With My Body

by Nikki Gemmell

  ‘But my pleasure is watching your pleasure. That I can do this to someone. Unlock them, open them up. To joy.’ He smiles a dirty smile. ‘And lead you into another, better place.’

  ‘But what can I do for you? Tell me one thing you love.’

  He pauses. Rolls in his lips. ‘There is something. But a lot of women … don’t like it. I haven’t suggested it before because I didn’t want to turn you off. I never want to do that. Some women are revolted.’

  ‘Try me.’

  He traces the outline of your mouth with a fingertip. ‘You have blow-job lips,’ he says soft.

  ‘Urgh. Lune says blow jobs are just for prostitutes.’

  He laughs. ‘I’d like to meet this girl some day. Have you ever given one?’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  You think of give and take, generosity and selfishness, dispensing pleasure as well as receiving it. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just … try. A little.’

  Kneeling. Naked. He standing before you, holding his penis.

  ‘Now close your eyes, and lick,’ he instructs. ‘Like you’re licking an ice cream. Imagine a flavour you’re unsure of, that you find, actually, you love. Can’t get enough of. Imagine.’

  You giggle, hesitate.

  ‘Sssh, it’ll help.’ He firms your head, you lick the tip of his penis. A bead of clear liquid emerges, a single drop, you tremble it up with your tongue tip.

  ‘Now suck,’ he whispers, pushing the back of your head onto him, deep into your mouth, further, until you are gagging and he pulls back and you suck soft and then lick in sweeps and he groans and comes, too quick, in a great jerking spurt, it spills down your throat and over your mouth and breasts and you gag and cough the sourness up.

  He loved it. You can tell.

  You did not.

  He catches your expression. ‘I’ll never get you to do that again. But thank you, thank you for trying it.’

  ‘But there was absolutely nothing in it for me!’ you muse in the quiet of afterwards, spooning side by side on his mattress.

  ‘You think too much, my lovely. You have to, don’t you,’ he teases. ‘Dissecting everything.’

  ‘It just felt so mechanical. Bleak. I could have been anyone, it wouldn’t have mattered. No eye contact, nothing. Yuck.’

  ‘Well aren’t you lucky I enjoy giving so much, then?’

  ‘Yes.’ You wrap his arms tighter around you. ‘I know, I know.’ The guilt, but you have to be blunt.

  ‘Some women find it incredibly empowering to be giving their man so much pleasure. They love calling all the shots, so to speak.’

  ‘But it just felt so selfish to me. On your part.’ You turn and poke him playfully in the stomach. ‘I’m sorry.’ You blush. ‘It’s not fair, I know.’

  He chuckles. Point taken. ‘Well, you might just be on to something there. There’s this government campaign right now to reduce the teenage pregnancy rate by encouraging oral sex. Fascinating, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yep, and I bet it’s always meant to be girls doing it to boys, never the other way around. And I bet a roomful of blokes was behind it.’

  He looks at you solemnly. ‘I’ll never force you into anything you don’t like. It’s never my intention. Everything has to come willingly from you. OK? With whatever happens beyond this.’

  ‘What do you mean? What’s beyond this?’

  You’re teasing, he’s serious.

  ‘The best sex is all about equality. Listening. You’re never going to get a great experience by demanding or insisting or bullying—because the other person will only shut down. And we mustn’t have that.’ A kiss lingers on the top of your forehead. ‘I know there’s a lot going on in that pretty little head of yours. I just want to find out what. Play. But I will always give you the chance to opt out.’

  ‘Of what? Tell me.’

  ‘Wait.’ His finger on your lips. ‘Be patient. You, my love, have to lead me—as much as I lead you.’

  ‘But I don’t know what I want!’

  ‘Oh you do,’ he breathes deep, once, shutting his eyes, ‘you’re just not telling me.’ He abruptly stands. ‘I’ll see you in two days. I’ve got work to do.’

  Maddened. By all of it. An electric fence he has switched on—ever alert, waiting, poised; ever ready to crackle and fizz and jump.

  For whatever he wants.

  Lesson 99

  All I desire is that you should love worthily

  That night, late, you write in your notebook something Tol said to you once, about his previous partner. ‘Sex with a girlfriend always becomes routine. Always. No matter how much you love them. The trick is to arrest the sense of sameness—if you can. If she lets you. And you hope she does. I do, at least.’

  Addled, by whatever is next. By how the lessons will be ratcheted up. How to detonate ennui with difference of some sort. The grand experiment. For both of you.

  You suspect it has everything to do with honesty.

  That’s all he wants.

  What’s in your head, your deepest, hidden thoughts.

  Lesson 100

  What a reward there is in this—to a woman!

  ‘I want to read. Learn. In the days in between. When you’re working. Give me some books.’

  ‘Hmm, let me think. Neruda, of course. And Sappho, lovely, sexy, stroppy Sappho. Nin. The Story of O. Oh yes.’

  ‘But how do I get them? I can’t just walk into a bookshop. Ask my father. Or stepmother.’

  He laughs. ‘Lie down on the couch, and wait.’

