Virtual Strangers

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  Bloody hell.

  ‘That told me,’ I said, waving the sugar bowl away and attempting the sort of no nonsense look I hoped women more streetwise than myself would respond with. ‘Are you generally this frank with your patients?’

  ‘If appropriate.’

  ‘With women?’

  ‘Where possible.’

  ‘Where possible?’

  ‘Charlie -’ He put his hand over both of mine. ‘Don’t think for a minute I know what I’m about here. I don’t. I’m floundering. You hold all the cards.’

  ‘Pah!’ I said. ‘This isn’t a James Bond film, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was.’

  ‘Then don’t talk like you’re in one.’

  ‘What is it with you?’

  ‘You know what I mean. Stop being so damned articulate.’

  He sucked some coffee off his teaspoon.

  ‘Articulate? Me?’

  ‘As in “Male sexuality involves a chemical response to psycho-sexual stimuli. Discuss.” And so on.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘I don’t understand a word of it.’

  ‘Yes you do. Don’t deny it.’

  ‘Charlie, what are you on about?’

  ‘This. You. Your, your -’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The way you keep cornering me. Saying things all the time. Making me feel so - so powerless.’

  ‘You? Powerless?’

  ‘There you go again. You disarm me all the time. I feel like a butterfly on the end of a pin. Like a beetle on its back. D’you know?’ I freed my hands from under his and flapped them to illustrate. The sugar bowl skittered across the table towards him. He put out his hand as it slithered to a halt.

  ‘See?’ I said.

  He sat back. ‘Not at all. Not in the slightest.’ He grinned, his smile alight with sudden joy. ‘But it doesn’t matter in the least.’

  ‘You see? That’s what I mean.’

  His eyebrows moved upwards.

  ‘Look,’ I went on. ‘When I got here today, and I saw you and so on, it was like - well, it was an intense physical thing, you know? I felt, oh, you know, hot, cold, shaky, self-conscious, like I wanted to throw my arms around you, like - there! You see? I’m blushing again already - like there were all these feelings whizzing around inside me that I couldn’t get to grips with - can’t get to grips with, and I didn’t know what to say or do or -’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘I did. I told you. I’m floundering here.’ His smile faded. ‘Every bit as much as you.’

  ‘So why do you seem so in control all the time?’

  He grimaced. ‘Practice.’

  ‘No it’s not. It’s because you are.’

  ‘I’m not, Charlie. You are.’

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘You are. I’m entirely at your mercy. I am here only because you agreed to it. I have been waiting, and hoping, and wondering whether to email you again, and -’

  I put my finger against his mouth. Suddenly, somehow, I saw what was needed.

  ‘How far’s your hotel?’ I said. ‘Let’s do the sex.’

  Chapter 21

  We’ve achieved, I think, dynamic equilibrium.

  Soames North Mayfair is a regency house hotel with knobs on. Exactly the place one would assume wealthy GPs would convene, as it has an almost palpable air of gravitas and sobriety, and is dripping with paintings of august looking men.

  All it not as it seems, however. On one of those red quilted boards in reception (which alerts the residents to the fact that it’s 9 degrees c, overcast, chance of rain), the days activities are carefully detailed in plastic gilt letters. ‘Shelley Suite - Zipco Sanitary installations (group two); The Keats Centre -Time of Your Life Photo Studios (Southern).’ At the bottom, the Tennyson Suite does boast General Practitioners Consultative Forum (Palliative care and beyond - morals under the microscope), but in doing so, it has clearly cleaned out the hotel’s stock of letters - the ‘s’ in support is not an ‘s’ but a 5, and microscope starts with a sideways on E.

  Were letters not at a premium I would be tempted to add; Upstairs - GPs Recreational Forum (Sexual athletics - moral code under stress).

  A moment of pressure on my hand and we are heading off down one of the half dozen or so dado- railed corridors that lead from the heavily coved central area. Bar my brief concern about being seen by someone - which Adam dismissed instantly; I looked every inch a trendy Islington GP, apparently (must be the boots) - we have not really spoken since halfway up Great Portland Street. His confidence was based on fuzzy logic, however, as we have continued to hold hands like children throughout.

