Please Don't Stop The Music (30 page)

I nearly choked. ‘
Me?
What is wrong with you two?
You’ve got five years of history to catch up on and you talk about
me?’

‘
Just returning the favour. Apparently when
you met him all you did was talk about
me
.’ Carefully Ben laid the knife
down on the table. There was something in the way he was looking at
me. Something in the air, as though it was thickening. ‘You were
scared something had happened to me, Zafe said. You said I was
broken.’

I
swallowed. The bread was proving difficult to get down and the way
Ben was looking at me wasn’t helping at all. ‘I didn’t mean
…’

He cut me off. ‘You were right. It wasn’t
just
me
that was
broken, Jem, it was my soul. When my dad died it made me different.
Forced me to be someone I wasn’t even sure I liked. And the
deafness made me more human, but isolated me so much that I
couldn’t make contact with anyone.’ I was still sitting at the
table. Ben came round it and I had to swivel on the stool to keep
watching him. The look on his face was so intense I didn’t know
what he had in mind. ‘And then I met you.’

I
forced myself to laugh. ‘Just when you thought it couldn’t get
worse, eh?’

He was leaning now to look down into my
eyes. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Things got very, very,
very
much better.’ And
he was so close now that his hair flowed across my throat. ‘No
pressure, Jem. No pressure.’

His
lips met mine and I was astonished at the force inside me which
sprang me up off the stool to rest against him, hands pushing his
hair back. He tasted of honey and mint from the salad dressing he’d
licked off his fingers. He leaned further forward and before I knew
it I was half-sitting on the edge of the table, Ben’s mouth
travelling down to my throat, my hands dragging at his shirt,
trying to yank it off over his head so I could touch
skin.

This was something total, something so
unexplored in me that I didn’t know how to handle or channel it,
all I could do was go with it and try to ride it out. It felt as if
I was some kind of conduit for feelings from another, unknown
universe as I met his mouth again, whispering into it.
‘
Ben … please …
’
without even knowing what I pleaded for.

He freed my lips so he could look into my
eyes. ‘Are you sure? Really,
really
sure?’

How
could I be sure? I’d never known anything like this. In lieu of an
answer I slid a hand down to his belt, began working the buckle
free whilst keeping my eyes on his face, slipping the keeper away
from the tongue until I could pull it loose. Laid a finger on the
top of his zipper, feeling how aroused he was.

Suddenly his hand came onto mine, not to
help but stopping my fingers from moving any further. ‘Jem.’ His
voice was steady. ‘I want to know. I need you to say it.
Do you want this?
’ And I
knew he didn’t just mean this, sex. He meant everything else it
would bring: him, a relationship, the complications and the
ties.

My breath caught in my throat. ‘I want …’
Desire tried to overrule and my hand moved on his fly again but his
grip was firm. ‘I want to be
safe
.’ The words nearly choked me,
but as I said them I realised they were true. I wanted safety.
Security. Something that was mine after all these years of running
and hiding.

Ben
moved back half a step. ‘And do you think I’m safe? You feel that,
with me?’

‘
I
can try.’

‘
No.
I want more than that.’ Ben took the other half-step away and
straightened his T shirt, combed his hair with his fingers and took
a shaky deep breath. ‘I know you think I’m in this for a fuck,
Jemima, but it is so much more than that it’s almost funny.
C’mere.’ Fingers closed around my wrist and I found I was being
pulled out of the kitchen and along a hallway to a small door. Ben
unlocked the door with a tiny key and drew me onto a narrow dark
staircase. ‘This is the old servants’ quarters,’ he said
conversationally, and not at all as though we’d just come within
moments of ripping one another’s clothes off.

Still with his fingers cuffing my wrist he led me down the
shallow steps and into the room below. It was the one I’d seen from
the street, the old basement. Dust had collected into every
depression and the instruments were covered in a shallow layer of
it. Ben stood in the middle of it all and let go of me.

