Authors: Roberta Latow
They looked at each other in the dark. Was it a challenge she felt between them? If not, then most certainly a tension.
Arabella said, “Are you here alone?”
He hesitated and then answered, “Yes.”
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, which Arabella broke by saying “It would be very interesting if we could discuss erotic, sexual Alexandria together over dinner. Will you invite me?”
Again she sensed his hesitation, caution, his conservative English manner.
“Oh, dear,” she said, “you’re hesitating and you’re quite right. You don’t even know me.”
“But I feel I know you.”
“Oh, how strange.”
“Not so strange. I’ve been listening to you make love for the last four nights. No, we are not exactly strangers.”
“That’s the second time in less than thirty minutes I feel embarrassed with you,” she said.
He laughed. “Don’t be. I think you are delightful. Yes, I will take you to dinner. Shall we say in an hour’s time in the lobby?”
Arabella sat in her bath washing her arms with the large soft sponge wondering at how brave and self-assured you can be when youth is on your side. Anthony Quartermaine was the first and last man she had ever picked up. She smiled even now remembering how wicked she felt doing it and thought how desperate she must have been to have gathered up the nerve to carry it off.
When Arabella stepped out into the lobby to meet her Englishman, every pair of eyes in the room was on her. She looked ravishing. The sun had streaked her blond hair silver white in places, her skin was a golden brown. She wore a dress that accentuated her wonderful figure and long, long legs. Her Galanos dress showed a bare back to the waist. It was so skimpy at the sides that when viewed from the back she appeared to have nothing on above the magnificent bone-color silk skirt that billowed out as she walked. She wore several antique Indian ivory bracelets trimmed in silver and reddish-gold antique Phoenician rings on her fingers. High-heeled bone sandals criss-crossed over her toes and feet. She carried over one bare shoulder a small purse, a
recamier
of spiral-chased gold with small sapphires set in the gold clasp on a spiral golden chain. This had been a gift from her mother, who had received it on her twenty-first birthday.
Arabella was taken aback to see her Englishman not waiting impatiently for her but talking to two men, one looking like another stuffy Englishman and the other a dark, handsome Arab with the bearing of a sheikh or prince. He was in fact an Alexandrian Copt.
Just as were everyone else’s in the room, their eyes were drawn to the beautiful Arabella. He shook hands with the two men and left them, greeting Arabella by picking up her hand and kissing it.
“You look ravishing, absolutely ravishing.” He slipped his arm through hers and said, “Don’t you think we should introduce ourselves?”
Embarrassed a third time, and feeling not at all like the worldly-wise seductress she was playing at, she simply smiled, held out her hand, and said, “I am Arabella Crawford.”
“And I am Anthony Quartermaine.”
They shook hands quite formally and started toward the dining room but Arabella, recalling her role, stopped him, saying “Oh, no, not the dining room?”
“But the food is excellent. You may choose from an international cuisine.”
“Anthony, don’t be so conventional! You can’t have been seduced as I have been by Alexandria or you would take me out into this sensuous city and share it with me. Nope, sorry, I will
not
settle for the Cecil. Not tonight.”
She looked so annoyed, so crestfallen that he could not help but laugh at her.
“All right,” he said. “Just to show you that I am not too stuffy, I’ll take you out to a restaurant.”
They swung around and walked down the stairs, through the entrance. He helped her up into one of the open carriages lined up in front of the Cecil, and in perfect Arabic he told the driver where to drive.
A light flick of the whip on the horse’s flanks, the bells began to tinkle, and they were off.
“You didn’t tell me you spoke Arabic.”
He smiled and answered, “No, I did not.”
“Well, how is it you speak Arabic?”
“Because I am an Arabist.”
“Oh,” she said, not quite knowing what that meant. “Where are you taking me?”
“To a lovely old restaurant on the Corniche where they serve delicious fish fresh from the sea and the most exquisite Arabic cuisine. It’s been there for donkey’s years. My father dined there before me when he was a young diplomat in Cairo.”
Before they knew it, they were in front of the wide-fronted restaurant, an unprepossessing place with tables and chairs set out under a rolled-back awning that faced the sea wall.
