We are at a party. The room is full of people elegantly dressed. I look up and he is standing there, a little in the distance, watching me. In his face is blind abstraction, a mixture of pregnant desire and embarrassed self consciousness, his face detained by an emotion that his mind has not yet named. He is tall, always tall, and his eyes are blue, bright cornflower blue. There is something distinguished about him, the drape of his clothes, the length of his neck; always height and length and, above all, elegance in his demeanour, yet not perfection. It is his desire for elegance that pleases me, that focuses my response to his desire. Once registered, I enjoy the minor imperfections; the energetic curl of hair that will not be combed into submission, the disproportionate scale of his slender hands to their thickened wrists, the lopsided charm of a smile that begs to complete itself in happiness.
At first, I look away. But I can still feel the warmth of his stare on my cheek. My eyes steal back to his. I witness confusion. He barely sees me. It is only desire that he is registering. Briefly, I have become a hieroglyph for his private emotion. Only when I get up to move does the self absorption of his desire shutter, falling through his eyes like a pack of playing cards. Then, suddenly, his desire becomes twofold, both actual and imagined. A strange pragmatism intervenes. His feet paw the carpet like a horse. He does not know how to cope with the distance between us. We are in a room filled with people, and yet we might as well be alone.
We know each other, but distantly. We have never made love. As well as liking, there is a fat seam of anger between us. As I turn my gaze openly to his, he scans my face for evidence of desire. My longing for him is less raw than his for me. It manifests itself as receptivity, trust. He threads his way through the crowd to reach me. He is wearing a long, loose overcoat; in its touch, cashmere. His head and neck rise from its cape of darkness, like a piece of intricate jewellery. His eyes never desert mine; they crease greedily, giddily into a smile. He takes my hand in his and I feel the supple strength, the firm possessive reassurance of his hand in mine. I lean towards him, like an arabesque, my body open to and anticipating every nuance of his. He kisses me on my cheek, then throws back his body full height to again devour me with his eyes; as he does so, he runs both his hands up and down my outstretched arm, kneading my flesh into an expectation, a promise of intimacy. Eyes still locked, we unconsciously manoeuvre ourselves, almost unnoticed, to the edge of the crowd, where gold-framed mirrors alternate with brocade curtains as heavy and as unwieldy as carpets. I catch sight of myself in one of the mirrors; the image startles me. I look like a woman in love; my eyes dance to the blue tune in his. My mouth is wreathed in smiles.
Someone detaches himself from the crowd to approach us, but finds himself repelled by the intensity of our exchange and retreats again, like a leaf, carelessly fallen. I lose my balance slightly, tangling briefly with the curtain. The dull red brocade emits a smell of accumulated dust. His hand moves swiftly to steady me. As he does so, he pulls me towards him and, briefly, I vanish into the ample embrace of his overcoat. As I raise my eyes to his, he rests his forehead against mine. It is a moment of the purest intimacy. My hands are still held in his; his fingers continue to explore my flesh with the press of his energetic fingers. He smiles a shower of cornflower blue into my eyes, then bends his cheek close to mine, to whisper in my ear, grazing the stubble of his chin against the long sweep of my hair, in order that I should hear better.
“I just want to touch you,” he whispers. “Nothing else. I just want to know the truth of you.”
I stand before him, docile, only half understanding. With one fierce movement, he persuades my hand against the small of my back. The wings of his dark coat protect us. Unseen by the crowd, he lifts the hem of my skirt an inch or two. I look up. The dancing lights of a chandelier dazzle my eyes. Beyond the smooth hose at my knees and thighs are stocking tops secured by broad band ribbons of black silk, stretching, yearning for my knees as they secure the black gossamer nylons to the opulent line of my thighs. His fingers feel persistent, determined against my flesh, with the authority and sureness of touch that only true desire can bring.
“How warm you feel,” he whispers in my ear.
He teases my bare skin, butter-smooth soft suddenly at the point where it meets the tautly strained stocking tops, edged with a flirtation of red that he still cannot see. He sweeps his hand under the elastic straps of the suspenders, weighing and assessing desirously the roundness of my thighs. And then the urgent fingers grow fingertip hesitant, stroking gently, deliriously along the edges of the lacy confection of my panties. My step falters. I fall backwards from the exquisite fire of his touch, my body too arched to his to maintain balance. The grip of his hand in the small of my back increases.
“Stand a little more astride,” he whispers in my hair.
But still I stumble. I clutch at the swags of heavy curtaining to stabilize myself. In disturbing their heavy drape, I unwittingly expose the point where two curtains divide. Unintentionally, as we trip against the heavy drapes, we are swallowed up by them. Like a conjuror’s trick, they close seamlessly behind us, muffling the hectic buzz of conversation.
