Only temporarily thrown off track, he fled to the bedroom. I heard the bedside cabinet being abruptly opened and shut, before he returned moments later peeling a condom down the shaft of his still erect cock.
‘Fuck me,’ I demanded, elated that my definite requirements hadn’t spoilt this gorgeous production.
‘Oh, I’m gonna fuck you, beautiful,’ he grinned, resuming his position behind me. He pushed himself energetically inside me again, filling me completely.
An accomplished lover, he steadily built up speed, sending shock waves through my body from my fingertips to my toes. With decisive thrusts he pounded me from behind over and over. God, how I missed sex, I thought. I was so happy to be back in the saddle.
My senses heightened from the orgasm, I felt the fingertips of his left hand slightly imprint the skin of my left shoulder as he grappled to keep a firm grip of my body in motion. His right hand gripped my waist solidly, almost too tightly, but it didn’t matter.
By now the side of my face was beginning to burn and my knees were chafing from the wood chips that had spilt out of the fire on to the old antique Persian wool rug beneath me, but I couldn’t ruin this moment.
As his groans began to reach a crescendo, I screamed out, ‘Harder – harder!’ to help him along, as by now his dick, which was somewhat larger than I was used to, was starting to hurt me.
And then with one enormous lunge, he screamed, ‘You’re the best!’ as his fingernails dug into my flesh. Following it up with weaker thrusts, his body behind me jerked and twitched as he muttered to himself, ‘Oh, fuck – oh, yeah – ohhh, yeah.’
Exhausted, the two of us crumpled to the floor, panting and smiling.
Sunday we had kissed and cuddled like respectful teenagers, but after a build-up, this was something to report back to the gang in Dublin.
‘You – are – so – hot!’ Michael’s inhalations were deep and precise.
Nuzzling his hair and stubble in his hands, he shook himself off like a dog and turned to me with a silly loved-up grin on his face and asked, ‘Anyone ever told you what a great lay you are?’
Pausing for a minute to decide whether to react bolshy, I then decided to do a Britney Spears/ Beyoncé/Jessica Simpson impression and said, ‘I’m as sweet as apple pie me, I was just a little ole virgin till I met you.’
‘Ha. You better change that to cherry pie, sweet cheeks, as I’ve just stolen your cherry – again!’
‘Ha, for sure,’ I teased.
‘Wow! I feel great,’ whooped Michael. He jumped to his feet and walked in the direction of the bathroom. When I heard a flush of the loo I knew he had disposed of the evidence. Thank God he had a condom. I’m mad about the guy, but not mad enough to shag him without a condom. Well, definitely not sober anyway.
* * *
With a change in the menu to ‘Steak and spuds’ and old-fashioned sex in the bedroom, Wednesday night was the fourth night in the Big Smoke when we stayed behind locked doors.
But this morning, Thursday, I could tell that Michael had started to get itchy feet. Although we had enjoyed some very enjoyable honeymoon sex in the shower, which had left my hair difficult and yours truly a little stressed, he needed space, and took himself off to see a man about a dog.
‘I gotta catch a guy down in Camden,’ he told me abruptly, catching me unawares.
I was still drip-drying and smothering myself in some cocoa butter which I had found in a bathroom cabinet which was like an Aladdin’s Cave of nasty addictive prescriptions like Stilnoct, Valium, Librium and Limovan, but Michael had dressed himself fully and looked like he couldn’t wait to get away from me.
‘There’s a spare key on the dresser,’ he told me, kissing me on the cheek, ‘just in case you wanna go out shopping. I won’t be long, I promise.’ And within seconds he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him. Wondering if he had already grown bored with me, I wandered into the living room and hugged myself on the couch, staring out at the transitory birds visiting our small and somewhat sparse garden.
Had I put out too early? I deliberated. I didn’t think so: we had waited at least forty-four hours before consummating the relationship. I thought I showed great restraint, waiting that long. But maybe he was used to more virtuous women?
So much for the shotgun wedding – the four-day engagement looked like it could have fizzled out.
