The Sex Was Great But... (24 page)

T
here was a crap Paul Simon song my mum loved, it was called “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.” Only when we were teenagers my mates and me used to sing a different version. “Fifty Ways to Get a Blow Job.”

But actually there is only one way to leave your lover, and only one way to get a blow job.

The main requirement of leaving a lover involves getting up and walking away. I'm not saying it's easy, but that's the only way to do it.

Getting the blow job, on the other hand, is a lot more involved. First of all you need a girl with a face like an angel
who thinks you're cute enough to go to the effort of giving a blow job.

Actually, a lot of guys will tell you she can look like the back end of a bus, because in all honesty you can't see her face when she's going down on you—but obviously that's a judgment call.

For argument's sake let's say the angel takes your testicles firmly in her hand and squeezes them. Not too hard, just enough to make you
fear
the pain rather than
feel
it. It's while on that knife-edge between excitement and fear that you can find ecstasy.

She smiles up at you, as if she's innocent, before taking you into her mouth. Ahhhh. Her mouth. Did I mention her mouth? Nothing can prepare you for her mouth. It's the most perfect mouth in the entire world, a mouth you want to kiss and never stop. It's a sacrifice not to be kissing her mouth, but it feels so good around your penis that you don't object. You have to catch your breath with the kick of being inside it.

You hold her head—you want to force her to swallow you whole, but she makes it clear that she'll only take you bit by bit.

She teases you, using her tongue on the shaft, and slowly, very slowly, agonizingly slowly, so slowly it almost hurts, she takes you bit by glorious bit deeper and deeper into her mouth. And then, just when you think the swallowing part's upon you, she'll slowly take her mouth off your dick and lick it like it's a new-flavored popsicle. Throughout this whole thing she's squeezing your balls, keeping up the pressure. Your eyes are rolling back in your head so far you
can feel them in your balls—and then she takes you into her mouth again.

You're totally losing it.

She's sucking you hard.

You're all the way in. Farther than you ever thought possible.

Then you're not in her at all.

You're all the way out.

Then in.

Her mouth is so hot and tight around your dick that the right-hand side of your brain shuts down. You're not sure what she's doing to you anymore, but you're in ecstasy.

She's started moaning. Or is it you that's moaning? You're not sure. You're not sure of anything. If someone asked you your name right now—at this precise moment—you wouldn't have a clue. You're in The Zone. Euphoric. Fuck your name. Who needs a name in heaven?

Suddenly you're calling out her name! You're calling out her name because she's gifted and excellent and the finest, most perfect person in the world—plus, she's got your balls in her fist.

I'm going to stop there, because I'm getting excited just thinking about it and I don't want to be excited in that sort of way while I'm checking in for my flight at LAX.

But, believe me, I guarantee you the method I've just described is the one and only way to get a blow job.

Only there's a catch. The only girl who can give you a blow job exactly like that is Holly, and I've just left her. So you see, basically, there isn't much more to tell you. It's the end of the story. Or, as they say in Hollywood—it's a wrap.

And in case you need the rest spelled out for you let me just say, yes, of course I feel like complete gobshite.

“Window or aisle?”

I tell the guy I want the aisle, and as he passes me my boarding card and tells me to “have a nice flight,” I start to feel the first sense of relief I've felt in ages. I'm breathing out.

The worst is behind me. I might feel like gobshite now, but I know it won't get any worse. Now all I need to do is put some distance between Holly and me. Get on with my life.

But I'm wrong about the worst being behind me I realize, as I hear screaming and shouting and see Kev and Tifanie running toward me in a mad panic. Oh, fuck!

I forgot that I've told them my departure time, and after everything that's happened I really don't want to face them. I've said all the goodbyes I can bear to say. I briefly toy with the idea of running away, but I don't get the chance.

“We thought you'd done a runner,” they're panting as they reach me.

“I
am
doing a runner,” I remind them. “I told you I was going to do a runner, and key to doing a runner is not saying any long goodbyes.”

They look at me like maybe I'm not the guy they know after all.

“That's why you're here, isn't it? For a long goodbye?” I say.

“Oh, yeah, fair enough,” they say, calming down a bit. I'm starting to wonder how these two are ever going to cope without me.

“You've got your passport and tickets, haven't you?” Tifanie asks.

I reassure her that I have everything I need. “Give us a look at your passport photo, then,” she demands. “I love seeing what people look like in their passports.”

I hand it over.

“Very nice. I look fat in mine.”

Kev leans in for a look, but isn't impressed. “I hate those fascist documents,” he snarls—giving the passport a dismissive flick with his finger.

“How'd it go with Holly, then?” Tifanie asks brightly.

I shrug.

“Your mom will be happy to see you.”

I agree that my mum will be thrilled. Tif's being sweet. I wish she wouldn't be sweet, though. Her sweetness is making me feel worse. She's right about me looking forward to seeing Mum, though. I rang her up that night when I was driving around in the limo and she promised me that her and Auntie Lucy would pick me up at Heathrow in her new car. It's an old limo—three months left on the registration.

