SEVEN DAYS (6 page)

“I want you,” she said. “And I can’t wait.”

That said, she climbed, svelte, into the backseat. He couldn’t do that so he adjusted himself, forcing his massive, adorned cock back into his trousers, opened the driver’s door and got out, joining her a moment later in the back.

“Where were we?” he said, reaching for her, but she evaded his grasp and straddled him instead. In the time it took him to get into the car, she had slipped off her panties and now she ground her naked pussy against the crotch of his trousers while arching her back to give him full access to her breasts. He made good use of them and simultaneously managed to pull his cock back out of his trousers.

She enveloped him immediately and began a slow, undulating movement with her hips, maximising the feel of his ample shaft against her clitoris as well as manipulating the angle so that he filled her completely.

For the first minute or so, her movements were conscious and deliberate, aiming to maximise how sexy she looked at the same time as maximising her pleasure. It worked, because his hands were all over her, gripping her too hard on her arms, her waist, her neck again.

She laughed, because it was only when they were having sex that she saw Peter behave like this. For a few minutes he lost himself. He let go of his politeness and his chivalry and abandoned any ideas of how he was expected to behave. He took her and sought his pleasure in her, bouncing her up and down on his lap now and kissing every part of her that his mouth could reach.

She was breathless, which only heightened the pleasure. She let Peter take charge of her.

“That’s right,” she said. “I want you to come in me.”

He needed no encouragement.

He lifted her from her position on his lap and lay her down on the back seat. It was an awkward space and she ended up with one leg jammed against the back of the seat and the other resting up on headrest of the front passenger seat while Peter entered her from above now and fucked her in earnest.

Later she would have a sore neck. Not only because of the marathon blowjob she had performed in the front seat, but because now her head was squashed up against the door behind her. At that moment, however, with Peter pounding her pussy like a machine, she didn’t think about the pain, only the pleasure.

She couldn’t see his face clearly in the dark and for a moment she imagined that his grunts were those of another man. She wondered what it would be like to have Mark inside her like this. To have Mark’s hands on her wrists. His heat against her breasts.

All the while that she fantasised, she kept coming back to Peter, because he was the only man she had ever slept with who was this selfish during sex, using her body as if she was a conveniently soft object to give his penis a home.

He wasn’t always like this. He was often smart and caring and sensitive. Knowing that her body had transformed him into the hungry beast above her gave her great satisfaction.

Being an opposable object for a few minutes made her wet. Being a disposable object was a problem.

Thinking this prevented her from tipping over into her own orgasm. She stared up at his shadowy face, trying to gauge whether or not he really saw her. Were his eyes even open?

He came inside her with a stifled roar, his voice cracking and his cum caught in the bulbous tip of his condom.

She gazed up at him, but his eyes were shut. She could have been anyone.

Latex wasn’t the only thing separating them and she knew it.

He withdrew from her much more quickly than she would have liked, even though her head was jammed up against the door and she was beginning to get cramp. She unhooked her right leg from the headrest of the passenger seat and massaged her hamstring.

“Oh my God,” Peter said, catching his breath and wiping sweat from his nose. “That was amazing.”

“Was it?” she said.

“You’re so hot. What’s going on with you tonight?”

Mark
, she thought.

But there was no way she was going to say that. And certainly not then, while she was looking for her knickers.

“Come on,” he said, seeming awkward again suddenly. “I’ll drive you home.”

“My place or yours?” she asked.

“Yours,” he said. “I’ll drop you off and then I need to go back to mine. Big day tomorrow.”

“Of course,” she said.

“I do like you, Judy. But I can’t get involved. It’s the wrong time in my life. I have too many other responsibilities.”

“You don’t have to explain,” she said, pulling her knickers up and rolling her skirt back down.

“Tonight was great,” he added. “I’d love to do it again. But I don’t think we should try to take it further than what it is.”

“Just a bit of fun?” Judy suggested.

“Yeah,” said Peter, relieved.

“I understand,” Judy told him.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Peter said.

“I didn’t say I was okay. I said I understood.” She upended her handbag on the backseat, searching for her wallet. I don’t want you to drive me home. I’ll get a cab.”

“Don’t be like that,” Peter said.

“Please,” Judy said. “Afford me a semblance of dignity. Let me take a cab.”

Her broken heel tumbled out of her handbag, along with a compact, a notepad and pen, some hair clips. Cotton buds.

