The Sweet Caress (7 page)

‘Not the least.’

‘The talk over coffee at Ned Palmer’s this morning was not that Luke Greenfield is making moves on you and has bought you a dress – only I, you, and the dishy doctor know
that – but that you speak Chinese
fluently
. Fancy you speaking Chinese.’

‘Did you hear anything else?’ asked Jessica, amused that something she had been doing for most of her life should be such an extraordinary thing.

‘Nothing much,’ said Cissie.

Jessica was certain that wasn’t true. There was no need to press Cissie, Jessica could guess: more speculation as to who she was, where she had come from, how much more scintillating she looked than they had ever expected.

Cissie had a change of mind. A smile crossed her face and she said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you just one thing. You met a man called Jack Webster, good-looking, a little weird. He’s an art professor at the college, married but separated from his wife. He was at Ned’s this morning having coffee with the usual gang. He said you were one of the greatest looking women he had ever seen, that you had the scent of sex about you that only comes when a woman has just been fucked into oblivion and loved every second of it.’ At this point Cissie held up her hands as if to ward off a blow and exclaimed, ‘His words, Jess, not mine.’

Jessica laughed aloud.

‘Is it true?’ Cissie asked, consumed with curiosity.

‘Cissie!’

‘Oh, don’t Cissie me, Jessica. It is true. I can see it in your eyes. How, when, where? Fancy Jack Webster getting that right. I think I’m jealous.’

‘Of course you’re not. You have Harold.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

Two girls came into the shop and Cissie went to greet them but only after she whispered to Jessica, ‘I can understand if you don’t want to tell me, but I am pleased for you. They say the doctor is pretty interesting between the sheets but hard to get and impossible to keep. Just a word of warning so you don’t suffer a broken heart.’

That evening Luke called Jessica. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Better than I have been for a long time,’ she answered.

‘Dare I hope I had everything to do with that?’

‘No.
We
had everything to do with that,’ she corrected him.

‘That’s even better. Saturday night, Sunday, what can I say that will not trivialise how delicious you were to be with. I really just called to tell you that. I wanted you to know how joyful I feel having been seduced by you.’

‘That’s not just sex talking, is it, Luke?’ she asked.

‘You know better than to ask that.’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘I’ll call you soon,’ he told her.

Jessica knew he wouldn’t call soon. She felt no insecurity about that. She was no longer a woman who waited by the telephone for a man to call. Agony for love was over and done with for her. She felt incredibly free, her very own woman; she had thrown off the self-imposed shackles that enslaved women and made them dependent on a man for companionship or a fuck or the necessity to be loved. Jessica somehow loved Luke Greenfield that little bit more because she knew she would never agonise over him or any man ever again.

The man that did call soon was Tom Salinger, not on the telephone but at the front door. It was on a cold and rainy Saturday afternoon. ‘I hope this isn’t an intrusion but your telephone has an unlisted number. What to do? Come round and ask for it. So here I am. Tom Salinger, remember?’

‘Yes, a very wet Tom Salinger. You’d better come in.’

She took his coat and was amused by his reaction to the house. His eyes seemed to stand out on stalks. ‘I had no idea. I have only seen the rose garden, never been inside the house before.’

‘Go warm yourself by the fire while I hang this coat up in the kitchen to dry,’ she suggested.

When she returned, he spoke to her in Mandarin. She answered him in the same language, telling him that she would appreciate his asking no questions about her ability since, as he already knew, she had no memory. He switched to French and seemed not at all surprised when she answered him in French.

‘Another clue that might help trigger your memory,’ he suggested.

‘Could we try and avoid the subject of my condition? It may be fascinating for you but it’s painful for me.’

‘How insensitive of me. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. The other night at dinner, I was enchanted to find someone living here in Newbampton who could speak Mandarin. I was hoping you would allow me to talk to you about a project I’m working on. A translation of Chinese poetry from the fourteenth century. I could use an assistant on the project and wonder if you might be interested. I can’t pay much but it would certainly match what you get waiting table at the Tavern.

