Free Only in the Night by Roberta Latow Page B

he had booked a table for lunch, then took the back seat to sit next to Eliza whom he thought looked prettier and more seductive than ever. His kiss was deep and passionate. He stroked her hair and was surprised at how enchanted he felt to be there with her.
    ‘Now then, what did you do with your morning? Where did you go?’
    ‘Nowhere. I just stayed at home.’
    ‘Weren’t you bored?’
    ‘No, not in the least. Quite happy and content,’ she told him, and was surprised at the look that came over his face, as if he were disappointed. She was relieved when he said no more on that subject.
    Instead he whispered in her ear, ‘You look delicious today but you were sublime last night.’
    A flush came over Eliza’s face. She answered him with difficulty, choked with delight and pleasure that this older, exciting, experienced lover had found her so. Flattered, she told him, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you think so.’
    He opened the rabbit fur jacket and was disappointed to see that yet again she had not dressed to his liking. She had shrouded her sensuality with a beige silk dress that had seen better days. John realised that she simply did not have any dress sense. He undid three of the small white mother of pearl buttons to expose some cleavage and then, taking the navy blue and white polka dot silk square from his pocket, meticulously folded it into a narrow band and tied it round her neck to finish it in a minute bow. It suited her long slender neck and she looked instantly more enticing, even a little chic. He found her quite irresistible and kissed her again, slipped his hand into the dress and caressed a naked breast.
    After lunch he took her to South Molton Street and Brown’s where he introduced her to the proprietor who was given a directive: ‘Miss Forrester is coming out in London and needs some fashion advice. I would likeyou to guide us today with some things for day wear, dinner parties, the opera. And I’d be grateful if, in future, you would be available to her.’ The next stop was to Church Street and Manolo Blahnik for shoes where a similar directive was issued.
    Eliza did try to resist his generosity but several turns in front of the mirrors in the shops and the look of pleasure on John’s face made it difficult to keep up her protests. She was finally defeated after she told him, ‘You know I cannot afford these clothes nor can I accept them as gifts, how could I explain them to my parents? Actually they would be offended on many counts.’
    His answer was quite simple. ‘Don’t tell them, or else find a clever way to explain them. I simply cannot squire you around London dressed as you are.’
    And the subject was closed.

Chapter 4
    All the Forrester girls knew how to rise to an occasion, that was the way they had been brought up. Eliza rose admirably to a London life with John, and a sexual life with him that kept her on the edge of lust very nearly every waking moment they were together. He had the measure of her. She was malleable, dizzily in love with her sexuality and with him. He could mould her any way he pleased and that excited him, kept him interested, even hungry to play with his young thing. It was flattering to him that she had no ambition but to please him, add something light and frivolous to his hectic life. And he did enjoy enormously that ability of hers to rise to the occasion, whether it be in bed or enjoying food she had never tasted, seeing a play she had never heard of, an opera, a ballet, even wearing with style a dress he had bought her.
    Eliza, for her part, was not so much dazzled by John’s lifestyle – elegant, cultivated, a crammed social calendar – as fascinated by it, and by how important all those things seemed to be to his happiness. In her heart she thought, as her parents did, that there was something just a little shallow and unnecessary about it all – but love can dictate to the heart. She believed she could get used to John’s life, that it might be