Growing Up Twice (12 page)

Anyway, I was at this party on a roof in Old Street. It was a summer evening and the sun had sunk to the level of the building, making it very bright and hot, I remember having to squint at everyone and shade my eyes to see who I was talking to. My friend who did not love me was nowhere to be seen and the combination of sun and neat double vodkas over ice had made me feel dizzy and nauseous.

Without warning a cool hand took mine and led me out of the sunlight and into what looked like a cool dark bicycle shed. On a roof. Pretty strange, but I was drunk so I wasn’t too bothered. My rescuer seemed a handsome chap with a confident smile. He handed me a glass of water and before I could work out that it was another vodka and tonic we were kissing. The oldest trick in the book, but my friend didn’t love me so I didn’t care and anyway this would show him how popular I was, and then he’d ask me out and one day we’d get married.

The rescuer was quite funny and not a bad dancer so I ended up going back to his place. I remember he lodged with this incredibly gorgeous male model who was lounging half-naked on his sofa looking like an Athena poster when we got in. He took one look at me and nearly fell off the sofa. At the time I thought he must have been stunned by my sunburnt, mascara-blurred beauty, but later on I realised that it probably had something to do with his tenant, bringing home an actual girl. For the night.

It was going quite well. I’d told him I didn’t have sex on the first night, which is something I have always said until I get to know the lie of the land, so to speak, and most of the time I stick to it. He acquiesced like they always do and you secretly know that the next eight hours or so will be spent trying to change your mind.

If you’re wondering,
yes
, this kind of thing has got me into trouble in the past, and
yes
, I have been lucky with the blokes I’ve pulled. None of them have turned out to be raving psychopaths – well, not murderous ones anyway – but if, for example, Ayla was about to embark on a voyage of discovery similar to the one that occupied most of my twenties I’d stop her right in her tracks and say, ‘Don’t be stupid, you’ll only end up hurting yourself.’ But no one can tell you that, can they? You have to find out for yourself.

Alarm bells rang when I saw that he had a poster of Celine Dion above his bed and a model aeroplane hanging from a bit of cotton over the computer desk, but boys are strange. We got on well, made out, giggled, made out, slept, and talked until around five in the morning when I realised he hadn’t tried to talk me into sex once. Feeling mildly offended and anxious and deciding that I liked him after all, I rolled on top of him and said in my best husky seductress voice (which luckily coincided with my dehydrated and sleep-deprived voice), ‘I want you to make love to me.’ The poor lad nearly choked to death. Then he told me he was a virgin and that was it.

I think when a man finds out you’re a virgin it’s a turn-on. Rosie and I have kind of reinstated our virginity a couple of times (purely in the interests of research) and I know this to be true. However, when you are a girl and you find out that the man in your bed is the less experienced one it’s a turn-
off
. At least for me it is. I can’t explain it. It’s the sudden fear that you won’t be up to it. You’ll fail in some way, it’ll be dreadful and he’s the man and he’s supposed to do all the hard stuff anyway. Sorry to all those who have struggled for the last hundred or so years for equality, but this is about more than equal pay and the vote. It’s sex. In your heart of hearts, what do you really want from sex with a new partner? To lie on your back, suck your tummy in and look pretty? Or to engage in potentially humiliating acrobatics that turn gravity into a Very Bad Thing. I know what I’d rather do.

‘You know what?’ I had said at about 5.05 a.m. ‘I’m late for church. I’d better go.’ And in fifteen minutes I was out of the building, realised I was somewhere in Forest Hill and spent most of the journey home wondering how I could persuade my friend who I was secretly in love with that I wasn’t such a slut after all. I never did manage it. He’s married now to a primary-school teacher from Stow-on-the-Wold.

And so right now here I am, five years later, halfway along the Edgware Road with another virgin, one years younger than me. One that has all the hopes and expectations that I usually have myself. One who has romantic ideas about
me
. A fragile, young, fairly innocent virgin boy entirely in my hands. I can’t do it. I might have to go on top.

As I turn to Michael to tell him that this just can’t happen, that I’m not the right one to remember in years to come, he slides across the seat and with purposeful resolution takes me in his arms and kisses me in a way so different from the kiss in the square that it makes my head spin, my heart pound and I literally swoon.

