Love in Every Season

by Charlie Cochrane

  Only with Egypt?

  “Perhaps it’s the pull of the exotic, or because they feel less constricted here than back at their London bank or wherever they’ve run away from, even if it’s just for a few weeks.” I turned my gaze away. Not the place to reveal the depth of my feelings yet, in broad daylight and in the man’s bed. The pillow, I’d noticed, still smelt of him. “I’d be bewitched by the place if I stayed long enough. Anyone would.”

  “No,” Andrew shook his head, “not everyone. You’re open minded enough to embrace the things that are different from home, others aren’t. It makes me wild, the way people come out here and expect Damahlia to be like Leatherhead or Worthing. What’s the point of travelling if all you want is the same as you have at home, except with slightly different stars overhead?”

  I could only shake my head, at the folly of such narrow-minded behaviour. I’d seen it many times.

  “Do you know, one of the two most difficult problems I have to deal with here is women who complain about the quality of the tea and the fact there isn’t a local equivalent of Fortnum and Mason they can send out to at the drop of a hat.” Andrew picked up another slice of watermelon, turning the fruit in his hands. “Look at this—it’s as delicious as anything you can get in London and most of the old biddies turn their noses up at it.”

  “Then they have no taste.” I took the slice that was offered me and bit into the flesh with relish, the cool succulence refreshing my throat and taking away the last lingering tastes of illness and fear. “You said that was just one of the two most difficult problems. What’s the other?”

  “Ah.” Andrew blushed, his handsome face suffused with embarrassment. “That would be the visitors who see fit to fall in love not with Egypt but with their host. Me. I suspect it’s not any particular attraction of mine but the air of this place. The young ladies seem to feel it’s steeped in glamour and probably mistake me for a character from a romantic novel. It’s a shame to have to disappoint them.”

  “Do you always disappoint them?” I could hardly get my words out, throat suddenly as dry as it had been the night before. Was I imagining that Andrew was challenging me to say I’d gone the same way as the young ladies?

  “The ladies, yes. I steer a path well clear of them and if that doesn’t work I confess to having a love at home for whom I pine day and night and to whom I would return except she’s married.” Andrew, melodramatically, raised the back of his hand to his forehead. “That usually does the trick—they go and cry on Peterson’s shoulder if they’re still up for a bit of romance, so things work out conveniently all round.” He rose, reached over and tousled my hair. “And now, I’m afraid, I’ve a pair of intriguing potsherds to mull over for an hour or two with one of my more intelligent students. I’ll be back for dinner.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be up to joining the rest of the party.”

  “Wouldn’t think of expecting you to. You’ll eat here off a tray and I’ll keep you company. I’ll send Bernard over for a short visit—he’s straining at the leash, poor chap, convinced you’re at death’s door and we’re hiding it and he’s going to get the blame from his mother. Don’t let him wear you out.”

  “I won’t.” I watched Andrew’s golden head as he turned the angle of the door, knowing there was only one way I’d like to be worn out in Damahlia camp and poor Bernard didn’t fit into that scheme of things at all.

  ***

  Bernard visited, seemed both happy and relieved to find I wasn’t already trussed up in a coffin, after which he tootled off for dinner and a game of bridge. I dozed for a while, tired by even this short visit and increasingly aware of just how much the encounter with the scorpion had taken out of me. I awoke to the sound of Andrew, hissing to his servant to be quiet and not rouse me.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you—we could have kept this warm,” Andrew indicated a covered platter under which there must have lain a host of goodies, judging from the incredible smell wafting from the general direction of the plates.

  “No, don’t apologise. I was waking already.” I sat up, more easily this time. “I could do with my dinner.”

  Andrew came over to study me carefully, evidently making sure that I wasn’t dissembling. “Dinner it is, then. The lamb is said to be excellent, or so my chef assures me.” He uncovered the plates, exposing a bed of saffron rice, topped with tender meat and fruits. “I’m sorry, invalids first.” He offered the plate.

  “I’ll ignore that remark. Invalid always sounds to me like a derogatory term and I’m feeling almost a new man again now, after my sleep.” I took the plate and fork, then began to tuck into the rice. “This really is very good.”

