At a Time Like This by Catherine Dunne Read Free Book Online Page B

this is so nice – and then stopped myself, remembering
Georgie’s rules about lazy adjectives, no matter what the . . .
    But I never got to finish my thought. Suddenly, I gasped, slammed from drowsy arousal, from sensual restfulness into full-on, wide-awake wonder. Paul’s fingers were inside me again, but
this time, they made me feel powerfully alert and alive in a way I had never been before.
    ‘What are you doing to me?’ I whispered, my heart hammering, my soul racing, my mind speeding. My new, eighteen-year-old body was caught in a clutch of delight I had never even
imagined, could never begin to imagine. All my nerve endings seemed to flood, to flush with heat and feeling. I no longer knew myself.
    Paul leaned forward and took one nipple between his teeth, rolling the other between thumb and forefinger until I thought I might be just about to faint.
    ‘I think I’ve found the switch,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m doing to you. I’ve just turned you on. Sergeant Pepper would approve, don’t you
think?’ And he slid away from me and bit me, gently. Ever so gently. ‘I told you you could trust me, didn’t I?’
    But by that stage, I was beyond speech.
    I had never known it could be so easy: such fluent matching of bodies, of tongues and hands and legs and arms. There had been no awkwardness here, no fumbling at my bra, no hot breath on the
back of my neck and no painful surprises with teeth and jagged fingernails. No. Paul was all easy movement, his hands tender and sure. He had surprised me, that first night. I’d been prepared
for pain, discomfort and at the very least some unpleasantness. But there was nothing. Nothing but pleasure.
    Sleep had become impossible. I lay as the dawn light filtered through the grimy curtains that had once been tweed, although I couldn’t make out what the original shade was supposed to have
been. We lay like spoons, Paul’s arm over my shoulder, his hand cupping one grateful breast. A small, white breast; long, square fingers; the dip and swell of our thighs under a blue blanket.
I wished that my eye could be a camera.
    I couldn’t stop myself thinking of Kate, of how right she had been about so many things. There is life after whatever the shit is that happens to you. But this was beyond Rioja and
Craven A, beyond the sad lace curtains of a country kitchen and self-knowledge that was hard won, hard bought. Now, I thought, at last: now I understand my mother. This was love. And I
wanted it. No, more than that, I craved it and needed it and breathed it in like oxygen.
    And yes, I wanted its madness, too, perhaps. Although I was aware of its clear and present dangers. Or thought I was.
    But when has that ever stopped us?

2. Georgie
    And now, outside, the day’s blue light is already slanting away from my balcony. Volterra has just begun to recede into the evening, sliding towards night. A low-key
murmur begins in the grasses below. How do I describe it? As shrill droning or musical chirping? I can’t tell any more, because I’ve just decided to close my windows against the
possibility of mosquitoes. I don’t entirely trust the screens. Anyway, who cares? Even if the windows were open, I couldn’t tell the difference between a cicada and a cricket.
They tell me that one colonizes the afternoons, the other the evenings. But one bug is very much the same as another, in my eyes, even in Tuscany. Especially so if they bite.
    Tuscany, indeed. I can hear Nora’s voice even at this distance, can discern all the nuances, can imagine her eyes ablaze with her customary indignation. I can see the three of them this
evening as they gather around the table. Maggie, Claire, Nora. My friends, my oldest friends; my very best friends in all the world. Nora will, of course, arrive first. Among her other uncanny
instincts is how to arrive just in time to interrupt a conversation belonging to other people.
    ‘Hope I’m not too early’ she’ll say, with the little