by Jonathan Coe
‘You’re in excellent shape,’ he said.
She turned around to face him. ‘Excellent shape?’ she repeated with a laugh. ‘What are you, my fitness instructor?’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I can never think what to say when –’
‘Then don’t say anything,’ she advised, putting a finger to his lips. In response, he bit her finger gently; or at least intended to. Going by her sudden yelp of pain he seemed to have misjudged it rather badly.
‘Ow! Bloody hell, Benjamin, what are you playing at?’
‘Sorry, did that hurt?’
‘Yes it fucking did. Jesus …’
She sucked on her finger for a few seconds. Benjamin, tense already, grew tenser still.
‘Is it bleeding?’ he asked.
‘No it’s not,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘Just relax, Tiger. Neither of us has done this for ages. It’s going to be fine.’
He liked hearing the nickname again. Jennifer put her arms around him and they kissed for a while, in the near-silent almost-dark. He stroked her hair, then slid his hand downwards, on to her breast. It was nearly forty years, he thought, since he had touched this same breast, cupped it, almost unknowingly, in his drunken stupor at Doug’s teenage party. Jennifer was right. At this age you found yourself thinking in long units of time. Decades, not years …
Jennifer, meanwhile, had reached down between his legs and was beginning to stimulate him with her hand, gently at first, then vigorously. Neither approach seemed to be producing any result.
‘What’s going on down there, then?’ she asked.
‘Very little, it would seem.’
‘What’s the matter, would you rather be in bed with a sexy journalist in her twenties than a woman your own age?’
‘No, not at all.’ He kissed her again. ‘You’re beautiful. Keep going.’
‘I’m going to get repetitive strain injury if I do this much longer,’ she said, increasing both the speed of her movements and the tightness of her grip.
After a minute or two he laid a hand on her wrist and told her to stop.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry. Let’s give it some time. It’s my turn anyway.’
She took his hand, which was still resting on her breast, and drew it slowly across the yielding flatness of her stomach until he had reached the soft mesh of her pubic hair. She encouraged him to explore further, until beneath his fingers he could feel a warm, tender nub, which under her patient guidance he began to rub and caress. Soon Jennifer was murmuring with pleasure, and languidly stretching her legs further apart.
‘Lovely,’ she said, and reached around to kiss him fiercely, her tongue darting into his mouth. ‘Don’t move your finger … from that precise spot.’
‘I was reading the other day …’ Benjamin said, between kisses.
Breathing more and more heavily now, Jennifer still managed to say, ‘Books books books. Don’t you ever stop thinking about books?’
‘No – really,’ he said, ‘this is interesting. I was reading the other day about Evangelicals in the US. They wrote a pamphlet telling girls why they shouldn’t masturbate, and the name they invented for it …’
‘For what?’
‘… for what I’m touching …’
‘Oh, Benjamin, shut up for once!’
‘… is the Devil’s Doorbell.’
‘The … Devil’s … Doorbell?’ Jennifer repeated. The words were hard to get out: by now her breathing was even faster and even more excited, and it was breaking up into cries of pleasure, or laughter – it was hard to tell which – a mixture of the two, perhaps – until all at once she screamed out, ‘Ring a ding ding!’ at the top of her voice in a moment of exquisite release, and she collapsed on top of Benjamin and gave him the tightest hug and the longest kiss and he had the satisfaction, at least, of knowing that he had performed his modest duty with some distinction.
A few minutes later, as she lay with her head against his chest, Jennifer said: ‘Now I’m feeling guilty. I got off and you didn’t.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
She reached down to check the situation in his crotch area. Still nothing.
‘It happens to men your age sometimes. A bit of Viagra would put it right.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any?’
‘Funnily enough I don’t keep it around the house. I’ve got some paracetamol, and some antihistamines, but I don’t suppose that would help.’
She tweaked the flaccid organ playfully. Benjamin was burning up with frustration. In fact he was extremely aroused, but his body, for some reason, didn’t seem to be getting the message.
‘Perhaps if I talked dirty to you,’ said Jennifer. ‘You know, “Come on, big boy, give it to me hard” – that sort of thing.’
Benjamin was dubious about this. And besides, he had had another idea. ‘Or perhaps …’ he began.
‘Yes?’ Jennifer’s eyes were gleaming at him.
‘Do you remember where we were when we first did it?’
‘At Doug Anderton’s house.’
‘More specifically …’
‘In his parents’ wardrobe. Not something you forget in a hurry.’
‘Exactly. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but that looks like a pretty big wardrobe you’ve got over there.’
Jennifer raised herself on to one arm. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I don’t know … it might be worth a try. I think if I can somehow recapture that moment – you know, think my way back into it …’
After a few seconds’ hesitation, she swung her legs out of bed. ‘Now I’ve heard everything,’ she said. ‘Come on, then, Tiger.’
It was a fitted wardrobe, and extremely capacious. Still, they were not the lithe, flexible teenagers they had once been, and it was with some difficulty that they squeezed their middle-aged bodies into the available space. Once they were inside, however, it was rather cosy.
