Kindred Intentions

by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

  The more she meditated on it, the place she was in, away from anything and anybody, seemed to her more desirable than anywhere else.

  Anyway, she would think about it later. Now: shower and food.

  She reached the bathroom door. She opened it and turned on the light. And she emitted a triumphant titter.

  “I would have bet on that,” she commented to herself, seeing the Jacuzzi.

  She lingered amongst bubbles for the better part of a half-hour, letting water jets massage her, but at a certain point the hole in her stomach reminded her that it didn’t want to wait any longer to be filled. As she rose from the hot water she felt a slight dizziness. A hot, humid environment and a low blood sugar level were really the worst of matches.

  She put on a white towelling robe that was hanging in the bathroom. It was large, but not overly so. It belonged to Mike. She pictured him wearing it, his body under the terry. And she felt light-headed again. Sexual fantasies required an energy which she couldn’t really count on right now.

  The cooler temperature of the bedroom woke her up again. She started searching the wardrobe. She found a tracksuit with a sweater opening at the front with a zipper, and a T-shirt that wasn’t excessively big.

  She gazed at the little pile of clothes she had taken off before her bath. She could have saved her underwear, but she certainly couldn’t use it now. She decided to throw everything away. She would do without it.

  She donned her new clothes, opened the piece of furniture beside the wardrobe and glimpsed a pair of shoes that could be the thing for her, and her feet. Now that they were clean, they looked less battered than she’d thought, but the idea of locking them in those shoes wasn’t really tempting her. She would’ve needed a pair of socks. She eyed a chest of drawers; perhaps she would find something useful in there, but she felt too embarrassed to rummage around in Mike’s belongings. He had mentioned the wardrobe, not the drawers. She didn’t want to be invasive. She would ask him.

  She took the shoes and exited the room barefoot, holding them in her hand.

  A diffused lighting welcomed her. Being summer, the fireplace was obviously out, but small spotlights were dispersed all around it recreating an atmosphere similar to the one of a burning fire.

  She searched for him, but there was nobody else in the room. A light was on in the kitchen corner and was aimed at the table. Two smoking plates of spaghetti, paired with forks and glasses, seemed waiting to be devoured. With the hunger she was feeling, she would eat anything vaguely edible, but it really looked delicious.

  Uncertain, she turned to the door overlooking the unknown room. Mike was certainly there, but he had to have finished washing himself by now, given that he had cooked dinner.

  “Mike?” She waited a few seconds for a possible noise coming from there as reply to her call, but there was none. Most probably he hadn’t heard her. Perhaps she should call him again, this time louder, but she wasn’t persuaded it was a good idea. When he was ready, he would come out on his own. And anyway, if they had to stop the light showing outside to avoid drawing attention, the same restraint had to be applied to sounds, too.

  Excuses. The truth was that she was feeling ashamed. As long as they had been in the middle of the wood, in the open air, with the sun’s rays fading and under the deluge, she’d had the impression they were equals, beside the fact that he seemed a bit more expert than her regarding that kind of situation. But in that hunting lodge the balance had changed. She was an intruder, now even without underwear; even though this detail wasn’t visible, yet it increased her discomfort.

  She took a couple of steps towards the door, but before she reached it, it opened wide. Amelia backed off, as if she had been surprised while doing something wrong.

  Mike entered the room with an absent-minded expression. It seemed that he hadn’t noticed her. He’d taken a shower, his hair was still wet, but instead of wearing more comfortable clothes, he had black, elegant trousers and a pure white, and possibly expensive, shirt. Like James Bond, indeed. After closing the door, he turned and saw her. “Oh, here you are.” He smiled at her, but looked tense.

  Who knew why? Amelia hoped there wasn’t bad news. Considering that they were isolated, it could be that he had noticed some suspicious movement outside. The idea of abandoning that refuge and escaping again made her shiver.

  “Weren’t you hungry?” He pointed to the table, where the dishes patiently waited to be eaten.

