Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
Very sincerely, Tara Courtney Clare East was paying five guineas a week for a single squalid room beside the railway tracks at the back of Rondebosch station.
When she sold the sapphire brooch for three hundred pounds, which she suspected was a fraction of its real value, Clare had been determined to pay off her accumulated debts. However, as with so many of her good intentions, she closed her mind to the impulse, and instead blew most of the money on a secondhand Morris Minor.
She drove out to Weltevreden the following Saturday morning.
Some instinct warned her not to attempt to conceal her Bohemian inclinations, and she and Tara recognized kindred spirits at the very first meeting. Tara sent a driver and one of the estate lorries to fetch her few sticks of furniture and her pile of finished canvases, and personally helped her move into the cottage.
As they worked together, Clare showed Tara a few of the canvases, beginning with the landscapes and seascapes. Tara's response was noncommittal, so once again, following her instinct, Clare stripped the cover off one of her abstracts, a cubist arrangement of blues and fiery reds, and held it up for Tara.
'Oh God, it's magnificent!" Tara murmured. 'So fierce and uncompromising. I love it." A few evenings later Tara came down the path through the pines, carrying a small basket. Clare was on the stoep of the cottage, sitting bare-footed and cross-legged on a leather cushion with a sketch-pad on her lap.
She looked up and grinned, 'I hoped you'd come,' and Tara flopped down beside her and took a bottle of Shasa's best estate wine, the fifteen-year-old vintage, out of the basket.
They chatted easily while Clare sketched, drinking the wine and watching the sunset over the mountains.
'It's good to find a friend,' Tara said impulsively. 'You can't imagine how lonely it is here sometimes." '_With ark tJe_guesLs_a nd_v'mitor'_Cja.r, ewJ:u.to kled .as. hr 'Those aren't real people,' Tara said. 'They are just talking dolls, stuffed with money and their own importance,' and she took a flat silver cigarette case out of the pocket of her skirt, and opened it. It contained rice papers and shredded yellow leaf. 'Do you?" she asked shyly.
'Darling, you have probably saved my life,' Clare exclaimed. 'Roll one for us this instant. I can't wait." They passed the joint back and forth, and in the course of their lazy conversation Clare remarked, Tve been exploring. It's so beautiful here. A little earthly paradise." 'Paradise can be an awful bore,' Tara smiled.
'I found a waterfall with a little summer-house." 'That's the picnic spot. None of the servants are allowed there, so if you want to swim in the buff, you don't have to worry. Nobody is going to surprise you." Clare had not seen Sean on the estate since she moved into the cottage. She had expected him to come panting to the door on the very first day, and was slightly piqued when he did not. Then after a few more days she was amused by his restraint, he had an instinct far beyond his years, the touch of the born philanderer, and she waited with a rising sense of anticipation for him to approach her.
Then the delay began to gall her. She was unaccustomed to extended periods of celibacy, and her sleep started to become fitful and disturbed by erotic dreams.
The spring evenings lengthened and became balmy, and Clare took up Tara's suggestion to visit the pool below the waterfall. Each afternoon she hurried back to Weltevreden after school, and pulled a pair of shorts and a sleeveless blouse over her bikini before taking the short cut through the vineyards to the foot of the hills. Tara's assurances were well founded. The pool was always deserted except for the sugar birds amongst the proteas on the bank, and soon she discarded the bikini.
On her third visit, as she was standing under the waterfall letting her long dark hair flow down her body, she was suddenly aware that she was being watched. She sank down quickly, the water up to her chin, and looked around her apprehensively.
Sean sat on one of the wet black rocks at the head of the pool, almost within touching distance. The roar of the waterfall had muffled any sound of his approach. He was regarding her solemnly, and the resemblance to the youthful Pan god was enhanced in this wild and beautiful place. He was barefoot and wore only shorts and a cotton shirt. His lips were slightly parted and his teeth were white and perfect, a lock of dark hair had fallen over one eye and he lifted his hand and brushed it aside.
Slowly she raised herself until the water dropped to her waist, the foam swirled around her, and her body shone with wetness. She saw his eyes go to her breasts, and his tongue flicked between his teeth and he winced as if in pain. Matching his solemn expression, she crooked her finger and beckoned him. The noise of the waterfall prevented all speech.
x He stood up and began to unbutton his shirt, and then paused.
She saw that at last he was uncertain, and his confusion amused and excited her. She nodded encouragement and beckoned again. His expression firmed and he stripped off his shirt and threw it aside, then he unbuckled his belt and let his shorts drop around his ankles.
She drew breath sharply and felt the muscles on the inside of her thighs tense. She was not sure what she had expected, but protruding from a smoky haze of pubic hair he was long and white and rigid. Here, as in so many other ways, he was almost fully matured, the lingering signs of childhood on his body were all the more titillating foe this.
He stood naked for only an instant and then dived head first into the pool, to surface beside her, water streaming down his face, grinning like an imp. Immediately she ducked away, and he chased her. He was a stronger swimmer than she was, moving in the water like a young otter, and he caught her in the middle of the pool.
They struggled together playfully, giggling and gasping, treading water, going under and bobbing up again. She was surprised by the hardness and strength of his body, and though she extended herself, he began to get the better of her. She was tiring and she slowed her movements and let him rub himself against her. Cold water and exertion had softened him, but she felt him grow again, his hips slipping over her belly, probing instinctively at her. She hooked an arm around his neck and pulled his face down between her breasts.
His entire body arched and convulsed and for a moment she thought he had gone too far, and she reached down and squeezed him hard and painfully to stop him.
Then as he broke away, shocked by her assault, she turned and swam swiftly to the bank, dragged herself from the pool and ran wet and naked to the summer-house. She snatched up her towel, wiped her face dry and, holding the towel in front of her, turned back to face him as he reached the door of the summer-house behind her. He stood flushed and angry in the doorway, and they stared at each other, both of them panting heavily.
Then slowly she lowered the towel and tossed it over the couch.
Swinging her hips deliberately she went to where he stood.
'All right, Master Sean. We know you are worse than useless with a paint brush. Let's see if there isn't anything else we can teach you." He was like a blank canvas on which she could trace her own designs, no matter how bizarre.
There were things from which her other lovers had recoiled, and other acts that she had only imagined and never had the courage to suggest to a partner. At last she felt free of all constraint. It was as though he could read her intentions. She had only to start some new experiment, guide him just part of the way, and he picked it up with a greedy relish that astonished her and carried it through to a conclusion that she had not always fully foreseen, and which sometimes left her stunned.
