In at the Deep End. Kate Davies

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 and into the street, sitting on the doorstep to pull them on. And then I ran and ran, to find a night bus that would take me as far away from him and my humiliation as possible.

      As I sat at the bus stop, eyes down to avoid the attention of two teenage boys, shouting at each other with 3-a.m. rage, I made a resolution: I was done with sex. It was disgusting, unnatural, inexplicable. And I never, never wanted to see a penis, dick, cock, whatever you want to call it, ever again.

       5. NEVER SAY NEVER

      I went straight into the bathroom when I got home. I turned up the shower as high as I could bear, hot enough to turn my skin red, till I could see steam evaporating from my body. My knees were still dimpled with the texture of Finn’s carpet, and I couldn’t seem to rub them smooth. The smell of his cum clung to my fingers. I washed my hands – both of them, just to be safe – till they were pink and tender, scrubbing beneath my nails with Alice’s nailbrush.

      ‘Julia? Are you OK?’ The shower must have woken Alice up.

      I didn’t answer. I was concentrating on making my mind as blank as possible, but I couldn’t keep the sex flashbacks at bay:

      Kneeling by his bed.

      His thigh slapping against mine.

      The dead fly on the ceiling.

      ‘You’ve broken my penis.’

      Why did I let him get away with saying that to me? Why didn’t I just walk out of there? How fucking dare he blame me because he didn’t come? I hadn’t fucking come either, but at least I’d had the decency to fake an orgasm.

      I spent the following week going to work, coming home, and going straight to bed. I watched comforting old TV shows on repeat and imagined myself back to a purer time; a time when the thing I wanted most in the world was berry-coloured lipstick from The Body Shop and the furthest I’d got with a boy was when Phil Green kissed me on the cheek after his Bar Mitzvah.

      Alice tried to comfort me by telling me about the time that her ex-boyfriend Joe tried to prove he could give himself a blow job; he’d thrown his legs over his head in the yoga plough position but he hadn’t been able to reach, and then he pulled a muscle in his neck and screamed in pain till she helped him lie flat on his back again. That did make me feel slightly better. Not better enough to want to have sex with anyone ever again, though.

      Work was a distraction of sorts, but I wasn’t behaving normally, I knew that; I chose the desk next to Stan every day, to avoid my team and their questions about the date. Uzo cornered me one lunchtime and said, ‘So? How was the hot date?’ but I just said, ‘Fine, thanks,’ and then Tom called her into his office to tell her off for buying stuff from ASOS during work hours.

      Luckily there was a new sense of purpose in the office, everyone bustling around trying to impress the new Grade Six, not as much small talk. I couldn’t really look anyone in the eye, least of all Owen – he’d probably want to tell me how fantastically it was going with Laura and compare date stories, and I didn’t think I’d deal with his happiness well. But I couldn’t avoid him forever, and on Wednesday he insisted on taking me to Pret for lunch.

      ‘Are you all right?’ he asked me, as we finished off our chicken and avocado sandwiches. ‘Did something happen on your date?’

      I nodded. ‘I had sex,’ I said, and to my horror I felt my eyes filling with tears.

      ‘I hope Laura doesn’t cry when she tells people that,’ he said.

      ‘I’m СКАЧАТЬ