Three Rivers (2 page)

“Did he love you the way I do?” Max asked as his hands roved across her pulsating flesh. “Did he always want to bury himself in you? His fingers, his tongue, his face? Tell me about it. Did he love you, did he make love to you the way I do? Tell me about him.”

“He’s dead,” she said flatly.

“Well, if he is, he was once alive, and from the little that you say I have the impression that you had one hell of a happy sex life together. Tell me about that sex life, Isabel. Hearing you talk about it turns me on. Come on, talk about him while I hold you. Turn me on.”

“I don’t suppose that you want any of the side details that went along with that gorgeous sex we had so many years ago? You know, the little details like the wife, the children, my being twenty-one and thinking that I was in love with him. Even today I don’t know if I
was
in love with him or in love with the sex that he gave me and I gave him. It took you, all these years later, to make me realize how that man turned me on sexually and gave me greater sexual experiences than anyone before or since.
Until now. How peculiar, lying here next to you, Max, lying here just inches apart from each other’s faces, sort of all intertwined and our bodies all moist and that lovely smell of sex and talking about a man who turned me on long ago. What can I tell you? That it was exciting? Do you want the details, darling?”

Max murmured that he did.

“OK. He wanted me every time he saw me. Anywhere, any time, any place. It was a little difficult, you understand — his wife being my friend. But after a while that didn’t matter much either. If she was in the kitchen cooking dinner and I was a dinner guest in the house, just the three of us — the children put to bed — he would simply tip me over on a chair, raise my skirt, spread me apart and slip his fingers inside me. Or if I were sitting on the arm of his chair he would simply stop thumbing through his magazine, pull me onto his lap, raise my dress, and he would thumb me until I came. Then, of course, being a good, clean, suburban husband, when his wife called ‘Dinner,’ he would disappear to the bathroom and wash his hands.

“Or would you rather I told you about the times his wife was not quite ready, busy and late putting the children to bed at those times when the three of us were going out. To save time he would pick me up. Oh, he knew how to use me, even in the car. Those were only the little times. Then there were the big times, you know, those times when we would make it, rarely, but sometimes, in a nice big bed. That was, of course, when he was supposed to be playing golf. Those sneaky little sex acts on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings were very exciting. Even if a little uncomfortable on that floor in his office. But he did want me and did know how to get me and keep me. He got me to the point that I was open and ready for him at all times. I gave up thinking about anyone else and was always naked from the waist down under my skirt so I would always be ready. I couldn’t get enough of his wanting me.”

“I think I get the rounded picture; now let’s have one scene,” Max begged.

“Listen, Max. It’s a long time ago, and I only remember the scenes as all similar; only the positions and demands varied. He was a man who took me to bed and made love to me. It all started out very easy. The very
first time he had me, he undressed me, spread my legs apart, examined every detail. No man had ever done that to me before. He took each layer of flesh and slowly separated them and played with those red-pink layers. I remember I was lying on my back, my ass on the edge of the bed and my legs spread out and up. He had great control. He did it to me slowly and hard for a long time.

“That was the beginning. It was always beautiful and tender and sweet like that. As time went on he used to like to turn me over and put me on my knees, the way you like to, and enter me from behind. Then, after a time, that was not enough. He wanted me to have another man with him. Still not enough. He started little games: Sometimes I would wear long black stockings and garters with high-heeled black shoes and nothing else. That would really make us both very sexy, and we would do it in every possible position, in any possible place. And I loved it, I loved it all.

“Max, how big and hard you have become in my hand. Let me kiss you.”

“Oh, yes, yes, Isabel,” he entreated. “Oh, that’s great ….”

Ah, Max
, Isabel thought as she shivered in the cool October London air. Such a fine architect, too fine in fact to be successful financially or commercially. He is what is called an architect’s architect. Fortunately for Max he had been born well, brought up well and educated well, coming as he did from English aristocracy, more country than city, more eccentric than flashy. He was financially secure in his own right simply by being born Maxim Aspinal.

