‘Do you, Edwin?’ I whisper.
His jaw tenses and he puts down his wine glass. And then, quite unexpectedly and quite wonderfully, he slips his hand behind my neck and draws my face towards his and kisses me.
It’s stronger, more passionate than the first time. At least, I’m aware that he’s pressing his mouth harder and he’s using proper, full-on tongue; other than that, I must admit, my mouth feels a bit weird, a bit tingly.
‘Lauren, how would you feel if I did this?’ he says, his eyes glinting as he pulls back and looks at me, between kisses.
‘Did what?’ I frown.
He gestures downwards and I realise he has his hand on my breast and is rubbing it around like Mr Miyagi in The Karate Kid, when he’s teaching Daniel Son to wax on, wax off.
He stops anxiously. ‘Is that nice?’
‘It’s absolutely awesome,’ I murmur, and before I even know what I’m doing, I am peeling off my top.
I attempt to do this sexily but the material gets stuck on the edge of the clip in my hair and I end up tugging and tugging until I nearly remove my ear, and my hair on the right-hand side feels as if it’s been backcombed by a hyena.
‘How would you feel if I did this, Edwin?’ I breathe, unclasping my bra and allowing it to slip to the floor.
I can honestly say I’ve never witnessed a reaction like Edwin’s before in my life. His eyes grow to about six times their normal size.
I can’t stop myself from giggling. I’ve done it. I’ve seduced him. Job done!
‘I’d say that was fine too,’ he manages.
I stand up and take him by the hand, enjoying the feeling of unique brazenness that comes from standing in a man’s living room with your bare boobs on show. I pull him up out of the sofa.
‘Where are we going?’ he stammers.
‘To bed. Where else?’ I whisper, leading him across the living room. He pauses briefly to turn the television off, explaining that he hates wasting electricity. I grab him by the arm and pull him in my direction.
Then I spin round and maintain his gaze as I start to wander backwards, a move that would be the ultimate in sexiness had I managed to avoid the handbag I’d left on the living-room floor.
As it is, I trip over a strap and almost go flying across the room, something that prompts a plethora of swearing before I bend over to pick it up. Unfortunately, instead of sweeping it out of the way, my Pepsi Max bottle – the one full of urine – rolls out and goes trundling across the room. I watch in horror as it traverses the blue carpet, 200mls of this morning’s wee sloshing about inside.
‘Oh God!’ I shriek, which also turns out to be a mistake.
Sensing my panic, Edwin leaps over and, under the misapprehension that he’s helping, attempts to grab it at exactly the same moment that I do.
The resulting scramble can only be compared to a miniature rugby scrum, except that one of us is semi-naked and the ‘ball’ in question is a modest bottle containing human bodily fluids.
There is no way I can allow Edwin to get to it first. So, I elbow him in the guts and grab the bottle, clutching it breathlessly to my naked chest.
‘Are you that thirsty, Lauren?’ asks Edwin, alarm in his eyes.
I nod as the implications of this question hit me. ‘Yes,’ I say feverishly.
He sighs. ‘Go on then,’ he says, waiting for me to drink the contents of the bottle.
Now, I am feeling strange. I am feeling drunk. But I am absolutely not feeling either of the above in sufficient quantities to emulate fourteen days at sea with drinking my own urine as the only option open to me.
Unfortunately, I am feeling both of the above in sufficient quantities to fail to know what to do. So I just wing it. I glance at the open window and, as Edwin goes to turn off the living-room lamp, I fling the bottle out of it, wincing as a cry of Ow! reverberates from the street below.
I stand in Edwin’s living room, naked and cold and uncomfortable, and not really knowing what to do. Then Edwin approaches and kisses me. And that, I’m afraid, is the last of the evening that I actually remember.
Chapter 37
I struggle to describe the feelings that swim through my mind as I wake up in Edwin’s bed.
First is the split-second realisation that I’ve been snoring loudly, as I wake with a grunt, genuinely shocked that the person who made the noise was me.
