The house is quiet, almost eerily so. I make some tea and head upstairs, past Anne’s office. No sound emanates from it, but I’m certain she’s in there, staring at the screen or researching something in a book, or perhaps simply sitting in her armchair thinking, trying to weave together the various strands of her narrative, meld the mythological elements with the contemporary. As usual, I’m jealous, thinking of her embarking on this great creative adventure. How satisfying and exciting it must be to write a whole book. To create something from, basically, nothing.
Carrying on up to my room, I console myself with the thought that I am a little bit further along that road than I was this time a week ago. Then I’d barely gone past the starting line. At least now there may be a story on the way, and I’ve filled several pages of my journal. The shell has cracked, and I’ve begun to fight my way out, into the light, and follow my dream.
Although I don’t really feel like it, I force myself to open my notebook and, after a slow start, I manage to write several more pages – not of the story, but of my diary. I describe the fiasco with Anne, the botched spying attempt, the peculiar lunch, the looks exchanged with the handsome waiter. And when I’ve done that, without any real forethought, I find myself writing about the waiter – a fantasy of what might have happened had I been alone with him, the last customer in the restaurant late at night, sipping a brandy while he polished glasses and cutlery, readying the tables for the next day’s lunch service.
And he comes over to me. In the flicker of candlelight from my table, his complexion seems darker than I’d thought, perhaps Mediterranean. A rich olive brown. I think of the beaches of St-Tropez, of Cannes – of rows of bodies slick with oil, toasting to the dark gold of demerara sugar beneath the blazing August sun. He’d be at home there, with his honed, muscular body; at home in a pair of tight lime-green Speedos that accentuate the firm handful folded within, which turns so many heads on the sand – of both sexes.
‘I suppose you’re coming to throw me out?’ I say. ‘You do have a home to go to.’
He smiles, and there’s mischief in his eyes. ‘There’s nothing says I have to go home just yet,’ he replies softly. There’s a gentle provocation to his tone. He takes hold of the back of the chair opposite mine. ‘Do you mind?’ he says, but he’s already pulled it back before I reply.
‘Be my guest.’
When he sits down he reaches over and, without taking his eyes from mine, pulls my glass towards him, lifts it and takes a hefty swig. Then he puts the glass back down.
‘So how come you’re dining alone?’ he asks. His English is idiomatic but his accent gives it a sexy French overlay that makes me melt.
‘Sometimes alone is good.’ I smile in what I hope is a subtly alluring, mysterious way.
He smiles. ‘They do say that, don’t they? That to be known, you must first know yourself. And the same with love. You must learn to love yourself before you can expect anyone to love you.’
Beneath the table I’m rubbing myself through my dress and my knickers. There’s such an invitation in his eyes, but in line with his words it’s an invitation that’s not necessarily bound up with him, with the expectation of my taking this encounter over the line into something physical.
‘Is that good?’ he says, and I realise that he can see the movement of my arm and has guessed that I’m playing with my pussy beneath the table.
My mouth opens but I can barely release a word, so inflamed am I now. Of course, I wanted and intended him to be aware of what I am doing, but now that I am sure that he is, I’m feeling almost freakishly excited. I’m unable to speak, so quickly am I losing myself to the sensations I’m calling forth in myself.
Beneath the table I slip off my high heels, so that with my feet I can gain better purchase on the floor. Then, pulling up my dress, I push my hand inside my knickers. The froth of my pubic hair against my hand thrills me further; I feel wanton and illicit. Then I realise that the waiter, too, has slipped off his shoes, or at least one of them, for I feel bare flesh against the tender flesh of my inner thigh. I release my hand from my pussy and grab the foot, pull it up towards me. Wriggling his toes, the waiter begins to probe my wetness.
Throwing my head back, I strum at my clit while he continues to move his toes around my lips and my hole, dipping in and out with his big toe. My hands are on my breasts now, squeezing, tweaking, as ecstasy takes hold. I spread myself wider, push myself onto the waiter’s foot, my eyes closed, unable to see the look on his face.
