One London Day

by C. C. Humphreys

  She straightened, pushed her shoulders back. “Show time,” she murmured, and pushed open the lift door.

  The young woman was standing in a doorway at the end of a short, narrow corridor. Sonya remembered her when she saw her. She’d called her beautiful, which she was, even if in a very different way to herself. An English way, with an oval of a face, pale skin and even features though the eyebrows were crazy and thick, another contrast to her own plucked and painted lines. She’d had her blonde hair down when they’d met at the bar; now it was up, rolled and held by a chop stick. “Sonya,” she said, coming down the corridor, offering her hand – there was no need to rush into kisses, she had an immediate sense that this woman would want it taken slow. Not… sloe.

  “Oh, I remember,” came the reply, together with a grip on the hand that was stronger than most men she knew. “Lottie,” she said.

  “Oh, I remember,” she replied, even though, for a moment, she hadn’t.

  “Won’t you come in?” Lottie said, and gestured her to go past, still holding the door, adding, “Patrick, look who’s here.”

  Sonya entered. Another short corridor gave straight onto a living room, stylish, uncluttered, very white. In the middle stood a man, very black. She recalled him now as well, she’d talked with him a while. Handsome, with a nervous energy to him, like other actors she’d met, which he’d told her he was. He’d been trying to impress her, with show names he must have thought she’d know. But she didn’t have a TV, and she used her computer for business and for Skype.

  “How are you, Sonya?” he said, and his voice came back to her, as distinctive as his look, mellow, deep.

  “I am very well, Patrick. And you?”

  “All the better for seeing you. Glad you could make it.” He had a bottle of champagne in his hand, was just undoing the wire. “Would you like some?”

  “Thank you.”

  Lottie pointed. “May I take that? It’s a lovely bag.”

  “Oh, I’ll leave this here.” Sonya put down her bag, leaning it against the back of the sofa.

  Patrick aimed the bottle and the cork exploded out over the balcony. He poured into the empty flute. “Come sit,” he said, holding up the glass like a lure. She moved around the sofa, took the champagne. He held it for a moment before letting it go, their hands linked by glass. “Oh, and there’s also - ”

  He gestured to the mantelpiece with his free hand. She could see the unfolded paper there and the rolled note. Fuck, she thought. Men could go a long time on cocaine, especially through the compulsory condom. Also with three people involved, at this price? This could be a long night.

  Perhaps something showed in her eyes. “Maybe later, eh?” he said, released the glass to her and sat.

  The sofa was a square ‘U’, with short sides, around a glass table. Lottie came to the right end of it, Patrick was opposite her on the left, leaving Sonya right in the middle between them. As will be later, she thought.

  They talked a while. She learned a little of them, they almost nothing true of her. When she worked, she kept her own truth, and any hint of sadness, far away. She enjoyed the champagne, Veuve Cliquot, one of her favourites. She let them drink most of it though, she was already sleepy enough. Patrick made one trip to the mantlepiece, accepting her second refusal with a shrug. Lottie put some music on from her phone, on Bluetooth. A good speaker system brought the sounds to the room, sealing it off from the outside. The street noises receded as the the jazz took control.

  A break in tunes. A silence in conversation. Sonya put her half-drunk glass down on the glass tabletop. “A moment of business, please. Do you have…?”

  “Of course.” Patrick went to the mantelpiece again. An envelope lay there, which she hadn’t noticed before. He picked it up, sat again, and reached it to her. She took it, and he said, “Count it?” and she replied, “No need,” and leaned over the back of the sofa to drop it into her bag. Then she turned back, to their eager faces. She placed her tongue against her upper teeth and stared long at Patrick. Without taking her eyes off him she said, “Lottie. Will you come here?”

  Lottie drained off her champagne, put the glass down, got up, came over, stood above Sonya. “Where do you want me?” she said.

  “Here,” she replied, taking her hand, opening her mouth, pulling her down into it.

  Much much later…

  White on black on white. Though actually, Lottie thought, it isn’t.

