Yearning (14 page)

Whenever she looked at him at school, she felt lightning running through her veins and thought her heart would stop. When she told him how hard it was in class he taught her a trick to relax.

‘Take some deep breaths,’ he said, ‘And focus on something else, like your pen or the end of your nose. Your mind is like a child, you need to give it something else to do.’ She tried. It worked. Most of the time.

The best thing was having something to look forward to. Life didn’t seem so boring and endless anymore. Tracey was gone for good and she had Solomon and her diary. She listened to her radio and copied down the lyrics of songs that now held new meaning. She sat at her desk and gazed over the paddocks beyond the edge of town and thought how beautiful they looked in the moonlight.

Now that she knew what all the fuss was about, she decided she loved sex. She thought about it constantly. In every spare moment she recalled his touch, his kiss, the velour edges of his oval bed and all the things they did on it. Just thinking about it sent rushes of erotic pleasure through her. Then there was the dampness in her undies. She began checking the back of her school uniform, afraid that the wetness might show through and someone would notice.

She’d expected sex to be a pretty simple thing, cock in pussy – in, out, in, out, in, out – then you’re done. With
Solomon she was realising that there was a lot more to it than that. There were different kinds of pleasures. There was the soft, cosy slow pleasure that melted through her when he licked her. Then there was the raw, gutsy pleasure when they screwed. Or the sexy, ooh-la-la pleasure of tongue kissing and touching. Then there was another thing altogether, the deep strange pleasure that gave her a hollow ache in the belly. A pleasure he’d introduced her to for the first time last night and it blew her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

It was probably the champagne. It had tasted bitter and the bubbles tickled her nose. She drank it sitting on the edge of his bed, her skirt hitched up and legs crossed, digging the painted toes of one foot into the shag-pile carpet and trying to look grown up. After half a glass she felt snugly and drowsy. She nestled into his neck, pushing his curls away from his ear so she could kiss her favourite spot below it.

He took the glass from her hand and set it down on the bedside table. ‘Tonight I want to show you something new,’ he said.

Instantly her heart beat faster and she wondered what it could be. She lay back on the bed beside him and let him strip her of her clothes, going floppy like a rag doll. She liked giving in to him like this. He laughed, and she smiled at him as he wrestled with her shirt. Once she was naked he rolled her over onto her tummy and took some massage oil from a bedside drawer.

The air of the room was warm on her skin and she breathed long and slow, meditating like he’d taught her, feeling the bubbles of champagne bursting like joy inside
her. She sighed as he ran his hands over her arms and legs, massaging the oil into her skin and the tension out of her muscles. She felt her grip on herself loosen. All the while she could hear Solomon breathing in and out with her.

When he began stroking her between her legs it was nice, but it wasn’t any different to other times. She wondered what was coming. Then he rolled her onto her back and scooped her into his arms. Slowly he pushed his middle finger deep inside her and began massaging her there, on the inside. It took her by surprise. She’d never known such a place existed. Round and round his finger went, in slow circles followed by a few quick downward strokes, then back to slow circles again. The sensation built and radiated from her centre out along her limbs until her fingers, toes, nose and lips were tingling. The longer it went on the more alive she felt. She expanded as though she were a bubble filling with strange light. When she burst she poured the strange light and happiness all over the bed, all over the room, all over him.

When her mind came back to her she reached up and kissed him. ‘Wow!’

He smiled and held her as they lay in the quiet of his troubled sheets listening to the night birds singing up the moon.

Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

The Song of Solomon

With the silence between them broken now, she began to talk. Words flooded from her. She sat on his bed or on his lounge and talked and talked and he tried to listen, tried so hard to concentrate on what she said, but all that milky skin was so distracting, pretty and smooth like the statues in the jeweller’s window. With those angular teenage bones breaking what should have been a womanly curve, she looked sharp, as though a piece of her had been chipped off, yet she was ever soft and always ready for him even before she’d climbed into his bed, those wide hazel eyes taking him in, always trusting.

