Little Elephant

His body follows mine into my bedroom so closely it makes my spine tremble. I've never felt so alive, or so vulnerable. I turn my head for reassurance that this is my friend Ben and find him looking right at me. We come to a sudden stop. I turn, reach for him and he's there.

"It's ok," I incant the words like a spell, "It's going to be ok because it's us."

He doesn't say anything except for a long, low breath out, stepping even closer to me, then marching me backwards until my legs meet my bed. My heart jumps when he doesn't stop there but pushes me harder, bending over me, using his weight to press me down to the mattress until his body is gloriously heavy on mine.

The slow pace at which he kisses me, touches me and peels my clothing off me is unexpected. Even as I remind myself of his determination we'll take this slowly, I'd still anticipated something less patient, more torrid. I stare down at the top of his head as he plants wet kisses over my ribs, his hair brushing the underside of my breasts as he grazes from one side of my body to the other, then back again. I move restlessly, seeking more from him and frustrated I can only touch his upper body from this position, yet I'm reluctant to move, to break his concentration.

He crouches lower, painting a trail of torture across my stomach until he pauses at the top of my underwear. It takes one simple kiss there to make my nerves rocket. Not that, I chant silently. Not yet. His eyes flick up to find mine. And without saying a thing, he climbs back until his palm wraps around the side of my face and, my god, if I wasn't already more captivated with him than ever, this moment would seal it, for sure.

I turn my face to kiss his palm.

"Jesus, Nella, I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like a virgin."

His eyes seem huge in the half-light.

I laugh a little. "No, you don't."

He laughs back, quietly, still looking at me so closely it makes my skin prickle. I raise my knees, touching them to his sides, and fall in love with the shiver that seems to wrack his body for a few seconds. He leans down to kiss me and I squirm under him, wanting more contact. He senses it, dipping his head to look at me.

"I want to feel you come, Nell."

His words, and the whisper of his fingers over the front of my underwear, squeeze my heart like a velvet fist.

"Can I?" he asks, looking up at my face.

No-one's ever asked my permission before. I blink and bite my lip to stop myself from breaking out into one of my stupid, goofy grins before stroking his face again, wondering how I'm going to ever be able to tell this man what he means to me. And because it seems he's rendered me mute, I find his hand and encourage his touch. He sighs, mutters a 'yeah' as if he's been handed a prize and trails his fingers lower, over my underwear, forcing me to twist and turn, before brushing them more purposefully along the pale inside of my thighs. I can't stop my hips from following his every slow, subtle move, my muscles flickering with yearning.

"Shh, relax," his words touch my skin in tiny gusts of air before he touches his lips to my belly.

I flinch again. He sits up slightly.

"S'ok, Nell, I'll only use my hands, ok?"

How does he know? I nod slowly, even as I scour my mind for a time when I might have said something to him. But there's nothing to recall, since we've rarely ever spoken about sex.

"It's just --"

"Too much?" he asks.

"Too soon." And I hope he doesn't take any offence, because I really do want to know what he might be able to do with his beautiful mouth one day.

Just not today. It's an intimacy I've only managed to share with one guy before now, and it's been tainted by that same guy's repeated infidelities and lies. My sweet Ben merely nods and drops more kisses on my stomach before I can catch the expression in his eyes. He gives me no time to overthink any of it, using his hands to tease my flesh to distraction, eventually forcing an exasperated moan out of me.

"Yeah, that's it," his voice so intense it forces my eyes open.

The corner of his mouth ticks upward. I reach into his hair. His eyes spark. I tighten my fingers and tug. His forehead creases.

"Well now, that's upping the ante."

Before I can reply, he pushes his hand between my legs, his slow tease at an abrupt end, the position and pressure of his fingers confident now.

"Wet," he sighs.

I hum in agreement. Then gasp as he runs his knuckles along me before pulling the smooth fabric out of his way, stretching it to tuck his fingers inside, a touch so electrifying I think my heart might stop. And then I surge back to life, lifting my hips to Ben, who murmurs words of encouragement, his fingers bidding me to fly. I moan again, rolling into him. He rolls with me, eyes following me until our positions on the bed are almost reversed and I'm grinding down onto his hand from above.

"Yeah, use my fingers, Nell. God, yes."

His words and the tension in his body thrill me as much as his hand in my knickers.

"Ben."