  We ate pretty well in silence, spurred on by appetites restored, until the plates were almost as bare as the desert wastes stretching out to the east of the dig.

  “Would you like one of these?” Andrew produced some small confections we’d tasted before, honeyed and adorned with nuts, as sweet as a first kiss.

  I shook my head. “They’re delightful, but I’ll leave them for now. To be honest…” I grinned, “at the risk of sounding like those guests you decry, the one thing I miss out here is a good old-fashioned pudding. I even dreamed about treacle sponge this afternoon.”

  Andrew beamed. “Well, I’ve heard of sickbed confessions, but never dreams of nursery food. I should see if my chef can oblige, although whether it would resemble the real thing, I couldn’t say. You make me feel quite nostalgic.”

  Memories of the nursery and innocent joy filled my heart with thoughts of home, too. “I can live without pudding, at least for a while,” I said. “More important priorities, like finding some lead lined boots to wear about the place. I have no intention of going through that experience again.”

  “You’d be very unlucky if you did.” Andrew carefully tidied up the remains of the meal, clearing the bed of everything but us. “We all get the odd stings although generally the beasties avoid the company of man. That particular form of lightning rarely does strike twice, believe me.”

  I carefully smoothed any remaining crumbs of food off the sheet. Ideas were springing up in my mind and I needed a clear field to work them through. “I’d believe anything you told me.”

  Andrew gently laid his hand next to mine. “And I you. Even if you said the sky here is pink, the Jordan full of Guinness and the pharaohs had all spoken Geordie.”

  “For an intelligent man you really are remarkably silly at times.” I nudged my hand closer to his.

  “Funny thing is,” Andrew continued, “you’ve made me a bit homesick for a home I thought I no longer needed. Still, no amount of jam roly-poly would draw me back there at the moment.”

  “What would?” I asked, really wanting to ask, “Why do you feel you no longer need to go back there?”

  Andrew shrugged. “Not money. I’ve enough of that. Work, maybe, if the right opportunity came. Love, perhaps. The right person.”

  “I hope you find them one day. Her,” I said, placing my hand on his, “or him.”

  “Indeed. As I said, the right person, not necessarily the expected one.” He twined his fingers with mine. It wasn’t as pleasant as I’d anticipated.

  “Oh, bugger this sand. It’s even got in between your fingers, and my poor toes are itching with it.” I pulled my fingers free, trying to sweep away the wretched substance.

  “I can truly say I’ve never met anyone who attracts the stuff of the desert like you do. When Dr. Peterson and I undressed you last night I thought you’d brought half a dune in here about your person.”

  “I think it’s like cats. It must know I hate it and makes a beeline for me.”

  “We should see if that’s true.” Andrew, laughing, let go of my hand and shuffled along to the end of the bed, pulling back the thin coverlet. “You’re right, those feet are full of sand. I’ll give them a good clean, so you feel better. Not ticklish, are we?” he asked over his shoulder, as he went to fetch a wash bowl and towel.

  “Not e
specially, and I’d be grateful for the relief. I’ll value water much more in future.” I was gushing, again, maybe afraid to show just how much I was going to enjoy Andrew’s hands on my flesh. “When I’m better I’d like to go bathing in that little river again.”

  “The one where Bernard made such a to-do over the possibility of crocodiles? That can be arranged, and perhaps just the two of us should go.” Andrew gently cleaned between each of my toes, like a mother might with a baby. “I’m sure he won’t want to risk another potential encounter, not after the tales the men have been telling him in the camp”

  “Are there really crocodiles there, then? Did they have someone’s leg off?”

  “Not so far as I know of in that particular stream, and the leg is a pure flight of fancy. But poor Bernard is so very gullible it must seem a shame not to try to put one over on him. One day I’ll tell him the truth, but not yet.” Andrew stopped in mid wipe, my left foot in his hand. “What extraordinary toes you have.”

  If this was flirtation, it was an interesting way to start.

  “I’ve never noticed,” I replied. “Toes are toes, surely?”

