I could sense the beginning of a burning issue between us. I didn’t want to cause our first argument, but I didn’t want to be brushed off again. Either he’d tell me why I wasn’t allowed to get too close or I’d have to turn into Jeremy Paxman to force the answers out of him.
‘You do know me, Jen.’ He was humming again. Nerves. ‘You know the stuff that matters.’
‘Like what? I know you like beer, wine and prawn cocktail crisps, your favourite colour’s green and you hate Jeremy Beadle with a passion. Hardly ground-breaking stuff, is it? That could go for most of the population.’
The beer was rushing to my head faster than I could think and I was beginning to feel strangely agitated.
‘God, I don’t even know your surname.’
‘Pettifer,’ he replied curtly.
Pettifer. Jennifer Pettifer. Ooh, I didn’t like the sound of that, but we’d work something out. Funny, it sounded familiar.
‘I didn’t realise it was important,’ he mumbled.
‘Important? For all I know, Randall, you could be a serial killer with a fetish for size twelve barmaids.’ OK, so I was getting a little carried away. It’s a particular talent of mine.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He agreed.
‘Well. For a start, you don’t tell me anything about your job. You’re only on work experience, for God’s sake. I know TV people can be uptight, but it can’t be that top secret.’
I could feel the tension mounting but I was on a roll. Inwardly I vowed not to mix beer and Tequila on our next date, if we had one.
He stared at me across the table, saying nothing. In my tipsy state I found his mellow reaction to my pointless outburst even more infuriating.
‘Oh just clam up, why don’t you!’ I spluttered. All eyes in the small Mexican restaurant were now on Table 8. Shut up, Jennifer, I urged myself. ‘Why are men so incapable of talking about things?’ I continued. ‘Give them football, cars or tits as a subject and the conversation flows doesn’t it? Give them anything remotely personal and it’s, sorry, no can do.’
He took a sip of beer and looked away. A hushed snigger coursed around the room.
‘Tell me something, Randall, please. We’ve been going out for two weeks and I’ve never even seen where you live. What are you hiding? If you’ve got a wife and eight kids, I’d rather know now.’
He stood up suddenly and pulled his jacket from the back of the chair. His hand reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of notes. A slim, exquisite hand. The one I had been holding as we had entered the restaurant. The notes scattered on the table in front of me.
Bollocks, I thought. Motor mouth does it again. We had been having a great night until I’d done the unreasonable woman thing. Now he was going to walk out and leave me sitting alone like Norma No-mates at the cactus-shaped table.
I glanced around the room and saw embarrassed faces turn away hurriedly. Even the waiter had his head buried in a menu, a look of desperate concentration on his face. My heart sank. I wanted to beg ‘Don’t go’ but I was too proud. Drunk and pig-headed – always a dangerous combination.
I watched Randall shrug the soft black leather jacket onto his shoulders. He pushed back the lock of hair that fell over his face, all the time avoiding my gaze. I watched him walk slowly past my chair without saying a word, and waited for the footsteps to disappear behind me. Shit, shit, shit. Me and my big gob. I sank into my chair feeling miserable as the Gypsy Kings hollered in my ear.
Suddenly I felt a hand grasp my left shoulder. Expecting to see an irate waiter, I looked up shyly and was surprised to see Randall’s sea-green eyes burning into me. I wondered what he was about to do. Perhaps the serial killer quip had been a bit too close to the truth. I opened my mouth to speak.
‘Ssh,’ he said, gesturing to me to stand up. He took my coat and slipped it delicately over my shoulders. There was a hushed silence in the restaurant. Even ‘Bamboleo’ had been turned down to a low wail. We walked towards the exit, his arm firmly round my waist. As we reached the door, he turned his face towards mine.
‘You want to know me?’ he whispered enticingly in my ear. ‘Maybe it’s about time.’
Chapter Sixteen
18th March, 10:00 p.m.
‘This place is like an Ikea catalogue,’ I said, hunting for the on switch of a metallic green designer fan.
‘Do you like it?’ he asked.
‘Hmm? Oh yeah … yes, it’s really nice,’ I said. Unlived in, I thought. Needs a woman’s touch.
I picked up an expandable fish-shaped gadget and looked at it curiously.
