Kitabı oku: «In at the Deep End», sayfa 4
5. NEVER SAY NEVER
I went straight into the bathroom when I got home. I turned up the shower as high as I could bear, hot enough to turn my skin red, till I could see steam evaporating from my body. My knees were still dimpled with the texture of Finn’s carpet, and I couldn’t seem to rub them smooth. The smell of his cum clung to my fingers. I washed my hands – both of them, just to be safe – till they were pink and tender, scrubbing beneath my nails with Alice’s nailbrush.
‘Julia? Are you OK?’ The shower must have woken Alice up.
I didn’t answer. I was concentrating on making my mind as blank as possible, but I couldn’t keep the sex flashbacks at bay:
Kneeling by his bed.
His thigh slapping against mine.
The dead fly on the ceiling.
‘You’ve broken my penis.’
Why did I let him get away with saying that to me? Why didn’t I just walk out of there? How fucking dare he blame me because he didn’t come? I hadn’t fucking come either, but at least I’d had the decency to fake an orgasm.
I spent the following week going to work, coming home, and going straight to bed. I watched comforting old TV shows on repeat and imagined myself back to a purer time; a time when the thing I wanted most in the world was berry-coloured lipstick from The Body Shop and the furthest I’d got with a boy was when Phil Green kissed me on the cheek after his Bar Mitzvah.
Alice tried to comfort me by telling me about the time that her ex-boyfriend Joe tried to prove he could give himself a blow job; he’d thrown his legs over his head in the yoga plough position but he hadn’t been able to reach, and then he pulled a muscle in his neck and screamed in pain till she helped him lie flat on his back again. That did make me feel slightly better. Not better enough to want to have sex with anyone ever again, though.
Work was a distraction of sorts, but I wasn’t behaving normally, I knew that; I chose the desk next to Stan every day, to avoid my team and their questions about the date. Uzo cornered me one lunchtime and said, ‘So? How was the hot date?’ but I just said, ‘Fine, thanks,’ and then Tom called her into his office to tell her off for buying stuff from ASOS during work hours.
Luckily there was a new sense of purpose in the office, everyone bustling around trying to impress the new Grade Six, not as much small talk. I couldn’t really look anyone in the eye, least of all Owen – he’d probably want to tell me how fantastically it was going with Laura and compare date stories, and I didn’t think I’d deal with his happiness well. But I couldn’t avoid him forever, and on Wednesday he insisted on taking me to Pret for lunch.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked me, as we finished off our chicken and avocado sandwiches. ‘Did something happen on your date?’
I nodded. ‘I had sex,’ I said, and to my horror I felt my eyes filling with tears.
‘I hope Laura doesn’t cry when she tells people that,’ he said.
‘I’m guessing you’re not as bad in bed as Finn was,’ I said, still crying, but laughing a bit too.
Owen frowned. ‘He didn’t— he didn’t hurt you—’
‘No …’
He put on what he obviously thought was a caring face. ‘You can tell me.’
‘He masturbated for an hour, and I just sat there.’
‘Wow. What a wanker.’
‘Literally,’ I said, nodding.
He patted my arm. ‘Do you need some company tonight? We could go to the cinema or something, if you like.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but Cat’s got a few days off between shows, so I’m going to meet her for dinner.’
‘I haven’t met Cat yet,’ Owen said.
‘Sorry, Owen,’ I said. ‘You’re not invited.’
Cat took me for a curry in Brick Lane. We sat at a tiny corner table in the windowless downstairs room, next to a tank full of fluorescent fish.
‘At least you banged someone. You needed to get that out of the way,’ Cat said, ladling dhal onto my plate.
‘I’m never going to do it again,’ I said. I bit into a samosa, hoping that was the end of the conversation.
‘Never say never,’ Cat said. ‘Remember how I was feeling like a third wheel with Lacey and Steve, the new tadpole?’
I nodded.
‘I fucked someone last night. A year-five teacher.’
‘Is that ethical?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be? I’m not a student. I’m a pretend frog.’
‘I wasn’t sure where the line was drawn.’
‘The point is, it wasn’t the best sex, but it’s not going to put me off forever. You wouldn’t stop drinking just because you got one bad hangover, would you?’
