Either way, I got to eat quite a bit of cake. It usually made me feel much more optimistic. It made sense to me why women would sleep with Hugh because of his pastry.
That couldn’t be the only reason they slept with him, though.
I took another bite and considered Hugh, something I rarely did because I saw him so often. He wasn’t exactly a stud in appearance. His brown hair was perpetually tousled, and his body was tall and lanky rather than buff. In many ways he looked like the puppyish first-year university student he’d been when I’d met him, when I’d been a first-year myself, seven years ago.
But he could certainly cook, and, apparently, charm. And with all the practice he’d had, he was bound to be good in bed, I guessed, though his ladies didn’t seem to stick around for very long.
I wasn’t contemplating having sex with Hugh. I considered the talents of every man I came across, not because I wanted to have sex with them, but because it was an automatic occupational hazard. If you write erotica, you need to imagine different men’s sexual styles.
For example, I’d always thought Jerry with his tattoos and shaved head would be a typical bit of rough: macho, demanding, dominant. Though one time Jerry had confided to me that the Mouse and Duck had been named after the tattoos of Mickey and Donald that he had on his buttocks, so maybe there was a softer side to that machismo.
Philip would try to be a manly alpha male - he had the shoulders, the loud voice, and the construction worker’s forearms - but he wouldn’t quite have the conviction; he’d probably crack a joke at the essential moment. Paul, who was shorter and slighter, would be gentler and more considerate. He would probably ask what you wanted. Philip and Paul never seemed to go anywhere without each other, so I tended to lump them together as ménage material.
Not that I wanted to actually have sex with the Mouse and Duck regulars. God, no. Imagine that orgy: every five minutes someone would take a break for a pint of beer and a fag and Horny/Angry would get overexcited everywhere and then try to beat everyone up.
Yuck.
Hugh . . . well, I’d known Hugh before I started looking at men as research material, so I didn’t have first impressions to go on. And now I knew him too well. He was part of the furniture. I imagined he used whipped cream and chocolate fairly often, but I wasn’t going to venture much further than that. I had his sexuality thrust in my face (metaphorically, that is) every day as it was.
‘Feel better?’ He smiled at me and I realised that he was sitting on the same stool that my seducer of last night had occupied. Hugh sprawled on it, though, one foot touching the ground and the other hooked on the stool’s crossbar, his arm flung casually on the bar. Whereas the man last night had sat elegantly, his body more compact, more poised.
At the thought, some feeling rushed through me, though it was hard to tell if it was remembered lust, or present dread.
‘The tart’s gorgeous,’ I said, and polished it off. ‘Thank you for saving me one.’
‘My pleasure. Tell me about the book.’
I sighed. I didn’t feel like talking about it, but he’d softened me up with the strawberries and I couldn’t refuse him now. The pastry was a winning seduction technique in more ways than one.
‘Bryce says it “lacks the whiff of reality”,’ I told him, keeping my voice low so Paul and Philip couldn’t hear what we were talking about. Bryce was my agent.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Don’t ask me. The book’s called
The Throbbing Member of Parliament
, for God’s sake. It’s full of good-looking, sexy politicians getting it on with each other. And he expects some reality in there?’
‘Good point. Maybe you can relocate it to another profession? Television stars, models, chefs? The college is a hotbed of lust and intrigue, I could tell you all about that. All the teenage students are dating each other and snogging in the corridors. Makes me feel like a grandfather sometimes.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not the concept he’s got a problem with. He approved the synopsis and he actually came up with the title himself. It’s the emotion. He says it doesn’t strike a chord.’
‘Well, I couldn’t blame you for not getting emotionally involved with politicians.’
I leaned my forehead on my hands and rubbed my eyes hard with the heels of my palms.
‘I don’t know, Hugh. I didn’t feel any different writing this one to when I wrote the others, I don’t think. I can’t tell. They’ve all started blurring together now. Maybe seventeen erotic novels is too many and I should start thinking about another career.’
He reached into the box, picked out a crumb of tart, and put it in his mouth. ‘Is that what you really think, or are you just discouraged at the thought of revising this novel?’
That was an awkward question. I didn’t know what I really thought, except that I was fed up.
‘I mean I was talking to a woman the other night,’ he continued, ‘and she’s a novelist, too. She said that she had to do extensive revisions on all of her books, like pages and pages of structural overhaul. You’ve never had to do that.’
‘What does she write?’
He shrugged. ‘Some sort of literary stuff. She teaches creative writing at the college.’
‘Well, that explains it. She probably has to dig deep into her psyche to come up with some universal human truth or something. In contrast, I write smut.’
‘Sex is a universal human truth.’
‘Uh huh. That’s why my stories are always shortlisted for the Booker.’
‘I’m not talking about the Booker,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about you being so pissed off that you had a little vodka wallow last night.’
He found another crumb and put his finger in his mouth to lick it off.
Hugh had nice hands, I’d give him that. They were long-fingered and capable looking. Maybe he’d stick with the pastry career. He tended to change jobs nearly as frequently as he changed sexual partners.
I, on the other hand, was stuck firmly in my erotica-writing beer-serving rut.
The door opened and I looked up sharply, half expecting to see a broad-shouldered form, perfect teeth gleaming underneath a pop-star moustache.
