This Is All (23 page)

I fancy him with my body, my mind, my whole being.

I also want to tell you that my love of Will is not a passing whim. It is not here today and gone tomorrow. It might have been at first. But it has grown into something more.

I think it has grown into what people call ‘being in love’.

I have thought a lot about this. The other day, I even wrote a hymn about it. It’s crap, I know. But it says what I want to say, so I’m going to recite it to you. And maybe one day some magnifico composer will set it to brilliante musico.

It’s called:

What are you to me?

What are you to me?

Just a passing phase.

What are you to me?

A temporary daze.

What are you to me?

A picnic in the sun.

What are you to me?

Just a little bit of fun.

What are you to me?

A ship that never sails.

What are you to me?

A hope that always fails.

But I wish that you were more

Than a temporary score.

O that you could be

Everything to me.

My Will is everything to me.

My Love is everything to me.

Words are everything to me.

I say these words – Will, Love, Words – with capital letters.

And I am here today to preach my love and to will my love to action.

I am here today to express my love with the Will I wish were mine.

Here ends the sermon. Communion will follow. But before that I shall present to you, William Blacklin, a life-saving charm that will protect us both from the perils of the pilgrimage on which we are about to embark.

I leave the pulpit, go to Will, whose antics have been silenced by my last words, take his hand and place in it the carton of condoms Doris had left in the drawer of my bedside table weeks ago.

‘O Christ!’ he says inappropriately and losing his grip on irony for once. ‘I forgot!’

‘I was warned you would,’ I say, kissing the end of his spiky nose.

‘Warned? Who by?’ he asks with indignation.

‘Every girl’s mag I’ve ever read. And you forgot because you were too embarrassed to buy any. I understand, and I forgive you.’

I think I am being amusingly smart, but see at once that I’ve got it wrong. His brow wrinkles, his eyes go down, then his head, and he fiddles with the carton. I sense I must recover him quickly or everything will be spoilt.

Grasping his hands in mine, I say in careful tones, ‘Let’s light the candles.’

Quite unlike himself, he mumbles, ‘Don’t you want to eat first?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘We were going to go for a walk and have a meal and do it tonight.’

‘We still can. But I think we should – Well – The first time, I mean for me, might, you see, might not be quite right. For me. Because of – Well – And we’re both a bit nervous, aren’t we? It’s only natural. But the second time, we’ll be, you know. Fine. So let’s do it now. Then we can eat and go for a walk. And tonight we’ll enjoy it properly … Eh?’

He breathes out, heavily.

The silly thought invades my head, It’s like persuading him to accept heart surgery without an anaesthetic.

I’m awash with urgency, hard crashing waves of it. But know enough to know I must tread carefully, for I tread on my dreams. Which thought makes me wonder, Am I doing this only to please myself?

‘But if you don’t want to …’

He shakes his head.

I bend enough to look up into his declined face. ‘Is that a no you don’t want to or a no you do want to?’ And smile.

He raises his eyes to look into mine. And, thank heaven, smiles at last, and says firmly, ‘Let’s do it.’

We light the candles. The nests of nightlights around the walls first, then those at the foot of the bed, and then the tapers on the altar, Will and me taking turns as each match burns out. We say nothing while doing so. We don’t need to say that we mean it to be ceremonious, mean it to be a ritual. To light the tapers on the altar Will grasps my hand in his so that we kindle them together. At once the heady tang of incense flares my nostrils.

*

Incense
. There’s something strangely intoxicating about incense. It doesn’t brew stupidity and disjoint your body like booze, or daze your mind with gaudy hallucinations like dope. It doesn’t offer a fraudulent way of escape, it doesn’t poison or distress the soul. Instead, its breath of woodland magic whets your senses and inspires your wide-awake imagination. It enlivens you to the colour of the world and invokes your deepest thoughts.

For a moment we stand beside our bed and view our handiwork with pleasure. The stove has already cosied the room. The huddled candles charm the walls with their flickering glow. The bunched flowers smile. The fogged windows are veiled eyes. Our bed is inviting.

