It happens fast. The other hand wraps around my waist and I am lifted off the ground and placed on the bed. He parts my legs and, gathering the liquids he finds, works my clit, round and round. My hips rise off the bed, my head presses into the mattress, my spine arches.
‘Will you totally surrender to me?’
‘Yes, yes.’
He smiles. An odd smile. Then he covers my mouth with his hand. Over his hand my eyes open in terror and my body prepares to fight back, but there is nothing to fear, but fear.
‘Let’s not wake the neighbors,’ he says, jams his thumb into me and carries on playing with my clit. But in a special way, as if he is following a set program. Twice my body buckles and tries to find release but at that precise moment he suddenly stops. The frustration builds.
My whimpers are muffled.
Again he looks at the distress in my half-covered face and smiles and carries on playing with my sex even as hot liquid leaks out of it and soaks the sheet underneath. Against my thigh I feel the hard length of him. I begin to twist from side to side, my hands curled into useless fists. My eyes beg him to enter me, finish the job.
Let me have my release.
He shakes his head, bends his head and licks my nipple.
‘Let me come,’ I sob deliriously under his hand. My whole body is afire.
‘Wait,’ he says.
And works me again, and again—start stop, start stop, God knows how long—until my body is shuddering violently. The spasms coming from deep inside me are so violent that I am shocked and fearful of them. I look at him with frightened eyes. What is he doing to my body?
‘Wait,’ he whispers. ‘This is the real sexual energy that human beings have. This is the thing that ancients use for sex magick. Nothing to fear. It is coming from the base of your spine.’
And indeed the spasms are so powerful that my body is being rocked and lifted cleanly off the bed. And then suddenly it is no longer possible for him to hold me back. I come screaming uncontrollably, awfully, under his hand. The pleasure is indescribable. The release is so great I take great gulps of air. Tears are streaming down my face. My sex is throbbing and what feels like waves or vibrations are expanding out of it. I don’t feel tired and wasted, but exhilarated. As if I have taken a really good ecstasy tablet. I look at him through my tears, my shock.
‘Wow!’
He smiles. ‘That is what Yehonala did.’
‘What about you?’ I ask, and even my voice sounds different.
‘Without selflessness even the best technique is useless.’
He leans forward and kisses the hairy pelt between my legs and withdraws his thumb out of me. And I, I immediately crave it back inside me.
‘Are you staying the night?’
God, I actually want to stay. To carry on. This kind of pleasure is explosive, it is addictive. ‘I have to go home. Got work in the morning.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ he says evenly, and, moving off me, begins to dress.
The way he switches off immediately makes me feel insecure. I quickly pick up the robe on the floor and wrap it around myself. ‘I’ll just go change in the other room.’
‘OK. Meet me in the living room.’
I look at myself in the mirror and think of Jack and feel guilty. While I was in Vann’s bed I had never spared a single thought for him. I dress quickly. When I get back to the living room Vann is already waiting for me.
In the lift I sneak a look at him and find him leaning against the chrome railing watching me. He raises his eyebrows. I think of his thumb jammed like a plug inside me and flush. Quickly I avert my eyes to the lighted numbers. I hate lifts. The doors open and I dash out.
‘This way,’ he says outside and points to a brand new Jaguar CX Four-by-Four. He opens my door and waits courteously as I climb in.
‘Blake’s?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s nice. He’s really good to his friends, isn’t he?’
‘Blake doesn’t do friends. There is no one he can trust.’
‘But he trusts you.’
‘Only because we grew up together. Are you hungry?’
I’m starving. ‘Nope.’
‘Then I hope you won’t mind if I drop by and get a takeaway Chicken Shwarma.’
‘Not at all.’
Except for giving him my address, we don’t speak much until we get to Beauchamp Place. He parks and turns towards me. ‘You sure you don’t want anything?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘OK, won’t be a minute.’
I watch him cross the road, his stride long and prowling, and go into a restaurant called Maroush. In less than five minutes he is making his way back to me, two cylindrical white packages in his hand. He gets into the car and opens one package. Is he planning to eat it here in the car, in front of me?
He is. He untwists the top of white greaseproof paper and, tearing it off, reveals the pitta bread filled and rolled with chicken kebab inside. The smell. Oh sweet Jesus. The smell of garlic sauce when you have missed dinner and had a bucket load of sex. He waves it in front of my nose. I know if I ignore the hunger pangs they will go away in a while, but not with the scent of food so close by.
‘Just taste it.’
I look at him with an unfriendly expression.
‘Go on… It’s the best in London,’ he cajoles.
One taste. I swallow my saliva, take the package from him and take a small bite. Goodness, gracious me. It is so good I have to stop my eyes from rolling to the back of my head. I try to hand the food back and find him waving it away, and opening the other instead.
‘I got you one just in case you changed your mind.’
No further invites are necessary. I bite into the kebab, chew and swallow. And carry on doing so until there is nothing but soggy paper. I gaze at it almost with surprise.
‘You were hungry, weren’t you?’
Oh shit. I’ve just eaten a whole kebab at one o’clock in the morning. It’s going to become pure fat in my body.
He starts up the engine. There is no traffic on the roads and soon we are outside my block of flats.
‘I’ll walk you to your door.’
‘There’s no need. See that door there?’ I say, pointing to my door on the third floor. ‘That’s my home.’
We exchange numbers.
‘Wednesday at seven. Don’t eat before you come over and bring some clothes and the stuff you need in the morning. Plenty of empty cupboards for you to choose from.’
‘OK,’ I say and jump out of the car.