It was Martha and Maud. I got down some stemmed glasses for their gin before they had taken more than a step inside the pub.
‘So is that why you were indulging in some fun and games last night?’ Hugh asked.
‘Shhhh!’ I hissed, looking significantly at Martha and Maud. Their hearing wasn’t great (hence their fondness for karaoke), but it would be just my luck that comments about my sex life would be the thing that cured their deafness.
‘Afternoon, Eleanor,’ Maud said cheerfully, her white hair turning momentarily blue and red as she walked through the light cast through the stained-glass window. She reached the bar and put her creased handbag on it. ‘What’s Hugh saying to you that you don’t want us to hear?’
I knew it. ‘Hugh was telling me about what he got up to last night, Maud,’ I said loudly, as if she hadn’t just proved she had perfect hearing when she wanted.
‘Ah, Hugh, you need to settle down with a good woman,’ Martha said to him, waggling her head. ‘No more of these blondes and redheads.’
‘Say the word and I’m yours, Martha,’ Hugh replied. I pushed the gin and tonics towards the two ladies as they cackled at Hugh’s remark. They practically minced over to their table, and I swear Maud’s hips had an extra sway to them.
‘It is always blondes and redheads, isn’t it?’ I said, struck by what Martha had said. Of course they saw him and his dates every weekend and many weeknights, too; obviously they’d observed more closely than I had and seen a pattern.
‘Hadn’t noticed.’ He tugged at a lock of hair on the back of his head. ‘Anyway, we’re talking about you. Where’s this new bloke of yours?’
‘Don’t know.’ I began to empty the glass washer.
‘When are you seeing him again?’
I shrugged. ‘Is this any of your business?’
‘You weren’t this reticent last time you started seeing someone. I seem to recall you talking about him for hours. And I figure that last night I witnessed most of your passion through the wall, so I’m practically your chaperone.’
‘Hugh, I witness your passion through the bedroom wall on a regular basis and I don’t poke my nose into your frankly dubious sexual life.’
I was concentrating on lining up pint glasses on the shelf and not looking at Hugh, so I didn’t see his reaction to my retort. When he hadn’t replied for several moments, though, I poked my head over the bar.
He was frowning and I could see a faint flush on his cheeks.
‘Can you really hear it when I have sex?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not there with a glass to the wall or anything.’
He winced slightly. ‘You mean you can hear everything when you’re lying in bed trying to get to sleep?’
I took some pity on him. ‘I can hear the girls, mostly. I don’t hear you very often.’
Hugh sat there and drank his Coke for a while as I stacked glasses. I wasn’t sure why he was embarrassed. I mean, I knew why
I
was embarrassed - my one-night stand had been completely uncharacteristic behaviour, and Hugh seemed to know more details about it than I did - but Hugh revelled in his active sex life. He certainly never made a secret of it.
Though apparently he’d never known about the sound-transmitting property of our mutual bedroom wall till now.
It wasn’t as if I’d never had sex in that bedroom, either. I wasn’t an erotic powerhouse like my heroines, but I’d been in a relationship or two over the past four years. Nothing euduring, but they certainly included carnal activity on a regular basis while they lasted. And yet Hugh had never heard anything coming from my side of the shared wall before last night.
I finished replacing glasses and started folding bar towels, my face still averted from Hugh. The reason was obvious. I was normally a quiet sexual partner. I held my breath, I made silent gasps, I left words behind with my clothes. Not like the women I wrote about, women who issued orders and described fantasies and screamed in ecstasy.
I wondered if I’d done that last night - talked dirty, yelled. If, while I was drunk, someone else had taken hold of my body. Maybe there was something about the man I’d been with that allowed me to act that way.
Maybe there was something about me that made me act that way.
‘What’s his name?’
Hugh’s voice nearly made me jump. I looked around the pub furtively, because for a moment I’d expected my mystery lover to walk in the door again, in response to my furious attempt to remember - or maybe it was to forget - what we’d done together.
But no man. No name, either.
I must have asked him at some point, mustn’t I? Surely I wouldn’t go to bed with someone whose name I didn’t even know?
‘George,’ I said, and as I said it, it struck a chord with me. As if it might have been the name of someone I’d begged to ravish me and a name I’d screamed out in fulfilment.
Then again, it might just be because he reminded me of the Greek half of Wham!.
Hugh nodded and didn’t seem surprised, so maybe he’d heard me saying it through the wall. ‘Are you going to see him again?’
The man was going to keep on asking till I told him. I knew what he was like. If I didn’t answer him now, he’d be knocking at my door tonight asking again. And in the pub tomorrow night, asking again. His concern would be touching, if it weren’t so annoying.
I remembered when my ex, Michael, had chucked me for that barista in Starbucks a couple of years ago. At first I’d loved the fact that Michael was in a band, but by the end I’d been going off him because all he talked about was how they were playing on some obscure stage at the Reading Festival. I hadn’t been upset.
But Hugh had followed me around and asked and asked and asked till I had to admit that yes, I was a bit bothered. I mean, Michael hadn’t known I was an erotic novelist; only Hugh and my editor and agent knew that. I’d never told Michael because I thought he’d probably compare my real-life bedroom antics unfavourably to my imaginary ones. But even without that knowledge of my secret life, surely pulling pints had to be more rock’n’ roll than making skinny soy lattes.