Innocents (23 page)

I knew from what you'd written that you'd like to catch me masturbating.

I could tell from your notes what I was supposed to do, although it was an activity that was completely foreign to me.

So, one night, I arranged it.

I had already gone to bed. You were in the shower.

The bedroom was lit only by your bedlamp. Mine was out.

You'd decided that it was too hot for blankets, that night. They all lay where you'd folded them, on the chair by the bed. We had nothing but a pair of sheets to sleep between.

I waited until I heard the water stop running. Then I composed my limbs as if I were arranging flowers. I spread my legs—just slightly, not too far. I felt it was important to appear furtive rather than brazen. I covered my body with the sheet, right up to the neck. By twisting my head, I was able to observe the effect in the mirror. I was rather pleased with it.

The white sheet fell around me on every side, outlining all my limbs. The position of my hand was clearly observable. Perfect.

Silently, I waited for you. I didn't know what was going to happen, but my heart was beating fast with anticipation. I couldn't wait to see the look on your face.

You didn't disappoint me.

I had my eyes closed, when you came in. The scenario was only convincing if I seemed half-asleep, just absently touching myself. That's what you did, sometimes, in the mornings.

With my eyes still closed I couldn't see you, but I heard you stop dead in the doorway. The thought of your shock excited me and made my breath more shallow.

You cleared your throat, you darling! You were trying to give me a warning, a way out. I was annoyed. Your good manners, for the moment, had the upper hand over your lust.

This called for a more direct approach. I opened my eyes—lazily, as though I were just waking up. I stretched about a bit with my free hand, to add to this impression.

You were standing stock-still, your hair still wet and gleaming, wearing nothing but a hotel-stolen white towel.

‘Hey, baby,’ I said. I spoke just slightly too fast. This gave the impression that I was concentrating on my own private rapture.

‘Hello.’ You sounded miserably uncomfortable.

‘It's okay,’ I said, fixing my gaze solidly on your face. ‘You can watch, if you like.’

And I kept moving my hand under the sheet.

I regarded you carefully. You took a few steps forwards, leaning slightly backwards, as though your head were more reluctant than the rest of your body. You licked your bottom lip, nervous as a lizard. It was an exciting sight.

‘Your pupils are big,’ you said. ‘You look like a possum.’

I could have told just from the way your voice squeaked that you were aroused.

You stood there, in the middle of the room, bulging under your towel. I could hear you breathing.

‘Honestly,’ I said. I let you see me close my eyes, as though I wasn't particularly interested in you, and looked at you from between my eyelashes. ‘I watch you, sometimes.’ I yawned sensuously.

You jumped. ‘When?’

‘In the mornings. Before you're properly awake.’

That was a mistake. It gave you a way out. A way to equalise things. Eagerly, you said, ‘Would you like to watch me? We could watch each other.’

‘Fine,’ I said, not showing my irritation at myself.

You let the towel fall to the floor. Selfconsciously, with a little reassuring smile at me, you took hold of your cock and started to move your hand up and down. You dug the other hand in underneath, pressing your testicles. The only thing you did which I liked was the little automatic gesture of licking your palm. That suggested long practice. I thought that you'd probably done that same quick movement every time you started to wank; ever since you were a boy.

I pulled myself up, so I was sitting with my back against the bedhead. I spread my legs further, more shamelessly, more (I presumed) sluttishly. I regarded you with what I hoped was a steamy challenge in my eyes. I was trying to manufacture sexual tension.

Tired of standing, you knelt down. You stumbled slightly, and had to put out one arm to steady yourself against the ground.

I giggled.

Looking up at me, you winced. You were slightly out of breath. ‘You see?’ With your arms, you indicated the whole room. ‘That's what I—’ You shook your head. ‘You make me … you get me down here, on my knees, cock in hand, looking like …’ You shrugged, shaking your head. ‘And then you
laugh
.’

‘I wasn't laughing,’ I said, conciliatory. I folded my hands in my lap, demurely.