What I found most confusing was that he failed to mention the fact that he had asked me to be his wife on Saturday night. How bizarre was that? Did he make a habit of proposing to strange women? Or was he just a tad forgetful? Either way, he didn’t bring it up, and I wasn’t going to rock the boat. Well, not yet. It just didn’t add up, though. Maybe I just got a bit over-excited at his indecent proposal? Let’s be honest, he didn’t even know my second name. But I couldn’t be to blame for getting anxious, I’m female after all. We take things like offers of marriage very seriously, especially when no one’s ever bothered to ask before.
Deciding I’d have to face the outside world at some stage, I hesitantly typed in the PIN to my mobile phone.
So far the only interference from reality was a single e-mail from our invisible host Frankie, to say ‘Please water my bonsai and if a prostitute called Astrid knocks over, give the bitch the plastic Harrods bag beside the front door and ask her for the key back …’
Now six new messages flashed up on the screen.
Maybe this guy in Camden was just a ruse to escape my overbearing grasp? I thought, opening up a message from Anna asking, ‘Ave u fked it up yet?’ This did nothing to boost my confidence.
Or had Michael made his getaway to Old Bond Street to purchase a five-carat solitaire for me?
Laughing my way through Parker’s three messages – ‘Does big Mick have a big Mickie?’, ‘I want to be your bridesmaid’ and ‘Did you show him your trick with a ping-pong ball?’ – and Maddie’s frantic, ‘Make sure you check in his wardrobe and in his pockets’, I got to my final message, which was from a mystery Dublin number. ‘Get a solicitor, whore. I’m going to bring you down,’ it read.
Doing my usual trick, I placed 5 in its code to phone straight into the person’s mailbox. The sound of ‘Hi, you’re through to Annette,’ sent a shiver down my spine.
Instantly reality hit home and pangs of guilt came flooding over me.
Why had I switched on my phone? What did Annette want, and why did I need a solicitor? Fuck it anyway. More importantly, why did Michael do a runner? What if he didn’t come back?
Finding a half-empty bottle of Sancerre in the fridge, I took to the bed to pacify my mind. Too many questions to answer and not enough wine, I thought. Stuffing the phone under my pillow I tasted the wine, which was a tad stale.
As I drifted off into a daydream of how wonderful life could be living here, right here, and waking up in this bed every morning, I noticed a mean-looking magpie staring at me through the window from under the Roman blind.
Being a woman who has always courted superstition, I raced over to the window to see if he had a mate, of course, and scared him off his perch in the process. Thankfully, he only absconded to an adjacent telephone pole to join another magpie. Phew, one for sorrow, and two for joy … but hang on, on closer inspection I could see another two: one on the ground and one posing on top of a green Saab convertible.
So, what does that mean? One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four … for a boy? Or was it, one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, and four for a birth.
Ah, fuckity, fuck. My head was melted with all of the morning’s mixed signals. If only I didn’t believe in omens.
I heard a rustle in the lock; Michael had arrived back. My phone said 14:36p.m., which was not bad, considering he had only left about noon.
‘Hi honey, I’m home!’ he shouted in an elated tone. I was so relieved. But then I heard muttering, followed by laughter and banging, which indicated to me he wasn’t home alone.
‘I’m in here!’ I said nervously from th
e bedroom, as I realized I had failed to get dressed further more than slipping on one of Michael’s T’s. Feeling an emotional wreck, I had needed to be close to him and comfort myself with his smell.
Bounding in the door, Michael pounced on the bed and started mauling me like a puppy. ‘How’s my little heart-breaker? Did she miss me?’ His mood was more effervescent than I was used to.
Brushing his slobber off my face, I wrestled him off me and sat up straight in the bed. Like a disapproving wife I demanded, ‘Where have you been?’ But he just laughed in my face.
‘You look so cute when you’re angry,’ he teased, throwing me one of his winning get-out-of-jail smiles. ‘I bumped into an ole friend on the street. I brought him back for a line … I hope you don’t mind?’ And with that he rebounded out the door back to his ‘friend’ in the living room.
Did he say a line? I thought. What does he mean? He’s brought him back to do a line? Of coke? He never mentioned anything to me before about doing drugs.
