Original Cyn

by Sue Margolis

  “Having said all that,” he went on, “maybe I have started feeling a bit angry. I was only eight when Mum sent me away—not much more than a baby. I think about being this little mite all alone in that vast school with nobody to talk to but Bostik.”

  “Bostik?”

  He looked a bit uncomfortable. “Bostik Bear. His eyes kept falling out and Mum used to glue them back on with Bostik. And the name sort of stuck, as it were.” He smiled at the joke.

  “You know what I think?” Cyn said.

  “What?”

  “I think you’re frightened that if you start opening up to your mum, you might explode with all this rage that until now you’ve kept locked inside you, and she won’t be able to handle it.”

  He nodded slowly. “It does feel like I’d be opening a massive can of worms.”

  “And that’s not easy. After all, she’s what, seventy?”

  “Seventy-two,” he said. “And on top of that my stepfather died a couple of years ago and she’s all alone. I just don’t want to give her any more upset.”

  Cyn reached out across the table and took his hand. “You won’t be upsetting her. If she’s anything like my mum, she knows how she hurt you. None of it will come as a surprise. She probably needs to talk just as much as you. It’ll be a relief.”

  “You are very wise, Ms. Fishbein, do you know that?”

  After lunch she walked him to his car. It was only as they stood with their arms around each other saying good-bye that she realized she hadn’t mentioned Harmony’s party on Thursday. She explained. “Please say you can come. I really want you to meet Hugh and Harms.”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it. Plus it’ll give me a chance to talk to Hugh about his screenplay. I’ve finished it and it really is as brilliant as I first thought. A mate of mine from Paramount is in town. I gave it to him to look at.”

  “Omigod! Huge’ll be over the moon.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to get his hopes up. Nine times out of ten, these things come to nothing.”

  “Don’t worry, he understands that,” Cyn said.

  “OK, so see you Thursday, then. And enjoy therapy tonight—if enjoy is the right word.”

  “Joe, you know I could always tell the group about us seeing each other. It’s just that I can’t help feeling it needs to be done sooner rather than later.”

  He wouldn’t hear of it. “Our relationship is half my responsibility and we have to tell them together. I don’t want you taking this whole thing on your shoulders. Now, promise me you won’t say anything.”

  “God, I love it when you take control,” she said, making out she was joking, but secretly she was starting to feel quite horny.

  He laughed and made her promise she wouldn’t say anything. “OK, see you Thursday,” he said, lowering his head and kissing her. She felt his hand slide under her top.

  “C’mon, you’ve got to go,” she giggled.

  “I don’t have to.” His hand was moving toward her breast. “You could play hooky from work and we could go back to my place for the afternoon.”

  “I can think of nothing I’d rather do, but your mother’s expecting you.”

  “S’pose.” He kissed her thoroughly and then, reluctantly, he pulled away. Somewhere in the background country and Western music was blaring from a car radio. “Do you know what you get if you play country and Western music backward?” he said.

  She thought he was being serious. “No idea. What do you get?”

  “Your wife back, your truck back, your dog back.”

  She burst out laughing and gave him one last peck on the cheek. “Stop making nervous jokes and just go,” she said.

  Once again Cyn was the first to arrive at therapy. As she sat down, she saw a note written by Veronica lying on the table in the middle of the circle. Apparently it wasn’t just Joe who couldn’t make it. The note explained that Clementine had phoned that morning to say she thought she was coming down with flu. Cyn couldn’t help feeling a moment’s disappointment that Clementine wasn’t going to be there. Sharp-tongued as she could be, Cyn couldn’t help admiring her wit and her ability to say exactly what she thought. When she wasn’t there Cyn missed her.

  As the rest of the group arrived, the usual hiyas and how-are-yous were exchanged. Jenny kicked off with an emotional and rambling update on her state of mind about her haircut. Apparently she had gotten over the initial shock and was working her way through anger toward acceptance.

