He stood in the parking lot. The black asphalt shimmered like tarmac used on chopper pads. Annette was late. When the Land Rover pulled in he called to her.
“Looks like a tank.”
He kissed her extended cheek.
“Lovely day,” she said. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” Her British accent always new.
He winked at her and stepped in. She slipped her right hand from the clutch to his thigh, then back, pulled into traffic.
“Right, then. Happy to see me?”
He leaned over and kissed her behind the left ear.
“You’re such a naughty boy, aren’t you?”
Annette fiddled with the radio, searched for music, news, anything.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Right there.”
Martin flexed his body in time to the pumping beat, eyed her blouse, the inviting curve of her breasts. Annette was not pretty, he thought; her features were hard, as if she were a salmon that survived the run up river.
“Sometimes I think you work too hard.” .
“Really? But you do put up with all my sass.”
“I figured you’d call sooner or later. I missed you,” he said, fingering the clefts between her knuckles as if they were his own.
“I read all your letters. I was absolutely delighted . . . delighted by what you wrote.” She turned to him. “Sexual love is . . . is so much easier to sustain, don’t you think?”
She snared his hand in hers, then turned the radio mute. He smiled at the distorted reflection of himself dancing in the opaque lens of her sunglasses.
“Frankel says there are three kinds of love: impersonal, personal, and irreplaceable,” he said.
The light changed. Annette accelerated, overtaking a lumbering van.
“Did I tell you my neighbour’s tree smashed into the side of my house last night? He had the nerve to say it was my fault. Mine!”
She swerved into the fast lane.
“Did anyone get hurt?”
He spooled the volume dial clockwise.
Annette turned right on Warton Street; a parade of ornate homes and well kept lawns soldiered into view.
“Oh, have a look. Have a look,” she chortled, pulling up the driveway. “The workmen must have come.” She pointed to the dismembered tree, its trunk and branches neatly stacked to one side. “ ‘You’re so lucky no one was injured,’ ” she mimicked, tugging back the emergency brake. “Well, have a look at my lovely garden!”
Stepping out of the car, she pinched the remote alarm on her key chain. The horn beeped once. He thought it sounded like a great metal goose shot in the wing.
“It’s the deer,” she said, pointing to the wilted stalks and bald patches of earth. “They come down from the reservation. I’ve already called the Mayor.” She looked at him mournfully. “Julian, those animals are positively ruining my land. You absolutely must set out poison or have the hunters in.’ He said he would look into it. Now this.”
He estimated the garden measured ten metres by twelve; the backyard, one acre. Trees and shrubs edged the sides of her property. There was no fence to ward off intruders. A Victorian house peeked through a line of sycamores thirty metres ahead. He noticed the deer tracks, exaggerated a frown, then stepped behind her, embraced her body, nuzzled her neck.
“It looks different,” he said, pointing past the ominous tree line.
“Oh, that. They painted it last week.” She dug her backside into his groin. “I rather liked it when it was blue. Now it’s just . . . Oh, I don’t know . . . who would ever paint their house solid red? Can you imag . . .”
Martin closed his eyes, saw the pith helmeted blur figures running past. His neck snapped left to right.
“. . . or suppose they installed one of those dreadful mosquito-killing machines?” She paused. “Are you all right, darling?”
“Yes, everything is under control.”
He began undoing the hard plastic buttons of her blouse. He dipped his fingers inside, toyed with the lacy bra, dotted the nape of her neck with kisses until she quivered.
Annette turned round and faced him.
“You naughty, naughty man. In front of my nosy neighbours, will you? Inside, or I shall have to call the police.”
“Fancy something to eat?”
“Maybe later. I need to work up an appetite.” “You rascal. Come with me.”
She led him by the hand as they walked from the well-appointed kitchen, its walls lined with gourmet utensils hung from dainty hooks, to the immense living room. A hand-frosted bay window overlooked the lawn and the cobble stoned gas lanterned street
“Isn’t it just lovely?” she said, gesturing to an exquisite glass table and leather bound chairs, the black plush sofa, an array of exotic wall hangings and marble statues. “Mum left it to me. None of it’s really mine. Well, I suppose it is.”
She planted her fortyish chin on an upturned palm.
“How old was she?”
“Nearly ninety. I never told you? ‘I simply must have my own bed and bath, Annette. Really. How perfectly dreadful, those horrid American elder farms.’ Elder farms! Dear Lord.”
“Do you miss her?”
He drew her hand away from her face and thumbed the curve of her mouth.
“Good gracious, no. Nothing ever suited Mum, darling. Nothing. But . . . all that’s past now.” She led him forwards. “What do you think? Charming, isn’t it?”
On one side of the room two bookcases stood packed with grade school reference volumes, toys and games, each item tucked precisely in place. He imagined not one item missing.
“Very nice,” he said, fingering the well worn spines.
“Those are my favourites,” she said, pointing to an orderly shelf crammed with jig-saw puzzles. “I absolutely adore them. Sometimes the girls and I spend hours on the silly things . . . Don’t look so sad,” she teased, looking past him.
