Watermelon

by Marian Keyes

  “Yes,” I agreed cautiously. “Ten days, actually.”

  “But it feels like much longer,” he said. “Much, much longer.”

  Thank God!

  “I’m so glad I met you,” he continued. “You’re so special.”

  “Im not,” I protested. “I’m very ordinary.”

  “You’re special to me.”

  “But why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “Because you’re interesting and have opinions on things and you’re very funny. But mostly because you’re so nice…Like, basically, you’re a decent person.”

  “I’m not always,” I told him. “I mean, you should have seen me a couple of weeks ago.”

  And then I got annoyed with myself.

  Here I was, with a lovely man telling me lovely things about myself, and I was trying to convince him that none of them were true.

  It was usually the other way around. I would tell them lovely things about myself and they’d spend the rest of the time trying to convince me that none of it was true.

  He leaned over and kissed me again.

  It was just blissful. I wanted to surrender to it. To be with him, without any guilt or worry or awkwardness. Being with him felt so right….

  You’re on the rebound, I sternly warned myself.

  So what? I asked myself back. I mean, it’s not as if I’m going to marry the guy. Can’t I have some fun?

  Well, yes, I suppose I could have some fun.

  But at the same time, I can’t be going around sleeping with any man who asks me to.

  But, then again, this isn’t just any man.

  This is a nice, sweet man who cares for me—well, at least he seems to care for me, and I care for him.

  With a little shock, I realized that I did, in fact, care for him.

  I mean, I’m not saying I loved him or anything, because that would be untrue. But there was something about him that touched me.

  And I didn’t want to hurt him.

  But was I going to?

  Did sleeping with him imply a commitment?

  He did know that I was married.

  He was fully aware of my feelings for James.

  And maybe he didn’t want a commitment.

  Maybe he wanted to be with me because he knew that I was really with someone else and it would let him off the hook?

  Oh Lord!

  Traumaville!

  Decision time.

  I stood up and held him by the hand.

  He looked at me questioningly.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Yes,” I murmured.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Laid.”

  But I only said it under my breath. I didn’t want him to think I was terribly vulgar.

  Because I wasn’t really.

  Not all the time, anyway.

  I started moving toward the kitchen door, still holding his hand.

  I felt so liberated and wanton.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, feigning innocence.

  “Down the road for a drink,” I told him.

  I looked at him, and disappointment was written all over his face.

  “I’m joking, you idiot.” I smiled at him. “We’re going upstairs.” So we walked up the stairs, me leading the way, still holding his hand. With each step I took, I became more and more convinced that this was the right thing to do. We got to the top of the stairs and he pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

  It was gorgeous. He felt so big and strong. I could feel the smooth skin of his back through his sweatshirt. He turned me around and steered me toward a door.

  “My room,” he said. “Unless you brought me up here to give you a tour of the house.”

  “That can wait until later,” I said, barely able to speak with excitement and nerves.

  His room was nice, so tidy that I knew, instantly—not that I had ever been in any real doubt—that he had meticulously planned to get me into bed. Men’s rooms are only ever clean the first time you sleep with them. Once you’ve had sex with them the place goes right to hell. It’s as though the instant the relationship is consummated the man shouts,

  “Right, fellas, you can come out now!”

  And out from under the bed appear armies of dirty underpants and sweaty socks and cups and plates and car magazines and hideous sweaters and pint glasses and sexist calendars and Stephen King books and damp towels and jars of Ben-Gay, all elbowing and clamoring and complaining loudly about the amount of time that they had to spend in hiding, and stretching and dusting themselves down and then draping themselves artistically on the bedroom carpet, delighted to be back where they belong.

  “What took you so long?” a sock might shout cheerfully at the successful seducer. “Put up a bit of a fight, did she?”

  “We thought we were stuck in there forever,” a filthy pair of trousers might good-naturedly joke. “You must be losing your touch.”

  Adam eased my passage over the pristine floor to the bed by kissing me, so that I didn’t have to march over and sit down on it, looking expectant and awkward.

  No, he just kind of kissed me and sort of steered me across the room and, well, you know, we just arrived at the bed and as it was there, we thought it might be a good idea to lie on it, otherwise we would only have to go around it.

  After a while he started to undo the buttons on my dress. And I put my hands under his sweatshirt onto the bare skin of his stomach and chest.

  Very gently and very slowly, he unbuttoned my dress all the way down and started to take my clothes off.

  It felt nice but weird. Weird but nice.

  It had been a long, long time since I went to bed with someone for the first time, if you follow me. It was funny that he wasn’t James. Not horrible, or unpleasant. Just, as I say, a bit funny.

  I felt a bit awkward about my body, and about Adam seeing it. I wasn’t exactly uninhibited at the best of times. I wasn’t a great one for dancing around with no clothes on. It was all right when I was with James. I had no problems with him. Eventually, that is. But even with him, I’d been very coy for ages.

