Truly I do (3 page)

"Penny for
them?" Russell broke into her thoughts.

"Sorry!" she
snapped back into the present, "This pasta's nearly ready to
serve." She glanced over her shoulder to admire him again, "Tell me
how long you've lived in the village? You're over at Joe's old
place on Bramley Orchard Lane aren't you?" 'Oh lord,' she thought
while he answered her, 'this guy actually turns me on, I really
fancy him. I'm supposed to be a grieving widow but now here I am
just turning into a horny old cat.' She turned her back to Russell
and worked hard at concentrating on what he was saying.

"Joe's place .
. . yeah. I started renting it about five years ago when I came to
work at the school. How about you?"

Julie-Anne's
answer to this question sparked a happy flood of discussion about
childhood memories and school-days experiences. She quickly noticed
how easy it was to talk with Russell. Ladling out the food and
moving to sit at the old kitchen table happened naturally while
they were concentrating on each other's anecdotes or laughing at
each others recall of daft experiences and past events. Never in
her life had Julie-Anne felt so 'at home', even in her own place .
. . had she?

By nine
o'clock they had finished off the wine, drunk coffee and Russell
was engaging her interest in a tale of student antics about the
time he'd gone off on a field research trip to a town in Norway,
ostensibly to look at archeological evidence of Viking settlements
there.

Leaning on her
elbows at the table with her hair flowing over one shoulder and her
designer T-shirt sliding gently off the other shoulder, in the glow
of the open range fire, Julie-Anne yawned. It was a warm,
comfortable moment. The voice inside her head murmured 'I could
slide onto the rug on the floor by the fire and this man could
snuggle down there with me and I could massage my thighs against
that rough, unshaven chin.' The wickedness of her imagination came
without remorse. Her eyes twinkled merrily, she hoped he wasn't a
mind reader - did her face betray her thoughts? She grinned and
yawned again, "Sorry! I think the food, wine and such good company
were responsible for that," she apologised, "I haven't had such a
long and lovely chat with anybody for longer than I can
remember."

His concerned
look cooled and sobered her a little, "D'you want me to go?" he
asked gently, "I should go home and let you get some rest."

"Oh, no please
don't go. I'm not tired, not really. And besides, look out the
window - it's pouring with rain." She saw that he hadn't noticed
the sleety rain on the windows. She thought about how she could
lean right across the table and kiss his strong mouth, that sweet
little smile in the corners of his lips was so alluring.

He broke the
spell by jumping up, "Oh gods, I'm gonna get soaked! I really
should go!"

"Please
don't." Julie-Anne was alarmed now. He shouldn't go. He should stay
here. He belonged here, she was sure of it. "I - I could make you
up a bed in the spare room. It's a nice room," she coaxed.

He look at the
rain running down the little diamond panes of her kitchen window.
"We-ell," he shrugged, "I suppose it couldn't hurt. After all it's
not as if I have to go to work in the morning or anything."

Her grin
returned. "You make another coffee while I go see to the bed for
you."

Upstairs it
was cold and Julie-Anne shivered as she pulled crisp clean white
cotton sheets from a chest of drawers in the low-ceilinged little
bedroom. She gazed at the bed after she'd made it. It was soft, an
old four-foot wide bed with a comfy old iron frame and
characteristically creaky springs. Satisfied that Russell would be
very snug there overnight, she went back down to fetch him. In the
kitchen he was standing at the sink, finishing off the washing
up.

She stood
beside him to pour from the jug one more round of hot coffee that
he'd made.

He shot her a
sidelong look, his expression coloured with mischief "Hey, I've
been thinking,"

"Yeah?" she
watched his sparkling blue eyes, they were focused down into the
soapy water.

"I thought I
might go back to revisit Stavanger in Norway. Renew the studies I
started in university, revive my old interest in ancient history,
maybe have an adventure or two. Maybe even get 'round to writing a
book or two. What do you think?"

Julie-Anne
felt herself drain. Lust, life, the pleasures of their shared
evening all drained down out of her, leaving her legs feeling weak
and hollow. She couldn't hide the disappointment that drew a mask
across her face. "Oh?" she mumbled, "Sounds like a plan."

