Refuge

by Andrew Brown

  He showered in hot water, streams of it needling down on his body. How many men have washed here today, he wondered. But if there had been any, there was no trace of them now. The shower cubicle was spotless. The squeeze soap container was full, the hot water powerful and abundant. He wondered if she also showered here, when she was on her own. He took handfuls of liquid soap and washed everywhere, paying particular attention to his scrotum and arse. He half-wished that he could remain under the shower indefinitely. He let the water rush over his face one last time and, with a deep breath, turned off the tap, stepped out onto the floor and started to dry himself. He spent extra time trying to dry off any hint of dampness around the small of his back, where he knew he sweated when he was nervous. He teased his testicles away from his body and carefully dried all around them.

  The strangeness of the situation overwhelmed him again, standing naked on the cool tiles. The bathroom had a homely feel to it. It was as if he had stepped, quite by error, into a parallel existence, where he had a life utterly divorced from Amanda, his daughter, his practice. What on earth am I doing here, he thought to himself. Is this the kind of thing that I do? Even as he felt the anxiety starting to pick at his resolve, the rational responses flooded into his mind: it’s just a massage, he reminded himself. It would be nothing more. It was all he had asked for and all he had paid for. Guilt still harassed him as he opened the bathroom door.

  He returned to the room, the towel tight around his waist. He was aware of his stomach pressing over the edge of the fabric. The room was empty, and for a moment he thought he had wandered through the wrong door. But his clothes remained where he had left them. He unwrapped the towel, then caught sight of himself in a full-length mirror on the wall at the head of the table, his penis shrunken against his black pubic hair. Disconcerted, he turned away and pulled the towel around himself again. He leant against the table and ran his fingers across his forehead, pushing stray bits of hair back into place. He thought of leaving, but he would have to dress first. How would he make it to the front door without her seeing him? He was too intimidated by the thought of being caught to take the chance.

  Then he heard footsteps outside the room and she opened the door. Her presence utterly concentrated his thoughts, banishing any ambivalence. With one practised, fluid movement she closed the door, turned, pulled the cord of her short robe and let it drop from her shoulders. The effect of her little pirouette-dance was breathtaking. Her naked body reminded Richard of a polished nut. Her taut coffee-brown skin seemed to focus and reflect the little light in the room. A gentle indentation above her collar bone softened the effect of her strong shoulders. Her breasts were dramatic; dark aureoles spread halfway across their curve. Her waist was slim, but not skinny, flowing down to a short-cropped triangle of darker skin and the outline of her sex.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ he stammered, awed by her easy nakedness. ‘You are so beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, tilting her head slightly to one side. Again she reacted as if she appreciated the compliment, as if a friend had told her that her hair looked lovely today. His admiration was absolutely sincere: he had seldom, if ever, seen quite so magnificent or intriguing a body. She moved closer to him, her nipples now just inches from his chest. Richard felt he was somehow the first man to see her naked, as if she had been keeping herself, just for him. He was exhilarated and terrified. But he had no idea what was to come and his emotions were quite unprepared for her erotic assault.

  ‘Lie down on your stomach on the table and we can begin,’ she said lightly, her hand brushing down his side, hooking a finger into the towel and letting it slip from his hips. His exposed member pushed out, engorged, and he turned away from her in embarrassment. The table was solid and did not shift as he lay down. He placed his face into the padded cutaway hole which held his head comfortably. He heard her move about him, preparing something, rubbing her hands together.

  Then the first rush of her bare hands on the skin of his back. His whole body purred as she slid both palms, forcefully, up the length of his spine to his neck and back down, across his buttock cheeks and down his thighs to his calves. It was a single arresting movement that released an immediate flow of endorphins. His body started to relax, loosening and unhitching limb from limb, until he lay in separate fluid pieces on the warm towels. Her movement was unrelenting, flowing up and down, pushing a wedge of tired muscle up his body in a bow wave and retreating with his glistening skin in its wake. He had never felt so physically addressed, so intimately considered. It was the innocent succour that only a newborn child might receive, demanded perhaps but ultimately wasted on its ungiving mind. His thoughts seemed disengaged, abstractly floating from one stimulus to another, unable to collate any meaning. He did manage to wonder whether he should have brought more money, fearful that her blessed rolling hands would stop when some unseen meter ran out.

  But she continued, moving with power and fluidity down his legs, across his back, kneading his shoulders into grateful submission. His thoughts drifted like a small row-boat, gently buffeted by wind swells further from the shore. And then, almost jarring, the suggestion of something different. Her hands ran across his buttocks, parting his cheeks slightly before sliding down the sides of his inner thigh, her thumbs electrifyingly close to his anus. He gasped, perhaps from the thrill or from the surprise. He was worried some errant flatulence might escape and he clenched his cheeks in anticipation. She repeated the movement, opening him with strength. This time, as her fingers pushed under his thighs, he was aware of the faintest tickle of her braided hair across the small of his back. How close is she to me, he wondered, captivated. The third time he felt the braids distinctly, snaking across his skin. The fourth stroke brought her hands right under his thighs, her thumbs pushing past his testicles and into his groin. At the same time, there was the sensation of something heavier, more sultry, dragging across his buttocks. His body tensed involuntarily, waiting. It came again, the heavy drift of her breasts across his skin. His mind started to reel in disbelief. Was it this easy, he wondered through a fog of confused desire. Had it always been so simple, so effortless, the only barrier to cross his own prudishness? He was momentarily angered at the thought of all that he had forsaken, but the awareness of her body touching and lifting from his quickly diverted his attention. The experience started to feel surreal. Perhaps he had fallen into some hallucination. He half-clutched at the idea before losing his focus again.

