Love to Hate You

by Anna Premoli

  “What am I supposed to be feeling?” I ask blandly, as I try to pull away.

  “Your heartbeat,” he answers, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. My heart is going like the clappers, and both of us can feel it.

  “So? I’ve got a fast heartbeat. So what?” I ask boldly.

  “You should consider being a comedian, not a lawyer,” he says with a laugh, still staring at me. “Are you done with the jokes?”

  My face must be a clear enough answer, because the next moment we're kissing again and if possible we're putting even more enthusiasm into it than before. It is clear that he wants to prove that I am completely in his power. And, bloody hell – I really am.

  A few minutes later I'm lying on the couch, and he's on top of me.

  Well, I tell myself in a pathetic attempt at self-justification, it is hard to move when you've got a heavy weight crushing you.

  Without stopping kissing me, Ian begins to lift my top and then touches my belly, and when he does I give a vague, incomprehensible moan. His hand moves more determinedly now, sliding gently up to my bra.

  “Can we take this top off?” he asks, removing his lips from mine for a moment.

  “No, we can’t. Absolutely not,” I say, panting. I mustn’t get undressed, whatever happens. I can’t give in.

  Ian starts kissing me on the neck, then higher, up to my ear. “We must,” he says softly, while I start to lose all control of myself again, and a few minutes later, when he starts pulling off my top, I don’t offer any more resistance. Hmm, really remarkable, my willpower.

  Just for the record, if I'd worn my horrible brown t-shirt, none of this would have happened – nobody in their right mind would have wanted to take that off.

  In the meantime, my hands are struggling with Ian’s shirt, and he seems to be enjoying the feel of my hand on his skin.

  His mouth moves down to my belly and then starts to rise, but not before he has explored every inch of my skin. The idea of his mouth on my body is almost too much for me, so I close my eyes and try and push the image away, but his lips and his hands are magic, and I can't think of anything else.

  “Please, stop,” I implore him, writhing.

  Ian lifts himself up onto his elbow and smiles at me almost jauntily. “I’ve only just started.”

  He has an expression that I've never seen before: sensual, playful, and, dare I say it, almost happy.

  “Oh God!” I exclaim in despair. It's starting to sink in that I've really gotten myself in deep this time.

  “How about if we were to go somewhere else?” he asks me, looking at me with those annoyingly blue eyes.

  I look away. “Forget it!” I shout, “I will never set foot in your bedroom.”

  “God, what a drama queen you are,” he says, not sounding the slightest bit worried. He gets up from the couch and, as though I were a feather, picks me up in his arms. Now, as every modern girl knows very well, twenty-first century men just don’t do this type of thing, ever! And that's why finding myself suddenly cradled in his arms like a precious object reduces me to a quivering wreck.

  “This isn't fair—” is all I can manage to mutter as Ian carries me into the bedroom, and puts me down gracefully on the bed, before lying down next to me.

  He looks at me in amusement, not in the least bit bothered by the panic that he can surely see on my face.

  “It would be nice if for once you would start kissing me first,” he says, smiling, “at least just to confirm that the feeling is mutual.” He says it with a smile, but the phrase hides a certain insecurity that I would never have expected in him.

  I pull him closer, my gaze moving from his eyes over every part of his face. “You make me do crazy things,” I say accusingly.

  Ian watches me. “Well, that’s a good thing. Someone had to teach you to be a bit crazy.”

  At this point, one more kiss is not going to make any difference to what is already a mortifying evening, I think, as I draw myself closer and closer to him, and when I do finally decide to kiss him, I see him close his eyes almost ecstatically. I look at his black eyelashes, until the pressure of his mouth forces me to close my eyes as well.

  He embraces me and makes me roll onto his chest, while his hands start to stroke my back, before coming to a halt at my bra, undecided what to do next.

  “Can I?” he asks, as he continues to kiss me on the neck.

  “I'd rather you didn’t,” I answer with a blush.

  “I'd rather I did—” he sighs, starting to play with the hook.

