“Jeez . . . I’m so damn sensitive there. Every time you touch it, it’s like a flash of electricity coursing through me in overdrive.”
“Really?”
“Yes. My husband” (she carefully refrains from mentioning his name, naked as she is in the embrace of another man) “seldom touches me there, but somehow it doesn’t have the same effect, you know.”
“You’re wonderful. Many other women wouldn’t have dared admit that.”
“Just the way I feel.”
He kisses her. I kiss her. I kissed her.
Time loses all its meaning.
Never have we been so alone, in our forgotten island of lust.
“One day, would you . . .”
“Yes, I would like you to fuck me there. Very much . . .”
His mind races. Butter. Extra lubrication. Genuine fear of harming her. The madness of this intimacy they have so quickly reached.
His heart breaks. Straight through the middle, where it hurts the most.
She walks out into the corridor. Time for the train back to the conjugal bed. He follows her silhouette as her characteristic gait takes her down the endless hotel road, just like the one in the Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink. He distractedly thinks this would be a perfect image, a fade away as end of a wonderful story, the camera raising itself on a crane as she moves away, long legs, tousled hair, from him. But in life, things don’t end that simplistically.
He is no longer part of the room. He closes the door. Without her. Smells. The imprint of her tattooed deep into his flesh. Dresses. Leaves. Settles the bill with one of his credit cards. Makes his way to the car park, an empty black promotional tote bag swinging from his shoulder, no longer carrying the bottle of white wine he’d brought earlier. Car keys. Ignition. Motorway.
The room after she has left: empty, lonely too but still inhabited by her presence, a pervasive feeling of her.
The silence.
The cold.
Soon, the floor maid enters. Her electronic pass affords her entry to all rooms. In her closet, a red light had lit up, indicating 404 was now ready for cleaning. A day let only.
She pulls the cart behind her. Looks ahead at the relative untidiness, bed spread open, towels on the bathrobe marble floor, tap still dripping in the shower, a half empty bottle of wine by the bed. Clean ashtrays. Curtains still drawn.
The maid sniffs the air. A smell she is all too familiar with.
“Fuckers,” she recognises.
The Editor vs. the Author
Anya Ross
Insomnia, an aching back and a fractured heart were passing acquaintances, but inner turmoil was a constant companion, the only one he could rely on never to leave him.
Long after he’d left, she wanted to remember while he wanted to forget. In a world of fragile hopes she had found the right man in the wrong circumstance. Yet she remained optimistic.
from the Novel by the Author
At times I had to pause and lay my pen aside as his words took my breath away. Still, I began to dread these editorial sessions; working with the author was like dancing on broken glass. There was a raw immediacy to his writing but the manuscript was littered with errors and inconsistencies and its pages were now covered in my red marks. At the publisher’s suggestion we went through the corrections at my flat. My initial strategy had been “Flatter, suggest, discuss, persist, win”. It had worked for about ten minutes: my calm and collected nature was being tested.
His novel was a challenge in both scope and length, leaving as many questions unanswered as asked: he wanted the reader to work. Our job was to cut and polish this rough diamond, but the conflict between my precision and his flawed genius exasperated us equally: he was unable to accept criticism graciously and could not concede a point without losing his temper, while I debated my corrections with more force than was justified. We were now way over our deadline due to our inability to compromise.
During our fifth meeting we fought over one paragraph endlessly. A man and a woman are sitting side by side at a desk discussing a complex architectural plan. He draws an amendment on the page, the woman leans over him to correct it, her breast brushing against his cheek. I explained that this was anatomically impossible. He disagreed vehemently. I shifted my chair closer to his and said, “Look, I’m reaching across you towards the desk. My shoulder is brushing against yours but my breast is nowhere near your cheek.”
He said nothing, but I caught a brief look of surprise and defeat. As I repositioned my chair he wrote in the margin: “Point taken”.
The following day I was working on the manuscript alone. The antagonist forces himself on a colleague, his brutality bordering on the dangerous. It wasn’t believable, but as I read on, my pen remained motionless in my hand. I reached the end of the chapter and realised my heart was pounding. Damn, I was turned on. I had to go and lie down. My T-shirt pulled up and knickers discarded, the only hands I could imagine touching me were the author’s. I tried to replace his presence but couldn’t. I came quickly, annoyed at myself but still believing the scene was implausible.
He walked through the front door, avoiding eye contact and barely acknowledging my greeting. I steeled myself for the next few hours’ work.
When we reached the sex scene he read my note in the margin. “What do you mean it’s implausible?”
I took a deep breath. “It’s too brutal and too fast. You have two people who don’t even like each other. One minute they’re arguing, the next he has his tongue in her throat, his hand down her skirt and he’s yanking her knickers up her crotch – and she likes it. It just wouldn’t happen.”
