A Rage to Live (11 page)

Karen knew better than to insist, though she would have been delighted to wait and serve the first dinner of his return. ‘There have been calls.’

As she spoke, Kane saw the light flashing on one of the telephones. He walked right by it. ‘No calls, Karen,’ he shouted. The light was immediately extinguished. He dressed in a pair of Levis and a black turtleneck cashmere jumper, slipped his bare feet into a pair of old leather loafers, and grabbed a handsome, nearly threadbare Harris tweed jacket from a hanger. He went down to the kitchen to see Karen and get the keys to the old battered Dodge station wagon he kept in the garage next to the dune buggy.

‘The keys to the estate, please, Karen,’ he asked, all smiles for her as he raised pan lids to catch the smell of her cooking.

‘The station wagon not estate. This is New Cobham, New England, not old England, Mr Chandler.’ A hint of resentment in her voice. ‘Home, remember?’

He patted her on the cheek. Kane was always amused by his
housekeeper’s need to snatch him away from anything that smacked of foreign or cosmopolitan ways and back to his New England roots. The fact that he spent most of his life working and travelling abroad, speaking five languages fluently, meant to Karen Tweedie but one thing: he was in dire threat of losing his Cape Cod identity. In this his housekeeper was the most outrageous snob. America the beautiful, Cape Cod the world, New Cobham paradise, home is where the heart is, was preached at him at every opportunity. Once she had said to him, ‘You think my world is too narrow, I think yours is too wide.’ Points taken and played with good-naturedly.

‘About those calls?’

‘Don’t want to know,’ he told her. ‘See you in the morning.’ And he was gone.

The old Dodge rattled down and around the lanes that led to the sand dunes and the beach. His tour took him near to the boat yard. Handshakes all round: with Bob, the yard men, Kelly in the office. From there he walked to a stretch of his favourite beach, though night was descending. He stopped at the bait shop to announce his arrival. There were smiles of real pleasure at seeing him home again. He was, after all, the town’s favourite son. Kane smelled the Clam Shack long before he saw it and pulled in to its car park. He waited his turn, met an old acquaintance and then another, signed two autographs for tourists. No New Cobhamite would impose themselves on his privacy with such a request.

By the time he arrived in town, lights were being turned on in houses and those few shops that were still open. Most people had gone home, the streets were quiet. He stopped at the police station, strolled in to say hello to Ed Cornwell and his officers, and Lou Ann on the switchboard. More handshakes and smiles. Kane liked Ed Cornwell and always made a point of looking him up on his return. The sheriff had years ago hushed up an incident at Kane’s house that could have been an embarrassment for all concerned: Kane, a married lady, and an irate husband.

Love in the afternoon, New England style. It had always been a bit tricky dealing with the very attractive, randy, married ladies of New Cobham and their formidable jealousies. The pretty young things he flirted with were less of a problem. The two men shook hands. Kane presented Ed Cornwell with a box of Havana cigars.

‘Not a bribe, I hope?’ Ed teased.

‘Wouldn’t think of it, Sheriff.’

‘You’re all witnesses,’ said Ed to his team.

‘Yeah, Sheriff,’ rang out a chorus of voices.

‘Then thanks, Mr Chandler.’

‘Nothing.’

But they all knew it was more than that. It had become a habit, one they all enjoyed. The famous conductor taking time out to reunite himself with his own. The local police force feeling privileged to keep a discreet eye out for him. They were happy to help ensure his privacy, his welfare. He was a bad driver, a terrible jay walker, and was often found stranded because he would insist on driving the Dodge that was prone to breakdown. But then too he was a generous town benefactor, never said no to the police, the ambulance or fire department, or the hospital, all donations in the name of Anonymous. Kane waved. ‘See you around,’ he called out as he was leaving.

‘Here for long?’ asked the sheriff.

‘Through the summer.’

‘Then we’re sure to see you around, unless you get that heap of yours taken off the road.’

Everyone in the office laughed, including Kane. It was a standing joke, his passion, or obsession for the only inefficient thing in his life. ‘Relax, boys. My Rolls convertible arrives tomorrow. But not too much – I don’t intend to use it as a run around.’