‘Sitting next to you at the dean’s house the other evening was not the first time I saw you,’ he went on. ‘I was attending a private dinner at Wiggin’s Tavern and wondered all through it what a woman like you was doing waitressing. You seemed quite indifferent to the world. But the lady at dinner the other evening, well, you were something quite different, stunningly beautiful and sure of yourself, sexy as hell. You were sending off such sensual vibrations, I didn’t think I could cope with them without making a fool of myself.’

Jessica liked Tom Salinger, she had liked him that evening. He was a scholarly man, the sort of academic who she imagined was only at home when he was at work surrounded by college life. But she recognised in him intense sexual drives which she was certain led him to a secret life of sex and debauchery. Sex with Tom Salinger would be loveless but good, very good. Sex for him, as it had been for
herself for most of her life, was a secret world of unfettered pleasure. Their kind of sex was thrilling and also dangerous because of the lengths they might go to achieve a high more intense than the last orgasm. It was sex for the sake of sex, the orgasm, the mental as well as physical fuck, and they recognised it in each other.

‘Will you take me on? The poetry work, I mean,’ he asked.

‘Yes, I’m willing to give it a try,’ she told him, knowing full well he was asking for more than just the work.

Tom looked incredibly pleased. Switching back into Mandarin, he began to recite poetry to her. They were interrupted by the doorbell.

Jessica ushered the sheriff into the drawing room and introduced her to Tom Salinger.

‘The Chinese scholar. Why am I not surprised to meet you here, Mr Salinger?’ said Bridget Copley.

‘Ah, you’ve heard that I speak Mandarin,’ commented Jessica.

‘That’s an important clue, Jessica. I think it rather odd you didn’t find time to come in and tell me about it. How many missing American women do you think speak Mandarin?’

‘Well, what can you do with that?’

‘Fax Interpol and add the information to your missing persons sheet. Hong Kong, mainland China, Malaysia, it widens the search.’

‘Then you had better add all the French-speaking countries as well. We’ve just discovered I’m fluent in French.’

Tom could see that the sheriff was annoyed with Jessica and decided it was time to leave. ‘Come and see me at the college library tomorrow, Jessica, three o’clock.’ Turning to Bridget, he said, ‘Miss Johnson is masterful in Mandarin, Sheriff, and I have asked her to come and work on a project with me. She has accepted. Do I have to clear it with you?’

‘Certainly not. She’s free to do as she pleases. If I have given any impression that she is not, I would like to correct
that now.’ The sheriff seemed embarrassed, and so she should be, thought Jessica.

After seeing Tom out, Jessica returned to the drawing room with a pot of freshly made China tea. She was hardly through the door when Bridget spoke up.

‘Look, Jessica, if I sounded like a storm trooper when I came in, I’m sorry. But my office is coming up with blanks from everywhere regarding your identity and I find it very frustrating. The calm with which you are taking this loss of memory makes me feel as if you don’t give a damn about recovery. Frankly, you have contributed fuck all to help me in my investigations, and that is irritating, the more so because I like you and I want to see the mystery surrounding you cleared up. We’ll keep trying to find your past for you but I hold little hope that it will be soon, if ever. However, there is some good news. The two hundred thousand dollars cannot be traced. We have received no word to suggest the money is not yours. You can have it any time you like. Tomorrow?’

‘Bridget.’

‘No, don’t say anything if it’s a thank you or to tell me I had no right to put you through what I have done about the money. I know it has inconvenienced you to be without it, but I had a duty to perform investigating that money. Now it’s over. The money is yours and, for the record, I always thought it was.’

‘What I was going to say, Bridget, was I hope I never disappoint you. Without your help and support I would not have had the strength to look forward, plod on, and settle so easily here in Newbampton. Ever since Cissie found me, I’ve had the attitude that what will be will be. I don’t think you quite understand that and if you do, I sense that that sort of fatalistic way of thinking doesn’t sit well with you.’

‘Let’s not get into philosophising, Jessica,’ said Bridget drily. She rose from her chair by the fire and handed her empty teacup to Jessica. ‘You’re a wealthy lady, Jessica, and
a likeable woman. I think you’ve brought yourself out of a dark past and into a better place than you’ve ever been. Let’s just leave it at that and be friends,’ and she offered her hand.

‘I’d like that,’ said Jessica who, instead of shaking Bridget’s hand, squeezed it and placed it on her cheek.

