The Not So Invisible Woman (6 page)

I never understood the appeal of younger men until I met Kafele. Twenty-seven years old, five-foot ten and slim, he had the body of a footballer and a thick seven-inch cock, and he could make me come just by swivelling his hips for a few minutes. In or out of bed, he moved like a dancer, perhaps because music was his preferred form of communication. Which was just as well, since he knew only about 25 words of English, and of those, about half were related to sex or human anatomy, introduced into his vocabulary by me.

Originally from Senegal, he had recently come to the UK on a music sponsorship to teach the kora, a complicated African instrument that looked like an oddly shaped guitar and sounded like a harp. It is a beautiful instrument. And so was Kafele. I fell for him the moment I saw him.

Nadia had invited me to Momo for a catch-up, as we'd not seen each other for weeks. A Senegalese band was playing on the stage, and their music sounded lovely, but I didn't pay much attention at first. I was trying to flag down the cocktail waitress who was flirting with the bartender. My children had just gone off to upstate New York for a month at summer camp, and I wanted to celebrate my liberation. I'd been taking advantage of my new-found freedom by going out most nights and seeing friends.

After ordering a glass of rose, I turned towards the stage and noticed a handsome black man sitting just a few feet away from my table, at the front of the stage. He was wearing traditional African clothing: a brightly patterned knee-length kaftan, loose black cotton under-trousers, and sandals. The big drum that formed the bottom part of his kora was wedged like a phallic totem between his legs.

I was wearing a black-and-white polka-dot dress and a pair of red high heels. It was an outfit better suited to a burlesque show than a Moroccan drinking club, but then Momo was meant to be a pit stop, a quick hello to Nadia before heading over to Modern Times, a retro cabaret at the Cafe Royal in Piccadilly.

As the kora player performed, I couldn't stop staring at him and, I couldn't help noticing, he at me. Smiling and swaying along to the music, I listened intently, watching his graceful hands move up and down the strings. His fingers moved so quickly, yet so sensuously, I wondered what they would feel like on my body. When Nadia came over during the break, I leaned across the table and said quietly, nodding towards the stage, 'He's gorgeous.'

'Who?' she said.

'That one,' I said, pointing to the kora player.

'Oh, yes, darling' she said. 'He's sweet.'

'I don't know about "sweet" but he's absolutely beautiful.'

When Nadia went back to her mixing desk and the musicians returned for their second set, my eyes went back to the stage. As I watched my kora player, I worked up a chat-up line for after the show.

When the performance was over, the band left the stage. Just as I began wondering if I'd ever see the kora player again, he emerged from back-stage left wearing a pale-blue patterned shirt and dark trousers. Now he looked more like the footballers whose pictures my sons hung on their bedroom walls than an African musician.

I watched as the kora player walked over to the bar. Shortly afterwards, Nadia came up to my table. 'He wants to meet you,' she said.

'What did you say to him?' I asked, equal parts suspicious and delighted.

'Nothing, darling!' she said. Her tone sounded a bit too innocent.

'Yeah, right,' I replied, laughing. I knew Nadia well enough to figure she'd probably said a little more than nothing.

I walked up to the bar under the pretence of ordering another drink. 'A glass of rose,' I said to the barman. Then I turned to the kora player. 'I really liked your playing.'

'Thank you,
merci,'
he said. He was softly spoken, with a pleasing French-African accent. He hung his head slightly, then shyly glanced up at me. 'You are beautiful.'

'Thank you.' My mother taught me that when a girl gets a compliment, her job is to say those two simple words, and then change the subject. It's rude to disagree, she said. I'm an attractive 46-year-old, a 34DD, size 12 (size 8 in the US, as I liked to remind myself, that lower number sounding so much better). I've got good legs and a firm ass, thanks to a decade with a tough personal trainer. Unlike a lot of other women my age, I never wear make-up – or underwear, for that matter. I've never had Botox, nor even pondered any kind of surgical reconstruction. I'm counting on my good genes to see me through – even in their seventies, my parents look ten years younger than their age – if only because a lifelong fear of needles means I will probably never go under the knife. I'm no supermodel, but I'm quite all right.

I hadn't heard that chat-up line in a long time. If only all men knew those three words was all they needed to say to a girl. 'What's your name?' I asked.