I open them at last, as I ride the cusp of my climax, in time to see the chef standing in the doorway, still wearing his toque. Only then, as he takes it off, do I realise that this chef is a woman. A very attractive one too, with a swathe of dark hair, almost black, that cascades down her back like silk, and almost ferociously blue eyes. I was already coming, but the fact of our eyes meeting across the room at such a critical moment pushes me over the edge, so that I’m crying out, unabashed in my joy, my hands clenching around the sides of the table.
As I flop back in my seat, still not taking my eyes from her blazing blue ones, I hear the waiter say, ‘Ah, Sandrine, there you are. Are you going to join us for a nightcap?’
I sit bolt upright and …
I have to stop writing there, I’m getting so wet. I can’t carry on, can’t concentrate on the words any more; they’re fluttering around like butterflies, failing to alight on the page, dancing and shimmering and impossible to catch. I’m losing control of them as my excitement mounts.
I bound over to my bed, lie on my side and, pulling my knickers aside, start fingering myself. I’m absolutely dripping down there. I stretch for the bedside table and take out my Rock Chick, then I kneel up, open my legs and feed it into myself. I set the vibrator mechanism for extra clitoral stimulation and I’m away with the fairies, thrusting and grinding and swivelling my hips. When I start to tire, I roll over onto my back and continue the same basic motions. Soon I’m biting the back of my hand as I try not to scream out when I hit jackpot.
Afterwards I lie there spent, idly fingering my pussy, still damp but a little numb now. It’s a kind of warm, drowsy numbness that I love. I feel I could fuck myself some more, in a little while, but that first I might like to lie in a swoon, dream, think about James, and the boy, and my fantasy waiter. And the chef, that sultry raven-haired beauty who made such a surprise appearance towards the end of my piece.
Of course I could have gone on writing, could have brought her over to our table, allowed her to get involved in our game. What stopped me? I said I was getting too excited to carry on, but was I being disingenuous? Was I perhaps just afraid, afraid of what might happen if I let her enter the scene? Am I blocking out some of my desires through fear, to the point where I don’t even recognise them as mine?
Confused, I get up, take a shower and head downstairs. I make a cup of coffee and then head into the living room and settle down on a floor cushion by Anne’s shelf of photography books. I flip through a few, unable to find what I want, then I come across a bunch of images by Man Ray. One of them, Juliet et Margaret, is a solarised photograph of two women entwined, bare breasted. Patterns are drawn on their faces: leaves, flowers. I find the image exotic, beautiful, alluring. I was a big fan of the Surrealists during my studies. I wished so hard I could travel back in time and be one of them. They seemed to fear nothing, be open to boundless experimentation.
I look again at the girls in the photo. What would it be like to be with a girl? It’s a question I’ve never consciously posed myself, but looking at the image, I wonder why not. Suddenly it seems not only that there’s a whole world of experience out there that I have been denying myself, without any real grounds, but also that I’ve been barricading myself in, erecting defences about things without due cause. What’s the worst that could happen if I tried it out with a girl? I could hate it, and so I would stop. I could be terrible at it, and she would make me stop. Or I could like it, love it even, and then what? I would carry on,
want to do it some more. Would that make me a lesbian? It would depend how good it was. But, if it did, it would be because it was really good and I’d want to do it again and again and again.
So there’s nothing at all to be afraid of. Either I’ll like it or I won’t. Only if I like it a huge amount will I be forced into making any major decisions or any great life changes. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I reshelve the books and head into the kitchen for a snack. I’m just heading out with a peanut butter and jam sandwich to take up to my room when I run into Anne.
‘Peckish?’ she says.
I smile sheepishly.
‘Well, you didn’t eat much lunch,’ she says. ‘And one needs to keep one’s strength up.’
Remembering that she paid for my largely uneaten food I start to apologise, but she holds up her hand. ‘You just weren’t in the mood,’ she says.
She passes me by, goes into the kitchen. I hear her mutter something and, not knowing if she was talking to me, say, ‘Sorry? Did you say something?’
Still with her back to me, she says, ‘Oh, nothing really. Just that – I thought maybe you should have tried the oysters after all.’
I narrow my eyes. It’s as if she’s been reading my mind, or spying on me. Not that I could complain, after my stalking antics of this morning. But I decide to be brave this time, that it’s time to start asserting myself.
