Unnatural Order. Liz Porter

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      ‘I’m here, aren’t I,’ she said, blushing as she heard the lack of grace in her own voice. ‘The champagne is lovely. Let’s drink it outside where everyone isn’t watching.’

      ‘We’ll drink it in the car.’ Karl raised his glass to her. ‘And then we’ll go to the hotel. You must be very tired after the flight.

      Karl played the perfect tour guide as they drove into Lisbon, making a small detour to show her the city’s main square and the spot where the Portuguese king and his son were assassinated in 1908.

      ‘This is Lisbon’s version of the Via Veneto,’ he said as they drove along a wide tree-lined boulevard. ‘Isn’t it great how the pavement cafes are still full of people at two in the morning? People seem to stay up so much later here than they do in Germany.’

      ‘They don’t stay up very late in London either,’ yawned Caroline as Karl did a wheeling turn into a narrow side street.

      Here we are,’ he said, as they pulled up outside a three-storey colonial building with huge shuttered windows and small iron balconies.

      Not exactly an architectural highlight, is it?’ he murmured, as she filled out her registration forms at the front desk. ‘But it’s comfortable and the beds are enormous.’

      Caroline said nothing. She didn’t want to think about beds.

      ‘Goodnight, Madame, sleep well.’ The old night clerk bowed his head as he handed over her key. ‘Goodnight Sir.’

      ‘I think he’s surprised that we’re bothering with separate rooms,’ said Karl as he drew back the lift’s ornate metal doors.

      She shrugged.

      ‘You don’t think so?’ Karl ran one finger slowly down her cheek.

      ‘I’m trying not to think.’ Caroline could feel a dull ache beginning behind her eyes. ‘I’m too tired to come up with anything sensible.’

      ‘Shall we have a drink before bed?’ Karl tugged the metal door open as the lift groaned to a stop at their floor. I don’t want you to think either. Because I think you believe you’ve made a terrible mistake.’

      She said nothing.

      ‘I’ve bought some beautiful port,’ he continued, relentless. ‘It was made in Oporto, which is a few hours from here. The name, port, like the name of Portugal, comes from the name of the city. So it’s just the thing for your first drink here.’

      If only she could make him disappear, thought Caroline. Along with his fucking travel commentary. And herself too, but to a different place of course – you had to specify all the details with magic spells. Anna’s house would do her fine. Oh, to be with someone that she knew almost as well as she knew herself – in the way that Anna knew Christopher. Someone with whom the mating dance had been done long before. Someone who felt like home.

      ‘I think I’d like to have a shower,’ she said. ‘I feel so sweaty and tired. I’ll have a drink after that. OK?’

      ‘But of course,’ said Karl. ‘I’ll leave my door open. See you soon.’

      As soon as Caroline had locked her door she tore off her crumpled black dress and flung it to the floor. She gasped with cold as she stepped under the shower, directing the icy jet of water on to her face and, when she could bear it, down her body. Pressing her forehead against the cool white tiles of the shower recess, she sighed as the water rushed down her back.

      Ten minutes later she was towelling herself dry. What should she wear? Not a nightdress. Not that she’d brought one anyway. She always slept in the nude. Except in winter, of course. In her freezing little bedsitter in London, she’d often gone to bed in jumpers and two pairs of tights and wished fervently for a man with a body like Karl’s to keep her warm. Now it was summer in Lisbon and she didn’t need another body for warmth. Did she require one for any other reason?

      Caroline pulled a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt out of her bag and put them on. She looked in the mirror as she brushed her hair. A fraught-looking face looked back. She did up the top button of her shirt and unlocked her door.

      Karl was lying on the queen-sized bed smoking, wearing only a pair of jeans.

      ‘Help yourself,’ he said, gesturing at the two small glasses of port and the packet of cigarettes which sat on the bedside table.

      Caroline took a port, sat in the armchair next to the window and tried to sip it as if she were at a wine-tasting. The local port was, as he had said, supposed to be excellent.

      And perhaps it was. She glanced at the swell of Karl’s biceps and the tufts of blond hair under his arm and then looked away, gulping her port down as she did so.

      He was smiling. ‘You’re not supposed to gulp it like that,’ he said. ‘It’s a delicate taste.’

      ‘You can give me the port-drinking lesson tomorrow.’ Caroline stood up. ‘I’m too tired now. Goodnight.’

      Karl swung his legs off the bed. ‘Allow me to walk you to your front door,’ he said lightly. ‘Or at the very least to my front door.’ Caroline remembered the last time – the only other time – they had said goodnight. She felt a twinge in her stomach at the thought of it.

      ‘Goodnight.’ She raised her face to his.

      Karl brushed his lips past hers, paused, and then ran the tip of his tongue gently along her bottom lip. When she opened her mouth, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his body against her.

      Caroline leaned back against the door and surrendered to the familiar delicious tension. Karl fumbled her fly buttons open and sank to his knees on the floor.

      As his hands caressed her stomach and wandered down her thighs, she let her knees buckle until she was on the floor beside him.

      Chapter 2

      Caroline woke to find herself alone in a large double bed. But the initial sweet tide of relief receded when she spotted the two sticky glasses of port on the bedside table. Groaning softly, she stretched weary limbs. So last night had been more than an especially vivid erotic dream.

      ‘Idiot,’ she moaned, running her hands over her forehead. It felt hot and dry. What – or who – was going to save her from behaving like this when she was 40? There had been several occasions in her 20s when she had woken up in a strange bed, sated with sex and burning with shame at her lack of discrimination. But that was the 70s: open marriage, platform shoes. Poor taste had been the order of the decade. Now she was older and supposedly mature.

      What was wrong with her body – or her mind – that a few lingering kisses, done in just the right way, could trigger a heat that blocked out her brain, sweeping all sensible thoughts aside in a rush of sensuality?

      Men did this sort of thing all the time – and then made jokes about biting off their own arm so as to escape without waking the woman they’d been stupid enough to fall into bed with the previous evening. Women did it too, of course. But they were supposed to have better sense. Something to do with being biologically programmed to find the best СКАЧАТЬ