excerpt
Michael walked up the rocky track between high, steep banks topped by dry-stone walls. Over the walls the bright, yellow flowers of the whin bushes weighed down the thorny branches as heavily as snow. He reached the grassy clearing in front of the cottage and came to an abrupt stop, thinking he ought to turn right away and retreat back down the loaney. Connie Hanlon lay stark naked on the old sheepskin rug, exposing her beautiful, young, tanned body, slender and rounded, to the warm, early afternoon sun. A towel lay beside her on the grass. Michael was on the point of turning when Connie raised herself on her elbows and smiled at him.
‘Don’t be shy, Michael,’ she called. ‘Come and join me. You’re a married man. You’re not seeing anything you haven’t seen before.’
‘But in your case it’s wrapped differently.’ Michael could hardly believe he had said that.
Connie laughed, and Michael approached, against his own better judgement.
‘Don’t you know that walkers sometimes use that loaney as a way up to the top of Donevan?’ he warned, pointing back the way he had come. ‘And the Shannagh Brae youth hostel is only a mile or two that way.’ He pointed east- wards along the hillside in the direction of Carraghlin.
‘The chance that any walkers will come along here today are remote, Michael,’ Connie declared with confidence. ‘Besides, I have my towel here if I need it. Not that nudity bothers me. Robert teaches a life drawing class at the Belfast Tech and uses me as his female model. So I’m used to being looked at sans vêtements. Take your clothes off and lie in the sun for a while. I bet that big torso of yours has never seen the sun.’
‘I wouldn’t dare take my clothes off out here,’ Michael said, his eyes drawn irresistibly to Connie’s reddish vulval hair. He felt himself responding involuntarily.
Connie spread her legs a little and smiled coquettishly. ‘Would you take them off inside the cottage?’
Michael hesitated, confounded, but excited.
Connie took his hesitation as a Yes. ‘You would, you old rogue.’ She stood up, lifted the sheepskin and towel with one hand and held the other out to Michael.
Michael allowed himself to be led into the cool interior of the cottage.
Connie spread the sheepskin rug in front of the empty hearth where Michael and Caitlin used to make love.
Libros Libertad 