  He felt her weight on the table before she touched him again. The joints creaked slightly and the foam around his hips depressed, but the table did not move. He felt the warmth of her thighs as she straddled him and the tight embrace of her legs against the sides of his. Then she lay down, slowly, on top of him, letting him feel the full pressure of her breasts and stomach on his back. She shifted her weight, allowing her nipples to slip along the oil, just under his shoulder blades. Backwards and forwards, up and across. Then her face close to his, her cheek almost touching his.

  Softly she asked: ‘Are you all right?’

  The question seemed bizarre and he could not find the words to answer her. Her speech broke his reverie in a way that was exciting rather than unwelcome; the sense of hallucination had made him self-engrossed. Her breath on his ear forced him to consider the person who was his imagined paramour. There was so much he wanted to say to her, and yet there was nothing to be said. The tension between strangers and lovers seemed unbearable. It was debilitating.

  ‘It’s so good,’ he managed to force out, sounding hoarse and ungrateful.

  With that, he felt her close her pelvis onto his unsuspecting buttocks. The brush of wiry hair, cut short, grated maddeningly on his skin. At the centre something unimaginably soft and slippery. His body reacted unbidden, arching up towards the source of the sensation. His mind was jagged with disbelief. Can I really feel her pushing herself into my skin? He struggled with the thought. Mercilessly, she ground her pelvis down onto him. He pushed up as she bor
e down, writhing and twisting. It was an exquisite violation.

  She slowed, rocking, and eased her weight completely for a moment, lifting off him until there was no contact. The air on his wet skin felt cool and he longed for her presence on top of him again. Something small and warm returned in its place, a soft, liquid motion on his shoulder. Rolling wetly like a marble across to his spine, down the small of his back, deep into the crack of his buttocks, turning on his thigh and coming back up. A slight slurping sound. Could that be her tongue? He could not comprehend this. It was such an uninhibited motion. His amazement was naive, he knew, but he had not anticipated the intimacy. There was a seeming sincerity in her actions: she was tasting his body. She gave a small bite on the side of his buttock cheek. Then again on the top of his thigh. She was nibbling at his flesh. He could not fathom it.

  The ball of her tongue tracked up his back and flicked across the back of his ear. Again her face was near his. ‘Are you still all right?’ she asked – affectionately, he felt. She was panting slightly. From the exertion? Was she aroused as well? It felt that they were lovers now, that they had been so for a while. Yet he had no idea what his lover was going to do next. It scared him, this not knowing, this unfamiliarity. He nodded, unable to speak. He was lost.

  ‘Turn on your back,’ she whispered.

  Richard obeyed. He worried that it would be a fumbling motion, but he was surprised how she pulled at his side and turned him easily, suddenly facing up. She was still straddling him and he looked up at her. Her breasts glistened with oil. Oil from his skin, on her, he thought. He could feel her wiry hair on his stomach. He looked down. She was pulsing backwards and forwards. A groan escaped his lips. She smiled sweetly and pushed her pelvis back towards his waiting erection. As he closed his eyes – the vision was too much, the idea of what might be happening beyond his reckoning – he felt a soft warmth flood over his penis, and with that his entire body. But even as his body gave itself up to her with an unburdening sigh, his thoughts became scattered. It felt as if he was inside her. Can that possibly be, he fretted. Would she let that happen? Do I want that? How can I not want this? The sensation was all-encompassing. He no longer knew what was happening to him.

  She bent down and gasped in his ear, rubbing her breasts and stomach up and down along the length of his torso, hooking her legs around his and, it seemed, pulling him into her. It felt as if his body was lifting off the table. His mind would still not accept that somehow he had entered her, but the feeling was undeniable. The disturbing thought struck him: I have no control. Yet he could not bear to open his eyes. He yearned to work out what was happening, but was afraid. Afraid to see her watching him – watching for when he finished? That if he opened his eyes, he would see that she was watching him, not as a lover. Waiting.

  A small, round ball of pressure started to grow just below his belly button. It throbbed with heat, growing incrementally each time he thrust upwards. The tension enveloped his groin and thighs, burning and building until it was excruciating. There was a sound in the room, a groaning plea. His body clenched and finally the knotted pressure exploded with release. His face contorted like a rat’s, as he felt the potent rush of orgasm. He opened his eyes to find her straddling his thighs, her face friendly but unmoved, catching his glutinous semen pumping into her slick, cupped hand. He felt embarrassed, at his abandonment, at his ungainly body still spasming beneath her, but most of all at his error and at her knowledge of what he had thought. Richard lay back on the table, panting, his slack penis still dribbling its fluids into her strong hands. He felt a pinch of bile in his throat; the moment suddenly seemed regrettable.

