Playing Away

by Adele Parks

  We run through reception, him holding my hand, which I think is very forward of him and therefore a point in his favor.

  "My room," he asserts. It is some time since I've been with anyone new and although I might have forgotten some of the nuances, I remember the basics. It isn't caffeine that is on my mind. He fumbles with the key while I rub my aching feet on the back of my calves. The fat, round bit under the big toe stings from being cramped into fuck-me shoes. The skin on my face feels tight and tired. I should feel like shit. He opens the door to his room and I have a choice.

  I go in.

  Or I don't.

  He slams me against the wall and urgently and repeatedly kisses me. My left leg wraps around him. My hands are

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  exploring his body, his are closing the door and taking off his shoes. There is no hypocritical false modesty. I fall onto his bed and he lies on top of me. He inches me out of my jacket which smells of sweat and sticks to me. It drops to the floor, cool air brushes me, lifting me, releasing me, sweeping my arms. I kick off my shoes, my toes wiggle their own little jig. His kisses are neat, deep, focused, probing. He begins to brush my skin, stroking, touching me. I ache for him. I want him. I keep hearing myself say no. This is definitely the monosyllabic word that my voice keeps uttering, but my body is saying yes. My back arches for him, Y, my thighs quiver, E, my head spins, S.

  YES. He caresses my shoulders and neck, my waist, my stomach and then the outside of my thighs. By the time he briefly flitters over my breasts I am wilting with anticipation, I want to push his hand down my trousers. My cunt is salivating. He slowly, slowly moves in on my breasts, circling my nipples that have sprung to a point. LUKE.

  "Stop." I push him off, stand up, walk around the room. It doesn't faze him. He silently watches me as I sit up and light a cigarette. The combined attempts in the tree house and the Parisian bar have not convinced me that it is actually pleasant, so I stub it out.

  "I don't have the face for it."

  "What, adulterous sex?" he asks, misunderstanding me.

  "Smoking. I don't look cool when I smoke, or even hard. I look comical." This bizarre truth has probably saved me from dying a horrible death. Although I'm prepared to hamper the development of my spine by wearing a Wonderbra, and to sport varicose veins as a result of wearing twelve-inch shoes— at least those health hazards improve the overall package. He interrupts my thoughts.

  "You are amazing. I want you," he states. I look at him and he is staring at me as though he's been on a desert island for

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  fifty years and I am the first woman he's seen. He breaks the sexual energy just a nanosecond before it breaks me.

  "Want a drink?" Casually he flips open the mini bar, grabs a beer, pulls back the ring and swallows it down. He burps, then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. "Sorry." He grins. He is a small boy caught playing with matches. "Sorry but frankly the risk is worth it." He grabs a miniature whiskey, cracks it open, drinks it back in one. He pulls out another from the fridge and casually throws it in my direction. Surprisingly, I coolly catch it with one hand.

  "Christ, your tits are fantastic. You are so . . ." He stops and shakes his head. My tits hear him. My back straightens and my chest puffs out. Months of Pilates haven't managed to produce such a ramrod posture. I look down at them. They do look good. They look like the breasts I furtively examine in the gym. The litmus test; am I more or less pert? More or less full? Am I, at least, pert and full enough? It's not just breasts, but stomach and the flatness thereof, thighs and the square inches of cellulite, bum, the droopiness of. All women do this, while heads are turned upside down drying hair, or while casually asking if anyone has a pound for the locker. It's not blatant. It's not brazen. It's nothing like the way John is looking at me now, with open admiration and longing.

  "I've got to go to the loo." I try to push past him but as I do so he stops me and holds me tightly. Maybe I have died and I am already in heaven. If that is the case, then fine. I can live with this, so to speak.

  I go to the bathroom and scavenge around for clues of who he is. I discover that he is clean and fussy (brought his own soap, not content with the hotel offering, also has body wash, deodorant—which is a big bonus—shampoo), he wears contact lenses (daily disposable suggesting vanity and a fast, convenient lifestyle which he is prepared to pay for—then again maybe he is just allergic to the hard lenses), he is well

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  paid (designer soap, designer body wash, designer shampoo etc.).

