‘I just, I don’t—’ I stop myself.
‘Well you should.’ He lifts my head up, looking into my eyes. ‘You’re sexy, Noni.’ He kisses me. ‘I wanted to use the scarf to blindfold you.’ He kisses my eyelids, moving his own body so I roll onto my back and he’s lying on top of me. ‘Close your eyes.’ I do. ‘I wanted to kiss your neck.’ He does. ‘And do this.’ He runs one hand down my side, and his tongue lands on my nipple, he sucks and licks and I make soft throaty sounds. ‘I wanted to take off your jeans and spread your legs.’ He moves my legs and the pull in the base of my stomach is all wanting.
‘Then what?’
‘Then this.’
I feel his breath first. Then kisses on my right knee. I open my eyes. He looks at me.
‘Close your eyes. You’re blindfolded, remember.’ He moves down my thigh, kissing the whole way. I push my hips towards him so he knows what I want, but he kisses back up my thigh all the way to my left knee. He repeats this over and over again. I clutch at his hands, pull at his hair, my hips flex towards his kisses, but he doesn’t oblige. Then I feel his hands under my shoulders and he rolls me over so I am lying flat on the mattress. I inhale sharply at the quickness of it all. The ease with which he could move me.
He kisses down my spine, pulling me back onto my haunches, so I’m sitting between his legs. Finally he touches me, and the sound that escapes my lips takes me by surprise. My hips dictate the pace and I hold his hand exactly where I want him, until it’s too much. I fall forward on my knees as he pushes into me. His hand is on my hips as I move to get comfortable, my cheek pressing into the bed. One hand slides around and he rubs and thrusts at the same time and all I can do is give over to it. His other hand finds mine and interlocks with my fingers, and I shudder hard, waves of pleasure building and releasing all over. But he doesn’t stop, doesn’t give me a second to catch my breath, he thrusts deeper and harder and I move my hips against him quicker.
‘Oh, fuck Noni, you are—’ and he cums before I can cum again, grabbing me around my waist and biting my shoulder as he groans, squeezing me tight. ‘Oh, good god, you are—you are fucking sublime.’ I start slowly circling my hips.
‘Oh, fuck Noni that’s—’ I don’t stop. I feel him shaking but I keep circling and move his hand back to my front. He knows what to do, he mutters into my ear but I’m not listening, I am in this moment, in my body, in his bed, orgasming again.
He lies on his back next to me, and I roll onto my back, panting. I put my hand on my chest. My heart is pounding.
‘You good?’ he asks.
‘Yes!’ I rasp. ‘You?’
He laughs, picks up my hand and kisses it, and we lie like that for I don’t know how long. Eyes closed.
‘I’ve got to get ready,’ he says, rolling over me, stopping as he straddles me, kissing my belly before getting up and walking towards the bathroom. His calves are divine. I’ve never thought about calves being divine before. It seems like a weird body part to invoke divinity, but the curve of his muscle, the tan of his leg, the soft throw of pale hair—it’s all perfect.
I hear the pulse of the shower and I lie back on the bed and let the giddiness envelop my body, breathing it right into the pit of my stomach. I grab a pillow and squeal into it wildly, thrashing my body about before I feel self-conscious and picture Beau standing in the doorway watching me. I throw down the pillow and check that I’m still alone. I am.
I find my phone and message Lindell, Do I have a story for you, my love.
A good story or a bad story? he replies within minutes.
An orgasmic story.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! He sends back, along with three firework emojis.
The Viking tattoo artist and I bumped into each other last night.
Can I call?
No. I’m in his bed. He’s in the shower.
YOU SAUCY FUCKING MINX.
Beau appears in the doorway with just a towel wrapped around his waist. I put the phone face down on the bed and stare at him.
‘Want to walk me to work? We can get a coffee?’
‘Yeah.’ My phone dings. And dings again. And again. And again.
‘Someone is popular.’ He moves into the room and starts riffling through his drawers, getting dressed.
‘My best mate.’ I flick it on silent.
‘So, how’d I do?’
‘What?’
‘My report card.’ He pulls a t-shirt over his head. ‘The debrief with your mate.’ He nods towards the phone.