‘Bottle opener,’ he explained. ‘Red or white?’
We stood in the kitchen of Randall’s flat, a small room painted stark white. It was clinically clean like the rest of the rooms. I had to admit, it was stylish and filled with every gadget known to man. Bodum coffee maker, wine cooler, ice maker, thick-slice/thin-slice/multi-slice toaster and baffling chrome banana holder. A gigantic flat-screened television dominated the living room. All he needed was a popcorn machine and an ice-cream lady and he could have sold tickets to watch it. The only other furniture in the living room was a Japanese futon, an art deco rug and a glass triangular-shaped coffee table. A metallic silver CD rack stood in one corner, piled high with all tastes of music from Kula Shaker indie to sleazy listening. A matt grey hi-tech sound system with enough flashing lights to illuminate Blackpool played Moby at a gentle volume. Knowing that men like to think they have a Masters Degree from Dixons, I declined to comment on the size of the sub-woofers, the levels of the graphic equaliser or the possible English translation of EON RDS, Ms Seek, Dolby BNR. Better to nod knowingly and enthusiastically hum the tune.
The fitted kitchen was quality pine and lit from all angles by discreet silver spotlights. A green Aga covered most of one wall, the remainder of which was filled with a stack of green Le Creuset pans and a rack of sparkling utensils. I wondered whether they had ever been used. Everything looked so new and glistening. There were no dirty dishes in the sink, no odd socks lying around the washing machine or mouldy take-away curries in the fridge. I was sure every bachelor pad contained at least one pin-up of Melinda Messenger, but there were no ‘it’ girls in sight. Perhaps I should have been pleased about the absence of Loaded magazines and postcards from Ibiza, but it was strangely impersonal.
‘Don’t you have any pictures?’ I asked.
‘What sort of pictures?’ He looked puzzled.
‘Pictures, photos of your family, things in frames …’
He looked at me blankly.
‘… to brighten the place up a bit,’ I added.
‘I hadn’t really thought about it,’ he shrugged. ‘Aye, maybe I will.’
Very strange. I felt as if I’d stepped into a Homes-R-Us showpiece and was about to be flogged a fitted kitchen with free set of matching luggage.
‘Biscuit?’ he asked, holding out an olive-coloured pottery jar stacked with ginger cookies.
‘You’re very organised,’ I said, taking two. ‘My guests are lucky to get a few broken bourbons and a stale chocolate digestive.’
He smiled and handed me an enormous glass of Jacob’s Creek Riesling, my choice from the well-stocked wine rack. At £4.59 a bottle, it was my idea of a middle- to high-class bottle of plonk.
‘I want to drink it, not keep goldfish,’ I laughed, grasping the stem of the huge glass for dear life.
‘Cheers, pet,’ he winked, and led the way back to the living room.
Feeling like a fourteen-year-old about to get her first taste of a fondle and a French kiss, I sat awkwardly on the edge of the futon, fiddling with the tassel on a semi-ethnic cushion and intermittently gulping my vase of wine. I half expected my mother to come into the room at the most inopportune moment like she used to do at school discos.
‘Jennifer Summer!’ she’d yell across the dance floor, packed with raging adolescent hormones, ‘10:45 p.m. we said, young lady. What is it now, hmm? 10:58 p.m. Thirteen minutes, madam, th
irteen. Now take that young man’s hand off your bottom and get it to the car, Daddy’s waiting.’ At which point I would scurry out, snog-free, praying to every conceivable god to strike my loud-mouthed mother dumb in the very near future.
OK, so it wasn’t likely to happen in Randall’s flat, but I had learned never to underestimate my mother. I knew we were building up to it, to much more than a snog, and the anticipatory small talk was killing me. Jacob’s plonk was doing little to calm my nerves. Just shag me, I wanted to shout, let’s get it over with!
I’m not saying I didn’t want it to happen, neither am I saying I wasn’t looking forward to it, but a first time with someone is always steeped in anxiety. That first moment of nakedness, the first few minutes of nervous fumbling, and the apprehensive excitement. The questions: ‘Will he be good?’ ‘Will I be good?’ ‘Will we be compatible?’ ‘Will he regret having got intimate with a sack of overboiled spuds?’
