1
Summer Prelude
Way up the top end of obscure Carter’s Inlet in Puriri County the groom’s work was done: he’d caught a nice fresh snapper that, since neither of them had much fancied food at the wedding breakfast yesterday, they were looking forward to for lunch. He was now stretched out on the short, scruffy grass on the shore of their bach’s tiny cove, though with an eye on what she was doing. “You what?” he croaked.
The bride looked up from her self-appointed task of cleaning the fish and replied: “I said, I told my cousin Mirry that she could use the house while we’re away. That’s okay, isn’t it, Jake?”
“Aw, yeah, that’s okay...” replied her new husband weakly.
Polly laid the cleaned snapper down on the grass and stuck her knife briskly into the turf. “She’s at varsity: it’s her second year. She’s staying in one of those gruesome student hostels in Puriri: I thought it’d be a nice change for her. –Are you gonna to build that fire, or shall I?”
Women could not build fires. Or grill fish on them, come to that. “I will.” He got up quickly but then just stood there, scratching his chin.
She looked at him in some surprise. “It is okay, isn’t it? You don’t mind, do you?”
“Eh? I don’t mind, no,” replied Jake drily. “Slight snag, mind you: I told that other cousin of yours, that Scotch bloke, that he could use the house.”
“Shit!” said the bride.
Their eyes met; they began to laugh.
After a while Jake gasped: “Do they even know each other?”
“I dunno,” said Polly weakly. “Hamish has been living in Edinburgh for ages, now; and Mirry’d be miles younger than him... And his dad never could stand Aunty Kay; I wouldn’t think he’d know any of the Fields that well. Him and Mirry’d only be second cousins, actually.”
Jake began to laugh again as he jumped down onto the sand and started to build his fire. “It’ll be a nice surprise for the both of them, then!”
“Too right!”
When the fire was going nicely and he had the fish arranged over it to his satisfaction she said: “Um, you don’t think we ought to warn them, or something?”
“Eh?”
“Mirry and Hamish; you don’t think we ought to ring them?”
“Nearest phone’s down in Carter’s Bay. Besides,”—he glanced at his watch—“I reckon they musta got there by now.”
“Oh, dear,” said Polly weakly.
In the big kitchen with its knotty-pine cupboards the clock, which looked suspiciously like an antique, had quite a friendly expression on its nice round face as it silently informed Mirry Field that it was twenty-five past ten.
“Crikey,” she muttered. “Musta been the spa pool, or something!” It couldn’t have been the champagne at Polly and Jake’s wedding yesterday: with Mum’s beady eye on her she’d only managed to get away with a couple of glasses.
She began to investigate the fridge and cupboards—Polly had said to help herself, there was stacks of everything. Well, there would be, wouldn’t there? Jake Carrano was a bloody millionaire. She liked Jake, though she didn’t know him that well, so this attempt at her student friends’ socialist indignation didn’t feel convincing even to her. She began to whistle as she got a packet of bacon and a couple of eggs out of the gigantic fawn fridge. She’d have breakfast out on the patio. Boy, this was the life! And after breakfast she’d have a bit of a sunbathe. No need to bother about togs up here, the house was completely private. Just as well, because apart from the gear she’d worn to the wedding, she didn’t have a thing with her and in fact was wearing only a large faded fawn tee-shirt she’d found in a drawer upstairs.
She’d gone straight up to the big house in Pohutukawa Bay after the wedding reception; there hadn’t seemed to be much point in traipsing all the way up to the hostel in Puriri just to collect her overnight things—besides, it was a whole section more on the bus, and how’d she get back again? The bus service was awful. Her palms had sweated a bit over the alarms, but it was okay: they worked just the way Polly had said. She’d been far too full after all that food to want anything to eat, but she’d got herself a carton of juice and found the spa pool in its little summer-house arrangement, and got into the bubbling lukewarm water with the juice at her elbow. Last night she’d slept like a log in an upstairs guest bedroom that looked out to the dark bush of the Reserve across the road. During the night she’d half-woken when a morepork had called from the Reserve—just like down home; only a bloody sight better, without Mum nagging you to death all the time...
Hamish Macdonald wasn’t at all sure of the way—he’d only been there once, and he hadn’t been driving. Jake had said you couldn’t go wrong if you got yourself onto Auckland’s northern motorway, and he’d at least managed that. But he’d missed the turnoff to Pohutukawa Bay and driven on down into little Puriri township and then found he’d have to turn round and go back up the hill again. Since Puriri, at two o’clock of a Thursday afternoon, seemed to be in the middle of some sort of shopping frenzy, this hadn’t been easy. By the time he’d got across the stream of traffic going north, and back into the other stream of traffic going south, he was hot, sweating, and irritable.
Was it always this hot in March? Sighing, he supposed it was, and he’d forgotten what the New Zealand summers were like—at least up here in North Auckland. Surely down in Taranaki March hadn’t been this hot and humid? he thought, trying and failing to recall the exact details of the summers of his teens.
The little settlement of Pohutukawa Bay was flat, suburban, new-looking, and boring. The main road led straight up to the cliff top, with a dairy towards its far end. He stopped there to ask the way, the accompanying weight-conscious decision against an ice cream doing nothing to improve his temper. The fat, sweating, middle-aged man behind the counter looked at him with undisguised curiosity and replied slowly, in the Kiwi nasal mumble that Hamish had almost forgotten: “Yeah; you’re on the right track: just turn left here, that’s Matai Street,”—he nodded towards the street across the road—“and right when you get to the end of it: that’s Reserve Road. But you won’t find anybody home: they’re on their honeymoon.”
Crossly Hamish remembered yet another of the drawbacks of life in a small community. Pohutukawa Bay might be only about forty minutes’ drive from the city but its inhabitants appeared to have the country-town habit of knowing all heir neighbours’ business.
“Aye, I know,” he replied shortly.
The dairy proprietor went on looking at him curiously; reddening in annoyance, he found himself explaining: “Polly Carrano’s my cousin; I’ll be staying in the house for a few days.”
“That so?” The fat man’s gaze seemed to become even more interested, if that were possible.
“Yes; well, thank you,” said Hamish quickly, escaping.
As his tall back retreated Marama Ngatea and Louise Watkins, who’d been lurking with their toddlers down by the freezers with their ears flapping, emerged abruptly and plunged with Dave into happy dissection of this latest chapter in the Carrano saga.
Hamish parked the rental car on the broad paved sweep in front of Jake’s huge, modern, sprawling house and got out slowly, frowning. The car had developed a suspicious rattle coming up the slope of Reserve Road. He hoped to God it was going to get him back into the city all right: he had that important meeting with old Sir Jerry Cohen coming up.
Damn it, he should never have accepted Jake’s invitation; but his Auckland hotel specialised in vulgar luxury and appalling over-sauced, over-decorated food, the city was noisy and very hot, and all his ghastly Macdonald aunties had ruthlessly winkled the hotel’s name out of him at the Goddawful wedding reception yesterday and issued firm orders that he wasn’t to leave the country without “spending a day or two with us.” So he’d given in to the temptation to get away from it all, and hide himself in the peace and solitude of Jake’s big, cool house.
