The Ice Marathon (3 page)

Then somehow, we spontaneously started kissing. No, not
kissing – attacking each other with our tongues. There was no tenderness to it.
He tasted like jammy dodgers – my jammy dodgers.

I was annoyed to feel a firm hand on my ass, but then I
realised that my own hands were all over him. They roamed around, investigating
– just as puzzled as my head. He was much firmer than anybody I’d ever touched
before and he smelt the way a pretentious fragrance designer might interpret a
glacier.

Before I knew it, he was tugging my white slip up over my
head. He roughly discarded it, leaving me standing there naked – but for my
fluffy mauve slippers.

What the fuck? I was so cross. How could he just undress me
without invitation or precedence? It was presumptuous, just like the biscuit.

Right, if you want it that way …
I used all my
weight to overpower him, sending him crashing to the floor. He looked up at me,
stunned. I dropped down on top of him. As my crotch aligned with his, I saw his
face begin to brighten.
Er, I don’t think so, mate
. I sidled up past his
stomach, past his chest, and just past his chin. Then, I lowered myself onto
his lips. If he wanted to play, we were doing it on my terms.

Actually, he didn’t seem too resistant to my terms and
endured my ‘revenge’ rather willingly. This gave me a moment to reflect on how
sudden and completely inappropriate this was. This was nothing like me, or
anything I’d ever done before. You don’t deal with Tories by sitting on their
faces. Yet somehow, I couldn’t find it in me to get off him. The insanely
pleasant sensation of his tongue flicking my clit didn’t exactly help me reach
the mannerly decision.

Eventually, he pushed me off him. I took umbrage at being
pushed and shoved him back. We continued wrestling until I found myself face
down on the kitchen tiles and unable to fight back. I could feel his breath on
my neck; it was fragranced with the scent of my excitement. Moments later, I
felt the tips of his teeth. I squirmed as he bit into me. I could feel his
erection pressing against my bottom, and I was
not
having that!

I struggled to get out from underneath him. His broad
shoulders and stupid, unnecessary arm lumps made him heavy. Eventually I jabbed
him in the side with an elbow and he rolled off me, yelping.
I wonder how he
likes being pushed facedown into the floor 
…

I suddenly caught sight of one of the kitchen safari tiles –
a lion. It reminded me of our earlier verbal combat. Quickly, I drew my finger
down the crack of his tush, rapidly finding his hole and roughly shoved two
fingers inside him.

“Fuck!” he cried. He violently sprung away from me. When he
turned around, he looked furious. He grabbed me around the waist, lifted me up
and plonked me roughly down on the worktop. I found myself jammed between the
toaster and his crotch. He yanked down his boxers and before I could take a
look, hurriedly forced his cock inside me.

You want to feel what it’s like to be inside me?
I
shoved my pelvis towards him.
That’s what it feels like to be inside me.
I
knew this was a very bad idea, but it
felt
delicious.

He withdrew for a second and retaliated by forcing himself
deep inside me once again, shoving me back against the toaster. My thighs
smacked against his hips; his hips smacked against my thighs … Holy fuck –
we were having sex.

I tried to muffle my cries with my hand. I breathed through
my nose and caught the aroma of his fresh perspiration; I found that I
preferred it to his swanky cologne.

I felt myself begin to tremble and resisted the urge to
touch my clit. As much as I wanted to orgasm, I couldn’t let him know that he
could
make me cum. I disliked him too much for that. It was too late; I felt my
muscles contract. I could no longer stifle my cries. I convulsed so violently
that I pushed him out. I saw his eyes widen with surprise and I knew that he
knew that he was making me orgasm.
Dammit.

He put a hand on my neck and ran his fingers through my
hair, which was moist with sweat. He pulled my torso towards him and held my
chest against his as I felt the ripples of my orgasm spread.

But this tenderness did not last long. As soon as my
shuddering began to ease, he climbed up onto the counter. Hungrily, he pushed
himself inside me. I was too lost in the fuzzy aftermath of orgasm to object to
anything. The low rumble of his vocal tones brought an animal quality to his
growls. He could probably be heard next door but whatever, I was too gone to
care.

