57

Lamia stood at the very centre of the small motel room and waited as Sabir got the fan going. The fan made a chopping sound, and then settled into a wheezing rhythm, thanks to its worn-out ball bearings.

She glanced at the twin beds. The late morning heat was already lurching in through the windows. She could feel the moisture gathering in the small of her back, then trickling down the gap between her underwear and the base of her spine.

‘Do you want to move on from this fly tip?’ Sabir was pacing the bounds of the room as though he was trying to memorize it. ‘The drive from Ticul to Mérida would only take an hour or so. We could get ourselves an air-conditioned room in a modern hotel. You might be more comfortable.’

‘I don’t want to drive any more.’

‘Okay.’ Sabir stopped his pacing. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘It’s too hot to eat.’ She turned her face up to the fan. ‘Can you make this go any faster?’

‘I hardly dare. Let’s see though.’ He tripped the mechanism. ‘Christ. I think it’s going to take off.’

She laughed, and eased her dress away from her skin so that the air could circulate and cool her.

Sabir checked inside the bathroom. ‘There’s a tiled shower you could fit the entire Pats Football Team in. And we’ve got clean towels and soap. Things aren’t as bad as I thought. Shall I order some cool drinks?’

‘That would be nice, Adam. But who are the Pats? And why would they want to come into our bathroom?’

Sabir closed his eyes. ‘You really don’t want to know. Pretend that I never said it.’ He opened his eyes and flared them at the ceiling. ‘Okay. Maybe you do. They’re the New England Patriots. They play American football.’ He knew he was talking too much, but he couldn’t stop himself. He moved over to the telephone, shaking his head at his own stupidity. He raised the handset to his ear, then let it fall back into place. ‘Doesn’t work. I’ll have to go downstairs and put in the order personally. What do you want?’

‘Something sweet. A 7UP, maybe.’

‘Sure you don’t want a beer?’

Lamia cocked her head to one side and watched him. ‘A beer. That would be nice.’

‘Sol? Corona? Dos Equis? Negra Modelo? Pacifico?’

‘You choose, Adam.’

He hesitated, then headed for the door. As he passed her he stopped. He seemed about to say something, but then he just reached out and touched her arm. He retrieved his wallet from his discarded jacket. ‘I’ll be back soon, okay?’

‘I’m going to take a shower. Without the Pats.’

He nodded absent-mindedly, not even picking up her attempt at a joke. ‘Sure you want beer?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll get some potato chips, too. And maybe some peanuts.’

She turned to him. ‘Adam. It’s all right. I came to this room of my own volition. I’m not regretting it. I’m not going to run away if you leave me alone for two minutes.’

Sabir took a deep breath. He reached for the door. Then he turned back and strode across the floor to where she was standing.

Lamia leaned forwards and rested her head against his collar bone.

Sabir encircled her with his arms and squeezed her against him. ‘I love you. I want to tell you this now. Before anything else happens.’ He swallowed, but his throat didn’t seem to be functioning to quite its usual standard. ‘I’ve never said this to a woman before. I’ve never felt remotely like this.’ He buried his face in the valley between her neck and shoulder, breathing her in.

‘I love you too. I wanted to tell you in the car, early this morning, but I thought you might not like me that way. That you might just be drawn to me in the normal way, because we had been travelling together. You still might be.’ She looked up at him, a fleeting uncertainty on her face. ‘I would understand that. You can make love to me, if you want, and then decide how you feel. You can tell me afterwards.’

‘I’m telling you now.’

‘Adam. You don’t have to go down for the beers, you know. Or the potato chips. Or the peanuts.’

‘I know. I’m not going. I don’t know what I was thinking of.’ He led her slowly to the bed. They stood facing each other. Everything was all right again with the world. Sabir felt like a man on a plane watching a shed-load of passengers streaming expulsively out through the main exit after an inordinately long and claustrophobic delay on the tarmac. ‘I liked it when you put on that dress yesterday. And the make-up. And the high heels.’

‘Why? What’s so different about a dress, and make-up, and high heels?’ She was teasing him.

