Free Night Train to Lisbon by Emily Grayson Page B

a girl your age.”
    Jane looked at her niece sternly, and Carson found herself simply looking back, not wavering or blinking. What was happening between herself and Alec was something so exciting that she wanted to talk about it with everyone, to climb to the top of a Moorish castle and shout it over the hills, and yet she also knew that she could not do that. Her aunt and uncle would not approve. No one she knew would. If her own parents found out that she was falling in love with a penniless English physicist in his twenties who had just this afternoon whispered to her, “I want to make love to you,” they would personally fly over to Portugal and drag her home, making sure that she never saw him again.
    So she wouldn’t tell anyone. She would keep it between herself and Alec, where it rightfully belonged. She would travel with him the following day, as they’d planned, to Cabo da Roca, and enter the pensão posing as man and wife.
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    And so it was in that pensão that Carson found herself sitting on a simple white bed facing a window that overlooked the sea and the west. Across that great expanse, far, far away, were Carson’s parents, just waking up and having their coffee and toast and eggs-over-easy, for in America it was still morning. But here in Portugal, time had already passed and it was the middle of the afternoon, and Alec Breve was sitting down beside her on the bed.
    â€œYou are so lovely,” he said, and she lowered her eyes, then began to unbutton her blouse. Her hands were shaking so hard, she could barely undo the tiny seed-pearl buttons. “Are you cold?” he asked, concerned, but she shook her head no. “Just scared?” She nodded. “Don’t be, darling,” he said. “Please.” He kissed her cheek and stroked her hair.
    â€œI’m trying not to be,” said Carson.
    â€œIf this isn’t what you want, we can wait,” Alec said. “We can wait as long as you want.”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I don’t want to wait.” She wanted to touch him, wanted to see his body, tanned from the Portuguese sun, free of its clothes. She wanted to see the muscles in his legs and arms, and look into his eyes in the dim afternoon light. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
    And then, to her own surprise as well as his, she opened her blouse fully and pulled him against her, lying back onto the bed and bringing him atop her, so she could feel the weight of hisbody on hers. He actually felt weightless, she realized, and even the bed itself seemed unmoored from the floor in this small, simple room. They began kissing each other quickly and urgently, and touching each other everywhere, exploring, trying it all out, creating delicate patterns with hands and mouths, and as if from some great distance she heard a voice say “Oh, don’t stop,” and she had no idea whether it was his voice speaking, or her own.
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    Later, back on the bus to Lisbon, the couple sat side by side for a long while, barely speaking but simply letting themselves think back over what had just happened, and where this would all lead. For Carson, making love with Alec was the most extraordinary experience she’d ever had. The woven straw seat of the bus was hard and uncomfortable, and the vehicle itself seemed to have been manufactured in an entirely different era. A woman in the seat behind them carried a live chicken on her lap; it continually squawked and complained and shrugged its feathers into the air throughout the short trip into the city.
    At one point Alec turned to Carson and looked at her. “Are you all right now?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” she said.
    â€œGood,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t feeling…regret, or something like that.”
    â€œNo,” she said. “Not at all.”
    She knew that he’d been with other women; he’d told her so when she’d asked.