The Arrangement (Erotic Novella) (6 page)

But Jake's not
shooting eye-daggers at him, they're all flying straight at me. He
doesn't even bother to look away while I struggle with my knickers
and top. He just keeps on staring like I'm the filthiest little
slapper he's ever had the misfortune of seeing.

"Who's
Curtis?” he says
, and I freeze
up.

“What?”
I gasp.
Oh, Jesus, Harry
heard. But there was nothing to hear. Nothing. Was there? And he
didn't say. He didn't say a thing. I look at Harry, and I crumble
as I try to speak. "Y-you heard... You..." But the words just
aren't coming.

“
I
heard
,"
Jake
says, and
he
shakes Harry’s phone at me like evidence in a goddam
trial. “He gave it to me to babysit. Didn’t want you fucking with
his head any more than you’ve done already. So? Who is he?”

“Enough,” Harry
warns, but he’s looking at me for my response.
He's looking at me and I can’t think straight.

“No one,” I
say, too quietly, my words
hooking
in my
throat. “He’s no one.”

Deanne's running downstairs too now, come to watch my downfall
maybe. Come to watch Jake as he paces towards us, rounding
on Harry
while I pull myself upright on trembling
jelly-legs.

"
Listen brov, she’s not worth it
," he
hisses.
"
Nothing’s changed. She’s
not going to stop sleeping around just coz you asked her to.”

“Jesus, Jake,”
Deanne mutters, trying to ease his tirade from the doorway where
she’s leaning, but it doesn’t soften his
kilowatt
glare
.

I should to
smack him.
I really should.
I should tell
him to back the fuck away
. But
my face is
on fire and my eyes are
welling
with
infuriating tears, and it’s
so
not like me to take this kind
of shit but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say…

“You’ve had
your goodbye shag, brov. Just call it a day. She’s fucking someone
else.”

A whimper
escapes my lips. Where’s my cool retaliation? Where’s my
hellion
temper? I’m shaking my head, too
crushed by Jake’s attack to even speak, and I’m trying to meet his
glare - I’m really trying - but to be honest he’s just a blurry
haze through my stupid tears.

“Back off,”
Harry tells him, but he doesn’t sound as steady as I need him to.
He doesn't sound too sure, even as he stands
heroically in front of me, a physical barrier between me and his
misguided toss-pot brother.

“Yeah, I’ll
back off. When she admits she’s fucking this Curtis! She’s all hung
up on him.
Dude, I'm sorry but
I heard her.
Don’t let her lie to you.”

“She never lied
to me,” he says, but he’s not my Harry any more
.
He's
just doing the decent
thing, standing up for a woman who’s being yelled at. He thinks I
want Curtis. I almost laugh - it’s hysterically funny isn’t it?!
Curtis didn’t want me and now he’s
poisoning
Harry against me too.

But he’s not,
is he… that’s just me being ridiculous.
I’m
the poison. I’m
the cheap slut who can’t keep her knickers on. I’m the one who
wouldn’t know a normal loving relationship if it bit me on the
arse. And I’m the one who’s leaving.

7.

I’m gone before
Harry can stop me, and here’s the great thing about Soho: even on a
Sunday it’s so busy you can lose yourself within seconds,
especially when you’re running as crazy-fast as I seem to be.

I nearly
collide with a delivery bike and I’m calling back ‘sorry, sorry…’
when I slam into a copper. “Sorry - Oh, God - I’m sorry,” I pant,
his arm on mine as I catch my breath. He’s leaning in to look at my
face though I can’t really see him properly with my eyes streaming
like this.

“You OK, miss?”
he says, and it’s such a police cliche I almost giggle. I nod,
palming my eyes to wipe away the thick curtain of tears, and that’s
when I hear him.

“Em! Emma!”

I have to
go.

“Is this man
bothering you?” asks my friendly policeman, and I fight the urge to
say yes.

Yes! Too right,
he’s bothering me.

“Em…” Harry’s
arms wrap around me and I’m sobbing into his chest. Wet, guttural,
roaring sobs that I just can’t seem to fight. He holds my head to
him, smearing my face against his jacket - unfortunately - but
there’s not a lot I can do about that.

“Miss?” My
copper friend must think I’m such a nut bar.

