Luna Hotel Baglioni, Venice Too much wine has left Tom dizzy and deliciously mellow. The tension from the last twelve hours is fading as quickly as any doubts he might have had about where he is now – lying on his back on a bed that's bigger, softer and more expensive than any he's ever known.
The air smells of flowers. Lilies in small vases either side of the king-size bed. There's the sound of running water in the background. Not a tap, not a bath, but a shower. It's full on, beating hard in a marble cubicle. When it stops, he sits up and sees Tina approaching in a white towelling robe that looks too big for her. She shakes her long blonde hair out of the scrunchie she'd bunched it in, and looks wonderful. Her eyes are filled with a gentleness that melts his inhibitions. 'Come on. Let's get you scrubbed up.' She pulls him by the hand and the room tilts as she leads him to the en-suite. The light is too bright. She deftly flicks a switch that kills the overheads and leaves them standing in a softer glow from candles near the sink. Tom starts to unbutton his shirt. She kisses his neck and moves his hands. Her fingertips trip down the fastenings and it falls from his shoulders. Her mouth finds his. He feels his belt being tugged open and his trousers slide down gym-hardened thighs. Her hands glide across the front of his legs and she can feel his muscles twitch and flex like snakes beneath silk. Tom's heart thumps hard, drumming his urgency into her body. Her thumbs latch on to the side of his shorts. His hands pull her robe apart. The smell, the warmth, the touch of her skin electrifies him. Tina pulls back and kisses him. Short, hard kisses that set his lips ablaze. Now she holds him off, so her nipples tantalisingly brush the mountains of his chest. Tom takes her breasts in his hands, cradles them like he's been given something sacred. He doesn't understand how he feels – doesn't want to. Even her skin confuses him – soft, yet firm. It's all a contradictory swirl. An unrehearsed dance.
Tina lets her robe fall and she holds him while he climbs out of a tangled knot of trousers, underwear, socks and shoes. They step into the steaming cubicle. Hot water beats hard on his scalp and skin.
Tom's about to say something. She puts a finger to his lips and shushes him. Kisses him again. More urgently this time.
The dance quickens. A tempo unknown to him. A beat that cannot – will not – be halted.
She reaches between his legs and strokes him.
He holds her waist, uncertain for a moment, stuck between two worlds – the one he's left behind and the one he's falling into – and then she puts him inside her.
She folds her body around him and takes his mind into a space and time he's tried for so long not to think about, not even dream about. His body quakes as she moves against him, holds him, grips him.
He feels her heart against his chest, feels himself deep and hard inside her. Her hands span the broad arch of his back, fingers digging into his skin as she trembles and almost buckles.
Tom grips her legs and lifts her. Her knees tighten like a vice around the top of his thighs. She clings to his neck as a wave of orgasms breaks loose.
Tom pushes her against the cubicle wall. Their bodies rock rhythmically. Their lips stay desperately locked together for fear that something special might escape should they dare to breathe.
And then it happens.
For the first time in his life, at the end of an experience full of contradictions and pleasure, Tom Shaman gives himself – in all his uncontrolled entirety – to a woman.