‘This is fun,’ said Jennifer. ‘Like a filthy game of sardines.’
Shifting his knee into a more comfortable position – and nearly dislocating her chin in the process – Benjamin slid the door closed. Now it was pitch-dark. He reached out, found Jennifer’s shoulders and upper arms, stroked them, then brushed her cheek with his fingers, and traced the line of her jaw. Already he could feel a delicious heightening of his sense of touch.
‘I think this might work, you know.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘even if it doesn’t give you a hard-on, I suppose we might at least come out in Narnia. Now let’s see what’s going on down there.’
She reached between his legs again, and felt an instantaneous, solid response.
‘Blimey,’ she said. ‘You’re right. We seem to be in business.’ Clasping the shaft in her right hand, she began slowly, regularly stroking its full length. ‘How does that feel?’
‘Good,’ said Benjamin – with a slight lack of conviction in his voice.
‘Mmm, goood,’ Jennifer repeated, breathing the word out, and stretching the vowel. ‘That feels good, doesn’t it? Does that feel good, big boy?’
‘So good,’ said Benjamin. ‘So, so good.’ He didn’t like to tell her, but in truth he couldn’t feel a thing. Which was even more alarming, in a way, than his earlier problem.
‘You’re a big boy now, aren’t you?’ Jennifer said, stroking faster and harder. ‘You’re a much bigger boy than I remember. God, that feels good. I love the feel of you in my hand.’
Benjamin shifted his weight against the door, which rattled in complaint. He started to moan, which Jennifer took as her cue to strengthen her hold on the shaft and quicken her movements along it, twisting her hand mercilessly whenever she got to the tip.
‘Ooh, you like that, don’t you? You like it when I do that.’
Benjamin moaned some more, and then started to cry out.
‘You want me to keep doing that, don’t you? You want me to do that over and over again.’
‘Oh God,’
Benjamin stammered. ‘Oh God!’
‘How does that feel?’
‘Fuck! Fuck!’
‘Feels goood, doesn’t it?’
‘No! Stop!’
‘I’m not going to stop until I’ve finished, big boy.’
‘No, stop! Cramp! I’ve got terrible cramp! I’m in bloody agony here!’
By now the pain in his calves was matched only by the total lack of sensation anywhere else in his body. Benjamin grabbed hold of the door, pushed it open and the two of them tumbled out of the wardrobe together, landing on the bedroom carpet in an unceremonious tangle of limbs. Benjamin continued to clutch his calves and cry out in pain, while Jennifer sat up, took one look at the object she was holding in her hands, and burst out laughing.
‘What’s the matter?’ Benjamin asked, panting with distress.
Jennifer could hardly speak. ‘Look at this!’
Squinting at it in the gloom, Benjamin said: ‘What the hell’s that?’
‘It’s the scented candle Aunt Julie gave me for Christmas. I wondered where it had got to. I’ve been looking for that for months.’
As spasms of pain continued to tear through his legs, Benjamin said: ‘That … That’s what you’ve been stroking?’
Tears of laughter were beginning to streak down Jennifer’s face. ‘Yes.’
‘No wonder I couldn’t feel anything.’
That was about as much as she could take. She collapsed on to her back and lay there on the carpet, naked and helpless with laughter, with the yellow, shrink-wrapped candle still clutched in her hand. With as much dignity as he could muster, Benjamin staggered to his feet and climbed into bed, pulling the duvet over him and rubbing away at his twitching, aching calves. Jennifer was still laughing when she slipped into bed beside him. There was no stopping her, it seemed: not until she had finally laid her head to rest against Benjamin’s shoulder, and they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms.
26.
November 2015
Hey.
One word; just one syllable; a mere three letters. But as soon as it appeared on the screen, Sophie’s heart started racing.
She leaned back in her chair and craned her neck to see what Ian was doing in the kitchen. He was preoccupied, trying to get the cork out of a bottle of wine.
She looked at the screen again.
Hey.
How to reply? It was more than three years since she had seen Adam in Marseille. Three years since she had heard a word from him. Three years since that fumbled goodnight kiss in the corridor outside her room. Since then she had emailed him more than once – each time with a slight sense of shame and embarrassment. In the last email she had given him her Skype contact details. And now here he was, messaging her. What was she supposed to say? What could she possibly say that would express the whole range of her complex, ambiguous feelings?
After thinking for a moment, she typed:
Hey.
Ian was coming up behind her, carrying a glass full of red wine. Quickly she clicked an icon on the taskbar at the bottom of her screen. The Skype window disappeared and was replaced by the PowerPoint file she was getting ready to upload to Moodle.
He put the glass down on the desk beside her.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hey,’ he answered.
She took a sip of the wine.
‘Thanks for this,’ she said, and kissed him.
‘I’ll start getting dinner ready,’ he said.
‘Have you read the email yet?’ she asked him. ‘I printed it out.’
‘No. I thought there was no hurry. You said it probably wasn’t important.’
‘It probably isn’t.’
