Who wants to be woken up at 2 am by the buzz of an intercom? The street was so perfectly silent, I could hear the buzzer going off in the fourth-floor flat above. I pressed it a third time. I’m sure half the residents in the building heard it before their neighbour did.
‘Oh, fuck, it’s you.’
I blew him a kiss, down the camera lens. It fogged over. The street door clicked open and I pushed through it and climbed the four flights to his door. It was open. I closed it behind me, crossed the tiny flat and found tattoo boy back in bed. Stripping naked I climbed in beside him. The flat was freezing. He rolled away from me and I spooned him. He was so warm. He groaned as I put my cold hands on him.
‘Sleep,’ he growled.
Not a chance. He knew it, too. When my hands found their way down to his cock, it was rock hard.
*
‘Don’t you sleep?’ asked tattoo boy, after his alarm woke him at six. I was sitting at his kitchenette bench eating his cereal. I’d wrapped my naked self in his duffle coat.
‘Nope. Too much going on.’
He didn’t say anything, just stared at me with sleepy eyes.
‘Hey, tattoo boy, why is it so fucking cold in this place?’
‘Josh.’
‘Really? Josh? Doesn’t suit you. I like tattoo boy.’
His drowsy smile seemed to say he didn’t care what I called him.
‘It’s fucking freezing!’
‘Can’t afford heating.’
I put the cereal down and grabbed my handbag. I dug around for a bit and found what I was looking for. Taking off the rubber band I pulled out a few hundred pounds and scrunched them up. I threw them at him.
‘I’ll be back for more of that cock of yours, so next time I expect some fucking heat. All right?’
‘I’m your little whore, am I?’
‘If you want. I don’t care how you think about it or me.’
Josh didn’t answer this but he straightened out the notes, smoothed them against the mattress and put them under the pillow.
‘I live on champagne, too. So make sure there are always a few cold bottles of Bollinger in the fridge.’
He looked at me warily then shook off the covers and, naked, went off to the bathroom. I heard him pee and then shower. In five or so minutes he came out looking as he had when he left. There was no getting away from it. He was a perfect specimen.
‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ he mumbled, as he started to dress.
‘I didn’t expect to want to see you again.’
‘You do this sort of thing often?’
‘All the time.’
‘I bet no one has ever left you out on the street.’
‘Not yet.’
As I watched, he put on a pair of utterly filthy jeans, two unwashed T-shirts and a stained Nike hoodie, then proceeded to pull on thick woollen socks and dust-covered work boots.
‘Will you be here when I get back?’
‘No.’
I took off his duffle coat and handed it to him. He smiled broadly as I stood naked before him. He took his time to get the jacket on. All the while his eyes were on mine.
‘You’re the devil.’
I nodded. ‘What time do you need to be at work?’
‘Seven.’
‘You can be late.’
*
I didn’t leave the flat. There was no point. I’d be back that night for more. For an hour after he left I lay on his bed utterly fucked. When I finally moved I shuddered. All of my body felt electric. And it wasn’t the fuck. That had been quick. He probably made it to work on time. It was how we fucked. Rabid beasts. He is so strong. He pounded me. Held me down and gave it to me. And the noise we made. I was screaming. And he roared as he came.
Then he did up his pants and left. Not a word. Not a kiss. Ruined me. Ruined. So I stayed.
This wasn’t the whole truth. I mean, he knew how to fuck. And his scent was delicious. And those abs. But would I have stayed if I hadn’t had somewhere else I had to be, somewhere I didn’t want to go?
I wrapped the blanket around me and wandered around his flat. I looked in drawers. Flicked through an unread copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I masturbated. Ate another bowl of cereal. I opened his laptop. Then closed it. I showered.
I climbed back into bed and waited for him to return.
I was asleep when he returned. I awoke to the sound of the shower. I lay sleepily while he washed the day off him. He came to me naked and kissed me. Slipping under the covers, he held me, lay on me. He kissed me for so long I wasn’t sure when his cock had slipped into me. I hadn’t been kissed like that for years. These were teenage kisses, so urgent and full, then tender and lingering. And the gentle thrusts of his hips driving his cock deep. He was killing me. He knew what he was doing. When he kissed his way down between my legs I was completely undone. He toyed with me, too. Took me to the edge and retreated. When I escaped his game I came so hard that I almost suffocated him holding his head to me like a madwoman. Afterwards, he stood at the end of the bed and watched the final throes overtake me. But he wasn’t done. And he was too strong for me to resist. He flung me over on my stomach and lifted me to my knees.
