I sat back with my glass of wine. “Sex clubs?”
“Whole series set in them. But the authors put believable storylines in and characters who can be seen as real, so it isn’t just turning and watching two people get it on. And there has to be a happily ever after, or a happy for now — a happy ending, and not just the one in the bedroom or on the kitchen counter.”
“Kitchen counter sex is overrated.”
She smiled again, her eyes dancing. “Good to know. But don’t think you’re not a good person because you like to be the boss in the bedroom, Jesse.”
I wanted to ask her what she liked. What was it that got her hot, where she got her ideas for her scenes — was it from experience or imagination? I knew she hadn’t had a boyfriend since she’d moved up to Manchester.
I drank more wine instead.
Then, I told her something that Nate didn’t know.
“Most people have their thing, their kink, but they vary it. I don’t. I have to have control. I can’t give it over to the woman I’m with. My — girlfriends is the wrong word — lovers give me the power over their bodies so I can give them pleasure, but I can never be that caring partner, the one they cuddle up with afterwards or lets them take the lead. That balance isn’t part of it.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, circling her wine around her glass, and I wondered if I’d just given her the most massive overshare of my life.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why? Why can’t you let go and go with the flow of sex? I’m guessing — I’m only going off what I’ve read or watched — that you have scenes you create so everything is planned. Maybe you can switch scenes or change different elements on the spur of the moment, but have you ever just had cosy sex on the sofa when Netflix is really boring? Or a quickie squashed into one of your cars? No planning, just lust? Quick decisions that you don’t really need to think through?”
Her fingers rested on my hand that was now back on the table, her touch feather light.
“That sounds very normal.”
“Have you though?”
“Before. Before I found what I really liked.”
She nodded, her touch feather soft. “Have you ever had a relationship? A proper one that wasn’t just about sex.”
I hated thinking about what her opinion of me would be after I answered.
“No.”
“Have you been on a date?”
“Gayle was the last woman I kind of saw regularly.” It was a dodge of answer.
“What about recently? I know you have a couple of hook-ups.”
I didn’t want to know how she’d found that out. “I do — did. Neither of them wants a relationship and we just see each other for sex.”
“Booty calls?”
“Pretty much. It works.”
“Then why haven’t I been dropping you off at wherever you see them?” She drained the rest of her glass, the waiter there almost immediately, topping up both our glasses.
“Because it was private. And I couldn’t ask you to do that. Not after you told me you were interested.”
She smiled, a soft, knowing smile that made her look like an ethereal woman in a Renaissance painting. “So when’s the last time you had sex?”
Fuck. Or not. There hadn’t been much fucking at all. “Two months ago. What about you?”
“Ten months. I’m jealous.”
I was hard. This conversation, probably the most open and honest one I’d had with anyone apart from my therapist — which was obviously a one-sided conversation — was not easy on my control.
