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269 pages

English

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'Love in Fragments' describes the psycho-sexual journey of Ralph Edwards, a successful barrister who has just applied to become a Queen's Counsel, and is happily married to Virginia, an attractive and popular GP. When he meets a younger woman, Tina, he is surprised to find himself immediately physically attracted to her and then, to his bewilderment, he falls in love with her. He decides to leave his wife - who perceives a simple mid-life crisis. The narrative charts the breakdown of Ralph's marriage, his new relationship with Tina, their respective divorces and the consequences. The story develops in parallel with an account of their formative and later sexual experiences, which suggests that, not only are they not honest with each other, but they have difficulty being honest even with themselves. The novel explores their respective issues of fidelity, possession, and jealousy. Pat Llewellyn, the creator and producer of 'Two Fat Ladies', 'Hell's Kitchen' etc said she found the novel, 'dark, chilling and occasionally repulsive'. Malcolm McCulloch, Emeritus Professor of Forensic Psychiatry, and expert witness in the Yorkshire Ripper trial, commented, 'below the bodice-ripping surface the reader is treated to a master class of psychological description. Ralph's journey through life turns into a tragedy which touches all his circle. Those of a sensitive disposition should not reflect too deeply in front of this particular looking-glass'. Sian Reeves, the television actress, said, 'I loved every moment'.

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Love

Love (disambiguation)

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	01 octobre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781839785207
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Extrait

Love in Fragments
Kit Mason

Love in Fragments
Published by The Conrad Press Ltd. in the United Kingdom 2022
Tel: +44(0)1227 472 874
www.theconradpress.com
info@theconradpress.com
ISBN 978-1-839785-20-7
Copyright © Kit Mason, 2022
All rights reserved.
Typesetting and Cover Design by: Charlotte Mouncey, www.bookstyle.co.uk
The Conrad Press logo was designed by Maria Priestley.

