Читать книгу The Writing on the Wall - Ida J - Страница 2

We meet on Tinder. I almost don’t show up to meet him, I change my mind at the last minute. It’s high summer, I’ve been eating watermelon at Alexander’s house all day. I have already been on one unsuccessful date today. The guy is an American student travelling. He suggests the organic food shop as a meeting place. Unorthodox, but I’m willing to go for it. He’s good looking but goofy, examining bottles of kefir for their protein content. When we get back to his rented flat, his friend is there, an economist who works at a bank. They’re in their mid-twenties and clearly not short on funds. They are so far removed from my world that I’m not sure what to make of them. The goofy man wants to have breakfast and get blazed. There’s no way. I leave and head back to Alexander’s. I think it’s probably futile to even bother meeting Henk, it’ll probably be yet more disappointment. Fucking dating apps. Yet something makes me change my mind at the last minute.

I head out to meet him, wearing a short spaghetti strap black shift and high heeled sandals. Armed with bleached hair, sunglasses, tattoos and twenty Euros for drinks. I’m too broke to have a functioning phone and don’t know where the bar is, he says let’s meet on the bridge nearby. “I’m two metres tall with sunglasses”. And so he is, leaning against the railing. Two metres tall, skinny jeans, sunglasses, beer in hand. Strawberry blonde hair shaved at the back and sides, longer on top. He’s a peacock, performatively wild and very obviously a fuckboy. Just my type.

His face is handsome, in a boyish way. He is nuts, in a compelling way. We wander down to the waterside bar, the one in the disused car park. It’s packed, we get whisky and sit on a bench overlooking the water. We click instantly, the chemistry is breath-taking. He is extremely vivacious, we talk about philosophy, jumping from subject to subject. What we have in common is a desire to be free, misguided attempts to remove ourselves from social constraints.

We talk about our exes, we’re both recently single. I should know from how he dumped his that he’s trouble. He arranged for her to catch him cheating, he says. He usually only cheated when she was away. She’s a model, he shows me pictures. She’s gorgeous, willowy and blue-eyed, with long blonde hair, classically beautiful. They were at school together, childhood sweethearts.

He’s technically studying philosophy at the university, who knows how much actual studying he does though. Probably about as much as I do, my studying has stalled for the summer and I’m only in it for the party at the moment. My own personal renaissance break up crisis, the long bloody labour to birth the person I had prevented myself from becoming in my twenties by means of a bad relationship. We talk about freedom, I can feel myself being the feisty, idealistic version of me. I think he likes it, the way he looks at me is so intense, as though he’s seeing his own reflection for the first time.

It’s less than twenty minutes before we’re making out on the bench, grabbing each other with overwhelming desire, twisting our limbs together, fingers digging into flesh. Ten minutes more and we’re in a taxi back to the friend’s place where he’s staying in the wake of his breakup.

We open red wine in his friend’s living room, undressing. His long body is straight up and down like a ruler, large but lanky. Playfully we kiss, pulling towards each other and away, diving into the sofa, standing again, eyeing each other’s naked bodies. His cock is large and weighty, uncircumcised, it looks hard even when it’s only halfway there.

We have no condoms, how ridiculous that I didn’t bring any, I really should have known better, especially given how much I’ve been fucking around of late. I could easily have borrowed some off Alexander. At first he’s hesitant to have sex. He asks me, “do you have HIV?”

“No. Or at least I’m pretty sure I don’t. I got tested recently.”

“The last girl I slept with after I last tested was pretty young, early twenties. I’m pretty sure she didn’t give me anything.” I want to fuck but he holds off, teasing, we writhe against each other naked on the sofa, tongues all over.

He tells me I must hear a poem (what was it again? I forget). Scrabbling for his phone, he plays a reading (a gravelly male voice, American. I have no clear recollection what the poem was about, only that it was deep and wistful). I sprawl on the sofa, naked but for my heels as he kisses me, moving over my whole body with his lips and hands. I’m half amused, slightly baffled at the scene, yet taken with the romance of it. He is a person of great intensity, but simultaneously playful to an almost childlike degree. His warm hands trace the lines and curves of my body as I submit to his poetry, eyes closed, touches like whispers against the backdrop of the reading. I can hear the stroke of his skin over mine, blending with the voice. He dips exploratory fingers inside me, licks my nipples, my neck.

Finally, he crawls between my legs, covering my body with his, rubbing his hard cock against my cunt, which pulsates with desire. Finally, he gives me what I want. Slowly, he pushes his big cock inside me, stretching my pussy. It’s heavenly, I’m wet, ready to be fucked after all this waiting, all this tension. We fuck slowly on the sofa, I am torturously close to orgasm for a long time, twisting on his penis. Breathless. Hands clasping feverishly at each other, my fingers on his neck, slick with sweat.

The window is open and sounds of the neighbourhood at night drift in, reminding us that there is a world out there.

Back in the flat and naked again, the door is ajar as I pee, he swaggers in, drops dramatically to the floor and licks the last drops, proceeding to eat my cunt while I sit on the toilet, limbs at odd angles to keep my balance. His large hands on the inside of my thighs as he slurps at my clit, forcing his tongue inside me a little. Then one large arm envelops my leg, my back, holding me up as I gyrate forward onto his face. I’m inclined to think he’s been reading Bataille, so luxuriantly does he revel in obscenity. “Next time, leave the door open.”

On the sofa again, he sits slouched as I perch over him, legs either side as I ride his turgid cock, his hands holding my arse, squeezing and guiding my movements as I bring my hips up and back, forward in swinging motion. We both watch between our legs, fascinated, then look up at each other, to lock eyes. We are playful co-conspirators doing something we shouldn’t be doing. And this is the feeling we’re both seeking, transgression.