I'm heading toward the souvenir shop to buy Lakers hats to take back to my mum and auntie Lucy when Mike and Holly turn up.

I miss my chance to leg it because Holly throws her arms around me and then it's too late—she smells like heaven. I inhale her hair like a junkie inhaling a line of smack after he's already started detox.

“You can't go,” she pleads, looking up at my face. “Please say you'll stay.”

Mike puts his hand on my shoulder. “Stay, Leo. It'd mean a lot to me if you'd stay.”

I don't want to stop holding Holly or anything, but I
have to pull her away. “I've got to go,” I tell them in this really grown up a-man's-got-to-do-what-a-man's-got-to-do voice that sounds so naff I have to add, “Besides, they've already called my flight.”

They haven't called my flight, but I'm thinking this lie will enable me to get away faster.

“What time's it leave?” Kev asks, blowing my cover.

“Quarter of one,” Tifanie says, reading from my fucking ticket, which I snatch away from her.

“It's not that yet, is it?” Mike asks—and everyone pulls up their sleeves and looks at their wrists.

“Twelve-oh-five,” Kev announces, and I realize he's reading it from the Rolex. He must realize the same thing, because he looks straight at me, grinning ear-to-ear. “See—I told you I'd find it.”

“Let's sit down over here and have a coffee and talk about all this,” Mike says, ushering us toward Starbucks like he's the father and we're the teenage kids.

“No, I want to get going. Mum's expecting me,” I say—a total kid.

“We can call her,” he suggests reasonably.

“Anyway, I can't stay. The ticket's nontransferable.”

“I'll buy you another one,” Mike and Holly both say at the same time.

“Jeez, you rich people suck. You think you can buy your way out of fucking everything, don't you?” Kev sneers. “Well it's all going to change after this next Eat The Rich riot, all right? No messing about this time. Your days are numbered, my friends.”

“Shut up, Kev,” I tell him.

“Yeah, look at yourself, Kev. Mr. Fancy Pants with your
flash Rolex,” Tif teases, giving him a playful clip around the ear.

Kev ducks and goes back to admiring his watch.

“How could you have just left me that note?” Holly asks me quietly when she thinks no one can hear.

“You left her a note?” Kev laughs. “You soft bastard. Hey, Holly, what did he say in the note?” He starts using a girlie voice I've never heard him use before. “‘I love you, Holly! I love you like the fire loves the rain.' Hey, Holly, did he quote from a Tom Jones song? Did he? Did he, Holly? Read it out to us, go on.” He nudges her and flutters his eyelashes.

Mike and Tif both tell him to shut it.

I'm feeling embarrassed enough about having written all that soppy stuff to Holly without Kev sticking his oar in. More than anything I want to press rewind and be back in bed, with Holly lying snuggled up against me.

I let Mike and Holly persuade me I have time for coffee, and Kev and Tifanie go off for a wander round the shops. Mike starts telling me about some new show he's producing. “We're pitching it as a makeover show for the environment.”

“Yeah? That's great, Mike,” I say.

Holly and I hold hands under the table like teenagers.

“We're going to do makeovers on environmental systems that have…”

But I don't hear a word of what he's saying. All I'm thinking is how Holly's hand slips into mine like a Mandlebrot pattern. I fall back into Mike's conversation about the time he announces that Holly has agreed to present the show and Nancy will be coming on board as producer. They call my flight at the same time and I've got to go. I
gather up my coat and my bag and start moving away from the table.

The bit going through the turnstile is the worst. Holly starts crying. Tif starts hanging off me. Mike goes into some father lecture about running out on the people I love and who love me.

“That's brilliant, Dad,” I sneer, putting a special sarcastic emphasis on the word “dad.” “You'd be an expert on that, wouldn't you?”

“He's got a point. But…” Kev says, still staring at the Rolex “…you can't just run away from everything. Sharks don't run away.” Like I said—the guy was a total nutter. Where did he get this shark thing?

“I've got to go,” I repeat, feeling the tears starting to bank up behind my eyes. “I can't be doing with this,” I tell them as I look around for Holly.

I want to kiss her one last time, but she's on the other side of the departure lounge, watching planes take off, and I realize there are no more “one last times” for us.

I think of my pretentious note to her and wince. At least Mike had the decency not to leave a note. My mum told him: “If you walk out that door, don't ever come back.”

We got a telegram from the U.S. a few months later.

 

On tour. The crowds love us. Don't think I'll be coming back. Sorry.

Love, Mike “Bad Ass” Monroe.

 

I take the ticket out of my top pocket and pass it to the door attendant.

“You're the last one,” she says, and I stop myself taking one last look back.

It would be easy to have second thoughts, but I focus on what's waiting for me back in the U.K. My decks, my club contacts and my future. A future I realize I suddenly want to exploit, a career I want to build. If Holly and I really mean something to one another she'll still be here when I've sorted my life out. Life isn't about fate or luck. It's about knowing whether to press pause, rewind, fast-forward or eject.

J
ust when I thought it was over, as the attendant goes to put my boarding pass in the machine, Mike's hand reaches out and takes it from her.

