Watermelon

“I don’t think so,” I said, pretending to consider. Although my social diary stretched ahead of me as empty and as formless as the Gobi Desert.

  “Well, can I cook you dinner?” he asked.

  “Yes, that would be lovely,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “Jenny and Andy have gone away for the weekend so we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  I was a woman of the world.

  I knew very well that to go to a man’s house, a man’s house where all the other residents were absent, and submit to having a dinner cooked for oneself meant that it was more than pork chops and Black Forest gâteau that was being offered.

  Great, I thought.

  I couldn’t believe my luck.

  “Right, Adam, that sounds lovely.”

  And so we agreed on a time for Sunday night. He walked Kate and me to the car and home we drove.

  twenty-one

  The preparations for Sunday.

  Ingredients:

  One neglected, rejected, dejected twenty-nine-year-old woman, who had recently given birth

  A generous helping of guilt

  A pinch of anticipation

  A packet of insecurity about the shape of her body A sprig of excitement (wild, if possible) A spoonful of condensed deep despair

  A minor stretch marks panic

  Two black lace-topped stockings

  One interesting pair of black underwear

  One black bra, of the miraculous rather than just the plain wondrous variety

  One bottle of red wine

  One dress

  One pair of shoes

  Decoration:

  Whore-red lipstick

  Several layers of dark mascara

  Directions:

  Put the stockings, panties, and bra to one side, for use later.

  Take the woman.

  Add the guilt, anticipation, insecurity, excitement, despair and panic.

  Mix thoroughly.

  Leave to stew for a couple of days.

  In a medium-size bathroom, prepare the woman by shaving her legs, coloring her hair and painting her toenails.

  About an hour before commencing, baste generously in expensive body lotion, turning frequently.

  Add the stockings, the pair of interesting black undies and the miraculous black bra. Have a couple of practice runs at looking seductive by letting her hair fall over her face and looking up through her eyelashes.

  Check that she can still gasp and arch her back and say sentences like,

  “Oh baby, that was wonderful” and “Oh God, don’t stop” while keeping a straight face.

  Commandeer a sister, preferably Anna, to look after the aforementioned child.

  Add a generous helping of whore-red lipstick, several layers of black mascara, a short purple (it is, after all, the color of passion) dress, sexy black shoes with suede ankle straps and one bottle of red wine.

  Always take care not to start swigging from the bottle of red before arriving at your destination.

  As an optional extra, condoms in the purse are always a nice touch.

  If it’s not possible to procure them—for example, they may be out of season—you will have to make do with large amounts of self-restraint. Not always ideal, but it does work.

  Serve on a bed with a good-looking man.

  I followed the instructions to the letter. I was lucky enough to be able to procure condoms—courtesy of Laura—what a woman!

  I was feeling pretty good.

  I didn’t even get upset when I discovered that thanks to my hair color (it’s hair enhancer, darling; we don’t need to color our hair, we just enhance its natural lights), all right then, thanks to my hair enhancer, my ears and my hair were now color-coordinated.

  But I suppose if I had to have colored ears, I could have done a lot worse than a rich, glossy, shiny chestnut color. None of your Ebony Shadow or Plum Sugar for my ears. No sir!

  At about seven-thirty on Sunday evening, I was prepared. About to go forth to sin, I kissed Kate good-night.

  As I was furtively making for the front door, my coat buttoned up practically to the eyebrows in case Mum should spot me looking so floozylike, the phone rang.

  “Claire, it’s for you,” shouted Helen.

  Oh God!

  But it was only Laura.

  Calling to wish me luck and wanting to know if I had practiced putting on a condom with my teeth, as per her instructions.

  “No, I didn’t!” I told her.

  I was dying to get off the phone and out of the house because I was terrified of being caught.

  “Why not?” she demanded. “You can’t just expect him to be happy with boring old sex. You have to be a bit inventive.”

  “But you only gave me two!” I said, all alarm. “I didn’t want to waste them. And anyway, what was I supposed to practice on?”

  “Well, let’s just hope that you perform adequately with the first one. Or else you won’t get a chance to use the second one,” she said darkly.

  “Oh stop it, Laura, I’m nervous enough!”

  “Good.” She laughed. “It’s much better when you’re nervous.”

  I promised to call her the next day and tell her all the gory details.

  “Or, if I get in early enough tonight, I’ll ring you and tell you everything,”

  I promised eagerly.

  “If you get in early enough tonight to tell me everything, there won’t be anything to tell,’” she told me.

  “Oh,” I said.

  She had a point.

  “Look, I’m going,” I said in annoyance, and I hung up on her while she was in the middle of explaining some sort of complicated sexual activity that she said she had seen done in a show in Bangkok. Whatever it was it could only be done by a woman who was a damn sight more supple than me. I did know how to have sex, you know. I had given birth to a child.

  How did she think this actually came about?

  While we’re on the subject of sexual shenanigans I’ve got a confession to make.

  Wait for it.

  Here it comes.

  I enjoy the missionary position.

  There! I’ve said it.

