by Freya North
Zac took her to a pub near Leadenhall Market – not because it was a good stroll away and therefore unlikely to be frequented by his colleagues, but because it was historical with a great atmosphere and he thought Pip might like it. Drinking on a system that had churned so violently with adrenalin was akin to drinking on an empty stomach. Two glasses of Rioja and Pip was burying her head in her hands, wailing. She looked up at Zac, tears prickling her eyes, and whispered ‘Bastard!’
‘Me?’ Zac whispered back.
‘Of course not you,’ said Pip. She wouldn’t be drawn further until another glass of Rioja had lubricated her vocal cords.
‘Boyfriend giving you gyp?’ Zac asked, on chinking empty glasses.
‘Gyp!’ Pip smiled. ‘You’re funny, you are. Bit old-fashioned, aren’t you?’ He noticed she was starting to slur her words slightly. She noticed that, occasionally, there appeared to be two of him.
‘I also say “crikey”, sometimes,’ Zac confessed.
‘My boyfriend,’ Pip said, banging her fist on the table for emphasis, though it landed in a puddle of Rioja that subsequently splashed on her white coat and Zac’s shirt (it was navy, it didn’t show), ‘my so-called boyfriend has a girlfriend, I learn today. And she’s not me.’
‘Bloody hell, Pip,’ said Zac, ‘how ghastly for you.’
‘Ghastly,’ Pip repeated, holding her index finger aloft for emphasis, ‘is an understatement. It’s a downright fucking nightmare.’
‘You had no idea?’ Zac said, his concern etched across a very furrowed brow. How on earth could she have had no idea? Momentarily, they both pondered this. Then Pip shook her head. ‘No clues in his flat?’ Pip thought of the Psycho shower curtain. No matter how much she wanted to hate Jo and presume her to be a complete cow, she just couldn’t credit any woman with buying that comedy shower curtain. So she shook her head. What about the fresh flowers, Pip?
I took those as an indication of Caleb being in touch with his feminine side.
‘I was a bit on the side,’ she shrugged, looking up at Zac, humiliated and hurt.
‘Poor Pip,’ said Zac.
‘Fucking bastard wanker,’ Pip proclaimed, histrionically.
Zac wanted to laugh but of course didn’t. Pip was deadly serious. ‘You found out today and left the hospital on the double?’ he asked.
‘On the double,’ Pip mimicked, Zac’s occasional, trademark quaintness making her smile. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed, looking tearful, ‘he told me today. Then made this big thing about how he thought I knew. How he thought that I was a friend who fucked. How he thought I was cool about that.’
Zac registered the hurt on Pip’s face and decided now was not the time to say that he had fucked a fair few of his friends, too. And in this day and age, perhaps it was a genuine misunderstanding for the doctor to have made. He didn’t tell her because it would have been tactless, but also because there was something about her wide-eyed hurt that in an instant made him review his own behaviour. Though he didn’t think his lax sexual predilections immoral, certainly not reprehensible; but he thought he had perhaps been a little louche of late. More then than now, though. Pip’s outrage made her seem all the more artless and it made him smile and soften.
‘Thing is, my keys, my bag – everything is at St Bea’s,’ she said, starting to sob.
‘It’s no problem,’ Zac said, squeezing her arm, ‘we’ll go together – I’ll go in, if you like. I’m good at bullshit – I have to deal with Customs and Excise the whole time, remember!’
Zac left Pip lurking in the taxi outside St Bea’s. He went into the hospital, smiled charmingly at the women behind the Reception desk and explained that his good friend Philippa McCabe, one of their clown doctors, had left suddenly that afternoon – family emergency – and he’d come with her authority to collect her belongings. One of the women accompanied Zac to the small cupboard-room. He then escorted her back to the front desk. He thanked both women profusely.
‘Family emergency?’ smirked one to the other.
‘Another casualty on Dr Simmons’s ward,’ the other sniggered back.
NINETEEN
‘Look, you’re sharing my cab and that’s that,’ Zac informs Pip. ‘It’s too late and too hot for public transport.’ Zac observes her: though she’s pouting intentionally, she’s swaying without meaning to. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘I’m a gentleman and you’re pissed. So I’ll escort you home and not hear another word.’ Pip giggles. Zac’s right. She is drunk and he is a gent. Fine. Whatever. Taxi. There’s one. Let’s go.
