Who I Am

The restaurant was busy and noisy, noisy enough for them to believe that their conversation would not be heard. They were sitting close enough for their bodies to touch. Things were moving and quickly. Sobia was wearing a beautiful, light blue shirt with nothing underneath it, offering Luke plentiful opportunities for a serious a study of her nipples. He was also able to see that, despite being unfettered, her breasts had lost nothing of their shape.

The conversation centred on their respective, romantic entanglements as each one tried to ascertain the strength and depth of the opposition.

"Fifty five!"

"I know," she said, with that girlish laughter that always laid Phillip out, "it's crazy. I just was fascinated to know what it would be like with someone so much older. You know, an experience to put under your belt? But nothing long term, of course. We have an arrangement which recognises that it is important we have relationships of....you know...a more normal kind."

"What kind of relationships?"

"Oh, anything really. I know he sees a woman called Isabel and I know he sleeps with her sometimes."

Luke was being slowly ensnared.

"Don't you mind?"

"No," she said, as though she had merely told him that sometimes he is late home, "I've met a her quite a few times, she's very nice and, of course, nearer to his age."

Luke wanted to ask her if she too slept with other men, nearer her own age, but just in time he realised that, as things had been developing between them since they arrived, it would reek of self interest. He opted instead for flattery, the barometer by which Sobia measured the progress she was making with any man, whether she intended to fuck him or not.

"Well, that's the kind of attitude towards relationships I would like to have, but I don't think I'm up to that kind of arrangement. You impress me."

She smiled at him.

"Do I really?"

"Really."

"That's good. I was afraid it was only my tits that were impressing you."

He had been found out.

"It's all right, I'm flattered, really."

This was a favourite ploy of Sobia's and one that rarely failed: work hard to put someone at their ease and then wrong foot them completely. After that she reassured them that she was not offended, so they felt better, their relief masking the fact that the fact Sobia had taken control of the whole situation.

Then she placed her hand at the top of his leg, fractionally below his crotch and said, "If we were somewhere else, you might get an even better view."

They arrived at Luke's house almost an hour later, his desire for Sobia was so great by this time that he was becoming tetchy and introspective. Once inside he tried to control himself, influenced by the unhurried way that Sobia removed her coat and pointed casually upwards in the direction of the stairs, "This way?"

Luke's self control only just lasted long enough to get inside the bedroom door and then his hands were at the buttons of Sobia's blouse. Well, he had learned a little about this woman during the evening but not much. She firmly, but affectionately, grasped his hands and removed them from her chest before he had time to release a single button.

What followed was a master class of seduction and sexual power: nothing happened in the ensuing forty-five minutes that Sobia did not orchestrate. Her body and his was like a single, complex musical instrument that she manipulated to her desired effect; like all great virtuosi it appeared effortless. She pressed all the right buttons at precisely the right moments, held and released them with perfect timing, faultlessly attaining the desired effect again and again. Of course, Luke played his part but not independently any more than a beautiful piano starts playing without the pianist. Even his cock seemed more hers than his.

After Sobia removed his groping hands from the buttons of her blouse it was a further twenty minutes before she removed her blouse and bra; almost five more minutes before his large hands finally clasped her breasts and only a few minutes before they finished was he given a nipple to take into his mouth. Conscious that finding a taxi after midnight could be difficult, she controlled his final, jerking movement to coincide, almost, with her own.

So, in the end it was a relief for her to know that Luke was just like any other man: easily seduced by a woman's body and giving his last shot before she had barely started. Luke fell back into a kind of semi-comatose state, not wholly sure what had just happened. He had fucked a few women, not a large number, but had never been fucked. Now, Sobia had fucked him and for some to come he would no longer be a free man.

