Phoenix (9 page)

The next evening
while organising my bedroom furniture I look out the window and see Phoenix in
his garden. The side of his house and part of his garden is viewable from the
upstairs of my cottage.

Just like the last time, he is practising fighting techniques. Although
now he has a tall wooden staff in his hands as he twists and turns his body
alongside the six foot stick. He’s wearing grey workout pants and no shirt.

Forcing myself not to watch how his muscles move, I turn back to the room
and set about fixing up my bookshelf.

By the time I’m finished I look out the window again and Phoenix is still
in his garden. The pull to be near to him draws on me. I haven’t spoken to him
since I fell asleep in his arms last night.

I put a heavy grey cardigan on over my sundress and make my way over to
his garden.

When I get there I slowly open the old wooden gate, trying not to make
too much noise. I am still uncertain as to whether I will abandon my plan to
see him and scurry back home.

As I step into the garden, though, I cannot see him anywhere, and it
seems that he has disappeared altogether. I stand by the tall oak tree where
Phoenix had been practising and peer around, but there is no sign of him.

 I take one or two steps backward so that I have a better view of the
space. All of a sudden, I trip over something that’s behind me on the other
side of the tree and I fall flat on my bottom. When I gather my senses after
the fall, I realise that it was Phoenix’s foot I had tripped over and that he
had been sitting on the grass, waiting for me. He’s leaning back against the
thick bark and smiling down at me. It almost looks as though he’s trying to
hold in his laughter.

I gather myself to stand up, but he grabs my hand and pulls me back down.
Kneeling by him, I come over all peculiar due to the fact that he’s still topless.
His chest muscles practically have me under a spell.

“I was looking for you,” I whisper, eyes down.

“Well, you found me,” he replies still smiling.

I open my mouth but fall short of words, not knowing what to say next.
How can I have let him do what he did to me last night and still feel so shy?

I cough to clear my throat.

“I could see you from my bedroom window. I just thought I’d come over to
see how you are.” I swallow a gulp of saliva, nervous. I make a gesture with my
hand to indicate the window from which I could see him.

His eyes wander in the direction of my house, and then he says, “Ah.” His
voice dips low then. “Were you watching me, Eve?”

“No,” I reply, flustered. “I was organising furniture.”

His mouth curves. “I think you were watching me, darling. Did you like
what you saw?”

I can tell what he’s up to, so I reach over to shove him in the arm. “You’re
trying to embarrass me on purpose.”

“Maybe,” he smirks and grabs his long sleeved navy T-shirt from the grass
to put it on. I’m both relieved and disappointed that he’s covering up.

I take a deep breath. “So, um, how are you?” I ask, eyes wide and taking
all of him in. I want to talk about last night, but I don’t have the guts to
broach the subject. I mean, it’s not every day that you play piano for your new
neighbour and he happens to go down on you while you’re doing it. Or maybe I
really am as innocent as Phoenix seems to believe.

“I’m good. I’m glad you came over,” he answers, then leans forward to
take my hand into his. He rubs his thumb along the inside of my wrist and I
close my eyes for a moment. When I open them I find he is leaning forward, his
deep eyes watching me closely. He is taking in the small ways that I react to
him.

I look down, embarrassed, because his gaze is piercing and I cannot for the
life of me find my voice.

“I enjoyed myself last night,” I say finally. This is as close to talking
about it as I am going to get.

His eyes darken infinitesimally. “I did, too,” he breathes, bringing his
tongue out to wet his lips. It makes me clench my thighs and I wonder if he
does it on purpose.

There is no escaping his eyes now; I get embarrassed and can’t help
quickly changing the subject.

“I hope you weren’t too put out by Deborah being at the barbecue.”

He shakes his head. “She’s annoying, I’ll admit. But I have a good
ability to block people out to the point where they are merely white noise in
the background.”

“I wish I could do that.”

“Hmmm,” he purrs, taking me in. “You look good today. Come here.”

I allow him to turn me around and then pull me to sit between his legs,
my head against his hard chest. “What was that you were doing before? With the
stick, I mean?”

