The Mezzotint Chapter 4 Dinner

The cottage Hope Lincoln had rented was one of those picture postcard dwellings that tend to validate an English sentiment that infests itself in scores of typically twee televisions series.  It was one of only a few in the village with a thatched roof the top of which could be seen as he left the Churchyard.  The effect stirred something warm within him as if he were the Native returned.   The reality often misled and so it did in this case.

Creest entered the garden through a gate that stuck against the pathway as he made his way in and nearly ripped the inside of his trouser leg.  The foliage against the fence was quite impressive and blazed with colour, but that nearer the cottage seemed to be in terminal decay.  Closer up Creest noticed that the front door and window sashes needed more than just a lick of paint.  Whilst the upper parts, though well worn, were respectable, the lintels and the base of the door had pealed to such an extent that parts of the original wood were rotten and the whole frontage probably unsalvageable.  Worse still the thatched roof which had seemed so welcome, was on its last legs and would cost a fortune to replace.

He knocked the door hard releasing four days on pent up anticipation; it opened almost immediately.

‘Hello Professor.  I wasn’t quite sure you would turn up’ she said, intimating exactly the opposite.

‘Why ever not?’ he answered, again reeling from the forcefulness of her presence.

‘Come in then’ She stepped back and let him through

‘Please call me Henry’

‘That’s good isn’t it – Henry and Hope!’ she grinned

As he walked in he was struck by two potent aromas in succession.  The first was a perfume that lifted off her neck (he guessed) that smelt like a mixture of smoked wood embers and lemon.  It was irresistible; the second a pungent torrent of a powerful tomato sauce laced with basil, infiltrated with garlic.  She led him toward the upright piano when all Creest wanted to do was sit.  He needed to; he was giddy.

Between them they shuffled the object into the desired position then Hope sat him down at her dinner table and though Creest was grateful for the breather he disguised it.  As she returned to the kitchen that cultured, intelligent being that he had crafted himself over the years was being undermined by this uncontrolled adoption of immature machismo.     

‘I’m not very good’ she confessed as she returned with an uncorked bottle of red wine

‘The odours would suggest otherwise’ Creest replied

‘Oh, no, painting I mean.  I will admit though, immodesty aside – yes I can cook’

‘You’ve chosen a good subject then.  I can certainly eat’

‘Yes, I can see you’re hungry’ she smirked playfully.

‘I am but my appetite for another unearthing a Monet from the rural soil has diminished over the years so I wouldn’t worry too much about your abilities’

‘Are you strict?  I wouldn’t like to be made to look foolish’

Creest looked at her and knew that, even as a child, that state had never been applied to her.  Nevertheless he replied in earnest.  ‘Why be? It’s very informal’

‘What about your class?’

‘Oh they’ll be fine.  It will be nice to see the average age of the class dip below 65, the amount of wrinkles too’.  Surprised at his own impromptu candour, Creest immediately coloured.

‘Stop flirting Professor’ she countered, eradicating his embarrassment in an instant, almost as if she knew, eventually, he would flatter her.  ‘Let’s eat’

To those of us with generous frames a more than ample dinner requires penance, usually in the form of feeling bloated.  One wonders if that sensation is exacerbated by guilty feelings that we have eaten more than we should, even when one is quite innocent in that respect.  Creest, wiry as whippet on a diet, was fit to burst after a valiant attempt at Hope’s Tarte a Citron.  He may have eaten it all if she hadn’t decorated it with a sublime cream dressing laced with lime; he may even have finished it if it had been the second course following a wonderful Italian dinner - a miasma of fusilli, bresaola and prosciutto; but it was the third course of a meal that began with a delicately poached salmon with capers, resting on a bed of huge slices of beef tomato. 

He stretched back in his chair, relieving the pressure on his abdomen and closed his eyes.  He was so satiated he began to feel sleepy although he had had no more than one glass of red wine.  He closed his eyes and dozed.  Through the darkness he heard a tune being played on the piano.  He assumed Hope had sat down to indulge him so after dinner entertainment.  The melody seemed to come from a nursery rhyme but he couldn’t place it.  As he listened it became obvious that the notes were staccato and without rhythm as if a child were attempting to play the instrument with their index finger.  Then it abruptly ceased.

