by Unknown
‘Come and have a dip now. With people looking round the cottage, you’ll get a bit of privacy.’
Ellen doubted that. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’
‘I have champagne on ice.’ He wasn’t about to give up.
‘I prefer something isotonic.’
‘I can do ice and tonic – and gin if you’re feeling frisky. It is Sunday. And I have some fantastic grass, if you indulge.’
By the time they had jogged back down the bridleway he had offered her the entire contents of his drinks cabinet on ice in the Jacuzzi, bath and shower, with optional recreational drugs on the side.
Ellen gratefully spotted Pheely wandering back along Goose End as they ran the last leg, her arms full of Sunday papers and croissants, a jaunty headscarf covering her dirty hair. ‘Treats for Dilly – she’s feeling a bit jaded, poor darling. Hi, Giles, giving Ellen the runaround?’ There was an edge to her voice, which Ellen put down to a hangover. The big green eyes were hooded and her usually glowing skin was tinged with grey.
‘Darling!’ He kissed her sweatily on both cheeks. ‘You’re up early.’
‘I was working on Godspell’s bust,’ she said grumpily.
‘Ely should really fork out for a decent plastic surgeon to do that.’ He guffawed and ogled Pheely’s naturally generous cleavage. ‘I was telling Ellen what a shame it is she’s not going to be here long.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Pheely glanced at him suspiciously, then turned to Ellen. ‘Whatever you do, don’t sell the cottage to the couple who’ve just left,’ she warned. ‘They brought five children and a pack of yappy dogs that crapped all over your garden. And she was pocketing cuttings left, right and centre. Glad Tidings says they’re called Radish and they own that ghastly olde-worlde theme park in Maddington. I just bumped into her in the shop.’
‘How does she know?’ Ellen was, as ever, baffled by Gladys’s spy network.
‘Their nanny is going out with the man who delivers the oil. Are you in later? I might pop round.’
‘Not this evening.’
‘Earlier, then.’ She looked even edgier, glancing from Giles to Ellen again before she vanished through her magic-garden door.
Despite heavy hints, Ellen didn’t invite Giles into the cottage for a cool drink. Poppy had left a note saying she would be back in an hour with a Mr and Mrs Crabtree. Ellen grabbed a quick shower, shaving her legs, armpits and bikini line, making sure she removed any stray hairs and soap stains from the glass cubicle beneath the attic beams and opening a window to disperse the steam. As she dried herself with a beach towel, so as not to disturb the fluffy white ones on the rail, she heard Otto skitter past the cottage from the direction of the church – they must have come down the valley by a different route. Spurs had him on a loose rein and was smoking a cigarette. He blew Snorkel a big kiss as he passed and she barked appreciatively.
Ellen sat on the bed, her heartbeat pounding in her groin. She reached for her aloe cream and smoothed it on to her legs and bikini line to stop them reddening post shave, and noticed that her tan had dropped its tidemark from swimsuit to shorts level since she had arrived in the Cotswolds; the smooth skin at the top of her thighs was now butterscotch to the strong coffee beneath.
You mustn’t sleep with him, she told herself. It would complicate things far too much. He’s told you nothing can come of this, and while he might want to scratch the mutual-attraction itch by having sex, it would just open your wounds. He’s had hundreds of women. He has no scruples or inhibitions. You’ve just had Richard and a decade of frustration, and it’s too soon to take big risks. Lloyd was a safe bet and that bombed. This has far higher stakes and lower morals.
But as she sank back on the counterpane, she closed her eyes and groaned. Just the thought of Spurs’ lips against her skin made the goosebumps dance quadrilles and her nipples point furious fingers towards the ceiling. Her skin prickled hot and cold, the beat between her legs pounded and twitched and she squirmed with frustration. She was going to explode if she didn’t sleep with him, with someone – anyone – soon.
‘It’s not him,’ she told herself. ‘It’s hormones. It can’t be him.’
She laughed as she imagined chasing after Giles Hornton and body-slamming him in his Jacuzzi to appease the craving. A bubbling tub and that big tanned hairy body would be a perfect padded cell in which to get rid of her caged-tiger libido without releasing it into the wild.