  “Please, don't—” I freeze, terrified of surrendering completely. Ian looks at me again, smiling.

  “Let's make a deal: you can keep the bra on for the moment in exchange for these boring old jeans.”

  “What?” I ask, eyes wide.

  Ian strokes my cheek. “You should have worn a skirt,” he says seriously. “These jeans are so tight – they’ll be hell to get off.”

  “I wish I had a pair that was tighter,” I reply, trying not to let his eyes hypnotise me.

  “You almost always wear trousers in the office,” he notes. I didn’t think he noticed my clothes.

  “They're more comfortable,” I say, annoyed. What sane woman prefers a skirt to a pair of comfortable trousers?

  Ian suddenly rolls us over, taking me by surprise. God, what a vision, girls: a gorgeous, shirtless vision with tousled hair and lips red from kissing. What a shame that this is going to be the first and last time I see this particular man in a similar position.

  Then he starts to loosen the button of my jeans and suddenly what a moment ago had seemed a terrible idea instantly becomes a fantastic idea. I let him take them off and there I am in my white knickers.

  Oops. My simple, horrible, plain white knickers. And obviously, I'm wearing a black bra…

  For a moment I close my eyes in desperation, because I’d be willing to bet my yearly bonus that this man has never seen a woman wearing a mismatched bra and knickers.

  “Ok, I think it's time I got going,” I say, trying in vain to break free and get off the bed.

  “Now?” asks Ian in amazement.

  “Actually, I should have gone a long time ago,” I say, mortified. “Now's a bit late, but better late than never.” I am sure that I'll go down in history as the woman who dared to wear two-tone underwear, but who cares. At least I won’t be one of many. Ian stops me. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks, sounding worried.

  “You?” I ask in surprise. “You had nothing to do with it. It's me. I've already made enough of a fool of myself with this bloody underwear.”

  Ian looks at me as if though I were speaking Arabic.

  “Look, in my defence I can only say that I never, and I mean never, thought you were going to see it. I swear. I thought there was more chance of the world blowing up first.”

  Ian doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “That's the problem?” he asks.

  Ah, that? He makes it all sound so silly, this gentleman.

  “We can solve that in no time,” he says. I feel his hands on my back undoing my bra, and I'm so taken aback that I don’t have time to stop him.

  “Ian!” I exclaim in outrage, trying to cover myself up but failing miserably.

  “I just wanted to help—” he says, looking at my breasts. “It just seemed like a really serious problem. And what gentleman wouldn’t help a girl in trouble? Anyway, now that we've got past that particular hurdle?”

  “I was about to leave?” I ask uncertainly, not really finding the strength to get out of this bed.

  Ian gets up and starts to undo his jeans, which fall to the ground. If I have a heart attack now, at least I'll have died happy, I think nervously.

  “This is a really bad idea—” I try to tell him, softly, “We're still in time to stop—”

  But Ian sits down on the bed and starts kissing me, kissing me so much that I can hardly breathe, and I let myself be completely carried away by this sensuous tsunami which completely w
ashes away all my willpower.

  A few minutes later, when the rest of our clothes have evaporated, all I can think is that what I'm doing is definitely the biggest mistake of my life.

  But, for once, who cares.

  Chapter 22

  Somewhere far, far away from me, my phone is ringing. For a moment I assess the probability that this too is a dream, though I really can’t recall ever having heard a phone ring so insistently in a dream.

  When I finally open my eyes, I try to focus on where I find myself, and I feel my anxiety mounting as I peer about in the darkness of a room that I had never seen before last night. I could even ignore the room, at a push, but there's no chance of ignoring the person lying next to me. And this morning I have to take a deep breath before I can accept that I'm actually in bed with Ian.

  Last night was as far removed as can be from a dream. It all really happened – unfortunately. Well, not exactly unfortunately…

  To be honest, I don’t know what to think.

  But the phone keeps ringing. Not exactly a promising start to the morning.