Unsure how to handle the situation, I sat at the end of the bed trying to gather my wits. Act cool, I told myself. I didn’t have to be forced into anything I wasn’t happy with. After a five-minute pep talk, and two failed attempts to get in contact with Maddie, I rummaged through Michael’s bags, which lay strewn across the bedroom floor and by now had vomited clothes everywhere. Pilfering a clean pair of combat shorts to complete my walk of shame, I checked my appearance in the en suite loo’s antique gilt-edged mirror. It had a tiny crack at the bottom left-hand corner, but I did my best to ignore that.
Legs still shiny from the cocoa butter – check. Hair tossed seductively – check. A smear of clear lip gloss – check. I felt good to go.
I was no Kate Moss by any stretch of the imagination, but what I was most worried about was that Michael might be turning into my own real life Pete Doherty.
With an air of confidence I ventured out into the living room doing my best too-cool-for-school rock chick impression.
‘Hey,’ I said as I casually ruffled my hair in the direction of our new friend, who was resting on the floor and hanging over the coffee table that was reflecting Michael. I followed it up with ‘What’s the story?’ But my provocative entrance was ignored.
In my attempt to make eye contact with Michael’s companion I had at first missed what he was doing. Right enough, he was talking about coke, well, I could only presume it was cocaine: he had it piled high in a giant mound in the centre of the table and had already started to chalk up tube lines of the stuff for himself and … ‘Austin,’ exclaimed Michael. He pointed at the guy without looking up.
I positioned myself on the couch after kissing Michael on the back of the neck, and now ‘Austin’ decided to make eye contact with me. In a far from enthusiastic tone he muttered ‘Olright?’ I didn’t exactly feel endeared to the geezer.
Like Michael he had the look of someone creative, with his army-surplus scuzz-duds. He was Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver meets Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting. And while he pretentiously kept his high-fashion aviators on, I could tell the guy wasn’t just any sham from his Breitling aviation watch. I recognized it from an ad in Vanity Fair, endorsed by John Travolta. Very money indeed.
He may have been cute, and I might not have been so bothered if Maddie had been with me to help defuse the situation, but how dare he come into my little fantasy world and disrupt my fun? I had been waiting to meet Michael all my life. I hadn’t waited twenty-nine years to spend an afternoon looking at ‘Austin’ snort coke up his nose.
Concentrating on the job in hand, Michael spent a good five minutes perfecting his queue of white powder, and then nudged me with his elbow to ask, ‘Are you in, beautiful?’
Momentarily, I was stressed as to what to say back, but since neither man could remove his gaze from the narcotics on the table, they were unable to see the fear spread across my face.
‘A bit early for me, hon, you crack on,’ I said, panicked but trying desperately hard to keep it all on the inside.
Like a child with Tourette’s, Michael had started to emit excitable squeaks as he rocked on the spot while the wonderful Austin rolled up a £20 note. This was a side to his personality that I hadn’t witnessed before, and while it was kinda rock ’n’ roll, it was also kind of a turn-off. My safe little bubble had been well and truly burst.
Two days ago this had been the site of passionate lovemaking. Today it morphed into an evil den of iniquity. Tempers were already frayed with my parents. Thank God they couldn’t see me now …
‘Cheers, man,’ said Michael as he grabbed Austin’s note and got his head down over a perfectly chiselled line. Trying not to wince with disgust, I lay coiled on the sofa as my new fiancé did his best Dyson impression and hoovered up, not one, not two but three sizeable lines of Colombia’s finest brain rot. Wow. He was a total pro.
Leaping in the air, Michael let out a primal lion’s roar, stretching his hands to the ceiling, shaking his shoulders out and throwing the rolled-up note at Austin, who happily grabbed it as if it was a baseball.
‘Good shit, man,’ praised my Herculean lover. Then he wandered out of the room, waving his hands around and performing a very bad rendition of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals number, ‘Barry White’.
Uncomfortable with the developing situation, I remained pinned to the couch, and as Michael marched about in the kitchen with his Colombian power powder racing around his system, I had a ringside seat for my second masterclass in how to shovel class As up your nose.