He looked into those eyes sometimes, hoping like hell to see a woman within them, finding only an expectant young girl swimming with love. Ghosts of regret watched
him, question marks dangled. He ignored them, shooed them away by kissing her curvaceous neck or squeezing the plump of her bottom.

Solomon spent a lot of time hoping. Hoping no one had seen her skulking up his driveway in the early dawn. Hoping she wouldn’t tell. Hoping no one noticed the new brightness in her. Then, alone in the aftermath of their lovemaking, he hoped she would just stop coming around.

But she didn’t. And when she came she brought a mild euphoria with her. He was drawn in by it. The awkwardness between them had faded. She was comfortable with him now, her conversation natural and easy. He kept her wary, though, reminded her to be careful. It was his job to be vigilant.

‘Jog around the block before you come in, babe. Give yourself an alibi.’

So she did. She did everything he asked. Outside she was careful and respectful, but once in his bed or drinking tea in his kitchen she would relax and stay and stay. He would have to remind her to leave. Over and again she pouted and stretched her arms out to him. ‘I wish we could just be together. Can I have one more hug?’

In those moments he was hit by the clear realisation that he was ruining her. It struck him, brilliant as fluorescent light, and he promised himself he would end it. Tomorrow. This week. But how? How to do it gently without hurting this sweet girl who had taken him in? And once he ended it, then what? What would she do with her pain?

Night after night he carried his worries to bed and slept restlessly. By morning his resolve was steadfast. It
must be done, finished, and tomorrow, when she came for tutoring, he must do it. Then his eyes met a vivacious face filled with unabated expectation. She rushed into his arms, wild and impetuous with love, and he faltered. As she crooned into his neck, pushing back his curls to kiss the sensitive sweet spot below his ear, he’d forget her age, forget himself, and relent to her over and over again.

Solomon decided that her education should cover more than the physical pleasures of the body. If she was to truly appreciate tantric ways then she should become intimate with beauty. He introduced her to the old poets, reading her Wordsworth and Keats while they listened to Dvořák and Bach. He showed her beauty in all its forms – art, sculpture, literature, the lives of people who pursued a better world for humankind.

‘What about beautiful people?’ she asked. ‘Do they count?’

‘Beauty is an inside thing.’

She looked sad. ‘Tell that to the girls at school.’

‘Don’t worry about them. You’re a beautiful person. That’s all that counts.’

She threw her arms around him and kissed him. ‘You’re beautiful,’ she whispered.

‘I’m a guy. I’m supposed to be handsome.’

She sat back and looked at him. ‘But you are beautiful. Look, I’ll show you.’ She ran to her school bag and pulled out a small make-up purse.

Solomon looked at her warily. ‘What are you going to do with that?’

She smiled. ‘Relax.’ She picked up a book of poetry he’d been reading to her and handed it to him. ‘Here, read
to me.’

She played with him as he read. He let her sit behind him and brush his long curls and tie ribbons in them. She painted his toenails, rouged his cheeks and coloured his eyelids blue. He relaxed and gave in to her. When she finished she laughed at him. He went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He looked like a clown. She was behind him, laughing at the vision of man-turned-doll.

He was rendered senseless. She was so young, she felt so purely for him. He felt jaded and second-hand beside her, a fraud. The little game annoyed him, but he tried to be good-natured. After all, he’d asked a lot of her. It was only fair he let her play with him too. He wished he had more courage to end it. But when she arrived on his doorstep flushed with want, pushing him playfully onto his couch and climbing astride him, it was all he could do to keep his hands to himself.

She wrapped herself around him and kissed his bare chest. ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

He had to stop himself from wincing. It was the declaration he’d been waiting for.

I love you.
The words echoed in the deep empty spaces inside him. Words he hadn’t heard in a very long time. They bounced from hard surface to hard surface, looking for a soft place to land, but there was no home for them.

Even so, he wouldn’t let them go. In his derelict heart, where he’d stopped believing in fantasies such as love, he hardly dared accept he deserved such a precious gift.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he replied, feeling the hollowness of
his words. It was the best he could do.

*

You’re beautiful.
No one had ever told her that. No one except Granny, and she didn’t count. She nearly choked with happiness when she heard it. Could it be true? The man she loved thought she was beautiful.

