Breaking Joseph

by Lucy V. Morgan

  “Doing? What, being engaged?”

  “Yeah.” A blush slid along her dainty cheekbones. “I know, I know. I jumped the gun.”

  “Just a bit,” I managed.

  She tipped her head, chocolate waves cascading over her shoulder. “It’s just that things were getting so…you know. Fun.”

  “Oh, I know,” I whispered. “You know I only did that because I wanted to, right?”

  Her knee brushed mine beneath the table. “I know.”

  “I’m sure Joe’s next girlfriend will be just as slutty, if it helps.”

  “Oh, shut up!” She winced. “I’ll bet she won’t be as classy.”

  I told her about Ken coming to see me with his gallant declarations of love; I expected her to laugh, but she leaned her chin on her hand and smiled thoughtfully. She couldn’t stay long–they flew back at the weekend and had a million loose ends to tie up. We swapped email addresses and promised to stay in touch. I was grateful for it.

  Besides, I didn’t have it left in me to say goodbye to anyone else.

  Chapter 20

  “So you’re moving,” Clemmie said, loitering in the doorway.

  I nodded. “Will you come in, you silly cow?”

  Her voice wobbled. “I’m sorry I was a shit, Leila.”

  “You weren’t a shit. I was. Now come in and make me some po.” I would not break. I would not break…

  “Okay.” She smiled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Best friends, right?”

  “You bet, whorebitch.” Her hug was so warm and comforting. It felt long overdue.

  “So tell me everything,” she pressed, dumping a pile of carrier bags on my kitchen unit. “Everything. Miss nothing out!”

  No more secrets; I let it all spill. I told her about Aidan and the agency. Matt punching Charlie. My parents knowing about Charlie. Poppy and Isobel being force-fed a bit of their own medicine. Joseph melting into a crowd of suits and dragging a bloodied chunk of me behind.

  “You know what?” She emptied the smoking wok out on two plates. “That’s like a bad film, or something.”

  “An accurate assessment.” An Aidan-like assessment, even. I carried our wine glasses through to the coffee table. “Have you thought about taking the flat?”

  “I think I will. Is that okay?” She pointed back to the kitchen with a fork. “I’m sorry for unpacking half your stuff just to cook, by the way.”

  “Don’t be silly. And of course it’s okay.” I handed her a cushion as she joined me on the sofa. “How’s stuff with James now?”

  “Pants. He moved out last week,” she said glumly. “I can’t stand it there, though. Too many empty cupboards and walls. I even miss his stupid squash stuff everywhere.”

  “You can have the keys on Saturday, and if you want help packing, then I’m all yours.”

  “I might take you up on that.” Her eyes widened over the top of her wine glass. “I can’t believe you’re moving in with Shares-Your-Desk!”

  “I know. Maybe we should swap? It’s a nice room, you’d love the bed. All four-poster regency.” I giggled.

  “Do you think he’d let me rape him?”

  “I’m not sure it’s rape if he gives you permission, Clem.”

  She sighed. “Meh, who cares? Let’s eat something fattening and pretend that men will still want us.”

  “Screw that.” I tapped my fork on my plate. “This is probably the last chance we’ll get for ages. Shall we go dancing?”

  Clemmie arched a sleek eyebrow. “Are you suggesting that we get drunk and do debauched things with strange men?”

  “I am suggesting that we get drunk and do debauched things with strange men.”

  “Right. Well. One condition.”

  “I’m not wearing anything PVC,” I said quickly, laughing.

  “No, no.” She waved her wine glass about. “I want to know some of your prostitute secrets. What men really want, all that. How to swallow without gagging. Whether some of them were bum-ugly.” She suppressed a manic grin, badly. “Tell me they weren’t bum-ugly.”

  “If you want the full treatment–and dancing–I think there’s somebody you ought to meet.” I scrabbled about for my mobile and punched in a text. “I warn you now, he’s a bit…full on.”

  “Is this your Aidan?”

  I nodded. “Brace yourself.”

  I had never envisioned a point where I might introduce Clemmie and Aidan. Leila and Charlotte were separate, and that was that. Now, we sank back in on each other and pulled our relative universes together. I prayed they would mesh.