I smile. ‘It went something like, got a tattoo and bedded a Viking.’
‘A Viking?’ He laughs. ‘And their response?’
I flip the phone over and smile wide. There are a throng of messages from Lindell. I laugh as I read them.
OH MY FUCKING GOD.
Eggplant. Eggplant. Eggplant. Firework. Firework. Firework.
YOU BLOODY MINX.
THIS IS AMAZING.
I MISS YOU.
BRILLIANT.
I’M CACKLING.
Then there’s a photo of Lindell on the couch with a squishy laughing face. I show Beau the photo. ‘He’s happy.’
‘I’m glad.’ Beau smiles and it pulses through me. I smile back with my whole body. I quickly shower and get dressed, and Beau laughs at me when I put all of my layers back on. ‘I do not remember taking that many clothes off,’ he says as I blush.
It’s a beautiful day. Freezing, but beautiful. Still. And the sun is out. We walk down the street in silence, but it’s not awkward. He takes me down to the waterfront, which is lined with large barges, where everything is grey brick, marble and stone, with black wrought iron fittings and the occasional glint of mossy green. If Edinburgh were a person it would be a broad-shouldered old man with calloused hands, pain in his heart, but soft eyes.
We walk up a laneway to a café and order takeaway coffee and donuts. While we stand outside waiting, he puts his arms around my waist and I’m taken aback by the relaxed intimacy.
He kisses me light and soft on the lips and smiles. ‘So, what are your plans, Noni?’
‘Well, I’m going to Amsterdam tomorrow.’
‘I love Amsterdam so much. I could totally live there.’
‘Hookers and weed, of course,’ I tease.
‘Are they not your two non-negotiables when looking for a city to live in?’ he jokes, his eyes glinting.
‘I guess that’s the good thing about your job, you can do it anywhere.’
He nods. ‘Definite perk. Back issues and RSI are not perks, but you know, I’m not complaining.’
‘Beau,’ the barista says and we separate from our hug to get our order and walk back along the cobbled street towards Beau’s tattoo shop.
‘But I can’t complain. I feel very lucky to love what I do. I think I’d go nuts if I was one of those people whose passions could only simmer away on the weekends, you know?’
‘Yeah, because often those people are too tired on the weekends from their week to even consider what their passion might be,’ I say, sipping my coffee.
‘Sounds like you know these people well.’
‘I guess. Yes. I mean I am here, aren’t I?’
‘You are here. I love that you’re here.’ Beau smiles. ‘I want to know all about you, Noni. Tell me things.’
‘Like what?’
‘I dunno. Important things. Like—’ He thinks for a moment. ‘Like, who’s your favourite Spice Girl?’
I laugh. ‘Important things? Right. Well, it’s Scary. Of course.’
‘Ginger. Ginger caused a sexual revolution in my house.’
‘That honour goes to Peter Andre for me,’ I tell him. Beau laughs deep, and with his whole body.
‘It was the middle-part and plaits wasn’t it?’
‘How’d you know?’
‘Because I thought for sure girls would dig my middle-part and plaits because of him.’
‘And they did not?’ I ask.
Beau shakes his head and I laugh. We walk i
n silence for a little while. I try to think of something to say, of things I want to know about him but come up blank, especially as I can now see the shop in the distance, and the only thing left to say then will be goodbye.
‘What are your plans after Amsterdam?’
I shrug. ‘Dunno. I’m letting pleasure lead.’
‘Lucky pleasure.’ He smiles at me and I smile too, suddenly nervous. ‘Well, I think we should definitely hang out again. If you want to.’
‘My report card was good then?’ I ask.
‘All A+s.’
‘Shit.’ I smirk.
‘Will you let me know if you’re around Edinburgh again? I’m in London often, too,’ he says.
I stare at him, amazed by his honesty. ‘You just say what you’re thinking, don’t you?’
‘I’m nearly forty, Noni. I’ve played a fuck-load of games in the past and now I’m of the opinion that it’s better to say what you want.’
‘Yes. It is better. Just rare.’
‘Let me give you my number and then it’ll be your call.’
