The Folks at Fifty-Eight (22 page)

“No, he was instant and solid as a rock. That was the problem. Only part of me had any time to get moist were my eyes.”

“Bit of a bull at a gate, you mean?”

“Worse, darling. At least a bull paws at the ground a couple of times before he charges. With Alan Carlisle it was all over and done with before anybody got the chance to say Olé.”

“Oh, my dear girl. Then perhaps we’d better spare a thought for poor Angela.”

“Maybe he’s not as frantic and bloody ephemeral with her. After all, you know what they say?”

“No dear, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

“That there’s no such problem for us girls as too damned big, or too damned rough, or even too damned clumsy for that matter. . . just too damned early.”

Suddenly she’d had enough. She studied the hostile glares from so many legitimately-insecure wives, and decided to make her escape.

Offering up the usual round of polite excuses, she ducked away and found her host.

“Licie, I’m going to slip away. I’ll give you a call in the week. Thanks for everything.”

Alicia Travers smiled politely, but appeared relieved at her going. Emma wandered off to collect her car and head back to Georgetown.

She saw him as she was waiting for the attendant to fetch the car. He was standing by the door, smoking a cigarette and looking bored. He blushed when he noticed her watching.

She began studying him more closely, admiring the artless beauty of youth, and considering the physical athlete beneath the tuxedo. He was tall for his age, his torso firm and strong, his limbs powerful, and yet still possessing the ungainliness that boys only seem to lose on the day they become men. His hair was yellow and curled tight, his eyes brilliant blue, and his features classically formed. She wondered how a besotted mother would react to his seduction. She wondered, too, if she should break her promise to a friend. The resulting consideration lasted fewer than five seconds.

Smiling wickedly, she sidled over to engage his blushing naiveté in whatever passes for polite conversation between a scheming sexual sophisticate and a beautiful tongue-tied youth.

She said hello and asked his name. He blurted that it was Mathew Carlisle. She moved closer, until she’d breached an already-fragile comfort zone, and candidly studied his agitation. She told him her name, and said she knew his parents. He studied his shoes, and mumbled that he already knew her name. She asked him how he knew. He said his mother had told him. He added that his mother didn’t like her.

She said she already knew that. She said his father was a friend. He shuffled uncomfortably, and said that was why his mother didn’t like her. She put on her most coquettish look and asked him if he liked her. The blush turned an even deeper red. The eyes stayed glued to the shoes. She tried another tack. She’d heard he wanted to travel. He seemed more at ease with that. He said his mother didn’t want him to leave. She said she’d heard that, too. Then he asked her what she thought he should do. It threw her for a moment.

She said he should do what he wanted. He was old enough to know his own mind. He suddenly blurted, ‘Yes.’ She asked what he was referring to.

After a period of silence, he finally muttered his answer. ‘Yes, he liked her.’ She playfully claimed not to have heard. He looked away and mumbled that he thought her beautiful.

She saw her car pull up and the attendant jump out. More worryingly, she saw Angela Carlisle across the hallway. She had seen them together. Emma would need to hurry.

She told him she liked him, too. She invited him back. He didn’t answer and began openly trembling. She repeated the offer, and asked if he thought her scandalously forward.

When he again failed to answer, she spoke of her boredom. She had decided to return to her apartment in Georgetown. Would he like to come with her, for a drink or whatever? Despite the obvious handicap of painful shyness he said ‘yes’ and nodded furiously.

Angela Carlisle saw and heard. She crossed the hallway in an instant and glared at her son’s seductress. She called his name and tugged at his arm. She told him to come back to the party with her. She begged him not to go with Emma.

Mathew Carlisle shook the grasping fingers from his sleeve and scolded his mother for making a scene. He said this couldn’t go on. He said it wasn’t right. He said he would see her tomorrow. He was leaving the party with Emma. He was sorry, but he had to go.

He turned his back and walked to the car, then stamped out his cigarette on the drive and climbed into the passenger seat. His doting mother silently watched him go and hung her head in the abject humiliation of one who has lost everything. She looked pleadingly at Emma. She was sorry for being rude. She was sorry for everything she had ever said. She begged Emma not to take her son. He was all she had. Emma thought the sudden transformation from aggressive rival to desolate loser almost farcical.

She told Angela that her son was a grown man. He was still young, but not a little boy any more. She should let him be a man, and do what men do. She added another worn cliché. If he loved her he would come back to her, but first she had to let him go. She followed that with a mischievous suggestion. Perhaps Angela should find a man. There were plenty on the lookout in there, and it wasn’t as if Alan had ever been faithful.

Angela Carlisle shook her head. She didn’t want her husband. She didn’t love her husband. She had never loved or wanted him. She didn’t want another man either. All she wanted was her son. If Emma took him away she would have nothing. The intensity of her plea stunned Emma into silence, but then she recalled Alicia Travers’ recently-aired doubts about the worrying tactility between Angela Carlisle and her son. She similarly recalled the woman’s earlier insults and all the bitterness and spite.

She said Angela should look on the bright side. She could reassure the gossiping ladies who lunch that their husbands were safe, for a night at least. Angela needn’t worry about her son, either, because Emma would send him back to her. . . eventually.

She turned on her stilettos and flounced to the car, slid into the driver’s seat, and looked at him with eyes that openly devoured the innocence. She asked if he still wanted to come back with her. When he nodded, the pout she offered was sheer seduction.

He asked what his mother had said. Emma looked back at the open door. The desolate figure of Angela Carlisle stood silhouetted against the light from the hallway.

“She said she wants you back.”

“And what did you say?”

She turned the key in the ignition and then revved the engine unnecessarily, raising her voice so that both he and his distraught mother could hear above the noise.

