Page 19 of Days You Were Mine

‘This I like very much,’ he says.

He slides his fingers inside me, first one, then another, moving them backwards and forwards until I think I have reached the point of no return. My mind is empty, my body moves to its own rhythm, thrusting, pulling, wanting more. Yet just as I am about to tip over into orgasm, he stills his fingers and begins kissing my neck instead. And this goes on for more than an hour.

When we finally make love, I’m so riven by need I grip his shoulders tightly with my fingers and he laughs and says, ‘Ow, that hurts.’

And then neither of us is laughing; there’s just the feeling of him being inside me at last and the euphoria of being able to finally give in. Afterwards, we lie in stillness, hearts racing, and then Jake lifts his head from my chest and says, ‘Some business meeting,’ and my laughter verges on hysteria. Everything with him is magnified and I can’t quite work out why. There’s my inexperience, but I don’t think it’s that. I think Jake, somehow, is just more; he exists in high relief.

We sit up, both naked on his corduroy sofa, but after his leisurely exploration of my body, I feel no self-consciousness, none at all. Jake passes me a glass of wine and I take two big gulps, one after the other; I need the alcohol to calm me down.

He says, ‘I feel completely wired. What have you done to me, Alice? There’s no way I can go to sleep. Shall we smoke something?’

For the record, I’m the world’s worst pot smoker, though I try to persevere. I watch him crossing the room again, and this time he comes back with a sweet tin, the kind my father keepsin the glove compartment of the car, and a blue striped blanket, which he hands to me.

I wrap the blanket around myself and watch him work, opening up his tin to reveal Rizla papers, a lighter and a foil packet that contains grass. I’ve seen joints being built numerous times, but something about his skinny-fingered expertise connects with my brain and my heart and my groin. Already, only minutes later, I long to be in bed with him again.

He lights the joint, an elongated, tightly packed three-skin, inhales deeply and passes it to me.

‘This is probably the moment to warn you that I’m a lightweight.’

‘It’s very mild, you’ll be fine.’

I take several long, deep tokes, hearing the little seeds of grass crackle and pop, the tip of the joint burning vivid orange with flecks of yellow. I hold the smoke down in my lungs for a few seconds and exhale in a pleasing, dragon-like plume. I’ve kept going with the smoking thing because everyone does it and I want to fit in. I want my university years here in London to be the thing I dreamed of in my teenage bedroom, this vibrant, free-spirited, technicolour world where everything is possible.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘How much I want to be in bed with you,’ I say, surprising myself, though Jacob smiles.

‘So now you can read my mind?’

He stubs out the joint in the ashtray, stands up and leans down to scoop me up into his arms, carrying me across his sitting room like a threshold bride.

Now

Luke

If Hannah and I were ever to get married, Ben would be my best man. I’ve told him this countless times and he finds it hilarious that I am forecasting a wedding in which my girlfriend apparently has no interest.

‘Don’t be such a freak groomzilla,’ he said last time I raised it. ‘You don’t need a church service and a piece of paper. You and Hannah are the real thing.’

Tonight we’re meeting Ben and his girlfriend Elizabeth at Kensington Place. Favourite restaurant and favourite people. I could not be looking forward to it more.

Hannah is wearing a black dress from pre-pregnancy days, with tiny straps and multicoloured zigzags across the front. Her wild hair is pulled back in a velvet scrunchy and twisted up into a knot; she is wearing gold hoop earrings and dark lipstick. She is so lovely, it seems to me she could trigger a cardiac arrest. I tell her this as we pass through the restaurant’s revolving doors, and she laughs.

‘I can’t decide whether you’re good for my ego or appalling. I might become horribly conceited if you carry on like this.’

Ben and Elizabeth are sitting at the back of the restaurant, side by side on a red leather banquette. He half rises when hesees us and raises his fist in a comrade salute, an old prep-school joke we haven’t managed to shake.

Ben, like Hannah, comes from tactile parentage, and he grasps us into a three-way hug that goes on for too long. He enjoys my discomfort; it makes him laugh to see me squirm.

It’s six weeks since we’ve seen each other, and there are vital topics to discuss. Most pressingly, what’s it like having found my real parents?

‘I can’t believe you haven’t met them yet,’ I say casually, shrugging on this suit of normalcy to see if it will fit. Me, son of Richard Fields and Alice Garland. He’s my dad, didn’t you know?

But I will never fool Ben.

‘And how many times haveyouseen them exactly? Twice?’

‘Alice three times, Rick once.’

---