Acts of Love (24 page)

He stifled her protestations with a kiss. When he released her, tears brimmed in his eyes. ‘Love chooses. I did tell you that.’

‘Yes, you did.’

She rested her head against his shoulder, too moved to say any more. He stroked her hair. She was so cold. ‘Where’s your hat?’ he asked.

For the first time she realised she didn’t have it on. She had lost it somewhere en route. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does.’ He removed his cashmere scarf from his neck and tied it around her head.

A gesture so simple, so pure, so loving; she was moved yet again by him. She asked, ‘Ben, please kiss me again.’ He obliged. Then he took her arm in his and they walked together down the street.

He whispered in her ear, ‘I promise you that I do understand that you need, still, for the moment, not to let go of the past.’ He sensed her anxiety and tried to make it easier for her. He moved
his arm to around her shoulder and hugged her to him as they continued down the street. She turned to look at him. Their eyes met as he reassured her that all would go well for them: ‘Shush, shush. There’s nothing to be anxious about; we’ll work it out. All we need is time, you and I. Time together, to allow
our
love,
our
passion,
our
erotic longings for each other, to flourish as they once did for you and your husband. Arianne, we nearly lost each other. That is never going to happen again. If it were going to happen, we wouldn’t be here together now, acting like two lovesick puppies on a London street.’ He made light of what he felt deeply. It was the tone that seemed best to correspond to the heavy commitment they had just made to each other. ‘I am right about that, aren’t I?’ he asked.

He had said it all: all that would ever now be said about the past; all he could manage to say on a street in Mayfair. Arianne knew very well that the answer she would now give was a firm commitment to Ben – one he had been looking for at Le Manoir but hadn’t insisted upon. He was giving her a choice even now to back out, but there was no longer a way of retreat open for Arianne. Love had made its choice. ‘Yes, Ben, absolutely right.’

They arrived at Number 12, Three Kings Yard just as Ida was leaving. Proper introductions having been made this time, she opened the front door for them. With a wry smile she suggested, ‘You look as if you should be carrying her over the threshold, Mr Johnson.’

Neither Ben nor Arianne could keep smiles from their faces, or laughter from their voices. ‘Are we that obvious, Ida?’ he asked, looking delighted.

‘Pretty much,’ she answered, really pleased with herself for guessing that at last her lady had found herself a man. Ida loved a good romance.

‘Ida, don’t be surprised to see Mr Johnson around when you next come in,’ Arianne told her. It seemed the correct thing to do.

‘Surprised! I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t.’ Then she set down one of her carrier bags, took a bag from the top and handed it to Arianne. ‘Better have these. Danish pastries, from a food exhibition in Soho. Did you know it’s Danish week? I’ll be in day after tomorrow. You be good to her, Mister.’ And Ida was gone towards the arch at the end of the courtyard.

‘She’s amazing,’ said Arianne.

‘You’re amazing,’ said Ben as he swept her off her feet and into his arms, carried her over the threshold of Number 12 and kicked the door closed.

Hours later the sitting room was bathed in the eerie light that comes with dusk, investing with mystery the last moments of the afternoon – a winter dusk with a hint of pink light that made it a mauvey grey. It suited the sitting room, and the two people seated nude on the carpet in front of the fireplace – Arianne, with knees drawn up, between Ben’s legs, leaning against him, enfolded by his arms and caressing hands.

He lowered his head to kiss her lightly, gently, on the shoulder, to raise her hand and bring it to his lips. The fire reflected orange flames in a pattern across their bodies. The warmth felt good. They had bathed together and dried themselves off with luxurious towels, discarded now close to where they sat.

Arianne eased her head to one side and nuzzled it against Ben’s collar-bone, found a niche for herself and cuddled him there. She lowered her eyes and looked at the hands cupping her breasts. Ben loved her breasts, the weight of them in his hands. Most women can tell when a man really loves her body as Ben loved Arianne’s. It inspires a woman to surrender herself to a man, for hours, body and soul. Arianne lazily lowered her knees and leaned back even further into him. With one hand still cupped around her breast, he moved the other to fondle her flat tummy, to slip his fingers over her mound and caress affectionately the soft, fleshy lips, moist yet again. She sighed and relaxed against him.

