Perversely, I was glad. The memory of Lucy’s kiss, the impression of her embrace, erased all other considerations. I continued to lie there, motionless. Tomorrow would come, and with it my first taste of her body. Half asleep, I felt pleasantly aroused, but felt no need to anticipate the coming pleasure. I simply rested a comforting hand on my crotch, breathed contentedly, and lost consciousness.
Lucy’s text was waiting for me in the morning. “Foyer of the British Library, six o’clock. Kisses.” Fortunately I only had a brief court appearance in the morning, to fix a date for a preliminary hearing, and had the rest of the day to examine my briefs. As I flipped through some law reports and studied one case in more depth, I thought of Lucy, similarly occupied in the manuscripts reading room in the British Library. She seemed to be the kind of person who could handle her work without fuss, close her laptop at the end of the day, put away her moleskine notebook and sally forth with cheerful heart into the evening. I adjusted my tie and donned my overcoat.
My fellow-passengers in the tube to King’s Cross had no idea. I was alone with my secret knowledge. The doors opened and we streamed out onto the platform and up the stairs. I was hurried along in the press of people making their way towards the taxi rank and the busy crossing on the Marylebone Road that led to the British Library. Buses and taxis everywhere. There was a light drizzle. I pushed my way into the great, slippery quadrangle, and presented my brief case to be searched at the entrance to the foyer. I looked up towards the central glass tower of rare books.
She was coming down the main escalator, her dark hair glistening. Under her fawn trench coat she was dressed in a red cashmere sweater and grey slacks. A typical American academic, eastern division — the woman I was falling in love with. She smiled broadly when she saw me.
“Let me collect my satchel from the locker and I’ll be with you in just a minute.”
To wait even another minute or two was agony. I browsed the books on display at the gift shop. Then I felt her hand on my shoulder.
We dashed through the rain and hailed a cab. Lucy instructed the driver, “Mount Street, Mayfair.”
In the days before the internet, Mayfair was a favourite girlie magazine, the kind of thing the teachers confiscated at my school. The streets of the real Mayfair were crowded with Bentleys and Rolls Royces. I had a sensation of being elevated out of sleaze into opulence when we alighted at the Connaught Hotel. The commissionaire ushered us in to the lounge, Lucy summoned a waiter and almost before I knew it we were raising our glasses to —
“Us,” she said, decidedly.
I readily joined in the toast. But what exactly was “us”? Two lonely people, approaching middle age, from opposite sides of the Atlantic, having a brief fling before she had to return to her college in North Carolina? Or something more?
In those first hours of our love, these questions didn’t arise. She was a Byzantine historian with two scholarly books to her credit. I was a barrister aspiring to silk. We were hungry to know more, to hear each other’s stories. I wanted to probe into her past quite as much as I wanted to explore her body. The light in her eyes as she listened to everything I told her was entrancing.
One thing I knew I had to steer clear of. This was not the time for “My wife doesn’t understand me.” That would cheapen what was happening between us. It would make tawdry what was crisp and gleaming new.
And so, by some unspoken agreement, we did not rush the moment when we would go upstairs. It came when we had temporarily talked ourselves out. There was a brief silence. We had reached a point of rest and reflection. She looked at me and nodded.
“Room 403.”
I gave her a few minutes while I downed the last of my cognac, then laid my napkin down on the table and headed for the men’s room.
Only, I heard a familiar voice behind me.
“Hello, Ivan.”
I had no choice but to turn around. “Hello, Belinda. What brings you here, darling?”
“Oh, you know. Stuff. Just had a drink with a client. Nice place.”
Was she cheating on me? Or checking up on me?
“Heading home, now?” I asked, stalling for time.
“Yes, I thought so. Coming?” She hadn’t yet asked what I was doing at the Connaught. I had to think fast.
I lied. “I’ve got a taxi picking me up in half an hour.” Please, God, let her be in too much of a hurry to wait. Please.
“That’s OK, Ivan; finish your business. See you at home.” She gave me a peck on the cheek and went out to hail a cab.
That gave me a few minutes, not nearly enough. I took the stairs three at a time.
Lucy was already in her nightgown, shimmering ivory with a leafy pattern. The thought of having to wait to touch her, not to be able to savour her body, was unbearable. It didn’t help that she looked so good and held me so close.
“Lucy,” I said. “I bumped into Belinda downstairs, I don’t know how. I must go. I’m so sorry.”
She continued to hold me. “Don’t be. This thing between us is more important than just one night together at the Connaught,” she said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
Once again, just a goodbye kiss. Her body was warm and inviting — and unavailable.
“You must go,” she said. She pressed herself against me. “Don’t worry. We’ll make this happen.”
It meant that I got home only minutes after Belinda. She was pottering around in her study, idly turning over some papers, when I hung up my coat and deposited my briefcase in the hallway.
“You know, Ivan, I think I may have been a bit harsh when we argued yesterday.” This was nothing new; she was usually sorry about the argument, without ever going back on her unwillingness to consider having sex. “We just have different needs, that’s all.”
“That’s true. It’s a pity, though.”
“Yes, it is, in a way. When I saw you at the hotel, so smart in your suit and tie and coat, I couldn’t help thinking: there must be plenty of women who would fall for you. Just then I saw the sexiest woman passing me on her way to the lifts. Nice tits poking through a red cashmere sweater.” She tweaked my chin playfully. “I bet you would have liked to get into her pants!” Was she setting a trap?
“And you know,” she continued. “I fell for you once. I still like you. It’s just that other thing I can’t raise much enthusiasm for.”
“That’s all right, my love. I understand. We’re good.”
It was a close-run thing. For the second night in a row, my hopes could have been cut short, if Belinda had only reverted to the way we were during our courtship and the early days of our marriage. But though she could express regret, she spoke of love-making as a thing to be put aside, over and done with.
In any case, it was not just sex I wanted. For that, I had only to return to Soho. Even my resentment over Belinda’s reticence was mainly indignation and wounded ego. With Lucy, it would be the real thing. She was within my reach but temporarily beyond my grasp.
I turned to my phone. Sure enough, there was a message from Lucy.
“I’m so sorry! I was all ready for you. After you left I took off my nightgown, snuggled down into the bed, nothing between my body and those smooth ironed sheets. I imagined touching you, really touching you, for the first time. How much I want you, Ivan, how much I want to open my legs for you. Please come and do things to me — I want to be all yours.”