Just as she
turned to move away from him he reached across to grab a tea towel,
somehow she found herself standing between his arms. Blinded by
dizziness, she put her hands on his chest to steady herself. There
was nowhere to look but up, up into those enchanting blue eyes. He
was smiling down at her. His reaction to her touch was to softly
place his hands in the small of her back and steady her. "You
okay?" His voice was now quiet, coming from deep in his throat,
making his chest rumble. Quenched by the sound of it, she kept her
eyes closed hoping he would continue to soothe.

She
trembled.

"I think we've
over tired you," he murmured soothingly. Julie-Anne couldn't speak,
she just stood there blinking dumbly, opening her eyes, gazing up
into his gentle face, trembling and closing them again. She longed
to press herself into his body, to abandon herself to his mouth,
for the world around them to go totally black and leave her
suspended in pure pleasure.

It seemed as
though a gale of coldness rushed over her front when he broke his
hold. He lifted one hand to brush a blonde curl back from his
forehead. "D'you want to go to bed?"

Julie-Anne
felt turmoil welling through her. After all he'd given no real
indication that he returned her lustful desires. Surely he was
thinking that they were just making friends? She tried to steady
herself, what did he mean by 'go to bed'? It was one thing to
harbour wanton thoughts deep in her private mind, but Julie-Anne
did not want him to think she was some kind of slut who jumped into
bed with any man that came around for dinner. She felt confused,
what should she do? Wildly she darted a look at the kitchen door,
this broke the dilemma of physical intimacy and she was able to
pull back. As she withdrew to the distance of the table, it felt as
if she was stepping out from a snug winter coat. She immediately
missed his being so close. "Yup!" she blurted, not looking at him,
"C'mon; I'll show you the way to the spare room."

He dropped the
tea towel on the draining board and meekly followed her up to the
rickety wooden door of the spare room. "Bathroom's there." She
pointed. "I'll leave the landing light on in case you need to get
up in the dark." She prayed that she was coming across as matter of
fact, he was just a friend stopping over in her house, inwardly she
was still panicking. Did she look like a desperate housewife? Had
he guessed how she'd been thinking about him?

"Cheers" he
nodded amiably. "Go get yourself some sleep, eh! I'll see you in
the morning."

Julie-Anne
smiled weakly. Just as she was turning to go down the hall Russell
tilted his head and winked at her. Her stomach flipped; at once she
could see that his gesture was intended as a signal of friendship,
but at the same time she found it deeply attractive. That wink was
a confident, masterful expression, it made her want to melt. He
disappeared through his door. For a moment longer Julie-Anne stood
confused, cold and developing a headache. She drew in a deep breath
before going to lie down on her bed. Soon after lying down on her
cool quilt she'd floated away into post-wine oblivion while
darkness seemed to rock and spin around her pillow like an ancient
ocean.

She dreamed.
Her dream was set in darkness with just the glow of an ethereal
fire floating somewhere close to her, warming her naked back while,
in her dream, Russell warmed her naked front with hungry kisses,
moving his mouth over parts of her she'd almost forgotten existed.
When she awoke she felt as if she had actually spent the night
making love with him. 'As long as I can keep it locked deep inside
during daylight hours, so that I don't spoil our friendship', she
thought, 'I could really get to enjoy this!'

*

'Nothing',
thought Russell, 'can beat the smell of fried bacon and fresh
coffee being prepared by someone else while I'm still in bed waking
up'. He felt very cheerful. He ran his fingers lazily through his
mass of curls, pulled on his clothes and shuffled along to the
bathroom savouring the smoothness of ancient wood floorboards under
his still naked feet. When he finally arrived in the kitchen
Julie-Anne looked down at his toes and grinned.

"Tell me more
about this jaunt out to the Fjords you're planning?" she asked,
while daintily serving out scrambled eggs, bacon and big hunks of
country bread.

He poured them
each a coffee and sat opposite her.