"Yeah, come on."

I yank my underwear down my hips just enough to give him more space, which he takes without hesitation.

"You feel beautiful, Nell."

His voice sounds strained. Excited. I say his name again, and he uses his other hand to coax me closer, to help me position myself over his left thigh, over his working hand.

"Sit up a little. Let me see you."

Even though he whispers it, it's definitely a command. I do as he says. Any self-consciousness I might have had is blown away when he pushes one of his long fingers inside me, finding the right angle straightaway. Noises burst from my mouth. His mouth curls and I stare back, suddenly aware of how good he looks stretched out in front of me, of how good I want to make him feel. When I rest my hand over his underwear his hips tilt into my touch without hesitation and his eyes are practically daring me. I tug at his waistband just as he pushes a second finger inside, as if he's trying to checkmate me. For a few moments, it works, because the increased pressure is hugely, wonderfully distracting.

"Feel good?"

I nod and lean down to kiss his mouth, loving the way he welcomes me with soft lips and eyes.

"I want these off," I tell him, giving his underwear another tug, before sitting up again.

We muddle and grin and bump our way around getting his underwear down his hips and bunched around his thighs, which makes him look sexier than ever in my eyes. I blurt something out to that effect before dropping my gaze and taking him into my hands, his sharp suck of breath like a gunshot, his heat intense on my skin.

"You have a nice dick."

He snorts, eyes full of amusement. "More objectification?"

"You love it."

He opens his mouth then seems to think better of whatever smart comment he was about to offer, instead, lifting his hips up more firmly than before, which makes me think he has no real objections. I draw my thumb along the pumped vein, up to his crown, his long exhale my reward. I repeat the action, smoothing the glistening liquid over his flesh, listening to his uneven breaths, as a wave of renewed understanding that this is Ben rushes over me.

And then his fingers find a path and pace inside me that has me biting my lip and shifting my body for more.

"Fuck my fingers, Nell. Yeah, that's it."

Even as his words boil their way into my consciousness I can't stop the powerful drag and pull, so unexpectedly irresistible, luring me deeper into myself. I can hear myself repeating his name in entreaty and warning and all the while his fingers and the heel of his hand do their work, enticing and commanding. His eyes are full of kindness and curiosity and something else. Admiration? Before I can identify it, the slow burn intensifies until it's all I can do to steady myself for the onslaught, bracing my hands on Ben's body as his fingers urge me towards oblivion. The way he shifts under me has me opening my eyes to look. He's touching himself, fucking into his other hand, and it's too much. I can't stop the moan.

"Come on my fingers, Nella. Let me feel you."

His fingers draw everything in me taught - unbearably taught -- and, just as I don't think I can survive it much longer and am ready to beg, he tilts the palm of his hand just so, twists his fingers just enough, and releases me into the wild. I lose myself completely, dropping into the soft black void, down and down, until my lungs burst open. My moans mingle with Ben's increasingly laboured breathing until he's cursing and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Shit. Oh shit."

I try to catch my breath and control the spasms as I come back to myself but it's almost impossible because I'm too captivated by the sight of Ben, lips parted and hips lifting in utter concentration until a throaty gasp escapes him and he comes into his hand and over his stomach. The sight is completely arresting and, despite myself, I hold my breath because I've never wanted to watch a man like this before. The stretch of his throat and the tension in his shoulders. God. Completely gorgeous.

"Oh Ben." I whisper it almost to myself, afraid to break the spell.

He grunts, yanking me down with a surge of determined arms and energy until I'm held hard to him, moving together with the rise and fall of his chest. We stay in this quiet state, sharing our recovery until the patterns of our pulse and breath slowly align. I've never felt so blissful. He turns his head and kisses the side of my face.

"I can't move," he sighs, flexing a hand over my back in a touch full of satisfaction. "That was fucking spectacular. You are spectacular."

"No, that was you."

I feel his scepticism in the depression and release of his ribcage under me, but he doesn't say anything. Merely treats me to another circuit of his hand. It warms me. My hips move of their own accord.

"Mmm, I'll get something to clean us up in a minute."

I smile. He kisses me again, an awkward press to my ear, as if he can hardly move. It pinches my heart.

"I'll go find something, stay here."

