It had been fun to see him on the back foot for once, but when she got to his place he was back in control. He had been utterly charming and had clearly made a massive effort for her arrival at short notice, unless he always lived so well, which she doubted.
His flat was adorned with the latest technology, as she had expected, but he didn’t have PCs all over the place in various states of construction. Rather, there was soft lightning, wine, candles. They’d had a great night in town and then she’d returned to his where he had lowered the lighting further and they had promptly undressed each other, falling over each other in their hurry to get to his bedroom.
They destroyed the neatness of the sheets when she shoved him back onto the bed and he had refused to let go of her, dragging her down on top of him.
She had wondered then if she could trust him. People would inevitably find out about their date when they got back to work, but she wondered how much he would tell. She’d wanted to lose herself with him that night, but couldn’t quite allow herself free reign. Instead, she’d let Jules throw her onto her back and spread her legs. He positioned himself between them, readying her with his fingers before discarding her knickers completely.
She remembered that she could barely move that night. She remembered wondering how she had got to that point and whether or not it was really a good idea considering her future with the company. She had a list of things never to do and dating people she worked with was one of them. It normally didn’t bode well when she broke her own rules.
A vague superstition about impending doom, however, was no match for her immediate sensation, delicious and wet and hot, a taster of things to come that evening.
He played with her clit while he slid his cock in and out of her, proving that he was as expert with his fingers as with the rest of his body.
They moved together in a kind of dance. He led and she held on and yet he was tender and deliberate and meticulous. No gesture was without a purpose, no touch was wasted.
It turned out that all his bravado and all his bragging at her desk when they were alone were justified. He proved himself to be an amazing lover, at least in terms of physical expertise.
They had sex on the bed above the covers and then again in his kitchen, with her bare breasts flattened against the table and his hands on her hips while he stood behind her, fingering her ass and moving his cock inside her pussy.
By the time they returned to the bedroom, later that evening, she’d lost all inhibitions. She shoved him onto the bed again and climbed on top of him, first riding his cock with her hands flat on his chest to steady herself as she raised her ass up and down, easing herself over the entire length of his penis, then allowing his cock to slip out of her before settling above his face so he could lick her pussy.
There was no part of each other that they did not explore in some way that night. That was, physically. There was that word again.
In the morning, she woke up before him and stared at his face. He was handsome in a cheeky, boyish way, even with his styled hair looking less than perfect the morning after. He was smart and despite his arrogant exterior, he had been a sweetheart to her during their entire date.
She recalled thinking that he was nice and that they might make good friends one day soon, but that was all. If they saw each other again out of work, it would be for sex.
She snuggled up next to his warm body, wanting to fit into the shape of his body.
He woke and looked surprised that she was still there.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” he had said and he had kissed her tenderly before reaching down between her legs as she reached down between his.
She had wanted something emotionally deeper, but knew that it wouldn’t happen with Jules.
How right she was.
They saw each other a few more times over the following month, during which period Judy discovered that he had also been sleeping with Clarissa, the intern on the fourth floor, Asia, a motorbike courier they saw every week and Lisa, none other than her next-door neighbour.
She had felt so let down. They had never agreed to be exclusive, but she had wanted to feel special, for more than a night. Just for a while: say, anything between six months and a year would be nice. She'd already given up on forever.
Even now, however, Jules never gave up. He still wanted her and despite her disappointment his yearning for her gave her a secret thrill.
When she was at her lowest, like now, she wondered what he saw in her.
“Do you feel sorry for me?” she asked.
Jules sat back from the screen and stared at her.
“And why would I do a thing like that?” he said.
“Isn't it obvious?” she said.
“No,” he said. “It's not clear to me at all.”
“You're kind,” she said.
“No, I'm not.” He turned back to the machine. “And you know it. Too well. That should reassure you that there's undoubtedly, absolutely nothing wrong with you. This computer, however…”
“I think this course of mine is the equivalent of an upgrade.”
He hissed.
“Upgrades don't always go as planned,” he warned her. “Sometimes the machine just can't support the software. You make the system unstable and you have to spend a week reinstalling the bastard thing.”
“Don't call me a bastard thing,” she said.
“I didn't.”
“Sure you did. You're preparing me for failure with your analogy. And you're right—you're not kind.”
“At least I didn't say that the machine's too old.” He held his hands up to fend off her glare. “I just don't want you to get your hopes up. If you don't get on the course, you can still go away and do something, right? When I say you, I mean we, of course. What are your dates again? I'll make sure I'm free.”
“You're right,” she said. “If it doesn't work out, I'll still go away.” She left him hanging.
She didn't mean a word of it. She felt as though failing to get on the course would be the end for her. She had no idea why so much was riding on it, but now it was at least in part her desperation to prove everyone wrong. If her application wasn't accepted then she feared that she would remain an outline of a woman in a mirror forever. The course was intended to fill her up. Not receiving a place would break her.