I turn to Will. In the theatre of my imagination I’d performed the next scene often and always slowly. Will and I would undress each other, kissing and caressing after each garment was gently removed. Centimetre by centimetre we’d explore each other with eyes, hands, tongues. I’d gorge my nose on the incense of Will’s body. Already familiar with the aroma of his hair and the musk under his arms, I yearned to learn the smell between his legs. And so step-by-pleasurable-step we’d gradually excite each other until, entirely naked and ready, we’d complete the final act with tender passion. And afterwards, sweating and exhausted, we’d lie entwined in an elegant tangle of limbs, our heads face-to-face on the pillow, and wallow in the aftertaste of our love-making while gazing into each other’s raptured eyes.

Mind you, I say the theatre of my imagination, but I have to admit these fantasies were not really all my own and were more film than theatre, being mostly based on sex scenes in favourite movies. After all, everybody’s fantasies require raw material, so to speak, and if you don’t have any from your own experience, you have to steal from wherever you find it.

However – need I tell you? – on this occasion as so often, Real Life Productions didn’t quite follow the script devised by Cordelia’s Fantasy Studio.

I turn to Will, expecting my fantasies to come to life. But instantly he catches hold of me, his hands gripping my head, and kisses me hard. I feel the skeleton of his teeth through his lips. For a second I’m shocked, as if by an attack. For the next second I want to say, No, it’s not meant to start like this. But in that same second I feel his body pressing into mine and thrusting against me through our jeans. (Which word shall I use for the male sex organ: polite
penis
, euphemistic
member
, one of the 365 slang names,
purple-headed dragon
perhaps? And which of the few for the female counterpart? Let’s not be mealy-minded about it, let’s use the words Will and I used between ourselves.) I feel through our clothes his cock, big and rigid, pushing against my yoni. I do not have to think twice. I want to give only one answer to the surging question his body poses. I hurl back fierce yes-saying kisses that cover his face, his eyes, his brow, his nose, and again his scrumptious mouth. We consume our tongues, and press our bodies together as if trying to forge them into one. However much we’ve practised – and we have a lot – nothing has prepared us for this. This is kissing in a different league. It is raw lust without restraint or finesse. Before, we always held something back. Now we’ve cut loose, our kisses aren’t satisfaction enough but are only preludes to a swelling scene.

Our glasses snag in our tanglement. We part and flip them off. With thoughtfulness so touching it pours more wetness into my already flooded crotch, Will takes mine and places both pairs quickly but carefully facing each other on the altar, out of harm’s way. He returns urgently, his hands reaching out to claw at my clothes while he utters wordless whimpering noises so like a puppy dog unable to get at a bone that I laugh and say, ‘Wait! Wait!’ and begin
to strip while whelping just as puppy-like, ‘
You! You!
’

In my haste, my top traps my head – why did I wear something with a polo neck? I hear it rip as I pull it off. Why do I try to take my jeans off before my shoes and get them snarled up? I never do usually. Even the hooks on my bra give me trouble, my fingers are all carrots. As I slip it off, I’m overcome with shyness and turn my back to Will. He’s never seen my naked breasts, though he’s fondled them often enough under my clothes. I’m suddenly nervous that he won’t like them when he sees them. I’ve always felt my breasts are too small. But having turned my back, I realise he can see my bum, which I’ve always felt is too big.

Entirely naked, I feel the cold, which the heat from the stove hasn’t completely banished. And the flagstones under my feet seem to be made of gritty ice. Goose-pimples break out all over me. I feel I must look like a plucked chicken straight out of the freezer. Anxious and shivering, I stand with my arms hunched across my breasts, all the hot, excited urgency of a few moments ago dispelled.

Then I feel Will’s warm hands on the balls of my shoulders. I know I must give in to the inevitable. I make myself drop my hands to my sides, and turn round, feeling more vulnerable than I have ever felt before. I keep my eyes closed, not daring to look Will in the face.

Everything seems to come to a complete stop. The entire world.

Then I hear Will let out a long sighing breath and say, ‘Dear god, Cordelia, you’re just
so
beautiful!’

