Читать книгу The Cows: The bold, brilliant and hilarious Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller - Dawn O’Porter - Страница 17

At 11.36 p.m. we’re outside the Sanderson, getting off with each other like we are very much not on a London street in full view of anyone walking past. ‘Come back to my place,’ Jason says gently. ‘We can watch TV together. I’ll lend you some pyjamas. We can talk about feelings?’ He pushes even closer into me and puts his hands on my face. ‘Or we can just fuck in this doorway and deal with how much I fancy you that way.’

He kisses me. Our mouths taste exactly the same and go together like jigsaw pieces. Like when you’ve been trying to open a door with the wrong key for ages and when you finally use the right one it just slots in so easily that you realise how wrong you’ve been getting it for so long. My sexual desire powers down into my pants like the lights and music on the set of a TV gameshow. My crotch is pulling me towards this guy with a force that feels as good as sex itself. This is the connection I’ve been pining for every Saturday night that I’ve spent alone after Annie has gone to bed. Feeling cold, empty and rejected by my own choices after yet another shit date the night before. All I’ve wanted is to at least feel genuinely turned on. An actual, full body, one hundred per cent real impulse to shag someone senseless, rather than just because of a distant hope that sex might give us the connection I’m looking for.

I pull away. ‘Old fashioned’, ‘wife and family’, ‘a free kid’. His words ring in my head. If this is really happening, then it can wait.

‘Stop,’ I say, stepping out onto the street and away from him. ‘Let’s stop. Let’s not do this tonight. Let’s wait.’

‘Oh God, you’re crazy?’ he says, his mouth glistening under the street lights.

‘I’m not being crazy. Let’s not do this tonight. Let’s go out again, next Friday? Date. The “old-fashioned” way?’

Even if I never see him again, I can at least walk away from this amazing night with no sexual shame.

‘I want to see you again,’ I say. ‘I just think it’s OK to be sensible sometimes.’

‘You know they still had sex in the old-fashioned days?’ he says, adjusting his crotch but giving me a smile that shows he understands. ‘At least let me get you a cab?’

‘No, I’ll get the train, honestly a cab will take ages, I don’t live far from the station.’

‘Where do you live anyway?’ he asks.

‘Walthamstow,’ I tell him.

‘Walthamstow, I’ve never been. Maybe next Friday will be the night I take the Victoria Line all the way?’

‘Maybe you will,’ I say. ‘It’s a pretty sexy train.’

I loop my arm through his, and we walk to the station.

‘Take my number,’ I say, when we get to Tottenham Court Road tube. ‘I promise I am not trying to make a polite excuse, I really want to see you again. I want to do this again.’ I kiss him, showing him that without any doubt I really do fancy him. After a few seconds, he pulls away and takes his phone out of his pocket. He taps in my number as I tell it to him.

‘Is text sex allowed?’ he says. To which I laugh and nod my head.

‘Any text is allowed. Just text me.’

‘I will,’ he says. ‘Answer the text.’

‘I will.’

He kisses me again and doubt nearly makes me say, ‘I’LL COME BACK TO YOURS AND RIDE YOU ALL NIGHT.’ But I think of my feelings, I think of Annie, and I manage to control my urges somehow. As I walk away, I feel so good about myself – wildly turned on and like I could turn back, rip his clothes off and shag his brains out in the middle of Oxford Street – but also, so good about myself.

Just as I get to the bottom of the escalator, I get a text.

Tonight was perfect. Can’t wait to do it again. Jx

I stop. I have one bar of signal and want to send a reply before I go further underground. I’ve made my point, there isn’t really any need to hold back any more, I don’t want to leave him with any doubt about how I feel, so I just go for it.

I’ll not be so polite next time. I’ll want more of what happened in that doorway. I wonder if you’ll have any special requests?

I press send and a speech bubble pops up right away but my signal goes. It’ll be something nice to read when I get back above ground.