Sensing this, knowing that I haven’t gone upstairs, Anne turns around and meets my gaze.
‘I was just thinking the same.’ My whole body tingles. ‘I was just thinking that perhaps I’d like to try oysters after all.’
Anne smiles. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
We’re upstairs in Anne’s study, looking at pictures on the internet, pictures of girls. Not pornos – just pictures of actresses and models, most of them fully clothed if not entirely naturally posed and at ease. Anne’s trying, she says, to find out what kind of women I like.
‘How about her?’ she asks, stopping at a girl who looks a little like the French actress Emmanuelle Béart.
‘Too –’ I stop. I don’t know what I feel about her.
‘Too innocent?’ suggests Anne, leaning in for a closer look at the screen. ‘She’s beautiful, that can’t be disputed. Or should I say, beautiful according to Western conventions. But some people might find her too childlike, too doll-like, with those huge eyes, the full lips. The strange symmetry of the face. The scrubbed aspect to her. Too clean. ‘ She clicks back to Google.
‘So you say you’ve never had a girl?’ she says, and suddenly I feel like yelling at her: I’ve told you that already, twice in fact! Why do you keep making a big deal about it? How many women actually have slept with another woman, if only once? Have you?
The way she’s setting about finding me a woman, as if it’s some kind of project or mission, has me wondering about Anne all over again. This sex at arm’s length she seems to get off on – what’s that all about? She seems surprised that I haven’t ever done it with a girl, but at least I’m doing it at all. Anne’s sex life doesn’t seem to have any substance, to be all watching and no joining in.
Sensing, perhaps, my exasperation, Anne doesn’t wait for an answer but keeps clicking on links, bringing up pictures for me, asking me whether this girl or that girl does it for me. You’d have thought doing this together might bring us closer, might make us co-conspirators. You might imagine doing this with some people over a few glasses of wine, as a laugh, giggling and taking the piss out of each other. But not with Anne. The atmosphere is leaden, ponderous. I can’t help but think that Anne is taking this too seriously. But I daren’t challenge that, daren’t try to lighten things up. She, as ever, is in charge, even if I took some sort of initiative for once.
In fact, thinking back to a few moments ago and the conversation in the kitchen, I wonder if Anne hadn’t already laid some trap, which makes a joke of my so-called initiative. Sure, it was me who had the fantasy of the waiter and the female chef, which seems a little absurd to me now: I wonder whether I’ll ever finish the story. But it was Anne who sowed the whole lesbian idea in my mind, and she who prompted me in the kitchen, by continuing with her oyster innuendo. So I can’t be said to have reached this decision by my own volition.
Sensing that I might be getting cold feet, Anne turns away from her screen. She’s canny enough to know that, if she pushes me too far, too fast, I might panic, and then she’ll lose me. The last thing she wants to do is to scare me away.
‘I ought to be getting on with the novel,’ she says, and her tone is a little regretful, although I can’t tell if it’s real or put on. Perhaps she has grown bored of my dilly-dallying, my noncommittal attitude. Or perhaps she’s had a sudden inspiration for her novel and needs to get on with it before it’s evaporated.
I stand up, knowing that I’ll outstay my welcome if I don’t go now.
She looks up at me, and there’s a sort of scrutiny in her eyes, as if this time it’s she who is trying to figure me out.
‘You could always carry on alone,’ she says, ‘if it makes it any easier.’
At my raised eyebrows, she continues: ‘It’s not easy, disentangling what one likes from what one’s been led to believe one likes. What one thinks one should like. What is acceptable. You have to strip away all those social conventions and expectations. Who knows? You might find you like bull dykes in dungarees. Or big busty porny blondes, at the other end of the spectrum. Or maybe demure girl-next-door types do it for you. Here –’
She scribbles something down on a piece of paper and thrusts it into my hand. ‘That might help.’
I look down. It’s a URL. ‘Thanks,’ I mutter, unsurely.
‘Just take your time,’ she says. ‘There’s no hurry.’
I turn away, wondering what’s in store for me when I log on to the site. As I’m closing the door behind me, leaving my mentor to her work, I hear her say, ‘Happy hunting.’
