‘No, Stefan,’ she said without rancour. ‘Not like that. Here…’
She put her hands on either side of my head and, gently bringing my lips to hers, began pouring her soft, wounded, passionate being into mine with a tenderness so entirely novel to me it was a source almost as much of bewilderment as of pleasure. Still kissing me, she placed my hands on her breasts, which were considerably softer than those of Kurt Teske’s bronze nude, a fact that didn’t exactly surprise me, but clashed distantly against some unconscious preconception I must have held concerning the pliability of female breasts, and, murmuring, ‘Gently, Stefan; gently, gently,’ proceeded to initiate me into her own peculiarly sweet-natured brand of love.
An unaccustomed warmth filled me in the aftermath. When my mother came home, I smiled at her affectionately, and found myself lavishing praises on the new canvas she was carrying. She glanced at me, a brief wariness stirring in her eyes, but seeing that I was sincere, she softened, growing almost bashful.
‘Oh, it’s just a mess, don’t you think?’
‘Not at all, it’s gorgeous. They all are.’
‘Really? Do you mean that, Stefan?’
A feeling of tenderness brimmed in me – it had been years since I had glimpsed this childlike, vulnerable creature she guarded under her formidable exterior.
‘I do.’
‘You don’t think they’re horribly amateurish?’
‘I think they’re wonderful.’
I looked from her to the paintings leaning against the living room wall – a series of semi-abstract seascapes, each one favouring a different shade of blue.
‘Hmm. Well, perhaps I’ll donate one or two of them to the local DFD,’ she said. ‘These branch offices never have anything interesting on the walls. Or perhaps I should just burn them. What do you think, Kitty?’
‘No, don’t burn them,’ Kitty said with a dutiful look of alarm.
‘You think they’re worth holding on to?’
‘Yes! They’re pretty.’
‘Pretty!’ my mother scoffed. ‘Well, if that’s all they are, I certainly shall burn them.’
‘Oh, no! I didn’t mean – I just – I don’t know anything about art…’
This brought a more forgiving look from my mother. ‘Ah, but there’s nothing you need to know,’ she said, ‘all you need is to be able to look with your eyes and feel. Look at this one here. I’ve tried to make the ocean express a sort of mood – do you see? Something a little sombre, even sad.’
‘Oh, yes. It is sad! It’s very sad -’
‘Sad but -’
‘I feel sad just looking at it now.’
‘Ah, but wait,’ my mother said patiently, ‘it’s not as simple as that. Look up in this corner, here. See?’
‘These blobs of yellow?’
‘Well, think of them as a tonality, relative to the rest; a modifier.’
Kitty looked lost. A bewildered, innocent expression settled on her.
‘It’s lighter here, isn’t it?’ my mother persisted. ‘Lighter than the rest. Like a little, subtle suggestion of -’
‘You mean a ray of hope!’ Kitty exclaimed.
‘Well, that’s putting it more crudely than I would hope was the case, but yes.’
‘A picture of sadness with a sort of gleam of hope. I see now. That’s so beautiful. Isn’t that beautiful, Stefan?’
I nodded, smiling rapturously at her. It was all I could do to stop myself from kissing her, right there in front of my mother.
As it turned out, she had enough wisdom, or instinct for self-preservation, to bring our affair to a firm end before we got back to Berlin. On our last night in Rügen I crept quietly into her room. Instead of letting me into her bed as she had the previous nights, she frowned.
‘No, Stefan, no,’ she whispered. ‘This isn’t sensible at all. Go back to your room.’
‘What? Let me in!’
‘Ssh! Your mother…’
‘I’ll make it creak even louder if you don’t -’
With a look of reproach, she moved to the side of her narrow bed. I climbed in beside her, enveloping myself in the still-intoxicating stale sweetness of her sheets.
She wore a ruffled white nightgown. I started to kiss her cream-moistened face. She pulled away.
‘What’s the matter?’ I whispered.
She switched on a reading light and thrust her face close to mine.
‘Look at me, Stefan.’
‘I’m looking.’
‘I’m twelve years older than you. Look at these dark circles under my eyes. They don’t go away, you know. Not any more. And these little furrows around my mouth. Soon they’re going to start bunching up like there’s a drawstring under them. Find someone your own age.’
I planted a kiss on the offending mouth, then slid my hand over her nightgown. She threw back the covers and yanked up the cotton shift, baring herself. Grabbing my hand, she squeezed it onto the flesh of her inner thigh.
‘Feel how loose that is?’ she hissed. ‘It’s about to start really sagging. Same with these.’ She moved my hand to a gravity-shallowed breast. ‘See? I’m like a piece of melting cheese. Is that what you want in a woman? I’m too old for you. That’s what the matter is.’
She eyed me resentfully. I felt obscurely flattered. A sensation of manly protectiveness swelled inside me. I kissed her again; felt her take pleasure in it in spite of herself. Her fatigued, careworn prettiness touched me to the quick. The room, lit by her reading lamp, was neat and absolutely bare – herself its single ornament. I felt as though I were embracing a bouquet of fragile, frailly tinctured flowers. I could see nothing beyond my need to prove myself as a man capable of taking full possession of his woman. The more she resisted, the more imperative this need became. I ran my hand down over her waist.
‘No, Stefan, really…’
‘Why not?’
She sat up, covering herself again. ‘You’re practically my brother, Stefan. Doesn’t that disturb you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it should. This is – it’s incest!’
She gave a little winsome laugh as she said this. I smiled, pulling her back down to the pillow and bringing her mouth to mine, emboldened by a thin, metallic confidence that had been steadily awakening in me since we first made love. She yielded a little: confused, warily responsive. I was beginning to understand the mechanisms within her that had set the patterns of her life; the little cogs and levers of self-doubt, kindness, irrational passion.
‘Please, Stefan, please.’
‘But why?’
Her pale cheeks were flushed, her eyes wild. ‘I’m a vulnerable person. I’m very emotional. If we go on now, I’ll get attached to you. That’s the way I am.’
‘So?’
‘You don’t want that.’
‘I do, Kitty. That’s exactly what I want.’
‘Why? So you can feel how powerful you are when it comes time to move on to the next woman?’
‘Kitty, don’t be ridiculous…’ However accurate the image of wrinkles and melting cheese she seemed intent on evoking may have been, this feeling of imminently triumphant possession was the more powerful reality, gilding her physical body with a layer of pure erotic substance that sent waves of desire through me at every touch. It was inconceivable to me that I might ever not want this.