  The figure next to me is asleep. I envy his calm, I don’t really know how he can, knowing that I'm lying beside him, or maybe it's just that he’s so used to sleeping with a different girl each night it doesn't bother him any more. Me, who's never slept with a man on a first date? I'm struggling to think clearly about the last few hours of my life. After all, I’m in bed with a person that I’ve never even been out on a date with. Not even a first date.

  Of course, it was the most amazing night of my life, but did it have to happen with Ian? There are supposed to be three billion people to choose from out there, after all.

  Trying not to make a sound, I get out of bed and start collecting my clothes from the floor. I'm hunting around desperately for my top when I remember that I left it in the living room before we even got to the bedroom. God, how embarrassing.

  Before I slip on my clothes I decide to answer my damn phone, which has started ringing again.

  “Hello?” I whisper, trying to speak as quietly as possible. Ian turns over in bed but fortunately continues sleeping. “Ah, you're alive!” says Vera, sounding enormously relieved. “Yes I'm alive,” I confirm, almost smiling.

  “Laura and I were afraid you’d been killed when we saw your empty bed this morning! Don't do that again – you have to let us know where you are!” she scolds me, the way my mother never has.

  “Sorry, Vera,” I whisper, “but I wasn't planning to spend the night here.” In fact, it was the last thing on earth that I'd intended to do. At least consciously. I'd probably better not speak about my subconscious today.

  “Where's 'here'?” she asks, despite knowing perfectly well where I am.

  “At Ian’s. And thanks a lot for making me say it out loud,” I reply, sounding annoyed.

  “You're welcome. I had imagined that you didn’t spend the night playing whist—” she says with a chuckle.

  “It was Scrabble, dear,” I reply.

  She bursts out laughing. “Yeah, right – if you think anyone'll buy that—”

  “Anyway, I'm leaving,” I say, trying to end the painful phone call.

  “Look, now that we know you’re alive, you can stay,” says Vera.

  “I'd rather come back.” As soon as possible.

  “Whatever you like. But if you come, be prepared to tell all, ok?” she sighs.

  “Do you actually enjoy putting me through the wringer?”

  “No, but you know how much we like some juicy gossip. Bye!” says Vera. I say goodbye too and hang up. Now that I’ve solved the problem of the phone call, I carry on getting dressed: I put on my jeans, recover the top from where it's hidden between the cushions on the couch, and I'm ready to go.

  In theory, I should nip to the bathroom, but that might mean waking up Ian, and I have no desire to talk to him this morning, so it'll just have to wait until I get home. After all, what's a bursting bladder next to the most embarrassing conversation of my entire life? Especially because – even though he might be accustomed to casual sex – I’ve slept with the grand total of five men, Ian included, in all my thirty-three years, so I'm struggling a bit to consider this ‘normal’.

  The front door opens with a slight creak, and I slip on my coat and leave without looking back.

  It's a cowardly thing to do, and I'm very well aware of the fact. I'm even a bit ashamed, to be frank, but I need a few hours of solitary reflection before I can deal with what happened last night. Because – unfortunately – there's no way of having this memory surgically removed.

  While I'm sitting on the tube heading home, I can’t help feeling vexed at the thought of last night. Ian was so different from what I would have expected, and what I find really disturbing is that he seemed genuinely quite taken by me. Which can't be true, I know, but the illusion of yesterday is imprinted on my brain and it’s difficult to erase. I can smell him all over me and every little part of my body still remembers all his caresses and kisses all too well. My boyfriends have never been particularly memorable, so it's not surprising if this morning I don't feel totally myself.

  When I get home, I'm greeted, for obvious reasons, by two very impatient looking girls.

  “Shall we go out for breakfast?” suggests Laura, at the sight of my pale face.

  That's an excellent idea and just what I need, so not long afterwards we find ourselves walking towards a cafe nearby. I desperately need to sweeten up the morning.

  After sitting down and ordering, I wait patiently for all the inevitable questions, which soon arrive. I'm grateful they managed to hold them back until we got here.

