No Ordinary Bloke (14 page)

“I beg your pardon. I am not fucked up when it comes to women. I love women.” I leaned into the table. “I’m just not a serial monogamist like the rest of society.”

“Maybe you’re just a failed monogamist.”

I chuckled. “Aren’t most people failed monogamists until they get married?”

“I guess so.”

“So we’re even. You are, too.”

“We are
not
even. There’s nothing even about us in the sex and love department. I won’t even venture to guess how many women you’ve been with.”

I hated this discussion with women, and it was all the worse with Allison. “I have no interest in talking about other women when I’m around you.” Then I said something aloud that I really should’ve kept private. “In fact, I’ve no bloody interest in other birds at all when I’m around you.”

Her eyes went wide in disbelief, but then she waved it off. “I’m sure you’ll be cured of that in no time.”

“Really?” I was eager. “Are you going to cure me of it? Because I think that would be—”

“I think that would be an inappropriate topic for friends,” she said warily, but with a smile.

“Oh come on. You’ve never had a male friend who you were attracted to, but you didn’t have sex with, but you talked about it? Not even at university? That’s a typical uni student conversation.”

“Okay, maybe I have.” She wrinkled her nose as if she didn’t like defeat. “But who said I was attracted to you?”

“I think you’ve sort of said it in a roundabout way, but maybe I misheard.”

She was quiet for a moment with an expression that was somewhere between a frown and a smiled. Eventually, it took the form of a slight smile. “Okay. I am. Very much. I mean … what woman wouldn’t be?”

“Sadly, there have been a few.” I raised an eyebrow. “So you’re very much attracted to me. Does this mean you’ve might have thought about me when you were alone at night? All alone…”

“What?! I am
not
discussing my sexual fantasies with you. No way.” She giggled.

“That wasn’t a denial.”

“I’m not going to confirm it either way.”

She began to blush, and again it was a deep one like the day before when I talked about her breasts. It’s an awful thing to do to tell someone they’re blushing because it just makes them blush more. I couldn’t restrain myself though. “You’re blushing. I think that confirms it.”

Her hands flew to her face to cover her cheeks and her eyes, as more giggles erupted from her. “Why are you doing this to me?” She pulled her hands from her eyes and composed herself. Afterward she took a breath and announced, “Maybe I have. Human sexuality is a mysterious thing. I’ve thought about my postman before, and there is no way I want to be with my postman.”

“Does the postman always ring twice in this fantasy? Because I know I could ring three or four times with you.”

“Very funny.”

“Plus anything else you wanted me to do to you. You could tell me what you fantasized about. We could even reenact it.”

She blinked rapidly as if to comprehend what I had just said. I thought I might have actually gotten somewhere with her, but she asked, “How did we go from bearing our souls about our fathers abandoning us to talking about sex?”

Because I want to make mad passionate love to you and hear you call my name while you come
. That was what came to mind, but I couldn’t say something so blatant like that. I felt a tightness in my jeans. Damn it. After all this sex talk, I was hard again. I shifted in my seat, trying to calm myself down, but that was only going to happen if I switched topics. “Dunno. Maybe it’s because we’re good friends.”

She grinned. “I think we are good friends.”

We spoke about much safer subjects for the rest of the afternoon. The time flew by, and it was all too soon before we had to head back to The City so she could catch her flight. When we stood outside the tube station ready to say our goodbyes, she was quiet for a moment before saying, “Thank you for listening to me, and thank you for sharing with me. I’m not going to forget that talk for a long time. Maybe never.”

“Thank you, love. It meant a lot to me as well.” I smiled. “I have quite the urge to hug you right now. I think a hug is in order after an afternoon like that. Friends would hug.”

“Aw.” She smiled in return, and rising up on her tip toes, she wrapped her arms around me. She squeezed tightly, and I squeezed back. “I agree. Friends would hug,” she said.

When she pulled away with her arms back at her side, I laughed. “See. We can have a platonic hug.”

“Yes, we can. Goodbye, David.”

I stared at her for a moment, not yet wanting to say the final goodbye. She was quiet too, which seemed to be an invitation for more. I touched her hair, pushing it behind her ear, which was the end of my daily quota of platonic behavior with Allison Wright. My hand slipped behind her head before I leaned down and placed a sweet kiss on her forehead. “Goodbye, love,” I said and walked away.

A
fter a day like that with Allison, I was a wreck that night and the following day. I wanted to ring her up to chat, but I knew I shouldn’t. If I was ever going to win her, I couldn’t be a pest about it.

When Adam rang me up late that afternoon, I was a moody git. “What is wrong with you?” asked Adam.

“Dunno,” I grumbled.

“Are you ill?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe just tired from work,” I said, rubbing my chin.

