The L Word

I laid her back down onto the wet leather seats and came on top of her and we kissed and touched each other and smelled each other and smiled and grinned at each other and hugged and kissed each other.

I traced her nipple with my little finger, lying at right angles to her and although it was difficult I used my other arm to support her waist and keep her on the seats with me.

'Do you want to come back with me?' I asked.

'I don't know if I can. We were only supposed to be an hour and I'm sure mum has sent out an APB by now. Why don't you come back with me? I don't care what she'll think.'

'I'm not ready for that. We might have gotten over the age gap, but she won't have. Plus I still look beaten up.'

'You look better now than when you turned up at my door. You're glowing.'

'So are you.' I said. 'It's kind of silly.'

'It's sweet. And you are too. You're a good man.'

My finger wobbled its way down past the dip between her breasts and over her ribs and into the space above her belly button.

'What you did just then -- that made me really hot before.'

I nodded but wasn't really listening and I said with urgency: 'I want you to stay with me tonight. I want you to come back to mine.'

'Won't your girlfriend be there?'

'No. I haven't got a girlfriend. I mean, I don't want Kate to be my girlfriend, I want it to be you.'

'But she's got all her stuff there.'

'Then we'll throw it in the bin. I don't care about her or her stuff. I want you to come back with me.'

She narrowed her eyes.

'You're a bad man actually, moving from one girl to another in the space of one day.'

She hit my arm.

'And sleeping with her too!'

'It's not been one day and you know it.' I said. 'It's been weeks, and she's been wrong for me for a long time. I don't want to talk about her.'

'What if she comes back?'

'She won't. She's gone off to stay with her sister. I saw all her things have been packed up. She's left.'

'I'm not sure.'

'Trust me!'

She closed her eyes and breathed deep and I put my palm flat on her belly and felt it rise and fall.

'Will I be able to have a shower?'

'Yes. We'll both have showers. Showers all around.'

'And I can phone my mum?'

'No my phone is smashed.'

She sat up and pulled on her t-shirt.

'I can't believe this. It's suicide is what it is;' she murmured, 'and you better be right about everything.'

I reassured her I was.

'Come on then, let's go.'

***

My palms were sweaty and my throat was tight from anxiety. I knew this was a bad idea but I was doing it anyway.

Emma stood on the doormat with the harsh glare of the hall light in her face. She was red in the face and her clothes had been put on in a hurry, but she was warm and smelled good and I felt like a schoolchild taking her by the hand and opening up the door of my home for her. It was just as if she were the first girl I was bringing home to meet my parents.

We walked up the stairs and at the top she stopped.

'It smells like you live here.' She said.

I was more interested in the fact that Kate might have miraculously come back and decided to stay here tonight.

My feet were extra heavy on the floorboards, listening for any signs of life outside of Emma and myself.

I masked all of this by smirking and telling her the smell was a shame and I'd crack a window as soon as I could.

I walked into the bathroom and checked everything was as I had left it and when I came out Emma was still in the same place, clutching her fleece and my jacket. She gazed back at me and her expression was affectionate and hopeful.

'Let me show you around. This is the kitchen. It's a bit small. This is the spare bedroom. It was a mess, now it's less of one. Here's the bathroom.'

'That's swish.'

'Isn't it? This is our -- I mean my -- bedroom and this is the front room. This is the largest room.'

'Is that your phone over there?'

I went to the remains of the mobile and kicked them under the DVD cabinet.

'No.' I said. 'That's nothing. Do you want a drink?'

'Umm... not really.'

'Not even some tea? Peppermint? Camomile?'

'Peppermint.'

'It's good because it hasn't got any caffeine in it. Shall I take those off you? Do you want a dressing gown or jumper?'

She shook her head and I knew she was getting nervous about things. I went over to hug her and I kissed her eyebrow and told her I wanted her here for a reason. Perhaps she felt I was acting like her father, but I think more of what she was feeling was she was acting like a daughter. She would loosen up eventually.

After the water boiled and we stood opposite one another in the narrow kitchen, both our pairs of feet stretching from one counter to the bottom of the other, she cupped her hands around the mug of tea and blew the steam across its surface like the wind blowing morning fog off a beach.

'Don't be paranoid.' I said. 'You've got nothing to fear. Except, of course, your mother.'

'I know. Its just I get these impulses to do things and then they don't follow through to the end. They evaporate and I get worried.'

'You're a half-assed risk-taker.'

She laughed and played with my feet.

'You've changed.' She said. 'You're not uptight or grumpy or serious all the time.'

'Uptight?'

'This is what I wanted from you the whole time.'

'Well when we get back into a car I'm going to have to revert. Assuming I've still got a job.'

'Do you think you'll be in real trouble?'

'I think I'll come out of it alright. At the end. But it might be an idea to get you a different instructor.'

'I don't want a different instructor.'