‘
I
haven’t been in here for years,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t. This was our
practice room. The guys never tried to get their stuff back, at
least, I don’t think they did. I was too busy hiding to know.’ He
turned, picked up a drumstick and experimentally tapped a cymbal.
‘Mark’s kit.’ The bass guitar was leaning against a silver
keyboard. Ben picked it up and strummed the strings. ‘Zafe’s.’ A
small puff of dust blew out and he laid it back down again to run a
finger along the black and white keys. ‘This was Si’s.’

Nothing was amped up so there were just dull, tinny notes,
like ghosts of what should be. Finally Ben picked up the cherry-red
guitar which had fallen face down onto the rush matting flooring.
Like a man touching an old love, he reverentially stroked its back,
leaving finger streaks in the dust, then turned it against his body
and threw the strap over his neck. ‘This was me, Jem,’ he said
softly. ‘It was fantastic.’ With the weight of the guitar pulling
down his shoulder he turned to look at the collected instruments.
‘Willow Down. The most brilliant thing ever to happen to
me.’

There he stood for a second as he’d once been, head back and
eyes glowing. I could almost hear him addressing the crowd, almost
see him posturing his way across the invisible stage. Then his
shoulders dropped, he unslung the guitar and placed it carefully
back on the dusty floor. ‘And now there’s you.’ I stared at him. My
heart was beating so fast that I had spots in front of my eyes.
‘This was before. My old life. None of it is coming back and I’ve
come to terms with that now. The good stuff, the bad stuff – and
believe me there was a lot of bad stuff, whole gigs I don’t
remember, coke paranoia, the works – over. I’m leaving it behind.’
He was watching me carefully, standing angled in that odd dusty
room. His hair was smooth over his shoulders, his face lit by the
streetlights beyond the barred window, throwing curious shadows
which rippled as he moved. ‘And I want you to do the
same.’

‘
I
have!’ The soundproofing that lined the walls made my voice sound
dead, toneless. Without real meaning.

‘
No, really. What nearly happened just now
…’ Ben drew a huge breath. ‘That was
wrong
. Was that how Gray told you to
do it?’ He put both hands on my shoulders. ‘Because that was just
sex. Disposable bump and grind.’ His fingers worked on my muscles
and gradually I could feel myself relaxing a little. ‘What I want
is to make love with you, Jemima. Not fucking.
Loving
.’

I
must have stared because his hands were suddenly painful, digging
in to muscles hard as rock. ‘I don’t … I can’t …’

‘
I
love you. It’s not easy, it’s not simple and God knows, it’s far
from making the world go round at the moment but, hey.’ There he
was again, right in my face. ‘Now. Shall we see how it’s really
meant to go?’

All
I could feel was the insistent pulse in the background as though
the world was breathing. ‘Yes.’

Then
Ben kissed me. Properly. And I realised that all the other times
he’d kissed me had been mere preparation, he’d been holding back.
This kiss was dynamic. It sent all the little hairs on the back of
my neck shooting straight up, made my skin wrinkle into
goosepimples against his fingers. It sent the breath from my lungs
and took the strength from my legs until I nearly buckled against
him.

‘
Now,’ he said. ‘Now you know.’

‘
Ben.’ It was all I could say; a plea, a
warning, a promise. My body was limp with desire for him. And for
once I was surrendering control
and I
didn’t care.

‘
Yes.’ He answered me. ‘Oh, Jem, yes.’

He kissed my mouth and my neck. Looked deep
into my eyes and slowly …
too slowly
surely
… began to unbutton my shirt.
‘Don’t rush it,’ he whispered as I tried to move, tried to pull at
his T shirt and draw it over his head. ‘We’ve got all
night.’

A
button at a time, with his mouth following his fingers, dipping
inside the fabric as it fell away. And then he let me touch him,
tracing the line of him outside his clothes and then as I grew
braver, underneath to feel the tension of his muscles and the
leanness of his flesh.