  It is a strange intimacy.

  I sit on the loo and try to calm down. The cold porcelain is somehow comforting, it is at least familiar. Luke. My pulse is racing, my heart thumping out of my chest, I can almost see it. I make a plan. This is the plan. On returning from the bathroom, I will sit on the settee and keep away from the bed. It is still possible that we can just be friends, that we can talk and laugh and then that I can politely say good night, and go back to my own room.

  Alone.

  I practice my exit—"It's been fun but I have to go now," cheery and brief. I might just hold my resolve long enough to make it to the door. "Thanks for the drinks but I better be getting off now." No, best not to allude to anything provocative. "If things had been different, then maybe. But they're not so I'd best go. Good night." Too regretful. "Well, another time, another place, but I'd better leave now." Too cinematic. Bugger. Before I can get anywhere with my script he calls through.

  "What are you saying, Connie? I can't hear you properly."

  "Err, nothing." I pee and hurry back to his bedroom.

  What a shock.

  He is naked.

  He is magnificent, he is huge. He stands smiling at me, pleased with himself, with what he can offer me. He is so manly, so large. He is so boyish, so large. He is so sexy, so large. He is so large. Not that big is everything. I'm actually a fully signed-up member of the quality, not quantity, school. However his teasing strokes and kisses have been more than enough evidence that the quality will be resounding. The combination is tops.

  He is throbbing hard. It is so sexy to be wanted in such a

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  raw and obvious way. His huge, throbbing, wanting, manifested in a huge throbbing, err, erection. It's a really beautiful cock. I edge past him muttering, "It's been fun but I have to go now."

  He moves a fraction and smiles.

  "Thanks for the drinks but I better be getting off now."

  Only a fraction but enough for the tip of his knob to brush my thigh.

  "Well, another time, another place, but I'd better leave now."

  It feels as though a laser has burnt through my skin.

  "If things had been different, then maybe. But they're not so I'd best go. Good night."

  But I don't move toward the door. He excites me in the very center of my being. I already know the unmistakable smell of his skin—childlike, newly scrubbed after a teatime bath. The tip of his penis, silky and hard at the same time, is like a stuffed rabbit's paw. He leans forward and kisses the corner of my mouth. I mumble, "It really has been fun but I have to go now." He kisses me again and nods. This is a low move, agreeing with me.

  "Thanks for the . . . everything ..." I kiss him back. "... but we better be getting off now, I mean, let's get off now." I shake my head and pull away. "I mean, I've got to be getting back now." He leans closer again and begins to rub the back of my neck with his thumb. He silently stares at me. I barely whisper, "Well . . . another time . . . another place but I better leave now. If things had been . . . different, then certainly but they're not ..." He corners me with his nakedness, which I think is brutally honest. Resistance is token. My heart isn't in it.

  I keep my clothes on but I must have shrunk because my clothes are like a tent around a Boy Scout, plenty of room to maneuver for mischief. He finds a way to every inch of my

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  body. He kisses me in all the usual places, inching up
my T-shirt to kiss my stomach, waist, breasts, inching down my trousers to kiss my hips and pelvic bone. Inching down my shirt to kiss my neck and shoulders, head and hair. And he kisses me in the unusual places: my eyelids, my eyelashes, my nose. I kiss him too, and lick and suck and consume. By the time he slips his fingers inside me, I am drenched by my own excitement. Glacial fingers on white hot flesh. I come immediately, spurting out onto his hands. The exquisite release sends shocks somersaulting through my spine. I grab hold of his cock, moving up and down, swiftly and expertly, until he comes on my stomach.

  We drink, talk, laugh for the rest of the night and a substantial part of the morning. He comes a number of times and so do I. I look at my watch, it is 5 A.M. Lust and lager finally overpower me. I close my eyes.

  He holds me.

