It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake

by Claire Christian

  ‘Molly wants to meet up tomorrow,’ I say finally, when I feel full enough and the coffee has triggered function to my form.

  ‘I thought she couldn’t meet you?’ Naz says.

  ‘Well, she can now. She said work is busy and she’s back for one night only.’

  Naz raises her eyebrows suspiciously. ‘Is that weird? I think that’s weird.’

  ‘It’s not hard to believe that backpackers would be a shit-fight to run, so I don’t know. It’s not weird she wants to see me, is it? We’ve been talking for weeks.’

  ‘Have you replied?’

  ‘Not yet. I should do that, shouldn’t I?’ I pull out my phone.

  ‘If you want to see her tomorrow, babes, then you should definitely make that plan.’ Naz mops up baked beans with buttered white bread off her plate and into her mouth in one move. ‘But…’ ‘But what?’ I ask, pleading with my eyes that she doesn’t ruin this for me.

  ‘One night only sounds conditional. Just trust your gut, Nons,’ she says pointedly.

  I roll my eyes, opening a new message, and then I freeze. ‘Naz, what do I say?’

  ‘Say, you’re lucky, I’m free. Don’t overthink it, dear.’ She smirks at me.

  Don’t overthink it. Tomorrow. I’m going to see Molly tomorrow.

  I can be free tomorrow, I type. Tell me when and where and I’ll be there. I hit send.

  Tomorrow. Shit.

  15

  I swallow hard. The pulse of adrenaline hits me hard the second I see her walk into the bar. She looks exactly how I remember, but also not at all. She’s older, her hair has changed—it’s shorter, but still it’s her signature whiteish blonde and still swept across her forehead diagonally. Her body is different, there are curves in different places. But her style is the same. Black jeans, black t-shirt, expensive leather jacket. She’s beautiful. I am smacked by nostalgia and possibility at exactly the same time so my heart doesn’t quite feel like my own anymore.

  ‘Hello,’ she says as she reaches me.

  ‘Hi.’ I stand and we hug, and she kisses my cheek.

  ‘Wow! You look—’ we speak over the top of each other.

  ‘Incredible. I love your hair like that,’ she says, sitting down on the burgundy chesterfield.

  ‘Oh, I don’t—’ I stop myself and receive the compliment. ‘Thank you.’ I smile, breathing it in. Her in. She thinks I look incredible. I feel incredible.

  We chat easily, though it takes a little while to find a flow. But we’ve always been like that. Better in writing. She asks me about work and Joan and I tell her short, uncomplicated versions of both. She tells me all about the chain of backpackers all around Europe she invested in.

  ‘It’s like I’ve never grown up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend it.’

  She still plays with her hair, pushing it out of her face with her palm, when she’s nervous. I like that I make her nervous. I laugh at her jokes. She’s funny. She laughs at mine. We drink wine. We catch up. It’s friendly. Not really flirty. It’s nice. I don’t know how she feels. I can’t read her. I’ve never really been able to read her.

  With a deep breath, a swig of wine, and a mission to find out once and for all if this is meant to be, I ask, ‘Why didn’t we ever seal the deal?’

  She laughs, shocked by my directness. She smiles and I can see her trying to read my face. ‘I dunno. We were young.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And I was scared of you,’ she adds, grabbing her glass for protection.

  ‘Of me?’ I ask, surprised.

  ‘Yeah, of your confidence,’ she says and I smirk, shaking my head. She has no idea. ‘Of the way you made me feel,’ she continues. ‘I’d never been in a relationship, or had a beautiful woman in my bed, or at least not a naked one who was happy for me to touch her boobs. It was too much.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable,’ I tell her, trying to receive this new insight graciously.

  ‘Noni, you have nothing to apologise for. Believe me. I dunno. I’m sorry I was a dick.’ She looks at me sincerely. ‘A lot.’ She holds out her drink and we clink glasses. There is another pause. It’s full of possibility.

  ‘Are you going to tell me why you wanted to see me?’ she finally asks.

  ‘To see,’ I rush out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘To see if—’ I stop. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’ve got all the time in the world.’ She bites her lip and then looks at her watch. ‘Well, until 1 p.m. tomorrow, when I have to catch a flight to Sweden, but you know, until then.’ She smiles and I think she’s finally flirting with me. I’m surprised by how quickly we’ve fallen back into this place. We’re good in this place. It’s the next bit we’ve never quite successfully navigated. I think she’s so beautiful. The should’ve-boned list pops into mind. So I tell her.

