Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker

by Portnoy, Suzanne

  Martin and I stood on the edge of the bed, using the force of our combined body weights and muscles to lift the mattress off the base. We managed to raise it up a half-metre, just enough to notice a massive rip on the underside. The calico cover had split. Stuffing was spilling out from between the raw edges of the tear, little pieces snowing down on to the base.

  ‘Mum, I think it’s time you got a new mattress.’

  14. THE NEAR MISS

  I met Karume at the launch party of Charing X, advertised as being the world’s first erotic art gallery, on Charing Cross Road. I had bagged an invitation through a friend of a friend and invited Oliver along, who after our first liaison in Soho House had become a regular fuck buddy. We had a regular Wednesday-night date, watching Desperate Housewives and fucking during the commercial breaks.

  When we arrived at the gallery it was packed with media trendies – a few girls dressed in rubber and leather; some burlesque chicks wearing nipple tassles, stockings and suspenders; a sprinkling of glamour models popping out of their bikinis. I wore a 1940s brown-and-green patterned-lace dress over skin and a pair of high Buddhahood sandals.

  The gallery was on four floors in a former sex shop. The owners had stripped out the vibrators and porn and painted the walls white, leaving the adult bookstore on the ground floor, presumably for the smut to pay the rent if the art didn’t. Looking at the stuff on the walls, I concluded they’d made the right move. I’d seen most of what they were selling countless times before, in the bedrooms of some of my middle-class conquests and even in framing-shop windows in respectable neighbourhoods. The new Helmut Newtons weren’t so different from the old Helmut Newtons, Bob Carlos Clarke’s obsessive studies of perfect female bodies were more sterile than sexy, the giant glass dildos attached to fox tails and expensive price tags were so thirty years ago. But then this was an art crowd, not an erotic crowd. The fetish girls were familiar faces from other events and most of the other people in the room hadn’t made much of an effort – the T-shirt-and-jeans boys and the suits mixed with the bikinis and pasties girls – so at best people exuded cute but not sex. Good thing this is just a pit stop, I found myself thinking. In an hour I was meeting my girlfriend Hannah at Flash Monkey, a party at the Café de Paris around the corner.

  Oliver and I looked around the gallery a bit, then pushed our way to the bar to pick up a couple of drinks. ‘I’m out of here in ten minutes,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a real party to go to.’

  That’s when Oliver spotted a friend at the top of the stairs. ‘Come with me, Suzanne. You should meet Karume. He’s an artist.’

  We walked up to the first floor and Oliver introduced me to a tall good-looking man with dark-brown skin the colour of a Belgian truffle. Karume had a resonant voice and diamond-sharp enunciation, and he spoke with an accent I couldn’t place. Originally from Kenya, I learnt, he had lived in the States as a kid, grown up in Africa, and left Nairobi for London a few years earlier. He was wearing his unique interpretation of a cyclist’s uniform – a black sweater, black longjohns under three-quarter-length nylon elasticated trousers and red cycling shoes. His clothes were so inappropriate for an art-gallery event it was hard to tell if it was his outfit or his beauty that drew people’s attention, ladies and gents alike. His trousers were so tight the sizeable bulge at his crotch caught my eye. Karume noticed me noticing, so I pretended my focus was elsewhere. I saw a Ferrari logo on his footwear – phew, something to talk about. ‘Nice trainers,’ I said.

  ‘Ferrari, as you can see. I always wanted to own a Ferrari,’ he said. He had a crooked smile that turned up at one end. ‘I like to imagine that one day I’ll have the trainers and the car.’

  ‘We all live in hope, man,’ I said. ‘Me included.’ I was hoping he’d stick around. I liked his high cheekbones, his aquiline nose, his big white teeth and dark eyes and long black eyelashes. His shoulders were wide and his hips narrow, so his torso tapered into a swashbuckler’s T. His straight hair fell to his shoulders, girl length, but, on Karume, very masculine. I noticed that his brown lower lip was spotted with tiny pink patches. The lack of pigmentation was distracting but gave him an unusual look. I liked that. Plenty of men are generically attractive; it’s what’s different about a man that makes him sexy.

  ‘What do you think of the art?’ he asked.

  ‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen a lot of this before. I don’t know how they’re going to make enough money to keep four floors in the West End. Surely, you can buy most of this stuff on the web.’

  ‘What about the people? Can’t find them on the web, can you?’

  If you only knew how many men I’ve found on the web, I thought. I ignored the latter question and answered the former. ‘The people here? I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them don’t even have sex. What’s erotic about them? They’re as sterile as the gallery walls. Even their costumes are generic.’

  ‘Well, there’s the corset,’ said Karume. ‘That’s erotic, I think. Did you see it? Made from human bone.’

  I told him I’d seen many things in my life but a human-bone corset was not one of them.

  ‘C’mon, I’ll show you.’

  I followed him to a mannequin wearing a corset made of bone, hair and fabric and held together by embossed-silver fasteners. It was very tiny and looked not just unwearable but downright punishing – far too small and fragile for a human being, but quite beautiful as a piece of sculpture.

  ‘If I had the money, I’d buy it,’ said Karume. ‘Not to wear – don’t get any ideas, my lady. It’s definitely the best piece here, don’t you think?’ It was unusual, a real one-off, unlike so much else in the gallery. We circled the mannequin, admiring its handiwork and the intricacy and originality of the design. ‘You like this thing but say you’re unimpressed with the rest of the stuff here,’ said Karume. ‘What do you find erotic, then? Are you turned on by the restraints on the corset or something?’

  ‘Good question,’ I said. ‘Really, it’s the smallest things that turn me on.’ I started laughing. Given the men I’d been with and what kept them in my memories, the words ‘erotic’ and ‘small’ weren’t typically paired. ‘A look, a gesture . . .’

  Oliver, the odd-man-out in this three-way, had wandered off, leaving Karume and me alone. I told Karume about the time I was in a naturist club, standing at a mirror drying my hair, when I caught a naked man watching me, wanking. ‘I only caught a glimpse of him, but the look we exchanged fuelled my fantasies for months.’

  ‘A naturist club.’ Karume spoke slowly, staring ahead as if picturing something in his mind. Dirty thoughts and deeds involving me, I hoped. Instead, he said, ‘I don’t think that I could go to a place like that.’

  ‘Who knows? You might like it.’

  ‘I’m not sure I would want everyone to see . . . everything.’ I couldn’t tell if he was being judgemental or prudish. Then he explained, ‘I have a very unique cock, you know.’

  I’d just met Karume and already we were talking sex. He was no prude. That’s a key criterion in a man. ‘Really? Unique?’ I said, wondering what made his cock so special.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very.’ He didn’t elaborate. I imagined something so long it hung down to his knees. We stayed by the corset pretending to look at the little torture device, though in our thoughts we’d already moved beyond it. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes.

  I broke the silence. ‘Well, you must show me your unique cock. There must be a bathroom in this place somewhere.’

  ‘I can’t show you now,’ he said. He seemed alarmed, as if he hadn’t considered that, in telling me about his unique cock, I might actually want to see it. ‘You’ll just have to wait,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you give me your number?’

  ‘No. I don’t give out my number anymore,’ I said. ‘You give me yours and, if I want to speak to you, I’ll ring.’ I pegged Karume as a numbers collector. He probably had an address book full of women’s numbers, most of them never dialled, and I didn’t want to risk los
ing him. There was more likelihood we’d meet again if I had his contact info. He laughed and passed me his number.

  I found Karume easy to talk to. He reminded me of Daniel, who always attracted a circle of girls whenever we went out. I didn’t imagine Karume found it hard to meet women, either – he was attractive, charming and friendly, and he had a cool job. He told me he taught art at a south London university. I ticked the boxes in my head: good-looking, funny, fit, sexy, employed. What a catch.

  Karume walked me to Flash Monkey, falling behind a few feet as we made our way. ‘I like the rear view,’ he said, laughing.

  I liked his frisky attitude. When we got to the door I kissed him on both cheeks. ‘Bye,’ I said, and went inside to meet Hannah.

  I called Karume later that night while driving home. It was one in the morning. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  He was on a bus, also going home for the night. ‘Should I turn around?’

  I was tempted to say yes, but filed him under ‘future playmate’ instead. ‘No, it’s too late. But you have my number now, so give me a ring sometime.’