  No sooner had Jenny finished than Sandra Yo-yo burst into tears. Apparently she’d been shopping for jeans in Selfridges, where she’d had an unfortunate run-in with their new BodyMetrics computer. “You type in your vital statistics and it creates this 3-D image of your body and comes up with the make of jeans that will fit you best.”

  There was silence and some uncomfortable shuffling. Sandra had been gaining weight lately and, judging by the tears, it was clear that her BodyMetrics experience hadn’t been a positive one. “I crashed the damned computer and this mechanical voice booms across the entire floor: ‘Error. Error. Sandra Feldman is unfittable. Sandra Feldman is unfittable.’ I nearly died with the humiliation.” Tears tumbled down her cheeks. Jenny handed her the box of tissues.

  To make her feel better, everybody started sharing stories of their most humiliating moments. Jenny said she once went to a job interview wearing a sweater she had just taken out of the dryer and it wasn’t until she came out of the interview that she discovered she had a pair of knickers stuck to her back.

  Then Sandra stunned everybody by saying that when she was nineteen—in a unique moment of rebellion against her mother—she’d had sex in a cornfield. Afterward she developed an infection and her gynecologist found a kernel of corn inside her.

  “Sounds like a severe case of corn on the knob,” Ken the ex-priest blurted. He immediately turned scarlet and said, “Good Lord, I can’t believe I just said that.”

  But he couldn’t help laughing. Veronica said it seemed to her that Ken’s earthy side, which he always tried so hard to hide and that was absolutely vital if he was to have a sexual relationship with a woman, was, at some level, alive and kicking. “Would you like to say a bit more about that?”

  It turned out that Ken wanted to say a great deal more about it—including the fact that one of the reasons he joined the priesthood was because his self-esteem was nonexistent and it was a way of avoiding female rejection. “Leaving was definitely a sign that I was changing and that I was becoming more confident. I’ve taken the first step. I just don’t seem to be able to take the next one.”

  For the next hour, he became the group’s sole focus as everybody tried to encourage him to get in touch with his inner letch.

  Joe phoned on Thursday morning and suggested that before Harmony’s party they have a quick drink at his place. She asked him how the trip to Dublin had gone.

  “Fine. Far better than I imagined. I couldn’t believe it. I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

  She said she would get there around six. She’d been longing to see Joe’s flat. It felt strange being so intimate with somebody and not seeing where he lived. Since he owned a BMW, she wondered if his flat would be posh, too. On the other hand it could be pretty ordinary. Maybe she’d gotten it wrong and Joe wasn’t as well-off as she’d assumed. Perhaps he was one of those men who spent all his money on his car. There were a couple of blokes at work who spent hundreds a month repaying loans on Porsches and lived like students.

  She decided to wear her Carrie Bradshaw dress—so called because whenever she wore it everybody said it was soooo Ms. Bradshaw and all she needed was a Manhattan in her hand. It was an emerald-green empire line, with a wide floaty skirt and a black band and bow under the bust. She always paired it with a tiny emerald satin bag and matching stiletto sling backs and never told a soul it was another of her cheapo Top Shop rip-offs.

  Joe’s Camden flat was decidedly upmarket. It was on the tenth floor of a brand-new block overlooking the can
al. He’d mentioned when they first met that he hadn’t been there long and it was still looking a bit bare.

  As she walked in he kissed her and told her how beautiful she looked.

  “You don’t look bad yourself,” she said, taking in his expensive navy suit and lilac check open-necked shirt. He led her through the glass brick hall into the open-plan living room. Like hers, it had wooden floors and white walls. Unlike hers, it was at least thirty feet square. At one end there was a fabulous beech and granite kitchen. The other end was a wide horseshoe of floor-to-ceiling glass. She found herself catching her breath and virtually running to the window. “Joe, this view is absolutely stunning.”

