Free On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan Page A

several waves breaking in succession, hard smacks against the shore. Then, just as suddenly, the waves were as before, tinkling and raking softly across the shingle.
    She put her arm around his shoulder. “Do you want to know a secret?”
    “Yes.”
    She took his earlobe between forefinger and thumb and gently tugged his head toward her and whispered, “Actually, I’m a little bit scared.”
    This was not strictly accurate but, thoughtful though she was, she could never have described her array of feelings: a dry physical sensation of tight shrinking, general revulsion at what she might be asked to do, shame at the prospect of disappointing him, and of being revealed as a fraud. She disliked herself, and when she whispered to him, she thought her words hissed in her mouth like those of a stage villain. But it was better to talk of being scared than admit to disgust or shame. She had to do everything she could to begin to lower his expectations.
    He was gazing at her, and nothing registered in his expression to show he had heard her. Even in her difficult state, she marveled at his soft brown eyes. Such kindly intelligence and forgiveness. Perhaps if she stared into them and saw nothing else, she might just be able to do anything he asked of her. She would trust him utterly. But this was fantasy.
    He said at last, “I think I am too.” As he spoke he placed his hand just above her knee, and slid along, under the hem of her dress, and came to rest on her inner thigh, with his thumb just touching her knickers. Her legs were bare and smooth, and brown from sunbathing in the garden and tennis games with old school friends on the Summertown public courts and two long picnics with Edward on the flowery downs above the pretty village of Ewelme, where Chaucer’s granddaughter was interred. They continued to look into each other’s eyes—in this they were accomplished. Such was her awareness of his touch, the warmth and sticky pressure of his hand against her skin, that she could imagine, she could
see,
precisely his long, curving thumb in the blue gloom under her dress, lying patiently like a siege engine beyond the city walls, the well-trimmed nail just brushing the cream silk puckered in tiny swags along the line of the lacy trim, and touching too—she was certain of this, she felt it clearly—a stray hair curling free.
    She was doing all she could to prevent a muscle in her leg from tightening, but it was happening without her, of its own accord, as inevitable and powerful as a sneeze. It was not painful as it clenched and went into mild spasm, this treacherous band of muscle, but she felt it was letting her down, giving the first indication of the extent of her problem. He surely felt the little storm beneath his hand, for his eyes widened minutely, and the tilt of his eyebrows and the soundless parting of his lips suggested that he was impressed, even in awe, as he mistook her turmoil for eagerness.
    “Flo…?” He said her name cautiously, on a dip and a rise, as though wanting to steady her or dissuade her from some headlong action. But he was having to hold down a little storm of his own. His breathing was shallow and irregular, and he kept detaching his tongue from his palate with a soft, sticking sound.
    It is shaming sometimes, how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions. Who, for decorum’s sake, has ever slowed his heart, or muted a blush? Her unruly muscle jumped and fluttered like a moth trapped beneath her skin. She had similar trouble sometimes with her eyelid. But perhaps the tumult was subsiding; she could not be sure. It helped her to settle on the basics, and she spelled them out for herself with stupid clarity: his hand was there because he was her husband; she let it stay because she was his wife. Certain of her friends—Greta, Hermione, Lucy especially—would have been naked between the sheets hours ago, and would have consummated this marriage—noisily, joyously—long before the