Flesh Wound

"Would you mindvery much?" Cathy asked in a shaky voice, looking down at the carpet, not at me.

I couldn't answer for a long time. I was poleaxed, breathing fast, and feeling light-headed. "You can't expect me to like it" I said: "but I can't stop you, can I?"

The whole idea feltbad – bad at a deep, animal level that I couldn't even begin to put into words. Cathy tried hard to explain, and it all made sense, but it didn't make me feel any better.

"Before I die I want to make love with someone who fits me. I love you, but I don't know what it's like to be able to do anything that comes into my head without worrying it's going to hurt like hell. Look, I'm forty, sweetheart. I'm beginning to bulge. My bum gets bigger by the week. And what happened to the bust that used to support itself? For a while, just for a while, I want to be twenty. Is that so terrible?"

"No, no, it's not terrible. I know. I do know. If you'd been a bit bigger, and I'd been a bit smaller, it would have been perfect. I'm notthat big, I don't think, but you're, well, minute really. I've always had to take such care, not to push too hard, not to forget myself."

"You will be careful, won't you? I know you are, but please. Yes, I know you like it with my bottom in the air, I do too, but you bash me. No, I can't bring my legs up. I'd like to as well, but I can't. Perhaps if I keep my hand round it? No, don't even try that, please, darling, please. How about in my cleavage? I know it's not the same. It's not the same for me, either. You don't know how badly I want you inside me. How about my mouth? I'll make it really good. Don't move too much, though. I can use my hands, if you try not to get it in my hair, or in my eye again. Oh, all right, but please be careful. Let me do the moving, OK? Lie still. Keep your bottom down. No, you mustn't buck like that. You'll spoil it. I'll have to stop. Please, no, I'm still bruised inside from Sunday. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after."

"I don't want anyone else, I'm too tied in to you, always have been. But I don't blameyou. You deserve some, well, fun I suppose. . ."

"Oh, you're very sweet to me. But won't it be painful for you?"

"I expect it will. I hate the thought, really. I can't, I don't want to think about it. But what would be the point of playing the tough guy? You'd only resent me. You might hate me. You might start having someone else on the quiet. I'll just have to hope you don't fall in love and leave me for good. I suppose you've got someone lined up?"

She blushed, and looked down again.

"I thought I might invite Mark to stay for a few days," she said shakily. "If that's all right. If he'll come." She looked up at me. I shrugged, and tried to smile.

Mark. Yes. The quiet, gentlemanly, not exactly handsome bachelor she went to client meetings with. Who went miles out of his way to take her places. The one to whom she said "Hello, it's me," when she called him at the office. The one who had taken her to meet his mother on the way to the airport, not that it was on the way. The one she was staying at the same hotel with when she called me at bedtime, and talked in a strange way that gave the impression she wasn't alone. The one who always had the next seat to her at the opera or the theatre. He had probably adored her for years. People did, without her ever guessing.

"Well, of course he will. He'd have to be a complete idiot not to, wouldn't he? Any man worthy of the name would crawl over fifteen miles of broken glass to get to you. As a matter of fact, I thought the two of you might have, you know, already?"

"Oh, no, never. But we've been thrown together so much over the years. We've never touched, though, only a peck on the cheek now and again."

She was sobbing and laughing at the same time now.

"I saw him in swimming trunks at the last conference. Well, to be honest, I saw him without them too – the secretaries debagged him and pushed him in the pool. He's a bit white and podgy. Well, aren't we all these days? But he looks, you know, manageable."

"You mean tiny?"

She nodded, sniffing.

"Yes. No. Not tiny. Sort of dinky."

"Huh. That would make most husbands feel pretty good, wouldn't it? Why is it like an arrow through my heart?"

We were both laughing now.

"Could I, could I tell him you don't mind too much? Just this once?"

"Oh, whatever. I know you'll be delicate. But look, I want him to know I love you, and don't want to lose you. Hell, I wantyou to know that, too. Do you want me to go away for a few days? To my parents'? Take the dog? I haven't got any urgent jobs on."

"Oh, sweetie, I don't want to throw you out of your own home. Just give me a bit of space, that's all. I know how much I'm asking."

"OK, I'll retire to one of the spare rooms. Somewhere out of earshot. I'll keep out of your way. You won't know I'm around."