  “It’s why I bought the flat. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Crystal Palace.” He came up behind her, gently removed her pashmina and laid it down on the sofa. She felt his lips touch her neck. She closed her eyes and let her head list to one side, her neck stretching like a cat’s. When she finally turned to face him, he began stroking her hair. Finally he kissed her on the mouth.

  As they pulled away he asked her what she would like to drink. “I’ve got wine, or there’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge.”

  “Ooh, champagne would be lovely.”

  She began looking around. There was the brown leather sofa that she recognized from the Habitat catalogue, a trendy steel standard lamp and a couple of canvasses draped in cloths propped up against the wall. That was it, apart from three tall stacks of taped-up cardboard packing cases and an Apple Mac sitting on a computer table in one corner. The only light came from the windows and the spotlights in the ceiling.

  “Sorry the place is in such a state. Would you believe I’ve actually been here three months? The problem is I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t had time to organize anything. The sofa only came last week. Before that I had to go to bed if I wanted to get comfortable.”

  “But it’s going to be wonderful when you’ve finished. You’re so lucky.”

  He handed her a glass of champagne. “I could always come and help you,” she said. “I love furniture shopping. It would be fun.”

  “God, I’d love you to come shopping with me. I need all the help and advice I can get. And I could see from the way you’ve done up your flat that you know your stuff.” She blushed at the compliment.

  He led her over to the sofa and they sat down. He put the bottle of Moët down on the floor beside them. As she began sipping her champagne she noticed a photograph in a silver frame on top of a packing case. She got up and looked at it. A young, smiling woman in a flowery Laura Ashley smock dress was standing in a garden holding a baby. She was gazing down at the bundle in her arms, clearly smitten. She was also the image of Joe. “This is your mother with you, isn’t it?”

  Joe nodded.

  “She’s very beautiful,” Cyn said.

  “Isn’t she? Even though her face has aged, she doesn’t look that much different now.”

  “It’s funny. After everything you’ve said about her, I’d imagined some haughty ice queen, but she doesn’t look like that at all. Look at her. She clearly adores you.”

  “I know.” She could see in his face that his emotions were starting to overwhelm him. “She gave me the photograph last night. She wanted to prove to me that she really did love me and that she never stopped.”

  “So,” Cyn said, coming back to the sofa, “did she explain why she abandoned you?” He took a couple of swallows of champagne. She got the feeling that he didn’t want to go back over it; that it was all too painful and that any second he would start telling her another daft joke like the country and Western one. She made no attempt to push him. She just sat there next to him, waiting until he was ready.

  He drained his glass and picked up the bottle off the floor. Then he topped off her glass and refilled his own. Bit by bit, in fits and starts, the story emerged. Sometimes his eyes filled up. At other times he seemed so detached, so male, that Cyn felt he was telling her about something that had happened to somebody else.

  It turned out that it wasn’t long after Joe’s mother, Sheila, got married that she realized she’d made a mistake. Joe’s father was happy jogging along as an accountant, but she wanted excitement. He bored her. Then Joe came along and she felt trapped and alone with a child. When Joe was seven, she had an affair and divorced Joe’s father.

  Des, Joe’s stepfather, was handsome, wealthy and provided Sheila the excitement she was looking for. He bred racehorses and had a string of famous clients. He was also a very powerful, controlling charmer who had swept Sheila off her feet. Once under his spell, she did everything he asked, including sending Joe away to school.

  “So he was jealous of you,” Cyn said. “He saw you as a rival for your mother’s affections.”

  “Pretty much.” She could tell by his face that he’d reached a part of the story that he found particularly upsetting. “Anyway, apparently she missed me so much she used to cry herself to sleep. She said she begged Des to let me come home, but he always refused. So she left me.” Instead of the tears she would have expected, he offered her a half-laugh.

  “So how does she feel about it all now?”

  “Pretty bad,” he said.

  “I can imagine. The guilt must have been eating her up for years. But I don’t understand. When you were older she could have said she was sorry and tried to build a relationship with you.”