Now, Phillip and Sobia were clever people but not always as clever as they thought. Sobia tolerated Isabel, as Phillip was now having to tolerate Luke but in either case they would have preferred not to have to make the effort; the effort was a sore or a fault line that underlay their lives. Phillip set a terrible challenge to that effort when some time ago he introduced Isabel to the house, then allowed her to stay the night and eventually to share his bed. Of course, it is always difficult for a child to accept a new adult into the intimacy of their own home but in the long run it is something they sometimes have put up with. So it was that Sobia was packed off to bed on her own when Isabel came to stay, the young woman only being allowed to emerge once Isabel had gone. Occasionally, but not often, and only if Sobia had been good, she was rewarded with spending the night with Phillip and Isabel would sleep alone. But, the fault line widened and despite Sobia's recent explanation for her interest in the 'schoolboy', Phillip was feeling the strain'; or rather, feeling his age.

As the pressure on their relationship grew they only had one solution: more of the same. When the addict discovers the usual fix is not working the solution usually is not to kick the habit but resort to even bigger, more deadly doses.

On the night Sobia fucked Luke she had been given until one o'clock before she had to be home because Isabel was staying and Phillip was far more lenient with her when this happened. She opened the outside door as quietly as possible and crept along to the main room in the dark. Suddenly a voice terrified her.

"You've decided to come home then."

It was Phillip lying flat out on the sofa and so concealed from the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" She gasped. "Where is Isabel, I thought she was coming?"

He stood up and put on the light and she saw a sickening expression of anger and loathing on his face. He looked old.

"She couldn't make it, which you would have known if you had read any of the countless texts I sent you!"

He was scaring her now.

"I'm sorry, I didn't check them."

"No! Too busy having your cunt stuffed with the schoolboy's cock, no doubt."

"Phillip, please don't talk to me like that."

"Well, were you?"

"What?"

"You heard what I said. Was I right? Well go on, lie!"

She looked at him carefully for a few seconds but knew only the truth would count. She replied quietly.

"Yes, yes, you are right, that is exactly what I was doing."

It was the quiet way she spoke that disarmed him. She spoke again before he had time to reply and with great control but the control was becoming painful to sustain and a gradual shrillness started to infect her voice.

"Phillip, why is this happening? From the start these things happened, we agreed on that but for some reason things have altered. We have always been above jealousy. I mean, think of me. Sometimes you kick me out of bed to accommodate another woman! Do you realise that? I lie in bed, on my own, and just a short distance down the corridor you're fucking another woman."

She paused momentarily but when she resumed her voice was suffused with accusation.

"Did you know that sometimes I can actually hear you?"

He did not reply. He turned around and with his back to her said, "Go to your room, you're grounded for two days."

"Why? Tell me one thing I have done wrong. Have I disobeyed you?"

He did not move nor answer her question.

"Go to your room. By rights I should tan your backside until it's raw."

Then she asked him and risked throwing into the daylight what they had never before discussed from the moment they first came together. He was not prepared for the question and when it came he could not answer it.

"What right have you got to do this to me?"

He turned to face her and pressed his face into hers. He uttered a single word; uttered with indignant incredulity.

"Right? Right? You want right?"

The moment the word slipped from her lips she knew she had made a terrible mistake. He had been reeling, had seemed vulnerable until she had invoked 'right.'

"Well, you want 'right' or not?"

It was not necessary to repeat the question, she heard and knew exactly what it was and what it meant. He stared at her awaiting her reply but she could not meet his gaze and dropped her head in a gesture of complete abnegation. Her reply when it came was almost a whimper.

"No."

"Good. You know you have come very close to a thrashing, don't you?"

Again she nodded.

"Give me your phone. Tomorrow I will call your office and tell them you are ill. Do you have important meetings tomorrow?"

"Yes, I'm chairing both of them."

"They will find someone else. Go to your room. You can come out for meals only. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Go."

She went.

Sobia duly served her punishment. She remained in her room for two days, emerging only for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. During the period of her confinement she and Phillip did not exchange a single word.

On the day her punishment ended a note had been pushed underneath her bedroom door. It read, simply:

You're free. Isabel is here. See you tonight. Take care.

Phillip.

Sobia made some coffee. She was cold and the television was reminding her that this was one of the coldest Januarys for a long time. Shivering still, she made her way to Phillip's bedroom to see if Isabel was awake, which she was.

"Sobia, come in, how lovely to see you."

Sobia was equally pleased to see her despite some of the unkind things she sometimes said about her to Phillip.

