One Little Room an Everywhere

They started as soon as the door gently clicked itself shut.

He moved towards her slowly, but they embraced instantly, so tight, like a vacuum had opened and slammed their bodies into each other. The kissing was wide-mouthed and messy. A kind of slow spinning shuffle moved them to the bed, their mouths still attached, lips clumsily catching on teeth, their bodies losing items of clothing. She fell backwards on the bed, unexpectedly, as if it had been shoved into the back of her legs as a practical joke. He doggedly removed his trousers, then his underpants, and moved on top of her. She reached under and fed him into her, before gripping him with her legs, and instantly he began fucking her deeply, his lips still applied to hers. They attempted to devour each other's faces, like teenagers new to the world of snogging. She moved her head away as orgasm built, because this required clear airways, so he rested his head alongside hers to concentrate on the work of thrusting. Her body arched, time frozen across her scrunched-up face, his body movements arrested until she sank down again, at which point he resumed with vigour and, seconds later, shouted a long, guttural swear word, every muscle tensing and turning his body into a solid, straight piece. She looked up at him with a disbelieving, startled, confused gaze, her breath short. He looked down at her, surprised to the point of being offended, with a sweaty gloss. He was still inside her, the sperm leaking against his balls. This was the first time they had fucked in 30 years. Although they had chatted online, only two sentences had passed between them in real life during those 30 years, too. They had been uttered 10 minutes earlier. Meeting him outside, she had said, 'The room is upstairs.' He had said, 'Okay.'

He lay back and she rested her head on his chest, stroking his stomach, before her hand came to a rest on his chest, palm down, as if to hold him in place. He ran his fingers through her curls, massaging her skull with his fingertips.

After a few seconds her breathing became longer and slower.

She was asleep! Carefully, he reached for one of the sheets and pulled it over their bodies. She twitched but her breathing didn't change.

He stared at the ceiling for 30 minutes and listened to the ticking of a clock, before she woke, with a quiet snort. She declared, 'Oh I must've fallen asleep,' to which he replied, 'Yes.'

'I'm not even tired,' she said, through a yawn.

She looked up at him, then kissed him quickly on the lips, before rising from the bed.

He sat up.

'Do you want a drink?' she said, walking over to a kitchenette area.

'You mean tea or coffee? Or alcohol?'

'I don't know yet.'

She rooted through what was there, then crouched as she opened the small fridge.

'No milk. Black tea or coffee, I guess. I was hoping for--'

She moved over to a desk that was piled high with stuff, set against the far wall, and started rummaging there, too. This wall was where the clock was. It was one of those stupidly large clock faces, and it was mounted high. It was 11.05am.

'This will do!' she said, showing him a dark bottle that, by the curvy shape, was probably some kind of rum or brandy. She swigged from it, as if desperately thirsty, before taking it over to him. He considered the bottle before taking his own swig and wincing.

She put the bottle on the bedside table, and said, 'Again.' She straddled him. Her face again applied itself to his. He was hard, instantly, and reached under to align himself as she lowered onto him.

She held onto his head as she ground against him, before he leaned forward so she could embrace him fully and tightly.

'Yes, yes, yes!' she said quietly, like she was counting down, before again there was the moment of frozen time and she stiffened, and then relaxed against him equally quickly. And again, he was a pace behind, holding her shoulders and pulling her down onto him as he winced (in the same way as with the booze), and released a mixture of growl and grunt. His body twitched several times before it became clear it was over.

She held his head at each side and affixed her mouth to his. He pulled away to catch his breath.

'Fuck me!' he said.

They laughed like drains, before gazing at each other without smiling. Her face was a mess. Her lipstick had turned into a red glow around her full lips, and the mascara had given her panda eyes.

Much of the lipstick had been transferred to his lips and the surrounding area, too. She rubbed away at it with her thumbs.

'You're still hard?' she said, her eyebrows high. He was still inside her, and continued to hold her tightly to him, so she couldn't escape. Her breasts pressed against him, as did various folds of their middle-aged skin.

'Still hard, but we don't need to do anything with it. It's one of the side effects. Viagra.'

She nodded.

'At my age--' he continued. 'It's basically insurance.'

'Oh, I know. Yes.'

They stayed embraced, attached, each holding the other, feeding off their warmth.

He started crying, almost imperceptibly, trying to hide it.

