The Sex War

She heard his soft laughter as she closed the door and was furious with herself for fleeing like a routed army. She might have known that it would be a dead give-away—Daniel Randall didn't miss a thing; she should have stood her ground and tried to look as cool as a cucumber. The very last thing she wanted was for him to guess how she felt about having him around. Their marriage was over, thank heavens, and it had cost her enough to cut herself free from him the first time around, she didn't want to get involved with him again. She had that much sense, now. She hadn't had any when she first met him, she had been too young.

It had been one of the malicious joke? of fate that she had met him in the first place—she had been nineteen, working in London as a junior secretary in a merchant bank, sharing a flat with two other girls from the bank and living as cheaply as possible on her tiny salary. Each Saturday morning, one of the secretarial staff had to come in to work to open the mail and deal with routine enquiries which couldn't wait until Monday. The girls worked a rota for this duty, so that it was only around six times a year that each one to give up her Saturday morning.

The second time Lindsay had to do it, one of the directors came into her little office and asked her to take some urgent dictation. Daniel had been with him and had wandered around the room with his hands in his pockets while the other man dictated. Lindsay had held her head down, nervously concentrating on her shorthand, but she had been very much aware of Daniel. She had never seen' anyone like him, the men who worked at the bank were usually pretty boring, either stuffed shirts without two words to say for themselves or shy young men who stared at her and stammered over their dictation. Daniel had. seemed like someone from another planet; she had been stunned by his electric sexuality, the masculinity of that strong face and powerful body. He wore the same dark suit and striped business shirt as the other men, but he wore his clothes with a casual panache which made them seem very different, and the way he moved somehow made it impossible not to be aware of the male body underneath the clothes. Lindsay had found herself trembling every time he came near her, she kept stealing looks at him from under her lowered lashes. He hadn't seemed to be looking at her most of the time, but once their eyes had met and Daniel had given her a quick, amused, aware smile, sending a wave of bright pink flowing up her face. She had felt so obvious, he must have realised she couldn't keep her eyes off him, and he was laughing at her. After that she had kept her eyes firmly riveted on the shorthand pad.

When she left the bank at noon to walk to her nearest tube station she had found Daniel waiting outside in a red sports car. Lindsay hadn't noticed him at first, she had been about to walk past without a glance when he leaned over, opening the passenger door, and smiled at her. Halting in surprise, she had come over to the car, imagining that he was going to ask her some question about the work she had done that morning. Questions had flashed through her mind: had she made a mistake when she typed those letters?

'Can I give you a lift?' Daniel had asked instead, and she had hesitated, wary caution in her eyes. Daniel had watched her face, reading her expression without difficulty.

'My intentions are strictly honourable,' he had teased. 'I was only going to suggest lunch, seduction isn't on the agenda.'

She had blushed, then hated herself. He must think her so gauche and unsophisticated, she had thought, and with as casual a smile as she could manage she had got into his car, saying: 'Lunch would be fun.' Daniel had given her a smile that glinted with humour at the airy tone, and she had blushed again.

'You look like a poppy,' he had said, touching her cheek with one finger, and she had jumped about six foot in the air.

It all seemed a hundred years ago now, she had been so young and she hadn't had a clue how to talk to him. He had had a walk-over with her, one smile and she had been on her knees at his feet, amazed that anyone so godlike should want to take her out.

It was only after they were married, when Daniel was so rarely at home, always too busy to make dinner engagements or meet her at the theatre as they had arranged, that she began to view their first encounter in a different light. How many other wide-eyed little secretaries had he picked up so easily? He had accomplished it so smoothly, with the ease of someone who made it a habit. A smile, a come-hither look and she had been in his car, her heart beating

like a drum and her senses wildly aware of every movement he made.

Daniel had kissed her on their first date; on their second he had taken her out to dinner and afterwards they had sat in his car for what had seemed eternity, the expert caresses he was giving her turning her blood to fire. Now she had no doubt that if she had been a different sort of girl, she would have been in bed with him that night, but Daniel had come up against a barrier he, perhaps, hadn't expected. Lindsay had never been to bed with a man in her life, she had pulled back in panic when she realised where they were heading.

'No, don't—I'm sorry, I can't, I've never…' Her incoherent stammering had seemed to amuse him. He had looked into her flushed face, brows lifted, then he had smiled and run a long, gentle finger over the trembling curve of her mouth.

'Don't get into a state, honey, I'm not going to turn nasty, you can stop shaking in your shoes.'