Isabel spoke first.

"Are you all right? He was very harsh. I'm beginning to worry about him."

"Yes, so am I."

"He was going to cane you last night, did you know that?"

"I'm not surprised. I knew he was very angry."

"Has he caned you before?"

"Yes, twice."

They had never before discussed Phillip or their respective relationships with him so they were hesitant about developing this discussion.

"Darling you look cold," Isabel said. She then threw open the covers of the bed and said, "Come on, get in here with me."

Sobia removed her dressing gown to reveal she was wearing nothing underneath.

"No wonder you're cold, you're not wearing anything!"

"I never feel comfortable wearing anything in bed."

Sobia chuckled and got in, pulling the covers up to her chin. Isabel propped herself up on her elbow and scrutinised Sobia's face.

"You look tired, as well as cold," she told her.

"I know. I look terrible."

"I doubt if you could ever look terrible, even if you tried."

As she said this she brushed some loose strands of hair from Sobia's face. This kind gesture touched Sobia and she smiled affectionately in reply.

"May I ask you something, Sobia, something we've never spoken of before but please tell me to mind my own business, if that's what you feel?"

Isabel spoke carefully but tenderly.

"You have a very unusual relationship with Phillip, so do I, I know but in the end he pays me so I'm just a whore really and although all my clients are rich men and I earn my money in expensive houses and smart hotels it doesn't make me less of a whore, does it?"

They had never had a conversation like this. Isabel continued.

"But you're not a whore, darling, so why has this happened. Tell me to fuck off if you want."

Sobia's smile told her that she was comfortable with the conversation.

"It's simple -- he knows who I am and no-one else does. It really is that simple. I have to be with him for that reason alone. That's it."

It was a complex answer which Isabel did not understand but she decided not to pursue it. Instead she bent down and kissed her on the lips followed by a smile that simply said: 'I don't understand but I won't pursue it,' and kissed her again.

Suddenly Sobia felt relaxed and realised how rare this was and also, how grateful she was for Isabel's kindness. She thrust her arms from under the covers and threw them around Isabel in a huge hug and the two women lay, arms around each other, under the warm covers. Separately, and without confessing it, both felt a kind of peace that was, for both of them, rare.

"Isabel, I have to go, I haven't been to work for two days."

"Aren't you happy here, with me?"

"Yes, too happy for my own good, I think. But I have to go, I feel a wreck."

At this Isabel pulled the covers down as far as Sobia's naked waist and gazed at her body and without lifting her eyes said, "Well, if you're a wreck that doesn't hold up much hope for me, or the rest of the women in the world."

"You're an attractive woman, Isabel, you must know that," Sobia replied with sincerity.

"Well, I am now at the age where I have the kind of looks that gets by with the right clothes and makeup etcetera but strip that away and things aren't so good, I can promise you. But look at you."

Isabel placed her hand on Sobia's belly and gently pressed her fingers into various parts of it as a doctor might do searching for a vulnerable spot.

"You see," she concluded, "beautifully firm everywhere."

Then adding softly and with great affection, "take care of it, it won't last forever."

Sobia closed her eyes; moments like this, moments without struggle when there are no winners or losers, when there was no pain, were rare in her life, so she allowed herself, for now, to surrender to it.

Isabel gently put the tip of her finger at the lowest point of Sobia's neck and then slowly and still very gently, drew the finger down her body in a perfectly straight line: down her chest, between her breasts, all the way down to her belly, stopping just where her bush started. Then she followed the same route upwards, only the very tip of her finger touching Sobia's flesh. She did this continually for about five minutes.

Sobia quietly murmured, "I must go, Isabel, I must."

At this moment Isabel's finger was just above Sobia's belly button, on its way upwards but this time it veered from the straight line, over to her left breast and across the nipple. The surprise and pleasure this caused the young woman prompted a small sigh. Quickly the finger moves upwards slightly, across the chest and on to the other nipple, resulting in the same heart felt, appreciative sigh. Isabel opened the palm of her hand as wide as possible and placed it over Sobia's left nipple and rubbed it gently; the same with the other one. Once it both nipples were fully erect she bent down and softly kissed each one.