Second is the extreme physical discomfort of being even more desperate for the loo than I was this time yesterday, clear evidence that my UTI has failed to shift, which is little wonder given how far I drifted from the advice to stick to non-aggravating liquids.
Third is that Edwin is propped up above me on one elbow, grinning.
‘Morning, Sleepyhead,’ he murmurs, leaning down to kiss me. I reward him by clamping shut my lips, saving him from a distinct lack of minty freshness. But Edwin doesn’t care. He just snuggles into me, nibbling my neck, pressing his body against mine. He is entirely naked.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m dying for the toilet,’ I say apologetically.
‘Oh, let me get you my dressing gown.’
He stands and places his pillow over his groin – and the very fact that I am in bed, naked WITH EDWIN nearly makes my head explode. I’ve dreamed about this for years and yet I’m suddenly speechless, motionless, thoughtless.
He passes me his dressing gown and I slip it on. It’s maroon velvet, has ‘Christmas gift’ written all over it, and smells faintly of Marmite.
I head to the loo and relieve myself, moaning with queasy relief as my bladder empties, before I check my appearance, realise it’s beyond hope, then pop an antibiotic and plod back into the kitchen for some water to wash it down with. I look predictably awful. I feel predictably awful. Yet it’s more than just the fact that the tablets I took, when mixed with alcohol, have a similar effect on human functionality as Rohypnol.
I am disappointed that my first time with Edwin wasn’t as memorable as it should have been, in that I can’t actually remember it at all.
Sheepishly, I return to the bedroom and slip under the covers. I can’t deny it feels nice when he squeezes himself into me, but it’s more the fact that I’m grateful that my strip routine with the rubber gloves – which is one bit I do remember – didn’t make him disown me for life.
That turns out to be the last thing he wants to do. Edwin has never been as enthusiastic or attentive or generally keen as this morning. Whatever the hell it was I did with him last night, it ought to be bottled and sold as a Viagra substitute.
‘You look beautiful,’ he murmurs, as I allow myself to be kissed by him.
‘I find that impossible to believe,’ I croak.
‘It’s true. Quite honestly, last night . . . the things you did . . . it was so unexpected. I’ve seen you in a new light.’
I freeze. ‘What things?’ I ask, but he just laughs.
‘I don’t know why you look so worried, Lauren. It was incredible. I’m walking on air today.’
‘Are you?’
He nods and kisses me on the forehead and I feel overcome with worry. ‘Edwin. Things are . . . hazy this morning. Did we do it?’
‘Very funny, Lauren,’ he laughs, which I can only interpret as a yes.
‘It’s just, I’m on these tablets at the moment and I think they reacted with the wine. Some parts of the evening are a bit hazy.’
‘Not for anything serious, I hope,’ he asks, a wrinkle appearing in his brow.
‘No, no. Just . . .’ I wrack my brains to try and conjure up something – anything – that I could feasibly have that isn’t infectious, or mildly embarrassing like a UTI. ‘Gout.’
‘You’ve got gout?’
‘Just temporarily,’ I splutter, desperate to change the subject. ‘So, the sex . . .’
‘The sex?’
‘Between you and me. Was it . . .’ I try and think of a subtle way of asking this.
‘Good?’
‘No, penetrative.’
‘Well, n
o, but it was magnificent as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Oh right. Glad to hear it,’ I reply, giving him another kiss and wondering how long I need to stay here before I can make my excuses and leave.
Chapter 38
Sunday is spent in a complete stupor, between my bed and the loo. By Monday, despite having largely recovered, I feel mortified every time there’s a possibility of going anywhere near Edwin. This is problematic, given that our two classes are merged for ‘Spanish Day’. The latter involves Gillian Holt, from the junior school, giving a lengthy talk on Madrid traditions – something a two-week holiday in 2009 has apparently qualified her for.
I sit in the corner, listening intently as she attempts to deal with the aftermath of her statement that, ‘Chefs say you can put almost anything in a paella.’ This led to a dozen hands shooting up in the air, and the children testing out alternatives such as, ‘what about ice cream?’ or ‘chocolate cake?’ or, my particular favourite, ‘a football?’.
