by Grace, K D
I propped myself up on my elbows and squinted around the room. No sign of him.
I hated myself for checking that my knickers were still on – he really wasn’t that kind of man, was he? – but I still did it. Numerous tales of spiked drinks and their aftermaths had made their impression on me.
I appeared to be untampered with, however, so I made the tentative first step out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush my furry, acid-burnt teeth.
Fuck, I must have thrown up at that kert. How very sophisticated and cosmopolitan of me. What a loser.
I scrubbed the brush viciously up into my defenceless gums until it drew blood. What must János think of me? The thought was agony and yet it shouldn’t have been. I shouldn’t have cared what he thought. He was just a guy I’d never see again after I left this town. It shouldn’t matter. But it did.
I drank near enough half a bottle of mouthwash then I sat down in the shower and let the water hide me for a long, long time.
Once I was dressed in my most comfortable jeans and T-shirt, I braved the living room.
It was empty. He wasn’t here. Good.
I think. Actually, I might have been a little disappointed, but on the whole, it was a relief.
I made a beeline for the Advil and then the coffee and lay on the sofa while it percolated, wondering if there was any way to blot the previous evening’s events from history. It was so unlike me to lose control in that way. What had happened to me? Was I a different person in Budapest?
The tattered red rose János had thrown on to the balcony mocked me from its slender vase on the chimney breast. I had been hard on him last night and the truth was he was probably a better person than I was. He wore his heart on his sleeve, he was honest about his emotions. I was just a weasel. A dreary weasel. A great big gaping void where a personality should be.
I held a cushion over my face and groaned into it, bathing in self-loathing and despair.
That was how János found me when he let himself into the flat five minutes later.
‘Hey, it’s not that bad,’ he said breezily. I heard the rustling of a paper bag and I lifted one corner of the cushion, peeking out. ‘I have the best hangover cure.’
He looked disgustingly healthy and full of verve. He pulled the cushion off me, took my hand and yanked me to a sitting position before commandeering the space beside me. He took two round pizza-like things out of the paper bag. ‘Lángos,’ he said, passing me one.
‘What is it?’ It looked and smelled like a heart attack in a bag. My fingers were already oily from handling it and it oozed melted cheese and sour cream and bacon.
‘Hungary’s favourite snack,’ he said with a grin. ‘We have a lot of hangovers.’
I eyed him sheepishly. ‘I had far too much to drink last night.’
‘It was not so much.’
‘For me it was.’ The powerful waft of fried dough turned my stomach and I handed the lángos back to him. ‘I don’t think I can. Not yet.’
‘We can heat it later,’ he said, tucking into his.
‘Thanks.’ I watched him wolf the oily, fatty dough with his customary vigour.
‘You don’t want it,’ he pointed out.
‘No, not for the … pizza thing. For taking care of me last night. I was horribly drunk. It was kind of you.’
He stared at me in astonishment, chewing until the chunk of dough was swallowable. ‘You think I leave you like that? Falling over drunk in strange city? That is insult to me.’
‘Oh. Sorry. All the same, I’m grateful.’
He finished his snack in silence, then rose to his feet. ‘I take you to see the sights,’ he announced.
I paled and felt a mini-wave of nausea unfurl from stomach to throat. ‘Go out? I was going to go back to bed.’
‘You waste this day? This is a beautiful day!’
‘Is it as hot as yesterday?’
‘No, no, is cool, nice little wind. Great day for climb the Fisherman’s Bastion.’
‘Don’t you have work to do?’
‘I take off a day. I have no appointments. Tomorrow I go to look at maybe good place for a kert. You come with me if you want.’
‘Oh, OK. I’d like that.’ The prospect of business-related activity cheered me up for some reason. ‘Let’s have coffee and go out.’
‘Good plan.’
‘There is Hungarian Parliament, you see. And this island, it is Margit-sziget, many good spa and pools there.’