She pulled him into her.

A moment passed before she said, 'My darling, I need to get cleaned up.'

He nodded, and she decoupled, again rising from the bed with surprising energy. She took a swig from the bottle, before walking over to a door, opening it, discovering it was a closet stuffed full of bric-a-brac, walking over to another door, and discovering the bathroom she had wanted.

He leaned back and glanced at the bottle but didn't take it, and instead looked around at the apartment. It was just one room, essentially little more than a bedroom, across the top floor of an Edwardian shop front. Once upon a time it would've been used to store stock, and its whitewashed brick walls reflected this.

They had entered via a door at the back, near a loading bay, and ascended five flights of grimy stairs to get to this secret room. Nobody could ever realise it existed.

'This place belongs to your friend?' he said.

'Yeah. He calls it his pied-à-terre. I've not been here before. I think he actually lives somewhere in the south west. He stays here to watch shows in the West End.'

She hadn't closed the bathroom door. A floor-standing mirror was positioned such that he could see her, and he watched as she used toilet roll to wipe her thighs and vagina, before sitting on the toilet. He massaged his cock absently, still wet and messy from earlier.

'It's so like you to have cool friends who just let you use their place,' he continued. 'I mean, like you used to be. Back in the old days.'

'Yeah, well,' she said. 'It's never that simple, is it?'

She rose from the toilet, again dabbing herself, and began checking her face in the mirror above the sink. She didn't return his gaze through the mirror.

She hadn't realised he could see her.

'There's a shower here,' she said. 'We could get in together. Would you like that?'

'Love it. But are there towels?'

She looked around, picked one up from a rail, sniffed it, and rapidly returned it.

'Shit. Just one and it is very used.'

She returned to looking in the sink's mirror.

'I'm such a mess.'

'I don't care.'

'I do! Jesus.'

Her tone was sharp. Once again, he absently massaged his cock.

She ran the taps and washed her face before blindly reaching around and realising for a second time there were no towels. For one long second, she looked like she was contemplating grabbing the rejected towel, before instead drying with rapid finger flicks.

She came back to the bed, her face looking fresh, and smiled at him in a deliberate, exaggerated way.

'So, what's the guy's name?' he asked. 'The guy who owns this place?'

She sat alongside him in the bed, and used the sheet to towel her hands and face.

'Edward. He's in Mexico right now, for whatever reason. I said I needed a place to stay after watching a show. It's what he uses it for, too, I think.'

'He's a friend?'

'Yeah, I guess.'

'A friend friend?'

She looked at him quizzically and then exploded into laughter: 'Oh! No. No, he's gay. Been with his partner for decades.'

'It's so cool you know people like that.'

'Not really.'

'I don't have friends like that. I mean, the closest is this fella I worked with and who's kind of a friend. A friend in social media terms, anyway. He's a landlord. Got a few apartments. When you talked about this-- About meeting up like this-- I wondered if I could ask him if he had something that was between tenants. But he'd probably say no, even if he did have somewhere. And even if he was cool with it, he'd probably charge me. Then make me pay for cleaning after.'

'Well, it's quid pro quo. Even for me.'

'You mean you're paying Edward?'

She sighed.

'Can you pass me the brandy?'

He did so, and she swigged, before hugging the bottle to her, pushing her breasts apart.

'Quid pro quo. Edward will expect something. And more than a bottle of wine and a Thank You card. Apparently, his partner's an artist. It'll be something like that. Coverage. Writing about this man in one of my columns. Getting somebody I know to write about him. Mentioning this man's name to people I know.'

'I get it.'

'It'll be something like this: me and Edward chatting, casually, maybe amongst friends. And Edward will say something like, 'Oh, did you know that my partner--and I don't even know this man's name--has completed his best work yet?' And he'll look at me.'

'A nod's as good as a wink, right?'

She laughed and grasped his thigh.

'Nudge nudge wink wink.'

They had been members of The Monty Python Society at university. That was how they had met 30 years earlier. Without Cleese, Palin, Chapman, Idle, Jones and Gilliam, this story could not exist.

'And Edward's partner will be a crap artist. I haven't seen his work. I haven't heard a word about it. But his partner will be some autodidact, who gets paints in bulk from some craft store and decided to start taking himself seriously, and now declares he's part of an outsider art movement comprising just himself, actually, at this moment. And he'll have a spare bedroom in his house where the air is toxic because of oil paints and he'll have canvases racked against the wall. And all of them are literally nothing more than colours against other colours. He says it's expressionistic, because he's expressing himself.'

