Читать книгу My Secret Life - Various, Glenda Jackson - Страница 4

This is the first time.

She wears a dress from her closet, the material smooth and clinging, holding her curves like a lover’s hands. It wraps around, ties at the side, dips low in the front. If the wind catches it just right, it’ll also show off the black lace garter belt she pulled from her drawer and the span of bare skin at the tops of her sheer stockings. She hopes he’ll like what she’s wearing, but she dresses for herself. This is how she feels best, sexy underthings beneath a dress any woman might wear. Of course, she’s not any woman. She’s herself.

She waits without moving, despite the urge to pace. She stands at the window looking out at a parking lot, trees beyond it. Cars pull in and cars pull out. She couldn’t tell you the make or model or colour of any one of them. She looks but doesn’t see. She waits and waits, every moment tick-tocking through her, while she tries without success to slow the beating of her heart. It throbs in her chest, her throat, her wrists. Between her legs and, just like that, she has to close her eyes and put out a hand to touch the wall and keep herself from falling.

When the door opens behind her, she almost can’t look. All of this is real now. Everything they’ve talked about but never done is going to happen in this room, and she’s afraid that when she turns, he won’t be the man she’s been imagining. That she won’t be the woman he’s expecting.

If she never opens her eyes, will that make this less real? Or more? There’s only one way to find out, and no fear can keep her from wanting to know. She opens her eyes. Turns.

He’s smiling, thank God.

‘Tess,’ he says.

It’s not her real name but a secret joke between them. She has blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin. He says she could be a milkmaid like the one in Thomas Hardy’s famous book; sometimes she calls him Angel as part of the game.

It’s a little awkward in these first minutes with the door shut and locked behind him and the big bed between them. He doesn’t move right away; she’s afraid if she takes her hand off the wall she’ll have nothing to keep her from going to her knees right there – and there should be something that comes before that. Some dialogue. Some pretence, maybe, that this is something more than what they both know it really is.

Because he doesn’t move, she does. One, two, three steps towards him across the soft carpet that threatens to snag the heels of her shoes. She thinks he might say something then, but instead he takes her in his arms and anything that might’ve been awkward has no chance to grow.

‘Hi.’ His lips brush the side of her neck.

It’s not technically the first time he’s touched her, but it lights her up. Sets her on fire. Turns her inside out.

She forgets how to breathe.

His hands settle on her hips and toy with the material of her dress. The hem inches upwards on her thighs. His smile drifts along the slope of her neck to the sweet spot at the curve of her shoulder.

She takes his hand, curls her fingers against his. Moves it over her hip. Slips it inside the slit in her dress, between her legs.

He breathes in when he touches her bare thigh, the top of her stocking, the metal and elastic clip of the garter. When she curls his fingers against her cunt, he breathes out. It’s her turn to smile.

He pulls away, just enough to look at her face. When he opens his mouth to speak, she seals off whatever it is he means to say with a kiss. Their first one. Mouths open, tongues stroke, there’s the chance their teeth will clash but they don’t.

‘You taste like chocolate,’ she murmurs into his mouth.

Then his fingers shift, and the words are gone. He slides beneath the lace. Finds her clit, the pressure sweet and perfect, just right. She doesn’t mean to bite him, but her teeth catch his lip. She mutters an apology but gets out only one syllable before he’s kissing her so hard she can’t be sure if the blood she tastes is his or her own.

She doesn’t care.

His hand is on the back of her head. His mouth on hers. His fingers slide against her, then oh fuck, inside. All the way, thumb still pressing her clit, and she has to grip his shoulder, bury her face in his neck. She bites him again. This time, she means to.

If this had been something sweet and slow, both of them taking their time, something with blowing white curtains and scented candles, music playing in the background, she wouldn’t have been surprised. But there’s nothing slow about this, and the only music is the sound of his belt unbuckling, the snicker-snack of the zipper going down. The only smells are her perfume and his skin.

Somehow, his shirt is pulled off over his head and tossed aside. His pants go too, kicked off and forgotten as a couple of steps take them to the bed. She’s on her back. Mouths fused, he’s on top of her for too short a moment until he pushes up onto his knees to undo the tie at her side. He opens her dress, and she watches his face.

He does like what she’s wearing. He also likes when her back arches, just a little, at the pass of his fingers across the slopes of her breasts exposed by the demi-cup bra. His palms caress her ribs. Her mouth opens. Eyes close.

She wants to touch him. But later. Now, she can think of only being touched.

