1
You’ve got to go through with it, Susan thought, as she gazed at the young man. Just to see his boyish smile made her spirits lift. It had the effect of breaking down her resolve not to cross the busy street and join the throng of holidaymakers, and locals, that crowded the promenade and cafés close to the fishing harbour of Los Cristianos. Her apartment in Tenerife really didn’t need any more paintings, but what she saw the man talking about so enthusiastically, to a couple who had stopped and considered one of his works, changed her mind.
She had stood on the opposite side of the road and watched the crowd pass the displays by local artists, images of local scenes depicted on small and large canvasses that looked gaudy and only too geometric, or others crafted but in colours so bright that she was repelled by them. It was easy to understand why some chose such works, they served as a reminder or brightened a room on a sombre day back home.
It was only too easy to linger.
The artist stood out from the bartering ways of the painters she had seen, as she walked through the throng, until she had retraced her steps to where he was. She could only feel sorry for him as others sold their work. He had failed to do so, from what she could gather. His encouraging smile as he talked, to those that did stop, was seen to fade as another disappointment was met.
The ear shattering blast of a car horn made him look her way once more. She had scampered across the road when a short gap in the traffic gave her a chance to do that, and then to be with him. Calm reflection, on what to do, had given way to impulsive behaviour. She’d had enough of one. She wished to pursue the alternative.
‘Phew! That was close!’ Susan laughed, glad to be able to speak in English and not in her halting Spanish. It would improve as the days went by, and she became accustomed to hearing and speaking it. The sign by his work announced his name: ‘Patrick Ainsley’.
She thought it an only too refined name. It went well with the man she now gazed at and his manners only too polite.
‘You’re the first to risk their lives to be here and see my work…so thank you,’ he grinned. Pat took a moment to look at the woman before him, at how she brushed her hands over the skirt of her summer dress as the breeze caught it to reveal the tanned skin of her legs. ‘You’ve also been wondering whether to see it up close. I couldn’t fail to notice you earlier, standing at that café and looking my way…the lady in her flowing dress with its tropical flower print…the sun in her hair. It’s like they say, whoever they are…a picture saves a thousand words.’
‘Was it so obvious?’ she asked, disconcerted by his directness.
‘It seemed that way to me…yes,’ he smiled before having to turn away. ‘Excuse me for a moment?’
‘Sure, don’t let me keep you.’
‘But I’m in thrall, now that you’re here…with me.’
‘Oh really?’ She couldn’t help but laugh at their exchanges.
A couple had been seen to linger at a small picture of a fishing boat at its mooring, the buoy it was fastened to covered in algae. His unfussy use of colours, and how he had captured the reflection in the water, made the unframed picture, no larger than a sheet of typing paper, a small masterpiece to her ways of seeing it. She might buy the work, if others didn’t capture her interest.
She was thrilled by his compliment and knew that he had only spoken out the truth. The flirting young artist was clothed in pale blue slacks, a white T-shirt hanging free along with a white over-shirt with blue stripes and the sleeves left unbuttoned, all lending him a smart, casual, appearance. He stood at just over six foot, looked lean and fit; his face smooth and with his luxuriant sandy brown hair brushed back. He talked knowledgably to the couple as he explained where the small boat had been seen. She loved his cultured voice. It was something of a rarity to hear it for, whenever she was out and about, she heard the raucous calls of her countrymen who holidayed here. How snooty to think of that now, when she could devote her attention entirely upon him and his work.
Pat spoke in a low voice, as he brushed past her. ‘You’ve brought me luck…they want the small picture I saw you looking at.’
‘I’m pleased for you,’ she blurted out. ‘I’ll have to pick another one…before it’s too late.’
‘There are a few left…you’ll be spoilt for choice’, he replied, light-heartedly, and at his expense.
He was soon engaged with his customers, once more, and she saw how deftly he wrapped the picture in some paper. It was all that the couple seemed to want of him. Money was handed over and pocketed before, on a cheery wave and that winning smile, he bade the couple farewell.
‘I’ve broken the bad run!’ he laughed and meeting the woman’s look upon him. She seemed intrigued, he supposed, by how he had reacted. ‘It’s been a lean few days for me on this beautiful island, but it hasn’t stopped me painting.’
‘I understand. You follow in many a famous painter’s footsteps. It takes time to catch the eye…and then it all comes at you in a rush.’
He met her look upon him and nodded. This had to be a first, to be engaged with someone in a deeper conversation about his craft and what had brought him here. His solitary existence might even be ended by this captivating, shapely, woman who was almost as tall as he was, her long golden-brown hair framing a lightly made-up oval face. He was captivated by the intensity of her gaze upon him and wondered on what lay behind those lovely eyes.
‘I wish…but it’s fun!’ He stood before her as the crowd brushed past them, his eyes darting about just to be sure no one took advantage, of the press of humanity, to snatch one of the smaller pieces still on display. ‘I’d better introduce myself…Patrick Ainsley…or simply Pat…visiting artist…who paints what he sees and not what people expect to see.’
