She heaved over, closed her eyes, whacked but cock-a-hoop. All the things she disliked about her body, Michael seemed to cherish. This morning she had felt a mess – lumpen, plain and stupid – now she was voluptuous, and probably a genius. She especially loved the way he’d been with her in her come – not a separate being, distanced and apart, but participating, merging, so that every move or noise she’d made had been somehow his as well. Always before, she’d felt frustrated and depressed that however close you were to someone, there were still barriers and boundaries, demarcation lines you couldn’t cross. She had never managed to slip out of her skin and merge with Rob or Gavin, so that they’d become one flesh, one soul. But Michael broke through barriers, ripped off separate skins.
Suddenly she tensed. His finger had edged between her buttocks and was exploring that intensely private part of her which even Michael mustn’t touch, which nobody had ever touched, which was totally proscribed.
‘Relax,’ he urged. ‘You’re so tight I can’t get in – not even with a finger.’
‘No, not there. I …’ It was difficult to speak. Her bottom was humped up, her voice muffled by the sheepskin, and he was now using not his finger, but his tongue. The sensations were extraordinary – the hot tongue sidling in, lapping round the rigid ring of muscle, trying to expand it, force it to release a little, then boring further in. She had never associated that area with pleasure, only with locked doors, bad smells, crude jokes. But the pleasure was exquisite, almost indescribable. And now his bristles had come into play as well, rasping at her skin; the tiny stroppy prickles magnified to rapiers as they snagged and scoured against her. She was crying out again, no longer saying ‘no’; no longer saying anything, but making high shrill noises, eyes screwed up, hands clenched. She heard a plane rumbling overhead, the windows shaking as the noise accelerated – booming, roaring, blotting out her own cry, then dying down down down, as she too sagged, subsided.
‘You timed that well,’ said Michael, sinking back himself. ‘Pretty powerful sound-effects.’
She kept her face pressed against the coat, didn’t want to look at him, or joke. What he had done was incredibly important – accepted her in total, no part of her too intimate to be labelled out of bounds. Even her liberal mother could be coy about the ‘dirt-chute’, but Michael had abolished all idea of dirt, all crudity and shame.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I? I restrained myself deliberately, only used a finger. But once you’ve loosened up a bit …’ He laughed and slapped her rump. ‘God, Tessa, the things we’re going to do together! We’re made for one another, d’you know that?’
Yes, she whispered silently. I do.
‘I’d better have a wash,’ he said. ‘And I think we need a drink – a very long and cold one. Be an angel, will you, and rustle up something from the fridge.’
‘Okay.’ She sat up slowly, shook her tousled hair back. ‘But could I borrow a dressing-gown?’
‘What for? We’re on our own. And I like to see your ass bare, and all that marvellous flesh, the way it slightly ripples as you move.’
‘But supposing all your friends barge in?’
‘They won’t. Only Josh and Tristram live here. Josh is still on duty, right through to the morning, and once Tristram’s got his bum on a banquette and a Guinness in his fist, he won’t be back till closing-time. Actually, I wouldn’t mind a beer myself, though I bet he’s scoffed the lot. See if you can find some juice. The kitchen’s two doors down. Ice in the freezer, glasses in the sink. You’ll have to wash some up.’
It seemed strange washing glasses in the buff, and she could see her naked breasts reflected in the window-pane. The nipples were erect still, as if awaiting their next course. It astonished her that Michael hadn’t come yet, seemed intent on thrilling her, rather than snatching his own pleasure, then losing interest, sloping off. ‘The things we’re going to do together,’ she repeated to herself. ‘We’re made for one another.’ She could see a picture in her mind of some snowy-bearded God, creating not Adam and Eve, but Michael and Tessa; shaping their voluptuous limbs and wild dark matching hair from a speck of dust and spittle, then leaving them to play, naked and for ever, in a garden full of passion-flowers.
She was almost surprised to see a tea towel in her hands instead of lotus or hibiscus – and a very grubby tea towel, fraying at the hem. Michael and his fellow doctors were clearly neither natural cooks nor cleaners. There was more dirt around than food, and all she could find in the battered though capacious fridge was a half-empty carton of orange-juice, three tomatoes and a hunk of mousetrap cheese. The freezer part was encrusted, frozen solid, so that she had to chip the ice trays out with an egg-slice and a knife – cold work, with nothing on.
