In at the Deep End

by Kate Davies

  Sam leaned forward to open the packet of crisps, and offered me the bag. She put her arm around me, and I smiled at her. The silence between us seemed very loud, suddenly.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘You said you had a solo show soon?’

  ‘It’s at a gallery in Clapton, in this really raw-looking space—’ and then she paused with a crisp on the way to her mouth.

  She was staring at my chest.

  ‘Sorry to be crude,’ she said, eyes flicking up to meet mine for a moment, then back down. ‘But your tits look fantastic in that top.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, crunching a crisp in slow motion, very aware of the shape of my mouth.

  Sam took a swig of her pint, her eyes still on my chest. She put her glass down, leaned towards me and whispered, ‘I really want to fuck you. Now.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Right.’

  ‘Like, right now,’ she said, pushing back her chair. ‘Let me take you back to my lair. Let’s get an Uber.’

  ‘We can just get the Overground—’

  ‘No,’ Sam said. ‘We’re getting an Uber.’

  Sam lit a cigarette while we were waiting, smoking it quickly, checking her app for the car’s progress. When it arrived, she threw her butt in the gutter and opened the door for me.

  ‘So chivalrous,’ I said, sliding in.

  ‘Always,’ she said.

  She stared out of the window as Hackney streaked past us, stroking my hand. I sneaked my phone onto my knee and texted Alice and Cat: Going back to Sam’s. Will report back on dungeon ASAP.

  Sam’s lair turned out to be a studio flat off Chatsworth Road with stripped wooden floors and original features.

  ‘How can you afford the rent?’ I asked. I didn’t know anyone else who lived alone.

  ‘It’s my dad’s flat, so mates’ rates.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, mentally adjusting my image of her. ‘Are your parents divorced, then?’

  ‘No. My mum died when I was younger.’ She came over to take my coat from me. ‘Want a drink?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About your mum.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. It’s a bit of a downer. I don’t really like talking about it.’ She took my hand and pulled me away from the door, towards the bed.

  I looked around the flat. There didn’t seem to be a dungeon; to be fair, it would be hard to fit one in a studio flat. The bed took up most of the room; it was made of dark wood, like the rest of the furniture, and didn’t look like the sort of thing she’d have chosen herself – had she inherited it? There was no clutter, nothing on any of the surfaces – everything seemed to have a place. My mother would have approved of her alphabetized spice rack. It was all a bit grown-up for an artist living in Hackney, and a bit anonymous – there was nothing that gave away anything about Sam. Except, of course, the paintings.

  They were of naked women, and they were everywhere, some in frames, some not, luminous in pink and green and yellow and orange, so many of them that you could barely see the walls. Women kneeling, women standing, women kissing, women with their legs spread apart. The paintings were very naturalistic, apart from the garish colours, and very detailed – you could see every dot on every areola, every curling pubic hair. Each of the women stared out of the painting directly out at me, as though daring me to keep looking. I felt like a voyeur.

  Weirdly, I recognized one of the women, though I wasn’t sure where I’d seen her before. ‘Is she famous?’ I said, pointing at a nude of a woman with afro hair, painted in shades of brightest purple and orange and red.

  ‘No,’ Sam said, taking my coat from me. ‘That’s Addia. She works at Sh!.’

  That’s why I recognized her. She was the leather harness-loving sales assistant from the sex shop. ‘It’s almost like a photograph,’ I said. Now I knew Addia had a tattoo of a snake on her torso.

  ‘She thinks it’s unflattering,’ Sam said.

  ‘It’s not,’ I said. It was sexy, actually. ‘Do you paint all your friends?’ I asked, but she was kissing me on the neck now and I wanted her so much I thought I might scream.

  She undressed me carefully, with authority, but when I tried to undress her she stopped me, and pushed me gently onto the bed. Still standing, she pulled off her jeans and boxers – she wore boxers – but she kept her T-shirt on.