Finally, he grunted loudly and pushed himself as far forward
as he could, squashing me with the weight of his body. I knew what that meant –
the score had been evened. He’d made me climax, but
ha!
I’d made him
climax too. “So there!” I thought.

I lay there on the kitchen work surface with Simon Moran
still inside me, with only one thought in my head, “What the hell just
happened?”

* * *

I woke up and the clock beside my bed listed disappointingly
few digits. I remembered Tina and I tried to sit up to call the office, but my
head spun and I collapsed back into the pillows. At ten o’clock I awoke and
remembered arguing with some guy about cartoons. I welcomed another bout of
sleep. At eleven o’clock, I woke up and seemed to remember sitting on a man’s
face in the kitchen. Obviously, I was still drunk. I let sleep engulf me once
again.

Finally, I sat up at about one in the afternoon, painfully
aware of everything that had happened the day before.
Oh my God.
I had
to check the bed beside me to check that Simon wasn’t in it. Then I remembered
that he’d slept on the sofa – who said romance was dead?

My shoulder stung. I stood up to look in the mirror, only to
find that my right hip ached. To my horror, I saw that my shoulder was purple.
So it really had been as rough as I remembered.
Jesus Christ.

Was he still here? Would I have to face him over cornflakes?
What the hell had I done? I’d never slept with a man I’d only just met before.
He wasn’t even a nice man, was he? As I recalled, I’d thought him something of
a twerp. There was the nagging sense that perhaps I’d been a little hard on
him, both during the meal and, er …
later
.

Oh hell.
This was the most mortifying moment of my
life. Would they all be out there – Nicky, Dave
and
Simon (he was called
Simon wasn’t he?)? Would they all be watching my door, knowing what had
happened and wondering how I would play it? Had Simon told them about
the … occurrence? Had they overheard it?

I stalled for as long as possible, taking ten minutes to get
dressed, ten minutes to pin up my tangled hair, and a further twenty minutes to
do my makeup. It wasn’t that I wanted to look pretty; I just wanted to put off
emerging from my bedroom for as long as I possibly could.

Still, I couldn’t stay in here forever. I would have to go
out there eventually. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and took a step
toward my bedroom door. I stopped dead. I couldn’t do this.
Oh come on Emma,
what’s the worst that could happen?
Bravely, I opened the door, preparing
to face the music.

To my surprise, the living room was virtually empty.  Nicky
was casually strewn on the sofa, doing the crossword.

“Morning,” she said, without looking up. Why weren’t her
brown eyes giving me the twinkle?

“Morning,” I said, looking around suspiciously.

“I’ve just boiled the kettle if you want one.”

“Um, thanks.” I hovered in the middle of the room, swaying
on the spot.

“Where are the boys?” I asked. Then I remembered that, if it
weren’t for our kitchen rendezvous, I wouldn’t have known Simon stayed and
quickly added, “I assume Simon slept over?”

“Yes, he left about an hour ago. Dave’s popped into town to
get his hair trimmed.”

I tried to picture Dave with tidy hair. It defied
imagination. Uninvited thoughts of Simon’s thick, warm hair popped into my
mind.

“Nicky, last night … was I … did
I … was I a bit … 
harsh
?”

My friend put the crossword down. She looked at me and
smiled kindly. “You’d had a horrid day; I shouldn’t have pushed you into a
blind date.”

“So I was harsh?”

“Not really. Well, maybe a bit, but I think Simon
understood.”

“How do you know? Did he say anything?”

“He left his number.”

He did?

Wow.

Heck.

“It’s a shame you two didn’t get along. You seem quite
well-suited to me.”

“We do?”

“I really don’t think he is a Tory …”

“He’s not?” I asked, with interest.

“But I guess if the chemistry’s not there, it’s not there.”

A memory of Simon smashing me against the toaster, while he
plunged his cock deep inside me, popped into my head.

“Mmm,” I squeaked.