He saw her in the window, at a table, dining alone. He walked directly from the street into the New Cobham Inn to the table in the small dining-room where she was sitting. She looked up and smiled, appeared to be completely at ease, as if she were expecting him.

He was astonished by how very much more attractive she was than he remembered. Seductive even. There was something heroic about her sitting there alone. There was drama in this reunion. It hung in the air like the heady scent of a musky perfume. She placed the palm of her hand on her heart, closed her eyes for a brief moment and let out a deep and telling sigh.

‘The Paul Revere Rooms, I believe?’ where his only words to her, said in a hushed tone. Discretion did seem the better part of valour.

She lowered her eyes. A discreet nod of her head was the only answer she gave him. He walked around the table to take her hand in his, lowered his head and placed the perfect continental kiss upon it. Their eyes met in a gaze that told him everything he wanted to know. It was more eloquent than any words that might have passed between them. One minute he was there, and then he was gone.

She opened the door to the Paul Revere Rooms. They were in darkness except for the foggy light cast through the windows from a gas-lit lantern in the garden. A tiny glow, a mere dot of bright light, for no more than a second. The end of his cigarette. She walked directly to him.

Cressida took the cigarette from his hand and crushed it out in the ashtray on the table. She switched on the lamp.

‘You took your time,’ were his first words to her.

‘Did you think I wouldn’t come?’ Cressida asked.

‘Oh, no. I was as certain of that as I am that tomorrow will come.’ He grazed her cheek with the back of his hand, smiled at her, and then walked round her to switch on another lamp.

‘I’ve always liked these rooms. I’ve stayed in them often. That’s how I know there’s a key to them in the urn outside the door in the hall. I’ve not compromised your reputation.’

‘Well, that’s good, I’ve only been in town one day.’ She caught the twinkle in his eye and felt somehow embarrassed by it, so quickly added, ‘You’re a great one for keys in hiding places.’

‘Yes, I suppose I am. Lucky for us that you remembered that or I might not be here now. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

There was something proprietorial in the way he walked around the room. The way he took her by the hand and led her from the sitting-room to the bedroom door. He turned the brass knob and pushed the door open, and switched on table lamps on either side of the four poster bed. The room sprang to life. The bed loomed large, like an icon of oneness, the ultimate in togetherness. It promised moments of ecstatic pleasure beyond life itself. Cressida felt a surge of excitement. It was more than sexual passion, it was Kane Chandler, things implicit in him that were invisibly wrapping themselves around her, binding her to him, drawing her into his soul. All these
and
sexual passion.

He pulled her hard into his arms and abruptly swept her off her feet. He could feel her heart racing against his own. He pulled her tighter to him, walked with her not to the bed but to the floral chintz-covered chaise in a corner of the room. There he sat down, leaned back, and stretched out with her still in his arms.

‘Why did you run away? Leave me to wake up alone? You knew that I would want you, take you as I had the night before. That we would go that step further down a sexual path we’re opening for ourselves. Why did you deprive us of having more of each other?’

‘I had things to do.’

‘They could have waited.’

‘They had waited long enough.’

‘Had you come looking for me?’ he asked.

‘No. Not consciously, anyway,’ she answered.

‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were, Cressida?’

‘Would it have mattered?’

‘No, not in the least.’

That, though it should not have, shocked Cressida. She wanted it
to matter. That those years of childish love and adoration, passion and unfulfilled sexual yearning for him, had not been in vain. That he might have loved her more for having been that child, wanted her more for having been his untouchable love, the forbidden fruit that is a sensual child.

She tried to release herself from his arms, but too late. He placed a kiss upon her lips. He slid his hand round her neck and caressed it. He licked her lips with his tongue and her own lips parted and he kissed her deeply, sucked gently on her tongue. Kane ran his fingers through her hair now, caressed her face, fondled it lovingly. Between kisses he told her how wonderful she was to make love to, how she had mastered him with her cunt, the passion of her soul. Base talk they both found compelling.