In the front hall he dealt competently with the alarm, and headed for the staircase. The sound of music from the direction of the big living-room halted him in his tracks. What? The house was empty, there were no neighbours within sight of it—
Out on the patio Mirry stretched on a yellow sunlounger like a lazy little cat in the sun. After her huge breakfast she’d sunbathed for a while, then had a dip in the pool; then she’d popped inside and grabbed a big jug of pineapple juice from the fridge. It was awfully nice juice, she thought dozily, pouring herself another generous measure of Piña Colada mixture: it must be a special brand. She felt very warm, very lazy and very, very happy.
The French doors onto the patio were open: the music was coming from out there. Scowling ferociously, Hamish strode across the living-room.
Shock held him motionless for a moment. The tanned female body on the yellow deckchair arrangement didn’t have a stitch on! The girl was beautiful: slight, with a tiny waist, but rounded in all the right places— His face flushed and he said loudly and furiously: “Who the Hell are you?”
Mirry jumped, gave a squeak, and looked round. Ooh, heck! That man with the red hair that had been at the wedding: some sort of a relation from Scotland. The day had been a real scorcher, and he’d looked really silly in his stupid kilt! Taken aback to be caught starkers on Jake’s patio by a large male who wasn’t that closely related to her, and more than a little euphoric from the Piña Coladas, she tore her sunglasses off, glared right back at him, and retorted: “And who the Hell are you, for that matter?”
Weakly the shaken Hamish replied: “I’m a cousin of Polly’s. Jake said I could use the house for a few days.”
“Oh, did he just? Well, I’m a cousin of Polly’s and she said I could use the house!”
Hamish just gaped at her.
What with the alcohol and a natural lack of modesty Mirry wasn’t particularly embarrassed, but she was extremely ruffled at his failure to recognize her: she’d recognised him! She gave him a nasty look and added: “And what’s more I know all Polly’s cousins, and you’re not one of them!” With mean pleasure she saw the tide of red rush up the neck of the tall, handsome Scotsman and colour the pale face.
“I’m a second cousin,” he said weakly. “My father and her mother are cousins.”
Mirry reached for her glass and swallowed a huge mouthful of the strangely addictive pineapple juice. “Aw, yeah, second cousins, is it, now?”
Hamish’s initial shock was wearing off, and although he was considerably annoyed to find that his entirely natural response to her hadn’t worn off at all, he was now rational enough to realize that she was very young. Managing a kindly tone, he said: “Look, this is silly. Why don’t you put something on, and then we can talk.”
Mirry sat up very straight and looked very hard at his loosened tie, sweaty, long-sleeved white shirt, unsuitably heavy grey slacks, woollen socks and brogues, and retorted: “Why don’t you take something off?”
At this point, Hamish Macdonald did something very silly. He knew it was silly but somehow this didn’t stop him. Instead of going back inside he gave a faint laugh and replied: “Aye, mebbe I should!”
He sat down on a little white wrought-iron chair on the other side of the white wrought-iron table that held her jug and glass. “It is very hot, isn’t it?” He passed a hand across his sweaty forehead, smiled at her, and added: “Don’t you think we’d better introduce ourselves? I’m Hamish Macdonald.”
Ten years of a grindingly miserable marriage had successfully eroded the vanity that, as his second cousin Polly hadn’t failed to inform him back way back when, had characterised a much younger Hamish Macdonald: he was quite unaware of the effect that the smile was having on the little female figure before him. Crossly Mirry registered that jolt in the stomach that was like being in a lift that suddenly starts going down when you aren’t expecting it. Not looking at him, she muttered: “I’m Mirry Field.”
“Mirry?” repeated Hamish weakly.
She glared. “Short for Miriam, but no-one ever calls me that!”
He gave her that smile again, and held out his hand. “Well,” he said in his soft Scotch voice, “how do you do, Mirry Field?”
Mirry felt herself blush like an idiot. She put her hand in his and looked shyly into his eyes.
The little tanned paw was completely swallowed up in his hand. His heart thumped uncomfortably fast as he looked into the oddly slanted, dark brown eyes. “Field... I think your mother must be my father’s cousin Kay, is that right?”
“Yes,” agreed Mirry in a squeaky little voice. She went on looking helplessly into his grey-green eyes. How white his skin was! His mouth was wide and narrow, and he had one of those beaky noses that she’d never thought very attractive, before... His cheekbones were high and prominent. and in the strong sunlight on the patio there was a red-gold glitter all along the firm jaw line.
An almost overpowering urge to kiss the sweet red mouth before him swept through Hamish. Christ! What the Hell was the matter with him? She wasn’t much more than a kid. He released her hand and said quickly: “So we’re second cousins, then.”
Mirry came to herself with a jolt. “Oh,” she said lamely, looking away from him. “Yes, I suppose we are.” She clasped her hands together tightly on her tummy.
Hamish looked down at the clasped hands, and at the entrancing black triangle just below them, and blushed vividly. Quickly he cleared his throat, and looked away. There was about a tumblerful of juice left in her big glass jug. He gave what sounded in his own ears as a stupidly artificial little laugh and said: “It’s so hot. Would you mind if I finished this juice?”
“Go ahead,” said Mirry in a small voice. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as he picked up the jug. His head went back; there was a gold glitter of stubble on his throat; his Adam’s apple jerked as he swallowed, and something inside her trembled stupidly at the little movement.
Hamish drank thirstily, and gasped. “God! What the Devil have you got in this?” He sniffed it. “Rum?” He sipped cautiously at the last inch of it. “Aye, it is rum.”
Mirry looked at him in dismay. “I thought it tasted funny!”
“You mean you didn’t realize—?”
Scarlet, she gulped: “No! I thought it was pineapple juice!”
His mouth twitched. “How much of it have you had?”
“About three glasses,” she muttered.
He gave a snort of laughter. “Well, I don’t think you’d better have any more!”
“Will I get drunk?” said Mirry miserably, forgetting in her confusion to take a very lofty and sophisticated tone.
Her naïveté affected Hamish much more than any attempt at sophisticated repartee would have done; he looked at her kindly. “I’d say you were fairly happy already.”
“I do feel a bit funny,” she admitted uncertainly.
His lips twitched. “Mm.” There was a beading of sweat on her short, curved upper lip; the rounded cheeks were distinctly flushed. The black hair was pulled sternly off her wide forehead and twisted into an absurd plait high on one side of her head. Her lashes were very long, a shiny black, and very curled; the brows two tiny elegant Chinese brush-strokes. It was hardly surprising that he didn’t recognize in this pixie-like vision the ultra-sophisticated young lady of the wedding reception yesterday: her hair, set for the occasion in a myriad tiny corkscrews, had stood out round her head in a great bush; the creamy eyelids that he was now admiring had been smothered in green and gold eye-shadow, and the curvy little figure had been draped in a wide-shouldered green satin creation that Mirry had fondly imagined made her look terribly grown-up, loftily ignoring her mother’s acid comment that it merely made her look terrible. Its fashionable loose blousing had successfully concealed both the tiny waist and the perky breasts that her second cousin was now trying not to let his gaze wander down to.
