by Vina Jackson
Leonard was a good listener. And it made a nice change from most of the men I dated who talked endlessly about themselves. Partly, I knew that was my fault as I had a habit of encouraging others to talk to draw attention away from myself, but it was still nice to speak to someone who was actually interested in me. The real me. Not my bad-girl exterior or the good girl that was hidden beneath it, but the whole package: Lily. He was the first person I’d met who didn’t ask me about any of my tattoos. Few things annoyed me more than being asked what my teardrop tattoo meant and why I had got it.
Afterwards, I realised with a sharp stab of shame that he had barely talked at all, other than to ask me questions. I had nattered on all evening.
Briefly, as we wound down for the night, I thought he might ask me up to a room that he might have booked in anticipation of bedding me, but instead he volunteered to walk me to the Tube. He first offered to pay for a taxi, but I told him that I enjoyed walking through the city at night, so instead he escorted me to Tottenham Court Road station and kissed me goodbye on the cheek. He laid a hand gently on my waist as he did so.
I waved goodbye with a skip in my step. Walking away from him, it occurred to me that our evening had left me feeling lighter, as though some burden had been lifted from my shoulders. Someone understood me at last.
As soon as I arrived home, I emailed him. I was afraid that if I waited any longer, I would lose my nerve.
So nice to see you. Shall we do it again soon?
He was only in London for two more evenings, so we met up again the very next night. This time he took me to dinner in Chinatown, and we ate honey-glazed spare ribs and crispy fried seaweed in a restaurant on the corner of Newport Place and Lisle Street. We stayed until all of the other tables were empty and the waiters seemed on the verge of throwing us out. Once we’d worked our way through the extensive menu we ordered more and more bottles of beer.
By my third or fourth (or was it my fifth?) Asahi, I was simultaneously merry and depressed. Leonard would shortly be taking a flight to another international destination and I would be left to my ordinary life in London without him. He would only be gone for a week, to a conference in Berlin. But still, the differences between us and the fact that our relationship was so odd and so far physically unconsummated meant that Leonard was like a butterfly in my hand. If I closed my eyes for a moment, I might open them again to find he had disappeared entirely. The thought made me blue.
The bill was presented between two fortune cookies. His was empty. Mine just said, Stop searching.
‘What on earth does that mean?’ I said.
‘I think the waiters just didn’t like us,’ he laughed. ‘You’re not superstitious, are you, sensible Miss Lily?’
‘I’m not very superstitious. But I’m not always sensible, either.’ I screwed up the piece of paper with its italic font and tossed it into my bag.
A chill was in the air as we stepped out onto the narrow cobbled street with its rows of red flags and lanterns winking in the darkness. I huddled into the collar of my biker jacket.
He hadn’t brought a coat along and pushed his hands into his jeans pockets to keep them warm.
I leaned towards him, and took one of his hands in mine.
‘Shall we?’ I said, stepping off the kerb with my hand linked with his, as if this added contact was nothing.
We walked like that through Soho, past the sex shops and the parade of coffee bars and noisy clubs, and briefly I thought of Liana and wondered what she would say when I eventually confided in her about Leonard. Until then I would hold this moment, and his hand, tight, like a secret.
His whole body tightened when I kissed him.
‘Oh, Lily,’ he said, breaking away from me. ‘I can’t kiss you now. You might regret it in the morning.’
‘I won’t. I know that I won’t.’
I tried to kiss him again and he caught my chin in his hand.
‘Believe me. It’s not that I don’t want to. I do. More than anything.’
‘Then why not?’ I asked. I was hurt now, and rejected, and I wanted to stamp my foot.
‘You should be with someone your own age. This is crazy. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have met with you again. This is my fault entirely.’
‘I don’t want someone my own age,’ I insisted. ‘I want you.’
‘Lily … Go home and sleep. Then talk to me in the morning.’
He kissed my cheek lightly and then turned and walked away.
That night I slept fitfully and not before sliding a hand under the covers and between my legs and orchestrating a blissful orgasm. Alcohol dulled my senses and always made my climaxes harder to reach, and as the wave of pleasure that I strained for seemed almost in sight but still torturously far away, I imagined Leonard’s hands caressing my breasts and his tongue rasping against my nipples and the sound of his voice whispering terrible things into my ear and the heat of his breath against my skin. I came hard, thinking of him.
In the morning I felt somehow as if he knew what I had been thinking of as I had touched myself under the sheets the night before.
I rolled over and reached for my phone to check my emails as had become my habit since we had begun corresponding. Now I looked for Leonard’s emails before I thought to do anything else, and on the rare mornings that I didn’t receive one something felt at odds, as if I was wearing shoes with no socks on underneath.
His name flashed dark in my inbox and I smiled as I clicked on the message:
?
Just a single question mark.
The images that had soothed me to sleep flashed back into my mind.
I replied.
I still want you.
And pressed send.
His reply came just a few minutes later.
Come to the hotel.