  Shaking with excitement and exhaustion I locate my shoes and jacket. He is still sleeping soundly. Beautiful. I bend over him and kiss him. My head falls off and rolls under the bed. It wakes him. Animal-like he flings his arm around me.

  "What time is it?" he asks.

  "Seven."

  "You off?"

  "Yup, places to go, people to impress."

  "Don't go."

  "I've got to."

  He falls back to sleep before I close the door.

  The dots on the carpet won't stay there. And the walls are morphing. I find my way back to my room and turn on the shower. I get in and then realize I am still in my socks. Dressing becomes a MENSA challenge. I follow the smell of bacon and eggs until I find the breakfast hall. As I begin to

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  focus I notice that everybody is suffering for their night of debauchery. They have faces like slapped bottoms. I, by contrast, am superbabe.

  "You're all over the place," snaps Sue, as I spill coffee onto my fried eggs and trail my jacket sleeve in tomato sauce. I just want to be all over him.

  "Not like you to have a fried breakfast in the morning," Sam notes. She is right. I've had about three fried breakfasts in my entire life. I'm always worrying about saturated fat. Well, maybe things are going to change. Maybe I am too strict with myself and maybe there should be some changes.

  "I like fried eggs," I defend. Muddled, I add, "Unfertilized."

  Sam rolls her eyes. "Are you hungover? I should never have let you go out without me last night. The conference has only just started. You'll feel like shit sitting through these boring presentations with a hangover. They are bad enough when you're feeling OK." She means well.

  I have been to numerous conferences and business meetings that involve long, arduous hours and excessive alcohol. Invariably, by the second day my teeth have furred, my breath smells like an old beer keg, my eyelids are heavy and my hands and feet are freezing. So it isn't unreasonable that Sam thinks that this is just another conference-induced hangover. I doubt whether anybody would attend these things without the incentive of getting uncontrollably drunk. I have drunk four, five, six times the amount I normally drink, but this time I feel alive, bright and my stomach is empty. I feel exhilarated, spirited, known. Entirely known, the good bits and the horrors. I feel so sexy. So sexed. Every muscle aches. Every nerve is stretched taut with the effort of being so wildly sexy.

  "I'm not hungover." I'm still drunk. I never want to be sober again.

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  "What happened then?" asks Sue as she decapitates a boiled egg. Sam looks confused.

  "Happened?"

  "Yes, happened with John Hardon," snaps Sue.

  "Harding," I correct.

  "I think I got it right the first time, didn't I?"

  I take a deep breath and then begin to spill the gore. They stare at me in silence. Uncomfortably I play with the tomato sauce that has formed a scab around the bottle neck.

  "What?" I ask hotly.

  "What about Luke?" They ask the same question, but in very different ways. Sue is disgusted, Sam is concerned.

  "Don't you feel guilty?"

  "Guilt has gone AWOL. I called in the military police but they can't track her down," I laugh.

  "I fail to see the joke," says Sue primly. "Think how hurt he'd be if he found out."

  "Well, he won't." They stare at me. "It's not as if I want to trade Luke in for John," I defend.

  "In some ways that would be more forgivable," tuts Sue. I realize that I'm not going to win her over. I turn to Sam, who, historically, is more indulgent.

  "It's not an affair." I say the word contemptuously.

  "What is it then?" she asks carefully.

  "Well, we didn't have total sex."

  "I'm not sure those big red A signs come in different shades of red to reflect the severity of the indiscretion," quips Sue.

  "He might be my destiny."

  "Do you really believe that?"

  "I don't disbelieve it," I hedge, "I can manage it at least for the duration of the conference and after then, well, I'll think about after, after."

  "Be careful," begs Sam. Appallingly romantic with every-

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  one and ridiculously indulgent with me, she struggles to find levels of sexual promiscuity that she can be comfortable with. Something that will mean I haven't been unfaithful to Luke. She does a sensational amount of spin doctoring. President Clinton's aides could take advice.

