by Kate Davies
Fuck. ‘Mmm,’ I said.
‘Tell me what you like.’
‘This is really nice.’
‘What do you want me to do? Do you want my big cock in your—’
Right. So he said cock.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘I’m going to fuck you good,’ he said. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Go on. Ask me to fuck you.’
‘Just – do it.’
I had turned into a human Nike advert.
He stood up to get a condom. It took him ages to rip the packet open. He looked so proud of himself as he rolled it on.
And then he clambered back onto the bed. The mattress shifted as he positioned himself above me. Staring into my eyes, he went to push himself into me. He missed.
‘Jesus. That’s never happened before,’ he said. He picked up his penis and guided himself in, frowning as though he was trying to assemble a particularly tricky piece of IKEA furniture.
He started to thrust, thwacking against me in the horrible silence of the room.
‘Yeah?’ he asked, looking at me again now, smiling, nodding.
‘Mmm,’ I said.
I tried to clench my pelvic floor muscles so I could feel him inside me – he was no Rampant Rabbit, let’s put it that way.
I looked past him, staring over his shoulder at the ceiling. Spider webs hung in the corners and there was a dark brown smear on the ceiling just above me. A dead fly, maybe. I wonder if he’d thrown a book up there to kill it and not wiped it off.
He moved faster, then slower, without any discernible rhythm. A bead of sweat fell from his forehead to my neck.
‘Have you come yet?’ He was slowing down now, breathing hard, or maybe out of breath – I couldn’t tell.
‘Just about to,’ I said, closing my eyes, trying to imagine I was somewhere else. But I couldn’t think of anything else, anything at all.
Panting, that’s what’s needed, I thought. ‘Uh, yeah, that’s good,’ I tried.
‘Yeah?’ he said, encouraged, speeding up.
‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘Oh! That’s right!’
‘Yeah? You like it hard, you dirty bitch?’
I had a lot of feminist problems with that question, but I didn’t think this was the time to get into them.
‘Mmm!’ I said, breathing faster now. I panted out a pained ‘Oh!’ and then sighed, slowing down my breathing, opening my eyes.
‘Was that it?’ he said, unimpressed.
‘Yeah,’ I said, anxious now. Was that not a convincing orgasm? Was I too quick? I couldn’t really remember how long it usually took when another person was involved.
He clambered off me and lay there, looking straight up at the ceiling. He was still hard. ‘I can’t come,’ he said, pulling off the condom and flicking it into the bin. ‘Will you sort me out?’
I should have said no. I see that now – I should have stood up, told him I’d had a nice time but that it wasn’t really working for me, and walked out. But that seemed impolite.
As I’ve said, he didn’t smell as though he washed very often. I wished he’d kept the condom on. But I thought I could get the whole thing over with quickly. I had faith in my blow job abilities. I’d practised on a fair few blokes at university and they’d never complained.
I did my best, taking his dick (I’m going with dick) as deep into my throat as I could, eyes closed, willing him to come.
‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘That’s not how you do it.’
I stopped and said, ‘Yes, it is.’
‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘You’re being too mechanical.’
I tried to process the insult. ‘What do you want me to do, then?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong. I always come, like.’
I just looked at him.
‘Are you going to wank me off, or what?’
Saying no seemed too difficult, somehow.
I knelt by the bed and gave him a hand job, trying to put some feeling into it, trying to vary the pressure, but I felt as though I were pumping a particularly resistant bicycle tyre. Finn lay there, silent. I could feel him growing flaccid in my hand.
‘This has never happened to me before,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve broken my penis.’
He pushed my hand away and tried to get the job done himself, his face clenched with the effort.
I knelt there, wondering what to do. Should I just leave? Should I join in somehow? Or did he just want to be left alone to enjoy himself in peace? He didn’t say. It seemed rude to leave without saying goodbye, and I didn’t really want to interrupt, so I stayed there on my knees while he kept wanking. I looked up at the clock above the window. It was one in the morning now.
