for them. She told him that the poetry was merely a beginning. She was
going to write a novel about being young and living in Israel. She had
the outline worked out, and it seemed like a pretty interesting story to
David. Then she started to talk about her land and the people who lived
in it. David felt something move within him as he listened, a
nostalgia, a deep race memory. Again his envy stirred. She was so
certain of where she was from and where she was going - she knew where
she belonged, and what her destiny was, and this made her strong. Beside
her he felt suddenly insignificant and without purpose.
sunlight and looked up at him.
h? He shook his head but did not answer her smile, and she became
solemn also.
She studied his face carefully, with minute attention.
The sun had dried his hair and fluffed it out, and it was soft and fine
and very dark. The bone of his cheek and jaw was sculptured and finely
balanced, the eyes very clear and slightly Asiatic in cast, the lips
full and firm, and the nose delicately fluted with wide nostrils and a
straight graceful line.
She reached up and touched his cheek.
You are very beautiful, David. You are the most beautiful human being I
have ever seen. He did not move, and she ran the finger down his neck
on to his chest, twirling it slowly in the dark body hair.
Slowly he leaned forward and placed his mouth over hers. Her lips were
warm and soft and tasted of sea salt.
Her arms came up around the back of his head and folded around him. They
kissed until he reached behind her and unfastened the clasp of her
costume between the smooth brown shoulder blades. She stiffened
immediately and tried to pull away from him.
David held her gently but firmly, murmuring little soothing noises as he
kissed her again. Slowly she relaxed and he went on gentling her until
her hands went to the back of his neck again, and she sighed and
shuddered.
His hands were skilled and expert, masterful enough to prevent
rebellion, not rough enough to panic her. He pushed up the thin
material of her costume top and was surprised and enchanted with the
firm rubbery weight of her breasts and the big dusky rose-brown nipples
which were pebble hard to his touch.
It was shocking, completely foreign to his experience, for David was not
accustomed to check or denial, but Debra placed her hands on his
shoulders and shoved him with such force that he lost his balance and
slid down the rock, grazing his elbow and ending in a heap at the
water's edge.
He scrambled angrily to his feet as Debra came up with a fluid explosive
movement, fastening her costume as she did so. A single bound of her
long brown legs carried her to the edge of the rocks and she dived
outwards, hitting the water flat and surfacing to call back at him.
I'll race you to the beach David would not accept the challenge and
followed her at his own dignified pace. When he emerged unsmilingly
from the low surf, she studied his face a moment and then grinned.
When you sulk you look about ten years old, she told him, which was no
great exercise of tact and David stalked back to his room.
He was still being extremely dignified and aloof that evening when they
discovered a discotheque named2ooi A. D. run by a couple of English
boys down on the sea-front. They crowded round a table at which there
were already two B. E. A. hostesses and a couple of raggedy-looking
beards. The music was loud enough and the rhythm hard enough to jar the
spine and loosen the bowels and when the two hostesses gazed at David
with almost religious awe Debra forsook her attitude of cool amusement
and suggested to David that they dance.
Mollified by this little feminine by-play, David dropped his
impersonation of the Ice King.
They moved well together, sharing the gut rhythms of the harsh music,
executing the primeval movements that reeked of Africa with a grace that
drew the attention of the other dancers.
When the music changed Debra came to him and lay her body against his.
David felt some force flowing from her that seemed to charge every nerve
of his body, and he knew that no relationship he had with this woman
would ever run calmly. It was too deeply felt for that, too volatile
and triggered for momentary explosion.
When the record ended they left Joe and Hannah huddled over a carafe of
red wine and they went out into the silent street and down to the beach.
There was a moon in the sky that lit the dark cliffs crowding in above
the beach, and reflected off the sea in multiple yellow images. The low
surf hissed and coughed on the pebble beach and they took off their
shoes and walked along it, letting the water wash around their ankles.
In an angle of the cliff, they found a hidden place amongst the rocks
and they stopped to kiss again, and David mistakenly took her new soft
mood as an invitation to continue from where he had left off that
afternoon.
Debra pulled away again, but this time with determination and said
angrily, Damn you! Don't you ever learn? I don't want to do that. Do
we have to go through this every time we are alone?
, 'What's the matter? David was immediately stung by her tone, and
furious with this fresh check. This is the twentieth century, darling.
The simpering virgin is out of style this season, hadn't you heard? ,
And spoilt little boys should grow up before they come out on their own,
she flashed back at him.
Thanks! he snarled. I don't have to stay around taking insults from
any professional virgin. Well, why don't you move out then? she
challenged him.
Hey, that's a great idea! He turned his back on her and walked away up
the beach. She had not expected that, and she started to run after him,
but her pride checked her. She stopped and leaned against the rock.
He shouldn't have rushed me, she thought miserably.
I want him, I want him very much, but he will be the first since Dudu.
If he will just give me time it will be all right, but he mustn't rush
me. If he could only go at my speed, help me to do it right.
It is funny, she thought, how little I remember about Dudu now. It's
only three years, but his memory is fading so swiftly, I wonder if I
really did love him. Even his face is hazy in my mind, while I know
every detail of David's, every plane and line of it.
Perhaps I should go after him and tell him about Dudu, and ask him to be
patient and to help me a little.
Perhaps I should do that, she thought, but she did not and slowly she
walked up the beach, through the silent town to the hotel.
Hannah's bed across the room was empty. She would be with Joe, lying
with him, loving with him, I should be with David also, she thought.
Dudu was dead, and I'm alive, and I want David and I should be with him
but she undressed slowly and climbed into the bed and lay without
sleeping.
David stood in the doorway of 2001 A. D. and peered through the
weirdly flashing lights and the smog, the warm palpable emanation from a
hundred straining bodies. The B. E. A. hostesses were still at the
table, but Joe and Hannah had gone.
David made his way through the dancers. The one hostess was tall and
blonde, with high English colour and china-doll eyes. She looked up and
saw David, glanced around for Debra, made sure she was missing before