‘OK, right … Can you hang on a second?’ I paced through to the kitchen, started pulling open drawers looking for the emergency cigarette stash, found it, found a lighter, went to stand in the garden in my boxers and T-shirt – fuck, it was cold – lit up, exhaled. ‘So, you slept with him, yeah?’
Boom, boom.
‘Yeah. I was the last one dancing. We were together all night, after his set.’
‘At the house?’
‘In his car.’
‘You had sex in the DJ’s car?’
A pause. Her breathing. Hurry up. ‘Yeah.’
I inhaled, exhaled. ‘Did you like it?’
Another pause. ‘Yeah.’
‘Is he still there?’
Another … Why the fucking pauses?
‘He’s in his car, just next to ours. I’m calling you from ours.’
I lit a second cigarette from the tip of the first. I was trembling, because it was winter, that’s why. ‘So, what did you like about it?’
‘Um, well, you know … I don’t know … everything, really.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Do you really want to know, Chris? Can’t you just imagine it? It’s a bit … I don’t know.’
Our first time: a backstreet in Lan Kwai Fong, doing it doggy in the detritus. Her strong legs, taut skin. It had felt, she’d felt –
‘Just tell me, Sarah. I won’t get angry, I promise.’
Because I was already fucking fuming – no, I wasn’t. I was a small ‘l’ liberal, well-versed in the theoretical underpinnings of ethical non-monogamy, impervious to otherwise universal manifestations of human frailty. Or I would have been had I done any proper research.
A sigh, her nervous laugh. ‘OK, so … Are you sure, hun?’
Calm voice. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, right … Cos, I don’t want to hurt you, Chris. Just tell me to stop if –’
‘Carry on, Sarah.’
‘So, yeah, OK … He had a blow-up mattress in his boot and that’s where he, you know … fucked me.’ A giggle. ‘We covered the windows with a bedsheet.’
I couldn’t work out what my body was trying to tell me: could it explode and implode at the same time?
She’d been reading The Celestine Prophecy when we first met; me, If This Is a Man.
‘What kind of things did you do?’
‘Oh, you know, just the usual stuff. Although …’ She was whispering now. ‘You might not want to know this, but he took me up the arse as well.’
Oh. Implode. I had never. She’d never let me, fucking arse. ‘Was it good?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’ Another nervy laugh. ‘I don’t know, it just felt really … natural.’
‘And you used protection, yeah?’
‘Yeah, of course, hun – I’m not stupid. He had condoms.’
Exhale, Chris. ‘And you’re going back into his car after this?’
A shy laugh. ‘Um, probably, yeah. Do you mind? I definitely can’t drive home in this state. Lucy’s still on the beach somewhere. I’ll have to wait for her to drive us.’