The problem was I did really like him. In fact, I was falling for him faster than a 19-stone bungee jumper from a suspension bridge. Perhaps I was placing too much emphasis on this one evening of carnal knowledge but I wanted it to work. Frankly it was all getting too much for me to bear.
‘Everything OK, Jenny?’ he asked, placing a hand on my twitching thigh and stroking it gently.
‘Yep … hmmm … great.’ I nodded fiercely and took another huge gulp of wine.
‘What was I saying then?’
‘Saying? Um … ooh. Can’t remember now but it was very interesting.’
‘Aye, must have been.’
He smiled broadly and reached forward, slowly peeling my entwined fingers from the stem of the wine glass. I let him take it and watched the way his lean body moved as he walked over to the coffee table. Placing the glasses gently on the shiny surface, he turned to face me, clasped his hands together and hummed quietly. Nervous, I thought. At least I’m not the only one.
My heart began to race faster as he moved softly towards me and knelt on the floor in front of the futon. His breathing sounded deep and hollow. In my mind his breaths drowned out Moby’s lyrics as I concentrated intensely on Randall’s every move.
You’re gorgeous, I thought, as I grasped the hand he reached out towards me.
‘Come on, Jen,’ he breathed, pulling me tenderly up from floor level, ‘there’s one room you haven’t seen yet.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ I gasped, trying to take in every inch of the spacious bedroom. No black silk sheets, no full-length mirrors around the bed, no pretentious stacks of dumbbells sitting unused in a corner. The room was painted a warm terracotta above a varnished wooden floor. Deep red drapes framed the one bay window, matching the voluminous duvet that covered the bed. The few pieces of furniture were delicately carved in dark pine. The bed had four carved posts stretching up to a stiff pelmet and thin voile curtain. Any sharp edges were softened with colourful scatter cushions and huge bowls of fruit and pot pourri. A solitary picture hung next to the bed, a vibrant scene in reds and yellows of a summer’s day in Venice.
I felt his arms wrap round my waist from behind and his warm cheek touch my face.
‘No, you’re wonderful,’ he whispered, and gently kissed my neck.
My usual reaction would have been to shrug him off with a ‘Yeah right, piss off and stop winding me up’, but the way his lips caressed my neck and his arms held me tightly, I could feel myself getting lost in the moment of fantasy.
I turned slowly to face him and ran my fingers down his cheek. His eyes were intense, flickering across my face and down to my chest. He pulled me to him.
Our eyes met instantly. I didn’t allow myself time to think as he moved me gently over to the bed and ran his hands down my body.
‘God, I want you so much,’ he sighed, taking my head in his strong hands and kissing me passionately.
Do you? I thought, but restricted myself to a loud sigh. ‘I really want you too.’
We kissed urgently, both of us sensing the other’s desires. He moved his hands towards my waist and pushed my top up to reveal the white skin of my stomach. I gasped as he pulled my top over my head and cupped my breasts gently in his hands. He stared at them for a moment before sliding his hands around my back and unhooking my bra. He pulled it off my arms in one effortless manoeuvre. My chest raised up and down as I tried to control my breathing.
Please like them, I begged inwardly.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered.
I groaned deeply as he bent down and took my nipple in his mouth. He sucked gently and carefully massaged my breasts with his warm hands. My thighs felt weak and a wave of immense pleasure washed over my body. I threw my head back as his lips moved down towards my waist. Kissing, licking, feeling, his hands were unbuttoning my trousers and pulling them down over my thighs. I could feel his breath on my stomach as he knelt at my feet. I sucked it in sharply with one of the few muscles I had, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
Now! my body shouted. Please.
‘Sit on the bed,’ he said, softly pushing on my waist.
Damn blasted boots and socks. I had forgotten about them. He deftly unlaced them, pulled off my incredibly unglamorous blue socks, and dropped my trousers on the floor beside them. He stood, looking down at me as I sat on the edge of the bed in my white lace knickers. I smiled at my cunning plan to invest in new, foxy lingerie after the first week of our relationship. My usual over-washed sensible pants would really have spoiled the moment.
I blushed under his gaze but my body felt warm, flushed and sexy. I wanted to feel him naked beside me.