  I had wondered what she’d look like naked; whether she’d have let her body hair grow, how thin she’d be compared to me, how big her breasts would be. I could see now that she didn’t shave – not her legs, anyway, or her armpits. I found the soft, curling hairs oddly erotic. I couldn’t see her stomach or her breasts yet, though. I tried to touch them, and again she pushed my hands away. It was strange, having her half-dressed when I was naked, and all the women on the walls were naked too.

  She knelt on the bed and leaned across to open her wooden sex cupboard – because yes, she did have a sizeable sex cupboard, filled with shelves of mysterious latex objects. The cupboard was only open for a second, but I caught a glimpse of a box that was worryingly labelled enema kit. The only thing she took out of the cupboard, though, was a bottle of lube. And she used that lube to do the most wonderful things.

  I came five whole times. I’d never come five times before. Not even on a really boring evening in with my Rampant Rabbit.

  As I was about to come for the fifth time, I became horribly aware of a very familiar sensation.

  ‘I’m going to piss on you.’

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘I don’t want to!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Relax.’

  And then it was too late, and I was a veritable water fountain, spurting all over her T-shirt, all over her face.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, but she wouldn’t stop fucking me.

  ‘You’re not pissing on me,’ she said. ‘You’re ejaculating.’

  And the more she pushed on a certain spot, the more I came, or rather it came – literally gushing out of me, as if I had endless resources of this stuff inside me. I suppose I did. Twenty-six years’ worth of it.

  As we lay there afterwards, I realized how wet the bed sheets were, and how bad they smelled.

  ‘I am really, really sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Are you kidding me? This is what it’s all about. This is the real deal right here. This means you had a good time. Don’t apologize.’

  ‘But it’s gross—’

  ‘I said don’t apologize.’

  I asked Sam if I could fuck her, too.

  She paused, as though weighing up whether to let me, which made me say, ‘Please?’

  ‘You’re begging me now?’ She laughed. ‘You’re begging to fuck me?’

  ‘Shut up,’ I said, laughing too. ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

  ‘Too late,’ she said. ‘I’m already flattered. Let me show you what I like to do.’ She leaned over to the sex cupboard again and pulled out a bottle of lube and a box of black latex gloves.

  ‘Here.’ She tossed one to me. ‘Much sexier than the white ones. Those are a bit too medical.’

  I pulled it onto my right hand. ‘I look like a murderer,’ I said, looking down at my hands. ‘I look like I’m about to strangle you.’

  ‘We can play that if it gets you off,’ Sam said. ‘I like a little bit of asphyxiation now and then. In controlled circumstances, obviously.’

  What Sam liked to do, it became clear, was fisting. ‘Not up the bum,’ she said. ‘I want you to slide your whole gorgeous hand into my pussy, then make it into a fist and move it around until I come all over you.’

  ‘I think my knuckles might be a bit chunky for that,’ I said, examining them.

  ‘I’ve had chunkier,’ Sam said. She lay back and opened her legs. Her pubic hair was trimmed short. Now, I was worried I should have cut mine shorter for sex purposes. ‘Warm me up first, with a few fingers, and keep going till they’re all in, and the thumb too.’

  ‘And then I just push it in,’ I said.

  �
�By that point I’ll just swallow you up.’

  ‘But— what if I get stuck inside you?’

  ‘Happens sometimes,’ she said. ‘But you just relax and it slides out again.’

  ‘Because I don’t fancy turning up at casualty attached to your vagina.’

  ‘It would be more humiliating for me than for you,’ she said.

  ‘I’d look like a ventriloquist with a massive dummy.’

  ‘And I’d look like a butch who lets femmes fuck me. Not cool,’ she said.

  I laughed, and then I looked at her face and realized she wasn’t joking. ‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘When you meet my friends, you can’t tell them about this. It’ll ruin my street cred.’

  ‘Your dad bought you a flat. You don’t have street cred.’

  ‘He didn’t buy it for me. He lets me live in it,’ she said, not smiling. She obviously wasn’t that into being teased. ‘Anyway, shut up and fuck me before I change my mind.’

  I was kneeling at the end of the bed at this point with my hand in the air, not really sure what to do with myself.

  ‘Come up here,’ she said, beckoning me towards her.