‘This is different,’ I said. ‘I broke his penis.’
‘I wish you actually had broken his penis,’ she said. ‘Then he wouldn’t be able to inflict shitty sex on anyone else.’
But here’s the thing – the next morning I was writing a letter to a man who was very, very angry about the cost of prescriptions when I felt an unmistakable hollowness within me, a deep ache between my legs. I was turned on – turned on and bored, a very common combination for me – and I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate till I came, silent and hard, in the disabled toilets.
There was no point in trying to resist it. I locked myself into the cubicle, sat on the closed lid, pulled down my trousers and Googled Women’s erotica on my iPhone. I wasn’t in the mood to be fussy, so I scrolled quickly through the worst of it, looking for a story about two consenting adults fucking anonymously, preferably somewhere they could be caught. The words handcuffs and dripping pussy caught my eye – I like directness – and I wanked, leaning forward into my hand, rocking as I came, my face a wordless scream.
Maybe I needed to give sex one final chance.
6. A SEXY, WORDLESS TONGUE CONVERSATION
So when Alice and Dave invited me to a house party in Dalston at the beginning of February, I said yes. It was hosted by another of Dave’s arty friends – a designer who embellished H&M vest tops with sequins and sold them for huge amounts of money on Etsy.
‘You’re sure Finn won’t be there?’ I asked Dave, as we walked along Kingsland Road.
‘I checked,’ he said. ‘He’s home in Ireland for the weekend.’
The party was sedate compared to the one in Hackney Wick. There was no DJ, just a Spotify playlist, and the flat was lit by IKEA standard lamps rather than industrial strip lighting. The place was rammed, people pressed up against one another like rush-hour commuters. I went straight to the kitchen, poured three glasses of red wine and carried them carefully back to Alice and Dave, who had somehow found space on a sofa. They edged closer together to make room for me.
But soon they were arguing about a wedding they’d been invited to, that way couples do when they’ve been together for a few years and have stopped pretending to like each other’s friends.
‘We’ve got to go. She’s the editorial director. It’s flattering that she’s invited me at all.’
‘No. You’ve got to go.’
‘You’re coming. I’ve RSVPd for both of us.’
‘But I won’t know anyone.’
‘I’m sure she’ll sit us next to each other at dinner.’
‘Everyone will talk about books and wanky authors and I won’t know what to say.’
I looked around for someone else to talk to but I was hemmed in by a sea of legs. Legs in jeans; legs in dresses; legs that obviously spent more time in the gym than mine did. I drank my wine steadily, for something to do.
‘Do I have to wear a suit?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s not a traditional wedding. She got a tattoo instead of an engagement ring.’
‘Nice.’
I pushed myself up off the sofa and carried my wine glass to the toilet queue that was already taking up half the living room. I looked around; I vaguely recognized a few people from the Hackney Wick party – the couple in matching fur coats, and a bloke with an undercut who I remembered being a bit of a liability on the dance floor.
And then, in that mysterious way you often can, I felt someone looking at me. I glanced over towards the kitchen and there, framed in the doorway, was Jane, the conceptual artist. A woman with long dark hair was leaning towards her, gesturing and chatting away intently, but Jane was staring straight at me, as direct as one of her paintings. She raised her hand and smiled at me. I smiled back – but then two men stumbled out of the toilet, rubbing their noses, holding hands, and it was my turn.
I sat on the toilet staring at my fingers, the harsh halogen light throwing up every wrinkle, every nibbled nail. I decided to take myself home; I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and I was being stared at by a sexually confident lesbian. I had a feeling that something would happen if I stayed.
As I was putting on my coat, I felt someone walk up to me.
‘You’re not going yet, are you?’ said Jane.
‘I’m not feeling great,’ I said, trying to sound casual, though I could feel my heart speeding up. ‘Not in a sociable mood.’
‘Nor am I,’ she said. ‘But I’d make an exception for you.’
She looked at me till I had to look away.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Stay and have a drink with me.’
There was something compelling about her. My body began to throb with the promise of something I didn’t even know if I wanted.
‘All right,’ I said.