First, Austin checked which nostril was working better, by closing each one off individually with his thumbs. After deciding to run with his left nostril, he shoved the twenty up it and used his right index finger to cover the other side. With ease of movement he effortlessly devoured what was left on the table in two sweeping snorts.
Unfortunately for him he had to satisfy himself with just the two lines, instead of my fella’s suicidal greedy three.
Not wanting any of the precious sprinkle to go to waste, he wet his finger on his tongue, like they do in the movies, fingered up the remaining dust and rubbed it on his gums. Then to finish off his housekeeping he fiddled with the end of his nose to make sure there was no coke hanging off it.
Just like Michael, he made it look like an everyday occurrence. Obviously, it was. It was only coming up to three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, but I suppose when you have a job like Michael’s that has you working odd hours, a weekday afternoon is just the same as another person’s Saturday night. Or so I reasoned.
As if he had just snorted a personality, Austin’s pout started to relax from a harsh scowl to a more pleasant half-smile.
‘So, you’re the latest?’ he asked, making me cough with a nervous laugh. ‘Y-yess, I suppose you could say I’m the latest.’ I was far from impressed.
Seizing my opportunity to gather a little background knowledge of Michael, I asked, ‘So how do you guys know each other?’ Unfortunately, his mobile rudely interrupted my interrogation with an irritating beeping and he headed off to the hall with a brief ‘Sorry.’
I remained stuck to the couch. There were now two relative strangers pacing the additional rooms, and I strained to think what Maddie would do. This sort of thing wouldn’t faze her in the slightest, I thought. I just needed to act cool. It’s not as if it was the first time I’d seen someone do coke in my presence. I’d seen plenty of people partake of illegal substances back in Dublin, but without Maddie, Parker, Lisa or even Anna by my side, I was feeling a smidgen vulnerable.
Snapping into vixen mode and adopting the relaxed pose of a veteran groupie, I hung my bare legs on display and started to twiddle a loose curl around my finger.
Michael returned to the living room, with an open bottle of JD, a bottle of Coca-Cola and three tumblers.
‘Close your eyes,’ he demanded, his piercing brown eyes looking serious. Worried by his unpredictability I said, ‘What?’ But he just smiled. ‘Close your eyes for me, heart-breaker.’
&n
bsp; I did as he said. I could hear him place the glasses and bottles on the table, and then immediately a powerful scent wafted up my nose, giving me a fright. I jolted my eyes open, only to see Michael waving a sprig of rosemary in front of me.
‘I picked it for you from the garden. There were no flowers to be seen, but this does smell beautiful … Just like youuu,’ he cooed.
It wasn’t quite Interflora calling, but I did see the romance in his gesture. He was still sweet, even though he was ridiculously high as a kite.
And just as we were starting to enjoy a moment locking lips, Robert De Niro came stomping back in, proclaiming, ‘Daz and Charlie are on their way.’ Not knowing if they were terms for more drugs or actual people, I sat back and sipped quietly on the Jack and Coke which Michael handed me.
‘WHOO-HAA!’ he whooped, like Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. ‘I feel a big one going down!’
Staring out the window, I noticed that it had started to sheet rain – tears from heaven, indeed. How the hell was I going to get myself out of this mess?
‘I’M IN SUM BAR, OR CLUB TYPE PLACE IN CHEL-SEE,’ I shouted down the phone to Maddie. ‘AN I’M WASTED!’ After about ten hours’ drinking, I suddenly felt the need to call home again.
And while I couldn’t really make out what she was saying, apart from, ‘… coming home? … OK? I’ll kill ’im!’ it was a comfort in itself to know she was at the other end of the phone – even if I couldn’t hear her over the pounding bass of the dance music.
Slumped on a toilet, I sat and stared at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. God, I was a state. I could easily be that bird from the Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ video.
Looking at my screen to see if I was still connected, I shouted down the phone, ‘I MISS YOU … I’M FF-FINE … TALK TO YA TOMORROW, HON!’ And then threw the phone back in my Prada bag. Thinking, duty done, I’d have put her mind at ease …
Champagne Kisses Page 8