I hand him my phone. He puts his details in and hands it back to me. He’s saved his contact as ‘Beau Viking’. I laugh.
We get to the shop and stand facing each other out the front.
‘I hope I hear from you, and I hope that I see you again. That’s what I want.’
‘Okay,’ is all I can manage.
‘And you want?’ he asks.
‘To kiss you,’ I say. He smiles, leans forward, kissing me softly at first and then deeper, making my stomach flip.
‘I hope you find what you’re looking for, Noni,’ he says, kissing me on the cheek, and then heads inside the shop.
I walk back up the cobbled street feeling like I maintained an air of cool aloof energy during that whole conversation—especially since internally it was just all loud screeching.
LINDELL! ARE YOU FREE? I NEED YOUR WISE COUNSEL, I text.
Ten minutes later the phone rings and we debrief over the last twenty-four hours. He squeals with delight while cooking the kids’ dinner.
‘A man who says what he’s thinking, praise all that is holy, are you sure you want to leave?’
‘I know, right? He’s too good to be true, though, surely there’s something shit about him.’
‘Surely. He probably irons his jocks or doesn’t clean his hair out of the sink or doesn’t eat vegetables, or something equally fucked up.’
I laugh loudly. ‘Or he just does this all the time so he’s really good at it.’
‘Yes. Too smooth. His moves are too polished,’ Lindell muses.
‘I don’t think I’ll see him again. I think it was perfect as a one-night thing.’
‘Whatever you think, my darling.’
‘I mean, I don’t want to chase some guy around Europe, because that defeats the whole fucking point of the pleasure quest.’ I poke at the dirt around the cobblestoned pathway. ‘That worked out so well with Molly.’
‘Fuck Molly, this isn’t about Molly. This is about you,’ he says. ‘Noni, this is all about doing whatever you want to do.’
‘Yes! You’re right. And what I want to do right now is know all about you.’ I stop outside a cute shop, pacing up and down, as I don’t want to be the obnoxious person on the phone inside.
‘I am fine. We are all fine. My life is pretty much exactly the same as when you left, just not nearly as fun. Julius cut his own hair yesterday. He looks like a four-year-old Lionel Ritchie from the “Dancing on the Ceiling” era. Which, to be honest, I don’t completely hate.’
I laugh loudly and a woman walking her dog smiles at me as she walks past. ‘I miss you,’ I tell him.
‘And I miss you. But if you don’t wring out every last fucking drop of pleasure from this trip I will be so disappointed in you. And so will you when you get home and everything is back to normal, and you’ll be wishing you had done everything you wanted to.’
‘You’re right. Absolutely.’
‘In short, go to Amsterdam and do whatever you want and if you feel like you might want to fuck the Viking again, then do that. If not, then don’t,’ he says, matter of fact.
‘Okay. Okay. I love you.’
‘I love you, my darling,’ he says and I hang up, giddy with the possibility of all the pleasure to come.
21
I open my eyes and immediately catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. Single boob hanging out of my singlet, wild hair in a side mohawk and pillow creases across one cheek. Hot.
I sigh, deeply pleased and disappointed all at once, because he’s not here. The Viking. I had been dreaming of his hands on my hips and his tongue running up the back of my thigh. He made me cum and he’s not even here. I look around my new room, a self-contained all-white unit with a spiral staircase up to my new loft bedroom with a big square skylight that makes it feel like I’m sleeping under the stars.
I’d arrived yesterday afternoon and checked in. The owner, a woman named Magda who I’d only talked to via the app, had left me a bottle of wine and some decadent pastries so I ate them and drank two glasses of wine before setting off to explore. Amsterdam is beautiful. The cobbled streets feel like they vibrate with history. Beautiful children sit in baskets on the backs of bikes, being pedalled around by their equally beautiful parents. There are tiny shops with a million things in each I’d love to buy. On the canals, happy people leisurely recline on long boats, radiating maximum relaxation. I fell asleep last night thinking about how glad I was that I came here.