  The black was a deep, dark brown; milk chocolate, not 90% cacao. While the whites were not pure white at all. Sonya’s was a pale rose, the colour fading or damasking depending on the action, the friction, the stimuli. While I am brown, latte brown, a colour gained from hours of nude bathing at the Ladies’ Pond in Kenwood. Only the faintest of tan lines scarred the uniformity, at breast, at upper thigh, whenever decorum demanded a cover up. But she’d been grateful for those at times that evening, when tongues and fingers used the lines as trackways to greater pleasures.

  Earlier, with twenty fingers and two tongues, Lottie hadn’t known where to turn, how to yield. Until she realized after the other two, certainly after Patrick, that salvation was to be found in surrender. In the realization that there was nothing to give up, only something to accept. This time, unlike those two other times, Patrick wasn’t territorial and despite the coke, he was also generous. Half his fun appeared to be watching her have fun too. There was an equal desire in the room.

  In the rooms. Because they moved, of course. Took advantage. Someone initiated, someone led, the others followed. But that wasn’t just locational. It was the core of the matter. The cock of the matter. The cunt of the matter.

  It was quite late on, and in the bedroom, when the final revelation came. Lottie had led the way there, seeking an easing for a back that had spent too long bent over a sofa.

  “Very nice,” said Sonya, taking a long look around before throwing her onto the bed. The Russian was down to an amazing bra, and crotchless panties. The English girl was down to nothing at all.

  It was then that Lottie discovered there was something the Russian could do with her mouth that no man had ever done. She’d had a hint of it before, on the dining room table. But now, while Patrick was back at the mantle, fuelling up, also taking a break because he’d been fucking so hard, fucking them both, equal opportunities fucking. Though he said he hadn’t come, and that he didn’t care. At least not yet.

  Sonya stood for a moment above her, eyes moving all over her, then bent to spread her legs, before kneeling between them, laying her mouth, her whole mouth, so softly against the whole of Lottie’s vulva. Held it there before she began to move. And though Patrick came in sniffling, gave a wee cry, knelt in his turn, put on another condom and pushed himself slowly into Sonya, the pressure on Lottie didn’t alter, the tongue kept true to its course.

  Up the left labia, circling the clitoris outside its hood, probing for a bare moment, tongue tip to the left side of the bulb, then carrying on down the right labia. Up, circle, flick and down. The pace was stately, and Patrick, taking note of the rhythm, adjusted to the speed, a slow withdrawal, a slower re-entry. He brought his hands over, laid them on Lottie’s breasts. He had always known how to work her nipples, gently, but not too gently, using the callouses gained from lifting weights, a sweet chafing, a slight distraction, side show to the main event, where the speed was slowly building, the probe lingering, the touch lightening, getting faster, pulling the hood down, bringing it back up. Lottie realized she’d been moaning for a while when Sonya began to moan too, the vibration of her moans sending an extra pulse through Lottie, goading Patrick whose pace grew in parallel. Then, and suddenly, there was a hardness within her, one finger, two fingers curled in, up, pads finding a spot within, one hitherto undiscovered, terra incognita, discovered now, the finger pads pressing into it, stroking it…

  … as the tongue moved on her, as the fingers circled within her, as Lottie opened her eyes to see Patrick even closer, moving faster. It was as if he was in
them both, Lottie felt that they were all fully joined for the first time, three with three, the noise each made blending. The tongue, the pressure, the fingers, the fucking, all of it came together, and they all came in a row, she first, loud and long, Patrick shortly afterwards in a lingering shudder, Sonya, she thought, a few moments later as she withdrew from Lottie – thank Christ! – to push herself back and draw Patrick’s final spasms deep within her, her fingers clawing into the bed’s white blanket.

  He fell back against the door, Sonya sank onto the floor, Lottie had to use her hands to get her legs together. Then - she didn’t know who began it – they were all laughing. It was crazy laughter, absurd, uncontrollable. Lottie pulled her knees up to her breasts and slapped the bed, again and again and again.

