he said to Cat, ‘if you had raging conjunctivitis.’
Cat stares at the Great Ophthalmologist, her eyes criss-crossing his face trying to absorb what she’s just heard, make sense of the tangle, and figure out how she should respond. Turning away from him, which she does momentarily, seems like a good idea. But when she turns back he’s still there, still silent, regarding her with a blend of reproach and amusement. The onus is on Cat and it’s onerous. She’s biting her lip so hard that it’s throbbing but she can’t seem to release it. Slipping past him to take refuge in the lovely bathroom seems like another good idea so she does just that.
She’s sitting on the edge of the tub regarding her feet, now she’s sitting sideways on the toilet looking at her knees. Now she leans her back against the basin. She’s now knocking her head gently against the window. She turns and glances in the mirror, imploring her reflection to tell her what to do.
Jesus, have I blown it now! Stupid stupid girl.
Say sorry.
As if that would suffice.
Laugh it off?
That would seem too trite.
Give him a blow job?
My jaw is too tense. And anyway, he’s hardly likely to rise to the occasion for a girl who’s thrown slanderous accusations at him, for a girl who’s made an utter fool of herself.
Well, what are you going to do?
Tell me what to do!
No, Cat – you figure it out.
Oh Fen, where are you!
Over the sea and far away.
Reflection – help!
It’s only you in the mirror. Your call, Cat McCabe.
Shit! Have I been in here ages? Say he’s left?
Cat opens the bathroom door. Ben is sitting in the chair seemingly engrossed in Rose Tremain. He glances up and then returns his attention to the book. Cat pads across the room, walks around the bed and sits on the edge so that her knees almost touch Ben’s. She tips her head to one side, silently imploring him to look up. He’s reading. She clears her throat, hoping she might gain his attention. He’s reading. Rose Tremain is bloody good. Cat sighs, hoping he’ll take sympathy on her humiliation. Nope. She gazes over to the window. It’s gloriously dusky now, the portion of sky visible streaked with amber, the room bathed so aesthetically in half-light that Monet really should have been there. Incongruous though it might seem, Cat feels an enormous sense of tranquillity, the willing captive of some strange hermetically sealed moment placing her in a beautiful room on a sultry evening with a man quietly reading. A blink returns her to the situation in hand. A glance to Ben reveals that Rose Tremain’s text is closed around his index finger and his attention is focused on Cat entirely.
Cat licks her lips fleetingly and speaks without preparation or agenda.
‘I. Am. So. Embarrassed.’
Ben does not reply but something about his demeanour enables Cat to smile apologetically.
‘What can you think?’ she continues with a humble shrug superseded by a sorry slump. Ben tilts his head and closes the book, clasping his hands loosely, sitting back in the chair, relaxed.
‘Please forgive me,’ Cat says, now sitting very tall, her hands demurely in her lap, her eyes cast down.
‘You’re fucking gorgeous when you’re angry,’ Ben says, deadly serious and with no jest.
‘I’m sorry,’ Cat says, looking straight at him, ‘I hope I didn’t offend you.’
‘On the contrary,’ says Ben.
‘And I really hope,’ says Cat, very measuredly, eye-locked, ‘that I haven’t gone and ruined any prospects here.’
‘You’re also very sexy when you’re meek,’ Ben tells her.
Cat can’t hear the compliment, her concern to appease Ben, to undo any wrongdoing, her sole focus.
‘I didn’t mean to insult you,’ she says.
‘I’m pretty flattered, actually,’ Ben says, ‘that you should have thought me such a gigolo and so in demand.’
‘What can you think of me?’ Cat laments, looking at her lap but immediately yearning for Ben’s gaze.
‘I think you’re a feisty girl who won’t tolerate any crap,’ Ben says openly. ‘Fuck, what a challenge!’
They regard each other in the fading light, the soft tones, the hush of the evening, enhancing their reciprocated allure. Cat flops herself backwards on to the bed, her arms above her head, and scours the ceiling. She hears the Loom chair creak. Her heart is beating fast and goes into overdrive at the touch of Ben’s fingers on her knees. Goosebumps tingle their way over her skin as she feels her dress being lifted up and then lowered back.
‘Cat McCabe,’ Ben marvels in a low voice, leaning over her, his hands either side of her torso, ‘where are your knickers?’
‘Obviously, they were in a twist!’ Cat jests softly. Ben sits on the edge of the bed and Cat runs her hand lightly up and down his back. She pulls at his shirt, gently at first, then with an insistent tug. He lies next to her. They look up at the ceiling and then, with film-worthy timing, they turn and look at each other. The shared gaze, the mutual desire caught in a sealed second of fabulous intensity before they are at each other’s mouths; kissing and tasting and biting and uncontrollable.
Ben flings Cat’s dress up so that she is naked apart from one breast and her shoulders. He has a hand enmeshed in her hair. The other is everywhere and fast. Trickling over her legs, brushing her bush, sweeping over her stomach, up her waist, into her armpit, over her exposed breast where he stops awhile. She wants to taste every part of his mouth. His body feels so tantalizing behind his cotton shirt. Off. Off. She pulls at buttons, at the tails, she slips her hand underneath and finds his flesh. Warm, prickling under her touch, a strong body, a little hair to the chest, to the lower stomach. His skin is so soft, almost incongruously so for his defined musculature and masculinity. She straddles him, she has to get that shirt off. As she is unbuttoning, he runs a hand up her inner thigh, cups it over her sex and inserts his finger effortlessly, deep inside her. She’s gasping, he’s glazed. He’s moving his finger and she’s moving on it. His thumb is stroking her clitoris. She wants the shirt off his back. Get it off. She wants to come. Fuck the shirt. Her whole body wracks with the orgasm, her voice comes through her gasping. She’s coming on his finger, his thumb, in her stomach, through her nipples. Her body crumples with the pleasure of it all. She lies beside him, her leg slung over his, her sex grazing his jeans. He brings his finger to his mouth and sucks it and then he takes it to her mouth and she sucks it too. That’s me. That’s you.
‘I’d like to have sex with you. Now. Please. Now,’ Cat says, easing his shirt away and gazing desirously at his torso. She unbuckles his belt, her eyes drawn to and delighted by the bulge in his jeans, her fingers tracing the shape of him, her sex anticipating the feel of him.
‘I’d