“Who are you seeing these days?”

“No one.”

“No one? At all?”

“I’m busy,” I said testily.

“Whatever happened to that American?”

“I saw Allison again yesterday.”

“How was that?”

“Fantastic.” I leaned back in my chair, flipping my pen onto the desk. “She’s wonderful.”

“So she’s ditched that old fart of a boyfriend?”

In previous talks, I’d told Adam the basics about Allison, but not all the details. He’d think I’d gone barmy if he heard how deep I was into her. So I simply mumbled, “Not yet.”

“But you’ve gone out, right?”

“No.”

“Well, get on with it, mate! Maybe you’ll be less of a grump.” He laughed and then said, “But actually I did see someone the other day who asked about you.”

“Who was that?”

“Lucinda Masters. I bumped into her on the street. She’s back from her sabbatical in Florence.”

My ears perked up at that. If there was a woman that was anywhere close to a match for Allison, it was Lucinda. She was a professor of art history at University College. Beautiful, brilliant, and free-spirited, she toyed with me as much as I toyed with her.
She might be just what I need.

I set up a date with Lucinda a couple of nights later, and it started off well. Allison wasn’t on my mind at all. Lucinda was funny, clever, and engaging. She also wore a tight, low-cut sweater that displayed her knockers for the whole world, and most prominently for me. I couldn’t wait to get my hands in there.

When we got back to her place in Notting Hill, I was confident I was going to get a shag that would make up for this desert I’d been wandering in. Her place was elaborately decorated with fabulous art that she picked up on her travels.

While she was in the kitchen pouring us some wine, I looked through the most recent pieces she’d found. “You have some interesting stuff here,” I called out to her.

She swooped into the living room with two glasses of wine. “Thank you.” She handed me a glass. “I like them too. Take a look at the second one. What does it remind you of?”

I stared at it, hoping I’d find some deep insight into the work, but I found none. “To be honest, it looks like a bunch of paint splotches to me.”

“Oh, come on now, David, you’re not dense about these things.”

I looked more closely and then pointed to the largest splotches. “That looks like a bird. That may be a person lying down.”

“And this means nothing to you?”

“No.”

“It’s a modern representation of Leda and the swan. Very erotic.”

I studied the painting more closely. “How the fuck is that erotic?”

“The story is erotic, and many of the representations throughout history are quite racy.”

“Tell me about it.”

“All right.” She grabbed her iPad and said, “You know who Zeus is, right? And Helen of Troy?”

“Greek mythology. I’m not that much of an uncultured dunderhead.”

While tapping away on her tablet, she said, “Right, so Helen of Troy is Zeus’s child by Leda. Leda was married to a king, and Zeus took the form of a swan and seduced her.” She handed me the iPad. “Here. Take a look.”

Upon seeing the gallery of images, my eyes bulged. “Jesus Christ. She’s fucking the swan.”

“Indeed.” She pointed to several of the photos and spoke as I only imagined Professor Masters would in front of her class. “At first many people think the neck and head of the swan are phallic and the sources of the intercourse, but actually swans are birds with penises like many waterfowl.”

“Swans have dicks?”

She snorted, and she took a less professorial tone. “Yes, swans have dicks.”

I looked more closely at the pictures. “She seems to be enjoying it.”

“Well, yes. They’re very sexually charged. The story has been popular over the ages because it was a way to show highly erotic sex in a safe manner.”

“Safe?” I laughed. “These things are downright kinky. In this one, he’s banging her and biting her nipple with his beak.”

“So imagine it’s the seventeenth century where everyone is completely covered up all the time. Maybe you see breasts in art. If you came across something like this, it would be as titillating as modern pornography.”

“I suppose so.”

“After all, that is a something most women like.”

“You, don’t say…” I took the iPad from her and placed my wine on the table. “Let’s try it right now.”

“Yes, let’s,” she said.

We settled into a kiss which was short-lived because I immediately went to her chest. I felt her begin to grind against me as I coaxed her breast out of her bra. While I went to work on her nipple, she said, “David, is your mind elsewhere?”

“What do you mean, darling?” I asked with my mouth still on her chest.

“I’m practically humping you, and you’re not hard.” Her brow furrowed.

I jerked my head up. “That can’t be.”

“It is.”

“Just give me a moment.”

“Okay…” She slid her hand over my trousers. “Maybe we’ll try this.”

I looked down at her hand on my dick, and there was nothing—no movement at all. I bit my lip.

She looked me in the eye with trepidation. “It’s all right. Tonight’s not your night.”

“I’m just so stressed at work…and me mum is ill…and I’ve been under-the-weather…and—”

“It’s okay, David. Don’t worry about it. It happens.” She laughed. “Even you aren’t that young anymore.”