  Wobbly legged, all three walked to the shower; soaped each other down, held each other as water struck them on all sides. Then Patrick must have recalled his first plan for this location, because he ran his hand down Lottie’s side, moving it towards her sex. She slapped it away; felt that if either of one of them touched her there she would die in the explosion. But Sonya accepted his touch, touched in her turn. Lottie extracted herself, sat on the bidet, washed herself, staring at the shapes fading into steam. When all was lost to mist and moans, she rose, dried herself, and slipped into her Chinese silk gown. She returned to the living room, sat and rolled herself a special cigarette, took it out to the balcony to smoke. She could see a clock on the wall in an office above the pub opposite. It was 11:17. Jesus, she thought. She let the jazz, which she’d never turned off, take her, let her mind go blank. Took a while before she remembered what she held, and lit it.

  “So that is where you went.”

  The voice behind her, she didn’t turn to it and a moment later Sonya was leaning beside her, wrapped in a bath towel. Lottie held up the joint, Sonya sniffed the smoke, shook her head.

  “Where’s Patrick?”

  “In a bubble bath, with headphones on. He says he’d like to slow down. But with what he’s had?” She shrugged, pointed at the joint. “Maybe he should have some of this?”

  “Nah, he’s only a speed king these days.”

  “So, I think he is maybe preparing for another round?”

  The way she said it, not fearful, certainly weary made Lottie turn and look at her more closely. Between the sex and the shower all her make up was gone, her hair still wet, plastered down. She looked young – yet old too, especially around, and in, the eyes.

  “Why don’t you go?”

  There was a moment of hope in those eyes, which came and went. “No. He paid for a night. I stay.”

  “I paid too. Well, I provided the venue. I’m an equal partner. And I say you’re done.”

  “You… are sure?”

  “Yupp. But if you don’t want an argument, you had better move fast.”

  She did. Towel dropped, clothes on, bag shouldered. Within two minutes she was out on the balcony again. “Goodbye, Lottie.” She offered her hand. “It was a pleasure.”

  Lottie smiled at the formality. Took the hand. “The pleasure was mine.” Sonya tried to withdraw her hand but Lottie held it. “But was it only mine?”

  Sonya stared at her, something else going on in her young-old eyes. Finally she said, “You know, Patrick thinks it was him that made me come. I tell you a secret – I do not, often, with clients, though I pretend, of course. But truly? It was you. The way you… gave to my touch. I like this. Yes. This I like very much.”

  She pulled Lottie slightly to her then, kissed her on both cheeks. As she pulled back, Lottie whispered, “Will we meet again?’

  “You have my number.”

  “But I’m a broke pianist. Don’t be fooled by this place.”

  Sonya pulled away. “For special friends – maybe a special discount?”

  They held each other’s eyes for a moment. Then both heard Patrick call from the bathroom. “Heh, you two. I’ve had a really great idea.”

  “Go,” Lottie whispered.

  She went. Lottie watched her reach the street, start walking South. She heard a cab, and so did Sonya who hailed it. As she got in, without looking up, she raised a hand in one brief salute.

  11

  Friday, 27th July 2018

  Joe was trying to concentrate on what Vicky was saying. He truly was. But it was as if her voice was a badly tuned radio, or a mobile in an area with poor coverage. His wife, her meaning, kept drifting in and out.

  Except it wasn’t her. It was him. Him and his phone, on silent.

  It was in his trouser pocket. It vibrated now with a text message. He got texts all the time. It could be Oliver or Stacey from the office, his daughter, his mate Saul to give him the time for the five-a-side, which he was going to need to cancel anyway. It needn’t be her. It was unlikely to be her. Still, he didn’t pull it out to check.

  Because what if it was her?

  He swallowed, tried to listen. Vicky deserved his full attention. She wasn’t talking about the bat mitzvah for once. Was being very funny actually, about another mother in the tots and Pilates class, a newcomer who didn’t get the North London boho-chique aesthetic, had come dressed in full Lululemon.

