The Indiscretion (19 page)

A moment later, Sam was up on one arm, raising his hips.
Lydia
knew what was
coming next. Through narrowed eyes she watched between their bodies, her mouth
dry, her mind full of him. The sight, her vision was curtained by his shirt –
he had no underwear, she realized. None. The front of his body was bare, from
the top of his open shirt to the partly open fly his trousers – he unbuttoned
it with one hand. Down the length of him was oh so handsome. Dark hair covered
his broad chest, hair that narrowed to a line between his muscles, disappearing
entirely to a flat, neat abdomen. No underwear. How wild, her American. The
thought fled her mind in the next moment, though, when the last button of his
fly gave and his naked penis swung into view – long, thick, weighty, a perfect
instrument for penetration.

Lydia
stared,
riveted by a sight that made the backs of her eyes hot. He was gorgeous, his
flesh, straight and solid, with a raised, blue vein along the length. His penis
was both delicate and powerful to look at, with a purplish head smooth as
sculpture. It was like the drawings she knew, yet not. More colorful, more
tender somehow. And larger, more steely looking by half than what she'd
understood. She couldn't imagine how—

"Oh-h." She arched as he shifted and his erection fell
onto her belly, a firm stab at her umbilicus. Then, with a change of angle at
his hips, he dropped into the cleft of her sex, contact that was shockingly hot
– again, the surprising heat of him – and smooth. He slid the full shaft up and
down her, letting her feel the length of him. He felt a yard long and as thick
as a log, Oh, she thought again, this could not possibly work—

She closed her eyes when she saw him reach to guide himself with
his hand. She felt the head itself slide up then down once, along her waiting,
open body. Hard. He was so hard, yet the skin there delicate. An impossible
perfection. With it, he found her entrance, the tip of him homing. He lowered
his mouth to hers, gently bit her lip once, then covered her mouth with his and
pushed his hips forward.

It was as if an impossibly small place, a tiny slit, sucked in
something the size of a plum.

"A-h-h—" he let out into her mouth.

Just the head was buried in her. So strange, the feeling. It
burned slightly. He put pressure, opening her only a bit further, then eased
back a little. She didn't know why or what he was doing, only that it burned
more, yet felt somehow right. She longed for him to do it again, do it more.
"Yes," she murmured.

He did this small penetration several times again, each time
taking it a centimeter further, till she felt a slide, a smooth movement. She
felt him brace the second before, then with a strong, neat thrust, he planted
enough of himself inside that she felt give, a sharper burning. She let out a
startled breath, a surprised sound into his mouth: her maidenhead ruptured.
Gone.

Surprise. That was her first reaction. It felt odd for a second.
Filled. The burning ebbed, became faint. Filled. The satisfaction of it was so
primal it was hard to absorb.

He let out soft sounds, gasps. He murmured, "There's
more."

She waited for instruction, thinking that was what he meant. But
his words were literal. He pushed further into her. He filled her more. Then
more. He would slide out one inch, rock, then push in two.

"I ca-han't—" she fretted. He seemed huge to her. Were
all men like this? Were all untried females so small?

"You're – fah-h-hine," he whispered, then murmured in a
rush, "We'll go slow this first time," then on an exhalation,
"You're so tah-hight—"

He began to move, balanced on one arm, reaching under her with the
other to pull her hips with him, to show her the rhythm. The burning grew less;
his presence inside her grew more, as he gently coaxed her body to accept him.
It took patience on his part, while
Lydia
simply reeled.
Sam inside her. Filled. The pleasure was unearthly.

She focused on the sublime sensation of Sam's moving in and out of
her body. Tight, yet smooth. Who could have guessed? Oh, there was nothing like
it anywhere, this feeling.

And Sam liked it too, because he was nothing short of delirious,
which was perhaps most wonderful of all. As they moved together, his
low-pitched voice became a mumble of syllables, endearments, sweet nonsense,
while the satisfaction of having him inside her spread into a yearning to unite
then reunite again and again. Something was building. She began to follow his
movement, the sharp, full-throated hum of bliss—

Before she could find where they were going exactly, though, he
suddenly groaned, jerked sharply, and called out, "Ah – Liddy, ah – Liddy,
ai-i!"

