John Thomas & Lady Jane

said.
    ‘Lying down,’ she said, ‘then turn me
over and do it from the back, doggie fashion.’
    Suddenly his eyes changed, seemed to
grow large and dark and full of flashing, leaping light. The eyes leaped up and
down in the darkness. There were times when his eyes actually left his head.
    Suddenly his resistance left him and
his eyes came back. He folded round her, he raised her with his body.
    ‘Oh no, oh no,’ she said. She wanted
him to kiss her and to speak to her and he did.
    ‘I see there’s trouble with the Saar. The Germans might re-occupy it.’ His hands wandered with the blind instinct down to
her loins. She wanted that as well.
    ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said.
    ‘Oh no,’ she said.
    He closed the door on them and swept
up the chicken shit. He put the blanket on the floor then turned again, dirty
little devil, and put his arms around her. He held her close with one hand and
felt her body with the other. She heard the intake of his breath as he touched
her. Beneath her frail petticoat, she was naked.
    ‘Arggh eh! Tha’rt lovely to touch!’
he said in that oafish voice of his as his fingers caressed the delicate warm
secret skin of her ladyship’s waist and hips. She kept her waist and hips a
secret from him.
    He kneeled and rubbed his cheek
against her thighs and belly, dirty little devil. And when he took her she
cried, ‘Oh no, oh no.’ Dirty little devil! And she wondered a little over the
sort of rapture it was to him. It made her feel beautiful and very glad to be
desirable. ‘Oh no, oh no,’ she said. He didn’t seem to and kept banging away.
And for the first time in her life she felt the animate beauty of her own
thighs and belly and hips. Under his touch she felt a sort of dawn come into
her flesh. Would it light up? And yet she was still waiting, waiting for that
nine inches, nine inches plus.
    ‘I can’t stay long,’ she said gently.
‘You came so late. It’s twenty past nine.’
     
    The Honourable Ormesly Gore
    Said I think this fucking is a bore
    You are covered in sweat
    And you haven’t come yet
    Look at the time half-past bloody four.
     
    He held her closer and tried to cover
her naked legs with his body, it was physically impossible.
    ‘I shall have to go or they will
wonder,’ she said.
    He gave a sudden deep sigh, like a
child coming awake. Then he raised himself, and kneeling, kissed her thighs
again.
    ‘Oh no, oh no,’ she said.
    ‘Ay!’ he said. ‘Time’s too short this
time. Tha mun ta’e a’ thy clothes off one time — shall ter? — on’y it’ll ha’e
ter be warmer.’
    ‘What in God’s name was the man
talking about,’ she thought.
    He drew down her skirts and stood up,
buttoning his own clothing unconsciously. He put the buttons in the wrong
buttonholes leaving his flies all scrounged up with his shirt sticking out. He
took his gun, looked for his hat which had fallen off when he was fucking and
then quietly called for the dog.
    ‘Dick! Here boy! Dick!’ The dog
didn’t come because his name was Flossie. He locked the door, calling the dog.
    ‘Appen as yer’d come ter th’ cottage
one time,’ he said. ‘If yer could slive off for a night.’ He seemed near yet
his voice was far away, in fact he was the local amateur ventriloquist.
    ‘I shall come tomorrow if I can,’ she
said moving away.
    ‘Good night, your ladyship,’ came his
voice from the top of a tree as she plunged into the dark-grey obscurity and
fell over.

Chapter VIII
    -------------
     
     
     
    T HE NEXT DAY she felt she could not go to the
hut to him. What kept her away? It was his garbled use of the English language
to the I point where you could not understand it. She winced when when she
thought of him. ‘Tha mun ta’e a’ thy clothes off one time, s’all ter?’ Surely
it was not she he was speaking to?
    That afternoon she could not keep
still. She made a dozen plans (1) to climb the Eiger, (2) swim the Channel, (3)
win at Wimbledon, and (4) take the gold medal in the 5,000-metre Olympics. She
would not go to the wood. No, she would go to Marehay, through the little iron
gate of the park, and round Marehay farm.
    When she was out she felt better. She
walked on stupefied, noticing nothing and fell into ponds. She came to Marehay
farm, the dog attacked her, bellowing round her.
    ‘Come, Bell, have you forgotten me?’
she said.
    Mrs Flint appeared. She was a woman
of Constance’s own age, size, colour and had the same number of legs.
    ‘Why Bell!