She hugs her bag and gazes out of the window.
‘What do you have tomorrow?’ Zac asks. ‘Can you take some time off? Treat yourself to a massage or have a swim or meet a girlfriend for lunch?’ Pip is vaguely aware that the concern and common sense he is bestowing on her are similar to those which she’d dispense to any of her girlfriends in a comparable situation. ‘A splurge of retail therapy?’ Zac suggests.
‘Are you gay?’ she asks artlessly, tactlessly, but with no malice.
‘What?’ Zac, however, is visibly disturbed. ‘Fuck off.’
‘It’s a compliment,’ Pip says, head nodding sincerely.
‘No, I’m bloody not gay,’ Zac chides defensively. Far from homophobic, he is nevertheless somewhat offended. ‘What the fuck made you think that?’ He’s starting to regret the cab, the mercy dash to St Bea’s, the loan of his office. He reminds himself he always thought Pip was weird.
‘It’s a compliment,’ Pip hurries yet again, embarrassed that she’s obviously hurt him. ‘I only meant because you’re such a good listener and the advice you give is like a girl would give a girl.’
Zac looks out of the window. God, Camden is grim. Someone is puking by a lamppost. A mangy mongrel with three legs lollops across the road, followed by its equally dishevelled and limping owner. A disturbingly respectable-looking middle-aged man emerges from the sex shop, adjusts his spectacles and hails a cab. The smell of kebab and pizza seep into the taxi though the windows are shut.
‘A strong feminine side is a gift,’ Pip is tapping his arm. ‘Gays and women have it – men rarely do.’ Zac looks at her and glances away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘I meant no offence, I just meant that for a hetero boy you are –’ she pauses, ‘nice.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Zac says with equanimity though he’s still smarting a little.
‘Your girlfriend,’ Pip tells him, ‘is a lucky, lucky girlfriend.’
‘I don’t have a girlfriend,’ Zac says.
‘The cinema,’ Pip frowns.
‘She’s just a friend,’ Zac says nonchalantly.
‘Friends who fuck,’ Pip says sadly with a heavy sigh. Zac doesn’t correct her; they’ve passed Kentish Town tube, which she’s told him is her nearest, there seems little point in initiating a heart-to-heart or an in-depth analysis at this point. ‘Right,’ Pip directs the cabby, ‘left! Left again! Second lamppost on the left.’
She gets out, a little unsteadily. Zac remains seated.
‘Can I use your loo?’ Zac asks. ‘I’m bursting.’
‘Of course you can,’ Pip says without a second thought. It’s only Zac, after all. The boy so nice and so sensitive he might as well be gay. She pays the cabby, though Zac protests.
Because Pip has always been at the helm of previous relationships, because her previous boyfriends were all keener on her than she was on them, she has no concept of what the rebound is. She understands the theory and she’s warned many a girlfriend about it. But the signs and urges are unintelligible to her. By the same token, Zac has no ulterior motive on entering her flat. The girl is drunk; he’s been told he’s as good as gay; it’s been a long day. Hardly the ingredients for a frisson to simmer. He’s asked to come in to her flat because he’s desperate for a pee, that’s all. Pip has let him in because he’s desperate for a pee, that’s all.
The sound of a man taking a pee in her bathroom, combined with the effect of a long drink of chilled mineral water
in the familiar and comforting environment of her home, sobers Pip up quite markedly. Zac emerges and she smiles a little sheepishly at him.
‘I feel better now,’ she says, brandishing the Badoit bottle.
‘So do I,’ says Zac. ‘Great bathroom – the mosaic is divine.’ He winces. ‘You’re right, I do sound gay.’
‘Don’t!’ Pip pleads as if the mistaken notion now pains her far more than it can possibly irk him. ‘The mosaic is actually an easy-to-follow kit from Homebase,’ she confides, hoping that to put herself down might make Zac feel better, ‘it wasn’t expensive.’
‘Very industrious,’ he praises.
‘Would you like some water?’ Pip offers.