Rolling over so that her hot face was pressed against her damp hair, she banged her head against the mattress and groaned.
She’d left the radio on in the bathroom and the latest summer smooch ballad floated in through the open door. Ellen couldn’t shake the naughty thoughts from her head. Suddenly her mind was full of sex, cocks springing up like pink cacti – wide, narrow, small, huge, veined, smooth. Men’s heads between her legs – blond hair, dark hair, bristly crew-cuts all poised above her, parting her labia and dropping their tongues towards her.
She longed to be as sexually experienced as Spurs. Her mind, now devoid of principles as it roamed the fiery depths of her fantasy world, ran back through all the missed opportunities, the temptations over the years that would have been so easy to follow through. Those X-factor boys with their hard bodies and fast lives that had come and gone, trying to bed her. She’d stayed true to Richard, but it hadn’t been easy. She’d felt none of the white-hot attraction for him that she did for others. When drunk, stoned or just low, she had come so close, but she had only ever gone all the way in her mind.
And now she went there again. She had quick, urgent, scruple-free sex in the backs of cars, behind sand dunes, in pub car parks, in the sea, in Cornish cottages and rain-hammered tents. She was on top, in front, alongside, above, below and twisted every which way. She crouched on her knees and sucked off beneath tables, unseen by all those gathered around, she lay back and took warm, lapping mouths between her legs in cheap B-and-B bedrooms and the backs of transit vans.
Her hands crept between her legs as she took cock after cock into the welcoming, hot, oily warmth there, the muscles gripping and releasing every shape and size coming at her from every direction.
As she climaxed with a short, sharp, convulsing release of energy that was almost more painful than it was pleasurable, she rolled over again, burying her face in her wet hair and biting her lip hard to stem the tears.
She felt dirty and self-loathing, wildly ashamed of her own mind and disappointed that such a maelstrom of hard-core thoughts had resulted in such a literal anticlimax. She wondered if it would be better if she had slept with all those men, if she had got to know her own triggers better. And far from ridding her head of thoughts of Spurs, he was now watching her from the corner of her mind, the silent voyeur, silver eyes mocking her pathetic lack of true, free-spirited passion.
‘Fuck you,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He smiled that rare, kneecap-shooting smile. ‘Fuck me. You know you want to.’
When she closed her eyes to try to make him go away, she was floating in the dewpond high on the ridge above the valley, staring up at a red-streaked sky, listening to the ripples coursing towards her as Spurs waded in, spread out his arms and fell backwards on to the burnished water beside her. Automatically, her hands fluttered up to her naked breasts to cover them from the splash, encountering the hard little nipples.
‘Oh – my – God!’ Ellen gasped, shuddered, and came as unexpectedly as sneezing. Then again. And again, a delicious unstoppable procession of ever-decreasing circles. Her eyes snapped open and the oak beams spun above her head like helicopter blades. ‘Jesus! Wow! Blimey!’
‘Miss Jamieson!’ a voice called cheerily from below. ‘I have the Crabtrees here. We’re just dashing round quickly, if that’s okay?’
‘Bugger!’ Ellen fell off the bed in shock, grabbed her towel and called, ‘Fine! I’ll be down in a sec.’
Far below, Poppy was already extolling the virtues of the house as she chased after the impatient Crabtrees. ‘All original fe
atures – these beams have been treated for woodworm, of course. Doesn’t it smell wonderful? No, it’s not new paint, it’s years of love and family life. Old properties like this have so much personality and so many stories to tell. Just look at that inglenook! Er, yes, I’m sure it could take a coal-effect fire if you wanted to go that route.’
Dressed in her denim shorts with only half of the fly buttons done up and a red T-shirt that stuck to her still-wet skin and matched her face, Ellen greeted the aged and fastidious Crabtrees at the top of the attic stairs.
‘We’re seeing five properties today so we’re in a bit of a hurry,’ the vulture-faced wife explained self-importantly, nosing in the eaves cupboards. ‘I really think this place is too old and labour-intensive. It would take ages to dust, and I’m sure I can smell damp. And these stairs are a nuisance. I prefer bungalows.’
Her husband, who looked even more like a vulture, with massive shoulders, a scraggy neck and a bald head, gave Ellen an appreciative look as he followed his wife on her whistle-stop inspection. ‘I hope we didn’t disturb you?’