Anger flashed in his eyes but I refused to give in. His hand slammed down on the desk and he said, “Right.” He stood up, kicked back the chair and grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to stand. He kissed me hard as he thrust his hand down the back of my jeans. I tried to pull away but his hold was too strong. I felt the fabric of my knickers twisted in his fist and as his body pressed against me his hand jerked upwards. I wanted to cry out but his mouth stopped me.
His hand relaxed against the small of my back and I realized I was gripping his shoulders. In shock and breathing fast I was unable to let go of him. He looked at me with an expression I hadn’t seen before: it was devoid of anger.
Finally he spoke: “Tell me, is it still implausible?”
I couldn’t answer.
He stroked my hair. “Is she turned on, or is she not?”
I nodded and whispered, “Point taken.”
Certainty is always dangerous because there is no room for debate. He knew, he always knew, and this alarmed her even more than her doubts.
Chapter One
He straightened the chair, sat down and returned to the page as if nothing had happened.
“He’s mad,” I thought as I discreetly adjusted my underwear. We had each scored a point via the physical rendering of a sexual episode, but if the writer’s aim is to seduce the reader with his words he had taken that intention to a higher level. Shaken and confused, I pictured the tableaux to come.
The remainder of that chapter was an extension of the sex scene, and my comments in the margins were decidedly critical. Was this man not getting laid? Though I knew nothing about his personal life, whether he was married, divorced, celibate – and he certainly wasn’t gay – I sensed these encounters were based on fantasy rather than reality. Moderation was an alien concept and every episode was set in the extreme: bondage, domination, abasement, discipline and a few for which I had no terms. He was obsessed with underwear, but not the sheer minimalist kind. The women wore big, plain white knickers – no doubt from Marks & Spencer – and tights. It was the latter I found most offensive.
“What’s wrong with tights?” he asked.
“No one looks sexy in tights.”
“But these are real women, not Penthouse Pets.”
“I think you’ll find that even real women like sexy underwear.” I was baiting him, irritated by his sartorial assump
tions of good girls versus bad. “I take it you don’t like your women to dress up for you?”
I regretted the question instantly. It was hostile but also flirtatious and his response caught me off guard.
“What would you wear?”
I paused and for the sake of research answered honestly. “If I were wearing a skirt, say on a fifth or sixth date, I might wear stockings.”
“I’ve never seen you in a skirt.”
His observation surprised me, but I had the feeling he’d never seen a real woman in stockings either. “Trust me, it’s bare legs or stockings.”
I was about to win the argument, or so I thought. “Prove it,” he said. “Put on your stockings . . . and that dress,” he said, pointing to a photograph of me in a strapless black lace ball-gown.
What should have been an unwelcome request was now a clarion call heralding the memory of his hands on me.
Men are blind and women are deaf.
Chapter Three
As I walked into the living room, the lining of my dress rustling against my stockings, I questioned my motive and his; this could only lead in one direction. But this man was unpredictable, perhaps to him it was just research.
I stood a few feet in front of him and he leaned forward, looking only at my face. Holding his gaze I realized I’d mistaken the colour of his eyes: they were now as unfathomable as a nameless ocean. His thick black hair was shot through with grey and each line on his face held a story; I’d read some of them but the untold tales beckoned.
Eventually he scanned the length of my body, all the way down to my high-heeled shoes. He gestured to the hem of my dress. “Show me.”
I gathered the lacy material in my fingers, gradually revealing my legs. I stopped at my knees.
“Go on.”
I lifted it higher, exposing my thighs. I paused again, prolonging the moment, but his expression told me little.
“That’s enough,” he said and sat back in his chair.
The hem dropped to my ankles and my stomach sank in humiliation at the thought of his studying me for investigative purposes only. I felt utterly foolish, modelling a costume of seduction for a man whose idea of sexual etiquette included unflattering lingerie and American Tan hosiery. I was about to retreat to my bedroom, jeans and T-shirt ready for me on the floor.
“Take it off,” he said.
Relief flooded through me as I unfastened the back of my dress. I let it fall to the floor and stood before him in a pool of black lace. When I looked into his eyes they were deep blue: an emotional refraction had caused a change and I needed to gauge its angle.
He drew me towards him, his knees pushing my legs apart. As he ran his hands down me from my bra to the tops of my stockings I shivered, wondering if this tenderness might switch at any moment, like the volatile dark figure that lurked throughout his novel.
He pulled me down onto his lap and when he stroked my face I flinched; it was the touch of the familiar and the threatening, its message ambiguous. In his book it was a gesture signalling both pure love and misplaced trust. When he reached my throat I gasped.
He looked almost wounded. “Did you think I was going to hurt you?”
I shook my head, wondering which of us had misunderstood. I was waiting for the switch, anticipating a sudden pressure. But it didn’t happen.