‘Sure,’ he shrugs. She passes him the bottle of Badoit and he takes a good swig. He looks around her sitting-room. It’s very similar to what he saw of her bedroom. ‘Have you recently moved in?’ he asks, noting the ubiquitous calico blinds, the lack of personal trinkets, undercoat everywhere, the total absence of colour.
‘No no,’ Pip says, taking it as a compliment that it all must appear so pristine, ‘I’ve been here years.’
‘Are you redecorating, then?’ he asks. She frowns. ‘The undercoat,’ he waves his hand around, ‘and, I mean, all your furniture is without covers.’ She glowers. ‘You seem to have hidden all your stuff away,’ he continues.
‘Actually,’ she says, quite icily, ‘this is how I choose to live.’ Zac falls silent. He looks around again, perhaps he’s drunker than he thought, perhaps he needs to blink. He blinks. He’s relatively sober. And it all looks as he thought it had. ‘But there’s no colour,’ he says quietly.
‘You’re too much of a bloke to discern the subtle gradations of tone,’ Pip says primly, despite the contradiction to her previous supposition of homosexuality, ‘too much of a lad to appreciate the fullness of minimal clutter.’
Zac the pacifist pulls on a guilty face though he’d still maintain that Pip’s flat is lonely rather than peaceful, sad rather than serene and cold rather than calm. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he says, ‘I’m a bit of a philistine.’ He takes another thirsty pull at the Badoit bottle. And observing him do so – the way he slants and then closes his eyes, the fullness of his lips, his neck pulsating with every gulp, his physical presence in her space – does something unexpected but intense to Pip McCabe.
Her heartbeat quickens and her mouth goes dry. She’s gone all light-headed and knows it isn’t from alcohol. It’s due to desire. She feels damn horny. Her body is buzzing and her mind is whirring. She’s always appreciated that Zac is easy on the eye but, right now, she actively fancies him.
Genius! The ultimate way to close her ghastly day and put distance between her and the reprehensible Caleb Simmons, is standing a few feet in front of her! She holds out her hand for the bottle. She makes sure her fingers brush his when she takes it. The touch sends an electric impulse surging through her. She keeps her eyes on him as she drinks. She licks her lips when she’s finished.
‘I’d better make a move,’ Zac says because, for a split second, he’s just felt a rush of lust for Pip but he warns himself that, despite weeks of desire, tonight is not the right time for consummation. Or even a snog.
Now, I know Zac is our hero and he really is a hero – gentlemanly, sensitive, amusing, handsome. And Caleb, by comparison, is a downright cad. And our heroine has been wronged today and is hurt and confused. And although she is a clown and he is an accountant and one would have thought that never the twain would meet let alone mix, there is something nicely compatible about these two. But not yet, surely? Tonight wouldn’t be right. Though Pip is sobering up, there’s still enough alcohol and adrenalin in her system both to dictate and skew her inclination. And though Zac is relatively sober, he’s still had a knock, however slight, to his masculinity. They’d have sex for all the wrong reasons and would very probably jeopardize sex for the right reasons in the future. No. They oughtn’t to come together – in any sense – tonight. The timing would be awry. There’s half a book to go, anyway.
‘Mind if I call a cab?’ Zac asks.
‘Sure,’ says Pip, ‘I’ll call one for you.’ She dials. ‘Kentish Town to Hampstead, please. Soon as you like. Forty-five minutes? Jesus!’ She turns to Zac, the receiver cupped under her chin. ‘Forty-five minutes,’ she repeats though of course he’s already heard that.
‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find a black cab – there’ll be plenty.’
‘Shall I try another cab company?’ Pip suggests, hovering her hand over the phone.
‘It’s OK,’ Zac says, ‘as I said, I’ll catch a black cab, no problem.’
But Zac doesn’t move.
Pip offers him the bottle of water and he takes it. He isn’t thirsty. But he drinks. He offers it back. She takes it. She drinks.
‘You’re still in your uniform,’ Zac observes. She does look daft, pigtails jutting out, face grimy, wearing a doctor’s coat emblazoned with patterns and pockets dripping with fantastic plastic. Spotty tights. She’s taken off her shoes. He notices how neat her feet seem.