‘I think I need a hot drink after that,’ she grinned, brushing ice-strands off her breasts, as Michael sauntered through the door, swathed only in a towel.
‘Help yourself. We’ve even got some decent coffee – or we did have yesterday.’
‘A common or garden tea-bag will do fine.’
‘In that yellow jar there, right next to the kettle. Actually, we should be drinking champagne! I haven’t told you yet, but I’ve got this marvellous job – the two-year rotation at Newcastle. I kick off with a six-month stint in casualty, then for the following six months I’ll be working for a brilliant bloke who’s moved up there from Bart’s – a real whizz who’s in the news a lot, and has just brought out the latest tome on prosthetic valve replacements. And the rest of the time, I’ll be doing general surgery in their brand-new theatre suite. It’s an extremely big catchment area, so I’ll get every sort of case – not just all the routine stuff like hernias or appendectomies.’
Tessa slumped down on a kitchen stool. The only word she’d really heard was ‘Newcastle’, which was the other end of England, almost into Scotland, an eternity away. She could see the map unfolding in her mind, the mocking miles of motorway stretching on for ever. Even the coach fare would eat into her grant, be more or less impossible to raise.
‘I’ll be madly busy, swotting for my fellowship, as well as coping with the job itself – which is why I’m glad I’m starting off in casualty. You see, it works on a shift system with a one-in-four rota, and that means far less extra unpaid work and a more structured sort of day. In this job, we’re all over the place and can’t make definite plans, but up there it should be easier, because when we’re off we’re off.’
He plugged in the kettle, then poured himself some juice. ‘I must admit I’m relieved. I’ll need that time for flicking through my text-books and getting the old neurones back in shape. They also give us study-leave and …’
Fine, thought Tessa, wonderful – three hundred miles between us, and his precious new free time already earmarked for revision, rather than for her.
Michael dropped an ice cube, scooped it from the floor into his glass. ‘Tristram’s got a job as an anatomy demonstrator at Guy’s, which gives him practically half each day free. He keeps telling me what a fool I am, going straight for a surgical rotation. The first part of the new fellowship exam is pretty bloody tough, you see, so we’re all a bit het up. But in my opinion he’s the fool – wasting a whole year – besides the fact that a demonstrator’s job is boring boring boring. I’ll be in the thick of things, involved with real live bodies, not cutting up corpses. Hold on! The kettle’s boiling. Bung a tea-bag in that mug and I’ll fill it up. Sorry there’s no milk. It was Tristram’s turn to buy it, but the lazy sod forgot as usual. Sugar’s in the bag there. Shove some extra in, to make up for the milk. Right – you can toast me in Typhoo now.’
‘Congratulations!’ she stuttered out, then did her best to concentrate while Michael expanded on the advantages of Newcastle – the cardiothoracic centre (which offered the widest range of treatments in the entire United Kingdom); the wealth of other experience he’d get in general surgery; the first-rate teaching, the buildings, the equipment; the beauty of the countryside, almo
st on their doorstep. ‘It sounds great,’ she faltered lamely – that countryside so far away, it seemed out of focus, blurred in chilly mist. Yet Michael had edged closer, slid an arm around her shoulder, while he moved on to the details of his work in A & E – the hours he’d be on duty, the convenient closeness of the motorway, which would hurl car-crash victims straight into his arms.
‘When do you actually start?’ she asked, recoiling from the pile-ups, and examining instead the way the hair grew on his chest. It seemed a waste of his bare body to have it pressing close while his whole attention was on CT scans and ventilators.
‘August the first. And I won’t get finished here till the fucking night before. The system’s bloody bonkers! Theoretically, one contract ends at midnight on July the thirty-first, and the next one starts at eight the following morning. And I’ve got to pack up all my gear, drive two hundred and fifty miles, and then clock on, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at Newcastle bloody General. As for sleep, forget it!’
