Authors: Charlotte Stein
‘What? Emotionally unavailable?’
For a second I think I’ve gone too far. He takes a short breath that almost sounds like something is catching inside him, and really that can only mean one thing: I’ve struck a nerve. But then he quite suddenly snaps open the single button on his suit jacket, and sits in his seat in the same way he did before.
It’s a relaxed pose, I think.
And his deepening smile only strengthens that idea. Somehow I said something to make him ease back down, instead of wind back up – though I’ve no idea how. Shouldn’t someone pointing out your cool aloofness make you defensive about it?
Apparently he doesn’t know what defensive is.
‘Oh, as much as it makes me a hypocrite, I’d hate to see that happen.’
‘So you like me emotionally available.’
‘I like you showing every feeling on your face. I like your willingness to put aside your fear and fumble your way towards something anyway.’ He pauses, clearly considering whether to say more. I can almost see his jaw working around the words, as he debates whether to let them out.
And I’m so glad that debate ends on
yes
.
‘I like that you kissed me.’
‘Do none of the other women kiss you?’
I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. Surely some of them must have been overcome by his face and his body and his manner? Not to mention his oral sex skills. To be honest, nothing could get in the way of my lips, after head like that. He’s lucky I didn’t try to cuddle him too.
‘Not typically, no.’
‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t have the assignation etiquette guidebook to hand.’
The smile he gives me for that is his best one yet. I think I actually see teeth, before he realises and reins himself back in.
‘Yet another reason why I so enjoy your company.’
‘You know, there
are
other women like me. You could probably find them by just … you know, dating. Instead of being a member of a sex club.’
‘So there’s something wrong with being a member of a sex club?’
‘No, I didn’t mean –’
‘And you somehow believe I haven’t dated in the past.’
‘Well, of course …’
‘Not to mention that this whole premise is predicated on the fact that there are indeed millions of women just like you, everywhere, constantly.’
I have no half-sentences to stutter out in response to that. Mainly because I know what he’s suggesting here, and it makes all of my words fall down inside me. They congregate at the bottom of my body, writhing and rattling around the same concept: I am somehow rare, to someone like him. I am somehow special.
And for once in my life I actually believe it. I’ve seen the evidence of how different I am all over his face. I’ve heard it in his words. He’s used to one thing: no kissing, no negotiations, no problems with his probable wealth.
But I am another matter altogether, on all fronts.
‘So what would you like to do now?’ he asks, after a moment of near stifling silence. I’m practically humming by the time he breaks it, and I think he knows. I can hear the teasing in his voice when he adds: ‘Maybe take a walk in the park? Do a little light shopping?’
I picture us linking arms, as we wind our way through the men’s section of Marks and Spencer’s. Somehow I’m sure that’s not what he’s suggesting, however – and not just because he’s pulling my leg. His idea of light shopping is probably flying first class to France for the Monet that caught his eye last week.
‘Sure. Sounds great.’
‘We could take in some sights.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Maybe stop for a spot of dinner.’
‘Well, why not? We’ll probably be hungry by then.’
‘And afterwards …’
He lets the word linger, like a promise.
A promise that makes me too eager.
‘Yes, afterwards,’ I say, with just a hint of breathlessness. Just a touch. Not enough to give me away to anyone else, but certainly enough for him. His eyes gleam like onyx, that smile of his so voracious. How could I have ever thought it was faint?
It’s as fierce as a burning fist.
‘Oh, afterwards …’
‘Go on. Go on.’
In my head he’s already tearing all of my clothes off with his teeth, as we roll around on my living room floor. Of course I know that he would probably never do anything of the sort, but that just makes the image all the more compelling. His imaginary hands burn my skin; his kisses are like something forbidden. We’ll be stoned to death for daring to do it, by the President of the Assignation Society.
Or at least, that’s what I’m
hoping
for.
He has something far less exciting in mind.
‘I take your hand, and bid you goodnight,’ he says, in that teasing tone of his. I think he knows the thing I was picturing, behind my eyes. He can probably see it written all over my face – from the half-bitten lip to the foggy, unfocused gaze. I was just getting to the part where we run from our accusers in torn and bloodied clothes, clinging to each other desperately.