‘Interpretative art as some might say…’
‘That’s so, but you’re not here to discuss all of that, are you? Has anything caught your eye?’
She met again that teasing smile and tilt of his head. His cultured voice was light and easy.
‘Why yes, Pat. that picture…’ she told him and pointing at it gracefully. ‘The view of the sea and the drift of wispy clouds as a backdrop…the darker clouds beyond them is wonderfully evocative…also the crags and lush vegetation in the foreground…plants and palms you’d never think could grow in the soils there. You’ve caught the natural lushness…the wild improbability of it all…the ever-changing light you often find on this island. There’s nothing faux about it. I kept hoping, every time I walked past, that you wouldn’t have sold it when I came back…’
‘And have I done so now?’ He looked at the painting more closely. The women beside him had seen exactly what he had done as he painted. The sky beyond suggested a thunderstorm, or a downpour, was heading the viewer’s way. He was pleased with the result and certainly this woman’s opinion of it. His work displayed what his eye instinctively captured in a glance. He worked furiously before the inspiration or insight faded. She spoke knowledgably or with an art lover’s eye. ‘It’s too big for you to carry back to where you’re staying…’
Her shoulder brushed his arm as they stood close. ‘I thought that too. My apartment’s too far from here…’
‘The artist delivers…in case you’re wondering,’ he smiled and saw her look of surprise. ‘I’m serious. I’ve hired a van to get about…even spend the night in it, sometimes…like a hobo artist… when it’s too far for me to come back to my place here. So, I could call by later, or this evening?’ he ventured before looking away. ‘Sorry…someone else is lingering. I’ll put them and myself out of their misery.’
‘Don’t be such a pessimist…’
She couldn’t help but laugh at their easy ways with each other. It felt disconcertingly real and only too sudden. How the currents of life and love ebbed and flowed like the ocean all around them. You didn’t always need to be in control as events and emotions overwhelmed you. They had done, on seeing and then talking to him.
‘Put a ‘sold’ sticker on it…on my painting!’ she called after him. ‘Susan Prescott!’
Pat turned and gave her a thumbs up. Susan realised that they had not talked of its price. She moved to stand by the wall that marked the edge of the promenade. The mesmerising, rolling surge of the ocean was not far below her vantage point. She heard the slap of the water against the stonework. She found that it settled her nerves, just as talking to Pat for a few moments and their exchange of banalities had achieved the same effect.
She was alone here, now, and had thought on how to make a new start in life. She had decided, as she walked past his pitch and seen the man and artist talking, that she would slowly engage his attention and see where that took her. The painting was very good. She had decided on it being a worthy impulse buy, the cost not of any great concern. Her divorce settlement had seen to that, along with the signing over to her of the apartment set in its landscaped grounds. It was an only too desirable piece of island real estate, but the space more than she needed. Deciding on what to do with it would have to wait. More important emotions were at work in her right now, brazen as it might appear to him.
She saw Pat turn towards her. He rubbed his hands in evident glee.
‘How long can you stay here with me, Susan? I’ve just sold another picture! Who are you…my lady luck by any chance?’
‘I’ll tell you later…okay?’
Susan took the small card that he now held out to her and saw his eyes drift to the people waiting to settle their purchase. She knew that few words were needed. Brazenly, a woman of forty-five had acted out of character…or maybe she had found her real self…confident and self-assured…finally in control of her life and where choices could be made that touched her life and hers alone. You made your own luck in life and love, and she ached to follow a new path and find out where that took her…with Pat Ainsley.
.
2
‘Let them think what they want,’ Pat muttered as he slowed to a stop.
Any security camera would pick out the small delivery van that was his beast of burden. It had often served as a studio, sleeping quarters and an only too dependable runabout that even had aircon.
He pressed the intercom button and waited at the security gate. The driveway up to the apartment complex, an architect’s only too minimalist dream of a design, rose and snaked through landscaped grounds, the palms and shrubs discreetly lit and taking nothing away from the views over the bay and the starry heavens above. He’d poked his head out of the driver’s side window just to take in where he now found himself. The woman he had met on the promenade had not deployed any airs and graces on him, nor put him in his place…far from it.
She knew little or nothing of him. He felt much the same about her, now, but one things was certain, Susan Prescott lived well, here on the island. He’d be thought of as an interloper, in spite of his skills that were to be seen on the painting that was laid out behind his seat, cardboard strips and brown paper laced around it to lessen the risk of tearing the canvas.
‘Pat…is that you?’ he heard over a clear link. ‘You’re right on time…’
‘I have every reason not to be late,’ he said lightly. ‘Give me a minute or so…’
He had no need to fret about finding her. Susan was seen standing by the front door as he approached, and she pointed to a visitor’s parking slot. He gaped on taking in the glaring white sundress that shaped her and gloried in the swell of her breasts and the sight of her legs, the frilly hem of her skirt just above the knee. She had dressed for him. He found that her smile was even better than he had seen earlier in the afternoon.
