Growing Up Twice (17 page)

I must be some kind of snob; the whole thing makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and Eliza Dolittle-ish. The only thing saving me is the blindingly obvious fact that Michael is so shaken up by having a potentially willing sexual partner in his empty house that he is rattling on about bollocks like there is no tomorrow.

‘And so I said, if Sigourney Weaver can be cloned in
Alien Resurrection
then of course they can make
Terminator Three
! Coffee?’ He holds a brightly glazed mug up for my attention.

‘Yes, I’d love some,’ I say. ‘Your house is amazing!’ He looks around him as if he has suddenly been transported to another universe.

‘Is it? I suppose growing up here, you just get used to it.’ His offhand tone rankles.

‘Mike, you’ve got a pool, for Christ’s sake! No one has a pool!’ He smiles and carefully folds a filter for the kind of percolator Rosie would give her eye teeth for.

‘You never call me Mike. I like it. I like it better than Michael.’ He spoons in three scoops of rich-smelling coffee, pours some bottled water into the measuring jug and then into the filter tank. Viva instant.

‘We are better off than some people, I suppose, but I still go to a comprehensive and Dad votes Labour. We aren’t fascists or anything.’

‘I didn’t say you were,
Mike.
’ I say, not remotely interested in talking sixth-form politics with him.

‘I didn’t say you did,
Jen
,’ he replies with his deep chuckle. He seems to have relaxed a little. As the coffee begins to bubble and gurgle in the pot he walks over and joins me at the breakfast bar, pulling his stool close to mine.

‘Come here often?’ he says in the most appalling and entirely inappropriate small town nightclub lingo. ‘Jen, Jennifer, Jenny, Jen?’

Without waiting for an answer he leans over and kisses my smile, pushing my mouth open with his tongue. He really is a great kisser for his age. His hands run up from my knees to my thighs and my hands remain primly folded in my lap. I sit still and let myself float in his kiss until the percolator has brewed three mugs’ worth of coffee and sits quietly simmering. Then I pull away from him and say, ‘Black no sugar, please.’

He opens his eyes and smiles at me, jumping off his stool with careless abandon.

One of the sad things about life post virginity is that you hardly ever kiss just for the sake of it any more. It’s almost always a prelude to sex. Just like that kiss was too, I suppose.

‘Come on, let’s go upstairs,’ he says, handing me my coffee. My stomach ties in little knots and flips over. I am the one feeling eighteen again. Well, I’m the one feeling an eighteen-year-old anyway, ho ho.

His room is not on the first floor, nor even the second. Instead, at the end of the second landing, he pulls on a rope and a sturdy-looking pine staircase emerges from the ceiling.

‘Loft apartment,’ he laughs, and standing aside takes my coffee. ‘After you.’

I’ve not been keen on the steep-perilous-looking-stairs-and-high-heel combination ever since I fell down the escalator at King’s Cross, sliding on my shins and leaving long deep parallel gouges that took ages to heal, and which at one point created a whole new pulling persona for me of recently attacked tiger trainer. But nevertheless I gingerly make my way up the stairs and emerge into the biggest teen room I have ever seen.

Covering the length and breadth of the house it has gable windows either side, and even more light flooding in through skylights. The floor is covered with real wooden boards and there is a sofa bed, a TV and a stereo covered with extensive and unruly piles of videos and CDs, then at the other end a door opens on to his own bathroom. There is also a kitchen unit and a mini fridge. Scatter rugs cover some of the floor and instead of heavy-metal posters on the terracotta walls, Picasso prints decorate the room, framed and hanging neatly side by side.

‘Bloody hell, Mike,’ I say, using his new pseudo-pet name. ‘This is bigger than my entire flat!’

‘Yeah,’ he laughs, ‘my parents decided I could use my own space soon after I got into nu-metal. Then when I leave home it’ll be a good guest room.’ Along with the other six or seven, I think to myself.

‘Music?’ he says and plunges on to the floor to start going though the CDs. ‘What do you fancy?’

‘
Not
Slipknot,’ I say pointedly and he laughs.

‘I don’t have any disco.’ We have never talked about music, I don’t know how he’s picked up on my tastes.

‘What about David Gray?’ he says. ‘I got
White Ladder
last week, it reminds me of you, sort of.’

I smile at him, despite not having a single clue what David Gray sounds like, and say, ‘Sure.’