And then he goes and spoils it all with ordinary, everyday life.
‘That’s not how it ends!’
‘It isn’t?’
No. It ends with us stowing away on a cargo ship, making love between large containers of tropical fruit.
‘You know it’s not.’
He picks an imaginary piece of lint from his always flawless trousers, eyes studiously on something other than me.
‘I’m afraid I know nothing of the sort. To me, that sounds like the perfect end to an evening: a chaste kiss upon the back of your hand, followed by a fond farewell.’ He actually sighs, just to make it extra convincing. ‘Bliss.’
‘So that’s what we’re going to do here, is it? I’m going to come over there and give you my hand, and you’re going to kiss it,’ I say, voice as deathly dull as I can make it. ‘And then I leave.’
‘Well, we could do those things, if you wanted to.’
‘You know I don’t want to.’
‘How could I possibly? I haven’t heard you say.’
His expression is now so sharp and sly I could use it to pick a lock. After all, that’s what he’s using it for. That devil’s smile has already levered its way beneath my skin, and now all he has to do is wait for it to slide straight on through to my heart.
‘You don’t need me to say,’ I tell him, but my voice is thick and heavy – so full of uncertainty. And that pain I can feel just under my left breast … it’s definitely him, slowly sinking his way in.
‘We’ve already established that I do. Or at least, we’ve established how much I enjoy it when you admit all the things that you don’t really want to.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to.’
‘No?’
‘It’s just that it’s difficult.’ I pause, lip still between my teeth. ‘It’s difficult to know what the right answer is.’
‘And you think that’s what I want? The right answer?’
It’s clear what I should say, here. ‘No’, I think.
No
. He wants my answers, my true answers, whether they’re right or wrong. In fact, I don’t think there
is
a right or wrong with him. I could tell him about my torn and bloodied daydream, and he wouldn’t hold it against me. I don’t think he’d hold anything against me.
And oh, that thought is very freeing. There’s something almost electric about it, like I’ve put my finger in some socket I didn’t know about. All the hairs on the back of my neck prickle and bristle, and for a moment I’m so restless I almost stand.
I need to pace – like he did.
Oh, God, it’s
just
like he did. Was that why he did it? Maybe a sudden streak of unadulterated freedom went through him, too, and he just didn’t know how to contain it. He still can’t contain it, because after a tense moment of silence he gets up and goes across to the bar – like he can’t help himself. Something just spasms and he has to move, without a word of explanation.
Not that he needs to give me one. In truth, the lack just makes everything more exciting. I find myself leaning to one side to get a better view of whatever he’s doing, and when I still can’t quite see I actually lift my bottom off the seat. I’m an elderly gossip, suddenly, trying to see around the neighbour’s wall.
Though the wall in question is much more man-shaped than it would usually be, I’m sure. This wall has shoulders like boulders and a back that could bar the way to the lost city of gold, and all of this heavy grey blankness is keeping me from seeing what he’s doing.
He’s rummaging through his briefcase, I think. But what does that really tell me? He could have anything in there. He probably
does
have anything in there. Somehow I can’t see him carrying around three files and a pencil, which only leaves me with a very scary set of options.
Pliers, my mind says, for some reason.
Some terrible, terrible reason that kind of makes me hate my mind. What on earth would he be doing with pliers? Why is that the place my thoughts go to? He’s not a mobster, on the verge of plucking out my fingernails until I tell him what I prefer.
No, no, that’s ridiculous.
So why am I sweating? Why is my heart hammering hard enough to make my skin vibrate? I can actually see it when I glance down, thrumming slightly beneath the pressure. And it gets worse when he turns.
Of course it does.
He has some items in his hands, and suddenly that fear is threefold. It leaps through me, sharp with the memory of the first time I saw him. He put things on the bed then, too – or at least, I assume he did. They’re the same things he puts on the bed now, so it’s a reasonable theory. There is the red scarf, and the pair of handcuffs, and that damnable silver cane.