We decide to go to a nearby bar as we’re out of cigarettes. I fling on my dress and sandals, not bothering to locate my underwear. My makeup is smudged, I look like I’ve been up to no good. He has only one look, and that is up to no good. We swagger out of the flat hand in hand, it’s the first time I’ve held hands with someone since I broke up with my now-ex, who I was with for most of my twenties. I feel both exhilarated and strangely vulnerable. It’s rather appropriate, considering we’ve agreed to marry by morning.

We get to the bar with a cigarette machine. It turns out he’s barred from the place, for being drunk and disorderly in some way. Probably many ways. I mean he’s disorderly in every sense of the word, pure chaos. And he’s drunk. I go downstairs to the machine to buy the cigarettes. When I come back up, he’s remonstrating with the staff. After they persuade him to leave, we stand around outside for a bit on this warm summer night, talking to some acquaintances of his. We’re rambling at each other on the way back to the flat, he says they’d never have let me in there, but because you were there it was fine. I’m not sure it was technically fine, but nor do I care.

His housemate returns to find us naked on the sofa, eating delivery pizza and drinking wine from the bottle. He takes this in his stride, clearly used to Henk’s shenanigans. He has some wine with us, we have as civilised a chat as is possible between three drunk people, two of which are not wearing any clothes. The housemate stares at me just a little too long, eyes popping out of his head. “You’re his dream girl,” Henk whispers to me conspiratorially.

The housemate heads to bed, while Henk and I repair to the latter’s room, where we fuck savagely on the unmade bed. He has a small, round, firm pillow that he puts under my hips, clearly reserved for such occasions. It’s 4am as we thrust and writhe, bound up in each other completely. In the heady morning light, sweating in the summer heat, windows closed so the whole neighbourhood doesn’t hear us, he tells me we should get married, we should always be like this, always. I agree, we should cling to each other with all our hearts, it’s not often you find this intensity, this strength of connection. We’ve only just met.

We fuck for an hour at least, my cum making wet stains on the pillow, breathless with all-consuming pleasure as we bone sleazily, and I come in convulsions time and time again. Reason enough to agree to marriage on a first date, really. Finally, with me spread across the pillow, he comes inside me, moving with ferocity, I can feel his cock expanding as drives it in as though he would split me in half with it. His hips moving like they have a mind of their own, his heavy breathing as he roars with pent-up pleasure, then the collapses with exhaustion.

In the morning (afternoon?) he drives me home, another surprise. I don’t know anyone else with a car here, I can’t drive myself, having never had a need for. or indeed the financial stability to afford a car. A$AP Rocky postures through the car speakers. “I love bad bitches that’s my fuckin’ problem,” this becomes our song – appropriate, as we do, in fact, both love bad bitches. We talk about our impending marriage, he says he wants children, I say I don’t. “Ah come on, we’ll have amazing children, I’ll buy you new tits!” He comes up to my flat even, has a cup of tea, gives me some of his ADHD meds to help with my studying. Promising boyfriend material, I think. Perhaps I’ll add him to the rotation.

The next day I’m texting Jared, another recent addition to the growing collection of fuckboys. Turns out he was at the same bar last night, he sends me a picture. What a weird coincidence, that we were both there. I wonder if he got fucked as good as I did, although I refrain from asking.

For a while I don’t hear from Henk, I message him to say hello and get no response, I just assume he’s away or no longer interested. Then one day I come home to my housemate, Wifey, with the biggest look of glee on her face, saying “I have the cutest thing ever for you!” It is a note from him, with his email and number.

Darling, (heart drawing) My phone I decided to leave behind…

He was at a festival and lost his phone. He signs off with kisses and a drawing of a cock and balls. I’m astounded he remembered where I live, the nondescript shabby suburb with identical apartment blocks. He remembered the number even, the note was in our letterbox.

I’m delighted that he’s back and we arrange to meet up again. It’s intoxicating and we are intoxicated. He picks me up as he kisses me hello. I press a thumb into that small dimple in his chin. Such a handsome guy. We’re meant to go to the Van Gogh Museum, to see the exhibition about Van Gogh and his illness, but it’s too busy to bother. We ride around with me on the back of his bike instead, his enormous bike that befits such long legs. His shirt is loose open too far down, a couple of chains swung around his neck and a skinny scarf knotted there too, for good measure. He waves a cigarette around as he cycles.

Back at mine, we smoke on the balcony, the sun shining on us like that sweet summer day would never end. The flat is very basic, on the outskirts of the city, in a crumbling 60s social housing block that has seen better days. But there’s space and light and it costs nothing. I have ripped up the hideous plastic flooring in my room to expose the bare concrete underneath, the bed is a mattress on the floor, all my clothes are on one metal shelf, the kind you put in the garage for tools. I’ve strung fairly lights up, my drawings are on the walls and I own almost nothing, so the overall effect is pleasingly minimal. Or at least, I think it is. Perhaps I come across as a bit ascetic. In that sense if in no other.

Back in the shade in my room, curtain floating over the window, we shed clothes, hushed hazy swoon of summer. A rush of sensation as he does a small dance, shifting from side to side on his feet. A grin spreads across his cheeky face. On the white duvet, I sprawl naked, tingling with sensuality. He lies with me, kissing me, I relax heavily into his arms, as if I were a marionette suspended from the ceiling. Sinking into the puffy duvet as it crunches around us, as though we were falling. Falling to our doom or falling in love, it’s all the same to me right now.