  Adam took my hand as soon as we stepped out of the coffee house. Having confirmed that the sex thing looked like being the most practical way to spend a chilly afternoon (given that a. it was obviously what we both most wanted to do and b. a comfortable west end hotel room was as convenient and well appointed a venue as any) it seemed appropriate to make some sort of unequivocal statement of intent.

  And it was unbelievably lovely to touch him at last. And so we remained thus coupled coming out of the square, crossing Oxford Street, threading through to Upper Regent Street, past the BBC and on up towards Regent’s Park. Every so often we would exchange lingering glances. He would squeeze my hand, I would squeeze his in return. His fingers cradled my own; hard and warm and masculine; my own hand felt tiny and protected and safe.

  But it was easier not to talk. It was good not to talk. I hadn’t expected holding hands with Adam Jones, walking up a London street, on a cloudy day in February to feel so intensely charged with emotion. I hadn’t expected to find it so moving. I hadn’t expected to find it so sexy. And, what was more, I had not the slightest idea about his thoughts, except through the transmission of the warmth of his skin. Did he feel as I did? This intense sense of excitable dislocation?

  ‘Room twenty four,’ he says now, as we wait for the lift.

  It glides down to meet us and opens its doors. We step into carpeted warmth and seclusion. Our own selves look back at us, bashful and mute.

  ‘Well, Charlie,’ he says next, smiling at my reflection and pushing a button. ‘Here we are, then.’

  I nod and squeeze his hand again and find absolutely nothing to say.

  The lift deposits us on yet another corridor, down which he leads me, gilt key fob dangling in hand. His room is at the end, adjacent to a tall window, through which a grey cloudbase rumbles over even greyer buildings.

  I stand silent beside him while he deals with the lock. In a movie, of course, we would simply fall into the room, stumble frantically bedwards and get right on down to it. But this isn’t a movie so we get stuck in the doorway for just long enough for me to spy a pair of burgundy boxer shorts marooned over the side of the bath.

  But it is a hotel room much like any other. Double bed, armchair, case stand, desk, wardrobe. There’s a TV, a telephone, an elegant desk lamp, a trouser press and an en suite bathroom (door ajar). A laptop sits on the desk amid a muddle of papers and two bottles of mineral water. One is full. One half empty. As I take in the details, the hairs on my neck prickling, I am aware that Adam has now lost his former composure and is hovering beside me, unsure what to do next. I am pleased at this development. I don’t want a seduction. I want him every bit as uncertain and tremulous as I’ve felt all day. I walk to the window. This one looks out over the park, where naked trees finger the low pewter fluff.

  ‘Well,’ he says, at last, switching the lamp on. ‘I don’t know about you but I suddenly feel thirsty. How about I nip down to the bar and get us a drink. Soft drink? Wine or something?’

  He looks flustered.

  ‘Yes, why not,’ I say. ‘Coke sounds good. Can you get me a Coke?’

  ‘Coke, then. Yes. Fine. Okay. Right. Back in a jiffy.’ He begins to reach for the key and then changes his mind.

  ‘Ah,’ he says, a wry smile esc
aping from underneath his grim expression. ‘I don’t need this, I suppose. I’ll knock, shall I?’

  I nod. ‘Fine.’

  The door sighs as it closes, then clicks shut behind him.

  I can’t afford to waste a window of opportunity like this so I sprint into the en suite and spend nine of the next ten minutes attending to all the little details a girl must attend to, borrowing at random from his M and S toiletry range. The last I spend sitting on the edge of the bath, wincing as I pluck out a few rogue bikini line stragglers.

  All too soon, there’s a gentle tap tap at the door. He has brought up a tray with two glasses of coke, two bottles of beer and two packets of honey roasted cashew nuts. Stylish post coital snack, perhaps?

  ‘I got you Diet Coke,’ he says. ‘I presumed you’d want diet.’ He bustles at the desk, sending papers and leaflets all over the place. I reach down to gather them up.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he says. ‘That’s all junk. Promo stuff from drug companies, abstracts and whatnot. Nothing important.’

