She heard rapid footsteps. The door was flung open and Mark stood there, looking startled. He smiled happily, drew her inside, closed the door and embraced her.
Now she felt as disloyal to him as she had to Mervyn earlier. She kissed him guiltily, and the familiar warmth of desire glowed in her veins; but she pulled away and said: “I can’t go with you.”
He blanched. “Don’t say that.”
She looked around the suite. He was packing. The wardrobe and drawers were open, his cases were on the floor and everywhere there were folded shirts, tidy piles of underwear and shoes in bags. He was so neat. “I can’t go,” she repeated.
He took her hand and drew her into the bedroom. They sat on the bed. He looked distraught. “You don’t mean this,” he said.
“Mervyn loves me, and we’ve been together for five years. I can’t do this to him.”
“What about me?”
She looked at him. He was wearing a dusty pink sweater and a bow tie, blue-gray flannel trousers and cordovan shoes. He looked good enough to eat. “You both love me,” she said. “But he’s my husband.”
“We both love you, but I
“Don’t you think he likes me?”
“I don’t think he even knows you. Listen. I’m thirty-five years old. I’ve been in love before. I once had an affair that lasted six years. I’ve never been married but I’ve been around. I
“No,” she said, but she did not mean it.
He drew her to him gently and they kissed.
“We’re so right for each other,” he murmured. “Remember writing notes to one another underneath the silence sign? You understood the game, right away, without explanations. Other women think I’m nuts, but you like me this way.”
It was true, she thought; and when she did oddball things, like smoking a pipe, or going out with no panties on, or attending Fascist meetings and sounding the fire alarm, Mervyn became annoyed, whereas Mark laughed delightedly.
He stroked her hair, then her cheek. Slowly her panic subsided, and she began to feel soothed. She laid her head on his shoulder and let her lips brush the soft skin of his neck. She felt his fingertips on her leg, beneath her dress, stroking the inside of her thigh where her stockings ended. This was not what was supposed to happen, she thought weakly.
He pushed her gently backward on the bed, and her hat fell off. “This isn’t right,” she said feebly. He kissed her mouth, nibbling her lips gently with his own. She felt his fingers through the fine silk of her panties, and she shuddered with pleasure. After a moment his hand slid inside.
He knew just what to do.
One day early in the summer, as they lay naked in a hotel bedroom with the sound of the waves coming through the open window, he had said: “Show me what you do when you touch yourself.”
She had been embarrassed, and pretended not to understand. “What do you mean?”
“You know. When you touch yourself. Show me. Then I’ll know what you like.”
“I don’t touch myself,” she lied.
“Well ... when you were a girl, before you were married—you must have done it then—everyone does. Show me what you used to do.”
She was about to refuse; then she realized how sexy it would be. “You want me to stimulate myself—down there—while you watch?” she said, and her voice was thick with desire.
He grinned wickedly and nodded.
“You mean... all the way?”
“All the way.”
“I couldn’t,” she said; but she did.
Now his fingertips touched her knowingly, in exactly the right places, with the same familiar motion and just the right pressure; and she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the sensation.
After a while she began to moan softly and raise and lower her hips rhythmically. She felt his warm breath on her face as he leaned closer to her. Then, just as she was losing control, he said urgently: “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes. He continued to caress her in exactly the same way, just a little faster. “Don’t close your eyes,” he said. Looking into his eyes while he did that was shockingly intimate, a kind of hypernakedness. It was as if he could see everything and know everything about her, and she felt an exhilarating freedom because she had nothing left to hide. The climax came, and she forced herself to hold his gaze while her hips jerked and she grimaced and gasped with the spasms of pleasure that shook her body; and he smiled down at her all the while and said: “I love you, Diana. I love you so much.”
When it was over, she grabbed him and held him, panting and shaking with emotion, feeling that she never wanted to let go. She would have wept, but she had no tears left.
She never did tell Mervyn.
Mark’s inventive mind came up with the solution, and she rehearsed it as she drove home, calm and collected and quietly determined.
Mervyn was in his pajamas and dressing gown, smoking a cigarette and listening to music on the wireless. “That were a bloody long visit,” he said mildly.
Only a little nervous, Diana said: “I had to drive terribly slowly.” She swallowed, took a deep breath and said: “I’m going away tomorrow.”
He was faintly surprised. “Where to?”
“I’d like to visit Thea and see the twins. I want to make sure she’s all right, and there’s no telling when I’ll get another chance: the trains are already becoming irregular and petrol rationing starts next week.”
He nodded assent. “Aye, you’re right. Better go now while you can.”
“I’ll go up and pack a case.”
“Pack one for me, will you?”
For an awful moment she thought he wanted to go with her. “What for?” she said, aghast.
“I’ll not sleep in an empty house,” he said. “I’ll stop at the Reform Club tomorrow night. You’ll be back Wednesday?”
“Yes, Wednesday,” she lied.
“All right.”
She went upstairs. As she put his underwear and socks into a small suitcase, she thought: It’s the last time I’ll ever do this for him. She folded a white shirt and picked out a silver-gray tie: somber colors suited his dark hair and brown eyes. She was relieved that he had accepted her story, but she also felt frustrated, as if there were something she had left undone. She realized that although she was terrified of confronting him, she also wanted to explain why she was leaving him. She needed to tell him that he had let her down, he had become overbearing and thoughtless, he no longer cherished her as he once had. But now she never would say those things to him, and she felt oddly disappointed.
She closed his case and began to put makeup and toiletries into her sponge bag. It seemed a funny way to end five years of marriage, packing socks and toothpaste and cold cream.
After a while Mervyn came upstairs. The packing was all done and she was in her least attractive nightdress, sitting in front of her dressing table mirror, taking off her makeup. He came up behind her and grasped her breasts.
Oh, no, she thought, not tonight, please!
Although she was horrified, her body responded immediately, and she blushed guiltily. Mervyn’s fingers squeezed her swelling nipples, and she drew in her breath in a small gasp of pleasure and despair. He took her hands and drew her up. She followed helplessly as he led her to the bed. He turned out the light, and they lay down in pitch-blackness. He mounted her immediately and made love to her with a kind of furious desperation, almost as if he knew she was going away from him and there was nothing he could do about it. Her body betrayed her and she thrilled with pleasure and shame. She realized with extreme mortification that she would have reached orgasm