*
He wasn’t doing anything special. This wasn’t imaginative sex. I wasn’t being tested. Or shocked. He wasn’t someone’s husband or boyfriend. It had none of the thrill of the unfamiliar or the deviant. I didn’t wake up beside him in that state of aroused disgust I’d become familiar with. But here I was sitting at the end of a bar like an overprotective, jealous girlfriend watching him work. Truth be known, I couldn’t let him out of my sight. So I’d followed him to his second job. It was nice to pretend to like someone. To experience the sex you get when you first fall for someone without falling for them. He reminded me of boys from the village I’d climbed over the walls of my boarding school to smoke with and kiss.
The bar was in the West End. It looked like a private bar but wasn’t; the advertised prices kept out the tourists, at least those on a budget. Posh but not. Josh was kept busy enough, but it wasn’t hectic. The bar work wasn’t as regular as the labouring and he took what he could. He’d been saving for a trip. He liked the tips. He got generous tips. I said I bet he did.
‘Barman, another,’ I demanded. He made his way down to me. The way he carried himself spoke of the power of his body. He had the grace of a gymnast. Or a dancer. He was a chameleon. He was the epitome of a labourer this morning. And now, in this environment, he looked like a rich kid trying to prove he could look after himself. The tats escaping from the edge of his rolled-up shirtsleeves just added to his appeal.
He poured another glass of champagne and placed it on the bar before me. Looking at the rising bubbles, I was reminded of Alan and his ring.
You can’t live as you do without something giving out, he’d said.
I grabbed Josh’s hand and stuffed £200 into it, saying, ‘Keep the change, cutie.’
He folded the two hundred neatly and pocketed it. He served another couple of customers and then made his way down to me. Finding my glass empty, he refilled it.
‘What time do you get off?’ I asked.
‘One, but I have a break in ten minutes,’ he said with a grin.
The confidence of that grin. He was going to fuck me in the back lane, or toilet stall. I grabbed the edge of the bar. The way he was looking at me. I had to look away.
*
‘You know I haven’t had a regular, everyday thought since I climbed into your bed the other night? I’ve been ignoring work. I haven’t recharged my phone. It’s been dead the whole time. I bet they’ve been trying to contact me. I’ve been putting off doing something I don’t want to do. The work will be piling up. But I don’t care about anything. It’s Friday, right?’
If it was, I had missed my Thursday meeting with Liam. First time I could remember doing that without letting him know.
Tattoo boy was getting changed again. He hadn’t slept properly in days. He worked so much. He had so few hours for sleep and play. And I wouldn’t let him sleep. I was rested. While he worked I slept or read War and Peace. At least I made him skip one night at the bar. Less for him than for me.
‘I’m shattered,’ he said and yawned. ‘Amy, you’ve been wearing the same clothes for days. We’ll go to your place tonight? You can get some clothes.’
‘I don’t need them. I’m staying here. I’m never leaving your bed. I don’t need clothes. Anyway, I have all of yours. I want you to get me a job as a labourer.’
He laughed at that. ‘You can stay here as long as you like. But you have things to do. You need to get back to your life.’
‘I don’t care about my job.’ And I immediately knew this was a lie.
‘But we need to rest, don’t we?’
‘We do. You do.’ I reached out and touched his abs as he put his T-shirt on.
I knew I should have left him alone. He was exhausted. I should get back to my life, such as it was.
I could just come clean and tell him if he stayed with me he need never work again. I could buy him. Look after him like a man might keep a mistress. Keep him on call. On a retainer.
He had pocketed all the money I’d given him without comment. Perhaps he didn’t mind being bought.
But I knew myself too well. This would never last. The world of fuck is not a place of permanent settlement. I’d have to talk seriously with him sooner or later and what would I find? I didn’t want to know his opinions on anything.
I had to be real. I already missed my work. I couldn’t put off meeting with Helen Owen indefinitely. There was no end to this other than me waking up one morning bored to death of him. This wasn’t love. I know love. This wasn’t it. This was a passing need. Lust, at best.
As soon as the spell broke, I’d be gone. Where would he be then?
This thought did it for me. The spell was broken. The fuck-fest was over.
I had one last question. ‘Why do you have a copy of War and Peace?’
‘It was a gift.’
As soon as he left for work, I got dressed, grabbed my things and left. I thought about leaving the rest of my cash with him, but then decided not to. I’m not completely heartless, I did give him something. I left my phone number on the title page of War and Peace.
Not that he would ever find it there.