The L Word

There was Emma, just on her knees, hand on her pants and clutching her breast through that white top she had on earlier. She had her eyes closed. I watched her knuckle pulse against the fabric of the white cotton pants as it bulged and sunk in, came out and went back in again and her mouth hung open, pouting at me like she was on show, or being videotaped, and I held the dial on the shower unit and pulled and pulled on myself and imagined Emma wriggling out the driver's seat to straddle me in mine, imagined her kicking the latch from the chair and it falling back and us with it and her, stopping putting her hands on me to open her shirt and showing me her breasts and I took one and bit into the nipple and in reality I bit into my lip and felt my asshole clench and she ran through my brain like a bullet through a bottle and I fired into the rain of hot water from the shower, spitting again and again until I could control my breath and exhale and relax, and then I let go of myself and felt my shoulders unwind.

I coughed and swallowed and I felt really good. I turned the shower off and got out and dried myself while the CD played "4 Men".

The door opened and Kate was buzzing round the table. As I watched her I felt guilty. Her dressing gown was split up to her thigh as she walked. In the light it was hard to make out if she had any underwear on.

I looked at her from the back. Kate had long hair down to between her shoulder blades but Emma's was cropped to the top of her neck. Emma had it in gradations, a slope, which must have been very expensive because it looked good. She was also shorter than Kate, whom was nearly as tall as me, but Emma's height suited her whereas I suppose Kate was a bit unnaturally tall.

God, I must've been crazy thinking about a student when my girlfriend was sitting for the meal we made together in nothing but a dressing gown.

As I sat too she gave me a smile and her toes found their way up my leg and along my thigh. I pushed Emma to the back of my head. Why was she still there in the first place, guilt? Was it that I didn't want her not to be there when I went to bed tonight? I was sick, I was sure of it. But who didn't think about other people sometimes?

I didn't.

I was good, and I certainly didn't think of my students when I jerked off in the shower. Didn't think about whether they were experienced or not.

I was hard again just thinking over the whole deranged mess. Before this I hadn't come for days, it was no wonder I was like a stick of pink rock.

Kate knew; I had to keep shifting, but I don't know why I was trying to hide it.

The fork was laid tines down on the half-empty plate as she got up and moved around the table, shifting her hips a little to let the dressing gown open up along the white of her thigh.

I swallowed and drew my eyes to the centre of her as she hid it again and bent forward and opened her legs and sat over me. She nuzzled my neck and I could feel how hot she was down there against my knees.

My mind flashed to the bottle in the pile of wiping up to be done, and then to Emma and her white and airy top and whether I would have been able to see her breasts in their little bra if I had just leaned over a little more in my seat today.

I took my hands and I stroked Kate's hair back until I held it like it didn't exist from my fist downwards and it looked like Emma's, cut in a glorious incline of light brown, thin and fine and brushing against her white neck with the mole I had seen there.

'I'm still hungry.' Kate said.

***

I was rubbish with women when I was a kid. I could never speak to girls I didn't know, even though I was a good conversationalist. My friends found me interesting, at least, they told me to my face they did. But girls that I'd just met or seen on the tube or bus -- if I said more than five words to them I'd circulate it in my head whether I thought they liked me or not, and even if I didn't speak to them but just saw them, I could sometimes think about it for days after, fantasizing about them, even if it was just the briefest of glimpses.

When I had a girlfriend it was different. I had been brought up the product of a stable marriage, an increasingly rare thing nowadays, and I suppose seeing mum and dad content with one another after many years made me realise that I didn't need anyone else, not to think about, not to fantasize, not to have an affair with, when I had a girlfriend. So did that make me a prude? Or just really boring?

The thing about Emma though, I couldn't stop thinking about her all week. Had I picked up signals from her in the car and were they real or was I imagining it in hindsight because I fancied her?

It was all ridiculous.

Besides, I'd see today that I was making it up when we had our lesson at ten.

What would she be wearing?

The door slammed and I looked from the CD going in the hi-fi to the front garden and realised I was acting stupid and decided not to stare at her like a puppy.

I think she waved at me from outside the windshield.

'What the hell's this?' She asked as she got in, swinging on the handle to settle herself.

'Cave In.'