‘You’re right,’ Pip says, ‘I’d better go and change.’ But she doesn’t. She flops next to him on her sofa. Zac doesn’t leave to take a taxi home and Pip doesn’t change out of her work gear. They both just sit there, wondering how they’re going to do what they know they’re going to do. She knows if he makes a move to leave, she’ll grab him. He knows if she goes next door to change, he’ll follow. So they sit in stillness and silence, wondering who’s going to do what to whom and when.
Pip sighs and stretches her legs out. ‘Do you like my tights?’
Now, in all the come-ons that Zac has had in his sexually active life, no one has coquettishly presented him with a pair of spotty tights for his delectation. The tights are horrendous. But the legs beneath are shapely.
‘They’re awful,’ he says.
She laughs and jiggles her legs. ‘Tools of the trade,’ she says.
‘Nice pair of pins, though,’ Zac says. His hand automatically hovers above her knee. He must make a move – a move to leave, catch a cab, not to touch her. Lightly, Pip places her hand over his and guides it to rest on her knee. She must get out of her tights. Go to sleep. Their breathing is audible and quickening.
‘I must go to sleep,’ she whispers, glancing at his eyes, suddenly unable to look anywhere else. They’re slate-grey. They’re gorgeous and they’re swallowing her whole.
‘I must catch a cab,’ says Zac. He can’t keep his gaze still. It darts from her eyes to her lips to her legs and back again. To her lips once more. They’re moist. Her knee fits into the palm of his hand. It turns him on as much as if he was cupping her breast.
‘Would you like another drink of water?’ she whispers.
‘No, thanks,’ he murmurs back, ‘I must be going.’ He stands up and walks to the door. Pip follows him. ‘Night, Pip,’ he says.
‘Night, Zac,’ she says. He opens the door and steps outside. She closes the door and goes back into her flat. They both breathe a sigh of relief yet kick themselves, too.
Zac easily hails a black cab on Kentish Town Road. He settles himself inside and gives his address. But he tells himself if the next set of lights is red he’ll jump out. It’s green. ‘Stop the cab,’ he says. He gives the driver a tenner. And jogs back to Pip’s.
She’s half-expecting the bell when it rings. She wonders whether it’s advisable to answer the door in spotty tights, her hands providing an impromptu bra. But that’s precisely what she does.
They don’t bother with chit-chat about a dearth of cabs or a drink of water or needing the loo or having to get out of one’s work clothes. Zac steps inside, scoops Pip in his arms and starts kissing her on the lips. The cheeks. Her left eye. Her right ear. That gorgeous dip at the base of her neck between her collar-bones, whatever it’s called. Pip is weaving his hair through her fingers, tickling his neck up and down, running her hands over his shoulders, grasping his biceps, unable to hush her
desirous gasping. They’re kissing deeply, tonguing each other, exploring each other’s mouth for taste and sensation.
Lips are bitten and sucked, necks are grazed by teeth, ear lobes are nibbled, tongues dance. They haven’t made it beyond the living-room. Pip has pulled Zac against her and he has her up against the wall; she’s pressing her body so insistently against his that he hasn’t had the chance to see her bare breasts, to admire them, let alone fondle them, though he’s sure they must be gorgeous. He pulls away, with some effort. And feasts his eyes on her torso. Fabulous. He grunts and stoops so he can take her nipple in his mouth, his fingers kneading, his hands cupping. Pip walks to her bedroom and he follows. She peels off her tights, slips out of her knickers, opens her bedside drawer and passes him a condom. He unbuttons his trousers and he pulls down his boxers. His cock springs to attention and attention is precisely what Pip lavishes on it. He’s so hard, his cock seems to be straining within the skin, his balls tight in their sack, twitching. She kisses each in turn. Kisses the tip of his cock and then lays back on the bed, spreads her legs and watches him roll on the condom.
After such a lengthy prelude, they dispense with further foreplay and head straight for hasty, straightforward penetration. Missionary position all the way. He comes before she’s quite ready but for her, an orgasm wasn’t the point. Her satisfaction is complete – she was desired and she desired.
Caleb, you can fuck off. I’ll be fine. No damage done. I am unscathed.
Zac withdraws and they lie there, panting. Pip is exhausted. He’s at that delicious post-coital state of physical depletion and heady drowsiness. With her eyes closed, Pip reaches for the bedside light and switches it off. She can’t remember drifting off to sleep. But she is certainly aware of waking up.