Free I Take You by Nikki Gemmell Page A

better than she realizes, nicer, more than she knows. There’s something spiritual, wild, of the earth to her, despite all the polish. He leans across without thinking and wipes the tear from her cheek. She smiles, lips rolled in, laughs at her silliness, ‘Just a bird!’ in wonder and ridiculousness. Amid the thumping rain, the canopy of slick green, his hand lingers a touch. A trickle of a caress. Blind, instinctive, whisper-soft. It drops to the dip in her neck. Lingers at the vulnerability; the soft, wild beat of it.
    ‘You should come into the hut.’ His voice neutral.
    ‘Yes,’ Connie murmurs, as if in a trance, ‘yes.’ There are hessian sacks, ready, waiting. On the floor. Has he laid them, for this, for what? No, surely not. There’s a fluttery newness in her, a tug, a wet. Her belly, her very depths feel liquid, ready for anything or nothing, she knows now what. Connie’s hand slips into her pocket; quietly, secretly, she brushes her mouth, slips something under her tongue.
    ‘Lie here,’ he says and with a quaint obedience she does. Absolutely straight, on her back, arms crossed demurely upon her chest as if she has never before done this, as if she doesn’t know what to expect. Waiting, breathing snagged. He lies the supine length of her, nudging close, she can feel his strong, slow, unhurried weight, he is up on one hip and caressing her inner thighs, with such infinite tenderness, and cherishing; closer, he nudges, closer, swirls, opening her gently, so gently out, closer and closer to her core and she lies back and closes her eyes and cries out softly, just that. With gratitude, with relief. A tear slips down her temple.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks, concerned.
    ‘Nothing.’ She shakes her head, murmurs, ‘Go on, please, don’t stop.’
    Reverently Mel lifts up Connie’s dress, reverently he brushes her navel with a kiss. Draws down her panties, and stops, gasps. With shock, with pity, sorrow – at what he sees before him; at this poor, caged creature who’s fluttered into his life – and Connie reaches up and draws him strong into a wallop of a kiss and as she does so she passes something metallic and hard from her tongue into his mouth, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
    Mel stops in surprise, draws back. Retrieves a small key. Stares at it in bewilderment.
    ‘Help me,’ Connie whispers. ‘I want to be alive again. Please, get rid of this padlock, get rid of all of it.’
    And so he does. First the lock, then the two tiny sleepers, with sure steady hands and an infinite gentleness, the gentleness of hands used to unhooking animals from a trap. All the while shaking his head in wonder and horror that the world has come to this.
    Connie is finally unlocked. She pushes herself wide, wider with release. The moment Mel enters her body is a moment of pure peace. With a sudden thrusting back he withdraws and comes quick; seed is spilled upon her stomach with a quiet, guttural groan and then a stillness plumes through him, through them both, like sleep.
    They lie there listening to the rain, its slowing, the soft drip, drip, of its aftermath. They lie there with the smell of saturated, sated earth, utterly quiet with no talk. His wet, sticky body touching hers, completely unknown, and right. It is like an abandonment for them both. Of everything else in their lives, here, in this secret place.
    ‘I thought I’d done with it for now,’ Mel laughs ruefully, as if he can scarcely believe it.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Fucking. Women. Life.’
    ‘Life,’ Connie says wondrously, soft. ‘Life,’ she repeats.
    His smile, arrowed into her, his smile at all of it.

32

    One must love everything

 
     
    Striding home across a darkened park, the gravel path an entrail of paleness to her married existence but no fear now, no dread, a tall walk. Like she’s just had exhilarating sex, the power of it inhabiting her whole body. Alive again, alive, and supremely flushed with it. Life, Connie