  Aidan was working and couldn’t meet us until later. By the time Clemmie had painted us both, we had an hour to spend in a minimal upmarket bar, where I treated us to stained glass cocktails made with gold flakes and Champagne. We eyed suited businessmen over sticks of decorative fruit and I told her what kind of client each would be: the young, dark-haired guy with the tattoo on his neck would want to be trampled with leather boots. The freckled, mid-thirties man in navy blue probably squealed like a pig while you sucked him.

  Then Aidan came bounding in, all pink-faced and freshly pressed, complaining at the top of his voice about being bruised to buggery. He took one look at Clemmie and proclaimed that Thai women were his favourite; Clemmie, elated not to be called Chinese–or Japanese, or Korean–flashed white teeth at him and ordered him a drink.

  At half past ten, we spilled out of a cab to a club frequented by poorly dressed D-list celebrities, and Aidan blagged us to the front of the queue. Clemmie was smashed by this point and it showed in her dancing–she was tripping up and flailing all over the place. While Aidan disappeared to the toilet, she wobbled back from the dance floor, and plonked herself next to me.

  “Your friend,” she announced, “is actually rather hot.”

  “Aidan?” I said. “He likes boys.”

  She paused, eyes darting about dubiously. “And girls, because either he came equipped with a large chorizo or he totally had an erection when we were dancing.”

  “Okay, okay. He likes girls, too. But you cannot cop off with him, Clem.” I wagged my finger at her. “I won’t allow it!”

  She half leaned, half lurched into me. “Leila, I don’t think you understand. It was a really big erection.”

  “What, a few cocktails and you want to be skewered like kebab meat?” I laughed.

  “Yes.” She sighed, falling back into the chair. “I want to be conquered like Gaul.”

  “You’re not shagging him, Clem. It’d just be weird.”

  “Why?” The word was a four-syllable whine.

  “Because I’ve shagged him. For work.” Like you do.

  “You’re like the Romans, you cow. You always get there first!” She elbowed me playfully. “Fine, fine, I won’t shag him. But I reserve the right to pounce on Shares-Your-Desk if the opportunity ever presents itself.”

  Clemmie was the only person I knew who could say big words like opportunity when rip-roaring drunk. I did love her.

  “Who’s Shares-Your-Desk?” asked Aidan, wriggling in between us.

  “Matt,” I said. “Where is he tonight, anyway?”

  He thrust his phone in front of me. “Hold on. I’ll just log on to my tracking device…no…” There was a rumble as he cleared his throat. “Just busy.”

  “Bring him next time,” Clemmie said hopefully.

  “You’re supposed to be fighting over me,” Aidan complained.

  “We were,” Clemmie replied, her fringe bobbing in a sage nod.

  He shot me a devious grin. “You know, there’s always–”

  “No!” I shrieked. “Don’t even mention a threesome. I knew you would.”

  Clemmie winced. “That’d just be wrong.”

  “You’re a pair of spoil sports,” he grumbled, “luring me out and then leaving me all unfinished.”

  “Yeah. Clem noticed just how unfinished you were,” I sniggered.

  “Oh, fuck off. My cock is awesome.” He turned to Clemmie
and grabbed her hand, dragging it toward his lap.

  She squealed and swatted him.

  “You can be rougher than that!” He chuckled.

  I snorted at her. “Whore.”

  “I’m trying it out.” She giggled. “You’re a bad influence!”

  * * * *

  The night passed without anything indecent occurring and we all ended up, fully clothed, in my bed. Clemmie crept out to do the walk of shame at seven AM. Not long after, I put the coffee machine on and made swirly cappuccinos for me and Aidan.

  “Is it midday yet?” he said.

  “It’s half eight.”

  “Oh, fuck that.” He lunged back into my White Company pillowcase and groaned to himself.

  It had been almost three weeks now but it was still weird, not hopping up at seven to read Legal Week on my laptop while I demolished two rounds of toast.

  “Aid, are you going to drink your coffee?” I poked his leg and he writhed away from me.

  “Did you put chocolate on it in the shape of a heart?”