  ‘There’s a list.’

  ‘I’m on a list?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What is this list?’

  ‘A list of people who I should’ve slept with and didn’t.’

  She splutters a mouthful of wine onto the table. ‘Your bucket list is actually a fuck-it list?’ She laughs loudly.

  ‘Kind of.’ I feel suddenly shy, so I wait for her to speak.

  ‘I’ve thought about it,’ she says, looking me in the eye.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You and me.’ She glances down at her glass. ‘A lot. Us together,’ she looks at me, her lips part slightly and she grins, ‘Fucking.’ I stop breathing. ‘I’ve thought about making you cum.’ She drinks from her glass slowly, purposefully. I take in every single detail of her hands as they move towards her face and back down to her lap. ‘It makes me cum.’

  OH. MY. GOD.

  ‘I like that,’ I mutter. I’m surprised that words have even managed to escape my body. ‘Tell me,’ I ask.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me what happens,’ I plead, my fingers landing on my cheeks as she starts to talk.

  ‘We lock eyes across a party—’ she says.

  ‘What kind of party?’ WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, NONI? IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT KIND OF PARTY. LET THE WOMAN OF YOUR DREAMS TELL YOU ABOUT HOW YOU MAKE HER CUM IN HER MIND.

  Molly laughs. ‘I don’t know, I’ve never thought about what kind of party. A good one.’

  ‘Good. I’d hate for us to be at a shit party.’ I giggle a little too loudly. GET THIS TRAIN BACK ON ITS FUCKING TRACKS NOW, WOMAN. ‘What happens after we lock eyes?’ I ask.

  ‘We’re not with each other, but we can see each other. We make eye contact and I nod towards a hallway,’ she says, biting her lip gently. She moves closer to me, just a little, but it’s enough. She lowers her voice. ‘You make your way across the party and meet me there. We go inside a room, it’s a bedroom, but we don’t get any further than the door. I don’t let you touch me, but I touch you all over with my mouth, my hands, my tongue.’

  I swallow hard. I have ceased being a person, and am now instead just made up entirely of wanting. The desire pulls hard and deep and I rock my hips back in the chair for some kind of respite. ‘I am amazed that you’re not wearing underwear…’

  ‘What a minx,’ I whisper, trying desperately to shift the tension. She smiles and keeps talking, edging closer to me.

  ‘I like that you’re not. I move my hand up your thigh.’

  My breath is so deep that each inhalation moves my whole body. Molly hasn’t touched me. I move closer to her, I want more than her voice inside me. I lean my neck closer to her mouth, willing her to kiss me. I place my hand on her thigh and she puts her hand on top of mine, and with just the tip of one finger she starts tracing single lines from my fingernail to my wrist, slowly, deliberately. The touch wakes up my whole body. I feel her touch in my chest, in my stomach, in my thighs.

  ‘You think I’m going to touch you,’ she says, low and quiet, ‘but I don’t.’

  I swallow. ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. I lie down o
n the floor and I ask you to straddle my face.’

  My eyes open wider than they ever have. Ever. And all I do is nod. She quickly flips my hand over and now draws circles on my palm, leaning into my neck to whisper into my ear, ‘I like the way your magnificent arse gyrates each time my tongue does something you like.’

  I open my mouth but no sound comes out. SPEAK, NONI. ‘You do?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Do I cum?’ I ask, because good god I want to.

  ‘I don’t know. Am I good enough?’ She looks at me and bites her lip again, letting it slowly run through her teeth.

  I stare at her, shaking my head in a swirl of disbelief and desire. ‘Yes,’ is all I manage to say. I look in her eyes.

  ‘You are fucking stunning, Noni Blake.’

  ‘Kiss me,’ I tell her. I don’t ask. This is a demand. And I’m so relieved that she does. All passion. One hand grabs my cheek, one hand grabs my hip, I grab her face with both my hands, lick her lip, she bites mine gently and a moan escapes my mouth that I have no control over. We are pressed hard against each other as we kiss and kiss and kiss.

