Beginnings (10 page)

Seeing nothing in the dark room he reached up to switch on the light. He felt the pain of the lost clock in his back and he pulled it out and looked at it. He still had an hour or so to wait. He turned off the light and clutched the clock to him. He felt
aroused. His cock was rigid in his pyjamas. No dreamed stabbing could calm his body tonight. He was anxious and edgy. Since that day he jumped over Emma’s fence he seemed to spend his life on edge. She made him so hot.

He was constantly thinking about her. The way she talked to him, the way she touched him, the way she let him touch her and how she looked and felt.

He was full of her.

He couldn’t concentrate at school.

He couldn’t concentrate at home.

He was beginning to realise the enormity of what they were doing. His mind was a pendulum of indecision. Everything she said was new. It was as if she saw life from a completely different perspective to his. And he had to admit that he preferred her perspective. He had always been so abrupt in his thinking and she was softening the lines which bound every one of his ideas.

He lay in the darkness thinking about her. He was unable to sleep. His mind had charged his body once again. All it took these days was a single thought. Jason had become obsessed with certain parts of his lover’s body. He loved thinking that she was his lover. He thought of her
stomach, the lovely shape of her belly. Her feet. Her fingers. Lips. The weight of her against him, her body pressed, jammed against his.

In his bed that night, holding the alarm, he wished the time would tick faster on to twelve. He had an erection and under the bed covers he was stroking his cock. Emma had warned him not to masturbate that night but the thought of her watching him kiss her stomach and the pleasure he was able to give her while kissing her breasts that very afternoon had made his cock throb painfully for release.

He had been thinking of Emma in an entirely different way. Before today he hadn’t been in any hurry to see her nude. The few times when they had been together he had loved what she had given him to love. The actual speed of progress taken was in Emma’s hands. But this afternoon had changed that. He had moved things along. He had taken her breasts in his hands and she had let him. Now he wanted more.

Since he had left her house he had been thinking of her breasts, he had been thinking of her skin and of her head rubbing up against his cock. He had gone to the bathroom twice to pull off before his mother had come home. He couldn’t
shake the hard-on. Every thought he had strengthened its resolve to stay about. He couldn’t hang around his mother. He put on a longer t-shirt and when he heard her come home he tucked his erection under the elastic of his boxers and tried to think of anything but Emma. His mum didn’t notice and he was safe, but the hard-on remained and his balls still ached.

He wasn’t thinking very sensibly. His mother asked him if he was worried about anything. He managed another lie and went off to watch TV. On the way he stopped at the bathroom, went in and locked the door. He undid his jeans. He touched the shaft and it jumped. He was staring at himself in the mirror. He knew that two or three strokes would do it. He looked at himself, eyeball to eyeball.

‘Do it!’ he said. He stroked it once and the pleasure was intense. He felt the orgasm begin. He stopped. He looked at his thick cock, which was longer and harder than it had been before. It throbbed. His was a hard, sensitive cock, bursting to blow. He stroked it again and his left knee wobbled, the orgasm rushed in and then just as quickly receded as he let go.

The pleasure was painful. He moaned and then
buckled himself up and left the bathroom for the safety of the backroom where he turned on the TV. Every once in a while he slyly rubbed his cock through the thin cotton of his jeans pocket.

Saying that he could ‘hold on’ was one thing. Lying in bed for a few hours drifting in and out of erotic dreams, lying awake with erotic thoughts, well, this was something else altogether. Not reaching climax was his point of honour. But it was sending his mind into curious patterns of thought.

He mused over the changes taking place in him without being critical, which is to say that the thoughts came and went without mental comment. He knew that he felt virile and manly, he knew that he could charge ahead in battle, he knew that he had a beautiful woman waiting for him, he knew the situation was implausible but he also knew he was capable of taking what she offered.

He lay there thinking and feeling all these thoughts and never thinking one of them without another crashing into it, so that not one sensation, not one thought was highlighted or isolated, all were merged and knotted. Power was the overall effect. He felt, but did not express, this power.

Emma was awake. David had come home in a rotten mood. They had talked for a whole ten minutes in the two hours that he was home before he took himself off to bed. He apologised to her as he went. He said he was being unfair to her but he couldn’t shake the mood so it was better to go to sleep and try again tomorrow.

Emma was not an unreasonable person, she knew that sometimes the world was too big, too cruel and too hard, but she also knew that she wasn’t all those things to her husband. David could have talked to her. She had tried to draw him out. She had tried to get the lid off his bottled feelings, to at least discover the cause of his mood. But he had shaken off these efforts. He put the TV between Emma and himself. And then he went alone to bed.

Only once David was gone did Emma regret phoning Jason. She found the regret disquieting. She began to wonder whether she had in fact been the cause of her husband’s mood. She had been so preoccupied with Jason.

Emma switched off the TV. The room fell silent. She dragged herself from the couch and walked into the kitchen where she found that David had taken the trouble to stack the dishwasher and wipe
the benches before he went off to bed. When he had announced that he was going to bed Emma had said ‘Goodnight’ without looking away from the TV and without searching for a kiss. She, too, was fed up by this stage. A sulky husband is no fun whatsoever.

He had gone and she had continued to watch a depressing documentary on biological warfare. This fits my mood perfectly, she thought. When the documentary ended her life felt a little lighter by comparison. She had seen footage of a dirty fridge in an unsecured lab in Russia which contained enough of a superbug in old jars to wipe out the whole world. Her sulky husband problems now seemed laughable in the face of the total annihilation of life on earth.

