yourself into the world without any experience of men, a virgin at twenty-two and full of shame and self-loathing at the fact.
You had an innocence then, in your early twenties. You could pass as sixteen, as still needing to be taught, your face hadn’t yet settled. So one Saturday night at a friend’s you became drunk and emboldened, you had to get it done. There was a man next to you in the doorway; he was taller than you, had clear skin, he’d do. Everyone else was deep into a double episode of The Young Ones, they’d never notice you’d gone.
You took a deep breath: do you want to go upstairs, you asked.
What, he said, leaning close.
Let’s go upstairs, come on.
You took his hand; he had no idea of your pounding heart. You never saw him again, didn’t want to, his name was quickly lost. There were many after that. They were always snatching the bait, thinking it was you, in fact, who’d fallen prey and not realising that the girl with the face who needed to be taught had become a collector, an archivist of sexual experiences. All disappointing; too dry, painful, anticlimactic, fumbling, bleak.
So you tried something else. An older man. Your neighbour, a graphic designer who’d never settled down. The age difference was nineteen years. It was worse. He was from an era when sex was purely for the man’s satisfaction; he thought a good fuck was just hammering away vigorously while you lay there and thought of England; he thought condoms were a joke. He told you afterwards as he rubbed your flat belly that he could never sleep with a woman over thirty, he didn’t like them enough: the sagging skin on their necks, the lines on their faces, the bodies thickening out. But you know another reason, now; because by then women have lost their docility, they have awareness, they know too much.
And they want things themselves.
So, nothing sparked. Theo, meanwhile, seemed to be sailing her way through men and through life. For you the best moment was always the anticipation, the thrill of giving the men what they wanted and as soon as the clothes were off something was lost. It always seemed to be two people connecting but utterly failing at it, too, and there was a gulf of loneliness in that, and after several years you gave up and slipped into your dream world every single night. So your twenties passed.
Whenever you did make love it was your thoughts that stirred you more than the touch of the man. He never knew that he wasn’t at the centre of your focus while he was on you, that he was merely kick-starting the film in your head. As he pushed inside you’d slip into concentrating on a scenario that would trigger your pleasure. It all had little to do with the person making love to you. You never found the sex sexy; maybe it would come with the next man or the next but it never combusted for you. What was all the fuss about?
You were much better at it by yourself, in your head.
the law for everyone is duty first, pleasure next
What you want:
The lights turned off. A touch that’s gentle, slow, provocative, that builds you up, that makes you want it too much. An orgasm; it doesn’t have to be at the same time as the man, just one orgasm so that you know what everyone’s talking about. Eye contact. A quick coming that’s not on your breasts or your face. Holding afterwards, skin to skin. Oral sex, precisely where you ask, for as long and as soft and as slow as you’d like. Sex that’s uncomplicated, with no ties, where the man will do exactly what you want. Claiming happiness for yourself: you’re so used to focusing on your partner’s pleasure at the expense of your own.
What you do not want:
To suck a penis. The smell of stale smoke. A tongue in your ear. Underwear involving satin or g-strings or leopard print or lace. The vaginal sex to go on too long. A thrusting so hard that it burns, it hurts. Swallowing. Breast sucking, breast licking, breast anything. To be asked what are you thinking. For it to be pushed upon you when you’re tired, grubby, not yet wet. Being pinned down. A rush to get in. A penis that’s too big. Loud snorting at climax, or groaning, or any expression like ‘ooh yes, baby’ and ‘c’mon’. For the roll-over after the coming to be too abrupt. To be kicked out too quick.
What you love:
The arch of the foot, its bones, rake-splayed. Wide, blunt, clean fingernails. Michelangelo wrists. Cleanliness. The nape of your neck nuzzled. Your eyelids kissed. Burrowing deep under the blankets. Clothes to be drawn off slowly, in exquisite anticipation. Cold, smooth walls you are rammed against. The sound of a lover’s breath close to your ear. Your hair pulled back when he’s inside. Your name spoken aloud just before he comes. Connecting, a holiness fluttering within you both. Seduction that’s slow, intriguing, unique, by flattery, extravagant gestures, text: poem scraps on napkins, filthy e-mails that should never be sent, love letters scrawled on Underground passes, a line composed in lipstick on your back as you sleep, written backwards, to be read in the mirror; oh yes, all that.
if you have a dog and never let him out the poor fellow will bark and howl miserably
Cole has a gift. He hasn’t given you one for so long, since Marrakech, when you received chocolates and magazines and jewellery from the souks. You protest but you’re smiling, you can’t help it, for it signals a thaw, a softening back into an easier way. You can both feel it, time is smoothing things out. You both want this.
It’s an envelope. You slide your fingers beneath the heavy, cream flap.
Private membership to the London Library. The writers’ library. It’s too ironic, heartbreaking, apt and your heart swells with light and guilt. Your husband’s blackmailing you with generosity and you know exactly what you’ll do, for a writers’ library might, just might, have an actor in it, who’s researching a screenplay, perhaps.
I thought it might give you a kick start, Cole says. For the book.
Ah, the book.
For you’d told him once that one day you’d like to take your cheeky seventeenth-century text and do something with it. It was one reason why he was so insistent you give up the drudgery of teaching, to try something you’d always wanted to do – although sometimes you suspected it was just to keep you all to himself. You’d showed him the section where the author stated that women married not for pleasure but for the propagation of children; and her conclusion that the wives of barren men should be allowed to sleep with other men fit and lusty. Isn’t that gorgeous, you remember teasing him, when can I start? And Cole had grabbed you firmly by the arm and had smacked you, stingingly, on the bum.
The cupboard. Quick.
And you’d laughed and laughed.
You’d told Cole that there was a novel in the text, or a history perhaps, the intimate kind that cracks open private lives. It felt good to tell him, as if it would give some weight to your own life. You’re not sure, now, though, you ever really meant it.
But he didn’t forget.
No one except your husband knows of the cautiousness at the heart of your life. Your adulthood has been a progressive retreat from curiosity and wonder,