She tried her best to sympathize, but continued to be distracted by his nakedness, his dark and tangled pelt. The hair was longer on his chest, curly on his stomach, more downy on his back, though with a rougher swatch just across his shoulders. His pubic hair was darker still, a black impenetrable thicket, which seemed to call attention to his prick, insist she looked at it.
He noticed the direction of her gaze, steered her hand there too. ‘Hey! Why don’t you come up with me – spend a week or two up north? I get a hospital flat, and no one knows or cares whether I bring a friend to share it. I’ll be up to my eyes – that’s the crazy system – but if we choose a time when I’m not on nights, at least we can make up for it in bed. And there’ll be loads for you to do while I’m on duty. I know people say Newcastle’s a dump, but there are some very decent bookshops, and half a dozen cinemas, and several theatres, including the Theatre Royal, which even puts on Shakespeare when it’s not awash in musicals …’
Tessa wasn’t listening. Who cared about the Theatre Royal, when she would have Michael to herself in bed? She’d be living in his flat, part of his new life, there when he got back each evening. All the different images were swarming in her head – she and Michael making love from dusk to reeling dawn, breakfasting together, hiking in the Cheviots, driving to the open pounding sea. She flung her arms around his neck, kissed his face all over. ‘Oh yes, yes, yes – yes, please.’
He laughed. ‘So I’m to take it you approve of the idea?’
She nodded. ‘Approve’ was a paraplegic word, a feeble car-crash victim. ‘Adore’ would be more accurate – exulting, crowing, sending up a fifty-gun salute. He had mentioned just a week or two, but couldn’t she extend it, make herself indispensable, an asset, an attraction which he couldn’t do without? Her second year at Oxford didn’t start till mid-October, so she’d be free of any ties. Even her mother wasn’t expecting her, since she’d planned to stay in Juxon Street for most of the vacation. They had to pay the rent there from the beginning of July, whether they actually took up residence or not, so she’d more or less decided to get a job in Oxford and avoid the disadvantages of home – the intrusive noisy lodgers, the constant mess and clutter, and having to play gooseberry to a canoodling Ken and April. According to her mother’s letters, the romance was blossoming. She was happy for their sakes, but now she had the chance to cultivate her own romance, a world away from that cramped and dreary semi in a soulless suburban street.
She should be able to get a job in Newcastle – waitressing, or bar work, or maybe even coaching. She’d have to earn enough to pay her Oxford rent, but there were no other major outlays. Michael had his car, which would save the expense of fares, and he’d probably buy the food. She could pay him back in lots of ways – transform his flat, for instance. She’d always been good at making things artistic, and a hospital flat in Newcastle was bound to need a face-lift, if not the kiss of life. Perhaps he’d invite her each vacation, come to need her there. The Oxford terms were only eight weeks long, which meant she had twenty-eight free weeks a year – six months to spend with Michael. She glanced around his kitchen. It no longer looked so slovenly. She’d been far too harsh and critical, ignored the high ceilings, the basic fine proportions of the house; dwelling on its shortcomings because she was angry with its tenant. She drained her tea, toasting not just Michael now, but the two of them together, in their new life, new flat, new roles.
Michael tipped the last few drops of orange-juice directly from the carton into his mouth. ‘Another thing I plan to do is take up parachuting. A mate of mine has been doing accelerated free-fall at this marvellous place in Alnwick, which is spitting distance from Newcastle. He’s always raving on about it – how he’s learning turns and back-loops, and jumping from twelve thousand feet – so I thought I’d have a bash myself. I don’t know whether it turns you on, but we could try a weekend course together.’
She stared at him, incredulous. Parachuting seemed as exotic, as astounding, as forming a new colony or hunting unicorns, and way beyond her means. It was the sort of hobby Charlotte might take up, subsidized by ‘Daddy’. Michael must mean he would pay; knew she had no money of her own.
‘But how will you find time?’ she asked, still not daring to believe it might actually come true. Michael’s leisure was as rationed as her cash.
‘I’ll make time. And anyway, I’ll need a break from slogging – something really different which gets the old adrenalin going.’