‘You look simply wonderful…Susan,’ was the only thing he could say as he stepped from the van and closed the door.
‘And you’re complimenting me…again,’ Susan answered. She felt flattered that Pat should have changed out of what she had seen him wear on first meeting him. His pale cream linen suit was a perfect complement to a sky-blue shirt, his engaging smile accompanying his gaze upon her. ‘Just bring the picture inside and we….’
‘We can then go out…to have supper and a drink somewhere…if you don’t mind being seen with me in my van?’
‘Don’t tease me,’ she whispered as he was seen to tug open the loading doors and eased the picture from under its cloth wrapping. The paper covering it rustled in the evening breeze. ‘I thought of it too…and I decided to book a table.’
‘Wow!’ he laughed on standing up, the picture held in his hands. ‘Yes, wow…first the dress and now what you’ve just told me. Sometimes events overtake you.’
‘That’s true, Pat…’ She had felt it too, but Pat had found the words to express what had been at work in her.
She loved his teasing ways but sensed that there was a genuineness in what he had told her. He had to be someone else, and not the street artist with his captivating ways; the seducer with fine words but no real substance behind the man she now saw as the door to her ground floor apartment was opened.
‘Come on…I want to see the picture in the room I’ve decided to hang it in.’ Susan said it nervily on clutching his arm for an instant. ‘I hope the afternoon carried on as it began for you?’
‘It did…and for you?’
He took in the glaring whiteness of the walls, the blues in the fabrics of the curtains and seat coverings, the lampshades, even the heavily embroidered rugs on the spotlessly clean marble floor. It was modern styling at its best and so in keeping with the culture of the island; its vibrancy.
‘I wondered what you would make of the place I call home and live alone in…now.’ Susan was seen to point to a wall over a low sideboard, fashioned out of what he took to be reclaimed timber and even driftwood, but beautifully crafted. ‘I thought of hanging it there, out of the direct sunlight. I can look at it whenever I’m at the table…guests can do that too.’
He held it up without being prompted. ‘If you’ve got a hammer and a picture hook I can hang it up while I’m here…’
‘And before we go out. Don’t forget that, will you?’ she replied, again touching his arm for an instant. He met Susan’s appraising look upon him. ‘I…I wondered who you are…do that now when I see how you are dressed and speak to me. You’re not just a man living off his art…are you?’
‘No, I’m not, Susan…but the story is for the telling over supper. Now, about that hammer and picture hook?’
‘Okay…okay…I’ll get them. My ex left a tool box in the hall cupboard. I meant what I asked, though…’
She had volunteered some more information about herself.
‘I know that Susan…you lovely lady in white. You’ll get an answer…over supper. I can’t just look at you and say nothing, can I?’
3
They were oblivious to all around them, their table for two set at the edge of a terrace that left ample space for diners to walk to the railing and gaze down at the ocean below or at the remains of the sunset, the surface of the sea like a sheet of wrinkled silver foil. The candle, in its fluted glass, flickered and flared in the breeze; its glow, along with others on tables nearby, offering a mesmerising sight. They hardly had breath to eat as they chattered and disclosed so much more about themselves. Every moment was not to be wasted.
Susan felt him clutch her hand as she chose to rest it on the table close to his.
‘There’s nothing else to tell,’ he confided. ‘I got out and decided to live a little differently. I have the money to do that…live small back home and have space enough for a studio. Our lives have followed similar tracks, although I haven’t been though what you’ve told me about. I still find it hard to believe that you were treated so badly…’
‘My ex played away but I got the last laugh.’ Pat heard again the bitterness in her tone. He squeezed Susan’s hand in comforting acknowledgment. The lovely woman seated beside him was as free of cloying commitments as he was. ‘And you?’
‘I never came close to that…’
‘You didn’t like to feel closed in?’ she prompted, wiping at her lips with the starched napkin. Their meal was over so they could talk and decide on where their impetuous ways with each other would now lead them. She had control; had persuaded Pat that they drive in her car to the restaurant after his van had been safely parked. Whatever happened between them, discretion was at the top of her list, but Pat’s ready acceptance of what she had suggested confirmed that he realised that too.
‘No, it’s not a fear of being closed in. How could you feel that if you really loved someone or had struck gold…so to speak…with the person you were with. No, I never met someone who clicked…who gave me space for my work, then, and now my art. The last one…of a few months back, she had other ideas. They have all ended the same way…’
‘But now you’re in control?’
‘Yes, Susan…as far as you can ever say that where someone else is involved, or when you meet someone who changes that.’ Pat looked at her in the half light. He saw Susan nod. ‘What we’re doing here is rather off the wall, but also feels right…’ He leant in closer, squeezed her hand tightly as he kissed her lips in the briefest of touches. ‘You might be the person to have gotten through to me like no one else…’
She heard the certainty in his voice. ‘We’re saying quite a lot for a first date…’
At length Pat broke the silent spell that they had fallen between them.