  Slivers your big toe into the curl of his tongue. Pushes your index finger into your cleft. ‘You have to learn to do all this for yourself, young lady. For those times when I’m not around.’

  Your heart skips a beat. He reads it.

  ‘Like when I’m in the next room, that’s all. You. Stop thinking too much. Like when I’m choosing your latest textbook. That will give your stepmother a coronary, alright?’

  ‘Oh!’ A relieved laugh.

  Lying on the couch, waiting, as languid as an abandoned scarf.

  A battered paperback.

  ‘Read it,’ he instructs.

  You do. Introducing yourself to a woman called O. A tingling washing through you as you are lost within her story, devouring her vulnerability, her need, her honesty, her appetite, forgetting he is watching until he is suddenly pulling away your panties—assisting, urgently—and you are pushing your fingers in further, then further, tickling, swirling, groaning; until he is taking over, with a rush dipping in with his tongue and his fingers and his lips and slurping you up until you slam the book down and arch your back and come and come, in great briny gushes, lost in the loveliness.

  ‘Turn over,’ he whispers.

  ‘I can’t,’ you murmur. ‘I have to be alone—’ as the waves of lovely pulsing pain glare on, and on, and on.

  ‘Trust me,’ he whispers. And when you are still, when you are quiet, you do what he asks. Because you do.

  Gently, so gently, he raises you on your haunches, on all fours. Tenderly he parts your cheeks. You feel the shiver of a shock of his tongue on your arse, around it; you gasp in surprise and after the initial clench you let go, you surrender and you are suddenly thrusting your buttocks out to him—needing it wanting it your back a straining saddle and then you come again, too quick. Lying curled on your side. Spent. Away from him. Away from the world.

  Wondrous.

  That your body is capable of so much. So much pleasure. Cracking you open, into someone else. Someone intensely alive, fully human; to the absolute limit of who you are. You lie back and laugh in astonishment.

  He gathers you up, cocooning you in his arms like a caterpillar in a leaf.

  ‘This is just the start, my love. And now you know the secret: that great sex can only happen when we completely, totally, let go. All our masks, all our inhibitions, gone. And if we surrender completely, like that good, brave O, then we show someone else our true selves, our very c
ore. And that can be … extraordinary. To do, and to witness.’ He’s quiet. ‘Rare,’ he whispers. ‘Thank you for that.’ A butterfly of breath flits by your ear.

  You smile. At the power you have just wielded.

  For he is speaking as if he has never before seen it.

  Who is snaring who?

  Live your life as bravely and generously as possible. Never forget that.

  You find it that night, in the back of your notebook.

  Lesson 101

  Oh, if women did but know what comfort there is in a cheerful spirit!

  It is written. What he loves:

  A woman who looks like she knows what she is doing. Who laughs in bed. Who looks like she has sex every day, three times a day—whether she does or not.

  ‘It’s that sense of carnality, shall we say. Even just a hint of it drives me wild. I saw it in you right from the start, from the moment my groceries were dropped. Did everything to resist.’

  You poke out your tongue. ‘Well I won, didn’t I?’

  ‘Maybe … ’

  It is written. What you are learning:

  The more sex I have the more I want. And the more extreme I want it.

  ‘You’re like a baby Jane Birkin,’ he laughs when you pounce on him now, in greedy greeting, wrapping your legs around his waist and trying to scrabble his clothes off; not a second of this precious time to waste—bugger the book! ‘There’s a gamine steel to you, isn’t there?’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’

  He mock-groans, shakes his head.

  ‘So much to learn, young miss.’

  ‘Yep. Come on then, let’s begin.’ You rip two buttons off his shirt with sheer, brute, exuberant strength. ‘The lesson for today is … ’

  Lesson 102

  The principle cause of woman’s downfall is their being afraid of truth

  But at night, late, the worry comes sneaking in, elbowing aside any sleep. Who was this old girlfriend who crushed him so cruelly, where is she, is she hovering, lingering, how far did it go? Why is he trying to do all this, with you—pushing boundaries, promising extremities until God knows what. What’s his motive? Is it dark? Are you distraction? Some kind of experiment? Is she still there, somewhere; is he using you to work out what’s best; how far he can take it? There’s a triangle here, a mysterious absence, you just don’t know enough. He won’t tell you a lot yet is asking too much now for memories, desires, thoughts, truths, with the greed of a surgeon extracting organs for research.

  ‘But what happened?’

  A sigh. Always a sigh, when he wants your probing to stop. You’re not letting up.

  ‘Tell me, or I’m never coming back. She’s like this great weight on me. And it’s because I don’t know—so can only guess. I’m going crazy with it. Julian seemed to think it was pretty huge. What did he say … that it’s taken you years to get over it.’

  An abrupt sigh. ‘She’s called Cecilia. I don’t like talking about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For some people, fear ends up dictating all their choices in life.’

  ‘Fear of what?’

  ‘Oh, everything. Not pleasing, being judged, showing your true self et cetera.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, if you must know, there’s a school of thought that the whole point of sex is to destroy a person’s sense of self-containment. To bring them closer to living, to life, if you like. In all its magic—and all its messiness.’

