A few days later Anna called me at work. I had just returned to the office from
my daily rounds. It must have been around eleven thirty. I was surprised but I
immediately thought; that"s it!
“Mickey?”
“Anna?”
“You recognized me at once.”
“No one else calls me Mickey.”
“Are you busy?”
“No. But my heart is. It is thumping away.”
“Why?”
“It has an inkling of what you might say.”
“Clever heart!”
“Clever but vulnerable. It is badly smitten.”
“Then we must hasten to heal it. How about three this afternoon?”
“Are you sure? Gosh. At your house? What about grandma?”
“Yes, here. Mother will be visiting friends. Don't forget the Gold Coins.”
“They're at home buried in a drawer. I'll have to buy some new ones. No
problem.”
“See you in a while.”
An employee came into the office to tell me something. I could barely
understand what he was saying. I just nodded. The same thing happened with two
other people. I was too excited. I could not concentrate on my work. I told them I had
a chore and left the office. I walked towards the river. When I reached it, I leaned on
15
the parapet and sort of daydreamed looking at this massive, moving body of water. It
always seemed to calm me. It evoked so many things. Permanence, life, antiquity,
evolution, Egypt, Africa. It dampened one"s own trivial preoccupations, worries and
anxieties.
I left after a while and walked back towards the office. On the way, I stopped
at a pharmacy and bought the Gold Coin condoms. The walk calmed my excitement
and eased my tensions somewhat. From the office, I called my mother and told her I
would be in later than usual. I tried to concentrate on my work but with little success.
I looked at my watch every quarter of an hour or so until two thirty. Half an hour later
I was at our apartment building, praying there would be no unlucky encounters. I
entered the elevator alone and up to the sixth floor. I rang the bell and Anna opened. It
was dark inside. I went in. Quietly, she fastened the latch. Then straightened, said,
“Mickey,” and hugged me. I kissed her and our tongues started a game. Love all, at
our first game of love. She was wearing a robe de chambre and slippers. I felt the slim
body inside. She stepped on my shoes with her slippers. A light, familiar scent
penetrated my mind. Then, she stepped down.
“I prepared a snack and some wine.”
“Can't we have it later?”
“Have you had lunch? No? Well neither have I. And the wine will loosen us
up.”
We went to the kitchen, an airy room with a table and chairs next to the wall
where Anna and grandma usually took their meals. Sunlight was streaming in through
the lone window. After the darkness, it took a few seconds for the eye to adapt. I
looked at Anna. She was smiling. Why? I focused and saw Cleopatra again.
“Anna! Did Moni make you up, again? You are exquisite. I didn't notice in the
dark. Not even when we kissed. Just the perfume.”
“Yes, I called him and he came. It took split-second timing. Mother left at
about two. He arrived at a quarter past, took half an hour of real fast work and left
quarter of an hour before Caesar called for his Cleopatra.”
“Mark Anthony, for Heaven's sake.”
“Yes, yes. Mark Anthony.”
“But there is a whiff of perversion, don't you think? Your future husband
making you up for your lover?”
“Oh Mickey, we've been through all that. Don't spoil things.”
“You're right. Anyway, what do I care? I just want to hold you and kiss you.”
“Sit down, let's have a bite.”
My mood was turning sour. “I'm not hungry,” I said sullenly.
“Well I am. Have, at least, some wine.”
She had some cheese and chicken sandwiches on the table. A few peeled and
salted Nile valley cucumbers and a bottle of local red wine. We sat down. She poured
the wine in two half-size glasses, smiled at me, and said, “To our love.”
I don't know why I, suddenly, felt this idiotic resentment. I was jealous and
resentful of Moni because these past few days he intruded whenever I saw Anna and
wanted to make love to her. I resented that he seemed to take over whenever he
appeared. I resented the fact that he was here half an hour ago, making her up. Giving
us his go-ahead and his blessing. I did not need it. Nor did I need a shadow in my love
life. I was so confused. I could not clear and classify my emotions. Could not explain
them just then. I turned a little nasty.
“I wonder if Cleopatra ate chicken sandwiches with Mark Anthony before
they made love.”
16
She caught the intention. My intention to hurt, to ridicule. My change of
mood. She got up and left. I was at a loss. What now? I poured some more wine and
drank it slowly. Waiting. Some minutes passed. You absolute idiot, Michael, you fool.
I took another gulp of wine. I started getting dizzy. I got up to look for her. Just then,
she entered sullenly in the kitchen. She had washed her face. Not a trace of makeup.
Not a queen anymore. Just a clean, pretty face with hair wet at the edges.
“Now, I'm just plain Jane,” she said. “I can eat my sandwiches in peace.” She
started munching noisily. Deliberate bad manners.
I smiled cautiously. “I'm sorry,” I said.
She looked at me indignantly.