  ‘Force of habit,’ I say. ‘Clearing up after men.’ Then I straighten. He is now only six inches away from me.

  ‘You smell nice,’ he says suddenly.

  Just familiar, I guess. But this is it, then, isn’t it? I feel sick. ‘I try to.’

  ‘Coke okay?’

  And faint too. ‘Just fine.’

  He rolls the bottle against his brow. ‘God, I have to say, I feel really uncomfortable.’

  And excited. Wow. ‘So do I,’ I agree.

  ‘Do you?’

  And then some. I gulp. ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘Good,’ he says, nodding also. ‘That helps.’

  ‘It does?’

  ‘Greatly.’ He then shrugs his jacket from his shoulders. I can see the fold marks across the front of his shirt. He yanks at his tie and undoes his top button. God, I want to see his chest.

  ‘I’m glad,’ I say. ‘Not that you’re feeling uncomfortable, of course. But that you’ve admitted to me that you’re feeling uncomfortable. Makes me feel much better.’

  He says ‘Good’ again, but looks no less tense. He tips his head back and pours some beer down his throat. His neck muscles move as he swallows. He is too, too beautiful. ‘Though I wouldn’t,’ he adds, ‘like to think you were feeling difficult about this. If you are, well, like I said before, we don’t have to do this.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Don’t you want to, then?’

  ‘God, yes. But if you don’t -’

  I sit down on the bed, the ‘God, yes’ spreading inside me like a large slug of rhino horn soup.

  ‘Adam, I do. Believe me, I do. I think I might implode if I don’t get my hands on you pretty soon.’

  He doesn’t seem to know how to respond to this. I have no jacket to remove - I’ve already taken off my coat - and I don’t want to plunge in and whip my dress off, but something tells me he needs tangible evidence. Something to break the inertia. I reach up and pull the scrunchie from my pony tail.

  ‘There,’ I say. ‘Take me.’ He looks alarmed. I shake my head a little so that my curls flop forward and frame my face. I know this looks good because I’ve had twenty years mirror practice. ‘All right,’ I coo. ‘Kiss me, then. That’ll be a start.’

  He sits down - finally - on the end of the bed beside me. His weight shifts my own so I lean slightly towards him and his arm moves tentatively around my shoulder. He doesn’t seem to want to kiss me properly, however, just brush my face with his lips and touch my cheek with his fingers. It’s so gentle and tender that I begin to wonder if I am not being teased - the urge to crush my lips against his is almost irresistible.

  I must be squirming or grunting because he then pulls back and inspects me.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks anxiously.

  ‘Christ, yes,’ I pant. ‘Okay and then some!’

  Which seems sufficient reassurance because he then pulls me to him and kisses me properly; the whole bit, for some minutes, with much lust and abandon. Plus limbs, swirly hand movements and plenty of frantic head rolling and breathlessness. This is it, I think, as he twiddles enthusiastically with my buttons. We’re going to make love this afternoon. Adam is going to make love to me. Is. I help him by shrugging my arms from their sleeves and then undoing his shirt. He hauls it from inside his trousers and lets it hang loose and unbuttoned, while his hand slides, inch by agonising inch, towards a bra with as much hope of watching the action as the concierge with the hat and the trolley downstairs. His fingers arc over the lace and he sighs. And I sigh, and he sighs some more, then we both sigh.

  Point taken, the same hand sweeps round to the clasp.

  Our eyes meet and hold. ‘May I?’ he asks.

  And then, proprieties observed and respected, Adam changes gear. Suddenly, he has misplaced his shyness; indeed, he is now like a creature possessed. And I - well, forget all that old crap about waves crashing against beaches and fireworks exploding and twinkling eternity and the unbearable lightness of being and time stopping and drowning in stuff and spiralling and floating and velvet caresses and doves and stars and asteroids and earthquakes - Forget all that dreary euphemistic metaphorical metaphysical blah blah blah bilge - I am desperately, desperately, desperately horny and nothing I’ve wanted has ever come close to the wanting that grips me for Adam right now. My bra hits the ceiling, my head hits the bedspread and Adam’s grey trousers hit the floor with a flump. His pants - the same boxers, but this time in navy - are ripped from his torso, by my own frenzied fingers, in less time than it takes to whip a contact lens out. And then there he is. The whole man. My hero. Glorious. Wild eyed. Quivering. Huge.

