*
Is he cold?
No, he’s not.
Is he sure? She can get him a blanket. She can add something to the fire.
— Have they fires in Syria?
Daft question. But since he loves to talk Syria he’s off transported by heat, fires and weather. She’s gone to get him a blanket. His plate moves to the side table. He reaches in his bag, he brought her something. A stack of books. One, she can keep, three she can borrow
Borrow, she likes borrow. Come again, it says.
— Here now, she hands him the blanket but moves instead to pat it around him, slips her hand beneath his legs in the process, along the side, moving to tuck him in firmly further up his thighs. He’s alarmed, just mild though.
*
I must wonder while I extract myself why I have nothing but the desire to keep pressing my hands all along the sides of this stranger. I could carry on up his torso until I reached his ears!
Who is this woman? And where has she come up with such bold ideas on an average Sunday, an average Sunday where Mass and refilling the milk jug and sugar bowl, lest there be an avalanche of visitors were previously the order of her day.
*
That snicker of alarm on his face fades to a smile. Is that a knowing smile? Would she know a knowing smile. She couldn’t give a snap of her fingers whether it’s knowing or otherwise. She thinks of that cheeky twit swinging her leg over Himself and Our Woman left out in the cold, back here sweeping floors, lifting newspapers and making a bed for a man laid in another. Leave no misunderstanding to chance she thinks, and pats Halim firmly across his belly.
— Are you all full in there?
Her hand drops low enough to indent the top of his groin area. I am wondering what you’ve got in there, her eyes say.
*
She had risen this morning and baked. Strange choices that should have alarmed her husband, but he downed his egg put on his boots and hat and took off through the back door allowing the unusual whiff of apple tart to exit into the wind. There’s a visitor coming today, but no reply, only he was agin goin to Tubbercurry to look for The Box. A box has become The Box. He has looked at fifteen different boxes in recent months.
Too big, too small, too chipped, wrong paint, wheel wear, rust inclined, not wide enough, too wide.
— I’d like you to meet him?
— Is it the horse fella?
Sort of True: She had met the Syrian when thinking about horses.
Not Ascertained: The Syrian knows something about horses.
Absolutely Untrue: The Syrian is a horse fella.
— Is he coming with his wife?
— He is.
— Bring him down to the field and let him see which way the grass is. He left it there at that single instruction.
She imagined showing Halim the grass and asking his opinion on whether it would suit a horse and that made her smile. This young fella, with a key to his locker, and a few textbooks from the RTC college.
— I’d like you to meet him, she repeated. This will ensure he’ll never meet him. The I’d like you to sealing it.
*
She checked which way her husband went at the front window. Wrong way for Tubbercurry that much is certain. Right way for Ballina.
*
Plants a kiss in his groin between his hip and his pubic hair. Delicately. Lip meets skin then she realizes where her lips are — and what’s she doing here? Presses it decisively and removes it slowly, from that few-fingered-sized-space of hair-free flesh.
Purposeful she is. They’d been thumbing through a book on some mythical valley and she’d begun to tire of it, and that image of Red and her bare behind propelled her into sudden action. The first stage a blur, somehow she ventured belt beneath, while he continued reading undeterred. Raised the book obligingly, while she parted his trousers to discover practical cotton underwear, disappointingly so identical to her husband’s she could easily mix them up in the wash. He obliged, lowered trousers.
Orange light.
On and found flesh.
She won’t look up. Places her two hands into his thighs and parts his legs, same way she’d divide bread dough. There isn’t room for her two hands, so one above, one below, his testicles squashed saggy, his penis against her palm, she’s got him now, visibly harder, a good sign surely. Encouraged, she places her lips on the top of it, sneaks some dry kisses along, waiting for a protest of some description, none, ’til arriving near the tip, she pauses allows her mouth to fill with saliva before taking the tip in her mouth (as she had read in the book on Jimmy’s shelf). Above he whispers something in his language which she hopes is it’s my lucky day rather than whose old mouth am I in? She isn’t entirely sure what to do now it’s inside her mouth, but as planned, copies exactly what she saw the young fella do with Jimmy. The angle is very awkward, but she won’t give it up, she’ll do battle. Direction confuses her and there’s a bit of crashing. Up with her mouth, and down with her hand. Hand towards mouth and back. Repeatedly. It’s a bit tight and her jaw nags. She’s not sure how well it’s going, but his hand has extended under to establish her breast. It strikes her she has no idea what her husband of so many years would taste like.
She remembered how the young fella speeded up on Jimmy, and how he worked with his entangled hands. She must shift her position, which she hasn’t planned for and then there’s the lack of access to do what the young fella did to the behind. She’s minus the squeezing. On her knees, she’s managing the front end OK, still not the most comfortable, she tries to shove her hands around the back of him, but he can’t quite fathom what she’s up to and sits firm. Out of space in this arrangement it’s all getting too sweaty. Her mouth is really having a divil of a time figuring out the angle and what is required. It tastes alright considering, there’s a nice smell of it, but it’s ever so uncomfortable on her jaw and his knees are crunching into her ribs painfully. Fifteen more, she’ll endure. She lifts her head to mutter something to this effect, when he blows wet, spreads all over her hand and further beyond onto the sleeve of her cardigan. Just like that. The smell takes over the immediate air like cleaning fluid. So fast. She’s pleased. That’s all there was to it. Dandy. That it ended will close any need for conversation as to why it started. She can tell you nothing about his body. Her concentration overloaded on execution. All of it took place under a psychological tarpaulin. As normal as lifting a jug or stoking the fire.
*
All cleaned and rearranged and back sat beside him without a word of explanation on either side, his hand took up her bait, drifted over to her back and moved about in subtle, small motions depressed her flesh gently like he was trying to figure out — post astonishment — what exactly she was made of. Found its way to the spare roll or two around her lower back and delighted in it, lifting it lightly and squashing it playfully. And they stayed that way for the shortest while, neither saying anything, but he’s happyish. She can tell this without having to look closely at him. He took one of her hands in his two and kissed it. Such a gentlemanly gesture, in comparison to her who has been furrowing around in this young stranger’s groin like a cleaning woman who’d lost her brush in a bucket of water. Ridiculous it might be, but this is what Himself wanted, and she shall want it too, she scolded herself to stem her greater inclination which was to wail in shame and beat her chest for atonement. It wasn’t bad, she thought. I could get used to it.