"Oh, I feel awful now. Will you be all right? You must think I'm just a randy bitch."

"Nah, what sort of talk is that? You're wonderful, that's what I think. You wouldn't even have considered this if you didn't need it very badly."

I went over to her chair, and knelt between her knees. We hugged each other, and cried together. I slid my hands under her bottom and kissed her tits. So this was what adult life was like. My stomach turned to water.

Of course. I could see it all. She didn't want gentle, she wanted abandoned. She wanted complete release for once. Who wouldn't? When his eager, sinuous, hard little thing slithered into her, she'd be able to do whatever she liked, without thinking. She could at last try all those bent-leg things where it goes in a long way. He could move in and out of her very slowly, and it would feel big, but without stretching walls or banging ovaries. Or fast, as fast as they could manage. It would be heaven for them both. Obviously.

Not a word was said in the next three days. And the atmosphere in the house was apparently relaxed. We were very careful of each other: nothing was too much trouble, there was no hint of bickering. At night we held each other close, sometimes tossed each other off, and caressed each other to sleep. In the middle of Wednesday night, I felt myself being gently shaken awake, and she squeezed my cock and whispered, "Could you fuck me, sweetheart? Do you mind?" I could, and I didn't mind. I slid into her from behind, carefully, and we both came quite quickly and quietly, and went to sleep still locked together. When she got up to leave for work in the morning, she leaned over and kissed me quite hard on the mouth. "I'll be bringing someone home tonight," she said. I nodded, and tried unconvincingly to look and sound cheery. "Be happy" I said, playfully pulling one of her big nipples: I never could resist them. There were tears in her eyes. I wasn't fooling anyone, not even myself.

I tried to hurl myself into my work all day, anything to stop thinking. It didn't succeed, but I tried. My office was only a five-minute walk from the house, but Cathy commuted to the city. I thought I would get home before her, fix a quick snack, and perhaps visit friends for the evening. It was cold, and sleeting, and I was relieved to see that the house was in darkness, except for the small kitchen light left on for the dog's benefit. I let myself in, and got a warm reception, from Claude at any rate. He was our dog, Cathy's and mine. With no children in the home, he was the love of her life, though she didn't like me saying that.

Going to the bathroom always required a rational decision — all those damn stairs — but yes, it was necessary. I'd only gone up one flight, though, when I was startled by a voice, clearly Cathy's, but higher and much more vehement than I was used to hearing it. "No, no, wait, wait," it said. Then, lower, and upset, subdued, disappointed: "Oh . . ."

This was too much. I crept back to the kitchen, and sat with my head in my arms, slumped forward on the table. I couldn't stand this. I decided on the hour's drive to my parents' house. They'd be pleased to see me, wouldn't ask any questions. They'd fawn on Claude. But hey, where were the car keys? Oh God, oh no, there was only one possible place.

I was careful to make some noise as I went up the stairs, hoping to give some warning that I was around. There was no light coming from under the closed bedroom door, and no voices from inside now, unless you count the eloquent bedsprings. I almost turned and went away again, but there was no getting away from it. "Cathy" I called, more loudly than I'd intended. "Cathy, I'm very sorry, but I've got to come in for the keys." There were small groans of impatience and annoyance, and a rustling and creaking. The dim yellow bedside light clicked on, and I turned the brass doorknob. "Couldn't you have made sure earlier?" said Cathy, in a tone so embarrassed it sounded like anger. Anyone else would have called it anger, but I knew her.

As I headed for the window sill, I tried very hard not to look towards the bed, but I couldn't help myself. Mark was turned away facing the far wall, not moving. My glance registered his short thinning fine fair hair on the pillow, and an expanse of pale back and shoulder. His glasses were beside him on the table. Cathy was half-sitting, with the duvet pulled up almost over her white breasts, the way they do in films, but not quite, for one big shape still hung over the cover. Her face and neck and chest were deeply flushed, her hair was everywhere, and she was breathless. She faced straight ahead, but as I retreated to the door, she shot me a brief look that said "How could you?"

I suppose it's possible to feel worse than I did at that moment, but I never had. I faked a benevolent smile. "I'll see you're not disturbed again" I mumbled as I closed the door behind me. I had barely crossed the landing when the light clicked off again.

