As soon as we get to my flat we have sex. We almost have it on the hallway floor but I manage to steer Ben into the bedroom. We keep kissing as we tear each other’s clothes off. Optimus, who’s been lying asleep on the bed, rushes out of the room so fast he loses his footing and slides into the doorframe with a thud.
‘You’re so fucking sexy,’ Ben murmurs while he kisses my neck hard.
The sex is wild and full-on and very different to what I’ve had before. I feel shy and daring all at the same time.
‘I’m so crazy about you, you know that?’ Ben says afterwards. ‘You make me feel totally weak and I talked about you so much yesterday that in the end Kobra told me to shut up.’
‘I’ve never met anyone like you,’ I say, truthfully.
Ben gets me in an iron grip and hugs me till it almost hurts.
‘Come with me if you want to live,’ Ben says in my ear with an Austrian accent and a deep voice.
‘Arnold again?’
‘Terminator 2.’
‘Are you sure it’s not Schwarzenegger you’ve got a thing for?’
‘How could you not have a thing for that man?’ Ben exclaims in feigned surprise. ‘Have you seen his smile?’
‘If you want to take a shower, you’re welcome to,’ I say.
When Ben gets up, I see his naked body in full for the first time. He’s thin. It must have been all the layers of clothes that made me think he was heavier and bigger than he actually is. His hips and collarbones jut out in a way they shouldn’t, and you can see his ribs. He has no hair on his chest and now I can see too that he doesn’t have any tattoos, even though I thought he’d be the type to cover his body with ink. Together, we go into the kitchen.
‘There’s shampoo, conditioner and shower gel in the shower,’ I say.
‘Do you have any scissors I can trim my beard with?’ Ben asks.
‘Yes, in the bathroom cabinet,’ I say.
I hear Ben turn on the shower and start rummaging around among the bottles on the floor.
‘I’m going to smell like a little girl,’ Ben says, laughing.
While he’s showering I make some sandwiches and pour us some red wine. Then I throw his clothes in the washing machine and while I wait for him to finish I watch TV and try to coax Optimus out from behind the sofa where he’s hiding. I notice that Ben’s hip bones have left small bruises on the insides of my thighs. I carefully stroke the small pale-blue marks.
‘Is this a laminating machine?’ I hear from the kitchen.
Ben comes into the living room. He’s wearing my jogging bottoms and has a towel wrapped around his shoulders. Water drips from his hair. And he hasn’t just cut his beard, he’s shaved it off.
‘Wow,’ is the only thing I can say. For the first time, I can really see his face. His lips are bigger and his cheeks more hollow than I thought.
Ben strokes his cheeks a little bashfully. ‘I feel so naked,’ he says. ‘Like a newborn baby.’
‘Like a bloody sexy newborn baby in that case,’ I say, but quickly add: ‘Though not in a paedophile way, of course. A baby like … like … hmm, well, that didn’t quite come out right. You look sexy anyway.’
Ben jumps on me and starts nibbling my neck again. His hair drips water on my face. It ends with us having sex again, on the sofa this time.