She spread her arms out like a bird, went flapping round the room, too hyped up to keep still. Parachuting seemed the perfect symbol for the way her life was taking off. She was flying high, winging to new places, spiralling and soaring, defying gravity. ‘Oh, Michael,’ she exclaimed, pretending to crash-land at his feet. ‘I can hardly wait!’
‘Well, we’ve still got a bit of free-fall to catch up with in the bedroom, but if you keep bopping round like that, with those marvellous bouncy tits of yours jiggling up and down, I won’t be able to wait myself, and I’ll shoot my load all over the kitchen floor.’ He removed his towel, thrust his pelvis forward in a body-builder’s pose. ‘See what an effect you have?’
She sheathed his erection in both her hands, excited by the way it twitched and swelled beneath them; seemed another, separate Michael, as hot-blooded as its owner.
‘Quick!’ he urged. ‘Tea-break’s over.’
He pulled her into the bedroom, leaned against the wall, legs apart and braced. ‘Kneel on the floor between my feet. No – you’re not quite high enough. Fetch a couple of pillows and kneel on those. That’s it.’
She was aware that he was bossing her, but was willing to obey – happy to do anything now she knew they’d be together.
‘Edge in a bit closer, and rub your nipple up and down my prick. Fantastic! Now the underside, along that little puckered seam there. God! It feels exquisite, very cool and light. Now try to push the nipple into the tiny little opening in the tip. I love that – it’s a turn-on. Are you all right? You’re looking a bit off.’
She nodded, steered her nipple back into the slit. She wasn’t ‘off’, just amazed at all the different things two people could do. And it needed concentration, to keep penis-tip and nipple in close contact, to make sure the pressure was just right – deep, but very light.
‘Don’t stop. It’s magic! You’re a natural, Tessa, honestly. I could come like this, you know. Except I won’t. I’m saving that for later.’
She squashed both breasts together, made her cleavage into a second cunt, so he could butt and thrust between them. It was strange to see his prick so close, to watch its every movement, instead of it being out of sight, submerged. Suddenly, it was moving to her mouth, and he was leaning down to cup his balls, push them right against her lips. ‘Try these,’ he said. ‘They’re rather good to eat.’
She kept her mouth tight shut, felt daunted and uneasy. They looked so ugly – large and lumpy, streaked with coarse dark hairs. Yet how could she refuse, when he’d kissed every part
of her? She closed her eyes, tried to do as he directed; slide the left one into her mouth, hold it very gently there, as if it were a bird’s egg and she mustn’t break its shell; then knead it with her lips.
‘That’s wonderful, stupendous! Now try to get them both in.’
She tried and gagged; was terrified of choking, didn’t like the taste and feel of these very foreign bodies in her mouth; the tangled hairs rough against her tongue; the flesh saggy and yet bloated, both at the same time. But she had to admit it gave her a real sense of power to see him so aroused, hear his sudden exclamations, as he praised her skills, her body, told her she must have been a courtesan in another, earlier life.
His prick was swelling, preening, nudging right against her face, begging for its turn. She could no longer ignore it, though she was sure her mouth would be too small, that it would cram and swamp the confining space, and still insist on more. Already, she was retching as it plunged against her throat.
‘Keep going! It’s quite brilliant. But use your teeth. Bite hard.’
She was thrown by his demand. The sex-books all advised you to be gentle, to shield your teeth behind your lips, not to bite at all; warned you how you could hurt a man, how sensitive he was.
‘Harder! You won’t hurt me. I can scarcely feel it yet. Yes – better – even more.’
She used her teeth more fiercely, shrugging off the sex-books. Why not play the role of courtesan, the one she’d been in a former wilder life? Delilah wouldn’t gag, would relax her throat, breathe deeply. And Jezebel would enjoy herself, not keep worrying and holding back, doubting her own skills. Why not savour the experience of him filling her whole mouth, the strange taste of his prick – part salty, part stale pee; his wild intoxication, as he lunged and shouted out? He must be coming, surely, when he’d reached such fever pitch. She had never had a man come in her mouth, but Delilah wouldn’t spit him out; would encourage him, suck harder, focus on his pleasure, not on her own fears.
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