No More Loving

by Patricia Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

What is love? wondered Kerry. She loved her husband, artist Luke Austin, and for her it was an agony. Patient Steve loved Kerry though, and had done for years, staying faithful to her through all the tempestuous period of her marriage.

Release date: January 1, 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

SHE sat beside him in the tourist cabin of the Comet and thought:

What am I doing here? Why did I come? I wish I never had!

But at that moment, as if reading her thoughts, he took her hand and squeezed it tightly between his own. She turned her head to meet his gaze and he smiled at her.

“It’s so marvellous to be with you!” he said in a low voice.

On her other side was an elderly woman, unmarried. Kerry had already spoken a few words to her in the Departure lounge and discovered that she was a school mistress travelling to Florence on a week’s sight-seeing tour. Kerry wondered if the woman had noticed Steve holding her hand; if she thought they were honeymooners. Then Steve said;

“I had a terrible feeling you wouldn’t turn up at the last minute. Couldn’t really believe it would all come off until I actually saw you at the airport. I love you, Kerry!”

“If we were alone, he would kiss me now,” she thought. “Why don’t I feel in the same lover-like mood?” Then her thoughts switched to what he had just said. Was it telepathy that had prompted his fears that she mightn’t turn up? Had he sensed her odd reluctance to be here?

“Love me just a little bit?”

His eyes were smiling. She nodded, uncertain if it were true. Did she love him? How could one gauge love? What was love?

His voice was very low now. He whispered:

“I wish we were in bed! God, how I want you …”

Bed! Was that all men could think of? Bed, sex; sex, bed. But that wasn’t altogether fair. She, too, wanted sex and preferably in a bed. She had hated the squalid love-making in the back of Steve’s Jag; hated the hurried, uncomfortable fumbling and heavy breathing. They both disliked it. That was why they had planned this week abroad together – so as to be free, able to have all the sex they wanted – and in bed.

Her mouth tightened. She withdrew her fingers from Steve’s. In order not to hurt his feelings, she occupied both hands with the lighting of a cigarette she did not really want.

“I must snap out of this!” she told herself sharply.

It was unfair to Steve – unfair to both of them. She loved him – they loved each other. That was why they had come away together. Sex was the ultimate and natural way of expressing love. Why sneer at it? But it did not always spring from love. No – not always, argued a voice inside her.

The first time she had slept with Steve had been out of pity. Years ago, before she had married Luke, Steve had been madly in love with her. Because then she had only eyes for Luke, she hadn’t even looked at Steve. Luke had been all that mattered in her life – gay, handsome, amusing, attractive Luke. By comparison Steve was commonplace, unremarkable except for the faithful unrelenting adoration that he showered on her willingly and which she so often accepted.

Poor Steve! He’d never married – never wanted anyone but her. For seven years he’d stayed in love with her. Sometimes his very fidelity irritated her. When her marriage to Luke began to go on the rocks, Steve had reappeared, still faithful, still wanting her. And because she was as important to him as ever, he soon noticed her unhappiness, the thinness of her miserable face and soon he wormed the truth out of her. Luke had been unfaithful – not just once but over and over again. He couldn’t say “no” to a pretty face and slowly but surely these casual promiscuous affairs broke Kerry’s heart.

Do hearts break? she asked herself, now. Or is it just one’s spirit, one’s pride, one’s vanity? Maybe Luke only destroyed my faith in love and men – my will to make my marriage work; my determination to make him into a real husband.

Steve had tried to help; tried to comfort and restore her morale. At first, his attentions had seemed impersonal, therefore acceptable. But one night when she had dissolved into tears of self-pity, his comforting arms had become no longer those of just a friend. He lost control of himself and covered her wet face with desperate, passionate kisses. He had said:

“Oh, my God, Kerry – how unfair life can be! You say Luke doesn’t want you and here am I – I want you so much I could die of it …”

So why not let him have what mattered so much to him and so little to Luke. Her body meant a priceless gift to Steve; to Luke it seemed nothing – poor in comparison with that of his newest cheap little girl friend. Steve had been faithful without reward for ten years. Luke hadn’t been faithful for ten months! Why should Luke win?

