Chapter 1

The Sunday morning went smoothly, stuff dropped off at the flat and neatly put away in the wardrobe then farewells before everyone went in different directions. Suzanne and Andrew caught the Tube to Heathrow and went to Amsterdam for their holiday. Nice and close, with a direct flight back to Edinburgh. Andrew needed the break, from a lot of things; he probably needed a break from himself. Him he was stuck with but other than that Andrew wanted a calm week with Suzanne. Sensing his mood on Saturday night she had backed into him, let him spoon her and just hold her. As Andrew fell asleep it had reminded him of the moment when she did the same thing at his party the year before. She was there for him.

Amsterdam is in Holland; therefore it is flat, there are lots of canals and there are museums full of painting by Dutch painters. Other than that there was a red-light district Andrew was not sure he knew anything else about Amsterdam before he arrived there. Thinking about it, given that they walked and cycled everywhere on the forgiving flat terrain, strolled along the banks of the canals as well as taking several boat trips, and visited both the museums and the red-light district, he was not sure that he needed to know more. The best thing they discovered was the Bos, a huge park southwest of the city near Schiphol Airport. It became a place they visited repeatedly over the course of the week.

Their hotel was on one of the canals not far from Dam Square, just five minutes away. It reminded Andrew of Rome, the room was small and the plumbing an adventure. But it was clean, quiet and close to the centre of the city. When they closed the door of the room Suzanne smiled but then stripped him and told him to get into bed. She stripped quickly as well before lying on top of Andrew, her head resting on his chest. She never spoke but just let him hold her. They dozed, no words necessary just letting the stress bleed away. Why was Andrew so stressed? He had been way more wound up about the wedding and his role in it than he had realised. But the main stress was about him and Suzanne. The wedding had been a revelation. She had been confident, funny, able to tease him. A perfect partner, and he thought she knew it.

“What I am trying to say is jumbled in my head. So it will be a standard ramble as I try and sort all this out. I am confused about my life and where it is going. For someone who has planned and set goals for more than five years it is unsettling. I don’t know what I am doing to do as a career when I graduate. And I don’t know what I want in the partner to share that life with me. I have lots of goals around the edges of these but the what, and with who is a mystery, plus add in the where on top of it.

“You were perfect this weekend Suzanne. You were relaxed, supportive and strong. As we sat at the reception after my speech when you teased me about our children, I imagined you as my wife. But you have also repeatedly said we have an expiration date, we want different things from life, and so I am confused. We are only 19 years old and neither of us should be making long term decisions right at this moment. But then I stop and think why not? And so I start to think about what I want in a wife and I am back to being confused. I don’t know. Our sexual compatibility dazzles like a blow torch and makes it difficult for me to figure out what the difference is between love and sex. I want and need someone like you, someone who challenges me. But I also love your vulnerability, I want to protect you yet at the same time I am drawn to your independence and intelligence. So I am horribly out of sorts and I need a dose of Suzanne common sense.”

It was incoherent, disjointed and foolish. And he sounded so sad.

“You are an odd man Andrew McLeod. Decisive and with a battering ram attitude to life. Yet also sweet, hopeless and unsure of yourself and your place in this world.”

She stopped and tapped his temple.

“That big old brain needs a hand every now and then. You have all these goals but what is the plan for your life? Be passionate. You can’t help being passionate, but you are always thinking about tomorrow and not enjoying today. Enjoy today. Why are you asking me about love? You hate being praised.

“The man I love is kind, funny, generous, strong and handsome, and has been a consistent and trustworthy friend for years. He has supported me, believed in me, trusted me, cared for me, always been there for me. He is the only person in the whole world who knows me, the person that I can trust with my deepest and most troubling secrets. He is the man who experiments with me and who fights his own nature because I need him to. And we live together. So when I see love Andrew, I see you.

“But is this love that will last a lifetime? There I am as lost as you. You are restless, compulsive, secretive, and incapable of relaxing other than for a short time, like this holiday. I have to be enough for the man I love. He must want to spend time with me rather than do other things. I need to be first in his thoughts not an afterthought. For the last year we have got ever closer Andrew. But you have not changed. When I told you that love is loving someone more than the plan, or your goals, it has not changed. So I have had to decide what I am going to do, knowing that this could, and likely will, end in heartbreak.

