He nods.
‘Do you want to show me around?’ I try, my voice quivering.
‘Not really.’
‘What?’
Instead, Nick cups my face, pulling me close, and kisses me. His hands move to the back of my neck, down my back, and I throw my arms around his waist naturally, although more on instinct than with passion. Moving me towards the stairs, I fall back and Nick kneels, his hard crotch pushing against me. He kisses my neck, my chest, nuzzling his head across my stripy top.
‘Wait … Nick …’ I say. ‘Let’s talk.’
‘All we’ve done for six months is talk.’
‘Well, I didn’t just come here for sex!’
‘So why did you come?’
His words stab me like an ice-cold dagger.
‘To start our life together,’ I say, instantly ashamed at how that sounds in the still air of this beige hallway. All this time, I thought I was seizing a wonderful opportunity, but in reality I was just taking a risky gamble. ‘You know how much I want to complete my degree and you told me that Liverpool has a great university—’
‘You say you want to do a lot of things, sweetheart. Last week you told me you wanted to climb Machu Picchu.’
‘And you said you wanted to climb it with me!’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I could’ve booked us a nice hotel in town, had the champagne on ice.’
‘I don’t want a nice hotel, I just want to be here, like we’d talked about.’
He covers his face with his hands and murmurs okay over and over to himself.
‘You want to be here,’ he says, quietly, ‘and you are. So, please, let’s stop talking.’
He moves closer and presses his lips against mine once more. Lifting up the skirt of my denim pinafore, he runs his hand inside my thighs. This should be a fabulous moment – it’s all I’ve spent many nights thinking about as I’ve tried to fall asleep over the past months. Except, in my mind, Nick wasn’t so rough.
‘Stop,’ I say, trying to push him away.
‘Come on …’ he mumbles, his face heavy against mine.
‘No.’
Placing my hand on the banister, I haul myself up to standing. I fix my army jacket, which has fallen off my shoulders, and straighten my haphazard pinafore. But Nick’s closing in on me again, his scent wildly different from the one I remember. I don’t like how he’s breathing, panting.
‘Nick, stop. Please.’
‘Agh,’ he says, gasping from arousal, pushing me away. ‘Look what you’re doing to me.’
This isn’t how it was supposed to be. But, then again, Nick has a point. We haven’t seen each other in the flesh for six months, we’ve only spoken about what it would feel like to touch one another, and God! How we’ve spoken about that. For hours upon hours. We have been gentle to each other with words, and then gentle on our own bodies with our own fingertips, watching one another caress ourselves across a screen. Nick has seen every inch of my skin – not only have I opened my heart but also my legs to his view, my confidence soaring at how fucking sexy he’s made me feel from four thousand miles away. I’ve watched his cock grow hard in his hands, talked him into a climax, and listened as he brought me to multiple orgasms before the camera.
‘Tell me I got it wrong,’ I whisper, desperately.
The innocent faces from the photographs on the walls are closing in on me, their sweet round eyes all too similar to Nick’s. Yesterday, I was convinced the girls looked like their mother, but now, the truth is too difficult to ignore. As much as I want him – of course, I want him, I love him – this doesn’t feel right at all.
‘You got it wrong,’ Nick says, coming close to me again.
Surely I’m about to have everything I’ve ever wanted. A partner. Someone to brunch with, to watch movies with, to sleep with. What’s more, he isn’t looking at me down the lens of a camera: he’s right here, right now, needing me, wanting me. He begins to unzip his jeans, teasing me by pulling on my denim strap.
I think of Jim, waiting for me in his car. What would he make of me lingering in this strange house, my long-distance lover trying to fuck me without as much as a proper hello? But, why am I thinking of him? Some guy with a BMW and a bad attitude?
So I close my eyes tight. Lean in. I want everything to be okay, to be what I’ve been led to believe. I’m not feeling it, but I want to. The disappointment is overwhelming, so I try to ignore my gut, tell myself I’m tired. I move closer and allow my lips to meet Nick’s again.
‘Greg?’ says a calm, female voice.
Nick pulls away from me and stumbles into the banister as he reaches for his low zip. The name, ‘Abi,’ trickles out of his already drooling mouth as my attention flies in the direction of the doorway where a woman stands smiling at me. We’ve met before. Yesterday. When she politely, but firmly, told me that Nick does not live here. She’s wearing a baby pink tracksuit today, her black bob still shiny.
‘Greg,’ Abi repeats. ‘You know what time it is.’
Nick throws himself against the front door, his fists pounding the pinewood frame. Abi plants her hands on his shoulders and steers him away, turning him towards the stairs. As if I’m a ghost, utterly invisible, she gives him a hefty push up the first few steps.
‘It’s time for you to pack your bags,’ she says, as if telling a child to go and brush his teeth. ‘Now. Right now. You’ve got exactly fifteen minutes. Then leave this house, keep walking and don’t ever come back. I’m filing for a divorce.’
My lungs tighten sharp with each breath, as if an elastic band is being wrapped around them. I have to get the fuck out of here.
‘Where are you going?’ Abi asks.
It’s a struggle to get to the door. Although just feet away, I can’t get through it. As if stuck in a nightmare, one where limbs feel like lead, feet defeated by quicksand, I just cannot coordinate my fingers to find the door handle and pull. Once again, my army jacket is sliding off my shoulders, but now it’s Abi grabbing it with both hands, pulling it off in an attempt to stop me escaping. Wriggling my arms free, I open the door, run.
The grey white sky is brighter than I expect. I hear Abi call out ‘Oi!’ and she’s behind me. She yanks the straps of my pinafore, pulling me backwards, like a toddler in reins, and the sudden force makes me cough. I’m pushed onto my front, thrown down onto the garden path like a bag of trash being hauled into the garbage shoot. Face down to the ground, my lips take in the taste of tiny, rain-soaked stones. A claustrophobic warmth presses down upon me and Abi’s breath is hot in my ear.
‘You’re not the first,’ Abi says. ‘Or the second, or even the third.’
I push back, but it’s no use.
‘You’re not special. I know you probably think you are, but you’re not.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Shut up.’
Abi’s fingers weave into my hair and she pulls hard. This time, it hurts. I cry out.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I had no idea. I had no …’ But my lips taste more stones.
‘That’s what they all say!’
Then Abi releases me. I sit up, spitting the dirt from my mouth. I wait for her to say something else, to come at me again, but instead she starts to cry. This is not only my worst nightmare, but it’s clearly hers, too. With every sob, every moan, every inch of lost dignity, I connect with her more. We’ve both been burnt, both been duped, we’re both kind of in this shit together. So, I touch Abi’s back, guiding her upwards. Without a second thought, I hold her. For a beat, both of us relax within each other’s embrace, and there’s a short silence.