‘I’ve only just really started properly looking, to be honest. I’ve decided I don’t want another staff job. I want to free up time to write.’
‘Hmm, sounds good. I’m wondering if there’s anyone I know who might have some contacts for you,’ Gina pondered aloud. ‘You don’t seem too stressed about it. Is that the yoga working?’
‘Partly. . . But I think it’s just more that after dealing with Sebastian, I reckon I cope with anything.’
One wet Monday, I emailed round my friends to ask if anyone had any magazine contacts I could try and tap for work. A couple of them came back with suggestions. And then Gina called me. ‘I’m putting you in touch with a friend of a friend, some guy who was looking for a copywriter for the design company he worked for. ‘He’s an absolute sweetheart. Called Jake. An all-round creative whizz and a really good egg. Drop him a line.’
As is often the case in London’s incestuous Medialand, it turned out that Jake and I had more than a few friends in common. But the Chinese whisper about looking for a copywriter turned out to be just that.
‘Nichi, I’m so sorry, I wish I could help but there’s no work going where I’m based!’
‘Oh, no worries’, I replied.
‘I’m surprised you’re job hunting though. You write about sexual politics and things, don’t you? I read all your stuff. I love your work!’
I love your work? I was just another one of the thousands of small-time journalists with odd bits in the nationals. I love your work? What a line! Who was this guy?
‘Ha! Well, that’s just the freelancer’s lot. Always touting . . . Sorry to have bothered you, Jake.’
‘Not at all! Why don’t you add me on Facebook? That way if any of my friends have any work I can point them in your direction.’
Well, sure, no problem. This was how casual networking functioned.
I signed in a few days later and had a proper look at Jake’s profile. My God, he was cute. Actually startlingly handsome with a wedge of playfully styled dark-blond hair, a wry smile,, and the sexiest, hooded brown eyes. His profile page was filled with inspiring, unstaged shots of him out with his friends; at their picnics and parties, riding, skating, trekking, and painting. Painting? Oh God, no, please no more artists. But no, he was actually studying for a Masters in Fine Art in his own time. By day, he was a successful graphic designer with his own business. I liked the look of Jake.
The next day there was a message from him. ‘Hey Nichi, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help workwise but I actually have a favour to ask you. I’m working on a portraiture module for my Masters and I was wondering if you might let me paint you? I’m asking lots of friends and contacts on Facebook so please don’t worry if you can’t. Jake.’
Oh God. No. No painting. I began to write him a note to decline. Snap jumped up on to the desk demanding my hand and promptly sat on the keyboard. The message disappeared. This cat needed some serious housetraining. I sighed. Gina was calling, I’d sort it out later.
Later that evening, I saw Jake online. He instant messaged me.
‘Hey Nichi, how are you? Just checking if you got my email?’
Oh God, I’d completely forgotten to reply to it.
‘Hi Jake, argh, so sorry, this will sound like a mad excuse but I did reply and then Snap deleted it before I could send.’
‘Snap?’
‘Sorry! My cat!’
‘Oh! I was thinking you had some possessive, domineering bf who intercepted your communications with strange men, lol.’
‘Ha. No. Alas not.’
‘So would you be interested in the portrait?’
I took my fingers off the keyboard. I really should just have sent him an email. It was awful to get caught like this, having to explain yourself.
‘Jake, I’m really sorry but I just don’t have the time right now.’
‘Oh but you don’t need any time. You don’t need to sit for me or anything. I was just wondering if I could use one of your profile pictures and make a drawing from that.’
Oh. Oh! Bloody hell, what was I going to say now? Now I was going to have to explain why I felt awkward about him doing it. Which would make me sound all uptight and narcissistic again. Which I might have been a few weeks ago but I really wasn’t now. Well, no I was desperately trying not to be now. But I really didn’t want to have to admit my silly insecurities to Jake. Anyway I didn’t have to go in to detail. Just be firm. Invoke the domme! Say no!
‘You have the most amazing eyes. And your face is such a unique shape.’
Ha ha. That was one way of describing the golden egg!
