blouse with its high-necked collar, my over-corset, my corset, my over-skirt, my skirt, my bustle and my petticoats, until all I am left wearing is my slip. Still gazing at you tenderly, I will pull down the shoulder straps so the garment slides off my body, like snow slipping from a fir tree, and lies in a furl at my feet. Then, like a final act of a long drawn-out ritual, I will slip out of my drawers, offering myself to you utterly naked, placing my body at your disposal, surrendering myself to the touch of your hands and your lips, giving myself completely, knowing it is to the right man, to Captain Derek Shackleton, the liberator of the human race, the only man with whom I could ever have fallen in love.
And you, my love, will watch the elaborate process, like someone waiting for a beautiful figure to emerge from a block of marble as it is teased out by the artists chisel. You will see me walking towards you, and will quickly take off your shirt and trousers, as if a gust had torn them from a washing line. Then we will embrace, the warmth of our bodies mingling in a happy union, and I will feel your fingers, so accustomed to touching hard metal and weapons, exploring my body, sensitive to its delicacy, with exhilarating slowness and respectful tenderness. Then we will lie on the bed gazing into one another’s eyes, and my hands will search your stomach for the scar from the bullet with which Solomon tried to kill you, and which you survived as one recovers from a fever, only I will be so nervous I won’t be able to find it.
Then your mouth, moist and eager, will cover me with kisses, leaving a trail of saliva, and once you have thoroughly charted my body, you will enter it slowly, and I will feel you moving inside me with such gentleness. But despite the care you take, your intrusion will cause me to feel a sudden sharp pain inside, and I will cry out softly and even pull your hair, although immediately it will turn into a bearable, almost sweet ache, and I will become aware of something dormant inside me beginning to stir. How can I describe to you what I will feel at that moment? Imagine a harp marvelling at the notes it produces when a pair of hands plucks it for the first time. Imagine a burning candle, whose melted wax trickles down the candlestick, oblivious to the flame above, and forms a beautiful latticed pattern at the base. What I am trying to say to you, my love, is that until that moment, I will not have known it is possible to feel such exquisite rapture, the ecstatic pleasure that will radiate through my whole body from a place somewhere inside me, and although at first my bashfulness will force me to grit my teeth, to attempt to stifle the gasps that will rise from my throat, I will end up abandoning myself to that overpowering joy. I will let myself be swept away by that torrent of icy fire, and will proclaim my pleasure with passionate cries, announcing the awakening of my flesh. And I will be insatiable. I will clutch you to me, trapping you with my legs, because I want you to stay inside me for ever, because I will be unable to understand how I could have lived all that time without feeling you thrusting sweetly into me.
And when, after the final ecstasy, you slip out of me, leaving a crimson trail across the sheets, I will suddenly feel incomplete, bereft, lost. With my eyes closed, I will savour the echo of joy you have left inside me, the delicious memory of your presence, and when this has slowly faded, I will be overwhelmed by a feeling of extraordinary loneliness, but also of infinite gratitude at having discovered in myself a creature perfectly adapted to bliss, capable of enjoying the loftiest and most earthly pleasures. Then I will reach out, searching for the feel of your skin bathed in my sweat, your skin that still quivers and burns, like the strings of a violin after a concerto, and I will gaze at you with a radiant smile of gratitude for having revealed to me who I am, everything I did not yet know about myself.
Tom was so moved and surprised, he had to stop reading. Had he really unleashed all those feelings in her? Leaning back against the tree, almost out of breath, he let his gaze wander over the surrounding fields. For him, the carnal act with her had been a pleasant experience he would always remember, but Claire spoke of it as though it had been sublime and unforgettable, like the foundation stone that, as the years passed, would hold up the cathedral of her love. Feeling even more of a savage than he really was, Tom sighed and went on reading:
I was going to tell you now how I travelled to your time, Derek, but when I remember that during our meeting at the tea room you still did not know how we do it, I feel compelled to keep it secret in order not to change things that have already happened. What I can tell you is that last year an author called H. G. Wells published a wonderful novel, The Time Machine, which made us all dream about the future. And then someone showed the machine to us. I can tell you no more than that. But I will make it up to you by saying that, although your mission in my time will fail, and the machine in which you travel here will be prohibited, the human race will win the war against the automatons, and it will be thanks to you. Yes, my love, you will defeat the evil Solomon in an exciting sword fight. Trust me, for I saw it with my own eyes.
Your loving,
C
Wells placed the letter on the table, trying not to show how it had aroused him. He glanced at Tom silently, gesturing almost imperceptibly with his head that he could leave. Once he was alone, he picked up the letter to which he had to reply, and flushed with excitement as he re- read the detailed account of their meeting at the boarding-house. Thanks to this girl, he finally understood women’s experience of pleasure, the sensation that crept over them with intriguing slowness, overwhelming them completely or scarcely touching them. How sublime, resplendent and infinite their enjoyment was compared to that of men, so vulgar and crude, little more than a spurt of joy between their legs.
But was this the same for all women or was she special? Had the Creator fine-tuned this particular girl’s sensitivity to such an astonishing degree? No, doubtless she was a perfectly ordinary creature who simply enjoyed her sexuality in a way other women would consider brazen. Her simple decision to undress in front of Tom already showed an audacious spirit, a determination to experience to the full every possible sensation arising from the sexual act.
Upon realising this, Wells felt saddened, annoyed even, by the chaste manner in which the women in his life had given themselves to him. His cousin Isabel was one of those who had resorted to the hole in the undergarment, presenting him with only her sex, which to Wells seemed like some terrifying entity, a sort of sucking orifice that appeared to have come from some other planet. Even Jane, who was less inhibited in such matters, had never allowed him to see her completely naked. No, he had never been lucky enough to meet a woman blessed with Claire’s delightful nature.
There were no limits to what he could have done with a girl as easy to win over as she. It would have been enough to extol the therapeutic virtues of sex for women in order to convert her into an eager adept of carnal pleasure, a modern-day priestess ready to give and receive pleasure freely. She would have become a champion of copulation, preaching door to door that regular sexual activity improved women’s physiques, gave them a mysterious glow, softened their expressions, and even rounded off any unsightly angularities. With a woman like that, he would certainly be a contented man, his appetites sated, a man who could put his mind to other things, throw himself into his interests, freed from the relentless male itch that had begun in adolescence and would stay with him until senility finally rendered his body useless.
It was no surprise, then, that Wells immediately envisaged the girl named Claire Haggerty in his bed, without any clothes veiling her slender form, allowing him to stroke her with feline abandon, intensely enjoying the same caresses that scarcely elicited a polite sigh from Jane. It seemed incongruous to him that he should understand this unknown woman’s pleasure, while that of his wife remained a mystery to him. Suddenly he remembered she was waiting somewhere in the house for him to give her the next letter to read. He left the kitchen to go and look for her, taking deep breaths on the way to calm his excitement.
When he found her in the sitting room reading a book, he put the sheet of paper on the table without a word, like a poisoned chalice, then waited to see the effect it had on her. For there was no doubt the letter would affect Jane, as it had affected him, forcing her to question her approach to the physical side of love in the same way that the last letter had made her question the way she experienced its spiritual side.
