Love & The Goddess (13 page)

“Ray, I can’t do this. I’ve never just jumped into bed with a man.”

He sat with me on the side of the bed, kissing me. “Of course you’re not. And I wouldn’t dream of pressurising you into something. I’m besotted by you, Kate. I know you
feel the same way. I feel as if I’ve suddenly met the soul mate I’ve been aching to meet all my life.”

“We do have a connection …” I gazed into his earnest eyes.

“Exactly. We can talk about anything and we share the same values. I want you to be part of my life, Kate. I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding about this.” He waved his hand
around the bedroom. “It’s just some women play a game based on ‘the rules’ and I respect people who are spontaneous and don’t follow that stuff.”

“What rules are they exactly?”

“Apparently it’s based on some dating book. Women are told not to sleep with a man until after the third date – you know, play a game of being hard to get. If you ask me,
it’s very disingenuous because when two people want to be together they’re going to have sex some time. Look forget about it. You and I are different. I know you’re not playing
games.” He smiled and pecked me gently on the cheek. “You smell good.”

Maybe he was right. After all I’d been out of the loop for so long, I couldn’t possibly know the code of behaviour anymore. And it’s not as if I could ever reclaim my
virginity. I’d lived by rules all my life and maybe now was the time to break them. Facing me, he rubbed my shoulders reassuringly. My earlier resolve melted as he smiled gently, his dark
eyes caressing my face in a seductive yet apparently sincere manner. I reached up to unbutton his shirt, thinking it was good to feel desired … adored, even.

“It happened,” I told Ella when I met her for coffee the day after in the little café on the seafront. It wasn’t busy, but we kept our voices low. She
threw me a worried look. I protested, “Why are you being such a prude? I didn’t mean for it to happen. After all Trevor was the only man I ever had sex with. And oh, I’ll go into
a Catholic flashback… so please stop or you’ll have me riddled with guilt.”

“Kate.” She looked at me softly. “You’re misreading me. I’m just concerned. This guy seems like a smooth operator. I don’t want to see you getting hurt. But
there again, maybe he’s what you need to get Trevor out of your system.” Then, whispering, she asked: “Tell me, was it good?”

“No, that’s the strange thing.” I also dropped my voice to a whisper. “He was hopeless in comparison to Trevor. He had no idea of foreplay whatsoever and for someone so
posh he smelled bad. He could do with an anti-perspirant. He thinks women are attracted to men’s pheromones.” I watched Ella’s eyes widen with incredulity, and I felt the need to
stick up for Ray. “In one way that’s a good sign – probably it means he’s a bit naïve? Not very experienced, right? I think I can probably teach him.”

“Aagh, Kate!” Ella crinkled her nose and shook back her lustrous brown mane. “A lot of men are just pathetic lovers and unfortunately they’re not for learning anything.
Some women put up with crap sex and just pretend to come, groaning and squealing at the right moment, so their men never learn. And some men just want quick rocks-off sex and don’t care if a
woman is satisfied. Mind you, a lot of women seem to tire of sex too and just want it to be over as fast as possible. One woman I know says she’d like to be married to a paraplegic because
sex wouldn’t be an issue anymore.”

“Gosh, I never thought it could be so complicated between a man and a woman. But what’s all the big ta- do about everyone having great sex? Was Trevor exceptional?”

“He probably was. You remember what a certain Hollywood star said in an interview recently?”

I leaned closer to her. “No. What?”

Ella shook her head. “She said she had an awful lot of lovers and a lot of awful lovers.” Two women at the next table looked over smiling, and one nodded before looking away.
“A good lover is hard to find and the only one you will succeed in coaching is a young one, no older than thirty,” Ella said. “In many ways we’re at a grave disadvantage at
our age. That is unless we go the cougar route and somehow that seems like cradle snatching.”

Alone, later that evening, I felt as though nobody had ever properly explained the facts of life to me. I refused to accept Ella’s scepticism. After all every man wanted to experience good
love making and would take pride in becoming an accomplished lover. In France and Italy, young men are almost schooled in the art – and come to think of it, Ray had talked about a previous
French girlfriend. He must have some potential or she wouldn’t have put up with him behaving like a flat fish flapping around. I planned to unleash my inner courtesan the next time I met
Ray.

“W
hat on earth are you doing?” Ray had a puzzled, disapproving look on his face.

What did he mean, what was I doing? There I was standing in a sumptuously decorated hotel bedroom looking like Madame Bovary in Elle Macpherson’s peaches and cream push-up bra and panties,
all pretty bows and chantilly lace, wriggling out of my slip in the most provocative way I could. Aiming to create a romantic ambience, I’d booked a hotel room overlooking a pretty courtyard,
so that we could come back here after dinner and relax in pleasant surroundings. He’d told me he had left his kids with a babysitter and “like Cinderella would have to leave before
midnight”. I’d set the place up like a spa with candles and essential oils and even ordered strawberries with two Kir Royals. Earlier, I’d gone to the trouble of applying discreet
all-over body tan, the kind that merely adds translucence to my bleached-out skin. My hair had been pin-curled, crimped and coiled into a messy up-do that suited my Titian colouring … and he
was asking what I was doing? The champagne-coloured silk slip obviously hadn’t worked in my effort to get him a bit more playful. He was sitting on the bed with a look of horror on his face,
as though he were in the presence of a lunatic.

