Only in the Night (6 page)

She looked exceptionally seductive, naked above her tight riding breeches and shiny leather boots. He looked at her for a considerable time before he pulled her into his arms and caressed the ample swell of her breasts, licking the nimbus with his tongue. The kettle sitting on a small gas burner cut the silence of the room with its shrill scream. John picked up her jacket from the floor and held it for her to slip into, then buttoned it. The disappointment showed in her eyes.

After tea they lay on the floor against old and dusty flower-patterned cushions and talked about his life. She wanted to know all about his London world, his work. He wanted to know nothing about her: her thoughts, her dreams. Those things meant nothing to him, only her sexuality, seducing her to his will, and her being hopelessly in love with him did.

He knew how much she wanted sex with him, then and there, but made no further advances on her. Not that he wouldn’t have delighted in fucking her but for
the moment he gained more pleasure from the chase to win her love for him alone.

Eliza, a girl without artifice, bold in her sexuality, innocent of how to behave with men, surprised John, quite took him aback, when she slipped out of her jacket and rolled on top of him to drape her breasts over his face, swing them gently back and forth over his eyes, his lips, and then slip down his body slowly whilst undoing his breeches, gathering his erect penis and his scrotum in her hands and gently setting them free from the restricting riding clothes. She dazzled him with her expertise in oral sex, the manner in which she sucked and tongued on his genitals. He groaned with pleasure, was lost to all else but the delights of being had by her. He placed his hand on top of her head, ran his fingers through the very blonde hair and pulled hard on it. After he came in an astoundingly forceful and copious orgasm nothing could have seduced him more than the joy she displayed in swallowing every last drop of his seed.

He held her in his arms and kissed her face, eyes, breasts, told her how sublime she was and asked her if she had come. Many times during her act, had been her answer, and he loved her even more for that, that she should delight in pleasing him, be able to find sexual satisfaction in giving him pleasure. His hand went beneath her breeches to search out the slit beneath her mound of pubic hair and found her wet with come. For several minutes he delighted her with his fingers and when he removed them and had her lick them he could see that he had introduced her to a new and erotic experience that excited her. John was overwhelmed by her ability to enjoy sex so freely. For the first time he
wondered with some jealousy what man had had her, taught her how to be passionate in her lust and so very giving of herself.

Never could Eliza have imagined sex with anyone but Vittorio, or that she could be satisfied by the sexual attentions of a near stranger, but she had been. It had been thrilling and thoughts of Vittorio never came into it. She was too inexperienced to realise that some of the excitement of being with John was that she had sexual control over him. Now, lying in his arms, she wanted him to take over and possess her with rampant fucking until she was driven into sexual oblivion, that place where she had transported him.

She whispered in his ear, almost fearful to ask him aloud, ‘John, fuck me. Please. I want you so much.’

He could tell by the catch in her throat what it had cost her to ask him that, and was somehow touched by her desire to be riven by him. He kissed her and told her, ‘Not now. I want you to be sure you want to get into an erotic life with me. I’m jealous and possessive and besotted by you. Think about us, and come to dinner tomorrow with me. I’ll take you somewhere special.’

The following morning she received three dozen white roses. No one had ever sent her roses before. The family was impressed. They knew him and were delighted that he should be smitten with Eliza, seeing it as the boost she needed to launch her into a wider world of new people and places, and because it might curtail her unhappiness over Vittorio.

When he called for her at her house he brought a box of marrons glâcés. She liked receiving gifts from him, being spoiled by a handsome, dashing older man.
They dined at an excellent restaurant in Oxford, and he was further charmed by her lack of sophistication, this time in dress and choice of food. But she had the look of a young woman in love and heads turned when they entered the dining room. After dinner he took her home and they sat in his car at the bottom of the drive to her house and talked for some time. It was, as always, about him, his career. He explained to her that surgery, a life in medicine, was his great passion and pride. That it would always come first in his life. To an eighteen year old that sounded noble, glamorous even. Finally he told her, ‘I’m going to London for several days. Why don’t you come and stay with me? We’ll have fun.’

