The Not So Invisible Woman (15 page)

'I'm wearing my Christmas pants,' I said.

He laughed. 'Very nice they are, too,' he said, before removing them for me.

Sitting on the side of the bed, I pulled Paul's T-shirt above his head, or tried to. He was much taller than I, so my arms weren't long enough to get the shirt over his head. But his jeans were easier, as they were loose and needed little assistance to slip off his body.

'I've lost tons of weight,' he said, apologising. 'I hope you like skinny men.

'I
love
skinny men,' I replied, truthfully, and slipped between the sheets.

I looked down at his briefs. His hard-on was clearly visible and I went to stroke the outside of the fabric. I was desperate to touch him, but Paul wouldn't let me.

'Wait,' he said. 'We have plenty of time.' He looked seriously at me. 'I want to
make love
to you.'

'Make love'. It must have been five years since I'd heard those two words used together. Most men just wanted to fuck me.

Paul pulled off his pants and climbed in next to me.

He crawled between my legs, and caressed my pussy with his tongue. It may have been the combination of the grass and alcohol, or it may have been because, for the first time in a very long time, I had met someone with whom I wanted to spend more than one night. Whatever it was, Paul's desire was contagious and I became lost in feeling his tongue around my clit.

'You're very good at that,' I whispered in between moans.

'I'm sure you've had better,' he said.

'No,' I said, truthfully. 'I really don't know that I have.'

He stayed between my legs for twenty minutes or more, then grabbed a condom, rolled it over his cock, and slid himself into me. He was not big, not anywhere near what I was used to, but the pheromones dancing in my body more than made up for his size. I felt completely in tune with his body and his rhythm, letting him slide in and out of me while enjoying feeling him inside and hearing his breath quicken. The tension and pace increased with every stroke.

'I think you're amazing,' he said.

'Thanks, but I'm really not so special,' I said. 'I'm just Suzanne.'

'No, you're amazing, Suzanne.'

After about ten minutes Paul let out a tremendous scream. I had never heard anyone scream so loudly during sex before. I was amused. I took it as a compliment.

I didn't come but that was not unusual when I was with someone I liked a lot. I could orgasm quickly with swinging partners or strangers, but when my head and pheromones got involved, I become overstimulated, overexcited. I can't relax enough to come.

'That was some noise,' I said.

'I haven't come in ages,' he said. 'I don't wank.'

'What do you mean, you don't wank?' I'd never heard of a man who didn't. 'Why not?'

'It's not very comfortable,' he said. Paul explained that he had a medical problem that made masturbating uncomfortable. 'I've got an attached foreskin, and it's too tight around the head, so if there's too much pressure, sometimes it rips. It's really painful, so why bother?'

'Why don't you just get it sorted out?' I asked.

'You're right, I should,' he said, but then admitted he was nervous about it. 'What if something goes wrong? You know, it's ... Down there.'

'It can't be that uncommon. Surely it's better to get it sorted out than to not be able to enjoy sex.'

'Don't worry about me, sweetheart. I just want to make you come.'

I told him I'd had too much to drink and that it wasn't going to happen.

I slept over that night and the next morning Paul woke up early to make me a cup of tea. He brought me some homemade oatmeal, stirred with raisins, seeds, and honey. It was delicious, in part because it was such a rare gesture. I couldn't remember the last time a man made me breakfast.

I smiled as I got back into my car. Cock problems aside, I felt like I'd met someone special.

He's not right for you, Suzanne,' Pat said. We were talking about my latest crush, Paul. He and I had been seeing each other for a couple of weeks, and I was giving her the latest.

'Why do you say that?' I said. 'He's your mate.'

'He's just not ... right,' she said. 'For you, I mean. You're too experienced for him, too dynamic. You wrote a book about your fucking life, for God's sake. Paul would never do that. He's actually rather boring.'

This was surprising news coming from the woman who'd given me her old buddy's number.

'Well, I don't think he's boring,' I said. 'I think he's great. I really like him. And he's a great kisser.'

Pat and Paul had known each other for a decade, since working together on a film. Paul had given her a start in the industry at a time when she didn't know anyone. She'd just come to London from Ireland and was looking for work, and Paul was a big-cheese animator, running his own studio in Soho. He gave her some freelance assignments, and the friendship blossomed from there. Ironically, now she was animating her own pop videos, and his company had gone down and he was working part-time in retail, to boost his income.

'He doesn't even own a computer, Suzanne,' said Pat, piling on the evidence. 'He chucked it when he lost the company.'

'So?' I said. 'It's not his electronics I'm interested in.'

'How can you go out with a man that doesn't own a computer, especially someone who used to work in computer graphics? He can't receive emails, he can't go on the web – it's nuts. What kind of a person doesn't own a computer in the twenty-first fucking century?' she added. 'And he drinks too much.'

'Who doesn't? This is boozy Britannia. Aside from you, everyone drinks.'

Pat told me that the last time she'd seen Paul, he'd come over for a cup of tea and ended up drinking a fifth of whisky.

'It was the only booze I had in, since ... you know, the good ol' days. It was there for historic reasons.'

