Unleashed Desires, Ageless Passions Ch. 05

"Well, I'm ready and I'm very hungry," Rosie said. "To the pub!"

"Yes, I'm good to go too, my love." I replied fastening my seat belt.

During our small diversion I had failed to notice that it was still raining hard. We drove slowly through the puddles splashing our way towards Marsholme.

Lights from the pub signalling that it was open for business shone up on an old cracked wooden sign that showed a hand-painted picture of an oak tree on a summer's day.

I pulled into the car park where there was one other car. I thought it strange as usually this place was heaving with people. They must have been put off by the weather and flood warnings.

Suddenly I thought. "Rosie, forgive me for saying but in the car back in the woods I saw you tidy up your hair and lipstick but I didn't see you put your panties back on," I said.

"How observant of you," she replied. "I just popped them back into my handbag. I have one problem now and I think there might be a damp patch on the back of my dress down below. So when we go into the pub, I'll hang back in front of you so that no-one can see. If I remember they have small booths with curtains. Let's take one of those. I'll dry out in no time, then again maybe I won't."

"Oh Rosie, you are a case!" I said laughing.

I opened the pub door and a short neat man with a bristling moustache and a napkin and a corkscrew tucked into his belt made his way towards us. I drew Rosie close against me.

"Will madam and sir be eating tonight? There are booths in the bar and tables free in the restaurant. In fact, every table is free. It's the bad weather you know," he said twiddling the waxed end of his moustache.

We chose a booth in the furthest corner away from the bar and out of sight from everyone. Rosie sat in the corner and I sat next to her close to the old tapestry curtain.

The waiter returned with wine lists and the menu.

"I'll be a philistine and have red wine and fish I think," Rosie said. "You choose the wine John but I would prefer red. This place is so old-fashioned. Look there are no prices on my wine list or my menu but there are on yours. That's one in the eye for women's lib if I ever I saw one. Has no-one told them it's 2007?"

"This looks really good," I said. They have a Pernands-Vergelesses. It's a very good red burgundy, not terribly heavy and rarely seen in British restaurants. I'll order that and I'm just going to have steak, a fillet with some salad. I always eat light these days. What would you like, Rosie?"

"I'll take the salmon with new potatoes and French beans if I may, and your choice of wine sounds splendid," she said.

The waiter sidled back to our table and took our order.

"Would madam and sir wish that I close the curtains? It's so much more private for you young lovers," he said.

We giggled and nodded our heads and he pulled the dusty old curtains closed.

Rosie looked at me grinning. "I think he forgot to put in his contact lenses, young lovers indeed!" she said.

"Oh come on, Rosie," I said. "We're doing pretty well at the young lovers thing. That's the first time I have had sex in a car since I was about twenty two."

"Mmm, let me snuggle up to you," she said. "Perhaps I should have waited and had you here for my dessert."

I rested my hand on Rosie's thigh. She clasped my hand and slipped it under her skirt pushing it upwards.

"I think this is what you are looking for sir," as she spoke she edged forwards so that my hand fell into her dampness without any searching.

"Yes I think it is madam," I said gently parting her lips with my fingers rubbing softly on her clitoris.

She stiffened her back.

"Mmm I'm enjoying sir's choice of hors d'oeuvres. A little sticky and warm perhaps, but such a wonderful small delicacy," Rosie said as she smiled happily.

At that moment, the waiter popped his head through the curtain. I moved forward so I obscured his view of Rosie's lap.

"I've brought the wine sir," said the simpering small man. "I decanted it. The temperature is just right. Would sir like to try it? Here's a bottle of still mineral water, bread too and some olives on the house."

I looked down at Rosie who had both hands resting on the table. I straightened my body stretching upwards.

"I think madam would like to try the wine," I said imitating the waiter's tone.

As I spoke, I curled a finger and slipped it inside Rosie.

"Oooh! Yes, I'd love to try…I mean try it," said Rosie stumbling over the words then giggling.

"Lovely clean bouquet, a smoky edge with a touch of raspberry, no cork, light tannins and not too hot either…. I mean it's the right temperature exactly," she said giggling as I wiggled my finger inside her. "God yes! That is good! I haven't had one in there…I mean like that for ages."