  Perhaps it was just her mind that after all that had happened during the day kept imagining menace everywhere. If there had been a problem, Mike wouldn’t have worried about the spaghetti.

  “I was waiting for you,” she heard her voice say. She gestured with her right hand holding the shoes.

  “I see you’ve got the taste for being barefoot.” He hardly laughed at his own joke. His gaze was absent. Then he headed for the kitchen corner and Amelia followed him.

  They ate in silence. Mike was lost in his thoughts. Instead, she always had her mouth too full to speak. She checked in his direction a couple of times, but could never intercept his eyes.

  When Amelia finished her spaghetti, he was still halfway through. Given that he didn’t look very inclined to converse, she resumed inspecting the environment around her. With fresh clothes and a full stomach it was even more beautiful. “And this would be a hunting lodge …” She’d said it inadvertently.

  “Hm.”

  “Is this the reason why you know the land so well around here?” Maybe some small talk would melt the ice that had been created between them, even if, to tell the truth, it was a monologue. “Do you go hunting around here?”

  “Hm.”

  “Hm!” she remarked, but didn’t get any apparent result. Mike kept lazily eating his pasta.

  A few embarrassing minutes of silence followed, during which Amelia wanted to rise and then go lounging on the comfortable sofa, but she didn’t fancy moving away from him, and not just as a matter of courtesy. She couldn’t understand what was wrong with him or which sudden thought troubled him.

  “We’d better disinfect those wounds.”

  Put on the spot, she didn’t realise what he was talking about, until she followed his gaze to her feet. “No, it’s nothing serious.”

  Mike stood up. He reached the cupboard and took out a metal box with a red cross from a drawer. A first aid kit. “Come here,” he said, without looking at her.

  She followed him to the sofa, where he gestured her to sit. Amelia accepted his invitation.

  He took a seat at the other end. He opened the box. He pulled out some cotton wool and poured a transparent liquid on it. “Come on.” Those two words were accompanied by an amused glance.

  Well, even if something was worrying him, he wasn’t mad at her; in fact once more he was proving to be attentive to her needs. With a renewed good mood Amelia raised her legs and laid them along the sofa. Mike moved closer so that she could let her feet lie on his own legs.

  “It’ll burn a bit.”

  No, peroxide. She didn’t have the time to complete that thought as she felt a fire make its way inside her flesh. “Ouch!” She tried to move back, but Mike’s hand was firmly holding her ankle.

  “Don’t behave like a child.” He laughed as he caught Amelia’s indignation. “You’d better get a tetanus injection as soon as possible. You never know.”

  “I’m not behaving like a child.” Amelia gritted her teeth, whilst he repeated the operation with her other foot.

  “You are,” Mike retorted, with the tone of someone certain of his own convictions. “Even if you do your best to hide that.”

  “What?” She was confused now. What was he talking about?

  “Let me guess,” he continued, passing the cotton wool on each tiny scratch. His touches, after the initial burning, had turned almost erotic. Amelia’s breath became short. “Raised in a good family, maybe an only child, super-coddled. The fact you entered the police is a kind of rebellion of which you’re very proud.”


  Annoyed, Amelia withdrew her feet. “You don’t know fuck-all about me.” She immediately regretted having been so rude. Actually Mike had guessed right, at least concerning the first part. But she had come to the police for some very different reasons.

  “Sorry,” he hastened to say and became serious again, whilst diverting his attention to the lights around the fireplace.

  Her scorn vanished in a second, replaced by apprehension and a strong sense of abandonment, caused by having interrupted that pleasant contact. She slid closer to him, bending her legs sideways.

  “No, I am sorry.” She waited for him to turn to her. “It’s just that I don’t fancy digging up the past again.”

  Mike nodded. “Right … I didn’t want to pry into your business, I was just … making conversation.”

  She grinned, getting a tired smile from him in return. Perhaps that was the only reason for his sudden bad mood, tiredness. Even if he looked much more accustomed than her to those situations, he was human, or at least she hoped so. She grinned even more with that odd thought. “Anyway you’re right, I’m an only child.”

