‘Yes.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I really am.’
‘You’re not going to hurt me.’
‘You can’t know that.’
‘Yes, I can. Because I saw you for who you are before we even knew each other. So listen to me.’ I pushed him firmly away from me so I could sit up straighter. ‘You arenothim. This body isnotwhat you are. And it certainly doesn’t control your actions.’ I took his face in my hands, looking him dead in the eyes. I didn’t care what happened or didn’t happen in that moment–only that he understood me, here and now. ‘You are you. Just you. And you won’t hurt me, Cliff. I trust you. So please, trust yourself.’
For a moment there was silence, then he took a deep breath. ‘Mabel?—’
Instantly I jerked my hands back, cupping my elbows. ‘I mean, we don’t have to, obviously. Not now, not ever. But… you want to, and I want to, and I think we can try it. We can always stop if you don’t feel comfortable. Really, whenever.’ I could see how tense he was, and I hurried to shake my head. ‘Forget it. Obviously I don’t want to talk you into doing something you don’t want to do. I?—’
He silenced me with a kiss. I was pretty sure it was the only interruption I would respond to with a sigh rather than indignation.
Cliff pushed my hair back over my shoulders, drew his lips away from mine and brushed them along the sweep of my neck. Although I knew my beating pulse had some other significance for him, I felt not a trace of fear that he would do anything but feel me.
Slowly he pulled my dress over my head, then he straightened up and looked at me. A stain of my red lipstick on his mouth, his own red flush in his cheeks. He was glowing in the most attractive way, and it made me burn too. Still, I grabbed his hand as he slid two fingers under the strap of my bra. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled, a genuine, happy, almost astonished smile. The most beautiful smile I’d ever seen on his face. ‘I want this so much. I wantyouso much.’ He bent towards me again, kissing the corners of my mouth, then full on my lips, long and intense. He slipped down the waistband of my tights and helped me shimmy them off, until they dropped onto the floor beside the sofa. Meanwhile I was tugging at the hem of his jumper, much more inelegantly and feverishly, until he pulled back and took it off himself.
‘Let’s go in there,’ he murmured into my lips. ‘I think I might be a bit too out of practice for this.’
‘Who’d have thought? That I’m the more experienced one here, even though you’resomuch older than me.’ I laughed, the sound slipping into a moan as he gently bit the crook of my shoulder.
‘Careful, Pica,’ he murmured, then grasped my thighs and held me firmly as he stood up.
I wrapped my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck, not breaking the kiss. I’d never clung to anyone so tightly, and although I knew we might both go tumbling over the edge, I wasn’t scared. Not with him.
My back knocked against the bedroom doorframe, and Cliff swore. I smiled and kissed him again. Kissed him as he laid me down on the bed and bent over me. Kissed him as his hand slid under my back and undid my bra. Kissed him as he ran his hand over my breasts, with just the right pressure, gentle yet urgent, so that my pelvis bucked to meet him.
My thoughts swam in the sensations of the body, what it felt and wanted, but when I blinked and looked up at Cliff’s face, something held me back from sinking into it fully: the crease between his brows, the way he avoided my eye. He was obviously trying to give himself over to the moment, which existed purely between us. But he was still torn between what he was and what he thought Blake might make of him. I wished I could make him understand that his body didn’t matter. That nothing mattered except what we truly were.
Swiftly making up my mind, I pushed him off me. ‘Wait, let me try something.’
Cliff watched me, frowning, as I climbed out of bed and went to the wardrobe. ‘What are you up to?’
I ignored him, sliding the hangers one by one until I found what I was looking for. Carefully, I removed two ties and went back to him. ‘Trust me. Close your eyes,’ I said sternly, when Isaw the confused look on his face. He hesitated, but nodded. I tied one tenderly over his eyes before doing the same to myself. ‘I don’t have to see you to see you, right?’
The way he pulled me close and kissed me: on the cheek, on the chin, at last on the mouth, said:right. Or maybe I just thought so because it felt that way. Felt right, felt like us.
His hands rested a gentle pressure on my shoulders, so that I fell back onto the pillow. I felt the warmth of him as he leant over me, then his weight on mine. He was pressing me into the mattress, but somehow I felt like I could breathe more easily than ever before. With agonising slowness he slid one knee between my legs and stroked upward from my bare waist, moving along my arms until he found my hands.
His fingers dwelt on my wrists, his thumb on my pulse, his breath on my mouth. ‘If I do anything you don’t want me to?—’
‘I’ll let you know.’ I smiled and reached for him, kissing his neck. ‘And you let me know. Okay?’
He took a deep breath, his chest brushing mine. ‘Okay.’
And then we were silent. There was only the rustle of the sheets and the last of our clothing falling to the floor, the sounds of skin against skin, of our lips as we kissed, caressed, felt everything our eyes could no longer see. No arms, only tensed muscles, no breasts, only gooseflesh, no legs, onlyshudders, no mouths, only stifled moans, no looking, only seeing. No bodies, just us.
Eventually Cliff rolled off me and on to his side. There was rattling as he tried to open the drawer in the bedside table. The rasp of wood, then the crackle of plastic. Again he was on top of me, the tip of his nose against mine. ‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’ I put my arms around his neck. ‘You?’
I knew he’d nodded without having to look. I could feel it, as I felt everything we were thinking and wanting in that moment. I wassosure about this. About us. We kissed again, then he grabbed my thigh and pulled me closer underneath him. Forehead to forehead, mouth to mouth, one shared breath. And then, finally, he was inside me.
I had only slept with a couple of men in my life, but I was used to it feeling a bit uncomfortable for the first few seconds: not that it hurt, necessarily, but it was always a strange, alien feeling. As if there was something inside me that didn’t belong. That didn’t belong to me. This time, with Cliff, it was different. Of course it was, because everything with him and about him was different. It didn’t feel strange that he was inside me because in other ways–more intimate ways–he was a part of me already. Even when we were still trying to keep a distance between us, we had been close. If I could believe in such a thing as souls, then I could believe they sometimes recognised each other deep down, before the conscious mind had even realised.
I couldn’t see Cliff’s face, I would never be able to see his own face, but at that moment, as he thrust into me, careful yet assertive, I was more sure than ever: I saw him. I saw him with all my senses, with everything I was. I sensed his muscles under my fingertips, his breath on my face, his lips on mine, his heat and skin on mine, his whole self in each movement, in each gasp and moan and sigh that mingled with my own. Until we were truly together, in every way.
