by Louise Voss
I pulled them slowly down over her thighs, kissing her wispy strip of pubic hair as I did so, making her laugh. Her flesh was so pale, a few freckles dotted here and there. I could smell her, that sweet, unique smell, and I heard a sudden intake of breath as I stroked the inside of her thighs.
I moved upwards again and kissed her neck, feeling her hands go down to my shorts, pushing them down. All the while, I felt detached, as if I was watching myself do this, as if this wasn’t really me. But it was me. I was wriggling out of my underwear when that thought really struck home: this is real.
Suddenly, I felt gripped by nerves. I heard Emily say, ‘Have you got any condoms?’
‘What?’
‘Condoms. Rubber things.’ She smiled in the half-light.
‘Yes.’ I pulled open the drawer of my bedside cabinet and groped through it. I had some Durex that I’d bought from a pub vending machine a few months ago, one night when I thought I might be able to find someone to come home with me. I found them and pulled a condom out, knowing as I did so that something had just gone wrong.
‘Oh, shit,’ I said.
‘What is it? Did it break?’
‘No.’ I sat there, holding the condom in my hand, looking down at my penis. There was no way a condom was going to go on while it was in that state.
Emily smiled. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be silly. And if you say this is the first time this has happened I’ll be really offended.’
‘But…
She shushed me and leaned in to kiss me again. She opened her eyes. ‘You’re trembling. Are you cold?’
’No, I’m…’
‘Come on, let’s get under the covers.’
She pulled the quilt up over us. I felt so stupid. What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I feel so nervous? I felt wretched with shame. I wanted to get up, leave the room, ask Emily to go home, so I could go back to my sad, solo existence. I moved to leave the bed but Emily stopped me.
‘Alex, it doesn’t matter. Stop worrying and just kiss me.’
I did.
‘And there are other ways to make me happy, you know.’
Her flesh was so warm and her voice was so soft. Even though my penis still wasn’t behaving, I knew I wanted to be here with her: this close to someone, this intimate. I slid under the quilt and trailed kisses over her breasts and belly, down between her legs. I kissed her, then licked her lightly, circling her clitoris with my tongue. I heard her groan, far off in the distance, then I continued to lick her, feeling her thighs press against my ears, hearing the roar of the ocean as she covered them. She tasted salty and sweet. She tasted delicious.
When she came, she bucked so hard she nearly broke my nose.
We lay together in the darkness, the bedside lamp now switched off, Emily stroking my chest as we talked in low murmurs. After a while, I felt myself drifting off, having resigned myself to the fact that my stupid bastard body wasn’t going to do what I wanted it to.
I don’t know how many hours had passed when I woke up, emerging into a half-asleep state, my muscles fully relaxed. I could feel something stroking my penis – my hard penis.
I could barely see Emily, just feel her, her breasts and thighs brushing against me, her fingers stroking me delicately. Then she pulled herself on top of me. She was quite heavy, but it was a welcome weight, especially when she took hold of me again and guided me into her. For a second, as I stared into the near-darkness, I saw Siobhan sitting astride me, her eyes closed in an expression of bliss. But in the same moment, that vision disappeared, wiped out by a flash of light inside my head, a rush of colours.
‘God…’
I was dimly aware that I wasn’t wearing a condom, but it was too late to stop. The sensation was too sublime, the relief that I wasn’t a flaccid failure too great. Emily came forward and kissed me and a moment later I came.
She kissed me again and lay on top of me for a while. Then I heard and half-saw her get out of bed and pad down the hallway to the bathroom.
‘We didn’t use a condom,’ I said when she came back to bed, her body cool against mine.
‘It will be okay,’ she said.
And now it’s the next morning, and Emily’s just gone – she’s going to be late; hope she doesn’t get in trouble. We’re going to meet again tonight. She said she’ll bring over a bottle of wine, a video and a pizza. It’s bizarre. It’s as if…as if I have a girlfriend.