  Mike chuckled. “You get by very well having been a spoiled child.”

  “Oh, thank you!” she replied, playing along. “Said by a spy, it’s certainly a compliment.”

  He laughed harder.

  “I understand that you are an MI5 agent.”

  “Do you?” Mike’s blue eyes were studying her.

  “And I’ve realised why you and your colleagues haven’t informed the police about your investigations.”

  He showed an interested expression, which encouraged her to go on.

  “They have nothing to do with the murders, they concern the activities of Goldberg’s clients.” Amelia scrutinised him in search of a micro-expression revealing how close she was to the truth, but besides a constant smile, Mike’s face was one of a sphinx. “I bet it’s about terrorism, it must be big stuff to involve your agency. Goldberg is the intermediary of some boss from Al Qaeda.” She was shooting in the dark. Things like this could be heard every day in the films and on TV. They might well be true.

  “Interesting theory,” he commented, without changing his expression.

  “Oh, come on …” Amelia sulked. “You could tell me some tiny thing. I’m a trusted person, really. Well, I’m an officer of the City of London Police. I wouldn’t spread it around.”

  Her last remark made him laugh out loud. He wasn’t taking her seriously. No, actually, if he really was a spy, he couldn’t say anything even to a policewoman. But what annoyed her was that he didn’t want to say anything to her. She had the false perception that a bond had been created between them, a sort of intimacy, enough to exchange confidences. She found herself longing to tell him her story. All of it, all the way. For some reason she felt he wouldn’t judge her. But on the other hand, she wasn’t certain at all that he cared.

  “What do we do now?”

  “We wait.”

  “For your friends?”

  Mike nodded. He’d resumed analysing her, but with greater attention. His previous bad mood seemed to have vanished.

  Amelia moved even closer. “And how long?” She ran a finger on her lower lip and tilted her head to one side.

  “At least a couple of hours.” He wouldn’t stop staring at her, but was doing nothing else.

  What the heck.

  She plucked up courage and kissed him. But right after, it occurred to her that he wasn’t returning her gesture at all, and she backed off. She looked at him, undecided. Had she wrongly interpreted his signals? “Sorry, I … don’t know what I was thinking.” She was feeling so small.

  “No, you don’t have to apologise.” He smiled at her. “It’s me …” He looked torn. She was certain she could read desire in his face, but he was restraining himself. Why?

  “I get it,” she murmured, unable to hide her disappointment. Better to back out immediately. A subsequent change of mind would’ve been worse, surely more humiliating. “You’re tired.” Until now, she’d thought that he behaved as a gentleman, but perhaps he wasn’t attracted to her at all.

  Mike swallowed noisily. He looked around, then fixed her with his gaze, a new determination on his face. “I’m not that tired,” he whispered, as his lips stretched.

  Overwhelmed by desire, Amelia replied to that invitation by literally jumping on him, without the slightest restraint.

  One second later, he was removing her arms from her sweater, whilst searching her mouth with his tongue. Then he went for her trousers. To remove them, he had to withdraw from her and let her lie on the sofa. They slipped away from her clean skin.

  In the meantime, she had taken off her T-shirt. Now she was lying naked in front of Mike, who was watching her with an avid gaze, while he unbuttoned his shirt with exasperating slowness. There was something sinister in the way he was studying her, but also exciting. How long did he mean to take? Amelia decided the time had come for her to help him, but preferred to turn her attention to his trousers.

  “What a hurry.” He displayed a fake surprise and raised her chin, which actually forced her to stop. Was he trying to drive her crazy? Probably yes, somehow. Mike kissed her again, whilst completely removing his shirt, but then all of a sudden, he backed off, leaving her with a stabbing sensation of loss.

  She wanted to say something, ask what was wrong, but she didn’t dare to speak. She didn’t have the strength to do that. However she was certain that her face was asking that question of him.