Oh, God, that silver cane. I can hardly stand to look at it, but of course he can see this happening. He can see me avoiding that one item, while my cheeks heat and my whole body refuses to keep still. And he knows what this means before I’ve even said.
So I blurt out the truth, like some sort of pre-emptive strike. I force it out of myself, raw and reeling, and in return he gives me the smallest nod. He doesn’t call me a liar, because how could I be? I said the most powerful thing – the thing that lots of women secretly want – and he accepts it without another word.
He just takes my hand and leads me over to the bed. Of course I’m still shaking when he does. I’m shaking so much that he puts his two big hands on my shoulders and smoothes over them again and again until I’m close to calm. My breathing evens out, at the very least. And I don’t try to run for the door, the way I wanted to about a second after I said it. I’d only be running from myself, anyway, because this is almost definitely what I want. I’ve dug deep, and found the truth:
I’m a secret masochist.
I
must
be a secret masochist. That’s why I’m trembling, I think. That’s why I’m so hot and heavy between my legs, as though someone replaced my sex with a swollen heart. It has absolutely nothing to do with the way he’s touching me now, because oh, he’s touching me far too softly. He slides a hand over my belly, until it’s beneath the material of my jacket. Then all he has to do to spread it open is ease that hand up, until the buttons pop beneath the pressure, one by one.
Of course this method of undressing me has two benefits: the first being its efficiency, and the second being the
sensation
. Oh, Lord, the sensation of his palm stroking its way up over my body, as it parts my clothes. It’s almost more arousing than the oral sex he gave me the day before, and I haven’t the foggiest clue why.
Because he’s undressing me? Because he’s almost fondling me, but not quite? He gets to my breasts but doesn’t squeeze or grope either of them. He just carries on with this slow denuding, every move more deliberate and interesting than the one before it.
He turns me around in the same way I imagine tailors turn people to measure them for suits: thumb and forefinger pressing lightly into my shoulder, one hand just brushing my hip. If you would, madam, I think, and for some unfathomable reason that makes things worse. A little sound comes out of me, before he’s even really done anything.
Though I think he imagines he has.
‘The safe word is “island”,’ he says, as oddly clinical as anything else that’s happening right now. We could be in a doctor’s office, in the centre of a sterile space station, in a system made of perfect plastic. That’s how clinical this is.
And yet I’m still gasping for air. I’m still feeling everything all at once, in a rush. I can hardly get up the wherewithal to nod, but I do it.
Because if I don’t, he’ll stop.
He’ll stop touching me this way: one hand firm on my hip, clasping me, while the other works the zipper down. And once the skirt is in a puddle on the floor, he stoops to collect it. He helps me to step out of it.
Then folds it neatly before placing it on the chair I vacated.
I swear, by the time he returns I’m a wreck. He just folded an item of clothing in the middle of the most intense sexual experience of my life. And he does the same with my shirt, too. He loops an arm around my body to get at the buttons, in a way that’s almost aggressive. It’s almost like being held captive, and for a moment I thrill and fear all at the same time.
But then he steps away to make a laundry pile of my clothes, and I just don’t know what to think. The contrast is mind-boggling, between the overt and almost brutal sexuality and the deliberate undressing.
Though I suspect that’s where the excitement is coming from.
It’s not that he’s being clinical.
It’s that he’s giving me one thing, while I wait for another. I’m panting for it; I’m gagging for it; I think I sob when he finally gets to my bra. I’m so sensitive there I almost don’t want him to take it off, though I’m glad he can’t hear this transient panic.
The feel of the air on my bare breasts is worth every bit of uncertainty – as is the tender way the straps slide down over my arms. He just lets them fall, and every second is blissful. I had no idea such small things could be so significant, but they are.
Like the way he crouches down behind me.
On the surface, it’s not that big a deal. He could be stooping to pick up a pen, or maybe his lace needs tying. But when he does it every muscle in my body tenses, in response to what he’s really doing: getting low, so he can ease my panties down my legs. Slowly, I think, so unbearably slowly, and still without a hint of anything truly sexual. He avoids all contact with my aching sex, and makes no comment on how wet I am.