“I did have a big breakfast,” she reported dubiously.
Suddenly Hamish started to laugh.
“What’s so funny about that?” she cried, cheeks pinker than ever.
“How old are you?” he gasped.
“Nearly twenty: so what?” said Mirry defiantly.
“Well, nearly-twenty Mirry Field,” he gasped, “I’d say you’ll survive three big rums, but if I was you I’d pop into that pool and try to swim them off a bit!”
“I’ve just had a swim,” said Mirry, sounding sulky.
His laughter died away; he looked at her uncertainly. The full lower lip looked rather as if it was pouting. Hamish Macdonald went very red indeed and said very rapidly: “Look, Mirry, I think you’d better either get into the pool or go and put some clothes on—because if you don’t I might forget I’m bluidy well old enough to be your father and do something we’ll both regret!”
Jake’s excellent Appleton Special rum got the better of Mirry. “I wouldn’t regret it!”
There was an awful silence. Well, I don’t care—so there! thought Mirry. She stuck out her chin and stared at him defiantly.
He stood up abruptly and turned away from her, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re thinking!” cried Mirry desperately.
“No,” said Hamish in a muffled voice. “That’s not what I’m thinking.”
Baffled, Mirry glared at his back.
“I... Don’t you see, it would be taking a—an unfair advantage of you?”
“Bullshit!” she cried.
He gave a shaky little laugh.
There was another nasty silence.
At last Mirry said, in a voice that sounded perilously near tears: “Don’t you think I’m nice?”
“Don’t be so bloody stupid, girl!” His back was still turned.
“What, then?” The tears were very near the surface.
“Bluidy Hell!” said Hamish violently. He swung round and glared at her. “If you imagine I’m going to lay a finger on a kid who’s half my age and full of rum into the bargain—!” He made a violent gesture of exasperation and before she could reply turned on his heel and strode into the house.
“DAMN!” cried Mirry at the top of her voice. “Damn AND bugger!”
She seized her empty tumbler and hurled it viciously into the sparkling turquoise patio pool. Then she threw herself face-down on the yellow sunlounger and burst into noisy tears.
A sweating twenty minutes later Hamish decided that the bloody rental car was definitely not going to start. He retreated to the front hall.
“Mirry?” he said cautiously. There was no reply. “Mirry?” he called, a little louder. Still no reply. He went cautiously across the white shag-pile of the living-room, and stuck his head out of the French doors.
Mirry was still face-down on the sunlounger, head turned towards him, mouth a little open, eyes tightly shut. She was quite obviously fast asleep. He smiled a little, about to turn away, when he realized that she was lying in full sunlight. He looked doubtfully at her. She was tanned, but the sun was so strong, and the rounded buttocks were distinctly paler than the rest of her. No, he couldn’t leave her like that: she’d have a terrible burn. Trying to ignore the pounding in his veins, he walked unsteadily over to her.
“Mirry?”
She didn’t react.
He laid a hand cautiously on her shoulder. It was very hot. “Mirry!”
She stirred and mumbled.
“Wake up!” said Hamish loudly. He gave the shoulder a little shake.
Mirry made a little protesting noise and burrowed her face into the buttercup-yellow pillow of the sunlounger.
Ignoring the still, small voice at the back of his mind that was saying that he probably could wake her up if he tried, Hamish bent and scooped her up. Staggering a little, he carried her into the house and laid her gently on one of the big black leather couches. She sighed, and gave a little snore. The lemon-shaped breasts seemed perkier than ever. His ears reddened and he turned away abruptly.
When he finally got onto the car-hire firm—they seemed strangely reluctant to answer their phone—they agreed that they could supply him with another car, but he’d have to come down to their Takapuna office to collect it.
“Oh,” he said weakly: it’d take about as long as the drive to the city, and was there even a bus?
Or they could send a mechanic up, they offered brightly; when would he need to use the car again? Weakly he admitted that he didn’t actually need it today. Briskly they told him that that was all right, then, they’d have a mechanic up there some time this afternoon. He agreed meekly to this.
He went upstairs, found a bedroom that seemed to be unoccupied, and methodically unpacked his bag. Resolutely he ignored the saner little voice at the back of his mind which was asking him what the Hell he thought he was doing, and why didn’t he get the Hell out of it before... He refused even to listen to what came after “before”, got into his swimming trunks and a short-sleeved shirt, and went downstairs to the patio pool.
In the living-room he draped his second cousin’s now definitely snoring form in a light blanket—doing his best to avert his eyes from the view—and proceeded to the patio, where he swam vigorously for nearly an hour in a quite unsuccessful attempt to wipe that curvy little feminine vision from his consciousness.
Mirry came to slowly, rather surprised to find herself on a couch in the living-room. She looked dopily at the blanket...
“Ooh!” She sat up abruptly, clutching it to her.
A tall, broad-shouldered male figure appeared at the French doors. “How’s the head?” it said in a soft Scotch accent.
“It does ache a bit,” she admitted weakly.
“Aye, I thought it might!” he replied, strolling inside, grinning down at her. Mirry saw with interest that he was now wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of shorts; his legs were long and well-shaped, covered with a lot of golden hair that was strangely pretty; looking at it out of the corner of her eye she felt a bit funny: men weren’t supposed to be pretty, were they? His nose, she could see now that the light wasn’t behind him any more, was a bit red; she looked at him doubtfully and said: “You’re not getting too much sun, are you?”
“What?”
She pinkened, and explained: “Your nose is a bit red.”
He gave a sheepish grin and touched it gingerly. “Is it? I put plenty of sunscreen cream on it, though.”
“Ye-ah; the sun out here’s awfully strong,” she replied dubiously.
“I know; I used to live here,” he said, smiling.
Mirry was still far from convinced that he knew what he was doing; his skin was so very fair, wasn’t it? Absurdly, her heart was hammering. She’d always gone for guys with a really good tan, hadn’t she? Boys! she suddenly thought scornfully: that’s all they were: stupid boys! She directed a tremulous smile at the big cousin who was very far from being a boy, and said—in a stupid, squeaky little voice that she could have kicked herself for: “Did you?”
“Mm, down in Taranaki,” he murmured.
“We come from there!”
“Aye, I know.” He smiled at her again and Mirry’s stomach did that stupid lurch-and-drop thing again. “Can I get you something for that head?” he added.
“Y— No, it’s all right, I’ll go—”
“No, no,” he said with a laugh in his voice. “You stay there.”
She sank back into the squashy black leather couch, clutching the blanket. Ooh, help! Had he said it was rum in that ruddy juice? She must’ve been really drunk… Ooh, help! She hugged the blanket tightly to her.