At the age of thirty, this tall, six-foot-four, extremely thin, ash-blond-haired, blue-eyed, handsome young man had been having a sexual life with Isabel for the past three years. He was in partnership with another architect in a small office in Knightsbridge. They had a few draftsmen, an engineer and a secretary who kept the office in order in the day and Max in order at night. She was his mistress, his housekeeper, his laundress, his lady. She knew that there was another woman, but her fear of loss kept her quiet most of the time, rationalizing away the smell of jasmine, rose and lily of the valley that faintly lingered on his body and that he claimed was Johnson’s baby powder.

In the three years that he and Isabel had been together, they had never been out to a restaurant, a pub, a friend’s house, or for a walk. They had been all around the world together in bed. Max was mean about money — his mistress paid her own way and all but supported him. He lived simply, dressed Saville Row until threadbare. The most extravagant thing in Max’s life was his sexual life with Isabel. He had never brought Isabel a flower, a bottle of wine, a trinket or a jewel, never sent her a letter, a note, a postcard — oh, yes, once he sent her a postcard because he wanted her so much he had to make contact.

He periodically brought a few friends to have a drink with her; the visits were always rather brief, the visitors always men. Max would then leave with his friends, and return within the hour.

When Max came through the door everything became electric. It had been that way from the first and had never changed. The one thing that Max was never mean about was giving himself completely to Isabel while they were together. He had the overwhelming desire to give her everything. No matter how much pleasure he gave her, he always wanted to give her still more, and he knew it was the same for her. It was this incredible sexual feedback that kept them tirelessly together and always wanting each other, always ready for each other.

They never spoke about their work, art, politics, or themselves, the past, the present, the future. They were into each other without any outside influences except one: music. Occasionally Max and Isabel lay naked and entwined together, not speaking, but floating off with Pink Floyd, George Harrison, Vivaldi, Rachmaninoff or Segovia.

Unassuming, but such a special man, this Max Aspinal.

Isabel returned to the bedroom. There was a nip in the air; she closed the doors on the chill air and the memories of Max and went to her dressing room and bathroom.

By the time she left the bathroom she had completed the first stage of her morning ritual, and she arrived back in her bedroom cleansed and thinking about her day. Endo, her Japanese houseboy, had placed her morning tray on the Korean chest near her bed. The paper, a large glass of her morning drink — consisting of yogurt, orange juice, protein powder, raspberries, peaches, four almonds (to keep the cancer away) and Redoxon (to keep the
colds away) — a small saucer with half a dozen vitamins, and a few garden roses in a small silver bowl were on the tray, as usual; and Isabel climbed into bed to read her paper and drink her drink slowly, and relax before another hectic day.

Creative in her work, clever in survival, and with an amazing degree of innocence about both, whatever Isabel did she did to the best of her ability and always to completion. Isabel was intelligent enough to use herself sparingly, something she could do now at forty-three only because she had burnt out so much by the time she was thirty-three.

Isabel was both devoted to and successful at her work — art and design consultant; it was creative, interesting, exciting, rarely boring. Each job has its own demands, its own rewards. Jobs such as the six months she spent at The Louvre when she was hired to rearrange the interior spaces for the Decorative Arts Department, and the two days’ work selecting the colors for a Texas millionaire’s offices in Dallas, and the six-week trip to Ethiopia assembling art and artifacts for the Brooklyn Museum, or the three years she spent in Algeria assembling the finest collection of Punic art in the world, now housed in several private collections and museums around the world. All were stimulating and challenging. She advised on the designs of handmade carpets in Portugal, on the interiors of a house in Hampstead, and three times a year arranged the current exhibitions for a small museum in the south of France. In addition, she had written three books and collected thousands of others for her library.

Half an hour later, Isabel once again climbed out of bed, turned some music on and dressed. The next twenty minutes were spent making up her face. These would be the last private twenty minutes of Isabel’s day. She remembered once reading something of Carlos Casteñeda’s about energy spots. This place where Isabel sat every morning was her energy spot: It was here that many flashes of inspiration came, many good thoughts, many bad ones as well; it was here that she gathered up her energy to face the world, or at least the day.