Maybe there was a future for them. Maybe there would be a time when they could stop sneaking around. She longed to sleep with him in his bed. Longed to wake up next to his wonderful face and feel his body curving around hers. She dreamed of it, imagined a life where they lived together. Maybe they would get married one day. They belonged together, she was sure of that. She would have to wait until high school was finished, when she was going to college and studying to be a teacher, then they would be together. Then the world would know that she was the love of Solomon Andrews’ life.

*

She watched his hands nimbly working the strands of tobacco and marijuana into a thin, tight length. She felt her pulse throb in her temples. Saturday night and her parents were out for the evening. She’d taken the opportunity to escape the confines of her home and spend the evening with Solomon.

He glanced up at her occasionally, watching her watching him, her attention focused on his every movement. He lifted the slender white roll to his lips and moistened the edge with his tongue. Her eyes lingered on the pink tip of his tongue as he licked the loose flap of
paper and fastened it down to the length of the cigarette.

‘How much does smoke weigh?’ he asked suddenly.

She looked at him. She was getting used to his strange questions. ‘Huh?’

He grinned. ‘How much does smoke weigh?’

He lit the joint from the candle between them, drawing back on it deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs for a few moments, then exhaling a long stream of blue. His confidence in this ritual was palpable.

She frowned. He took another deep drag. The smell of sandalwood incense made the air in the room seem dense and oriental. She’d never seen incense used before she met Solomon. She felt very grown up being here, listening to his music, breathing the exotic scent.

‘You weigh the fag then you weigh the ash when you’re done smoking it. The difference is smoke.’

She shook her head and smiled. ‘You’re so full of crap sometimes.’

He laughed and handed it to her. A graceful curl of smoke wafted up in front of her face. She gazed at it, wide-eyed.

‘Go on,’ He urged, pushing it towards her. ‘Just go gently. I’ve been doing this for years, remember, so don’t copy me. Just draw back a little, hold it in if you can, then let it go slowly.’

Cautiously she took the foreign thing between her index finger and thumb. Squinting, she brought it to her lips. The world turned fuzzy as smoke filled her mouth, inching its way down to her lungs and up the back of her throat into her nostrils. A bright stinging sensation started her coughing helplessly. He grinned.

‘Don’t worry. Everybody coughs to begin with.’

Retrieving the joint, he took a couple of deep lungfuls, filling the space between them with blue-grey haze. A rich and exotic aroma filled the air. She wanted to make this work. She wanted to impress him, be worldly and perhaps a bit sophisticated. The thought of him seeing her as a child was humiliating.

‘Let me have another go.’ She reached for the cigarette.

He smiled encouragingly. ‘You don’t have to like it. It’s not for everyone.’

Bravely she breathed in the aromatic blend, this time gently swirling it around in her mouth before attempting to take it in more deeply. A light, buzzing sensation tickled the nerve endings in her skin. She coughed again and giggled. ‘It’s weird!’

Her face crumpled as her mouth filled with saliva because of the bitter aftertaste. The air about them was all smoky sweetness. Pink Floyd’s ‘Breathe’ played loud in the background. The candles burned low, casting flickering shadows around the room.

‘Try again,’ he urged. ‘Just take in little bits at a time and you’ll be on the road to chillsville.’

Following his advice she took three more small puffs before returning it to him. She felt the room begin to spin and her body felt as though it was gaining weight. He finished the joint to a tiny butt and stubbed it out. Leaning forward he kissed her deeply.

Tiny lights danced behind her eyes. Her awakened senses swam. The longer they kissed, the deeper her body sank into his arms, molding to his flesh. Her need to impress him faded. She surrendered to the intimacy of
his mouth.

The air in her lungs felt heavy and time seemed to stretch before her. Solomon’s languid kiss inflamed her. His lips glanced across her jaw line to the base of her throat. She moaned softly and gave a little shudder of pleasure. Lazily she lifted her top and pulled his fingertips to her skin. In those rich, unhurried moments her longing for him took on a new shape. She felt older, more confident in what she was doing.