“Good heavens, Anthony. We could have walked here!”
“With you in a dress like that? My dear, I do not consider myself a coward but I am not suicidal either. That would have been sheer folly, much too dangerous.”
“My God, you
are
a bit on the stuffy side, aren’t you?” Maybe there was nothing beyond the stiff British composure after all, thought Arabella, feeling slightly annoyed with herself.
They were shown to a table and made a fuss over. The owner appeared and greeted Anthony. “Ah, Lord Heversham, I had heard you were in Alexandria. How happy we are to see you again, my lord.”
Anthony introduced Arabella and when the man finally left them alone, after taking over the ordering of their meal, Arabella said, “You told me your name is Anthony Quartermaine?”
“It is. I am Anthony Quartermaine; the Earl of Heversham is my title.”
“I refuse to be embarrassed again,” she said, turning a pleasant shade of pink.
They both laughed easily together for the first time. They chatted casually about Alexandria, and he told her he had been there many times. She admitted to him that the city had touched her deeply in some way.
“I know in my heart once I leave this extraordinary sensual city, I will never be the same and I will never return. I can’t go before fulfilling something, maybe my destiny. I want to be seduced by a man the way this city has taken me.”
She put her hand out and as he took it in his, she had to admit to herself that she was enjoying this role and being with the proud, handsome Lord Heversham. It made her realize just how wicked the sensual, erotic atmosphere was
making her. She had never, ever behaved in such a sexually aggressive manner before. It was fun shocking him, though.
She said, “Anthony, there’s something else I want you to know. I’ve never been sexually aggressive before, but Alexandria has turned me around.”
He did not play games with her. He told her the truth.
“Arabella, I am a married man. Happily married, and I am going to stay that way.” He stroked her hand gently and added, “You are an exciting, beautiful woman, and free. I am not. Now do you still want to play with me?”
Arabella did not remove her hand. She looked into his eyes and spoke openly of how she felt. “I would have preferred it if you had been single. I’ve never been involved with a married man before. Where is your wife? Why are you here alone?”
“She is about to have a baby. She is in our house in the country in England. Fiona loves Gloucestershire where we live. She hates leaving the children. She does not share the love I have for travel in the Arab world, anyway. Her passion is babies, herbaceous borders, and making the best family life possible for me. I have other passions. Because we love each other, we indulge ourselves by setting each other free to enjoy them.”
“It sounds to me more like being let out on a long leash than freedom.”
“It works for both of us, you see. And now have you decided whether we are to play together?” he asked again. Anthony Quartermaine exuded charm along with the challenge and, for the first time, an interest in her. Arabella could not resist it.
Slowly she allowed a smile to come forth and finally said, “Anthony Quartermaine, the Earl of Heversham, I will play with you.”
Over dinner something happened to the couple. They gave themselves up to the delicious food, the sensual atmosphere, and spoke very little. An electricity, a chemistry began gradually pulling them together.
The cheeky bravado that Arabella had accosted Anthony
with disappeared. She felt herself slipping into genuine desire to share with this man all the erotic feeling that the city inspired in her. What was so extraordinary was that he understood it. Something stronger than words — powerful feelings — rose to the surface for both of them during their meal.
They picked up their tiny cups of hot sweet Turkish coffee and walked across the road to the sea wall. Placing the cups on top of the wall, they looked across the dark Mediterranean and listened to the sea washing the shores of Alexandria. They could make out the outline of the ancient lighthouse in the distance.
He caressed her hair and said, “I know a better place than this.”
They crossed back to the restaurant, where Anthony paid the bill, and climbed back into the carriage that had been waiting for them. They drove through the city, Anthony giving endless directions to the driver. He showed her an Alexandria she had not seen before. He stopped the carriage and bought her several chains of jasmine and placed them over her head, adjusting them carefully over her breasts. The scent engulfed her; she knew she would never know such a sweet scent again as long as she lived.