Pat had teetotalled for a decade. And after Paul poured her last sentimental bottle down his throat a couple of weeks earlier, she'd decided she didn't want to see him any more. Still, I questioned her motives. I wondered whether her advice to steer clear was impartial or based on a deeper desire to rid him completely from her life. She knew she'd never get Paul out of her life if he became a part of mine.

In any case, I've never been the type to take advice from friends. I prefer to make my own mistakes.

After Pat gave me his number, Paul and I spoke on the phone almost every day, and we got together for a bonk every kids-free weekend. But it always seemed to be me who took the initiative. I made the calls, and half the time Paul didn't pick up. When he did, I realised, I was the one doing most of the talking. It was a real reversal of the Suzanne–Max dynamic.

'I just like listening to you,' he said when I asked him why he was always so quiet. I could never quite shake the image I'd formed back on our first date in Soho House. He'd sat next to me wide-eyed and overly excited as I talked, at his prodding, about my life and book. He seemed almost star-struck, and that made me uneasy. I was hardly Jacqueline Susann.

And yet he introduced me to his friends as if I were. 'Suzanne is the most amazing woman I've ever met,' he said when we ran into his mates at his local. He did it on our first date, and on our second. By our third, I went from flattered to embarrassed. I began to suspect I wasn't a date, but a trophy. He told his buddies about my book. 'She wrote a best-selling book about her sex life and she has a blog that's read by thousands. She's the most famous person I've ever known.'

'Can we talk about something else, Paul? That's a large Chardonnay for me.'

Paul couldn't talk about me without mentioning my book or my blog, or promising to actually buy the book he obsessed over so publicly. But buying the book was always a future-tense event. He always asked to buy a dozen copies from me, at a discount, so he could give one to his friends.

'You'll get them cheaper on Amazon,' I said, half joking.

For someone who had seemed so keen on me, Paul, when it came to the phone, was like so many men I'd met before. He had a challenging relationship with his mobile. One of the guys I fucked regularly, a dancer named Pauli, who was a pal of Rump Shaker's, was capable only of responding to text messages. Brendan, a theatre director, took a minimum of three days to respond to his voice messages. John, the taxi driver, took six hours to respond to his, and then, like Pauli, got back only by text. The thought had crossed my mind to start an Excel sheet just to keep track of the communications preferences of the men in my life. Some preferred voice, some preferred text, some just liked turning up when they were horny. Paul, I learned, just hated phones. But then, communication wasn't his forte.

After a few weeks and a few bonks, when I thought we'd become a regular thing, I called Paul for a catch-up. When a full day elapsed without hearing from him, I became concerned.

'Are you OK?' I asked when he finally rang back.

'What do you mean?'

'I left a couple of messages and, when I didn't hear from you, I thought maybe you'd fallen off your bike or that something dreadful had happened.'

'Oh sorry, sweetheart,' he said. 'I'm crap at communicating. I really am. But, actually, I'm surprised you care.'

'What do you mean, surprised I care?' I didn't want to say I'd thought we were dating, but the truth was, I had rather thought we were.

'Well, I've read your book. I didn't think you did the attached thing. I'm flattered.'

I didn't understand why he'd be flattered. I just thought he'd be happy that I cared. I realised that he defined me by my book and by my web blog, which he told me he read daily, and not by who I was. I was an author, or a character, but not a woman.

'Anyway,' said Paul, diverting. He told me that he'd left his phone at the bottom of his bag, on silent, and then forgotten about it. For a man who supposedly was looking for a better job, he didn't seem so anxious to check his messages. No email, phone switched off, I wondered if he expected prospective clients to get in touch with him by carrier pigeon. I was relieved that he was OK, but his laissez-faire attitude jarred with my own sensibilities. I've always believed that, if you're in a relationship with someone, a daily call is the least one should expect. Fuck buddies are different. I only hear from them, or they from me, when either of us wants sex. It caused pause that I heard from my fuck buddies more often than I heard from Paul.

'So, what are you up to Friday. You wanna get together? I'm meeting up with some friends at the pub.'

Pat's evidence of his unsuitability was beginning to stack up. Paul didn't like the phone, he didn't own a computer and, I soon found out, he didn't seem to want sex as much as he liked a drink.

Every time we got together and had sex, there were three of us in bed: Paul, me, and a bottle. We'd meet at the pub, stay until closing, and then wobble back to his flat for some after-hours action. I loved the way he kissed me, I loved his tenderness and the chemistry between us, but after the third time we 'made love' – to use his words – I wondered how much of the love was alcohol-induced and how much was real passion.

Then there was the issue of the orgasm. I rarely come when I'm drunk. But being with Paul meant being drunk. Thinking back on what Pat had said, I began to think that perhaps she was right.

'Do you realise we only fuck when we're pissed?' I said one morning. It was well after noon, after yet another night on the tiles, and yet another orgasm-free evening.

'No, we don't,' he said.

'Yes, we do,' I said. 'Think about it. We always meet at the pub. Always. And then we go back to yours. Drunk.'