He laughed. ‘You know very well why. Because they’re feminine. Because they draw attention to parts of your body that particularly please me.’

‘Parts of my body? Like what?’

Sabir hesitated, gauging her mood. Then he turned her around, so that her back was to him. He liked the way she was letting him toy with her.

He drew in a quick breath, like a surgeon faced with a particularly delicate stitching job. ‘The nape of your neck, for instance.’ He cupped her neck, enjoying the heft of her hair on the back of his hands. ‘And your shoulders. And your upper arms.’ He touched each element in turn.

‘What other parts of my body please you?’ She had a smile in her voice.

‘Hmm. Let me think. Your elbows. Your forearms.’ He touched each named part, taking pleasure in the feel of her weight against him – keenly aware, too, of the bed just below them, but in no hurry to urge her there.

‘What else? What else makes a woman different from a man?’

Sabir gave it a moment or two’s thought. ‘A man has no hips to speak of.’ He ran his hands down Lamia’s flanks. ‘But you do. I like how your hips flare out from the narrowness of your waist. Like this.’ He touched the indentation on each side. ‘Like a violin. I like how a dress accentuates that.’ He reached around her and let his fingers travel lightly down her upper thighs, then up again in a more forceful sweep from the back of her knee to her buttocks. ‘This is an area I particularly value.’

‘Oh really?’ Lamia’s breath caught as she uttered the words.

He went down on one knee behind her. ‘And then your calves.’ He allowed his fingers to trace the outline of her leg. ‘And those shoes you wore. With the high heels. I like the way they show off your ankles.’

‘My ankles?’

‘Yes. These.’ He reached down and encircled each one in turn with his hands. ‘But there’s more.’

‘More?’

He turned her around so that her belly was parallel to his face. ‘This is your belly. When you wear a skirt, it shows the little bump you have down there – the woman’s bump, just above your pudenda. I like that. It’s suggestive.’

‘Bump? Pudenda? Adam, really. You sound like a biology professor.’ She hesitated, stopping well short of what she had meant to say – desperate not to change his mood. ‘Suggestive of what?’

‘Of other things.’ He smiled, and rested his head against her stomach. He could feel the warmth of her against his cheek. Catch the scent of her – a mixture of clean clothes, perfume, and her own special scent, which he had first recognized in the brief instant he had carried her in his arms while they were escaping from their motel in Carlisle.

Lamia’s fingers wandered idly through his hair. ‘You like women, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you are wary of them?’

He nodded.

‘Why?’

Sabir closed his eyes. He didn’t want to talk any more. Didn’t want to spoil the moment. But something forced him on. Some recognition that if he didn’t explain exactly how he felt, he would be cheating Lamia of something she had earned by right – his formal acknowledgment of a grace she had accorded him that no other woman had ever come close to providing. ‘Because of my mother. I watched her destroy herself, and take my father down with her. It hurt me every second of my life until she killed herself. Then it hurt more after that.’

‘Does it still hurt?’

‘Not when I’m holding you.’

‘Like now?’

‘Like now. I can’t think of anything but you.’

Lamia crossed her arms below her upper thighs and drew her dress slowly over her hips – over the swell of her breasts – around her shoulders. Then she uncrossed her arms as the dress rode over her head, freeing itself from the temporary prison of her hair. She let the dress float gently down onto the bed beside her.

Sabir stood up. They were still touching along the entire length of their bodies. He undid Lamia’s brassiere and let it fall onto her discarded dress.

She sat down on the bed. Then she allowed herself to fall backwards, like a rag doll. She looked up at him expectantly, laughter in her eyes.

He reached down and drew her panties over her hips – she had to wriggle a little to help him.

Then she was lying naked in front of him. Not covering herself. Confident about her beauty. Wanting him to admire her.

He consumed her with his gaze, and Lamia accepted it as nothing more than her due. Without taking his eyes off her, Sabir discarded his own clothes. Lamia’s eyes travelled quickly over his body as he undressed himself, and then up again to his face.

Sabir slid onto the bed alongside her.

They lay, facing each other, feeling the beat of the fan against their skin.

It was a long time indeed before Sabir bent forward to kiss her.