I began to blush and felt like running into the wardrobe. Did he think I looked ridiculous? Too old? Sad or pathetic? No hold on … Trevor was a man of taste and he thought I never looked
more desirable than in my lingerie. Standing there in front of Ray, I refused to allow any negative thoughts to enter my head. Real men love their woman no matter what shape or age she is. “I
thought you’d like a bit of erotica?” His face told me a different story. “Look, turn over and relax there, I’ve got a wonderful massage technique.” I knew I was good
at this – Trevor had always loved it. It was a talent I’d developed early in life from rubbing Sloan’s liniment into my mother’s back. Add a summer of working my Uncle
Don’s pottery wheel, and a love of kneading yeast bread, and I’d developed magic hands. But no. He lay there like an inanimate warm corpse with not even an “Ooh” or an
“Aah” of appreciation. Even an “Ouch … you’re hurting me!” would have been better than this. “A reaction please!” I felt like screaming.

Deflated and confused, it was my turn to become the inanimate zombie as he turned over from his massage and peeled off my smalls, firing them to the floor as if they were army regulation
supplies. He hauled my bra off so roughly, I almost screamed. My breasts were fuller than usual because of fluid retention, but they were damn sore. Then he pulled me on top of him and started his
lacklustre routine. I tried establishing a rhythm, but my gyrating only seemed to puzzle him. “Have you an itch?”

I gave up. I desperately wanted to yawn. He put his arms behind his head, and that smirk appeared at the side of his mouth. I suddenly had to resist a mad urge to slap him wide across the face.
The words:
“Ray is the name of a fish”
entered my head. And then:
“Not even a very exciting fish.”
A few moments later and the terrible act had ended without a
groan or a grunt. Then he rolled out from under me.

“Okay if I take a shower?”

“Sure. No problem,” I said drily, as I wrapped the duvet around me. He’d need hourly showers if he was going to adhere to his no-deodorant policy. How were men so misinformed?
I knew reeking of cologne or cheap anti-perspirant sprays was terrible but who told them this stuff about sweat and fabulous pheromones? Oh me and my pesky nose. I wished my sense of smell
wasn’t quite so acute. It could be such a drag at times. But the real issue here was how I had ended up in such a compromised position, unfulfilled and deflated while trying so hard to
please. Was this what James and my shrink had warned me about when they suggested I would attract the wrong type of man? A selfish lover who understood nothing about the beauty of giving and
receiving love and was instead content with a mere caveman’s “bang, bang, bang” rocks-off sex?

Aha – maybe that’s exactly where I’d gone wrong. I had mistaken instant attraction for the illusion of love, because that’s what I’d desperately hoped to find. In
my desperation to hold on to Ray, I had given myself too quickly, thereby diminishing my personal value. And perhaps I was equally to blame for expecting him to conform to my idea of a dream man.
When I was younger I would not have jumped into bed so quickly with someone I barely knew. But I was a God-fearing Catholic back then, believing premarital sex to be a mortal sin. The very idea
could still make me feel uneasy because I was still capable of falling into old patterns of thinking and worrying about a vengeful God totting up my sins.

My head was awhirl with contradictory thoughts as I stumbled out of bed and pulled the white robe from the back of the nearby chair. I wrapped it sari-like around my waist and walked across the
room to the tea-making facilities. “Fancy a coffee, Ray?” I called, as I flicked the kettle on.

“No, thanks.” He appeared round the bathroom door and started getting dressed. “Are you going back to Galway in the morning?”

“Yes, quite early.” I poured out hot water.

“Well, I’ve got to rush now. I’m afraid I’m a bit like the panda. You know what that means?” Was he finally about to confess to knowing how God damn awful he was in
the sack?

I said, feigning innocence, “No, I don’t know the one about the panda.”

“The grammar book?” He was smirking.

I said, confused, “Eats shoots and leaves?”

“Exactly. I’ve eaten, shot and now I have to leave. Thanks for dinner.” He planted an affectionate but rushed kiss on my lips. I didn’t know what to say as I watched him
make his exit. His flippant joke left me feeling unsettled. If love in the twenty-first century was a game then I certainly had no notion how to play it. One thing struck me clearly: I chose
correctly when I picked Persephone’s name. I seemed to have spent the last twenty-three years asleep in the underworld.

After showering, I rubbed cream into my hands as I checked over my naked body in the large bathroom mirror. Rather lacking in the curves department, I was certainly no Aphrodite and never had
been. But thanks to Trevor’s insistence that I use old fashioned silcock’s base cream all over my body during pregnancy, my skin was in great condition. Trevor had fancied himself as a
bit of an expert on dermatology so he was always giving me tips on skincare. My eye travelled to my fuller than usual breasts as I took another splodge of the complimentary cream into my hand. I
applied cream and began massaging my left breast. “Ouch!” My face contorted in agony from an acute throbbing. I had a bad case of pre-menstrual tension. Emptying the remainder of the
cream onto my right breast, I began massaging it in. Also tender. I was more careful this time. Then I felt something akin to a hard little nugget under the flesh.
What on earth was
that?

I felt around, attempting to isolate the gravely shape as it slid left and right, making it difficult to grasp. It was unmistakably a lump – but it couldn’t possibly be malignant,
could it? No, it had to be a cyst. Life couldn’t possibly deal me another blow at this stage. It was probably nothing. I’d had a mammogram done two weeks before breaking up with Trevor
and I hadn’t heard anything back from the hospital so I was sure that augured well. I’d previously been told that I was prone to benign fluid-filled lumps and I’d had them drained
by means of a quick procedure. I really wasn’t in the mood for such bother right now. Maybe it would disappear if I just ignored it?