 After a moment he opened his eyes to find Hope staring at him with a gaze that seemed to have harnessed all of her physical force.  Silently she rose and stood behind him and for a few seconds nothing happened and in that enormous bubble Creest became giddy with arousal and the expectation that she was about to caress him, which she did, but in the most unexpected manner.

In his heightened sensual state his spiralling head felt so heavy that he could look no further than straight down at his knees.   Something white appeared between them and his first reaction was to push away but he was unable to do so.  Then it became clear that it was a hand; her hand.  It slowly rose up like the Lady of the Lake’s, sword-less, until the base of the wrist and the lower arm came into view.  With the palm of the hand facing him the hand made a ball fist as if it were about to punch him but then its fingers stretched out to form a crab like posture resting on the base of his right thigh.  It crawled along toward his crotch like a spider stopping briefly atop his zipper.  The forefinger lifted and hovered above the catch and flicked downward at it like an impatient horse scratching the floor with its hoof.

After a half dozen of these movements the finger inserted itself into the tab of the zipper and began to pull it backward.  Creest’s heart was booming in his chest like the manic thrashings of a trapped bird battering at a closed window, as the teeth of the fly hit the bottom stop.  He thought it would burst through his rib cage when the hand began rifling inside his trousers and as the foreskin came into contact with the cool stroke of her forefinger an electrical surge shot through his brain making the room spin.  As she eased his member into the open air her head emerged in the space that her hand had moments earlier.

She looked so child-like and as vehemently beautiful as anything he had ever seen in art or nature and as she leaned in with that beautiful mouth to complete the fantasy, he climaxed. 

Then Creest woke up.  Hope was standing over him sympathetically.  ‘My, my, I think I may have overfed you professor, you nodded off for a while.  Why not try the nice old armchair in the lounge.  It should be far more comfortable’

He hesitated in getting up more in embarrassment at the thought that he may really have achieved orgasm and not simply dreamt it.  Surreptitiously he pawed at his crotch and having assured himself he was dry he followed Hope into the lounge.

‘Coffee?’ she asked

‘Yes, strong please, if you wouldn’t mind’ he requested, considering the benefits of a good dosage of caffeine on his lethargy. 

‘I have something to show you’ she added intriguingly and disappeared upstairs.

If Creest had suspected that there was innuendo loaded in that last sentence of hers he was in no shape to react to it.  His knees were hardly capable of supporting him. 

She returned holding what appeared to be a painting of some sort.  ‘My first effort’ she admitted sheepishly.

‘Oh’ Creest replied, the relief palpably audible.  He accepted it from her and held it away at arm’s length.  ‘But this is…’

‘Well let’s say we each know where the other lives’

It was a picture of Creest’s cottage, though not a particularly passable representation.  The building itself was out of sync as if she had started drawing it in three dimensions to begin with and then filled it in.  The texture of the lawn and foliage was non-existent and the sky simply a flat pale blue canvas with a couple of white pillows inserted for effect.  Creest was conscious on the back of an excellent dinner that he did not want to discourage his hostess.

‘For a first attempt I’d say it’s not too bad’ he proffered, in the full knowledge that even when inspecting amateurs, traits of ability are visible:  something a teacher can work on.  There was no chrysalis of aptitude here, however, he mused, from a talent perspective, assimilating her into his village group would be seamless.

‘Take it as a gift’ she said

Creest was taken by surprise and stumbled for an excuse.  ‘My cottage is rather small and the walls tend to be taken up with treasured works I’ve collected across the years’

‘You don’t have to display it silly; it’s not that sort of gift’  So he took it, had his coffee and they chatted for about an hour discussing each other’s histories until Creest left around nine-thirty.

Walking home he suddenly became aroused again unable to plug the flow of fantasy sexual congress with his hostess that his daydream seemed to have initiated.  ‘She’s more than half my age’ he chastised himself hollow fully cognisant that this was the most exciting element of all.