Putting Alice Back Together (13 page)

You see—I had wished for this. I had demanded it, in fact, had read that book and put in my order for the perfect man, and here he was. The only thing was, I liked him.

Which should be a given, except I
really
liked him and that also meant, I guess, that I cared for him.

This gorgeous, talented, educated, sexy man was sitting on my bed and weighing up tossing in eight years on one kiss.

One kiss, for God’s sake—hell, he should be shagging his way through the next ten months, not agonising over a kiss.

I snog anyone. A few drinks and I snog. That’s what I do.

He didn’t know me and that’s what worried me most.

How would he feel if he did?

‘So, what happened to your night out?’ he asked. (I had lied and said I had plans.)

‘Oh, I just didn’t feel like it,’ I said airily.

‘What are you watching?’

I had no choice but to tell him because he was already reading the cover of the DVD. Then he asked if he could watch too and sort of sprawled on the bed beside me. I guess I could have said no, only it would have seemed stupid. I mean, if it was Roz or Dan or anyone else, I would have been begging them to stay, but it was Hugh, and I felt uncomfortable.

Especially at this bit.

I always get embarrassed watching kisses on screen—even on my own. I can feel this sort of knot in my stomach. At the movies too. As if everyone in the cinema is watching my reaction, watching me blush, as I watch them make out.

As if.

Lying on the bed next to Hugh, as Cameron and Jude’s tongues mingled I was exquisitely uncomfortable, because I knew Hugh was sort of watching my reaction.

Because I could sense his.

Knew without looking that he was turned on.

I pulled up my knees, the cramping in my stomach at odds with the fire in my groin.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’ve got my period.’ Better to be honest, I decided, better to just say it. Better that he knew that this wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Do you want some paracetamol?’

‘Wine will do.’ I didn’t swig out of the bottle, I’m no Cameron Diaz, but I took a
very
grateful slug of my glass and lay back on my pillow as he went to top it up. The bottle was empty and he padded out to the kitchen. I lay there, not so innocent.

You see, I am an over-thinker.

I just am. As I said, I don’t mind stupid people, I just get irritated at stupid people who pretend to be clever.

Hugh
isn’t
stupid.

Hugh, I knew, had been a touch worried when he’d found those Valium.

Well, since then I’d had the script dispensed and had replaced those empty blister packs. They were now lying in the same white box he had seen that morning, near the top of my handbag.

Okay, I had left them, intending him to find them when he came home from his trip, but when he walked back into the bedroom with a bit more of a spring in his step, I guessed he had been rummaging in my bag just now.

I didn’t blame him for snooping.

I’d have done the same.

Clever, you see.

‘So, what are you allergic to?’ (Told you he looked.)

‘No idea…’ I shrugged, but my blasé demeanour lasted about point seven of a second as I felt his lips on my shoulder. ‘They thought it was hazelnuts. When I was seven Dad took us to a pub and then…’ I couldn’t really continue. His tongue was in my clavicle.

‘Then?’ He paused for oxygen, but not for long. His fingers were pulling the strap of my top and his lips were nudging my skin.

‘Well…’ I was doing my best to speak normally, except Cameron and Jude had stopped talking and Hugh was kissing this bit of skin near my neck and I was finding it really hard to speak let alone think back twenty years ago. ‘Bonny started screaming and my dad came running. I couldn’t breathe.’

‘Poor little Alice,’ Hugh said, and then we kissed. We were just legs and arms and mouths and tongues. We kissed and then we’d stop and smile and then dive back for another one. We kissed for ages, like two teenagers. We just lay on the bed and kissed and all I can say was that it was delicious.

‘I’ve got my period,’ I said again a little while later. I was on my back; he was on his side and one leg was over me.

‘Is that why you stayed home?’

‘Mmm.’ He hadn’t got my message. His hand went to my stomach, massaging the ball of tension that was my uterus. At least now I had a reason to be stuck home on a Friday night and I relaxed a touch.

I watched his hand, his fingers still stroking my skin and then digging in a bit, sort of kneading. My knees were still up and he pushed them down.

‘Relax.’

‘I can’t,’ I admitted, because I couldn’t. I had my shagging period and he was in bed next to me with this massive erection pressing out of his jeans.