'I remember you painting canvasses full of colours.'

She harrumphed.

'I have one. At home.'

She turned to him quickly.

'Wow. I remember. You stole it.'

'You gave it to me.'

'I wanted it back.'

'But you'd given it to me.'

'It's not very good.'

'It's perfect.'

'Do you hang it on a wall?'

'No. It's in the attic. I mean, I couldn't, could I? I couldn't explain to my wife that I really wanted a canvas on the wall that reminded me of a former girlfriend.'

'I suppose not.'

'It has emotional attachments. Do you remember how we fucked on top of it?'

'Did we?'

'Smudged it. Your face. The paint was so thick it wasn't completely dry.'

'I remember! Oh my God, I remember!'

'Richard came to the front door, and you answered it with this smear of paint on your cheek. And then he came in--'

She laughed hysterically.

'-- and I was there, in my dressing gown, clearly seconds after post-coitus, with an identical smear of paint on my hands --'

She fell into his lap, laughing.

'--and he had that frown and clearly thought something kinky had just gone down.'

'Richard was so vanilla!'

Eventually they stopped laughing and she arranged herself so she lay in a foetus position, her head in his lap, the weight pressing against his cock, balls and thighs. He massaged her head with both hands like he was gently kneading dough.

'Still the same hair,' he said.

'Same crazy curls that I can't do anything with.'

'I happen to like them.'

'Not as blonde as they used to be. Horrible dirty, faded blonde. It's not deliberate, so not good.'

'I was always surprised how small your head is.'

'Thanks.'

'I mean compared to mine. My own huge head.'

'Your lovely huge head on top of your lovely huge body.'

She stroked his legs.

'The problem with a huge body is that it makes everything look small. My penis is larger than average. 16% larger, actually. A bit over seven inches, rather than six. By the way, all men measure their cocks. If they say they don't they're lying. Never use a ruler borrowed from a man without wiping it clean. Mine had a little calculator built in, which is why I figured out the 16% figure. Anyway. If you're well over six foot tall, like I am, and get hard, even seven inches just looks-- Modest. In proportion to the rest of me. This is why most porn stars are well under six feet. It makes their cocks look huge. Same with women. A smaller frame makes their tits look bigger.'

'Like me.'

'Like you, although as I used to say, your limited height means perfection is increased because it's concentrated into a smaller space. What happened to Richard?'

'I've no idea.'

'You were with him after me, right?'

'More or less.'

He looked down at her with a frown. She glanced up at him momentarily, then continued: 'We carried on until graduation. Then he moved somewhere to start a job. Inverness, maybe? I did not move to Inverness. It didn't break my heart. Broke his, though. I earned myself what we would now call a stalker. He turned up at-- What was it? I think it was my dad's barbecue. A year after we graduated. He invited himself. My dad had no idea and vaguely remembered him, so thought it was all just fine. I had to take Richard aside and tell him to fuck off and never cross my path again. And to be fair, he followed orders.'

'He was really into you.'

'People were, back then.'

He laughed. She didn't.

'So fucking true!' he said. 'You were beating them off with a shitty stick. It was the tits, I reckon.'

'It's always the tits.'

'It wasn't, though, was it? Well, they might've helped. But it was because you were talented. You were alpha. Head girl. But a head girl at university, instead of Malory Towers.'

'Were.'

'Pardon?'

'You said I was talented. You said, "you were talented".'

'But you are still talented, right? It can't have gone away.'

She leaped out of bed.

'Jesus fucking Christ.'

An extensive row of windows lined the left side of the room. White paper blinds were pulled down on all of them, but she pulled one up and gazed out. They were very high up. The view was of the high street below, and she looked down at the tiny people. Nobody would even think to look up to gaze back at her.

'I have something to tell you,' he said.

'What?'

There was a pause.

She repeated herself, terse: 'What? What do you have to tell me?'

'I'm married.'

'Oh right.'

She resumed looking out of the window and said, 'I know.'

'Ah.'

'Of course you're fucking married. I read it between the lines in the first few sentences you sent me on instant messenger. Bursting into tears earlier? That might've tipped me off, if I was completely fucking stupid. But the biggest clue was that you just mentioned your fucking wife.'

