The Woman Who Knew What She Wanted

by William Coles

  ‘Looks like we have started something,’ Oliver said.

  ‘It’s going to be a daily event,’ I said. ‘Before breakfast?’

  ‘Please not before breakfast,’ Roland said.

  ‘After dinner?’ Oliver said.

  ‘After the pub?’ Roland said.

  ‘We’ll be keeping the lifeboat men busy.’

  We followed a wet path down through the woods to the beach. It was muddy and parts of the path had been turned into a torrenting stream. Oliver slipped, taking out Roland as he careened down the hill. The pair thumped into a silver birch. Roland swore and we laughed. There was this realisation that we were on an adventure. We were all soaked, our clothes drenched, but no one gave a damn. It was a magical half hour.

  After the wet woods, the path meandered through dunes of spiky grey-green marram grass. The rain looked like it was easing off and we could even see a glimpse of sunshine fighting through the clouds. The wind was still crisp. At the top of the last hillock, we paused for a moment before linking hands and tearing onto the beach. A girl fell, taking Oliver with her in a giggling heap. The rest of us were all suddenly ripping off our clothes, as if possessed by this delirious frenzy, stamping out of our wet trousers and hauling the clinging shirts from our backs.

  Was it drink? Had they slipped something into our food? Or was it just this ecstatic release that you can sometimes share with a stranger?

  There was a pause when it came to pants and bras. Were we really going to strip off in front of these people we didn’t know? In front of these people that we’d be working with day and night for the rest of the year? Was that really such a good idea?

  Oliver pulled the stopper of the Armagnac with his teeth and took an almighty swallow before passing the bottle on. Janeen, teeth chattering, gulped some brandy. I can remember Michelle and Tracy, eyes wide at all this heaving white flesh, as they sipped from a bottle of Baileys.

  Oliver had opened the other bottle of brandy. He must have poured a quarter of the bottle down his throat without once pausing for breath.

  ‘Let us do it!’ he said, and with that, he hauled off his blue boxers. We watched goggle-eyed as he raced naked to the sea.

  I am not one to flaunt my nakedness. This was not the sort of thing that I ever did. I had been skinny-dipping with lovers, paddling in warm seas on star-lit nights. But I’d never been skinny-dipping on a frozen English beach with a group of strangers.

  Janeen passed me a brandy bottle. I swallowed. It was rough, like drinking liquid fire and I could feel the liquor razoring the back of my throat. The second shot was easier and suddenly I could feel heat and madness pumping through my veins. I shrieked to the skies, hauled down my boxers, and in an instant I was also tearing towards the sea.

  I hit the water at a flat-out sprint. It was electric cold, jagging at my skin. Arms, legs windmilling through the ice-cold water, I swam at the horizon. I was a wild thing, in a thrashing frenzy to ward off the cold. I watched as the rest of the crew raced into the water, screaming with excitement and with not a stitch of clothing on any of them. It was an extraordinary sight. Young women with swinging breasts and flailing hair, young men with white pasty, padded stomachs.

  Oliver, still with his glasses on, swam over to me. It was still cold, but now at least bearable. ‘It is a good start, yes?’ he said.

  ‘It’s the perfect start.’

  ‘I do not think I have ever managed to get twelve young women to take all their clothes off before.’ He sniffed and then added, ‘At least not as quickly as this.’

  ‘Hark at you!’ I exclaimed. ‘I thought you Germans were doing this all the time.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘It is you little Englanders who are so obsessed with nudity. On the one hand, you are quite terrified of it. Yet in your dark hearts, you cannot get enough of it.’

  ‘You were the first in, though,’ I said.

  ‘Otherwise you would all still be, uh…’ He paused, searching for the right word, ‘You would all still be standing on the beach, quite terrified at your own indecision!’

  We had started to swim back when we saw the horsewoman. She was galloping through the surf on a magnificent piebald bullet, the sea and the sand thundering all about her. Almost directly behind her, the sun was setting low on the horizon. She had her head low, almost touching the horse’s mane. She was so focused on her horse and the sea and the ground ahead of her, that she did not immediately see us. A couple of the girls, wraith white, were shuffling out of the sea.