My phone bleeped—I have never in my life been so grateful for the distraction. I leant over and frowned as the name Marcus appeared on screen and then remembered that an hour or so ago I’d succumbed to an advert and texted to find out the name of my ideal lover, hoping it would be Hugh.

‘Just Roz.’ I turned off the phone.

‘It’s so good she’s got you.’ Hugh sort of pulled me in as I rolled back on the bed. ‘She’s really struggling.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I groaned.

‘You’re a good friend,’ Hugh said, his lips diving back to my clavicle. ‘Fuck, imagine coming out at thirty-four…’

‘What?’ I sort of pushed him back. I pushed him away a fraction, my lips so ready to correct him, so nearly there, and then I checked myself. I lay in his arms on my bed and about fifteen hundred sentences that I’d heard in the last few months all seemed to crunch into some sort of line. The writing appeared on the wall, and I was the bloody idiot who hadn’t seen it.

‘You don’t know?’ He frowned down at me. I could see the blaze of confusion—that his PC, Valium-free lover might not be quite as she appeared—and I knew I had to come up with something quickly.

‘Of course I know.’ His lips were there, tense, confused and pulling away, but I kissed them. Hugh pulled back and my mind whirred into sudden action. ‘I’m amazed she told you… she’s really shy about it…’ I was
sort of showering his face with kisses. ‘It’s good that she’s started to say it.’ And I got away with it.

His face was lowering onto mine and he was kissing me, his tongue stroking deep in my mouth. It was a deep kiss that made me curl inside, made me want to bring my knees back up, only he was sort of lying half on top of me, a lovely heavy weight gently pinning. Then his tongue was at the tip of mine, circling it and then sucking it into his mouth. I pulled back.

‘I can’t do anything.’

He frowned, frowned as if he didn’t get it. God, maybe he was one of those guys who didn’t care and would just whip out my tampon. I hoped he didn’t want a bloody blow job, or worse.

‘You can do
this
.’ His tongue licked my lips, and from anyone else it would have been disgusting, but it was the single most erotic thing he could have done. He was licking my lips and then sucking my bottom one and my knees were pressing to come up but for other reasons now. He stopped. ‘Alice…’ His eyes held mine, lobbed the ball squarely into my court. ‘Do you want me to go?’

‘No.’ I flailed at my boldness. ‘But I can’t…’

‘Can’t what?’ He was kissing me again and he was so goddamned sexy, just this scent of DKNY and this deep, slow kiss that smothered the protests in my mind. He slid out of his jeans and lay next to me.

He had on his hipsters and I could see the bulge pressing into my thigh and his finger was still stroking my stomach. Then his hand slipped down, stroking my clitoris and I was mortified. I mean I had my period, but
all he was doing was stroking it and sort of pressing himself into me.

When the movie was over he turned off the telly and turned off the lights. He took the bottle away and I lay there staring at the black ceiling, wondering what was going to happen. I rolled onto my side as he went to the loo.

And then he was back.

I’d told him sex wasn’t on the agenda, yet I could feel his arousal as he spooned in behind me.

I could feel the small, idle circles he was drawing on my stomach, I could feel his breath on my neck when his other hand moved my hair.

The room was hot—I wanted to get up and open a window. I could feel the sheen of sweat on my body, could feel it on my scalp and neck, could feel my hair coiling at the nape, and then I felt his lips pressing into the back of my neck. They parted and he was kissing me deeper and his hand was still on my stomach.

I couldn’t breathe. I ignored his mouth that was sucking and nibbling at my shoulder because I could feel his fingers, that idle stroking moving down, and I had my period, except his hand wasn’t urgent, just a lazy spiral, a never-ending circle on my stomach. I knew he had bruised my shoulder. I sort of wriggled away because for a second it hurt and then I wriggled back and felt him pressed into me.

I really couldn’t breathe. Like those fucking self-help tapes. I couldn’t remember how to breathe, because his hand was moving lower and his groin was pressing harder.

I was so tense. I can’t describe how tense I was. I
knew that it wouldn’t stay like this. That soon I’d be on my back, with my knickers round one ankle, but his hand never moved. It just stayed on my lower stomach, making these strange, backward circles as I waited for his erection to nudge. It was there. I could feel it hard. In fact, I was now pressing against it, but he never moved, bar his hands, bar this lovely, lovely circle, bar me as I moved a touch against him.