Now that she no longer wished to impress Peter, she found that she no longer had anything to hide. That was a kind of freedom. Not caring what he thought of her or the contents of her handbag was a kind of freedom from him and from herself.

A sanitary towel. A USB key.

Not only had she lost her phone, it seemed, but her wallet was missing too.

She closed her eyes, assailed by a headache.

There was only so far positive thinking could take you.

****

It was still raining, so he put his coat over her shoulders and then his arm around her. Admitting that they were friends and nothing more seemed to have taken the pressure off him. Now he was allowing himself to be nice to her. It felt good to be looked after, even if their relationship wasn't going as far as she had once hoped.

He walked her to the cash machine and a moment later was handing her two hundred and fifty pounds.

“I lost my wallet,” she said, “not my perspective.” She took fifty. “Thank you.”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he said. “Let me drive you home.”

She was already flagging down a taxi.

She kissed her finger and pressed it to his cardboard, passionless lips.

“I hope you find someone you really love, someone you can really fall for” she said.

He looked pained, but then he said:

“Same to you, Judy.”

There it was. Finished. Clean. Closed. Like a healed wound. Time to move on.

She got into the cab and smiled as it pulled away. She kept the smile on her face for as long as she could. Not long.

* * * *

She'd lost her phone and her wallet. For a moment, she suspected Mark of having lifted them from her. She thought for a moment that perhaps that was all he had been interested in and wondered when he might have done it. Maybe when they were side by side in the Rothko room, when she had allowed her eyes to close and had been enjoying the feel of his leg against hers.

Was he that quick? Or had it happened earlier? As they bumped and jostled with the crowds, he could have slipped his hand into her bag and she wouldn't have noticed it as any different to the feel of pushing through the mass of bodies.

She thought these things for a couple of minutes, but her mind settled on one moment in particular and she knew that not only was that the moment in which she had lost her belongings, but that it was entirely her fault, too. She had set her bag down on the counter in the bookshop and, unable to find her credit card, she had pulled items from her bag and set them down beside her, fully intending of course to return them to her bag after paying.

She had been in such a rush, however, and in such a state of excitement with Mark, that she had neglected to do so. She recalled taking the card and putting it in its rightful place in her wallet, but she couldn't recall putting the wallet in the handbag.

So stupid.

Her purse and her phone would be there on the counter in the bookshop.

The snarky shop assistant had been in such a hurry to close she might not have noticed them sitting on the counter. Even if she had noticed the items, she might have decided not to say anything in favour of a quiet night.

Suddenly, she rifled through the contents of her handbag again.

Third time's a charm.

Her keys were missing.

They too would be at the gallery.

She knocked on the plastic divider between the driver and the back of the cab.

“Change of plan,” she said. “I need to go the Tate Modern.”

“It'll be closed by the time we get there.”

“Then hurry! Please!”

It was almost ten. She wished that she had borrowed more money from Peter, because she wouldn't have quite enough to get to the gallery and then home again.

She considered what she would do if her stuff wasn't there. Where would she go?

Peter's place?

She didn't have a phone to call him and he'd made it clear that he wasn't interested. Turning up on his doorstep would seem like a ruse. She'd thrown herself at him once; she didn't want to appear to be wheedling her way in even after rejection. It had been a clean ending. Best to keep it that way.

She thought that perhaps her neighbour, Lisa, would put her up for the night, unless she had a hot date, which was likely, in which case staying there would be impossible.

One thing at a time
, she told herself.
You wanted excitement and you got it.

* * * *

She reached the gallery minutes after closing time. After a mad dash around the building, she found that one secondary entrance was still operational. The doors slid open and she jogged up the empty stairs to the smaller of the two bookshops.

As expected it was closed, but she was disappointed that there was nobody lurking inside. They'd obviously finished cleaning and dealing with the day's takings. There was no light on and though she walked around the large floor-to-ceiling windows she could not see clearly what was on the counter. She doubted that her things were still there, but being able to rule it out would have relieved some of her anxiety.

No-one had left a notice on the door for her and so she descended to the larger bookshop in which she had met Mark. Here she encountered the same locked doors and darkened interior, only on a grander scale. The check out was unmanned.

She had hoped that she might see the lovers inside, locked together in an embrace that she would break for the sake of her belongings, but they had evidently quit the shop already. Perhaps they had forsaken the store room for some place more comfortable. She had no doubt that the two of them were out somewhere taking their flirtation to the next level, while, as usual, she was left on the outside looking in.