At 1.16, he switched hands and carried on.
At 1.34, he paused for a few seconds to catch his breath, eyes still tight shut.
At two, I began to feel like I was hallucinating. I had never known time to pass so slowly. I had never been so viscerally aware of every sensation, every sound. It felt like punishment for every time I’d felt like life was rushing past me and I’d willed it to slow down.
He wanked for over an hour. And I just knelt by the bed and watched him, hypnotized by his broken penis.
And then, at 2.05, he grabbed my hand and wrapped it around his dick, pumping it up and down, eyes still closed. This was it. The home straight. The end of the hellish marathon.
At long, long last he came, all over my hand and his horrible pale chest. He breathed out, apparently as relieved as I was that it was all over. I discreetly wiped my hand on the side of his mattress.
And then he turned to me, and said, ‘Thanks, yeah, but I think it would be better if we were just friends.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I agree.’
I got dressed as quickly as I could, stumbling as I pulled up my jeans, while he lay there on his back with his eyes closed. I picked up my shoes and walked as quietly as I could out of the room, down the stairs and into the street, sitting on the doorstep to pull them on. And then I ran and ran, to find a night bus that would take me as far away from him and my humiliation as possible.
As I sat at the bus stop, eyes down to avoid the attention of two teenage boys, shouting at each other with 3-a.m. rage, I made a resolution: I was done with sex. It was disgusting, unnatural, inexplicable. And I never, never wanted to see a penis, dick, cock, whatever you want to call it, ever again.
5. NEVER SAY NEVER
I went straight into the bathroom when I got home. I turned up the shower as high as I could bear, hot enough to turn my skin red, till I could see steam evaporating from my body. My knees were still dimpled with the texture of Finn’s carpet, and I couldn’t seem to rub them smooth. The smell of his cum clung to my fingers. I washed my hands – both of them, just to be safe – till they were pink and tender, scrubbing beneath my nails with Alice’s nailbrush.
‘Julia? Are you OK?’ The shower must have woken Alice up.
I didn’t answer. I was concentrating on making my mind as blank as possible, but I couldn’t keep the sex flashbacks at bay:
Kneeling by his bed.
His thigh slapping against mine.
The dead fly on the ceiling.
‘You’ve broken my penis.’
Why did I let him get away with saying that to me? Why didn’t I just walk out of there? How fucking dare he blame me because he didn’t come? I hadn’t fucking come either, but at least I’d had the decency to fake an orgasm.
I spent the following week going to work, coming home, and going straight to bed. I watched comforting old TV shows on repeat and imagined myself back to a purer time; a time when the thing I wanted most in the world was berry-coloured lipstick from The Body Shop and the furthest I’d got with a boy was when Phil Green kissed me on the cheek after his Bar Mitzvah.
Alice tried to comfort me by telling me about the time that her ex-boyfriend Joe tried to prove he could give h
imself a blow job; he’d thrown his legs over his head in the yoga plough position but he hadn’t been able to reach, and then he pulled a muscle in his neck and screamed in pain till she helped him lie flat on his back again. That did make me feel slightly better. Not better enough to want to have sex with anyone ever again, though.
Work was a distraction of sorts, but I wasn’t behaving normally, I knew that; I chose the desk next to Stan every day, to avoid my team and their questions about the date. Uzo cornered me one lunchtime and said, ‘So? How was the hot date?’ but I just said, ‘Fine, thanks,’ and then Tom called her into his office to tell her off for buying stuff from ASOS during work hours.
Luckily there was a new sense of purpose in the office, everyone bustling around trying to impress the new Grade Six, not as much small talk. I couldn’t really look anyone in the eye, least of all Owen – he’d probably want to tell me how fantastically it was going with Laura and compare date stories, and I didn’t think I’d deal with his happiness well. But I couldn’t avoid him forever, and on Wednesday he insisted on taking me to Pret for lunch.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked me, as we finished off our chicken and avocado sandwiches. ‘Did something happen on your date?’
