Straight Talking (17 page)

“How was that?” he says.

“OK,” I’m nodding my head. “It was really OK.”

And he bends his head again and we kiss again, for longer this time, but no tongues, all right? Then he sits back and looks at me some more.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks.

“Nope. I’m not sure at all, but can we do it again just to find out?”

This time he kisses me for a lot longer. Short soft kisses on the lips, then the corners of my mouth, then back to the lips. My eyes are closed as I try and familiarize myself with the odd sensation of kissing Adam, and the more he kisses me, the more I want to carry on.

And wouldn’t you know it, I’m the first one to venture out a tentative tongue, to lick just the outside of his upper lip. He carries on kissing me softly, moving down to kiss the nape of my neck and I think, Jesus, where in the hell did Adam learn to be so good at this?

And then he comes back to my lips and licks mine, and I open his mouth so our tongues are intertwined and you know what? It’s bloody nice, this is.

And he continues to kiss my neck, and each kiss moves farther down my body, and he gently pushes me back until I’m lying on the sofa leaning against the cushions, and he’s half lying on top of me, the lower half of his body kneeling on the floor.

And I open my eyes to see Adam unbuttoning my shirt and slowly kissing his way down across my chest and I have to close my eyes immediately, I can’t watch this or I won’t want to go through with it. I wouldn’t have the courage, but with my eyes closed I can pretend.

Pretend what exactly? That it’s Andrew, that it’s David? No, just pretend that it isn’t me and my best friend.

This would be better with the lights off, is my first thought. Thank God I tidied the bedroom, is the second.

“Hold on,” I whisper, standing up and wrapping my now-unbuttoned shirt around me. “Let’s go to bed,” and I take his hand and walk into the bedroom feeling as if this isn’t real somehow, that this is a dream, or maybe a big joke.

I light a candle which flickers soft shadows on the walls, and then I’m lying on my bed and Adam has spread my shirt so that my body is exposed, and he pulls the fabric of my bra—not La Perla, Marks & Spencer—aside, and he gently starts to suck my right nipple.

Where in the hell did Adam learn to be so good at this?

He moves up and kisses me on the lips and I roughly unbutton his shirt, desperate to know what Adam feels like, how his skin will feel when it’s pressed up against mine. I pull it off his shoulders and it catches at the sleeve which Adam tries to undo but fails.

We both laugh, but behind the laughter I can just about see that Adam’s eyes are glazed with lust, and eventually the shirt is off and I slip my own off together with my bra.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmurs as he moves down my body, kissing my stomach, unzipping the zip at the side of my skirt before abandoning it and approaching from the other direction.

Sliding my skirt up, moving his hands up my legs, stopping just as he hits the top of my thigh and then moving his hand back down to my knee. Closer, closer. Back up my leg, a little higher this time. Nearly there. And then back up, closer. I moan.

When in the hell did Adam learn to be so good at this?

Through the cotton of my knickers he teases my clitoris. Moving his fingers from side to side, he just avoids it, and I arch my back and press into his hand.

And then he moves the elastic to one side, and slowly, tentatively touches the spot, and it is like a bolt of lightning going through my body. Starts to rub, gently, wetting his fingers by plunging them into his mouth, licking them, looking at me as he continues to slowly rub.

Rolling my nipple around his fingers with the other hand, rolling and rubbing for what seems like hours.

And then I pull my clothes off fast and furiously, and lie on top of him, feeling my skin on his skin, kissing his big chest, his chest covered with unfamiliar blond hair, and I move down, hovering above the waistband.

His cock is straining to get out, pushing against the worn denim of his jeans, and I unbutton his fly. Big, thick, in my hand, my long thin fingers stroking. Adam lying back with his hand over his eyes, gasping.

Kissing him, engulfing him. How he smells, how he feels, sucking, licking, stroking, straining.