‘I don’t know that my parents would approve of that,’ she told him, a naughty twinkle in her eye.

‘Don’t tell them. Surely you have a girlfriend? You can say you will be staying with her and that I’ve invited you to the opera. I will take you to the opera, if you come.’ To entice her further, he whispered in her ear, ‘And come will be the operative word because it’s there in my house that I’ll give you what we both so desperately want from each other – unbounded sex. Yes, a great sexual adventure.’

He had made it impossible for her to refuse him. To Eliza this sounded like a great adventure, something just a little wicked and different for her. London, and a fascinating older and sophisticated man to be squired around by and who wanted to have sex with her – these were experiences she had never envisaged for herself but which now seemed somehow exciting and right.

She was not a girl who knew how to tell a fib to her parents, or anyone else for that matter, never mind
an outright lie. None of the Forrester children had ever had any need to tell lies with such open and liberal parents as Dulcima and Julian Forrester. And in the morning, when she did ask to go to London and stay with John, they gave permission, believing that such a serious, well-respected man as Dr John Hope-Quintin would never take advantage of her. In addition there was their understanding of how well Eliza could take care of herself. Somehow the doctor’s reputation as a ladies’ man did not seem to apply here. He was making most proper advances out in the open. They were in fact quite pleased about John Hope-Quintin and their daughter.

John had explained to Eliza that he would be leaving for London at five in the morning because he had a very busy day in the operating theatre of King Edward VII for Officers hospital but that she should call his rooms and leave a message if she intended to be on the train arriving at Paddington at five o’clock. If he could, though he would not promise and it was unlikely, he would be there to meet her. If he did not appear, her instructions were to take a taxi to the address he had written for her on a piece of paper, having assured her there would be someone there to let her in. John knew that she would be there on exactly the train he wanted her to be, that she was incapable of refusing him.

Eliza watched the countryside seemingly fly by the train window and listened to the hum of the wheels on the tracks. She could think of nothing except the fun and sensual excitement of being with John. Half a dozen times she opened her handbag and looked at the address he had written on the piece of paper: 56a Ennismore Gardens, South Kensington.

When the train pulled into Paddington Eliza did not even bother to look for John because she simply could not believe that he would find the time to be there for her. It therefore came as a surprise to her when, as she was walking with the crowd of other passengers along the platform towards the vast concourse, she felt a tap on her shoulder. When she turned a smiling John presented her with a camellia which he pinned to the short, sadly worn grey rabbit fur jacket she was wearing over a grey wool skirt that covered the tops of her black suede boots, dulled and shabby from age and wear. Her tall figure, the fresh young face framed by long, very blonde and silky hair, the swing to her step, made up for her less than stylish clothes. She looked to John every bit the country girl, out of her depth, being swept along by big city people in a rush to their destinations. It quite surprised him how delighted he was that she was there.

Walking through the terminus to his waiting black Jaguar and driver, Eliza chatted about how excited she was to be with him, John about where he would take her. There were promises of surprises to come which he refused to reveal but guaranteed she would be thrilled with. Only after the driver had tipped his hat to her and she and John had slipped into the back seat of the car did he kiss her, slip his hand beneath her skirt and kiss her again. It quite thrilled him how she was unable to hide her delight in being handled by him. She actually squirmed. He laughed and she was immediately embarrassed that he should find her out and laugh about it.

Eliza pulled away from him and said, ‘Laughing at me – that’s not very nice.’

She looked so hurt and vulnerable his heart went out to her, for her youth and inexperience. They excited his own lust for her. ‘I’m not laughing at you but because you delight me so much.’ And he smiled at her, kept the distance she had put between them, and did not touch her until she returned his smile and then broke into a giggle.

‘I didn’t know you had a driver?’ she whispered.

‘I almost never drive in the city – too preoccupied with my work. I do nothing very much for myself when I’m here except work and make love to beautiful women.’

