The Sea

"Darling, we've only just finished."

"Well," she teased, "if you're not man enough to please a girl."

At this she took my limp cock and put it into her mouth. Immediately I could feel it rise on her tongue and her teeth. My body felt wholly subsumed to her power. We did not leave the room at all until the following morning. During that time I must have fucked her ten, eleven, twelve times. By then my cock ached so much it hurt and when Sophie walked to the bathroom she limped.

During the five days of Robert's absence we barely left our own self-absorbed, erotic, sexually charged world that was my small, attic room. Even when we weren't fucking we said little. I think we understood all we had to say to each other, without the encumbrance of actually saying it.

It was, I now see all too clearly, a terrible failure to have experienced all that so young. Twenty five was a tragically early age to have been emotionally and sexually spent.

One night during one of our snatched moments of sleep, Sophie woke me up, wanting badly to go to the beach and swim in the sea; it was three o'clock and still dark but she was insistent. It was a warm night with a moderate breeze and a three quarter moon.

When we first got there we stood in silence and gazed at the distant horizon. Since Robert's departure we had deliberately avoided listening to any news but the sight of the horizon reminded me of the world beyond my attic bedroom. I realised now that the invasion could just be beyond that horizon

Then she turned to me and said, "I suppose it could."

Startled, I said, "Could what?"

"Be beyond the horizon."

I stared at her in disbelief. I had said nothing.

She then took my hand and pulled me to the nearest dune but I stopped her.

"No," I demanded, "I want you to go into the sea first."

"Why?"

"Because I want to lick and taste the salt water on your skin."

Afterwards she lay on her back with her head on my legs whilst I read Yeats to her from memory.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

You eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved you moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Why of all poems did I choose that one? It seems that loss was already invading our affairs. I did not see that then.

The next day Sophie came into my room wearing, uncharacteristically, a rather shabby dress that I had not previously seen. She had one of her mischievous smiles on her face that always set my heart racing. She threw her arms around me and asked, "Do you like my dress?"

"Well, yes it's...very nice."

Then she planted her lips lightly on mine and said, almost in a whisper, "The buttons are very loose. I want you to rip them off and then fuck me very, very hard. Rip them, mind you, not undo them. And hard, do you understand? No kissing, no touching my tits, don't say anything just a quick, raw fuck. Do you understand?"

She was even louder than usual this time and when I had finished she yelled in triumph, "Yes, yes!"

Fifty five years later I still find it hard to pick up a pen and write the end of this story. I still find it hard to believe it happened so quickly and so......irretrievably.

The morning after our nocturnal beach visit we were awakened by the ringing of the outside door bell. It was only six o'clock. We sat up, terrified. Our main fear was that it was Robert but there no trains at this time of the day. Sophie got up and ran out on to the landing where it was possible to look out of a window and see the outside door. Sophie ran back and cried, "It's Mrs. Henderson. What can she possibly want, she's supposed to be on holiday? It's bound to be something to do with Robert. Please answer it, Hugh, I must go to the bedroom and make it look as though I've been there."

After speaking to Mrs. Henderson Sophie came back breathless and pale.

"They've invaded the western part of the capital. They could be here in ten days. Robert is coming home. Apparently he's telephoned numerous times and in the end called Mrs. Henderson to come here. Robert says we have to leave."

She then paused and stared silently at me. Imploringly? Apologetically? I've never been sure but like that moment on the beach it was not necessary to say anything.

For the next hour as we waited for Robert's return we spoke very little -- what was there to say? Robert was close to panic when he came. I barely thought about the dangers we faced if we were captured; the loss of Sophie was my solitary thought.

Robert aggressively ordered Sophie to pack only essentials and in thirty minutes they were ready to go. For a moment Robert calmed down and looked at me, whether he had any suspicions I don't know. He turned to me and said, "Sorry old sport, you can't come with us, you'll have to fend for yourself. We're going up north to Sophie's sister."

He held out his hand in a gesture of apology and a farewell. I limply shook it and he marched to the door. Sophie followed him and just on the threshold turned around to look at me. That moment and the look on her face have remained frozen in my memory for fifty five years. I see it now as clearly as I did then. What has preserved it was its inscrutability. What did it mean? Countless times I have run through the possibilities but I have only silence as an answer.

Then she turned away and went through the door and I have never in all the rest of my life seen her again.

After this I drowned myself in Robert's expensive whiskey for the next two days and on the third day was violently ill. When I recovered I felt with great urgency the need to get out of that house: it was like sharing a room with a corpse.

When I finally walked out of the door I realised it was raining, something that had not happened for months. I walked down the long, extravagant steps to the path and turned around to take one final glimpse of the house. Buried inside it were things people would never know and, I mused, indeed hoped, that Sophie's and my ghost would haunt that small attic room and in the dead of night the occupants would be woken by Sophie's cries and gasps. Now, however, it looked like some kind of absurd, ghoulish joke but inside of it the better part of me would remain. And, of course, her.

I turned away, as she had turned away from me, buttoned up my coat, put on my hat and walked to the bus stop in the rain.