The Nature of Cruelty (33 page)

My mum calls, and we chat for over an hour, and then Sasha texts me at six saying she’s bringing sushi home for dinner. Robert gets back later than usual just as we’re dishing up the food. He wraps one arm around my waist while popping a California roll into his mouth.

“Hey, beautiful,” he says, nuzzling my neck.

“Uh, would you stop?” Sasha complains, sitting on a stool by the counter. “I’m trying to eat.”

Robert smiles, showing teeth, and simply answers, “Nope.”

When his mouth brushes under my ear, I feel tingles all the way down my spine. I try to distract myself by turning to Sasha and asking, “So, how was your day?”

“Shit start. Okay middle. Ending still to be determined. Oh, and I met Alistair for lunch and told him.”

“Told him…?” I ask quizzically.

“About, you know, being gay,” she explains, moving her lips around in a funny, nervous manner.

“That’s great, Sasha! What did he say?”

“Same as Robert, that he knew all along.” She points her sushi roll at her brother. “The two of you are a pair of know-it-all bastards.”

Robert chuckles.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I never suspected.”

Sasha laughs. “Yeah, you’ve got zero gaydar. Anyway, remember that editor I was telling you about? The one who’s always giving me hassle?”

“Yeah.”

“He went ape-shit at me when I refused to make the changes he suggested for that Molly Willis article. He told me he’d let it slide this time, but if I ever pulled a stunt like that again I’d be getting the sack. I’m half tempted to keep pushing him just to put myself out of my own misery.”

“Who is this arsehole?” Robert asks, narrowing his eyes, the protective brother in him coming out.

Sasha shakes her head at him. “No one I can’t handle.”

We finish eating and then spend the rest of the evening watching movies in the living room. Robert pulls me to lie beside him on the couch, his hand snaking under my top and stroking meditatively at my belly. Sasha lets out a big, theatrical yawn midway through one of the films and says she’s going to hit the hay. I think she does it on purpose so she doesn’t have to watch Robert subtly groping me in front of her.

My cheeks are hot and my body practically quaking with need by the time she leaves.

“Come on,” Robert whispers in my ear. “I think we should get some sleep, too.”

He leads me to my room, where I begin changing into my night clothes. I don’t get the chance to put them on because he yanks them away from me and drags me down onto the bed in my underwear. Then he draws away from me quickly, tells me not to move, and says he’ll be right back, rushing from the room. I do as he requests, waiting in anticipation. When he returns, he’s got his camera and what I suspect is the outline of a condom in his pocket.

As usual, my heart beats faster at the sight of the camera. I both love and loathe him photographing me in equal measures.

While I’m still strewn across the bed, he begins snapping shots, tilting the camera at a skewed angle. He kneels on the bed and reaches out to pull my knickers down slightly below my pubic bone, taking a picture.

“Rob,” I say, breathing heavily.

“What?” he replies, a smiling curving his lips. He fingers the edge of my knickers, the pad of his thumb adding pressure.

“You’re too much sometimes.”

He looks pleased. “Why, thank you. Now, open your legs for me.”

I sigh shakily. “God, why do you have to say such sexy things? I’ve no defence against them.”

He chuckles, and after taking several more pictures he puts the camera aside and seizes my lips in a wet kiss, at the same time edging my pants down my legs. I help him with his clothes and soon we’re both naked, just staring at one another. The head of his penis rocks back and forth against my clit, making me moan. The condom is sitting on one of the pillows, and Robert looks at it, frustrated.

“I wish we didn’t have to use that,” he says, throwing his head back in pleasure at the friction between our bodies.

Biting my lip, I ask, “
Do
we have to use it?”

Indecision flickers in his eyes. “Fuck. Yeah, we do. I haven’t been tested. I know I don’t have anything, but I don’t want to put you at risk just in case.”

“Okay,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut and yearning for him to be inside me.

He bends forward and licks up the centre of my breasts, his fingers tweaking my nipples. Quick as a flash he has the condom on, ready to go.

“Hmm, your taste is addicting,” he purrs, hitching my leg behind his hip and slowly pushing himself into me.

He fills me deliciously, and although there’s still a slight soreness, it feels different this time. Maddeningly pleasurable. I grip his shoulders and moan, closing my eyes at the sensation.