And then it’s my turn, as Adam rolls on to me, moves down my body, and I have my hand over my eyes as he laps at my clitoris, sucking, flicking, big broad strokes, small hard flicks.

“Inside me. Inside me. I need to feel you inside me.”

The awkward condom moment (I have some in the drawer in my bedside table), and then filling me up, moving slowly on top of me. Propped up on his arms looking at me with such love, kissing me with such tenderness.

And afterward, as he showers me with kisses and whispers that he loves me I prop myself up on one hand and look him in the eye: “Where in the hell did you learn to be so good at this?”

17

When I was sixteen I used to spend hours daydreaming about the Prince Charming who would whisk me away to a world of romance.

We’d walk hand in hand along white sand beaches while waves crashed around our ankles. We’d lie entwined in Hyde Park, him covering me with kisses while people walked past and envied us our love. We’d go and buy a Christmas tree together, laughing and joking as we dragged it up the stairs to our house.

Bloody pathetic, isn’t it? I don’t need you to tell me that real life isn’t like that, that love, even when you find it, rarely echoes the love that we’re expected to believe in from films.

And now I have Adam, and the two of us together are a world away from my teenage expectations. Adam and I are friends. We are also lovers. Adam is in love with me and I am not in love with Adam.

But who knows how you are supposed to feel when you are in love? Maybe I
am
in love, maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Then I think back to Simon, to the way he made me feel, the excitement, the ripping our clothes off, the highs and the lows, and I worry that I haven’t got this anymore. That I’ll never have it again.

I have become a Jennifer Mason, but I’m not sure it’s enough.

You want to know what our relationship is like? Much in the way the movies, chick flicks, always tend to splice together a montage of slushy clips to show romance, I will put together a montage of everyday clips to show you how we are together.

Maybe you will think it is love. Maybe you will think it is enough.

Clip number one:

I am at work, head down, busily beavering away on my next script. A voice says softly in my ear, “I’d like to talk to you about the item on date rape.”

I look up and it’s David. Standing way too close for comfort. Invading my personal space. His classically handsome face looks almost distorted at such close sight, and I involuntarily swivel my chair to the side, I am not comfortable with such close proximity.

“Sure. Do you want to have a chat now?”

“If that’s OK.”

The phone rings and I go to pick it up. “Excuse me a sec, David. Hello,
Breakfast Break
? . . . Would you mind if I called you back, I’m in a meeting. Thanks. Bye.”

I swivel round to David. “Sorry about that. What’s the problem?”

The phone rings again and David looks exasperated. “Tasha, why don’t we go somewhere a bit more quiet, get away from these phones.”

I stand up and pick up a notebook, a pen, and the script and we head downstairs to the canteen. As we walk past the other producers and researchers in the open plan office they watch us with disgruntled stares.

It isn’t usual for the hosts to request chats with the producers on a one-to-one basis during the week. If they have problems they usually moan to the executive producer, who then has to call the producer into his office, close the door and gently suggest a few changes.

I know this and the others know this. I know what they are thinking—that David is singling me out for preferential treatment—and they are right, and as I walk along I can’t help but feel slightly awkward, conscious of the stares, the knives hovering above my back.

Because television is a bitchy place. You may not know this, certainly if you’re lucky enough not to work in media, but television is not glamour and fizz, not by a long shot.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been to a party and someone has asked what I do. When they hear those seemingly magic words, television producer, their eyes become large and they say the same thing every time, “God, how glamorous.” But it’s not glamorous, it’s work, and the bitching and backstabbing are the bonuses that no one tells you about.

And as I walk across the office with David a step behind me, I can already sense the huddles of people, “Where are
they
going?” I can almost hear them whisper to one another. “What does he want with
her
?”

We sit in the canteen with our cups of coffee and David asks me who the girl is who is coming in to talk about date rape. He is worried about it being prejudicial, because the case has not yet come to trial and I reassure him we are changing her name and filming her in darkened silhouette, but he knows this, he damn well knows this.

