Free Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks Page B

touch of his skin.
    She went downstairs and her step was so light that it made no sound. She found him clenched in combat with himself, leaning against the window. She said,
    "Come to the red room."
    By the time Stephen turned round she had gone. The red room. He panicked. He was sure it would be one of those he had once seen but could never refind; it would be like a place in a dream that remains out of reach; it would always be behind him. He ran up the stairs and saw her turn a corner. She went down the main corridor to a narrow passage, down again through a little archway. At the end of the corridor was a locked door that led into the servants' part of the house. Just before it, the last door on the left, was an oval china handle that rattled in the ill-fitting lock. He caught her as she opened the door of a small room with a brass bedstead and a red cover.
    "Isabelle." He too was in tears. He took her hair in his hands and saw it flow between his fingers.
    She said, "My poor boy."
    He kissed her, and this time her tongue did not flee from his.
    He said, "Where is Lisette?"
    "The garden. I don't know. Oh God. Oh please, please." She was starting to shake and tremble. Her eyes had closed. When she opened them again she could barely breathe. He began to tear at her clothes and she helped him with urgent, clumsy actions. The waistcoat was caught on her elbow. He pushed back her blouse and buried his face in the satin slip between her breasts. There was so much delight in what he saw and touched that he thought he would need years to stop and appreciate it, yet he was driven by a frantic haste.
    Isabelle felt his hands on her, felt his lips on her skin and knew what he must be seeing, what shame and impropriety, but the more she imagined the degradation of her false modesty the more she felt excited. She felt his hair between her fingers, ran her hands over the bulge of his shoulders, over the smooth chest inside his shirt.
    "Corne on, please, please," she heard herself say, though her breathing was so ragged that the words were barely comprehensible. She ran her hand over the front of his trousers, brazenly, as she imagined a whore might do, and felt the stiffness inside. No one upbraided her. No one was appalled. She could do whatever she wanted. His intake of breath caused him to stop undressing her and she had to help him pull down her silk drawers to reveal what she suddenly knew he had long been imagining. She squeezed her eyes tight shut as she showed herself to him, but still no guilt came. She felt him push her backward on to the bed, and she began to arch herself up from it rhythmically as though her body, independent of her, implored his attention. She felt at last some contact, though she realised with a gasp that it was not what she expected; it was his tongue, lambent, hot, flickering over and inside her, turning like a key in the split lock of her flesh. This shocking new sensation made her start to sigh and shudder in long rhythmic movements, borne completely away on her passion, feeling a knot of pressure rising in her chest, a sensation that was impossible to sustain, to bear, though all its momentum seemed to be onward. In this conflict she thrashed her head from side to side on the bed. She heard her voice crying out in denial as from some distant room, but then the sensation broke and flooded her again and again, down through her belly and all her limbs, and her small voice, close to her head this time, said, "Yes." When she opened her eyes she saw Stephen standing naked in front of her. Her eyes fixed on the flesh that stuck out from him. He had still not made love to her; the joy was yet to come. He climbed on top of her and kissed her face, her breasts, pulling the nipples upward with his lips. Then he rolled her over, ran his hands up the inside of her legs, above the silk stockings that her speedy undressing had not had time to remove, and between the cleft where her legs were joined. He kissed her