In one of the upstairs guest bathrooms Hamish gripped the cool edge of the basin, and drew several deep breaths. Damn! Why the Hell had he been trying to kid himself... The damn blanket hadn’t made the slightest difference! It felt as if his blood was doing a crazy dance in his veins. He splashed his face with cold water and tried grimly to tell himself that he was acting like a damned adolescent. God, he hadn’t felt like this for... For far too long, he thought involuntarily, and with such tremendous bitterness that he shocked himself. He looked dazedly at the familiar, rather bony Scottish face in the mirror with its topping of short red-gold curls, just beginning to silver at the temples, and grimaced ferociously. Now that the rum had worn off, she probably wouldn’t... She’ll probably think I’m as old as the hills, he decided sourly.
But as he went down the stairs, the crazy dance of the blood was on again in his veins.
Meekly accepting two Panadol tablets and a glass of water, Mirry said in a small voice: “Was I asleep for ages?”
He glanced at his watch and forced a smile. “Getting on for three hours, I’d say.”
“Oh.”
“Combined affects of too much sun and too much rum.”
“Yeah. I think I’ll go up and—and get dressed.” Her voice wobbled as she remembered she didn’t have anything to put on except the dress she’d worn to the wedding; and that was no good: if he hadn’t noticed it yesterday it wasn’t going to have any effect on him today, was it?
“I would,” he agreed on a dry note.
“We-ell...” said Mirry, attempting to get up and simultaneously wind the blanket round her little curved form.
Hamish watched her in some amusement, but as she trailed out of the room with the blanket coming unwound he was visited by an acute spasm of lust. When she’d disappeared he dropped his head into his hands.
“No, I’ll cook!” insisted Mirry, reddening.
“It’s nae bother: I’m used to it—I always cook for masel’ at home!”
Cripes, what the Hell sort of home life must he have? Of course he was married: he must be, at his age—and so attractive, too...
“Well, all right,” she replied dubiously. “But I’ll help.”
“Don’t you trust me?” he asked with a smile.
Mirry didn’t: more because he was Scotch than because he was male. Didn’t they live off haggis and porridge, over there? And scones, she rather thought scones were Scotch, too.
“Well?”
Jumping, she assured him that she did trust him, of course; only...
“Only what?” said Hamish in a very dry voice.
“I’m practically a vegetarian, actually,” said Mirry loftily.
“Oh, aye?” He looked hard at the pan full of bacon fat on the posh ceramic-top stove, and said: “What’d this be, then?”
“Aw, that,” said Mirry weakly. She caught his eye and gave a naughty little giggle. “That was a lapse!”
He wanted so much to put his arms round her and cuddle her that it was an ache in his bones. Feeling himself to be dry and unresponsive—elderly—he replied weakly: “I see.”
She looked at him with her head on one side like a dear little bright-eyed bird. Swallowing, he managed: “Well, let’s see what there is, shall we?” and opened the door of the huge fawn refrigerator.
Mirry of course had already inspected the fridge and knew that there was nothing much in it but a plastic bottle of milk, a few cartons of juice, half a packet of unsalted butter and some eggs. He was looking rather dashed; she said quickly: “Most of the food’ll be in the big chest freezer, I expect.” She darted across to it and pushed up the heavy lid. “Ooh, yes—there’s stacks of stuff in here!” She bent right into it and delved enthusiastically.
Hamish looked at the bum—now in a pair of Polly’s white shorts that were far too big but that she’d gathered in tightly at the waist with a pink belt of Polly’s—and recognized grimly that it was going to be damn near impossible to get through an evening with her without making a pass.
“Heck!” said Mirry. “Look! This is salmon!”
A faint interest in matters culinary flickered in him; he came and looked over her shoulder. “Yes; so it is; would it be local, I wonder?”
“I dunno. I think they do catch it down in the South Island. I’ve never had it, though.”
She sounded rather wistful; he looked at the plastic-wrapped shape and said: “A pity it’s frozen.”
Mirry wasn’t listening; she hauled out another package and said doubtfully: “It says here ‘Guinea fowl.’ Would that be right? It looks like a chook.”
“Aye, that’s right. Haven’t you ever had that, either?”
“No,” she said in a muffled voice, scrabbling in the freezer. “I’ve never even heard of it... There’s some more, down here!”
She straightened suddenly and turned to face him, flushed and panting a little. Hamish’s eyes flickered down involuntarily to the yellow sleeveless knit top that she’d tucked tightly into the shorts. –An old jumper of Polly’s that had shrunk disastrously in the wash: even after ruthless sleeve-surgery its owner could no longer get into it: it therefore fitted Mirry rather snugly, and she was very pleased with it.
“I reckon we could eat one of them, there’s plenty of them; what do you think?” she said eagerly.
“What?” he stuttered. “But—but they’re frozen; they’d never thaw in time.”
Heck! It was the nineteen-eighties, for Heavens’ sale, not the blimming nineteenth century! They must be really backward in Scotland! Even Mum had a microwave, though she’d sworn she wouldn’t have one in the house when they first came out; now, of course, she couldn’t do without it.
“We can thaw it in the microwave,” she said, trying not to let the scorn show.
“Oh.”
“It’d be just like chicken, wouldn’t it? It’s about the same size.”
“E-er... no; it’s more of a gamey taste, really.”
This time the scorn did show. “No; to defrost, I mean! It’s about the same size as a chook!”
“Oh—yes,” he agreed weakly.
By the time she’d inspected the microwave’s terrifying battery of controls and declared it was “just like Mum’s” he’d pulled himself together to the extent of being able to say teasingly: “Can a practically vegetarian eat Guinea fowl?”
Loftily Mirry replied: “I can make an exception; it’s red meat that I tend to avoid, actually.” She then proceeded to tell him just why red meat and animal fats weren’t good for you, and how the Japanese diet was much healthier than the Western one.
Hamish listened in considerable amusement which he concealed, he thought, rather well. “Aye, well,” he said when she’d finished. “That may all be very well out here, or in Japan; but in a Scottish winter you need something a bit more solid round your ribs!” He thumped his own ribs and gave a little laugh.
Mirry looked at him narrowly. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that; you wanna watch it; you’re practically at the dangerous age for heart attacks.”
“Thanks very much!” he gasped. “Just how old do you imagine I am?”
“Aw, I dunno...” she said vaguely. “In your forties?”
“Forty,” he said crossly. He’d only just had a birthday.
“Well, there you are,” she replied seriously. “It’s time to start watching your diet.”
Flattened, he offered to look for some vegetables. But naturally, since Jake and Polly were intending to be away for ten days: a few days up at the bach, then a week with an old friend of Jake’s in Taupo who ran a so-called “ecolodge”—not much more than a motel with good home cooking, really—there were no fresh vegetables in the house.
“Frozen?” he suggested, feeling pretty sure he’d got the hang of it now. By God, he thought, remembering the backyard vege gardens and chook-runs of his youth, the New Zealand way of life has changed a bit in the last twenty years, hasn’t it?
Mirry looked dubious. “Maybe I could pop down to the dairy.”
It was getting on for six o’clock, but the sun was still beating down. “In this heat?”
She giggled. “It’s not really that hot!”
Hamish ignored this. “It’s a pity they couldn’t fix that bluidy car.” The mechanic had come while Mirry was asleep, peered dispiritedly into the thing’s works, and finally hooked it up to his truck and carted it off.