“Don't touch this machine,” Jules said, leaving to respond to a call on his mobile.
She prayed that what he was doing to the computer did not fail. She felt that failure of any kind, even mechanical, would be a terrible omen right now.
* * * *
On the following Friday, two exceptional things occurred.
She had just exited the shower, when the doorbell rang and she knew that it would be Lisa. It was Friday night and she'd be asking for help zipping up her dress or finishing a bottle of wine or demanding that she join her on the town.
Judy had accepted her offer once in a moment of spiralling and disastrous optimism. It had been a night not to be repeated. They had arrived at a warehouse that had been 'converted' into a nightclub and the first guy to approach her had said, word for word:
“Hey love, your friend's gorgeous in't she? You're not bad, but she's a stunner? She seeing anyone?”
The evening had gone downhill from there.
She had told herself that she would never go clubbing with Lisa again and she had kept her word, but if her neighbour wanted to come in for a drink, that would be fine. It was Friday night after all.
She threw on a dressing gown and tied it at the waist as she descended the dusty stairs in her bare feet.
When she opened the door it wasn't Lisa at all but a young man with wild, dark hair and extraordinarily deep eyes. They were the brightest darkest eyes that she had ever seen.
“Mark!” she said, shocked.
“Judy,” he said.
Hearing him speak her name sent shockwaves through her body and mind. It was ridiculous, but it was real. She could deny it as much as she wan
ted, but he had had an extraordinary effect on her and he was still dazzling her with a single word and a smile.
He seemed relieved that she was pleased to see him.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but I've been thinking about you.”
“Really? I mean. Really?”
“I wanted to see you again. Last time was...weird.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I was weird.”
“As long as we can talk about it,” he said, “I think we're okay. We can talk, right?”
She thought of what Lisa said the night she had lost her keys.
“Would you like to come in for a drink?” she asked demurely.
* * * *
Judy sent Mark up the stairs before her and watched his bum cheeks as he ascended. For a few seconds, she was gleeful, the blood thundering to her head. He was smart, sensitive, creative and he had a gorgeous bum. too. Boxes: ticked.
Then she had a mild panic attack, because she wasn't expecting special guests and she hadn't had a chance to tidy up. She needn't have worried, of course. The place was as tidy and organised as ever. Compartmentalised. A place for everything and everything hidden from view.
A moment later, she was having the same panic attack for the opposite reasons. It had always pleased her that her place was such a picture of calm and organisation, but now she had the urge to run around messing up the cushions on the sofa and leaving dirty plates in the sink. For Peter, she might have obsessed over whether or not the glasses had been dried and stacked stem up or stem down. For Mark, she wanted to display some sign not only that she lived here but that she was alive here, too. She could not. It wasn't true.
Mark seemed too tall for her low ceilings and too wide for her narrow hallway. His body was not in the league of Jules the IT guy, but he had an air about him, a quality that gave her the impression that her little flat could not contain him.
He doesn't belong here, she thought forlornly. I want him to belong to me, but he can’t.
If her lounge looked as though a team had constructed it from the pages of a fashion catalogue, then he had leapt down a graffiti artist's sketch. He was all wild lines and sharp edges. He fluttered when he moved and, frankly, so did she. His presence shone a light all of its own.
He paused in front of the three landscapes before passing deeper into her main room.
“What do you think?” she asked and when he winced she wished that she could take the question back. She was about to get an honest answer.
“They're beautifully-framed,” he said. “Did you hang them yourself?”
“Subtle,” she said, smirking.
“They obviously mean a lot to you. I don't have to like them.”
“So you don't like them?”
“I didn't come to talk about art.”
She put her hand on her hip, accentuating her waist and enhancing the swell of her breasts, naked beneath the dressing gown.
His eyes flicked over her body. At the same time, she allowed herself to enjoy his body too. He was wearing worn, blue jeans and a simple white shirt. He had three buttons open at the collar and she thought about what it might be like to slip her hands in between cotton and skin. First her hands and then her face, allowing her hair to fall against him, allowing him to take her hair in his hands.
He appeared to be having a similar fantasy, his hands sliding under the folds of her gown, peeling back the flimsy top layer and laying her bare. Although her dressing gown covered her from her neck to her knees, she felt undoubtedly sexy being naked beneath and still wet from the shower too.
Undressing her with his eyes wouldn’t have taken long and then there was the question: what next?
“Why did you come?” she asked.
“I came to talk about you,” he said and then their eyes locked, no more roaming, just an understanding passing between them. No matter what else was going on, no matter how much she felt stupid because of the other night in the gallery, no matter how honest Mark was being with her, the truth was undeniable. The truth was that there was a connection between them that was beyond anything Judy had ever felt before.
