Ihad no feelings while I was getting ready; no anxious thoughts or pangs in my gut. Nothing to steer me away from what I was about to do. I was just as calm the whole ride here. But now, standing outside his door, I feel my fight or flight activate. I pull up our few messages and cross-reference his address with the door in front of me. It’s correct.
Are you coming down?
I write, following up from theOutsidetext I sent eight minutes ago. If he doesn’t appear soon, I don’t know what will happen first: me getting metaphorical cold feet or me getting actual hypothermia.
Three more minutes pass. I wish I’d brought a proper coat.
The intercom crackles and fizzes as it comes to life, before beeping as the front door springs open.
‘Second floor up– first door on the left. Be quiet– my flatmate’s in.’
My stomach starts to quiver, but I put it down to lack of food and keep going up the metal staircase, to find him leaning against the open doorframe in anticipation.
‘Quick.’ He briskly ushers me through the door, past the living room and straight into his bedroom.
Everything is black or dark grey, from his walls to his bedsheets to his shelves and the various things scattered on them. His carpet is prickly, even through the thin layer ofprotection afforded by my socks. A lampshade-less lightbulb hangs from the ceiling, switched off to allow for his table lamp. I would like to think he chose it to set the mood, but I fear that it may be to hide the fact he’s barely cleaned up.
‘One sec, just gotta finish this.’
He lies on his bed, shirtless, and far more focused on his console than my presence here. After a few minutes, he changes the screen from whatever video game he was playing to Netflix.
‘D’you like superheroes?’ he asks, flicking through title cards.
‘Erm, I’ve seen a couple with my brother but. . .’
‘Cool, there’s a new one on here,’ he says, before clicking a button and getting comfy for the opening credits.
It’s not until after the full five-minute sequence that he notices me still hovering awkwardly in the corner by his door. I would have moved sooner or followed him, but he left me no space and he didn’t bother with any sort of invitation.
‘You look nice,’ he says, finally taking a moment to look me over.
‘Thank you.’ I try to hide my creeping smile.
I have no idea what you wear when the sole purpose of an outing is to get laid, and it took awhileto properly decide. After a lot of panicked scrambling through my wardrobe, I settled for a subtle-but-effective push-up bra, a low-cut T-shirt, an unzipped hoodie and a pair of bum-scrunch leggings. The aim was to look unbothered and yet still effortlessly hot in a barely trying, everyday way.
He shuffles over to his left, patting the small-but-something-I-guess free space that he’s created next to him. I take it as the only sign I’m going to get and scurry over, squeezing in the best that I can. He throws his arm round my shoulder, proud smile on his face as he pulls me in tighter and leans in. I feel his tongue down my throat before I have time to breathe. It moves clunkily, flapping around like a fish out of water.
‘You’re so fucking sexy,’ he grunts into my mouth as he paws clumsily at my chest. ‘Take this off.’
He tugs impatiently at the lapel of my hoodie, making no effort to remove it but all the effort to whine about it. So, I quickly adjust from my position and shrug it off, before diving in for kiss number two.
Kissing him is a task– it starts rough and unrefined, but with time he gets bored and lets me take the reins. Usually by attempt two or three, we get somewhere passable and I actually end up having a good time. As I start leading with my tongue, I make a silent prayer that the same practice doesn’t extend to everything else. I don’t have time for that tonight. I still haven’t eaten and I was planning to be home before 10 p.m.
‘And this. . .’ He makes a half-hearted attempt to lift up my shirt, but my hand comes swinging down to stop him.
I chose the most oversized T-shirt I own so that it wouldn’t have to come off. I don’t need him seeing the crease of my stomach, or the way my boobs seem to shrivel to nothing in the cold. And I don’t want him to look at my naked body with those horny, hungry eyes. But as we pause, I realise that stopping his hand was one step away from killing the mood entirely. I recover the moment, slipping his palm into mine and squeezing it tight before guiding it under my shirt.
‘Wow, you’re ready to go,’ he says smugly, watching me shimmy my leggings off with haste.
I’m more than ready. He takes the hint, legs scrambling as he rushes to pull off his sweatpants. It takes him far too long to unhook my bra under my top, ignoring all my offers to do it myself, but, eventually, we get there, clawing at each other’s skin as we kiss, the movie an irrelevant whir in the background. I close my eyes, trying to focus on the touch of his hands and turn this into something at least a little bit sensual, but it’s no use.His actions are just far too robust to be anything other than what they are: the clumsy pawing of a selfishly horny man.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, opening my eyes and straightening to see what’s happening.
He freezes, propped on top of me, penis in hand ready to slide it inside me.
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ he replies, confused.
‘Have you got protection?’ I ask, startled that I even need to.