‘Well, it's not a power-laugh, is it? You're not laughing to show me who's who. It's just
funny
.’ Your hand tightened, as you looked at me.

I pouted, looking apprehensive—my panic safety-measure. ‘Are you mad at me?’

You laughed dryly, shafting your hand up and down.

I regarded you with an uncomfortable, slightly fearful expression. It was the perfect mask. I was perving on your stress.

‘I'm not
angry
!’ You spat the word. There was appeal in your eyes. They were wet. This was suddenly much better. ‘You're just … you're like an animal. It's
chemical
, this.’ Your eyes flickered downwards. ‘You just
do
this to me. And I feel … it's not even love, this.’ You half-closed your eyes. Your arms shook as your hands speeded up. You spoke through your teeth. ‘Just … if you get lust, and you filter out all the checks and … all the
shame
… Just pure, physical, sensuous—’ And you came, jerkily, all over the carpet.

Afterwards, I cried.

‘It's not my
fault
!’ I insisted tearfully. ‘I don't
mean
to be like that.’ I scrunched the tears from the corners of my eyes with the heels of my hands.

I was acting. I must have been. But something choked me, too, just slightly. Something felt faintly like real outrage; as though I really had been falsely accused.

You apologised, of course. It was pretty good. You kissed me all over, up and down my body, right down to my feet. You had tears in your eyes.

I played you like an instrument.

I spun it out for hours. I made the tears come rolling out down your cheeks. You knelt before me, your head bent in submission. You swore never, ever again to say anything to hurt me. You promised to take me shopping and buy me anything, anything at all that I wanted. There was a drawn, hunted look on your face as you said sorry and called me
Angel
.

I went to sleep in your arms, with you regarding my face anxiously, your eyes wide and worried. You clutched me so tightly that your hands sweated, and you smelled, most satisfyingly, of semen.

I may well have been dreaming. I couldn't tell, even at the time, if I was awake or asleep. But I thought you said something, long after I'd closed my eyes.

The voice was breathy, heavy with something. I couldn't tell whether it was tears or another, more violent passion.

I thought you said: ‘I hate you, sometimes.’

I am afraid of my imagination. It's too powerful a force. It swamps me. It sweeps other people up and carries them away. There's a strange magic in me. If I think a thing hard enough, I can impose it upon the world.

It doesn't matter whether I want the thing to come true or not. My imagination didn't care that you're a good man, that you meant well. It needed you to harm me. Effortlessly, it made you a monster.

The predatory creature I'd made of you began to hunt me.

Your eyes became narrow and luminous, like a cat's. I woke one night to go to the toilet and, coming back, I found you standing outside the door.

I was slightly startled. Never one to let an opportunity slip by, I pretended to be
very
startled.

‘What are you …?’ I asked blearily, wiping imaginary sleep from my eyes with my fists. The combination of the childlike gesture and my complete nakedness was a powerful one.

You looked guilty, covetous, hungry. ‘I just wondered where you were,’ you mumbled. Then you took my hand and led me back to bed.

On the couch, remember?

Hot and wilted from my walk home, I'd stretched myself out to sleep there. The light was purple and the air was heavy.

I woke to find your hand down my jeans.

‘Hey!’ I cried. In that first instant of awareness, I was genuinely shocked.

‘It's okay. It's okay,’ you said. ‘I'm just.’

And you kissed me, hard.

Stroking my lips with one finger, you told me, ‘They're so red.’

I wasn't wearing make-up. I never did. My blood just ran closer to the surface, these days.

I made no reply. I simply sat there trying to look cute and half-awake. I was glad I hadn't brushed my hair. The tousled, angelic effect was a good prop.

With your nose, you nuzzled between my legs.

It wasn't just a matter of giving me pleasure. It was dirtier than that.

You found little spurts of moisture and mumbled with triumph. The liquids of my body were prizes, now.

I'd made them so.

You thrust your hand beneath my nose. You watched to make sure I inhaled. The cloying smell stuck in my nose. It reeked of sweat and arousal. This was a new kind of violation. It was a kind of trophy, too:
Look what I caught! Look what I made you do!

