Page 21 of Tendu: Dancing in the Castle

AleksandrZolotovquicklybecamemy whole world. The following day, I went straight to his flat from college. The day after that, I let myself in with my own key. I loved running in to find him, wherever he was, the hours apart having felt like weeks. And my need was shameless. If he was on the sofa, his neck and face were kissed from behind as my hands felt their way down into his trousers.

He flipped me over onto the cushions and pinned my arms back behind my head.

“I have never meet a woman who is so much enthused for… me.”

The statement couldn’t be true, but the enthusiasm was. The study of Aleks was an all-consuming project. I loved his hands, so much bigger than mine. Kissing each of his flat fingertips became a nightly ritual. He insisted they were that way due to being hit with a ruler in piano lessons. I couldn’t tell if the stories of childhood beatings were true or just cuddle-seeking jokes.

I laid my cheek against a hard hip bone and watched his erection grow. No part of him went unkissed, including the long vertical scar on his knee. The first time my lips touched it, I was sitting between his legs in bed, having thoroughly explored long man toes, high arched feet and impressive calf muscles. My fingers traced the dark red mark and I kissed it gently, glancing up to find a hitherto unseen expression on his face.

“Aleks?”

“You are so very real,” he said with aggressive intensity. “There is no affectation in you, no pretence.”

I blinked, unsure as to whether this was a good or bad thing.

“And now I have embarrass you again. Is good I know the cure for this,” he said, kissing me and chasing confusion from the room.

I didn’t ask him about the scar, and he didn’t ask me about certain things. He deleted Gavin’s number from the new phone that he bought me, without a word. There, though, lay a slight discomfiture: all the gifts he kept buying. Hardly a day passed without something waiting for me on the sofa or in the bedroom. Telling him it was unnecessary only encouraged the habit.

“You are not used to being treated well,” he said.

“But it’s not fair. I’ve hardly bought you anything.”

“You are a student, and what do I need now I have you? You are everything. This, I completely mean,” he added, seeing my sceptical look.

I did give him some thick warm-up socks to keep his feet cosy, one pair for every day of the week. He delighted in wearing them and nothing else, and advising me to do the same. “You are not shy when we make love,” was pointed out many times. Pulling the sheet up over my breasts or attempting to wear anything in bed caused his eyes to widen and mouth to turn down, a look that was impossible to refuse.

I gradually accepted that he found me beautiful. The mirror became silent as I became more comfortable in my body, once thoughtlessly walking out onto the balcony in just underwear. He wrapped a towel round me. “I would like is just for me, angel.”

And when I wasn’t with him, I was thinking about him.

“You’re not bloody well listening, are you?”

“Sorry, Justin. Tell me again.”

“What’s the point?”

“I’ll be home this weekend. We can spend some time together then.”

“Not happening, Phi. I’m going to Mum’s. I need pampering after all these weeks of brutal ballet.”

But before we got to the weekend, I almost wrecked everything.

Aleks had been lifting weights when I arrived at his flat after college. He went to have a shower, leaving me in the small workout room. His phone rang. I looked at it.

I could feel the downward spiral into badness begin as I sat on the padded black seat of the weights machine and studied the very red picture of the very red woman on the phone’s screen. I hadn’t noticed her mass of blonde hair before. It hadn’t been loose before. And, though she was still wearing red, in this picture it was a nightdress or some sort of shiny lingerie that she wore. Had Aleks taken that photo?

The phone alerted me to a new voice message. I automatically slid my finger across the notification and, knowing his passcode, clicked through to listen to a posh voice with a small hint of Scottishness about it.

“Aleks, you naughty boy, are you avoiding me? I think a good spanking is in order next time I see you. Call me back.”

Without thinking, I deleted the message and laid the phone down on the seat exactly where it had been. And then I just sat, trying to fit facts around the event.

I was still doing that when Aleks returned.

“We never said we were exclusive,” I said, stating fact number one that had come to me.

He ran his hands back through his damp hair. “We can have that conversation now.”

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