“I told her she could have you back. . . But only when I’ve finished with you.”

She rammed the gear shift home, and shot away with engine racing and tires squealing.

Back in her apartment, she turned down the lights and taught him a little of what she knew, arousing and cajoling, governing and preparing, punishing and rewarding, until a cry of gratitude and relief announced the shattering conclusion to an enduring lesson.

Now, though, it was the morning, and she was alone with her thoughts. The previous night’s excess had long since passed into memory, and only the guilt remained.

But that was as it should be, because Emma had always maintained that nights are for alcohol-fuelled liaisons with passing strangers and the seduction of innocence. Mornings are for strong coffee and weak remembrance, and the guilt and shame that such iniquity always leaves.

She finished brushing her hair and wandered over to where her beau lay sleeping, recalling his blushing naiveté, and the wicked excitement she had felt as she’d taken him. She studied the softness of his hair and the smoothness of his skin, the even tempo of his breathing and the litheness of his body. Mischievous fingers slipped back the covers. Admiring eyes studied the rise and fall of a well-muscled abdomen and the naked beauty of a trusting youth.

She playfully walked her fingertips across his belly and down, feeling the wickedness return and the blood surge, and murmuring in anticipation as his eyes flew wide and his flesh pulsed.

“Shush.”

Calmly and deliberately she mounted him, with a long and slender leg that leisurely straddled his body, and a softly-grasping vagina that hungrily claimed his excitement for its own.

Then the telephone rang.

“Damn!”

She glared as she reached for the receiver, but then smiled when she heard the voice of Marcus Allum.

“Did you hear about Gerald?”

The panic suddenly rose.

“What about him? Is he all right?”

“Oh yeah, he’s fine.”

“Marcus, don’t do that to me.” The smile returned, but an indignant beau was becoming angry. “Darling, I’d love to hear about it, but can I call you back? You see, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

“Emma Radcliff, you’re not. . . ?”

“I am.”

“You’re disgraceful.”

“I know.”

“Boy or girl? Or are we being greedy?”

“Oh no, a boy, an enchanting boy.”

“By that you mean young?”

“Very.”

“Obedient?”

“Totally.”

“Doing it for you?”

“Almost there.”

“I could always pop over and finish things off. That is, if you’re still, well, you know?”

“Oh I think he’ll manage. Look, I’m sorry, darling, but I’m going to have to call you back.”

Mathew Carlisle had finally lost control. She dropped the phone and giggled provocatively, then expertly tutored his youthful ferocity with murmurs of gentle persuasion and limbs of subtle command.

And as each successive lunge drew an answering gasp of approval from her lips, she allowed the primal rhythm to take control and left the groans of pleasure’s aftermath lingering in her throat.

Then he remembered that Mathew wasn’t at Princeton; he was home. He gave a sigh as the tires crackled on the drive and the taxi slid to a halt. Yet another family row was looming.

The driver stood waiting for him to get out. He summoned his courage, gave another heavy sigh of resignation, and climbed out. The driver held out his hand.

“Seven bucks.”

Carlisle looked around for his suitcase. It was still in the trunk. He felt slightly offended. A house and grounds of this size and quality in Takoma Park were worth a fortune. Did the man really think that someone who lived in a place like this would stiff him for seven bucks?

He shrugged and handed over the exact amount. If the driver thought he looked like a cheapskate and a crook, he’d act like one.

“No tip?”

“You lost my suitcase.”

The driver hurried to the trunk. He dragged out and then held the suitcase high, to display the evidence. Carlisle took it from him without speaking, and then headed for the front door, without tipping. The driver mumbled something derogatory, then climbed into the cab and sped off, leaving tire marks in the gravel. Carlisle smirked; that’d teach him.

He found his keys and opened the door, stepped inside and kicked the door to.

That was when he saw her there, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, heavily made up and dressed in translucent lingerie, with a matching smile. He stopped for a moment and studied her with appreciative eyes, seeing the fullness of her breasts, the slenderness of her waist, and the smoothness of thighs transforming to silhouette beneath a pastel chemise. He smelt her perfume on the air. He allowed his lust to build. She was still such an incredibly desirable woman. He knew how much he still cared; how much he still wanted. It was all such a waste.

But then he saw the sudden recognition on her face, and watched in sadness and regret as the seductive smile faded to sullenness, and sparkling eyes dulled into their customary loathing. Whoever she might be wearing that for, it obviously wasn’t him.

“Oh, it’s you. I suppose it’s no good asking where you’ve been or who you’ve been with.”

He snapped an answer as she turned away.

“And I suppose it’s no good asking who you’re wearing that for; obviously not me.” He looked to the heavens. “Mathew, I suppose. What am I saying? It’s always Mathew.”

A thought suddenly occurred, a dreadful thought, a terrible thought.

He put it to the back of his mind and followed her into the kitchen, admiring her buttocks and noting her unsteadiness. She’d obviously been drinking again, and heavily, but, Christ! She was gorgeous. He recalled a time when he would have reached out and taken. A time long before the current misery of a marriage filled with recrimination and bitterness; a time of tenderness and gentle passion, when love had been so intense and life had been so good. She had lost none of her allure over all those years of sadness. He wished it could be different now.

She returned to her seat and her vodka, and sat in silence. He poured himself a coffee.

“This coffee’s cold.”

“So make some more. You’re not helpless.”

“I thought I told you to get some staff? This place looks like a bomb hit it.”

“Who were you expecting me to get, Alan, a couple of teenage cheerleaders, flouncing around in French maid’s costumes? I told you: Mrs Reid is fine, and I don’t like strangers in the house when it’s dark or over the weekend. Perhaps I should get a man in, someone to attend to my needs for a change?”