Paul remained silent.

I've never needed to get drunk in order to get laid. Many of my friends do; they use alcohol or drugs as foreplay, and find my relative sobriety a hard thing to contemplate. To me, having a couple of drinks is great for releasing inhibitions and getting the party started, but, unlike many women, I've never found it necessary to drink away sex guilt. I don't have guilt; I know what I want, and alcohol is not going to make me want something any more than I already do. I can suck off a room full of men I've never met, in a sex club full of people I've never seen, and do it sober. I like cock a hell of a lot more than I like alcohol. I like the way a man's tongue feels on my clit, the endorphin high when a cock enters me or when I take one in my mouth. Alcohol dulls the sensations. It is the amateurs who need the boost; the men in my phone book, and the women and men I know from the swinging scene, are teetotallers. Sex is their high.

Paul didn't return my calls on schedule. He drank too much. And, to round it off, there was the penis problem. Despite his coming, loudly, the first night we were together, the encounters that followed were marred by the foreskin issue. Paul would enter me and then, without warning, usually about five minutes into it and always in the mish, suddenly pull out and scream in agony.

'Sorry, sweetheart,' he'd say, when he could finally speak. 'It really hurts.'

'That's OK,' I'd say, in my concerned Florence Nightingale voice. I knew that was the end of the evening's entertainment.

Paul would roll off of me and we'd have a cuddle.

I'd never found myself so frustrated as when Paul and I were in bed together. We'd be fucking but, instead of relaxing into the sensations, I'd be worrying that he wasn't getting any pleasure out of it. And I'd find myself waiting for the moment when he'd scream.

At some point, just a few minutes into a fuck but long before my orgasm would kick in, I'd be thinking about the skin around the head of his cock and how it might tear from too much friction. I couldn't relax and he didn't really want to come.

Two months after our first date, I realised the situation was grim. Yet, in an attempt to salvage the relationship, I invited Paul to join me and my kids in India for the Christmas holidays. London wasn't working for us, but I hoped a spell on the beach would be the Band-Aid our relationship needed.

'How much is that going to cost?' he said.

'About seventeen hundred pounds,' I said. 'But it's a five-star hotel, and it's on the south coast. It's gorgeous.'

'God,' he said. He waited a full thirty seconds before continuing. 'I couldn't spend that much on a holiday. I've
never
spent that much on a holiday. That's just not me. Sorry, sweetheart.'

So much for the geographical cure. 'OK, understood,' I said. 'I'll send you a postcard.'

All signs pointed to the exit, and to my portfolio of men collecting dust in the background of my mind. I had to admit what I already knew: I needed a man who could enjoy sex, a man who could make me come. I could be a one-man woman for the right guy. Unfortunately, Paul wasn't that guy.

I'd jumped off the merry-go-round of men but, instead of finding respite, I got the itch that made me want to jump back on again.

I hadn't had a monogamous relationship since Karume. I had tried to fit into my Mr Contender box a man who didn't belong there. Waiting for the phone to ring, having sex in the missionary position, getting drunk as a precursor to having sex, then dreading the shriek that brought it all to an end – none of that was for me. If the sex had been mind-blowing or kinky, or even merely satisfying, I might have given it a chance. The truth was, I'd found Paul attractive and sexy and cool, but once the loved-up phase had worn off, I had to admit we were just too different.

After all, on top of the other issues, Paul was not the type to understand my having other lovers.

'I've never dated more than one girl at a time,' he once told me, after admitting he couldn't comprehend my having a portfolio of guys. He knew, having read my book, that I wasn't big on monogamy.

I explained that I could be monogamous, and had been during periods in my life, but this was probably not destined to be one of them. After a while I realized it wasn't what I wanted. I could not see myself in a conventional relationship, not now, not yet.

I don't think Paul could even comprehend that concept. It was too far removed from his own experience. He found it exciting to be with someone whose life had been so different from his own, but unlike some of my regular playmates, he didn't want to be a part of that journey, and wasn't quite able to understand it. I came to the conclusion he enjoyed reading about himself in my blog more than being with me. I suspected it made him feel like a minor celeb in my very small world.

I missed my kinky playpals: Carl, who loved it when I sucked him off in a steam room in front of an audience; Sam, who blindfolded me and fucked me in the ass; and Greg, who always talked dirty at just the right moment. They made me laugh. They made me come. I didn't have to think about whether they would ring or like my kids or come on holiday with me. I'd compromised who I was during my ten-year marriage and with the live-ins who followed, and I'd gotten burned in the process. Now, older and wiser, I wasn't about to settle any more. I'd been having a fine time before Paul came along.

More importantly, I preferred being single. There was no brain damage attached to it. With Paul, it was all about expectation. Will he call me back? Was he going to be around over my kids-free weekend? Was I ever going to have orgasm?

Pat was right, of course. Sensible Pat. Paul wasn't the one for me.

I stopped calling him for our biweekly dates. And, as usual, he did not call. But now and then I found myself thirsty and in the mood for a booze-up. I may have lost a lover, but at least I gained a reliable drinking buddy.