  He unbuttons your overalls. Swiftly, as if he barely knows what he is doing. He folds down the flap. Undoes the shirt. His fingers hover over your bare breasts and your nipples slowly harden under his gaze but he does not touch, not touch, as if he can’t, anymore, can’t bear it, can’t do it anymore; this has to stop.

  You clamp his hands to you, hold them firm, you do not let up.

  ‘She never had the courage to be known,’ he whispers, ‘truly, deeply. She never spoke her mind.’ He looks up at you. ‘Which meant I never knew what she was really thinking. And I need to know that.’

  You step back. Why does he need to, so much? His hand brushes against the Victorian volume in your pocket, the secret rawness of all your thinking that no one will ever know; you couldn’t bear it. He comes right up close, grips your upper arms and whispers that everyone is at their most vulnerable when it comes to sex; that it’s the closest we ever get to revealing our true selves in all our banality and our beauty, our desperation and our foolishness, and it’s beautiful, so beautiful—the complexity of it—the glittering, vulnerable, fascinating, greedy, ugly, intriguing truth.

  ‘A lot of us can’t face the thought of being seen as we really are, and we never get closer to the core of our deepest selves than with sex. I failed Cecilia. Failed with her. Never made her comfortable enough.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For opening up.’

  He slips out your notebook and you exclaim, try to grab it back but he’s got it, high, he swivels away and turns to the back page, his allotted space that only he ever goes to. Fumbles in his pocket for a pen, scribbles something. You snap up the buckles of your overalls. Want this to stop now. There’s some kind of coldness operating here; some sense of excavation, gutting.

  ‘I love you,’ you say. He doesn’t respond. Glances up with what, warmth, pity? You feel stripped.

  ‘I don’t feel like doing this anymore. Today,’ you say.

  He looks at you. Surprise. A new tone, for the first time in all this. He nods, OK, and without a word he hands your notebook back.

  It is only outside, before you get on your bike, that you open the page he has written on.

  CARNALITY

  ‘How many splendid loves I have dreamt of.’

  Rimbaud

  It doesn’t help. You snap the book shut.

  Lesson 103

  She should never lie down at night without counting up,

  ‘How much have I done today?’

  Harangued by sleeplessness.

  Learning from your stepmother. The power in withdrawal and in silence. You do not go back, the next day or the next, leaving no explanation; let him sweat.

  Feverishly you are writing in your little book, gathering all your thoughts; every page but his filling up.

  What you are learning about what men want. Your grand and meticulous experiment. You, too, can be the observer in all this.

  Precision: Saying exactly what is required, and where.

  A verbal response: ‘Too many women believe sex is a spectator sport,’ he has said. ‘Silence is not always golden. Women want to feel loved, desired, attractive—well, we men do too, only we don’t like to admit it. Verbal encouragement is the biggest turn on. It confirms desire. And we all want to see that.’

  Enthusiasm: ‘We don’t want to feel a partner’s just going through the motions. If you love someone, yet get the feeling during sex that they’re just not that interested, it’s such a turn off.’ You can’t ever imagine that, with him. ‘If the man’s always the one to propose sex eventually we feel like some small kid pestering Mum for sweets—unwanted, undesirable, a nuisance.’

  Happiness: ‘All I want is a woman who’s happy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s all a man ever wants.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because from that comes everything else.’

  Imagination: It’s not unusual, or wrong, or odd, to be thinking of another scenario entirely as you’re being made love to; a scenario that has little to do with the person having sex with you. They may be just a trigger for the process, a trigger for the movie in your head. There shouldn’t be any guilt about it; you have come to this conclusion yourself, haven’t discussed it with him.

  You slam down your pen, it’s what he wants, of course: to chisel out your innermost thoughts. Jackhammering away at all the defences you put up, that anyone puts up. What is he writing himself? You wonder. Turn back to your book with a furious pen.

  HE WILL NEVER KNOW. THE C
ORE OF WHO I AM. NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW THAT.

  He will not let you go until he knows, instinctively you sense this. You are gaining knowledge, strength.

  He will no longer write in your book. You will not give him the chance.

  The potency in withdrawal, in silence. The magnificent coldness of the punishment.

  Lesson 104

  Contemn her not, for her state might not have always been thus; you know not the causes which produced it; and—stay till you see her end

  But then you soften, can’t do this; the cruelty of no explanation. Can’t live with the sourness of your stepmother, it’s not in your heart.

  He has laid a claim over you. Over land, property, possessions, a body—the violence is the same; there is nothing economical or skimped about your obsession—it is fulsome, extravagant, wasteful. Complete.

  On the outside Tol’s everything your father couldn’t bear, couldn’t understand. But you have found who you should be with him. It feels like he is more you than you.

  Your father will never understand.

  I HAVE NO CHOICE.

  You write jagged in your notebook.

  Like a butterfly you are pinned, by desire.

  So. Back. Of course. You will always go back.

  Lesson 105

  This, her life-chronicle, which, out of its very fullness, has taught her that the more one does, the more one finds to do