  “But yours are so long and straight. Elegant, assuredly, but…” He ran his fingers along them and I lay back, shut my eyes and enjoyed the sensation. Eventually, Andrew finished the massage, dried my feet, got rid of the bowl and towel and returned to the bed. “All better now?”

  “Much, thank you.” It was time to cross the Rubicon. “Excuse me if I’m off course here, but I’ve formed a theory and want to test it.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “It isn’t meant to. I just wondered—you described falling in love with the desert like falling in love with a woman. Did you mean that? Or did you mean something else, something you couldn’t say?” Why couldn’t I express myself as well in the spoken word as in the written? Still, Andrew seemed to have got my meaning.

  “Very perceptive. A woman wouldn’t be my first choice of partner. Nor my second or third.”

  “Does Peterson know that?” I have no idea why I asked the question, nor why the answer seemed to matter.

  “Oh, yes.” Andrew smiled. “We had a long, drunken conversation one evening. Compared the circumstances under which we’d left home.”

  “Ah. There’s a story to be told, I guess.”

  “There is, but I don’t want it ending up in one of your books.” Andrew rubbed my leg. “You can make an educated guess. In my case, imagine two young men and two sets of parents worrying about how close they’d become. Despatch one young man to America and one in the other direction, before scandal and disaster fell upon them all.”

  “Ah. I promise I won’t put it in my book. Does Yaseem know?”

  “Not the background, but my inclinations, yes.” The rub became a caress. “You can’t hide anything from him. He knows how worried I was about you, last night.”

  “Were you?”

  “Of course I was and not just about the possibility of losing a paying guest, if that’s what you think.” Andrew looked down at the bed. “My mother always said I was a good actor. I tried not to give away how much it would hurt if anything happened to you.” He looked up at me again. “Did you not hear me railing at God and his angels, pleading with them to let you live? Not to snatch you away before I had the chance of finding out whether you might feel the same?”

  “I didn’t. Maybe it’s as well—you wouldn’t have wanted me dying of fright.” Or dying of delight. “You know, it’s a long time since I had my feet rubbed. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.”

  We exchanged a look. A long, knowing glance that said more than words might.

  “I’ve been told I have a knack at massaging. I’m glad I haven’t lost it.” Andrew’s sparkling eyes seemed to be suggesting that he’d be happy to give me an extended demonstration. Surely both of us now knew the lay of the land?

  “If you want more practice, I have nothing else to do at the moment than lie here. And that bloody sand,” I added, trying to control the trembling in my voice, “that bloody sand penetrates every crevice, you know.”

  “Does it?” Andrew grinned. “Does it really?”

  “Oh yes.” I ran a finger along Andrew’s arm, from wrist to shoulder. “Every single one. Test the thesis if you don’t believe it.”

  “I’ll have to. Completely. In the interests of science.” He shuffled down the bed again, to finger my toes. “Well we know these were full of it, so…” he ran his hand along my calf, finding the curve at the back of my knee, that tender skin which felt so exquisite under his touch. “Some sand here. Not much, but enough to count.” He carried on up, hand creeping under the thin cover and across my hip, where he must have noticed how remarkably taut the material of my drawers had become. “Must be some more around here.” Andrew slipped his hand between drawers and skin, inching his fingers gently between my legs. “Oh yes, plenty of sand here. Amazing how the stuff can penetrate so totally.”

  “Not the nicest thing to penetrate down there.” My voice was deep, hoarse. Mrs. Mottram always says I sound refined, but she’d never heard me in such circumstances. “I can think of a better.”

  “So can I.” Andrew stroked me between, around, over, along; hot flesh under hot hands, responding to his touch. “But maybe we shouldn’t try it tonight, not after that sting. If you were overtaxed and taken ill again, however would we explain things to Dr. Peterson?” He chuckled, softly.

  “Then it’s a real incentive to get better.” I reached for Andrew’s shoulder, caressing the strong muscles. “I’m well enough for other things, though.”

  “I can see that for myself.” Andrew gently loosened my drawers, sliding the silk down. “What a magnificent frame. I’ll resist saying it’s ironic you should hate camels when you’re hung like one.” He got to work again, stroking and squeezing, fingers roaming all over the soft skin between my legs, touching, stretching, teasing.

