When I hear Portia’s name, I throw the foil to the other side of the room. “Portia,” I mumble to myself.
“What’s wrong, now?”
“I’m fed up with you all bringing up Portia. Portia here, Portia there. Did I sleep with Portia? Yes. Did I want to marry her? Not at all. Have we ever been officially engaged? No, I’ve never even considered it! How long will I have to justify shagging her a couple of times?”
“Parker, take it easy, no one is asking for that. Certainly not me! It was an example. What’s wrong with you?”
I sit on one of the benches at the side of the platform, and take my mask off. “Yesterday, Jemma asked me about Portia. It’s something we’ve never talked about, but yesterday she wanted to know what happened between us. I felt uncomfortable while I was telling her. She was next to me, naked and beautiful, and all I wanted to do was make love to her again, but I didn’t know if she would still want me after what I told her.”
“You’re a man, it’s normal that you had other women before her.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t want her to see me as an arsehole who has sex with women just for fun, and then walks away.”
“Someone like me, you mean,” Harring points out.
“Exactly.” He pats me on my back. “I love you too, brother!”
“So, that’s it. If you were all so kind as to file the Portia case once and for all, I’d appreciate it.”
“Case closed.”
“Can you believe it? I’m here with you, and I should be involved in a duel to the last thrust, but all I can think of is Jemma: where she is, what she’s doing, what she’s wearing and how long it would take me to rip it off…”
“It’s normal, it means that everything works here,” says Harring, grabbing his crotch.
“But it would also be enough to spend a whole day just looking at her! I’m even jealous of Cécile Loxley, just because she’s with her now!”
“Speaking of Cécile Loxley!” Harring says, jumping up. “What a temper she’s got. I’m starting to wonder what she’s like in bed. I’m sure she’s quite satisfying…”
“Loxley is asexual, and she’s with that Palo Alto nerd.”
“Well, never say never…”
“Are you implicitly confessing that you’re going to make advances to Cécile Loxley?” I ask, confused by what I believe I have just heard.
“Who? Me? Are you nuts?” Harring looks at me wide eyed. “No, it was just a hypothesis.”
73
Jemma’s Version
It’s another peaceful morning in Denby. I find it hard to let Ashford leave the bed to go and have a shower, but I don’t want to deny myself the vision of his sculpted naked body as he heads to the bathroom.
I stretch out, sinking even deeper into the feather pillows. How long since I last slept in my room? I can’t say for sure: two, three weeks? A month?
I don’t know, I decided that I will no longer count the days, partly because it was all so sudden and confusing, partly for luck. In the past, I always kept count of the hours, days and weeks, but it never brought me good luck and, in the end, it always turned out that I was the only one who was emotionally involved; this time, I’m going to live every day to the full as if it were the first.
“You could come join me,” Ashford invites me under the pounding water.
I walk to the bathroom and sit in the big wicker peacock chair.
“What are you doing there?” He asks.
“There’s a splendid view from here,” I confess, flirtatiously. “If you also turned round a bit, it would be perfect.”
He obeys, amused. “I am at your command.”
“Don’t you find it degrading?” I ask him.