While this chaos goes on about me, Edwin keeps trying to catch my eye. Sometimes the pressure becomes too much to bear and I’ll briefly look up, for him to flash me a smile I can only describe as saucy.
‘You must be an absolute demon in bed,’ Cate sniggers, as I fill her in that night.
‘Please don’t even joke about it,’ I say, sipping water. Which is all I am going to sip ever again, for the rest of my life. ‘I have no idea what went on between those sheets. From the way he looked at me in the morning, you’d think it had involved a black negligée and nipple tassels. Which it didn’t, to be clear.’
‘You saving those for the second time?’
All I can do is wince.
Cate narrows her eyes. ‘So, was it good? You must recall an overall impression. You’ve been dreaming about it for bloody years so by rights it should’ve been off the scale.’
‘I honestly do not know,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Is that why your feelings for Edwin have changed?’
My head snaps up. ‘What makes you think that?’
She shrugs. ‘I was just getting that impression. Sorry – I’m obviously wrong.’
‘The date would have been wonderful, had I been conscious. I realise this sort of conundrum is all alien to you, given how well things are going with Will. I’ve barely seen you in the last couple of weeks.’
‘Sorry,’ she says sheepishly.
‘Don’t be silly, I’m over the moon for you.’
‘Thanks, Lauren,’ she smiles. ‘So how’s your Singapore planning?’
‘Fine. I handed my notice in on the cottage last week,’ I tell her, though just saying it makes a bead of sweat appear on my brow. ‘I feel awful about letting my cousin Steph down though. I haven’t even heard from her since I told her I’m not going to Australia.’
‘Hasn’t she posted one of her infamous updates on Facebook lately?’
‘I don’t know, now you mention it,’ I reply, taking out my phone and clicking on the app.
I can see nothing from Steph though – just the standard Facebook guff I find so enticing: birthday wishes, wedding photos, new babies, humblebrags and rants. Plus one from my mum, who seems to think that if she writes, Hi Dawn, did you get the washing machine fixed? on her own wall that Dawn, whoever she is, will mystically pick up the message by the sheer cosmic force of the internet.
‘My mother should be kept away from technology,’ I sigh, as Cate reaches to the windowsill to turn the radio on. The song playing is ‘Sweet Disposition’ by the Temper Trap and it has the instantaneous effect of making her tap her feet as she finishes the washing-up, sunlight sheering on to her face as she sings, lost in the words.
And it’s then, when I glance back at my phone, that I’m confronted by the picture. Not the picture – another one.
‘Lauren?’ Cate asks, but it takes a moment for me to register her voice. ‘I was just saying I saw Stella for her final meeting and . . . what’s the matter?’
The words stick in my mouth. But as it turns out, she doesn’t need me to spell them out. She knows even before she’s looked. She races over and takes the phone to glare at the photo that’s been posted direct on her Facebook page – bewilderingly, from her own account.
This time she’s in a kitchen. She’s facing the camera directly, the hint of a smile on her lips as she lifts up her top to provide the sort of eyeful usually reserved for page 3 of the Daily Star.
She doesn’t even say anything when she sees it. She just takes a slug of breath, deletes it – then slumps on to a kitchen chair and starts crying. I sink into the seat next to her and slide my arm round her, as her shoulders begin to shudder.
‘It hadn’t been on there long so very few people will have seen it,’ I offer, though not with much conviction given that she has over 300 Facebook friends and that it had been there for twenty minutes.
Nobody had commented on it, nobody had liked it, nobody had presumably done anything but stare in disbelief – and possibly report it, although enough time clearly hadn’t elapsed before Facebook got on the case.
Cate’s phone starts ringing on the table in front of us, and Will’s name flashes up on the screen. She grabs it and turns it off.
‘How could it have been on your profile?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’ She looks at me, terror in her eyes, her face red and wet from crying. ‘I’m on Facebook with all my friends and all my family, as well as half the town. And . . . and Will.’
‘He probably hasn’t seen it,’ I comfort her.