“Excuse me a moment while I slip into something less comfortable,” she said.
Jules would have called her a spoilsport then or would have told her not to do so on his account, but Mark didn't capitalise on the moment, which made her question whether he fancied her after at all.
In the bedroom, she talked rapidly in whispers, debating whether or not to return to the lounge wearing nothing at all in order to make up for lost time.
“That's better,” she said when she entered the lounge in tight shorts and a T-shirt. She’d gone for a clothing option between two extremes.
His mouth fell open when she walked in and his eyes smiled at her.
“Wow,” he said in appreciation.
She was wearing her best lacy underwear beneath. Knowing that her prettiest lace was between her outer clothes and her skin made her feel even sexier, changing the way she moved around the room, changing the way she looked at him. Her every movement was pleasurable. Every fibre of her being invited him to touch her.
She pulled at her T-shirt to make sure it was straight and she brushed a hand through her hair.
“You've probably had a good rummage around,” she said, smiling. “In fact, I expect you made a copy of my key and have it in your pocket right now.”
“If I had a copy of your key,” he said, “you would have found me in your kitchen this evening eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon.”
“I'm changing the locks,” she said with mock horror.
She urged him to sit down.
“What would you like? Wine? Red? White? Coffee? Tea? Glass of water?”
She was listing liquids. Idiot.
She was gabbling, because he didn't take his eyes from her and she felt at once safe and exposed. She loved the feeling, but she didn't want to blow it by telling him too clearly. She was supposed to make out that she was busy or disinterested or something, right? She was about as good at relationships as she was at art.
“Glass of water,” Mark said. “I take it you're no longer angry with me.”
She shook her head and explained that Lisa had suggested that it was not yet a crime to wear a white T-shirt in a gallery.
“Not yet,” Mark agreed.
“She also said that you probably really are a writer named Mark Nightingale and that I was being paranoid.”
“Perhaps,” Mark said.
“And an idiot.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“What have you been up to?” she asked, folding her arms and crossing her ankles as she leaned against the wall. She thought that she was doing a good impression of being relaxed, despite her nerves.
“I should be preparing for a big project,” he said, “but I've not been able to concentrate on anything.”
“Oh really?” she said. “What's wrong? Is there something I can do?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe there is …”
“So what's been on your mind?”
“You,” Mark said.
“I promise you, I'm fine,” Judy assured him. “I over-reacted.”
“I don't mean like that,” Mark said. “I was worried about you, yes, but that's not the only reason I've been thinking about you.”
She gave him a moment to go ahead, but he looked so serious then that she was afraid and she blurted:
“I've been painting. Want to see?”
Why couldn't she just stop talking?
“Okay,” he said and that was how she interrupted him but got him into the bedroom.
She'd boxed her recent sketches and paintings, not sure what to do with them, but thinking that they might come in handy if, by some miracle, she really was chosen to be part of the artistic retreat. She glanced at them now as she handed each one to Mark and wished that she hadn't mentioned them at all.
To his credit, he gave each one his attention. To his credit, he held each
one the right way up. She could imagine Peter looking at his son's art homework, under duress, and intoning, in all seriousness:
“That's great, son. Absolutely superb. And what is it supposed to be?”
Judy watched Mark's beautiful face as he gazed at each one. Each time, she hoped, in a deep, deep, secret place, that his eyes would blaze at some point and that their connection would deepen, but the moment never came.
“You don't have to finish,” she said, squirming with embarrassment again.
“You made them,” he said. “I want to see, but I really ought to tell you something.”
“I'm a bit fragile,” she said. “I've had a rough week. Can it wait?”
“It might be a good surprise, or an unpleasant surprise, but I really need to tell you something,” he said.
“I really do need you not to,” she replied. “Just...sit down.”
They sat on the bed. She sat cross-legged and she noticed him looking at her bare legs as she positioned herself in front of him. They weren't bad in these shorts, but they could have done with some sun. With any luck, in a few weeks' time she would get the weather she craved, as well as the country air, with its scents of morning flowers and freshly-mown grass.
She thought of asking him if he wanted to come with her, but they hadn't known each other long enough for that.
Not only that, but she was reluctant to tell him about the course. She felt embarrassed about it. One whizz around an art gallery and she thought she could be an artist.
Having said that, though she had been despondent about her application this week, she now felt the same sense of potential she had felt on meeting him, that sense that together they could achieve anything. The feeling was even stronger now than it had been then, because he was in her flat, in her bedroom, on her bed. A beautiful thing was already happening. A dream was already coming true.
They sat gazing into each other's eyes. The moment she realised that they hadn't spoken for a minute, she became nervous and rooted around for something to say, other than telling him how beautiful he was or how lucky she felt that he’d come back.
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