It was not just for her that the outside world was fast disappearing, but for him as well. He was very much aware that here was a powerful woman who was not merely submitting to his lust, but giving herself wholly to him, body and soul, to do with as he pleased because
she
wanted to. It was Cressida’s generosity with herself and her own pleasure that was overwhelming him. A real gift of love.

Unable to hold back from him, she kicked off her shoes and raised herself off his lap while still in his arms. He liked that. No games. He slid the seductive, wide, black linen trousers off her hips and down off her legs and let them drop from his hands to the floor. He lowered his face to her soft downy mound of pubic hair and licked the soft silky curls and was thrilled to be there once again, to savour once more her sensual scent, her lust. He kissed her flat, trim belly and licked it. The feel of her skin on his tongue, so smooth; the taste of her flesh, sublime. She opened her legs. He unbuttoned, slid free his penis from his Levis. With cupped hand he freed his scrotum. He enjoyed for a few moments the weight of his virility in his hands, the power of his masculinity, and slipped Cressida and himself on to their sides facing each other.

Cressida slid a leg beneath him and wrapped the other around his hip, and while he slid his caressing fingers into the soft, warm and moist cunt, he marvelled at the joy a woman can give. She felt so good, so right, and so very ready for him. He pulled her cunt lips apart and watched as with one hand she cupped and caressed the balls within their sac, with the other grasped lovingly his erect and formidable penis and directed the large, virile knob. Her fingers slid down his shaft as with a slow and exquisite thrust he sank himself deeper, deeper into her until he had breached her to the hilt. She flung her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder as he moved languidly in and out of her, with an exquisite slow rhythm, so that each of them could feel every nuance of their fucking.

Reaching under her black, sand washed silk blouse he found her ample breasts and caressed them, was delighted at how much pleasure he was giving her. Her body told all: the puckering of the nimbus around her nipples, now erect, the way her pelvis moved to his stroke, her cunt squeezed upon him, how she pushed harder, ever harder, wanting to feel the pain of pleasure from such deep penetration. She revelled in her silky, smooth emissions, and marvelled at how glorious a woman can feel when she is in the throes of ecstasy. Cressida wished that the eye of her cervix would dilate so that Kane might plunge further into her, through to her very soul. Only the thrill of wanting to be possessed so completely by her one and true love could ignite such passion in a woman. She knew that and it frightened her, but excited her more. The glorious sensation of giving up everything and more for that one moment of sexual bliss with another human being. It was a little death, a large rebirth. It was bliss.

She panted, whimpered, dug her fingernails into him and told him, ‘There has never been anyone who could make me feel as I do with you. Don’t stop, I want it all. I’ve waited so long, so very long, for you to take me like this.’

Her lust drove him wild with desire to do more, to fuck her to an erotic death again and again, so he could resurrect her as if newborn and fresh and his. She ignited a flame of passion in him that was dynamically sexual, and something more. It was somehow different from, more profound than anything he had known for a very long time. He didn’t question it. Cressida had somehow seduced him and taken possession of him, made him her slave, a man who wanted to give her everything, even love. He submitted. He gave her love.

Then, at some time during the night, they passed that point when love can vanish and only sexual desire exists, when the erotic is god, and a man and a woman can become like rutting beasts in the wood or some dark green jungle. They were Kane Chandler and Cressida Vine, all ego and self dead and gone, just there, in the throes of sexual nirvana.

For Cressida strong and long orgasms had always been, ever since her first, the most exciting and unique, most intimate sensation of all. None other like it. With the right man, under the right circumstances, she was capable of multiple orgasms, of letting go, giving in to sublime streams of pleasure, and was accepting the glories of ecstasy. She had been taught by her first lover how to enjoy such pleasures of the flesh. Subsequently, only two men of the many who had been interested in her had ever been able to sense her smouldering sexuality, and take her down the erotic road that promised much and always delivered more.

The odd lover who appeared in her life was somehow never quite
able to perceive how much she yearned for sexual oblivion, and so never went that extra step further that it took to get her there. Their loss surely not hers, for Cressida never measured, merely enjoyed all her sexual experiences. She was a woman who made no comparisons and was rewarded with an erotic life that fluctuated between good and extraordinary. One that left her satisfied, with no sexual inhibitions or frustrations.