  “It never occurred to her that I would forgive her. And my stepfather was still alive. He still had her under his control. When I stopped coming to see her—apart from at Christmas—she decided that was her rightful punishment.”

  “Jeez, what a mess. So, did you manage to tell her how you felt?”

  “Yes, but I was so nervous about upsetting her. Plus I kept getting confused about what it was I actually felt. I just hope I made sense.” He paused. “I also think I started to feel sorry for her. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “That’s because you began to realize that it wasn’t just you who missed out. She did, too. The point is, you’ve got time to create happiness in your life, but she’s over seventy. She doesn’t have much time left.”

  “I know. That’s why I really want to start getting to know her. I’ve invited her to come and stay with me for a few days next month.”

  “That’s great. You just have to keep talking. The more the two of you understand about each other, the easier it will get.”

  “I hope so.”

  “And it will take time,” she reassured him. “You can’t rush it.”

  His eyes locked on hers. “You know, you really are brilliant at all this therapy stuff. You’d make a great shrink.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.” She took his champagne glass from him and put it and hers down on the floor. Then she moved her body so that it was touching his and began stroking the inside of his thigh. “You see, I’m just not sure I would have the willpower to leave my sexy, good-looking male clients alone on the couch. I’d want to climb on there with them and start undressing them.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that,” he said, watching her start to unbutton his shirt. “Of course I’d have to be your only client.” His shirt open, she began kissing his chest. Soon she was trailing her fingers lower and lower along the line of dark hair. His stomach quivered. She didn’t have to feel him to know he wanted her, she could see the evidence quite clearly. She made a move to undo his belt, but before she could get there he had pulled down the straps of the green dress and was planting kisses on the tops of her breasts. She felt her nipples harden. Soon, his lips were on her neck, her shoulders, her mouth. His breath was coming in rasps. She felt her heart rate quicken. The champagne and his kisses were making her head spin. She found herself taking his hand and placing it under her skirt. “Wow, stockings,” he murmured, fingering the lace tops. She let out a low sigh as he eased his hand between her legs and began caressing the skin above the stockings. His tongue surged inside her mouth. He tasted of champagne. He made her open her legs further and t
railed his finger over the crotch of her panties.

  Unlike his, her breathing had become slow and deep. With each breath, she took in the smell of him. She could feel herself floating. It was almost as if she was outside all this and it was happening to somebody else. He pushed her down onto the sofa and lifted her skirt above her waist. First he kissed her stomach, then he began tugging at her panties. He opened her legs and maneuvered his body between them. When he parted her with his fingers, she felt the warm air on her vulva. His first touch was so gentle, but as his finger slid over her, she couldn’t stop herself from crying out. “Please, please.” Another gentle caress was followed by another and another. The floaty feeling became even more intense. She was oblivious to everything except what she was feeling between her legs. Cyn the person had disappeared. Instead she was pure sensation, and her body and brain had become a place where ecstasy and excitement permanently collided.

  Without warning, his fingers were inside her, thrusting hard and deep. She let out another cry. He carried on like this for maybe half a minute. Finally he changed tack and started going down on her with his mouth and tongue. The flicking became harder. She arched her back. A bit of her didn’t want to come. She wanted to stay here, in this place hovering just on the edge, but there was no stopping it.

  She lay there panting, waiting for her pulse to return to normal. “Oh, God,” was about the limit of her conversation for the next few minutes.

  He pulled himself on top of her. “Can I assume from your response,” he said teasingly, “that what just happened was to your liking?”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

  When she had finally recovered she made him sit up. She reached for his trouser belt and undid his fly. His erection was huge, rock hard and straining against his boxers. She pulled at the elastic waistband and released him. “OK,” she said, gently blowing a warm breath onto the tip of his penis. “Your turn.”

  By the time she had gone to the bathroom to touch up her hair and makeup they were running seriously late for Harmony’s do.