  Adam kept telling me that I was beautiful. He was so glad that I was there and stroking me and caressing me and holding me and kissing me.

  After a while I completely relaxed. Call me old-fashioned, if you want, but for me there is no bigger turn-on than being told that I’m beautiful and being made to feel beautiful.

  You can keep your fancy tongue work and elaborate hip swerves. Five minutes of flattery works a whole lot better for me.

  After a good deal more of kissing and getting to know each other, if that’s what you’d like to call it, it became obvious that the evening was heading in a definite direction.

  Adam pulled himself away from me.

  “God!” he said. “You’re a witch, you’re driving me wild, you’re gorgeous.”

  I sat up a little bit and looked down at him as his hands roamed over my stomach.

  I was so thankful that I hadn’t eaten anything.

  He was lovely. Such a beautiful body. And such a gorgeous face.

  And such a nice guy.

  What had I done to deserve this?

  My eyes traveled down his chest, admiring his taut stomach, but I averted my gaze when my eyes moved down a little bit lower. How do I describe the state of play below Adam’s waist without being overly explicit or overly coy?

  It’s very difficult to discuss having sex without being so crude that I sound like a pornographic book or without being so discreet that I sound like a repressed, uptight Victorian novelist who suffers regularly from va-ginismus and still calls her husband Mr. Clements after twenty-seven years of marriage.

  How about if I just say that mighty oaks from little acorns grow?

  Isn’t that good? Discreet yet symbolic?

  Offensive to no
one but at the same time leaving you in no doubt whatsoever that Adam had a hard-on that could cut diamonds?

  Whoops!

  Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar!

  Although while we’re on the subject I might as well tell you that it was big enough to make me fear for the safety of the light fixtures if he made any sudden movements.

  Which, naturally, I wholeheartedly hoped he would.

  No, I’m only joking. It wasn’t that big at all.

  It was of medium size.

  Neither alarmingly big nor depressingly small.

  Just right, really.

  Of course, there are some unscrupulous women who tell whatever man they’re with that he has the biggest penis they’ve ever seen.

  You know, quite simply as a matter of course.

  They shrink back against the mattress and stare round-eyed with mock horror at the man in question and squeal, “Oh my! You’re not coming anywhere near me with that monster of a thing. What are you trying to do? Screw me or batter the door down?”

  Sneaky tactics.

  Because of course the man in question is delighted. Believing himself to be in possession of a weaponlike member, he feels invincible and all man.

  And gives them a seeing-to that they won’t forget in a hurry. But you wouldn’t catch me doing that.

  Well, only very rarely.

  And I also can’t describe what was going on below Adam’s waist because I can’t think of a word that I feel comfortable with to describe his, well, you know, his…

  Well, how can I tell you what I can’t describe if I haven’t got a word to describe it!

  I mean, the correct word is, of course, penis.

  But that sounds so clinical.

  I don’t think I’d like someone to say to me, “Oh, that’s a beautiful vagina you’ve got there.”

  It’s not exactly evocative or romantic, now is it?

  Hardly the language of hearts and flowers.

  And by the same token I think penis is far too reminiscent of biology lessons at school where a scarlet-faced substitute teacher hurriedly and scantily explains the human reproductive system to a room full of sniggering adolescents.

  It’s not a human-enough description.

  But what else can I call it?

  I know there are hundreds of words, but not one of them seems appropriate.

  How about knob?

  That one’s currently very fashionable.

  Weeeell, I don’t know.

  It sounds a bit functional to me.

  Although then again, why shouldn’t it?

  Cock?

  No, I don’t like that one either.

  For some reason I find it reminiscent of aging rock stars with London accents and horrible stone-washed jeans and long gray hair.

  And worse again are the situations where the man has christened his member with a name. I mean, did you ever! Sidelong smirk from man, followed by wheedling noises.

  “I think George is waking up.”

  Meaningful and wheedley smile.

  “I think George wants to come out and play.”

  Wheedley eye contact and hopeful expression.

  “George want to play hide-and-seek.”

  Glazed and sickly grin.

  Ugh!

  Well, George can just go right off and find someone else to play with.

  That kind of carrying on is enough to make me want to embrace celibacy.

  Well, in the absence of a moniker that I like I’m going to resort to the language of romance novels and call it his Throbbing Manhood. Adam, thankfully, hadn’t introduced me to his Throbbing Manhood by name, and I didn’t know if I was ready to make friends with his Throbbing Manhood just yet.

  I’d kind of gotten used to James’s Throbbing Manhood. Not that it was an especially hard act (if you’ll pardon the pun) to follow, but it suited me.

  I had nothing against Adam’s Throbbing Manhood (apart from my thigh, of course), but I felt nervous about becoming acquainted with it.

  As if he sensed this, Adam caught me by the arm (no, Adam, not my arm, for God’s sake; it hasn’t got an erogenous atom in it) and said urgently,

  “We don’t have to do anything, Claire. We can just lie here if you want to.”

