Nikki Gemmell’s Threesome: The Bride Stripped Bare, With the Body, I Take You (47 page)

It is written. What he loves:

‘It’s that sense of carnality, shall we say. Even just a hint of it drives me wild. I saw it in you right from the start, from the moment my groceries were dropped. Did everything to resist.’

You poke out your tongue. ‘Well I won, didn’t I?’

‘Maybe …’

It is written. What you are learning:

‘You’re like a baby Jane Birkin,’ he laughs when you pounce on him now, in greedy greeting, wrapping your legs around his
waist and trying to scrabble his clothes off; not a second of this precious time to waste – bugger the book! ‘There’s a gamine steel to you, isn’t there?’

‘Who are you talking about?’

He mock-groans, shakes his head.

‘So much to learn, young miss.’

‘Yep. Come on then, let’s begin.’ You rip two buttons off his shirt with sheer, brute, exuberant strength. ‘The lesson for today is …’

But at night, late, the worry comes sneaking in, elbowing aside any sleep. Who was this old girlfriend who crushed him so cruelly, where is she, is she hovering, lingering,
how far did it go
? Why is he trying to do all this, with you – pushing boundaries, promising extremities until God knows what. What’s his motive? Is it dark? Are you distraction? Some kind of experiment? Is she still there, somewhere; is he using you to work out what’s best; how far he can take it? There’s a triangle here, a mysterious absence, you just don’t know enough. He won’t tell you a lot yet is asking too much now for memories, desires, thoughts, truths, with the greed of a surgeon extracting organs for research.

‘But what
happened
?’

A sigh. Always a sigh, when he wants your probing to stop. You’re not letting up.

‘Tell me, or I’m never coming back. She’s like this great weight on me. And it’s because I don’t know – so can only
guess. I’m going crazy with it. Julian seemed to think it was pretty huge. What did he say … that it’s taken you
years
to get over it.’

An abrupt sigh. ‘She’s called Cecilia. I don’t like talking about it.’

‘Why?’

‘For some people, fear ends up dictating all their choices in life.’

‘Fear of
what
?’

‘Oh, everything. Not pleasing, being judged, showing your true self et cetera.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, if you must know, there’s a school of thought that the whole point of sex is to destroy a person’s sense of self-containment. To bring them closer to living, to life, if you like. In all its magic – and all its messiness.’

He unbuttons your overalls. Swiftly, as if he barely knows what he is doing. He folds down the flap. Undoes the shirt. His fingers hover over your bare breasts and your nipples slowly harden under his gaze but he does not touch, not touch, as if he can’t, anymore, can’t bear it, can’t do it anymore; this has to stop.

You clamp his hands to you, hold them firm, you do not let up.

‘She never had the courage to be known,’ he whispers, ‘truly, deeply. She never spoke her mind.’ He looks up at you. ‘Which meant I never knew what she was really thinking. And I
need
to know that.’

You step back. Why does he need to, so much? His hand brushes against the Victorian volume in your pocket, the secret rawness of all your thinking that no one will ever know; you couldn’t bear it. He comes right up close, grips your upper arms and whispers that everyone is at their most vulnerable when it comes to sex; that it’s the closest we ever get to revealing our true selves in all our banality and our beauty, our desperation and our foolishness, and it’s beautiful, so beautiful – the complexity of it – the glittering, vulnerable, fascinating, greedy, ugly, intriguing truth.

‘A lot of us can’t face the thought of being seen as we really are, and we never get closer to the core of our deepest selves than with sex. I failed Cecilia. Failed
with
her. Never made her comfortable enough.’

‘For what?’

‘For opening up.’

He slips out your notebook and you exclaim, try to grab it back but he’s got it, high, he swivels away and turns to the back page, his allotted space that only he ever goes to. Fumbles in his pocket for a pen, scribbles something. You snap up the buckles of your overalls. Want this to stop now. There’s some kind of coldness operating here; some sense of excavation, gutting.