'God, I hate metal.'

'No it's really good, you've just come in on the bit where he's roaring. The rest is this really beautiful spacey guitar rock, really heavy but not extreme.'

I had purposefully put that bit on because it made me feel superhuman when I heard it. But she didn't like it. She didn't like metal and that was a big difference between us. Then again was it that big a difference?

Oh what was I thinking about our differences for?

'Yeah I like rock. This bit. This is more like what I listen to.'

'Who do you like?'

'Foo Fighters. Their new album is amazing.'

'It's all right. Who else?'

'Aren't we going to do some driving?' She asked, smiling, and a little confused.

I slapped myself mentally. I was not picking her up in a bar.

'Yeah, sure. I was... um, how about you take us there today?'

'You feeling lazy?' She asked.

We got out of our doors. She stood up and she was in a fleece or something but the point was it covered her up and I looked at the sky as if I hadn't been checking her out and why shouldn't she have been wearing it, there was nothing but grey cloud out. I was disappointed. I was trying to get her to talk about music, like we'd be more compatible if she loved it as much as me.

'Always round the back Em.'

We got back into our respective seats and she turned to me with this lopsided face on and said: 'Did you just call me Em?'

'No.'

'The wind must have taken it.' She said rather dramatically.

'Where's that from?' I asked.

'It's a line from Gattaca.'

'Oh I love that film.'

'I watched it last night.'

'What did you think?'

'I thought Ethan Hawke was really sexy. The guy who played his brother too.'

'Yeah, he looks like Chris Morris.'

'Who's Chris Morris?'

My mouth froze in a startle and then I caught myself doing it, and tried to knock us back on track, tried to forget anything I happened to think that I felt and concentrate on doing my job.

But holy crap, how could she not know who Chris Morris was? She must have been too young.

'Are you ready to go?' I asked. 'Have you done your cockpit drill?'

'My cock drill?' She smirked.

I tried not to laugh.

'I think it's safe to go.' I said.

We pulled out and immediately a car flew down the road and passed us and the brakes went on. The seatbelt yanked at my ribs.

'Check your mirrors and go again.'

We came out very slowly and she straightened the wheel and went to second and very leisurely (or it would seem to someone outside) we arrived at the bottom of her road.

I was pleased because even with the near miss I had not had to lift my trainer onto the pedals once.

Twenty minutes later I was looking at her in my instructor mirrors and saw her mouthing the words: "mirror", "signal", "manoeuvre", and we slid into a gap in the traffic as a Range Rover went past. I detected a momentary panic when a pedestrian charged across the road metres in front of us, but we were travelling slowly, and again I didn't have to step on the brake pedal. She did though, and we lurched to a stop. And the car stalled.

'I'm sorry I couldn't help it.' Emma announced.

I was going to say it was okay but I didn't, and instead told her that again it wasn't good to stall the car.

'I know, I'm very wired right now.'

'Shall we take a breather? Have a smoke?'

'Oh, do you smoke?' She asked.

'No but you might, I don't know; it seems like we need to sit still for a minute. Start her up again and we'll park.'

Emma drove us to a large gap between a BMW and a Ford Ka. I winced as she came in too fast, barely missing the bumper at the back of the expensive-looking silver BMW. I knew the owner would be newly married, with one child, and probably inside his house, working from home, ready to jump on learners and their idiot instructors as they landed an Astra behind their car, like a turd had fallen out the BMW's exhaust pipe.

'God, it's so stressful.' Emma said, facing me. 'Sometimes I look onto the road and I think I won't be able to help going into someone.'

'I've never been in the car with a student and that happened to me. Just remember why you're doing it. Why are you doing it?'

'I want to be a paramedic, and you've got to have a driving licence to even apply.'

'Oh that's very... philanthropic of you.'

She laughed. 'Isn't it? I decided one day I was going to do something useful with my life and help people. I used to want to be a doctor, like a psychiatrist, and then I was really into ER and I wanted to be like them. Do you watch it?'

'Yeah I saw the first few series when they were on.'

'But you're much more a music person.' She said.

'Yeah I like TV but nowadays I watch DVDs. There's too much rubbish on TV to watch it without having planned what you were going to watch. Reality shows, adverts all the time. Great big mess.'

