He groans. ‘God, that could’ve gone better, couldn’t it? You don’t think I’m one of those old-fashioned men’s rights mentalists, do you?’
‘I don’t think that,’ I say. In fact, I’m thinking, maybe you are different.
‘You never talk about your job,’ he says. ‘I think it’s really cool what you do yet you don’t talk about it much.’
I shrug. ‘It bums people out. Makes them uncomfortable. I’ve learnt not to.’
He begins to stroke my thumb. ‘But I want to know.’
‘Know what? How many rape victims I deal with every day? How awful it is? How relentless? How we never have enough money to help properly? How sometimes I feel like we’re just shoving novelty plasters onto a giant seeping wound?’
‘I’m interested. I want to know.’
‘You think you want to know,’ I tell him, ‘but then you’ll get all defensive and want to pick holes in the things I tell you. Like Neil.’
‘That’s not fair. I’m not like him. I really am sorry.’ He leans his head towards mine until our foreheads are kissing, needing to make it OK. He cups my face, and grazes his lips against mine. They instinctively kiss back before I turn my head.
‘Do you really want to know all the awful parts of my job?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean, I literally deal with terrible sexual violence every day.’
‘And that makes me sad but it’s something I need to know more about. For Christ’s sake, I work in coding, Gretel. I just don’t know about this stuff. I’m woefully ill-informed.’
‘I don’t feel like talking about it right now,’ I say. I just want him to kiss me again. I want it so badly that it throws me.
‘Well then, we don’t have to. But some other time. Talk to me. Tell me more about what it’s like to be you …’ He kisses me again and I kiss him back in surprised relief. The way he’s looking at me, the way he sounds like he means it. Gretel sheds her skin to the floor. April is left, kissing him, running her hand through his hair. I can feel his goodness; it radiates like central heating. I want to get closer to it, closer to him.
‘My towel’s falling off,’ I say, because it is. We both look down to see one exposed breast hanging out, my nipple grazing the towelling. We both laugh quietly.
‘What a shame. Mine too.’
We fall backwards onto the sofa, dislodging the remnants of our towels and kiss slowly, heavily, like we mean each and every part of it. Joshua’s hands run down my back. I find myself clutching him tightly. It all falls away. The night. The anger. The embarrassment. Even the angry thrashing of the storm fades to white noise. We kiss and kiss. He doesn’t try to turn it into anything more than kissing. He doesn’t assume it will lead anywhere. It feels so good just to kiss, to feel like the man is just enjoying the kiss rather than wondering how long he can use it to segue into something else. My muscles relax. I lose sense of time, logic, the lies I’ve told. I find myself whispering into his ear. ‘You’ve not seen my bedroom yet.’
‘I’ve not.’
‘I didn’t know you were coming round. I haven’t tidied up.’
‘I couldn’t give a flying fuck.’ He picks me up like he’s rescuing me from a plane wreck, both of us completely naked, and carries me towards it.
‘Not that door, the other door.’
‘OK, right.’
‘Hang on, you have to turn the handle. I’ll try to do it with my foot. Hang on. No. Put me down a second.’
And we fall, giggling, onto my unmade bed.
Maybe he is different
Maybe he is different
Maybe he is different
Maybe he is different
Maybe, he is … different?
The first tickles of morning light hit the crack in my ceiling as I wonder how to arrange my jumbled thoughts into coherency.
Something peculiar happened last night you see.
Joshua made me orgasm. Not just a regular one, but an earth-shattering, lost-all-sense-of-myself, made-noises-without-embarrassment, one.
That’s not happened to me since It happened.
I still can’t stop smiling when I think about it. How the sex was long, and slow. I didn’t orgasm through sex, because I never have, even before Ryan. But he stopped halfway and went down on me until I did and … and … God I want to have sex again just thinking about it.
I watch his sleeping face crumpled into the pillow. Fondness stirs in my guts. I want to reach over and stroke his cheek. I cannot help