by Marian Keyes
‘What am I wearing?’ I’d ask.
‘That Donna Karan wrap-around dress that we saw.’
‘What colour, black?’
‘Dark green.’
‘Even better. Thank you, Brigit. Can I be really skinny?’
‘Oh, yes. Eight and a half stone do you?’
‘A bit lighter.’
‘Eight?’
‘Thanks,’ I’d say. ‘And how? Liposuction?’
‘No,’ she’d say. ‘You’ve had amoebic dysentery and the fat just fell off you without you having to do anything.’
‘But how did I get amoebic dysentery? Isn’t it an exotic kind of disease? You can’t get that over the counter.’
‘OK, you met this man who’d been on holiday in India… but, look it doesn’t matter how you caught it! This is a fantasy.’
‘OK, sorry. Do I look fragile and big-eyed and mysterious?’
‘Like a well-dressed gazelle.’
To counteract our low self-esteem, we both wore our good dresses. Brigit’s Joseph shift that she’d got in the thrift shop on Fifth Avenue that nice, rich people gave their old clothes to. And I wore my short, black Alaia dress, that came from the same thrift shop. Plus my fake Prada bag that I’d got in Canal Street for ten dollars.
I might not have looked quite a million dollars but I was good for at least twenty-seven or twenty-eight of them.
As usual, I agonized about wearing my high, black, snakeskin, ankle-strap shoes in case they made me too tall.
‘Ah, go on,’ said Brigit. ‘What’s the point in buying them if you never wear them?’
And off we went, me teetering slightly in the unfamiliar heels, to the Llama Lounge.
The Llama Lounge was a sixties-style reproduction cocktail bar: mad halogen lamps and peculiar metal chairs and general space-age jiggery-pokery. Very, very stylish.
Brigit gingerly sat on an inflated, transparent, plastic sofa. ‘I’m not sure this thing can hold my weight,’ she said anxiously.
‘No!’ I tried to sit beside her but she was having none of it. ‘Between the two of us we’re bound to burst it,’ she explained.
‘Oh, cripes,’ she said, when she was finally installed.
‘What?’
‘This thing is see-through and you know the way everything spreads when you sit down? Everyone behind me will think I’ve fifty-inch hips.
‘Go round and see, will you?’ she said in a low, desperate voice. ‘Don’t make it look like you’re checking, just be casual.’
Feeling foolish, I circled the sofa.
‘You’re OK,’ I said when I returned, then took my place on a silver bucket chair that had my bum almost on the floor and my knees several inches higher. It reminded me unpleasantly of having a smear test.
‘I’m so sawry,’ interrupted a gentle, nasal voice. ‘Can I just ask you…?’
From my prone position, I looked up at a groovy youth. Seventeen at the most. Too young.
‘Is that, like, something, you know… mystical, that you just did?’
‘What did I just do?’
‘The encircling of your seating place.’ He was ridiculously pretty. I was really glad he wasn’t a girl, there was enough competition.
‘Oh, the encircling?’ I felt a bout of devilment upon me. ‘It was indeed. An ancient Irish…’
‘Chinese!’ Brigit said at the same time.
‘It has been observed in both the Chinese and Hibernian cultures,’ I said smoothly. ‘It brings…’
‘Good luck?’ Girlie-boy interrupted eagerly.
‘The very thing.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re more than welcome.’
‘You’d think he could have bought us a drink,’ said Brigit bitterly.
We watched him go back to his group of equally youthful friends and enthusiastically explain something to them. He drew several circles on the table with his finger. Then, he paused, looked anxious and drew them in the opposite direction. A worried look appeared on his face and he stood up and made a move towards us again.
‘Clockwise,’ I called to him.
He beamed and sat back down and went on explaining.
After a few minutes we saw all five of them get up and walk, in reverential single file, around their chairs. When they got back to where they started from they shook hands and hugged each other emotionally.