I couldn't contain myself. I was doing my best to suppress my laughter by feigning a coughing fit, but tears were already rolling down my cheeks. I wiggled my finger again.

"Is sir all right? Shall I pour him some water?" the waiter asked looking concerned.

"No, I'll be okay. I'll be just fine in a moment. I'll pour the water. It's an irritating cough I have…I mean it's just a small tickle," I said.

At this point, Rosie joined in the hysterics. The waiter looked on perplexed.

"Very well then, good people," he said. "Bon appétit."

He closed the curtains looking at us both quizzically.

"You swine!" said Rosie slapping my arm as she giggled.

"Oh that was fun," I said. "I needed a good laugh."

I slipped my hand out from under the table and sucked my wet finger.

"Mmm that is good, I haven't had one in there for at least thirty minutes," I said and we laughed until we hurt.

"So tell me about Jane," she said. "You were very upset back there. What happened? But only tell me if you feel comfortable about it."

"I feel completely comfortable with you, Rosie," I said. "I trust you implicitly and much more than that. I know you would never try to give advice, or control and manipulate me. So I'm totally okay with that. But are you really sure you want to hear this?"

"Try me, I'm listening," she said then squeezed my hand lovingly.

I took her hand and held it in mine for the duration of the account about Jo.

A blonde waitress delivered the food to our table; perhaps the moustache was now off-shift. I guessed that she was of mid-European extraction possibly Czech, Slovak or Polish. She was warm and friendly but eyed Rosie and me up and down with a discomforting knowing smile.

The food was delicious and my steak was cooked exactly right, a little more rare than medium rare. Rosie ate as though she had starved for a week.

"God, this food is wonderful," she said. "But about Jane, where does she want to go with all this?"

"That's the first question I asked myself, Rosie," I said. "I think when I said I had had enough, that this was one bridge too far, she was shocked. I am sure that she was shocked that I wanted no more of it.

"What she said is 'I just want the truth', so I asked what happened next if she heard the truth. It's tricky since the truth as she wants it is, of course, false.

"But if I confirmed the truth, her truth as she saw it, she said we could move on. Of course, in reality there's as much likelihood of that as the cow jumping over the moon, but that is what she said.

"I don't think that she has ever moved on through anything in her entire life and that's part of the problem too. She has more emotional baggage than the left luggage room at Heathrow airport, just so much baggage. I knew a lot of that was around when I first met her but I encouraged her to just keep on writing her story. To take control and move on to where she wanted to be."

"Sound advice, seldom taken," Rosie said. "What is so difficult to understand is how she pins so much importance on your chatting to a barmaid. After all Jo herself said there was nothing going on between you two, like you weren't sleeping together. So what's the grievance? Did you fancy Jo?"

"I had a meal with Jo once. That was probably the longest I ever spoke to her. Most times we spoke about arts and literature. We sent each other emails about our favourite poems too.

"Her tastes and mine were different, but it made a change of talking about Cambridge United and their relegation to the conference league or whatever. She liked Jane Austen, the Brontës and Blackmore and stuff like that. At her time of life I probably would have preferred Herman Hesse, Mervyn Peake, Sartre, Kerouac and Orwell. We came from opposing points on the literary compass and that was what made her fun to talk to somehow.

"She was pretty enough I suppose. Apparently she said to Jane that she thought I might have wanted a different sort of relationship with her but there was no basis for that. I did get really pissed one night, seriously drunk out of my head and I got a bit flirtatious. I think I may have groped her or pinched her arse or something like that, but it was just an act of a drunk with the barmaid, certainly no big come-on from me. Jo tore me off a very serious strip about my appalling sexist behaviour and I apologised, meaning it. I would not trust her or Jane to make any character judgements. But from that night on, Jo never really spoke to me again.

"I met both Jo and her sister once down the pub. Their family history was enough to make a skunk run into the hills. With Jo it was almost as if she wore a flashing beacon on her head shouting 'Danger! Keep off!' There was no way I would have got into any emotional entanglement with her, none at all. There was just too much unresolved emotional debris floating on the surface, not stuff I would wish to crash into.