“I know!” she cried. “I’ll take Polly’s car: she said I could!”
“Have you ever driven one of those Mercedes sports models before?”
“No, but—”
“Then you’re not going to start now!”
Mirry forgot her determination to be really grown-up with him and retorted fiercely: “What makes you think you can boss me around?”
Grinning, he replied: “The fact that I’m twice your age—and bluidy nearly twice your height and weight!”
Mirry went scarlet. “You’re a male chauvinist pig! I bet you give your wife absolute Hell!”
“No; she gives me Hell, actually,” he replied neutrally.
Mirry gulped.
Silence reigned in the smart knotty-pine kitchen.
Eventually Mirry said in a very small voice: “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he replied grimly.
She shot him a tiny, scared look.
“Don’t worry,” he said, still grim. “I’m not going to give you the ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’ line; the fact is, she understands me all too well.”
Mirry was totally at a loss. She’d never in her life talked to a married man about his relationship with his wife; in fact, she hadn’t even talked before as an equal with any married men, the determinedly lower-middle-class society to which she belonged not being one to encourage fraternization across age and sex demarcations. “Oh,” she said awkwardly. She looked at him cautiously. He looked very cross; she swallowed, and looked quickly away again.
Hamish was silently cursing himself. God knew how he’d expected her to respond to that one: she was only a kid, for Christ’s sake! “Look, Mirry, I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said that; forget it, eh?”
Mirry was thinking how miserable he must be, to have said a thing like that about his marriage. She was very near tears. She nodded hard, not looking at him, and said: “Okay. Shall I—shall I just walk down to the dairy, then?”
“What?” He’d forgotten all about the initial object of their discussion. “Oh—yes. The vegetables.” He ran a hand through his hair and said: “Yes, let’s walk.”
The burly Dave Cooke who owned the Pohutukawa Bay Dairy looked with great interest at the tall Scotch bloke who was staying up at the Carrano place and the little dark-haired girl with him. Well, well, well! And very nice work, too, if ya could get it!
Hamish was disappointed to find that the little shop had no mushrooms. Helpfully Mirry investigated the shelves and suggested tinned ones.
“E-er—no, not really...” He eventually bought onions, potatoes and carrots; Mirry, having appointed herself in charge of the salad, chose a lettuce, some very nice-looking tomatoes, and a beetroot. Hamish looked sideways at the beetroot but said nothing; quite probably she intended to cook it in the microwave.
“What about some of these?” suggested Dave, proffering a small plastic packet. “They’re very popular, these days.”
“Ooh, bean sprouts!” Mirry peered earnestly at them and reported: “They look nice and fresh; but they’re a bit dear, though.” She looked doubtfully up at Hamish.
“Go on, get them if you want them!” he said with a chuckle.
As Dave weighed and wrapped things, Mirry looked sideways at Hamish. It was such a hot day; she was dying for an ice cream, but she didn’t think she had quite enough money with her. But he didn’t seem to think of it; and she couldn’t suggest it, it’d sound rude. The fat shop man was telling Hamish a long story about Doc Browne that used to live up the hill and some vegetable he always used to ask for that he’d never heard of. Unobtrusively she opened the little green satin purse that matched the dress she’d worn yesterday, and tried to count her change. Twenty cents; and a five-cent piece; and a couple of two-cents; was that a fifty? No, it was only another twenty-cent piece. The shop-man had finished his story; he and Hamish laughed.
Mirry said quickly: “Um, ’scuse me; how much is an ice-block?”
But the dairy had run out of ice-blocks. “I could do you a Trumpet; or how about an ice cream? I’ve got Raspberry Ripple, this week.”
Blushing, she croaked: “No thanks; I haven’t got enough money for an ice cream.”
“Here, let me get it!” Hamish said, laughing. He was disconcerted, however, to find how the eventual total ate into his stock of New Zealand dollars.
Outside the little shop they had an argument over who was going to carry the shopping: the lettuce being rather large, and the potatoes and tomatoes distinctly bulky, Dave had distributed things between two large plastic bags. Laughing, Hamish refused to let Mirry carry either of these. She got rather red and cross, and informed him that she wasn’t helpless. He refused to change his mind. They were half-way along Matai Street before the cross look wore off.
“Was the ice cream nice?” he asked cautiously.
“Yes—thank you very much!” she gasped, blushing.
“You’re very welcome.” He looked down at her, and realised she was having difficulty in keeping up with him. He stopped and ventured: “You don’t seem to be managing too well in those high heels.”
Mirry was wearing the high-heeled gold sandals she’d worn to the wedding: Polly’s shoes were too big for her. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “But would you like to take my arm?” He transferred the shopping bag in his right hand to his left, and crooked his arm for her.
She was obviously taken aback; he couldn’t quite see why, but he twinkled at her and said: “Or am I being a male chauvinist pig again?”
“No,” she said in a tiny voice, tucking her small, hot paw in his arm.
“That’s better,” he said, smiling, very tickled to see her face flame: so that was it! Conventional manners were no doubt very much out amongst her contemporaries; and in any case the Antipodean male was hardly famed for his gallantry towards the opposite sex. “Tell me if I’m going too fast,” he murmured.
“Yes,” said Mirry in a squeaky voice. He began to ask her about her subjects at university; after a while the strangeness of feeling her hand pressed against a man’s side wore off a little, and she was able to answer him fairly composedly.
Matai Street, which ran all along the lower border of Jake’s extensive property, was quite long but mercifully level. To get to the house, however, you had to turn left at the end of it and go up towards the cliff top along the much steeper Reserve Road, in the full glare of the evening sun. Hamish’s long legs seemed to make nothing of the slope in the heat, but after a little Mirry was humiliatingly aware that she was panting and that her legs didn’t seem to be working properly.
“Hamish!” she gasped, pulling at his arm. He looked down at her with a surprised sort of expression on his face. Red to the roots of her hair—as much from shame as the heat—Mirry panted: “Slow down!”
Hamish stopped abruptly. Huskily he said: “I’m sorry; was I going too fast? I suppose I was thinking about ma dinner!”
“It’s these shoes. They’re the ones I had on at the wedding—I haven’t got any others with me; I came straight here, you see.”
“I see. But what about those clothes?”
She looked fixedly at a point midway down his chest. “They’re Polly’s. She won’t mind.”
“No, of course not.”
She was silent; Hamish was aware of the thumping of his own heart against the background of the steady zinging of the cicadas from Jake’s grounds to their left and the Reserve to their right.
“Um,” she ventured: “I could take my sandals off.”
The footpath was a well-paved concrete one. “Aye, go on, then.”
Mirry took her sandals and dangled them from her right hand. Silently he offered his arm again. Silently she took it.
After a little she began to chatter about the wedding. Hamish responded abstractedly; she didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, but chattered on.
They were within a few yards of the gateway when she gave a sharp cry of pain, dropped her sandals, and grabbed his arm fiercely.
“What’s the matter?”
“I trod—on a stone!” she gasped, face contorted in pain, hopping and clinging to him.
