eyes, a pretty retroussé nose. Her skin is luminous, the firmness revealing her age, eighteen, perhaps, her arms like streamers of white ribbon flashing in the semi-darkness. Her blonde hair is gripped in a chignon, and a ring with an ice-blue stone sparkles on her finger. She is Russian, most probably. They have appeared like a new species of orchids, tall sullen girls hard to read, sleek as new cars.
A smile lifted my lips as I recalled suddenly the way Tom had removed the bandage from my fractured finger and checked the movement. Like a watchmaker. I admired the look in his eyes, lively, concentrated, without guile. He made love aware of my every motion, the steady articulation of my legs, a rower in a skiff, the roll of my back, the way I opened myself fully to take him inside me.
After making love, making love with the same man rarely recaptures that sense of vertigo and wonder, the magic of it. With Tom, this man of whom I knew nothing, a stranger with tousled hair and soft hands, each touch of his flesh intoxicated me in a way only satisfied by more of the same. I could smell his smell about me even now. His tone, when he spoke, was deep, melodious, like the plucked strings of a cello, a voice used to being listened to and obeyed. There is a word in Italian: stucchevole, so delicious, so exquisite, just a little can be too much. I was besieged by a yearning, a craving, a burning desire. My heart had opened like one of those mysterious flowers that only bloom at night.
Love and sex have never been confusing to me. I have Roger Devlin to thank for that. That summer's day at Black Spires had not left me with a sense of loss. On the contrary, I had driven back to the office with a sense of well-being. My dream of selling the house had been a delusion. Once you undo one button, the light comes on. You leap from the diving board. Mr Devlin had spied the misty island of my deepest instincts. There were no strings, no promises. Our lips never touched. It was just sex. I had turned virginity into a fetish, a phobia, and cast it aside with a sense of relief and liberation.
I've done it, I thought, I've finally done it.
As we passed through the tunnel of overhanging bushes into the sunshine, he ran his palm over my bare leg.
'You're something else,' he said
And I thought: I'm not, but I will be.
'Thank you,' I replied, and he took a photograph of me in profile.
'I'll send you a copy,' he added, but never did.
I dropped him at the station and the rest – the rest is fantasy.
They say after your first time you feel different and it's true. It's like getting over a long bout of illness. That night, I kept running upstairs to look at myself in the mirror. My lips seemed to be fuller and my cheekbones rose over the hollow of my cheeks; I ran my fingertips along the ridges of bone, the shape anticipating the mask waiting in the future. I was about to begin a journey and the butterflies in my tummy were like tiny fluttering hands packing a suitcase. Yesterday I was a girl, I thought, a child. Now I am not. Five years of anxiety and exams had washed away on the tide of Mr Devlin's raucous climax. My eyes sparkled like the lawn after being watered by the sprinkler and contained an expression impossible to interpret. I had rather enjoyed parading half naked in front of the gardener without knowing why. Now, I knew why.
I adjusted the mirrors, pulled off my clothes and studied myself from every angle. My spine had bowed, pushing out my bottom, and I had grown an inch taller. The last pubescent traces of baby fat had slipped from my cheeks and chin and seemed to have gathered around my breasts. I couldn't resist turning and squeezing my nipples, they were pert, delicate, the colour of coral, and tingled as if with the minute stabs of a thousand needles. Was I pregnant? I didn't even care. The lips of my sex were moist and, when I touched myself, my fingertip had the fragrance of the sea on a sunny day. It was the long hot
A smile lifted my lips as I recalled suddenly the way Tom had removed the bandage from my fractured finger and checked the movement. Like a watchmaker. I admired the look in his eyes, lively, concentrated, without guile. He made love aware of my every motion, the steady articulation of my legs, a rower in a skiff, the roll of my back, the way I opened myself fully to take him inside me.
After making love, making love with the same man rarely recaptures that sense of vertigo and wonder, the magic of it. With Tom, this man of whom I knew nothing, a stranger with tousled hair and soft hands, each touch of his flesh intoxicated me in a way only satisfied by more of the same. I could smell his smell about me even now. His tone, when he spoke, was deep, melodious, like the plucked strings of a cello, a voice used to being listened to and obeyed. There is a word in Italian: stucchevole, so delicious, so exquisite, just a little can be too much. I was besieged by a yearning, a craving, a burning desire. My heart had opened like one of those mysterious flowers that only bloom at night.
Love and sex have never been confusing to me. I have Roger Devlin to thank for that. That summer's day at Black Spires had not left me with a sense of loss. On the contrary, I had driven back to the office with a sense of well-being. My dream of selling the house had been a delusion. Once you undo one button, the light comes on. You leap from the diving board. Mr Devlin had spied the misty island of my deepest instincts. There were no strings, no promises. Our lips never touched. It was just sex. I had turned virginity into a fetish, a phobia, and cast it aside with a sense of relief and liberation.
I've done it, I thought, I've finally done it.
As we passed through the tunnel of overhanging bushes into the sunshine, he ran his palm over my bare leg.
'You're something else,' he said
And I thought: I'm not, but I will be.
'Thank you,' I replied, and he took a photograph of me in profile.
'I'll send you a copy,' he added, but never did.
I dropped him at the station and the rest – the rest is fantasy.
They say after your first time you feel different and it's true. It's like getting over a long bout of illness. That night, I kept running upstairs to look at myself in the mirror. My lips seemed to be fuller and my cheekbones rose over the hollow of my cheeks; I ran my fingertips along the ridges of bone, the shape anticipating the mask waiting in the future. I was about to begin a journey and the butterflies in my tummy were like tiny fluttering hands packing a suitcase. Yesterday I was a girl, I thought, a child. Now I am not. Five years of anxiety and exams had washed away on the tide of Mr Devlin's raucous climax. My eyes sparkled like the lawn after being watered by the sprinkler and contained an expression impossible to interpret. I had rather enjoyed parading half naked in front of the gardener without knowing why. Now, I knew why.
I adjusted the mirrors, pulled off my clothes and studied myself from every angle. My spine had bowed, pushing out my bottom, and I had grown an inch taller. The last pubescent traces of baby fat had slipped from my cheeks and chin and seemed to have gathered around my breasts. I couldn't resist turning and squeezing my nipples, they were pert, delicate, the colour of coral, and tingled as if with the minute stabs of a thousand needles. Was I pregnant? I didn't even care. The lips of my sex were moist and, when I touched myself, my fingertip had the fragrance of the sea on a sunny day. It was the long hot
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