by Wells, Nicky
‘Ready.’
‘On three. One…two…three!’
We each slammed our glasses on ‘three’ and instantly downed our drinks. The second shot was even better than the first. I rubbed my hands eagerly. ‘Again!’
‘Really?’
‘Yes! Go on!’ I pushed my glass towards Mike. He hesitated for a second but refilled our glasses.
‘On three. To your very good health.’
I raised my glass in a toast before positioning it on the table for the slam. ‘And yours. A-one. A-two. A-three.’ Bang, fizz, bottoms up. I was definitely getting the hang of this.
Suddenly, Mike stood in front of me. He seemed to be swaying slightly.
‘Shall we go in the lounge, maybe?’ he suggested and held out his hands. I noted they were shaking, and inwardly I laughed. Now who wasn’t holding his drink?
‘Yesh. Do lesh,’ I agreed. ‘Lounsh. Good. Lesh go sit on the sss-ofa.’
I stood up and held onto Mike so he wouldn’t fall. Together, we wobbled into the lounge, but not before I had grabbed the bottle of bubbly off the table.
‘Be a sh-shame to waste it,’ I explained.
‘Absolutely,’ Mike concurred softly. He took the bottle out of my hand and placed it carefully on the coffee table. As he straightened up again, he tripped over my feet and staggered. It was all I could do to break his fall, and we toppled over in slow motion, him on top of me, until we miraculously came to rest on the sofa.
‘Why, hello,’ I joked. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’
‘Emily…’ Mike’s voice was hoarse.
‘Mike.’ Mine was breathy. Mike loomed tall and powerful above me, his liquid eyes swimming in and out of focus, his breath warm on my skin. He raised himself up on his elbows and held me in his gaze.
‘Emily,’ he repeated, now with a distinct tremor. ‘I… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t come here to…’
I never found out what he meant to say. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his face close to mine, close enough so I could kiss him on the mouth. His lips were hot and tasted of tequila, and I ran my tongue around them until I heard Mike groan with lust. I let my hands wander down his back until they came to rest on his buttocks, and I pressed him closer towards me so that I could feel his excitement pressing into my hips. Good!
I put my hands into the back pockets of his jeans and dug my fingernails into his buns as hard as I could, and Mike bucked and ground by way of response. His breath was coming in ragged bursts, and I could see his pulse throbbing in a vein on his neck.
‘I want you so bad,’ I whispered in his ear.
‘Is that so?’ he teased as he placed a hand in my hair and yanked my head back roughly. I sucked in a breath as I erupted in a delicious shiver all over. Unable to move now, I lay still and waited. Slowly, ever so slowly, Mike bent to kiss my neck, starting at the delicate spot right under my left ear and working his way down towards my breastbone. Down he progressed and further down, until he reached the swell of my breasts. My nipples were doing a fine job standing up taut and proud, and I was dying for him to touch them. As if he were reading my mind, he reared back slightly before lowering himself to nip and suck and lick, never mind I was still dressed. The feel of the fabric, rough and moist from Mike’s mouth, augmented his every action on my tender skin. Fireworks exploded in front of my eyes, and the room began to spin.
Mike took his sweet time teasing me. His hands rubbed me gently and, as he had done once before, he smoothly fingered his way into my jeans and to my sweet spot. His fingertips danced and massaged, circled, entered, withdrew and hovered, until I literally didn’t know if I was coming or going. The torture was exquisite, the pleasure divine.
‘Emily,’ Mike suddenly breathed into my ear before we could lose ourselves completely. ‘Are you sure you want this?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I’m sure!’ I moaned. ‘Don’t stop!’
Alas, there was more on Mike’s mind.
‘But we’re just friends, right?’
I rolled my eyes. For weeks I had been fantasising about Mike’s particular brand of animal passion. I had felt guilty about it even though I had no reason to, but I wanted it. I wanted him really bad.
‘Just friends,’ I reassured him in a panted, near-hysterical whisper. ‘No strings.’