‘What bliss. How divine a lover you are,’ she whispered. The sigh that followed was pure contentment. She took his hand away from her cunt, covered her mouth with it, kissed the palm and licked it with the tip of her tongue, then placed it under her breast. His fingers played with her long, erect nipples. How she adored being fondled by him, being set free sexually by their lust for each other. Nestling her head against him, she turned it just enough to place a kiss on his shoulder, his arm, to insert her tongue between his arm and his body and lick him there. He understood, she didn’t have to say anything.

She liked sitting nude between his thighs, to feel his large, flaccid penis grow as it pressed against her, the strength of his strong arms around her, his broad chest against her back. They seemed mesmerised by the dancing flames in the fireplace and by the feeling of being so sexually fulfilled. The warmth of the open fire crept subtly into their bones. It was a heat like no other, deep and penetrating, an intrinsic glow like the love and affection these two new lovers had for each other.

Arianne disentangled herself from Ben’s arms just long enough to stretch herself: arms raised high and wide, legs further apart as she pushed herself deeper against him. Then she folded his arms back around her the way they had been and placed his hands once more under her breasts; the same hands that could excite a passion in her and be at times so sexually untamed on her body. That excited them and took them further, always further, into orgasms that reached beyond reality into a private world of erotic bliss.

‘Are you happy?’ he asked her, kissing the side of her neck, licking the lobe of her ear.

She answered him with a kiss. ‘Will you stay with me?’ she asked.

‘Now and for ever. I thought that had already been established. It goes without saying. Truly it does.’ And he kissed her.

‘No, I mean here. Or do we live in your place?’

‘Whatever you want. Here is a more romantic and cosier place than mine. It’s like playing grown-ups in a dolls’ house. I’m happy to stay here for when we are in London.’

‘Good, that’s settled then. I love you, Ben.’

‘I love you, Arianne.’

They were yet again moved by emotion and their passion for each other. He kissed her on the eyes, her lips; caressed her breasts, opened his mouth and placed it over her nipple. He licked and sucked it. He could feel her responding to him. She squirmed under his hungry mouth, deriving from it a delicate pleasure. He slipped his fingers between her cunt lips and inserted them as deeply as he could inside her. Caressing fingers. She squeezed on them with her cunt. Her breath grew heavy with passion. He used his teeth to bite into the shaded nimbus of her breasts.

Arianne thought that she had been through, had come to the point of exhaustion, and there was nothing left, orgasm impossible, sexual exhaustion having taken over. But she had been wrong. She came with a tremendous orgasm that surprised even Ben. It flowed over his fingers, and he used them as he might his penis to penetrate her as deeply as he could. Her body grew tense in his arms and she held herself that way while she came. When it was over for her, she relaxed and went limp against his body. Only then did he remove his mouth from her breast to kiss her lips with affection, with a deep abiding love. She gazed at his erect penis, throbbing with life, and experienced the strangeness and beauty of it.

Ben picked Arianne up off the floor as he rose, and walked her to the sofa. He sat down with her on his lap. Turning her around in his arms to face him, he lowered his hands and spread wide her cunt lips. He played with them thus for several minutes before raising her by the waist. Bringing her down as hard as he could, he impaled her on his cock and pressed her to him, while gazing admiringly at her. He rocked her thus, slowly, lovingly, as one would a child. He caressed her hair, gently kissed her lips, and then raised her by her hips and eased her down again on him several times. He could feel the grip of her cunt kissing his cock. What pleasure, what bliss she was. And then, with her still impaled upon him, he gently manoeuvred them both to lie on their sides together on the sofa, watching the fire.

‘Let’s make our real home in the States. Begin a new life together there.’

She ran her fingers through his hair and touched his cheek with the back of her hand. He remained still rigid inside her. They were sexually quiescent, enjoying the affection they felt for each other, the feel of penis and cunt locked together.

‘I think I’d like to go home with you,’ she told him.

