‘You’ll be worn out by the time you’re twenty-five,’ she told Jennifer — not actually believing a word of it.
Discovering sex had transformed Jenny Stone. At a glance she looked and behaved much the same. She remained something of a tomboy, but men usually became instinctively aware of the ferocious sexuality lurking just below the surface. There was something indefinable in her manner which suggested the level of sexual enjoyment she was capable of.
Gradually, as she sought out new partners, she began to realise how special the sex was between her and Mark. They were kindred spirits all right, and when they were together it was always sensational. She didn’t give a damn what or who he was doing in London, and he asked her no questions. She knew he would always come back to her, as, she suspected, she would to him. There were no other anxieties worth mentioning.
She was starting to enjoy the only twenty-odd years in history when, if they wished, women could indeed treat sex the way so many men did. The only twenty years in history when they could sleep with whom they liked, whenever they felt like it, without fear of either pregnancy or death. And Jenny Stone was going to make the most of every thrilling minute of it.
Part Two
Diamond Day
It was in the golden sunshine
of an emerald studded morning
that you looked at me and said
a diamond day is dawning,
my love.
In the waking waterside glare
we were going to share
the beauty of a dove.
To seek the joy of light
the sheer ecstasy of flight
every sweet fantasy in sight.
Colours yellow, blue
and red,
Heart mellow, true
and disconnected from the head.
Your eyes were violet
Your lips were velvet
Your touch was sacred.
You too, my love
were like the dove.
If only I had understood
In even the craziest romantic mood
That dreams are as well as
And maybe as much as
But never ever instead.
And even lovers must get out of bed.
Eleven
It took around four years for Jennifer Stone to complete her weekly newspaper training, virtually exhaust Dorset’s supply of male sex objects, and graduate to an evening paper, the hours of which were interfering with her sex life. She knew she was more than ready for a move to London. Mark suggested she apply for a job on his newspaper, the Daily Recorder. She was invited for an interview and swiftly hired as a reporter. It had been remarkably smooth and painless. Marcus, for so he had become, smiled benignly. Well, she thought, it couldn’t possibly be anything to do with him. He might be the star foreign man already, but he was still only a reporter.
Together they found her a flat. He had half-heartedly suggested she move in with him.
‘Certainly not,’ she had told him curtly. ‘I do not intend to live with any man unless I marry him.’
He had roared with laughter and asked what on earth had possessed the sexiest creature he had ever come across — more laughter — that she should suddenly display such morality.
‘Nothing to do with morality, just practicality,’ she had replied, mildly offended. ‘If I ever move in with someone, I am going to be absolutely sure I am not going to want to move out the next week. I don’t want my home to depend on my sex life, for Christ’s sake, do I?’
He had agreed, with another outburst of mirth, that she most certainly did not.
‘Look, we need to be free spirits, it works for us,’ she’d said.
He did not really need persuading. She was sure he was secretly relieved. But he did try, very occasionally, to do the right thing, did Mark.
‘One thing you must remember,’ he’d instructed. ‘Marcus, not Mark. When you come to London you must learn to call me Marcus.’
She giggled. She could understand why he wanted to change Piddle to Piddell, but Mark to Marcus? She remembered asking him about that and being told it was a much better byline name. Typical of him; he rarely missed a trick.
He told her she should stop being Jenny — that was a name for schoolgirls and waitresses. Jennifer Stone was a good name, a strong name.
‘A good byline name?’ she had queried with a smile.
‘Damn right,’ he had replied. And so it proved to be.
Jennifer too was successful from the start in Fleet Street. She was a general news reporter for four wild years. Away on stories she occasionally strayed, but back home in London there was only Marcus. She moved to a smart flat in the Barbican at about the same time that she was transferred into the features department as a senior writer. And in the four years after Jennifer had arrived in town, Marcus rose to be deputy editor. His promotion had been swift. He was thirty-two years old. The present editor was due for retirement the following year and Marcus was being groomed to take over. He had bought himself a mews house in Chelsea. He drove a Daimler provided by the Recorder — an editor’s car a year or so in advance of the job becoming vacant, a clear statement of management’s intent. When he became editor, there would be a chauffeur as well. He was Fleet Street’s greatest golden boy, and it all seemed so effortless.
Together they were a much sought-after couple. They had youth and glamour, that aura of success about them which is inclined to make people so much more attractive than they would otherwise be. They still did not live together, but they were an established item in the media world.
Their sex life was even more extreme than their working life. Every time they made love it seemed to be a little wilder, a little crazier than the last. She told him all her fantasies. He would get her to tell him again and again how she would like to have two men at once, and sometimes, with his tricks and his sexual wizardry, he would almost make her believe that she had.
Some mornings when she woke she found herself wondering how far they would go together. How far would Mark go for a sexual thrill? How far would she go? Occasionally it bothered her, made her anxious. After yet another extraordinary all-night sex session she would not always experience quite the old glow, quite the old joyful fulfilment. Instead she would feel a bit jaded, uneasy. As she lay pondering the night’s escapades, she would invariably hear Marcus cheerfully whistling as he splashed around in the bathroom. No crisis of conscience there. The thought made her grin. Marcus invariably bounced out of bed without a care in the world, as if he had just enjoyed eight hours of deep, uninterrupted slumber. His powers of recovery never ceased to amaze her. Recovery, what was she thinking about? He never seemed to need to recover. His dressing room was entered through the bathroom. When he emerged he was always immaculate in Armani suits and Gucci shoes. The white blonde curls gleamed with well-being. He smelt slightly, never too much, of Paco Rabanne. He was handsome, successful, and on top of the world. He had the body and the stamina of an athlete, the looks of a Hollywood film star, the brain of an academic, the street wisdom of a barrow boy, and no morals to mention.
Often Jennifer could only groan and pull the sheet over her head.
Marcus was endlessly inventive. There was the time he and Jennifer were invited to a smart media dinner party. In Hampstead. Where else? They were very much on that circuit now, and their opinion about these evenings they sometimes felt obliged to endure was something else they had in common. They both despised them as pretentious pompous occasions. At this one, given by a top TV man, there was the usual careful mix of politicians, journalists and tycoons. The conversation was stilted and contrived and unbearably clever. During the pre-dinner drinks session, Jennifer noticed Marcus in deep conversation with the hostess, really turning on the charm, and she could see the woman responding to his blatant sexuality. She wondered how many women around the table he had had. She never allowed herself any illusions about his ability to be faithful, although, strangely enough, since she had been living in London, sharing his life if not entirely his home, she did not think there had been many other women. And certainly none that mattered. She had also strayed while away on trips — it never seemed important to either of them. She knew that Marcus was obsessed with her and her body. She couldn’t help loving that, and the thought of it turned her on. She decided to think about something else. When the dozen or so guests came to sit down at the long narrow table, she was surprised to find that she and Marcus had been seated opposite each other, unusual at this kind of dinner party for couples to be placed that close together. She felt Marcus staring at her. She glanced at him and saw that he was looking triumphant. She knew the expression well. Could he have been fixing this with the hostess, she wondered, and why on earth would he bother?