“Shit,” he hisses, eyes flickering over my face, taking in my reaction to him. We stay still for a moment, me looking up at him and him looking down at me, our bodies connected, locked together tight. His hand travels down my neck and rests on my collarbone, just before he begins moving in and out. He keeps it slow at first, but gradually builds up speed, thrusting faster.

When he pumps into me hard, I cry out, and he groans in return. Remembering that Sasha’s in her room asleep just down the hall, I try to quieten myself, but it’s difficult when he does it hard like that. I get lost, and all I want is more.

“You don’t even know how beautiful you are,” he breathes, panting heavily. “You ruined me for anyone else the very first time I saw you.”

I let his words soak in, realising he did that exact same thing to me. The day I met Sasha when they’d been moving into their cottage and she’d introduced Robert as her brother, I don’t think I’d ever seen a boy so pretty. He’d affected me so much that I could hardly speak. Interrupting my thoughts, he grabs me around the waist and suddenly flips us so that I’m on top of him, straddling his thighs as he pumps himself up into me.

His big, warm hand spans out over my lower belly, his fingers pressing in as he encourages me to find my own rhythm and just go with it. Feeling shy at first, I move back and forth on his cock, and once the pleasure builds up I forget all of my self-consciousness. He laces his fingers through mine now, holding both of my hands and murmuring soft, sexy things to me, about how perfect my breasts are, how he’s obsessed with my mouth. The one that really gets me, though, is when he tells me I’m his, that I belong to him and him to me.

My heart swells at the possessive, adoring, worshipping look on his face, like I’m the most amazing thing he’s ever set eyes on. That’s when I can’t hold back any longer. I have to get the words out, or it feels like they’ll obliterate me whole. His thumb is circling my clit, bringing me to orgasm, and when I come with him still inside me, the declaration, “I love you,” spills from my lips.

Robert’s mouth hangs open as he absorbs what I’ve just whispered to him. “I love you, too,” he says back, almost growling, and then I feel him filling me, coming long and hard. I flop down onto his chest and close my eyes, moments later drifting into sleep.

I wake up later for just a second, because Robert’s pulling out of me. He goes inside the en-suite to wash up and then he’s back, his warm body curling around mine. The next time I wake up, it’s early morning, and Robert’s leaving me again to head for work. As usual, I wish he didn’t have to go. I’m so in love that I just want to spend a whole month alone with him, doing nothing but having sex and eating and laughing with one another. Perhaps even talking about our past and what we’d really been feeling when we’d been putting up a false wall of hate.

He stands by the bed, staring down at me, the morning sun shining through the sheer curtains.

“Was I dreaming?” he asks, a small smile lifting his jaw. “Or did you tell me you loved me last night?”

Despite his smile, he looks vulnerable, a rare thing to see in Robert. It feels like I’m holding his happiness in the palm of my hand and whatever way I respond is monumental to his fate.

Smiling into the pillow and pulling the sheet up to cover my breasts, I reply, “Yeah, I did. And I do.”

The grin that splits his lips is beautiful to see. Suddenly, it seems like there’s a light in him that wasn’t there before, like a fracture in his soul is now sealed back together.

He kneels down by the bed and pets my hair. “You love me, baby?”

“I love you, Robert,” I hum, enjoying the feel of his touch.

“I love you back,” he replies, smiling widely and bending down to pull the sheet away again and nuzzle each of my breasts. After picking up his discarded clothes from last night, he walks out of my room, blowing me a kiss and closing the door softly behind him.

Seventeen

T
he next couple of weeks are a happy, sex-filled blur. Robert and I find ways to spend as much time together as possible. On my days off I have lunch with him at his office, where he orders in delicious gourmet food, some of which is a tad rich and I shouldn’t be eating, but I’m too blissed out to care. I never feel
that
sick, just a little tired sometimes, so it must not be causing too much damage to my health. Or perhaps my happiness is overriding it somehow?

At night Robert slips inside my room, strips me naked, and makes crazy, intense, passionate love to me for hours. I’m reminded of that lyric from “I Dreamed a Dream,” about tigers coming at night with their voices soft as thunder. Robert’s soft voice shatters through me like thunder; his lips and his body mark me, possess me.