And he was madly scrambling up and away from her, panicked in a
new way she didn't understand. He pushed up onto his knees, withdrawing
himself, as his body jerked and trembled. His face grimaced, and a shudder took
him over. Before it was finished, he was muttering profanity as she'd never
heard from his mouth.

After several seconds of his flinching, he let out a long breath,
then dropped to the ground away from her, at her side, flat out onto his back.
He threw his arm over his eyes, a man distraught.

Lydia
was left
bewildered, half-fulfilled, up in the air. She asked tentatively, "Did I
do something wrong?"

He lifted his arm, turning his head to look at her, and gasped out
a laugh. "God, no." He let out another single, dry syllable, more
irony than humor. He pushed his hand back into his hair, holding chunks between
his fingers, and said, "It's just that – well, that has to be the worst
possible way to keep a woman from getting pregnant."

"Oh." She nodded, trying to understand; she didn't
precisely. She looked at herself. There was a wet smear of blood on her thigh.
And something more. Full realization dawned. "Oh," she said again,
more knowingly. "You withdrew before –
hm
—"
She nodded. "Right."

He laughed and answered, "Right." Then added,
"In-doggone-deed."

She smiled and rolled to her side, curling against him.

They created their own language. While she created herself. It was
lovely to have a friend like Sam. He knew her. What a simple sentence, yet how
affecting. In three days, he knew aspects of her that people who'd known her
all her life didn't seem to notice or else understand. And she knew him, was
comfortable with him, trusted him completely.

As she lay there, quite naturally his arm came around her and she
thought,
Aah
. Her muscles felt
relaxed. Her limbs, her body, her neck and face and scalp … everywhere, she
felt warm, cozy. And sleepy. There was something more here, but they would find
it. For now, wet and messy and deflowered to a fare-thee-well,
Lydia
could not
remember feeling so content.

*

In-doggone-deed
. Sam was
surprised to hear himself say this. He was surprised to be lying there holding
Liddy, surprised by how nice she felt against him.
In-doggone-deed.
They shared more than words. He wished he could
steal pieces of her and make them part of himself – her acceptance, her humor,
her self-respect. Her respect of him.

He was "difficult," and she didn't mind. Well, she maybe
minded, but she wouldn't stop coming at him for it. He wished he could fix his
orneriness, be more polite. Or maybe he just wanted to be more direct, less
protective of his shortcomings.

Sam watched Liddy close her eyes, her long eyelashes flapping to
lie lacily – curling, copious – against the tops of her cheekbones. He kissed
her eyelids gently, one then the other. He kissed her lips, a brush of mouths.
Then he lay his head on her breast and let his own eyes close. A whangdoodle,
this one, he told himself again as he drifted off. Liddy Brown took his breath
away.

*

Later,
as they attempted to gather their clothes up to get dressed again,
Lydia
told Sam,
"Two lost souls." They were. They could barely dress for wanting to
touch.

Lost indeed, she thought. In a fog of each other. On a stretch of
land where it was difficult to know landmarks. Without a map. Rather like her
life itself. Perhaps his, too, given his willingness to run the other direction
from what his job and family expected of him. They were both in the process of
trying to redraw the plans the world had handed them.

But redraw them how? Where? And could their plans include each
other?

Did she want hers to include him?

She laughed at herself. Oh, if her parents were upset by her
friendship with Rose, they should be fit to be tied by her desire to mold
herself up against an American cow herder. But her desire was as clear as the
tolling of a bell – and she was the bell. Something inside her kept striking,
reverberating through her, hitting again and again, a ceaseless, ringing pulse.
Press your body to his. Feel his warmth,
his solidness, the contours of him against you, kiss his mouth…

And she did. By the pool, they dressed, undressed, made love,
dozed, attempted to dress again, and made love once more, all before twilight.
Sam did his withdrawal each time. He became quite suave with it, in fact,
though in his proficiency he groaned after the third time, saying, "I hate
that part. I would give anything to let go inside you. Anything."

Sam seemed happy enough though, she thought. In the dimness of the
setting sun, he took her hand and ran her down to the train tracks again. He
showed her the reason he was missing his coat and vest, the reason he'd raced
after her screaming with his shirt open on his bare chest, no combination.
Apparently for underwear he wore something called a union suit – and it was
red!

