Once I’d made the decision and resolved to confront Ollie on my return to England, there was nothing else that I could do. My only realistic and healing option was make the most of the few weeks that I had left on the island. I needed to relax into the soothing spell cast by my grandmother, my family and the seductive beauty of the landscape that greeted me each morning.

I returned, day after day, to the beach, trailing my toes through warm sand. As the tourist season loomed, I’d seek out solitude later and later, desperate to avoid the growing trickle of ‘foreigners’ – of which I no longer considered my self one – who arrived, giggly, wide-eyed, overcome by the picture-postcard scenery that threatened, siren-like, to lure them in.

I’m not going to pretend that all was idyllic: I giggled to myself as I watched the newly-arrived pale-skinned women, disappearing into the horizon on the arm of a local ‘gigolo’. On a couple of occasions, out of curiosity I ventured into the dancehall blues events, amused by the out-of-kilter grinding of groin against groin, local women competing – and more money at stake than you’d imagine – to induce the most evident sign of arousal. I’d heard all about this scene from my eyes-wide young cousins but couldn’t help being impressed by the techniques involved. The women knew precisely, instinctively or through practice when to offer the most fleeting and furtive fingertip caresses (strictly prohibited) and when to casually let a shoulder strap fall to reveal a rounded, bronzed breast, darkened plum nipple and then – at the practised sound of gasp or moan – to cover up, teasing, prolonging sensation.

Night after night, I watched, knowing that at some stage I’d be drawn into the web. The decision to come back was beyond my control. I wanted to know what happened to the couples – and the numerous permutations – that I’d spied one. And, even more compelling, I knew that I’d be drawn to take part myself.

Finally, having hovered on the fringes for hours, the pounding of the bass irresistibly compulsive, I weaved my way to the dance floor, hair dampened with perspiration, dress clinging to the curves of flesh. I eased between gyrating couples, intent on giving myself up to the rhythm, hips swaying, tilting, arms raised, lost in a different world.

Before long, the sensation of fingers caressing my hips, a head bent, cradled into my shoulder bone, anonymous, raising unwanted images of other times. I banished them, concentrating hard on the music, the repetitive, mindless beats pounding beyond consciousness. Swaying, circling, tilting hip bones, rotating, easing back to meet the curve of his groin, to caress his burgeoning flesh, to tease, to arouse, to drive mad…

I became dimly aware of the steely glint in the eyes of some of the girls around me. Danger threatened - I was in no doubt of that. I was encroaching on their territory. I took a deep breath that brought me back to reality. I took the hand of the stranger and tugged him towards the exit. I had no clear idea of where I was leading him. Who could have guessed that I was heading towards a meeting that would lead me to Eddy and, at the same time, drag me away from him.

Jade Williams
Author of Body and Soul

10 December 2008

I stumbled against the stranger, heady with the hypnotic, pounding rhythm of the bass along with a couple of glasses of rum punch plus the heady, sweet aroma of smoked herb. We laughed together and a steadying arm encircled my waist as he leaned to plant a warm, moist, affectionate kiss against the nape of my neck.

I looked up at his features, barely distinguishable in the dim starlight. I couldn’t guess what the time was but it must have been late, very late because there was a silvery sheen to the skyline.

I reached up and briefly traced the contours of his features: sharply defined cheekbones with a subtle, touching hollow beneath. Long lashes that fluttered against my forehead. Short, tight locks. He pulled me closer, leaning back against the trunk of a tree, the sound of lapping water echoing close by.

The glint of white teeth lent a warmth to his features that inspired an unexpected moment of inexplicable trust and I relaxed into his embrace.

The stranger stroked my hair, languorously, soothingly and then entwining his fingers, he tugged gently, pulling my head back and as one firm hand outline the curve of my hip and cradled the swell of my buttock, he bent his head and softly an infinitesimal glance of lips against mine, brushing to and fro, nipping, nibbling.