So that had been the first time and it had meant nothing to Kerry beyond the gift of a kindness, a favour to Steve. Inevitably, there followed other times, other moments of pity and gradually Steve’s passionate need of her became in a curious way like a necessary drug for her pain, her bitterness. Luke’s defections were somehow softened by Steve’s increasing need of her. She was always strictly honest with Steve. He’d known that if Luke so much as crooked his little finger, Kerry would drop him like a stone. He’d known how much she still loved her husband, useless, worthless, shallow though he was. It did not stop Steve from trying.

“Leave him. Marry me. I love you. I don’t care if you aren’t in love with me. All I ask is the chance to go on loving you, possessing you. Kerry, I want you, I want you so much.”

But she wouldn’t leave Luke. Nor would she risk Luke’s finding out that she had in her turn, been unfaithful to him. If Luke knew, he might divorce her. Somewhere deep in the recesses of her heart, she still hoped he would tire of these cheap-scented, giggling little girl-friends who seemed to attract him, and return to his wife. It wasn’t that she was not attractive. She was considered beautiful not only by Steve but by many men. She had a good figure – fine eyes – a lovely skin and mouth. She dressed well. She was amusing. But for Luke this was not enough. He had grown tired of her. He needed something new to explore. He was the born hunter. It was the first spoils of the chase that intrigued him.

Nothing was going to change Luke. She was no longer even sure if she cared whether he changed. While she had cared, she had fought him tooth and nail; battled against every new mistress – with the same desperate urgency. She had begged him, pleaded with him. She had had no pride, Luke had left her none when he openly and shamelessly admitted to his affairs.

“If you don’t like my girl friends why the hell do you stay with me?” once he had asked her.

She had stared unbelievingly at him. So handsome – so spoiled – so shameless.

“Luke, I love you. Surely you don’t have to behave like this? It isn’t as though I’ve been frigid – I’ve never refused to make love when you wanted me, Luke. I’ve wanted it too. Luke, please. It’s so – so pointless!”

He’d looked down at her with his brazen, impudent smile, even patting her cheek – charming as ever, quite lover-like, yet obviously sick of her – just for the moment while he had a new toy to amuse him.

“I’ve told you these girls don’t mean anything – I’m not in love with them. Why do you have to make such a scene? If you could only stop being so possessive – so jealous, we’d get along all right …”

“Luke, I’m your wife!”

“And whose fault is that? You were the one who wanted so much to get married. You were the one who said you couldn’t stand having an affair. You were the one who wanted a marriage certificate and security. Well, now you’ve got what you wanted and you’re not satisfied. I warned you I wasn’t the type for domestic bliss. It bores me. You’re a lovely girl – lovelier than many of these girls I go about with. But I know you too well. There’s nothing left for me to discover. But if we were not married it would still have some piquancy for me.”

It was all too true. Luke would have been content if she had remained his mistress. He loathed being tied. It did something to him, made him go cold on her. But then Luke had never loved her the way she had loved him … with depth – with fidelity.

Maybe in every man-woman relationship, there had to be one who loved more than the other. Maybe this was equally true about her relationship with Steve. He was the one who really loved – and in a way she was just using him as Luke used her, his wife. But only in a way … in the last year she had grown deeply attached to him. She needed him. It was different from the passionate total love that she’d given Luke. It was a more critical kind of affection, a withdrawn appraisal of Steve’s kind, generous nature; of his worth. Her head ruled her heart now. She accepted the truth – the fact that here, with Steve, lay a happiness she could never have found with the man she had married. Only her heartstrings pulled her back. She was still conscious of her own compulsive, possessive need for the man she had married and who repeatedly betrayed her.