‘I’m doing a lot of staring and touching. You make it difficult for me not to…tell me if I should stop?’
‘No, I won’t do that!’ Susan answered on a low confiding voice, her smile lingering upon him before she turned away. I want to keep his attention on me, she thought. There’s an intensity that I want to hold onto, now that I’ve discovered what he thinks and feels about me and all that he has confessed. The gifted artist was only a part of the man she was seated next to.
‘Are you okay with what I’ve said?’
‘Yes, sudden as it is,’ she chose to admit. ‘What will you do when you return to England?’
Pat pressed his fingers to her lips to silence her questioning. He felt Susan kiss them.
‘I want to live out what I’ve found while I’m here, first.’ He pulled on her hand. ‘Let’s see where that takes us. I might even persuade you to let me paint a small portrait of you…my lady in white.’
4
She had laughed in dismay at what he did, Pat’s touches to her thigh exciting a sudden riot of emotions and the ache of longing in her belly; the soft skin of her thighs caressed when Pat thought it safe to do so. The flurry of uninhibited kisses they had shared in the restaurant’s car park had been but a prelude to this moment.
‘Who do you think I am?’ she cried out as his questing hands were pushed away. They were waiting for the security gate to her apartment complex to open. ‘I should ask you to get out…here and now!’
‘It’s way too soon, I know…to be touching you,’ was his reply to that. He shifted away and tugged on the door handle. ‘I’m captivated by the woman I see and have spent the evening with. She’s been in my thoughts all day…’ He made to get out of the car.
‘As you’ve been in mine.’ Susan detained him. She leant over and met his kiss. ‘You’re not going anywhere…not just yet artist man.’ The fingers of one hand brushed over the front of his trousers. She felt his straining prick. ‘I’m with you in this…’
Susan rushed from him the moment the car was parked. She didn’t look back as the security code was punched into the keypad and the doors slid open. She scampered across the echoing hallway before shoving her front door key into the lock. His hands were on her as they stumbled into her apartment, a pool of soft light offered by a table lamp that she had left on. She was gripped by a warm fuzzy feeling of desire as it surged through her again, and as it had done during the drive home, all of it aroused by the man she now turned to as she reached for the zip of her dress. She shivered as Pat’s fingers eased away the thin shoulder straps before she was made to turn and to languish in his embrace upon her.
‘It’s soon, I know, lovely Susan…’
‘I don’t care…I just don’t care about any of that!’ she gasped, squirming to meet Pat’s touches upon her as he eased her dress off, enough, to gaze at her body. She was going to get fucked and knew she was quite unwilling to prevent it happening. Her mind had already surrendered to her raging urges. She felt her dress drawn over her body, then the urgent touch of his fingers to her skin as he unhooked her push-up bra before they were all drawn away from her skin. His hands were on her naked flesh even as she pushed his jacket off him; tugged urgently on his belt and shuddered as his hands and mouth claimed her breasts and his fingers brushed the front of her panties.
‘Sorry…I’m sorry for the rush,’ he kissed as his fingers pressed into her.
‘I’m not! Go on!’ She felt as if she would climax there, before the night with him had really begun.
He pushed her against the wall and buried his face against her throat and neck; his hands squeezing Susan’s bum as his mouth found and sucked on her breasts, tugged on her nipples before they fell back. She simply collapsed against him and moaned through their hungering kisses, her hands finally pushing down his trousers and clamping on him.
Pat said nothing. He made her turn and lean against the wall before she felt the press of his straining prick against her buttocks. He held one arm as he continued to rub at her vaginal lips and clitoris, two fingers slowly penetrating to claim her as they stood still, their raging lust overwhelming them.
‘I…I love what you bring to me,’ he kissed as one hand now cupped her mound and a finger offered slow caresses her crack, no more.
Oh it felt so good! She wanted him so badly it hurt; his continued caresses and slow kisses to her skin, to all of her body seen as an act of homage that would loosen any bonds that she had sought to keep to another time and place; the man once with her no longer a consideration.
‘Take me to bed…just take me to bed!’ she cried out before breaking out of his grasp and scampering away. She turned on seeing him in the doorway of her bedroom. He stood gloriously and unashamedly naked before her, his prick arcing out from the mat of hair that spiraled up over his belly. ‘You wonder…that I should be with you like this and so soon!’
Their lips meet; questing hands caress and clamp as their tongues swirl and search the other’s mouth in deepening, noisy kisses. Susan pulls him down onto the bed and guides his urgent claims to her breasts, his devouring mouth tugging and sucking on her nipples in hard and then rhythmically slow claims upon them. She feels the rush of wetness from her expectant pussy slick her legs. She shivers out of longing that his ways have aroused in her.
‘Yes…kiss me there! Yes…go on!’ She’s pushed on his shoulders and feels his hands push her thighs wider, then push them up before his head is between them. He kisses her mound in slow lingering presses of his lips as he tongues her; is oblivious to her moaning and wiggling, nor the buck of her hips hat are soon stilled by his strong hands.
