"I'm sorry. I just don't believe you. And if I can't believe you, why should I trust you? How can I commit to you in a relationship?"
Sophie had to admit that Malcolm had a point, but one far too dangerous to concede. She sipped from her glass of Argentinean white and placed it on the bench in front of her just inside the shadow cast by the sunshade. She pursed her lips and glanced around at the other couples enjoying the late evening sun on the patio of the Black Swan. Were their conversations as tense as those between Malcolm and she?
"It was only the once, Malcolm," Sophie pleaded. "I needed the money. It was very tempting."
"You see, I don't think it was just the once," Malcolm continued.
"Why do you say that? Surely once would be enough? I told you about
Cum Babes International
. Why should there be any more?"
"I just don't believe you. It just doesn't hang together. All those years between when you dropped out of college and when you did your Accountancy course at Kingston, it sounds like there was more than just odd-jobs and dingy bedsits."
"What do you mean?" Sophie asked, knowing full well from previous conversations exactly what he meant.
"There's the lifestyle you managed to afford. The drugs and clothes and nights out. There's the fact that I don't believe you'd necessarily have done just the one video. And then," and here Malcolm lowered his voice, so that no eavesdropper could hear him, "there's what you're like in bed."
"In bed? I thought you loved me there best of all. You said I was the best."
Malcolm sipped his glass of wine. He was clearly flustered. "You are
so
much better than any of my other girlfriends, and admittedly there were not that many before you, that you're in a league of your own. Some of the things you do!" Malcolm lowered his voice still further "Your skill at, you know, fellatio and anal and fisting and all that. The orgasms you get. And how loud you shriek when you come! It's just not natural."
"It's because I like sex that I was tempted into making that video," Sophie protested.
"I don't believe that your boyfriends at the time, or the ones you've told me about, were likely to give you the aptitude you've got."
"I'm a natural. I don't need training."
"I'm not stupid, Sophie," Malcolm said with a frown. "I've seen a few pornos. I'm not totally ignorant. I can see what you could have got up to. And when we're together in bed, it's not like I'm with someone who once, from innocence and greed, was tempted to give the odd blowjob in front of the camera. It's like I'm with someone who's done it all and knows all that she ever needs to know."
Sophie gripped Malcolm's hand tightly in her own. "It was only the once. You have to believe me."
Malcolm frowned again. He was breathing quite heavily. The tension from this conversation was upsetting him. "We're not living together. Yet. We're not committed to getting married. Yet. But if we do make the next step..."
"I do
so
want us to, Malcolm," said Sophie with urgency in her voice and eyes.
"...if we do, we need more trust. We need to be honest with one another. And I'm not sure we have that."
"Oh, Malcolm. It just takes time!"
"We've been seeing each other for nearly six months now. I've never ever had such an intense relationship with anyone as I've had with you. Yet I feel I scarcely know you at all. You only begrudgingly tell me anything about your life before I met you. If I hadn't seen the cover of the video in that second-hand store, would you ever have told me about
Cum Babes International Number 12
? How am I to know you weren't in all previous eleven titles?"
Malcolm was shaking. His wine was mostly untouched and his gaze was wholly unfocused.
"Why does it upset you so much?" Sophie asked, squeezing his hand.
Malcolm shook his head. "It just does. It's the trust thing. I
so
want it to work for us. You're the best thing in my life. You mean more than the accountancy firm, the house in Richmond and everything else. I don't want to lose you, but I sometimes think there's no choice."
"Don't upset yourself so much. Finish your drink. We can go for a meal at that Italian restaurant. Or the Thai one. Come on, love!"
"It's no good!" said Malcolm standing up. He slipped his jacket back on. "I'm too upset. It's not working this evening. It's best I leave you. I'll phone you tomorrow."
"You sure?" asked Sophie anxiously, gazing up at Malcolm as he straightened his tie and slung the bag holding his laptop over his shoulder.
"I will. Don't worry. It's just, I don't know, anxiety and everything. I'll ring tomorrow morning."
Almost distractedly, Malcolm pecked Sophie on the cheek, avoiding the attractions of her slightly opened mouth, her tongue twitching between the deep red lips and her perfect white teeth. He then strode off, not even turning his head back, out of the patio towards the pub car park where his BMW company car was parked.
Sophie watched him go with a sigh. She decided against running after him. He needed to calm down and her previous attempts at comforting him in these situations had not always been successful. Anyway, she rather relished the opportunity of sitting alone with her own thoughts and reflections.
Malcolm would phone back tomorrow. There was no doubt about it. Sophie understood Malcolm too well after all these months to have any doubts.
Sophie picked up her glass of wine, regretting at that moment she'd given up smoking and therefore had no cigarette to light up to calm her nerves. She sipped her wine while scanning the other drinkers in the pub patio. She was glad that her eyes were hidden under the sunshade. Most of the people here were like Malcolm and her: couples or groups of men and women, mostly in their late twenties or early thirties, still in their work clothes after having finished a day in the office. Ties were pulled down, sleeves rolled up and jackets laid to one side in concession to the English summer. Just ahead was a bend of the River Thames, too narrow in this part of London to carry more than a few barges and tourist boats. A few swans paddled by under the shelter of the decorative shrubs planted at the river's edge.
Then, ambling into the patio, and not seen for so many years, was Justin, still with Ashley, around whose bare waist he wrapped a protective arm. The couple was recognisably the same, despite the intervening years. Justin was rather less the rake-like figure she once knew. Clearly, he was eating better than he used to. Perhaps this was Ashley's influence. She had also filled out a bit. Rounder shoulders, a fuller waist, but still nothing to be ashamed of, and a dimple on each elbow.
The first time Sophie met Justin, all those years ago, his cheeks were much more accentuated and his eyes betrayed a kind of naked vulnerability. It was in a coffee shop, one of the countless coffee shops in Wimbledon where she lived at the time, one where the coffees had Italian names and the service was painfully slow. She had just been in the loo as a result of a false alarm. She washed her hands but, despite all the fruitless straining and struggling, she still felt the nagging need for a shit.
She looked at her eyes in the loo mirror. The pupils were still quite tiny and her face had a fatigued expression, as well it ought since she'd not slept for such a long time. The drugs were taking ages to wear off. Even though she was no longer feeling high as such, they hadn't yet subsided enough for her to need sleep.
It wasn't as if she hadn't been in bed though. It hadn't taken long for the informal post-shoot party at Lance's flat to disintegrate into an unplanned orgy. After all, Heinrich, Natasha, Juanita and the others were all fully acquainted with each other on the set. After a few drinks, lines, snorts, spliffs and, in Natasha's case, a surgically-clean hypo, it seemed the natural way to end the day. So. Plenty of bed but not a lot of sleep. And didn't she know it! And her arse knew it most of all.
