2
The bed is soft and so is she. So soft that he sinks into her like a weary traveller, finding a berth at last.
And then the giggles begin.
Laughter infused with the joy of finally being here. Alone together, after having been encircled by people. Whilst outside there are so many thousands more people, but folk they don’t know and who would pass by him without judgement or disapproval.
He is so hot for her but he knows the heat isn’t all of his making. Even with the small window and those flaking, blue shutters wide open to the tiny courtyard below, the unfamiliar, subtropical air is so still and dry. There isn’t the whisper of a breeze to cool their coiled and sweating bodies.
Perhaps they should close everything tight, he thinks, but wouldn’t this simply seal in the stifling air, with no hope of escape?
She should know about these things; this is her country after all.
And, for some quite recent years, her city.
But she doesn’t seem aware of anything beyond the two of them and this moment.
He wonders how she does this.
He has never been outside of Britain, barely ventured beyond Scotland, and a part of him feels even now that he should be out there, in the heat, exploring the city.
Broadening his mind, gathering “material” for his writing.
And, hopefully, what might pass for a tan on his pallid, northern skin.
But it isn’t this part of him that is making the decisions right now.
And, anyway, his personal tour guide is clearly on her break.
At least it will give him an appetite for those wee plate things she has told him the locals like for their lunch.