‘We didn’t finish dinner,’ Joshua opens.
‘We bloody better. I’m starving.’
He pats my thigh. ‘I’m glad my cooking didn’t put you off.’
‘What can I say? The man can cook …’ I take a syrupy salty gulp. ‘Among other things …’
My words visibly relax him, his body softens into his pillow. ‘Oh,’ he says, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. ‘So you …?’
I nod hard. ‘Oh yeah! Couldn’t you tell?’
‘Yeah, I mean, no. I wondered. So you did? Of course. Sorry. That’s great. Great.’
I lean over and make myself kiss him. I wonder why men worry about women not coming when, during sex, they regularly do things that it’s common scientific knowledge do not lead women to come. The kiss leads into a snog and I can feel the duvet cover twitching with the stirring signs of Joshua’s second erection. I know I won’t be able to avoid having sex with him again tonight but I don’t think I can face it yet. Especially as it always takes much longer the second time around. I break off the kiss. ‘Mmm, I’m starving,’ Gretel breezes. ‘And I’ve not tried your guacamole yet.’ I’m up, stark naked, padding back to the dining table. ‘You coming?’ I call, sitting down. He practically runs after me.
‘I think the food is cold,’ he says.
‘That’s fine. I’m too hungry to care.’ I pick up my fork and stab it into the remnants of my fajita. I get this urge to eat and eat and eat until I throw up. ‘Mmm,’ Gretel says. ‘Top marks for the guacamole.’
‘You know, I’ve never eaten fajitas naked before.’
‘How have you coped your whole life without me?’
And he actually, momentarily, looks like he’s considering the question. ‘I honestly don’t know, Gretel.’
We eat. We flirt. We wash up together. We chat about all the things we have yet to learn about one another. We’re past the basics now – where he grew up (Norwich), where he went to uni (Leeds), and are getting into the slightly more detailed. We finally get to favourite colours. His is blue. Gretel’s is orange. Mine’s green.
It gets dark, but the promised rain doesn’t fall. The storm never arrives. The sky outside gives off the vibe of someone who grossly overate, but not quite to the point of being sick. The sky is a long, uncomfortable, indigestion. I want it to rain so much.
We settle on his sofa, entwined, acting like the couple we are not yet. I can tell he’s been single a while by how much he craves physical touch. He keeps putting a hand on my back and his hugs last a bit too long.
‘So, apart from Morgan Freeman, can you do any other impressions?’
Apart from of a carefree woman who doesn’t exist and can orgasm the first time she has sex with someone with hardly any clitoral stimulation? I think to myself.
‘Give me an accent and I’ll be able to do it.’
‘OK, say something in American.’
‘Something in American,’ I parrot, but in a perfect US accent.
‘All right, harder now. Scottish.’
‘Oi, Joshua, you’re a wee bit sexy, aren’t ya?’
He laughs while also beaming at the compliment. ‘I like this game,’ he declares. ‘Can you do anyone else famous apart from Morgan?’
‘I do a great Ronan Keating actually.’
‘Niche, but let’s hear it.’
I sing a line and Joshua cracks up again.
We open the windows to let in the non-existent breeze. I ask him about the print of Paris in his bedroom. ‘Oh, that? I bought it when I was travelling around Europe the summer I graduated.’ The topic drifts to backpacking, an activity I’ve always considered exists solely for boring middle-class people to feel better about themselves and give them something to talk about at boring middle-class parties. No personality? No worries – just talk about IndYA! But Gretel’s riveted – she just loves travelling – and so I have to sit through some of the same stories he’s already told me about Mount Kilimanjaro.
We start kissing again. The kissing escalates and we end up having sex on his sofa. It’s better than last time. When Joshua has finished removing the second used condom of the evening and collapses in a sweaty mess into me, I try to make sure I get my Madonna:Whore blend just right. ‘That was amazing,’ I say, even though it wasn’t. It was only OK.
He grins and kisses my fingers. I can smell myself on his breath.
‘I never usually sleep with someone this fast,’ Gretel admits.
Joshua props himself up on his elbows. ‘Seriously?’
She nods, shyly.
‘I thought … I mean, you’re so confident. I assumed …’
‘What?’
He’s clever enough to back away from the loaded question. ‘Never mind.’
Gretel lets it go, like any normal girl would ever be able to let an ‘I assumed’ go ever in the history of life. ‘Well I don’t normally do this.’
Joshua’s still for a moment, clearly thinking. Then he suddenly hugs me, really tightly, making me so suffocated it’s a miracle I don’t hit him.
After a moment, I tap his back. ‘Can we sleep now?’
He tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear and looks like he’s falling in love with me. ‘Let’s sleep.’
I lie awake and stare at his ceiling, only catching an hour or so when dawn sneaks around the curtains and birds who wish they lived somewhere nicer than London chirp their morning announcements and wake me up. I want to scratch my skin off. I want to cry for a thousand years. I want to take a man, any man, and make him feel true, pure, fear. I want violence. I want to watch him bleed. I want the whites of his eyes to grow bigger with terror. I want him to freeze as a survival mechanism and then torture himself for the rest of his life for not fighting back. I want him to blame himself for it. I want him to scream and …
Joshua rolls over in the bed. His eyes are open. He’s smiling.
‘Good morning!’ I chirp.
‘It’s a good morning indeed if I’m waking up next to you.’
‘Oh, that is cheesy Joshua.’
He pulls me into him (all the better to let me poke my morning erection into your thigh, my dear) and we roll into the inevitability of morning sex with morning breath and both of us pretending I’m not a bit too dry for it, what with it being the morning and all, and Joshua doing absolutely no foreplay beforehand. Even Gretel can’t fake wetness. But Joshua doesn’t seem to mind, or notice. When he is done, he falls off me headfirst into the pillow, patting my back and muttering compliments.
‘I need the bathroom.’ I get up, pee, shower, and start tugging my clothes on. My skin’s itchier. That last bout of sex was too much. I’m running out of time. The trauma’s closing in. My ribs are tightening on my lungs.
The white wall.
The
white
wall.
He appears in the kitchen just as the kettle boils, shrugging into a casual white T-shirt.
‘Tea? Coffee?’ I ask, in an air hostess voice.
‘Coffee, but let me make it. You’re the guest.’ He steps behind me, squeezing my sides to move me and it takes everything I have left not to flinch.