Perfect Blend: A Novel (21 page)

“Well, okay. I wouldn’t mind a bit of a rummage, but only for a minute.”

“There is, however, a quid pro quo,” he said. “If we are out and I find myself overcome by the need to take a look at the latest gadgets for the iPhone, you have to allow me to drag you around the Apple Store. I should warn you that this need is both powerful and frequent.”

She laughed. “Deal.”

She moved in on the first stall, which was covered in a tatty purple velvet cloth. “These are pretty,” she said, picking up a pair of silver filigree earrings.

“Everything’s twenty pounds,” the woman stallholder chirruped.

Sam looked at the silver earrings and wrinkled his nose. “Nah.”

“What do you mean, ‘Nah’? They’re lovely.”

“Reproduction Art Nouveau,” the woman said.

“They’re all right,” Sam said to Amy, “but these are much more you.”

He was holding a pair of oval drop earrings.

“Okay, I admit that those are gorgeous.” She took them from him and picked up the hand mirror, which was lying in front of her.

“Tell me the emerald green doesn’t look great with your auburn hair,” he said.

She carried on staring into the mirror. “You’re right. It does. I’m taking them.” She started to unzip her bag.

Sam covered her hand with his. “My treat. No arguments.”

“Oh, Sam … no … I can’t let you.”

“Of course you can.”

He reached for his wallet and took out a twenty-pound note, which he handed to the stallholder. She asked Amy if she would like them wrapped.

“No, thanks. I’d prefer to wear them.” As they walked away, she turned to Sam.

“Thank you so much. They are absolutely perfect. You have great taste.”

He thanked her and said he was glad she liked them.

“I love them.” She said, leaning in and kissing him.

AFTER A
while, they found themselves walking along an almost empty stretch of riverbank. As they passed under a tree, he stopped her. “Come here,” he said gently. She felt his arms close around her. She closed her eyes and breathed in his warm smell. As his tongue found hers, she felt her limbs weaken. Her stomach gave its familiar flip. Warm moisture began seeping from inside her.

She wasn’t sure how long they remained in each other’s arms, oblivious to passersby. When they set off again along the river, they stopped every few paces to kiss again or to hug.

“You know what?” she said at one point. “I know we were supposed to have lunch, but I’ve sort of lost my appetite for food.”

“Me, too.”

She kissed him again. “I was thinking that maybe we could spend the afternoon at my place. Charlie’s at my mum’s until tomorrow.”

“You sure?”

“Completely sure. He’s not due back until the afternoon.”

Sam smiled. “No, I didn’t mean that. I meant are you sure you want to do this? After all, we’ve only been on two dates. But don’t get me wrong, I’m ready if you are.”

“Oh, I are. I most definitely are.”

Amy still hadn’t gotten around to fixing the lock on the front door, but today it gave her no trouble. She took his hand and led him to the bedroom. “I changed the linen this morning.” She giggled. “I guess I was planning this all along.” If she’d been planning it, there was one thing she had forgotten: her diaphragm. “Sam, I hate to spoil the mood, but could you excuse me for just two ticks?”

She left him sitting on the bed, flicking through one of her interiors magazines, and dashed to the bathroom. Her diaphragm was in its box on top of the medicine cabinet, well out of Charlie’s reach. She used to keep it in her underwear drawer until Charlie found it one day and appeared with it on his head while she was at the door paying the milkman.

She was grateful that she still needed to use it. At thirty-six, thoughts of early menopause were never far away.

“Sorry about that,” she said, returning to the bedroom. “Contraceptive issue.”

“Oh … actually you needn’t—” He stopped himself.

“What?”

“Nothing. It can wait.”

He came toward her and started to run his fingers through her hair. His hand went to the tie on her wrap dress. She watched as he tugged on the bow and pulled the dress open. All the nerve endings in her body were tingling as he pulled the dress off her shoulders and slid the sleeves down her arms. The dress fell to the floor, leaving her in her bra and panties. His eyes went to her breasts.

“They are amazing.”

She blushed.

“You have no idea,” he said, “how hard it’s been not to stare at them.”

She laughed. “Most men don’t have that problem when they meet me. They don’t see my face, just my cleavage.”