At last, Mike didn’t press me further. He kissed me fiercely on the mouth while he deftly undid the buttons of my shirt with one hand. I barely noticed what he was doing, so wrapped up was I in feeling and sensing and floating on a delirious cloud of sexual and alcoholic intoxication. At some point, my jeans came off, as did his. My clit was moist and hot and swollen hard, a throbbing mound of pleasure that eclipsed my brain and my heart as vital organs, and every time Mike brushed against it, an orgasmic tsunami of epic proportions gathered pace. It released the very moment Mike entered me, washing over me and consuming me whole until my consciousness faded into swirl of warmth and darkness and fireworks.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Ugh.’
I opened my eyes but saw nothing but darkness. My tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth, and my teeth were covered in fur. My head pounded painfully, and every joint in my body throbbed with a dull ache. On the plus side, there was a delicious residual heat between my legs that left me suffused with joy. What a mixed bag of emotions. If only the fog in my head would lift, perhaps I could work out what exactly had happened to me.
Carefully, I rolled onto my side and let my arms dangle over the side of my bed. The movement dislodged my tongue from my palate, and I gagged. I would have to get up and brush my teeth, maybe have a drink of water and perhaps a couple of painkillers while I was at it.
I contemplated this course of action for a moment while I continued staring into the darkness. Quite unexpectedly, I could see a glass of water hovering in mid-air. The vision was so vivid that I could count the beads of condensation running down the side of the glass. The water had to be ice-cold. I licked my lips eagerly. Was I hallucinating or meditating? Or both?
My bladder interfered before I could get to the bottom of this cognitive conundrum. Where thirst hadn’t managed to propel me out of bed, the need to relieve myself did, and at some speed too. I rolled onto the floor with a resounding thump and got to my feet unsteadily. The room was cold, and I shivered. Perhaps I was ill?
Oh God. Not ill, but certainly naked, I diagnosed as I flicked on the bathroom lights. It wasn’t like me to sleep in the nude. What on earth had I been up to?
I washed my hands and splashed some cold water on my face. I brushed my teeth, too, and managed to dislodge the worst of the fur. Next, I grabbed my dressing gown and padded into the kitchen to get some water. A most peculiar sight greeted me.
The sink was filled with soapy water in which two saucepans and a frying pan had been left to soak. The draining board was laden with clean dishes and glasses. On the table stood a bottle of tequila—half empty—alongside a bottle of sparkling wine—empty—and two bottles of ordinary wine—also empty—flanked by two shot glasses. Two, mind. Two glasses, four bottles.
A voice murmured in my head. Golden slammers. Are you sure you’re up for this?
‘Mike.’
The events of the evening came crashing back to me. I breathed hard to suppress a wave of nausea—damn him for being right about that hangover—and poured myself a glass of water. I sat down cautiously while I sipped gingerly. Mike. We had dinner. And shots. And sex.
Lots of sex. At least two lots. Possibly three. I grew dizzy trying to recall. After the first few shots, we had gone to the lounge, where we had sex on the sofa. Then we went to have a shower, and we almost flooded the bathroom when Mike accidentally let go of the showerhead whilst pushing himself home. So to speak.
When, amid much giggling, we finished mopping up the excess water on the floor, we repaired once more to the kitchen where we—well, I—tidied up in between more shots.
I frowned, trying to remember how many more rounds we h
ad done then. Three? Four? There wasn’t much left in the bottle, really. Did that mean we had loads of shots, or had they been big shots each? Had Mike had more than me?
I clung to that idea gratefully. I was sure he probably had two shots for every one of mine. That would explain why there were three empty wine bottles. Three! I shuddered and swallowed down another bout of bile. My tummy was roiling spectacularly, but I wouldn’t be sick. No way, José. Not me, not this night. Emily Trenden would prove to herself that she could hold her drink. Breathe, Emily, breathe, and think of something else.
After the third bottle of wine was empty, we went to bed. I frowned. Was that it? Maybe it was. Because I couldn’t for the life of me remember anything else… Oh no. Hold on.
I had a vision of me sitting on top of Mike, pretending to ride a horse—I winced—and swirling my previously discarded bra over my head in lasso-wielding cowboy style whilst Mike’s hands had assumed vital brassier-type functions until the friction between my hips and the pommel—yes, pommel, had we really called it that?—of my ‘saddle’ became too much and… Yeah, well. Oh God. No wonder I felt like I did. But oh, what an experience. So totally worth it! I felt purged of the demons of my unexciting youth.