  As if sensing this subtle shifting in him, Abayomi leant forward and gave him a long and affectionate kiss just above his eye, holding her lips to his skin as her breath rolled over his face. Her lips pressed down, her bottom lip dragging below the line of his eyebrows and playing, silkily, across the delicate skin of his eyelid. He felt her breath again, without restriction, an intimate emission of warmth across his face. It was an encapsulating move. It banished all misgivings. And it captured his exposed heart entirely. Involuntarily, his hand came up and stroked across her back. She did not move or push him away and he let his palm glide across her polished skin.

  Richard had to fight against the pressing need to tell her that he loved her. He marvelled at the shallowness of feeling that would force him to say it, but he could feel the words dancing on his tongue, bumping against his closed teeth like a moth behind glass. He closed his eyes and tried to find an emotional centre. His insides felt ragged, like a torn cloth, stripped pieces flapping at odds in the wind. He felt her hands pushing along his thighs, gripping as she drew them to his feet, then pressing the balls of his feet. She held his soles to her breasts and pushed her thumbs into them.

  He could not find his memory; he was uncertain of who he was now. Returning to his office and talking to his partners was impossible. How would he not blurt something out? How could he ever walk into his home? He would have to say her name the moment he walked in the front door. No other word would form in his mouth. He would babble her name in amazement, when he meant to say something mundane. Everyone would know, immediately, just by looking at him. The smile in his eyes, the motion of his happy lips twitching as he tried to speak. He was ruined. He was saved.

  ‘Would you like to shower now?’ she asked, her voice like warm oil. He opened his eyes to see her standing next to him, her breasts hovering above him. He looked up at her, grateful and in awe. The possibility of a different life, a life lived with this woman, loving and exciting and without baggage, broke the surface in his mind, like a cork being released.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, trying to form a smile with his dry mouth and lips. He felt a thirst, but not for water, for alcohol, to drink until his senses were numbed. Could he ask her to join him, he wondered. But she stood aside and held out a towel for him, politely professional. The delicate combination of distance and affection unbalanced him completely.

  In the shower, he looked down at his penis nestled against his leg. He expected to see some difference in his body, as if this experience had marked him physically. It surprised him, and horrified him, to see the same blanched legs and hint of protrusion about his stomach. He would have to get a tan and work on his abdominal muscles if he wanted to carry on seeing her, he thought. It was exciting to think that he had a reason to work on his physique again. And troubling that Amanda was not enough cause. But the thought of his wife was fleeting, soon overwhelmed again by the images of what had just happened. He laughed to himself, shaking his head in amazement. How wonderful is life! How exciting it is to live in this city! He breathed deeply and slopped handfuls of liquid soap over his chest and stomach. What a feeling, to feel this alive again!

  Before he left, Richard handed Abayomi his business card with his contact details. ‘I am a lawyer,’ he said earnestly, ‘so if you need any help, any help at all … really, just give me a call.’ He was almost imploring in his tone and she touched him briefly on the shoulder as if to calm him.

  ‘Thank you, Richard,’ she said. ‘I may like to talk to you about permanent status and immigration in this country. Perhaps I will give you a call. Thank you.’ Richard’s heart tightened at the prospect, but he managed to restrain himself from saying anything further. She guided him to the front door. He turned to look at her again as he stepped out into the bright sunlight, but the door had closed behind him. So quickly she was gone. He glanced at his watch: it was ten past four. Only an hour had passed.

  Richard stood on the street in confusion for a few minutes. The buildings, the traffic moving past, the people crossing the road, talking on their cellphones. The scene was so familiar, so ordinary. He had expected it to be different. The shift in him had been so complete, so unanticipated, that he had expected every-thing to appear altered. How could the building across the road look precisely the same when his perception of the world was so fundamentally torn apart? His bod
y tingled and he felt that everyone must be looking at him, commenting on how he gleamed, how changed he was. His fractured reverie was broken by a worker in overalls, cigarette drooping from the side of his mouth, pushing past him with a grunt, his workbox snagging against Richard’s jacket.

  He started to walk, moving with uncertainty in the direction of his office, by default following the same route that had brought him there. He feared that this feeling of elated tension, this exquisite turmoil, would pass and that he would never hold it again. He wanted to catch hold of the narcosis, bottle it and keep it for ever. He worried that it would become sullied by the first interaction with another person. How would he summon this moment back, once he had spoken to Selwyn, met with Svritsky, argued with Amanda?

  Ahead of him he saw a lawyer he thought he recognised, deep in conversation with a young clerk, walking slowly into his path. He darted to his left down a soiled alleyway, immediately aware of the acidic smell of urine and human faeces. Yet, somehow, the assault of odours didn’t worry him, didn’t make him wrinkle his face in disgust. He walked, still holding the core of his distracted heart. At the end of the alley he turned the corner onto an inner-city street that he had not walked before.