‘No – no, I was just – er – getting changed.’ She knew she was looking flustered and caught out, but she couldn’t stop her face burning and was still catching her breath as the echo of those delicious ripples tickled her belly and thighs.
Poppy gave Ellen an apologetic look, whispering, ‘We’re a bit early.’
‘This is a sweet little guest room.’ The female vulture peered beneath the low beam into Ellen’s bedroom. ‘Oh, I hope that’s not from a leak in the roof.’
In the centre of the antique bed’s very crumpled pale blue counterpane there was a dark patch.
‘No, that just happened a minute ago,’ Ellen said hastily, then blushed. ‘I lay back on it with wet hair.’
The Crabtrees gave the bed a wide berth, and Poppy’s eyes boggled.
‘I do apologise.’ Mrs Crabtree cleared her throat disapprovingly, as she peered out of the window. ‘You’ve obviously got company.’
‘No, I’m alone. It really was wet hair that did it,’ she bleated.
‘I mean,’ Mrs Crabtree sniffed, ‘that somebody is at the door.’
Ellen escaped downstairs and encountered Pheely who, having wandered straight in, was looking as usual for a corkscrew.
‘It is after midday – just,’ she justified, waggling a bottle of Cheap White Wine, lowered eyebrows showing that she was in an even blacker humour than she had been earlier. ‘Bloody Dilly eschewed my croissants and buggered off to see if Godspell’s all right. She’s in a foul mood. She still hasn’t forgiven us for last night.’ She rolled her eyes, then looked up before mouthing, ‘What are this lot like?’
They could hear creaking overhead and Poppy desperately assuring the Crabtrees that thatch was just as warm and waterproof as ‘nice, modern tiles’.
‘Retired, pernickety – I don’t think they like it.’ Ellen switched off the bubbling coffee-maker, which was threatening to boil dry.
‘Good.’ Pheely smiled naughtily, seeking out glasses. ‘I might get to keep you longer. Now, you obviously don’t listen to a word I tell you. What do you think you’re doing agreeing to go out to dinner with Giles this evening?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Oh. Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
Her face lit up. ‘That’s a relief. So what are you doing tonight?’
‘Taking Spurs Belling to bed.’
Pheely was prevented from saying anything by the reappearance of the Crabtrees, looking more disapproving than ever as they spotted the wine.
Poppy ushered them towards the cellars, switching the coffee-maker back on as she passed it and mouthing to Ellen, ‘They’re getting keener.’
With the voices now floating up from beneath them, Pheely stared at Ellen open-mouthed.
‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just sex.’ Ellen tested her new resolve in a whisper. ‘I have to do it, Pheely. We’re burning our skins off, Spurs and I. And we’re both adults.’
Pheely was in a very strange mood indeed. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it before exhaling tetchily. ‘I agree.’
‘What?’ Ellen was astounded.
‘You should sleep with him. Christ, I envy you.’
‘After everything you’ve said?’
‘It’s such fun going to bed with somebody new. As long as you don’t fall in love with the bastard, you can eat him for breakfast as far as I care.’ She threw her dead match into the sink. ‘At least it’ll keep him away from Dilly while she’s on heat. He’s such a tomcat.’
Ellen tried not to react.
‘Of course she’d be devastated if she found out. She doesn’t understand that some adults can quite happily have sex with no emotional attachment.’
She swallowed uncomfortably. ‘You’re not going to tell her?’
‘She’s young. She’ll get over it.’
‘She doesn’t need to know.’
Pheely backed down: ‘Of course I won’t tell her – although, God knows, she needs taking down a peg or two. I’m absolutely furious with her for reading my diaries.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And I do not fake my origamis as she so delicately put it. I have no idea where she got that from.’ There was clearly a lot of pride at stake, given the topic of conversation. ‘I’m actually rather fantastic in the sack.’
‘She was just trying to make herself feel better.’ Ellen kept her voice low, hoping to encourage Pheely to do the same. That deep baritone carried.