  He smiled now at his wife, his lovely, funny wife. Her humour had been the first thing that had attracted him when he’d returned from California, for a brief stopover en route back to Thailand – or so he’d thought at the time. But Vicky, who he’d met at the welcome home party Saul had thrown for him, had greeted him with: “Oh, so this is the wandering Jew?” as soon as they were introduced; had teased him in a way he’d forgotten, having spent the last two years around seldom ironic Americans. The sort of banter only the English did, and those of his North London tribe did especially well. She was the type of girl he’d known all his life, the type who’d fuelled most of his adolescent fantasies. He even discovered he’d lost his virginity to her cousin, Becca – a fact that provoked even more mockery.

  Vicky had travelled herself, had studied art in Italy, lived in New York. She seemed different. Different certainly from shiksa Cassidy, who’d recently taken out his heart and stamped all over it. But in the end, Vicky had turned out not to be very different at all. And neither had he, for all his posturing, his woven traveller’s bracelets, his Buddhist practice. Now here they were, in the same Finchley kitchen he’d spent his childhood in, his parent’s home, sold to him at a discount – not much of one, because his dad was funding his retirement. The only difference being that the kitchen was remodelled. Unlike his life.

  He focused, listened, laughed as she went off on one, this time about his sister, Nomi, her terrible clothes sense. But when his phone vibrated again, he couldn’t help himself. He looked at it. And it was her, at last. So he said, “Oh, sorry, love, crisis at the office.” Lying for the fourth time that week, twice more than he’d lied in their fifteen years of marriage. Lying in a way he thought Vicky must guess the lie, though she just waved at him, and picked up her own phone.

  He went upstairs to his home office, shut the door. Studied the screen again, tried to mine meaning from the simple words.

  But of course, Mr Severin. Tequila? LOL. Just tell me where and when. X

  He held the phone to his chin, stared out onto the Close. In the pollarded sycamore, a blackbird sang. He hadn’t really listened to a blackbird for a long time, remembered now that when he came back from his travels in Israel, India, South East Asia, America, he’d realized that a blackbird, all English birdsong really, was one of the main things he’d missed. He listened now to the wild swoops, trills and runs and he thought, you fucking idiot, Joe. You fool.

  He’d sent her three texts since ‘the incident of the back’, as he’d come to think of it, the day before. The first, last night, falsely casual and cool: Heh, thanks for the shot. The second, an hour later, apologetic. I hope I didn’t put you in a difficult position. Sorry if so. She’d replied to neither which was a kinda relief because he’d thought, good, good, that’s good, it was just a moment, me
unused to hash after all the years, nothing important. But at other moments, especially waking in the night, the memory tore at him, literally made him sweat. He wrote and erased three more messages. Until the one he’d sent at midnight, left his bed and a lightly snoring Vicky to send from the kitchen; simple, unambiguous.

  Drink?

  He re-read her message now as if deciphering hieroglyphs. He could hear the way she’d called him Mr Severin, in that teasing Home Counties voice. But of course? Did she think a meeting was the natural follow up to ‘the incident’? Had she been expecting it, this offer? Tequila? Was that an offer of more? Of more than just the drink? Then she wrote LOL. He’d read once that the former Prime Minister, David Cameron – that wanker who’d fucked the country with his referendum! - had texted that to some newspaper editor but had thought it meant ‘lots of love’ not ‘laugh out loud’. So was Lottie laughing about the incident? Dismissing it? Had it meant nothing to her, then? When it had meant so much to him?

  Fool, he thought again. But Just tell me where and when? That was unambiguous, surely? She’d meet him, she was happy for them to meet. Keen even? Maybe. He’d only find out when they did.

  Then there was the X. Their first kiss. They hadn’t when he left the flat, not even cheeks. Their only physical contact had been those two fierce handshakes – and the moment his lips touched the cleft of her back and he sucked tequila from it.

  He sat down in his office chair. Flopped into it, his knees suddenly soft. Saw, not a blackbird in a tree, didn’t hear its wild song; saw light brown liquid in that tanned valley, the golden hairs in it dampened now, heard her slight gasp as the tequila filled her there, and a second gasp, this one with a giggle in it when his lips tickled her as he bent and drew the liquor slowly into his mouth. When was the last time he’d shot tequila? That dinner party that had got a little out of hand at Saul’s a year before. But this was nothing like that, that had been about the drink. This was about…