  I’m made to feel so ashamed of myself for feeling that way.

  As if I’m terribly boring and repressed.

  But I’m not. Honestly.

  I’m not saying that it’s the only position that I like.

  But, really, I have no objection to it whatsoever.

  Naturally, of course, this isn’t the time to discuss favorite sexual positions.

  But I’ll just tell you very quickly that I think cunnilingus is the most boring thing God ever created. I’d rather spend a day filing than endure a five-minute stint of it.

  And when they’re finished with their few minutes of slurping they act like you should be so grateful for it. Beaming up at you like they deserve a medal. And then act like they’re entitled to a year’s supply of no-questions-asked blow jobs.

  Of course, some women swear by it, but…sorry, sorry.

  I finally left and drove over to his house.

  twenty-two

  I parked the car just outside his house and feeling a heavy mixture of excitement and sordid shame walked up to the front door. Then I remembered that I had left the bottle of wine in the car and I quickly ran back to get it.

  I was going nowhere without it.

  Dutch courage.

  Well, Chilean courage, but whatever.

  Adam opened the door almost immediately.

  If I didn’t know any better I’d swear he had been hiding in the hall, lurking behind the curtain, waiting for me to arrive.

  Well, actually, maybe he had been.

  He was doing a good job of seeming to be as excited and affected by all of this as I was.

  He looked a bit anxious.

  Cold feet?

  Change of heart?

/>   Pregame nerves?

  But then he rallied strongly.

  “Hello.” He smiled. “You look lovely.”

  “Hello,” I said. I smiled at him in spite of my nerves.

  How wonderful, I thought with a thrill.

  I felt so dangerously decadent.

  On an assignation with a beautiful man.

  Have I ever wanted any man as much as I want Adam? I wondered.

  Probably, I thought, sighing.

  Just being realistic for a moment.

  But right then it felt as if I’d never wanted anyone else, ever.

  How long will it take for us to be in bed together? I wondered.

  How long can I hold off if he doesn’t make a move?

  What if he doesn’t make a move? I thought with horror.

  Or what if it’s a total disaster?

  Maybe he’ll think I’m completely hideous, with my post-childbirth body.

  Maybe I’ll think he’s completely hideous, because he doesn’t look exactly like James.

  Oh God!

  I should have stayed at home.

  Before I could bolt for the door, stammering that it had all been a terrible mistake, he put his arm (and what an arm!) around my shoulders and guided me toward the kitchen.

  “Take off your coat,” he said. “And have a drink.”

  “But…oh, all right. Make mine a pint of red wine,” I said as I sat down at the kitchen table.

  He laughed.

  “Feeling nervous, darling?” he asked silkily as he poured me a glass.

  Jesus! I thought in alarm, don’t ask me things silkily. I was frightened enough. If he started behaving like some kind of arch seducer, I was out of there. All I needed now was for him to change his jeans and sweatshirt for a silk paisley dressing gown and parade around with an onyx cigarette holder.

  “I’m not nervous,” I blurted out. “I’m fucking terrified.”

  “Of what?” he asked with mock surprise. “My cooking isn’t that bad.”

  Oh, so that’s the way you want to play it, I thought.

  Faux casual, is it?

  Fine then.

  I gave him a poised smile.

  And flung my entire glass of wine down my throat before I realized what I had done.

  “Relax,” he said anxiously, coming over to sit beside me at the table and hold my hand. “I’m not going to bite.”

  Oh, aren’t you? I thought. Well then I’m definitely going home.

  “We’re just going to have something to eat and a little chat,” he said kindly. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “All right then,” I said, making a valiant effort to relax. “What are we having anyway?”

  “Homemade Stilton and Muscat Grape Soup, Boeuf Bourguignonne, with Potatoes Dauphinois and my own recipe for Zabaglione for dessert.”

  “Really?” I asked, astonished. I hadn’t put Adam down as a fancy cook—more your spuds and chops type of fellow, quantity rather than quality.

  “No.” He grinned at me. “Are you joking? You’re getting Spaghetti Bo-lognaese and you’re lucky I was even able to manage that.”

  “I see.” I laughed.

  “And if you’re very good”—at this point he paused and gave me a meaningful look—“and I mean very, then you can have some chocolate mousse.”

  “Oh,” I said, all excited, a combination of the meaningful look and the news of the chocolate mousse. “That’s great. I love chocolate mousse.”

  “I know,” he said. “Why do you think I got it?

  “And,” he continued in a teasing tone. “If you’re very, very good you can eat it off my stomach.”

  I burst out laughing.

  He was such an angel. I couldn’t suppress a shiver of lust at the thought of his flat muscley stomach, although this was probably precisely the kind of reaction he was banking on. I hurriedly poured myself another glass of wine, but this time I forced myself to sip it.

  He served the dinner and it was obvious that this was not something he did on a regular basis. He seemed all out of place standing at the stove.

  Rushing from the sink to the stove and back to the sink again, while the pasta boiled over and the salad visibly wilted. Although it did give me a beautiful view of his butt.

