she cast it aside and stared at the opposite wall.
Heathcliff sat on the coffee table and regarded her with a detached curiosity. He was doing his furry statue impression and Sandrine soon wilted under the attention.
“What? Think you know everything?” It had always amazed her how well this wonderful tortoiseshell-patterned creature could sense her moods, almost as if he could read minds. When she needed affection, he was there with a welcome snuggle and a purr that melted her heart. When she needed space, he was nowhere to be found. He leapt nimbly across the space between table and sofa and settled into her lap, twisting into a position that offered up the soft down of his belly.
“OK, I admit it,” she said soothingly. “Maybe I have been a little harsh.”
The little voice inside her had been eating away at her normally indomitable resilience all afternoon but she’d made herself too busy to pay much attention. The fury had subsided, the shame and embarrassment ebbed to a minor irritation and, when she reached inside and asked herself how she really felt, she was surprised by the answer.
She felt fine. In fact, she felt wonderful. Slightly giddy, if anything, and it was a realisation that made her extremely uncomfortable. The shock of the previous evening and the way she had so quickly given herself over to the wantonness, the unapologetic eroticism, frightened her. It had propelled her into a state of high drama where she could forgive no-one, especially not herself. This was so unlike her, she reasoned, she’d never done anything like this before.
She’d panicked but now, as she took the time to search her emotions, she’d had to admit that she’d enjoyed it. There was a line that had been crossed, into some unexplored darker aspect of her personality; she had flung aside her usually careful nature and the thrill of it, the sheer uncharacteristic abandon to which she’d capitulated, was confronting.
As she sat quietly on the sofa, there was an awareness of her body, its warmth and softness, a dawning of tension in her stomach, that she certainly didn’t want to dwell on. Her mind, with all the immutable logic that she so prided herself on, was in danger of being betrayed by her body. The physical was over-riding the mental.
No, no, no. I don’t want to feel like this.
Unfortunately, the more she thought about it, fought it, tried to find excuses for the chaos that enveloped her, the more it became plain that she not only welcomed this change, she actively sought it.
Had she been too careful all her life? Too concerned with propriety, with being a good girl that she’d neglected her emotions? That could explain her choice in partners, in always picking men who met her intellectual ideals without ever quite exciting her physically. She grimaced when the thought hit her that, while she loved sex, she’d only ever orgasmed when she masturbated. She much preferred to give herself absolute, toe-curling, heart-stopping pleasure when she was alone rather than share it with a lover. No man had ever made her come so violently as Jack. And it had been not during the traditional course of a relationship, when friendship had moved slowly and carefully into love. It had been lust, a completely physical attraction that disobeyed every rule she’d set herself in her life.
The sex, with its underlying theme of dominance and submission, had almost – no, strike that, not almost at all, it had very much been – dirty. Depraved, even. No wonder she had such trouble intellectualising it.
There was a certain shame, then, in admitting that her body was letting her know what it needed. As she reflected on the previous evening, reliving the way Jack had bypassed her reserves and unlocked her needs with such finesse, her breathing turned shallow and her heart raced. The temperature steadily rose and she felt that warming feeling like molten caramel in her stomach.
Against the softness of her cashmere sweater, her
Heathcliff sat on the coffee table and regarded her with a detached curiosity. He was doing his furry statue impression and Sandrine soon wilted under the attention.
“What? Think you know everything?” It had always amazed her how well this wonderful tortoiseshell-patterned creature could sense her moods, almost as if he could read minds. When she needed affection, he was there with a welcome snuggle and a purr that melted her heart. When she needed space, he was nowhere to be found. He leapt nimbly across the space between table and sofa and settled into her lap, twisting into a position that offered up the soft down of his belly.
“OK, I admit it,” she said soothingly. “Maybe I have been a little harsh.”
The little voice inside her had been eating away at her normally indomitable resilience all afternoon but she’d made herself too busy to pay much attention. The fury had subsided, the shame and embarrassment ebbed to a minor irritation and, when she reached inside and asked herself how she really felt, she was surprised by the answer.
She felt fine. In fact, she felt wonderful. Slightly giddy, if anything, and it was a realisation that made her extremely uncomfortable. The shock of the previous evening and the way she had so quickly given herself over to the wantonness, the unapologetic eroticism, frightened her. It had propelled her into a state of high drama where she could forgive no-one, especially not herself. This was so unlike her, she reasoned, she’d never done anything like this before.
She’d panicked but now, as she took the time to search her emotions, she’d had to admit that she’d enjoyed it. There was a line that had been crossed, into some unexplored darker aspect of her personality; she had flung aside her usually careful nature and the thrill of it, the sheer uncharacteristic abandon to which she’d capitulated, was confronting.
As she sat quietly on the sofa, there was an awareness of her body, its warmth and softness, a dawning of tension in her stomach, that she certainly didn’t want to dwell on. Her mind, with all the immutable logic that she so prided herself on, was in danger of being betrayed by her body. The physical was over-riding the mental.
No, no, no. I don’t want to feel like this.
Unfortunately, the more she thought about it, fought it, tried to find excuses for the chaos that enveloped her, the more it became plain that she not only welcomed this change, she actively sought it.
Had she been too careful all her life? Too concerned with propriety, with being a good girl that she’d neglected her emotions? That could explain her choice in partners, in always picking men who met her intellectual ideals without ever quite exciting her physically. She grimaced when the thought hit her that, while she loved sex, she’d only ever orgasmed when she masturbated. She much preferred to give herself absolute, toe-curling, heart-stopping pleasure when she was alone rather than share it with a lover. No man had ever made her come so violently as Jack. And it had been not during the traditional course of a relationship, when friendship had moved slowly and carefully into love. It had been lust, a completely physical attraction that disobeyed every rule she’d set herself in her life.
The sex, with its underlying theme of dominance and submission, had almost – no, strike that, not almost at all, it had very much been – dirty. Depraved, even. No wonder she had such trouble intellectualising it.
There was a certain shame, then, in admitting that her body was letting her know what it needed. As she reflected on the previous evening, reliving the way Jack had bypassed her reserves and unlocked her needs with such finesse, her breathing turned shallow and her heart raced. The temperature steadily rose and she felt that warming feeling like molten caramel in her stomach.
Against the softness of her cashmere sweater, her
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