Page 79 of Kiwi Gold
I actually jerked in my seat, and not out of surprise. Out of lust. I said, “What am I …” I cleared my throat. “What am I doing while you’re doing that? What’s normal?”
I could feel his eyes on me, and it was like he was touching me. “You’re holding my hair, and you’re moaning, if I’m doing it right. You’re curling your toes and stiffening up and telling me when I’ve got it exactly right, and you’re asking me for more. And then you’re coming hard, and I’m working you through it and seeing if you want it again, because if you’re talking about payment? That’s my payment, and it’s pretty bloody sweet. But I’m going to ask you something now. Haven’t you ever done that?”
“No.” I tried to make it strong. To make it normal. “No. All we did was kiss, and maybe touch a little, before the wedding, and then it was mostly just … just sex. So I need to know what I should do, too.”
His voice had got a bit strained. “First, I want to kill that arsehole. Sorry, I know he was your husband. You loved him, I guess, but that’s not sex. Well, it’s sex. It’s not good sex, though. Did you try different positions? Sex toys? Anything? Did you have orgasms?”
My face was burning. In fact, you could probably have lit the car with it, though I was glad it wasn’t happening, because I needed the dark. “Sometimes,” I said. “On the orgasms. Well, one orgasm. If it went on long enough, and if there was enough touching. But we mostly did just the regular one. Position. And a few more things. Me being on top, but I don’t like being on top, because I don’t really know how to do it. And from … from behind, sometimes. If I was asleep or something.”
“If you were asleep,” he said slowly. “You don’t have sex with somebody when they’re asleep. Jesus fuckingChrist.Sorry, but …”
“Doesn’t bother me to hear that,” I managed to say. “Not my deity. And I’d wake up, obviously.”
He passed a hand over his face. “I’m moving on, because I want to hit something. I’m going to tell you what you’d do. You’d take off my clothes. You’d kiss me, and touch me. And if you wanted to, you’d go down on me, too. Sorry, I don’t know another way to say that one. You’d perform oral sex on me. There. That’s bland enough. Let me guess. You’ve donethat.”
“Yes,” I said. “Some. When I was pregnant and all, and afterwards. When it was too uncomfortable, otherwise.”
“When you were …” He stopped. “I have no words. Sorry. My words are gone. I’m going to tell you something, though. One thing, before I stop.”
“Y-Yes?” I was trembling, now. Shaking like a leaf. Lust, embarrassment, discomfort, shame, lust again … it was all too much.
“Whatever we do,” he said. “Wherever you draw that line, it’ll be better than that. That’s a promise. You’ve got a beautiful face. A beautiful body. I want to touch you. I want to kiss you. I want to do all of it. But I’d be doing that to make you feel good. I’d be doing it to make you come, yeh, but that’s not the only thing. There’s a whole long string of … of feeling good before you come, and that’s what you’re having sex for. Sorry, but I’m going to be crude again. If I just want to get off, I can do that by myself, and it won’t take long. Yeh, it feels better to be inside a woman, but that’s not the only reason to have sex with her instead of by myself. You have good sex to please each other. Topleasureeach other. And those other things, however far you go before you draw the line? You don’t just do them because you aren’t having penis-in-vagina sex yet, or penis-in-wherever sex. You do them because they feel good.” He shook his head, and I could feel his frustration. “I don’t know how to say it any better than that. I wish I did.”
“That’s OK,” I said. “I get it.” I was overwhelmed, suddenly. I’d put myself out there. I’d confessed what I never had. And why? Was it really because I needed the practice? Because I needed the lessons?
No. I didn’t wantsomeman, now or later. If I’d thought that, I’d been lying to myself. I wantedthisman. All the way. But that—that was something I couldn’t share. I couldn’t want somebody who didn’t really want me. Not again.
And then we walked up to the church, and things gotreallyinteresting.
34
FOOTPRINTS
Lachlan
I was walking Laila to her door. I could say I was being polite, and maybe I was, but I also wanted to kiss her.
She wanted to learn? I wanted to teach her.
Yeh, mate,I told myself.With the dog barking from inside the house and Amira jumping out of bed and running to fling the door open and Laila’s cult-survivor babysitters thinking they’re watching two sinners descend into the fiery pits of hell. That’ll be special.You’ll notice I was doing it anyway, though.
Movement from behind us now, scurrying and furtive, and I whirled and thrust Laila behind me, so fast that she stumbled.
Oh. It was Trevor, from next door. My body couldn’t seem to remember that I was in New Zealand. Laila was saying, “What? Lachlan—”
“Sorry,” I said, taking her arm to steady her. “Are you all right?”
Trevor said, as if he hadn’t noticed any of it, “Wonder if I could have a word.” His eyes shifting back to his own doorway, then to us. Keyed up, clearly.
Did Laila say, “At nine o’clock at night? Why?” Did she say, “With Violet peering out, checking to see if you’ve got the message harsh enough this time?” Or possibly, “I just spent an hour at the hospital getting my heart ripped out of my chest, and the complaint department’s closed for the evening”? No. She said, “Of course. Oh—I need to say goodbye to my babysitters first. But—please. Come in.”
I said, “Am I staying, or going?” Trying to make it neutral. I wanted to be with her for this, whatever it was. Call it backup. I could be that, anyway.
She said, “Staying, if that’s all right with you.” Composed again. And opened the door to the usual ecstatic canine welcome.
The babysitters had been sitting on the shabby couch, watching TV, and the older one, Laila’s assistant, was knitting, because this flat truly was the last bastion of womanly virtues. Five minutes or so for them to leave, and Laila was putting three mugs of tea on the table, exactly like the time before, pulling out a chair, putting a hand on Long John’s head where he’d come to sit beside her as if to protect her with all his goofy, hairy, three-legged non-power, and saying, “So. Please tell me, Trevor. What is it?”
She hadn’t started with an apology straight off, which was surprising. I reckoned that was coming, though, and that my job would be to point out that she was using her flat in a reasonable way, and if you wanted monastic silence, you might want to move to a monastery.