‘I love you,’ you say. He doesn’t respond. Glances up with what, warmth, pity? You feel stripped.

‘I don’t feel like doing this anymore. Today,’ you say.

He looks at you. Surprise. A new tone, for the first time in all this. He nods, OK, and without a word he hands your notebook back.

It is only outside, before you get on your bike, that you open the page he has written on.

It doesn’t help. You snap the book shut.

Harangued by sleeplessness.

Learning from your stepmother. The power in withdrawal and in silence. You do not go back, the next day or the next, leaving no explanation; let him sweat.

Feverishly you are writing in your little book, gathering all your thoughts; every page but his filling up.

What you are learning about what men want. Your grand and meticulous experiment. You, too, can be the observer in all this.

You slam down your pen, it’s what he wants, of course: to chisel out your innermost thoughts. Jackhammering away at all the defences you put up, that anyone puts up. What is he writing himself? You wonder. Turn back to your book with a furious pen.

He will not let you go until he knows, instinctively you sense this. You are gaining knowledge, strength.

He will no longer write in your book. You will not give him the chance.

The potency in withdrawal, in silence. The magnificent coldness of the punishment.

But then you soften, can’t do this; the cruelty of no explanation. Can’t live with the sourness of your stepmother, it’s not in your heart.

He has laid a claim over you. Over land, property, possessions, a body – the violence is the same; there is nothing economical or skimped about your obsession – it is fulsome, extravagant, wasteful.
Complete
.

On the outside Tol’s everything your father couldn’t bear, couldn’t understand. But you have found who you should be with him. It feels like he is more you than you.

Your father will never understand.

You write jagged in your notebook.

Like a butterfly you are pinned, by desire.

So. Back. Of course. You will always go back.

His smile on the verandah, as he waits, as you walk up the path, says he knows exactly where you’ve been and why you’ve done it.

‘Your lesson today – a treat,’ is all he says, leading you inside by the hand; just squeezing it tight, in thanks. ‘If you’re up for it.’

You squeeze your readiness back.

Leading you to a razor placed carefully on a folded linen napkin. Pleasingly weighty, silver. Waiting in readiness, by the chaise longue.

‘Take off your clothes,’ he breathes, ‘and lie down. Now, think of O. Being readied …’

He retreats to the kitchen and returns with a bowl of soapy water.

‘Trust me,’ he whispers, tenderly parting your legs. ‘This is not going to hurt. But tell me if you want to stop …’

You wince at the first stroke, the shock of the cold. He is removing the hair in long, practised strokes, gently guiding the instrument in all the dips and crevices.

Wetter, and wetter, and wetter, as he works.

‘Women have been doing this for centuries,’ he explains softly. ‘They used tweezers in Roman times. South Sea Islanders did it and then tattooed the lovely, brave flesh. It’s a tradition in Arabic cultures. It increases sensation, apparently. Just you wait.’

You can’t. You come.

Feeling so raw, open, exposed. Can barely contain your coming, the spasms tripping over themselves. His head dips down, he is laughing in delight, he is lapping you up in eagerness. When you come again you almost break his neck – he is scissored between your legs, trapped, drenched, you have varnished his face. He laughs and you laugh and now you know why men perceive women in terms of the sea, water, fluids, and you have no idea what is next, how this ends, does it ever end? He is like dry ice on the tongue, you flinch in shock but you can’t help tasting again and again, coming back for more, always more, in blind and furious want.

‘It’s so weird,’ he murmurs in the solid quiet of afterwards, ‘that what began as a trend purely for male fantasy – to maximise exposure, if you like, as in porn – has become this amazing symbol of sexual empowerment for women. Do you feel empowered? Does it really work like that?’

‘Yes,’ you whisper, ‘yes.’ Opening your raw lips for him with the V of your fingers, spreading yourself wide, in wonder, splitting yourself apart. ‘Yes, yes. Come in. Now.
Please
.’

He is a drug. You are enslaved.

Back and back you will go, always back. You can’t not.