Remembrance

As Tavistock’s vision began to clear, he saw her standing to one side, legs spread wide apart, hands on her hips in a truly provocative pose. His vision was fuzzy, blurred even as he wiped his hands in front of his eyes. She had on a red blouse that barely covered her breasts, a wide red and black sash at her tiny waist, then a full black skirt that was pinned up high on one thigh, exposing one bare leg.

“Will I do?” she asked insolently, her red lips drawing back in a smile that made chill bumps rise on his skin.

Part of him told himself that he should not touch her, that she probably had a husband lurking in the shadows and she planned to seduce him, then blackmail him for all she could get. He didn’t like dealing with women like…like her, but there was something about this one that he found irresistible. No doubt his attraction to her was because he couldn’t see very well, heard things as though they were at a distance, and—

He broke off as she moved toward him. “What kind of lover is a gentleman like you?” she asked, sliding her body toward his. “I’ll bet you’re too uptight to even take your clothes off. Do you throw a lady’s nightgown over her head then do your business and leave?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling, eyes closed as he felt her body move on top of his. “Only the lower classes know about love,” he said facetiously.

As she put her hands on his shirt front, he opened his eyes to look at her, at the black, black hair floating about her face, hiding most of it. In the flickering, dim light of the fire she looked almost like Catherine, his beloved wife, but then he always imagined that every woman he was attracted to was Catherine.

She startled him when she tore his shirt open, buttons flying across the room, one sizzling as it hit the fire in the brazier.

For a moment he didn’t move as she straddled him, then ran her hands up his chest, her nails over his stomach. “Come on, pretty boy, can you make love to a woman?”

Tavistock knew he had never been so excited in his life as he reached up and entwined his hands in the woman’s abundant hair and pulled her lips down to his. And after that he had no more thoughts at all. He was blind not from a blast of gunpowder, but from the lust that took over his body. This woman seemed to be all that he’d ever wanted in his life, and he knew that he’d die if he didn’t take her. There were no more thoughts of the consequences of his action, but just his overpowering need for her.

He had always prided himself on being a skillful lover. Since he was always in bed with women other than his wife, he knew that they would talk and compare him to their other men. Such gossip carried responsibility with it, so Tavistock knew he had a duty to have the women say that he was a lover of great tenderness, a man who thought a great deal of his partner’s satisfaction.

But with this woman, he wanted her too much to think of anything but his own needs. But she met him more than halfway. As he tore her clothes from her body, he felt his own being taken from him. Her enthusiasm matched his.

Within seconds they were both naked and he lost no time on the niceties of lovemaking. What he felt for her was primitive, a hunger that had to be fulfilled.

When he entered her, he was vaguely aware of the tiny membrane he encountered and he heard her little yelp of pain, but he was too far removed from the basics of earth to think what this meant. His need of her was such that it took only moments before he was ready to spill his seed inside her.

When he did come inside her, it was like nothing he had ever experienced before. It was like part of him died, but as though part of him were given life again. The release he felt was as though he’d been waiting for this all his life. It was the end of something, the beginning of something.

He was trembling from head to foot as he held her to him, wrapping his whole body about her; there were tears in his eyes, but he didn’t know why.

“I did it,” the woman said. “I did it.”

For a moment Tavistock was disoriented, not remembering all that had happened to him before the last minutes. Oh yes, something to do with gunpowder and a woman with black hair. When she tried to extricate herself from his arms, his first response was to hold on to her, to never release her. “No,” he whispered, and wanted to beg her to never leave him.

“It’s all right,” she said as she began to kiss his neck. “It’s all right now. It’s over. The curses are finished.”

His head still hurt; his eyes were still foggy and his hearing was dull, but he knew that voice. Grabbing her shoulders, he held her away from him to stare into her eyes. Under the smeared makeup, beneath the black hair, he saw Catherine.

For a moment he was angry. How could she play such a trick on him? What was his wife doing dressed up like a slut? What was—

It took a bit but he realized what had just happened. He had just made love to Catherine, to the woman he loved. There had been no physical problem. “But how did you—”

She put her hand over his mouth. “Do you really want to talk?” she asked.

At that he laughed, grabbed her to him, and the next moment his hands and mouth were all over her—as hers were him. Had he not drunk a great deal of rum, had gunpowder go off near his head, and been hit on the head by a rock, not to mention falling off a horse at full speed, he might have spent some time asking her just where the hell she learned all that she seemed to know. But then, on the other hand, he wasn’t fool enough to stop what she was doing to his body to ask questions.

He had always known that making love with Catherine would be wonderful, but it was better than he’d imagined. He could not, of course, tell anyone, but it was almost as though he could feel both parts of their lovemaking. It was almost as though her mind were his and his was hers. If a thought passed through his mind, she acted upon it, and he seemed to intuit what she wanted and needed.

They made love all night, moving from one position to another with such familiar ease that it was as though they had made love many, many times before. They seemed to know all there was to know about each other.

“I feel as though we have always been lovers,” he whispered.

“Never,” she answered. “Never in the history of time, but we have wanted each other for so many centuries that we know everything. We are making love to ourselves.”

“Yes,” he said, not understanding her, but at the same time understanding every word she spoke.

Being in bed with her made him feel free. With other women he was aware that he had a reputation to uphold. He must at all times appear knowledgeable and experienced.

But with this black-haired Catherine, he could be…well, experimental. Would this feel good? he wondered as he picked her up, turned her around, and sat her down on the rampant evidence of his desire for her.