She focused on a group of men and followed them into a pub called the Tut ’n’ Shive. The inner walls of the pub were painted black and the lighting was more subtle than on the street. The music and voices were very loud however, and she had to compensate for that. Susannah’s hearing was extremely good – too good – but she found that Simon’s was less so, which helped in here. She felt confident about the way she looked, an amalgam of the best of those with whom she had come into contact.
She ordered a drink at the bar, pointing to a silver bottle that a number of other women were swigging from. When the bartender asked her for money, she stared at him blankly.
“I’ll get this.”
She turned to find a man standing next to her, brandishing his wallet.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot.”
“Forgot your purse?” The man shook his head. “It happens.” When she took a sip of the stuff in the bottle (foul – so sweet it coated her throat with an awful, syrupy skin) she sensed him assessing her body. It made her giddy and it was all she could do to stop herself from grabbing him right now, and doing what the women in the pictures had done.
“I’m Mick,” he said, wiping a hand against his thick denim shirt exaggeratedly before offering it for her to shake. This she did, tasting him through her pores and finding it hard to relinquish his fingers. He didn’t seem to mind too much.
“I’m Susannah,” she said. “Susannah Gleave. I’m twenty-four. I have good tits.”
Mick’s eyes widened. “Well, yes, I can see that.” He assessed her more openly. “Yes. The jury has returned its verdict. Guilty. Of having good… bosoms.” He laughed, a strange, staccato yammer that sounded like a child’s impression of a machine gun. “Are you foreign?” he asked.
“Foreign?”
“Yeah, you know… not from these shores.”
Cheke smiled uncertainly. “You can tell?”
“Not much,” Mick said, theatrically. “What are you? Swedish? You look Swedish. Athletic. Tall.”
“Swedish,” Cheke said, trying out the unfamiliar word. “Yes. If you like.”
Mick took a sip of his pint, the first flicker of a frown creasing his forehead. He shook it away. Cheke looked him over. He was quite a bit shorter than she was. His hair was dark, but was silvering at the temples. He was balding at his crown. He wore his shirt outside his trousers. Black, chunky boots rooted him steadily to the beer-soaked floor. She liked his overall chunkiness. She liked his pale eyes too. Grey, like Gleave’s. Wolfish.
“Your prick,” she said. “I need to know. Is it—”
Mick spluttered foam over the edge of his beer glass. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry… I mean… your cock? Is that right? I wondered, is it big? Are you shaved? Down there? Have you fucked before? What noises do women make, when you—”
Mick held up his hand. “Look, if I’d had twelve Kronenbourg, it might be that I’d be all over you for what you’re saying right now. But as it is, this is my first. And this is all a bit too weird for me. So, good luck. Maybe some other time, hey?”
She watched him back away and then press through the cluster of bodies massing at the bar. Somebody vacated a stool and she slid onto it, nursing the bottle between her fingers. She was considering going after him when another man stepped up beside her, glanced once at her and then, when she didn’t avert her gaze, turned to face her and smiled broadly.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Derek.”
“You’re black,” Cheke said.
The smile died. “Yes. I am. Is that a problem?”
Cheke was astonished by the cat and mouse. There didn’t seem to be any scope for direct talking. She thought of how quickly Mick had retreated when she cut through any charade. She smiled, as warmly as she possibly could, shifting her body around on the stool so that he could see whatever, and as much, as he wanted of her. “No,” she said. “You’re beautiful.”
It was the right answer.
He took her back to a flat in Woolston, on the eastern fringes of the town. He poured her a glass of wine from a half-finished bottle in the fridge and put on some music – something he called hip hop – before making it clear that the stereo cost a month’s wages. The music meant nothing to her. It hurt her ears, made it hard for her to understand anything he said. He asked her if she fancied some coke, extracting a small bag of white powder from beneath a sofa cushion. She nodded, said sure, she wouldn’t mind, and waited to see what he would do with it. He chopped a few lines with a razor blade on a mirror and offered her a rolled £50 note.
“You first,” she said. She followed his lead.
After they had snorted a couple of lines each, Derek pushed her back against the sofa. He unbuckled his jeans and let them fall to the floor.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked. He was wearing white cotton boxer shorts that hugged his hips. The outline of his cock was obvious. It made a long, vague S-shape.
“Do you like what you see?” he asked. “Would you like to see more?”
She nodded.
“Then you have to take something off too.”
She unzipped the dress and let it slip off her shoulders. The coke had made her feel tingly at the back of her brain, as if she was being tickled by a feather there. It was hard to keep control of herself. Derek’s fingers slipped into the waistband of his boxers. His eyes were fixed on her nipples, which were visible through the sheer fabric of her bra. Susannah’s nipples, Susannah’s breasts. Small, perky breasts; very pink, very stiff nipples. He failed to see the slight failure of her right hand, which morphed for a fraction into the gnarled fist of the guard she had attacked at Gleave’s hideout. Get a grip, she ordered herself. Concentrate.
She wondered whose pudenda she should present to him. Susannah’s was a tight, pink, neat affair, the blonde pubic hair trimmed, the mons moisturised and scented. The nurse from Sloe Heath had a sex that was looser and more hairy, but shockingly carnal in a way that Susannah’s was not. Perhaps she should offer her own. She felt a flood of warmth through her loins, and an almost unbearable heat that gave her a melting feeling in her stomach.
Derek slipped the waistband down over his cock, which sprang lightly away from its nest of hair. It was thick and heavy, not yet fully erect, and it bounced to the rhythm of his heartbeat. It was different to the guard’s, or the pictures she had seen. A sheath of skin covered the glistening core. She was about to ask him what it was, but remembered Mick’s retreat. She must feign some sass, some knowledge.
Derek dabbed half the remaining coke from the mirror onto his finger. He smeared it onto the tip of his cock and leaned over to kiss her. She moved back under the weight of his mouth as it melded with her own. His tongue tasted of rum and Coca-Cola. This was like the pictures in Jonathan’s magazine. The stories too. She made a low noise in the back of her throat and reached down to caress his balls. She had read this in a reader’s letter: Marge from Crewe. She squeezed lightly, aware that the organ needed to be treated tenderly. Derek closed his eyes and hissed.
Now she moved her hand so it encircled his cock. She lightly moved the outer skin against the stiffening core until the prepuce peeled back from the head, swollen and tan and glossy.
“Put your mouth on it,” Derek said, his voice thick. He had his hands under the frame of her bra and was massaging her breasts, rolling the nipples between his fingers. It felt good. The tickle at the back of her brain increased and spread. It linked up directly with the V between her legs. If he didn’t rub her there soon, she would have to touch herself. It was almost unbearable.