The Magus - John Fowles [118]
I took the saucepan. She went to the bunks at the far end of the little hut; began to unbutton her shirt. "What are you doing?" "Undressing." I looked away. A few seconds later she was standing by me with one of the blankets wrapped sarong fashion around her; then quietly sat on another folded blanket, on the floor, a careful two feet away from me. As she turned to reach for the food behind her, the blanket fell apart over her legs. She readjusted it when she turned back; but somewhere in the recesses of my mind that little Priapus threw up his hands, and that other member of his body, and leered wildly. We ate. The _paximadia_, rusks fried in olive oil, were as uninteresting as always, the hot chocolate watery and the sardines inappropriate, but we were too hungry to care. Finally we sat--I had slipped onto the floor as well--satiated, backs against the edge of the bunk, adding more smoke to that from the stove. We were both silent, both waiting. I felt like a boy with his first girl, at the moment when the thing has to stop, or to go on to the end. Frightened to make any move. Her bare shoulders were small, round, delicate. The end of the blanket she had tucked in under her armpit had become loose. I could see the top of her breasts. The silence grew acutely embarrassing, at least to me; a sort of endurance test, to see which of us would have to break it first. Her hand lay on the blanket between us, for me to reach out and touch. I began to feel that she had exploited the whole situation, engineered everything to place me in this predicament: this silence in which it was only too clear that she was in command, not myself; only too clear that I wanted her--not Alison in particular, hut the girl she was, any girl who might have been beside me at that moment. In the end I threw my cigarette into the stove and lay back against the bunk and shut my eyes, as if I was very tired, as if sleep was all I wanted--as indeed, bar Alison, it was. Suddenly she moved. I opened my eyes. She was naked beside me, the blanket thrown back. "Alison. No." But she knelt and began to undress me. "Poor little boy." She straddled my legs and unbuttoned my shirt, pulled it out. I shut my eyes and let her make me barechested. "It's so unfair." "You're so brown." She ran her hands up the side of my body, my shoulders, my neck, my lips; playing with me, examining me, like a child with a new toy. She knelt and kissed the side of my neck and the ends of her breasts brushed my skin. I said, "I'd never forgive myself if..." "Don't talk. Just lie still." She undressed me completely, then led my hands all over her body, to know it all again, soft skin, small curves, slimness, her always natural nakedness. Her hands. As she caressed me, I thought, it's like being with a prostitute, hands as adept as a prostitute's, nothing but a matter of pleasure... and I gave way to the pleasure she gave me. After a while she lay on top of me, her head on my chest. A long silence. The fire crackled, burnt our legs a little. I stroked her back, her hair, her small neck, surrendered to the nerve-ends in my flesh. I imagined lying in the same position with Lily, and I thought I knew it would be infinitely disturbing and infinitely more passionate; not familiar, not aching with fatigue, hot, a bit sweaty... some cheapened word like randy; but white-hot, mysterious, overwhelming passion. Alison murmured, shifted, bit me, swayed over me in a caress she called the pasha caress, that she knew I liked, all men liked; my mistress and my slave. I remember our dropping into the bunk, a coarse straw mattress, the harsh blankets, holding me a moment, kissing me once on the mouth before I could pull away, then turning her back; my hand on the wet breasts, and her hand holding it there, the small smooth belly, the faint washed and rainwashed smell of her hair; and then, in seconds, too soon to analyse anything, sleep. I woke up sometime in the night, and went and drank some water from the pail. Small pencils of late-risen moon came through the old bullet holes. I went back and leant over