Stepping forwards, Annette pushed Play. The blinking answering machine whirred to life. A young man’s voice, coy and energetic, spoke.
“Hi. It’s me. Wondering when we can spend time together. I’ve been working out . . . hard. I think you’ll like what I’ve got to show you. Tomorrow I have tickets for . . .”
“Oh, you and your bloody tickets,” Annette shouted, shutting off the machine.
He knew of her lovers. Once, she had written him: As to my young stallions, well, in fact, how shall I say this, there is one chap I am rather fond of. We tryst weekends, when the kiddies are with their Dad. And, well, dammit, yes, there is a youngster I occasionally visit, a client, but it’s simply puppy love, darling. At least Frederick is gone. The bastard. Martin, I will not be intimate with these two any longer if we have a go at it”
He thumbed a shelf full of encyclopedias; below it, a tin-cased biology set complete with specimens and microscope. Two adult frogs, vacuum packed in formaldehyde, stared at him, their large black eyes unblinking.
“I thought you weren’t seeing him any more.”
“It’s nothing . . . nothing, I assure you, sweetheart. Can you believe he sent me flowers, with a card, hand written by the florist, for God’s sake. ‘To my busty Brit. Love, Kisses, Yours ever so deeply, Robert.’ Bastard!”
“ ‘I’m whole again,’ ” he said, reading from a sheet of torn paper found wedged in Volume Seven, Renaissance Literature and Art. “ ‘Harpooned by a private doctor the other day. He slipped an illuminated plastic eel down my KY jellied cock and determined I will need only minor surgery. This is good news, Annette. The procedure will not incapacitate my ability to make a certain woman ooze with delight. Yours sincerely, Martin.’ ”
“Whatever will I do with you?” she said, rebuttoning her blouse.
He took her hand away and held it. She continued to speak, her voice trailing after him as they walked up the spiral staircase to her bedroom.
It was their tenth meeting in four months. This time he hoped things would be different. Her response to his personal ad had been straightforward and provocative. What I wouldn’t give for a good and virile lover. Whatever is one to do? Have any ideas? Yours, A. But their encounters were flaccid, uninspired and boring. She had no sense of play: sex was a business deal to be discreetly obtained and offshore harboured, her executive orgasms a curated series of stifled yelps and well-mannered postures. He wished she would just once relax and let him make love to her.
Hand lightly tapping the staircase banister, he imagined her slowly undressing in front of him, heard the soft rustle of silk against her lambent skin, her blouse and skirt falling to the hardwood floor. “Leave your shoes on,” he would say, and watch as she unclasped the lacy bra, slowly unshouldered it and leaned forwards her nipples erect, the full breasts plump and radiant.
“Look what she’s done now,” said Annette, sweeping her hand across the room. “I’ve told Marcia at least a dozen times, solid colour sheets on Monday. Solid. Honestly . . .”
He shrugged.
“Right, then.”
She kicked off her shoes, undressed quickly, folded her clothes over the back of an antique chair, then slipped into bed, not once looking at him.
“It’s a gun,” said Martin, leaning over her, hoping she would tease his pleasure.
She looked up and frowned. “You know I don’t go in for that sort of thing. Besides, the children will be back from school at three-thirty. It isn’t as if we had all day, darling.” She lowered the covers, her body a target. “You do understand, don’t you? Say yes.”
Unzipping himself, he took her right hand and guided it between his legs.
“You devil,” she said, fondling him.
Martin undid his belt, uncoupled his pants, let them drop to the floor. Annette pulled his briefs down.
“Good Lord,” she said, reluctantly drawing him to her mouth. “Slowly,” he said, watching her lips encircle him. He traced delicate patterns around her ears while rocking her head back and forth.
“My turn,” she said. “You’re on top. Come along, darling. Well, come on.”
Annette threw herself back, parted her legs and waited. Martin sheathed himself.
Embracing her, he gently pulled himself inside, pinned Annette down, pushed softly, then hard, then plunged himself full forwards into her body.
“You . . . you demon,” she stammered. “Wherever did you learn that?”
“Shh . . .” he said, prompting her legs around him. She tried moving her hips in time with his. Shifting sideways, he guided her, suckled her breasts, kissed her, gripped her buttocks, felt the tingling sensation begin.
“Slowly . . .” he whispered, and cleared his mind.
Annette was driving; traffic lights blinked red-green-red. She eased the huge vehicle into the drive way, carried on about her garden, the foliage; he glimpsed the village beyond the wood line, heard bodies run past, smelt the foul enemy scent, shook as machine guns fired, flinched as the wounded screamed. Am I all right? Doc? Am I all right? How bad is it? How bad? Beneath him, her body arched and trembled; her lips formed an involuntary exit for the moaning sound. He watched her jaw clamp shut, stunting the pleasure. He groaned. They slept.
Annette kissed him awake, short, lacklustre pecks on one side of his face. It had happened again. The frustrated lovemaking; the war inescapable.
“Well, aren’t you the quiet American?” she snickered.
He remained motionless.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?”
She fluffed her pillow as though spanking a child.