"But I had lived in America where I had not even known the first name of my next-door neighbour. It was all so insular and alienating. I did get very excited by the friendliness of people back here at home, Jo included.

"Fancy her? Well, she was blonde, pretty, busty and very buxom. She would have made a good wench in a Shakespearean play. But I did not fancy her at all. I am sure she might have made many a man very happy on a cold winter's night but she was just not my type. There were not enough connections there to excite any emotional or sexual chemistry.

"There was one thing that Jane said that sounded like so much clasping at straws to make the mud stick, if that's not one metaphor too many. She said that when she had asked Jo if she knew I was married that she was shocked, but that might just be more American melodrama. She alleged that Jo had told her that I said I was separated from my American partner. There are a couple of things wrong with that. First while the barmaid may be the new rural psychiatrist I don't believe that I would have discussed anything so personal or intimate with Jo. Generally I don't talk about my personal relationships with anyone. Second, it's not something that I might have said. I guess my very worst crime may have been to say that I was living separately here from my wife, like she was not here in England. Thank the gods! But that's about it.

"God, I have rambled on. What do you think, Doctor? Should I take hemlock or haloperidol? Would you like more food, coffee or another touch-up under the table?"

"First, give me a hug and I'll tell you," she said.

I wrapped my arms around Rosie. Love and affection were often the best therapies; two more reasons not to be a therapist, I thought. I pulled her in close there in our small booth. Her touch and her warmth were like balm poured onto my troubled soul. The moment was as good as when we awoke this morning. I had trouble thinking about all that had gone on in a single day but it was not over yet.

"God, I love you, John," Rosie said. "I love it when you hold me like this. I love it that you show me your feelings and that we laugh and weep together. I love it that you're open, tactile, funny, sexual and bright. I love it that you're strong and you're vulnerable too, that life has not made you crusty, hard and withered. I love it that you talk to me. I love it that you trust me. Oh I can't think of the words to tell you, there are too many, so don't analyse what I said. I just love how you are, who you are. I just love you as you are."

"Even when I'm foul and disgusting and have shit stripes down my pants?" I said.

"Yes, even when you are human, you silly man!" Rosie said clinging onto me tightly. "There aren't too many men like you around, you know."

"Rosie, you have all those qualities you ascribe to me several times over," I said. "What's more you have a heart and soul as big as a continent. You're loving, warm, understanding and exceptionally kind too. You are just lovely."

"And I've got a damp pair of panties in my handbag," she said grinning.

"You see, that's just what I like about you," I said.

"Okay, on the serious stuff about Jane," she said. "She looks to have the full low self esteem behaviour set. I think it's more than that but let's say that's it. If you have very low self-esteem and care about yourself so little, you cannot possibly care about anyone else other than in a very needy way. You won't even notice if you hurt them. I doubt if Jane sees her accusing actions to be any more serious than some routine walk in the park. For her, it's just business as usual.

"There's jealousy, possessiveness and obsessive behaviour fuelling her insecurity. Perhaps her coping mechanism is control, not a loving control but something that is diminishing and destructive of others. It might even be self-destructive.

"I'm not sure about this search for the truth stuff. To steer away from psychobabble it sounds more like the basis of emotional blackmail of some kind. When she has 'something on you', she can cast you into her dark dungeon under lock and key with a ball and chain thrown in for good measure, maybe that's a short leash or a choke chain. These are metaphors, of course, and the dungeon may just be some dark place of emotional subordination. It just sounds like an excuse to justify all sorts of bad behaviour to me.

"I'm guessing now with all this stuff. I feel very uncomfortable even talking about it. But there's something bizarre and very unnatural about the great lengths she goes to build the case for the prosecution. Like making this spurious link with JO and Jo based on the initials of a storywriter. That's just nuts! And then calling up a complete stranger to check them out because she suspects them for having had an affair with you. It's extraordinary behaviour. I guess there could be something of the attention-seeking drama queen in there too, maybe the drama queen and the martyr. It might be like 'Look at me! Look at me! Life has been so cruel!' but where does that get her?