“Some Chinese martial arts,” he explains. “I’ve learned many fighting
techniques over the years.”

“With the British man?” I ask quietly.

“Yes, with the British man,” he answers. His tone is closed off when he
says it, informing me this part of his life is not something he wants to
discuss right now.

 I blow air out through my mouth. “It must keep you really fit.”

“I does. It also keeps my mind calm and hones my self-control.”

“Self-control?”

He nods. “It takes a lot of self-control for someone like me to live this
life. To keep myself away from people as much as I can.” He stops and bring his
mouth close to my neck. “Until you came along, I was doing pretty well. I have
been celibate for eight years. But you, Eve, test my limits. I can’t stay away
from you. When I look at you it feels like I am falling.” With each intake of
breath his air hits my skin and I shiver.

Falling how?
I want to ask. I can’t think about the meaning of
what he’s said in this moment, but I file it away for later. There will be time
to ponder it then.

“You’ve been celibate for eight years?” I exclaim. My eyebrows shoot up
into my forehead as I turn slightly to look at him.

The ghost of a smile touches his lips. “You wouldn’t think it, would you?
Especially after last night.”

“No,” I breathe heavily, memories making me hot. “You wouldn’t.”

“When I was still fighting, sex was my reward. The British man would
bring girls to me after I had won a match. Sort of like groupies. After I left
that life behind, I would try to have relations with women, but it always got
my blood up too much, reminded me of the fight, among other things. I couldn’t
think clearly and I needed to put everything that my mind associated with my
old life behind me. So, I became celibate.”

I soak in his words, finding them fascinating.

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding Deborah’s advances?”

He chuckles. “Celibate or not, I would never touch Deborah. She might be
attractive, but she has an ugly soul.”

“What about the groupies? Didn’t they have ugly souls?”

He nods his head. “Some of them did. Believe me, I have encountered the
ugliest forms of life there are. But not all of them were bad. A lot of those
girls were just lost. But it didn’t matter to me back then. I was another
person, no better than an animal. That’s what the British man had made of me.”

I bring my mouth to his cheek and kiss him softly. I remember Margaret
telling me how he had been placed in the psychiatric ward after he had been
nursed back to health. It must have taken so much for him to claw his way back
from what the fighting had caused him to become.

“You have a beautiful soul, Phoenix,” I whisper in his ear.

We nuzzle for a moment and he drags his lips along my neck, sucking
gently. Somewhere in between our mouths collide and I fall into him. His silky
tongue dances with mine and I climb over his legs to straddle his waist.

Without realising I am moving up and down on him, rubbing myself off his
erection. He groans right into my mouth.

“Ah, keep doing that,” he pants, staring up at me.

We have broken our kiss as our bodies move, creating friction, driving
towards mutual release. His hardness is a delicious sensation, nudging
exquisitely in just the right spot to make me come.

When I finally orgasm I stare into Phoenix’s eyes and somehow I know that
he’s coming too. He shudders and mouths my breasts over my dress, biting
playfully at my hard nipples through the fabric. My cardigan must have fallen
open at some point.

We are still lost in the pleasure of our orgasms when we hear somebody
opening the gate and stepping into the garden. We freeze. Shoes clip down the
path and then there is knocking on the front door. Thankfully, the tree is obscuring
us from being seen.

“Yoo-hoo,” comes Margaret’s voice. “Phoenix, are you in? I brought you
some of my homemade fig bread.”

“Fuck,” he swears, face buried in my chest.

“Does she come around often?” I whisper, unable to stop myself from
stroking his silky hair.

He looks up at me now. “Once a week usually. It’s a nuisance.”

“It’s cute. She likes you, even if you do go out of your way to be
anti-social,” I chide playfully.

“You better go,” he says with regret. “I don’t want the whole town
talking about us if she sees you here.”

“I’m sure they’ll be talking about us anyway after we showed up at the
barbecue together,” I disagree.

“Eve, go. I won’t have you being the subject of gossip.”

I pout. “Okay. When will I see you again?”

“Come to my shop tomorrow when you have finished work. I want to give you
something.”