“I was thinking of something. Would you like to hear it?”
“Oh, bloody hell, why not?”
Curling up next to him, she twirled the hairs on the back of his neck. He nearly turned to kiss her.
“It’s always good to travel in pairs,” he said. “Backpacking. Ever done that?” He nibbled her hand.
“All that muck and filth? Good heavens, no.”
He continued speaking.
“We found a cheap place with an air conditioner, flush toilets, mosquito nets . . .”
“Mosquitoes? Where on earth were you?”
“I’m getting undressed, Alex is stepping out of the shower, towel wrapped around him, in walks this girl. ‘Boom boom? You want boom boom?’ ”
Annette lifted her head from the pillow, slapping the bed as she spoke.
“What the bloody hell is ‘boom boom’?”
“Sex.”
“Really? What kind of people would call the most intimate expression between two people boom boom? Dear God, that’s absolutely horrid.”
Lying back, she caressed him.
“The Americans,” he said.
“And how would you know?”
She stretched with anxious pleasure.
“We spoke that way during the war,” he murmured, wondering why he had told her.
She paused, eyebrows knotted in puzzled concentration.
“Not in that awful mess . . .”
He trailed his finger tips up and down her arm.
“She was pretty. Better-looking than the woman in Phnom Penh.”
“Goodness, you do get around, darling. Isn’t that the capital of . . .”
“Cambodia,” he said, recollecting the event.
They had choppered into an enemy base camp. No one expected to live.
“In June we were overrun,” he heard himself whisper.
She drew his hand to her breast, at the same time turning opposite, her backside pressing against his manhood, making him big.
“Well, don’t stop now, darling. This is absolutely delightful!”
The blood rushed into his face.
“She wanted ten dollars,” he said. “A lot of money for what I wanted.”
“What on earth?” she shrilled with excitement.
“They have a problem with AIDS,” he said, and felt her stomach tighten. “Alex got dressed and went out for a walk. We bargained in sign language.”
“He flashed the fingers of his right hand directly over her head.
“You beast, you absolute Minotaur!” Annette shrieked. “Go on. Oh, do go on,” she squealed.
The girl had kicked off her clogs and perched on the spring coil bed, squatting Viet Cong style. He pantomimed; she removed her blouse.
“She didn’t understand,” he said, tracing a phantom arc of confused and awkward movements in the space between them. “Pulled and pushed my cock every which way.”
Perplexed, the girl had closed her eyes, making her more beautiful.
“It was awful.”
Annette shook with laughter.
“This is too much, darling. You are absolutely precious! A hand job, was it?”
She wailed with delight.
“I had to show her,” he said.
His voice was not pleasant.
Annette curled the O shape of her thumb and forefinger around his swollen cock.
“Like that?”
‘Yes. Like that”
He kissed her harshly on the mouth.
“This is brilliant . . . brilliant! Oh, go on! Go on!”
He pushed her tight clenched fist away.
“I stopped her,” he said. “Just held her in my arms. Even travellers get lonely. Know what I mean?”
“Are you trying to tell me something, darling? Don’t you think I’m sexy? Well? Don’t you?”
She was impossible.
“Maybe. Maybe not”
Annette wagged a school marm’s finger in Martin’s face. He swatted it back.
“What then, darling?” she tittered.
“What then?” he mimicked. “I kissed her breasts, her mouth, pinched and rolled her nipples between my fingers until they were hard. You should have seen the way her eyes lit up.” He had held her close, smoothed and kissed her hair. She had spoken to him while dreaming.
“Well, don’t stop!” Annette commanded. “What happened next? Oh, do tell! Do tell!” Hours later, in the musty bathroom they had showered and towelled each other dry. Dressed, they went out for food.
“You-good-me,” she had said.
That night he bought clothes for her children.
“So the little bitch couldn’t wank you,” Annette crowed.
He shrugged indifferently.
“Oh, darling, this is priceless. Better than Waugh . . . than Lawrence. Have you read them? Surely you’ve read Frank Harris?”
She paused.
“Darling, did you ever see her again?”
“No,” he said, turning away.
“Well, after all . . . she was just a tart,” Annette stammered, “A slut, really. It was business, for God’s sake.”
For several minutes they lay without moving. Martin watched the second hand of the bedside clock swerve past the illuminated roman numerals. The memory always stopped at the clouds of cordite smoke spewed forth by their weapons. There were ten of them. They lay where they fell, bodies perforated, the death agony having lasted all night. Sometimes the scream sounds made him weep. A machine gun burst decapitated one survivor. The Lieutenant shot the second at close range. He saw it now. The platoon scavenging the dead for souvenirs. Now the woman moved, her uniform brain spattered. She groaned, then raised a feeble arm, clawing at his canteen. The others bickered how best to kill her. He knelt down and tipped the plastic jug to her dreadful lips, watched as she suckled herself back to life. He shielded his eyes so the others would not see.
Still blinking, Martin removed the wet hands from his face. Annette stared at him; wordless sounds spilled from her mouth. Except for his lowing sobs, which rattled and shook both their bodies, for a very long time they did not move.