For a few moments we stand stock still. His hand still grips mine against the small of my back. The other reaches out, like a support, against the tall window frame, beneath whose ledge is an old-fashioned radiator, as bulky as ribbed knitting. Beyond the window is a twilit view of formal gardens, laid out in box parterres, with anonymous statuary illuminated from below. The effect is strangely Christmas-like.
We do not speak. But his eyes scan mine greedily for confirmation. He undoes the top button of my jacket. Gently, his fingers prise the lace covering one of my nipples, exposing it to view. Its smooth pink aureola crinkles into raspberry responsivess. He edges me backwards, until I am leaning against the ribbed radiator. Now, holding both my hands in his, we pause reflectively. He gazes out of the window beyond me and I turn my head to join him in his reverie. All between us remains silent. Then, he turns the full beacon of his handsome face on mine. Beyond his beauty and goodwill is another emotion fighting with itself. A compelling, almost ugly mask of lust mixes with the affection and goodwill. The mask is like an imperative.
“Won’t they see us?” I ask, as though I had heard him speak.
“They will never know,” he replies. His eyelids flutter strangely, as once again the blindness of emotion devours him. “I just want to caress you. Nothing else.” He pauses. “. . . To know the truth.” His handsome head bends fleetingly to kiss my raw nipple. With one hand, he again raises the hem of my skirt. The deep sides of his overcoat still envelop us.
I hear someone say, “I really do think Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia was a better play than his Invention of Love, don’t you agree?”
“You are my Arcadia,” he murmurs in my ear. His fingers return to their preoccupation with the frou frou edges of my panties. My body ricochets against his touch. “I have to know,” he intones like a litany. “Just to touch.”
The movement up and down the frill of my panties is slow and mesmerizing now, all urgency gone. His fingers lick gently at my senses, like waves. I feel myself lost in some filmic dream sequence. Then, suddenly, the brutality of change. His movements become fleet and fierce and urgent again. Deftly, he lifts the edges of lace. It is like someone crossing a line. He slides the plumped prying pads of his fingertips within me, moistening the flattened hair at my pudenda, exploring the sea of my emotions.
“This is what I so longed to know,” he whispers, “the truth of your response to me.” The fingers that had kneaded the length of my arm in desire begin a fast pace dance within me, searching and provoking, loving and learning. “It is this that is the invention of love.” He smiles. He lifts me until I am sitting, rather than leaning on the broad rough ribbed radiator. The crowd murmurs behind us. He tears the lace confection of my panties free from my outstretched legs and rumples them into his overcoat pocket. Beneath the canopy of my raised skirt, I am exposed. Emotion and urgency exist like a perfume between us.
Briefly, I feel embarrassed. I hear a familiar voice say, “I wonder where they are?” Decorously, instinctively, I close my knees. But his touch is imperious. “Not now, don’t withdraw from me now,” he whispers. In one sweeping movement against the exposure of my lips, he touches me again; the sensation is joyous, electrifying. I lean back, my arms acting as flying buttresses to my openness and desire. I throw back my head on my long neck and half close my eyes. The fast cleverness of his caresses deliver me close to fulfilment.
Through half open eyes, between the wings of his overcoat, I see him lower his zip. Beneath his long overcoat, his suit is equally dark. From out of this cashmere darkness, he draws the pale bounty of his penis. Through slanted eyes, I witness it stand tall against its dark setting, like a heavy veined column, against which a joyous blush of purple has settled.
“Only if you want to,” he says. “You decide . . . maybe just let the tip touch you,” he says. “No need to go all the way.”
I glance down at this effigy of beauty. Automatically, my hand reaches to caress it. I feel it throb in my hand like a heart beat. I look into his eye. “Just the tip,” I say.
He stands, his legs between mine, before the ribbed radiator and lets the tip of himself yearn gently at the inflamed entrance to myself. Briefly, I am like the lip of a jug, sipping at him hesitantly. I feel the palpitations of inner heartbeat shoot with sensations of exquisite pleasure. And then, the crossing of another line, the urgent need to devour and be devoured betraying reason. All of me yearns for the strength of that white veined column. He cups his hands around my buttocks and lowers me gently, beyond the angry tip, beyond the gentle lip, onto the stretching width of him, onto the joyous fulfilling length of him. As I arch forward he clasps me to him, indissoluble. As I begin to call out in crescendo, he kisses my mouth to silence, then holds us fast in the mutual embrace of his overcoat, deliberate, slow. Then, last minute, a change of pace. I feel him race to catch me up, feel the anger of his desire, feel the heavens in him spill. Suddenly, nothing else matters.
“That was the invention of love”, he murmurs against my hair.
When, a little later, again soignee and composed, with only the shiny blush of our skin to betray us, we push back the curtain, the room is empty, the party deserted, just a waiter or two disappearing in the distance. We are left alone with our love.