  I assumed he would. I felt we had truly connected. He was originally from another country, like me; in his forties, like me; and had been married, like me. His mum had been a school teacher, just like mine. And as he’d lived in the States as a kid before moving back to Kenya as a teenager, like me he had grown up watching Captain Kangaroo and Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood on the TV. We even knew the lyrics to the same commercials. So I was surprised when a week later Karume still hadn’t called. I wondered if the connection I’d felt had just been a one-way phenomenon after all. Oh, well. There are others, I thought, but, figuring it was worth another shot, I left a message on his mobile.

  ‘I’m free next Friday, Mr Unusual Cock, if you want to meet up.’

  Again, no return call, so a few days later I booked a date with Anthony, my hot cop, instead. On Wednesday, Karume rang. ‘Still free on Friday?’

  ‘Nope, Karume. Afraid that slot is now filled.’ Even if Anthony weren’t on the agenda, I would have said the same thing. I didn’t want Karume thinking me so desperate I’d drop everything for him, last minute. Somehow, his much-delayed return call didn’t seem all that different in spirit from the impromptu calls I used to get back in my twenties from the three a.m. boys. I was too old for this. When it came to last-minute booty calls, I’d learnt to take on the role of initiator. ‘I don’t know when I’m free next,’ I continued. ‘I’ll ring you sometime and let you know.’

  ‘Oh. OK,’ Karume said. He sounded disappointed, and I was glad. ‘I guess next time I should react a bit quicker.’

  ‘That would be my advice,’ I said. ‘My slots fill up quickly.’

  ‘Sure seems that way.’

  After the weekend I rang Karume. ‘I’m going to be at Soho House tonight for a meeting. Why don’t you swing by after ten and join me?’

  Karume turned up on time, once again in tight biking gear, and walked into the Circle Bar. He smiled when he saw me and came to the table. I was just finishing up discussing a business project with my friend Jonathan. ‘Ah, here’s my date,’ I said, and made the introductions. Jonathan ordered a round of drinks, so it was another hour before Karume and I were alone together. It was now eleven on a Monday night. I had work the next day. I turned to Karume and said, ‘Shall we go back to mine?’

  ‘Lead the way.’

  Karume threw his bike in the back of my cabriolet and I apologised for keeping him waiting. ‘I thought I’d made it clear that you were a date,’ I said. ‘I really wanted to be alone with you.’ That seemed to please him.

  Back in my kitchen, I poured two glasses of wine and passed Karume a bag of grass. He rolled a joint, lit it and passed it to me. I handed the joint back to him, then sat on Karume’s lap and kissed him. We kissed for a very long time – another good sign, because, to me, kissing the right man can be foreplay, and too many men just want to get to business. His tongue was gentle and probing, circling around my own, licking my lips. I put a hand on his pants, felt his cock stiffen and gently rubbed it. His cock pushed against the fabric of his cyclist’s trousers. When we moved apart finally, we laughed, half-stoned, half-embarrassed by the sudden intensity.

  ‘It’s getting late, and I have to get up early tomorrow,’ I said, smirking. ‘Want to go to bed?’

  He followed me upstairs to the bedroom. We removed our tops en route. As Karume took off his shirt, I could see he had a tasty body. His perfect T-shape had impressed me the night we met; now I was impressed by his perfect six-pack. In the bedroom, when he removed his pants, I saw how his muscular shoulders and back tapered down to a firm round bottom. He had the legs of a cyclist – muscular thighs, meaty calves. Then I saw his cock. Karume was right – it was unique. The lack of pigmentation that I’d noticed on his lips had similarly affected other parts of his body. His elbows were pink. One nipple was pink. The head of his thick eight-inch cock was pink as well, in sharp contrast to the rest of it. It was unlike any cock I’d ever seen: not the largest or thickest, but big enough to satisfy a size queen and a visual novelty besides.

  ‘Suck my cock,’ he said.

  I sat on the edge of my bed, took his cock in my mouth and watched the brown shaft get harder and longer. I wanted to worship that cock, linger over the head with my tongue, feel its size fill my mouth and throat.