I peered through the white stone neo-romanesque arches and listened, too enchanted by the view to speak. János was right – the day was fresher with a cooling breeze that whipped my hair across my face every so often. My head was clearing, slowly but surely. I watched the sunlight glisten on the beautiful but not very blue Danube. A jumble of fairy-tale-medieval roofs and alleys sloped down from the bastion to the riverbank, making me imagine all kinds of Grimm goings-on. Budapest seemed like the most glorious place in the world.
And the man beside me was doing nothing to dispel that thought.
He had already taken me to Buda Castle and the Matthias Church, apparently quite happy to indulge my tourism requirements. Now we stood, watched over by stern-faced statuary, taking in the city panorama.
‘Seven towers,’ he said, ‘for represent the seven Magyar tribes who settle here many years before.’
‘You’re very well-informed.’
‘I live here.’
He shrugged, then moved his foot infinitesimally closer to mine. ‘Do you know the story that any person who kisses here will come back to Budapest, for example?’ His voice was lower, caressing. I felt my insides turn to liquid silk.
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes, really. You want to come back to Budapest?’
‘I haven’t left yet!’
‘No, but …?’
‘I think so. Yes. It’s lovely. I’d definitely come here again.’
‘You can make it happen.’ His lips were close to my ear, his shoulder nudging mine.
I giggled, but not because anything was funny. The danger of what might happen if I let János kiss me was far from amusing. But he wasn’t to know that.
‘I’m afraid I don’t believe these silly legends. If I want to come back to Budapest I’ll buy a flight and pack a bag. Not kiss some, er, person.’
‘You speak so cold, but that is not you. This is just fun. You are afraid of fun?’
‘Of course not.’
He put a hand on the back of my neck. ‘You are so tense! Ó istenem! You need a kiss.’
I tilted my head, offering my left cheek for a peck. ‘Oh, go on then.’
‘It must be on the lips. Cheek does not work.’
I huffed. ‘You’re making this up. Oh, for God’s sake.’ I puckered up and screwed my eyes shut, thinking we could get this silly thing over with and then go to the café at the top of the terrace.
I held my breath, feeling him move closer, scenting him on the city air. He kept that hand, delicate but firm, on the back of my neck, then there was the gentlest whisper of warm breath and his lips were on mine. I wrinkled my nose as his moustache tickled my skin and felt it bump against his.
The seconds ticked by. Neither of us moved. We just stood there, connected at the lips, not quite kissing, not quite daring to breathe, not quite able to disengage.
I should move, I thought, but I couldn’t.
The time has come when he either has to end this, or take it further. My chest burned. My heart thundered.
He moved closer, forward instead of back. His fingers splayed to hold my neck in a tighter grip. His mouth pressed down.
It was a kiss. A real one. And all my resistance and level-headedness and good sense had chosen this moment to fly into the central European clouds.
His other arm slid around me, holding me at my waist, knuckles stroking up and down the small of my back while I put my palms up to his shoulders, steadying my weakened legs.
He felt so heavenly, so incredible, so right. D
ave had never felt like this. Dave had never kissed like this. With János I slotted into place, moving blindly into his heat and strength like a missile finding its target. My body bubbled into a froth of irresistible desire. He’d got under my skin. I’d lost the fight, such as it was.
When his tongue made its first approach, my lips parted eagerly to admit it. I let him inside me, welcoming and willing, feeling a huge load lift.
Why not, after all? Why not enjoy this gorgeous man while you can? Why not just live?
I don’t know how long we kissed there, but we didn’t stop until a sneery American voice a few feet away advised us to, ‘Get a room, sheesh.’
It was odd to find that I still had feet and ears and things like that. Somewhere along the line I thought I’d transmogrified into pure sensation, but no, it seemed I was just the same lumpen fleshy thing I was before.
I rested my head against János’ chest while I got my breath back, still unwilling or unable to disconnect.
‘You see,’ he whispered, his moustache tickling my ear. ‘You needed a kiss.’ As if to prove it, he kissed my earlobe and rubbed his nose in my hair.