‘I’m sure someone will fill him in,’ she sobs.
‘Cate, I think you need to go to the police about this,’ I tell her firmly.
She looks up with frenzied eyes. ‘But – but Will’s brother – the humiliation . . . I’d feel like such an idiot and a slag. And what if it went to court and all the other photos were used as evidence?’ It’s clear this suggestion has sent her into an unstoppable panic. ‘What the hell am I going to do?’
‘It’s going to be all right,’ I whisper.
But as I pull her into me, her body trembling in my arms, it’s hard to understand how.
The next twenty-four hours are a slow kind of torture. I spend the day at work getting texts from Cate, who tells me that everyone knows. I have no idea whether she’s exaggerating but I suspect so, as the number of people on Facebook who will have actually seen the picture is minimal and, while gossip of any kind tends to spread like wildfire around here, I can’t – or perhaps don’t want to – accept it’s as bad as she says. But then, I’m not in her shoes. And I’m sure it feels bad. I’m sure it feels worse than I can possibly imagine.
When the school bell rings and the children are safely deposited back with their parents, I leap into my car and head straight over to Cate’s place. Daffodils & Stars is shut and she answers the door of her flat looking like death warmed up.
‘It’s everywhere,’ she hisses.
‘I’m sure that’s not the case,’ I say lamely.
‘I went outside to fix some of the displays and heard two customers sitting outside the coffee shop next door talking about it. I couldn’t believe it – I didn’t even know them! You know when you overhear part of a conversation and think it must be about someone else . . . only it’s not. I worked out how Robby could have done this too.’
‘Oh?’
‘He knew my password. It was the same one as for my emails – and I gave that to him once to check something for me when my phone wasn’t working.’
I sigh. ‘Have you seen Will since it happened?’
Will, we discovered from one of his texts, saw the picture with his own eyes, about a minute before Cate deleted it. She had dozens of missed calls from him by the time I left yesterday, but in the end he clearly gave up.
‘Have you returned any of his calls yet?’
She shakes her head. ‘No. And he’s stopped ringing anyway.’
‘Cate, you should speak to him,’ I tel
l her.
‘What am I going to say? “Did you like my home-made porn collection? Because there are more where that came from!”’
I frown. ‘You should at least text him back.’
‘Oh, what’s the point! He’s not phoning any longer, Lauren. He doesn’t want anything to do with me. Why would he?’
‘Well, because it’s not your fault!’ I reply furiously. ‘And because he loves you! And because if he’s a man worth his salt, he won’t care about your past and will understand that you’re a victim here and—’
I’m interrupted from my rant by the ring of her doorbell. She looks up, her lip trembling.
‘Do you want me to get it?’
She nods. ‘Promise you’ll just get rid of whoever it is though? If it’s Will, I can’t face him. Make my excuses will you?’
I head to the door and open it to find Cate’s mum, Liz. I feel instantly relieved. Cate and her mum have never been especially close, but I know that if there’s one thing that’s going to get a girl through this, it’s having her best friend and her mum by her side.
‘I take it she’s in?’ asks Liz. She’s dressed in a smart pair of trousers and a cashmere throw, her short blonde hair swept softly out of her blue eyes. She looks upset, which is understandable.
‘In the living room, Liz,’ I say, closing the door as she walks ahead of me. ‘It’s just horrendous what’s happened, isn’t it?’
Liz turns to me and replies starkly: ‘Yes. It is.’
Cate is curled up on the sofa, her cheeks streaked with more tears. She sits up when her mother enters and for a moment neither of them say a thing.
‘Mum . . . I’m so sorry,’ Cate eventually whimpers.
It takes a second for me to realise that Liz’s eyes are not filled with the sympathy and maternal love that I’d anticipated. Disgust is apparent in the tightening of her lips. When she speaks, it’s quiet and low – the whisper of a woman who considers herself scorned.
‘I did everything I could to bring you up right, Catherine. I gave you everything a parent could be expected to. And your father and I are rewarded with this.’
Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel Page 20