There were no grand words or stereotypical declarations of mutual admiration. There were none because they were superfluous, because their bodies said what words dared not, or could not, or knew not how to express. After all, despite what the physicists or the most timorous rationalists might say, falling in love alters times and co-ordinates in such a way that imperceptibly, almost without realizing it, they began to walk towards the hotel where Rose was staying – the shortest of holidays, a long weekend – more out of politeness than as a sign of the intentions each was shyly concealing beneath an epidermis burning with desire. Simultaneously they offered each other a cigarette, as if there was an astral conjunction or something magic between them, as if they had always known each other or perhaps had powers of divination.

‘See you tomorrow,’ Francis had said. He tried to sound detached, but it came out aggressively and with too sudden a change of rhythm to be sincere.

‘You really don’t want to come up to my room?’ Rose had said, barely recognizing herself in this repeated seizing of the initiative, this laying herself open to chance, this demolition of the usual blocks and complexes.

‘OK. Just for a cigarette and a chat. Tomorrow is Saturday so I do not have to work.’

They crossed the hotel threshold furtively, without greeting the receptionist, a Chinese man with a round, bald head who was slumping sleepily over the reception bell, mesmerized by the images on a miniscule television set that was showing a repeat of a classic western (Lee Marvin drunk as a skunk, caterwauling the chorus of some ballad or other).

Upstairs in her room it was all discoveries and revelations, caresses and tenderness. It took them some time to undress, as if they wanted to delay the act itself, but after a thousand kisses in the most accessible places, on lips and cheeks, shoulders and neck, they moved to undress one another, slowly, so very slowly, with a burning desire that oozed from every pore and was suggested in every movement, hanging like a heavy mist in eyes bursting with shared purpose. Francis toyed with the buttons on Rose’s camisole, playfully squeezing the mounds of her breasts as she slid her hand into the crevice that separated his trousers from a belly sculpted by thousands of crunches, where each muscle marked out a field, and there were no curves or discontinuities. Before long, their clothes were falling, one by one, to the floor. And now they were naked, San Diego Bay observing them in the distance, the stars hanging in a magnificent sky, eyes illuminated by the light, like the eyes of a cat poised to pounce. They shifted to the horizontal position, tried out impossible angles and various contortions in the gymnastic ecstasy of passion, until they found a position that suited them and that while classic – Rose squatting on her heels and penetrated from beneath – was no less satisfactory for that. Francis stretched out his arms in search of Rose’s breasts, and she gave herself up to him, arching her back in a contorted spasm. After the first orgasm – gazing hard at one another, sweating their passion, rising as one, with the confidence of those who have had many previous assignments, entirely soaked through – they went to shower together.

The bathroom was huge with a blinding excess of light. Under the stream of water, surrounded by a dense mist, they fell into the laid-back conversation of a pair of grown-ups, affectionate and relaxed, as unhurried as if they knew the night would continue, that there were not, would never be, any demands or pressures at all.

‘I have always liked bathrooms,’ said Francis as he massaged Rose’s back with a touch of serenity and a great deal of wheatgerm gel.

‘I like them too, with all the light and the mirrors, the smell of lavender soap and tropical fruits; the combination is so impossible, but the idea is so exotic.’

‘Doesn’t all that light bother you?’ asked Francis, his eyes half open beneath the curtain of water.

‘Sometimes I like to make love in the dark as well, but I prefer the light. I don’t know why, but I prefer the light.’

‘Me too, but not this much of it,’ said Francis, putting his hand in front of his face.

They changed places and then it was Rose who soaped Francis, sliding her lubricated hands over his most intimate areas, moving her palms in ever increasing circles, playfully prodding him with her fingers, scratching with her nails, inventing a relaxation technique or recreating a lesson learned on her own flesh. These massages awakened the desires weakened by the steam from the hot water. They carried out another attack, perfumed by the scent of the shower gel and the fragrance of the rose petals that flooded everything, attaching itself to the inside of their noses so neither of them was able to think of anything that wasn’t roses and sex, an olfactory association, preconscious and happy. The steam had misted up the mirrors that now reflected only shadows, and it clung to them, dimming the light even further. They delighted in the moist passion of the tectonic movement of their bodies – plates shifting over the heat of their internal magma –happy and natural, a perfect combination of senses and flavours, tensions and the lightest of touches.

They dried themselves with the immaculate white towels that had the name of the hotel embroidered in relief. They put on the bathrobes, also white, with the hotel monogram on the left breast, and went to sit and shoot off intimacies like darts, to recover from the physical fatigue and reinforce their mutual enchantment. They were soon comfortable, one in front of the other, stretched out in an arc, hips against the seat and leaning on the arms of the sofa, so their connected sexes were the only point of contact. Meanwhile, they gazed at each other like two prone, dead figures, eyes lost and empty, like figures painted by Mantegna. Then Francis noticed the coffee maker on the side table, a regular feature in American hotels, and part of the standard equipment in the rooms at the Hotel Radisson, where Rose had booked herself in for her weekend in San Diego.

‘Coffee?’ said Francis as he took a cigarette for himself and leaned forward to offer the pack to Rose.

‘That’s not a bad idea.’

‘Where is the coffee? I found the coffee maker, but not the coffee.’

‘It’s all here, sweetheart, in the drawer underneath.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ agreed Francis, rummaging through the drawer.

‘Maybe it’d be better if you made something weak. I have to sleep.’

‘Didn’t you say coffee?’

‘Yes, but if there’s some decaf it’d be better. I’m tired. If it isn’t decaf it’ll take me ages to get to sleep. If it gets to an hour I won’t be tired any more, and then I just can’t sleep, however tired I am.’

‘OK. There is some here. I will get water from the bathroom,’ said Francis, disappearing and reappearing right away with the coffee jug full of water from the tap.