“We never, never once quarreled all these years. Are we going to start now
that we decided to make love?”
“I'm sorry,” I said again.
She munched for a while in silence. Then she pushed the platter with the
sandwiches towards me.
“Have one,” she said.
I picked up a sandwich and pushed her untouched glass of wine towards her.
“And you drink up.”
She looked at me and smiled, as well as she could on a full mouth. The alcohol
opened my appetite and I consumed another two sandwiches. Anna opened another
bottle of wine. She started drinking with me and refilling our little glasses as soon as
they emptied. Together with tit-bits of small talk. We finished eating and moved to
the living room. Anna brought the wine and glasses with her. She switched on an
electric fire that was there. I sat on the sofa and she came and sat next to me. We
faced each other.
“Are we friends, again?” she asked.
I took her hand and kissed it. “Take a guess,” I said.
We looked at each other. For an eternity, smiling on and off. Hands crossing,
caressing each other's face and hair. And ears and neck. Building up passion from
tenderness and affection. She moved her face to mine. The tender kiss with the pained
expression and the eyes closed. The pause, the look, the smile. And another kiss. And
another. Her kisses setting the pace. Inquiring. Are you ready? Shall we go on? Her
body closing in. Her breast on mine. She straddled me, sat on my lap, a leg on each
side, her arms around my neck, her lips no longer pausing for the smile, the
expression of pain and passion permanent, her tongue, hard, urgent, dominating, in a
hurry. My hand fondled her breast then moved inside the robe; the thrill of flesh. She
undid and threw the robe away. I kissed the breasts, a fleeting kiss before she yanked
my jumper off, tore off my shirt and flannel. Got off my lap. I feasted my eyes on a
perfect body. She saw my eager look, sensed my arousal at the sight of it, and with a
smile took off her panties. I saw her pubic hair. My heart beat hard and my breath
shortened. She bent, took hold of one leg, removed my shoe and sock, then the other.
“Stand up Mickey.”
I stood up. I followed orders. She was the leader. She knew the way. She
undid my belt, the zip of my trousers, pulled them down sweeping with them my
underwear. She caressed my straining penis, embraced me, we started kissing
standing up, my hands acquainting themselves with the curves and clefts of her body.
A long passionate kiss that ended with a push. Instinctively I tried to step back but my
trousers and underpants bound my legs. I fell on the sofa and she fell on top of me.
Straddled me again, her mouth on mine, kissing me, teasing me with her tongue on
my lips, on my nose, in my ear, her hands in full possession of my body; my body in
17
total, exhilarating surrender to a passionate conqueror.
“Mickey, the Gold Coins.”
“In my trouser pockets.”
Anna bending over, fumbling, retrieving, opening, fitting, and then finally
lifting herself to bury me in her body.
“We are one, my love,” she whispered.
She started moving slowly. Unhurried movements of tranquil sensuality. Of
taking pleasure and of giving. Kissing, moaning, and smiling now and then. Full of
energy and gusto and the voluptuous enjoyment of having me in her. She gave me her
breasts to suckle and her mouth to explore. She gave me love and called me darling
and, my love, and as I was too ecstatic, too far-gone to be original returned the same
endearments. She also called me Mickey, in messages and small sentences. “Oh
Mickey, it's so nice. I had almost forgotten how lovely it is.” And sometimes just
Mickey, singly, or accompanied by, “Oh”. Sometimes she shocked me with her raw
language. “Mickey, just let me fuck you for a while and then you can fuck me.”
Sometimes she could not take her breath and she stopped and rested her head
on my shoulder. Then after a prolonged journey of voluptuous meandering, she
speeded up and took off to visit wondrous worlds beyond our four dimensions where
you could not endure for long. Where the release of tension brought out her breath in
gasps, made her heartbeat almost audible, a vein in her neck to flutter, her eyelids
heavy as lead.
She collapsed to one side. Eyes closed; almost unconscious. The culprit was
the wine that had anaesthetized my senses and made my release impossible. Had
magnified her hunger, her privation and her passion. Magnified and multiplied her
orgasms. I looked at Anna, at her body, touched her and caressed her tenderly, in
wonder, with love. She opened her eyes, drugged.
“You brute,” she said, “You almost killed me. I've had perhaps a dozen
orgasms. And you? Not yet? Then come my love, continue.” She stretched herself on
the sofa. “But now you do the work,” she said. I moved closer and she opened her
legs. I sat between them, looked at her and touched her. I marveled at Mother Nature.
How she managed to enslave us with a little slit like that. To fascinate us. To trouble
us. To move us. To inspire us. And finally to seduce us to propagate the human
species. An organ of pleasure and of life. I could not take my eyes away.
“Mickey? Are you having your portrait taken?” said Anna with a smile.
I lay on her and for the first time in my life, I had an orgasm making love to a
woman.