Slowly, her hips rose a fraction from the mattress. I followed the invitation, and found my fingers in the hot, wet gusset of James’s boxer shorts. After this, I just held firm and watched. I hardly needed to move. Her hips rocked back and forwards over my hand, gradually faster and harder, until she made this funny squeaky noise, had a little shudder, then pushed my hand away, rolled over and fell asleep.
Instead of going back to my bed, I curled up behind her and tried to doze off, with my erection pressed firmly into her bum.
In the morning I was the first to wake up, so I crawled to my bed and woke up again there, in order to do my bit for the illusion that nothing had happened. Having done that, I went downstairs, made two breakfasts, and took them back to the bedroom. I balanced the tray on Liz’s clock-radio, and got into bed with her. She was still half asleep, but had somehow conveniently put her T-shirt on.
Together we chomped through our cereal and toast like two good mates who just happened to be having a companionable breakfast on the same mattress. Neither of us mentioned what had happened, even though with every mouthful I took, I noticed a thrillingly salty odour on my fingers.
Later that week, Liz and I bought our tickets. We would leave immediately after the end of her term, and return almost three months later, just in time for me to start university.
After a while, sleep-overs with massage became a regular occurrence. The massage technique gradually developed until it involved both of us stripping down to our pants and rubbing different bits of our bodies together.
Since Liz never raised the topic of our burgeoning sexual relationship in conversation, I decided to play along with her and let us continue with the illusion that we were two good mates who just happened to have a fondness for near-nude medicinal massage. The healing properties of this massage gradually found themselves focused more and more on the genitals, at which point underwear became a bigger inconvenience than ever, and suddenly we were naked.
It is a well-known fact that if two people lie in bed, without clothes, rubbing each other’s genitals together, sooner or later, one genital will slot into the other.
This is what happened. A advanced form of medicinal massage.
It was at this point that we chose to discuss contraception.
‘You’re on the Pill, aren’t you?’
‘No. I stopped.’
‘Have you got any condoms?’
‘No. I threw my spares away.’
‘Why?’
‘As a gesture.’
‘For fuck’s sake! A gesture of what?’
‘Fidelity, of course.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘You’d better pull out.’
‘All right.’
‘NOT YET, you idiot.’
‘Oh, OK.’
I wiggled my dick around a bit, until it started to tingle, then pulled out.
‘Will you toss me off?’
‘No!’
‘Go on. Please.’
‘Why should I?’
‘I’ve done you loads of times, and you’ve never even touched me.’
She scowled, and reached under the duvet. Having somehow found the only part of my penis without any nerve endings, she tugged it until it ached. Cradling her hand, I showed her what to do, and within seconds, I had squirted on to her belly.
It was, I feel I must stress, only the semen of friendship. A form of natural massage oil, if you will. For there was nothing sexual between Liz and me. Absolutely not. Further proof of this can be found in the fact that she refused to kiss me.
Afterwards we both went to sleep, probably more out of tact than anything else. I knew she’d need time to decide what to say. It would now be very hard indeed for her to deny that something had happened. With any luck, we’d wake up the next morning, have a bad-breath kiss and officially name ourselves lovers.
The second Liz opened her eyes, she leaped out of bed. I followed her downstairs, and we had breakfast in silence until I popped the big question.
‘Liz? Why won’t you kiss me?’
She carried on eating, staring into her cereal bowl and chewing slowly while she decided on an answer.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she mumbled.
‘In the circumstances, nothing seems very obvious at all.’
‘I don’t love you,’ she said.
‘So?’
‘What do you mean, “so”?’
‘I know you don’t love me. I know where we stand. It’s just that if we’re going to… you know… have sex, then we might as well try and enjoy it.’
‘I love James. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
‘Not much. Look – it’s ridiculous that you keep on about him while you’re doing all this stuff with me. I don’t see why you can’t just acknowledge what’s going on – then, when he gets back, we can all return to normal.’
‘Is that really what you want?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you think things work like that, do you?’
‘I don’t see why not. We could always give it a go.’
‘You are so naïve. I find it hard to believe that you can know so little about relationships. You’re talking shit.’
‘Why? What would go wrong? You think I wouldn’t be able to let go?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d be fine. If I’ve agreed in advance, then I won’t be able to complain, will I?’
‘And there is the small matter of James. Have you never heard of a thing called jealousy ? I don’t think he’d be exactly over the moon.’
‘I thought you agreed to have an open relationship so that he could screw around in Asia without feeling bad. It serves him right.’
‘I don’t believe you. I don’t know why we’re even discussing this. You’re just so naive that I don’t know where to start. You don’t seem to know anything. And I’m not just a piece of meat that you two can trade between you.’
‘We’re the ones that are being traded. You’ve traded him in for me.’
‘No I haven’t.’
‘Of course you have.’
‘I have not. If… if you feel that just because you have clawed away at me, preying on the fact that you know I miss James… and now that you have finally got some pathetic piece of gratification for your efforts – if you think this means you have taken James’s place, then you’ve got a lot to learn.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like… like… . You don’t seem to know a single thing about how relationships work. It’s as if you’ve never heard of human emotions. It’s as if you haven’t even got the imagination to realize that what happens on the surface isn’t always the sum total of… isn’t always the most important thing.’
‘Oh, . I . I’m superficial because I think that having sex means something. At last I understand. It’s all for making the… the assumption that because you are now having sex with me instead of James…’
‘I am now having sex with you instead of James. Look – you’ve been groping me for long enough, and you’ve finally got your way, and I hope you’re satisfied, but now it’s going to stop.’
‘Great. And I’m the superficial one.’
‘Yes.’
‘Look. Even if you stop doing it we both know that you want it. We both know that we’ve done it.’
‘I want it.’
‘Yeah, right. I forced you.’
‘You did.’
‘WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?’