  So I crawled up to her end of the bed and started to kiss her.

  At this point I should probably tell you that I’ve never been a huge fan of being on top. I’d always felt pretty uncomfortable when my ex-boyfriend asked me to ‘ride him’; I’m very aware that I don’t look attractive from below, all double chins and spots on my jawline. I don’t want you to think I’m a lazy lover, but I generally feel most comfortable when I’m lying down, preferably on a firm mattress with a couple of goose-down pillows under my head. Sam was letting me fuck her, though, and it was only polite to give it my best shot.

  After a few minutes of really excellent kissing, when I found my mind wandering slightly, wondering if we’d go for breakfast the next morning and whether we could try a new café in Homerton I’d read about, I clambered onto her, one leg between hers, and tried to grind myself into her the way she’d ground herself into me.

  ‘Very good,’ said Sam. ‘Keep going.’

  I could feel her pubic hair on my leg rather than my cunt, though, so I adjusted my position until I heard her groan with pleasure.

  I wasn’t quite sure how long to keep the grinding up for, so after a minute or two I started trailing kisses down her body. But she called me back.

  ‘Not long enough,’ she said. ‘Always spend longer than you think you need to warming a woman up. It’ll pay dividends in the end.’

  So I carried on, and after a while I forgot to be self-conscious any more and my arms began to ache but that didn’t matter, because Sam was bucking against me and it was so fucking hot, and she was breathing harder, and then she said, ‘Get the lube on your glove. Now.’ There was a bit of an awkward pause while I squirted the lube onto my hand. ‘Warm up your hands before you touch me,’ Sam said, pushing herself into me again, doing a lot of the work from below, it has to be said. And then, ‘Now. Fuck me.’

  So I slipped a finger inside her and I will never forget how it felt to touch the inside of another woman for the first time. I might have been wearing a glove, but she was so wet and smooth that my hand felt like it was floating and I felt my cunt pulsing in response and I let out a sigh of pleasure and Sam said to me, ‘You filthy fucking dyke,’ and then she grabbed my wrist and guided my hand in and out, faster and faster. ‘More fingers,’ she said, and I obliged, and I felt as though I were fucking myself I was so turned on by it. I had three fingers inside her and then four, and then my thumb too, and then Sam said, ‘All of you,’ and I pushed and then I was inside her up to the wrist, and I looked down and wondered why I’d never learned about this in sex education.

  Sam let go of my arm and kept her eyes locked on mine as she started rubbing her clit. I felt incompetent suddenly that I couldn’t do all of it myself, but that feeling didn’t last because she was so unselfconscious about touching herself that it didn’t seem to matter.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Open and close your hand. Slowly.’

  So I did, and every movement was magnified in her face.

  ‘Now fuck me,’ she said, so I pushed my hand forward and pulled it back, and she kept her eyes on mine and said, ‘Harder,’ so I fucked her harder until I felt like I was punching her and her cunt opened up and soon my hand was coming in and out and I looked down at my hand not quite believing what I was seeing and so turned on and a bit disturbed and then she grabbed my wrist again and pushed me into her harder and started crying out and shouting and then she was coming, so loudly I was jerked out of the moment for a second to wonder whether her neighbours were in and then she was shuddering still, and my hand was still inside her, and she pulled me to her and she was still shaking and moaning, but it wasn’t moaning now, it was sobbing.

  She was sobbing, like she’d held it in for years and was letting all of her tears out at once, and I was stroking her hair and murmuring ‘Shhh’ and wondering if this would happen every time I fucked her.

  ‘That was just so good,’ she said. ‘So good. And you’re so gorgeous. And I’m so happy.’

  Sam went to the bathroom to wash her face and I lay in her bed, looking up at the ceiling, thinking, I’m a woman who makes experienced lesbians cry because I’m so good at sex. I felt pretty happy with myself, I have to say.

  Sam came back to bed carrying two glasses of wine, a bar of dark chocolate and a packet of cigarettes. ‘I always crave fags, wine and chocolate after really good sex,’ she said. ‘And that might have been the best sex I’ve ever had.’

