The Temptation of Jack Orkney: Collected Stories Volume Two. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ about the comings and goings in the house and the movements of his wife. But the steps came steadily up towards her, the door opened, very gently, and she looked up, her face bursting into flower as in came a very tall, lank, dark young man. He sat on the bed beside his sister, took her thin hand in his thin hand, kissed it, bit it lovingly, then bent to kiss her on the lips. Their mouths held while two pairs of deep black eyes held each other. Then she shut her eyes, took his lower lip between her teeth, and slid her tongue along it. He began to undress before she let him go; and she asked, without any of the pertness she used for her husband: ‘Are you in a hurry this morning?’

      ‘Got to get over to a job in Exeter Street.’

      An electrician, he was not tied to desk or office.

      He slid naked into bed beside his sister, murmuring: ‘Olive Oyl.’

      Her long body was pressed against his in a fervour of gratitude for the love name, for it had never received absolution from her husband as it did from this man; and she returned, in as loving a murmur: ‘Popeye.’ Again the two pairs of eyes stared into each other at an inch or so’s distance. His, though deep in bony sockets like hers, were prominent there, the eyeballs rounded under thin, already crinkling, bruised-looking flesh. Hers, however, were delicately outlined by clear white skin, and he kissed the perfected copies of his own ugly eyes, and said, as she pressed towards him: ‘Now, now, Olive Oyl, don’t be in such a hurry, you’ll spoil it.’

      ‘No, we won’t.’

      ‘Wait, I tell you.’

      ‘All right then …’

      The two bodies, deeply breathing, remained still a long while. Her hand, on the small of his back, made a soft, circular pressing motion, bringing him inwards. He had his two hands on her hipbones, holding her still. But she succeeded, and they joined, and he said again: ‘Wait now. Lie still.’ They lay absolutely still, eyes closed.

      After a while he asked suddenly: ‘Well, did he last night?’

      ‘Yes.’

      His teeth bared against her forehead and he said: ‘I suppose you made him.’

      ‘Why made him?’

      ‘You’re a pig.’

      ‘All right then, how about Alice?’

      ‘Oh her. Well, she screamed and said: “Stop. Stop.”’

      ‘Who’s a pig, then?’

      She wriggled circularly, and he held her hips still, tenderly murmuring: ‘No, no, no, no.’

      Stillness again. In the small bright bedroom, with the suburban sunlight outside, new green curtains blew in, flicking the too-large, too-new furniture, while the long white bodies remained still, mouth to mouth, eyes closed, united by deep soft breaths.

      But his breathing deepened; his nails dug into the bones of her hips, he slid his mouth free and said: ‘How about Charlie, then?’

      ‘He made me scream, too,’ she murmured, licking his throat, eyes closed. This time it was she who held his loins steady, saying: ‘No, no, no, you’ll spoil it’

      They lay together, still. A long silence, a long quiet. Then the fluttering curtains roused her, her foot tensed, and she rubbed it delicately up and down his leg. He said, angry: ‘Why did you spoil it then? It was just beginning.’

      ‘It’s much better afterwards if it’s really difficult.’ She slid and pressed her internal muscles to make it more difficult, grinning at him in challenge, and he put his hands around her throat in a half-mocking, half-serious pressure to stop her, simultaneously moving in and out of her with exactly the same emulous, taunting but solicitous need she was showing – to see how far they both could go. In a moment they were pulling each other’s hair, biting, sinking fingers between thin bones, and then, just before the explosion, they pulled apart at the same moment, and lay separate, trembling.

      ‘We only just made it,’ he said, fond, uxorious, stroking her hair.

      ‘Yes. Careful now, Fred.’

      They slid together again.

      ‘Now it will be just perfect,’ she said, content, mouth against his throat.

      The two bodies, quivering with strain, lay together, jerking involuntarily from time to time. But slowly they quietened. Their breathing, jagged at first, smoothed. They breathed together. They had become one person, abandoned against and in each other, silent and gone.

      A long time, a long time, a long …

      A car went past below in the usually silent street, very loud, and the young man opened his eyes and looked into the relaxed gentle face of his sister.

      ‘Freda.’

      ‘Ohhh.’

      ‘Yes, I’ve got to go, it must be nearly dinnertime.’

      ‘Wait a minute.’

      ‘No, or we’ll get excited again, we’ll spoil everything.’

      They separated gently, but the movements both used, the two hands gentle on each other’s hips, easing their bodies apart, were more like a fitting together. Separate, they lay still, smiling at each other, touching each other’s face with fingertips, licking each other’s eyelids with small cat licks.

      ‘It gets better and better.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Where did you go this time?’

      ‘You know.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Where did you go?’

      ‘You know. Where you were.’

      ‘Yes. Tell me.’

      ‘Can’t.’

      ‘I know. Tell me.”

      ‘With you.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Are we one person, then?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Yes.’

      Silence again. Again he roused himself.

      ‘Where are you working this afternoon?’

      ‘I told you. It’s a baker’s shop in Exeter Street.’

      ‘And afterwards?’

      ‘I’m taking Alice to the pictures.’

      She bit her lips, punishing them and him, then sunk her nails into his shoulder.

      ‘Well my darling, I just make her, that’s all, I make her come, she wouldn’t understand anything better.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