and you wonder at all that has happened over the past few months, a summer so different from the last. You’ve made love like you’ve never loved before, you never felt capable of such giving, or such a response. During the sex with Gabriel you’ve grown younger, you’ve utterly let go, you’ve showed another person, for the first time in your life, your true self. A woman who astounds you and scares you. A woman demanding, selfish, sparky, in control. He’s made you feel accomplished as a lover, he’s given you confidence.
So, it has come to this, and neither of you will speak out about what comes next. On the tube hurtling home you think of those sounds breaking from you that you’ve never uttered before, and the arch of your back, and your fist clutching the sheet. But then you’re home, promptly, by six, you’re never late. And every night there’s Cole pressed into you—his arm, or the cheek of his bottom, or the length of his torso – every night there’s his exhausted, trusting weight. You prize your husband still, so much: you don’t want all that he represents gone from your life. You lie awake trying to find a way for your needs and your wants to coexist peacefully; you don’t see, yet, how they can.
Yes, you did begin, with Cole’s gift of freedom, you did find a way to fill up your days. You’re living with the light and the guilt of that.
It’s a see-saw of delight, and doubt.
As it has been said:
Love and a cough cannot be concealed. Even a small cough. Even a small love.
Anne Sexton
when a girl has a rosy, healthy face we know that her lungs do their work well
The more sex you have, the more you want.
Perhaps, now, a man who’s always insisted on doing it his way, which you haven’t liked enough. You sit at your desk, with your thumbnails hooked between your teeth, and smile at the challenge of that.
A Saturday afternoon. You tell Cole you’re stuck with the book. You laugh that you might end up throwing it all away and having a bit of fun; you might just write about what your Elizabethan housewife was really interested in – sex.
You?
You flick suds from the dish-washing brush. Yes, me.
Maybe I’ll write about what women really want, mate. Oooooh, he says, holding up his hands in mock terror.
Half an hour later, languid with laziness. Lemony sun through the tall windows, dust motes dancing in the light. The magazine supplements of the weekend newspapers are scattered across the bed and Cole comes into the room and he kisses you on the lips, in his special way, and he says, so what do you really want, and there’s a new intent: it’s as if he’s finally responding to the new energy that crackles around you and you do not shy away from his kiss. You whisper to him you want him to shave you; you’ve never said anything like that to him before.
His sharp, soft intake of breath.
His voice is barely audible, one word, yes, just. He looks at you as if he always suspected there was a woman like this underneath. He goes to the bathroom and retrieves your razor, and changes his mind and brings out his own: it’s sharper, he says, more effective, excitement in his voice and that strange new intent, and you lie on the bed with your thighs spread wide and outside is the buoyant sky, the air fat with the coming summer, and you don’t know what to expect. You wait for Cole with one hand between your legs and the other thrown above your head. Your nipples are erect, they’ve rarely been hard for him over the past few years, as if they couldn’t be bothered getting into that state. Now you want him, quick: you’re already arching your lower back, in soft waves.
What’s got into you, he asks.
You say nothing, your hand hooks him behind his neck and pulls him down to a kiss. And then he begins, and as he’s brushing his razor through your pubic hair a change plumes through you like ink shot into water, you start to feel young again, a teenager, to feel with all the intensity of those years. Something’s combusting within you, it’s like a varnisher’s hand whipped over a painting, as if all the leaden textures that have dulled your life for so long are shot through with light. You open your mouth and gulp air, you bunch Cole’s fingers in yours and squeeze them tight. At the end of it you both stare in fascination and horror at the childlike slash. Cole scrabbles off his trousers as if he doesn’t want to lose the moment, as if he, too, knows how rare it is. He comes quickly – too quickly, he thinks – but for you it’s perfect and you turn from him to the windows, to that lovely lemony light, and smile a Cheshire smile.
For you’ve just had your first orgasm with your husband.
Later that night. An Italian restaurant round the corner, your favourite. You haven’t been there with Cole for ages; you used to go often when the relationship was young. What’s got into you, he asks again, over a bottle of red that’s spreading warmth through you both. You smile, your hand hovers at your throat.
I’ve found this special section in the Library, you say, it’s full of these books, erotic books, and you stop, you blush, you cannot go on.
Cole leans back in his seat. He folds his arms like a headmaster who’s just heard a fantastical tale of remorse.
I keep on going back to them, you say.
Well, here’s to the London Library, then, and he raises his glass.
no dirt should be left in the interior crevices
You don’t tell Gabriel, you let him discover for himself. You’re not wearing underpants, of course. You feel an exquisite vertigo as he kneels before you, as his hands push up your skirt.
He recoils.
What’s this?
Cole did it.
Gabriel tightens, his whole body, his face.
Are you still sleeping with him, he asks.
Well, yes. He’s my husband.
There’s a prickle of irritation at having to say that.
He gets up and goes to the bathroom. The door slams shut.
Gab? Gabriel?
He talks through the door: I just didn’t think you were still fucking him. I thought – and there’s a sigh. What? Gabriel?
I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. I’m married, remember.
Gabriel