I’ve never heard him say anything like this before, nor say anything about his feelings in this unguarded way.

I melt inside, but cannot help shaking my head.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘More than I ever imagined. I mean, you’re just … gorgeous … Everything I want.’

I open my eyes. He’s standing a couple of metres from me. I see him naked for the first time. And my gaze is drawn at
once to his rampant penis. Of course, I’ve seen pictures of penises before. I’ve even seen them in action in a porno movie a friend showed at a party, when we giggled at our daring while pretending to be grown up and unimpressed. But this penis is different. This one is real. This one is flesh and blood. This one belongs to the boy I love. And this one will enter me very soon.

As I look at it I cry out, ‘O lordy!’ I know I’m smiling, and I want to laugh out loud, it’s so funny, so silly, like a pink handle. Yet also it’s so brave, so noble, so proud of itself. I want to take hold of it. And something else, something that shocks me. I’d seen it done in the aforementioned porn, so I knew it happened, but had been repelled and thought, No thanks, not me! But as soon as I see Will’s, I want to lick it, want to taste it, want it in my mouth.

Then, as my eyes tour the rest of his lithe and lovely body, I breathe out the same long sigh of delight I’d heard from Will, and hear myself say, ‘Please, Will. Please please fuck me.’

We’re on the bed, mad for each other, my legs spread wide, Will about to enter, when I remember.

‘O god! No! Wait!’

‘What?’ yelps Will in an agony of frustration.

‘Where are they?’

‘
What?
’

‘I dunno! The condoms. I gave them to you.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Leah, I’m—’

‘I know! I
know!
But we have to use one. Where are they?’

He’s off the bed and searching all over the place. And then I remember. He put them in his pocket.

‘Your jeans,’ I shout.

And I’m off the bed and making for his jeans, which are in a jumbled pile on the floor where we’d thrown our clothes in our haste to undress. We reach them at the same time. Our heads collide as we stoop and our hands confuse themselves
as we grab. I get them first, he snatches them from me and he’s into his pocket and brings out the carton and I snatch it from him and we chase each other back to the bed where I tear the carton open and pull out a condom and give it to Will while we’re both panting and whimpering and trying to get ourselves into a position where he can put the condom on and I’ll be ready when he is, and Will is struggling with the condom and he can’t get it to slip on and has to try again but his penis decides it’s had enough and without giving him a second chance retracts so fast it changes from a rampant fiery rod to a floppy chipolata before you can say lawks-amercy, and the sight of his shrivelled pizzle gives me the giggles.

Big mistake. I know I should have known better, I know I should have kept control of myself, but I can’t help it.

Will, however, is not amused. He sits back on his haunches and his urgent mood deflates just as quickly as his cock.

I try to swallow the giggles but only succeed in giving myself the hiccups.

‘Sorry!’ I say between hics. ‘Sorry
hic
sorry
hic
sorry!’

Will pauses, rather ominously I feel, but without scornful word or angry motion he rises from the bed, stalks away into the vestry, and returns bearing a bottle of water. The sight as he approaches of his detumescent dangler wagging between his legs like the cropped tail of a puppy sets off my giggles again. So now I’m giggling and hiccupping at the same time. Which is actually painful. So I start groaning as well.

The male genitalia
. The cock and balls of the human male really are ridiculous, don’t you agree? Weird, in fact. I mean, who in their right mind would design anything like them? Especially when a main feature of their specification is that they serve a romantic function of a life-essential kind. Only someone who has either no idea about romance or a cruel sense of humour – or perhaps both – would invent such
equipment. Mind you, my experience since this first close encounter has taught me an important fact of life. If sex is romantic, it’s a romantic farce. I’ve learned that if you find yourself lumbered with a lover who can’t see the funny side of sex it’s wisest to ditch him-or-her pronto. In one region of Africa they call love-making ‘laughing together’. How wise of them. Failure to find sex funny, either during or after, is a sure sign of a dumbo so dull of mind or so devoid of a sense of humour or so full of his-or-her own importance that they’ll only bring you trouble and grief. To make matters worse, they probably have no staying power either.