The Scent of Eleanor Summary

girls trying too hard. This was different. This was money. A deep, complex scent of night-blooming jasmine and sandalwood, with a sharp, clean edge of gin, clinging to her fur collar. It was a scent that whispered of a different era, of cocktail hours and secrets kept behind manicured gardens. It cut through the stale smell of beer and disinfectant in the pub, and I, Aron, a 45-year-old man from Aruba who’d seen his share of things, felt my head turn like a compass needle finding north.

She was sitting alone in a high-backed booth, a half-finished glass of white wine in front of her. Eleanor. I heard the barman call her name later. She had to be sixty-five if she was a day, but she carried it like a crown. Her hair was a sleek, silver helmet, perfectly styled. She wore a simple black dress, but you could tell it wasn’t simple at all; the fabric was too good, the cut too precise. She was staring into her glass, a faint, melancholic smile on her lips, and the sight of her, this elegant, lonely creature in a noisy London pub, did something to me.

I’d come in just to escape the damn cold. England’s winter was a different kind of beast, a wet, biting cold that seeped into my Caribbean bones. I was just going to have one whiskey, maybe two, and head back to my flat. But then I saw her. And that smell. It wrapped around me, pulling me in.

I’m not a shy man. Life’s too short. I took my glass of amber liquid and walked over to her booth. “This seat taken?” I asked, my voice a low rumble, my Aruban accent still thick after all these years here.

She looked up, and her eyes were the colour of a stormy sea, a cool, intelligent grey. They didn’t show surprise, only a slow, appraising curiosity. They travelled from my face, down my broad shoulders, and back up. “It is now,” she said, her voice crisp and clear, a voice used to being listened to.

I slid in opposite her. “You stood me up,” I said, a slow smile spreading on my face.

A genuine laugh escaped her, a rich, unexpected sound. “Did I? I do apologise. My diary must be in a frightful state.”

“Aron,” I said, offering my hand across the table.

She placed her cool, slender fingers in mine. “Eleanor.” Her skin was pale, almost translucent, with a delicate map of blue veins. The contrast against my dark, almost black skin was stark, and it was fucking beautiful.

We talked. Or rather, I talked and she listened, asking sharp, insightful questions about Aruba, about the sun, the sea, the feeling of sand between your toes. She was fascinated. “It sounds like a different planet,” she murmured, sipping her wine.

“It is,” I said. “And you, dushi? What’s your story?”

She told me about a life lived in London, about a husband long gone, about children grown and busy with their own lives, about a big, empty house in Hampstead. There was no self-pity in her tone, just a quiet, factual recitation. But her eyes held a deep, unspoken hunger. I recognised it. It was the same hunger I felt, a need to feel something real, something raw, before it was all too late.

“Another drink?” I asked when her glass was empty. “But not here.”

Her stormy eyes held mine. There was a long, heavy pause. The air crackled between us. That perfume of hers was driving me insane, a sophisticated promise of something profoundly indecent. “Alright,” she said, the single word a surrender and a challenge all at once.

Her house was exactly as I’d pictured it: tasteful, expensive, and filled with a silence that was almost loud. Antique furniture, shelves lined with books, a grand piano gathering dust in the corner. It smelled of her, that intoxicating jasmine and sandalwood, but here it was mixed with the scent of old wood and polish.

She didn’t turn on many lights. A single lamp cast long, dancing shadows across the vast living room. She turned to me, her back straight, her composure a fragile shell. “Well,” she began, but I didn’t let her finish.

I closed the distance between us and cupped her face in my hands. Her skin was so soft. I leaned in and kissed her. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a claiming. Her lips were initially stiff with shock, then they yielded, parted, and she kissed me back with a desperate, pent-up fervour that surprised us both. Her hands came up, clutching at the front of my shirt, her nails digging into the fabric.

When we broke apart, we were both breathing heavily. “Take me to your bedroom, Eleanor,” I commanded, my voice husky.

