Synopsis
Danny left Dublin for Madrid two years
ago, but still scans the crowd in the Irish pubs for the face of someone from
home. Though doubtful he'll ever recognise anybody, one evening he sees
Aisling, a girl he'd known - or wished he'd known - at university. Beautiful
but haughty, she'd always ignored Danny, and though he'd fantasised about
making love to her, she'd never so much as smiled at him.
To his amazement, Aisling is extremely
friendly when she meets him all these years later and away from home. She is
still snobby and condescending, but Danny decides to make her night as
enjoyable as he can, hoping for one last chance to impress her and make his
teenage fantasies come true. As the sultry Madrid night progresses, mere lust
grows into affection, and Danny begins to see her snobbery as something else
entirely. Will Aisling see Danny as more than just a way to pass her night in
Madrid?
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Excerpt
Draining the glass, Danny placed it on
the bar, debating whether to have another pint, or stroll home and have a glass
of wine while he prepared dinner. The plan was just one pint, but he needed to
tell himself that twice; once when he went into the bar and again when he'd
finished the drink.
And then he saw her.
She stood quite near, surrounded by a
tight knot of people at the edge of the dance floor that had parted
momentarily. She wore a cotton summer dress that showed the sweep of her
shoulder blades and spine. The dress was floral, red with splashes of black and
dark blue. She wore soft brown leather sandals that were almost invisible
against her tanned feet. Her toenails were painted red but her fingernails were
French polished. A silver or white-gold bracelet hung from her right wrist, and
on her left she wore a silver wristwatch, which a discreet look later told him
was a Patek Philippe. In her ears she had diamond stud earrings, and on the
ring finger of her right hand was a silver ring with a blue stone he couldn't
identify.
He didn't see her face straight away,
yet something deep inside him said it had to be her.
In college, he'd often stared at this
girl's long blonde hair from a few seats behind in the lecture theatre, while far
below them a maths professor droned on about matrices. He knew the shape of her
head and neck, had observed her tie up that hair, amazed at the beauty of the
fine, straight filaments, the way the strands slid like silk over one another,
yet held as one tight rope. When she was an infant her mother had clearly
decided ever cutting such hair would be a sin, and she’d concurred. She plaited
it, put it in a ponytail, tied it up around a clip made of what seemed to Danny
like a piece of wood and two chopsticks, or simply a spare pencil. Sometimes it
splayed out across her shoulders like a cascade of spun gold. Now it was pulled
up in a silver clasp, to reveal the nape of a long, fine neck, and soft-skinned
shoulders.
Those shoulders had been bared before,
in a hot September of their freshman year, and later, during the intense study
month when the cherry blossoms bloomed and fell across the lawns of campus.
Danny had fantasised about slipping off that shoulder strap, letting the silky
string fall down along her arm, trailing his fingers along her collarbone and
ribs and pushing aside the top to expose her breasts.
When she turned around in the bar and he
saw her face, Danny instantly searched through his memory to match her visage,
and see all six numbers of recognition. It came out a winner. She stared back
at him, her brain no doubt doing the same. Although still early, and most—apart
from the pre-marriage revellers—were only on their second or third drink, Danny
thought she must have been fairly merry already, because as she recognised him
she smiled.
She’d never smiled at him before—not in
four years of college. Then again, they’d not interacted much. They'd never
really talked, never attended the same classes after second year. He'd always
told himself she’d never smiled at him because she didn’t know him. Once or
twice, of course, she'd turned around, casually, and seen him. But she'd seen
lots of others sitting behind her, too. The back rows of the lecture theatre
were filled with Danny's friends, who'd varying levels of interest in her hair
and the maths lecture; from zero to all-absorbed.
The chance to get to know her had never
come around. She'd majored in chemistry, Danny in computer science. He had
taken a chemistry class in second year, but she'd always seemed to sit on the
opposite side of the theatre then. His gaze had often paused upon her face as
he searched through those assembled in a lecture the way he did through the
throng of a bar.
She was stunning. Her frame was that of
someone who was fit without effort. A swimmer or a gymnast at some point, she
had a fine body, breasts the way Hemingway described, wide womanly hips and a
behind that eyes or hands could never tire of. She had crystal blue eyes like
deep Antarctic ice, and a button nose. Her mouth was perfect. Her teeth had had
money spent on them, but her lips were natural; she had a dazzling smile. But
before that moment in a Madrid bar, Danny had only received the coldness of
those glacial eyes.
Meet the Author
JD Martins has been called Spanish,
Mexican, Chinese, Philippine and English and Australian. He is none of these.
He's lived in four cities in three
countries on two continents, but he doesn't feel like he's travelled very much.
His life in each city was rather mundane and he didn't get out much - tending
to move his pen more than his body.
He still aspires to see much more of the
world - probably when his wife becomes rich enough to let him retire from day
jobs.
He would like to live like Ernest
Hemmingway: periodically sending novel manuscripts to his publisher from
various far-flung corners of the world, though he's not sure the quality will
be quite the same. Until then, he has contented himself with living like Robert
Graves - in a pleasant part of Spain with a quiet life - and being able to do
some things that Hemmingway did - trout fishing in Spain, game hunting in
Africa, watching bullfights and running with the bulls, - and a few that he did
not get to do - surfing, skydiving, bungee jumping, and getting erotic stories
published.
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