Pleasant-sounding tunes fill the room and I am still standing looking around, diligently drinking my coffee, as he begins to pile his CDs into miniature tower blocks. I watch him until he abruptly stands up, walks over to his sofa bed and flips it open. I’m sort of shocked at his forthrightness and my stomach does that little flippy thing again.

He lies on the mattress and pushes off his trainers without undoing the laces in a way that would make his mother weep if she could see him. Actually, the whole almost-thirty-year-old-girl-in-his-room thing would probably make his mother weep, so let’s skip over that.

He holds out his hand to me.

Self-consciously I set my coffee on the floor and unzip my boots and lie stiffly next to him.

He pulls himself up on to his elbow and looks at me.

‘Are you ready?’ he says bluntly. I almost choke and for a second I feel like I’m lost in the absurdity of the situation.

‘Are
you
ready?’ I say. He looks at his hands and then looks back up at me through his eyelashes with a heartbreakingly sweet smile. He nods.

‘Ohhh Babylon,’ David Gray sings.

Michael slowly unbuttons my top and pushes it back off my shoulders with the palms of his hands. ‘You’re pretty hot,’ he says, laughing at himself as he says it and making me giggle too. The laughter seems to have released me from my nervous thrall and I sit up and pull my top right off, dropping it to the floor. Watching me, Michael pulls his T-shirt over his head and starts his own pile on the floor.

‘You next,’ he says, and watches me as I stand and unbutton my jeans. There doesn’t seem to be any especially graceful or sexy way of taking off jeans, but I manage OK, remembering to grab my socks at the last minute.

‘Now you,’ I say, and he stands opposite me, dropping his combats in one easy movement, stepping out of them, leaving his socks on. He nods at me, and raises an eyebrow.

Oddly enough, stripping for him seems to be the easiest thing in the world and I’m glad, really glad that we aren’t fumbling around with each other’s catches or zippers.

I reach behind and unhook my bra, trying not to envisage what my breasts will look like without its support. I slip each strap down from my shoulders and ease it away, letting it fall to the floor and finally uncovering myself, letting my hands fall uneasily to my sides.

We both bend simultaneously to remove the last of our underwear and for one second longer we look at each other across the expanse of his sofa bed.

Then, both kneeling on the bed, his hand reaches out for my hand and he brings my fingers to his lips, kissing each one in turn. I tip my head back and close my eyes, unable to stop myself smiling as he turns my fingers over, kisses my palm and then my wrist and gradually inches his way closer to me as he works his way along my arm. Afraid that we could be here for hours, I break away from his kisses and fling the same arm around his neck pulling him flush to my body. The shock of the impact of flesh makes him moan and I am overwhelmed by the full force of his long lean body as he embraces me, his hands in the small of my back, pushing me closer as we kiss.

He lowers me on to my back and hovers over me, his eyes roaming across my torso. Straddling me, he cups my breasts in both hands and as he looks at them whispers, ‘You’re so beautiful.’

I watch him as leans to kiss one nipple and then the next, gently sucking and licking each one in turn until I feel my stomach tighten with the promise of pleasure. I hadn’t expected this.

I feel his hand begin to trail its way to between my thighs, but I shift a little to block its path. As much as I would love to just let this happen to me I take control and I shake my head, knowing that too much delay, too much worrying about what I’m feeling would spoil the moment for him. I’m already turned on all I need to be by the way that he wants me. I roll him on to his back and he grins with delight as I reach over him to pick up the condom he has at some point placed on the bed and, straddling him, I put it on as carefully as I ever have, not wanting to set anything off before time. His smile fades and his eyes are fixed on me with an intense gaze. The muscles in his throat contract and I can see longing, nerves and anticipation crowd into his face.

I lean over him and kiss him, lean forward a little more to let him kiss my breasts and then slowly I lower myself on to him, pleased with the way he seems to fill me. He sighs and closes his eyes, furrowing his brow with concentration, his hand reaching out to grip my forearms either side of him.

His eyes open halfway and we hold each other’s gaze as I slowly begin to move. It is moments, only seconds I suppose, before he comes with a shudder and reaches up to clasp me to him. Although I haven’t come during those short moments of fusion I feel like the sexiest woman on earth.

I’ve done it, I had a virgin and I think he thought it went pretty well.

I lie with my head resting in the curve of his neck for a while as his fingers run up and down my spine and then gently I roll off him and to his side. He looks at me.