‘Shall we go home?’ I whispered back.
‘You want to?’
‘Yeah.’
He took my hand and led me back to the steps. I was going down now. A long way down. I only hoped I’d be able to keep my head.
While we rode the tram, me curled inside his arm, my head nuzzling his neck, his phone bleeped and he took it out to read the text message. ‘Ah, my friend has found a good place for a kert. We go and see it tomorrow. But is a risk – in the Eighth District, not such a good area. But getting better, you know?’
‘Gentrification,’ I murmured. ‘Up and coming areas are nearly always good investments.’
‘I don’t know what you are saying. But area more popular now with professional people and students. Baross utca has lots of old buildings, bad condition, but can be fixed. Maybe it can work. We see tomorrow.’
The tram stopped and we jumped off hand in hand and ran to the apartment building.
János used his keys to let us in and practically flung me inside the front door before pinning me to the wall and descending into a devouring, ravenous snog. Our pelvises bumped and ground together, our belt buckles and jeans buttons clashing and locking.
Drowning in the tidal wave of passion he’d released, I clung to him, wanting my fingerprints all over him, every part of his body touched and felt and conquered.
With nobody to tut at our thrusting tongues, we let them do their worst, biting lips, sucking, licking greedily.
‘You come to bed?’ he panted, urgently hoarse.
‘Yes.’
We staggered, still entwined, through the apartment to the bedroom and fell sideways on the bed to grapple some more. My starving fists closed around his sweater and yanked at it, wanting it off, but he manoeuvred me on to my back and covered my face and neck with kisses while his hand crept down my top.
Slowly, clumsily, with many breaks to kiss some more, we discarded garments one by one. My top went first, then his broad tanned chest made itself visible and we rolled round and round, smashing our bodies together, drinking in the feel of skin against skin until he had to unclip my bra for the full effect. He spent delirious ages on my breasts and nipples, doing everything possible to them and then more, using hands, fingers, lips, teeth, hard chest, soft tongue. Only when my nipples were painfully stiff and my crotch a hot mush inside my jeans did he move back for another kiss and let his hands wander to my belt buckle.
This was nothing like any sex I had ever had in my life. It went way above and beyond what I’d thought were the boundaries of arousal. This mindless, animalistic need for his touch would have been frightening if I’d had the capacity to stop and think about it. But thought was gone, waving at me from an invisibly distant shore, left for dead by this grasping, panting, grunting force of need.
He undid the belt and wrenched open the buttons, his fingers pressing down inside, printing themselves bluntly around my pubic triangle. His kisses were like bites now, demanding and fierce. I wriggled my hips, trying to help him dislodge the denim. He reared up on his knees and tugged them off, peeling my knickers halfway down in the process. He fell upon me again and we writhed and play-fought through more huge, bruising kisses, dry humping as we went.
I nearly broke three fingernails in the process, but I got his jeans off in the end. Lying with my head by his feet and my feet by his head, I felt him reach to remove my knickers for good. His cock was hard, pushing into my stomach through his boxers. I rubbed myself against it until he wriggled out from underneath me and straddled my hips, cotton-covered cock nudging my bare bottom, hands firm on my shoulders.
That was when the bedroom door opened.
‘Oh my God!’ Jodie, rucksack hanging from one shoulder, covered her mouth with a hand.
I screamed and buried my head in the duvet while János shouted something – words of extreme frustration, I gathered – in Hungarian.
‘Oh my God, János. You don’t waste any time, do you?’
‘Why you are here? You go to Balaton with a man, Ruby tell me.’
‘Yeah, well, he turned out to be not all that. Fucking hell, Ruby. I can’t believe you fell for the charm and the patter. You’re so sensible.’
‘Could we have this conversation somewhere else? With clothes on?’ I muffled into the duvet.
‘Yeah, I’ll leave you to it,’ she said, dumping the rucksack in a corner. ‘You dirty fucker, János, I can’t believe you did this to my friend. She’s vulnerable!’