Later in a café a woman with long dreadlocks stands over me as I sit on a sofa waiting for the single space cake and iced chocolate I’ve just ordered to arrive, reading my third book in a week. She offers me her joint and I decline, before remembering the pleasure quest and quickly accepting instead. Why not. She stares at me intently, watching me inhale deeply. We smile at each other. She has a beautiful smile. She’s wearing a tie-dyed negligee under a big, furry coat, and she has a leather bum bag on her hip.
‘You were a healer in a past life,’ she says. ‘But they thought you were a witch.’
I laugh, thinking she’s joking, but she’s clearly not.
‘Yeah, and you had an issue with alcohol in another, maybe like the late 1600s—and you broke someone’s heart, she never forgave you.’
‘Oh, god, really?’ I say, intrigued. I’m stoned. I’m susceptible.
‘You were a soldier in England. A knight. You were in love with a fellow soldier. He died in your arms on a battlefield. You never recovered.’
‘Did I have any past lives that didn’t end horrifically?’ I ask.
‘You’ve loved wildly and had your heart broken. This life is for—’ She stops and looks intensely into my eyes, leaning her hands on my knees and standing inches from my face. ‘You’re beautiful, why don’t you think so?’
‘I—um,’ I stutter.
‘Stop it,’ she says.
‘Okay,’ I say and she gets up and walks out onto the street. ‘This is my life for what?’ I say out loud to no one in particular.
‘Getting wasted,’ says the young waiter who has just appeared with my order, and so I do. I get deliciously and giddily stoned. I eat a giant fruit flan by the canal and giggle at myself for having the audacity to be living this life. I wander and smile at strangers and marvel at the wind on my face, the shape of leaves, the music blaring from shops, the boats on the river and the air in my lungs. I end up in the red light district and I sit in a pub on a corner with a pint, watching the world around me. I have a perfect view of five windows with women wearing lingerie standing lazily in them. Across the canal a group of young boys, eighteen or so, usher one of their friends inside. They wait outside, eager for his return. It doesn’t take long. He stumbles onto the street, wide-eyed and biting his lip. The boys leap and holler around him, laughing and patting him on the back. I message Lindell and tell him because I know he’ll think it’s funny. I watch the women in the windows. I wonder what they’re t
hinking about. I wonder what their pleasure quests might look like.
I spend the next few days mixing tourist must-dos with wandering and seeing what I find, letting pleasure lead. I buy a vibrator, or a clitoral stimulator to be more specific. The campy bald guy in the shop wearing a dog collar tells me I’ll cum in two minutes or less.
‘If you don’t, I’ll buy you dinner.’ He pushes the box across the counter with an interested grin.
‘Is that a promise?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘Trust me.’
So I trust him, and I cum in less than two minutes. I walk past the same shop the next day and he raises his eyebrows at me from across the alleyway, so I nod and he gives me a thumbs up.
By Saturday night I’m bored of my own company, and I want to have sex with someone other than myself. And then I realise I don’t even know how to get laid on purpose. Every experience I’ve ever had has been after a long build-up or a complete accident. After Joan and I broke up I downloaded all the dating apps, and very quickly realised what a mostly impossible shit-fight they all were, and how they made me feel stressed and overwhelmed. Between guys with photos of them shooting a gun or holding a large fish, and girls being very specific about what they liked or didn’t like, my insecurities were deeply triggered. I struggled with the stalemate of no one making the first move, conversations that fizzled quickly, and being asked about my position on anal sex in the third sentence of talking to someone. It all just felt like swarms of people either demanding to be impressed or being all too nonchalant. I didn’t have the energy for online dating, so I avoided it. But tonight I have the energy for a straightforward one-night stand and I believe in the apps to help deliver that outcome.
I sit at a communal table in a quiet bar with a glass of champagne. I redownload an app and start to scroll. Left, left, left, left. Two photos of yourself and nothing in your bio apart from your height? Left. An amusing bio but only one abstract close-up side-profile photo? Left. A few handsome photos but your profile is all lower case and reads ‘looking to eat sweet butt’? Left. I know I want to get laid but I also want there to be chemistry, or at least just a wicked attraction, so I can calm the parts of my brain that tell me it’s a terrible idea. I swipe right on a couple of people who I think will fit these categories, but no matches.
It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake Page 16