I lay flat, submissive. You swallowed the bait whole. Leaping onto the couch, a pirate onto a conquered ship, you pushed my legs apart as though they were inanimate, as though I was dead or unconscious.

You entered me without looking at my face. It was forceful and it hurt.

I dug into your back with my fingernails. No real passion spurred me on. It was a calculated action, like a bullfight attendant makes, tossing his darts scientifically into the back of the bull to enrage it at the right moment.

You gasped, wincing at your own guttural noise.

‘Hey!’ I said. I made you look at me, just briefly. I wasn't going to let you keep all those emotions, all that turmoil I'd worked so hard to create, to yourself. I needed to see them.

Your cheeks were dark purple, as though you'd been holding your breath.

Your eyes met mine with the full force of your challenge—lust, aggression, anger, all gathered together and thrust at me, like the point of a sword. But as I stared back, expressionless, they clouded with misery. Your pupils darted from side to side. They were schizophrenic eyes, which cannot trust the walls to retain their shape from one moment to another. You seemed every moment to fear a surprise attack.

I was hot on your trail now. The feelings of power, of lust, contracted my stomach. ‘What do you want to do?’ I asked sweetly, nearly choking on raw desire.

But you were beyond conversation. You panted loudly, and the sweat ran in little streams down your face. Your hair was all plastered down flat. Your eyes glazed over and you fixed your gaze on my shoulder.

All the tendons on your legs stood out. Your feet strained against the armrests. The whole couch shook and shuddered.

Staring at your incoherent animal eyes, I had a strange, prophetic feeling of apprehension.

I felt we were on a creaking boat, in the middle of a storm.

I felt we must capsize at any moment.

Over the next few days, I seemed to drift further away from the world with every moment. Suddenly there was only one tableau sucking me in.

I stopped talking almost entirely. In class, at school, I simply folded my arms and stared at the desk, waiting for it to be time to go home to you.

I found myself prey to strange nervousnesses brought about by still weather. I remember coming to absolute halts just standing at the side of the road, saturated with throttling, alien passions by a sudden lack of traffic noise.

Unexpected stillnesses—when the birds stop calling and you can't hear any traffic—filled me.

*

As I walked up the front path, I heard the telephone ringing. My hands trembled as I unlocked the door. They wanted me to
hurry, hurry, hurry
. I forced myself to be slow and calm.

Inside, I stood by the shrill screeching thing. I counted to ten. It stopped ringing. I thought I'd have a heart attack. But the telephone was just pausing to gather itself for another assault, like a baby breathing between screams.

A long time seemed to pass. I held myself still, sitting upright in the big armchair. That stillness was to make the time pass instantly, make it pass by without me, outside me. Deep within myself, I went into hibernation, waiting for you.

I heard your car turn into the driveway. I didn't move a muscle, but I was completely altered, as though I had been tuned into another frequency. You'd be watching me soon, infusing me with the strange energy of your awareness.

Outside, the car door slammed. Your keys clinked abruptly as you unlocked the door.

I waited in the wings. Only when you were in the hallway did I move. I timed everything perfectly. Just as you appeared in the doorway, I let you see me disappearing up the stairs.

‘Hey!’ you called.

I hardly saw the lines and angles of the stairs before me. I was choreographing the backs of my bare legs for you, willing them slimmer and more irresistible than ever.

I was beyond planning things. I was in the grip of the force that makes birds dance and stags fight and cats stalk about with their tails in the air.

I stripped quickly. I heard you mounting the stairs clumsily, unevenly, taking one, then two. Then one too heavily.

My clothes on the floor seemed too scrappy and diminished ever to have held me, like shed snakeskin. I rushed to take up the correct pose. Flinging the curtains back, I leant on the window ledge so that the slanting sunlight sheeted over me. The sun caught in the wisps of hair around my face and I saw glitterings like mica.

I stilled my whole body like a held breath, not wanting to waste an instant of consciousness that you wouldn't see.

Then with a whoosh you were there, you were present behind me, and I was properly alive again.