He sent a cab to pick me up and within thirty minutes I was speeding across London and towards his hotel room. I felt every eye was on me as I strode past the concierge’s desk and to the elevator, quickly stepping in and pressing the button to the fourteenth floor as Leonard had directed.
A ‘Do not Disturb’ sign was hung on the door, though it was slightly ajar.
I pushed it open and stepped inside.
Leonard was sitting in a white chair by the window, waiting for me.
‘Close the latch,’ he said. His voice was hoarse. ‘And come here.’
I did as he instructed.
‘Lily,’ he said slowly, as if my name were a benediction. I stood between his knees, facing him, and he leaned forward and traced his finger along my jaw. ‘You’re so beautiful.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
‘Are you sure about this?’
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ I replied.
‘That you are.’
He took me into his arms and lifted me into his lap. I nestled against his chest. Then raised my lips to his and kissed him in the way that I had been longing to since I had first set eyes on him.
His mouth was firm against mine, but his kisses were patient. He didn’t push his tongue straight down my throat in the way that the boys I kissed at university parties and nightclubs did, and neither did he begin to fumble at my bra as though my breasts might evaporate into thin air if he didn’t get a glance at them immediately.
Leonard continued to cradle me in his arms and kiss me softly until I became restless, and I took a handful of his hair in my hand, tipping his head back and biting his lower lip gently.
He pulled me away and laughed.
‘No need to be so feisty,’ he said. ‘I’m not flying out until eight tonight. We have all day.’
‘Fuck me,’ I whispered.
Last night’s climax had barely taken the edge off the deep well of desire that seemed to have been building up inside me for a lifetime. My pussy throbbed and all I wanted was for Leonard to fill me until there wasn’t any room for anything else. I didn’t want a single thought or feeling to cross my mind besides the sensation of him d
eep inside me. Cock, fingers, I didn’t care.
‘Please,’ I said.
‘Be careful what you wish for. You might regret it.’
‘I won’t regret it,’ I replied firmly.
‘Oh God, Lily, the things you do to a man …’
He stood up with me still in his arms and laid me down gently on the bed.
‘But I’m not going to fuck you yet,’ he said, ‘even if you do want me to. Patience, my darling.’
I tried to sit up to pull him back towards me, but he pressed his hand against my chest and pushed me back down onto the bed. Then he was lifting up my skirt and peeling down my knickers and I forgot where I was and all the things I wanted to say as soon as his tongue flicked lightly against me and his finger slid into my pussy.
‘You’re so tight …’
‘More,’ I begged. ‘Please.’
‘All in good time,’ he replied.
Then he was lifting my T-shirt over my head. ‘Arms up,’ he instructed, as I wriggled to get out of my clothing.
He didn’t bother to unclip my bra at the back. Just pulled the cups down so that my breasts spilled out. He pulled and twisted my nipples in his fingers until I gasped.
‘Too much?’ he asked. He had curled up alongside me and was running his hands over my body, closely observing the way that I tensed or twitched or moaned in response to his caresses.
‘No, not too much, more,’ I said, and he squeezed harder.
No one had ever actually asked me what I liked or what I wanted before, and Leonard’s interest in my pleasure was extraordinarily freeing. It was also the first time that I could recall going to bed with someone in broad daylight and without a drop of alcohol to lubricate my senses and lower my inhibitions. But his obvious desire for me and his confidence must have affected both of us because I couldn’t have cared less how I looked or what Leonard thought of the things that turned me on.
He laughed when he noticed how I responded to his words.
‘You like it when I talk dirty? I never would have guessed.’
‘I love the sound of your voice,’ I replied.
It was true. Leonard could have read the newspaper out loud to me and even each syllable of the money matters section when spoken in his throaty tone with its edge of humour and hint of lasciviousness would have made me arch my back and squirm against the bedspread.
‘I want you to come for me.’
His voice deepened when he said this and his fingers found their way lower down, where he experimented until he discovered the exact rhythm that would drive me over the edge.
He leaned forward and scooped me tighter against him so that I was caught in his embrace as I began to tense and reach the cusp of an orgasm.
‘That’s it … Once you’ve come for me, Lily, I’m going to fuck you. But not before then. Do you want to feel my cock inside you, filling you up?’
‘Oh God,’ I moaned as I felt my muscles spasm and I convulsed against him and then collapsed, limp into his arms.
‘Good girl,’ he whispered.
He was still fully dressed. His stubble scratched my cheek lightly as he bent his head to kiss me again.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘how many more times can you do that for me before I have to catch a plane?’
That day he introduced me to more sexual positions than I knew existed, let alone had considered before. My favourites were the variations in which I could see him and watch the range of expressions that raced across his face as he truly let himself go.
Most of the time he hung onto an element of reserve, a persona of either careless nonchalance or all-knowing Lothario who was utterly certain of his ability to bring me to orgasm. But when he was deep inside me and on the verge of his own release, there was something animal about him, as if the real Leonard was straining on a leash and he would show me flashes of feeling so intense that I trembled.
And I decided to set about finding a way to get him to let go.
‘My darling girl, you don’t know what you’re doing,’ he said as I pushed him down onto the bed and then rode him, holding his wrists down over his head.