  Mike replied by lifting her body from the sofa. “We’ll be more comfortable over there.”

  “Oh, the fabulous bed for orgies …” She almost bit her tongue. She’d really said that.

  Laughing, he covered the distance that separated them from the other room, laid her on the bed and then dedicated himself to removing the remainder of his clothes.

  Finally.

  Amelia could foretell what was waiting for her, without diverting her attention from his body. He was quite slim, but as she’d supposed, he had a muscular physique. Spies in the films were always in good shape. However, his appearance conveyed a sense of being experienced. He had scars of various sizes scattered across his skin. One was a bit more evident; circular, it stood out on his chest, no doubt caused by weapon fire.

  With slow gestures, he reached her. He kept showing no particular hurry, although he couldn’t hide his excitement anymore.

  “Who knows how many women you’ve brought to this bed?” Amelia said, while he ran a hand on her belly, causing yet another shiver to flit across her.

  He looked her in the eye. “The only important thing is that you are here now.”

  She smiled. He’d said the right thing, of course. And statements like that were what made him really dangerous, because she could even fall in love with someone like him. And she knew well how it ended up the few times she’d fell for someone. “You don’t need to flatter me, I’m already on your bed.”

  “Well, you know, I’m an old-fashioned man.” Mike’s fingers had started climbing up her flank and then they caressed her breast.

  Amelia reached out to his neck, his nape, then she drew him to her with a resolute move. “Shut up and fuck me.”

  Joseph stopped crying. His little face, streaked by tears, was relaxing as he lost consciousness.

  No, no, no.

  With trembling hands Amelia unfastened the safety belt of the child seat and took her son in her arms. His head was hanging to one side. His chest was expanding and contracting irregularly. She held him tightly, rocking her own body back and forth and humming his favourite lullaby.

  Then something drew her attention through the windscreen. A man had got out of the other car involved in the accident; he was staring at her, horrified, holding his head in his hands.

  Amelia opened her eyes and found herself in the bedroom of the hunting lodge. The light coming from the bedside lamp barely illuminated the place. She could still feel the anguish of that dream, deep
inside herself, still tormenting her. Would she ever be able to make it stop?

  She turned in search of consolation, but she was alone. Since Mike had found her on the road, she’d been able to not think about her son, not even once. She had almost forgotten about him and now that memory had returned with a vengeance, as if it had realised that her new friend was gone.

  “Mike?” she called, with a drowsy voice. She couldn’t hear any noise coming from the bathroom. She had an awful headache, like she was suffering a hangover. Not much time must have passed. Perhaps he had left her sleeping and had exited the room to avoid disturbing her. And he couldn’t hear her now.

  She tried to put herself in a sitting position, even if she’d rather turn to the other side and resume sleeping, but she knew she couldn’t, not with that tightness in her chest. She didn’t want to be lonely. She would feel better with him.

  She rose and reached the door. As she opened it, she noticed that the main room of the hunting lodge was immersed in the same semi-darkness. She looked for him, from the sofa to the kitchen corner, then behind the fireplace, but he wasn’t there. For a split second she was assailed by the fear that she’d been abandoned. How silly. This was his home or, rather, his refuge, or whatever it was. If he’d gone out, he would come back. Perhaps he was carrying out an inspection around the building, to make sure that nobody was in the area.

  Her entire body hair stood on end and Amelia held her own chest with her arms. She saw the clothes she had borrowed now abandoned on the floor. Putting something on wasn’t a bad idea.

  She moved closer and bent down to take them, when she heard a faint hubbub on her left. As she turned, she noticed that the door on the adjacent wall, the one leading to the mysterious room, was ajar. That was where he’d ended up.

  She put on the trousers and the T-shirt. The shoes, which she hadn’t worn yet, were where she had left them, beside the sofa. She didn’t fancy putting them on, even now. However, she took the sweater and walked to the door. She couldn’t just enter, she was still a guest. She raised a hand to knock.