His hands smooth down, down, over her belly. Her hips, where his fingers squeeze just briefly. When he snaps the lace of her garter belt, she laughs, low. Just a little. Opens her eyes.

He’s not looking at her face, so she watches him. How serious his expression as he moves his palms over the outside of her thighs. Then the inside. When his fingertips brush over her panties, the tip of her tongue gets caught tight between her teeth.

‘You wear them … over?’ Clearly this is not how he ever imagined it to be, the panties worn on top of the garter belt.

So, he’s never been with a woman who actually wears such things, or at least never wore them for him. This thought … that she is a first in some way, no matter how small, again punches the breath out of her.

She pushes up on her elbow to hook a finger in the lace, to show him. ‘So you can take off the panties without taking off the stockings.’

He blinks. Then again. His lips part and nothing comes out but a wisp of air.

She laughs again. ‘You want me to leave the stockings on.’

She didn’t ask a question, so he doesn’t have to answer. He gives her one with a kiss though, on the softness of her belly. On the jut of her hip bone. His fingers hook into the lace on either side and slide it down as she lifts her hips to make it easy for him.

For the first time since he walked through the door and put his arms around her, she wants to cover herself. Her hands move; she is intimidated and shy and terrified and so turned on she thinks she’ll explode.

His hand covers hers. Slides it gently away. She should close her eyes again, in case the truth of how she imagined this doesn’t live up to the reality of it, but though she tries to look away, she can’t. She doesn’t want to see.

She has to.

This is a different kind of kiss, also their first, and softer than the mouth on mouth of earlier. Not hesitant, but gentle. He lingers, the pressure of his lips unbearable until his tongue adds to it and then she understands exactly how much more she can take. Smooth and slow and soft and sweet, that’s his tongue against her. The brief press of teeth. The gentle tug of his lips on her clit, and then oh, fuck yes, one finger, then two inside her.

She’s been on the edge for days, thinking of this moment. She’s been so caught up inside her head that hours have passed without her knowing the full passage of time. She sits down with a book and the pages turn, the chapters end, the book is finished and she can’t recall a word of what she’s read. People talk to her and she replies without being sure of the question or the answer. The memory of his voice saying her name has made her weak.

And now, all of this is real. It’s happening. His mouth is moving on her cunt and she is going up, up and over. She is breaking. Undone. She comes so hard she’s not sure if it’s a pleasure or a pain, only that sensation slams through her so fiercely she can’t do anything but let it hit.

Forever ends, and she looks to find him kneeling between her legs. He’s smiling. His hand cups her still-throbbing flesh.

‘One,’ he says.

She’s joked that she’ll require at least two, possibly three orgasms before he has one – it’s something to aspire to at any rate, though she was only ever half serious. At the moment she’s not sure her body could ever possibly rise to climax again, that’s how hard the first one hit her. But she’s sure willing to try.

She sits. She traces the line of elastic at his waist and admires the bulge of his erection as she cups him through the soft material. ‘Take these off.’

He does and kneels again between her legs as she takes his cock in her hand. It’s lovely, not that she has a requirement for length or width. When she strokes him, he shivers. She cups his balls while the other hand moves along his shaft, palms the head. He bites his lower lip; it’s his turn to close his eyes.

She lies back, her dress still open but not removed, her panties gone but not the stockings. She rubs a satiny foot up his thigh to his belly, then back down. Her legs spread, nothing to hide, he’s already had his mouth there after all.

‘Fuck me,’ she says.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he moves his body over hers, his cock thick and hard against her, not inside. She’s wet from his mouth and from her orgasm, and his prick slides slippery smooth over her clit. Back and forth. His weight covers her. His mouth finds her neck, kissing. Nibbling. When he pushes up on his arms to keep from crushing her, his cock pushes against her. Always against, not inside, though it would take nothing but a shift of his hips, a tilt of hers, to put him there.

Pleasure builds, slow and steady. She moves with him. Her fingers cup the back of his neck, hold him close as they kiss until, gasping, they need to break for air. Tongues, teeth, lips, he mouths her jaw, her throat, her collarbone. She turns her head to offer her neck, and his teeth leave marks she will only notice later.

There is a point where nothing can stop, no matter what. She’s reaching it. His cock on her clit, teasing, teasing, then just the taunting press of the head against her entrance – but he doesn’t push inside. He’s just getting himself a little wetter so he can slide over her flesh with his and make her crazy. Make her beg for him to fuck her, and she’d do it. She would beg if only she had the voice for words instead of the low and breathless moans.