EROS

1
January 1997
T urning, Ralph Edwards, who had been the barrister for the prosecution, caught the eye of one of the defendants who had both just been imprisoned for five years.
‘A particularly unpleasant assault committed by two callous thugs with no compunction or remorse,’ the judge had remarked during sentencing. Ralph saw, rather than heard, the defendant mouth the words at him, ‘You cunt. Our friends know who you are and will see to you,’ before the man was hustled away by the warders. Smiling, he continued picking up his papers and then left, unperturbed, as it was a common enough reaction. His mind was on other things. He was thinking of the previous evening and the encounter in the kitchen.
When she reached towards him, took his left hand and pulled it gently to her breast, pressing it firmly against her, turned her head up, opened her mouth, wiggled her tongue slightly and, looking straight into his eyes, murmured, ‘Kiss me,’ he experienced immediate arousal.
‘My God,’ he thought, ‘at thirty-eight my lower body still behaves like that of a sixteen-year-old.’
He did not know this, but these invitations always took place in there, where she had established, to the second, the time lapse between the opening of either the sitting room or dining room door and someone coming in. She had adopted the same routine, with almost invariable success, at many of the dinner parties they had given in their new house. If she liked a man enough and considered he might respond, at some stage when everyone was engrossed in conversation and as hostess she could quite naturally slip away, she would ask him to help her. Once in the kitchen, two doors safely closed behind them, she would lean against the wall, take his hand, right hand if left-handed, left hand otherwise, she made a point of checking before she started, press it to her opposite breast and murmur, ‘Kiss me.’
Her view was that she was doing no harm. At worst, and this had never happened, he might refuse but, at best, she would have what she thought of as a jolly nice grope. Men almost always, and so very predictably in her opinion, reacted in one of two ways. There was either a quick kiss, with an occasional slightly embarrassed excuse or, more usually, they leaned down and started to kiss her, at the same time moving the non-breast hand round to her back. Then she would sigh and sink, moving her feet about twenty inches apart. She hoped his hand would, and it usually did at that point, drop down her back, move round her waist and start to journey towards her pelvic region and, when she made no protest, end there sometimes rubbing, sometimes just resting tentatively.
Again, her routine never varied, she would now exhale sensually and sink a little lower at the same time moving her feet further apart. This pushed his hand more firmly between her legs, at which point she would sigh, a low sibilant, ‘Yes,’ and rub herself gently against him.
Men then did one of two things. None, having got to this point, had ever stepped back or withdrawn from the embrace. If she was wearing a long skirt or dress, the same hand would go round to her back, encircle her bottom and gather the loose material of the dress, drawing it upwards at the same time. Once the hem was reached, the hand would then feel her bottom before going towards her pubic region again. If she was wearing a short dress, the man would simply drop down a bit and move his hand from outside her skirt to underneath it.
Either way, their reaction was invariably identical. ‘You’re wearing stockings, not tights,’ they would exclaim with barely concealed interest. She regarded herself as an expert at measuring the extent of their interest by pressing herself against their lower bodies.
Her husband always asked her why, when they were dressing for dinner, she was wearing her ‘tart’s knickers and stockings.’ Sadly, at least from her point of view, he was a man of limited sexual appetite who derived more pleasure from looking at pictures of women with no clothes on in magazines, preferably the open crotch shots, than the warm reality of his wife. ‘I’m putting them on for you darling,’ she would reply, and he would give a non-committal grunt.
She knew however that at the end of any dinner party in their own house, or anywhere else for that matter, he would have drunk so much that he would be to, all intents and purposes, comatose. It was sometimes as much as he could manage to get to their bedroom and into bed (although on nights such as that she did not share these with him) via the bathroom without wetting himself.
Their marital sexual activity was confined to either Friday or Saturday night, and then only on the rare occasions when they were neither out nor entertaining others. She found it all perfunctory and unsatisfactory. It was not that her husband was unattractive: it was just that he no longer seemed to find her so. She was not sure why she even bothered. She would not let him adopt the missionary position, as she did not want his total proximity, so she would straddle him, rocking backwards and forwards until she heard the grunting noise he made during an orgasm. This generally did not take long and usually he fell asleep very quickly afterwards. Then she stroked herself, thinking of her kitchen experiences, until she came, quietly choking back the little panting sobs that accompanied her orgasms.
Having got to the outside of her knickers, but under her dress, men again divided into two different camps. Some preferred to put a finger through her knicker leg and into her from the side. Whilst she wore underwear on dinner nights that facilitated this, she far preferred the more direct approach of sliding the hand down her lower stomach, into her knickers from the top and then down into the wet intimacy that awaited him.
What she actually wanted was for him to put one, or even better, two fingers into her as the mere fact of insertion would bring her usually immediately to a small orgasm that always delighted her with its intensity. She would, however, never reveal that she had had one to the man, she had become adept at disguising them, and having achieved her purpose, would finish the kiss - it had continued until then - and say with complete innocence that they had better take whatever it was through to the dining room, delivering herself of a half-smile that seemed simultaneously to suggest that he had gone too far but also that she would not give him away.
She aimed to complete the whole process in less than two minutes and her tally to date was no refusals to kiss, five touchings only and nine orgasms.
She did not regard it as cheating on her husband, nor did she see it as infidelity. On the one occasion when a man had managed, she was wearing one of her shortest skirts, to open his flies, taken his fingers out of her, and tried to insert himself, she had immediately drawn away, she had already had her orgasm, and put her finger to his lips and said, ‘Shh,’ and he had meekly, with some embarrassment, done himself up again.
The nature of the setting and the encounter, she was sure, would mean that men would not reveal what had occurred but, in any event, with that in mind, she only chose safely married men who would be unlikely to admit to any such behaviour.
If her husband was ever to learn, she would deny it vehemently but in a sense she was unconcerned. It was the only sexual fulfilment she could find in her marriage without being unfaithful.
She already knew what had attracted her to Ralph. They had met once before and she and he had seemed to find each other mutually attractive. She had certainly found him amusing and intelligent, two of her prerequisites for being drawn to anyone. He was eight years older than her husband, stood about the same height and was much the same build as him, although a bit leaner perhaps.
She had also decided that he was more sensual than he would probably publicly admit. She thought there was something about the way in which he chose and wore clothes that suggested that there were hidden sexual depths. That, to her, was in a sense irrelevant as she had no intention of otherwise than perhaps the usual encounter.
However, she had registered one of his throwaway lines over dinner about sex, paraphrasing Chesterfield he later told her, that whilst it might look ridiculous, it certainly need not be expensive and could be great fun. His wife had looked at him at that point and she had seen her smile, a small but very satisfied wry smile, and as he had noticed the gaze, his wife had, well-nigh imperceptibly, raised one finger to her lips before pretending to brush away a piece of stray food.
The evening had been a success so far. Four couples, all professional middle class, the only unifying social glue being that she and her husband knew each of the other three pairs.
As she said, ‘Kiss me,’ to him, she opened her eyes wider and looked at him appealingly.
He paused. There was nothing he wanted to do more than to lock the door, ignore the world, his wife, Christina’s husband and to simply succumb. He had thought of next to nothing but her since they had met and her invitation to dinner had been an eagerly anticipated highlight in his calendar.
He remembered his wife taking the call and, putting her hand over the mouthpiece, saying that it was the couple they had recently met, asking them for dinner a fortnight ahead. His