  The horsewoman eased to a walk, before bringing her horse to a halt in the thin surf. She looked at the girls. She looked at the swimmers’ slick black heads out in the sea. And then she clapped her thighs and roared with laughter.

  She had pulled up just near to where Oliver and I were walking up the beach.

  There was no point in trying to hide my nakedness, so with a touch of a swagger I looked her in the eye. She looked the part, skin-tight white riding britches, a trim beige jacket and brown leather riding boots. The boots reached up to her knees; age and polish had given them a patina of rich chestnut. In fact, now that I think of it, the woman’s clothing was absolutely faultless. Everything was of the very best. She was spattered by sand and sea. I could not tell her age. She was lovely.

  She started to clap.

  I gave her an elegant, practised bow, my hands sweeping out to the side, as if I were on the stage at Covent Garden.

  ‘I wish I could join you,’ she said. Her voice was a deep, confident purr, so seductive. It was the voice of a woman in her prime. I guessed she was in her forties.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I replied, one hand resting casually on my hip. ‘It’s going to become a regular feature.’

  She smiled, open, friendly. ‘And will you be taking many of your Knoll House guests with you?’

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ I said.

  ‘Well…’ I could feel her eyes raking me from head to toe. ‘I better come up and see you then.’

  I watched in silence as she cantered off through the surf and into the distance.

  On the beach, the others were trying to get dressed, but with wet clothes and not enough towels, it was difficult. The euphoria had passed and, like Adam and Eve, we were all suddenly aware of our own nakedness. The girls hid behind towels as they struggled with their trousers, and the guys turned their shirts into makeshift loincloths, tying them tight about their waists.

  I hobbled from one foot to the other as I pulled on my boxers. Only Oliver had no mind for clothes, standing there in his glorious nakedness, the seawater still glittering on his glasses as he drank Armagnac. Michelle and Tracy goggled at him before Tracy rolled her eyes, their own mad swim of five minutes earlier now all but forgotten.

  I remembered the four crisp fifties that my father had given to me – was it really only that morning? ‘The first round is on me!’ I said. Easy come, easy go.

  ‘And the next round,’ said Oliver. ‘That will be on me!’

  It was like a shot in the arm. The team was rejuvenated.

  We went back to the hotel. The shower in a Spartan breeze block outhouse was skin-tinglingly hot, thawing me from the outside in.

  I tossed my wet clothes into one of the hotel’s washing machines and joined the rest of the bathers as we walked to the pub. The Bankes Arms was about a mile away and it was nearly dark by the time we arrived. It was a traditional country pub, with black beams and comfortable chairs. A cluster of oddments decked about the room: animals that had been badly stuffed and Toby jugs and jolly bric-a-brac statues, a cupboard full of games and a wall of books.

  A fire was blazing hot in the hearth. I liked it as soon as I walked in.

  The publican, Michael, was barrel-chested, with a lustrous black moustache and a florid red face. He wore a shirt and tie, with a white apron and clips at his elbows.

  He carefully inspected a fifty pound note.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he said, holding a note up to the light.
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you—’

  ‘It’s just the company I keep.’

  ‘We don’t see many of these.’ He meticulously scrutinised the next note, checking not just the middle strip but also the watermarks. ‘Leastways not from the likes of the Knoll House staff.’

  ‘Maybe I’m different.’

  ‘There’s no doubt about that, young man!’

  I asked for a Guinness and offered Michael a drink. He had a pint of the local bitter and would sip from it occasionally as he delivered the drinks to the rest of the staff. Individually, they all came up to thank me; some introduced themselves, some not.

  I was touched.

  Janeen came over. She was voluptuous, poured into tight blue jeans and with a clinging V-neck T-shirt. She had full lips that were thick with scarlet lipstick. She came straight up to me and, without a word, kissed me full on the mouth.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said. ‘I like your style.’

  ‘And I like yours,’ I said. I leaned over and kissed her straight back. She smelt of perfume and salt and vinegar crisps.

