Enough!

It shocked me. As a man. To be thinking about how another woman (Miss Hahn! With her bizarre skin condition and the inked digits scrawled carelessly across her cheek) might register this sudden (not entirely unexpected, but then not entirely expected, either) act of intimacy on the part of another (much better maintained) female.

It’s always been difficult for me to live in the moment. I’m horribly prone to over-analysing everything. Spontaneity isn’t really my strong suit. And this heartfelt embrace (the aforementioned – quite – ample bosom) of Mrs Meadows had taken me somewhat by surprise. Did I lift up my arms (which were glued to my sides) and curl them around her waist (Does Miss Hahn even have a waist? Certainly not one I’ve ever knowingly apprehended)? Did I burrow my nose into the cleft (is it a ‘cleft’? Might the word ‘cleft’ be principally attributable to the partition of a pair of buttocks?)? Or did I simply remain perfectly still, stop breathing through my nose (my nostrils were slightly impaired by the … the intense fleshiness) and commence breathing through my mouth while bearing in mind that it would be completely inappropriate to move my lips excessively or, worse still, drool?

Oh she’s perfectly right – damn that Miss Hahn! – it is a silly name. Sage Meadows. Affected. Ridiculous. And I suppose the gardener was chiefly responsible for that wonderful garden outside. And while I’m on the subject (I am on the subject, aren’t I?) wasn’t Mrs Meadows perhaps slightly – very slightly – over-perfumed? Twixt the aforementioned ‘cleft’ of her quite charming bazooms? Was that a heavy (and rather predictable) dusting of Crabtree and Evelyn Lily of the Valley talcum powder upon her embonpoint? I idly wondered (palms now gently resting on her curvaceous hips) if Miss Hahn has any discernible scent. Something peppery, I’d expect. Something grassy. Warm sand with a slight tinge of sump oil. The kind of smell a piece of crushed kale might exude from under a square-booted heel …

Enough! Enough! Why should I give a fig about Miss Hahn’s smell or what her ridiculously uptight take on this curious little situation might be? I hardly know what my take on it is. Part of me was too embarrassed to object (as her hands moved down to my waist and started fiddling with my belt), part of me was victorious (what red-blooded male wouldn’t be?), part of me suspected that Mrs Meadows might be (i) taking things a little far (for a well-bred female), (ii) taking things a little for granted (complacency is not a quality I am much given to admiring in womankind in general. Treat ’em mean and keep ’em keen has always been my romantic philosophy), (iii) taking advantage of me (of my ‘grief’, even) to further her own mysterious agenda (I have no idea what that might be – and don’t much care to speculate, either).

Another part of me (an opportunistic part, I openly confess) senses that an unexpected increase in intimacy between myself and Mrs Meadows might inch me yet closer (slowly, ineluctably) towards Dr Meadows’s private diaries, which, for the record (whose record?), I no longer actually want or need. Because I’m fully intent on abandoning the Cleary project forthwith.