Love in the Valley

She found the experience of being in love rather strange, both a pain and a pleasure. Every now and then she would inspect the fledgeling emotion and wonder at its secret splendour, waiting, wondering how or when it would grow to maturity. How different love was from her girlish fantasies … not a clap of thunder and a bright shining light, but a thing alive, growing, climbing, twining itself around her, each day sending out delicate new tendrils, soft yet incredibly strong. And more incredible still, that her love not be Phillip’s ‘Latin hysteric’, but a big, thoughtful, slow-moving man who pondered each word before he spoke, whose attractiveness was inextricably bound up with his intelligence.

One evening, late enough that the attic room had grown uncomfortably hot from the fire, Julia drowsed on the couch like a sleepy kitten, watching Hugh as he unbuttoned the starched collar of his shirt and flexed his muscular shoulders.

‘How did you get to be such a size?’ She stretched with a yawn. ‘Mrs B said you used to be a scrawny little thing.’

‘So I was. A prime target for school bullies. I decided that I needed some size and weight to deter the taunts.’

‘Boxing? Judo?’ Julia guessed teasingly.

He looked down at his hands as he stood before her—large, strong hands. ‘I don’t believe in physical violence.’

‘No smacking your children then?’ she asked lightly, and was taken aback by the silver flame that darted from his eyes.

‘The question is hypothetical.’

Did that mean he didn’t want children or couldn’t have them? Julia was disturbed. Whatever vague and impossible dreams she had had about herself and Hugh, children had been a natural part of them. Hadn’t everyone said how gentle and kind he was with children? May

be he meant he would never get married. Well, that was something she could live with … if there was no other choice.

‘I took up body-building.’ As if he had sensed her curiosity, Hugh drew her off with his next words.

Julia’s eyes widened. ‘You pumped iron? Like the Incredible Hulk?’

‘If you mean like the man who played the part, yes.’

Julia laughed delightedly, and told him about her first impression of him, coming towards her from his car. ‘Tell me, did you pose, and all that other macho stuff?’

‘I didn’t perform in competition, no. I concentrated on weight-lifting.’

Yes, Julia could imagine it. Hugh sweating it out alone in a gym, engaged in a grim, private battle with his own body, and winning.

‘Show me,’ she ordered, sitting up from her semi-reclining position.

‘What?’

‘Show me how your muscles work.’

‘I told you, I didn’t pose.’ He looked down his nose at her but Julia could be as stubborn as he.

‘Rubbish. I bet you did it in front of the mirror when nobody was about.’

‘I haven’t lifted a weight in eight months.’

‘So what? You’re still in great condition.’ Julia jumped up from the couch and grabbed at the buttons on his shirt. ‘Aw, come on Hugh, I’ve never seen a man flex his muscles in the flesh.’

‘No, Julia …’ Hugh clamped his hand over hers.

‘Don’t be shy, Hugh, I’ve seen you with more than just your shirt off, remember? Please.’ The memory spurred her on, her sudden desire to see him as she had that day on the beach intensifying. She wriggled her hands out of his and pulled his shirt open, going up on tiptoe to try and push it over his wide shoulders. He resisted and there was an undignified tussle, which Hugh lost by virtue of the fact that her small, pale hands moving over his chest seemed to have a mesmerising effect on him. Julia tossed his shirt over her shoulder and laughed triumphantly up at him.

‘Show me,’ she urged, her voice made husky by the knowledge that she was asking for more than a mere display of his muscles. She was close enough to feel the heat from his body and it seemed to radiate a more scorching heat than the fire behind her.

Slowly Hugh obliged, stripped of humour and embarrassment by Julia’s sultry-eyed fascination. The atmosphere became charged with expectancy as she watched the beautifully meshed workings of his magnificent body, drawn like a magnet to its silent, potent maleness.

He froze as she raised an oddly trembling hand to stroke lightly across his bulging pectorals. ‘So smooth, so hard,’ she murmured, ‘like hardwood under velvet. You’re quite the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.’ She felt so small and feminine, enravished by this intensely personal exhibition of rippling power.

His hand caught at hers, but instead of pushing her away he held it hard against the warm brush of his chest so that she could feel the steady, slightly fast, rhythmic pulse of his heart. Her own was skipping erratically and her lips parted on a sigh of welcome as she watched his tightly controlled mouth come closer and closer to hover just above hers.

‘Usually-so-honest-Julia. Why so coy? This is what you want, isn’t it?’