  Cooking, unlike most other things, did not come naturally to him, which made it all the more touching that he had gone to such bother for me.

  He looked so uncertain as he carefully carried the plates over to the table and reverently placed mine in front of me.

  “Have some more wine,” he said, pouring me another glass. That made a change from his acting like the local branch of Alcoholics Anonymous not ten minutes earlier.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk to take advantage of me?” I asked him, trying to sound annoyed.

  “I’m trying to get you drunk so that you won’t notice if the food tastes horrible.” He laughed.

  “I’m sure it’s lovely,” I assured him.

  I’m sorry to relate that I couldn’t eat more than a few mouthfuls. Not because it was horrible or anything. It’s just that I was so nervous and the air was so fraught with tension and anticipation that I felt like saying to him, “Look Adam, darling, we both know why I’m here, so let’s just cut to the chase.”

  He couldn’t eat anything either.

  But that might have been because of the food and not his nerves.

  We sat facing each other at Adam’s kitchen table, sliding spaghetti backward and forward on our plates, the salad totally untouched in its bowl, looking all mournful and abandoned.

  Conversation was desultory.

  Every now and again I’d look up at him and catch him watching me, and the look on his face made me feel hot and awkward. It eliminated any last chance of my eating anything at all. Not to mention that I was afraid that if I ate anything my stomach would be all bulgy and sticky-outy.

  And what kind of stomach was that to have on a first night with a man?

  Or that I would swing a forkful of food mouthward and the spaghetti would rebound onto my face with a whiplashlike effect and spatter me with red sauce.

  The way I react to food when I’m around a man is a sure barometer of the way I feel about him. If I can’t eat it means that I’m mad about him.

  When I can manage orange juice and some toast in the morning it’s the End of the Beginning. And by the time I get around to finishing the food left on his plate it’s as good as over.

  Either that or I marry him.

  Well, that had been the pattern so far, anyway.

  “Is that all you’re going to eat?” he eventually asked, looking at the mound of food on my plate.

  Hr looked disappointed.

  “Adam,” I said awkwardly, “I’m sorry. I’m sure that it’s lovely and everything but I just can’t eat. I don’t know why. I really am sorry.” I looked at him appealingly.

  “Never mind,” he said, taking the plates away.

  “Will you never cook for me again?” I asked sadly.

  “Of course I will,” he said. “And for God’s sake please don’t look so miserable.”

  “It’s only because I’m nervous,” I told him. “It’s not because the food was horrible.”

  “Nervous?” He came over to my side of the table and sat down beside me. “You’ve nothing to be nervous about.”

  “Don’t I?” I asked. looking him full in the eye.

  I was quite shameless.

  I’d be the first to admit it.

  But, goddamit, I’d wasted enough time this evening already.

  “No,” he murmured. “You’ve got nothing to be nervous about.”

  And, very gently, he put his arm around my shoulder and his hand on the back of my head.

  I closed my eyes.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this, I thought wildly, but I’m not going to stop.

  I inhaled the scent of his skin as his face came nearer.
/>
  I waited for his kiss.

  And when it came it was beautiful. Sweet and gentle and firm.

  The kind of kiss where the person doing it is very good at it but you don’t feel like he became such a good kisser by practicing on thousands of others.

  He stopped kissing me and I looked up at him in alarm.

  What was the meaning of this?

  “Was that all right?” he asked quietly.

  “All right?” I gasped. “It was better than all right.”

  He laughed slightly.

  “No, I mean, is it all right to kiss you? You know, I don’t want to overstep any boundaries.”

  “It’s all right,” I told him.

  “I know you’ve been hurt,” he said.

  “But you’re my friend,” I told him. “It’s okay.”

  “I want to be more than your friend,” he said.

  “That’s okay too,” I told him.

  “Really?” he said, looking at me for confirmation.

  “Honestly,” I told him.

  Oh Jesus! I hadn’t left myself much room for maneuver here.

  Not that I wanted to.

  He kissed me again and it was just as nice as the first time.

  He drew away from me and I pulled him back.

  He looked at me almost wonderingly and said, “God, you’re so beautiful.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said feeling a bit embarrassed.

  “Oh, you are,” he said. “You really are.”

  “No,” I said. “Helen’s beautiful.”

  “Look,” he said, smiling. “At the risk of going all Californian on you, you’re a beautiful person.”

  “I am?”

  “You are.”

  A little pause.

  “And you’re a babe.”

  “Thanks.” I laughed. “What a pity that you’re so hideous.”

  Then he laughed. There was absolutely no vanity at all about the man, although perhaps when you’re that handsome there’s no need for it.

  He kissed me again.

  And, honestly, it was wonderful.

  I felt so taken care of when I was with him and in his arms. But I also felt that I was taking care of him. That he needed me as much as I needed him.

  “Do you realize that we know each other less than two weeks?” he asked me.

  Oh no, I thought, does this means that he won’t go to bed with me yet?

  Is he going to impose some kind of time limit on it? That we can’t have sex until we’ve known each other for three months or something?