What If?. Shari Low

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and gradually inside. My body welcomed him eagerly. He continued to move out and in, sending glorious waves of ecstasy coursing to previously unstimulated areas of my anatomy, until eventually he came shuddering to a halt, just as a new feeling deep in my pelvic area caused an explosion I’d never felt before. So that was what all those orgasm articles in Cosmo were raving about then.

      He collapsed beside me, then turned and touched my face.

      ‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered.

      I smiled. ‘Thank you,’ I gasped, breathless. I didn’t know what else to say. My mother had always taught me that if someone gave you a compliment you should smile and thank them. I don’t think she meant that to apply after a stranger had just been intimate with your tickly bits, but then I wasn’t sure of the rules of this new game. What exactly are you supposed to say after a guy has met you, said ‘Are we leaving,’ followed by ‘Lift your hips’ and your only utterance has been a feeble ‘Yes’?

      I searched my brain for points of reference. I was sure this was when the guy rolled over and was snoring within ten seconds. Why then was his finger tracing the outline of my nipple? Now my stomach. Now my thighs. Good God, he wanted to do it again! Was this normal?

      He pulled me on top of him and without thinking I was suddenly moving, using muscles I didn’t even know I possessed.

      We made love twice more, once in the bath, and it was starting to get light when we fell asleep, me still with an inane grin on my face. So this was it. Virginity gone. After years of fumbling with my on-off ex, Mark Barwick, resisting the temptation to cross the last line, I’d had my first sexual experience with a man I couldn’t have picked out in a line up only a few hours ago. It should feel so wrong, and yet it just felt perfect.

      The sun streaming in through the window woke me at ten o’clock. For a moment I didn’t know where I was, then I remembered. I started to get up when pain forced me to slump back down. My legs felt like they’d run a marathon. I stumbled to the bathroom, gathering my hastily discarded clothing as I went. I looked in the mirror. Big mistake. My face was red, my eyes looked like a road map and my hair had clearly exploded during the night. I couldn’t let him see me like this – the shock would scar him for life.

      I dressed and did the best repair job possible before surreptitiously making for the door. I had just pulled it open when he sleepily mumbled, ‘Can I see you tonight?’

      ‘Sure,’ I replied without turning round, ‘I’ll be in the Scotsman.’

      I staggered back to the apartment, praying that nobody would be awake. I quietly opened the door and was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when I saw a sea of expectant faces. The gang were indeed up and broke into a standing ovation.

      Laughing, Kate gave me a drink.

      ‘What’s this?’ I stammered.

      ‘It’s a new cocktail we invented for you. It’s called an Invaded Vagina.’

      Oh, the embarrassment. Was nothing private in this world?

      ‘But how did you know?’

      Sarah butted in. ‘Graham here,’ she said, gesticulating to my night of passion’s friend, who was sitting in the corner, ‘went back to the hotel last night, but he heard you inside, so he hotfooted it over here with a full report.’

      I was mortified. Ground open up now and swallow me please.

      ‘Well, aren’t you going to say anything?’ Jess asked.

      I paused. ‘Graham,’ I said ashamedly, ‘what is your friend’s name?’

      It was difficult to hear his reply over screams of amusement and mock outrage from the others. ‘Nick,’ he said, joining the laughter. ‘Nick Russo.’

      That evening, unlike the night before, I took hours getting ready. Every outfit made me look too fat, too small, too flat chested. Every hairstyle made me look like my mum or my gran. So this was what happened then. You spent one night with a man and suddenly you morphed into an indecisive, neurotic nightmare. I kept waiting for the seeds of regret to set in, but they never did. I just couldn’t wait to see him again.

      When we got to the pub, there was no sign of him. I was glad of the crowd and the noise because at least it stopped the girls’ endless interrogation about the night before.

      It’s not that I didn’t want to tell them, I just couldn’t talk about something that I didn’t understand.

      How should I act? Should I be coy, distant, friendly, forward? Where was the bloody rulebook? In the end, I settled for terrified and anxious.

      All night I kept staring at the door. Eventually, at about ten o’clock, Graham entered. My heart leapt, then sank faster than a stone as I realised that he was alone.

      ‘Where’s Nick?’ I asked, scared of the answer.

      He shrugged and there was something uneasy in his posture that sent my alarm bells straight to screech levels. ‘I don’t know, Carly, I’m not sure if he’s coming down tonight.’

      The others looked uncomfortable now too, all the guys’ eyes immediately drawn to their feet. They must teach that in Men School – ‘When one of your fellow males is ceremoniously dumping a member of the female sex, you must immediately stare at the floor, or you’ll be stricken down by the Testosterone God.’

      I couldn’t speak. I stood up, grabbed my bag and fled, not stopping for a second lest they saw the tears that were threatening to blind me.

      After running for what seemed like miles, my brain locked in a mantra of ‘Bastard, Bastard, Bastard’, I found myself at the beach.

      This had never happened to me before. Never had any guy let me down or upset me, never mind make me cry. I had always thought that I was indestructible.

      I found an overturned dinghy on the sands and collapsed against it, facing out to sea. Why is it that at times of crisis I always see a vision of my mum lecturing me?

       ‘They’re only after one thing, you know.’

       ‘Never give in to sex because they’ll just cast you aside like yesterday’s newspaper afterwards.’

      I felt like banging my head on the dinghy, just to get rid of the sound of her voice. A coma would definitely be preferable.

      That was where he found me hours later, eyes swollen from crying, mascara ingrained into my cheeks, hair so flat that it resembled a balaclava.

      I felt a movement beside me and he sat down, put his arms around me and squeezed tight. I stared at him in dumbstruck shock.

      ‘How did you find me?’

      ‘We were all looking for you, and Kate figured you’d be here. The others headed back to the bar when we spotted you. I promised the girls I’d bring you back later. Carol said if I didn’t, she’d remove my nuts.’

      That made me smile, but I couldn’t get any words past the massive lump that had formed in my throat.

      ‘Why СКАЧАТЬ