Once he sensed my body was fine with him being fully enclosed, he began to move. It’s a rhythm as old as time but each couple has their own take on it. I never found my groove with Andy, or my other partners. I always felt I was three steps behind, like a novice dancer trying to join a complicated line dance. I was always out of sequence, out of time with my partners.
But with Matt I felt everything fall into place. He moved and I responded. Our bodies rocked together as if they had been programmed to do it. When he groaned with deep pleasure it made my flesh shiver all over. But instead of taking his pleasure, he hadn’t finished giving me mine. He somehow got his hand between our bodies and found my clitoris again and stroked and coaxed it into an earth-shattering orgasm. It was so powerful I could feel it rippling through me, the tight contractions triggering his release. I felt the deep shudder of his body as it drove into mine in those last desperate pumps as he emptied. I felt his skin lift in goose bumps and stroked my hands over his back and shoulders and down over his lower spine and taut buttocks.
Neither of us spoke.
I didn’t want to break the mood with banal conversation. I wanted to dwell in that quiet sense of physical harmony, the soothing mutual relaxation of two bodies that moments ago had been strung tight with sexual tension but which had now found peace.
It was a while before I realised Matt was soundly asleep. I know a lot a men fall asleep after sex, but at least he hadn’t rolled away to the other side of the bed and started snoring like a wild boar.
He had quietly slipped into a deep and relaxing slumber while still holding me in his arms. For some strange reason I felt like crying. Not because he hadn’t stayed awake long enough to tell me I was the best sex partner he’d ever had—as if that was going to happen—but because he felt comfortable enough with me to truly relax. I got the feeling he didn’t do it too often.
After half an hour or so I gently extricated myself from his hold. He made a soft, deep murmur of something that sounded a little like protest but he didn’t fully wake up. I covered him with the quilt and tiptoed about the room to collect my clothes. I dressed in the bathroom, and then, once I had restored some sense of order to my hair, I went downstairs. I gave Winnie a last pat and made sure she had doggy biscuits and a fresh bowl of water, and then I let myself out.
I HAD A pre-assessment clinic first thing the next day and then a meeting with the other anaesthetists about some minor changes to the training scheme. Then I had a list in Theatre that went over time due to the weirdest case of appendicitis I’ve ever seen, or the surgeon for that matter. Despite the patient only being seventeen, the appendix had been massively expanded and completely replaced by what looked like a tumour.
It meant I was nowhere near ICU until quite late in the day. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Matt since I’d left his place the night before, but I knew he was at work because I’d overheard two of the theatre nurses talking about him.
‘I walked past Matt Bishop on my way to work this morning,’ Leanne said. ‘Talk about hot. Do you know who he’s seeing?’
‘No, but I wish it was me,’ the other one, called Kathy, said in a tone that suggested she was waggling her eyebrows.
I tried not to eavesdrop but my ears were out on cornstalks.
The girls must have sensed my interest as they turned to me, where I was tidying up my equipment. ‘Who do you think it is, Bertie?’
‘Why would you think I would know?’ I sounded a bit defensive. Way too defensive.
‘Someone said he’s seeing a married woman and she works at St Iggy’s,’ Kathy said.
‘That’s just malicious gossip and you shouldn’t be spreading it,’ I said. I immediately regretted it. I saw the way their eyebrows went up in unison.
‘Touchy,’ Leanne said.
‘Anyway,’ Kathy pitched in, ‘why would you be so worried about what’s said about him? Isn’t he going to pull the plug on your research?’
I tried to keep my composure cool and indifferent but I could feel a hot tide of colour sweeping up from my neck to my face. ‘Not if I can produce results.’
‘You’d better watch out, Bertie,’ Leanne said. ‘If it’s true Dr Bishop has a thing for married women, you might be his next target.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘I’m not—’
‘Interested?’ Kathy said. ‘Come on, you might’ve just got back from your honeymoon but you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t find him attractive.’
I could have told them then and there. I’m not married. But I could just imagine the fallout. The news would spread like wildfire. I would be the topic of every locker room and staff tearoom conversation. Everywhere I went people would give me those looks, the looks I’d faced for most of my twenty-seven years. Pity. Ridicule. Mockery.
Just as well I got a call about a patient in Recovery. I made good my escape and left.
I went to ICU after I finished in Recovery to check on Jason. His wife, Megan, was there, his parents having gone home after spending most of the day with him. She looked exhausted so I sat with her for a while, just listening as she told me about the plans she and Jason had made. Their excitement over finding they were to become parents, how they had chosen names and decided against finding out the sex of the baby, as they wanted the thrill of the surprise.
She even showed me the ultrasound images. Seeing a baby in utero in 3D stirred my own maternal longings in my body. I had squashed them down for years as I’d concentrated on my career, but now, as I got closer and closer to the big three-oh, I was hearing some very loud ticking.
Andy hadn’t been so keen on having kids straight away but, like a lot of women, I’d assumed he’d change his mind once we were married. It was only when I saw him with that girl that I realised he wasn’t mature enough to be a father. He was too selfish to want to give up his freedom and take responsibility for someone other than himself.
I berated myself for being so blind about him. I had let the years roll on, reassuring myself things would get better when they had got progressively worse. Why hadn’t I acknowledged it? Why had I let it get to the night before the wedding to see my relationship with him for what it was?
Once I was sure Megan was comfortable with a fresh glass of juice and some sandwiches from the doctors’ room—I was bending the rules, but the ones in the relatives’ room weren’t as nice, in my opinion—I left the unit.
Matt was coming out of his office as I was coming along the corridor to leave for the day. I’d thought of nothing else but him ever since I’d left his great-aunt’s house the night before. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to explore the amazing chemistry we had together. My body was still aware of him. It still tingled every time I thought of the passion we had shared.
He stopped in the process of closing his door, pushing it open instead and indicating with his head for me to come inside. ‘Got a minute?’
I walked past him in the doorway, my body zinging with awareness as one of his shirtsleeves brushed me on the way past. I turned and faced him once he’d closed
