“I’ve always wanted to know, Ed,” he continued, “although I think I can guess the answer. It’s something in the crease between your eyes there.” He leaned over and flicked a finger between my eyes. “Does she give head?” He half-fell, half-knelt in the space between the two chairs and rested his elbows on the armrest of mine. I could smell his breath, warm and fruity; his eyes were dark and teasing.
“You’re drunk,” I said, trying to push him off. “Piss off, and get up.”
“I’m drunk, and so are you.” He rolled away and stood up unsteadily. “Need to walk it off. C’mon—just—down to the beach and back.” He grabbed my arm, pulled me to my feet—and put his arm around my shoulders. I supported him as we wandered through the small wood behind the house and down the narrow steps to the beach. He walked halfway to the ocean, which was as still as the Atlantic ever was, dark, foam-capped and roaring in the night. The tips of the waves showed as vividly under the moonlight as the highlights in Phil’s hair.
I hoped he would have forgotten the subject by this time, but I was unlucky.
“You didn’t answer me,” he said suddenly, sitting down on the edge of a dune in an undignified heap. “And don’t go saying that it’s not something a gentleman talks about, old boy¸ because we aren’t our parents. No one’s going to know you told me. Who am I going to tell?”
I sighed and sat beside him, feeling deathly uncomfortable but knowing he wouldn’t give it up until I gave him an answer. Phil could out-stubborn a mule.
“No.” I said. I didn’t feel able to go into details. I wasn’t drunk enough for that. “She doesn’t.”
“I knew it!” Phil crowed, throwing his arm around me again with a triumphant grin. “I knew it!”
I kept silent. With a shrug, I attempted to dislodge his arm, glaring at the sea as if it had done me a disservice. I hoped to hell he wouldn’t remember this conversation in the morning, and I wondered how much I’d have to drink to forget it myself.
He took a slug from the bottle he was carrying and passed it over. “An’ you know what? Claire doesn’t either.”
It wasn’t until I had passed the bottle back to him that I realised that I’d never considered that his lips had also been on the neck of the bottle. It had never bothered me before. Now—suddenly obsessed by his lips—I couldn’t help but watch hypnotised as he opened his mouth and wrapped them around the bottle. It was insanely erotic, and I felt a prickling warmth in my groin. I made some non-committal kind of noise, letting him continue to ramble, but wishing with all of my heart that he wouldn’t.
“She never has, and—boy!—has it caused some almighty arguments. Nothing worse than an argument in bed, eh, Eddie?”
I shrugged again, my inner prude still fighting for control. I’d never argued in bed. It wasn’t a place where a lot happened, all in all.
“I’ve had head so good before my marriage that I felt my soul was coming out of my prick—know—what I mean?” He was close, so close his breath was hot against my cheek. I tried to stay stony-faced, but the mention of his experience actually made me blush, and as usual he read me like a book. His voice dropped, slurred with the edge of the grape. “You don’t know, do you? You really, really don’t. You’ve never—never had…”
“No. Stop it.” My temper snapped then, angry, ashamed and embarrassed all at the same time. “No. I’ve never had a blow-job, all right? Is that what you wanted to know? Not from Valerie, not from anyone. Happy now?”
The cool air was making me feel completely unreal, and all at once I felt liberated, wanting to tell him everything, like some flood gates had opened, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the balls.
He was staring at me with wide eyes, his mouth open in shock. Whether real or feigned, I didn’t know and didn’t care. I wanted to punch the smile from his face.
“It’s not the end of the world.” I staggered to my feet, the world whirling as I fought for purchase in the sand, and started an unsteady trek up the beach.
“Eddie!” He came after me after I had only gone five wobbly paces, caught my arm and pulled me around. “Eddie…”
I lost my balance, falling backwards in the sand as the world spun and I tried to stop the stars from fluttering. I was on my knees before my brain could catch up.
I didn’t register where he was. Part of my mind was hoping he’d gone and left me with my shameful admission. But he hadn’t. He was muttering somewhere in the dark, “I’m sorry, Eddie—I shouldn’t have pushed you, but we—we’re mates, you understand me?”
I could hardly hear him, let alone understand him. The hiss of the sand as the ocean pulled it out to sea seemed deafening. I may have blacked
