In at the Deep End. Kate Davies
started with my bra, and then pushed me back on the single duvet and pulled off my jeans, then my underpants. I was naked. Do not cross your arms, I said to myself. It is not sexy to cross your arms. It was really cold in his flat, though. At least that meant my nipples were erect.
Help, I thought – am I supposed to undress him now? I’ve never been good with buckles.
I knelt up and pulled his T-shirt over his head. It got stuck for a bit, and then when he pulled his head free, his face was slightly purple.
He clearly decided I was no clothes removal expert, because he hurriedly took off his own jeans while I lay back on the duvet, the colour and stiffness of a corpse at this point, probably.
He wasn’t wearing boxers. His penis was there, erect, waving from side to side as though it was greeting me. I’d forgotten how hideous-looking penises are. Penis is not a sexy word, I thought. But was cock better? I didn’t know. I had been out of the game too long. I prayed I wouldn’t have to say either word, or, in fact, anything else.
He was lying on top of me now, rubbing himself against me. ‘Talk dirty to me,’ he said.
Fuck. ‘Mmm,’ I said.
‘Tell me what you like.’
‘This is really nice.’
‘What do you want me to do? Do you want my big cock in your—’
Right. So he said cock.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘I’m going to fuck you good,’ he said. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Go on. Ask me to fuck you.’
‘Just – do it.’
I had turned into a human Nike advert.
He stood up to get a condom. It took him ages to rip the packet open. He looked so proud of himself as he rolled it on.
And then he clambered back onto the bed. The mattress shifted as he positioned himself above me. Staring into my eyes, he went to push himself into me. He missed.
‘Jesus. That’s never happened before,’ he said. He picked up his penis and guided himself in, frowning as though he was trying to assemble a particularly tricky piece of IKEA furniture.
He started to thrust, thwacking against me in the horrible silence of the room.
‘Yeah?’ he asked, looking at me again now, smiling, nodding.
‘Mmm,’ I said.
I tried to clench my pelvic floor muscles so I could feel him inside me – he was no Rampant Rabbit, let’s put it that way.
I looked past him, staring over his shoulder at the ceiling. Spider webs hung in the corners and there was a dark brown smear on the ceiling just above me. A dead fly, maybe. I wonder if he’d thrown a book up there to kill it and not wiped it off.
He moved faster, then slower, without any discernible rhythm. A bead of sweat fell from his forehead to my neck.
‘Have you come yet?’ He was slowing down now, breathing hard, or maybe out of breath – I couldn’t tell.
‘Just about to,’ I said, closing my eyes, trying to imagine I was somewhere else. But I couldn’t think of anything else, anything at all.
Panting, that’s what’s needed, I thought. ‘Uh, yeah, that’s good,’ I tried.
‘Yeah?’ he said, encouraged, speeding up.
‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘Oh! That’s right!’
‘Yeah? You like it hard, you dirty bitch?’
I had a lot of feminist problems with that question, but I didn’t think this was the time to get into them.
‘Mmm!’ I said, breathing faster now. I panted out a pained ‘Oh!’ and then sighed, slowing down my breathing, opening my eyes.
‘Was that it?’ he said, unimpressed.
‘Yeah,’ I said, anxious now. Was that not a convincing orgasm? Was I too quick? I couldn’t really remember how long it usually took when another person was involved.
He clambered off me and lay there, looking straight up at the ceiling. He was still hard. ‘I can’t come,’ he said, pulling off the condom and flicking it into the bin. ‘Will you sort me out?’
I should have said no. I see that now – I should have stood up, told him I’d had a nice time but that it wasn’t really working for me, and walked out. But that seemed impolite.
As I’ve said, he didn’t smell as though he washed very often. I wished he’d kept the condom on. But I thought I could get the whole thing over with quickly. I had faith in my blow job abilities. I’d practised on a fair few blokes at university and they’d never complained.
I did my best, taking his dick (I’m going with dick) as deep into my throat as I could, eyes closed, willing him to come.
‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘That’s not how you do it.’
I stopped and said, ‘Yes, it is.’
‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘You’re being too mechanical.’
I tried to process the insult. ‘What do you want me to do, then?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong. I always come, like.’
I just looked at him.
‘Are you going to wank me off, or what?’
Saying no seemed too difficult, somehow.
I knelt by the bed and gave him a hand job, trying to put some feeling into it, trying to vary the pressure, but I felt as though I were pumping a particularly resistant bicycle tyre. Finn lay there, silent. I could feel him growing flaccid in my hand.
‘This has never happened to me before,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve broken my penis.’
He pushed my hand away and tried to get the job done himself, his face clenched with the effort.
I knelt there, wondering what to do. Should I just leave? Should I join in somehow? Or did he just want to be left alone to enjoy himself in peace? He didn’t say. It seemed rude to leave without saying goodbye, and I didn’t really want to interrupt, so I stayed there on my knees while he kept wanking. I looked up at the clock above the window. It was one in the morning now.
At 1.16, he switched hands and carried on.
At 1.34, he paused for a few seconds to catch his breath, eyes still tight shut.
At two, I began to feel like I was hallucinating. I had never known time to pass so slowly. I had never been so viscerally aware of every sensation, every sound. It felt like punishment for every time I’d felt like life was rushing past me and I’d willed it to slow down.
He wanked for over an hour. And I just knelt by the bed and watched him, hypnotized by his broken penis.
And then, at 2.05, he grabbed my hand and wrapped it around his dick, pumping it up and down, eyes still closed. This was it. The home straight. The end of the hellish marathon.
At long, long last he came, all over my hand and his horrible pale chest. He breathed out, apparently as relieved as I was that it was all over. I discreetly wiped my hand on the side of his mattress.
And then he turned to me, and said, ‘Thanks, yeah, but I think it would be better if we were just friends.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I agree.’
I got dressed as quickly as I could, stumbling as I pulled up my jeans, while he lay there on his back with his eyes closed. I picked up my shoes and walked as quietly as I could out of the room, down the stairs