When he said that, I just pushed down harder, even though I knew that the grip of my small hands was pitiful against his strong arms. It gave me a thrill to turn the tables and be the one on top for a change.
The hotel hadn’t allowed him to check out in the late evening, so he had another night booked and paid for, and instead of commuting back to my own lonely bed in Dalston after Leonard showered and packed his bag hurriedly, I stretched out like a starfish and wallowed in the lingering damp patches and the scents of our lovemaking. The scent of him and me, together.
‘Oh, Lily,’ he said as he kissed me goodbye. ‘What am I going to do with you?’
3
Eighty Days of Leonard
Of course it felt good being with Leonard.
But it also felt wrong in a thousand ways.
On the one hand, I now knew what it was to be with a man and not with a boy. There was nothing tentative about his lovemaking, or callow, or inexperienced. His gestures were determined, his appreciation of the moment intense and patient, and I found myself at ease with him like I had never felt with anyone else before. I would have expected no less from a man who was more than double my age.
But, on the other hand, I also knew he was not the sort of man I could take home to my parents or openly advertise to friends and acquaintances as my new boyfriend without attracting much in the way of disapproval. Not that I had any intention of parading him around. I enjoyed the clandestine nature of our relationship. I liked having a secret lover.
By common agreement, we would meet in hotel bars, none of which were in geographical proximity to our places of work. Sometimes we would go to his empty office where we would feverishly fuck on the carpet behind locked doors, while on other occasions we would take shelter in a hotel room close to one of the airports if he was flying out on business the next day. My flat-share was out of bounds. I never saw his house in Blackheath, and neither of us ever suggested it as a venue for our dates. It was as if our relationship was in a vacuum and it suited us both. It never occurred to me that he might be embarrassed to be seen with me, my teardrop, piercings and all-black wardrobe.
Because of the frequency of his trips abroad, he often arranged for me to join him in Paris, Amsterdam or Barcelona on a Friday night after his business had been completed and we would spend the weekend together before returning to London on the final Sunday-night flight.
This proved problematic and I found myself quite unpopular with the other assistants at the music shop in Denmark Street when I frequently elected to forego work on a Saturday under the pretext of family circumstances. I think Jonno guessed a man of some sort must be involved – he invariably signed me off on the rotas with a knowing wink.
The folk at the fetish club and the imperious She seemed less concerned, as they had a bevy of part-time helpers at their beck and call. In any case, I was careful to make myself available on any weekend when Leonard was not on the tail end of a business trip, as I would then spend most evenings with him during the actual week in London.
‘You’re never home, or answer your phone, these days,’ Neil remarked one day, a month or so after I’d first got together with Leonard, as we sat indifferently nibbling at sandwiches at the nearby Pret A Manger, nursing our coffees alongside.
‘Just busy, you know.’
‘Busy doing what?’ he queried.
‘I’ve met someone,’ I revealed.
The look on his face betrayed his disappointment. He had repeatedly tried to convince me, since he had also moved up to London, that we should go out on a date, but I had insisted it would be better to just remain good friends.
‘Do I know him?’ he asked.
‘No.’ And I left it at that.
How could I tell a boy of barely twenty-one who innocently yearned after me that I was sleeping with a man who was old enough to be his father, or even mine.
That I enjoyed the age difference between us. That our gap in years made me feel feminine and desirable in a way that I never felt dating people my own age. That I had grown used to Leonard’s worldliness and the comparative coarseness of his skin and the way the wrinkles around his eyes when he laughed or smiled made me feel joyful. The way we could both sustain lengthy silences when we were together or, alternately, talk for hours about everything and nothing and he could sit calmly, watching me and listening to me talk about my past life, and appear genuinely fascinated by the humdrum of my day-to-day existence. I knew such revelations would only hurt Neil further, so I kept them to myself.
The conversation with Neil quickly petered out after that and, anyway, we both had to go back to work, me to Denmark Street and him to Chancery Lane where he was doing an internship with a big PR firm.
A DHL van was parked outside the shop and a large delivery was taking place when I got back.
Heavy boxes were being passed from hand to hand in a steady relay as some of the other staff carried the new consignment of guitars from the US factory down to the shop’s basement. I joined the fray, although I heard the familiar message signal on the phone buried deep at the bottom of my jeans pocket. It was a quarter of an hour later when I had the chance to read it.
Leonard. This time it would be Paris. The reference code for the electronic ticket for Eurostar was attached and the name and address of the hotel we would be staying at. He’d been in Greece and Turkey all week, but had arranged a stop-over in the French capital on the way back to spend the time with me. I’d been hoping he might fly me to Istanbul, but I reckoned Paris was as good as the Grand Bazaar.
I made a quick call to the club and managed to swap the coming Saturday for a couple of weekday nights.
Later that afternoon, as I was daydreaming of Paris and what sharing it with Leonard would be like, three men walked into the store. They were speaking to each other in a language I couldn’t recognise – but then, I didn’t know or speak any foreign languages.