I nodded. ‘I had sex,’ I said, and to my horror I felt my eyes filling with tears.
‘I hope Laura doesn’t cry when she tells people that,’ he said.
‘I’m guessing you’re not as bad in bed as Finn was,’ I said, still crying, but laughing a bit too.
Owen frowned. ‘He didn’t— he didn’t hurt you—’
‘No …’
He put on what he obviously thought was a caring face. ‘You can tell me.’
‘He masturbated for an hour, and I just sat there.’
‘Wow. What a wanker.’
‘Literally,’ I said, nodding.
He patted my arm. ‘Do you need some company tonight? We could go to the cinema or something, if you like.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but Cat’s got a few days off between shows, so I’m going to meet her for dinner.’
‘I haven’t met Cat yet,’ Owen said.
‘Sorry, Owen,’ I said. ‘You’re not invited.’
Cat took me for a curry in Brick Lane. We sat at a tiny corner table in the windowless downstairs room, next to a tank full of fluorescent fish.
‘At least you banged someone. You needed to get that out of the way,’ Cat said, ladling dhal onto my plate.
‘I’m never going to do it again,’ I said. I bit into a samosa, hoping that was the end of the conversation.
‘Never say never,’ Cat said. ‘Remember how I was feeling like a third wheel with Lacey and Steve, the new tadpole?’
I nodded.
‘I fucked someone last night. A year-five teacher.’
‘Is that ethical?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be? I’m not a student. I’m a pretend frog.’
‘I wasn’t sure where the line was drawn.’
‘The point is, it wasn’t the best sex, but it’s not going to put me off forever. You wouldn’t stop drinking just because you got one bad hangover, would you?’
‘This is different,’ I said. ‘I broke his penis.’
‘I wish you actually had broken his penis,’ she said. ‘Then he wouldn’t be able to inflict shitty sex on anyone else.’
But here’s the thing – the next morning I was writing a letter to a man who was very, very angry about the cost of prescriptions when I felt an unmistakable hollowness within me, a deep ache between my legs. I was turned on – turned on and bored, a very common combination for me – and I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate till I came, silent and hard, in the disabled toilets.
There was no point in trying to resist it. I locked myself into the cubicle, sat on the closed lid, pulled down my trousers and Googled Women’s erotica on my iPhone. I wasn’t in the mood to be fussy, so I scrolled quickly through the worst of it, looking for a story about two consenting adults fucking anonymously, preferably somewhere they could be caught. The words handcuffs and dripping pussy caught my eye – I like directness – and I wanked, leaning forward into my hand, rocking as I came, my face a wordless scream.
Maybe I needed to give sex one final chance.
6. A SEXY, WORDLESS TONGUE CONVERSATION
So when Alice and Dave invited me to a house party in Dalston at the beginning of February, I said yes. It was hosted by another of Dave’s arty friends – a designer who embellished H&M vest tops with sequins and sold them for huge amounts of money on Etsy.
‘You’re sure Finn won’t be there?’ I asked Dave, as we walked along Kingsland Road.
‘I checked,’ he said. ‘He’s home in Ireland for the weekend.’
The party was sedate compared to the one in Hackney Wick. There was no DJ, just a Spotify playlist, and the flat was lit by IKEA standard lamps rather than industrial strip lighting. The place was rammed, people pressed up against one another like rush-hour commuters. I went straight to the kitchen, poured three glasses of red wine and carried them carefully back to Alice and Dave, who had somehow found space on a sofa. They edged closer together to make room for me.
But soon they were arguing about a wedding they’d been invited to, that way couples do when they’ve been together for a few years and have stopped pretending to like each other’s friends.
‘We’ve got to go. She’s the editorial director. It’s flattering that she’s invited me at all.’
‘No. You’ve got to go.’
‘You’re coming. I’ve RSVPd for both of us.’