I force myself
back from Harry, sniffing and wiping my nose unattractively on my
bare wrist. “Sorry,” I say again. So fucking English. Always
apologizing. “I’m fine. Really.” And even though I’m obviously a
few thousand miles off
fine
he does the decent thing and
leaves.

Then we’re
moving. I’m not sure if my feet are even touching the ground, but
Harry’s maneuvering us into The Three Greyhounds and arranging me
at a table.

“Sit. Stay,” he
tells me, like I could do anything else right now. I’m a worn down
husk of a woman and the idea of leaving seems suddenly about as
feasible as regrowing my hymen.

I watch him at
the bar, wondering if he’ll buy me the double shot of Captain
Morgan’s I so sorely want, though I’m heartened when he returns
with a cup of tea instead.

He pulls off
his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders, while I stir two sugars
shakily into my cup.

"I want a
ciggy," I sigh.

"You don't
smoke."

"I don't care,
I want one."

Harry frowns
and digs around in the pockets of the jacket I'm now wearing, then
miraculously pulls out an electronic cigarette.

"Jake's
jacket," he explains. "He's trying to quit. Hence the twattish
attitude."

Oh. Well, at
least now I feel better about the snot incident. I take a nasty
puff and my nerves thank me for it.

"Listen,” he
says. “Don't tell me about Curtis. Not unless you want to. Just
tell me we're alright," he says, and the way he looks at me so
intently, like he trusts me not to fuck him over... it makes
telling him almost easy. Almost.

I take another drag on this rank-tasting thing then stare at
it absently, pinching it between trembling fingers. I don’t know if
we’re
alright
. I
don’t know if we
can
be
alright
once he knows what I’ve done. But I tell him anyway. I close
my eyes, I lean into his shoulder and I tell him the truth about
the woman he thinks he wants.

*****

Curtis had a bedsit up the road from my gran when I was a
wayward kid. He was six years older than me, all buff and sexy in a
clean-cut teen-crush sort of way, and I was obsessed with him for
four years solid. He was always a bit dismissive to be honest, and
I guess I must have been kind of overbearing. I'd cycle outside his
flat most days like a proper little stalker, just waiting for him
to come back all oil-smeared and grimy from his shift at the
garage. He never gave me more than a quick
hi
but it didn’t matter. My hormones
had set their sights on Curtis Leigh and I wasn’t going to be
deterred.

He moved
though. All that time spent trying to make him notice me, and he
goes and fucks off up North to do some effing work placement. I was
fifteen and utterly grief-stricken. And I thought that was the end
of it. Thought he was gone for good.

Then years later, I’d just started uni and it wasn’t going so
well, and I nipped back home to visit Gran - you know - just for
some tea, cake and sympathy, and there he was. He was chatting to
Gran on the doorstep, asking after me.
Curtis
was asking after
me
. I thought all my
birthdays and Christmases had come at once.

He was just
passing by, he said. Visiting old mates. He said it like his being
there was just totally casual. No big deal. But I was straight back
to being that giddy kid crushing on her sexy neighbour.

Anyway, we
started seeing each other. He was back in London for good, kipping
on mates’ sofas until he found himself somewhere to live. And more
often then not, he’d crash in halls with me.

I didn’t think
twice about shagging him. I’d been a virgin for far too long as far
as I was concerned, and here was the man of my dreams, ready and
willing to rip off my v-plates.

I was beyond horny for him. Up for anything. And he
wanted
everything
.
It didn’t matter where we were or what it was, if he asked for it,
I’d do it. One time, we were in the Student Union and he said he
wanted a blow-job. So what did I do? I just crawled under the table
and gave him one, right there, with God knows who watching. He was
my first real boyfriend and I wanted him so badly I think I’d have
done just about anything he asked me to.

And I guess he knew that. Because he asked me to go to this
party his mates were having. A joint birthday thing, he said, and I
thought
great, a date, he wants me to meet
his mates.
Like maybe I was finally fitting
into his life.

It was in this
high-rise up in Bermondsey, and it wasn’t so much a party as two
pissed lads with a stereo, but that was fine. I was nervous,
expecting something less intimate. Both Gabe and Jesse watched me
like I was dinner, but Curtis stuck to me like glue. And after my
first beer I started to relax. The blokes started flirting with me
and I flirted back, just a little, not meaning anything by it, just
trying to be how I was supposed to be.