“A present?” I ask, smiling widely.

“Yes,” he answers, still whispering so that Margaret won’t hear.

He helps me up from the grass and shows me to where there’s a gap in the
bushes that I can sneak through. I feel like a mischievous teenager as I give
him one last kiss and then hurry over to my own cottage.

The next day when
I’m finished with work I practically run from the school, eager to go and see
Phoenix. When I get to his shop there are a handful of customers inside. I step
in quietly, noting that he’s discussing something with a dark haired man as he
shows him a dining room set.

Seeing that he’s busy, I go to take a look around. Taking in Phoenix’s
creations instils a kind of need in me to see him work, to see him use his
hands on a piece of wood.

I sit down on a newly built rocking chair by the window and he notices me
then. A smile touches his lips and he gives me a brief nod. He continues
talking to the man, running his hand over the smooth wooden surface of the
table he’s trying to sell him.

My eyes are drawn to a red haired woman who’s standing close to the
counter, pretending to look at a set of stools. I know she’s pretending because
her eyes are glued to Phoenix. She’s got a really tight black blouse on,
showcasing a pair of perky breasts, and even tighter jeans. The man seems to
decide that he will take the dining set and hands Phoenix his credit card.

As Phoenix gives the man his receipt and tells him he’ll deliver the
items later this evening, the red haired woman sidles up to him. She rests one
hand on her hip and twirls a strand of hair around her finger.

Something a lot like jealousy awakens in my stomach. The woman gestures
over to the stools and Phoenix nods, walking around the counter to them. She
lets out a big laugh at something he says and he gives her a funny look, like
he didn’t say anything to solicit such a reaction. She even puts her hand on
his bicep for a second but he quickly steps out of the way.

His eyes flick to me for a moment and he shakes his head very subtly
before returning his attention to the woman. I run my hands down the arms of
the chair, rocking back and forth and finding that it’s actually incredibly
comfortable. I could use a chair like this to put by the window in my kitchen.
I like looking out into the overgrown garden sometimes.

In the end, the woman buys the set of stools and Phoenix marks them as
sold. I bet she doesn’t even need them; the thought makes me laugh. She tries
her best to chat Phoenix up but he’s not responding. Finally, she leaves the
shop, but not before giving me a snooty look as she does. Rolling my eyes, I
get up from the chair and walk over to the counter where Phoenix is scribbling
something down onto a receipt.

“You must make a killing selling furniture to all the women in this
town,” I say quietly, observing his neat handwriting.

His lips curve slightly before he glances up at me. “You think so?”

“Mm-hmm,” I mutter, moving forward to perch on the edge of the counter
and folding my arms. “So, what’s this thing you wanted to give me?”

Phoenix finishes writing and slips the pen behind his ear. “Follow me and
I’ll show you,” he says, gesturing to a door at the back of the shop. I walk
behind him into a large workroom. It smells like sawdust and is full to the
brim with works in progress; shelves, chests of drawers, desks, chairs,
benches.

“You’re very talented, Phoenix,” I say, marvelling at his carpentry.

He pats the worktable. “Thank you. Sit up here.”

I eye it warily, but slide up onto it nonetheless, smoothing my skirt out
over my legs. Phoenix watches me for a moment, then shakes his head and walks
over to a shelving unit. He picks up what looks like an ornately carved
jewellery box and brings it over to me.

“I made this for you,” he says, slipping it into my hands.

My mouth falls open as I take it, tracing my fingers over the top.
Phoenix has carved the indentations of piano keys into the lid, and on the
sides there are the shapes of roses.

“It’s beautiful,” I gasp, taking in the dark wood and the pretty varnish.
Is this what he had been buying the varnish in the hardware store for? My chest
fills up with delight to think he had been making this for me.

“Women like to put their things in boxes,” he shrugs. “You deserve to have
somewhere nice to put your things, Eve.”

I glance up at him to see he looks kind of embarrassed. His cheeks are a
little red. Who’d have thought the man who touches me the way he does could be so
shy sometimes? Then I remember his eight years of celibacy.