‘Good,’ he said, and was about to leave.
‘But it is annoying,’ she said.
He stopped; turned. ‘OK, I’ll read it now.’
‘There’s no hurry,’ she said. ‘It probably isn’t important.’
‘I’ll read it now,’ said Ian, and went back into the kitchen.
As soon as he was gone she clicked on the Skype icon again. There was a new message.
Just wanted to say, thanks for reaching out and letting me know about the conference.
Her most recent excuse for writing to him had been to flag up a forthcoming conference on film music taking place in London next year. Not by any means sure why she was doing it, and half-hoping that his answer would be no, she wrote:
Will you be coming?
Sadly no.
The sense of disappointment was acute, and immediate. Yes, there was an element of relief as well, but the disappointment was uppermost.
Better things to do?
Kind of. As a matter of fact I’m quitting my job. I’ve had it with academia.
Ian came back in, carrying a bowlful of crisps, which he put down next to the wine glass on her desk. Just in time, she clicked the PowerPoint icon.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, looking at the screen.
‘Just admin.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘Never seems to end, does it?’
‘Feels that way sometimes.’
‘I’m just going to pop the fish in the oven, and then I’ll read the email.’
‘OK.’
He left. She typed:
Quitting? How come?
She waited for the answer to come through. It took a few minutes.
‘Perhaps you should put the rice on first!’ she called through to the kitchen.
‘OK.’
There are always a ton of different reasons – frustration with the job, hating the internal politics, I guess you know them all – but it always comes down to money in the end. Couldn’t carry on as adjunct faculty with no prospect of tenure, making <$20,000 a year. Luckily something else came up.
Something else …?
‘This is crazy,’ Ian called, from the kitchen.
‘What’s crazy?’
‘This email.’
‘I told you it was.’
She was still waiting for the next message. Nothing so far.
‘Did you put the rice on?’
‘Oops – I forgot. I’ll do it now.’
Yeah, composing, in fact. For video games. A friend of mine started a production company and he wants me on board.
Brilliant! Sounds much more creative than compiling admissions stats or filling out strategic impact forms.
Don’t tell me you’ve gone all cynical since Marseille.
There it was. And he was the one who mentioned it. He was the first one to bring it up.
Maybe I was always cynical. That week I just wasn’t letting it show.
‘Should I wrap the fish in foil before putting them in, do you think?’
‘Yes. And maybe put in some dill or something, if we’ve got any.’
‘I’ll have a look.’
Sound of the fridge being opened, and a search of the vegetable drawer being carried out.
‘It says use by the end of September.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be all right.’
Sorry not to have been in touch since then. Found it all a bit intense in the end.
No worries. Probably for the best!
How’ve things been for you, anyway?
That was a complicated question if ever there was one. She hesitated for a minute or more and then wrote:
Up and down. I don’t know if you’ve been getting my emails, but I think I mentioned in one of them that –
Ian was behind her again, with the wine bottle. She switched quickly back to PowerPoint.
‘Ready for a top-up?’
‘Yes please.’
He filled the glass, and said: ‘It’s not serious, though, is it?’
‘Serious? What? What’s serious? Who said anything about it being serious?’
‘The email, I mean.’
‘Oh. Yes … No, I don’t think it’s serious. It can’t be serious. The whole thing’s just silly.’
‘What did you say in this seminar, e
xactly?’
From the kitchen came a loud hissing: the sound of rice boiling over.
‘Shit,’ said Ian, and ran off to deal with it.
Sophie carried on typing:
I’ve got a new job, down in London. That’s been great, but it does mean I now spend two or three nights away from home, which causes sometimes causes problems. But Ian missed out on a promotion last year, and we definitely need both salaries.
It always comes down to money! I read a piece this week which said that if the Democratic candidate (whoever s/he may be) fails to win the election next year, it will be because most middle Americans can no longer afford to replace their car every couple of years.
We haven’t replaced ours for five!
There you go.
Listen to us with our first-world problems.
Ian came back. She switched screens again.
‘So – what did you say?’
‘When?’
‘In the seminar.’
‘Oh – well, the only thing I can think of …’ Sophie took a breath. ‘OK. So I do have this student – Emily – who’s a trans woman.’
‘Meaning …?’
‘Meaning that she’s biologically male, but she identifies as female.’
‘So she’s having a sex change?’
‘At some point, yes, but it’s a long process. You have to live for two years as a woman before you have the operation.’
‘So right now we should really be saying he, not she?’
‘No, she wants to use the feminine pronoun. And that’s fine.’
Ian frowned. ‘OK. But the woman who’s complaining isn’t called Emily.’
‘I know – that’s the stupid thing about it.’
‘Who is she – a friend of hers, or something?’
The phone started ringing.
‘I’d better get that,’ said Ian. ‘It’ll be Mum.’
‘Can you take it in the kitchen?’
‘Sure.’
He left. Sophie waited until she could hear him talking to his mother – she could recognize the tone, it was always more deferential than when he spoke to anyone else – and then read Adam’s latest message.
