize what you have until it’s too late.”
The purple silk lies pooled in my lap. “What are you trying to say, Nicholas?”
“Nothing. I just—you and the girls, you come first, you know that. Don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” I say uncertainly.
Suddenly, I’m afraid. A door opens up in my mind, leading somewhere I don’t want to go. Firmly, I close it.
“Mal, why don’t we go away somewhere, spend some real time together?” Nicholas suggests suddenly. “Just the two of us; we can leave the girls with my parents or Louise. The Lake District, maybe, or Paris, you’ve always loved Paris. Or even Cornwall—we could go back to Rock; I know it’s changed a bit since our honeymoon days, but we could try to stay at the same cottage we rented then, sit in front of the fire, just talk. Get to know each other again. Couldn’t we?”
My eyes prickle. Maybe Nicholas isn’t ill, but he’s certainly strained and tired. How long has he been overworked like this, and I haven’t noticed? Too preoccupied with the girls and recipes and book deadlines—and Trace.
I’ve barely noticed Nicholas’s comings and goings this last month or two, I’ve been so caught up in the distractions of my own life. Including fretting about a relationship that was over thirteen years ago. If there’s an unexpected distance between Nicholas and me, isn’t it as much my fault as his?
“Let’s go home,” I whisper.
That night, after we make love with more tenderness and sweetness than I can remember for a long time, after he’s brought me to orgasm three times and fallen asleep in the warm tanned curve of my arms like a trusting child, I stare up into the darkness and realize how incredibly lucky I am to have this man. Trace may offer exciting possibilities, but Nicholas gives me things that are real. The things that matter. Happiness, security, contentment, love.
I smile to myself. Even if he does forget that I don’t have pierced ears.
10
Nicholas
There was an Australian girl, when I was barely nineteen. It was Oxford’s long vacation; impecunious and newly jilted by a girlfriend whose name I’ve long since forgotten, I was spending the summer with my parents in the Rhônes-Alpes, in a tiny village called La Palud, half an hour northeast of Grenoble.
I awoke one morning to find my parents had gone hiking, leaving me alone with my law books (whose spines, I regret to say, had yet to be cracked; a state of affairs presumably noted by my all-seeing mother). This being Jean de Florette country—a simmering feud between the villagers over the communal well had led to scythes at dawn just a few weeks before our arrival—if you wanted a reviving morning shower before turning to your neglected studies, you had to make the short walk from our remote mountain chalet to an impossibly photogenic lake nearby.
And so began the headiest ten days of my life.
The erotic imprint left by Kristene as she rose naked from the lucent water, a modern-day siren, is such that even now, nearly twenty-five years later, I grow hard at the thought. Her skin glistened in the morning sunlight as if she’d been dipped in syrup. I watched as she smoothed back her wet hair from her face with the palms of her hands, her back arched, presenting high, firm, raspberry-nippled breasts to the sky. A burl of chestnut hair wisped between long, endlessly long, brown legs.
When she saw me standing there, openmouthed and overcome, she simply smiled, winked, and dived gracefully backward into the water.
She was twenty-nine, her mood as pliant as her warm and willing body. I’d shed my burdensome virginity at seventeen to a girl my own age scarcely more experienced; two years on I still knew less about the way a woman worked than I did a jet engine. Kristene rectified my woeful ignorance. She guided my hands, my tongue, my cock, my mind, with wanton, audacious confidence, unashamedly taking as much pleasure as she gave.
It was clear from the beginning that our relationship, which occupied no dimension other than the gloriously physical, had no life outside this particular time and space. I was being admitted to a sensual Eden for reasons I neither knew nor cared to discover; soon, the door would close again. So I greedily slaked my thirst while I could. I returned to that lake day after day, gorging myself on her, determined to wring every moment of pleasure from her body in the hope that the memories would be enough to sustain me when she was gone.
They were not. For years afterward, sex with every woman I bedded seemed as dry and stale as week-old biscuits when you have tasted nectar.