Slowly, still slowly, we undressed each other, pausing every
other moment to kiss and wonder at the miraculousness of one
another’s flesh. I tugged his shirt, inching it over his head and
then stepped back to appreciate the sight of his pale skin tinted
an unearthly blue by the streetlamps. ‘There’s nothing to you.’ I
ran a finger over his ribcage. ‘Skin and bone.’

A
wicked grin. ‘You reckon?’

And,
oh, there was a good deal more to him than that. I uncovered him,
inch by inch, as he drew my jeans down over my hips, until we both
stood naked.

He
looked me in the eyes, drew me down to the floor. ‘Okay?’ he
asked.

‘
Oh,
yes. Very, very okay.’

But
he didn’t immediately enter me. Restrained and gentle, he teased me
with his mouth, moving from nipple to bellybutton and then lower. I
was almost exploding with heat.

‘
Christ, Ben.’ I was gasping, couldn’t get enough air, enough
words, enough … enough. A riotous shudder broke through me, a
sensation of absolute rightness and I whispered his name. Too
quietly to hear, but he was watching my face, saw my lips move and
then with a small smile he was in me.

There was no pain, no forcing, just delicious delightful
friction and wetness and the dust balling under my back as Ben
moved, so, so gently at first, until he was sure. Then he finally
gave it all he had and I was surprised again by the bursting
feelings tearing through me, his sudden whisper of ‘Oh God,’ and
then the feeling that my thighs had just exploded as he shook,
holding me, eyes on mine so it felt as though he was inside my
head.

We
lay back on the dust-covered floor, breathing fast. Where our
bodies were sticky with sweat little bunches of grey fluff
collected, Ben’s shoulders were covered. I raised myself up on an
elbow and looked at him. Naked he was a lot better looking, long
and lean with muscles in all the right places, lightly covered in
dark hair which whirled from between his nipples, swept past a
below-navel-level mole to become an eyebrow-thin line down his body
to his groin. He looked strong. He looked gorgeous.

He
had his eyes closed, dark lashes netted on his cheeks like an image
of Rock God perfection. I knew it was pointless speaking until he
opened his eyes so I lay back, resting against his shoulder and
breathing in the scent of sex and closed rooms. My thighs kept
trembling with the aftermath of the explosions which had racked
through me, feelings and sensations I’d never known
existed.

‘
You
all right?’ Ben finally opened one eye and regarded me slightly
blearily.

‘
That was –’ I stopped. Couldn’t think of the words. ‘But I
guess you’ve had plenty of practice, all those groupies and
everything.’

His
fingers played a refrain against my ribcage. ‘You’re missing the
basic point of groupies, my love. There to please me, not the other
way round.’

‘
Chauvinist.’

‘
Look. I’ve had my cock sucked seven ways to Christmas but
nothing compares to what we just did. That, my dear Jemima, was
making love, the way it should be.’ He slowly sat up and leaned his
back against the wall. ‘You were expecting me to hurt you, weren’t
you? I felt you flinch.’

‘
I’m
sorry.’

Ben burst out laughing.
‘
Sorry
? Jem, it’s
not your fault.’ And then the laughter died and he shook his head,
reaching out his arms to encompass me. ‘This is now, Jemima. For
both of us. Forget what was, we make ourselves
now.’

As I
lay against his chest and felt his breathing slow, dropping into
sleep, I wondered if it could really be that easy.

* *
*

15th
June

I
love her. Christ, it feels like … I’m just totally …

This
feeling, it’s like a brain-wipe. Like a reset button putting me
back to who I was before, with this fantastic, wonderful, gorgeous
babe, who wants me for what I am now, not what I used to be. And
when I’m lying holding her, nothing that went before matters.
Wouldn’t have it back as a gift. I never liked myself then. I only
realise it now, now that Jem knows the core me, the real me, that
what I was then was some kind of fake. All the posturing and the
drugs, that was me trying to make myself into something I liked.
With a head full of coke and E I could be anyone, anything. And
that’s just what I was. Anyone.