‘There will be other times…so many others,’ he says on trailing kisses over her body before he looks into her eyes, presses his mouth to her parted lips so that she can taste herself on them.
‘Pat…Pat!’ She reaches between their bodies and clamps on him before she felt the swollen tip of his penis caress slicked skin. She moaned loud and deep as he slowly entered her body. ‘Love me…just do it! Find me…don’t stop!’
Pat could not stop. Here was a most desirable woman who behaved like a slut, here movements drawing him deeper into her body. How she bucked and tugged soon drove him into a lusting frenzy. The body he had seen so wonderfully clothed in that white dress was now naked and for him to enjoy; to share in all that could be discovered and offered by each of them in turn. He wanted it to be slow and easy, but neither of them could wait. These shared acts of discovery had to be ragingly pursued. Everything else would follow. Right now, they wanted the urgency and the noise of a one-night stand, and to bask in the raging heat and the sapping of their energy.
‘Pat…you could have warned me!’
Her hips bucked up hard to claim him. They dragged down and tugged and urged him to move until she was certain that her lover had hit her cervix. He could go further, and the pattern was set for a tempestuous rut that had them calling out to each other; the bed rocking and the mattress sagging as they pursued their claims on each other.
‘Susan…Susan…Susan! he gasped as he heard her moan and scream; felt every muscle, that claimed his plunging penis, clamp on him. They tightened and kept a hold as she shuddered as he unleashed jetting streams of semen into her body, and she kept him there; wrapped her legs and arms around him in an embrace that he thought would crush him. It seemed like forever as she squeezed him; as her body quivered and shuddered in consummation of all that they had sought of each other.
‘Yes…me too! You’ve found me!’ she gasped, offering fiery kisses to his face and mouth as Pat leant over her. ‘This is unreal…unreal, you darling man! I’ve been with you all the time! You shared it with me like no other!’
Pat looked down into her eyes, kissed her fluttering lids. He believed what she had told him. He had heard the anger and sense of loss in her voice, the betrayal of her trust by another, over supper. Now, and with him, it seemed to have been the ultimate orgasm and a true union of bodies once more. He languished in her embrace, even as the shudders of completion continued to wrack her body. It felt as if one orgasm was following on another; the slow slip and press of his prick in her body exciting these responses.
‘The passion you bring to your work is here…in all that you’ve done with me!’ She had never felt so possessed; had never responded so deeply; the rushes and ache of climbing and spending like never before. Sex, with a gifted and handsome stranger, had changed into acts of love and renewal.
She shivered as Pat withdrew and slumped back on the bed beside her. She rolled onto her side to meet his wondering look upon her naked body and the indolent tumble of her breasts as Susan pressed against him and offered slow caresses to his enervated skin.
‘You’ll become my muse,’ he kissed as Susan faced him, their arms and legs intertwined as they basked in the heat of all that had been shared. Pat looked at her. Susan’s eyes were closed and there was a soft smile on her lips. He kissed her nose, her eyes then her lips. He pulls her tight to him and hears a contented sigh as she snuggled closer to him. She did so possessively.
‘You’ll be with me whenever you can, won’t you?’ she asked drowsily. ‘I won’t be a drag on you…simply love the company that you are for me. I know that already, crazy as it may sound…’
Her voice drifted away…
‘Yes, I’ll be with you, but leave me some energy for my work…won’t you?’ Pat smiled as he met Susan’s wondering look. He embraced her to him, even tighter.
She gave a soft, satisfied laugh. ‘The artist and his muse…whatever next?’
They slept.
5
Susan was startled into wakefulness as she felt Pat move from her and sit on the edge of their bed. She groaned as the digital alarm clock’s fluorescent green letters showed the time. She shifted over the rumpled sheet and reached out to restrain him.
‘It’s way too early to go and leave me,’ she said, her lips to his back as Pat hesitated. She pressed her breasts against his skin; moved so that she could put her arms about his neck and brushed her fingers over his chest. She breathed in his heat and could smell the musky aroma of their loving. ‘I thought you’d be tired after all that we did last night?’
‘Actually, I am but I have a busy day ahead of me…may not be back tonight. I really don’t know…so I’ll pack some gear just in case. I don’t think you’d want to sleep on a padded bedroll in the back of my van, even if I do park in a camp site with some basic amenities.’ He turned his face and met her kiss. ‘The artist sometimes suffers for his craft…’
Susan laughed softly. ‘I do like my creature comforts…’
‘I’m wanting to paint the wild southern coast…catch the sunset and have the cliffs and sea in shadow…the orange pinks of the sky are something to wonder at. You get a sense of the scale of the volcanoes that made this place. I want to capture them in paint….along with the big colourful skies and the dark sea below. I could go down there with you the next time.’ Pat shifted on the bed to look at her. ‘I should have said something last night…sorry. You took your mind off everything else.’