'Kafele,' he said.

'Nice to meet you, Kafilly.'

'Kafele.' He smiled.

'OK,' I replied. 'Kah-
feh
-leh.' His was the kind of name I tended to forget instantly. Not Hugh, not Nigel. 'Kafele. Kafele.' I have a terrible memory for names, and foreign ones have an especially poor chance of sinking in. Thus my frequent employment of the all-purpose 'sweetheart'.

Cuban music was screaming out of the speakers, its salsa beat so appealing. 'Would you like to dance?' I said.

'Yes.' Kafele took my hand and led me to the middle of the restaurant, which now served as a dance floor. His feet instantly moved to the three-step rhythm. He held me close. Soon we were not just touching, but rubbing up against each other. Kafele was very slim, but I saw that his forearms were nicely toned and felt firm biceps under his short-sleeved shirt. Drummer's arms. Then, as he pushed his body into mine, I felt his six-pack and pecs. And I felt his cock get hard.

When the song ended, I leaned in to kiss Kafele. He did not pull away. His tongue moved to find mine, and his soft lips pressed against my own. I put my hand around the back of his neck and pulled him into me. I felt his hard-on again. As his tongue grew more insistent, I became aware of myself getting wet. We kissed for four or five minutes, which is to say, about a week in public-space time. We remained in the middle of the dance floor.

'Do you live near?' he asked at last.

'I have a car,' I said. 'Would you like to come back with me?'

'I like that.'

We left the club and walked to my car. It was parked in Golden Square, about five minutes away. The two of us walked hand in hand, like schoolchildren.

'This is nice car,' he said when I pressed the key fob to release the locks on the doors.

'Thanks,' I said. 'It's a BMW 118. But it's not mine, it's a lease.'

'OK. Very nice.'

I wasn't sure if he understood what I had said, but suddenly remembering that his English was limited, I pulled a Trojan music compilation out of the glove compartment and put it in the player so we didn't have to talk much.

Twenty minutes later, we were inside my house. Five minutes after that, we were naked in bed.

I hadn't asked how old Kafele was, and I didn't want to know. Looking at his smooth brown skin, his hard, hairless body and his fine features, I guessed he could have been anywhere between nineteen and thirty and, even if thirty, that would have made him nearly young enough to be my son. That is not exactly a turn-on for me. From my limited experience of sleeping with younger men, I've learned three things:

1. Young men have their limits as lovers. They can get it up faster and keep it up longer than older men, but they lack the sexual finesse of a more-experienced man.

2. Their cultural references are at odds with mine. The proof added up over the years, of course, as, one by one, boys I met didn't know who Bobby Sherman was, couldn't sing along to 'One Less Bell to Answer', didn't understand the reference to the 'Robert Palmer-video chick' look. I gave up on boy-toys after telling a guy two decades my junior that I'd always regretted not going to the Roxy to see Johnny Rotten with my classmates. 'Wasn't he the guy –' I should have known this was coming '– in
I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!?

3. They are expensive. While they're still climbing the career ladder, I'm close to the top. That means I've learned to eat at decent restaurants, and am expected to pay if I want to bring along someone young enough to wear bell-bottoms without irony.

Kafele was different, at least in some important ways. He made up for his lack of language skills with bedroom skills, as I learned during our first night together. As a lover, he was hardly an amateur. When we fucked, he moved and led as if we were still dancing. Our hips rotated in time to our own tempo, even our tongues, touching and darting and circling, worked like well-rehearsed partners. Kafele said little when we fucked. He didn't really need to. The sex was so fluid, words were unnecessary.

'You don't talk very much, do you?' I said the second time we screwed in silence.

'I talk with the body,' he said.

And he did. He was not a graduate of the Hard and Fast School of Sex. He seemed never to be in a rush. I loved it when he sucked and licked my nipples and caressed my skin. He was sensuous, not rough, and, like most men of his generation, he could keep it up for hours. He was sweet, devoted to my pleasure. Perhaps that's why his most memorable act in the bedroom was holding my ass open while watching himself take me from behind. He would rise up, push away from me with his arms, and position himself for a better view. That was as kinky as he got, and even that wasn't particularly kinky – not on my tricks continuum, anyway – but at least it was a diversion from the constant sweetness and attentiveness. His body was gorgeous and fucking him felt great, but there's only so many times I can do the missionary position with someone before I grow bored. Dark on the outside, vanilla between the sheets.