‘Out!’ he shouted, waving a wild arm towards the door.
She slammed the door behind her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘So sorry about this.’ He climbed off me and sat on the side of the bed, head between his legs as if he was trying not to faint.
I looked for words, questions, anything, but nothing would crystallise. I had gone from knowing exactly where I stood to having no idea.
‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ I said eventually, but it didn’t sound convincing at all. ‘Things are complicated for me. For both of us.’
‘A fuck is not complicated.’
‘Oh. Right.’ It was no more than that, of course. How could it have been?
He sat up and reached out for me but I held back, hugging my arms around my ribcage. I felt cold all over. ‘Well, thanks for being a good friend while Jodie was away. I guess that’s, well, I guess we can’t…’
He stared. He looked angry, maybe hurt as well. ‘Right,’ he said, standing and picking up his jeans. ‘Happy to help.’ He sounded viciously sardonic. I watched numbly as the jeans went on, then the sweater.
‘Look, I didn’t mean that it wasn’t nice … I didn’t mean …’
‘You don’t know what you mean. You don’t know what you want. You don’t know how to live. I tell you what. When you know these things, you call me, yes?’
Still barefoot with his hair tousled to fuck he swanned gorgeously through the door and slammed it, harder than Josie had, after him.
I lay back down on the bed and burst into tears.
When Jodie came in with a mug of tea, I was headachey and red-eyed, cried out and exhausted.
‘Oh, mate,’ she said sadly. ‘He’s a bastard. Come on. This is proper English tea; there’s a shop in Balaton that sells it.’
‘Do you really think that?’ I sniffed, moving painfully into a sitting position and taking the mug. ‘About János?’
‘He’s a player, love. Renowned, all over the length and breadth of Budapest.’
‘You must like him a bit, though – you were seeing him yourself.’
‘He’s fit. No point kicking him out of bed in the middle of a dry spell, is there?’
‘But you weren’t emotionally involved?’
‘God, no. Oh, Ruby. You’re vulnerable right now. He took advantage of that. Shit, I should have made my warning clearer. I should have known th
is would happen. But it’s so unlike you. I guess you’re just not yourself after the break-up with Dave.’
‘So,’ I said, feeling a little stronger once the tea warmed my stomach, ‘how do you know I wasn’t just after a no-strings shag?’
Jodie’s jaw dropped. ‘Ruby! I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use the word shag before, let alone do it.’
‘Just because I’m quite a private person doesn’t mean I’m uptight about sex.’
‘Really?’
‘OK. I have been. I probably am. But maybe I shouldn’t be. Maybe a fling is what I need. I want to move on with my life, Jo. I think János might have been able to help me with that, whether or not he wants anything serious.’
‘Are you for real?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am. I want to, to, well, to shag János. I think it would be good for me. It would cheer me up. Is there anything wrong or bad in that?’
‘Of course not.’ She stared at me, shaking her head for a while. ‘Shit. I’m sorry I scared him off now. I really thought he was going to, like, break your heart.’
‘No chance of that,’ I said airily, though I knew this wasn’t quite accurate. ‘It’s just a bit of fun. I’m allowed fun, you know, now I’ve split with Dave.’
‘Good on ya, girl. If there’s one thing Big J knows about, it’s how to have fun.’
‘So, maybe I’ll call him.’
‘OK. But first, I have to tell you about what happened at Balaton! Then I need you to come down to Váci utca and help me shop for a new bag. János’ll keep. He’s obviously keen.’
‘Do you think so?’ I brightened.
‘I know so. C’mon, wash your face and let’s get moving.’
Chapter Five
It was impossible, as ever, to be morose in Jodie’s company and we spent a pleasant day gossiping, shopping and touring the cafes and bars of Budapest’s most upscale districts. The only fly in my ointment was my inability to get hold of János on the phone. Every time I dialled his number, it went straight to voicemail, or at least, I presume it was voicemail – some robotic Hungarian woman’s voice followed by a bleep.