I’d forgotten how Kristene made my body feel until I met Sara. One remembers the taste of a strawberry: but even the most vivid memory is but a faint, dull facsimile compared to the sybaritic pleasure of biting into the strawberry itself.
That one night with Sara has reawakened senses I’ve not felt since those halcyon days by the lakeside when I was a priapic nineteen-year-old. How to describe the indescribable? Losing myself in her lush, ripe body, it was as if I was all cock, every muscle and sinew of my body throbbing with the heat of her. I felt her sweet wetness down to the tips of my toes. For the first time in my life, I actually lost my mind when I was inside a woman; even Kristene hadn’t come close to this. I was conscious of nothing else but the need to possess, and be possessed by, her.
A need utterly at odds with the fact that despite everything I still love my wife.
“Not really on, is it, old man?” Giles says. “With the best will in the world. Not blaming you, of course, old chap, seen the girl myself; hard for a fellow to resist, absolutely. But the thing is, Nicholas, Mal’s a lovely woman. Man would be a fool to lose her for a pretty face.”
I stare morosely into my pint. “She’s a wonderful woman. I don’t deserve her.”
“So what’s this all about then?” Giles says kindly. “Not like you. Always such a sensible chap.”
“Not so sensible now, it would seem.”
He nods at the bartender. “Same again? Look, Nicholas, we all make mistakes. Fellow’s got to be a saint sometimes—the girls these days. Lot more forward than they used to be. Had a bit of a brush myself a few months ago, matter of fact. Girl on the seven-nineteen, always sits in the first carriage behind the engine, same as me. Charming girl. Works in advertising. Got chatting after a while, as you do. Quite brightened up the journey, if I’m honest. Anyway, next thing I know, she’s asking me to come with her to a gallery opening.”
“What did you say?” I ask curiously.
“Said no, of course,” Giles says briskly. “Look, old chap. Don’t mean to be a killjoy. But once you open that door—well, who knows where it’ll lead? I know I’m not every girl’s cup of tea, never been an oil painting, I know that; but Liz is rather fond, you know. Break her heart if she found I’d been dipping my wick elsewhere. Thing is, you and Mal have a good thing going. And there are your girls to think of. Why take the risk?”
I’ve asked myself the same thing a thousand times. Sleeping with her once, after the bombings, I could explain away; danger makes us all do things we wouldn’t normally. And perhaps that would have been it, if Sara hadn’t produced the opera tickets—how magnificent, that she should love Wagner!—and made it clear she was interested in a repeat performance. If we hadn’t run into Liz and Giles, I would have taken her to bed again. And this time, the only danger would have been of my making.
“Liz told Mal about last night, you know, Giles. Said you’d run into me in London and given me a lift back.”
“You were jolly lucky there, Nicholas. Jolly lucky. Could’ve been very different if it’d been anyone else. But Liz is a go
od woman. She takes things at face value. You’ll be all right with her.”
I drain my pint and set it down. Giles is absolutely right. Five minutes earlier, and Mal’s best friend would have seen Sara all over me like a cheap suit. I should never have let her touch me in public; it was pure bloody recklessness. I should never have gone out with her again at all.
Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur. The gods never let us love and be wise at the same time.
The thing is, one night with Sara wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough.
I know this thing has to end, and soon; the stakes are too high. I could lose everything I care about. Christ Almighty, I deal with marital train wrecks every day of the week. I had a client in my office just last Friday, been married two years and nine months. Wife had a couple of miscarriages, and the bloody fool ended up in bed with his secretary. He’s now looking at giving his wife his house and a rather nasty slice of the next few years of his life; and that’s a best-case scenario, if we pull the right judge. Meanwhile, the secretary has taken one look at the interim maintenance order and made for the hills.
I have to get Sara out of my system, once and for all. But denying myself only seems to feed the fever. Perhaps if she stops being forbidden fruit, if I let this thing run its natural course, it’ll burn itself out. I’m sure of it.