Then the carriage turned away from the heart of the city and back along the Corniche in the opposite direction, away from the hotel Cecil toward Montaza and the beach. They passed the little tin train that rattled the route all day long and well into the night. The traffic thinned out and then they were there. They got out and walked away from the Avenue of Royal Palms, through thick green grass and hibiscus bushes, eucalyptus trees, date palms, and scrubby pines growing out of the sand. It was a strange exotic forest of tree trunks whose life of green was way up at the top, reaching for the stars.
The pair wound their way through the trees toward a line of beach cabins silhouetted in moonlight. As if by magic, a
sufragi
appeared with a lantern. He greeted Anthony by name, took a key from him, and went ahead to light the
way. He opened the beach cabin and lit a lantern inside, then opened the front doors, rolling them back to allow a view of the beach.
Arabella and Anthony entered the cabin and watched the
sufragi
place a blanket and beach chairs down near the water’s edge. There were no other people around, and the magic of the place was eerie and exciting.
Anthony said, “Arabella, leave your shoes here. Ibrahim will make us coffee.”
He removed his own shoes and socks and rolled his trousers up a few inches. Then he took her hand, and they walked through the cabin and the small garden in front, across the sand to the water’s edge. They stood in the dark and stillness of the night on the cool, damp sand and watched the waves roll gently on to the beach.
He turned her around and said, “There she is, your Alexandria,” and there she was, all lit up off in the distance.
“Oh, isn’t it wonderful! I can’t begin to tell you what this city does to me, Anthony. It’s as if I’ve never felt or experienced any other place in my life. It pricks all my senses, it’s so decadent, so sensual.”
The
sufragi
appeared with a small table, some fruit and Alexandrian sweets, and tiny coffees. Anthony gave further instructions to the man, who bowed and disappeared.
It suddenly occurred to Arabella that the erotic feeling she felt for the city was turning into a romantic feeling for this man. They had hardly spoken since they entered Montaza; words seemed superfluous. Anthony put his hands around her neck and undid two buttons. The silk slipped slowly down off her breasts. She stood in front of him looking into his eyes and watched him admire her. He didn’t touch her.
She stepped closer to him and unbuttoned his jacket, began to loosen his tie. He reached out toward her and she closed her eyes, trying to hide the passion in them from him. She waited nervously for his first touch of her breasts, but all he did was to pull the necklaces of jasmine up over her head. He dropped them in the sand. Then he put both
hands around her neck and caressed it and her shoulders. She was shocked at how electric she found his touch. She was surprised when he stopped there, still not touching her breasts, now swollen, longing to be fondled. She suddenly ached with desire. He picked up her hand and kissed it tenderly. She nearly fainted with the tension he was creating. He was teasing her, priming her. She knew it and was not happy about it. She wanted him too much to be played with.
He said, “Come, let’s sit down and have our coffee.” He sat in the old-fashioned striped canvas and wood beach chair. She looked down at him. He looked infinitely more handsome and sexy in the moonlight.
Arabella slipped her dress up over her head and dropped it onto her beach chair. The cool air was like a silk spider’s web coating her all over. Anthony looked at her lasciviously.
He said, “Arabella, you have one of the most voluptuous bodies I have ever seen. Yours is a body that needs nothing but to be honed by lust. You were made for sex, my dear.”
Arabella was beginning to wonder who was out to seduce whom. He was teasing her, just as she had planned to tease him. She slid down slowly to her knees between his legs, spreading them apart as she got in close to him. She bent forward and unzipped his fly. He slipped his hands under her armpits and pulled her up as he rose out of his chair. He picked her up in his arms and, touching her lips with his ever so lightly, he laid her down on the soft blanket.
He remained on his knees bending over and said, “Now it is time for me to warn you. Something is happening to us. Don’t toy with me, Arabella. There is too much at stake for the likes of you and me together.”
Arabella said, “I’m not toying with you. It may have started that way, but it’s already too late.”
She gently pushed him down on his back and laid her naked body alongside him. She kissed him passionately and was shocked that his lips were cold to hers. There was no response from him. Dazzled by her own intense sexuality, she could not accept his indifference to her kiss. She slid
herself down his prone body until she was between his legs. She slipped her hands inside his open fly and released him.