Across the bed there would be the faintest glow from the streetlamps. He would turn back towards her, and see her eyes close as she sank down and spread her arms wide, her fingers opening and closing like starfish. He would nuzzle into her underarm hair, and kiss her breasts, first one, then the other, then back again. He would insinuate his tongue into her deep navel. Her heavy soft breasts would welcome his weight as he spread slowly over her again, sliding a leg over hers, and leaving a faint wet snail-trail across her stomach with the tip of his erection. She would throw back her head and offer her mouth for his thin lips and his tongue. Before long, without her willing it, she would cry out and her legs would open wide and encircle him. She would be trembling uncontrollably, and so would he.

I made it down the two floors to the kitchen, and across to the sink, before I was sick. A blast from the mixer tap took it away, and left me with my guts knotted up, and a feeling like a fur-ball in my throat. Jealousy is all the fun you think they're having without you. The real agony is when youknow what they're having without you, and it's a hell of a lot more than fun.

It would be so easy. At first they would whisper each other's names, but then they would find themselves invoking only God. They would forget who they were, and where they were, and what they were doing. They would leave all that far behind, back down with those two lost triumphant struggling people in the heat of the bed. They would go where no one could follow them. They would walk hand in hand in a place beyond the imagination.

I didn't go into work on the Friday. My parents were happy to have me around, the weather was lousy, the roads weren't good. And I couldn't face it. I drifted back home in the early afternoon, hoping for a few hours alone. I didn't know what I would do later. But there were two briefcases in the hall. That fur-ball again. I could hear running water, and I couldfeel that doors were open where they'd been closed before. When you really know a house, it has a life of its own, you relate to it like another person.

As I got to the landing, I heard the shower buzzing, and the sounds of soapy splashing coming from inside the bathroom. The bedroom door was open, and the curtains drawn back, so I went in. There was Cathy, fast asleep, a tiny figure lying diagonally across the unmade bed, face down, her breathing rising and falling with a little click. She was wearing her office clothes: but she wasn't fully dressed. Her dark pleated skirt was thrown up over her back, and her black tights and silk knickers were rolled down a few inches below her bottom. She still had on her smart heeled shoes. I felt I ought not to stare at her, lying there so exposed, but I didn't know what was the proper thing to do any more. So I did stare. Spattered over her bottom, and running down the crack to the thick tuft of dark hair where her thighs met, was a great deal of glistening liquid. It was the work of a moment to go across to the bed without a thought, unzip my trousers, pull out my cock, lean forward, slide it a little way into her hot wetness, and pull out just in time to add my own warm copious contribution to the cold puddle. I didn't think she would wake – once she was asleep, nothing ever woke her – and she didn't. Feeling faint, I took my dressing gown from the hook and laid it over her: then, before I turned to go, I stroked her hair gently, just once. She sighed in her sleep, and a shudder passed through her little body.

They would have got off the train, and smiled tensely at each other without speaking. They would have almost run along the lane to the house, she would have wrestled with the front door key, and once inside, they would have thrown down their briefcases anywhere, and leaped up the stairs, shedding only their dark jackets on the way to the bedroom. Still without a word, they would have grabbed at one another, gasping, he would have turned her round and lifted her breasts roughly in his hands and bitten her neck as she arched back against him, her bottom pressed into his groin. She might, knowing her, have come more than once already, on the train with anticipation, and/or as soon as her nipples felt his long fingers. He would have moved his hands to her armpits, and shoved her forward on to the crumpled duvet, following her down as soon as he had wrenched her black skirt out of the way, and uncovered her just enough. She would have been unable to move as he toppled onto her. She would have grunted as his weight crushed her into the bed. He would have picked an opening arbitrarily, one or the other. She would have been past caring. She would have come with a scream as soon as he entered her, and hearing and feeling that, he would have started to come too, pulling away from her with an awful groan and spurting over her back and bottom. Seeing it squirt and puddle on her smooth pale skin would have proved to him that it was all real. They would both have been exhausted. She would have fallen dead asleep immediately, while he staggered to the bathroom, dry-mouthed and shaking. It would have lasted perhaps ten or fifteen seconds.

