It was the knocking that woke him up, rather than the voice. "Michael. Michael? Is that you in there?" He realised where he was, came back to life from a half dream, felt the freezing air, the fire long-since dead. Light was streaming in through the doors, the storm clearly passed. He shuddered, then came to, realising he was still on the sofa, still under the blanket, still naked from the waist down.
"Is that you, Carla? Hi. I must have fallen asleep on the sofa. Give me a minute and I'll come and say hello" he called out.
"I saw your car so thought it must be you. I've brought you round some breakfast - thought you might like it after arriving so late" she replied, opening the door briskly. He panicked, trying to work out how to escape from the sofa, and sat up, pulling the blanket around him as he did so. For several awkward minutes, they chatted politely about the weather, her time at university, his kids. She seemed oblivious to the situation Michael had found himself in, or at least, she was doing a good job of pretending. He, however, was not. His brain was not yet in gear, and his heart was racing, terrified of being exposed, especially after last night.
Eventually, she went to the kitchen to make breakfast, giving him an opportunity to stand up. He hobbled towards the stairs, blanket wrapped skirt-like around his waist, holding his boxers to his side to hide the spoils of last night's excitement. Upstairs, he changed quickly into jogging bottoms and a new teeshirt, and made his way downstairs.
"You weren't wearing anything under that blanket were you?" She laughed, her dark eyes sparkling as she made eye contact with him for the first time. He felt a pulse of her energy through him as she smiled warmly at him.
"Erm..." he replied, cover blown.
"Don't be such a prude. I sleep naked most nights. Especially here - there's something about the cosiness of the fire that I love against my skin. It's nothing to be bashful about. Anyway, you could have just told me - I would have looked away. Do you want eggs?"
"Yes please. I guess I've just learned to keep things like that private over the years" he replied, feeling both strangely open and very square.
They ate together on the bench at the top of the sea-wall. The tide was very low, and mud glistened as far as the eye could see. They chatted as oystercatchers wheeled and wherried, and drank coffee as she told him tales of her time in Leeds. It all felt very easy somehow. Two relative strangers with nothing much to do, getting to know one another. For him a welcome distraction from the dilemmas of the real world, for her a chance to get to know someone she had always admired from afar. In time, they drifted through conversation - her career plans, the work that needed doing to the cottage.
He gazed at her as she talked. She really was extraordinarily pretty. She had high cheekbones and her skin was like porcelain - fine and pale. She wore a grey flannel sort of jumpsuit which wrapped around her body, emphasising the dip between her breasts as well as her slim waist. She was more gentle than he remembered in her manner, and yet more confident too. She put him at ease - a feeling that had grown unfamiliar in recent months. It felt as though they could talk all day. He would have talked all day, but she had work to do, an article she was writing for a journal - something to do with behaviour. So they parted company, he for a long walk, she for her laptop, and promised to meet for a glass of wine that evening.
There was an energy in them both that had grown that morning. As they bid each other farewell, they both had a spring in their steps. Fulfilling conversation, the promise of another. He walked fast. She worked fast. They both got lots done in those hours, and yet they both longed for the time to go quicker. He couldn't think of the reason he had come here - only about Carla - the conversation, the embarrassment of the morning, seeing her last night. He kept replaying in his mind her comment about sleeping naked, about his reaction.
That evening was calm and still. It was November, but it was not cold. They sat watching the rising tide, a cold glass of wine in hand, and talked about the day.
"I felt really silly about this morning" Michael said, slightly out of the blue.
"What do you mean?" Replied Carla, knowing really, but hoping he would open up further.
"I'm at a strange place at the moment, to be honest Carla. I've got to a point where I've realised my needs just aren't being met in my relationship, that it's damaging my ability to be open, to be intimate with people. I've come here to think about what to do about it as we're at a complete impasse."
She listened as he talked, offered empathy, but no pity to him and his situation, reassured, teased, maintained eye contact even when it made him uncomfortable. Before they knew it, they had finished the bottle and had started another. She told him of her recent breakup, his cheating on her, how hurt she felt. It was a confessional that neither had expected, an honesty that surprised them both. They had exposed so much to each other despite the age-gap, despite their having not really known each other until this morning. It was quite a thing. As the sun dipped beneath the low clouds on the horizon, a pink sky grew around them. They watched as they talked, watched each other as well as the sunset, softening into the evening.
They carried the empties back to her cottage when the light began to fade, both realising the drink had affected them as they walked unsteadily down the rickety steps. In the kitchen he made tea for them both and she lit the fire. She sat on the sofa and he on a battered old armchair. He couldn't help but think of her stretched out under her blanket last night, especially now he knew she was most likely naked, and he imagined her once more. The fire began to roar and a warm glow filled the room once more. They both felt a tension build, and both wondered who would move - an unspoken sense of longing filled them both it seemed.
It was she who broke the silence of that moment. She asked him once more about feeling he couldn't be intimate. Could he be more specific? He told her things he had not told anyone - of how he had not been valued, how he had hidden himself from view. She told him how confidence comes from within, not from other people - her wisdom beyond her age. She told him that nobody could make him feel anything, that he needed to make himself feel better. She told him how she had learned to love herself even when it felt like nobody loved her - both her mind and her body.
"What do you think about when you touch yourself?" Carla asked, throwing Michael's head into a complete spin.
"What sort of a question is that?"
"Just answer the question." Carla replied, a smile on her face.
"To be honest, I don't think about much most of the time."
Carla pressed and pressed until Michael could take it no more, and he explained that, since his relationship had started to waiver, he had started to watch more porn, and had found it hard to think about real people. She told him that she never used porn, that she fantasised about real people, or sometimes just enjoyed the sensuality of touch without any thought at all.
