The timing is perfect. Many voices mingle to form the crescendo.
Roxannnne, Roxaannnne…
I am panting. Not just with exertion, but with need and desire. He appears at the edge of the bed and wrapping his large artist’s hands around my ribcage pulls me up, very much as one would do a mermaid from the ocean, onto the bed.
‘I need to get my mouth on that wet, unbelievably delicious pussy of yours.’
‘How do you know I’m wet?’ I pant, on my back.
‘Because, my little puss in boots,’ he says very softly, sliding my knickers down my legs and dangling the little red thing, ‘I saw this…’ And clearly I see the wet patch in the gusset. A small shiver goes through me. ‘And became very hungry for pussy butter.’ He goes to put his mouth between my thighs, but I palm his throat, as he had done to me on our first night.
‘No, this one’s on me,’ I say, and lifting myself up change positions. I straddle him; sit on his chest, on his good shirt. It is not sex, it is attention, it is flattery—that is what no living man can get enough of.
I shift down and unbutton his trousers. He is wearing white briefs.
‘White underpants? You know I can’t resist you in white underpants,’ I breathe.
A lone pulse beats in his temple. God, how could I have been so stupid? All the while my real feelings for him were staring at me. All the while I was falling deeper and deeper and my own stubborn stupidity kept me focused on Jack.
I bend forward and take him into the hot wet cave of my mouth, and suck the shaft in so deep there is nowhere else for him to go. What could he do but buckle and explode deep in my throat? Slowly I begin to unbutton his shirt. Expose the warm skin.
‘You blew my mind…’ he says, and expertly unclasps my bra. Sweat has glued it to my skin. He peels it off and my breasts pop out. He rolls the nipples between his fingers. ‘But I still need to get my mouth on those voluptuous pussy lips.’
I rise to my knees, straddle his chest, and push my crotch towards him. My pussy is so tantalizingly close to his chin he can surely smell my arousal. I look down at him. ‘What? These old, swollen things?’
He eyes my crotch greedily. Inside my boots, my toes curl with anticipation.
‘They do look a little…erm…used.’
‘Used and bitten and ravished. Three times a week.’
‘Come and sit on my face.’
I walk on my knees up to his mouth and suspend my sex over his mouth, the inner folds exposed, throbbing, and silently screaming for release. I am buzzing inside. Secretions of lust leak from me as if I am a faulty tap.
‘Don’t be gentle with her,’ I command.
He flicks his tongue out and I raise my hips out of reach. He grabs my hips and pulls me down onto his mouth.
‘Ohhh...’ My head falls back. The silky warmth of that dexterous mouth. The suction. The suction. It is killing me. I begin to sizzle inside. My fingers grip the headboard as if my life depends on it.
‘Oh God. Oh Vann…’ And I can no longer hold on. I grind into his teeth as the orgasm overwhelms me, my skin tingling, my mind a white flare.
‘Too soon,’ he growls and tumbles me over. He sits up. ‘Onto all fours.’ I right myself and obey instantly, my inner slut mewling. I hear the sound of the foil.
‘Don’t.’
He pauses.
‘I’m on the pill.’
For a second I feel his naked head against my soaked opening and moan and then my cunt becomes a sheath for his cock, as he grabs my hips with both hands and ruts and rides us both home.
Fucked, my cunt in a spasm, I fall forward and hear his ragged breath as he falls on top of me. Our bodies are slippery. I grip my muscles hard to keep his seed inside me but it trickles out helplessly.
‘God you’re beautiful.’
‘I don’t need to be wooed.’ My voice is hoarse, a stranger’s, my breathing viciously quick. ‘I need to be taken. Again and again.’
And that is what he does. Again and again. Until the night sky becomes pale and we are both so exhausted we curl up against each other and sleep.
Thirty-four
First gather your facts, then distort them at your leisure.
—Mark Twain
I watch him sleeping.
The lines that held his face so tightly last night are all relaxed. He looks so beautiful I want to weep. He opens his eyes. They are soft and slumberous and not yet attuned to the world. He whispers my name.
‘Julie.’
A smile ghosts my lips.
For an instant there is silent communication between us. An odd moment that we are both caught in it… A string of connection—like the first time our eyes met. When I was a bridesmaid and he the best man and he winked at me across a crowded church. Then he deliberately breaks the moment and, turning away, sits up. He pushes his hair away from his forehead. I squeeze my eyes shut. I won’t give up. I open my eyes and, reaching out a hand, touch his back. He stiffens.
‘Julie…’ he starts to say.
I sit up, the sheet falling away from my body, and clamp my hand across his mouth. His eyes travel down to my bare breasts. ‘Before you say anything else I want to show you something.’
He blinks and nods.
‘Thank you.’
We get dressed, get into his car and drive to Kilburn. I ask him to stop outside my house. We go up the stairs and down the corridor without exchanging a single word. My stomach is in knots. I am so nervous I feel like throwing up. In front of my door I stop and put my key into it. As soon as I open the door the stale smell rushes out, engulfing us. I look up at Vann. His face tells me everything I need to know. Shock. Disgust.
‘This is my house.’
He swallows. I take him to the living room. My mother is too shocked to stand or speak.
‘Vann, this is my mother. Mum, meet Vann.’
Vann moves forwards and takes her soft swollen hand in his.
‘Come,’ I say to Vann and take him upstairs to my room. I unlock the door. ‘This is my room.’
He follows me into my scrupulously clean bedroom. I turn around and watch him close the door, lean with his back to it, and look around him. His face is carefully blank.
I point towards the wall with the bits of Blue tack still sticking on it. ‘That wall there used to be full of photos of Jack, some even blown up to poster size, but I took them all down the day before yesterday. I wanted to tear them all into tiny pieces, throw them away and pretend I had never been so stupid, but when it came to it I didn’t have the heart. It would have meant that I wasted so many years of my life. They’re in that drawer.’
I point to the lowest drawer of my dresser. His eyes follow my finger. He seems bemused.
Here goes. Total honestly.
‘I kissed Jack on Friday.’
That makes his eyes jump back to me. The cobra rears its head fiercely.
‘I called him up, went to his house and asked him to kiss me. And he’s a good kisser, I’ll give him that, but you know what? I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.’ I look pleadingly into his eyes. ‘Vann, you’re the one I think of all day, you’re the one I respond to even when I don’t want to. You’re the one I love. That crush I had on Jack was based on hot air. It was just a fantasy created by a lonely, terribly, terribly unhappy girl.’
He opens his mouth to say something, but I hold my hand up.
‘There are other things you don’t know about me. I’m not a good friend to Lana. When you met me I was jealous of her and I hated her, or at least I thought I did, but the real truth is I hated myself. I hated everything about me.