When I return, he still hasn't moved, his underwear still twisted around his thighs, and for a moment I think he might be asleep but he opens his eyes when I wash his come off him and again when I climb back onto him once I've finished, seeking the intimacy, still. He wraps his arms around me, his muscles heavy and relaxed. The welcome, this re-engagement, feels as important as everything that's gone before. I press my lips to his collarbone and he makes a low satisfied sort of sound. We settle. I let my mind drift, which is unfamiliar, since I'm usually so focused on getting from A to B. Probably the consequence of a lifetime of chasing the achievements of an intensely bright sister and Pappa's hard-won approval.

"You feel good," Ben's voice is as quiet as the space all around us.

"Mm."

"I can feel you relaxing."

I raise my head to look at his face. His eyes still appear so dark that I shiver. My friend Ben. And because my filters have lifted, I ask him before I realise what I'm doing.

"Who's Anneli?"

"What? Anneli? What do you mean?"

"I mean who is she? You were meeting her the day we did the photoshoot."

"Yeah, that's right."

He moves. I roll off him, not enjoying the cold of the sheets below. He looks puzzled.

"She's a mate of a mate from college. Works for D&B London. One of the biggest ad agencies," he adds when it's my turn to look puzzled. "She's someone I keep in touch with. For paid work, you know?"

"Oh."

He rolls into me, the corner of his mouth slowly rising. "Why're you asking, darlin'?"

"I didn't know who she was."

"And?"

I narrow my eyes. "And I thought she might be someone you were seeing."

He rolls onto his back, releasing a sharp laugh. "Anneli? Jesus, no. She's not my type and I'm definitely not hers. No way."

"No?"

He fixes me with a steady stare. "Nope."

"Oh. Well, ok."

Before I get too mired in my own foolish fears, Ben's leaning over me, his hair flopping over his forehead, his cheeks still flushed from earlier. "There isn't anyone out there to concern you, Nell." And as if that wasn't enough to drown my burgeoning doubts, he adds, "There's no one else."

+++

Lying flat on my back in my rabbit hutch of a hotel room with just the dreary non-sound of fierce air-conditioning filling my ears for the ninth night in succession it's all I can do to summon up the vision of Nella's face as it'd softened that night. I've thought of it tens of times since then -- could be more than a hundred times by now -- and it still jars me. Could she really think there'd be anyone else but her? The fucking irony is that it's all the other girlfriends who, over the years, coulda called me out on that one, since there's always been Nella. Always. Yet it's only now, only after being in her bed, that the truth of that statement has slammed home in all its bitter force.

I roll my arse off the bed and flick on the bedside light, blinking against the horrible, harsh light, the cheap carpet scratchy on the soles of my feet. Tapping my phone to see the time just adds to my sense of claustrophobic frustration. Another hour at least before it's worth trying to call Nella, since she's interviewing for new pupils tonight and won't be home until ten, UK time. For the sake of doing something I crack open another bottle of water and take long chugs, unconvinced I'm going to feel properly hydrated ever again. This country sucks it out of you -- not just water, but the very life force.

I shake my head because I'm annoyed by how annoying I am, that's how fucking annoyed I am. I can't deal with it. Nine days working for a clueless dick of a producer in thirty-five degrees of heat, two days holed up in this junkheap of a hotel because sandstorms have made filming impossible, and my phone call's gonna have to be taken up with telling Nella I'm going to be delayed getting back to London. Getting back to her.

I kick at the bedcover I threw on the floor earlier -- because who doesn't get creeped out at how dirty those things are? -- and consider trying to talk my way into the hotel next door again because they have a pool and I need to do something to take the edge off my shitstorm of a mood, and there's certainly no option involving alcohol.

And fuck this place. Fuck. This. Place.

Just as I'm opening the door my phone starts jumping in my pocket and as I pull it out, the storm lifts just a little. It's Nella.

"Hey you."

"Hi Ben. Hey, you sound down. What's up?"

And isn't that wonderful and terrifying? She knows my mood from two words.

"Uh, yeah. We've spent all day holed up in the hotel again."

"Oh no."

"Right? The worst thing is we're gonna have to delay our flights home for a day at least. Maybe more, depending on if the storm ever fucking stops."

"A day?"

"Yeah. And maybe two. Depends if we can get the rest of the filming done tomorrow in one day or not."

"Do you think you can?"

"I'm gonna do my fucking damnedest you can be sure of it, but the dick producer is bound to throw spanners into the works because that's his pathetic superpower."