‘Well, that’s sweet!’
‘Please?’ typed Jake and sent a pleading emoticon.
I blushed hotly in front of my computer screen. No, Nichi, no! This was the stuff that didn’t matter any more, I’d been telling myself for weeks. And yet it felt so nice to have someone pay me a compliment. I’d actually almost forgotten what it felt like.
Oh why not, what harm could it do.
Three days later Gina called me. ‘Nichi! Have you been on Facebook? Get on Facebook now!’
I looked at the clock. It was 5.52 a.m. Even Snap, who generally functioned as my alarm clock, but had been curled up next to my head on the pillow, looked aggrieved at having been disturbed.
‘Gina! Why are you up at this time?’
‘I haven’t been to bed yet, we had a lock-in at the restaurant. Anyway, did you check your FB page last night?’
Did I what? Oh, well, no. I’d been boxing with Tim, my trainer. And then I’d watched Newsnight and gone to bed.
‘Well log in now. While I’m on the phone to you!’
‘Gina, what the hell?’
‘DO IT, bitch!’ She affected a mock-uber-domme voice.
‘OK, OK, hang on!’
‘Can you see it yet?’
‘Gina, I’m going to hang up in a minute, hang on! Right, OK, it’s just loading now. OK I’m signed in . . . what am I looking . . .’
I answered my own question. There on the wall of my Facebook page was an exquisite painting of me. Jake had taken one of my better headshots and produced an impossibly flattering portrait colouring in my green eyes and my painted lips even more vividly. He hadn’t altered the shape of my face, but somehow my cheeks didn’t look quite so puffy painted so proficiently.
‘I told you you needed to log into Facebook!’ Gina said in triumph, ‘that’s like the biggest come-on EVER! Has anyone ever drawn a picture of you before? This guy wants you.’
‘We’ve never even met!’
‘Yeah, well that’s about to change. You’re coming to this free art festival with me on Saturday. My friend Rebecca told me about it. Jake will be there. You’re going to meet him.’
‘Gina, what are you doing, I’m not ready to meet anyone else! I’m barely over Sebastian.’
‘I’m not asking you to go out with the guy, just to hang around with someone who’s nice for once! You might make some journo contacts. Anyway, you now need to say thank you to him for stroking your bruised ego back to full health!’
I was sceptical, but there was no resisting Gina when she’d formulated one of her dogged plans. On Sunday, I met her at Trafalgar Square where the event was being held. It was an alternative art fair, brimming with stalls displaying stunning, quirky textile pieces, sculptures and paintings by all kinds of artists working in mixed media. If I hadn’t known better I might have worried that I would bump into Sebastian, but for months he’d planning to go to Amsterdam to work on an expo out there.
‘You look nice!’ said Gina when she saw me. I’d taken the opportunity to pull on a bright shift dress, electric blue and orange, open at the back to reveal a flash of bright pink bra. I’d found an amazing necklace in a shop near my house that interwove all the exact same colours in a complimentary rainbow. Plus some patent sherbet orange heels I’d bought in Japan. They were utterly lurid but I loved them. And besides, it was an art fair after all.
Gin
a was dressed in her usual uniform of colour-pop jeans and flat boots, only this time she’d chosen an eye-grazing acid yellow. ‘Well at least you’re not going to lose me in a crowd, right?’ she laughed. ‘Anyway, colours are good. We like colours!’
Gina took at her phone and started tapping away at the screen.
‘Who are you messaging?’
‘Oh, just Jake. I got his number off Rebecca.’
‘Gina!!’
‘Come on, you have to say thank you for your picture! Aha, there he is now, over by that rubber jewellery stand. Manners, Nichi!’
I turned in the direction of the stall. Jake looked exactly like his pictures. Crazy blond hair, those sexy hooded eyes. He was slim but perfectly proportioned, leanly muscular, as befitting a man that spent so much of his time tearing up and down mountains, or whizzing about London on skates. He was wearing a red sleeveless tank and black jeans. I was instantly attracted to him.
Gina slid her hand behind me and covertly slapped me on the backside. ‘Off we go!’
