asked to give. He felt alone and far away from anything real.
‘What did you have in mind?’ he asked, turning to the woman impulsively.
Taking his hand, she pulled him towards the back stairs of the balcony, took off her shoes and ran down the steps into the dark. Merritt paused for a moment and then ran after her. They walked through the gardens he had spent so much time on and she put her arm in his. It was companionable and felt right even though they didn’t know each other’s names.
‘The gardens are lovely. I walked through them today,’ she said in her lilting accent.
‘Thank you. I designed them,’ he said humbly.
‘Well you are very clever.’
Merritt said nothing. Her praise didn’t matter to him; he was saddened that people didn’t care for gardens any more. It used to be an art, he thought, now people just wanted quick overhauls with instantly grown plants.
He and the woman walked down towards the pool, which was silent, the air thick with the scent of gardenias. She looked at him and arched an eyebrow. ‘Swim?’
He looked at her confused.
She peeled off her cerise silk slip and stood opposite him in tiny cream silk pants. She was in her late twenties and her body was toned and taut. He felt a stirring in his groin and looked back up to the palace. The music echoed out and Merritt realised no one there missed him – hell, no one in the party knew him.
Pulling off his dinner suit and shoes, he stood naked opposite the woman, his cock jutting out in front of him. She didn’t look at him, but instead dived into the water. He followed her in. She swam around him and threw her pants onto the side of the pool, and he swam over to her, reached down into the water and pulled her towards him. The nipples on her tiny breasts were erect and he sucked them gently. She was naked except for the rings and necklaces that glittered in the water, and he held her as she wrapped her legs around him. They rubbed together in the water and kissed gently until he felt himself slip inside her, and they fucked in the water, breathlessly. He pushed her against the tiled walls and she grabbed at his back, her long nails digging in, and then they came together. Afterwards she had lifted herself off him, swum underwater to the other end of the pool, and pulled herself out of the water.
‘Thank you,’ she had said as she tied her hair into a bun. He had wondered how she did it with no pins to hold it. Taking a towel from the trolley at the side of the pool, she dried herself and then pulled her dress back over her head. She took her pants and dropped them into the bin by the side of the pool, and then she bent down next to Merritt at the water’s edge. ‘Enjoy your stay.’ She smiled and walked in the direction of the party.
Merritt had stayed in the pool, unsure of what had just happened and if it was real. The scratches on his back would sting under the shower when he finally made it back to his room, reminding him it was true. He wondered who the woman was.
Leaving the next day, he sat in his business class seat and pulled out the airline magazine while he waited for the plane to finish boarding. There was an article about the wedding of the year that was about to happen between one of India’s richest men and the daughter of a Maharaja. The man was thirty-five years her senior and the woman was a rising Bollywood star. Merritt looked at the pictures and recognised the woman he had had sex with the night before. Merritt closed the magazine and sat back in his seat, wondering when his life had become so devoid of intimacy.
Now he was back at home, pining after a Hollywood star, not a Bollywood star, and this time she came with three kids and what sounded like an idiot of a husband. Merritt hadn’t allowed himself to even entertain a crush since Eliza had broken her promise to him, and he had managed successfully to limit himself to no-strings, even nameless sex occasionally, and by travelling the world, to stay away from England and its memories.
Part of him, though, was excited to know he felt something again. He had wondered if