“So how about you, Tasha, how are you getting on?”

“Er, fine.” What
is
he talking about?

“And how’s your love life?”

I laugh, “My love life? What on earth are you talking about, David, why would you want to know about my love life?”

He doesn’t even blush. “Come on, Tasha, you’re famous for your men, we’re always hearing about your escapades.”

“Who the hell from?”

“Everyone. You’re the envy of half the women who work here, you seem to have all the men chasing you.”

Now I blush. “That’s ridiculous, David. Anyway, I might have had a bit of a wild past but I’m settled now, practically married.”

He blanches, but ever so slightly. “You? I thought you were the archetypal single girl.”

“Even the archetypal single girl is allowed to break her archetype once in a while.”

He laughs but pushes the point. “Are you really going to get married?”

I shrug. I know the answer to this is no, at least, not to Adam, but I hardly need to share this with David. “We’ll see.”

“But do you think you’d manage to stay faithful?”

“Why David, I’m a one-man woman.”

“Don’t you mean one man at a time?”

“You said that, not me.” So he’s flirting with me. So what? Now that I’m here I’m quite enjoying it. Jesus, no one’s flirted with me for ages and I had forgotten, I really had, the effect I have on men.

Not that Adam’s the possessive type, the few parties we go to he’s happy for me to wander off and I could flirt if I wanted to, but truth be told there haven’t been many men I’ve wanted to flirt with. But this is quite nice. I look coyly at David from under my lashes and say, “Are you the faithful type, then?”

He looks at me for a few seconds and says slowly, “What do you think?”

“I think you have affairs.” In fact I know he has affairs. Suzy, the old makeup girl, got the sack when she made the mistake of falling in love with him during their affair.

She started phoning him at home, crashing down the phone when his wife answered, leaving notes in his jacket pocket hoping that his wife would find them, leaving lipstick marks on his shirt, accidentally on purpose.

David thought nobody else knew, but everyone knew, we all knew. Suzy would sit in the canteen in floods of tears and pour her heart out to anyone who would listen—which meant everyone because we all fed off the gossip for months—and finally, when it all got too much for David to cope with, Suzy was called into the executive producer’s office and “let go.”

“Oh? And what kind of women do you think I have affairs with?”

“I don’t know, David, why don’t you tell me?”

“Why don’t I tell you over a drink tonight?”

I can’t do this anymore. The game has turned serious and I want out. “I’m sorry, David, I can’t tonight but another time perhaps?”

“Another time.” He nods, his ego smarting from the rejection, but hopeful for the future nonetheless.

I leave David sitting in the canteen with his cup of coffee and head back upstairs. Jim, the producer of Monday’s show, sidles up to me and whispers archly, “Very cozy, Tasha. People might start to talk.”

“For God’s sake, Jim, he wanted to talk about an item on the show.”

“Oh, silly me,” he slaps a limp wrist, “and I thought he wanted to talk about another kind of item.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, darling, they do say if you’ve got it flaunt it,” he looks me up and down, “although in your case I’m not entirely sure what
it
is.” He sighs dramatically and minces back to his desk while I raise my eyes to the ceiling and pick up the phone.

“Hey Toots,” Adam’s latest pet name for me. Needless to say I haven’t got a pet name for him. It would be too intimate, too . . . couply.

“Ad, you’re not going to believe what just happened.”

“You’ve been made the executive producer of the program?”

“Nope.”

“Annalise has been shot and while she’s in hospital they’ve asked you to fill her shoes?”

“Nope. Wrong again.”

“OK, you got me. What just happened?”

“David made a pass at me!”

“No! That arrogant shit, what did he say?”

This is what I love about Adam. That he is like one of my girlfriends, that I can phone him all day if I want to and tell him the ridiculous things that happen at work, and that he will always want to talk to me, to share in the gossip, to share my amazement.

So I tell him and Adam says, “Well, I can’t blame him really. I couldn’t work in the same office as you and not try it on at least once.”