She uses her hands to speak instead. Nails scratch lightly down his back, anchor at the base of his spine. She pulls him closer and opens herself, tilting her hips so that maybe, just maybe he’ll slip inside all the way. Fill her up. And then, before he can, she’s coming again in silent, quivering spasms.

‘Two,’ she hears him say and even in the midst of ecstasy, she’s able to laugh.

After that comes a string of words, maybe hers or maybe his. Fuck me, I want you to fuck me, I want to fuck you, yes, yes, oh, please. Fuck me.

Fuck me.

I want to fuck you so much. So hard.

Yes. Fuck me hard.

Mindless fuck-talk, it would sound ridiculous if they weren’t both naked and sweaty, if he wasn’t poised with his cock against her cunt. If he hadn’t already made her come on his tongue. But he has, and the words spill out, raw and rough and more honest than anything else they’ll probably ever say.

And then at last, he’s inside her. All the way. Fills her so deep it almost hurts. And when he moves, oh fuck, oh God, the pleasure doesn’t stop, it just keeps going on and on. Her knees press his hips, her feet anchoring at the backs of his thighs. Her hands run up along his smooth chest and discover all his sensitive spots.

It would be OK with her if he let the weight of his body cover her, but he’s more of a gentleman than that. He holds himself up to fuck her, at least until she can’t stand it any more and pulls him down for another round of kisses that bruise. Bites that sting and send shudders of pleasure through her.

She might be coming again, or she might not have ever stopped. It doesn’t matter. They move together just right. Like magic. He’s magic for her, and maybe she’s a little bit magic for him too.

He’s said her name before of course, both the real and the false, but now there’s an edge in his tone when he murmurs it. Once, then again. These are not words of love. That’s not what this is or what it’s meant to be. He says her name as he fucks her because he knows how it makes her feel to hear him say it. Or maybe, she hopes, just a little, he can’t keep himself from saying it.

Her name becomes a groan when he comes. His face, pressed to her neck, is hot. Their bodies have become slick with sweat, and her dress has crumpled beneath her. The fabric has bunched and shifted and will leave marks on her skin.

Afterwards they don’t sleep, but they do lie side by side in companionable silence while the sweat dries and cools their skin. The sound of the air-conditioning unit kicking on is loud and startling. It turns her head towards him, and she pushes up on one elbow to brush a kiss over his mouth.

She doesn’t say she’s leaving. She simply gets dressed and goes. In the hall outside the room, she pauses when the door clicks behind her. She turns and puts her hands on it, presses for a moment her cheek against the cool metal, but though she has the key and could open the door, go back inside, get on her knees for him the way she’s thought about … she doesn’t.

Tess leaves her Angel and goes home to her family, where she wears a different name and is a different woman. Where she cooks and cleans and folds laundry, where she carpools, where she sends spouse and spawn off to work and school every day with a smile so shiny and bright nobody would ever guess what it hides.

***

This is the last time.

They meet at his house, a flattering honour she’s not sure how to accept gracefully except by agreeing to go. They make small talk in his spotless kitchen. It feels somehow safer and more intimate than meeting in a hotel as they’ve done every other time. That’s why it scares her.

That’s why as they face each other from a distance made up of uncertainty and desire, she takes one step, then another, until a third puts her right up close to him. Her hand on his shoulder pushes him back against the marble-topped counter. He’s wearing khaki shorts, a white polo shirt. A belt. Nothing wrinkled or rumpled about him. There never is – unless she’s had her hands on him the way she does now, tugging his shirt out of his shorts. She slips her hands beneath, palms flat on his belly for a moment before she pulls his shirt off over his head.

Then she goes to her knees.

It’s not her natural place, on her knees. Not her usual kink. But for him … she wants to be here. Slowly, her hands travel down his sides, his thighs. Her skirt rides up. Beneath it she wears no stockings. Bare legs. Summer heat makes it too uncomfortable for stockings. The tile floor is hard on her knees. She hopes for bruises to remind her later of what she’s done.

Not that she could ever forget. This moment and all the others have left their imprint on every inch of her. They won’t know each other for ever, she knows that much is true. But she’ll never forget.

Her hands skate up the backs of his bare calves. She unbuckles and unbuttons him. Unzips. She bares him to her and nuzzles the inside of his thigh while her hand guides his feet out of his shorts and briefs. Details, details. She wants him naked.