'I'm sorry,' she had said, feeling a failure, afraid that he would lose interest in her if she refused, yet unable to relax and let it happen. She had never thought of herself as inhibited, but her mind obstinately refused to lift that invisible barrier; she went stiff from head to foot every time she thought about it.

'Don't apologise,' he had said, and there had been a faint snap in his voice then, he had frowned angrily, sitting up.

For a minute they had sat in silence in the car, not looking at each other, and Lindsay had heard the roughened drag of his breathing, betraying his frustration, tearing at her nerves and the nagging frustration she felt herself. She had hated herself, she had desperately wanted to turn to him and say: 'Yes, please, I want to…' But she couldn't, her tongue seemed to have turned to wood in her mouth, she could barely swallow. The dry heat behind her eyes had become tears which stole down her face, she put up a hand to brush them away and Daniel turned his head, catching the gesture.

'Oh, hell,' he had muttered, seeing the wetness on her cheeks, 'Lindsay, you baby…'

There had been impatience, tenderness, exasperation in his voice, but he had put out an arm to gather her against him and his hand had pushed her head down on to his chest, his long fingers stroking her hair, ruffling it, rubbing her scalp as though she was a nervous animal he was trying to calm. Lindsay had burrowed into him, muffling a little sob, and he had put his face down on her hair.

'If I'm not careful I'm going to fell m love with you,' he had whispered, and she had closed her eyes, her body melting with happiness, hearing his heart beating beneath her cheek.

During one of their bitter rows later, she had turned on him and asked angrily: 'If you feel like that about me, why did you marry me?' and Daniel had said in barbed mockery: 'I couldn't see any other way of getting you into bed, you frigid little tease.'

It had been an admission she never forgot—if she hadn't refused to sleep with him from the start, he would never have married her, and it had taken him six months to make up his mind then, he had kept up the pressure mercilessly until he finally conceded defeat, and asked her to marry him. If Lindsay had planned the whole thing as a cool campaign she couldn't have been more successful, but she hadn't had any plan, she had merely been unable to break through that inhibition which her unconscious had had buried within it. When she first met him she hadn't even been aware of her own sexual inhibitions, she had never wanted to make love with anyone before, and if she did ever daydream about it, she had somehow pictured love as something which would happen naturally. Her imagination had not wandered beyond kisses and caresses, ending mistily, in delight, but a delight Lindsay had never looked at too closely.

She wasn't so innocent that she didn't know how men and women make love, but it was one thing to have a vague idea of the physical realities of the sexual act and quite another, she found, to bring yourself to the point of surrender that first time, and once she had said no to Daniel she found herself unable to say yes, the original inhibition had been joined by another, equally baffling to her. She had become too selfconscious about it, she was too nervous and she wanted him too much.

Looking back at herself across the years of her marriage and, divorce, the painful growing years when she discovered her own identity as a woman and shed the shy uncertainties of adolescence, she felt angry and resentful now, she was very sorry for that blushing girl who could neither bring herself to say yes nor find the courage to walk away from Daniel, until he had inflicted on her wounds that still hadn't fully healed.

She went softly into the spare bedroom next to the one used by the two children, hearing their regular breathing faintly as she paused to listen for it. There wasn't a sound from Alice's room, presumably she was fast asleep too. Lindsay sighed, closing her bedroom door. Where was Stephen? Why hadn't he rung, or at least sent a telegram to ease Alice's mind? Was Daniel right when he said that Stephen was a bad case of burn-out and wanted to make Alice suffer because she hadn't even been aware of his anxieties? Undressing and slipping into bed in her white nylon slip, she switched off the light and lay on her back, her arms crossed behind her head, staring at the dark ceiling, thinking about her brother for a long time until she finally fell asleep.

She slept so deeply that she didn't hear a sound when someone opened the door and came over to the bed. It wasn't until a finger stroked her cheek that her lids flickered upwards and her eyes blinked in the morning sunlight, staring straight into Daniel's grey eyes and coming awake with speed.

'I brought you some tea and toast,' he said, those dark brows raised in wry comment on her immediately wary expression.

She must have slept restlessly, she had flung off the bedclothes during the night, and she felt him look at her bare shoulders, the half-revealed breasts under the transparent nylon slip, the soft pink flesh only too visible to him. Hurriedly she dragged the sheet around her and sat up, wrapped in a sort of toga, to drink the tea and nibble the toast while Daniel lounged on the edge of the bed and watched her.

'No news yet?' she asked, and he shook his head.

'Your reporter friend sat outside all night in his car, I think. At any rate, he's there this morning, but he hasn't tried to get near the house with my men outside.'