Something happened before Emily left that showed me that she really likes me. The phone rang and Emily answered it because I was in the toilet.
‘Who was it?’ I asked when I came out.
‘I don’t know. They hung up as soon as I said hello.’ She looked suspicious. ‘You don’t have another girlfriend, do you?’
‘No – of course not.’
She looked at me for a few moments, eventually saying, ‘Hmm.’
Then she kissed me goodbye. And when she left I had to suppress the urge to run around the room punching the air. She had slept with me. She wanted to see me again. And, not only that, she had got jealous because she thought another woman had called for me.
I almost felt like calling Siobhan to tell her she didn’t need to worry about me pursuing her any more – not now I’ve found someone who likes me.
Chapter 19
Siobhan
Thursday
I’d been trying to work up the courage to call Alex all week. Rehearsing in my head what I’d say to make him give me back my money; whether I’d be calm and reasonable, or threaten him, or maybe even shout – although I’m not a good shouter. I feel like a faulty valve on a pressure cooker when I shout – once I start, I can’t stop, and that terrible feeling of spiralling out of control always ends in tears. So no, I dismissed the idea of yelling at him. Calm and reasonable with a hint of a threat would be best, I decided. A little reminder that his four weeks is almost up, and I need my money back. I’ve had the clothes, including the lingerie, cleaned, and I put them all in a bag – a nice Karen Millen bag with string handles, not a crappy Tesco carrier or anything – ready to hand to him in case he wants them back in exchange for the cash.
I was still dithering about whether to turn up on his doorstep (rape alarm in my hand in case he tried to grab me, of course), figuring that it would be less easy for him to fob me off if I was standing there in person; or whether to just phone. In the end I decided to drive down to his flat, call him from the car to see if he was in, and then ring the bell.
I looked up his address again in the register for the writing class and drove straight there this morning before I changed my mind. I remembered him telling me that he wasn’t working at the moment, apart from writing - ha, has he got some disappointment ahead of him - so the morning should have been a good time to catch him. I felt odd at the prospect of seeing him. Almost excited, bizarrely. It has been said that love is the closest emotion to hate, and I like the poetic notion of his love and my hate mingling to form something explosive and…. God, did I really just say that? Get a hold of yourself, Siobhan. It’s clearly been too long since you last had sex.
Anyway, I reached his house, a nasty 1940’s semi with porridgy pebbledash and wonky crazy paving up the drive. You wouldn’t think a house that small could be divided into flats, but there were two bells, and I knew Alex’s was B. Was B ground floor or first floor? Upstairs, presumably. I parked a couple of houses away – not too far, in case I had to make a dash back to the car – and with a clear view of the (scabby) front door.
I dialled his number on my mobile. After two rings it picked up, making me jump. There was a short pause, during which I assumed an answer machine was about to click on, then a woman’s voice. Sort of sleepy and smug-sounding. I was so surprised that I terminated the call immediately. But then I thought about it, and decided that she was probably just his flatmate’s girlfriend. I’m sure that he told me he lived with a male flatmate that time we talked after Kathy’s funeral.
Actually, I was pleased that she’d answered the phone. It gave me the courage to get out of the car and walk towards his front door, knowing that another woman was in the flat. He couldn’t possibly try anything with her there – unless I’d stumbled on a Fred and Rosemary West-type scenario, heaven forbid. I made sure that my finger was poised over the button of my rape alarm, and my pepper spray was in my jacket pocket for extra back-up. Despite my trembling hands, I felt brave. Look at me, I thought, confronting my fears, exposing my demons. I want Alex Parkinson to know that I am not a woman to be toyed with like a cat with a mouse. I can give as good as I get!
Just then I heard the front door begin to open – and my much-vaunted courage dissipated like steam from a kettle. Feeling foolish, I hurled myself behind a tree which was conveniently growing out of the pavement, pressing myself close to its tough urban bark. Its girth was just about wide enough to conceal my own.
