Lizzy Harrison Loses Control (15 page)

Dan shifts his chair back to look me full in the face, and I stare back, challengingly. Laurent and Lulu shift uncomfortably in their seats, and I see Laurent reach for her hand under the table.

‘I don’t think you’re boring, Lizzy,’ says Dan at last, speaking slowly as if he is carefully choosing each word. ‘I think . . . I think you’re great. I think you’re too good to be the latest notch on Randy Jones’s bedpost, and I think he’s going to end up treating you badly. That’s what I think.’

I know there’s a kernel of truth in what Dan is saying, and I know that, like my brother, he is only saying it because he cares. But I am filled with an amaretto-fuelled fury.

‘Well
I
think you should mind your own business, Dan Miller, because I am old enough, and smart enough and – and –
sensible
enough to make up my own mind about my relationships without your advice.’

I cross my arms across my chest. I know it’s childish, but I don’t care.

‘That’s not what I—’ Dan starts. And then suddenly, as if I had willed it from above, the doorbell rings.

Dan turns towards it, frowning. ‘Who the fuck is ringing our doorbell at half past midnight?’

‘That will be my taxi,’ I say, stumbling to my feet and grappling for my handbag under the table. ‘I booked it earlier.’

‘Oh, did you?’ says Dan with a harsh laugh. ‘Wow, booking a taxi in advance is a pretty out-of-control thing to do. I can see I have totally misjudged your crazy, freewheeling ways. Yeah, I definitely owe you an apology for suggesting you were organized in any way.’

‘Jesus, what is your problem, Dan?’ I snap, grabbing my handbag to my chest like a shield. Ignoring him, although I can feel his eyes boring into my skull, I turn to the others with exaggerated politeness. ‘Thanks, Lulu, for a great night. Laurent, it was good to meet you properly at last. I hope I’ll see you again soon.’

‘At Lulu’s birthday, if not sooner,’ says Laurent, making a half-hearted attempt at standing up to kiss my cheek. Lulu pushes him back down in his chair with a hand on his chest and restrains Dan, who is about to stand up, with no more than a glare in his direction. She comes out into the corridor with me as we hear the minicab driver sound his horn.

‘Lizzy, I’m sorry – I don’t know what’s got into Dan. He’ll feel dreadful about all of this in the morning.’ She reaches over to hug me and then pulls back to hold me by the tops of my arms. ‘Just ignore him and have a laugh with Randy. It’s about time you had a bit of fun, and who knows where it might end up? It’s all about the journey, Harrison.’

‘Thanks for that, Mystic Miller. Your Frenchman’s ways must be catching,’ I say, kissing her cheek as I open the front door. ‘Quite frankly, the only journey I’m interested in right now is the one that’s going to deposit me in my bed.’

‘In Randy’s bed, you mean,’ Lulu shouts, laughing as I race down the path.

If only she knew.

The cab journey home is one of those where, instead of sobering up, you realize you’re drunker than you thought. So I’m feeling a bit worse for wear as I let myself into Randy’s house at half past one and creep upstairs with the elaborate care of the inebriate, trying to make as little noise as possible. I tiptoe past Randy’s room and am about to go into mine when I hear his voice calling my name.

‘Lizzy? Is that you? Hey, come in here.’

There’s a blueish sort of light in Randy’s room as I push the door open; he’s watching television in the dark, alone. He’s unshaven and bare-chested, leaning back against the pillows, and he pats the bed, inviting me to sit down.

‘Hi, Randy – did you have a good night?’ I say, perching on the edge of the bed a little unsteadily.

‘Yeah, just hung out here, really. On my best behaviour, of course. Fairly dull. How were your friends?’

‘They were fine,’ I say flatly. ‘it was all just fine.’ I think of Dan’s angry face as I left the house and, to my horror, my eyes suddenly fill with tears. Luckily the room is dark enough for Randy not to notice, and I quickly wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

‘Fine?’ says Randy, raising his eyebrows. ‘That doesn’t sound like a night I should be sorry I missed, my fake girlfriend.’

‘Oh, you know,’ I say, keeping my head low so he can’t see my watery eyes. ‘I was just catching up with old friends – nothing special.’