  She let out a rich peel of laughter. She was always laughing. ‘Does that mean you’re my boyfriend now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I took a first sip of Guinness, my eyes never once leaving hers. ‘What would your other boyfriends say?’

  Tracy and Michelle were watching, bemused and enthralled at what was being acted out in front of them.

  ‘I do like your style,’ she said. She was drinking a pint of lager top. When she sipped, an erotic trace of white foam stayed on her top lip. The glass was red with her lipstick.

  She was from London, she told me, and, like Darren had worked at the Knoll House the previous year. They’d dated for a while, but apparently things worked better between them when they were just friends.

  Like me, Janeen had no idea what it was that she wanted to do with her life. She told me about the unusual spelling of her name. ‘My dad was such an idiot!’ she said. ‘They’d decided on my name, so he went off to the register office to register my birth. He doesn’t have a clue how to spell Janine, so he just spells it like how he thinks it ought to be spelt: J-A-N-E-E-N. What a wally!’

  She grabbed my hand. ‘You’re all right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to the snug.’

  ‘The snug?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re gonna snog in the snug.’

  ‘I’ll bet you’ve never used that line before.’

  Still holding my hand, she led the way to the back of the pub.

  ‘Are you any good?’ I asked.

  ‘Me?’ she crowed. ‘I’m the best you’ve ever had!’

  ‘And I’ve had a few.’

  She turned and raised a suggestive eyebrow.

  ‘I bet you have, you dirty beast.’

  The snug was the smallest snug that I had ever been into. There was just enough room for a small curved banquette and a round wooden table. There were two candles on the table and it reeked of cigarette smoke.

  A young couple were already on the banquette. I recognised them from the beach.

  ‘’Ere!’ Janeen said. ‘Richard, Anna, get your skinny arses out of here! We need this snug more than you do.’

  It was all very good natured. ‘Anything for the king of the skinny-dippers,’ Richard said. He was slight, with a central parting and a thick unruly mop of hair. He shook my hand as he walked out of the snug. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

  Janeen cackled. ‘So everything’s up for grabs, right?’

  Anna smiled as she stepped out of the snug. She had a lovely smile, but I rarely heard her speak. Of all the staff, Anna was the shyest.

  Janeen and I squeezed past the table and onto the leather banquette. The walls were dark, all but black in the candlelight. Janeen’s thigh was pressed tight to mine. She clapped her hand on my knee.

  ‘The snug,’ she said.

  ‘And the snog?’

  There was no build up, no elusive pecking as her lips roamed round mine, no gentle glide from kisses to open-mouthed abandon. She kissed me hard on the mouth, her tongue immediately wet between my lips. I don’t know what perfume she wore, but if I were to smell it now, it would be immediately underpinned with the tang of crisps and the smell of smoke and beer.

  Janeen was all over me, her hands quickly working their way under my shirt, bludgeoning me with her open red lips. It was surprisingly unerotic. It might perhaps have been many men’s ultimate fantasy, to be ravaged by this houri within moments of meeting her. But as we kissed, I found that I was strangely dispassionate, not so much aroused as curious as to what would happen next. How far would she go? How far would I go? Would she want to sleep with me that very night – and if so, would I go through with it? Did I even want to sleep with her? I didn’t know.

  I had had my eyes closed, concentrating on the texture of Janeen’s lips against my own. I opened them. Janeen’s eyes were already open. Inches apart, we stared at each other. She broke off and drank more lager.

  She ruffled my hair. ‘I am the best, aren’t I?’

  I said the only thing that could be said, ‘You are the best.’

  ‘You know what I figure?’ she said. ‘We could have pussyfooted around. But at the end of it all, I fancy you, you fancy me, so why not just get on with it?’

  ‘A good philosophy,’ I said. ‘So does that mean we’re going to bed later too?’

  ‘You are a dirty beast.’ Another wet kiss. ‘I don’t normally sleep with guys I’ve only just met. But seeing as you asked so nicely…’

  ‘You’ll make an exception for me?’

  ‘God, I love kissing you.’ She straddled me, her knees on the banquette and her blonde hair hanging in a light curtain about our cheeks.

