Kate and Anne walked leisurely down the surprisingly busy main street. For a small island town, Vicerona had a busy, cosmopolitan feel to it. They had dined very well at a seafood restaurant, and had even tracked down a cyber-café, where they had both managed to e-mail home.
Throughout dinner, Anne had continued to be intrigued by Anne's remark about wanting her to meet someone, but hadn't pressed her for further explanation. It was while they were having their post-meal liqueurs that Anne learned, for the first time, that Kate had visited the island before. It had been two years previously – Kate had spent two nights on the island with the wife of a colleague of Philip's, while the two men were at a conference in Florence.
So she knew the town quite well, and she was leading Anne confidently through some of the narrow, winding alleys as dusk, by now, settled rapidly over the surrounding hills. Kate was chattering brightly as she walked purposefully along, and Anne was happy to let her companion's chatter wash over her as she looked around and took in the unfamiliar ambience of her surroundings.
Then Kate stopped, suddenly, at the bottom of a flight of stone steps, leading upwards, steeply, to an old stone chapel, perched high above them. She peered up, into the gathering gloom, then said – "Yes. This is it."
Taking Anne's hand, she began to climb the steps. Anne felt a little uncomfortable with her hand in Kate's. This had never happened before, and she was sure she could sense an element of tension in Kate's grip on her. Kate was not someone who indulged in casual physical contact – despite her recently-revealed enthusiasm for physical contact of the more intimate kind.
Kate had told Anne, often enough, how attractive she thought her and had not retreated from specific compliments about Anne's breasts and bottom. Kate's last visit here had been with another women – could it be, Anne thought, with a rising sense of panic, that somewhere up here there was some sort of Lesbian club, which Kate had decided Anne was now ready for? Maybe she had decided that Anne was now ready for Kate, herself?
Anne's worst fears re-doubled as Kate stopped halfway up the steps, dragging Anne into a dimly-lit alley, on the left side of which stood a door, covered with a bamboo curtain. Kate knocked twice, while Anne stared around for some sign of what went on here, but there wasn't a light, or another soul, to be seen.
The door opened slightly, and Kate spoke a few quick words of Italian to the unseen person within. The door opened a fraction more, and the two women slipped through.
Anne found herself in a narrow, low hallway, hung with Chinese silks. The very old oriental-looking woman who had let them in scuttled away behind a curtain on the right. To their left, was a partially-closed door, behind which Anne could hear the faint strains of Oriental music and the low murmur of voices. With relief, she realised that the voices were mixed – not exclusively female. Kate squeezed her hand, reassuringly, then released it and pushed the door ajar.
Anne looked in astonishment through the open door at the huge room beyond. It was so big, she could not see the far wall. Low-ceilinged, hung with silks and lanterns, a pall of smoke was shifting lazily around, propelled by massive slow-moving ceiling fans. And the room was packed. There were no tables or chairs. Everyone was standing, or sitting in little groups on brightly-coloured rugs. All along the right-hand wall stretched a bar counter, where the crowds were five or six deep, and a dozen or so red-jacketed waiters rushed around with trays of drinks.
Inside the room, the chatter was almost deafening. The vast majority of the customers were Orientals and male, but there were also Europeans of both sexes – and some very attractive doe-eyed Chinese girls in silk dresses with slits up to the tops of their thighs.
Suddenly, Kate let out an excited gasp and grabbed Anne's hand.
"He's here!" she exclaimed and, pulling Anne behind her, began to push her way through the throng. Somehow, Anne knew that "he" was the man Kate had mentioned on the beach – the man she wanted Anne to meet. And she knew why Kate wanted her to meet him.
Anne's insides liquefied and her legs trembled. She tried to pull away from Kate's hand, but Kate's grip was inexorable and Anne stumbled along in her wake, her heart beating like a triphammer.
A group of men were squatting in a dimly-lit corner, playing mah-jong. Kate slowed down and stopped, looking down at them. One of them, younger than the others, looked up. He looked about thirty. Like many of the men, he was clad in a full-length silk caftan, which buttoned to the neck and reached right down to his feet. His was magnificent, in a green and gold whirl design.
He had long black hair, tumbling around his shoulders. His cheekbones were high, his jaw strong, his eyes slanted beneath thin dark brows. In the dim light, the colour of his eyes was not discernible, but the way they lit up when he saw Kate, and the delighted flash of his white, even teeth as he smiled broadly, illuminated even that dark corner.
He rolled his pieces on to the rug, shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands to his companions. Philosophically, unhurriedly, they gathered up the game and melted away into the surrounding crowd.
Kate dropped to the floor on his right-hand side and, looking up into his face, breathed "Hi."
"Kate!" he responded, raising a finely-manicured hand with long fine fingers to caress her cheek. His mouth descended, slowly, on hers and, as their lips met, Kate's eyes fluttered shut and her left hand disappeared into his flowing black hair. They kissed, Anne thought, like lovers of long standing, but for whom the passion had never grown dim.
After about a minute, Kate, with an obvious effort, broke off the kiss, and looked up at Anne, who was still standing. She motioned her to sit down and Anne dropped to the rug, facing the couple.
"This is David," smiled Kate. "Don't ask me why. What's not Chinese is Italian, but David is his name. David, this is Anne."