A youngish, fattish girl came out. She looked flushed and slightly dishevelled, and her clothes were rumpled. Yesterday’s clothes, I thought. You go, girl. Alex’s flatmate’s girlfriend must have stayed over last night. Her mouth was twitching at the corners, and then she broke out into a huge grin, which she tried unsuccessfully to hide by staring down at the crazy paving. I know a freshly-shagged woman when I see one. I felt a pang of envy, and idly wondered if Alex’s flatmate was in any way fanciable.
She turned and began to walk away, thankfully in the opposite direction to my tree. I was about to emerge from my hiding place, albeit with more qualms now that my potential back-up had left the building, when I heard a sharp knock from the upstairs window of Alex’s house. The girl wheeled around, no longer trying to hide the beam on her face, and waved exaggeratedly. I followed her gaze up to the window, which was when I saw – Alex. Not a flatmate at all. Alex!
Gone was the furtive and somehow downcast expression I was used to seeing him with, the one that made him look as if he was afraid of getting sand kicked in his face on the beach; the one that trumpeted ‘I have a grudge against the world’. It wasn’t even the intense, lustful expression with which he’d stared at me in my living room that time. His face looked so different – open and delighted. He waved back at her, then blew her a series of kisses, which I imagined pressing themselves through the glass and flying over to the plump girl, alighting on her hair and face like tiny white butterflies.
Unbelievable. There was no mistaking the sexual energy, even with twenty feet, a flight of stairs and a replacement double-glazed window between them.
Unbelievable!
I ducked back behind the tree, waited till Alex vanished behind the net curtain and the girl’s exhilarated humming had faded into the distance along with the tap of her heels on the pavement, then slunk back to my car and drove home.
Four hours later, and I still can’t believe what I saw this morning. The more I think about it, the more furious it makes me. I’m so angry that my hands are shaking and I’ve bitten nearly right through my lip. After everything he put me through! After him hanging around, breaking into my house, following me, professing his undying love for me, stealing my money, poisoning my cat – after all that, he goes out and gets himself a girlfriend?
Maybe he had one all along. Perhaps he’s married to her! Maybe he’s one of these sick creeps who gets off on scaring women. Maybe he never gave a shit about me, it was all just some weird fantasy. Or worse, research for his crappy novel!
He just seemed so convincing. His eyes were so intense, that time he was in the house and I was naked except for the robe. The way he looked at me – I really believed that he did love me. Nobody has ever looked at me like that before. It was just a pity he’s a psycho. And now he’s a psycho with a girlfriend! Oh, the irony.
I rang Paula. The conversation went along these lines:
‘Hi sis, it’s me.’
‘Hi Siobhan, how are you babe?’
‘You remember Alex?’
There was an audible groan from the end of the line. ‘You’re not still on about him, are you?’
What is it with these people? Don’t they care about me at all? I can’t understand why nobody seems to be able to accept that what Alex put me through has really traumatised me. Maybe I should make a few more appointments to see Dr. Bedford. At least he listens to me – even if I have to pay through the nose for the privilege.
‘Yes, Paula, I am still “on about” him. He broke into my house, remember? Amongst other things.’
She sighed this time, a downgraded groan. ‘Yeah. I know. And I still think you should’ve gone to the police.’
Then – and not before time! – her voice sharpened into concern. ‘What’s the matter, what’s he done? He hasn’t been back again, has he?’
That was more like it.
‘No, thank God. But you know he owes me all this money still?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘Well, I gave him a month to pay me back, and he hasn’t paid me back, so I went round there and – ‘
‘You did WHAT?’
‘I took my rape alarm. And the pepper spray.’
‘Siobhan Alice McGowan, are you out of your tiny mind? What the hell did you do something as mad as that for?’
‘I want my money back.’
She laughed mirthlessly. ‘Right. So, that time my flat got burgled and they took my stereo and my holiday cash: by that logic, do you think I shouldn’t have informed the police, but instead – had I known the guy’s address – gone round there and politely asked for my stuff back? Only what you’ve done is worse, because this Alex was after you! You could have been in danger!’