‘Old friends, eh? Well, why don’t you come and lie here next to your new friend for a little bit?’ says Randy, patting a space on the quilt next to him.

‘’Kay,’ I say, muffling a hiccup. The quilt is satin; cool and slippery. It takes me a few attempts to settle myself alongside him.

‘Are you a little bit pissed there, my fake girlfriend?’ asks Randy, turning to me with gentle amusement.

‘Maybe a bit. Sorry. Just mostly really, really tired,’ I sigh, leaning back. And I am tired. I’m exhausted.

‘Wait,’ says Randy, reaching over to place a pillow behind my head. I’m surprised to notice that his usual odour of fags and unwashed denim has been replaced with the sharp citrus scent of soap and shampoo.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, chuckling. ‘I thought you were meant to be keeping me on the straight and narrow, not being a dirty stop-out drunken influence, Lizzy Harrison.’

‘Shurrup,’ I murmur from my cocoon within the pillows. My hair has fallen into my face, but it feels like too much effort to move it. I can feel the ends of my fringe tickling my nose as I breathe in and out. ‘Not a bad influence.
Sensible
influence, apparently. Sensible, straight Lizzy Harrison, that’s me.’

‘You’re not looking especially sensible right now,’ laughs Randy, lying down next to me and picking up the remote control. He nudges my leg with his own, teasing. ‘See, I knew I’d get you into my bed in the end.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I yawn, feeling my eyelids begin to droop. ‘I can’t keep my hands off you, Randy. You’re irresistible.’

‘I know,’ he says, and even though I can’t find the energy to turn my head in his direction, I can hear the smile in his voice.

I listen to the steady rise and fall of his breath as we lie there, still, together. I’d forgotten how quietly comforting it is to feel another body so close by. To feel somehow watched over. Protected. Even if Randy, flicking between channels, is far more interested in the television than he is in me.

Randy turns the volume up a notch. I can hear gunfire and shouting.

‘What’re you watching?’ I ask sleepily.

‘
Magnificent Seven
,’ says Randy. ‘You know, Yul Brynner, cowboys and all that.’

‘Yeah, Yul Brynner,’ I say. ‘
M’nificent Seven
. Nice.’

I close my eyes. Just for a moment. I think, I’ll just rest my eyes for a moment and then I’ll go to my own room.

I wake to feel a slow, gentle, lovely stroking of my hair that makes me stretch myself out like a cat, eyes still closed. How long have I been asleep? I feel the hand move from my hair down to my face and begin to delicately trace the line of my eyebrows, the plane of my cheekbones, the curve of my jawline. Am I dreaming this? A finger draws itself along my nose and then down to my lips, where it stops. I open my eyes. Randy’s face is very close to mine. The television is off. It is still dark outside and very quiet. He slowly takes his finger away from my lips and then he kisses me softly.

I think,
This isn’t part of the deal
. I think,
I don’t even fancy you
. I think,
When he speaks, I’ll tell him to stop
.

But there’s something hypnotic in his steady gaze, and he doesn’t say a word. His hand moves away from my face and I feel his fingers expertly open the top buttons of my blouse to expose the top of my bra. He bends his head to drop fluttery kisses along my collarbone and into the hollow at the base of my neck. His fingers run down my front and, one by one, the rest of the buttons are undone. He opens the shirt wide and drops a kiss first on my right breast, then on the left. Then he inches the shirt down my arms, looking up at me with eyebrows raised as if to say, ‘I’ll stop any time you say so.’ But I don’t. His fingers teasingly trace the twists and turns of the lace pattern on my bra, and I feel my back arch impatiently to push my breasts further into his hands. Now he moves a hand lower still and tugs on the waistband of my jeans to pull me closer towards him. He kisses me harder and more urgently, gently tugging at my lower lip with his teeth, and he pulls me on top of him, pushing my hips down on to him with his hands so I can feel him hard against me.