"Well, that is shit."

I laugh. She's punctured my mood with that simple, empathetic truth. "Yeah, it is. Tell me about your day, darlin'."

I stare at my feet the better to listen to her voice, the breathy way she describes a particularly rude copper's bad attitude today at court and calls out the stupidity of one of the other crows on her case, tripping through the tongue twister points of law as if they're her second language. I grunt to myself. Her third language, actually, after Swedish and English. And doesn't she have some Danish too, 'cos isn't her mum Danish? I stick a finger in my mouth to stop myself from asking, from interrupting her flow just because my brain can't stick to one thing at a time. And chew at the nail, even if most of it's already gone with the stress of this job.

She draws breath, slowing down.

"Anyway, Ben, that's enough of all that boring stuff. How are you?"

"Eh, you know --"

"Been thinking of me in the shower, have you?"

I cough, almost choke. It shouldn't shock me, but it does. Hearing it from Nella, specifically -- that's what shocks me.

"Well?"

"Nella --" and fuck if I don't have to clear my voice. "Nella, really?"

And, rightly, she just laughs at me. For being a British stiff, no doubt. I scuff at the cheap carpet.

"Yeah, I do." My lungs expand. "Every day, as a matter of fact. Sometimes twice a day, and even that's not enough."

Her laughing dies down until it's just the drawing in and out of air I can hear as clearly as if she's sitting next to me.

"Wow."

The squeak and click of a door closing in the distance penetrates our shared silence.

"Are you still in Chambers?" I ask, knowing the answer already, the background sounds suddenly familiar.

"Yes."

"Hmm, shame."

"Shame? Why's that?"

"Because if you were somewhere more private I'd be thinking of what I'd like to ask you about. Or make you do," I breathe.

"Oh. Wow," her voice dropping low. "Yes, then it's a shame I'm not at home."

"Yeah. Shame. A crying shame I can't ask you what underwear you've got on under that smart suit you're probably wearing. That I can't get you to describe it to me." Another groan of old hinges and heavy doors opening and closing in the background, her breath still steady in my ear. "Yeah, pity I can't get you to tell me if the lace is scratchy on your skin, or about how smooth the satin would feel if you could run your fingers over it right now." I stop, giving her time to pull the plug, to laugh it off, close it down.

But, "What else would you ask me?"

Shit. This woman. I flop backwards onto the bed, pushing at my cock, running through some options of what to say next.

"I'd consider asking you how you'd like to take your clothes off for me. What you'd take off first. Whether you'd face me, or turn your back. What you'd let me watch, what you'd want me to notice. Whether I'd be allowed to touch you. Or not." I force myself to pause. "Shame you can't tell me."

"Mm. Shame."

Her tone makes me grin. "Would you?"

"Tell you?"

"Yes."

I release some of the air I've been holding inside me. "Ok, then."

"What else, Ben?"

And doesn't that get my blood pumping. "I'd ask you what music you'd want me to put on for you, and --"

"Anything slow by Chet Faker, or Nick Murphy, or whatever name he goes by now."

"Oh yeah? Nice and slow, then. That's how you'd like to undress for me, is it?"

"Mm."

I smile at the tension in that one, short syllable. "Would you move so I could see how beautifully your spine would curve and how your shoulder blades would cast delicate shadows as you undress for me? Would you move closer or further away from me? Would you put your work shoes back on if I asked you?"

Another small hum, only just audible above the sounds of people laughing as they walk by her. I can picture it, the elegant yet shabby cream-painted corridor outside Nella's room, filled with a bunch of crows on their way out to the pub -- wait, wouldn't that be a murder of crows? A satisfying thought, that. I blink to get back on track because I'm winning at being my own worst distraction today.

"Mm. It really is a great pity I can't ask you how you'd like me to touch you. Hands or mouth? And where? Maybe that soft spot under the corner of your jaw. On your left side. Makes you squirm more than the right." She gives me a short, sweet exhale of recognition. "Or maybe that long, slim tendon on the inside of your thigh. Maybe I could kiss that."

"Oh god," barely audible, and as if I can hear her dropping her head, hiding her face.

"Yeah," I agree, sounding as wound up as I'm feeling. "Shame you're at work, then."

"Oh god," she says again, this time with a hint of a smile in it.