Maybe that was why she felt this need now to fight against Steve’s need for sexual possession. She didn’t want him to want her that way. She wanted him to love her; not just her body as Luke did. At the same time she knew that the two were in some peculiar way, inseparable. Whenever Steve felt particularly loving, he also experienced the need to express his love physically. The one fired the other. That was right and normal and yet still she resisted him.

Steve did not understand this contradiction. He expected Kerry to feel the same physical demands.

“If you loved me, you’d want me the moment we met – the way I want you. Just to look at you coming towards me with that half smile on your face is enough … but you …”

He broke off, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.

She tried to explain that she wanted him to want her but more even than that, she wanted him to love her. Until she could be reassured about the mental side, she wasn’t all that interested in passion. She almost suspected it.

“But it isn’t something you can switch on and off!” Steve argued. “It’s a kind of instantaneous triggering-off. I see you … I want you. No other woman had ever made me feel that way consistently. It’s because I love you, Kerry – honestly.”

She tried to remember if she had ever felt that way about Luke and knew that she had. There were times when she would look across a room and wish they were alone and in bed … wish he would come close to her even if it were just to take her hand. She had been instantly and lastingly attracted to him and during the brief six months when they had lived together – still unmarried – they had never seemed able to have enough of each other. But after their wedding Luke’s desire for her body seemed to grow less. At first she had not noticed – then, when she did realize he no longer kissed her very often; seldom sat deliberately close to her or touched her hand or cheek or blazed suddenly into desire for her, she had accepted it as a normal process of time. She told herself firmly that no two people could continuously live at a wild pace. And she didn’t even want it to be like that herself. She ought to be able to share a room with Luke without actually sleeping with him. Yet deep down inside she began to fear Luke was growing tired of her, she even began to feel she would be glad to put their relationship on a more intellectual plane – be excellent friends rather than passionate lovers.

But the eventual discovery that Luke was being unfaithful reignited her own passionate need of him. She had tried to step on those feelings ruthlessly – too proud to show Luke that she wanted him despite the fact that he had another girl in his life, and totally unable to accept the knowledge that she must share him. There had been long, lonely nights when she had had to fight hard with herself not to step over the few feet of carpet from her bed into his; not to throw herself into his arms and make him want her more than he wanted that other, newer love.

Kerry tore her thoughts away from the past and all the bitter humiliations. It didn’t matter any more – it was past. Now she was here with Steve; on her way to Italy and he loved her, truly and honestly as Luke had never done, with an integrity that Luke lacked.

Gratefully, she slipped her hand back in his. Steve gave her a pleased smile.

“Happy?” he asked tenderly.

She nodded. It would be so easy to be happy with Steve if she could only forget Luke and the past and live in the present. For one whole week she must not think of home or her flat, or the long, dreary, heartbreaking months that would succeed this week. She must not allow herself to think of or wonder if Luke was taking advantage of her absence in order to bring his latest girl back into her home … into their bed …

“Could we have a drink?” she asked Steve quickly. “I’m thirsty.”

Steve beckoned to the steward. A few minutes later she was drinking Dubonnet with bitter lemon and Steve was lifting his glass to touch hers.

“To us and our holiday!” he said, looking into her eyes.

He wanted her so much it was like a bad attack of indigestion – only worse because there was nothing he could take to relieve the pain except having her. He glanced at his watch and saw that there was still another half hour to go before they landed at Milan. Then there was the long drive down to Florence – hours before they would be alone in the hotel …

He looked away from her eyes in which he could see his own reflection. They were such a deep, smokey blue. Like the colour of a Kerry Blue – hence the nickname which her father had given her as a little girl. Her real name was Katriona but no one ever called her that, reflected Steve, except that phoney artist husband of hers.

At the thought of Luke anger hit Steve a hard blow in the midriff – so sudden and strong that it replaced the ache of desire.

If. . .