Mary Weaver The Bookseller Pt 03 2

Some things change you utterly. If you have spent your life with your back turned to your true nature, there are two things that will change you, one way and then the other.

The first is the moment when you realise that you may never speak of what you want. Others may say what they like about their desires; they may say it dressed up in convention or suggestion, but there it is, aloud. You may not. Instead you live your life with the curtains closed on that part of yourself. It bubbles up in you all the same, leaves you wet and frightened upon waking, plagues you with half-remembered embraces all day. In the dull village, you only get the body you long for in your sleep.

The second is the moment you find that others are like you. To them, you may not have to say anything. You evolve a mutual understanding, a mute language of glances and signifiers. You know them as though you've met before, almost. They may become lovers, rivals, enemies, friends, it doesn't matter: they're there. They exist just as you do.

And if you're lucky, the third moment comes when another like you puts their hands to you, carefully, gently, joyfully, and brings your desire to the surface of your skin.

In every century this happens, in every place. Nothing can stop it. There is no way to beat it out of the human race, or burn it, or ban it by law or punishment. The same force that drives a tree root through a stone foundation drives this.

Mary Weaver felt as though her skin were about to burst into flower, break into leaf, send out some sort of sign that the blood in her felt as hot and fluid as it ever had. It was sap, alcohol, the nectar of the gods and it was in her. She felt the outline of every nerve and fibre. Cabot drew one certain finger up the length of her spine, undid the buttons at the nape of her neck, brushed the skin there with sure fingertips. She drew the neckline aside, bent her sleek dark head to the skin of Mary's collarbone, to taste the salt sweat there.

"Come upstairs," she murmured, raising Weaver's chin to kiss the skin of her throat, her shoulder, her neck. She saw the pulse jumping. She had always loved the look of a woman's neck: the strong lines of the tendons and great vessels, so at odds with how delicate women's necks were supposed to be; the hollow at the base of the throat, dewed with sweat or powdered; the slenderness of it, beneath a mass of hair. She had come to adulthood when all women wore their hair long, and had never shaken off the erotic charge carried by the weight of a full head of hair. Mary Weaver's hair was long, dense, still damp at the roots and smelling of soap. Cabot found the grips and combs and loosened them one by one, drawing the locks down and running her fingers through them.

In the dim light Weaver's hair was the colour of butter, buttercups, daffodils. "Come upstairs," she said again. Weaver's hand found the naked skin inside her open shirt. She stretched against her palm.

"What is upstairs?" Weaver was adrift, her head swimming.

"A bedroom." Cabot's hands wandered Mary Weaver's face: the lines of her mouth with its full lower lip, her small blunt chin, strong column of nose, the twin braces of her cheekbones, the span of her neck, the bolt of collarbone.

"A bedroom," Weaver said, humming deep.

"Mm." Cabot kissed the skin beneath her ear, wound her fingers lightly into her hair, drew her head aside, kissed the nape of her neck.

"With a bed."

"Indeed." Her shoulder, her elbow with the hollow between the muscle and the tendon, the soft untouched skin of the inside of her arm, her wrist, the tensed palm. She felt the shiver go through her.

"Take me up."

If you're falling, you're falling. Weaver gave herself up to Cabot's hands, her quick deft hot hands that dragged sparks across her skin where they touched her. The bedroom was cavernous and dim, the bed vast. Weaver's heart galloped in her chest, fast with something like fear. It would almost be easier to be with Cabot in some public place, the square outside or the waterfront, anywhere where she might look at her so nakedly without the fear of what would come next. The presence of others would be insurance. But she wanted it, she was not reluctant; it was only that now that she was up close the dream was a little daunting. In the tawny afternoon glow that fell through the drapes Cabot's body seemed like some lush thing risen from a dream or a fever, Cabot's touch like a sin just invented. She stood naked to the waist, slender and straight-backed as a teenaged boy, as the burned-brown boys Weaver had seen diving from rocks in the harbour.

But under the lean frame was a body Weaver knew from sleep. She touched it now: the swell of a hip, of a thigh, a buttock, the round weight of her breasts, and a softness to the skin that even Weaver's imagination had not been able to conjure until it was alive now under her hands. She seemed to burn in the thick light as if encased in amber. A stray bar of sunlight smeared her cheeks and lips with bronze, splashed it through her hair, drew one eye in filigree. Her hands with their blunt nails undid Weaver's blouse and drew it off her shoulders. They undid the fastening of her skirt, travelled up the length of her thigh and set her shivering. Cabot turned her into the light and saw her hair flash gold, her neck and shoulder limned with gold, her skin like mother-of-pearl. She stepped out of her slip and stood, naked and barefoot, on the boards of Cabot's bedroom floor, miraculous, and quite alone before this woman.

This woman whose hands were about her now, to breast then belly then thigh. This woman whose tongue drew her nipple to a beating knot, kissed the salt from her skin, rolled her onto the bed with her strong corded arms and spine like a rope, kissed her in a flaming line from her thigh to her belly and to her mouth. This woman whose hands travelled along the currents of her skin, stirring it to life, drawing feeling up to the surface. She found Weaver's pleasure like a dowser finding a spring, and drew it up until it welled in her like overflowing water. This woman whose sheets smelled like cedar, cool against the skin. Naked, there was no room for doubt: Weaver opened herself to this woman, who was here now, mouth on her mouth, body pressed the length of her body.

"May I touch you," Cabot murmured, and took Weaver's sigh as an answer. She reached her thigh, trailed her hand upwards, and found her already slick. She drew one fingertip along the satin seam of her cunt, felt Weaver jolt, and pressed on.

Oh, said Weaver. Oh.

Cabot kissed her mouth, found her tongue. The kiss was inexact, wet, broken by Weaver arching back, saying something that dissolved in her mouth. Cabot found her rhythm, a smooth riding back and forth, a coaxing motion she kept slow as Weaver stretched and shivered. She wound her fingers into Cabot's hair, felt her nipple harden beneath her ribs, felt her muscles flutter, and found that she too was wet. She set up a beat of her own there, and laughed when Cabot laughed, kissed her and bit her lip. She sat up and straddled Cabot's hips, bent to kiss her. Oh, breathed Cabot, and reached up and slipped inside her.