One of the many lessons I learned from the seminal classic Sliding Doors is that the most insignificant-seeming things can change your life. If Gwyneth Paltrow had caught that Tube, she wouldn’t have ended up with such a terrible haircut. And if Jane had poured me a glass of red wine or a beer, I might not have— but I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, I can’t handle vodka. And that’s why everything that happened, happened.
Jane was sitting on the kitchen work top, pouring Smirnoff into two tumblers.
‘Let’s do shots,’ she said, handing one to me. ‘Down it in one.’
We clacked our glasses together and tilted our heads back. I managed to dribble half my vodka down my chin.
‘That’s cheating!’ she said. ‘You have to do it again now.’
She twisted the lid off another bottle of Smirnoff.
A new song came on, with a bored-sounding female vocalist.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Dance with me.’
She jumped down from the work surface and put her arms around my waist. I put mine around her neck, feeling self-conscious, like a girl at a prom in a teen movie, only not, obviously. She moved her hips against mine in time to the bass line. I tried to focus on her face, but it seemed to flicker. The vodka was buzzing in me, and I couldn’t tell if we were swaying, or the room was, or both, but it didn’t matter.
Jane looked up at me through her fringe. ‘I’m going to kiss you now,’ she said. ‘Stop me if you don’t want me to.’
I didn’t stop her. I closed my eyes instead.
I’d never kissed a woman before, except once during spin the bottle at university. That kiss was just for play, though, not so much a lesbian kiss as an impression of one – lips barely touching, tongues waggling around outside our mouths, wet in every sense of the word. Kissing Jane wasn’t like that at all. Her mouth was hard one minute, soft the next. I felt as though we were having a sexy, wordless tongue conversation. She pushed herself into me until I was leaning against the hob. I accidentally pressed the ignition with my bum. I could hear it sparking behind me, like an unsubtle metaphor.
A man came into the room and immediately backed out again, saying ‘Shit, sorry,’ shutting the door quietly behind him. I heard him say, ‘There are two women kissing in there.’
The door opened again as someone peered in to see for themselves. It must have been Alice, because a moment later I heard her voice in the corridor: ‘Julia’s in there! Kissing Jane!’
‘You’re joking.’ It was Dave. ‘Isn’t she straight?’
Jane and I stopped kissing for a moment and looked at each other.
‘You don’t seem very straight to me,’ she said.
I shrugged and pulled her to me again, feeling powerful and young and spontaneous.
‘Come back to mine,’ Jane said.
But I shook my head. ‘I can’t tonight,’ I said. I hadn’t sufficiently recovered from the Finn incident to have drunken sex with a stranger again.
On the night bus home, Dave turned around from the seat in front and smiled, leerily. ‘That was hot,’ he said, breathing beer on me. Not that I could talk; I could barely feel my mouth, I’d drunk so much vodka.
‘You’re disgusting,’ said Alice, hitting his arm.
‘Well, it was,’ he said, scratching his beard. ‘I could have watched that for hours.’
‘Don’t be such a misogynist,’ said Alice. But she turned to me and said, ‘Do you fancy her? She’s sort of dangerous seeming.’
‘Jane’s not dangerous,’ said Dave. ‘She just knows how to get what she wants.’ He was still looking at me, unsteadily. ‘Are you bi, then, or what?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m pissed.’ I didn’t know what I was, or how I felt, except that I was excited.
Alice moved to the seat next to mine and leaned close to me. ‘I don’t think you can really know if you’re gay or whatever until you’ve – you know.’
‘Until I’ve gone down on a woman.’
‘Exactly. It might be disgusting! Like licking a snail.’
‘But blow jobs are disgusting,’ I said.
‘What? No, they’re not,’ said Alice.
‘Yes, they are,’ I said. ‘Who would actually want to put a penis in their mouth?’
‘Not me,’ said Dave.
‘Maybe you are a lesbian!’ said Alice. She seemed very excited by the idea.
‘Maybe I’m a lesbian,’ said Dave.
‘Can we stop talking about it now, please?’ I said.
We swung off the bus into the February air. I let Alice and Dave walk ahead of me, casting one long shadow in the streetlights. I wanted to be on my own for a moment to think about Jane, and to remember the kiss.