She led me up a wide, carpeted staircase without a word. Her bedroom was a sanctuary of silk and dark wood. The moment the door closed, the last of her reserve crumbled. It was like watching a dam break. She clawed at my clothes, her elegant fingers fumbling with the buttons of my shirt. I helped her, peeling the fabric from my body. Her eyes widened as she took in my bare chest, her gaze trailing lower, to the growing bulge in my jeans.

“Let me see you, dushi,” I murmured, turning her around and slowly unzipping her black dress. It whispered to the floor, pooling at her feet. She stood in a lace bra and slip, her body a revelation. She was slim, her skin pale and delicate, with the gentle sag of age at her breasts and belly. She was real. And she was the most exquisite woman I had ever seen.

I spun her back to face me and buried my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling her divine scent deeply, now mingled with the salt of her skin and our shared arousal. I laid her back on the silk duvet and worshipped her with my mouth. I took her nipples, still surprisingly firm, between my lips, teasing them with my tongue until she was arching off the bed, her hands fisted in my hair. I kissed my way down the soft plane of her stomach, down to the grey-blonde triangle of hair between her legs.

When my tongue found her core, she cried out, a sharp, high-pitched sound that was swallowed by the large room. She was already wet, tasting of musk and salt and pure, unadulterated woman. I ate her out like a starving man, licking and sucking, driving my tongue as deep as I could, feeling her thighs tremble violently on either side of my head. Her hips bucked against my face, her moans becoming a continuous, pleading mantra. “Oh, god… Aron… please…”

I let her teeter on the edge for a long, delicious time before I finally rose above her. I kicked off my jeans and boxers, and my cock, all 23 centimetres of it, thick and hard and dark, sprang free. Her stormy eyes, glazed with passion, went wide with a mixture of shock and sheer, unbridled lust.

“Dios mi,” I groaned, positioning myself at her entrance. “You are so beautiful.”

I didn’t ask if she was ready. Her slick heat was proof enough. I pushed in, slowly, giving her body time to adjust, to stretch and accommodate my girth. Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp, her eyes rolling back for a second. She was incredibly tight, a hot, velvet fist clenching around me. When I was fully sheathed inside her, we both went perfectly still, connected in the most intimate way possible. I could feel her heart hammering against my chest.

“Fuck me, Aron,” she whispered, her cultured voice now rough with need. “Please, fuck me. I’m not made of glass.”

That was all the permission I needed. I withdrew almost all the way and then drove back into her, hard. A loud, guttural moan was torn from her throat. I set a relentless, pounding rhythm, my hips slapping against her pale thighs. The bed, a solid, aristocratic piece of furniture, began to creak in protest, a steady, rhythmic sound that underscored our raw, animalistic coupling. Her perfume rose from her heated skin, a dizzying cloud of jasmine and sex. She wrapped her long legs around my waist, pulling me deeper, her heels digging into the small of my back. Her nails scratched down my spine, marking me, claiming me.

“Yes! Oh, God, yes! Right there!” she screamed, her composure utterly shattered. She was just a woman, wild and free, lost in the primal act of being thoroughly fucked. I watched her face, contorted in ecstasy, and it was the most powerful aphrodisiac. I leaned down, capturing her mouth with mine, swallowing her cries as I pistoned into her, my balls slapping against her ass.

I felt her climax building, her inner muscles fluttering and spasming around my shaft. “I’m coming!” she shrieked, her body bowing off the bed, a long, shuddering convulsion seizing her. The feeling of her pulsing around me was too much. With a final, deep thrust, I buried myself to the hilt and came, roaring her name into the silence of her posh Hampstead bedroom, my own release a hot, endless flood inside her.

I collapsed on top of her, spent, our bodies slick with sweat, the air thick with the smell of us. For a long time, the only sound was our ragged breathing. Slowly, I softened and slipped out of her. I rolled to the side, pulling her with me, cradling her against my chest. Her silver hair was a mess, her makeup smudged. She looked thoroughly, beautifully ruined.

She traced the lines of my torso with a trembling finger, her head resting on my shoulder. We lay there in the dim light, two people from different worlds, bound together for one night by scent, skin, and a deep, human need. The old clock on the mantelpiece ticked on, marking a time that, for a few hours, had stood completely still.