‘Fucking hell,’ He says. I say nothing and, smiling like the sphinx, I roll on to my back and stretch.

‘God, I mean,
fucking hell.
But fuck, I’m sorry, it was so quick, I’m sorry.’

I take his hand and pat it. Cringe and drop it like a hot brick. ‘It was lovely,’ I say dreamily.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

He rolls on top of me and says, ‘Do you mind if we do it again then?’

When it comes right down to it we all do live our lives from one cliché to the next.

It’s maybe about four in the afternoon and it has started to get gloomy in that winter’s-coming way and Michael is fast asleep, his sweet face half buried in the pillow and his arms flung above his head. He does look very young right now, but then we all do when we’re asleep.

I, on the other hand, have been wide awake since the last time, lying next to him and looking at the ceiling. I don’t resent him being asleep at all, I’m glad. At least it’ll give me a bit of a break.

I’d like to think that the reason boys fall asleep when they’re carnally satiated and girls still lie there, minds buzzing, fingers drumming, harks back to a primeval time when, black-widow style, we used to off them when we were done and have them for tea. Not because I have psychotic tendencies, but because I think it mildly more cool and interesting than the usual reasons:

1. What does he think of me now that we’ve had sex?

2. Was I any good?

3. Did my thighs put him off?

4. I wonder if he’ll chuck his girlfriend now?

And in this case:

5. I haven’t come yet, but if I start to do anything about it I’ll probably wake him and that would be so embarrassing I’d die.

Neither do I resent the fact that he didn’t get me floating, floating on a sea of fire and all that. I mean it
was
his first time, and his second and third. In fact, I really didn’t want him to start in on trying to make me feel good, I would have found it more awkward than anything else. That he wanted me so much made me feel fantastic and I’m sure he will make me come at some point, it’s just that, well, he might not be there when it happens.

Owen did not go to sleep after sex. He read a book. Actually, he would get out of bed and go and sit in his high-back winged chair and read a book. Sometimes he’d get up right after we had finished without saying a word.

If we had been apart for a while he wouldn’t be able to get enough of me and the post-coital cherishing would go on for hours. Then, after a few weeks, I’d begin to feel that that whole side of our relationship would dwindle to nothing if I didn’t make all the moves, wear all the right underwear and turn all the right somersaults. Even then I’d feel compelled to coax him to bed. He had me so wound up I’d feel that we had to be having sex at least once a day or he’d leave me. He really did have me completely where he wanted me. He had me up for anything to keep him interested, and then he’d leave me anyway.

I suppress the nasty tide of anger and bitterness that begins to well up and look at the sleeping Michael instead. He’s smiling in his sleep. For a fleeting moment I wonder if he is dreaming about Sarah and her size-eight teenage thighs and then I laugh at myself and get out of bed and get dressed.

First of all I look in his wardrobe. There seem to be piles of T-shirts and sweatshirts hastily bundled into one corner and only two shirts hanging up. One is a crisp white dress shirt and the other a rather alarming black satin number with ruffles on the sleeves. This boy harbours Gothic tendencies. I delicately rummage through the pile and find another pair of combats. So he does have more than one.

I look in his bathroom, smile at his shaving gear; I have never seen or even felt the tiniest graze of stubble on him. He has an untouched bottle of CK One on his bathroom shelf, and I decide Sarah gave it to him last Christmas, but that it isn’t really his style. Or maybe his mum, who hadn’t sussed that no one wears CK One any more. I pick it up and give myself a spray. Typically, I only discovered that I liked it when Rosie gave me a half-full bottle. Which of course was long after it was cool.

Flicking through his CDs I can’t find anything that I’ve ever heard of or would ever want to hear until I find a copy of
Never Mind
by Nirvana.

‘Kurt!’ I whisper to myself, as if coming across an old lover. Lovely Kurt Cobain. The only period of my life when I have been utterly seduced by of-the-moment music was in my university days in the early 1990s. I was drinking 50p-a-shot dog-rough vodka in Spiders, Hull’s cheapest and grungiest nightclub, when suddenly ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ filled the dance floor with head-flinging, feet-stomping, hands-held-behind-backs naval-gazing abandon. I loved it and I loved everything Nirvana did after that. OK, so basically it was slow, slow, QUICK LOUD QUICK LOUD, slow slow on every single track but I loved the quality of Kurt’s voice, the sound of real guitars and his eyeliner. Three reasons that I’m sure would make any Muso worth his sort weep in desperation.