“I'll be using that!” he shouts, and the poor girl looks terrified—starts babbling about regulation procedure and terrorist alerts and grabbing for telephones.

“Sorry, love,” he says. “I was talking to my son, not you.”

Everyone nearby is staring now. Typical. You don't see your dad for twenty-four years and then he comes back into your life and starts making embarrassing public scenes.

“You were right. I am a hypocrite,” he tells me in a loud,
speechlike tone. “What business have I got, telling you what to do, when I can't even sort my own messes out?”

“Yeah, right, Mike,” I tell him in a low voice. “Can I have my ticket back now?”

Years of stadium rocking has him speaking at the top of his voice, addressing the entire airport. “How can you respect me when I've made a mess of my own personal life?” he yells. “Give
me
that ticket. It's time I took a stand! I'm off to sort things out with Jean.”

And for some reason I can see he's right, and I let him go because I can see now something I should have seen before—which is that whole shark metaphor of Kev's is total pants. Swimming forward, never backward? Give me a break. All fish swim forward. Even the really naff ones like sardines swim forward. It's their biology. I'm not going to base my life on the biological limitations of fish.

Also, if you walk out on people you love, you end up getting your eyes poked out in family photographs. Walking away from love is too fucked up even for people who wear leather jumpsuits. You stick by the people you love, and if sardines ever fell in love they'd probably know that too.

It turns out that it is a nontransferable ticket, which is sort of amusing, because Mike's “Big Moment” falls a bit flat. But, hey, he's Mike “Bad Ass” Monroe, so he buys another ticket—first class, the flash git. They hold the plane for him while he sorts it. I'm thinking about what it's going to be like when Mum and Auntie Lucy see Mike walking into the Arrivals lounge at Heathrow instead of me. I figure Actual Bodily Harm is the least he can expect from my mum.

Because they've held up the plane, we get time to do the whole goodbye thing again, and now I have a new memory of my dad. He's hugging me, the bags around his eyes all puffy with emotion. He's telling me he's proud of me and going on about what a wanker he's been and how he should have gone back to see Jean and sort things out years ago. I'm there with my face pressed against his chest, listening to him banging on and feeling kind of sorry for the guy.

I'm only slightly embarrassed about being held by a guy in a black leather jumpsuit.

It occurs to me as I watch him go that Mum is unlikely to be welcoming him back as the prodigal husband, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. He's big enough and ugly enough to look after himself. Just the same, I call out to him to watch out for Mum's right hook and warn him not to go shagging Auntie Lucy again.

And then he turns, and time stands still as he calls me by my DJ name. “Oh, and one last thing before I go Mix Master Monroe. I forgot to tell you: I left my record collection and a new set of decks at Holly's for you. Mix me a demo track and my people will talk to your people.” He made a telephone sign with his hand.

“Your old man's fucking loaded, Monroe,” Kev says when Mike's finally gone through to the plane. “You should be ashamed of yourself, you know. It's pricks like you we'll be gunning for when we start eating the rich—”

I see Holly over by the observation window, dabbing at her eyes with the sleeves of her cardigan the way little girls do, and I'm walking toward her feeling like I'm in a movie.

I'm running toward her.

I'm taking her in my arms.

She's laughing through her tears, which I've always thought is a real girl thing—only now I'm doing it myself.

Snogging her in the departure lounge, I'm kind of waiting for the people around us to start cheering and clapping, or even to break into some sort of song and dance routine.

I am kissing Holly Klein in a public place! And it feels even better than I ever dreamed it would. This is what love does to you, I guess. It starts making you believe in love Walt Disney style. I want to tell the world I love her and buy everyone in the bar a drink.

But all anyone in any airport cares about is their own goodbyes. So we go over to Kev and Tifanie and offer them a lift home.

I drive.

Kev spends the whole journey polishing his watch in the back, and after we drop them off at the Hollymount Apartments and Tif's gone inside he comes round to the driver's side to tell me something “private.” He sticks his head in the car. “One last thing, Mix Master Monroe.”

His voice drops. Holly politely pretends to be concentrating on something in her bag.

“Listen, man, I'm fairly certain Tif's going to try and make a play for me tonight.”

I stifle a laugh as Kev pulls my ear to his mouth. Oh, shit, I'm thinking to myself, he's going to Tyson me.

Instead he asks, “Do you think I should say yes if she asks me for a shag?”

“I always think you should say yes to a shag,” I tell him,
relieved to still have my ear. He looks at me like I'm the nutter and he's the regular guy. I wind my window up.

He shakes his head, looks at me one last time, crosses the street and disappears into the liquor store.

Holly turns to me and I lean in to kiss her.

A car goes past, so I might be hearing wrong, but I think she says, “I love you, Leo Monroe,” and I think I might reply, “I love you too, Holly Klein.”

 

She was definitely still there when I woke up in the morning to answer the phone. We were in her bedroom and my mum was screaming on the other end of the phone about how she'd already sent that mad asswipe of a father back to me because she had no use for him.

I got up and laid down a track, using one of Mike's old records as a backbeat.