7. LICKING THE SNAIL
I was nearly fifteen minutes late for my session with Nicky that week. I arrived at her door panting and sweaty, despite the cold, and as soon as I was waist-deep in the terrible armchair, she asked me, ‘Why were you late?’
‘Sorry,’ I said, still breathing too quickly. I hate being told off. ‘I lost my keys—’
‘No,’ she said, holding up her palm to me. ‘No, no, no.’
I frowned. ‘What do you mean, no?’
‘I mean why were you really late?’
‘Honestly,’ I said, ready to get angry, ‘I must have dropped them in the kitchen—’
‘When we are late for things,’ Nicky said to me in a sing-song voice, ‘it’s because somewhere inside us we really don’t want to go to them. Which reminds me. I had a dream about you last night.’
‘Are you supposed to tell me that?’ I asked. ‘What was I doing?’
‘We’re not really here to discuss my dreams, Julia. Why didn’t you want to come here today?’
‘I did want to come.’
She seemed disappointed. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
‘I’d quite like to talk about your dream.’
‘Why don’t we talk about what you did at the weekend?’
I was a bit thrown. ‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. ‘I went to a party.’
She looked at me for a long time. I could feel myself reddening.
‘What happened at the party?’
I frowned. ‘What?’ I said, my face getting hotter.
‘Something happened, and you’re a tiny bit embarrassed about it.’ She looked at me with her head on one side.
‘Well, yes,’ I said, ‘but that’s true every weekend, pretty much.’
‘You had bad sex again.’
‘No!’ I said. ‘I just kissed someone.’
She nodded and started writing in her notebook. ‘Knew I’d get it out of you,’ she said.
‘You didn’t “get it out” of me,’ I said. ‘I’m supposed to tell you things.’
She stopped writing and looked at me again. ‘But you didn’t want to tell me. So you must have kissed someone … unusual. Was it a relative?’
‘What? No!’
‘Look, I’m not here to judge.’
‘Seriously?’
‘My grandparents are first cousins.’ She shrugged.
‘I did not kiss my cousin. All my cousins are teenagers. I kissed a woman.’
She leaned back and crossed her legs. ‘A woman.’ She held my gaze and nodded. ‘That makes a lot of sense.’
‘What—’
‘Was it good?’
I let myself remember the kiss. ‘It was really good.’
‘So. Are you going to see her again?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Did you fancy her?’
I thought about it. ‘Yes. But I’d had a lot of vodka.’
‘So?’
‘So I don’t think I actually want to go on a date with her. I don’t have anything in common with her.’
‘Have you fancied women before?’
I felt I was losing my grip on the conversation. ‘Well, I mean – I had crushes on girls at school—’
‘Have you ever considered that you might be gay? Or bi, at least? Do you think that might be where some of your anxiety is coming from? Not acknowledging who you really are?’
‘Just because I kissed a woman, doesn’t mean I’m gay,’ I said.
‘Answer the question.’
I breathed out. ‘Yes. I’ve thought I could be.’
‘But you’ve never done anything about it before.’
‘… No.’
‘Why’s that? Why haven’t you ever dated a woman? And don’t tell me it’s because no one’s ever asked you.’
‘But no one has ever asked me!’
She stared me down. I picked at the cuticle on my thumb.
‘Maybe I’m scared,’ I said.
‘Of dating a woman.’
‘Yes.’
‘Right.’ Nicky made a few more notes. I tried to read what she’d written. I was sure I could see the word ‘passive’ underlined.
It’s fair to say I was pretty het up by the time I left Nicky’s house. I went for a walk in Clissold Park to calm myself down. I bought a hot chocolate from the café – I don’t like hot chocolate, but I wasn’t thinking properly – and walked past the skate park, down the slope, around the pond and back up the hill, over and over again, my brain a blur.
Sure, I had questioned my sexuality as a teenager, but I hadn’t thought about it much since then. I’d had a horrible, painful crush on Louise from my musical theatre class when I was 16. She’d loved Andrew Lloyd Webber, so I pretended I loved Andrew Lloyd Webber too; I bought a black leotard to match hers, and I stuck pictures of bands she liked on my locker, hoping she’d notice. She never did. I hadn’t fancied her, though. I’d wanted to be her, to be her best friend, to move like she did onstage, to be close to her. But I never had sexy thoughts about her. The way I felt about her had seemed much more real, more intense, than any crush I’d had on a boy. Less trivial.