Alex was after me. Alex wanted me. ‘Well, he isn’t after me anymore.’
‘How do you know? What did he say?’
‘I didn’t talk to him. He’s got a girlfriend.’
‘So?’
‘So…’ Suddenly I didn’t know what to say.
‘So that’s a result. I’m made up for you – at least that means you’ve got him off your case for good.’
‘But what about my money?’
She groaned again. ‘For Christ’s sake, Siobhan, forget the money. For a start, you’ve got some lovely clothes out of it. You look great in them, and you’d never normally have spent so much on gear. Look at it as if you’ve treated yourself! I know he’s a freak, but if you’re not prepared to tell the police, then the only thing you can do is keep quiet, hang on to the nice clothes, and forget about the money.’
‘I can’t. It’s the principle.’
‘Then I’m not going to talk to you about it anymore. You’re behaving completely irrationally. I will say it one more time: you should have told the police. You chose not to. So change your mind and tell them, or get over it.’
I hung up on her. She tried to ring me back immediately, but I unplugged the telephone and went to sit by the window. I stared out into the street, stroking Biggles with the long hard squeezing motion that he likes best, not thinking about anything in particular except the fact that, deep down, I guessed that Paula was probably right. It was too late to go to the police now, so I should just let it drop.
But it wouldn’t let me go. I could feel Alex, smell the potent mixture of his aftershave and my own fear, all the time. I wanted to punch out at him, hurt him, for having all that misdirected emotion; for getting it so wrong. How come he was so fucked up with me, and yet now seemed to be having a perfectly normal relationship with somebody else? It didn’t make sense. The confusion of it all seemed to be fanning the sparks of my anger at him into something bigger and even more preoccupying.
I was beginning to worry about myself.
Chapter 20
Alex
Saturday
Emily came over again last night. I spent much of the afternoon fretting that it was all going to go disastrously wrong, that we’d be clumsy with one another; the flame we had kindled snuffed out by post-first-date awkwardness. But I needn’t have worried. Emily grabbed and kissed me almost as
soon as she’d stepped through the door. Five minutes later we were in bed, and this time I didn’t wilt. I was All Man. A rock. Eleven and a half stone of surging testosterone. We made love, and then we made love again.
It was incredible. Every time she smiles I get this weird feeling in my stomach. And she really makes me laugh. She says such silly things, and she’s so sweet and naïve. She makes me want to protect her, wrap my arms around her and shield her from the harsh world. She was telling me about her childhood, about this girl who used to bully her at school, and I can tell she still feels hurt by the experience even though it was more than ten years ago. She told me she can’t cope with confrontation, or aggression. If anyone’s mean to her at work it can leave her feeling upset for days.
Now she’s just kissed me goodbye, and I’m a bit delirious. I feel euphoric, a warm liquid feeling flowing through me like honey… but the silver lining has a cloud:
Siobhan.
While Emily and I were lying in bed, blissed out and post-coital, not caring about the damp patch beneath us (it’s so nice to share a damp patch with someone after all this time!) I had a sudden, horrific realisation: Siobhan’s letter, asking for repayment, was lying on my desk, face up and in full view of anyone who happened to glance down at the desk. Suddenly, I couldn’t concentrate on what Emily was saying. What if she saw the letter, with its matter-of-fact summary of all I’d done? What would I say?
I’d already decided not to tell Emily about Siobhan. Not because I want to keep secrets from her but…well, how would I explain it? When I think about how I behaved, how stupid I was, I feel sick and have to try to push the memories away. I haven’t forgotten about Siobhan – I can’t just turn my feelings off, despite what’s happened with Emily. But Siobhan rejected me, and I know I acted like…well, all I can say is that I’m not proud of myself. I thought I was in love with Siobhan, but I think it was just because I was so lonely. I was looking for someone to save me, and I really believed that Siobhan was the one. But I was so wrong.