‘You’re teasing me, trying to make me jealous,’ she told him, rather pleased with herself for being on to what he was doing.

‘Am I succeeding?’

‘I refuse to answer that,’ she told him, delighted by his interest, assuming that he wanted her to be jealous.

‘Ah, so you are a woman who could be jealous of other women in my life? I like that. That’s a good thing for me.’

‘How so?’ she asked.

‘Because,’ and now he pulled her roughly across the seat and tight against him before he continued, ‘you will have to work very hard to satisfy me, so that I don’t wander, will not want to have sex with anyone but you. See to it that I remain besotted and want only to love you. And you, you amusing, very sensuous, very young lady, how do you expect to accomplish that?’

He could see in her eyes how flattered she was, enchanted by his seductive charm. She flushed pink with embarrassment and was searching for a way to
tell him: in lust, in bed, in sex. He had to hold back, laughing with the pleasure of her predicament, and told her, ‘You can whisper how in my ear.’

But she whispered nothing in his ear, merely licked it and sucked on his ear lobe. She felt a rush of excitement, a yearning for him that was almost impossible to hold back. She sighed deeply and it said more than words.

‘Ah, good, that’s a beginning.’ He teased her lips with the point of his tongue and kissed her on the side of the neck. Then he continued, ‘And this girlfriend’s house where you told your parents you were staying – we don’t have to call in there? I can assume you were clever enough to see your parents won’t be calling to check up on you?’

Eliza instinctively felt that it would be a mistake to tell John that her parents knew exactly where she was staying. She heard herself replying, ‘I think that would be a fair assumption.’

She was deceiving John as he had asked her to deceive her parents and she did not feel good about it, but somehow feared that if she had told him the truth it would make a difference to their few days together. A difference that would not be conducive to the romantic tryst she was so looking forward to.

He used his key on the entrance door to the building and then another to the ground-floor flat where he lived. They were no sooner inside than they were greeted by his housekeeper who was on her way home for the day, but having been introduced to Eliza, stopped long enough to show her to her room and unpack her overnight bag. While that was being done John gave Eliza a tour of the rooms he lived in,
after he had opened a bottle of champagne and poured them two glasses.

They were large rooms and furnished with eighteenth-century furniture and fine paintings, all of which meant nothing to Eliza who knew nothing less than large rooms and beautiful objects that had been passed down the many generations of her family. The thing she was most impressed by and found slightly intimidating was the sparkling cleanliness of the place, the perfection of the restoration techniques applied to everything. The Forresters lived in a muddle in both Little Barrington and Tuscany and repaired only when it was absolutely impossible not to: the grandfather clock’s case was tied closed with a piece of clothes line; bits of loose marquetry work were always Scotch taped in place so as not to be lost; broken chair legs had temporary metal staples applied; anything chipped remained chipped. There were various boxes around the Forrester residences marked ‘Bits and Pieces’. Their draperies had a disintegrating quality about them. They were not house-proud people, just a family who lived hard among their things.

John’s large and beautiful Chinese vases were filled with marvellous flowers: Casablanca lilies, lilac, tulips, branches of dusty green eucalyptus and camellia leaves. They delighted Eliza. An impressionable young girl, she was thrilled to think that he had made an effort with flowers for her. She watched him put a match to the well-laid fire and all her body and soul focused on this very special man who was courting her.

As if reading her mind, he turned from the fire. Walking up to her and placing an arm around her waist he told her, ‘I can’t court you with a housekeeper here.
Usually she stays to serve me dinner if I’m entertaining or dining at home alone, but I wanted you all to myself, for us to be free to discover each other without anyone hovering around us. Do you mind if we help ourselves to the dinner she has prepared for us and stay in tonight?’

Her answer was to kiss him. Once more John was delightfully surprised at the power and passion of Eliza’s hunger for him. Her giving nature, the lack of sexual inhibition, excited him. He sensed untold possibilities to a sex life with this young charmer who hardly knew what or who she was.