Which, to be fair, does sound pretty gay.
And yes, I had told Cat that I was bi when I was 17 – but as a teenager, the idea that I might fancy other girls made me feel predatory, like my friends might not trust me, as though I would be a danger at sleepovers. It just seemed easier not to.
Now, though – now being queer seemed positively aspirational. The world felt very different from the one I’d lived in as a teenager. Then, same-sex couples couldn’t marry, and teachers had failed to step in when kids called each other ‘fag’ and ‘dyke’ in the back rows of classrooms, and when people came out, they’d labelled themselves: gay, lesbian, bi. Everything felt more fluid now. Plenty of people slept with men, and then women, and then men again without feeling the need to make a big deal out of it.
‘Excuse me, miss?’ said a park warden. ‘I have to shut the park now.’
I nodded, blinking, and walked out onto the street. I hadn’t even noticed the sun going down.
I thought about what Nicky had said all that week. At night, the idea of sleeping with a woman seemed bigger, filling my thoughts and my bedroom, keeping me awake until the sun came up and the streetlights blinked out. Could I do it? What would it mean? What if I hated it? What if I loved it? What would my parents say? In the morning, I’d wake with my heart racing, wondering whether I should try to make it happen – and how I could make it happen. I was a virgin again, essentially. Would that put women off? What if I was shit in bed, lesbian-wise? There was only one way to find out.
As the days passed, I felt more comfortable with the idea, less nervous, more excited – and angrier, too, with Nicky, for calling me passive. Fuck her. I wasn’t too scared to go out with women.
During quiet moments at work – fewer and fewer these days, because Smriti had a habit of popping up behind people’s desks and saying, ‘Just run me through what you’re doing!’ – I Googled the Civil Service Rainbow Alliance. They organized meet-ups. They even marched in Pride. But the next drinks night wasn’t for a couple of weeks, and I was worried I might lose my nerve before then.
So that Friday night, when Jane texted me, asking What are you doing later?, I decided to seize the moment. I was meant to be meeting Alice in Dalston for Turkish food, but I called her to put her off.
‘I’m going to have sex with Jane,’ I explained.
There was a silence.
‘What?’
‘Jane. I’m going to have sex with her.’
‘But do you even fancy women?’
‘I don’t know until I’ve licked the snail.’
‘Are you sure? Come on, just come and have Turkish food with me. We can rent Tipping the Velvet or something if you need to get it out of your system.’
‘No. I’ll text you if I’m not coming home.’
‘But what about the Your cunt tastes delicious paintings?’
‘See you later.’
I finished the call and stopped in the middle of the pavement to reply to Jane before I could change my mind. Not much, I texted. What are you doing?
My phone buzzed in my hand a few seconds later.
You? ;)
I had a pretty thorough bath when I got home. I moisturised more than usual. As I was getting dressed, I searched lesbian on Pornhub to see what I might be getting myself into, but the women didn’t seem into it; they were rubbing each other’s nipples pointlessly and staring off camera as though seeking some anonymous third person’s approval.
My hands felt shaky as I did my make-up. I poured myself a large glass of wine to steady myself. I couldn’t back out now. I had to go through with it.
I rang Jane’s doorbell, feeling sick. I couldn’t work out how to stand naturally, or how to smile. What the fuck was I doing here?
But then the door opened, and the situation was out of my hands. Jane didn’t even say hello. She grabbed my hand, pulled me towards her and kissed me. She kicked the door shut behind us and kept kissing me as we stumbled to her bedroom. She turned away from me for a second to light a candle, and then she joined me on her bed and started kissing me again.
This was really happening. I was kissing a woman. We were almost certainly going to fuck. And I really, really wanted us to fuck. So much that I forgot to feel nervous, or self-conscious, or anything other than completely and utterly turned on.
I reached up and stroked Jane’s face, so smooth compared to a man’s. She mirrored me, touching my cheek. I have discovered sexual equality, I thought. I have discovered feminist sex.
‘I’m going to take your top off now, if that’s OK,’ she said.
‘That’s OK,’ I said, holding up my arms. She was asking for my consent and I was giving it. This was what adults did in bed.