“I am going to enjoy my todays, with you, to the fullest extent possible. I hope that we grow more in the next five years than we have in the last five. And I hope that you do the same. Have the same faith in me that you have had for the last five years, and faith in yourself”

She stopped talking and once more rested her head on his chest. Andrew lay there for a long time trying to absorb all that she said. Five years ago the girls arrived at Heriot’s, he met Suzanne for the first time. Look at the change in those five years. He closed his eyes in embarrassment. He could get himself so wound up and distorted and yet what really needed to happen was he had to talk to the two women in his life. Leslie had challenged him all the way home in June and now, at the end of the summer, Suzanne was doing the same thing. Maybe not challenge but help him get his priorities sorted out. For all his worries about being a solitary and lonely person, the solution was right there in front of him. The last hour might have needed to be said to clear his head but it felt to Andrew that he had been self-absorbed, whiny and pretentious. Again.

Suzanne Jenner knew him very well indeed. And she had the perfect attitude to their love. Enjoy it. He had seen too many times already that life was not fair and easy. Epicurus was onto something. When Andrew started gently rubbing the cheeks of her arse Suzanne sighed and lifted her head.

“Finally.”

She broke into a radiant smile before lowering her head, peeking out from under her lashes and biting her bottom lip. She whispered.

“Sit up.”

Andrew pulled himself up the bed until he was sitting with his back against the headboard. Knee crawling towards him Suzanne lowered herself onto him and they both moaned. They made love for a long time, trying to draw it out and stay connected. Dealing with the consequences so that they didn’t have the world’s biggest wet spot had them out of bed and in the shower rather than basking after the fact. Andrew was a different person when he finally redressed. They headed out on their first exploration, dinner a necessity for his growling stomach.

“You do miss having someone to talk to, don’t you?”

“More and more I am realising that I was incredibly lucky. For four years I saw Leslie every Sunday at her parents and especially in the first couple of years the talks we had were so important. But even more than that for the last three years I saw you every morning at school. We swam and walked to school for the final four terms of school. I don’t think I realised how much that time meant to me. For most of that final 18 months nothing built up. It was you that got Leslie and me back talking to each other. And it was a set of circumstances that were almost unique. Of all the things that changed when I went to Cambridge this is the one that I am struggling with the most. A friendship that grew and grew and a trust level that grew and grew. I get bored talking about the past, particularly everything that I have done, but I miss not trusting anyone at Cambridge. Helena listened to what Freya told her at Easter and was changing. But I don’t know how close we will be going forward now that she is loved up with someone else. Navya ignored or fought the message and is in danger of harming our friendship because of her nosiness but maybe even more, her need to tell everyone. Would you let me visit you in Glasgow during term time?”

Suzanne smiled.

“Of course Andrew. Don’t you think that I want and need this too?”

“Do you think that you will work for the Forestry Commission again next summer?”

“No idea. I only finished last Thursday. Why?”

“I want to talk about things like that with you a lot more. It won’t be the deciding reason for taking or not taking a job but I want us to have the conversation rather than me working away in isolation.”

As they strolled around central Amsterdam, paying not the slightest attention to their surroundings, they deliberately started to plan their lives together. For the first time Andrew thought of someone else and did so happily.

Having been melancholy and pathetic that Sunday there was an annoying inevitability that he would be obnoxiously happy on the Monday morning. As with Rome they decided to have a cultural day followed by a different day therefore walked to the Rijksmuseum on that blustery Monday morning. They missed a turn and had to double back to the museum but as they approached it they spotted a swimming pool right there behind the museum. The two of them were almost as happy to make that discovery as to view the art. They saved van Gogh for another day, the museum of his work is right behind the Rijksmuseum, and instead returned to the hotel, grabbed their swimming gear and walked for the second time that day south out of the city centre.

Suzanne swam for 50 minutes and then left to get a head start on her hair and even although Andrew swam for 10 extra minutes he was still in the lobby waiting when she came out, hair tousled but eyes sparkling. The walk back to their hotel started as a leisurely stroll. But as they walked they picked up on each other’s mood, no words were exchanged. The pace picked up though and they scurried down the short corridor to the room. They stripped quickly but Andrew held Suzanne from jumping onto the bed.

