The Necessary Angel by C. K. Stead

Author:C. K. Stead [C.K. Stead]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2017-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

MAX AND HELEN’S MORNING PASSED effortlessly and they had a scratch lunch together, opening tins, making toast, trying and then rejecting a new cheese he’d bought that morning. He told her about his work on Naipaul and Lessing, and about the effort that had gone into Louise’s edition of L’Éducation Sentimentale. She risked telling him her joke about Flaubert’s Parrot and he laughed. She talked about Edward Thomas, and how much she would like to be part of the First World War journée d’études he and Sylvie were planning. Finally it seemed there was no way of protracting the visit further and she gathered her things together, the two sketchbooks, her wallet, her cell phone, the capacious carry-all, the light raincoat she’d been wearing. He went with her to the door, where she opened it ahead of him and turned back, holding out a hand to be shaken.

‘Au revoir, Max,’ she said, and he said, ‘Au revoir.’

They had been getting on so well, enjoying one another’s company, so a question hovered in the air between them, until she said rather hurriedly, running the words together, ‘I’d been wondering what you’d have said if I’d suggested a massage.’

‘Me too,’ he said.

‘You mean…wondering?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well—I suppose we’ll never know.’

‘Not unless you do.’

‘Do what?’

‘Suggest it.’

‘That sounds…hopeful?’

‘I was hopeful, yes.’

‘Shall we?’

‘Why not?’ And he reached past her and pushed the door shut.

‘Come.’

In his bedroom, with the curtains drawn, he took off his shoes and stripped to the waist. She shed shoes and some clothing. It took a while, but soon the magic of those fingers, those strong hands on his back, was working.

‘You need to take off this belt,’ she said.

He took it off, and the trousers with it. As he did this, she too removed her trousers. ‘For freer movement,’ she said.

He admired her ankle owl, and kissed it—a quick peck. ‘Where did you have this done?’

‘Same place, same guy. I went back. He remembered us.’

On his stomach again Max adjusted himself to accommodate an erection.

Her hands ranged further—down his back, his lower spine, over his buttocks and to his inner thighs. Encountering no resistance she explored further, and found the penis.

‘That’s a rock,’ she said.

‘So hard it hurts.’

‘Shouldn’t we give it some relief?’

They were shedding the last of their clothes now. ‘Should have a condom,’ he said, swallowing and choking on the words, not sounding as if he meant it or it mattered. This, and all his thoughts now, were like flies in an empty kitchen on a hot summer’s day. They buzzed and flickered and came to sudden stops, surprising silences.

They made love, slowly at first, relishing, spinning it out, making the most of it. And then, as if at a signal, it became violent. The bed rocked and shuddered, the bed-head banged against the wall. Helen let out chirps and chirrups, and he saw that her eyes were weirdly rolled back and her eyelids flickering, fast. The sounds concentrated into a sort of shout, two shouts, not protracted but briefly loud, his

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