‘Don’t be…everything’s wonderfully new. A few hours or a day apart will settle things in our minds, Pat.’
‘That’s so.’ He caressed her throat. He gloried in her fulsome body for a moment longer and wondered if her restraining touches were also a caress that would make him relent. ‘I’ll grab a shower and get dressed…’
‘I’ll shower with you…the rest can keep. It’s only five…way too early for me. Promise me it won’t always be like this?’
‘We walk, don’t run, lovely lady,’ he answered gently. ‘The omens look good though…’
She knew it too and loved his smile, even as she remembered what she had told him last night, that she wouldn’t close him in or be demanding. And yet, Pat had said nothing of his plans. In truth, she had not asked him either, so why was she expecting him to disclose everything and so soon? That would come in time, if they had that, or pursued all that they had started. There would be time to do that in the coming days and weeks. It had yet to be spoken of. They had clicked and it felt as if they had done that almost straightaway, from the moment she had crossed the road and seen his appraising glance upon her. Pat was an unashamedly lustful man first, then the artist. It now felt as if they had become lovers at first sight, and she had not been disappointed in all that she had discovered with him as the hours passed. Now, she had no certainty of knowing when he would again be with her.
At least she could share a few moments more with him…
♥
Pat yawned. He couldn’t help but do that. The woman he had met. and who had beguiled and then claimed him. had bestowed an aching lethargy that he had found difficult to leave.
‘What a possessive woman I’ve become,’ Susan had told him over trembling lips. Her ragingly passionate confidence had deserted her when they had kissed in farewell. They had been standing at the door of her apartment.
‘I don’t think that of you,’ he remembered saying to console her. ‘I think the answer’s really to be found in what happened…what was done to you. Me being here has stirred it all up for you…’
‘Love it all away, again…and again,’ she had asked, clinging to him fiercely. He remembered her soft wondering look, perhaps thinking it would not go the way she hoped.
‘I will. I’ll call you later and once I’ve arrived. I won’t know for sure until I see the landscape and the sea…how the light falls on it and where that will be. I’ll call you.’
‘I’ve got friends who live here on the island coming over later…’
‘Then I’ll call after lunch…or what passes for it when I’m out there painting…’ he had pulled open the door, but Susan detained him.
‘It will be fine…whenever you call.’ He had seen her lips tremble. ‘Sorry…it’s all been overwhelming…but wonderfully so. I’m letting go of another life and the man once in it.’
It had been disconcerting to see the effect that he had on her; the hurt and betrayal had run very deep. He had finally eased from her embrace. He had certainly delighted in her and what Susan had brought so wonderfully to his sight and touch. He had caught sight of her as she stood by the picture window of the room where his picture now hung. She would have views of the tended gardens and the path he walked along until out of her sight. The ocean lay beyond, the horizon already aglow with the sunrise.
Yes, he would be back with her. Passion had given way to considered loving. It was something that, he realised, he was also in need of.
But now, he had to concentrate on the winding dusty road and marvel at the ever-changing scenery before him as the road rose and fell, twisted around craggy outcrops and hid from sight the next view. It was of a captivating verdant wasteland that brought to the eye the contrast of a rich palette of greens with that of stratified darker colours that were volcanic rocks and ashes, layered as if by an inventive pastry chef.
Inspiration could be found everywhere he chose to look. He had even seen it in the wonderfully crafted street art and graffiti on the gables of houses in town. The brilliance of the light seemed to infuse the minds of local artists and had him feel an interloper. He also took encouragement from it all. An Englishman’s eye and skills was bringing an alternative view of what others might take for granted.
He sighed as the traffic slowed. His plans for the day had been turned upside down; his thoughts were elsewhere. What he intended to do might yet have to change, the day’s work to be an only too predictable holiday creation that were two a penny. He would nevertheless try to break free of those constraints and not allow the perfectionist in him to hold sway over glaring commercial realities. His changed ways of life had not made him forget what he had learned, and once used, to earn a living and do very well out of it.
Until hours ago the prospect of an enduring companionable life had continued to elude him.
Without further thought he took the next turn. He’d ‘go local’. The statues to Guanche Indians to be seen on the seafront of Candelaria would be the subject of three works, the details abstract and rather like a Picasso, but recognisable for whom they depicted and their plight.
He would be stepping out into new avenues of work, just as his personal life was taking a turn for the better, he fervently hoped. Casual ways with women really weren’t for him.
6
She had been glad for the company that Peggy and Tom Talbot offered. They had called by late morning and marvelled at her purchase.
‘The picture’s something of a find for the money,’ Tom had opined. ‘Next thing I know, Peggy will want to have his number…or we all go down to the next street fair and see what he’s produced.’
‘I don’t think you’d let me buy any more, my darling,’ Peggy had said and smiling fondly at her man. They had settled on the island; loved the climate and had made the run-down hacienda, on the outskirts of the city, their cherished home and faithfully restoring its features.