What he'd done was take off his red underclothes to use as a signal,
the only thing he knew that was bright enough to stand out. He'd tied them to
the end of her bow – while she was running and swimming and waiting for him,
he'd been burying her bow (to her horror) in a pile of stones he'd built up
around it. His underwear now flew from the top: a flag for the train tomorrow.
So it couldn't pass them by again.

Sam would rescue them. He was determined.

Lydia
laughed and
laughed at his invention, so delighted by the effort – though she was secretly
a little unsettled by it too. Yes, they had to be sure the train didn't pass
them by again. Yes, they had to get off this blasted, beautiful moor. Yes, she
had to get back to her own, her family. She and Sam—

She and Sam, what? His flying red underwear looked so alien to
her. She knew only of her brother's or father's undergarments, and of those
only vaguely from seeing the laundress trot them up the stairs in a stack to
put them away: They were white. She couldn't imagine a man of her acquaintance
wearing anything under his clothes that was … red.

She stared at the banner waving from the tip of her bow, wondering
what she was seeing incorrectly, what she wasn't grasping. Sam was the most
interesting, attractive man she knew. What he'd done was smart. The train would
be traveling fast and wouldn't be expecting to see them. It would see
that
at a distance.

So why did she want to hide every time she caught a glimpse of the
red, flapping union suit wedged into her bowstring at the tip of her bow?

11

There
are three groups of folks in the city of
Houston
who have no legal
rights, where someone else has to sign for them like children: born idiots, the
insane of the asylums, and the entire female population.

A Texan in
Massachusetts

T
he evening was better than the afternoon, which was saying a great
deal, since the afternoon was so splendid that
Lydia
never wanted
it to end. Sam held her hand. He petted her. He led; she followed. She led; he
chased. Like children let out to play, they dallied till it was pitch dark.

Once the sun set, their conversation turned to "the sensible
thing to do."

Sam suggested, "We could walk along the train track, even
tonight if we wanted to." His voice, his breath, tickled her ear.

She was scooted back against him, his bare chest against her bare
back as she sat between his legs, his arms around her. They were half dressed,
clothes on but open – oh, so delicious – his shirttail out, his trouser braces
down, her dress away from her neck so he could periodically brush his mouth
against the crook or her collarbone or the tendon up the back of her nape. She
could feel him, hear him, periodically pushing his nose, smelling, into her
hair. Heaven. A little cozy warmth on a cool, moon-bright night, skin against
skin.

"We don't really have to wait for the train tomorrow,"
he continued, being oh so sensible.

"We have a sure direction now," she agreed.

"Even in fog, even in dark, we could follow the train
tracks."

"We'd get somewhere."

He sighed. Then he added, "Though I'm tired. How 'bout
you?"

"Oh, yes."
Lydia
laughed.
"What a strenuous day," she said. "Running down a train,
swimming, a few friendly skirmishes, then having to make love all afternoon.
Why, it was exhausting." She laughed again. "I think we should wait till
morning. Then we'll set off straightaway."

She felt him nod, his cheek against the side of her hair. He
whispered, "Or we could not set off at all. We could wait right here. I
mean, the best we could do in the morning would be to get ourselves an hour or
two closer. Plus I have the signal up. They won't miss us again."

What a good idea. She nodded. "All right. If that's what you
want." How accommodating she felt. "We can stay here and wait for the
next train." Whenever that might be.

"It'll come tomorrow, but till then we could have ourselves
a—"

"A holiday," she supplied. She turned in his arms to
look at him behind her.

The setting sun shadowed the features of his face. Smiling
shadows. "Right," he said. "We'll take the day—"

"A day off—"

"Where we don't worry, where we don't do anything—"

"Except for ourselves."

Less a holiday than a honeymoon, she thought, but
Lydia
was so much in
favor of the notion she twisted more to wedge herself into the crook of his
shoulder and take his face tenderly into her hands. She pulled him down to kiss
him again.

Sam. Hers, all night and all the next morning. At the very least.
She would do her duty when she got back to
London
. She would
dress and be courted and marry for the right reasons. But for now, oh, for now
… why, trains probably didn't even run on the moor every day. There was no
telling how often they ran. Why, perhaps not even once a week.

