The Last Letter from Your Lover

What to do? What to do? Their kisses grew deeper, more urgent. He knew that if he didn’t take her he would explode. He broke off, his hands on her face, saw her eyes, heavy with longing. Her flushed skin was his answer.
    He looked to his right. Sherrie was still deep in her book, the cloakroom redundant in the sticky August heat. She was blind to them after years of amorous fumblings around her. ‘Sherrie,’ he said, pulling a ten-shilling note from his pocket, ‘how’d you fancy a tea break?’
    She raised an eyebrow, then took the money and slid off her stool. ‘Ten minutes,’ she said baldly. And then Jennifer, giggling, was following him into the cloakroom, breathless as he pulled the dark curtain as far across the little alcove as it would go.
    Here the dark was soft and total, the scent of a thousand discarded coats lingering in the air. Wrapped around each other, they stumbled to the end of the coat rail, the wire hangers clashing around their heads, like whispering cymbals. He couldn’t see her, but then she was facing him, her back against the wall, her lips on his, with a greater urgency now, murmuring his name.
    Some part of him knew, even then, that she would be his undoing. ‘Tell me to stop,’ he whispered, his hand on her breast, his breath thick in his throat, knowing this would be the only possible brake. ‘Tell me to stop.’ The shake of her head was a mute refusal. ‘Oh, God,’ he murmured. And then they were frantic, her breath coming in short gasps, her leg lifted around his. He slid his hands underneath her dress, palms sliding against the silk and lace of her underwear. He felt her fingers threaded in his hair, one hand reaching for his trousers, and some part of him was mildly shocked, as if he had imagined her natural sense of decorum would preclude such an appetite.
    Time slowed, the air became a vacuum around them, their breath mingling. Fabrics were pushed aside. Legs became damp, his braced to support her weight. And then – oh, God – he was inside her, and just for a moment everything stopped: her breath, movement, his heart. The world, possibly. He felt her open mouth against his, heard her intake of breath. And then they were moving, and he was one thing, could feel only one thing, deaf to the clashing hangers, the muffled music on the other side of the wall, the muted exclamation of someone greeting a friend in the corridor. It was him and Jennifer, moving slowly, then faster, her hold on him tighter, the laughter gone now, his lips on her skin, her breath in his ear. He felt the increasing violence of her movements, felt her disappear into some distant part of herself. He knew, with some still rational part of him, that she mustn’t make a sound. And as he heard the cry build at the back of her throat, as her head tipped back, he stopped it with his mouth, absorbing the sound, her pleasure, so surely that it became his own.
    Vicariously.
    And then they were stumbling, his legs cramping as he lowered her, and they were pressed together, holding each other, he feeling the tears on her cheeks as she shivered, limp in his arms. Afterwards he couldn’t remember what he told her at that point. I love you. I love you. Never let me go. You are so beautiful . He remembered wiping the tears from her eyes tenderly, her whispered reassurances, half-smiles, her kisses, her kisses, her kisses.
    And then, as if at the end of a distant tunnel, they heard Sherrie’s conspicuous cough. Jennifer straightened her clothes, allowed him to smooth her skirt, and he felt the pressure of her hand as she led him the few feet back into the light, the real world, his legs still weak, his breathing not yet regular, already regretting leaving that dark heaven behind.
    ‘Fifteen minutes,’ Sherrie said into her paperback, as Jennifer stepped out into the corridor. Her dress was neat, only the flattening of the back of her hair a clue to what had transpired.
    ‘If you say so.’ He slipped the girl another note.
    Jennifer turned to him, her face still flushed. ‘My shoe!’ she exclaimed, holding up one stockinged foot. She burst out laughing, covered her mouth. He wanted to rejoice at her mischievous expression – he had feared she would be suddenly pensive or regretful.
    ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, ducking back in.
    ‘Who says chivalry’s dead?’ Sherrie muttered.
    He fumbled in the dark for the emerald silk shoe, his free hand lifting to his hair, lest it should be as evidential as