Valentine’s Day. Less than a month away. I’ll give myself till Valentine’s Day, the day associated with love and romance the world over; and then I’ll put an end to it. We’ll have a final passionate liaison, and then bid each other a regretful, but amicable, farewell.
Somehow, putting a time limit on the affair eases my excruciating guilt. I’ve already broken my vows; the damage is done. A few weeks longer, that’s all I ask.
I’m not leading Sara on under false pretenses. She’s a young girl with everything going for her. It’s not like she’s in this for the long haul. She’s a smart woman; she knows I’m not a good bet for the future. And at her age, she’s probably not even thinking about the future anyway. She’s enjoying this for what it is: fun, good conversation, and bloody fantastic sex.
I send her half a florist’s stock on Monday by way of an apology for our ruined evening; and then a boxed set of the Wagner she loves so much the next day. I haven’t been caught up in such a romantic rush for years; on Wednesday I surprise myself by tracking down a rare out-of-print book of poetry—a revelation, that, to discover a dozen well-thumbed volumes of First World War poets on her bookshelves; I had expected airport bricks of the type Mal favors—while Thursday’s gift is inspired by a comment from one of my female clients.
“La Perla!” the woman says furiously; as she storms toward my office waving what turns out to be an American Express credit card statement. “I was married to the bastard twenty-seven years, and he never bought me bloody La Perla!”
Google divulges the nature of this particular feminine Holy Grail; unfortunately, I’m left to fend for myself when it came to the delicate matter of making the actual purchase. I have no idea what size to buy Sara; cupping my hands in a broadly indicative mime elicits more hilarity than helpfulness. However, eventually we establish the parameters of my quest by dint of a rather unseemly comparison with several shop assistants’ embonpoint; soon I am left to choose between a coffee-and-cream all-in-one lace confection, and an enticing plum brassière-and-panties set so flimsy it looks as if it will barely last the anticipated five-minute interlude between revelation and removal.
I buy both: one for now, and one for Valentine’s Day. It will be my farewell gift to her; a memento of one last spectacular night together before we say good-bye.
Into the folds of the coffee-colored silk, I slip a Claridge’s key card. And it is at Claridge’s that our affair moves up a gear, the day after I give her my final gift: a silver Tiffany bracelet I know she covets.
Valentine’s Day creeps ever closer as, over the course of the next few weeks, we meet up at the hotel again and again. I daren’t risk a late night more than once or twice a week, but there is the occasional afternoon tryst, when a client cancels; almost more passionate for its spontaneity. It’s costing me a fortune (my credit cards are near their limits; thankfully the firm’s profit share at the end of the financial year in April will clear them before Mal notices) but with the recklessness that characterizes this whole liaison, I find I don’t care. It’ll be over soon. When I run out of credit, I will simply pay cash.
I can’t tell Sara that I already plan to end our affair; that would be unkind. But I am careful, very careful, not to offer her more than I can give. Beyond the pleasure our lovemaking affords me, I like her; very much. The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt her.
But nonetheless, there is a moment, the day before Valentine’s Day, when I almost slip.
I’m about to leave for the last train home after another wonderful evening with her when Sara takes it upon herself to treat me to one of her mind-blowing blow jobs. I should leave—I’m late already—but oh, God, it’s as if she has a dozen tongues, all conspiring to drive me out of my mind. Train times and anxious wives mean nothing. Promises, lies, love, and truth—nothing matters but the woman on her knees in front of me. Hot, warm, wet … Jesus Christ Almighty.
I let her take me to the brink, then abruptly pull away from her. More than anything, I want to drive her to lose control the way she does me; I want her writhing on the bed frantic for my touch. I taste her hot sweat when I kiss her skin, my mouth moving from breasts to belly button to her strangely naked mound. It’s like the whole of her body is an erogenous zone as she squirms erotically beneath me. I hold back, carefully controlling the pace, deliberately refusing to let her breathy little cries spur me faster.