A few minutes later a girl from another table came and asked them something. Girlie-boy spoke to them and pointed at Brigit and me a lot and drew a few more circles in the air. Shortly after that, the girl went back to her friends and then they all got up and walked around their seats. More hugging and kissing. Then someone went over to their table… And so it went on. It was like watching a very slow Mexican wave.
It was hot. We sat on our uncomfortable chairs and sipped our elaborate drinks. Great frosting and adorning with food went on with the drinks at the Llama Lounge. And you couldn’t look within a six-foot radius of a barman without having an ultra-stylish little dish of pistachio nuts pressed on you.
I began to normal out and not just because of the half bottle of tequila I’d imbibed since lunchtime.
Brigit and I felt better than we had in days. Our morale had lifted slightly because someone was being nice to us, even if it was only ourselves.
Then Brigit decreed that it was my turn to get a go on the see-through seat. Which was all very well, in a back-of-bare-thighs-sweating-against-the-vinyl kind of way.
Until it was time for me to get up to go to the loo.
Because I couldn’t.
‘I can’t get up,’ I said in alarm. ‘I’m stuck to this fecking couch.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ Brigit said. ‘Just push yourself forward and out you come.’
But I couldn’t get my hands to grip the sweaty plastic. And my thighs were stuck fast to it.
‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Brigit, as she stood up and grabbed me by the arm. ‘Is it too much to ask to come out for a quiet drink and…’
She heaved, but still I couldn’t budge.
Brigit bent her knees and crouched like someone doing a tug-of-war and gave another huge pull.
Painfully, a layer of skin being left behind – it was a shame that I’d recently wasted fifty dollars having my legs waxed when this would have done just as well – I began to separate from the sofa. With a great, slow sucking noise that had everyone in the place looking up from their drinks in astonishment, Brigit managed to peel me off.
And just as I popped out, with a final slurp that sent Brigit flying, who did I come face to face with, only Luke bloody Costello.
He arched an eyebrow in a way that managed to ooze contempt, and said ‘Hi Rachel,’ in knowing, humiliating tones.
Then he smiled, with a glint in his eye that frightened me.
34
‘Take off your dress,’ Luke said softly.
Badly startled, I flicked a lightning-quick look at him to see if I was hearing things. We were standing in my kitchen, me at the sink, Luke leaning with his back against the opposite counter, his arms folded. Allegedly about to have a cup of coffee.
Instead, unless I was having audio hallucinations, he had just told me to take my dress off.
I blurted, ‘What did you say?’
And he gave a slow, lazy, sexy smile that scared me.
‘You heard,’ he said.
Luke Costello has just told me to take my dress off, I thought, panic and outrage jostling for supremacy. The fecking nerve of him. But what will I do?
The obvious thing was to just tell him to leave my apartment. Instead I croaked ‘But we haven’t even been introduced,’ in an attempt to laugh my way out of it.
He wasn’t amused.
‘Go on,’ he said, in a tone that I found frighteningly compelling. ‘Take it off.’
My throat tightened with fear. I wasn’t coked-up or drunk enough for this kind of thing. The only reason Luke was in my flat at all was because Brigit abandoned me to
his mercy in the Llama Lounge. Nadia told her that the Cuban Heel had been sighted in Z Bar, so she joyously left to flush him out.
I had tried hard to leave with her but she wouldn’t let me. ‘You stay here,’ she said wickedly, suddenly in great humour. She winked, nodded her head at Luke and said ‘But watch that fella, keep your hand on your ha ’penny’ And off she danced, thinking she was great, leaving me staring bitterly after her.
A few minutes later, I tried again to escape, but Luke insisted with very firm gallantry that he would buy me a drink and then walk me home. And, when we got to my apartment and he invited himself in for coffee, I tried to refuse but couldn’t.
‘The dress,’ he said, again. ‘Take it off.’
I put down the kettle that I’d been filling. He meant business, I could hear it in his voice.
‘Open the top button,’ he said.
That’s when I should have shown him the door. This wasn’t a game, this was grown-up stuff and I was afraid.