  I pull back, look at her and smile. There are no words. She laughs, shaking her head.

  ‘Ask me to come home with you,’ she says.

  The passion from the bar only increases when we get back to my flat. I flick on a lamp and sit next to Molly on the couch, but she pulls me onto her lap. Then her hands are all over my boobs and my body, she rubs her hand up my neck and looks at me with a kind of intensity that startles me. She grabs my hands and I rock my hips into her. I pull her t-shirt off and lay her head back on the couch, kissing her neck, her jaw, her beautiful collarbones. I pay particular attention to her nipples, to the way my tongue, and light grazes of my teeth, make her moan.

  ‘God, I want you,’ she moans, and I feel giddy. We take our time getting undressed. It’s like we both acknowledge the time it’s taken us to get here and now we don’t want to waste it.

  Molly kisses every inch of my skin, and whenever I try to take any control and kiss her back, she stops me. Everything about this feels like it’s for me. Molly is all sly grins and deep moans. ‘I’m so fucking turned on,’ she whispers. She is getting so much pleasure from pleasuring me, and it’s the hottest thing ever.

  ‘Oh god, Noni,’ she moans. Every time she says my name I feel it in my chest cavity, like a water bomb hitting concrete. It fills bits of my body I didn’t know I could have feeling in. She goes down on me so well, and for so long, that I can barely keep my eyes open. I pant hard and she smiles gleefully, lying on her side looking at me.

  ‘Good?’ she says.

  ‘Better than…’ I mumble, arching my back and stretching my arms out. I look at Molly, then sit up, taking her hand, leading her to the bed. As I do this I make a promise to myself, a deep commitment to fuck this woman with every skill I possess, until she can orgasm no more.

  And I do.

  I roll onto my back and puff air into my lungs in sharp intakes.

  ‘What a relief,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ Molly asks, holding her chest and smirking.

  ‘What a relief that wasn’t shit.’ I smile, and Molly laughs. ‘How disappointing would it have been after all this time if that was shit?’

  ‘Horrifying,’ she says and we both laugh. I tickle lines slowly over her arms, stomach, and neck, staring at her flushed face.

  ‘If I’d have known that’s what it was going to be like, I would’ve leapt right in back then,’ she says.

  ‘No you wouldn’t have.’ I smirk, poking her.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have. But I’m not the same person I was back then.’ She holds my hand in hers. ‘Thankfully.’

  ‘Sometimes I think I’m not, and then other times I still feel like my fifteen-year-old self has complete say over everything, you know?’

  She picks up my hand and kisses my fingers. ‘You are very special to me, Noni. You always have been. You know that, yeah?’ She glances across her shoulder at me.

  I blush, and she leans over and kisses me gently on my lips. I roll onto my side and she spoons me, wrapping her hand tight around my waist, we interlock fingers and fall asleep. Happy.

  The vibrating of my phone on the bedside table wakes me up. I peel open one eye, quickly glance at the phone, see the capital ‘L’ and know it’s Lindell. It’s still dark outside—we can’t have been asleep long, I think, as I sneak out of the bed, so as not to wake Molly. I quickly manoeuvre into the bathroom, wrapping a towel around my chest so Lindell doesn’t have to stare at my boobs, and hit the green button to accept the video call. My eyes are bleary. I don’t even know what time it is. I’m still asleep. I’m still sex fuzzy. I’m still giddy from what has happened tonight, from what it means, from the bliss, from this whole trip being the entirely right decision.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ A woman who is mostly black fringe is staring at me.

  ‘Lindell? What?’ I ask.

  ‘Where’s Molly?’ she spits.

  ‘Where’s—What? Lindell?’ I ask.

  ‘Who the fuck is Lindell?’ She has a thick, maybe French, accent and she is furious. I suddenly realise this isn’t my phone. This is Molly’s phone. And this must be Molly’s…

  ‘Who are you?’ I ask.

  The door flies open and a stunned Molly looks ghostly white. I stare at her. The woman speaks French.

  ‘Luana, babe—’ Molly says, grabbing the phone out of my hand and walking back into the room.

