Bacall 1 - Sex Stories

Bacall 1

... age was much more apparent and, I guessed, about 55. She studied me. ’45?’ ’43.’ I smiled at her accuracy and explained my dad’s obsession with Bacall. ‘Ah, well, that explains it then. Legacy lust.’ She grinned. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I first saw her. I assumed she made an effort to look like her but she doesn’t, it’s entirely natural. You have a partner?’ ‘We split.’ Stella moved closer and in a strangely intimate gesture, brushed my hair behind my ear. ‘Constance and I parted too. We decided we wanted different things in life. Was it like that for you?’ ‘No.’ I could not bring myself to say more. She was close, very close and I felt like my space had been invaded. ‘Tell me.’ Then, for some reason, it all came tumbling out of me. How Linda had been with me for six years. She spent a lot of time at her company’s head office in New York and I discovered she had a woman there too. They shared an apartment, a car and a bed. ‘How did you find out?’ The awful day came back to me in vivid reality. I’d decided to pay a surprise visit to New York to celebrate our anniversary, six years to the day since I had moved into her flat and arranged to let my own. I arrived at her apartment carrying a large bunch of yellow roses, her favourite. I’d dressed to arouse under a simple black dress. I rang the doorbell at 8pm. The woman who opened the door looked at me quizzically but coldly, then, without a word to me, said over her shoulder, ‘Lin, babe, I suspect this is for you.’ Behind ...

... her I saw Linda, my beautiful Linda, poke her head out from a doorway and the look on her face told me everything. I dropped the flowers and turned away, my vision blurred with tears and the next I knew I was back at the hotel where I had slept briefly after my flight, where I had put on her favourite underwear and stockings and perfume, where I had felt the excitement growing in me. My mobile rang a couple of times I think but I didn’t answer it. Back in England I had stayed for a few days with Glenys and made arrangements for my tenant to leave my flat, removed all my stuff from Linda’s flat and found myself somewhere temporary until I could move back alone and dispirited into my own. I apologised for unburdening myself as I had. I was surprised at myself but she was kind, gentle and didn’t seem to mind at all. ‘How long ago was that?’ ‘Six months.’ ‘Let’s get a drink?’ Stella led me back into the room, her hand on my elbow. She poured me a glass of Champagne and we drifted to the group she had been in before she’d joined me on the terrace. Constance was now sitting properly in the armchair, her long legs crossed and she looked with a questioning eye at Stella. ‘Meet Hilary.’ She smiled at me and went on talking to her neighbor and I sat quietly, exchanging words with Stella and others. Occasionally Constance would look at me but not once did she speak to me directly until I had said something about the film, Titanic and how I thought it was such a dreadful waste of wonderful ...