But, instead, I lifted my hand to my neckline… then wavered… and stopped.
To hell with this, I thought, I’m not standing in my kitchen and taking my dress off for Luke Costello.
‘Or I’ll come over there and do it for you,’ he said, with quiet menace.
Quickly, fearfully, I found myself fumbling with the button and I opened it, unable to believe what I was doing.
Something was wrong with my Outrage switch – why wasn’t I picking up the phone and calling the cops? Instead of just feeling relieved to be wearing the short, sexy Alaia dress?
‘Now the next one,’ he said softly. He was watching me with half-closed eyes.
I could feel excitement churn in my stomach. With shaking fingers I opened the next button.
‘Keep going,’ he said, with another scary, sexy smile.
With him watching me intently, I couldn’t stop myself from slowly undoing the buttons one by one until they were all open. Mortified, I clutched the dress closed across my stomach. ‘Take it off,’ he said.
I didn’t move.
‘I said,’ he threatened softly. ‘Take. It. Off.’
The pause dragged on for a long, silent time. Until, embarrassed, defiant, but unable to stop myself, I shook the dress off my shoulders and arms, and held it out to him.
For once I was wearing a decent bra; a nice black lace one that had only one small hole. I’d never have taken the dress off otherwise. And, although my knickers were a different pattern from the bra, at least they were black lace too. I dipped my head so that as much of my hair as possible fell forward to cover my shoulders and breasts. Too late, I realized that the small hole in my bra was quite a big one and that it had fitted itself neatly around my nipple. A do-it-yourself peep-hole bra.
Luke reached out and took the dress, not letting his hand touch mine, and threw it on the counter behind him. Our eyes met and something flickered across his face that made me shiver. Even though the night was warm, I had goosepimples.
‘Now, what will I do with you?’ He looked at me appraisingly, as if I was a prize cow. I wanted to squirm and hide but I forced myself to stand straight, hold my stomach in and stick my chest out. I even thought about putting one hand on a hip, but found I couldn’t be that brazen.
‘What will I get you to take off next?’
Laughably enough, my first fear was for my shoes; I didn’t want to lose them because they were high and made my legs look long and slim. Well, not as fat as they usually looked, in any case.
‘OK, take off your bra.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Oh, yes, I’m afraid.’ He gave a lazy, mocking smile.
We stared across the kitchen at each other, me flushed with shame and arousal. I suddenly caught sight of the tell-tale bulge in his jeans and found my hands reaching round my back to open the clasp.
But after I’d unclipped it I became paralysed, I couldn’t do any more about taking it off.
‘Go on,’ he said authoritatively, when he noticed I’d come to a halt.
‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘OK,’ he said, suddenly compassionate. ‘Just move one of the straps down your arm.’
Mesmerized by his unexpected gentleness, I did what he told me.
‘Now the other one,’ he said.
Once again, I found myself obeying.
‘Now give it to me,’ he ordered.
As I held out my arm to hand him the bra, my breasts wobbled and I caught him looking at them. I had a brief flare of awareness of how much he wanted me.
Then it was back to feeling that mixture of humiliation and sick excitement.
‘Now come here and do what you did to me at your party,’ he ordered.
I felt a wash of shame and didn’t move.
‘Come here,’ he said again.
Automaton-like, I walked towards him, my eyes lowered.
‘You see, you and I,’ he said, taking my hand roughly and moving it towards his groin, ‘have some unfinished business.’
I squirmed and turned. ‘Now, now,’ he chided, as I tried to pull my hand away.
‘No,’ I said again, looking at the floor.
‘You’re starting to repeat yourself,’ he mocked.
His fingers were on my wrist, my nipples swung against the rough fabric of his shirt, but that was the only contact between our two bodies. He seemed to be deliberately holding himself away from me. And I was far too frightened of this big, strange man to lean against him. I couldn’t even look at him.