I left the house quickly, taking the dog with me. I didn't want to meet Mark coming out of the shower. I didn't want to have to appraise his body. He wouldn't have wanted to see me there either, though he'd see the dressing gown and maybe guess. Or maybe not. We walked along the river bank until it began to get dark, and hurriedly turned for home. The cold wind from the north hit me, and it was only then that I felt the tears running icily down my face. I was afraid to go back to the house, but all was quiet now, and I turned on the kitchen TV, not knowing what I was watching, but glad of the noise and the colour.

In the mid-evening, there was a call for Cathy. Her father. I told him, without a hint of humour, she was still on the job. But I'd get her to ring him as soon as possible. "I can't help thinking she's overdoing it" he said. "Oh, I agree with you" I said. "But you can't tell her, can you? Once she gets going, she can't seem to stop." I could have said a lot more. Like:

"To tell the truth, Cyril, she's flat on her back, though knowing her it's probably arched like a rainbow, and she's hanging on with white knuckles to the bedhead, with the black hair in her armpits soaked with sweat. There's a man leaning down over her with his head locked between her thighs. His chin and cheeks are abrading her soft skin. His mouth is slurping around in her cockles. By now she'll have her arms round his haunches, and be inspecting the hairy bottom in front of her face, and the wrinkled scrotum, and the penis still shiny and gluey, still letting itself down in faint throbs from a few minutes ago. Her body and limbs will be getting more and more rigid till it seems they're about to fracture, and his head will be jammed, and his tongue working furiously but gently where he's found she needs it most, and then she'll hold her breath, and screech out – can't you hear her from there? – the unbearable release. Her fine hair will be matted to her forehead, and their bodies will be stuck together again. When he runs his wet hand over her wet navel, the little cup will suck air and make them giggle. She'll lean over and absent-mindedly start to play around and around his glans with her little tongue, and bobble his balls in her fingers, and tenderly peel back his foreskin to taste the strong stuff fermenting inside it, while he shudders and cups his hand over her sopping vulva. No matter how many times this makes it, he won't even try to resist that lovely mouth for long, and she'll feel the hardness grow again under the silky skin, and she'll take all of him in and deliver him painlessly with her tongue, making appreciative sounds through soft closed lips as she swallows rapidly, oh, maybe a dozen times. Endearing that she never spits, always swallows."

But back to the phone call. "I know, I know" said the old boy. "That's just how her mother was." I didn't like the way the conversation was threatening to go. It was a stupid game, and I was the only player. I said my farewells and rang off, utterly dejected. I had a few glasses ofAbsolut before turning in. It didn't make me feel good at all, only numb, but that was about the best I could expect.

When I woke, chilly and alone in the big spare bed, on what I assumed would be the last morning of the visit, it occurred to me that I hadn't seen either Cathy or Mark in the kitchen since at least Friday, and now it was Monday. Had they really not had anything substantial to eat or drink in all that time? Were theythat busy? Well, yes, I supposed they were. I felt a pang, of something quite like tenderness. The pain was always there, of course, but I wasn't praying for death quite so often.

Down in the kitchen I made tea, and brewed fresh coffee, and squeezed oranges. I warmed croissants and toasted muffins, and put the whole lot on a tray with all the fruit I could find, then climbed the three floors to what I still ironically thought of as our bedroom. I knocked lightly at the door, announced "Room service!" and walked in. They didn't seem displeased to see me this time. They were half-sitting, and Cathy had her white nightdress on, though it was unbuttoned down at least to where it disappeared into the covers, revealing a high percentage of her heavy white globes. Mark was dressed in his glasses now, but not much else as far as one could tell. Radio 3 was playing Schubert softly.

The aroma of coffee steaming up from the jug didn't quite mask the more acrid smell in the room, a smell I recognised, and which made my stomach turn over with anguish again. I tried not to let it show. When Cathy and I were first together all those years ago, we'd often make love – carefully, of course – three or four times before we went to sleep. By next morning when we wanted to do it again, she'd have turned our joint effusions into a pungent metallic brew that spread in patches over the bedlinen, and still oozed out of her, reeking darkly. We didn't find it at all unpleasant. We referred to that part of her as her "yogurt machine." In the present circumstances I was rather less charmed by it.