The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

this occasion, the struggle to overcome her nosiness reached such an intensity that she began to feel acutely uncomfortable. As if she was trespassing on private property. She wanted to go. In some strange way, she almost felt as though Frank’s reproachful eye was on her.

“Marthe,” Ellen said, “would you mind if we skip lunch? I think I’ve had enough fresh air for one day.”

Marthe smiled. She could not possibly have known what was going through Ellen’s mind, but it seemed to Ellen that she understood in some puzzling way.

It was a long walk back to the car in the shadows of the abbey. And the journey home to Marthe’s house became even longer when they were held up on the road down the valley into the next village. It was a sleepy little community, which nestled inconspicuously between the steep, forested slopes either side of it. Only a single road ran through the village, and the police were stopping every vehicle travelling on it, questioning the occupants and searching the contents of the vehicles with quiet fussiness. This was the first time Ellen had ever encountered a roadblock, and she sensed an instant chill of guilt run through her body. In a foreign country, in a foreign car on the wrong side of the road being interrogated by police in a language that sounded more like an obscure eastern European tongue than anything she had ever learned in school, she suddenly felt she had been dumped in a police state.

“A man has been attacked at the shooting range here,” Marthe explained, when eventually the police were satisfied of their innocence and let them pass. “And his guns have been stolen.”

“In such a quiet little place,” Ellen said.

“You would not believe some of the things which happen in these quiet towns and villages on the frontier,” Marthe replied with an ominous sideways glance that disturbed Ellen all the more.

As she lay in bed that night, Ellen’s mind returned to the incident with the police and the story of the man being attacked and robbed. All at once, this comfortable little country, which had started its acquaintance with her from the outset as a source of mystery, had now acquired an air of menace. She thought of Frank. And Marthe’s words. And she wondered whether he was also feeling the menace at that moment, wherever he was.

As Ellen was pondering these thoughts, there was a knock at her bedroom door. Marthe discreetly pushed it open.

That morning, she said, there had been a terrible fire at a clinic in Zurich, where Urs spent some time in practice. So he had gone there to meet with colleagues and see if he could help in any way. He would not be back until tomorrow evening, so she had come to say goodnight – and look for some company – she explained as she sat down on the side of Ellen’s bed.

Ellen was equally glad of her company, and felt instantly at peace when Marthe took her hands in hers. Like she wished Beth had done a few days earlier.

“Marthe, what did you mean when you spoke about the danger Frank might be in?” Ellen asked. In the back of her mind, she was still troubled by the incident with the roadblock. “What sort of danger?”

Marthe smiled and ran her fingers through Ellen’s hair, brushing it off her forehead with a gesture that reminded her of the way Beth used to be so many years ago – on the occasions when she took the responsibilities of sisterly affection seriously. It made her sad to realise how often she had missed this affection, but happy to enjoy it now with Marthe, whose only words in reply to her question were: “You know, we Swiss have an exaggerated idea about danger and risk. We insure ourselves against everything. But don’t think of such things now. You must relax, and we will talk some more tomorrow.”

As if to reinforce her words she took Ellen in her arms and held her tightly as she continued stroking her hair. To feel the warmth of Marthe’s embrace and the gentle comforting strength of her body was like sinking back deep into a feather-down pillow, eyes closed, and drifting into a dream world.

Under any other circumstances Ellen might have been shocked by her own behaviour. But when Marthe slipped out of her nightdress a few moments later and slid in between the sheets with Ellen, she did not bat an eyelid. It seemed the most obvious and natural thing to do. The slight intake of breath as they touched was not of outrage or surprise, but excitement at the softness of her skin and the sweet curvature of her body. Ellen had never held a woman in this way. It lent an entirely new dimension to the sense of touch.

With a new kind of ecstasy dispelling any sense of inhibition, she gladly let Marthe’s hands explore beneath her own nightdress, which triggered an indescribably pleasant thrill at every stroke. Not a word was spoken as together they lifted the last remaining barrier between them, pulled her nightdress with a final flourish from her body and sank back into each other’s arms. It was a curious, electrifying feeling that had her completely at Marthe’s mercy.

The strange familiarity of her body intrigued Ellen. As her fingertips explored its sweetly feminine peculiarities with an eagerness every bit as charged as her own, it occurred to Ellen how similar to her Marthe was in shape and feel. ‘Now I know what it’s like for Frank to hold me in his arms,’ she thought. It brought a smile to her face. ‘I almost envy him,’ she told herself.

“I never thought of myself as having any lesbian leanings.”

Marthe laughed.

“Just because you enjoy the embrace of a woman does not mean you are a lesbian.”

“Doesn’t it?’

“Any more than Frank posing naked for a male sculptor means that he is homosexual. You must keep an open mind. Life is full