He urgently unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off to reveal a firm, flat stomach and solid, rounded pecs. His skin was golden with a light dusting of dark hair across his chest and around his nipples. Fit, I thought. Thank you, God.
His shoes were off in a flash. I watched, mesmerised, as he whipped off his belt and undid the button on his trousers.
I reached for his zip, pulled it down and moved his trousers down over his hips. His bum felt smooth yet firm to my touch, tensing as I stroked the naked skin. My eyes were on his groin. I whimpered without meaning to, and pulled him on top of me.
I felt a rush of heat as my skin touched his, feeling his nakedness for the first time. We kissed and moved slowly together. I moved my hands over his shoulders, down his long, lean back, over his bum to the hair at the top of his thighs. I pulled him closer to me, grinding his penis against my groin.
His hand moved to my stomach then down to my knickers. His eyes flashed like precious emeralds as he pulled them down towards my knees. I was naked, he was naked, and we were both filled with wanting.
Take it slowly, my mind insisted. Take me now, my body screamed.
His knee moved between my thighs and pushed them slowly apart. I was writhing with pleasure and groaning loudly, all paranoid inhibitions gone in the glint of his eye. I felt his hand move between my legs, and shivered as he clasped his hand over my clitoris. He stroked me firmly, getting gradually faster.
That’s it, I thought, no messing.
I was losing control with every touch. The feeling was so overwhelming I realised that battery-operated sex could never be as good, no matter what the feminists claimed. He made me feel so good. I caught my breath as he pulled his hand away.
No, I thought. Don’t stop now! But I sensed his next move as he looked into my eyes as if for reassurance.
I wasn’t going to debate the issue. I smiled and nodded as he reached into a drawer by the bed and pulled out a small, red packet. Feeling like an amateur sausage maker on The Generation Game, I fumbled with the condom until it rolled into place. I clasped his waist, pulling him to me. In a second he was inside me, pushing deeper. Our eyes were locked in a silent conversation as our pubic bones ground together. He felt wide and firm as he moved in and out. I groaned louder, and held him close, arching my back and rolling my hips. His bum raised up and down under my grasp as he thrust himself deeper into me. I let out a strangled yelp as the rhyt
hm got faster. Droplets of sweat filled his forehead and he wrinkled his brow with effort and determination.
‘Yes,’ I sighed.
‘Hmm, yes,’ he murmured.
We moved naturally, unable to stop, faster and faster. Stronger and firmer.
I squirmed as his bone rubbed the sensitive skin on my clitoris, sending shock waves of desire through my body. I’d almost forgotten how it could feel.
Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. My groin was on fire and my body shook uncontrollably. He thrust harder as I quivered under him.
‘Wow!’ I yelled.
‘Oh Jenny,’ he groaned and exploded inside me. We clasped each other tightly and I bit my lip to stop myself biting into the soft flesh of his shoulder. The orgasm was intense. I wanted it to last for ever, wave after wave of glorious pleasure. Finally it subsided and I felt the weight of his body on mine. Trembling and sweating, we held each other and breathed deeply together, savouring the moment encircled by it. I stroked his back and smiled inwardly, bursting with emotion.
It was over, but it was so good.
Again! I wanted to shout. Again, again, AGAIN!
Chapter Seventeen
19th March, 11:40 p.m.
‘How many times?’ Maz yelled over the chorus of ‘Super Trooper’. ‘Ya little slapper, man. It’s nae wonder yer glowin’ like, yer circulation’s gone mad, lass, all that bumpin’ and grindin’.’
We both let out a shriek of laughter and I wiggled my hips in mock sex motion as I sat on the sofa.
‘Aye, he’s nice like,’ Maz said, referring to the newly crowned superstud Randall. My official boyfriend, since last night and this morning’s marathon of desire.
‘He’s kinda … different,’ Maz continued, gnawing thoughtfully on a beer bottle, ‘like, a … oh, whaddya call it … an enema?’
‘An enigma? How do you mean?’
‘He just looks a bit mysterious ye kna. Doesn’t give much away when he talks. Pretty quiet.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, thinking back to the close-call in the restaurant, ‘he’s a bit shy, I s’pose … but he definitely comes out of himself at the right moment!’
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