That’s when
they put the porno on. I was sitting on Curtis’ lap on the sofa,
squeezed up in between the birthday boys. I could feel Curtis’
erection digging in hard against my arse as the blonde girl on the
telly writhed about with a vibrator, fucking herself hard with it
while the camera zoomed in for a lewd wet close-up.

When Curtis first started rubbing me I froze. I knew the other
two could see, could feel their eyes moving lustily from the telly
to my little skirt, but I didn’t say
no
. It shocked me - scared me - but it
felt good. I loved that Curtis couldn’t keep his hands off me, and
more than that, I wanted to please him.

So when he
pulled my skirt up over my thighs, revealing my little satin thong,
I let him. Just like I let him slide his hand inside the flimsy
pink fabric to push his fingers inside me.

I couldn’t
move. Gabe and Jesse were shifting either side of me, shuffling
with their zippers as Curtis worked his fingers into a slick,
steady rhythm. He lulled me with his words the whole time,
whispering sweet filthy nothings in my ear, calming me, subduing
me. “So pretty, baby,” he cooed. “So tight. Just like a fantasy.
You want to be my fantasy, princess?”

I did!
Man
, how I longed to be Curtis’ fantasy, burned for it. I
wriggled against his cock, panting, telling him wordlessly I was
his to use for his wildest imaginings.

“Suck Jesse,”
he said.

My heart
stopped. I turned to look at Curtis, to see if he meant it. His
wild near-black eyes told me he did, and I couldn’t deny that look
of his, the one that told me everything I wanted to hear:
I want
you, Emma. More than anything, right now, I want you.

So I slid to my
knees in front of Jesse and let him fist his cock into my mouth.
Too deep at first. Enough to bring Curtis down next to me, saying,
“Easy… easy…” to either me or Jesse, or both, I’m not sure. But it
wasn’t easy, not even when Jesse stopped thrusting and let me set
my own pace. Not easy at all, but bearable, with Curtis by my
side.

And then his
fingers were inside me again, spearing me, and I knew what was
coming next. I knew but I did it anyway. For Curtis.

“So fucking
perfect,” Jesse sighed, toying with a condom wrapper. “Would you
help me, baby? Help me give Gabe a birthday present?”

I didn’t
respond. I didn’t have to. He knew I’d do whatever he wanted.

Gabe wasn’t
gentle but he didn’t take long. And as he groaned out his release,
mercifully Jesse did the same, spurting thick and fast down my
throat. And then it was Curtis’ turn. My Curtis. Powering into me
in front of his hammered, drowsy mates, until he too was grunting
out his climax. And then he said the words that still sit wedged
inside me like a bullet.

“Happy
birthday, boys. Told you she was easy.”

The worst thing
is, that should have been the end of things. I shouldn’t have let
him drive me back to halls. And I shouldn’t have let him stay the
night, hoping we’d wake up the next day with him still wanting me.
But I did. And he didn’t.

He
had
to end it. Even after he’d used me like a dog with an old chew-toy,
I still wanted to be Curtis Leigh’s girlfriend. Right up until he
told me, “No thanks, love. I don’t date sluts.” Right up until he
crushed my heart.

*****

Harry’s
disgusted with me. I can tell by the way he’s tensed up, his arm
thick and unyielding around my waist, and I can’t bring myself to
look at him.

“You’re such a
fucking idiot,” he says, and then I know I’m right. I’ve ruined my
chances with Harry by fessing-up, when quite frankly I didn’t have
to. He’d never have pushed me. But now he knows and he can’t
un
know, and I’ve fucked it all up. At least I think I have,
right up until he kisses me. He kisses my ear first. We’re both too
tense to move properly, so he kisses my ear, then my wet cheek,
then works his way round to my lips. I close my eyes and let him
lead the kiss. His fingers are threading through my hair like he so
desperately wants my touch. I want it as badly as he does, but I’m
drained, and as his tongue sinks between my lips I can’t give him
what he needs. Right now, he thinks he wants me. But it won’t last.
How can it, when I’m the way I am?