Jake clearly knew some of the guys at the stall and was laughing and joking with them over the jewellery, some of which looked far more like bondage wear. Hang on a minute, I recognised these guys. Sapphire and I had once bought some special dildo gags off them from a stall at the London Fetish Fair. Did that mean . . .?
‘Nichi, hi!’ Jake came towards me and kissed me suavely on either cheek. I blushed a brighter pink than the colour of my bra. Thank God you couldn’t see it to compare from the front. He smelled like fresh citrus and old leather. Mmm.
I turned round to Gina. Wasn’t she going to greet him, too? They’d already met, hadn’t they?
‘Hey Gina, how are you doing?’
She gave him a quick smile but it seemed she had things to do.
‘Look, you two, I need to go and meet Rebecca, she’s going to help me select an original sculpture for the restaurant. I’ll call you in an hour and we can have drinks or something. Have fun.’
Gina! She was leaving me? What the hell were Jake and I going to talk about for an hour? I looked back at the rubber jewellery stall. And then up at Jake. He was smiling at me with a slight hint of expectation on his face. The picture. I needed to say something about it.
‘So, Jake, I saw the portrait you did of me, that was really something.’
He grinned and gave a funny little mock bow with his head. ‘You’re welcome. Did you like it?’
‘Well, of course, it’s gorgeous!’ Uh oh. Did that sound as though I thought I was gorgeous? ‘I mean, it’s terribly overly flattering but the execution is really something. You’d have made a great Renaissance court artist, you know.’ I said to him.
‘Ha! Now that would have been a job and a half. Although I would probably have abused my position!’
Abused his position?
‘Oh really?’ I ventured. ‘How so?’
‘Oh, you know. Probably just enjoyed ordering my sitters into position too readily.’
I looked at him. He looked straight back at me, and gave a tight-lipped smile. Oh God, Nichi, you can’t think about anything without it being related back to kink! He’s probably a social anarchist who just means he’d have enjoyed bossing about his spoilt aristocratic patrons. Not commanding the beautiful ladies in waiting to bare more shoulder. Think about higher things for once! Think about art!
I cleared my throat and smiled demurely back. ‘Shall we take a look at some of this art then? What’s good? Care to educate me?’
For the next hour or so we wended our way around the fair, comparing the work here with that of our favourite artists. At every second stall, Jake stopped and greeted the holders, many of whom he knew, paying them thoughtful compliments about their work. I’d never watched someone be hugged so enthusiastically by so many friends. It touched me. There was clearly something very special about Jake, and it had nothing to do with his looks.
Suddenly my phone flashed up. It was Gina.
‘How’s it going with Jake?’
‘Fine,’ I replied cryptically. She must have known I couldn’t possibly elucidate in front of him.
‘He hasn’t tied you up yet, then?’
‘What are you talking about?’
I could hear giggling in the background and Gina muttering something to, well, I presumed it must be Rebecca.
‘You know Jake is a kinkster, Nichi? That’s how Rebecca met him. Her company was doing some PR for the kink club and he was one of the fetish models they used. A Master model, might I add . . .’
I turned and looked at Jake as Gina told me this, tightening my phone to my ear to prevent Jake from overhearing this.
‘Why do you think he was looking at the rubber jewellery?’
‘Gina, you have to save me. Get back here right now!’
‘Save you? I’m throwing you at his feet, lady. This man is perfect for you!’
I looked at Jake’s face again. But how could he be a Master? He was so sweet. But then again, those hooded eyes of his. That mouth . . .
Gina spoke again. ‘Anyway, I can see the pair of you now. We’re heading over. Time for drinks!’
‘Everything OK?’ asked Jake, placing his hand on the back of my shoulder in concern.
‘Oh . . . yes . . . Gina’s just coming.’ I gestured up the path. Thank God. I couldn’t get another sentence out.
I’d fired up underneath his fingers. How?
Gina and Rebecca arrived, full of excitement about the sculpture they had just purchased for the restaurant. In fact, they’d been toasting it in vodka and Ribena, and were already a little on the inebriated side. ‘Do you want some guys? We need another toast.’