“Here: let me see,” he said gently, putting down his shopping bags.
Grimacing, Mirry stood on one leg, fingers digging painfully into his forearm, and held up her slender foot.
“I can’t see anything. Where does it hurt?”
“My heel,” she mumbled.
“Ugh—did you come down hard on it?”
She gulped and nodded, compressing her mouth tightly. Sympathetically he said: “That’s horrible, isn’t it? Go on, cry if you like.”
“No!” she gasped, very red.
He put his free arm round her gently. “I won’t mind.”
“I’m not a baby!” she gritted. “Don’t keep patronising me!”
“I’m sorry,” he said lamely.
There was a silence. The blood thrummed in his ears. “Better now?” he croaked at last.
“Mm,” replied Mirry without conviction. She put her foot down gingerly, and winced.
He hefted the shopping. “Come on, then.”
Silently she picked up her sandals, and clinging grimly to his arm, hobbled along beside him a snail’s pace. Gradually Hamish grew more and more irritated—whether with himself or with her, he couldn’t have said.
When they reached the drive he stopped. “Now, look here: this is absurd! That foot’s obviously giving you Hell. I’m going to carry you the rest of the way—and don’t argue!”
“I think I’m getting a stone bruise,” she admitted in a small voice.
“Aye, I dare say,” he said grimly, shoving the handles of the plastic carrier-bags up his forearm. “Come here.” He lifted her up. “Put your arm round my neck.”
Mirry put an arm round his neck and held on tightly. “Can you manage? Shall I take the shopping?” she said in a muffled voice.
“No, I can manage,” he grunted.
Mirry said nothing. After a few moments she put her other hand, which was still clutching her sandals, against his shoulder for balance.
He managed the front door without having to set her down but Jake’s alarm defeated him. Gently he let her slide to her feet on the parquet of the front hall.
“Thanks,” she muttered, not meeting his eye.
He’d been very conscious of the movement of her body against his. She must, surely, have felt his erection? He looked doubtfully at the lowered head with its absurd plait, tied up with a bright pink bow. Was she embarrassed? Her ears were very red. Yes, he decided, with a rush of tender amusement, remembering the rum-induced forwardness by the pool: that must be it! “Why don’t you go and sit down?” he said gently. “I’ll come and look at that foot in a minute.”
“All right.” She hobbled off to the living-room.
They got through the business of Hamish inspecting Mirry’s foot quite well—she seemed meek and subdued. They got through the preparation of dinner quite well, too: he’d decided to leave her to it with the salad. She perched on a high stool, chopping and grating things with great concentration while he prepared the thawed Guinea fowl. He wasn't going to admit he’d never cooked one before; still, presumably one couldn’t go wrong with red wine, onion, and a wee bit of carrot. Mirry’s family kept to the traditional meat and three veg New Zealand diet—usually lamb, off their own land. She watched his operations with a bottle of Jake’s Australian shiraz in silent awe.
They got through dinner very well, too, with the help of a bottle of Jake’s excellent claret (not Australian)—although Hamish was somewhat taken aback to see that Mirry’s idea of a salad consisted of a large platter of neatly laid-out sliced and grated vegetables, including the beetroot, raw. With some difficulty he dissuaded her from eating it with the main course.
“Shall we have some pudding?” he suggested at last.
She smiled at him. “I don’t think we need any; I’m quite full, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he conceded. “Well, shall we do the washing-up and then have coffee?”
Of course Jake had a dishwasher. Politely Mirry refrained from comment when Hamish informed her that he’d never used one, as his wife didn’t believe in them. She superintended his loading of this gleaming monster, and pushed the requisite buttons herself.
But at the coffee and liqueurs stage it was a bit different. She curled herself up in a corner of a big puffy black leather couch with her legs tucked under her. Then an awkward silence fell.
Hamish licked his lips uneasily. “E-er... would you like a liqueur? A brandy, perhaps?”
“Um...” She’d never had brandy; Mum’d have a fit at the very idea.
He looked at the silly pink bow high on one side of the head, the flushed heart-shaped face, and the tender mouth, parted in hesitation, and realized all over again, with a queer kind of pain, just how very young she was. Suddenly he remembered her cousin Polly at very much the same age, rejecting brandy with a shudder, after one sip of his, but eagerly downing that ghastly sweet muck the French went in for—some sort of sirop. She’d probably like something sweet, then! He went over to the huge bar that occupied one corner of the enormous, split-level living-room, and began to laugh.
“What’s the joke?”
“He seems to have every liqueur known to man, here!”
Ooh, help: was he gonna ask which one she wanted? She didn’t know any of their names! But fortunately Hamish then said: “What sort of flavour would you like, Mirry? Orange? Peppermint? Ee-er... coffee? Chocolate?”
“I like peppermint,” said Mirry shyly.
He poured a small Crème de menthe for her and a much larger single malt for himself. Rather gingerly he sat down at the other end of the squashy black couch.
The very dark green look of the drink was a bit off-putting. Mirry tasted it cautiously. “Ooh! This is nice!” She smiled at him over the rim of the glass and confided: “I’ve never had it before.”
Gallantly Hamish refrained from laughing. As he couldn’t think of anything to say in reply that wouldn’t sound patronising he also, perforce, refrained from speech.
Mirry peeked at him doubtfully. “What’s yours?” she ventured.
“Eh? Oh—it’s a single malt.”
“Oh,” she said blankly.
Still managing not to laugh, he explained.
“What’s it taste like?”
“Oh... well, here!” A tiny shiver shook him as the sweet red mouth touched his glass.
Mirry made a face. “Ugh! I think my one’s nicer.”
“Aye, I thought you’d like Crème de menthe,” he agreed, retrieving his whisky.
“Mm.”
Then silence fell again. She peeked at him once or twice, and drank her liqueur in tiny sips. Hamish was damned if he could think of a thing to say; the hard-on didn’t bloody well help, either. At last he said weakly: “Would you like some music? Shall I put a record on?”
“That’d be nice,” agreed Mirry in relieved tones.
I suppose, he thought gloomily, going over to the big bank of electronic gear, that she’s into all that disco crap: whatever I choose’ll be wrong. There was a great selection, and left to himself he could happily have played records for several weeks; Jake had the old Decca Ring, he saw, looking at Polly’s favourite Wagner recordings with approval; what seemed to be all of Beethoven, in several versions; Mozart; Bach; Telemann; a whole clump of moderns, some of them recordings which Hamish himself didn’t have, and a massive jazz collection. He became suddenly aware of the silence in the room; reddening, he said hurriedly, and without pausing to reflect: “What sort of music do you like, Mirry?”
Damn! It couldn’t have been worse phrased; but the shy little voice replied: “I like Bach; Jake and Polly have got lots of Bach, I think... Do you like him?”
Hugely relieved, Hamish put on a recording of the Brandenburgs.
Mirry beamed at him. “I know this!”
“Aye—it’s one of the Brandenburgs,” he grunted, subsiding onto his end of the couch again.