  I shot him a teasing smile. “Is that what your mummy used to do?”

  “My Mummy is Irish,” he mumbled. “She’d have spat into it and it would have tasted like whiskey.”

  “You don’t sound Irish.”

  He eased up on his hands, swiping the cup from the bedside table. “She only did when she was drunk.”

  “Sounds like an idyllic childhood.”

  “Oh yeah. Aidan Reaper, plucky teenager, escapes the ghetto through his love of theatre, tartish prancing and bumming rich pensioners.” He brushed knotted curls from his eyes. “Maybe I should write a book.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “Whored Stiff.” He almost choked on his coffee with laughter.

  I put my cup down on a stack of boxes and it hit me, suddenly–in just forty-eight hours, there would be no more Aidan to rescue me from my bad days.

  “I’m going to miss you, you know,” I sniffed.

  “Lei-Lei. You’ll be back all the time.”

  “I might not be, though. I mean, I’ll be really busy. And I’ll have to help on the farm and stuff to make up for being allowed to stay at Matt’s house, they’re being so nice to have me–”

  “Mattman’s right. You do need to leave London, at least for a bit,” he said gently. “Get away from all the work shit. From the Marquis.”

  “No, I don’t.” I lowered my eyes with a defensive scowl.

  “Yes, you do. You sat on the sidelines for the entire time we were at that club–and while it was ace to grind up on Miss Thailand, really–it was miserable seeing you so out of it.”

  “I am not out of it!”

  He reached over and brushed my knee. “It’s all right to miss him, you know. Even if he is a cunt.”

  “I’m not used to it being like this,” I said sadly. “Blokes used to pay me and then I went away. I wasn’t bothered. He fucked up all the rules and now I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

  “Maybe he isn’t, either.” He shrugged. “Ah well. At least he didn’t leave any scars in the end, eh?”

  “They still hurt,” I muttered.

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re not Harry fucking Potter.”

  No, just Alice.

  Stuck on the other side of the mirror and there were no potions, no pills, no magic wands; just an apple, red and shiny, sitting in my palm.

  I wasn’t sure if I could throw it hard enough, but I prayed for a clean break all the same.

  * * * *

  I was asleep when the glass cracked. The minutes ticked away: eight hours until the removal van arrived, helpers descended and London fell away.

  I wasn’t in bed. Not really. I sat beneath the tree in the back garden, the blanket spread out and the lilacs perched in the glass half-full of water. Stuffed toys sat around awaiting their sandwiches and cupcakes. Rose bushes swayed in the summer breeze. Just a lazy day after school; I was eighteen.

  Joseph leaned back against the trunk. “Don’t normally see you in the sunshine.” His eyes narrowed the way they had in our last moments, as if he wasn’t used to the light. As if he looked for something that I wasn’t able to see.

  “It’s beautiful though, isn’t it?” My head fell onto his shoulder and his arm wound around me.

  He nuzzled my hair. “Smells beautiful. Smells gorgeous.”

  “It’s the lilacs.”

  “No,” he whispered. “It’s you.”

  A finger nudged my chin up and then I tasted him, sweet and sharp and metallic all at once. His blond hair tickled my collarbone as he sank down to suck my nipples through the school shirt and flimsy bra. I gripped his head and whimpered, arched into his mouth.

  He yanked the shirt over my head, buttons popping, groaning seams. The bra came apart easily in his large hands. Then we fell back onto the blanket, stuffed toys flying everywhere; he took mouthfuls of breast in his teeth, biting and suckling until blood turned purple beneath the skin. My eyes glazed through water, sunshine, something. I didn’t know pain was this exquisite. I moaned for him to show me more.

  He snatched the glass and then water trickled over my nipples, already stiff and hot. It was cool, infused with lilac perfume, and now the word sat anointed on my skin with his name. He lingered above me and exhaled over my wet breasts, watching me squirm as the warmth of his breath made me tingle.

  I found myself laughing; dirty, raucous. “We can’t behave at the tea party,” I said.

  He tutted, elbowing a teddy bear away. “Everyone here is mad anyway.”