  "Kissing is OK, without tongues," is the starting position. My face confesses. "Sometimes tongues are OK, as long as it is just kissing." She comforts. It is like a holiday point system in reverse. Eventually she proclaims that him touching my breast is OK, as long as I didn't enjoy it. We finally agree that infidelity is swallowing.

  Sue chastises. "The whole situation is commonplace and irritating. There is nothing romantic about infidelity. He's a grubby little Northerner on the make. Despicable, predictable, lowlife." I'm already bored with her moralizing.

  "You dislike charming men, on principle."

  "Which principle would that be?"

  "You're afraid of their good looks, athletic builds, charming manners. You only pretend not to like them."

  "They are so obviously confident," she spits.

  "Well, they can be, can't they?" I reason.

  We fall silent. We seem to have lost our appetites. Forlorn cornflakes and shells of boiled eggs seem to be moralizing and mocking. I rub my temples and sigh.

  "Maybe you're right, Sue. I wish I'd never met him. I wish he'd go away."

  "Well, sleep with him, then, that will be a surefire bet." She begins to gather her lecture notes; Sam stands up from the table too.

  "Are you coming?"

  "I'll catch you up." They leave me to my thoughts.

  A spade is a shovel. I've been unfaithful to Luke. I was unfaithful the moment John kissed me and I kissed him back.

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  I didn't think I was capable of such a thing.

  But I am.

  I watch Sam and Sue flounce out of the dining hall. They are arguing. This situation is unacceptable; I cannot carry on. It's a disgrace. It must stop. I am referring to the gossip. I leave my eggs and then skip back to my room. I ditch my conference pack, lock my door, turn left, get into the lift, go to floor ten, turn right and knock at his door. I have to knock a number of times because he is still in bed. Sleepily he opens the door. He looks surprised to see me and delighted.

  "Gorgeous, come back to bed. It's still warm."

  His knob springs up again, raring to go. Can't blame it, I feel just the same.

  "I'm cutting class."

  "Oh yeah," he sniffs and rubs his nose on the back of his hand, lights a cigarette and farts, all at once. Who says men can't multitask?

  "Best thing." He leans toward me and tries to kiss me but I avoid him by dodging under his arm. This isn't easy because even the smell of his sweat makes me feel weak with want.

  "I can't face being down there hearing everyone boasting about last night's acts."

  He looks at me suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, you know the ones," I say
, mock casual, "I drank twenty-five pints, shagged two Parisians, a Swedish tourist and still had a J&B nightcap."

  "No, no, that's nothing. I drank thirty-five pints, all Guinness, shagged two Parisians at once, a Swedish tourist, her grandmother, had a J&cB nightcap and still didn't puke."

  We both laugh, very aware of the testosterone sharks that would now be swimming around the conference room.

  "You know it's all lies though, don't you?" he says. I look at him quizzically. "That guy did throw up."

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  We laugh again and when we stop laughing I ask, "Do you do that?"

  "What, throw up? Well, sometimes—it depends on what I've mixed."

  "No," I interrupt. "I mean the bragging, the morning after, doubling points system."

  He looks perplexed. Embarrassed, I try to explain.

  "You know, double the points with each mate you tell. So what sets off as a simple act in the missionary ends up as some depraved shocker involving animals and lawn mowers."

  "I know the points system. I know what you're asking," he says evenly.

  "Well, do you?" It is better to know where I stand.

  "Yes, normally, I would be down there with the other blokes, dissecting my exploits." He looks at his watch. "Perhaps not this early, but yes, Connie, I am just like them. I have sex with complete strangers and I talk about it." He looks a bit confused. "Isn't that half the fun?" He puts his arms around me and I shiver. Damn, he is gorgeous.

  "I am an absolute GQ lad. Utterly Loaded. I am a womanizer. I've told you that I've slept with literally scores of women, I can't even remember some of their names. Usually I sleep with them once and then I don't want anything else to do with them. I usually tell anyone who will listen exactly what we did and I also rate the performance out of ten. I am selfish, fickle, and lazy. I won't lie to you, I won't pretend this isn't how I've been in the past. Let's face it, you can ask around and quickly get the measure of me."