“That’s why I resisted. I thought that if you caught me gawping, you’d think that sex was all I had on my mind. I mean, it wasn’t not on my mind. It just wasn’t all that was on my mind.”

“That’s okay,” she said, smiling. “I get it.”

She unhooked her bra but held the cream lace cups against her breasts. “Show me,” he said. He lifted her hands off the bra and let it fall on top of the dress.

“You are so beautiful.”

He planted kisses on her shoulders, her collarbone. Finally his lips went to her breasts. He licked and nipped at them, flicked her nipples with his tongue. She heard herself let out a soft moan. He pulled off his T-shirt, and she unbuttoned the fly on his jeans. She ran her finger along the thick hairline that led down under the waistband of his boxers. She watched his stomach quiver. As she eased his boxers down over his buttocks, his penis sprung out, thick and hard. A moment later he was completely naked.

He bent down and trailed his tongue down her abdomen toward her panties. She thought he was about to pull them down, but he didn’t. Instead he squatted down and moved to her inner thighs with a gentle, almost imperceptible touch. He pushed his hand between her legs and traced the outline of her labia. Her body trembled.

Sam stood up and guided her back onto the bed. He knelt in front of her. Now he pulled off her panties. “Open your legs.” She did, but he didn’t move. Instead he just looked at her. He told her to close her eyes.

Nothing happened. She waited, wondering when and where his touch would fall. Half a minute passed, maybe more, before it happened. She gasped as he ran his finger along the outside of her lips. He came in farther, easing her apart. His finger slipped and slid over her vulva, spreading the wetness. The next moment he changed position. She felt his head between her legs. His tongue was everywhere. She arched her back, let out a whimper. His tongue probed, licked, flicked. She felt her body sink into the bed. She was aware of nothing other than this sublime sensation.

When he stopped, she begged him to continue, begged him to concentrate on her clitoris so that she could come. “What’s your hurry?” he whispered. With that she felt his fingers hard inside her. It wasn’t painful, but she yelped in surprise. He spent time slowly exploring her. Occasionally he would stop to caress her breasts or thighs.

At one point, she helped herself to some of her wetness and spread it over the head of his penis. She moved her hand slowly, rhythmically. He gasped, but at no point did his focus go from her. By now he was concentrating on the spot that mattered. His touch was firm one second, barely there the next. “Please. Please. Don’t stop.”

“Ssh.”

He made her turn onto all fours. His fingers were up inside her again. He spread her juices over her buttocks. She let out another gasp as his penis entered her. “It’s okay, just relax.” He moved in and out in a slow firm rhythm, kissing the back of her neck. He was still on her clitoris, his finger moving in a firm circular motion now. “There you go. There you go.”

Her quivering was growing now, taking her over. There was no stopping it. His thrusts were becoming harder and sharper. He kept up the pressure between her legs. She was all sensation. She held on tight to her breath. Another thrust came hard inside her. Then another. She felt his body go rigid as she let out one final moan. But the shuddering and quaking inside her wouldn’t stop. Unaware, he took his fingers away, but she made him put them back, begged him to carry on until the sensation had subsided. When it did, she let her body sink down onto the bed. The two of them rolled over so that he was on top of her. He kissed her gently on the lips and stroked her hair.

“Do you have a thesaurus?” he said. She noticed that he was panting.

“A what?”

“A thesaurus. You know, it’s a lexicon, a word list.”

“I know what a thesaurus is. What I don’t understand is why you want one. A postcoital cigarette is one thing, although I can’t say I approve, but a postcoital word search is a new one on me.”

“It’s just that I’m lost for words. I’m not sure how to describe what just happened,” he said. “‘Fantastic’ doesn’t quite do it justice.”

She laughed. “I’ll drink to that. Okay, how about incredible … unbelievable … out of this world?”

“It was all those things, but I think we can come up with something better.”

“Extraordinary? Stupendous?”

“More.”

“Quintessential? Awesome?”

“Where’s your laptop?” he said.

She told him it was on charge under the bed. He reached down and picked it up. A few seconds later, he let out a loud, “Aha. I’ve got it … 
thaumaturgical
, that’s what it was,” he told her. “You and I just had
thaumaturgical
sex.”