Dressed in a beautifully cut Ralph Lauren tobacco tweed suit and raw silk blouse, Isabel left the room and went downstairs to greet Endo and the birds, who were singing away in their cages hung among the leaves of the
Ficus benjamanas
, huge dracenas and yucca trees in the drawing room. Isabel took a chair near the windows where Endo had placed her morning tea and the mail. As she went through the post, the date revolved in her mind.
Someone’s birthday, that’s it, it’s someone’s birthday today. Of course!
Her sister’s birthday. She must call her sister to wish her a happy day. Even if she disliked her sister, she still wished her well, especially on her birthday, otherwise, why would she have sent that gift a week ago? Yes, she must call her and wish her well.

It was 11:15
A.M.
now. Isabel started making her phone calls of the day.

These were especially happy days for Isabel because she was just completing a lucrative and exciting job, she had enough money to keep going on for a few months, and two really interesting jobs coming up in the near future. This was the most security she had ever had in her life; enough to give her some leisure, but not enough to make her lazy.

On the phone constantly for the next few hours, she forgot about the birthday call. Her driver was scheduled to pick her up at 1:30. They would go to Sotheby’s, where she would bid on a Mirandi for a client in New York, then to The Tate, where she was doing some research for the book on which she was now working. A whodunit written under her pseudonym, Meredith Montague, that must go to the editor no later than February.

Endo appeared at one o’clock with a tray for her lunch, which she asked him to bring to her studio at the top of the house.

Isabel took the tiny open lift to the third floor. The glass roof was just sliding back as she stepped out of the elevator into the studio that took up the entire top floor. Joy, her weaver, popped out from behind one of the trees in the room and greeted Isabel. Although the sun was not very strong that day, the wind was almost nil, and it was still warm enough to have the roof open for an hour or two.

As they stood over the loom, they worked out the pattern of the weft for a piece being woven for a pair of Louis XV chairs owned by the Aga Khan. Endo appeared with another tray for Joy, and the two sat down at Isabel’s marble worktable, lunched and chatted until Endo rang up to say Jim, her driver, was there and waiting.

By five o’clock the Mirandi had been secured. On the ride between Sotheby’s and The Tate, one Isabel was dropped off and the other Isabel — in the form of Meredith Montague — collected. The two hours at The Tate were well spent, and by the time Jim had driven the Mercedes up to the house on Hill Street, Isabel had gathered the missing links that she needed to get on with her book.

Sitting in the back of the car as they rounded Berkeley Square, she sorted out the remainder of her day:
Fifteen minutes with Joy to check the weaving, twenty minutes for disposing of the day’s phone calls, if there are any, must remember the happy birthday call, half an hour with Joanna to check over the last pages written on the novel. After that, work on the book
.

As Isabel let herself into the building she met the Japanese cultural attaché, who lived in the ground floor and the basement of the house. Isabel had been entertained there many a time. It was a famous and sought after invitation among the very social world of diplomats in London. A charming man, Mr. Hayakawa asked Isabel to tea the following day. He made a point of telling her that there would only be two other people, for he had been quick to realize over the years that his neighbor rarely accepted invitations for large social events. When Isabel accepted, he gave her a slow smile and told her how pleased he was because he had something of great beauty that had just arrived from Kyoto and he wanted her to see it.

Isabel called for tea in the drawing room, went upstairs and kicked off her shoes, changed into a beige wool kaftan, brushed her hair and went back to the drawing room.

Endo had placed the tray on a table near the windows and Isabel’s favorite wing chair. The room was the entire width of the house and had a very high ceiling. The walls were covered in fine seventeenth-century paneling broken only by two fireplaces, one at each end of the room, and five arch-shaped windows twenty feet high, with French doors set in them and hung with deep-buttercup-yellow silk tied-back draperies. These were rather like grand peepholes on the purest of Japanese gardens beyond.