Arianne felt Ben stir inside her. He had been shrinking back. After several gentle thrusts she could feel him grow larger, rigid inside her again. The delight she felt at being riven by him showed in her eyes; he could feel it in the way her body moved. Her enjoyment of cock was something he understood. Arianne found it exciting to have sex with him because he appreciated how much some women love to be riven by an erect penis; how
intercourse calms their wombs and fills their hearts with joy; how they derive the same pleasure as a man in a sexual abandonment that has nothing to do with responsibility or relationships, and is centred entirely on sexual bliss.

‘Arianne?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you marry me?’ There was a certain formality in the way he proposed to her, the more so considering the way they were with each other. She somehow appreciated that, and his proposal went straight to her heart. It touched her in her soul.

‘Yes, Ben, I will, when and wherever you like.’ Then she clasped Ben in her arms, placed her lips on his and opened them with her tongue to search out rich kisses from the depths of his soul. What followed – her kisses on his face, on his cock, his to her cunt – excited him to roll them gently from the sofa on to the carpet in front of the fire, Arianne on her back. He straddled her and raised her legs on to his shoulders, then placed cushions under her and fucked her with passionate lust until they came together one more time.

They lay silent in each other’s arms for some time, replete with sex and love. Once composed again, Ben kissed her lightly on the lips and inquired, ‘Tea or champagne?’

‘Oh, I think champagne.’ Their life together began.

They were blissfully happy tucked away in the house in Three Kings Yard. Having found love, the lovers were now discovering each other, and were thrilled with their findings. This was that special romantic time in lovers’ lives that can never be repeated, never forgotten, and Arianne and Ben were making the most of it. It was patently obvious to them that they were laying the foundation, as solid as bedrock, on which to build a marriage. They peeled away the layers of silence, broke down protective walls they had built around themselves, and gave themselves up to each other. And every day fell in love that little bit more.

One morning after a particularly passionate and profoundly erotic sexual coming together, Ben suggested, ‘How would you like to repeat this tomorrow morning in my big four-poster bed in the château in France?’

‘I think I’d like that fine,’ was her reply.

‘Great.’ He kissed her and bounded out of bed to make arrangements.

It was not only Arianne who felt a tremendous excitement about their first visit to the château. Ben loved his eighteenth-century house in the Médoc and took pride and joy in the accompanying vineyard. He sensed that, at last, it was to have a mistress who would love it as he did. Together he and Arianne would turn it from a magnificent house into a happy, loving home. It suddenly felt to him that the years of restoration, collecting antiques and paintings, tapestries, eighteenth-century
objets d’art
, and re-creating the once famous gardens, had all been in preparation for this first visit.

‘The thing about being a poor boy and having wealthy friends is that they can’t stand their friends being poor. The wealthy feel more secure with their own – I owe most of my success to that fact. I have had a few good breaks in my life from wealthy friends, a tip here and there on the world’s stock markets, a prime job offered through connections, old school ties and all that. I worked hard and I played hard and had some luck, and I wasn’t greedy. I gave back to my friends, shared my luck with them and it made me wealthy and secure in myself. Now I’m one of them. And that short sharp business biography explains how we are able to drive through my neighbours’ vineyards here in the Haut Médoc, Margaux country: Soussans, Contenac, Labard, to our own vineyard and house. That house over there.’

Arianne had until now found the Médoc in winter to be a strange landscape. Hectares and hectares of stubbly, pruned vines set out in neat rows, broken only by the occasional impressive château, under a white, white sun shining as bright haze through a grey clouded sky on this bitter cold day. Ben’s vineyard ran from the tarmacked road close to the river Gironde. When they turned off it on to his land and drove through his vineyard on to a rise and she saw for the first time the magnificent ornamental iron gates and the château beyond, she had to catch her breath at the impressive beauty and charm of the place.

They sped through the gates, past gardens braving the winter cold and the chill wind coming off the river, and up the gravel avenue lined with trees past huge clipped shrubs now hidden under their winter canvas covers as protection against the frost.
Ben brought the car to a halt with a screech of tyres at the entrance of the eighteenth-century stone château, impressive not only for its age and beauty but for its inexplicable warmth and charm. This was the house where Ben hoped they would marry.