Things got thaumaturgical twice more that afternoon before they realized it was nearly four and they were both starving.

Amy made them beans on toast, covered in grated cheese, which they ate at the kitchen table. They chatted about his pro bono work in Africa. It turned out it had all started six years ago when he took a gap year from his job to do volunteer work in Rwanda.

“So when I was having Charlie, you were in Africa. God knows I wouldn’t not have him for all the world, but I wish I’d taken some time out to do charity work abroad. Sometimes I look back on those years I spent in PR and think what a waste they were. On the other hand, it did give me a chance to save enough money to become a mum.”

A moment’s silence followed. Sam was looking around the room. “You know, this is a great flat,” he said.

“It’s certainly got potential. I’ve got plans, but I can’t afford to do anything right now.”

“You need to knock this kitchen wall down and open up the living space.”

“I know. And I thought I’d lose the French doors into the garden and replace them with a wall of sliding glass.” She was warming to her theme now. “I’ve thought loads about paint color. I was thinking basic white, but with the odd wall covered in paper. I’m mad about all those fifties sciencey space-age designs. And I’ve thought about fabrics. I’ve got dozens of samples. Would you like to see?”

“Absolutely.”

She went into the bedroom and came back with her box of swatches.

“Wow, how many have you got here?”

“I’ve been collecting them for years. I love them all. I’d like to use each one someday, but this is such a tiny place, I know I could only choose a couple of accent colors. Look at this one.” She produced a heavy cotton print in olive green, yellow, and white. This was more than a swatch. There was enough fabric to make a couple of cushion covers, maybe. It was an original fifties fabric that she’d picked up at Camden Market. They agreed that the design reminded them of the ancient TV aerials that people used to have on their roofs. “I can just imagine curtains like this with a low Scandinavian sideboard and perhaps an Eames chair. Not that I could begin to afford the real thing. They cost a fortune.”

Finally she produced the cream damask she’d bought in Paris and told him about her plans for her froufrou French armchairs. “I’m thinking now that they would look terrible if I went for a fifties theme. I’d need to put them in the bedroom.”

She got more and more excited, spreading swatches over the floor, asking for his opinion on various color and texture combinations. “Don’t you just love fuchsia and orange?” she said. “It’s the ultimate clash, but it works so well.”

“If design is such a passion and inspires you this much,” he said finally, “why on earth don’t you try to make a career of it?”

“You mean designing for other people?”

“Why not?”

“I’ve thought about it, but it just doesn’t give me the buzz I get from writing.”

He looked thoughtful. “Okay, if you could do one thing to this flat today, what would it be?”

“Oh, I dunno … take up all the old carpets, maybe, and strip the floors. I’ve been thinking about doing it for ages.”

“Let’s do it now.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious.”

“What, now, as in right this very minute?”

“Why not now? If we can hire an electric sander, it really won’t take that long. I’ve done it loads of times. We could do the entire flat in a few hours.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. What do you say? Let’s give it a go.”

She laughed. “You’re mad.”

“No, I’m not. It’s called seizing the day. What do you say?”

“Okay, consider it seized.”

An hour later, with a floor sander rented until the following evening, they were ripping up carpets. The difficult part was moving the heavy furniture, particularly Amy’s double bed, but they managed. While Amy made tea, Sam got started with the sander. “These are lovely pine boards,” he said.

“Aren’t they? How do you think I should treat them? I’m thinking white floor paint.”

“Floor paint. Definitely. And white would work really well with those curtains you have in mind.”

“Umm … maybe with a shaggy olive rug.”

The sander wasn’t too noisy, so Amy wasn’t worried about disturbing the neighbors. The problem was the dust. Despite wearing face masks and the sander having a bag attached to collect it all, they still coughed and sneezed. All they could do was drink water and suck sweets. They took turns on the machine, but Sam, having sanded floors before, was a bit of an expert and worked faster than Amy. Despite her being slow and not very skilled, by ten they had done the living room, Amy’s bedroom, and the hallway. They fell onto the sofa, sweaty, dusty, and exhausted.

Amy opened a bottle of wine and ordered pizza. While they waited for it to arrive, they went from room to room, admiring their work.