A blush came to the sheriff’s face. No woman had ever done such a thing to her, not even her own children. Bridget looked at Jessica and for the first time really saw the beautiful, exotic and sensuous woman she was. She suddenly felt quite old, her life set in concrete, whereas Jessica Johnson had a whole new life to create for herself. She was courageous in her lust for life, something the sheriff hadn’t seen until now. She realised that Jessica had cleverly hidden the power of her personality until she was ready for people to know her for what she truly was. The resident of Rose Cottage was in total control of her life. Bridget felt proud to call her her friend but had no doubt that one day Jessica’s past would come back for her. When it did, Bridget would be there for her.

The sheriff, like everyone else in town, waited to see how Jessica Johnson was going to change her lifestyle now that she had her money. They waited in vain. Except for depositing all her money in an account at Jamie Dunwoody’s bank, going on a shopping spree for clothes at the arcade, opening an account with a Wall Street stock brokering house, buying a case of champagne from Terry Brothers, the best of the local vintners, and a Christmas tree, her life went on as before.

Jessica kept her jobs, including filling in at Wiggin’s Tavern – the Christmas season was on and she wouldn’t let them down. She worked overtime at the Atwood Arcade which was frantically busy, and started work with Tom Salinger. She did, however, give two weeks’ notice to the supermarket because they had a waiting list of job hunters
who needed the money more than she did now.

What she did not do was join the country club. Nor did she accept any of the invitations sent to her by the more affluent and academic members of the community, or even the Christmas Eve invitation from Jamie, Bridget, and Cissie.

The college was about to break up for the Christmas holidays and the town seemed to be buzzing with people making ready to travel. Parties were going on everywhere. The Christmas decorations, evergreen and holly, red satin ribbons, silver balls and tinsel, and the snow on the ground added to the festive atmosphere and made for a picture postcard Christmas in New England. Jessica had never seen it before and she revelled in it.

She and Luke had seen each other a few times since the dinner at the dean’s house. The attraction between them had not ebbed. He took her to small, intimate restaurants outside town where they dined in front of log fires and talked about anything and everything except themselves. Then they usually went home to his house and made love.

With each sexual encounter they went that little bit further to find more imaginative ways to feed their craving for erotic fulfilment. They were at that point in their sex lives where the ego dies and the pure pleasure of sex takes over. They were on a high engendered by great sex but they were still cautious in their affection and love for each other. His bad marriage and Jessica’s disappointments in love demanded circumspection. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, Luke’s courtship of Jessica was winning her over. He knew it, she didn’t. All Jessica knew was that they were good together, a free and independent man and woman having the best of times, and she was happier than she had ever expected to be again.

Luke and Tom Salinger were due to join her at Rose Cottage for Christmas dinner on Christmas night. The more she saw Tom, the more she liked him. He had a sparkling
intelligence, too esoteric for most but which Jessica seemed able to relate to. As a scholar he was respected and admired for his accomplishments as a serious Chinese historian, as a man his private life was whispered about throughout the college.

Most rumours about Tom derived from a book he had written,
Depraved Love
, that had made the New York Times bestseller list and remained there for twenty-two weeks. Translated into several languages, it was considered the definitive work on sexuality. Its premise was that sexuality in its purest and varied forms was all. He believed in and lived the loveless fuck.

On Jessica’s second meeting with Tom he gave her a copy of his book with the comment, ‘Because I have such little time to woo a lady to bed, whenever I am interested in her I have only to give her a copy of my book and my seduction of the lady is complete. When next we meet she invariably falls into my arms.’

Jessica read the book and came to the conclusion that Tom Salinger was, as she had suspected, a master on the subject of sexuality and depravity and a libertine in the fullest sense of the word. Clearly, she and Tom were sexual kindred spirits and though she was interested in travelling the erotic road with him for the sheer thrill of discovering where it might take them, she tantalised them both by resisting his advances – for the moment. There was the work with him to be getting started on, and a budding friendship she was enjoying. But the temptation to succumb to Tom became stronger the more he revealed himself to her. The idea that highly sophisticated and decadent sex might be found in a puritanical New England college town excited her interest and teased her desire to experience it.