  ‘You didn’t squirt,’ I said.

  ‘I never do,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s different. Not many people squirt as much as you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed! It’s a gift! It’s a wonderful, wonderful gift. You should be proud of it.’

  She had a way of making me feel much, much younger than her.

  We sat there in satisfied silence for a while, sipping the wine and eating the chocolate. Sam was right: the combination of wine and chocolate really did extend the post-sex high. Sam lit a cigarette. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s your flat,’ I said. I was deliciously light-headed and warm and the only thing I was worried about was getting chocolate or red wine on Sam’s perfectly white sheets.

  Sam began to stroke my hair. ‘Don’t think I’m always going to let you touch me,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you’re just going to have to lie back and take what you’re given.’ The way she said it turned me on, and I felt uncomfortable for feeling turned on. If a man had said that to me, I’d probably have run screaming to the nearest Fawcett Society meeting. But she wasn’t a man. And anyway, I enjoyed taking what I was given, when she was giving it.

  We stayed up until the early hours, talking. She told me she’d fucked 121 cis women, twelve trans men and three cis men. The whole day was very educational.

  ‘Are the women on the walls people you’ve fucked, then?’

  ‘Most of them,’ she said.

  ‘So are you going to paint me?’

  ‘If you play your cards right,’ she said, pulling me towards her and kissing me again.

  I woke long before Sam did the next morning, so I walked over to her bookshelves – also alphabetized, by author – and pulled out an old paperback of The Portrait of a Lady. I started to read, but Henry James’s sentences were too long for my sex-addled, sleep-deprived brain. I flicked to the back to see how it would end and a photo fell out: creased, with a ring on it from a long-cold cup of tea. Sam with her arm around a beautiful, dark-haired woman in her thirties with red lips and impressive cleavage. I turned the photo over. There was a message on the back, dated four years previously, written with what looked like sepia ink:

  To my darling Sam. Love Virginie xxx

  My heart clenched with retrospective jealousy.

  Stupid name, I thought to myself. Pretentious, too, with that stupid sepia fountain pen.


  I looked around to see if I could see Virginie on the walls, but I couldn’t.

  I told myself to snap out of it. The book was dusty – it obviously hadn’t been touched recently. There was no evidence to suggest Sam even remembered the photo was in there. Or even that Sam and Virginie were anything more than friends. And anyway, I wasn’t Sam’s girlfriend. I’d had sex with her once. I had no right to feel jealous.

  I felt jealous anyway, though.

  14. TEFLON-COATED BY HAPPINESS

  The sex was so good, I wanted to tell everyone about it. I told Alice and Dave (who was riveted) and I described the squirting to Cat in a text message. She replied saying Too much information!! Which was a bit rich, seeing as I know that the year-five teacher she’d been shagging had a wonky penis.

  My swing dance friends were the most interested of all. I told them all about it after our next class over pints and packets of crisps, the bags pulled apart for easy access.

  ‘I knew you’d have fun,’ Rebecca said. ‘Sam’s a legend on the scene.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Bo, hitting her arm.

  Rebecca leaned forward. ‘Did she do that thing with her tongue—’

  Bo hit her arm again.

  ‘Probably,’ I said, nodding. ‘Everything she did with her tongue was amazing. And fisting!’ I looked around the table. ‘Why didn’t I know about fisting?’

  Ella looked wistful. ‘I can barely remember what it’s like,’ she said. ‘My ex wasn’t into penetrative sex.’

  ‘No!’ said Zhu, horrified.

  ‘She didn’t like it – either way?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ Ella said. ‘She’d do it to me. But she wouldn’t do it hard enough.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Bo.

  ‘And how did you feel about that,’ asked Rebecca, ‘as a gender non-conforming woman? Did you feel emasculated – I know that’s not the right word – by the fact that she could penetrate you, but you couldn’t penetrate her?’

  ‘No,’ said Ella, shifting on the sofa. ‘Not emasculated. Just a bit sexually frustrated.’

  ‘You need to get back on the horse,’ said Zhu, shaking her head.