  ‘Christ!’ he says, ‘Charlie! OhGodOhGod! Charlie!’ then crushes me to him and consumes me with kisses and finds his way in and then moans through my hair. I can’t tell what he’s saying now, and couldn’t give tuppence; all my energies are focussed on the exquisite sensation that I’ve never ever felt loved as intensely as this.

  Of course, being flippant about the more romantic aspects of having a shag are strictly the preserve of the pre-coital phase. Once I’m curled up beside him; (and the aftershocks have quietened), I feel as dizzy and dazzled and breathless and swoony as any self respecting eighteenth century heroine would. Adam’s chest hair, I note, as we meld and caress, is exactly the hue of the hair on my head. And his lips, still hell bent on more seismic activity, are so seamlessly fused to my own trembling skin now, that it’s only the pulsing deep down in my stomach that alerts me to how much - oh, Adam! Oh, Adam! Oh, Adam! OH, ADAM! -

  Then his mobile phone rings.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ he groans. ‘Ignore it.’

  But we can’t because immediately it stops ringing, it rings again.

  I feel his sigh escape in a warm stream against my throat.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he reassures me. ‘It’ll go on divert if they ring for long enough.’ He returns his attention to kissing my breast.

  Silence falls again - bar our again ragged breathing - but within minutes the tootling noise starts up again.

  ‘Why don’t you just answer it?’ I ask him. ‘Then it’s dealt with, isn’t it.’

  What a silly, silly thing to say.

  He pushes himself up onto his knees and reaches across to the chair for his jacket.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he groans. ‘The last call I had on this was you, yesterday. Why now? I’m at a bloody conference, aren’t I? Who the hell can it be?’

  He slips the phone from his jacket pocket and peers at the display. It must, I realise, be one of those phones that indicate the number that’s called, because his expression suddenly changes and he climbs off the bed. Then he wordlessly presses the button to answer and takes his naked self to the en suite to talk.

  Davina, then. Has to be. Bloody hell. Why her? Why now?

  I sit up on the bed, feeling suddenly vulnerable, and meet my reflection in the reproduction mirror. I am pink and my hair is a seething great wasps nest. I look like a badl
y permed extra from Cats. I lie back down again and roll over, dragging the paisley bedspread protectively around me. Adulterers, I suppose, do get used to this stuff. Either that or they organise their deceit so efficiently that when they’re together their phones are switched off. What babies we two are. What sad, fumbling people.

  Adam’s voice rumbles out through the tiling and plasterboard. I can’t make out the words but the tone is clear enough. He doesn’t sound cross. Or irritable, either. Just quietly pissed off. Which is just how I feel. I turn over again. Stand up. Get my Diet Coke. Drink some. Then begin the slow process of retrieving my clothes.

  He emerges.

  ‘Davina.’

  I nod at him. ‘Guessed so.’

  He sees what I’m doing and starts doing likewise. ‘Wanted to know if we’re free Friday fortnight. Jesus! There’s some big charity dinner dance we’ve been invited to, apparently. And she has to know now, of course, because there’s going to be some big noise planning types there or something. Who need impressing. Jesus. Like I’m some bloody mascot she trails round behind her. And like dinner dances are so important in the scheme of things, aren’t they?’ He waves his hand to take in me, the bed, himself. All this. ‘Like they’re so fucking important, you know?’

  He downs the rest of his beer in one long swallow, then picks up the second bottle and slams off the top against the side of the desk. The metal disc rattles and spins for a moment. Then is still. Adam stares at it, hand on his forehead, a faint sheen of moisture still wet on his brow.

  I don’t know what to say to him. I have never heard him swear. I have never seem him angry. I cannot recall a time when he’s said anything bad about his wife. I feel suddenly as if I’m in the room with an absolute stranger. And that I most want to do, all of a sudden, is go home and cry. But he must see the chasm of reality that has now gaped between us, because he comes and sits down beside me again and holds me very tight.