‘Go on,’ he said, as he tried to move my bunched-up fist against the long bulge of his erection. ‘Finish what you started last Saturday’
I cringed with embarrassment and felt queasy with arousal. I didn’t want to touch his penis, I didn’t want to stroke his erection through his jeans.
‘Bet you Daryl didn’t have one of these,’ he said nastily, still moving my hand against him.
I was mortified. I’d forgotten that Luke had seen me with Daryl. I realized he must think I was a right whore so I tried to pull away.
‘Oh no,’ Luke laughed unpleasantly. ‘No more playing games. Men don’t like it when you tease.’
I got the impression he wouldn’t include Daryl under the heading of ‘men’.
As my skin flushed and prickled, I forced myself to put a few fingers on the buckle of his belt. Then found I couldn’t go any further. I could feel something building within me and I had to stop before I became overwhelmed by it.
This time, Luke didn’t tell or force me to do anything. I could hear the hoarse sound of his breathing above me and I could feel the warmth of his breath on my scalp.
We were both marking time, waiting, for I don’t know what. I had the sensation that we were both in a kind of siding, holding on for something to pass. Then he slid one of his arms around my waist in an oddly protective gesture. The feel of the skin of his arm on the skin of my back made me jump.
Slowly, unable to look at him, I began to undo his belt. His thick, black leather belt – even that seemed grownup-man-scary – slid out with a faint, evocative slapping sound. And hung, the heavy buckle on one side of his flies, the length of leather on the other.
I could hear him trying to keep his breathing normal but I knew he was struggling hard.
Then it was time to start on the buttons of his jeans. I can’t, I can’t I thought, gripped with panic.
‘Rachel,’ I heard Luke say, hoarsely. ‘Don’t stop…’
Holding my breath, I popped open the first button. Then the next one. Then the next.
When they were all done I stood still, waiting for him to tell me what to do next.
‘Look at me,’ he said.
Reluctantly, I lifted my eyes and when we finally looked at each other something burst open within me, something I could see mirrored in his face.
I stared at him in fear and wonder, longing for him. For his touch, his tenderness, his kisses, the rasp of his jaw on my cheek, the scent of his skin in my face. I lifted a trembling
hand and lightly touched his silky hair.
The moment I touched him, the dam burst. This time we didn’t wait for the madness to pass. We fell on each other, pulling, tearing, kissing, scratching.
Panting, I tore at his shirt, trying to get it off him so that I could smooth my hands over the silky skin of his back, the line of hair on his stomach.
His arms were around me, he was caressing me, biting me. He tangled his fingers up in my hair and pulled my head back and kissed me so hard it hurt.
‘I want you,’ he panted.
His jeans were around his knees, his shirt was open but he was still wearing it. We were on the floor, the tiles cold against my back. He was on top of me, his weight forcing me down. I was on top of him, pulling his jeans off, then sliding his boxers down so slowly he groaned and said ‘Jesus, Rachel, just do it, for fuck’s sake!’
I greedily watched his eyes that were dilated dark with desire.
His jeans were off, my knickers were halfway down my thighs, my nipples were raw from where he’d bitten me, my shoes were still on, we were both panting as if we’d been running.
I couldn’t wait anymore.
‘Condom,’ I murmured feverishly.
‘OK,’ he gasped, rummaging round in his jacket.
‘Here,’ he handed the little foil packet to me. ‘I want you to do it.’
Frustrated that my shaking hands wouldn’t move faster, I tore it open and put it on the glistening tip.
Then reverentially – while he gave a moan – I smoothed it the long, hard length.
‘Oh God,’ I panted. ‘You’re so sexy’
He paused for a moment and gave me an unexpected grin that nearly made me come.
‘That, Rachel Walsh,’ he smiled, ‘is fine talk coming from you.’
*
I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted to go to sleep in my own bed with Luke’s arms around me. I didn’t know what it was about him. Was it because I hadn’t had a boyfriend since I came to New York? I wondered. Maybe, I thought doubtfully. After all, a woman has needs.
