The Magus - John Fowles [210]
gone. To America. It's all over." June said, "Tonight was just us. Being naughty." She finished her drink and stood up. "Well..." I watched her put on her cardigan, the headscarf. "But has he told you... everything?" They both nodded, smiled at each other. "Come on. Stop playing sphinxes." June said, "It's not what we thought at all." "Not a masque?" Julie shook her head. "Then what?" "Ah." "That is the question." They laughed at my expression. Julie said, "We've got all tomorrow. A whole summer of tomorrows." She stood up. "It's stopped raining, hasn't it? Maurice _has_ lent us the house." Her sister turned from the mirror and looked slyly at me. "I'll stay if you like. But Hermes is waiting to see me home. I hope." Julie said, "Yes, he's downstairs." June went to the tray and took up the bottle and filled my glass, then looked at Julie; bit her lips at me. She said softly, "_A demain_." Then the door was closing behind her. Julie faced me. "Do you know what I'm going to do? Have a bath." She smiled. "We really did come overland. To surprise you. And it was so hot and dusty." She came up to me and took my coat by the lapels; gave me a tenderly grave look. "Julie." "Aren't we clever?" "No more cleverness." She must have heard the implicit question, because she answered, and promised, "Tomorrow." A moment. She murmured, "Shall we lock the door?" I swallowed the brandy in two big gulps, then locked the door while she went and turned on the bath. She came back in the bathroom door so that we stood facing each other across the stone floor. Thunder rumbled; but the storm was past and now was freshness, reward, fertility. I reached back without taking my eyes from her, and switched off the light. She stood for a moment silhouetted, the crown of long hair, then she too reached and switched off the bathroom light. A faint grey light came through the shutters. We moved towards each other. She let me kiss her, her mouth, her neck, her shoulders. I could feel the brandy working in me, but she seemed to be passive, overwhelmed. I reached for her belt, unknotted it, pushed the dressing gown back from her shoulders, down the arms till it fell to the floor. She let me take off her underclothes and stood while I ripped off my own coat and shirt; a slim white shape, Botticelli's Primavera, trembling a little as I touched her. I took her to the bed and lay beside her, running my hands over her breasts, her stomach, her waist curve, her soft legs, the silky nakedness of her on the coarse bedspread; not the worst of substitutes for pine needles. All I could think was that at last I had her, I had come through, she was by some miracle, some triumph of an outside chance, mine and my revenge on the human condition and my own destiny. Another bracelet of bright hair about the bone. I lay on top of her, mastering her, pretending to possess her. All the time her eyes were shut, but she became less passive, began to caress the nape of my neck, my bare back. There was a scalding gush from the bathroom. She whispered. "It'll run over." "Let it." "I'm so tense." I got off the bed and she sat on the side while I knelt beside her and kissed her. The darkness paled and I could see her better, the prettiness and smallness of her, the shyness and determination not to be shy, the rendering of a body. I thought, she's never really known a normal man, it's almost as if she was a virgin; as exciting. She pushed me gently away and went into the bathroom. I got out of my remaining clothes and followed her. She had started the cold water and while we waited for the bath to cool, I held her as I had held her down outside the music room. She twisted her head to kiss me. The steam, the smell of hot salt water; the naked back of her body, its curves; that ecstasy of delicious exasperation, every nerve stiff and erect, taut to burst the bud, to break into flower; the short tremendous flower. Eventually we got into the bath. There was less light than in the bedroom. But touch reigned. I guessed that the shared bath represented a wish to be timidly wicked, a mode of giving