‘Where’s the bottle?’ Gina fiddled around in her bag.
‘Here!’ I laughed, and reached into her bag, pulling out the now half empty container sloshing with the makeshift purple cocktail. ‘I can’t believe you actually mixed Ribena with vodka. I didn’t even do that when I was fifteen!’
‘Well, then, you better make up for it now, Nichi!’ Jake took the spirit bottle off Gina and gave me an order. ‘Take the lid off, Nichi, while I pour the rest of the vodka in.’
‘Jake, careful!’ chastised Rebecca. ‘The whole reason we were decanting it is because you aren’t allowed glass in here.’
‘It’s not a real rule, it’s just about profit-making. No one’s going to try and take this bottle of me, anyway.’ He looked up at me from underneath his hooded eyes and gave me a devilish grin. I felt the bottle in my hands shake. Oh God. I was actually trembling.
‘Oh, how gloriously teenage!’ he pronounced. ‘Although I wouldn’t be an inept teenager again for anything!’
There was a stage set up in a corner of the square. ‘Let’s go check that out,’ suggested Gina. We headed over and discovered some kind of unpalatable ambient noise.
‘It’s this sonic art collective I’ve heard about,’ Jake informed me. ‘I’m not sure how good they are but it’s worth a provisional listen.’ Besides, we couldn’t exactly just drink vodka and Ribena lingering over other people’s paintings.
Jake came up and stood behind me, from time to time placing one hand on my waist as he passed the bottle around. Ten minutes and no lunch later I was already feeling the effects of the alcohol. I was also conscious that Jake had stopped removing his hands from about my waist when he took the bottle back. I could smell his citrus and leather scent even more richly now. Was I imagining it or could I also feel his hot breath on my neck?
Suddenly my phone started ringing. I left Jake, Gina and Rebecca and headed away from the stage to take the call. It was a big commercial radio station I’d never worked for before. Could I come on for a panel debate tonight? I said yes. And then immediately regretted it. If I was to sound even remotely sentient I had to go home right now and sober up. This was the freelance life. Pleasure had to be wound up whenever professional opportunities presented themselves. But why had they called me right now, damn it!
I went back over to the others. ‘He
y guys, I’m so sorry but I’m going to have to go. I just got a radio call. I’m on tonight. I need to go home and prepare.’
‘Nooooo!’ Gina gave me a tipsy hug.
‘Let me walk you to the tube then?’ Jake offered.
It was 4 p.m. on a bright Saturday afternoon. Maybe this wasn’t that kind of walk.
I began to pick my way through the crowds and Jake came up behind me, placing a smooth hand on the back of my neck. I gave the slightest of stumbles over a stack of free art catalogues. He took hold of my hand in a firm grip, then as we came to the edge of the square, entwined his fingers into mine, more sensually.
I didn’t dare look at him. Instead we walked silently up Regent Street, until, waiting to cross over one of the smaller roads, we locked eyes in the reflection of the shop window ahead of us. We both began to laugh at the clichéd romance of it.
Jake turned to me.’ So, Nichi, that picture I did for you, you can have it if you like.’
‘Oh!’ I blushed. ‘That would be lovely, thank you. But don’t you need it for your portrait portfolio?’ We were nearing the top of Oxford Circus now where I was to get on the tube. Jake hesitated with his reply. ‘I lied. I’d already handed in my portfolio. I just wanted to paint you.’
I looked up at him. His hooded eyes had widened, and he licked his just-parted lips. His face was full of longing. Then he brought his mouth back into that delicious wry smile. I gasped and started to laugh softly, as Jake pulled me to him. I slid my hands up around his athletic back as he felt his fingers up underneath my hair, using the lightest grip on it to guide me into him. Then finally he took my face in his hands, and as he brought my mouth up to his, the buses and the shoppers and the noise melted away until all I could sense was Jake’s breath on my lips.
‘Because how else could I have got you to sit for me?’
And then we kissed.
Bound to You Page 28