Finally, when I know I’ve got her where I want her, I tongue her where she’s aching to be touched.
After she comes, I slide up the bed and rest my cheek on her belly, relishing its soft, cushiony feel. A relaxed warmth seeps through me as her heartbeat thuds, slowing now, a little above my ear. Unbidden, words float to the surface. “I love—”
I want to bite my tongue off. Good God, the blood rush to my cock must have caused a severe lack of its flow to my brain.
In the here and now I love her, certainly. But a woman reads far more into those three overused words than a man often means her to hear.
“I love to be here,” I amend hastily. “I feel safe, safer than anywhere else in the world.”
She’s quick to hide it; but not quick enough. I see hope in her eyes, and roll away from her, onto my back, so that she won’t see the answering pity and incipient claustrophobia in mine. I thought she was smarter than that.
A beat later, and she’s astride me, hands guiding my cock toward her, and I wonder if I imagined it after all. And then, with infuriating inevitability, my mobile telephone rings.
“Emma, would you mind getting Simon Jailer on the phone? I need to clarify a couple of points on the Wasserstein case before Friday, and I know he’s tied up in Court all day tomorrow.”
I go back into my office, glancing at my watch as I pick up my briefcase. Nearly seven; I should get going as soon as I’ve spoken to Counsel. I don’t want to leave Sara sitting alone at Yuzo’s, tonight of all nights.
This time tomorrow it will all be over. I know this is my choice, it’s what I planned all along; but it’s going to be harder to say good-bye than I thought.
I take out the glossy bag containing my farewell gifts to Sara from my desk drawer, and flip open my briefcase. As I slip it in between a legal file and my newspaper, unable to suppress a shiver of erotic anticipation, my office door opens and I shut the briefcase quickly, not wanting Emma to see.
But it isn’t Emma standing in the doorway.
Saying no to my wife’s invitation wasn’t an option. Not only was I wrong-footed by her improbable materialization in my office, barely able to summon the wit to utter her name, never mind fabricate a plausible excuse to flee; but the searing guilt which I have successfully ban
ished from my mind these past few weeks is now rising up a thousandfold stronger for its exile.
I have no idea what will happen in the next twenty minutes; nor any control over it. In some ways this enforced abdication of responsibility is almost a relief. Perhaps Sara will betray me: inadvertently or by choice, a woman scorned. Maybe Mal will guess the moment she sees my colleague sitting in my favorite restaurant. If I am truly fortunate, this noisome taxi will disappear down an abyss in the road and swallow me whole.
Clammy and sick with fear, I try to imagine a life without my wife and daughters in it, and fail utterly.
I cannot even meet Sara’s eyes when my wife rushes over to greet her—dear Christ, did she have to comment on the bloody bracelet?—and grip the back of the nearest chair as Mal chatters relentlessly.
It seems Sara has more presence of mind than I could ever have anticipated. Within moments, she has confected some excuse and vanished.
“Well, she seems very keen,” Mal says brightly, shaking out her napkin. “How lovely.”
Nausea rises. “Can we order, please, Mal?” I say desperately.
I can barely concentrate on a word she says as we plow through the meal. Dear God, how am I going to unravel this unholy mess? I cannot believe that I, of all people, have managed to get myself into such a foolhardy, melodramatic position. Dammit, I was going to end it tomorrow! Mal seems blissfully unaware; but the possibility still exists that Sara will be so incensed by what can only seem to her as my betrayal, that she seeks revenge by confronting my wife. The hurt that would inflict on Mal doesn’t bear contemplating. And my girls. How can I ever look them in the eye again if they find out what I’ve done? I have been seven types of idiot, led by my genitals like a schoolboy. Christ Jesus, let me walk away from this unscathed and I swear to God, I will never—
“—So go on, don’t keep me in suspense.”