‘God, I want you,’ he says in a deep voice. Without hesitation, I draw him down to kiss me again.

The way I look at it, we have another ten minutes at least in this cab before we get back to the flat and I really have to decide what to do.

While I pay the cab driver Michael is kissing the back of my neck. As I turn the key in the lock he slides his hands under my top and runs his fingers down my spine. We get into the hallway and he pushes me up against the wall and pulls back my hair to bare my neck to his kisses. Blimey.

We pause briefly and hear the sound of breathing echoing against the walls. He chews his bottom lip and looks at me intently. Poised on the brink of something, I feel the need to take a moment. I gently push him away and slide from under him.

‘Hang on,’ I say, fanning my face with my hand. ‘I’ll pour us some wine and I’ve got to phone the girls and tell them I won’t be coming out. Take a seat.’ I point him towards the living-room and take a deep breath. As I go into the kitchen I feel the taut beginnings of a new adventure about to uncoil. This could be a really bad decision. I don’t care.

I call Selin’s mobile but she doesn’t pick up, so I leave a message telling her I have a headache, I’ve gone to bed and not to worry about me; I’ll see them in the morning. I look in the fridge for the half bottle of wine I had left over from yesterday. It isn’t there. I find it in the cupboard next to where the tea bags would be if they weren’t in the fridge. It’s warm, the tea bags are nicely chilled and it all seems to fit in rather well with this topsy-turvy evening.

Rosie and I are such dedicated spirit drinkers that we are bound to have at least one tray of ice-cubes on the go in the freezer, which has frosted up so much that there’s now only room for two ice-trays. Sure enough I find a little dolphin-shaped rubber ice-cube maker that is still half full.

I tip its contents into two plastic half-pint beakers left over from a party and slosh the wine over it. I taste it. It’s revolting. I down half of mine before I go into the next room and top it up again. I feel brim-full of nerves and anticipation.

Michael sits on the sofa with his long legs stretched out, his head flopping back and his eyes closed. He is smoking a spliff. I suppress the shock, resist the urge to tell him off and slide into the space created by the curve of his arm. This is going to be fine. Eighteen-year-olds today are much older than they used to be in my day.

I hand him the wine. He smiles in that lovely slow way he has and offers me the spliff. I feel the geeky embarrassment that I have always felt in refusing it, knowing that I’d probably just have an asthma attack, which really would ruin this most precarious of moments.

He puts it out on a saucer that’s been by the sofa for a couple of days and takes the wine from me. If he thinks it’s revolting he doesn’t say and he takes a couple of healthy sips. We hold each other’s gaze for a moment, and he runs the blunt tip of a long finger down the side of my cheek. Both of us put the wine on the floor.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispers as he winds his fingers in my hair. ‘You’re so incredibly beautiful.’ Usually when I hear those words I don’t quite believe them, but with Michael I do believe, and that is more than enough.

We’re kissing again and I find myself pushing his T-shirt over his head and running my fingers down his toned and hairless torso. His skin is soft and lightly golden, like all the colours of a summer morning. He sits back from me for a breath and his hands are trembling as he lifts my top over my raised arms. He stares at me and his scrutiny makes me close my eyes.

I feel his fingertips run down my neck and over the curves of the top of my breasts, then he is kissing me again. Arching my back, I reach behind and unhook my bra, keeping my eyes closed as I let it slide to the floor.

His hands are on my breasts and then his lips and I open my eyes to watch him and I feel like I haven’t felt in ages; adored, desirable and ready for this moment. I want to devour him whole.

Suddenly he shudders and makes a little noise in the base of his throat. With his head still buried in my neck he becomes completely still. I lie quietly for a moment, unsure of what to do, and wait, stroking my fingers through his hair.

‘Michael?’ I whisper. Oh God, I hope he hasn’t passed out. ‘Michael?’

He raises his head to look at me, and his face is a picture of horror and shame. He clambers up, flings himself to the other side of the sofa and buries his head in his hands.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. I just …’ He looks as if he might be sick. ‘I just …
came
,’ he mumbles. ‘Fuck, how embarrassing.’

He fancies me
too
much, Christ what relief.