* * *

How could I call Simon? I’d argued with him for the entire
course of dinner, about things that didn’t seem to matter now. Then, I’d
demanded oral sex, stuck a couple of fingers up his bum, and shagged him with a
degree of brutality usually reserved for getting lids off jars. I mean,
admittedly, these indiscretions were retaliation, but they were pretty big
indiscretions regardless of provocation. Not the sort of things a relationship
could easily recover from.

Leaving his number would have been a courtesy, nothing more.
He couldn’t genuinely want me to call. I’d been foul to him. Besides, if he’d
really wanted to see me, he wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.

A part of me wanted to call him. That sex (if that’s what
you could call it) had been something else. It was violent and lacking in any
form of tenderness, yet at the same time, it had been one of the most moving
experiences of my life. Perhaps it hadn’t been moving for the right reasons.
Perhaps it didn’t move me to feel the emotions that you should feel when making
love, but it had made me feel
something
. It was nothing if not
passionate. Reflecting on what happened made me cringe, but it also made me
damn horny.

No, I could not call him. This was fucked up. It was
destructive, it was aggressive, and it was damn weird.
Walk away Emma. For
your own sanity, walk away.

Chapter 3

I walked home feeling decidedly positive. It was April now
and I’d already spotted irises, poppies and early sweet peas in the gardens en
route to the train station. I skipped along under my turquoise umbrella as rain
splattered down from turbulent skies. The raindrops were warm and tasted sweet.

As usual, I checked the faces in doorways for Tina. As
usual, other faces peered back. I was fond of many of my clients but there was
something particularly special about Tina; she was just so … likeable.
Perhaps she had moved on to another part of the country. Perhaps she now lived
in a borough where the council didn’t try to house rape victims in mixed
lodges. I could but hope.

By the time I climbed onto the train, I was thinking about
my dinner. It was almost certainly my turn to cook and it had been a while
since we’d had fajitas. Mexican would go down well with Dave and I owed him a
favour after pinching his cheese …

That’s when I saw her – Tina.

She looked up and I saw the fright in her eyes. She poised
herself to stand but then looked around from side to side and saw that she had
nowhere to run. The train raced toward the suburbs. She was enormous now; thank
goodness the baby had survived.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She nodded.

“Are you housed?”

She stared at the floor. Her torn coat and grubby rucksack
said it all.

“Jesus, Tina! You’re almost ready to give birth. Please let
us be involved.”

“I don’t want to go back to that B&B. I didn’t like the
man.”

“You don’t have to go back to the B&B,” I explained. I
looked at her face, so pale and sunken. “Tina, why did you run?”

She shrugged, but I could see her shoulders trembling.

“We’ve all missed you,” I told her.

“Yeah, right.”

“Of course we have! Every drop-in session, my eyes were
glued to the door.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

I saw a smile break on her lips. She had a beautiful smile.
“I wasn’t being a twat, Emma. That man really freaked me out. He was in his
room, on his own, yelling and banging on the wall.”

“We’ll find you somewhere else.”

“But will it be any better?”

“Yes! You’re in your third trimester. They’d better make
damn sure they find you something suitable. And if they don’t, I’ll chain
myself to the council building until they do.”

She laughed. “You always tell me not to cause a scene.”

I smiled and we shared a few moments of laughter, remembering
some of Tina’s less delicate conversations with the council.

The train ground to a halt. “Come on,” I said. “We’re
getting off.”

“Why?”

“So that we can get the next train back into town.”

“Can you get me into the night shelter?” she asked,
brightening.

“Yes, but first, I’m going to treat you to dinner.”

“I don’t want to put upon you …”

“Indulge me; I’ve been looking for an excuse to eat out.”

* * *

There was a spring in my step when I arrived home three
hours, and a Wagamama’s ramen, later. I burst open the door ready to tell Nicky
the good news. Of course, I couldn’t break confidentiality and name Tina, but
there was no harm in telling her that a particularly vulnerable missing client
had turned up.

However, I found that our flat was unexpectedly lit – dark,
but with flickers of colour. I could see the backs of heads on the sofa and
heard, “Oh, for God’s sake! He’s got an arm off!” on the television. Awesome,
it was movie night! I smiled to myself and leapt onto a beanbag on the floor.