Purged.
That was exactly how I felt. My mind latched onto this notion and wouldn’t let it go. It was as if I had made up, in one spectacular night, for all the crazy drinking sessions I had never taken part in at uni, and for all the mad irresponsible wanton one-night stands I had never had. Luckily for me, I had chosen a kind man, and there would be no bad blood. I had chanced upon a fantastic, generous and—let’s face it—big man. A really, really big man, and a rock star to boot, one with a golden voice and with plenty of experience of giving pleasure, but with no romantic expectations, no strings.
And now I was done. My one wild night had freed me from the obsession that had grown during the few snatched moments on tour. I had lived the dream of Emily Trenden, wanton sex goddess and multiple seductress, woman of wild, if out of character, excess in all areas, and that would do. I giggled.
‘Talk about getting it out of your system, right?’ I joked to myself, suddenly feeling a whole lot more alert than when I had first woken up. And I stopped as if frozen. Because that was exactly it. I had needed to get something out of my system, and that was what I had done. Maybe I was going through some kind of pre-midlife-crisis.
What would that be called, I wondered idly, momentarily sidetracked by the notion; quarter-life crisis? Nearly-thirty-crisis?
Either way, what my crisis or not-crisis might be called was irrelevant. The point was that after spending most of my twenties focusing on building my life for security and stability, I had tried a different me, if only to make sure that I wasn’t missing something. And yes, I had enjoyed myself tremendously and in previously unimagined ways, there was absolutely no denying it. But still, the feeling of purged-ness was showing me the ultimate home truth loud and clear. Much as I had enjoyed finding some weird, if shallow, revelation in drink and sex, this different me wasn’t really me after all.
My mind boggled from all this introspection. Gradually, one thought rose to the surface clear as day. Well, actually, it was a whole family of thoughts. What I wanted was, in fact, security and stability. I wanted a good job, but I also craved excitement and creativity.
Moreover, I wanted love and a steady, happy relationship. Yes, I wanted sex, but it had to be love-sex, not mad-animal-passion-sex. Fireworks were great, but they were exhausting. Nobody and nothing could burn that bright for any length of time. It was an illusion. It was a trick. No wonder the French called it feu d’artifice, a ‘trick fire’. But I didn’t want a trick, I wanted something real, something solid. I wanted Nate.
And so I came full circle at my kitchen table in the middle of the night in the company of four bottles, two glasses, and a sleeping rock-star-cum-sex-god next door. I had realised that I still loved Nate a few minutes before I succumbed to Mike for the first time, and put my realisation on the backburner in view of Nate’s blatant—if entirely understandable—lack of interest in me. I had taken a journey of personal exploration and discovery. I had given myself over to reckless—if fantastic—sex with another man, indulging myself in dribs and drabs at first but culminating tonight in an all-out two-person orgy. I had emerged on the other side intact but subtly changed. And at the end of it all, I still wanted Nate.
‘Now what, Emily?’ I challenged myself. ‘Do you really think Nate will want you back simply because you’ve had the epiphany of all epiphanies? He doesn’t know. He wouldn’t care if he did.’
True. Very true. Undeniably, painfully true. But! I held up a stubborn ‘be quiet’ index finger to my realistic self and argued back. You don’t know if he ever got any of your messages. You don’t know whathappened to Nate. Until you’ve actually seen him or spoken to him, you can’t be sure. Anything’s possible. He might have been hit by a bus and suffered from amnesia.
I laughed at myself. ‘Probably not.’
Yet I had a point, and I conceded it gladly. I would simply have to try and see Nate face to face. Only that way would I know, one way or another, for certain. I would try to do so first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, I had better go back and grab some more sleep. I switched off the lights and tiptoed back into the bedroom.
Of course, Mike was still in my bed, snoring ever so softly. I smiled. I hoped that things wouldn’t be too awkward in the morning. After fumbling for my pyjamas and putting them on, clumsy in the dark, I crawled back into bed beside Mike and planted a little kiss on his sleeping face.
