I sank down onto her, taking most of my own weight on my elbow so that I could gaze into her moon-bleached face and into those eyes that sought more than just passion. There was an urgency there, but also - or so I told myself at the time - a need for some kind of security, maybe a commitment.
My fingers, still trembling, slipped beneath the strap on her pale shoulder to ease it aside. Resting my hand there, curled around her shoulder, I lowered my face so that our lips brushed against each other.
The touch was deliberately delicate, unlike the bruising kiss of moments before, and it excited us both; still we kept the encounter tentative, moistening each other's mouths with tiny stabs of our tongues, resisting the impulse to crush, to give ourselves completely, the restraint soon becoming unbearable, the years of abstinence heightening the tension, increasing the pleasure.
It could only last a matter of seconds and when finally we pressed into each other, teeth clashing, our lips hurting, I felt a roaring inside my head, a rush of charges surging through each limb, each part of my body. My hand left her shoulder to find her small, firm breast, and my fingers tightened on its solid core. I heard her gasp at the sudden pain, but the sound became a moan, and this was of pleasure.
Her hands slid round my neck, kneading its flesh and the hard ridge of my spine, her fingertips retreating so that they could come between us to work themselves against my chest, digging into the muscles there, smoothing over the ridges. It was my turn to gasp when her fingers probed the bruising. She quickly took her hand away, afraid she'd hurt me too much, and I felt those fingers flatten against my stomach, causing the muscles there to shudder involuntarily.
Our kisses were equally wild, our breaths equally as desperate, and when her tongue entered my mouth and pressed against my own tongue, I became even more aroused. One of my hands tugged at the slip, pulling it down, away from her breasts, and I took time to drink them in with my eyes, because they were so naked, so bare, so sensual, like delicate spheres carved in marble; and then I drank them in with my mouth, taking each nipple in turn between my lips and drawing them in so that they stood wet and proud as Muriel squirmed beneath me. I heard the quiet rustle of the sheet as her legs parted and when I rose from her again, I saw that the smooth material of her slip had ruffled up over her thighs, leaving a deep, alluring shadow between them. It was another flawless sight, an image that set my mind reeling as all control, all reason, slipped away from me.
Muriel's chest was rising and falling with her own breathlessness and her hair framed her sweet face on the pillow. Her hands suddenly busied themselves with the waistband of my pants, and then I was free, her fingers closing around me and drawing me towards her so that I cried out with the wonderful shock of it. Her thighs opened wider as she guided me down between them and her cry was louder than mine when I entered her body, the resistance only slight, the hesitation only minimal. Again her cry turned to a moan of pleasure as I travelled further, the journey now smooth and easy, like gliding through warm butter, and her narrow hips rose up to meet me, her hands, her arms, pulling at me fiercely, urging me on, never, it seemed, wanting that journey to end. But quickly I reached the furthest point, and we clung to each other, her tears dampening my chest and shoulders once again.
Only then did we pause, and my own tears fell into her hair. She felt the wetness and held me tightly, but now with a tenderness that had nothing to do with passion. It couldn't last though, that moment of caring and compassion - our physical demands were too great, our sexual needs too critical. We began to move against each other again, each thrust becoming wilder, our senses rushing towards that point in our bodies where our juices could fuse and our energies meld. When my flow finally streamed from me I buried my face against her shoulder and groaned, and I stayed that way until the fluttering spasms grew less in intensity, ebbed away, left me exhausted.
Slowly my body and my mind relaxed. And for the first time in three years I found a temporary peace.
I lit another cigarette with the one I'd just finished and settled back against the bed's cushioned headboard. The shadows in the room had altered as the moon beyond the high windows had drifted upriver, and it was hard to make out Muriel's form as she lay beside me beneath the single sheet, her hand resting lightly on my thigh. The scent of spent passion lingered between us, a sweet-sour musk that was both calming and sensual at the same time, and I remembered how Sally had called it love-fragrance', believing it was some kind of invisible shroud that enveloped lovers after the act, bonding them for a little longer. Yeah, I'd laughed at the time, laughed like a hyena, making her mad at first, until she'd joined in the laughter, but punched my arm all the same. I'd liked the idea though, despite my teasing. At least, I'd liked it with Sally in the picture. Now the thought only stoked up my guilt
'Hoke?' There was a quiet huskiness to her voice. 'Are you all right?'
I could just see the outline of her hair and her arm in the darkness, the vague glint of her eyes. As I drew on the cigarette she was briefly bathed in its warm glow.
'Sure, I'm okay,' I replied.
'You were telling me about your parents.'
Lighting the fresh cigarette had interrupted the flow; the aroma of our lovemaking had rekindled a memory.
'Like I said,' I went on, 'Ma was English, with a touch of Irish thrown in. Peggy. "Peg o' my Heart" Dad liked to call her, naturally enough. They first met when he was over from Wisconsin for an agricultural fair
- he dealt in farm equipment, bought 'n' sold anything from machinery to fertilizers. Had a fair little business going just after the Great War and he was kind of anxious to get a head start with all the new technology for farming.'
'That's where you're from - Wisconsin?'
I nodded in the dark, and added a 'yes' for Muriel's benefit
'Peg was a maid in one of your small, country hotels Dad was staying in, and when I was growed up enough to be interested he told me it was her "sparklin eyes" he first fell in love with, the rest of her 'bout two days later.'
'And your mother - did she fall for him so quickly?'
'Guess she must have, because when he left eight days later she went with him. Just took off, the pair of
'em, bill paid, notice given, but no explanation to anyone. Back to Winona, Wisconsin, USA They got hitched right away and a year later I arrived.'
'Wasn't she afraid? A new country thousands of miles away from her own family?'
'Ma had none to speak of. Her old man had been an Irish immigrant, who hadn't treated Grandma too well. Peggy was his only daughter. When his wife died, he returned to Ireland where he probably killed himself with booze, according to Ma. Oh, he'd found his kid a job in a wash-house before he'd left, so I guess he figured he'd done his duty. And that was fine by Ma - at fourteen years of age she figured she was better off without him. When she married Dad, she didn't know if her old man was dead or alive, and she told me years later she hadn't cared.'
Muriel's fingers moved to my arm and she stroked it, elbow to wrist.
'She was never bitter about it though. Hell no, she was too thankful for her new life with Joseph, my dad.
But y'know, although she never had a family to miss, she had something else to hanker after. Ma never got tired of telling me about her home country and I never got tired of listening.'
Muriel couldn't see me, but I was smiling at the memory. It felt good to talk about my folks after all this time and, for a while at least, it was holding down thoughts of Sally.