  “So what happened?” asks Laura, leaning back in her chair.

  I squirm in mine. “Do we have to go into the details?” I ask, with pleading eyes.

  “Don’t try that one with us, save it for your boyfriend,” says Vera seriously and ever so slightly angrily.

  “I don't have a boyfriend,” I feel obliged to point out.

  She glares at me. “Whatever you want to call him—”

  “I don’t call him anything! That's the point!” I say, banging my hand on the table. I was really hoping that at least my friends would understand the situation.

  “Ok,” intervenes Vera, “let’s not get worked up. And let's backtrack. Jenny, you have to understand that we've had a pretty scary morning, thanks to you. You weren’t in your bed and we were seriously worried! We were convinced that you hadn't wanted to spend the night at Ian’s and so we were terrified that some nutter had done something to you on the way back home.”

  I must admit that it sounds reasonable.

  “Sorry,” I apologize, “because I had really didn't have any intention of staying. It was an accident that I hadn’t calculated on. I was just… overwhelmed,” I explain, with a sigh.

  My friends soften at the sight of my bewilderment. “Overwhelmed?” Laura asks quizzically. “Overwhelmed by what exactly? By his physical appearance? Good god, woman, I thought that after all these years you'd have noticed it—”

  “Don’t get any weird ideas!” I burst out nervously, grabbing the croissant that has just materialized on the plate in front of me.

  “What ideas should I get, then?” she asks, with a chuckle. I hate that insinuating laugh of hers.

  “Listen, sweetheart,” intrudes Vera, “let's get to the point. Did you go to bed with him or not?”

  Yep, that's certainly straight to the point, I think as I continue to eat.

  “Yes,” I admit, between mouthfuls.

  “And it was that good?” asks Laura. I sit there in stunned silence for a moment.

  “How do you know?” I ask, genuinely surprised.

  “I can tell by your face,” comments Vera. “You know, that 'I've just had the best sex of my life and I've got absolutely no idea what to do now' face—”

  “I'm an open book, apparently—” I grunt in annoyance.

  “Come on, pull yourself together,” says Vera, trying
to console me. “We've all been there. Of course, it took you a bit longer than normal—”

  Laura nods sadly. Apparently every woman has a skeleton in her cupboard.

  “And now?” she asks. “What did you say to each other this morning?”

  I clear my throat before answering, because I know they're not going to like what I'm about to tell them. “Errrm, to be honest, we didn't actually talk this morning.”

  Vera looks at me doubtfully. “How come?” she asks.

  “Ian was still asleep when I left,” I say quietly.

  “Whaaaaaat?” explodes Laura, totally unexpectedly.

  “What?” echoes Vera, staring at me with horrified eyes.

  “He was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him up. And I had to get out of there—” I try to justify myself.

  “No, you absolutely didn't have to get out of there!” Laura interrupts me.

  “Believe me, I had to go,” I say emphatically. The two of them weren’t there this morning and they don’t know how I felt when I woke up.

  “He’ll be pissed off, Jenny,” Vera tells me, “and he has every right be, to be honest.”

  That’s an exaggeration. “I don’t think so. He's probably thanking me right now for not disturbing him—”

  Vera and Laura look at me, unconvinced. “Really?” asks the first.

  Of course at that moment, my phone starts ringing, and I'm afraid I've got a good idea who's calling.

  “Go on,” says Laura.

  “It’ll be my mother,” I say, not wanting to open my bag.

  “It's not your mother! Come on, answer the bloody phone!”

  With visible annoyance I start to root around for it in my bag.

  It's not my mother. Crap – the only time in history where I was actually hoping it was her.

  “Hello?” I answer, in a feeble voice.

  “Where the hell did you get to?” shouts Ian. Apparently his awakening was not the sweetest.

  “Hello? Hello? You're breaking up—” I lie, and then hang up.

  “What the hell are you doing?” asks a shocked Laura.

  I glare at her. “I’m hanging up, if you don’t mind! I should never have answered in the first place.”