"There is psychopathic behaviour that is sustained or even nourished through the creation of dreadful difficulties. Really I couldn't hazard a guess about it and your guess is as good, if not better than mine.

"Enough of that though and this is where I overstep the mark as I'm bound to do. I'm concerned for your wellbeing, very concerned indeed. This is enormous emotional pressure on you, debilitating emotional pressure at that. You're coping very well but I'm concerned for your emotional and physical health too. Jane is not going to let up; she'll probably even turn up the pressure. Dealing with this stuff day-in and day-out will make you sick someday. It's the stuff that heart attacks and peptic ulcers are made of, it really is. What's worse, it just isn't good for anything. It's emotionally destructive of you. I can't see any fairytale endings either, where would you start?

"There's something else that's very telling that you said. Even when something has been proved to be wrong, she stores whatever it is up and uses it over and over like some emotional battering ram. She never says sorry I got that wrong. She's not even grown up enough to do that. So I'm not going to tell you my conclusion as I think you've already worked that one out."

"Yes," I said. "There's just too much mess in there to sort out. One point though, when this started just about a year ago, I did try the other way, to be understanding, loving and considerate. I tried that for some time. Of course, I was always assertive and held my ground about the affairs nonsense but I really did try to put it behind us. Life would go reasonably well for a time then just when I thought we were making good progress, she would start all over again, dredging up the same old stuff plus whatever else she could throw in for good measure, usually four or five so-called 'difficulties' at a time. When I asked her about dragging up the same issues time and time again, she said that we had just swept the problems under the carpet.

"Over the year, I tried everything within my power to put us back on track, but nothing worked. Today I decided finally to bring my marriage to Jane to an end. That's one gigantic step. That's my decision.

"There's just one more very important thing then let's get off this subject… soon please," I said. "It's about you and me. You and me are not some rebound switchover. You're not someone who I'm using to make this transition. I just want you to know that and it's very important to me. I've never run two relationships so close together in my life. I'm not a serial monogamist either. I'm self-aware enough to understand my feelings and separate what belongs to whom. If I do start messing up, please just be gentle and talk to me about it because it won't be something that I mean or want to do. I just needed to say that just in case it went through your mind, Rosie. It troubled me and I did ask those questions of myself."

Rosie smiled.

"Yes, I knew you would think about that," she said. "I do at least know you that well already. Let's both be gentle and kind with each other. I, like you, am not above making a complete hash of things either. I would always hope we talk to each other like we do now."

I touched Rosie's hand and felt that she was trembling, she clutched my hand back in a firm grip that said 'I will not let go'. I smiled at her saying the same thing back with my eyes. We leant forward to kiss each other. I rested my hand on the back of Rosie's neck. At that very moment, there was a rustling of the curtains that made us both jump with a start.

"Would you two young lovebirds like coffee?" said the man with the bristling moustache.

Rosie's face turned deep scarlet with embarrassment. I tried to be cool.

"Rosie?" I asked.

"Yes please," she said. "I may have drunk too much wine."

I ordered coffee for us both. There was something I remembered from earlier.

"Rosie, there was something about your tasting the wine that I wanted to ask. It was a very funny moment, especially the 'I haven't had one in there for ages' bit. Your description of Pernands-Vergelesses was like something from a top-class sommelier. It was perfect: a touch of raspberries with a smoky edge, light on tannins. It was exact too.

"My very first client when I decided to go and try to paddle my own canoe, to set up in business on my own account, was one of the best wine merchants in Britain. They had this amazing shop at the bottom of St James's Street in London that looked as though it had not changed since the seventeenth century. At first I had a hard time there especially as I mispronounced the names of several wines. They would rib me ruthlessly about my ignorance of wine. But I did learn a little of their trade as I have to in every job I do. While I worked there I was able to buy wine at concessionary prices, historical cost and that spoiled me for life: Gevrey Chambertin, Pernands-Vergelesses and Vosne Romanee at prices of a little over a pound. Anyway it was there I developed my expensive tastes and Pernands-Vergelesses became one of my favourites. I still take their newsletters and read about my favourite wines. I can't take it as seriously as they do, but I do think they are the best of the best when it comes to wine.