*

Sam
and she built another smoky fire, again on the far side of the rise. Without
discussing it, they knew they wanted the privacy of not being immediately
visible from the tracks – which also explained how very ingenious Sam's flying
red underwear was: On the off chance a train should come at a moment when they
weren't in a precisely … ready condition, the red signal would stand in for
them till they could get their clothes into place and present themselves.

They spent a lovely, comfy night secluded from view at the edge of
the heather. In the heather, in fact – they cut pieces, like shepherds of old,
and made a bed of it, a springy bower. Sleep, of course, was not the primary
goal. When they weren't making love, they were whispering like two children in
the night, like fond friends who explored their new bonds of attachment and
regard.

Confidants.
Lydia
felt she could
tell Sam anything. Things she couldn't even say to Rose or Meredith or Clive.
No matter what she told or asked Sam, she had this sense of trust – he would
listen and understand. And he confided back. Their secrets overlapped with
physical pleasures, sexual longings.
Touch
me here. I want to put myself there. Like this? Yes. What would you think if I
wanted to do this? Oh. My. All right.
Till their physical intimacy seemed
to give voice, enactment, to what was happening to them emotionally.

*

An
aphorism Sam never put in his book: If women ever realized how good it felt to
have small, soft fingers brush across the head of a man's penis, they would
rule the world. Partly, he would never write the insight down because he
thought of it as a secret that must be kept at all costs. Though, in fact, deep
down, he suspected women
did
know,
they
did
rule the world, and that was
their
secret – that somehow the power
left to men was nothing, with women either too polite or too conniving to
mention it.

He and Liddy ate a dinner of fish from the river, then made love
off and on the rest of the evening and into the night – in ways that, for even
Sam, who was relatively experienced, went beyond what was … he hated to use the
word
normal
, but it was certainly
beyond, and much, much better, than was normal for him.

Yes, Liddy had amazingly soft fingers. But never mind her fingers,
Liddy thought to put her mouth on him, and the decision, her execution of it,
leveled him. Literally. He ended up flat on his back from shock and pure
slavelike rapture.

"Holy Moses, Lid," he said once he'd caught his breath
from the whole ordeal, "what on this sweet earth made you do that?"

She looked surprised. "You did it to me, and I liked
it." She frowned, squinting up into his face, as if looking for hints of a
more complicated answer to his question. "Why?"

"I thought, when I did it, it scared you."

"It did." She smiled. "I liked that part too."
She shrugged. "I rather like it when you scare me, in that way at
least." She laughed at herself.

"Yes." He laughed, too. "And I like plenty the
whole idea of you scaring me, I guess." He laughed harder. "Great
plenty. A whole wagonload."

Ah, the joys of a woman's ignorance. Liddy had no idea that some
people found such contact – mouths and private places – crude. Did he?
Absolutely, he thought, smiling to himself. And that was part of the pleasure,
he was sure. For pure contrariness, cantankerousness. The secret forbidden.

It seemed so un-English that Liddy would admit to liking his mouth
on her. Though, come to think of it, it was very Liddy, both the directness and
the sensuality of it. Liddy was apparently a whole lot more than just English.

Cripes, he thought. What if other English people were like that?
What if they were all different, despite their seeming outer – and pretty
snooty – similarities?

*

They
made love. They played. At one point, as the fire was dying down, Liddy reached
into Sam's inside coat pocket, a coat he had on at the moment. He'd just
buttoned his shirt and vest, putting most of his clothes in order again. She
rousted his coat pockets, then vest, feeling for contents, checking flaps
inside and out. It was an unholy game she seemed to invent on the spur of the
moment. Titillating. Inquisitive. Prying. Flattering.

"Don't go through my pockets," he complained, though he
let her. He liked her hands on him. He liked that she was curious about him.

"Turnabout is fair play: You went through my bag."

He blinked, unable to think of any defense as Liddy lifted his
arms. She frisked him thoroughly.

She located his flask from his inside left pocket, opened it,
sniffed it, then whistled down into its emptiness.

"Do you drink a lot?" she asked.

