One thing Courtney was grateful for was that, despite her occasional indiscretions, Jack appeared never to have affairs. She and he had occasional sex and that seemed to be enough for him. The only thing that Jack wanted to get inside was the uniform of the commander of the army.
“We’re friends, sure enough,” Courtney confided in her mother, “but I don’t really think he has passion for anything but leadership.”
It was not true, of course. Jack still had passion for one other thing besides ambition, although he had imagined that passion was long buried. He still craved Polly and now, as Jack stood once again before her, Polly knew it. She could see it in his eyes as he stared at her across her room.
“So your wife doesn’t love you and now you’re here. In the middle of the night,” Polly said. “What’s the idea? Suddenly fancied a little blast from the past?”
There. She’d said it. The thing she’d been wanting to ask from the beginning. Had he come here to try to fuck her?
Jack stared into his glass, nervously rotating it in his hand. The question was banging around his head. Had he come back to try to fuck her? The truth was, of course, that he hadn’t, but by Christ he fancied it all the same.
“Well?” Polly asked again. “You’re miles from home. Your wife doesn’t understand you. Did you suddenly remember me and get a little horny, Jack?”
That he could answer. “Not suddenly, Polly. Always.”
And he meant it. Not one day had gone by since the terrible night he’d left her when Jack had not wanted to see Polly again. To taste again the delights of sex with the only girl he had ever loved.
Polly could see that he meant it, too. It was written in his eyes. Deep inside her something was laid to rest. He had loved her after all.
“Oh, Jack.” She stepped forward. She knew that she shouldn’t. As a strong woman and a feminist she should spurn his selfish desires. She knew that he had only come back for a night. That he would leave again in the morning as he had done before, but she didn’t care. If anyone had a right to a bit of comfort by General Jack Kent it was her. Let the devil take tomorrow; she was opting for one less lonely night.
“Do you know, I have never told my wife about us.” Jack was still fighting it, still holding back.
“I don’t want to talk about your wife.”
“I thought you did.”
“Well, I don’t.”
Polly shifted her weight slightly from one bare foot to the other; it was a tiny move, but sexual. A loosening of the body. Jack glanced up. She still stood that same way that she used to, relaxed, a little lazy on the hips. He felt his whole resolve dissolving.
“Yeah, well anyway, I never told her. I never told anyone.”
“As if anyone would care now?” said Polly. “As if it matters in the slightest after all these years. Unless you’re embarrassed or something. Is that it? Are you scared that one day someone else but me might find out that you’re a craven shit?”
“Maybe it’s just that I don’t want to share you, even in my memories.”
Polly’s emotions were on a knife edge. They could not have been more mixed if she’d run them through the washing machine. It is true that her desire for him had begun to overcome the anger she felt about his ancient betrayal. However, it did not take much to bring sixteen years of resentment back into focus.
“That’s nice,” she said. “Especially considering all you left either of us with is memories.”
Jack looked so crestfallen that she felt sorry for him. Something she would not have imagined possible only an hour before.
“OK, OK,” she put in quickly. “It was a long time ago. Different decade, different world order. It happened, that’s all. I suppose you’re not the only guy in history who did the dirty on a girl. And anyway. You did come back…”
Polly’s stance relaxed further and the room positively hummed with Jack’s longing. Her left hip dropped a little lower, pushing the knee forward. Her mouth fell slightly open. She rested her hands upon her thighs and was reminded that she was still dressed in a rather unflattering plastic rainmac.
“Think I’ll take off this raincoat,” she said. “My nightie’s probably slightly less stupid.”
Polly let the raincoat slip off as if it had been a neglige and stood before Jack dressed only in a shirt, the top couple of buttons of which were already undone. She was breathing more quickly now and her bosom was again rising and falling defiantly. Her hair, which Polly had thought a mess, might also have been described as gloriously tousled, ravishingly unkempt.
She was so beautiful, Jack could hardly bear it, yet still he hesitated.
“It’s been a long time, Jack,” said Polly, which was clearly a nice way of saying, “Come to bed.” She took a step or two towards him.
Jack could not help but catch a momentary glimpse of Polly’s thighs as the movement of her legs parted her shirt at its hem. He was inches from the soft, pale splendour of Polly’s most private self, and he could scarcely bear it. This had been no part of his plans.
Polly bent down and took the glass from Jack’s hand. In so doing her nightshirt fell forward and Jack was almost painfully aware of her breasts as they hung before him inside the gaping shirt. He looked. How could he resist? He stared. For a moment he could actually see between her breasts and through to her stomach beyond and the top of her knickers, which were crimson against her skin.
“I’ve missed you too,” Polly whispered softly, her mouth not nine inches from his ear. “I’ve been lonely.”
“It’s an international epidemic.”
Polly put Jack’s glass down on the little table beside his chair. Or rather on top of the pile of magazines, books and coffee mugs already on top of the. little table by his chair. Then she took Jack’s hands and drew him to his feet. Jack could now feel the warmth of Polly’s breath, the warmth of her body. Her hair smelled exactly the same as it had always done. He could see that her nipples had hardened again beneath the thin cloth of her nightshirt. She had always had such responsive nipples, he remembered. They were up and down all night, leaping into life at the slightest provocation, an infallible barometer of the state of her arousal. The current provocation was scarcely slight. They were both consumed with a taut, vibrant desire and the points of Polly’s breasts seemed almost to be straining to reach him.
“You’re such a beautiful girl, Polly. Still just the same.”
“Nearly the same,” Polly replied. “It’s all still here, just a little closer to the ground.”
It did not seem so to Jack. She appeared to him as beautiful as the day they had first met. As the day he had left. Polly reached up to him and took his face in her hands.
“Hello, old friend,” she said and drew his lips towards hers.
And then they kissed. This time Polly did not break away as she had done when Jack first arrived. It was a kiss that spanned sixteen years, a kiss so charged and full of memory and emotion that it was a wonder that the mouths of two people could contain it all.
Now their arms were about each other, mouths working with a desperate urgency. Even through the thickness of his uniform Jack could feel the soft splendour of Polly’s body against his. If he chose he knew that he could be upon it in an instant. He had only to throw off his clothes and that divine skin would be against his, those adored breasts crushed against his chest. He clasped her even tighter to him.
“Is that a gun in your pocket?” Polly whispered playfully into Jack’s ear, “or are you pleased to see me?”
Jack loosened his grip, slightly embarrassed. “Actually it’s a gun in my pocket.”
Stepping back for a moment Jack reached under his jacket and took a pistol from his trousers.
“Sorry about that,” he said and laid it down on the table beside his glass. Then he made as if to resume their embrace, but Polly raised a hand to stop him. She could hardly believe her eyes.