  ‘You don’t like kissing me. You just like kissing,’ I said.

  ‘I can like both, can’t I?’

  ‘Course you can.’ I slipped my hands under her T-shirt and my fingers roamed about her back. ‘So along with being an A-grade kisser, are you also an A-grade lover?’

  She smiled at me, wicked, taunting. ‘What do you think, my dirty, dirty, little beast?’

  ‘Well…’ I let the word drag out. ‘You’re not a virgin. At least,

  I don’t think you are.’

  ‘Dirty,’ she said, kissing me again. ‘So very, very dirty.’

  ‘I’m not dirty,’ I said. ‘I’m just cheeky.’

  I think I was enjoying the banter more than the actual kissing. Was it possible that I would be able to laugh her into bed with me? I was thinking about it very clinically. It’s not that I wanted to have sex with Janeen, but I didn’t not want it either. I was curious. I had never once come close to sleeping with a woman that I’d only just met. So, from that point of view at least, I was up for it. It was something new and fresh and untried and therefore, almost by definition, had to be experienced.

  I idly looked over Janeen’s shoulder. Darren was staring at us. He was drinking a pint of lager and just standing there watching us. I had not seen him since we’d left him at the hotel to go swimming.

  ‘Don’t look now,’ I whispered in Janeen’s ear. ‘Darren’s watching the floor show.’

  She turned round and gave him the finger. ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do than watch us snog?’

  He glowered, drank more lager and walked off.

  ‘Bless,’ Janeen said. ‘He can be really sweet.’

  ‘Just jealous,’ I said. ‘I bet once upon a time, it was him who you were snogging in the snug.’

  ‘Right where you’re sitting now,’ she said. ‘Though snogging was only the half of it.’

  ‘Anyway, moving swiftly on.’

  ‘Yes, what were we talking about?

  ‘We were talking about your virginity,’ I said. ‘Did you really offer it up to me tonight?’

  ‘Please don’t be gentle with me.’

  It was my turn to laugh. Normally, I’m the one with the rapier repartee, but Janeen could more than hold her own.

&nb
sp; Oliver poked his head into the snug. ‘At last I have found you!’ he said. ‘May I have the pleasure of buying you lost lovers something to drink?’

  ‘You certainly can,’ Janeen said. She wanted another lager top.

  ‘A lager top?’ he said. ‘What is the top?’

  ‘Lime cordial,’ she said. ‘Though blackcurrant’s all right.’

  ‘I will try it.’ He shambled off to get the drinks.

  We went back to kissing. Suddenly there was a terrific crash from the bar, followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass. Everything was still.

  Janeen broke off and looked at me quizzically.

  ‘Sounds like it’ll be another few minutes before we get our drinks,’ I said.

  ‘You think that was Oliver?’

  ‘Who else was it going to be?’

  ‘What’s he going to be like as a waiter?’ she asked.

  ‘It’ll be interesting to watch.’

  Janeen attacked my mouth again. The problem with this full-on kissing, and nothing but tongues and wet lips, is that it all becomes rather mechanical. You have an awareness of this shared intimacy, but after a while your mind starts to wander.

  I remember thinking, Do I really want to make love with Janeen tonight? I was sure that she would be energetic, and doubtless depraved. I was not at all sure if it was what I wanted. One thing was beyond doubt: it was definitely a very bad move. Taking a new colleague off to bed on the very first day of work? It was nothing but the most feckless recklessness. But on the other hand, Janeen was sexy and up for it, and I was bitterly single and had been for many months, and to boil all my ambivalence down into just four little words. Why the hell not?

  Oliver delivered our drinks. He was wearing another cardigan, yellow this time. It was wet and stained all down the front.

  ‘Coming to join us?’ said Janeen.

  ‘Yes please.’

  With Janeen now perched on my lap, legs to the side, there was just enough room for Oliver to sit next to us on the banquette. A candle toppled over as he squeezed past the table. I righted it.

  I was pleased to see him. Kissing Janeen had been quite exciting, but in short order it had become monotonous.

  ‘How you doing?’ Janeen asked Oliver, stretching over and ruffling his hair.