“Stand here, hands above your head with your eyes closed.”

Looking startled she complied and he kneeled behind her. Andrew reached up and his hands traced Suzanne’s shoulders, under her arms, brushing the sides of her breasts before he too closed his eyes and his hands were drawn to where her waist gathered in before flaring out to her hips. Andrew had no idea how long he knelt there his hands repeating that journey, rib cage to waist to hips, with regular detours to those magnificent cheeks. He stood and went to kiss her neck but Suzanne walked forward, knelt at the edge of the bed and wiggled her arse. The heights were a pain but they were not to be denied. On each of his out strokes Suzanne deliberately rode forward, Andrew’s hands halting her progress and pulling her back onto him. When the dam broke, all too soon as usual, he staggered back and Suzanne slumped forward. Andrew joined her on the bed letting the rest of the world back into their lives.

“Anybody would think you like my arse Andrew McLeod.”

“No, not just your magnificent arse Suzanne, it is this perfect hourglass figure, the way your waist flares to your hips.”

Their kisses quickly got out of hand and their second fuck was even more passionate than the first. Like he had said, a blazing blowtorch of sexual compatibility.

Dinner was at a little restaurant that served generic northern European dishes without ever declaring a speciality or nationality. The food was tasty and plentiful and they were three buildings down from the hotel. After dinner they went back to the room, stripped and assumed their usual position for foreplay and talking. Andrew wasn’t sure which one they were starting with.

“What are the plans for this week?”

“I thought we would go to the Anne Frank House tomorrow morning. It is a must see but also sad and moving. I thought we could walk or cycle afterwards at that Bos park the guidebook talks about. So a quieter day tomorrow. The van Gogh Museum is right by the pool so I figured that would be the main thing on Wednesday. After that we could just walk, cycle, take a boat ride, whatever takes our fancy. What about you? What would you like to do? And are you okay with what I have planned?”

“No, it is important to go to Anne Frank’s House and a quieter day afterwards seems appropriate. It doesn’t seem right to be asking this after talking about that but what about the red-light district?”

“I guessed one of these talks would be about it. I presume you want to go?”

Suzanne flushed but nodded.

“What in particular?”

She sighed.

“Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you talked about Hamburg it painted a vivid picture in my mind. You painted a vivid picture of me in a sex shop. I want to see if the reality matches up to the vision in my head.”

“Okay, I had assumed that you would want to go into one. According to the guidebook, and it doesn’t go into much detail, the area is nondescript, almost boring, during the day but at night it is much edgier, I think that was the word they used. They cautioned against single women going there on their own. Now that won’t be an issue for us. But from talking to a couple of the guys over the summer there are several areas where prostitutes are very frequent. But here they sit in little, I don’t know, sort of shop windows. So the vibe of the place will be different at night. Overwhelmingly male, and although I would hope there will be no comments you will be stared at. A lot. So why don’t we do a little walk around at 6.00 or thereabouts. You can decide if you want to come back later that night, another night or do like I did. I went to the shop on a Sunday morning, the only person there at 10.00 in the morning. The sex shops are open all the time.”

“Always looking out for me.”

She leaned in and gave Andrew a kiss.

“I think that is a sensible approach. Maybe Wednesday before we go for dinner and then we can decide the next steps at dinner?”