‘I was persuaded to buy it…’
‘By the artist?’ Peggy had exclaimed.
‘None other. He was too good-looking to refuse…and he’s English…so that helped,’ she remembered laughing. ‘I let my heart rule my head.’
‘Go on with you!’ Peggy had laughed out in some dismay, before she had taken in her close friends’ look back at her. ‘Don’t get hurt, will you?’
‘I think this is the moment for me to withdraw so that you two can gossip,’ Tom had said on a slow shake of the head.
‘Yes, go for a walk…better still, go to the fishmonger and get us some supper. We can barbecue it…you could join us?’ Peggy had gone on to ask her.
Her reply had been non-committal and it had only aroused Peggy’s curiosity still further. They had waited until Tom had gone on his errand.
‘Well?’ Peggy prompted. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re too young to be left on the shelf…as the saying goes.’
‘Not in my book of words…’
‘No, quite….’
They had sipped on Sangria and chattered, but she had given nothing away on how far she had gone with Pat. Her friend couldn’t have missed her nerviness. It had grown with every passing hour and still no call from him. She had chosen to wait and wouldn’t succumb and come over as the needy one. The thought that it had been a pleasurable one-night stand also possessed her, but she had learned that Pat wasn’t that kind of man.
‘Shall we look him up…do an internet search?’ Peggy had suggested and she’d agreed after confessing that it had not been on her ‘to do’ list, where it concerned Patrick Ainsley.
‘I’ve got his card…shall I fetch it?’
Peggy who soon followed her into the room and where his picture hung. No matter what the light, it was a wonderful image that he had crafted.
She had caught her reflection in the mirror as she passed and thought she had seen a new woman in her navy-blue tunic blouse that hung loose over matching slacks, a white bauble necklace a suitable complement. It had all been a cover for a woman aching to hear from her lover, her range of acting skills too limited to conceal what she felt, from Peggy, for long.
Her laptop was soon booted up and they had gasped on what was to be found written about him.
‘My God…he’s a catch if it goes so far,’ Peggy had soon exclaimed and sitting close as they read his full bio. ‘Not too young for you is he…rich as the man seems to be?’
‘Direct aren’t you? And he’s made no issue of what money he has. Pat’s so modest, you wonder how he got to be where he is now.’
‘Just thinking of you…given what you’ve been through.’
‘I know, and it’s been something that I’ve wondered about too. It’s…it’s just that, Pat’s not like the men you read about.’
‘Let’s hope so then, for your sake…’ Peggy had been startled by her reaction when her iPhone rang. It had gone five and Tom was heard to be ringing the bell at the security gate. ‘I’ll deal with it…you take the call.’
A considerate but knowing smile was all that had been seen on her friend’s lips.
♥
‘Hello…I did begin to wonder…’ she began but Pat cut in.
‘It’s been a manic day…and it was turned over completely. I kept thinking of you and wasn’t in the mood to drive further south to the cliffs. Instead, I went to the harbour at Candelaria…brushed out three pictures of the Guanche Indian statues you see there…’
‘I know what you mean!’
‘I’ve given them the Ainsley treatment…could call by and show you, or you could have supper at my place…see how I live out the artist’s life? There are very few frills.’
‘I don’t care about any of that! Just give me your address!’
‘It’s on the card I gave you, Susan. Be here with me and lay the demons to rest…’
‘I have them too!’
In the grip of her excitement and expectation she closed up the apartment and locked her front door. She did not bother to check her make-up or brush out her hair. She could do that once she had found somewhere to park near his place. Perhaps his white van would be like a beacon to where her man lived, for she thought of him in those terms now. She would reclaim him. Peggy wouldn’t recognise her friend, but she felt certain that Pat would do so.
7
She slewed to a stop in the space at the end of the parking zone; laughed as she saw a small Union Jack hanging from the railing fixed to the top of the wall of his balcony. Susan saw him wave and she responded; felt the rush of longing course through her belly at the sight of her lover, his hair like a sun-bleached crown. His smile, as she drew near and looked up at him, impossibly bright against his tanned face.
‘The wonders of sat nav!’ she called out to him The sight of her lover aroused a renewed ache of longing for him.
‘The wonder of you! What are you waiting for… I’ve so much to show you?’
‘I know you have!’
How he lived and what he had painted during the hours he had been away from her could wait. She was unable to do that and knew it was so the moment she saw him again standing in his apartment’s doorway and ran into his embrace..
♥
‘Woman…you’ll break me…break me, you darling!’
‘Hold on…please hold on! I…I want to do that….for you…for…’
The words ‘for us’ remained unspoken. The pleasure Pat brought to her had reached its peak and she shuddered; felt the brutal strength of his passion crash over her and wrack her body in shuddering waves as she tumbled into an all-consuming shared climax. She couldn’t stifle her groans against his skin and clung to Pat as her pleasure seemed to take over her body until it seemed to swell and to be released in pulsing, quickening snatches; the pleasure all-consuming and the pulses he aroused having her grip on that length of flesh that had found her so insistently and quick. It had all become a frenzied avowal of what they had known of the night before and had again to be made real.
