Tales of Sin & Fury, Part 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

that he will.”
    â€˜â€œI waited you to wake up,” he said. “Nearly an hour I watch you. You spoke things in your sleep.”
    â€˜I wondered whether to give him the brush-off. Like I’d done with other men who tried to pick me up in public places. I’d had enough of that in Athens. But the sun had dulled my wits, and I didn’t have the energy to be rude. Plus he had the face of a Greek god and a sun-licked body and a ragged smile that wouldn’t go away.’
    â€˜Sounds like something out of a magazine,’ says Debs.
    â€˜He was,’ I say. ‘What the hell. I decided to be friendly. I asked him “You’ve been sitting there all that time?”
    â€˜â€œ Nai, meh! ” He twisted his head forward in the Greek version of a nod. “We talked together, very interesting things, while you sleep and speak.”
    â€˜I noticed he had a scar on his left cheek which gave him a kind of pirate look.
    â€˜â€œWhat did we talk about?” I asked.
    â€˜â€œLife and art, most,” he said. “The eruption of Thera, the Athenian Empire. A little little politics,” he held up a thumb and forefinger to show how little, “since there is no policeman who could hear us.” He glanced over his shoulder in an involuntary gesture, I’d seen the Greeks do it ever since I arrived. They were all afraid of the military regime.
    â€˜â€œI hope I held my own?” I asked.
    â€˜He didn’t understand that. “I’m sorry?”
    â€˜â€œI said, I hope I talked well.”
    â€˜â€œYes, for sure,” he said.’
    At this, Mandy turns to Debs, tilts her head towards me as in ‘we’ve got a right one here’ and says, ‘She talks about things in her sleep that we don’t even talk about awake.’
    I reply, ‘He was spinning a line. His next line was “You said you are alone?”
    â€˜I started picking my things up off the sand and put on my shorts. “I didn’t, but I am.”
    â€˜â€œYou come to Greece alone?” His eyes were darting around me.
    â€˜â€œYes,” I said. “I’m emancipated.” I gave him a smile. “You know the word?”
    â€˜â€œOh, yes, I know it,” he said, “I hear it all the time.” He paused. “But I don’t know what it means.”’
    â€˜Me neither,’ says Debs.
    â€˜Means independent,’ I say, ‘Liberated. It was before Women’s Lib and feminism got so well known. So I said to him, “If you have six hours or so free, I could explain what it means.” I slung my bag on my shoulder ready to go. He put a pair of trousers over his swimming trunks and picked up his shirt. “I have many hours,” he said.
    â€˜So we spent the day together. We never did talk about emancipation. Mostly he talked about himself. He was at the university in Athens, studying ancient history. He’d come back to the island to spend Easter with his family. He explained how he’d got the scar on his cheek in a swimming accident as a child. He took me to sit on the seafront and drink Greek coffee – a tiny cup full of strong grains thick with sugar, and a glass of water to wash it down. My skin was still singing where it had baked in the sun. He took me to see the old church.
    â€˜Then he was keen to take me for a walk up one of the mountain trails behind the village. “The view there, it will surprise you,” he said. As we climbed, the air smelt of thyme and we looked down on the nest of white houses around the harbour, and the curve of the island like a pebble in a huge pond of motionless blue. We sat down there together on a sun-warm stone.
    â€˜I only had a few minutes to admire the view, then I realized why we’d come up on this empty mountainside with not a soul in sight. It wasn’t the view that was meant to surprise me. Without warning he was all over my skin: hot