The upstairs people were in bed, Their lights out. The flat block was silent.
Even as we sat on the settee drinking tea, it wasn’t clear whether he had come back with me or come-back-with-me.
Oh, but it seemed ages since I’d wriggled about on a settee in the middle of a night, tugging off two lots of clothes, the thrill of possibility of someone bursting in. But who would come bursting in? Last year in Penny’s house the phrase we had for being caught out was ‘having no socks on’. The dead giveaway.
This Wednesday night he was naked, hugely tall, muscled, a bit of paunchy, attractive tubbiness about him. He was a rugby player from Bristol and, even though he was stripped, there was still no definite answer from him when I asked was he coming to bed? His hair all awry, his face gleaming, his cock stubby, hand-sized, cosily similar to mine, and I saw that he still had his boots and socks on, everything wrapped around them, inside out, hanging over the arm of the settee. Took ages to get them off.
I remember asking how he wanted me and being stretched across him, both lying on our backs — like Vince and I used to get — his cock pressed right up my arse as if to fuck me, him wanking me off, his mouth all up my neck. And when I took both our cocks in one hand to do them together he looked enchanted as if at something new and pushed his own hands in, partway sitting up and going, “I want a go!”
We left the living room littered with all our clothes. A real bombsite. In my room I hoisted up the blinds to catch the first of the light. You could see the back of the bank, the power generators that throb and hum loudly night and day, all that noise I soon got used to. I wanted to see a little of the dirty pink of the sky. It never gets quite dark, of course. I wanted to see him, too.
We roved all over each other. Not as desperately and fiercely as I did last time, with that bloke with the oranges on his kitchen windowsill. There was a carefreeness this time, a what-the-fuck about it. When we came it was in exactly the way that Vince and I settled on in the end. Him sitting astride me and shooting right over my chest, me coming on my own tits. I can never help noticing that it’s me getting all the mess. That sudden stink of detergent when they come on you. I remembered Vince and how perfunctory he became, grabbing any old thing off the floor to mop the spunk up. He dabbed at me tenderly and sometimes that gave me the creeps. With others since then the fun, the postcoital bliss, was all about lying in mess. The more and messier the merrier. “There’s oceans down here!” On Wednesday night we sank slickly into each other’s arms and drifted. Kind of dozed. Then – bang – he was up and deciding he’s leaving. It’s five o’clock.
We’re both walking naked into the living room, where the same CD I left still plays. We’re still wet, in full view of the wide front windows. It’s the start of an awful play, us walking in like this. I’m even asking a terrible first line: Does he always shag-and-run like this?
He sighs. “Am I getting told off?”
I go back for my dressing gown and we kiss a bit more. But he goes and I watch from the top of the fire escape as he reaches the ground, turns off into Thistle Street at the corner of the lane. As he’s going out of sight he swings himself round the corner on the lamp post. It’s an instant of joy. Our first separate epiphany since our attempted shared one, moments ago.
I leave all my clothes on the living-room floor. I’m not sure how I dare. It’s an awful, messy thing to do. I’ve got to check on Jep. Lucky he’s a good sleeper. If they could believe I was a mother, they’d say I was a bad one.
It’s been a long time since I was involved in anybody’s life. Jep
and have been in a world of our own. I don’t expect people to come into our life, not properly. Not any more. I’m used to all sorts of new faces. That’s what I’m used to. New faces coming in, then going.
I was moved because these people I hadn’t known for very long took me into their lives. I need taking into other people’s lives. I think there’s only so long you can survive off your own resources. I mean, it’s different for different people, but I was running to the end of my resources and I’d had enough.
I was out on a Sunday night with Sandra from upstairs. We ended up in CC’s and had more pints than we’d intended and sat at a table in the back. She was getting out a bit more these days, rolling in pissed and getting on Tom’s nerves. Tom was left babysitting my kid. On one of our nights out Sandra confided in me that she’d given up looking for a job. She only pretended that she worked freelance from home, but really she did fuck all. She could tell me this now, I was her friend.
This Sunday was karaoke night and we had to shout to make ourselves heard. They’d replaced the old carpet with black and white tiles and some Australian queen warned us that it got terribly
