But Captain Pender intended taking a whole month away, possibly longer. Kay could hardly believe her ears as she listened to him casually planning to spend that length of time in Tenerife with his wife and another airline couple.
‘But why so long?’ she wailed.
She hated the aggrieved, whining note in her voice but was powerless to disguise it. Secretly, she had cherished the hope that he wouldn’t be able to stay away from her for more than a week or two. It was a bitter blow to hear his true intentions.
‘Don’t be cross,’ he coaxed. ‘It was all arranged months ago. I’d give anything to be with you instead.’
Huh! Kay thought cynically, what’s to stop you then?
They were sitting in his car in their old trysting spot on the mountainside. Darkness pressed closely on the curving windows of the sports car and far below the city lights were a myriad of golden dots.
Kay frowned. While it was gratifying to hear him say how much he would miss her, surely three weeks was more than enough to be away with a wife he professed not to love. Not for the first time, she felt aggrieved at having to unquestioningly accept that the other woman’s whims and desires must always take precedence over hers.
‘Oh well, perhaps I’ll take extended leave myself and stay on in Spain like some of the others are doing,’ she said peevishly, wanting to take out her frustration and hurt on him.
The minute the words were out she regretted them.
‘Perhaps you should do that.’ Captain Pender’s voice was icy. He withdrew his arm.
Listen... I didn’t mean it!’ Kay stammered. How could she have been so childish? ‘I...I love you,’ she blurted, and felt as if her only advantage was gone. Up to this, she had prudently kept from admitting it, except in the heat of passion and then, only when his own warm avowal had gone before.
‘You are very dear to me, Kitty.’ He kissed her brow and regarded her almost sadly, ‘Nevertheless, I think you should take extended leave. Go off for a few months. See a bit of the world. I don’t want to stand in your way.’
‘But I don’t care about seeing the world,’ she protested.
‘Of course you do,’ he answered, smiling. ‘Isn’t that why you joined an airline in the first place?’
No, Kay cried inwardly, it was to meet you. And it was true, she had made up her mind - a lifetime ago it seemed - to meet and fall in love with the pilot of her dreams.
‘Well, now’s the time to travel, not when you’re an old married lady with six children,’ Graham went on chidingly. ‘By then it’ll be too late... unless your husband is very rich and more than accommodating.’
It burned Kay to hear him disposing of her without a qualm to the arms of some other man when he was the only husband she wanted. It was all too clear how little he saw their futures bound together. She wanted to cry.
Instead feigning weary amusement, she drawled, ‘Six! My goodness, isn’t that rather a lot in this day and age?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ Graham shrugged. ‘Anyone married to you, my lovely Kitty, might find it hard to be sensible.’
His eyes darkened with desire as he reached out to fondle her breasts. ‘Darling,’ he murmured as he undid the fastenings of her blouse and snaked his tongue across the soft swell of flesh to flutter the erect tips.
Dizzily Kay looked down at his head pressed against her and almost of its own violation, her hand lifted to rest in the dark curling hair. As always when he lay on her breast, his hair brushing her skin, her body was pervaded by a feeling of weakness as though not bone but floppy liquorice supported her limbs. She gasped, no longer knowing her mind under his caressing tongue and fingertips, all her earlier resentment forgotten as he lowered the seats and they fell back sprawling, mouth on mouth.
‘How will I ever bear to be parted from you,’ Graham groaned, his hands easing her skirt over her hips.
Shaken by an answering lust, Kay was uncaring that she was quite naked as she clung to him and fiercely returned his kisses.
He was heavy on her. She wriggled to shift her weight but he insinuated his leg between hers, forcing her thighs apart. His breath came in tearing gasps as though he were in sudden decompression at forty thousand feet.
‘Darling, be careful,’ she whispered urgently, feeling as though a stranger held her. She struggled fiercely to put distance between them but still the jabbing pressure continued.
‘Don’t!’ she screamed suddenly, squirming helplessly to be rid of the maddening, agonizing thing causing such pain. The searing abomination continued for an eternity and all the time she was conscious of an outraged disbelief that he could hurt her so terribly.
When at last he fell back she dragged herself upright, whimpering, with shocked tears stinging her eyes. She found her panties squeezed down the side of the seat and without looking at him, pulled them on. With trembling fingers she pulled the rest of her clothes together and sat with bowed head, feeling sick.
‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid I got carried away,’ Graham confessed in a low voice. ‘I did warn you,’ he added soberly, pulling his sweater over his head.
When Kay remained silent he asked uneasily; ‘It is all right, isn’t it? I mean there’s no danger...’
Kay heard her own voice recounting the feeble story about Pendy and Sam as though it belonged to someone else.
In the days following her deflowerment, Kay felt as if the shameful difference in her must be evident to all. To think she had trusted Graham and all he could say was, ‘I warned you,’ in that cold unfeeling voice. She felt belittled and unloved.