‘Thank you for setting me free,’ I whispered. ‘You’re a star.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
‘So.’ Mike stared at me hard over his coffee cup. ‘I sense a sea change in you. You’re not cross with me for last night, are you?’
‘Who, me? Don’t be silly.’ I took a sip of coffee to stall for time while I tried to organise my words in my head. We had woken late, and my brain was trying to get used to the fact that I was at home on a Tuesday morning, having a lazy breakfast with a gorgeous, if no longer madly desired, rock star.
‘But?’
‘But nothing, as such.’ Damn Mike and his keen perception all over again. ‘It’s just…’
‘Aha! There is a but!’ Mike laughed as he pounced. ‘Go on. Spill. You love me truly madly deeply, but you don’t want my babies. Have I got it in one?’
My turn to laugh. ‘Almost. I don’t want your babies, and I don’t love you truly madly deeply. I love you, a lot, as a friend, but…’
‘Ha!’ Mike gave a drumroll on the table. ‘And the lady issueth the “but” after all.’ He grinned and nudged me gently. ‘It’s all right, sweetie, I thought we’d already done the whole “friends” talk.’
‘We did?’
‘Didn’t we? When we said goodbye in Bristol?’
I frowned and tried to recall our exact conversation. ‘I don’t remember saying that in so many words.’
‘You said you’d follow me on Facebook.’
‘Yes, that I did.’
‘So that means we’re friends.’
‘Duh.’ I poked him in the ribs. ‘Only in the loosest sense. But hey, you’re digging me a hole here. I do want to be friends. I’d like that. Very much. It’s just…’
‘You still love your ex?’
I inclined my head and didn’t answer, fearing I would burst into tears instead. Mike cupped his chin in his hands and looked me deep in the eyes.
‘Quite apart from the fact that I am crushed, simply crushed, that you should use me and cast me away like…like…like a spent tissue, how come you’re still hankering after the man who hasn’t bothered to return any of your calls for weeks?’
‘Ouch.’ I reeled, unsure how to respond. ‘Mike, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to use you or hurt you. It just kind of happened.’
He erupted in a gale of laughter. ‘Silly moo, I was only teasing. We said “no strings”,
remember? We’re both consenting adults, if slightly under the influence. I was only teasing you!’
‘Oh. Ah. Well. Good.’ I scratched my head. ‘Right.’
‘But your ex,’ Mike prompted. ‘How come you’re still subjecting yourself to this whole unrequited love thing?’
‘It isn’t unrequited. Well, it wasn’t, until I threw him out. I still… I love him. Yes, still,’ I insisted before he could question me again. ‘I need to talk to him. I don’t know if he even got any of my messages. And last night, or rather, earlier this morning, when I needed a pee and a glass of water, and I ended up sitting in the kitchen looking at those four bottles, and I thought about everything that happened, and I realised—’
‘Slow down,’ Mike interrupted. ‘Take a breath occasionally. I can barely follow what you’re saying.’
I breathed as instructed and collected my thoughts. ‘It’s simple. I need to talk to him. I won’t believe that he won’t hear me out until and unless he actually physically tells me that. To my face. Until then, I’ll always wonder.’
Mike nibbled at his toast. ‘He’s a lucky man, your ex,’ he muttered thoughtfully. ‘I hope somebody will love me like that one day.’
‘Oh my gosh, Mike, of course they will. When you’ve met the right person, you’ll know. And, of course, you’ve got to be ready. Right?’
‘You what?’
‘You’re not ready, right? You’re not in that space. You told me yourself. You said you were in lust with me, not in love. And that you’re an opportunist.’
I was fairly sure that was what he had said.
‘You’re right. But of course, I did also say that if we’d met under different circumstances…’ Mike hung his head and put on a crestfallen face. For a moment, he had me convinced, but I saw that mischievous smile playing at the corners of his mouth. I tossed my napkin at him.
‘You’re pulling my leg again.’
Mike deftly caught the napkin before it landed in his coffee mug and threw it back at me. ‘Course I am. But can we be friends? Despite last night?’