Still, he was a welcome stand-in for Karume, my ex-boyfriend. Karume, another sexy African, had called himself a one-woman man but his lies, I eventually learned, were as long as his dick. He lied regularly ('I'll be home by seven'), cheated on me ('That's not lipstick'), stole my car ('I just moved it closer to the house'), couldn't hold a job ('My boss is an asshole'), and then lied some more. He was trouble. But I stuck with him for a year, on and off, and even let him move in for three months, because he was kind of kinky, so the sex was always fresh. After Karume, I wanted a break from brain damage and welcomed being with a person who was happy to just be with me, without having to say a word.

One night I sat on Kafele's chest and stared down at him, taking in his youthful face and body. I stroked his broad shoulders, his rippled chest, his narrow waist. His hard body, along with the contrast of his brown skin against my own pale flesh, was arousing. I pinched his nipples playfully. He stared up at me with his big brown eyes.

'You are very beautiful,' I said.

'Merci. Thank you,' he said. Then he laughed and thrust his pelvis playfully into me.

I moaned. 'That feels too good,' I said. 'If you don't stop it, Kafele, you're going to make me come. I don't want to come just yet.' It was only fifteen minutes after we'd climbed into bed. 'Can you eat my pussy?' I said.

He squinted his eyes and looked at me. The furrow of his brow made clear his lack of understanding.

'Eat ... my ... pussy,' I repeated.

'Pardon?'

'Eat.' I stood up on my knees and began inching up his chest. 'My.' I moved closer. Then I thrust my pelvis to make my point. 'Pussy.'

'I am sorry,' he said. 'I do not understand.'

I'd never had to play sexual charades before and felt a little self-conscious sticking out my tongue. 'Eat,' I said, pointing to my tongue, moving it left and right. Then I pointed at my pussy. 'My . . .'

'Ah!' he said.

'Yes!' I said.

'Oh,' he said. 'OK.' I climbed off him and lay on my back. Kafele crawled between my legs and began gently rolling his tongue around. 'Like this?'

'Yes,' I said. I was relieved that I didn't have to explain the
bow
of it.

I felt myself getting wet within seconds, and then the urge to be filled took over. I climbed back on top of him.

He pushed into me again and within a minute my pussy started to pulsate around his cock. I came. Then Kafele turned me over and moved on top of me one more time. The aftershocks of my orgasm were still lingering as I felt his cock harden, felt his breath quicken.

'Oui! Oui!,'
he said.
'Ouais!'
His come poured into me.

Kafele lay on top of me a few minutes longer and buried his face in my neck. Then he rolled over and wrapped an arm around me. We kissed. It was a sweet and gentle moment, as all moments with Kafele were.

'You are lovely,' he said.
'Tu est belle.'

'So are you,' I said. 'Lovely . . .' My last words before falling asleep.

Although Kafele had lived in the UK less than a year, he came off like someone who'd stepped off the plane just a day before. It was refreshing being with someone who had never heard of Donny Williams, didn't read lad's mags or follow
Big Brother
or even know what
Desperate Housewives
was. It didn't matter that he didn't understand the cultural references from my youth. Even a few hours with him was like a holiday, worlds removed from my celebrity-drenched working life with an entertainment company. He didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't take drugs. He only drank water when we went out. But he didn't seem to mind my ordering one, then another, mojito or glass of rosé, and maybe another after that.

We carried on seeing each other for three months. We hooked up three times a week, initially, which for me felt almost like being married, as it had been years since I'd fucked anyone other than Karume so regularly. But after six weeks, I got bored and started making excuses, till we were getting together only once every other week. In part this was because a kinky new playmate, Carl, unexpectedly came into my life.

I met Carl at the Night of the Senses, a party for perverts that follows the Erotic Awards, awards given to artists, photographers, sex workers, websites, basically anything connected to sex and the sex industry in the UK. I almost didn't go to the event, but I had spontaneously told my friend Tania, who was volunteering, as I had for five years running, to sign me up as well. As the big night drew nearer, I was regretting the offer of my time – and my big mouth. Tania and I had made plans to hit the after-party together, and I debated just staying home for some easy sex with Kafele.