Let’s just say I don’t get as much sleep as I used to.

When Robert’s inside me, he has this habit of whispering naughty things in my ear like
your tight little pussy was made for me
or
my cock fits in you so perfect.
I’m getting used to the dirty talk (and finding that I actually like it a good deal).

His breath whispers across my skin like smoke, mysterious and hazy. It feels like he never gets his fill, and, to be perfectly honest, I’m the exact same. I’m becoming more confident with sex, sometimes even taking the lead and initiating it. Whenever I do, Robert gets this look on his face, like he couldn’t be more turned on if he tried.

A couple of mornings ago I woke to find his head between my legs, his tongue lapping at me. All I could do was stretch out like a cat and moan at how wonderful it felt. Our bodies constantly orbit each other, in sync to what we both want and need.

It’s been four weeks since Robert went for an STD test to make sure it’s safe for us to have unprotected sex. The results haven’t come back yet, but it’s obvious we’re both waiting eagerly for the day when they do, so that we can be together without any barriers.

When I go for a checkup at the local GP, I also ask the doctor to put me on the contraceptive pill. He seems hesitant, since it can mess with my diabetes somewhat, but I’m insistent, and in the end he provides a prescription, telling me that I will have to adjust my insulin intake accordingly. Next, he performs a check on my blood sugars. He frowns when he consults the temporary file my doctor from back home sent over, noting that my levels aren’t as good as they had been.

I’ve suspected this to be the case, but I don’t fret on it. Instead, I agree to be more careful from now on. Life’s been hectic recently, and I haven’t had as much time to plan healthy, timely meals and exercise like I used to. I’ve also forgotten my insulin injections once or twice, which is entirely out of character for me. It’s not good for it to keep happening, and this checkup is the little shock I needed to get my act together.

I still haven’t told Mum about Robert and me being together, because if I did she’d probably hop on a flight to London and drag me home by the scruff of the neck. Being a policewoman, she always thinks she knows what’s best for everyone.

Sometimes when I’m on the phone and she’s giving me yet another lecture about being careful when I’m out alone in the city and to be wary of making new friends, because they could turn out to be psychos, I feel like screaming at her and telling her that you can’t always calculate life in a perfect equation. That sometimes your emotions fill you up to the point of bursting and you have to follow them wherever they want to lead you.

Of course, I never actually say this. Mum is the worst person to argue with because she’s brilliant at staying calm and sober, while I’m the opposite. She has this way of making me erratic and temperamental. I’ll often start crying through my words and getting a blotchy red face.

In the last week of July, the Olympics are in full swing, and the city feels like a crazy place to be. It’s exciting. There are people everywhere from all over the world, and when I go to Hyde Park on my regular visits to Speaker’s Corner, I get to hear even more passionate arguments than before, get to view even more walks of life. There’s a buzz in the air. Or maybe it’s just because I’m so deeply in love with Robert I feel like I’m drowning in my own hormones and bodily chemical reactions. All of a sudden, everything seems colourful and bright.

One afternoon Sasha asks me to sit with her while she Skypes her mum. It’s a monumental occasion. She’s going to come out to her. Liz sits in front of the web cam on the old computer in her kitchen, staring nervously back at the two of us, clearly thinking we’ve got bad news.

I can’t blame her.

Sasha’s got this big serious face on like she’s going to confess to murder. I still have a lot of work to do to show her that she doesn’t need to be ashamed for being who she is.

“Hello, girls, you’re both looking well,” says Liz, moving from side to side anxiously in her seat.

“Thanks, Liz,” I say, trying to sound as cheerful as possible to cancel out Sasha’s dour mood.

“Mum,” Sasha croaks out, “I have something I need to tell you.”

You know Sasha’s really making an effort when she calls her mother “Mum” instead of by her first name.

“What is it?” Liz asks softly, a small bit frantic.

Despite being best friends, Liz and my mother are extremely different. Liz is hare-brained and wears her heart on her sleeve, whereas my mum is what you would call “emotionally stunted.” She talks in a way that’s overly blunt and to the point. I know she loves me, it’s just that she doesn’t have the capacity to show it in the conventional way. Instead of giving me a hug like my grandmother Penny often would, Mum provides me with a stern pats on the shoulder or silent nods of approval.