Half naked and feeling suddenly bereft, I try to take in the implications of what has happened. He came in his pants. I try not to laugh, but as he is too embarrassed to look at me I allow myself an indulgent smile. It’s hard not to feel smug about how much I turned him on. Poor bloke, remember he hasn’t quite had his eighteenth birthday yet. Actually, let’s forget that. I try not to be pissed off that I didn’t come. I try to think of something to say to make him feel better.

Reaching for the floor, I pick up the first bit of clothing I come across and tug his T-shirt on over my head. Sensibly covered I lean over to him, stroke the hair back from his face and kiss his forehead. He backs away from my touch.

‘Michael, please don’t worry. Things like this happen sometimes. It’s all right,’ I say, even though I can’t think of a time when it actually has happened to me or a time that I have even heard of it happening. I mean, it’s happened too fast during sex for sure, but not
before
it.

‘But it’s not all right, is it. I only had this one chance to prove to you how good we could be together and I blew it. Christ, like some stupid fucking kid.’

Well, I think, in a lot of ways, you are a stupid fucking kid, but a lovely one who I really like.

‘You haven’t blown it!’ I whisper on impulse, pulling down all the sex-only barriers I constructed in one fell swoop. ‘I bet if we have a bit more wine and go to my room, listen to some music, Barry White maybe, we can relax and pick up where we left off.’ I love Barry White so much, but I will never forgive myself for using his name in the context of a conversation about sex.
Never
.

‘Really?’ I am touched to see tears in those lovely brown eyes and I suddenly feel an unexpected rush of tenderness towards him. That kind of display of emotion would normally send me running for the hills but everything about Michael is so new and untouched. The last thing I want to do is break him.

‘Really,’ I say, and I am holding him in my arms when I hear the street door downstairs bang shut.

‘Oh no,’ I whisper, and I grip his arm perhaps a little more tightly than can be comfortable. He winces and disengages himself.

‘What’s the problem?’ I can see he’s worried that I’ve changed my mind, but I don’t have time to reassure him now.

‘It’s Rosie and Selin. They’re back!’ Panic escalates my voice until it is a high-pitched squeal. I leap off the sofa and drag Michael into the hallway. ‘Bloody hell! Right, right, go into my room. It’s the second on the left, go in there and be quiet and don’t make a sound.’ I’m piling all his stuff into his arms and shoving him in the right direction.

‘But why?’

Oh yeah, I forgot to fill him in on the no-one-must-ever-know part of our relationship.

‘Because I told them I had a headache!’ I lie, not wanting to compound his misery.

‘But …?’ He backs down the hallway with the hint of a petulant pout forming on his mouth.

‘Just go
now
,’ I whisper as forcibly as I am able. As I hear him shut the bedroom door I leap back on to the sofa, the flat door opens, I chuck my glittery halter-neck top and bra behind the sofa, and shove the spliff end under it. I pick up his glass of wine, drain it, roll it under the table and flop back on the sofa. My head spins and my stomach protests, but the upside is that I actually do feel ill and can keep the acting to a minimum.

‘Hiya!’ they call as they come in. Rosie flops next to me on the sofa and Selin kicks her legs over the arm of our only easy chair.

‘You’re back early,’ I say, looking at the video clock. It’s not even nine.

‘Yeah well, we were in this bar and the smell of smoke started to make me feel
sick
,’ Rosie says incredulously. ‘Imagine that! I didn’t even
want
a fag. Mother Nature is a miraculous thing. Only thing is, I would still kill for a lovely chilled glass of Sancerre.’

She eyes the last two inches of wine in my plastic glass and I say, ‘Try that and you’d definitely be put off.’

Selin hangs her coat neatly over the back of a chair and sits next to me on the sofa, taking her shoes off before tucking her feet under her legs. She picks up the story of their evening.

‘Yeah, and you were late so I checked my messages and you said you didn’t feel well. How are you now?’

I smile weakly and shrug in an ‘oh, OK’ kind of way.

‘Then “Last in Music” didn’t seem like an inviting prospect, not quite the classic of twentieth-century music you always purport it to be,’ Rosie adds. ‘And besides I seem to be knackered all the time at the moment. I think I overestimated myself.’ She nods to herself and pats her belly reflectively.