'Hah, you're such an old man.' She said, slapping my arm.

I looked down at where she touched me.

'Sorry.' She said.

'It's fine,' I said quickly, 'I er... do you really think I'm old?'

'No. You said you were twenty-nine. That's a nice age. You've outgrown all the stuff post-teenager types are into, like getting smashed every weekend and taking loads of drugs and you're more serious about life.'

'What makes you say that?'

'The way you constantly remind me which way to walk round the car, or go over the procedures and stuff.'

'That's my job.'

'Yeah but some driving instructors don't care and they tell you something and if you mess it up they don't say so and carry on and as long as you pass the test they're okay.'

'Was you previous instructor like that then?'

'No, I told you, you are my first.'

'You heard this from friends?'

'I goggled it.'

She watched me and I felt the redness in my cheeks for some reason. Even though I wasn't teaching her anything and this was costing her money I wanted it to stay that way, her asking me things and me being able to look directly at her instead of in the mirrors.

'Sorry,' she said, 'I'm bet you don't want to talk about this. We should probably get back to it.'

I nodded okay and was angry our conversation had ended. Something was stagnant; I didn't feel like we were developing a relationship.

'You don't want to hear about me.' She said.

I could tell she wanted to tell me though.

'I don't mind;' I said, 'talk to me while you drive.'

People were more honest when they couldn't concentrate on what they were saying. The nuances, innuendo and double-think were all filtered out.

'I want to get comfortable doing turning and emerging in these streets.'

'You've been doing enough of that. We have to keep moving forward. Life is a process of change and to stand still is to stagnate; we must move with life or we will die.'

'Wow, how zen.'

I nodded, smug, but she probably didn't see it.

'Take this right.' I said, and I flicked up her indicator.

'I was going to do it myself!'

'Yeah but I jumped on you with it so I'm helping out.'

Then I looked quickly at her but she didn't seem to notice what I had said, or if she did she was hiding it.

I checked her out in the offside mirror and I caught her mouth going into a smirk. That was a late reaction to what I'd said?

'What's that?' Emma asked.

A big white garbage truck was square in the middle of the road, wedged between the two cliffs of parked cars. Men in green-yellow jackets extended and withdrew from its constant opening doors like arms from a machine at a manufacturing plant.

'Roll up your window.' I said.

The truck laboured to get around the corner into another tiny road, small houses lining it and their bins out to be collected. As it vanished a roundabout appeared.

My eyes flicked to gauge Emma's reaction. The determined expression was out.

'Shall we attempt this?'

I was being too damn soft on her. Normally I would have thrown her in there and said get on with it. She didn't answer and I showed her the graphics as the rear view was empty and there was no traffic.

'You approach the spaced double lines and you switch down to second. Signal for the road you want after you pass the penultimate road. If you're going left or straight, stay on the left of the roundabout. If you're going right, hug the roundabout and signal right. Never go over the roundabout. If you're going immediately left signal left before you get to the roundabout. If you're going straight through, signal for the road you want after passing the one before it. Stop -- do not move -- if traffic comes from the right. They have priority. Understand?'

'No.'

'Have you been reading your highway code? Then let's do it, come on, go while the way is clear. Take it slow.'

She raised the clutch to the bite and the car wobbled as she struggled with her confidence. We were about thirty metres away.

'We're going straight on. Accelerate real hard and put it straight into third gear, then change down two car lengths before you hit the lines. Check your mirrors one car length and then drive on through.'

Emma pressed very hard on the accelerator and I was surprised at how hard. We shot forward and she thrust the gearstick into third, jerking the car as the clutch transition wasn't good and right before we hit the lines she broke quickly, changed down, checked her mirrors and the right and sped on through and into the new road. Her indicator was still on as we hadn't moved enough for the gyroscope to flick it off.

But at least she had done it. I felt a little surge of adrenaline go through me.

'Good, just not breakneck speed next time, okay?'

'Yes.' She sweated.

I took control of the Astra and did a turn in the new road. I had to lean right over her lap and take the wheel. I wondered whether I leaned too far, or if she watched my back as I stretched for it. I was only wearing a t-shirt. Her hands went up, suspended, as she was, by the invasion. Leaning across her I was conscious of them at my head height, near enough to touch my hair or ears. I listened for her breathing but she might have been hiding it from me, playing it cool.