  Karume cupped the back of my head in his hands, willing me to take him further down my throat. I opened my mouth wider to allow his cock to penetrate, relaxing the back of my throat to accommodate him. He held his cock there for a moment. I slid back until my lips were enveloping the tip. I used my saliva to glide my hand up and down the shaft.

  ‘That . . . feels . . . fan . . . tastic,’ he said.

  I rubbed my clit along Karume’s thigh while sucking him off. I licked and sucked and caressed his cock with my mouth and hands until I was dripping. I felt the energy from his body course through my own, his pleasure mirroring my own. As his cock hardened and softened, as his excitement grew and subsided, so did my own excitement.

  Finally, when I couldn’t stand the anticipation any longer, I straddled him. He was as hard as a rolling pin. I rode his cock, teasing the head with my pussy and grinding on his hips, hoping he would not go soft while I was on top, as many men I’ve been with tended to do. Happily, with Karume that was not a problem. Even as I rested, motionless, when there was no friction, he remained rock-hard inside me. This was a rare gift; many men need the friction and constant movement to stay hard. I didn’t want to come quickly and, with Jahnet’s tantric lessons in mind, was happy to have found a man equally willing to go slow. I wanted to savour the feeling of having Karume inside me – and touch his body, kiss his lips, look into his eyes. Ah, Jahnet, I thought, you did say there were men out there for me. This sure wasn’t the usual fuck-buddy scenario.

  Too often, it is tempting to think of a sex partner as a dildo attached to a body. With Karume I felt like our life energies travelled through one and into the other, a pleasure cycle of sexual and human connectedness. I felt the endorphins switch on inside my body. I was almost too excited, too stimulated, to orgasm. Every few minutes we’d stop and lie next to each other on my bed, holding hands, touching each other’s body, kissing – relaxing and enjoying being together.

  We worked well as a pair. Karume enjoyed being dominant, and to my surprise I enjoyed letting him lead; it was comfortable being a more passive partner than usual. After lying together during one of our rest periods, he said, ‘Roll on to your stomach.’ I did as commanded. ‘Bend your leg.’ I bent my right leg. Then he pushed my thigh up towards my chest and thrust deeply into me from behind. I felt him push back, arching his back, as he drove his full length into me. He hit the roof of my vagina. It was almost painful, but I enjoyed the discomfort and the feeling of being taken so roughly. He grabbed my hips with one hand and pulled me into him, while pushing his thumb into my mouth with his free hand. ‘Suck this,’ he said. I com
plied. He fucked me hard for ten punishing minutes, then flipped me over again, lay on top of my body, caressed my breasts and kissed me.

  ‘Please lick my pussy,’ I begged.

  ‘No.’

  I was surprised that someone so sexual and so responsive to his partner would deny this request. ‘You’re going to have to learn to wait,’ he said. ‘It’s good for you.’

  I was relieved Karume didn’t find the idea of oral sex repulsive, and, bizarrely, I was turned on by his blunt refusal. I decided to let Karume be the boss when we fucked. I cleared my dirty mind of all sex plans – no thoughts of what to do next, of which position to take – and went on a sexual holiday, accepting each new adventure as it came my way. I felt a bit like a human blow-up sex doll, passively doing as I was told. I was Karume’s porn-fantasy woman, always complying, never resisting. And it was great.

  Karume fucked me for three hours that night. We both came while I was riding his cock, on top, as at the beginning of the night. After we washed up, I saw that the summer sun was beginning to rise. I knew I’d be getting up for work soon, yet didn’t feel any great urge to sleep. I enjoyed resting my head on Karume’s shoulder, wrapping my arms around him, cuddling in the middle of my big bed – so relaxed, so still, so quiet. Even though it was our first night together, I felt at peace with Karume. I sensed I’d found a kindred spirit, not just a great lay. We both knew it was more than a one-night stand.

  The next time I invited Karume to spend the night, even though the kids were away at American Camp, I made sure it was a weekend. I wanted to concentrate on the sex, not be distracted by a clock ticking towards the next work day. I cooked him dinner while he retrieved two martini glasses from a cabinet and mixed a drink called a Golden Angel. ‘I invented this for you,’ he said. ‘I know how you Americans like your orange juice and, with a little apple juice and a lot of Russian vodka, I think you’ll find it magnificent – just like you: magnificent.’