After a considerable amount of Bach, another Crème de menthe, and two more whiskies, they found the awkwardness had just about worn off, and they were getting on rather well together. Mirry revealed shyly that she’d only just discovered Bach last year: Mum didn’t like classical music, so they never listened to it at home. But there was a club at varsity: she’d thought it would only be for very musical people, but it was lovely: they played records and sometimes there’d be a talk, and sometimes some of the people from the Music Department—here she blushed, and stumbled: “I mean the Conserv— Conservator—” “Aye, I know what you mean: fancy name for the Music Department, eh?” Giggling, she agreed. Sometimes they played things, and that was lovely, though sometimes it was very modern stuff that was a bit... “Difficult?” suggested Hamish with a tiny smile. Mirry sighed and agreed, adding that she wasn’t really very musical, she was afraid. Hamish, by this time reclining at his ease with one arm along the back of the big couch, smiled again, and said that modern music was something one had to learn about, really. Oh, said Mirry gratefully, was it? “Aye...” and he began to talk about some of his own experiences, and some of the concerts he’d been to.
When Mirry went off to the loo he got up and—not asking himself what the Hell he was doing—deliberately turned off all the lights except for a couple of lamps. Jake’s record cabinets didn’t seem to contain anything that could have been called dance music that was more recent than some Big Band swing stuff from the Forties—original recordings, he wouldn’t have dared to touch them, even if he'd thought she’d recognise it as dance music—but he found a Charlie Bird LP that’d do.
“How’s the foot?” he smiled, when she returned.
“Miles better!” said Mirry happily. “You know what it’s like when you step on a stone: it hurts like mad at first, but it wears off after a bit.”
“Mm; well, what about a dance?”
“Um, but it isn’t dance music, is it?”
“Does that matter?”
She fidgeted, then burst out: “I don’t really know how to do those old-time dances!”
“I suppose you only do this disco-dancing,” returned Hamish grimly.
“Yeah,” she muttered, sitting down again.
He bent forward suddenly and leaned his head in his hands.
Mirry looked at him uncertainly. Was he upset? Her heart was hammering: she did want to dance with him, awfully; only... she was a bit scared. She looked at his strong back, in its clean white shirt—he’d insisted on putting on a clean shirt for tea: “changing for dinner,” just like in a book! Nothing on earth would have induced her to put on the failed green dress from yesterday, so she’d said that she didn’t have anything to change into, and he’d said she didn’t need to change, she looked as pretty as a picture as she was. This was both patronising and the male chauvinist thing again, of course. She’d felt herself recognising it and at the same time not being able to work herself up to resenting it—it was a very funny feeling. Instead, she’d blushed like a schoolkid, he must’ve thought she was a nit!
But suddenly the way he’d smiled at her came back to her and she found the courage to say: “Maybe you could teach me.”
“What?” he replied dully.
Trembling inwardly, heart thumping painfully, Mirry repeated: “Maybe you could teach me those dances.”
He sat up abruptly. “Aye! Mebbe I could! We mustn’t tire your foot, though.”
“No,” she agreed vaguely, thinking that he had a really lovely voice: that Scotch accent: it was like a big cat purring, wasn’t it?
“You tell me as soon as it hurts, eh?” said Hamish, standing up and holding out his hands to her.
“Mm,” replied Mirry vaguely, putting her hands in his.
It was just as well that Mirry—who might have been not-quite-twenty but who knew more about male courting behaviour than her second cousin suspected—had no real expectation of being taught anything—or not anything about old-time dances; because of course he only put his hands on her waist, pulled her against his body and sort of swayed, hardly moving his feet at all, really. He didn’t say anything, so she didn’t, either. The music tinkled softly. Mirry could hear his heart beating and smell his body smell—not sweat, exactly, but the smell that was him, plus an alcoholic, smoky sort of smell that after some thought she decided must be the whisky. They danced like that during two tunes. Then he pulled her closer. She could feel his dick pressing against her. Mirry knew that when boys got very quiet when they were dancing with you and then held your waist, they were working up to pressing their dicks against you. So men—quite old, too—were just the same! They never came out and said anything, did they? It was quite interesting, actually: they did it as a sort of signal—because of course it always meant they wanted to do it with you. She wasn’t experienced enough to understand the pleasure that these odd male creatures had from the contact itself, or to realize that her silent big cousin was practically in ecstasy. But she did know that if you went on letting them dance like that they got the idea that you wanted to do it with them. She went on letting him dance like that.
After quite a bit of this the record stopped, and Hamish went and turned it over.
When he came back he put his hands on her waist again; then he suddenly put his arms right round her, with his hands on her back. He leaned his cheek on her hair; she could hear him breathing. Mirry’s hands had been politely, on his shoulders; now she slipped them under his arms and held his back. Her breasts were squashed against his chest.
“Oh, Mirry!” whispered Hamish in a shaken voice.
Her grasp tightened on his back. If she looked up into his face he’d probably— She looked up into his face.
Hamish kissed her.
Mirry responded enthusiastically. Hamish went on kissing her for some time. When he fumbled at a breast she sighed deeply, hauled his shirt-tail up, and slipped her hands up under the shirt onto his bare back. He shuddered against her and began to mumble at her neck. Her head went back and she responded with a gratifying series of small gasps.
“Mirry—” he said huskily at last.
The slanted brown eyes opened and looked directly into his. “What?”
“I don’t think this is a very good idea,” he croaked.
Since his body was very plainly telling her that it was a marvellous idea, Mirry wasn’t disturbed by this rubbish. She slid her hands gently down his back, then reached quickly to put them round his neck, pulling his head down to hers, tiptoeing against him.
The pixie face was very close; the eyes were wide and slightly glazed, the sweet red bow of a mouth just open. Dizzily Hamish muttered: “Are you sure you want to?”
“Yes,” said Mirry confidently.
He gave in and let her pull his face to hers…
“God, Mirry!” he gasped at last, drawing a sobbing breath.
Mirry was dying to touch him, but since he was so much older than her, didn’t quite dare. His face was against her shoulder; she turned her head and gently kissed his cheek.
Hamish gave a tiny groan and put his hand on her breast again. Not a few boys had done that to Mirry; this was nothing like that. It was wonderful, wonderful—he was wonderful... She touched him.
Hamish jumped and gasped.
“Isn’t that all right?” said Mirry huskily, quickly withdrawing her hand.
He looked into her face and smiled dazedly. “Oh, aye—that’s all right...” The attempt at a sophisticated, off-hand tone failed lamentably. He flushed as the brown eyes looked at him doubtfully, and with a shaking hand slid his zip down. “Hold ma cock,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
Mirry did. It was very big, and had that rubbery sort of feel that they did when they were all stiff. She rubbed it gently. “Ooh!” she said in surprise.
He had flexed in her hand; he gave a shaky laugh and said into her neck: “It’s been so long since I...”
“Oh,” said Mirry in a very small voice. Did he do it with his wife? Perhaps he didn’t, any more? A searing pain unexpectedly stabbed her at the thought that maybe he did, and that the “my wife gives me Hell” thing had only been a line, after all. Stupid! she told herself fiercely. It’s only a— It’ll never come to anything. He kissed her again and she managed to stop thinking at all.