  “Oh.” I’d been prepared to face death, the day before, and now the prospect was here again, if only in the petit mort form.

  “I’m sorry,” Andrew took his hand away, the look of concern darkening his sun kissed face. “Was that going a bit too far?”

  “No, it’s just…” I motioned for him to move closer, “if you carry on like that I’m going to come off and I don’t want to, not yet.” I pushed my fingers into Andrew’s tawny hair, pulling his face closer and stealing our first kiss. “Hmm. I was frightened you’d taste of sand, like everything else seems to.”

  “I don’t taste of camel either.” Andrew proved it, in a series of long, languid kisses, tongue gently probing my mouth. I returned the favour, strong muscle on silken flesh. “I think,” he took another deep kiss, “we should lock the door. We’ve been interrupted enough recently.”

  “We have. Anyone would think your team here didn’t want two people to be alone together.” I watched my host—or should I dare to start thinking of him as lover, now?—slide the bolt across, the action and its associations making my pulse race. If it weren’t for the state of my calf, we’d surely be doing the same thing, uniting bolt and hole. I’d certainly be suggesting performing the act once my leg got better, unless tonight ended in some sort of romantic disaster.

  Was I being too rash? Perhaps. I’d only known Andrew barely two weeks, and I’d never tumbled into anyone’s bed on so short an acquaintance, not any of the three occasions so far I’d actually tumbled into a shared bed. Even Jerry and I had performed a winding courtship, a labyrinthine journey from tentative exploration of feelings to a hot Mediterranean night spent in my bed, unsleeping. There’d been plenty of practice sliding the key into the lock that night.

  My thoughts raced on, leaping into the minutes that lay ahead. The chance of climax, however achieved, seemed intoxicating after so long a time of abstinence. I was certain now that sex with Andrew wouldn’t be some inexperienced fumbling, hurried and clumsy; making love would be slow and expert and wonderful.

  “You seem miles awa
y.” Andrew had stripped off his shirt and was sitting on the bed, easing off his own drawers.

  “I was thinking about the risk of spoiling things with haste.” I ran my hand down the creamy ladder of my lover’s spine, gently caressing each vertebra. Just like caressing a marble statue, Antinous or Alexander in all his splendour and perfection of body. Only Andrew really did seem perfect, rather than being some sculptor’s ideal. “I was concerned I might be rushing you.”

  “Rushing me?” Andrew leaned into the touch, rolling his shoulders in relaxation. “I’d have had you in my bed as soon as you came into the camp. Seize the day or lose it, that’s what I believe.”

  “That’s what Bernard says, too. About seizing the day. Should that worry me?” I pulled Andrew back, leaning towards him for more kisses. They were the best cure for a wound which was starting to smart again. “He’s terribly good at chasing anything in a skirt but once he catches a woman he has no idea what’s going on and he gets advantage taken of him.”

  “Not something that would ever happen to you,” Andrew grinned, turning in my grasp until he could straddle my leg—the good one. As hard as I was, as ready to come off, I pressed myself gently onto his flesh.

  “What’s best here, then, if we aren’t to spoil that dressing and bring down the wrath of Dr. Peterson?” Andrew continued. “Mouth? Hand? Good old fashioned abrasion?”

  “Hand, please.” I tousled my lover’s—my lover, the words were sweet, even in thought—hair. “Only I’ll sort you out first, because I’m not sure I’d have the energy afterwards.”

  “Are you absolutely sure you’re well enough?” The hint of reticence in Andrew’s voice was belied by the eager way his fingers were drumming a tattoo on my chest, a tattoo which was rapidly parading southwards.

  “I’ll have to be well enough. Look at the state of us—something’s got to be done about it.” We were both beyond the rescue of even the coldest of showers: excited, desperate, ready to spill. I drew Andrew up for another kiss, then took him in hand, eager to finish the job. It didn’t take long before Andrew’s face was buried in my chest, restraining his rapture to a series of low moans. The mud walls here weren’t that thick or soundproof so caution still had to be the watchword. I lay back, waiting for him to get composed and get to work.