  Now, if I’d had a penny for every time I’ve been promised a “just lying there” scenario by a man, I’d be a very rich woman indeed. I couldn’t count the number of times that I’d been promised this when I’ve had to spend the night with a man because I’d missed the last bus and didn’t have money for a taxi.

  “You can stay in my place. It’s only around the corner,” he’d say.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch,” I’d say quickly.

  “Well, you might as well stay in the bed with me. It’s much more comfortable.”

  “Ah no, the couch is fine.”

  “Look, I’m not going to touch you. Is that what’s worrying you?”

  “Well, er, yes.”

  “No need to worry. I won’t lay a finger on you.”

  And then those fateful words. “We can just lie there.”

  And of course not getting a wink of sleep because I had to spend the night doing some all-star wrestling with the man.

  Or squashed with my face right up into the wall in a vain attempt to get away from the man, finding it damn near impossible to breathe because of the erect penis pressed into my back.

  Being afraid that if I breathed out and thereby moved my lower spine—entirely involuntarily, mind you—even a tenth of a millimeter onto his hot member, this would be taken as a sign of encouragement and acqui-escence.

  And then, of course, if I didn’t deliver the goods, as it were, there was the highly probable chance that the gentleman in question would bad-mouth me the length and breadth of Ireland, calling me a prick tease and a frigid lesbian and all manner of other terrible and totally undeserved names. Saying things like, “Oh, she was coming on to me all night. She was fooling no one with that line about not having money for a taxi.”

  To this very day I think I still have a faint, penis-shaped indentation on my back.

  But I believed Adam.

  I knew that he meant it.

  I trusted him.

  I knew that if he said we could just lie there, that he meant it.

  But was that what I wanted?

  Quite frankly, no.

  Yes, I was nervous.

  But, dammit, I wanted to have sex with him.

  If he went all respectful on me, I’d scream.

  “I don’t want to stop,” I whispered to him.

  I suppose there was no need for me to whisper.

  I didn’t want to overdo the nervous little-girl act.

  All right, then, time to be proactive.

  “Em,” I said embarrassedly, “I left my bag downstairs.”

  “What do you need your bag for? Your makeup is perfect.” He smiled at me.

  “Not for my makeup, silly.”

  “What for then?”

  But he was teasing.

  “Claire, would you relax?” he said in exasperation, rolling me over onto my back. “I presume you’re referring to condoms?”

  “Er, yes,” I said, feeling a bit mortified.

  “Well, no need to worry, I’ve some here.”

  “Oh.”

  I wasn’t sure what else I could say.

  His openness had taken the wind out of my sails nicely. He was quite right, of course. What was there to be embarrassed about? All I had to worry about now was whether I’d be any good.

  He kissed me again.

  And things became a lot more serious.

  That kiss certainly put a stop to any lighthearted banter. I looked at him and his eyes were really dark, almost black, with desire.

  “Claire,” he whispered (now he’s at it), “I haven’t, you know, been with someone in a long time.”

  Haven’t you? I thought in surprise.
r />   I would have thought that for someone as charming and handsome as Adam every day of his life would be a sexfest. But, then again, he did seem to be very choosy. More than once I’d witnessed him fighting off gorgeous women. And he’s chosen me, I thought, my heart melting.

  He could have just about anyone and he’s chosen me. There had to be a catch.

  Any minute now, he’d offer to show me his knife collection or whip out a chainsaw and hack me to ribbons.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered back to him. “It’s ages since I’ve had sex either.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  Then he said in a louder voice, “Why are we whispering?”

  “I don’t know.” I giggled.

  There then followed the condom ritual. You know, rustling around in a drawer for it, the crinkling of the wrapping being undone, saying, “Is that the right way? Or does it go the other way?” Finally success in getting it on only to witness the erection disappear.

  Except Adam’s didn’t.

  Disappear, that is.

  Thank God.

  Now at this point I’m afraid that I’m going to have to become a little bit vague. I’m sorry to disappoint you but I won’t be giving you any detailed technical descriptions of my sexual encounters with Adam. (Yes, I hope you noted the plural “encounters”.) Of course, I could give you a description that would read more like a textbook belonging to a first-year anatomy student. And I could make the whole thing sound like a letter to the letters page in a pornographic magazine, all gasps and arching backs and outlandish gymnastics. But that really wouldn’t convey how lovely the whole thing was (well, the whole three things, actually) and how happy I felt.

  Could we just say that a good time was had by all?

  I would be just too embarrassed to tell you that he kissed me everywhere, and I mean everywhere. And that when he wasn’t doing that he was covering me with delicious, shivery tiny little bites.

  And there’s no way that I can bring myself to tell you about the moment when he was eventually inside me. And how I was so afraid that it might hurt and how gentle he was with me. It didn’t hurt and it was beautiful.

  And if you think I’m going to relate how he frantically whispered things to me while he was on top of me, gorgeous things like how beautiful I was and how delicious my skin tasted and how turned on he was, then you’ve got another think coming.