'Again.' I said.

Emma approached it from the other direction. She went slower and this time the car bumped up as two wheels rolled over the bulge in the centre. The indicator was still on afterward.

'Don't go over the roundabout Emma. Also, although it's good manners to signal on a mini-roundabout like this, you may not always have time, so assume that the priority is yours and don't waste time checking your mirrors. By the time you've done the whole thing you'll be on the other side.'

She nodded and I saw a little dampness on her forehead in the mirrors. Her eyes were manic and darting like a little bird waiting for crumbs.

'You're doing well. We'll try going left this time. Make an effort to steer the car as left as possible. We should do that anyway, even if we're going straight, but I'll let you off.'

I flicked to see her reaction but there wasn't one. I was so stupid bandying back and forth in my head contemplating whether a nineteen year-old student fancied her instructor.

Emma rolled the steering wheel to the left and we passed the lines and she kept the signal on and it was going well and then a woman with a dog was in the road and Emma and I were yanked back into our seats as I did an emergency stop and the bonnet dipped and the wheels squeaked so much I didn't hear them for a second.

'God!' Emma yelled.

'It's all right! It's okay, relax, you're not hurt are you? Are you?'

'No!'

'Pedestrians,' I muttered, 'did you check your mirrors?'

'Yes! How could you say that?'

Why did I ask her that? It wasn't her responsibility in the end, it was mine.

The woman outside was waving up and down like she was guiding light aircraft to the ground. Emma covered her face.

I got out as the woman was mouthing off.

'You're trying to kill me! Why don't you look where you're going? What's your licence plate? Why do they let people like that out on the road?'

She went round to tap on the driver's side window. Her hair was a mess and she held one of those bags that looked like a cheap blue and white chessboard.

'Don't you yell at her,' I shouted, 'why don't you watch where you're going, are you deaf or just stupid?'

She screamed, moving her head back like I was a bad smell. 'How dare you talk to me like that? I'll have your job!'

'Go and shit in your bag.' I said. 'And take your mutt with you.'

It was a mangy looking sad thing indeed.

I got back in the car and Emma was breathing into a muzzle of her hands.

'Are you hyperventilating? Take you feet away from the pedals. Start the engine. Emma, start the engine.'

I depressed the clutch, put it in first and let it up and just with my clutch pedal, moved the car into and away from the old woman yelling at us with her scruffy bag. She retreated in the view from the mirror and I parked the car around a corner and in a driveway.

Presently Emma composed herself.

'Why do these things keep happening to me?'

'You're lucky I guess. It helps build character.'

'It's terrible! I feel awful!'

'It was a mistake Emma, nothing more. Let it go. It wasn't your fault. That old woman didn't look where she was crossing. That's how people die. There's an award for it, it's in the Guinness Book of Records or something.'

'I'm not cut out for this, it's a mistake, I shouldn't be doing it; it's a sign.'

'You believe in that?'

'Maybe I'm just not meant to be driving right now. It's the second time that's happened!'

'And it'll happen a whole lot more.'

'You said only real idiots are involved in roadside confrontations, and I've only been driving ten hours and I've seen one twice!'

'You've been driving eight hours and I've been teaching driving for a million, and in the last year I've seen it both times with you, so forget your average and take my average instead. You're probably not going to get another one for the rest of the year. That's a real small percentage.'

'It's an omen! I'm cursed!'

'You can look at it that way if you want. I choose to concentrate on the positive.'

'Which is?'

'That it's a really low number of times that it happens, and even when it does happen, the experience helps toughen you up. It's going to happen all the time, trust me.'

'You said it didn't!'

'Fine, don't believe what I say.'

'Why are you being like this?'

'Like what?'

'Like you're trying to make me feel better by joking! Like my dad!'

'Not my age again, Emma, I'm only twenty-nine!'

'Then tell me it's a nightmare and I'm not alone and it happens to everyone and just try and make me feel better not by lying or joking or doing anything stupid, just try to say that this is the way it is and don't sugarcoat it or give me any other rubbish!'