'The painting.'

She glared at him.

'Oh my fucking God. This is turning you on?'

He had 50% of an erection.

'You always turned me on when you got angry.'

'You're fucked up.'

He laughed. 'I know. It's getting better as I get older, though.'

She sighed.

'Do you want me to do something with it?'

'The erection?'

'Yes.'

'I'm worried about using it up. We've only been here for, what, maybe an hour? There's still time. It could benefit from a bit of a rest.'

'OK, well, please stop wanking it.'

'Sorry. The mind is willing. Really willing. But the flesh is weak. Well, not weak, obviously. Not at all. But just eager.'

'How much Viagra did you take?'

'Enough. The sky looks especially blue today.'

She folded the blind down then stood at the side of the bed and held out her hand for him to take.

'I'm married, too.'

'Right. I did not know that.'

'You really thought I was single?'

'I didn't think about it.'

'How could it not have crossed your mind?'

'Back in college you had more relationships than anybody else. It was like people were arranged in a chocolate box, and you were trying each one to see if you liked them. And you had these gaps in-between.'

She pulled her hand away.

He said: 'I assumed this is one of those in-between times.'

'That was--'

She took a deep breath before continuing: 'That was 30 years ago. Things change.'

He looked like a Joycean epiphany had not only struck him but made him punch drunk.

'I guess so. Of course. You're right.'

'I've been married for 22 years. Happily married. Most of the time.'

'Me too. Not 22 years. 19 years for me. For us. It's funny how we've both been married for so long. Maybe we're very faithful people.'

She sat on the bed.

'One thing about having an affair is that you shouldn't talk about your significant other.'

'Have you had many affairs?'

She looked him in the eyes, stone cold.

'No.'

'Me neither.'

'I know.'

She smiled at him, a smile as weak as orange squash from a spendthrift mother. He smiled back. His erection was gone.

'I'm taking a time out,' he said. 'But it doesn't mean you have to.'

'What do you mean?'

'I've been thinking. A lot. Thinking about that thing you used to do back then.'

She looked at him askance.

'You know the thing,' he continued. 'I go down on you and then you--'

She pursed her lips and frowned quizzically.

'-- you spray.'

'Oh, yes!'

'Do you still do that?'

'I haven't done it for-- A decade. Maybe two decades. It's only useful at the beginning of a relationship when you have to impress. I mean, I leak a bit when I'm wanking. But not like that. Should I give it a try?'

'We have nothing to lose. You get a good time no matter what, right?'

'Do you want to go down on me?'

'I'm on a time out. I'd just get worked up and, you know, want to stick it back in.'

'Okay. Yeah.'

She danced over to where her handbag had dropped when they came into the apartment, and rummaged.

'I'll need this, I think.'

She held a small gold finger vibrator between her fingertips.

'You carry that around?' he said.

'Yes. Cosmopolitan said all the best bad girls have at least one sex toy in their handbag. August issue, 2007.'

He moved his legs up, and she sat facing him, then leaned back slightly, supporting herself with one hand. She opened her legs wide, placing them outside his, and applied the vibrator, her eyes closed.

'You have a beautiful pussy,' he said.

'Thank you. Tell me a dirty story.'

'Umm-- About what?'

Her breathing got shorter: 'Fucking.'

'You said not to mention partners?'

'Not your wife!'

'Okay. This one has got me through many a long night. That time at university. We'd all just come back from the summer vacation. It was a party at your house.'

'Yes!'

'Me, you and-- Shit. I've forgotten his name.'

'It doesn't matter!'

'Me, you and that guy with the George Michael stubble. In your room. All three of us, sitting on your bed. Him, then you, and then me.'

'Yes!'

'As soon as we entered your room I was hard. We knew what was going to happen. But you still insisted on saying it was just so you could play us that CD.'

'I was so innocent!'

'You were not.'

'No, I was not!'

'And Andrea came barging in and there it was. Me and that guy. Lying back. You, sitting between us. Classic ski pole pose. One cock in either hand, giving us hand jobs.'

'Yes! Fuck yes!'

'And Andrea said nothing, turned around, and went straight out.'

'Stupid cow!'

'And then myself and that other guy took turns fucking you, while the other one watched. So weird feeling your pussy stretched open by somebody else.'