Men need to feel stronger than the women they are with, but when it comes to real strength, women beat them hands down every time.
Chapter Five
His kiss was curiously hesitant as he led me back to safety. I laid my hands on his shoulders and sensed his strength: his build was powerful, but the muscles quivered at my touch.
He fumbled at my bra-strap with an awkward urgency, as though I might vanish at any second. My lips let him know I wasn’t going anywhere. When his finger traced the outline of my left nipple he moaned with me. He was fully dressed while I was nearly naked, my vulnerability exposing a need in us both.
I leant back and guided him downwards, his breath warm against my skin. He kissed my nipple, a barely there whisper of intention, his restraint so unexpected, as if he were both unsure of his right to be there yet certain of my willingness to be guided. And I was. Despite the unsettling reaction to his exaggerated telling of my own fantasies, we shared identical lines of dialogue, some of which he had already spoken in that low reassuring voice. Even when he’d been angry with me his voice was always diverting.
As the pressure of his mouth on my nipple increased I stroked his hair, as soft as warm silk under my fingers. “Who is this man?” I thought. Softness and hard edges, tentative and assertive, tender but with the potential to change course at any moment. I had made too many assumptions based on fictional acquaintance. So far I had misread him completely.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
“Almost as much as you love me” she said, and he smiled because he knew it was true.
Chapter Seven
He lifted me from his lap and led me into the bedroom. I lay back and stretched, almost purring in anticipation as he closed the curtains and turned on the bedside light. As he held my hands above my head his voice poured over me: “You’re perfect, and I don’t just mean your body.”
Intrigued and flattered as I was by his declaration, I assumed its meaning would soon be revealed. I smiled and looked into his eyes: they were as distinctly green as they had been deep blue a few minutes earlier.
“But –” he paused, all tenderness gone. When he spoke again, his words were slow and deliberate: “You are a very bad girl.”
A hundred different thoughts raced through my mind, none of them safe. The most important was that I hadn’t finished the novel: what if the heroine ends up in some twisted sex game with the sadistic anti-hero? Or worse.
“You haven’t read the last chapter, have you?”
I shook my head and turned away from him, remembering that the anti-hero had green eyes.
“Are you frightened of me?”
I knew the line but couldn’t remember how the heroine had answered. I had to fake it: “No.”
“Good girl.”
“Stupid girl,” I thought. I already knew his fantasies were dangerous and now I had no way out. I was virtually naked on my own bed with a man who was ten times stronger than me. A few moments earlier his big masculine body had made me feel small and protected. Now it alarmed me.
“You know I’d never hurt you.”
I wanted to believe him but the contradictions were so extreme, the shift so rapid that I couldn’t tell if he was the dark figure or a divine messenger. In a perfect world he would be both.
“You like the unpredictable, don’t you?”
I couldn’t answer. Yes might mean danger; no might mean another switch.
“Shh,” he whispered, stroking my face.
I flinched again at the gesture I knew so well.
“Don’t be scared. I thought you understood.”
I didn’t understand at all and shook my head.
“Chapter Eight. It’s the one scenario we should all aspire to.”
Chapter Eight . . . I struggled to find the running order. I knew it wasn’t the forced encounter we’d already enacted, and I hoped it wasn’t the sadomasochistic couple with a taste for rubber.
“Please tell me Chapter Eight is set in Devon,” I said, remembering the one genuine love affair. In an ideal world this couple would have found life-long happiness.
“And it’s only circumstance that keeps them apart.”
My heart leaped in relief and delight; their sexual compatibility and adoration had left me breathless. “Thank God it’s not Chapter Twelve,” I said.
He laughed. “As if.”
The man and woman in Chapter Eight are never named, but to the enlightened reader they will be familiar: lovers who know each other without having to say a word. I was looking into the eyes of the man in the story, experiencing what the woman felt or perhaps it was because it was already written, in both senses.
I suddenly realised he had never spoken my name. And now it seemed right; the anonymity was as implicit as the trust. Fiction or not, its creation was the very essence of him, and I felt I already knew him as intimately as a lover. Having spent hours and hours together focused on his words, I’d become as passionately committed as he was, despite the antagonism. I knew my emotional investment had earned his respect.
An illicit affair by necessity propels passion, and the couple’s need for each other was almost painful. Their time together was limited, but accelerated love fires the most intense emotions since crisis might end it at any moment. They knew it was too good to be anything but short-lived. In his book their story is never resolved. I wanted to believe that they might find a way to be together, but I doubted it.
These thoughts flashed through my mind in a moment of deliverance and foresight: we were about to live what had previously been fantasy.
“I adore you”: it was a safe euphemism.
Chapter Eight
“The woman in Chapter Eight, is she real?”
He smiled and said, “She is now.”
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