I think,
This is where I should stop him
, but instead I find that I’m shamelessly wriggling my hips to help him slide my jeans all the way off. I kick them to the floor. He unhooks my bra and pushes me back on to the bed, straddling me so I can’t move. I’m lying on Randy Jones’s bed in just my knickers, and his right hand is drawing tiny circles on my stomach, tiny circles that are moving slowly, carefully downwards. His hand slips underneath my knickers and I arch towards him again with a little gasp. He grins as he begins to pull the lacy fabric down my thighs.

I think,
A hundred girls have been here before me
. I think,
Oh God, I’m such a cliché
. I think,
I don’t care
.

I’m tired of being sensible.

It feels amazing.

Back at work on Monday, I have the oddest feeling that I’ve gone back to being sixteen and have lost my virginity all over again. Not that sleeping with Randy, great though it was, was some kind of divine revelation, as it always seems to be when someone loses their virginity in the movies, with a celestial choir in the background and simultaneous orgasms. (Nor were we in the back of a clapped-out Ford Fiesta in a pub car park, which is how it happened for me first time round.) It’s more that I spend the whole day thinking that everyone must be able to
tell
. When Camilla races into the office with her phone clamped between ear and shoulder, I think surely she will notice something is different, but she just dumps Cassius’s lunchbox on my desk with an apologetic grimace and mouths ‘sorry’. I have lunch with account executive Lucy and wait in vain for the moment that she mentions Randy, but instead we spend the whole hour looking at bathroom catalogues and debating the merits of different styles of bath taps for her new flat.

I’ve always known that other people pay far less attention to one’s life than one thinks, but this shift in my relationship with Randy feels actually tangible to me, and I can’t understand how it isn’t visible to anyone else. Surely there’s a huge flashing sign above my head or something? I’m not so naive as to think that sleeping with Randy turns us from fake boyfriend and girlfriend into the real thing – we’re talking about the Shagger of the Millennium – but Saturday night has changed something between us, even if I’m not sure what. Of course we still made sure we were seen out in public on Sunday – looking in jewellers’ windows while holding hands, sharing coffees at pavement cafés, buying a copy of the
Big Issue
with a ten-pound note and refusing the change – but Randy’s constant and tactile attentiveness didn’t stop once we were on our own. Back at his house, he was all thoughtfulness and charm, and even as I left this morning he didn’t grab me for his usual ostentatious doorstep snog for the benefit of the photographers on the pavement. Instead he gave me a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose as we stood in the corridor.

‘You’ll come back here tonight?’ he asked, even though it’s not one of the nights I usually spend at his house.

‘Well, I was going to go home and do a few housey things this evening,’ I said in surprise. ‘Laundry and stuff – you know.’

‘You’d really rather do your laundry than come back here to see me?’ he said with a filthy smile on his face that suggested he was offering something a little more fun than sorting my smalls into darks and lights.

‘I’m just running a bit low on, er, you know, underwear and stuff,’ I said. After all, it’s one thing to drop your knickers on someone’s bedroom floor in gay abandon, but quite another when you have no knickers left to drop. And I’m not really the sort of girl who’s ever going to go commando, especially now my every move is photographed.

‘Don’t you worry your head about that, Lizzy Harrison. I’m happy to sort you out with some underwear if that’s what it takes to get you back here tonight.’ Randy said, kissing me again, and I allowed myself a small frisson of shamefully mercenary excitement. He’s not the kind of man to do things by halves. What exciting scanties from Agent Provocateur will await my return?

Camilla types away furiously in her office all afternoon and barely stops for breath, except to race past barefoot at one point, muttering ‘loo’. Being taken off Randy’s PR has left me feeling strangely separated from my boss. Normally I know exactly where she’s meant to be and when, but lately she’s so absorbed in setting up a charity gig for Randy – I hear more about it from him than from her – that I hardly know where she is from one minute to the next. She disappears to lunches that aren’t in my diary. She has meetings for which I don’t need to write up her scrawled notes. She has taken off the automatic cc which sends all her emails directly to my inbox. Not to mention that she is suddenly free of her usual array of sick and baby food stains; my emergency wet wipes haven’t been needed for weeks. Her hair is not only freshly highlighted but blow-dried in a manner that suggests the regular hand of a professional. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she was having an affair.