'Gods,' he
thought, before beginning to answer her question, 'she's even more
beautiful first thing in the morning while her eyes are still
slightly out of focus and her hair is all rambling down her back.'
He realised he was staring at her and tried to concentrate on his
plate. "Well, . . . " he began; and that was how they passed the
day, Julie-Anne set up her lap-top on the kitchen table and they
explored every site they could find that told them anything about
Norway, Vikings or travel to areas he might want to visit.

Somehow it
came to be three in the afternoon and she was cutting unhealthily
large slabs of fruit cake and country cheese to go with a cup of
hot chocolate before she finally, hesitantly, said "I wouldn't mind
going with you, you know. What do you think?"

Inwardly
Russell breathed a soft sigh of relief. A dilemma between wanting
desperately to follow his heart and go back to the roots of his
original scholarly interests in history had been tug-of-warring
inside him against this new and deeply felt interest he had
developed for Julie-Anne. How could he possibly be wanting to go
off and leave her after having just found her? And she was so
delicate and vulnerable too. She was not weak or self-pitying, he
liked that about her, but she was wounded and fragile. He did not
want to leave her. She was looking expectantly at him, he beamed
and straightened his back "I thought you'd never ask! Anyway - I
might not even go, not straight away, it's just an idea."

Seeing how her
irresistible dark brown eyes became radiant with excitement at the
prospect of a shared adventure, Russell felt overwhelmingly happy.
"I s'pose I'd better go down to my own place soon" he mumbled
through a mouthful of cake. "If I stay here too long you're gonna
make me fat!" He watched an array of emotions move through the
depths of her thoughts. Silently she nodded. "Tell you what," he
added, "come to mine, day after tomorrow . . . give me time to
clear the place up a bit before I have my turn at providing our
supper."

The next day
saw Russell in a veritable whirlwind of activity. He'd come home to
realise just what a poor state he'd let the house get into. But
halfway through the rampage of brutal scrubbing, throwing out and
polishing, he received a phone call from school. It was about
eleven-thirty. The sixth-form administrator was in a tizzy about
some homework that the students claimed to have handed in for
marking. Russell thought hard and was able to direct the woman to
the whereabouts of the missing papers.

Then, at noon,
he got a call from the publisher's agent who had been helping him
with the arrangements for writing a contributing chapter for a text
book. He'd been fiddling about with this submission for weeks - it
would be good to have some time to get this done, now that he
didn't have to drag himself up to the high school every day. He
thought about it as he carried on with his household chores.

Then he'd run
out of bleach . . . and the bathroom - well! So he hopped in the
car and whizzed out to the store to pick up the bleach and a few
other 'bits and pieces' - determined to make his home seem slightly
less lacking in creature comforts. He didn't know what this new
relationship with Julie-Anne was going to develop into, but he
wanted her to feel comfortable around him and not think that he was
a useless slob.

He was just
back from the shopping errand when the phone rang again.
Suppressing a curse he lifted the receiver "Hello?"

Silence.

"Hello? Who's
there?"

A soft
whimper.

"Hello? Look
if this is one of the kids from school just . . . "

"No!" a broken
voice cut in, "It's me, it's Julie-Anne."

Russell
relaxed. "Oh, hi. How are you today?"

"Scared."

"Of . .
.?"

"I was worried
in case you changed your mind, y'know, about having me 'round
tomorrow?"

"Listen you'd
better be coming here tomorrow. I'd be really miffed if I thought I
was doing all this housework for nothing." He tried to keep a
light, teasing tone in his voice. She was sounding truly miserable;
he wanted to cheer her up. He listened to her breath as she smiled
quietly to herself on the other end of the phone line. "Tell you
what" he added, looking wildly around at the state of his half
cleaned rooms, "why don't you come early in the morning and we'll
make a proper day of it. Would that suit you?"

Now she was
crying. She made no sound but Russell could sense it. His mind
raced, trying to think of the right thing to say. Then she sobbed
loudly and her thoughts started to pour into the telephone
receiver. Russell hoped he had the strength to catch her feelings
gently and support them in the way that she must need.