The Holocaust is a difficult thing to write about, let’s get the obvious out of the road at the start. Andrew’s memories of that day were limited. Standing there at 19 years of age reading about what life was like for a girl not yet a teenager when the Nazis invaded, it seemed a different time, a different world. But it was less than 40 years earlier. And it coloured so many facets of modern life. Andrew came out of there hating Germans. He didn’t know that you could do otherwise. But as they walked in silence, there was a lot of silence that day, he processed it and lots of different things flitted through his head. The British were hated, across huge parts of the world, for what they did during colonialism. The IRA were blowing up British soldiers and innocent civilians for actions and acts stretching back over nearly ten centuries. None of which were his fault, his generation’s fault. So Andrew’s hatred of Germans faded, not that day, but quickly. As for the rest of the thoughts, they were not of that day. The impact on the Jewish and Israeli psyche, how that translated into the situation in the middle east. Something as simple as the power of the state, the rights of the individual, protections from and against the state. It was another of those moments when his naiveté was stripped away. Looking back the summer of 1984 was as big a watershed as the winter of 1978/9. Not existentially of course, but in terms of helping him understand himself, the world around him and his place in it, this was the catalyst for a lot of Andrew’s thoughts and actions. Imagined memories are the curse of looking back on life. The visit to Anne Frank’s House was one of the most fraught with that. The horror and shock at the time were real, but what it meant? Hours, days, months later it probably started to come together but it all goes back to that September morning in 1984. The rest of the day? Consciously and deliberately low key, they walked for a while, rented some bikes to explore the trails and again stayed close to the hotel for dinner. Most of all it was a day of silences.

The following morning both of them were quiet on the walk to the pool but swimming restored their balance and they chatted and flirted on the way back to the hotel. They had decided they could cope with the extra walks as they could lay out their swimming stuff to dry. It was also time to start to play with Suzanne’s head. Andrew took her corset carefully out of her case and lay it on the bed.

“Strip please, so that I can help you get dressed appropriately for the day.”

Her surprise turned to pleasure and Suzanne quickly stripped down to her knickers. The ritual of lacing up the corset dragged out the act. It was foreplay, as he first unlaced it to encircle her waist and then painstakingly re-laced it. Once the laces were loosely rethreaded then the hard work started. Removing all the slack from each eyelet and cinching it ever tighter around Suzanne. Andrew took his time, repeatedly going back to ensure that it was as snug across her hips and against her waist before tying it slightly looser across her bust so that her cleavage looked magnificent. Once he was finished, he spun her round and ran his hands along her sides and down to her hips. The visual was stunning and Suzanne knew the effect it was having on him.

Her blouse once again was just at the point of offering a glimpse of the corset, her skirt knee length and the accompanying boots pretty without being over the top. A long coat, casually tied around her waist completed the picture. As they walked to the van Gogh Museum Andrew knew he was the luckiest man in the world.

“Even tightly cinched up this is so comfortable. I can’t believe you got the perfect size for me. The squeezing feel is so comforting, a constant presence.”

Andrew stopped them and leaned down for a long, passionate kiss.

“Wow, what was that for? Not that I am complaining.”

“You. You make me happy, and I wanted you to know it.”

Suzanne blinded two people on the walk to museum, her smile was that radiant.

For someone with no artistic ability, it is probably odd to have a favourite artist but van Gogh was Andrew’s. Just as he couldn’t explain why he loved the music of Mahler and Beethoven so he couldn’t explain why he loved the art of van Gogh, he just did. So the day at the museum dedicated to his work was wonderful. Late in the afternoon they were leaving and it crossed Andrew’s mind that yet again he had spent the day in a museum or gallery with a beautiful woman. Going all the way back to Tanvi at the start of 1981 Andrew only seemed to go to cultural locations if he was with a gorgeous lady. Tanvi, Helena, Heloise, Abigail, Suzanne (repeatedly), clearly he needed the incentive of the fairer sex before he ventured into the world of culture. Andrew had no idea what that said about him.

They both had enjoyed the museum and so Andrew had not teased or flirted with Suzanne during the day. He kept his own counsel on the walk back into town as he wanted her reactions to be her own, not enhanced or adulterated by him. Suzanne was excited but at the same time had a firm grasp of Andrew’s hand. They walked into the centre of the town, turning towards Dam Square rather than heading over to their hotel. Beyond there, three blocks from the Royal Palace, the red-light district started. One main street on either side of a canal with small side streets off it doesn’t really count as a district but they were there. And other than Suzanne being noticeably pretty they were no different than hundreds of other tourists, taking a walk on the wild side in the safety of crowds and daylight. Four or five blocks up one side of the canal followed by the return on the other side. Very similar to Hamburg with the same choices. Way more sex shows and a lot fewer strip clubs with more than 20 sex shops, ranging from tiny up to one that was a vast emporium. Even walking at a moderate pace it only took 20 minutes to return to where they started. They found a bar and sat and chatted.

“It was, so much less than I expected.”