‘Well, she was the one who came out of it looking like an idiot, as I told her this morning,’ Pheely huffed, the volume still on the rise. ‘Spurs may have mellowed a little, I’ll grant you, and I think he was rather charming last night, but he is still a big, predatory, feral tomcat. That much hasn’t changed.’ She popped the cigarette between her teeth and pulled the cork with a grimace of effort. ‘He needs sex like other men need televised sport. And he’s probably fantastic in bed – I’ve always thought that. Potentially heartbreaking for a teenager with a crush, of course, but perfectly adorable recreation for a woman on the rebound like you, who simply wants some hot nookie while she’s stuck in the sticks. You love dangerous sports, after all. I thought I detected a sexual frisson between you two last night.’
‘You did?’ Ellen watched her pour the wine, pulses pounding at the thought, too distracted to remember to ask Pheely to keep her voice down.
‘God, yes. And I do envy you having such a positive body image,’ she went on, in a booming voice. ‘I have to get into training six months before I go to bed with a man these days – dieting, getting rid of the fluff, paring off the bunions, applying verruca plasters and slapping vanishing cream on the stretchmarks. You’re so lucky. I long to be as carefree about screwing as you are.’
Ellen cleared her throat, hoping she could start being carefree after all these years.
‘You’re both free agents,’ Pheely gurgled, then practically shouted, ‘and, as you say, you are consenting adults. As long as you know the only thing he’s ever going to be committed to is a criminal hearing or a mental institution, and you make sure he wears a condom, I think you’ll have huge fun. Good luck to you, darling. Or should that be good fuck?’ She raised her glass. ‘To good luck, and a jolly good fuck.’
At this moment the shocked Crabtrees reappeared from the cellar and gaped at Pheely. ‘You’ll love this village,’ she told them cheerfully. ‘Everyone is so friendly.’
‘So I can see.’ Mrs Crabtree sniffed archly. ‘I think I might take a turn round the garden.’
‘Have a funny turn in it, more like,’ Pheely said, after Poppy had ushered them outside. ‘Stiff-knickered old bat. I think I might take your lead and find that new lover I keep promising myself. Mine is getting rather wearying.’
‘You have a lover?’
‘Absolutely. I simply can’t survive without at least one origami a week. It’s a staple, isn’t it? In fact, do let me know if Spurs is as good as I suspect. I may even toy-boy
with him myself once you’re gone. Now that would put bloody Dilly in her place.’
‘It’s a staple,’ Ellen reminded herself, as she took yet another shower between Poppy’s viewings, this time scrubbing every inch of her body with walnut exfoliant, removing the little islands of hair that she had left after her first hasty shave, rubbing scented gel into her skin and adding half a bottle of conditioner to her wind and sea-ravaged hair.
Right now the only staple she could feel was the nervous one piercing her stomach, like a centrefold, as she made her body as smooth and glossy as its naked content.
The final family coming to see the cottage that day were called the Brakespears and had travelled specially from Essex, according to Poppy. They didn’t want to view any other properties in the area, and she said that she had a ‘good feeling’ about them.
Ellen had very bad feelings towards them because they were late.
She’d put her hair in Velcro rollers and covered them with a bright scarf as she bounded around the house, deciding on the best spot for the massage. There was nothing as good as a proper massage table, but the kitchen table was long, narrow and a good height, she decided. If she put a duvet on it, it shouldn’t be too uncomfortable, and she could close the roman blinds to avoid being gawped at by Hunter on one side and anyone walking along the lane on the other.
She put some more wine to chill, knowing that she would be shot down in flames for offering an alcoholic drink to any of the sportsmen she normally treated. But she for one would definitely need it to stop her hands shaking. She also sought out the few candles that the Shaggers hadn’t burned, along with pretuning the kitchen radio to a mellow station and lining up her massage oils.
‘Hellooo! Sorry I’m late. Are they here?’ Poppy breezed in with some biscuits and a fresh packet of coffee. Ellen sometimes wondered if she secretly craved a job in Starbucks.
‘I thought you were bringing them with you?’ She glanced worriedly at the clock. It was already past five.
‘They wanted to meet me here. Know the village quite well, apparently.’ Poppy headed for the filter and started spooning in coffee, glancing rather worriedly at Ellen’s Hilda Ogden hair accessories.