  Luana? Fuck. Babe? Fuck. Molly? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Molly is speaking in French. I didn’t even know she spoke French. I feel like my feet are frozen to the bathroom floor, like my brain is telling them to move but the message to my body isn’t computing. I can’t take it in. Can’t take in that clearly this Luana woman, Molly’s ‘babe’, is not happy about the sudden revelation that I am with her—I let the word find me—girlfriend? Her girlfriend. Molly has a girlfriend. Molly has a fucking girlfriend. It feels like cold water splashed onto my face and the shock propels me forward into the room.

  ‘Molly, hang up the phone,’ I say, but she doesn’t hear me. I try again. ‘Molly, hang up the phone,’ I yell. I yell so loudly I stun myself and Molly stares, wide-eyed. She says something in French and ends the call. ‘Was that your girlfriend?’ I ask.

  ‘Why did you answer my phone?’ She stares at me.

  ‘I thought it was my phone. Also, not the fucking point. Was that your girlfriend?’

  ‘I can explain, there is an explanation—’ She stops talking and stares at me.

  I try to find the answer in her face, but she gives me nothing. ‘But you’re in a—?’

  ‘Relationship. Yes. I’m in a relationship,’ she sighs.

  I close my eyes really tight, trying to work out what to say. Thoughts pummel me wildly. ‘Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me that?’ I spit. Oh my god. What? Why am I here? What is she doing?

  ‘I dunno. ’Cause. ’Cause I wanted to see you. I really, really wanted to see you.’ This is fucked. You came here for this. ‘And I didn’t think there’d still be chemistry between us, but there is. It’s pretty undeniable, actually. I guess I needed you to know I’m not the same as I was back then, that I could—’

  You’re an idiot. You’re an idiot. You’re an idiot. Something snaps. No. Actually. Fuck her. I cut her off. ‘Stop talking. I don’t need to hear whatever you’re going to say.’ My brain spins like a carnival ride that turns so quickly it defies gravity, and my thoughts cling upside down on the walls. Heavy. ‘Fuck you,’ is all I manage.

  ‘I know I’m shit.’ She gingerly takes a step towards me. ‘I wanted to see you, Noni.’

  ‘Well, we could’ve fucking skyped.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She grabs my hands but I push her away. We stare at each other. She looks positively tiny framed by the big window, with the city behind her. With her big blue eyes and fluttering eyelashes she’s like a deer, and I am equally torn between throwing something at her and prot
ecting her from hunters.

  I don’t care. I don’t actually care what you want,’ I say. She opens her mouth but she doesn’t say anything, so I continue. ‘I don’t want your bullshit. Again. Fuck. I’m a fucking idiot.’ I shake my head, feeling the weight of my own stupidity.

  ‘I do want you,’ she says, low and quiet. ‘Clearly. Can we just—can we talk?’

  ‘So you can lead me on a little more?’

  ‘I didn’t think it would be like this. So much time has passed and I thought it was—’

  ‘We’ve been talking for months and you didn’t think to bring it up?’

  ‘I thought it’d be different in real life. I thought—I dunno, okay. I don’t know what I thought. I wanted to show you that I’ve changed.’

  ‘Into an epically shitty person?’ I spit.

  ‘Yeah, I guess,’ she says, looking quickly at me. ‘I don’t know what to say to you, Noni.’ She sits on the edge of the bed.

  The voice in my head starts screaming. MAKE HER LEAVE. THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. The back-away siren inside my head whoops loudly. DO NOT SIT DOWN. I get goosebumps.

  ‘Please, Noni, can we just talk?’ She leans forward, grabbing my hand, and I feel the touch in every one of my millions of cells, and the alarm in my brain whoops louder. DON’T BE A FUCKING IDIOT. ‘We can sort it out.’

  I step towards her, breathing her in. DON’T YOU DARE. ‘No.’ I shake my hand free. ‘That is a terrible idea.’

  ‘Noni?’

  ‘Just…no.’ I exhale loudly. Every inch of my skin tenses and the muscles in my throat constrict so tight that I’m surprised words are actually able to escape.

  ‘Fine.’ She starts getting dressed. She’s pissed off with me. She’s pissed off with me? Fuck her.

  I shake my head. ‘You need to fuck off right now.’

  She groans, pained. ‘Noni, you need to let me fix this. I can fix this.’

  ‘Go,’ I say.

  She stares at me, her eyes pleading with me to change my mind. I don’t. She gathers the rest of her things and walks to the front door.