I pressed harder and so did he.

And then I turned towards him, my legs wrapping around him. I was pushing myself against him, rubbing myself against him and kissing him. I could feel the contractions in my stomach, and a sort of choking sound that came from me. I knew he was going to come, but he didn’t. I knew he would stop kissing me, and moving the same as me, and pressing hard into me, but still he didn’t. I was coming and he wasn’t, I was pressing into him and he was rubbing so hard against me, but he wasn’t coming. My mouth was open and his lips were drinking from mine and his hand pressed me in and I was coming. I waited for the spill, for something, for nothing, he just kissed me.

‘Better?’

My pain had gone.

Then he pulled me into the crook of his arm and after not too long started to snore.

Seemingly not romantic.

Except I had come.

And he hadn’t.

After too many lovers to mention, for the first time I’d had an orgasm.

That elusive thing I had faked and sometimes,
occasionally, almost glimpsed had been borne to me at the age of twenty-seven—not that Hugh could have known this was my first.

A calmness spread through me, a peace I had never known. All my muscles felt like water and my mind felt quiet. Better than Valium, better than wine, there was a numbing effect as I lay there.

A peaceful calm where I could almost feel myself floating out of my body as I lay with him holding me.

It was a strange detachment, where I could stand at a distance and watch without fear.

Twenty

‘You need to eat.’ Mum plonked down a steaming plate of pork sausages, mashed potatoes and onions, and I felt my stomach curl.

‘For fuck’s sake!’ Bonny said as Mum went out. ‘Just eat it, would you? She thinks you’ve got anorexia.’

Which cheered me up a bit. I mean, everyone knows that pregnant women put on weight. In my case it was falling off me. I couldn’t eat, and if I did I was sick, and of course Mum had noticed.

Mum liked us to be slim. There was no problem with Eleanor, she hardly ate and if she forgot and went crazy and had an extra peanut or something she just took a laxative or threw it up. Bonny, Mum was always telling off, because… er… Bonny was a mini-Mum—and if she carried on eating the way she did, well, she’d be a full-grown Mum soon. And me—well, I’m tall, but not naturally skinny. I have large hips and a thick waist but, as I said, all that had slimmed down nicely. The only thing that hadn’t slimmed down was the boobs.

I could feel Lex watching me as I ate my dinner,
could see the worry in his eyes as I forced down a bit of mashed potato and gravy. I knew he felt as guilty as hell, because we could all hear Mum blowing her nose in the kitchen and trying to pretend she wasn’t crying. Now that the wedding was over, there was no denying it—in a few weeks Lex’s project would be over and he was taking Bonny to live in Australia. No doubt he probably thought I was on a hunger strike.

Well, I wasn’t. I just wanted to be sick.

Again!

‘Excuse me.’ I fled upstairs and just made it to the bathroom, flushing the loo as I puked (Eleanor had taught me well) to drown out the noise. There was no relief, though. I didn’t feel better when I’d been sick, and the thought of going back downstairs to face those sausages had my stomach heaving again.

Rather shakily I stood up and saw my reflection in the mirror. I was as white as a sheet but, worse than that, I could, for the first time, see the fear in my eyes.

I was worried; of course I was worried, but I told myself that the bleeding after sex hadn’t been because Gus had hurt me, it had been my period after all. And I’d just missed one, what with my exams and Gus being mean and everything. I knew I couldn’t be pregnant because, well, I simply couldn’t be—I had my A levels coming up; I was going to university.

My stomach was cramping. It felt as if I were getting my period, it really did. My period was due, in fact (long overdue, actually, but it had been a month since the last lie) only every time I checked, nothing had happened.

I splashed my face and rinsed out my mouth and
headed outside, but there was Lex standing on the landing and I knew he was waiting for me.

‘What’s going on, Alice?’

‘Nothing.’ The good bit about being a moody teenager is that there was no expectation that I’d engage in conversation so I just brushed past, but Lex caught my wrist.

‘Alice, don’t give me that crap—I heard you throwing up.’

‘Oh, so I’m anorexic now,’ I snarled, ‘because I don’t want some greasy fat sausages.’