Her mouth pressed to the inside of his knee, she looks up. His fingers have curled over the edge of the marble countertop. His mouth is open just a little as he watches her. His cock’s already hard. He smiles. She smiles. Her mouth drifts higher, his hair tickling her nose and cheeks and her now-closed eyes. She finds his cock with her mouth and engulfs him.

Her hand on the base, her mouth on the head of his prick, she takes him in as far as she can. Hand meets lips, moving. She sucks a little harder on the head, tongue swirling. She wets him so when her hand strokes the only tug on his flesh is smooth and slick. Good friction. Her other hand cups his balls, thumb stroking backwards to find that lovely pressure point that makes him groan.

Then she slides it between her legs, inside her panties, finds her cunt already wet and slick and hot. Her clit’s tight and throbbing under skilled fingers that know just how to move. She could come in half a minute with his cock nudging the back of her throat, but she holds off. Slows down.

She wants all of this to last, even though she knows it’s almost over.

She puts his hand into her hair and makes him curl his fingers tight. Makes him pull her hair, just a little, makes him guide her though the truth is she doesn’t need him to. She knows where and how to touch him, but making him show her turns her on.

She thinks of herself as a woman, not a lady. Not a girl. But that’s what he calls her sometimes, and though she loves it when he says her name in that low voice, edging sharp and hard onto a moan, she also loves it when he calls her his girl. She’s not, of course, and never will be. Maybe that’s why it hits her so hard in her heart.

This last time, she’d gladly suck him until he comes down her throat, swallow the taste of him, feel him pulse and shudder on her tongue, but he has other ideas. His fingers pull her hair until her face tips up. He’s still smiling. He pulls her to her feet – their kisses still haven’t become burdened by familiarity. They never will. His hands roam her back, her front, him naked, she clothed. He moves into the family room and the couch.

She’s straddling him in a minute, their mouths locked tight, his hands now under her dress. Laughter interrupts their kisses when she shifts and moves to help him get her panties off. When he opens the buttons at the front of her dress and puts his mouth on her breasts, she can no longer laugh. She can barely even sigh, because again she’s forgotten how to breathe.

She wants this to last and can’t make it. Her body’s got an agenda that has nothing to do with what’s in her head or heart. She lifts up so he can push inside her all the way, so deep. He fills her. She settles onto him, her forehead to his, her hands cupping his face. Her knees grip his sides and press the back of the couch.

For a long, long moment neither of them moves. Then he murmurs something. Her name, a plea, encouragement. Something low and hoarse and full of need. His voice turns her volcanic. Liquid lava, molten. Her mouth finds his. He whispers into her, breathes for her since she’s still unable.

He puts a hand on her hip while the other slides between them to centre on her clit. Just right. Perfect.

They move together at the same time. Time goes thick and slow, a dripping of syrup, of honey. She grips the back of the couch with one hand, his shoulder with the other. They are cheek to cheek, the pleasure too intense for kisses. Fucking’s all they can manage. Slow, slow, she moves on his cock, his hand pressing her clit. Her fingers dig deep into his bare skin. Mouth open, her teeth press the side of his neck. When she bites, just a little, he fucks into her hard enough to make her gasp.

I love fucking you.

Yes. Please. Harder. Fuck me.

This feels so good. You feel so good.

Yes. Just like that.

The words come, and she comes with a quiver and a cry, her face pushed against the side of his neck. He knows just how to ease off the pressure on her clit. She pushes herself onto her knees and he keeps moving inside her, not stopping, faster now. And faster. He grips her harder when he comes, his cock so deep inside her they’ve become one person, just for now. Just this moment, this endless, eternal moment that has become everything. Until there is nothing left.

She cups his face in her hands. She kisses his mouth. They stay locked together for another minute or so, but the moment’s passed. She doesn’t want to, but she has to move. She has to go. People are waiting for her, and she’s lost the ability to hide behind her smile.

He catches her by the wrist just before she steps out the front door. Pulls her back, just one step. ‘You can stay. I mean … just for a while.’

She does, for just a while, because although this has ended, she’s still not ready for it to be over. If only time was still like syrup she thinks when finally she leaves him with one last kiss. Another hug. No promises of course, that’s never been their thing.

That’s their goodbye.

It’s easy as anything to delete her email address, her instant message account, to unfriend and unfollow and disconnect. To make herself invisible to him. It’s so easy it breaks her.

He calls her, once.

She doesn’t answer.

And eventually, she remembers how to breathe.