"No. Though you'd never guess from the last couple
days." He rolled his eyes. "You'll just have to trust me."

She brought forth his money clip with eight dollars and ten pounds
sterling in it, a broken pocket watch – the bandits had stopped it cold at
nine twenty-four
in the morning three days
ago – and his papers, including his passport.

She opened the passport with glee. "'Samuel Jeremiah
Cody,'" she quoted. "'Six-foot-three. Two hundred twenty pounds.
Fourteen-ten
State Street
,
Chicago
—'"

He took the passport, hoping she didn't notice how much he
suddenly wanted it out of her sight. It was not the usual American passport,
though she didn't seem to notice. It was a diplomatic passport. Their hands
both held it for a moment. He opened his mouth, about to account for himself –
though explanations were going to be a little dicey at such a late date and
wouldn't likely mean much, considering they had to do with a job he'd lost that
was only a temporary post anyway. Still, he realized, all the seals and
embossing on the damn thing might give him a certain standing, which could come
in handy, since he wanted to call on her—

Then he went from being embarrassed to being outright alarmed.

Liddy leaned forward, abandoning his watch, flask, and papers –
too boring – to dip her hands into his trouser pockets, while she sat on her
knees between his bent legs, her face against his chest.

He was confounded by their newfound intimacy – not that he minded,
he was just flummoxed by the way she took hold of it. She liked to flex her
prerogatives over him, test their limits, and darned if he knew what to do about
any of it.

Then what she found in his right pocket slowed her down.

"What's this?" she asked as she pulled forth her hand,
then sat against his knee. With her finger, she centered her find on her palm.
She angled her hand a little, using the fire to illuminate the two little items
he'd forgotten about: two wedding rings, a large and a small. Seeing them
there, caught in firelight in Liddy's hand, made Sam sad and quiet.

"She threw mine at me," he explained. He wasn't certain
why he'd picked it up. It had sailed at him from an upstairs window, hitting
him behind the ear. For no reason, he'd stooped and retrieved it, putting it in
his pocket. As if he could hide the whole business in the dark.

When he'd left his hotel on that fateful morning, three days ago
now, his pocket had carried only one ring, hers, because Joseph, Gwyn's brother
and his best man, didn't trust himself to remember it. Sam had carefully made
sure he had it, then headed for the church.

Liddy looked surprised. "You were going to wear a ring?"

"Yeah, why?"

"It's just curious," she said. "A very un-English
custom."

"Well, I'm not English, so no surprise."

"Was your bride?"

"English? No. From
Chicago
."

She held up the larger ring, looking through it into the fire.
"It's ungentlemanly for an Englishman to wear one." There was no
criticism in her voice, only speculation. As if marveling over differing
customs.

"It doesn't sound very gentlemanly to deny he's
married."

"The idea is he doesn't need to be reminded: He knows."
After a minute, she asked quietly, "Do you love her?"

"Who?" he asked. Then said quickly, "Oh,
Gwyn." He let out a snort, more bewildered than anything else. "I
must. I keep trying to marry her." He shook his head.

It was a question that hadn't come up in awhile for him. The question
that kept coming up, in fact, was: Did he love Liddy? He worried he did, which
made no sense, because he sure knew Gwyn better and longer.

"What's she like?"

"Who?" he asked again, then felt himself redden.
"Oh, Gwyn." He leaned back, thinking. "She's beautiful. A lot of
men like her." A more distinctive feature occurred to him: "She has
sad eyes. They look sad even when she laughs." It was true. It was as if
Gwyn had some secret hardship to bear. "Every day brings a new woe,"
he said, laughing fondly, "a new crisis. She has very tender feelings.
Though, of course," he said quickly – he should be defending her better –
"she has happy times, too." When she got a new dress, for instance.
Or received an extravagant gift.

Gwyn had a vulnerable ego that responded best to quick, strong
intervention. Not that she was a bad person. She was generous with others.
Usually she was … nice. Gwyn was possibly the nicest person he'd ever known –
maybe nice to everyone because her own feelings were hurt so easily. She
fretted endlessly over making anyone unhappy. To her credit, it had taken a lot
for her to finally get angry with him – two botched weddings, for Pete's sake.
'Course, once she was started, she could have a real tantrum.