Thankfully, for most of us, the great issues of this world are easily shelved while we deal with the smaller issues of our daily existence. Sometimes these weighty issues are completely forgotten moments after they have been reported to us by an earnest and well-meaning journalist simply because the phone rings. Emma found that this sudden exposure to the terrors of Russia’s bankrupt biological warfare department had bumped her out of her specific ‘My husband’s a pig’ mood
into a general ‘The world is an evil place’ mood which only has a shelf life of approximately two and a half minutes in the average optimist’s mind. If Emma was anything she was an optimist.

So by the time she reached the kitchen and discovered that her husband had cleaned up, which she greedily took as a sign that he at least liked her, her mood had bounced back and she was once again herself. That is, her natural life-loving and thoughtful self who always believed that the pleasures in this life were hers simply because she looked for them in earnest.

Emma began to make herself a cup of tea and glanced at the wall clock to see that it was half past ten. The time had made her feel weary. That same weariness a person might experience when they realise they have to wait an hour for the next bus.

FOURTEEN

Emma sat at the kitchen table with her head resting on her hands. She was asleep. All of the kitchen lights were on so that the room was brilliantly lit. To Jason, standing in the half-light outside the window, the scene was oppressive. Emma’s still, silent form in that room of daily productivity made him think of murder, of the unnatural, for she did look unnatural sitting as she was, where she was, at the prearranged time of their rendezvous.

She looked still enough to be dead, though he knew she must be sleeping, but then he was afraid
she might be weeping softly. Her hair was in disarray, spread out over the table. He thought of warm, thick blood oozing from a wound to the head, making a puddle. He imagined a thunderous row and a blow to the skull. David had always frightened him. His personality wasn’t frightening, it was more his great, physical presence. Jason shrank from him. And yet here he was, peering through the man’s window. Emma sanctioned Jason’s behaviour. The responsibility was not his. It was Emma’s.

His primary fear was of being caught by his parents. His heart beat more regularly now that he had escaped soundlessly from his home. He tapped lightly on the window, so lightly he failed to make a sound. The lit room gave him pause. Could David be up? He had been watching her for at least fifteen minutes. Time hung heavily. But he couldn’t open the door, he wouldn’t even try the handle to see if it was unlocked.

Quite unexpectedly Emma moved. Jason flinched and ducked. Then he waited a mere moment and raised himself slowly and peeked over the sill. Emma’s head was still down but she was wiping her mouth. She lifted herself ever so slowly and proceeded to rub her eyes. Her hair
was everywhere. Jason suddenly saw the funny side of her falling asleep. He smiled as he watched Emma come to realise what she had done. She spun around to see the time on the microwave and then her eyes flew to the door. When she turned to the window Jason saw her jump in fright, then smile and beckon him in. Her face had such a muddled, sleepy expression.

Jason made his way to the door and opened it. He now beckoned Emma.

She walked over to him.

‘What?’ she asked in her normal voice. Jason cringed and raised his forefinger to his lips, the international sign of shush! Emma threw him a very cheeky smile and said in a louder than normal voice, ‘Why should I be quiet, Jason? What’s the matter?’

The young man had sprung from his position at the door to the safety of the shadows. Now Emma was laughing. She went to the door and called out to him, ‘Jason! Jason! Whereforarthoujason?’

Out in the shadows Jason was dying a thousand deaths. Had Emma gone mad? Was this a trap? The delight on her face seemed cruel. Emma could still see him, hiding though he was. He hadn’t run home.

‘Why do you run from me, Jason?’

‘Be quiet, Emma,’ he hissed.

‘But why? I don’t understand. Come and give me a kiss, you young stud. Come inside.’

Jason was sure David was awake now and listening. He almost felt, in the morgue-like silence of suburbia, as though Emma’s voice could wake the whole neighbourhood. He was appalled.

Emma was just having a bit of fun at the boy’s expense. She was well aware that David would not be woken by noises or voices in the night. She was certain of it. He may wake to go to the loo. He may wake realising she was not asleep beside her, but he wouldn’t wake at the sound of her voice or voices. As horrible as having to explain herself to David would be, or worse still, having to explain herself to Jason’s parents, the promise of this moment made her willing to take risks. The thrill spoke in a clear simple language her whole body could understand.

But poor Jason hadn’t a clue. He was expecting the worst. His knees might have been knocking together out there like some cartoon character. She hoped they were. She wanted him on high alert.

If the truth be known, Emma had little idea of what she was going to do with Jason. That
afternoon had been one of the most deliciously frustrating of her entire sexual life. Sending him home, postponing pleasure, denying herself gratification was exciting. But she could not hold out indefinitely. When she had made the call to him she was calling as one sexual adult to another. She wanted for Jason to come over and fulfil the promise of the afternoon. The cup had spilled over and her desire had been unchecked.

But now, her blood having cooled, she was once more in control and saw Jason for what he was, a young, inexperienced lover. He wasn’t capable of taking her the way she had wanted. But he
was
capable. That afternoon’s play had uncovered much. Emma was surprised by her feelings for him. His purity, his gentle spirit, his naked, candid ardour had enticed a like response from her. She had felt such tenderness for him, a tenderness which warmed her from within. She had reached a point where every part of Jason was desirable, where the shape of his knee, the minute hairs on the back of his hands, his moist, warm breath were all magnified, and hypnotically absorbing.

‘Come on in, Jason,’ she whispered, holding out her hand for him to take. She knew she would have to coax him in now that she had had her fun.

The poor boy hesitated. Emma stepped out into the backyard. The damp grass was spongy and her soft bare feet sank into it voluptuously. The natural sensuality of each step stimulated her senses and wakened her entirely from her unscheduled nap. She was reminded of Jason’s kisses to her foot.