Jane pulled my T-shirt over my head as she clearly had with tens – hundreds? – of other women. She didn’t paw me or grope me; she knew exactly what she wanted her hands to do. She was precise, which doesn’t sound hot but it honestly was. She knew exactly where to touch me, and what it would do. And when she fucked me, oh my GOD I finally understood what all the fuss was about. I went down on her too, which was easier than I expected, probably because I’m a clitoris owner myself. I didn’t fuck her, though. I couldn’t quite get the nerve up.
I learned a lot that night. That hands are a lot more versatile, and reliable, than penises. That women know how to use their tongues. That touching another woman’s breasts can transport you to a place of unexpected ecstasy. And that women are amazing at sex.
You know when you wake up after something awful has happened to you, and everything seems fine and normal for a moment before reality smacks you in the stomach? The morning after I had sex with Jane was exactly the opposite of that. I lay on my back, smiling stupidly at the memory of the best sex I’d ever had in my life. The best sex anyone had ever had, possibly – sex so technically excellent that I thought anyone would have enjoyed it, regardless of their sexuality. It hadn’t been perfect, obviously – she’d leaned on my hair as she fucked me, and she’d interpreted my yelp of pain as pleasure; I’d been pretty tentative about going down on her, and my tongue had got a bit tired about halfway through, and it had taken her a while to come. But she had come. And I’d felt sexy. I’d licked the snail, and I’d loved it. I’d felt like an equal partner in the whole thing. I felt, more than anything, a huge sense of relief.
Jane’s side of the bed was empty. Through the curtainless window I could see a man in the warehouse opposite brushing his teeth. Which meant that he could see me; I was lying on top of the duvet, completely naked, my legs glowing pastily in the sunlight. I scanned the room for my underpants and found them folded on a chair with the rest of my clothes. As I picked them up, I felt hot with horror for a moment – the crotch was as stiff as a board. I had obviously been quite turned on.
And then I smiled again. I had been totally turned on. Possibly for the first time in my life.
I got dressed and walked out into the main warehouse to find Jane. She was standing where the DJ had been at her party, barefoot, her blunt bob swinging as she painted a canvas red. I stood and watched her for a moment, trying to decide on my opening gambit. Frankly, I just wanted to thank her for the amazing sex, but I didn’t think that would be very cool.
She turned and noticed me watching her. ‘All right?’ she said. ‘How you feeling this morning?’
‘Great, thank you.’ Smiling stupidly. Standing there awkwardly.
‘Coffee’s in that pot on the hob if you want it.’
I nodded and poured myself a cup, grateful to have something to do.
‘You were great last night,’ she said, eyes still on her painting. ‘I’d never have known it was your first time with a woman. Guess I’ll be getting another toaster!’
She turned to look at me and laughed as if we were sharing a joke, so I laughed along, but I can’t have done it very convincingly, because then she said, ‘You’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, have you?’
‘Not really.’
‘You’ve got a lot to learn, girl. Google it.’
As we said goodbye, I asked her, ‘Do you want to do this again sometime?’
‘No offence,’ she said, rubbing my arm, ‘but once is usually enough for me. Have fun exploring the ladies, though.’
I wasn’t offended. I practically bounced out of the warehouse, laughing my way through the streets of Hackney Wick, people staring as I ran past. The reds and blues and yellows and pinks of the street art felt like they’d been painted just for me, a riot of rainbow against the grey sky. I hadn’t felt so at home in my stupid body since I’d stopped dancing. I’d never felt so alive. I wasn’t weird or bad at sex. I wasn’t an outsider.
Definitely a lesbian, I texted Alice.
A full one?
Enough of one.
You did the deed?
Fucking loved it.
!!!!!!!
Gay clubs were my clubs now. Carhartt trousers, rainbows, team sports, But I’m a Cheerleader, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Pride parades, Moonlight, the Pet Shop Boys, vegetarian food, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Orange Is the New Black, Old Compton Street, San Francisco, the colour pink, k.d. lang, Ellen, Dusty Springfield, Brighton, musical theatre, Tegan and Sara, lip-synching – some of the best things in the world belonged to me. Lucky, lucky, lucky me.