"Now you may go."

Suddenly they heard a noise from inside the house and they both sat up, fear written on their faces.

"What was that?" Isabel cried.

Before either could answer Phillip entered the bedroom, saw the two women in bed together, Isabel in her night clothes and Sobia naked as far as he could see. He froze in the doorway. The women, in turn, saw framed in the doorway an ugly symbol of bullying masculinity.

"Well, well, well. What have we here? I should have known a couple of dirty whores desperate for a fuck from anyone and everyone."

"Phillip!"

Isabel tried to intercede but she was cut down. Sobia was resigned to what ever circumstances would hand her and lay back in the bed.

Phillip reached inside his pocket, removed his wallet and took out a wad of notes and threw them at Isabel.

"Now get out and never, ever come in my sight again."

She fled.

Sobia showed extraordinary calm. She stared at him without expression: it was impossible to know what she was thinking or feeling.

"As for you," the depth of his anger strangely quietening him down, "I haven't got time now but I will later on, don't worry."

He left. Soon after she heard Isabel leave. Sobia wanted to speak to her but what could she say? 'Thank you for one of the rare, quiet moments in my life?' But that would only be a half truth, she knew, because you cannot have 'quiet' and the 'edge' in the same life.

She went to work, conscious of a gathering crisis. She worked robotically, partly there, partly not. At two minutes past four she was walking down a long corridor to another meeting. Behind her she heard a voice calling her.

"Not now, Monica, I'm on my way to a meeting, I told you that."

"It's the hospital. It's Phillip."

Minutes later she was in a taxi on her way there. When she arrived she was shown immediately to the Resuscitation Unit and everything that unfolded from that moment she now saw.

A middle aged doctor, who herself looked stressed and tired, took her to a small ante-room and explained that Phillip had suffered a massive heart attack.

"Has he any chance?" Sobia asked, as though some kind of protocol demanded it.

"I'm afraid not. I'm so sorry."

Sobia was shown into a room at the centre of which was a huge contraption with a thousand and one wires and tubes feeding into bleeping machines. Connected at the centre of it all was Phillip. Whether at this precise moment he was alive or dead seemed shockingly irrelevant.

For the next hour nurses and doctors came and went at intervals and glanced briefly at the bleeping machines. Then a young nurse came in, took only the briefest glance and left, almost immediately returning with the doctor Sobia had met when she first arrived. She too made a few brief readings and then came over to Sobia who remained seated and looked up at the doctor like hopeful child.

"Is he dead?"

The doctor put a hand on Sobia's shoulder.

"I'm afraid so.

More people die in a winter January than any other month, it seems. This January was one of the coldest for many years and the death toll was higher than ever: it was nine days before Phillip's funeral could take place. It took place in a crematorium on the edge of the city that nestled in one of the many hills that surrounded it. The temperature had not risen above freezing for days. The mourners emerged from their expensive cars and hurried quickly into the chapel. It was three thirty and already getting dark. Somewhere amidst all this was Sobia.

Thirty minutes later when the mourners emerged the light was just holding up but it was beginning to snow once more. Obsequies were cut short; they who attended the dead scurried back to their cars, their offices, their centrally heated, insulated houses.

Sammie, Sobia's father, was shivering with cold as he approached his daughter to usher her into the waiting car.

"No, father, I need some time to myself, I'm going for a walk."

"What, in this, you'll catch your death!"

"I'll be all right, don't worry."

She kissed him then left.

When the last of the cars had gone she began the long trudge up the hill. It was snowing hard. More than once she slipped and crashed her knees on the frozen ground. Finally she stood at the summit of the hill and gazed down at the vast city, only just visible amidst the gathering gloom and the falling snow. Now, alone almost for the first time since Phillip's death, she began to cry.

What did that city hold for her now? How dare he leave me to face this emptiness. She was already sick of listening to people telling her she was young and talented and beautiful but who it that great metropolis under the snow and the dark would be equal to Phillip? Where in the world of men and money and beauty and youth would be that 'edge' that would make life worth living? The 'edge' that was true freedom. The 'edge' that was Phillip.