Free Sabine by A.P. Page A

special brand: a loose-packed tipless cylinder of Virginia tobacco that smelt of molasses, let off a damp blue smoke, and left bitter, treacly flakes on your tongue. During all recent school holidays I had puffed on them avidly (my father tended to keep count of things, fags especially, so I knew the bonanza wouldn’t last); now, after the toasty French taste I had become accustomed to, they turned my stomach, made me physically sick. When he pressed one on me I turned away with an Ugh.
    He read the signal clearly – I said he was still too close for comfort. Love him, love his cigarettes, and vice versa: shun them, shun him. I was slipping from his grasp. He didn’t know how fast and he didn’t know why – was it just natural independence asserting itself or was there someone on the other side, pulling? – but his biddable Viola (named for the violin he loved to play and also to bend to his will, insofar as that was possible for a lazy dilettante who could never be bothered to practise) was slipping from his grasp.
    Oh, a daughter’s education was such a headache in this day and age. What should he do? What could he do? Too late now to send her somewhere else: there weren’t many suitable places anyway, and the ones there were got so booked up. Could it be anything seriously to worry about? Could Madame Tiddlypush be unreliable on this score? Surely not, people swore by her. There
had
been an accidentonce, apparently, but a long time ago and not of that kind … something to do with a car. Well, that was one thing at least he needn’t worry about, or not until Viola passed her test: car crashes. And even then – lightning never struck twice. All the same, perhaps he ought to have a word with Madame over the blower before the next term started, just to be on the safe side. Tell her to keep her eyes open. How could he put it in his rusty French that would hit the right note and not give offence?
Cherchez l’homme? Gare à qui la louche?
He had lost a wife to an alien plunderer once, he was damned if he was going to lose a daughter.

IX
A Sliver of Bliss
    Happiness makes for a boring story, so they say. Well, not to worry, there wasn’t much happiness to relate, not lengthwise. The brief Easter term I went back to, the brief Easter holiday that followed – miraculously spent staying with Sabine because my father was away travelling and Aimée was busy doing I dread to think what – how long would it have been? Three and a half months? Not much longer. Bear with me, then, through this blissful/boring time: the tempo will soon pick up again.
    There’s not even any sex to tide us over. Just closeness, and gender-free passion, and two young girls’ minds roving through their private universe together. A universe made of paper mostly: we read ourselves blind. Men are so sold on the fucking, Sabine said, they get drawn into love by it:
foutre
today,
foutre
tomorrow, and that’s it, they’re hooked. With us it will be different: we will be so sold on the love it will one day draw us into fucking.
    As if our time together had no boundary. As if, as if.
    Once, only once, she got me to masturbate in front of her – but in a didactic spirit, to make sure I was doing it properly. It’s a point of strength if you can give yourself pleasure, she explained. Like that you don’t have to depend on others, don’t give them leverage over you. If the clitoris is enough to get you off, as it seems it is with you, then that’s fine, the longer you can stay with it the better, but if you find you need some friction on the inside as well, then I suggest fingers to start with. What do you mean, you won’t be able to manage it? Of course you’ll be able to manage it. Two hands can do two different things at once, don’t be feeble. Try now. Try rubbing your head and patting your stomach at the same time. See? That’s all it takes – a bit