‘Don’t stop…I can take more of you!’ she cried out, her efforts to hold onto him lessening. His penis, so hard and ribbed, slid rapidly in and out of her body. It brought her experience of him to a level of unbridled and feral carnality. The artist had become the lover in search of a deepening sense of completion with her.
Her lover was wild, and she knew that he felt that only for her. His words of longing, as they had undressed ach other in haste, had confirmed it and they had eased away her remaining doubts.
He claimed her and she yielded to every thrust, embraced him fiercely even as Pat pushed her legs up until she locked them behind his back. It all became too much, the world beyond his bedroom window unnoticed. She was all to him and all that he brought was an only too aching reality.
‘Susan…Susan…you darling!’
It was upon him, now, and she knew that he was gone…had become lost in her and she was wracked again by her orgasm as she felt the searing spurts of his release. She stifled his cries with her kisses and wondered how their times together could possibly end and what they would know of after all this had been shared.
She held him to her and basked in the heat from all that had again been discovered as Pat collapsed upon her, utterly spent. Was the pleasure worth the risks they had again taken?
‘Tell me about your day,’ she asked, her hands stroking his back as he slowly settled in her embrace. Pat lay between her warm thighs as they remained joined. ‘I kept wondering where you had travelled to…’
‘A place without you…’ Pat eased slowly from her and felt Susan shiver at the residual caress his flaccid penis still offered. He saw how Susan touched herself. ‘Yes, I’ve been with you again.’
He leant over her and offered kisses to her body. He gently lifted her breasts and kissed the warm skin beneath them. Susan stilled the progress of his touches.
‘Show me what you’ve done?’ she asked on sitting up and bending to clasp her knees. ‘I could always go with you…watch you work but be no distraction…just be company.’
He stood in the doorway and looked her way. A passionate soul burned within her, and he continued to be surprised that she should have shared so much, already, with him in the few hours they had known each other. They had shared confidences over dinner the previous evening and had then stumbled into bed. He had left her and sought to paint, but he had realised, as he painted, that someone, and something, special had been discovered; more correctly stumbled upon after she had stopped to buy a picture.
There was no one in his life to claim his affection or to share his bed and he sensed, already, that Susan had surrendered to him and his ways. She knew that time could so easily be spent in each other’s company when he was not painting. They could enjoy so much more that the island had to offer and do that together.
‘Do I have to get out of bed and look at the pictures?’
‘Now, that’s an idea…’ he grinned and beckoned to her.
Susan ran into his arms and met a flurry of his kisses. She pressed against him and felt again the caress of his hands to her skin.
‘Somehow I think I’ll be spending the night here…’
‘Whatever gave you that idea? I’m worn out after what you’ve just done to me…’
He had eased out of her embrace and stood by three paintings that he had leant against the wall, the images yet to be seen. Susan caressed his back and hips as he turned them.
‘You…you wonder!’ she gasped as she joined him in kneeling down to look at them. ‘They’re simply wonderful…a different perspective on those statues….’
‘You were in my mind. I could see nothing else but you…wanted to simply paint what I saw…take inspiration from local artists and that man Picasso. You may have heard of him…’
Susan nudged him. ‘Less of your sarcasm, mister, or I’ll go home…’
‘I’ll simply follow you there…’ he retorted.
‘I know you will.’ She threaded her arm loosely through his and looked down at the paintings. ‘Art is all around us here…even in the painted walls…graffiti to some…a skilled craft to others.’
‘I got the ideas from that. So, the pictures here are like that…one is modernist, the body outlined and filled with squares of colour. The next only too recognisable but in the weathered colours of the metal the statues were poured in, and the third is in the cubist style and of four natives, two males and females…the well-endowed men in loin cloths and the women bare-breasted and with flowing skirts…’ He stopped. ‘I’m talking to someone who knows of these things…’
‘But she is with the artist and the man…here and now.’ She turned to him and saw Pat’s eyes drift over her naked body. She moved her head to meet the slow caress to her neck as Pat drew her into a kiss. ‘I..I don’t want this to end…not here or when we get back to our other home.’
‘Neither do I…you wonder.’ Pat felt her nod and met the soft, wondering, look in Susan’s eyes upon him.
‘You know that already?’
‘I think it began when you stood on the other side of the road and looked my way…’ Pat paused. ‘This place has gotten to me and Ill want to keep coming back…and to do that with you. I want to love with you and not worry about the consequences. Do you know what I’m saying?’
Susan nodded. She couldn’t quell the trembling of her lips.
‘I felt that way too and I wondered what you’d think of me, a woman so sure of what she wanted…a man who would make her feel alive again.’
‘Love’s like an ocean current…unstoppable when it’s real.’
Susan stood up and held out her hands. ‘Prove it!’
On a laugh she skipped away.
♥