When she rubbed him again he gave a sort of groan, hauled the yellow sleeveless top fiercely out of the tight pink belt, and pushed it right up, exposing her breasts. Mirry found she was blushing like an idiot. This was dumb! After all, he’d seen her with nothing on, out on the patio.
Hamish cupped her face gently in one hand. “Sweetheart,” he said softly, suddenly quite self-confident again, “don’t be shy.”
“I’m not!” said Mirry, in a sort of cross squeak.
“I want to look at your tittles,” he explained. The soft Scotch voice seemed to rumble right through her; her belly leaped.
Hamish felt her reaction; colour flooded his face and he dropped his head to her breasts.
“Ooh!” squeaked Mirry.
“Darling,” mumbled Hamish against her breasts. Dazedly Mirry felt her nipple stiffen in his mouth; ooh, it was so... she’d never...
“Oh, Hamish!” said Mirry loudly, clutching his back so tight she could feel the flesh give a little under her fingernails.
In a shaken voice her second cousin replied: “I think we’d better go to bed, don’t you?
“Yes,” agreed Mirry firmly.
“What?” she said groggily. He’d been kissing her down there, it was incredibly marvellous; no-one had ever done that to her before; she’d read about it, of course, but she’d never realized that it was like that!
“I said,” repeated Hamish loudly and crossly, “that it’s been over two years since I had a woman!” The minute the phrase was out of his mouth he realized how male chauvinist it sounded; but he hadn’t meant... He looked up at her miserably.
“Has it?” she said in a soft little voice.
Unexpectedly he wanted to weep. He laid his cheek gently against her soft wee belly and elaborated: “Aye. I won’t be any good to you; I won’t be able to keep it up; I’ll just go bang the minute I touch you!”
In Mirry’s experience they always did go bang the minute they touched you, or at the most after only a few seconds’ hard, furious, and uncomfortable pumping. And then, after the things he’d just been doing she was so helplessly his slave that she’d have agreed to anything at all that he wanted to do. So she replied: “That’s all right. You just go ahead and enjoy yourself.”
Sweet, generous wee thing! Hoarsely he said: “Darling; I—I wish I... I’ll make sure you enjoy it, anyway, one way or another.”
Mirry was rather confused by this statement, which seemed to contradict what he’d only just said; so she said nothing, just stroked his short red curls.
“Can I—now?” he croaked.
“Yes, of course,” she replied politely.
He gave a funny laugh, sat up, and reached for the packet of condoms. He’d gone scarlet when, as they sat down on the big bed in his room Mirry, who wasn’t shy about sex itself, only about doing it with a man rather than a boy, had said frankly: I suppose we’d better practise safe sex; have you got any condoms?” The generation gap had suddenly seemed enormous to Hamish: he’d been about to ask her if she was on the Pill. He’d stuttered and stammered; she’d bounced up, saying cheerfully: “I expect there’ll be some in your bathroom cabinet, there are in mine!” Sure enough, the Carranos’ hospitable care for their guests’ welfare included their sexual well-being. Hamish had laughed weakly. Mirry hadn’t seen the joke.
Now Mirry kindly offered to draw the condom on for him. He pushed her hand away hurriedly, annoyed to feel a flush creeping up to his hair.
“You don’t have to be shy about it,” said Mirry in some surprise. She looked at him with frank interest and added: “You’ve got a big dick, haven’t you? Will those be the right size?”
“Jesus,” he said faintly.
“What’s the joke?” she said mildly.
“You; I mean— You’re so matter-of-fact!”
“Ya have to be, don’t you? Here; let me—” She reached for him again.
“No!” He caught the little hand before it could touch him. “You’ve got me so damned excited; I think I might just go bang if you touch me.”
“Oh—right.”
Her eyes were glued to him as he drew the thing on; he didn’t know whether to be pleased or embarrassed.
“Well, at least it fits!” she said in relief.
Hamish was going to say something off-hand, and found he couldn’t. He kissed her fiercely, and pushed her back down onto the bed, putting his not inconsiderable weight on her.
“Go on, then,” she said, hugging him.
He was so gentle at first: Mirry couldn’t believe it, as—panting heavily and exercising such tremendous restraint that he felt as if it was half-killing him—he probed cautiously and said: “Is this is it? I don’t want to hurt you—it’s a wee bit hard to feel what I’m doing, with this damned thing on.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s right.”
Naturally at this point he should have shoved it in hard; only he didn’t: he did it very slowly, and kind of groaned. Mirry was so surprised that she was quite incapable of concentrating on the very nice feeling she started to have down there.
First he kissed her frantically; then he started to move in her; then he stopped, gritted his teeth and said in a despairing sort of voice: “Mirry—sweetheart—I just can’t hold back for you; God—I’ll have to come!”
Mirry kissed his chin. “Go on, then.”
Then all of a sudden he wasn’t gentle at all; he pushed, and bucked and gasped, and started to sweat very hard; then he said very loudly some rude words that Mirry hadn't thought he was the type to use, and gave a sort of sob; unexpectedly she was very hot down there and hugged him tight and said: “Darling!”
At which he came shatteringly—with a hoarse scream, startling her horribly. Mirry was a bit scared. When he collapsed on her, sobbing for breath, she just touched his sweaty curls timidly, hoping he was all right.
A little while after that she was initiated into the concept of being taken care of “one way or another.” She’d never experienced anything so wonderful in all her life.
Quite some time later she sighed against his chest, and said: “Ooh, Hamish; that was wonderful!”
“I’m glad,” he said, kissing the damp black hair.
“No-one ever—ever did that to me before.”
“Is that so?”
“Mm... I liked it.”
“Aye, I thought mebbe you did!” he gasped, laughing helplessly.
Suddenly she giggled against his chest; he hugged her fiercely and said: “Och, Mirry: you’re the sweetest wee thing I’ve ever known!”
“Am I?” said the matter-of-fact Mirry in surprise.
Hamish gave a laugh that turned into a sob. He hid his face against those lemon-like, perky breasts, and wept. The bewildered Mirry held him gently, unable to think of anything to say.
At last he drew a shuddering breath and said: “I’m sorry; it’s—it’s been so long, you see. I was beginning to think that mebbe—mebbe I’d never do it with a woman again; I’ve been feeling so damned dried up and—and elderly, these last couple of years!”
“‘In the sere and yellow leaf?’” she quoted thoughtfully.
“Aye—something like that!” he agreed with a weak smile.
“That’s silly,” said Mirry serenely. “You’re not that old. And you’re awfully attractive.”
He gave a very shaky laugh. “Thanks! Uh—would you like a drink, sweetheart?”
“No, thanks, I m not thirsty,” replied Mirry simply. “You have one, if you like.”
“No, I’m not thirsty either,” he murmured, snuggling up. Suddenly he yawned widely.
“Go to sleep,” she said, closing her eyes.
Hamish went to sleep with a smile on his face.
Next chapter:
https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-decision.html