'Things might get difficult in the car and I wouldn't want either of us accusing the other of doing something when it was said or done in the car and not outside when we're really living and being together. But we'll see what it's like after a few lessons.'

'Is that what this is then?' She asked. 'Are we going out? You want to be a couple?'

'Aren't we? Don't you?'

'I'm asking you.'

'Yeah,' I said, 'I want to go out with you. I want to be exclusive or steady or whatever you call it. I want us to be together. Let's see a film!'

'You can't talk in films! There's an exhibition of Turner at the Tate Britain. We can talk while we're there. Let's see that.'

I smiled and she smiled back.

'Do you still want that shower?' I asked.

'Why, do I smell?'

'Yeah. You smell great. You smell of me.'

I slapped her bum as she made to go out the door and she about-faced, wide-eyed.

'Was that too far?' I asked.

'Yes. Now show me to my bedchambers, plebeian.'

I lay in bed with my eyes closed. I was physically tired but still wide-awake. The showerhead shut off and I heard Emma padding about in the bathroom. I had told her to use my towel as I had used Kate's.

My life was changing in front of me. The change from Kate to Emma was only from person to person, but it had affected everything about me including my job and my attitudes towards life. Things were going to different.

Emma appeared in the doorway. She was wearing her grey t-shirt and the towel around her waist. I looked up, perched on my elbow and the pillows sprang up around me from my weight in-between them.

'You look gorgeous.'

'I'm taking the couch yeah?'

'Stop it.' I said. 'Come here.'

She walked around the bed and over to my side, a little out of reach for my hands. The main light was on but I could turn it off from the switch above the bed. The towel Emma had on was positioned so that the opening slit was at the side of her left leg, and I followed it up all the way to her hip and licked my lips.

She straightened in front of me and put her hands on her waist and glanced around at my home. It must have seemed alien to her.

'Which side of the bed is mine?'

I thumped the side to my left -- the side I had always been on with Kate, but didn't want to be in when Emma would have to take Kate's place.

'But you know,' I continued, 'there's really only room for one. You might find it difficult squeezing in.'

She didn't reply and holding onto the wrap of the towel, raised a knee to the mattress and put her weight on it and straddled me, our bodies separated by the duvet.

I looked up at her and she stared back, her arcs of hair framing her face and an even darker shade, as they were still damp. She collapsed and went onto her hands and knees, lowering her face to mine and kissing me.

Her t-shirt was very tight. It hugged her body. I felt her through it and she slid her weight onto her arms, pushing her legs back and lying on top of me.

She turned out the light and in the darkness I heard the drip of the showerhead, hung up to drain, and I heard the muffled kisses and breaths that we took in touching and stroking one another.

Her waist was quite thin; I hadn't noticed it before, and as she moved her shoulders one way above me, following the trail of my lips, her pelvis went the other and under my hands her back muscles and spine squirmed like a moving snake.

I got irritated with the barrier of the duvet and holding her suspended for a moment while she asked what was wrong, I kicked the damn thing off and felt her come to rest on top, whole, long, agile and all hands and lips and teeth and washes of her hair that covered my face when she made for my neck.

Her wrists got caught by my hands and I held them to my chest as she sank lower, rubbing herself against my thigh and then my knee, getting it wet as she grated her pussy onto the short hairs and hardened skin that was there.

'You're amazing.' I said as she went lower, tugging down my boxers, dragging her hair over my stomach and her breath over my balls and my thighs.

I bent one leg at the knee and she curled an arm around it clutching my erection in the one hand and with the other, stroking my balls and the space underneath them.

Her lips pressed against the top of my bent knee and skipped down the slope until they were covering my belly. She tugged and pulled on my cock sloppily and pressed the head at her lips.

I heard her breath in and say: 'You have no idea.'

Then I was in her mouth once more and I was so happy she was doing this I felt my chest tighten with the happiness.

She made sounds as she did it. At any other time I would have found them distasteful but because I was in the moment I couldn't think of anything that turned me on more.

She squeezed my balls and rotated them in a circle and she jerked me off with the hand that stayed wrapped around my thigh. She let a blob of spit come out and there was the sound of the stickiness of it as she rubbed it into my sack.

'Enough.' I panted.

She rose up and straddled my shins again and rested her hands on my knees.

'Do you have a condom this time?' She asked.

I reached into the bedside drawer and panicked for a moment when I couldn't find one but then I did and I could breath again.

She watched me unwrap and roll it onto my wet dick and as I stroked it down to the base she took off her t-shirt and in the light that came through the window to the left of us I could see myself reaching for her breasts as she positioned herself over me.

I held myself upright and there was pressure at the tip, as if I were cutting into butter that was too cold, and then it broke and she made a surprised noise and sank, controlled, down to the base, burying me inside her.