‘But I won’t know anyone.’
‘I’m sure she’ll sit us next to each other at dinner.’
‘Everyone will talk about books and wanky authors and I won’t know what to say.’
I looked around for someone else to talk to but I was hemmed in by a sea of legs. Legs in jeans; legs in dresses; legs that obviously spent more time in the gym than mine did. I drank my wine steadily, for something to do.
‘Do I have to wear a suit?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s not a traditional wedding. She got a tattoo instead of an engagement ring.’
‘Nice.’
I pushed myself up off the sofa and carried my wine glass to the toilet queue that was already taking up half the living room. I looked around; I vaguely recognized a few people from the Hackney Wick party – the couple in matching fur coats, and a bloke with an undercut who I remembered being a bit of a liability on the dance floor.
And then, in that mysterious way you often can, I felt someone looking at me. I glanced over towards the kitchen and there, framed in the doorway, was Jane, the conceptual artist. A woman with long dark hair was leaning towards her, gesturing and chatting away intently, but Jane was staring straight at me, as direct as one of her paintings. She raised her hand and smiled at me. I smiled back – but then two men stumbled out of the toilet, rubbing their noses, holding hands, and it was my turn.
I sat on the toilet staring at my fingers, the harsh halogen light throwing up every wrinkle, every nibbled nail. I decided to take myself home; I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and I was being stared at by a sexually confident lesbian. I had a feeling that something would happen if I stayed.
As I was putting on my coat, I felt someone walk up to me.
‘You’re not going yet, are you?’ said Jane.
‘I’m not feeling great,’ I said, trying to sound casual, though I could feel my heart speeding up. ‘Not in a sociable mood.’
‘Nor am I,’ she said. ‘But I’d make an exception for you.’
She looked at me till I had to look away.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Stay and have a drink with me.’
There was something compelling about her. My body began to throb with the promise of something I didn’t even know if I wanted.
‘All right,’ I said.
One of the many lessons I learned from the seminal classic Sliding Doors is that the most insignifica
nt-seeming things can change your life. If Gwyneth Paltrow had caught that Tube, she wouldn’t have ended up with such a terrible haircut. And if Jane had poured me a glass of red wine or a beer, I might not have— but I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, I can’t handle vodka. And that’s why everything that happened, happened.
Jane was sitting on the kitchen work top, pouring Smirnoff into two tumblers.
‘Let’s do shots,’ she said, handing one to me. ‘Down it in one.’
We clacked our glasses together and tilted our heads back. I managed to dribble half my vodka down my chin.
‘That’s cheating!’ she said. ‘You have to do it again now.’
She twisted the lid off another bottle of Smirnoff.
A new song came on, with a bored-sounding female vocalist.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Dance with me.’
She jumped down from the work surface and put her arms around my waist. I put mine around her neck, feeling self-conscious, like a girl at a prom in a teen movie, only not, obviously. She moved her hips against mine in time to the bass line. I tried to focus on her face, but it seemed to flicker. The vodka was buzzing in me, and I couldn’t tell if we were swaying, or the room was, or both, but it didn’t matter.
Jane looked up at me through her fringe. ‘I’m going to kiss you now,’ she said. ‘Stop me if you don’t want me to.’
I didn’t stop her. I closed my eyes instead.
I’d never kissed a woman before, except once during spin the bottle at university. That kiss was just for play, though, not so much a lesbian kiss as an impression of one – lips barely touching, tongues waggling around outside our mouths, wet in every sense of the word. Kissing Jane wasn’t like that at all. Her mouth was hard one minute, soft the next. I felt as though we were having a sexy, wordless tongue conversation. She pushed herself into me until I was leaning against the hob. I accidentally pressed the ignition with my bum. I could hear it sparking behind me, like an unsubtle metaphor.
A man came into the room and immediately backed out again, saying ‘Shit, sorry,’ shutting the door quietly behind him. I heard him say, ‘There are two women kissing in there.’