‘Thanks,’ I mutter, although she spoke so low, she could almost have been talking to herself.
Downstairs I sit in front of the laptop but find myself staring out of the French windows at the back of the house over the rather overgrown garden, full of withered herbs in pots and long moribund grass. A cat strolls past and gives me a cursory look. I wonder if I should offer to help sort out the garden. It would be good to spend some time outdoors, with a purpose. I feel as if I am accomplishing nothing.
I look back at the computer, call up the internet browser and type in the URL that Anne wrote down for me. It’s a site, as I might have imagined, devoted to nude women. But it’s all very tasteful – there are artworks by various international artists, some pretty trashy but others rather good. One of the first things that catches my attention is a series of photos of nude sculptures found in Denmark – Copenhagen, specifically. Some are outdoors, in parks, while others are in museums. Among the latter, an image of a woman bending forwards, arms clasped behind her and restrained by a rope in the small of her back, above curvaceous stone-white buttocks, unexpectedly intrigues me. Is she bound against her will, or assenting to the restraints? The photograph is taken from behind the statue, so it’s impossible to see the expression on her face, if indeed she even has a face.
I’m frustrated by the lack of detail regarding the work – what it is, who it’s by and where it is, should I choose to go and see it. I suppose I could always email the photographer, if I really wanted to know, or even the Copenhagen Tourist Board. But it’s not that important. Instead I navigate my way back to the homepage and start looking at the photographs.
All at once I feel like a kid in a sweet shop. There are thousands of women here, of all colours and shapes, from skinny to voluptuous, from Black African to Scandinavian. Many of them are simply breathtaking. I feel a pulse of stress, a headache taking root in my temples. How am I supposed to know what I want? How is anyone ever supposed to know what they want, when there is so much choice out there? Making a choice necessar
ily means limiting oneself, narrowing the field of possibilities.
And what is Anne asking of me here? She wants me to tell her my type, so that she can furnish me with a woman I like. That’s not been said explicitly, of course, but it’s what lurks below the surface. Anne is helping me to find myself, helping me to open up to the world of experience that I have been denying myself by denying my unconscious urges, and in doing so helping me to become a writer. Again I ask myself what’s in it for her, beyond a voyeuristic thrill. Is that enough? Can’t she get all this from the internet, from films and artworks?
I look back at the screen. This is a challenge, I tell myself, and I have to prove myself equal to it. It takes self-discipline, concentration. Stripping away the layers, the self-consciousness, takes effort, as Anne has warned me.
I look at one of the girls. She’s blond, Swedish perhaps, with large green eyes. She reminds me of a girl at school, someone who was a year ahead of me. I’d never really noticed her until I was in the lower sixth form and she in the upper sixth. I still can’t really explain how I felt at the time, but I developed a sort of excessive interest in her. At the time I thought it was just envy: the desire to be like her. She was cool, with cropped hair, daringly boyish, and slanting, catlike, sea-green eyes. She wore jumble-sale macs over hippyish skirts and Doc Martens. She smoked and drank. Lots of boys liked her but she disdained them, said they were boring and stupid and uncultured. She wrote poetry, talked about avant-garde Polish films.
Yes, I did want to be like her, but, looking back now, I think that it may have been more than that. I think it may have been what’s called a crush. Of course, there was a lot of that going on at an all-girls school. Another girl in the upper sixth was said to have an unhealthy fascination with our French teacher, or rather our French assistante – a girl from Paris, taking a year out of her degree to get teaching experience. The girl, Alice let’s call her, worshipped this assistante, but it was rumoured to be more than that – little can remain secret when lots of girls are closeted in a dorm together, and the word in the school corridors was that someone had been in Alice’s bedside drawer, sneaking a peek at the diary that was hidden beneath her undies, and found lots of doodles and scribbles suggesting erotic yearnings for the Parisian. The girl who slept next to Alice claimed to have heard her wanking one night, sighing and moaning beneath the sheets, in the darkness of the dorm. She said she wouldn’t swear on it, but she was convinced that Alice had muttered, ‘Sylvie, Sylvie,’ as she’d come.
The Apprentice Page 14