'Oh god.' She said, her voice further away from me as she leant back to fit me in the way she wanted.

I felt like telling her I loved her, but I stopped myself. It would be something I said when I was in the right frame of mind, not in the middle of sex.

'Oh my. I, I never --' She trailed off and she moved only a little on top of me and there was a sensation of wetness that dropped onto my balls and ran into my asshole.

I began to ask her what that was but lost it, lost my train of thought as I realised it didn't matter if I came this time. In fact Emma wanted me to come inside her. She wanted to feel me come inside her.

She moved forward, as if riding in a saddle at the pace of a trot, and I put my fingers on her hips and monitored the speed so I would know how long I had before I popped.

She twisted my nipples and I strained my neck and yelled in surprise and my cock jumped inside her, straightening. She did it again a minute later and even though it hurt, it was great to drive into her with no feeling of bursting on the horizon.

I groaned after a time and she groaned too. Hers was a deep sound, like one another man would make, and it made me proud that she was too involved to control herself. Her rotation was off as well and as she leant right back, putting her palms on my knees, and then leaving just one there as, in the moonlight, I saw her play with her breast, I got this squeeze as she found a spot inside and slotted me into it.

Each time I pushed I got the same pinch and she became more and more vocal, grabbing my arm and my shoulder as I came forward to meet her.

In the gap between us we bridged, her pelvis wobbled on top of me and I was close enough to suck her nipples while she made a continual sound. Eventually the tension in my lower back was too much and I flopped down with my head hitting the pillows.

'Ah! Ah, oh god, come inside me this time. I want you to.' She whispered, her lips at my ear, and I felt her dig her toes into my thighs, moving like a sweating rabbit, and as I strained out that I was about to come, she leant down, smothering my mouth and kissing me and whispering "yes, yes", and I blew out my cheeks and gritted my teeth and she bucked with me as I felt a huge surge pop from my balls like a party popper and shoot up inside her. I banged my head against the headboard once and then twice as my legs shook and she went limp and held her cheek to mine and clasped my head and told me things I couldn't decipher and waited, curled up like a ball on top of me until my cock softened and I pulled out of her.

She kissed me and her lips were dry and her breathing had slowed.

'I'll come next time. I know I will.' She said. 'Now I know where to put you.'

'I'm sorry I had such a struggle over you with myself. My life is such a mess. I really like you Emma. Really a lot.'

'I know you do. It just took you a while. I'm brilliant.'

I pulled her close and she nuzzled my neck and under my chin and kissed me there and soon after, I focussed on the sound of her breathing slowing right down and began to fall asleep.

'No, don't go to sleep!' Emma said, jostling me until I was alert.

'What? What is it?'

'Can't you hear that sound? What is that?'

'It's the guy downstairs. He's opening his front door.'

'I heard the keys hit your door.'

'You must be mistaken.' I said, checking my watch. It hadn't been ten minutes. I was warm all over and more relaxed than I had been in a long while. The light from next-door's bathroom was on and it illuminated the bedroom. Our sheets were tangled and my towel, the one Emma had put around her bum was lying with us, damp, as well as the sheets that were damp with our movements.

'There it is again!' She whispered. 'Are you sure it's him? It's like a scratching sound.'

'Yeah.' I said, although this time I wasn't so sure.

Emma held the duvet close, covering herself and sitting upright. She would bolt if it turned out to be Kate.

God, this was not happening. It couldn't be. Kate had cleared her crap out! She was gone! I'd have to deal with her in a week or two, not the same night! Just let me have this one night.

Then came the banging on the door.

Emma covered her mouth.

'It's her isn't it? I can't believe it's her!'

'It's not her!' I said. 'There's no way she'd come back here!'

A muffled voice came through the wood panelling and it sounded like it could be Kate, if she was drunk, or had smoked a cigar. I mean, what the hell, who was it? The landlord?

Emma began to say something but I pre-empted her, and putting on a t-shirt and going into the hall where the banging echoed down the hall as if it were a mile long instead of five metres, I grabbed the nearest hard object I could, one of my old leather interview shoes, and sidled down the steps. I wasn't going to be suckerpunched by Kate again. This was my flat and she had been the one to leave. Emma was here now.

My chest constricted in response to the nerves and I was sweating freely from under my arms.

I reached the bottom step, the banging bouncing off the walls to roar in my ears. I slid the chain off the door and my palms were freezing cold and my fingers shook as I went to turn the handle. I heard the lock click that meant it would open outwards, and there was the soft shuffling sound of feet stepping back as I pushed it open, like there was a cat waiting to come inside, and then in the doorway the white light from the hall came in, onto the stairs and then to where I stood, blinding me because it was so bright, and the door smacked against the wall of the hall with a clatter, echoing in my ears, and in the damp and cold sweat that came over me, oozing from out of my skin like a sponge being squeezed empty of detergent, I saw who it was.