“Yeah, well, you would say that.”

“Why would I?”

“Because you love me, dumbass.” I’m grinning.

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

“So are you going to go for it?” Adam is fitting perfectly into the role of one of my girlfriends.

“Hmm,” I laugh, putting on my most confused voice. “I don’t know. Do you think I should?”

“Well, remember that makeup girl, Suzy. If it all went horribly wrong, you could be out on your ear.”

“But what if I just want some sex?”

“Well, if you come home before eight o’clock tonight, I can organize a gorgeous, hunky, muscle-bound man to be waiting for you wearing just his boxer shorts and a dishcloth.”

I laugh out loud. “A dishcloth?”

“Well, he’ll have to have cooked you a gourmet meal.”

“And what would that meal be?”

“You’d start with a salad of grilled goat’s cheese, followed by salmon steaks and chive butter, with a few new potatoes and mange-tout.”

“What’s for pudding?”

“
He
’s for pudding.”

“Damn,” I laugh. “I knew there was no such thing as a free lunch. And by the way, where did he get the muscles from?”

Clip number two:

It’s a Sunday morning and I have to find a present for Emma’s birthday. Emma is impossible to buy for—what do you buy for the woman who has everything? You buy the cheapest possible thing you can get away with from a designer shop.

A key ring—even Tiffany or Louis Vuitton would be too telling, so Adam suggests going into town to the Conran Shop.

Just before we walk out the door, Andy calls. “I met
the
most amazing guy last night,” she begins, before telling me the story I seem to have heard a million times before.

And as I listen to her I find myself thinking, thank God I’m not out there anymore. Thank God I don’t have to do this anymore. I don’t have to spend days and nights sitting by a phone waiting for it to ring. I don’t have to worry that someone will go off me once we’ve slept together because he won’t like my body.

But I have to be completely honest with you, a part of me is slightly envious. A very tiny part of me misses it. Not enough to worry about, but nevertheless it’s there.

So I sit and listen to Andy and I don’t bother giving her advice because she never takes it anyway, and after she says, “What the hell, I’ll call him,” I put down the phone and walk out the door with Adam.

We climb into the Saab and I pull the mirror down to check my hair.

“You look gorgeous,” he says. “Stop fiddling.”

“You always think I look gorgeous,” I moan. “I’ve stopped believing you. You’re like the boy that cried wolf. When I do look gorgeous I won’t believe you because you say it all the time.”

“That’s because I think it all the time.”

“Even first thing in the morning?” The ego needs feeding.

“Especially first thing in the morning.”

What’s so ridiculous about this is that it’s true. In all the relationships I’ve had in the past I’ve tried to look immaculate all the time. I’ve managed to look great, even first thing in the morning by sneaking into the bathroom, brushing my teeth and rubbing in some tinted moisturizer.

I’ve never been relaxed enough for someone to see me
au naturel
. I’ve never been secure enough to think that it’s anything other than my looks that keeps them with me.

Isn’t this quite common, though? That when relationships take off quickly the attraction is based on the physical? You go to bed with a man after a few dates and you worry about what he will think the next day.

You wake up in the morning and you pray that he begins to like you. That the physical attraction will become a mental attraction too. When that happens, you are incredibly lucky, because more often than not you don’t even like the person you are sleeping with and they don’t like you.

But Adam knew me so well before we slept together that I have never had to worry he’d disappear. I never worried he would suddenly realize that he didn’t like me, because as far as he can see my beauty comes from the inside.

And the funny thing is I feel more beautiful. I’ve even cut down on the makeup I wear because I don’t have to prove so much anymore. I am a woman who is loved, but what are my feelings? Is it security? Is it love? Is it passion? What do
you
think?

We park the car and bustle around the Conran Shop, admiring the furniture and balking at the exorbitant prices. We pick up the gadgets that look so tempting, and then ask ourselves what we would actually
do
with them.