I felt a warmth in the core of my body, a gush of heat that in a second melted something that had remained frozen for a while now. A sudden hunger made me press against him, moulding my body to his, frantic for the closeness, the body heat against the tropical warmth of this Caribbean night.

I wanted this stranger badly, desperately, totally irrationally.

But he eased away, laughing gently, the deep notes reverberating through to my diaphragm.

‘Cool, Babe,’ he whispered into my ear and he started to hum a tune that was curiously familiar, that rang all kinds of emotional bells, that made me smile through all my body.

He kissed me again, harder this time, then he took my hand and began to stroll towards the shore, tugging me along in his wake.

‘Babe, I think before we go any further, we should introduce ourselves.’ It dawned on me finally that his accent was, like mine, curiously out of place in this environment. He, too, must be from England.

‘I’m Jade.’ I muttered distractedly.

‘And I’m Ricky. Pleased to meet you.’

Ricky! Duh! Two and two finally came close to four. Now I knew precisely why that tune had been so familiar. He must have taken me for some kind of complete idiot. How could I not have immediately known who he was?

Jade Williams
Author of Body and Soul



17 December 2008

In the daylight, ‘Ricky’ – I’ll call him that and I think you’ll eventually understand why I can’t give you his real name - was like no one I’d ever met before and, ultimately, like no one I’m ever likely to meet again. Pale caramel skin and almond eyes that expressed a very mixed ancestry, hair of the darkest jet black and a bone structure that would have inspired Rossetti. Ricky was simply the most ethereally beautiful human being I had ever seen, let alone met.

But what was different about Ricky was the intensity of his mind. A quick humour that brought out a corresponding bubble of laughter in me. A way of looking at me with calm examination and deep appreciation that evoked a sense of real joy that had lain dormant for a long, long time now. And a hint that a tiny part of his brain was forever elsewhere, working on the inspiration that brought out the amazing creativity of the songs he produced with a seeming effortlessly.

In the picture-postcard scenery of this Caribbean island, I escaped each day from my grandmother’s garden to the unbelievably idyllic beauty of the tranquil beach and beneath a palm tree, I’d nestle between Ricky’s knees as he languidly strummed the strings of his ever-present guitar and hummed a nascent tune. Between bursts of inspiration, we’d talk about anything that came to mind and everything. Well, almost everything. Ricky would stop to stroke my hair, to nip my earlobe between his teeth, to plant a caressing brush of a kiss against my closed eyelids. And I’d fear that if I opened my eyes, he would disappear in the puff of a blissful dream. This sounds so much like a cliched romance, but you have to believe that all the elements came together in a way that I could not have contrived. I still look back on this time and know, without any doubt, that I fell in love for the very first time on the island.

You might also find it hard to believe that Ricky and I did not leap into bed, in spite of a profound erotic desire that was building, building each day, a shiver of excitement the first time I glimpsed him at the spot where we’d arranged to meet, an unbearable bubbling of want and need and desperation in the core of my being. But he didn’t push. And I held back, not because I didn’t want him so, so badly, but because I hadn’t forgotten what awaited me when I got back to London: Ollie. I didn’t know where things would go between me and Ricky, but I didn’t what to taint whatever was happening. Not right at the beginning.

So I ferociously clung to the innocent sweetness of the feeling that was growing between us day by day. Now, I’m glad that I did, happy to have the - perhaps rose-tinted - memories of those days. Because it would not be long before Id have to deal with the barbed tangle of Ricky, Ollie and Eddy. Oh, Eddy.

Next week will be Christmas day and I haven’t managed to explain to you how it is that I’ll be spending time with Eddy. Days without him yet knowing exactly how I feel. Once again, there will be, I know, a bitter sweetness to this festive season.

I’m hoping that 2009 will bring some kind of resolution to this whole situation. I pray it will have a happy outcome.

In the meantime, let me now wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year.

Jade Williams
Author of Body and Soul

Read Jade's other blogs:

May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
January 2009

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