  “Mmm.” I let him kiss me, let him knead my soaked flesh. I belonged in these hands, melted into them, wax for the shaping. My skirt rode up against his hips and already, I felt his cock harden through his trousers. If I couldn’t have him inside me the proper way, I’d happily gouge another hole just to manage it. The urgency was potent as that.

  But I was made to wait…as always.

  He crawled on his knees to pluck fat roses on their prickly stems. Petals, bloodied and silky, were pressed over my breasts, welding against the wetness in a papier-mâché. He teased them past my lips, shared the taste with me; they were bitter like perfumed gin. Thorns dragged along my upper arms, meandered to my shoulders and then plunged to my belly in a melee of tiny scratches. My body was a mosaic of hot and stinging cold.

  “This is the battlefield,” he murmured, his lips brushing my stomach.

  “No it isn’t,” I said, “it’s a picnic blanket. Silly.”

  He tugged my skirt up in his teeth and pulled my knickers aside. I threw my hands to my temples, my head throbbed and I moaned out loud as the air hit my swollen lips. Joseph probed and stroked until his thumb sat at the mouth of my pussy.

  “Are you a virgin?” he asked.

  “No.” I glanced down at him through heavy lids. I was afraid to disappoint, but no lie could be conjured here. All the power was his.

  His fingers made a sticky trail back up to my left breast. “What about here?” Beneath his palm, my heart almost leaped up into it.

  “There? There’s just broken.”

  “Broken in.” He nuzzled his handprint. “Poor baby. Shall I make it better?”

  “Please.”

  I lifted my buttocks so he could peel my knickers off. He licked the soles of my bare feet as he reached them, and then his tongue slid up to the inside of my thigh. There, he reached for a rose and its plump head tickled my clit, one bloom kissing the other.

  “See,” he whispered, “I brought you flowers.”

  “You dress me up in them.” I panted, frustrated at the light touch.

  “In case you were wondering what you were. Now you can look into the mirror,” he placed a lilac branch on my belly, “and remember.”

  “I’m lilac?”

  He smiled as he sank down between my legs. “You’re my safety word.”

  I don’t know what I cried out louder for–his tongue, flat and forceful, or the admission that told me I mattered
. The thorny stem stuck at the very top of my thigh, biting me each time I bucked into his mouth. He laid one on each side and the lilacs completed the triangle where he sailed away, lost to everyone but me.

  People don’t return from those places, do they?

  He was generous with his fingers. Stuffed me full of them, dared me to split. I snapped down on them in sweet, sore retort, edging his knuckles to the spot that stole my breath away.

  “Easy now.” He grinned, and that lovely amused tone flooded through.

  God, I recognized so much of him. He was a semantic code all of his own.

  “I want it harder,” I begged.

  “You always do.”

  He obliged me for a moment, groaning at my wet response. Then he was up on his knees, tugging his tie off, slinking out of his shirt. When he was naked, he was glorious. He cast a broad-shouldered shadow and the light tan of his skin glowed in the sun. I reached up to take his cock in my fist and he swatted me away, chuckling. A turning finger gave a silent command.

  I rolled flat on my belly, petals bruising beneath me and thrusting the scent up to colour the air. He scooped my thighs apart with a forearm and laid over me lazily, planting a hand either side of my shoulders. Making love outside like this, my skin was taut in the breeze, and I felt my lips stretch around him as he entered. An ache shot down beneath his cock and shaped to him as I did. It simmered as he settled, and echoed as he moved. He pinned me with the weight of his torso and a fistful of hair.

  Sometimes, I wanted to stare a lover in the eye and study them for the shock of the spell. Not now–it was enough to have him bear down on me and I pillowed my head in my arms, welcoming the dark. Murmured curses filled my ears and sharp teeth nipped at the back of my neck, my curls stroked and pulled until I moaned at him to be merciful. My clit rocked against the mash of cool flowers covering the blanket. The thorned stems, still tight in the crease at the tops of my thighs, had dulled their assault to vague throbbing. With a shudder, I atoned for every stroke.

  “How much harder?” he asked

  I pushed my buttocks up into him as an offering; like any bud in summer, I was overripe.