Chapter 34
They were sitting toe to toe in the bathtub.
It was quite an intimate set-up if Ruby thought about it too much, and as she was stoned, she was invariably thinking about it too much.
They had taken their shoes off without much thought, as though they might actually be getting ready to run the water.
Then Ruby had rolled her stockings down.
Now with the rest of their bodies fully clothed, the nakedness of their feet was distracting.
Heather’s toenails were painted a deep blue, which Ruby found surprising.
But then again that was Heather: endlessly surprising.
She was reserved and yet forthright, butch and yet delicate, no-nonsense and yet understanding. Ruby didn’t think she’d ever met anyone like Heather before.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Heather asked as she passed Ruby the joint. They’d rolled a towel under the door and opened the windows wide. Ruby could see the perfect crescent of the moon resting on top of the treeline. She found herself suddenly embarrassed by Heather’s question.
‘Just how weird toes are.’ It was partly true. Heather’s expression remained unchanged; she seemed to be both acknowledging Ruby’s answer and asking for more. Ruby was compelled to say, ‘And thinking about how dope you are.’
Heather broke into an easy smile. ‘I think you’re dope too.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you, you know? That dressing-down you gave Johan as well …’ Ruby shook her head and sucked her teeth in admiration. The two began to laugh.
‘You pulled a few punches as well. That posh boy reveal was something else. How did you work that out?’
‘It just came to me earlier. There was this guy who …’ Ruby trailed off.
She’d all but forgotten about her encounter with creepy Neil.
‘He, you know, he was getting … close.’ Ruby peeked up through her eyelashes at Heather, who nodded understandingly.
Ruby didn’t need to expand, or explain. There was the mutual experience of being a woman in the world that didn’t need spelling out.
‘Anyway, Johan sort of stepped up, and got me away from the perv, but not before the perv recognised him, asked him if he was the “Anker boy”.’ Ruby leant over to pass the joint back.
‘And then after I was thinking, like ship and anchor, until I saw spotted the engraving on the back of the bench earlier: Bestowed by Sir Sebastian Anker, Marquis of wherever the fuck, and it clicked.’
‘Wow.’ Heather seemed impressed and Ruby revelled in it. ‘You know I always thought there was something dodgy about him,’ Heather mused, ‘and what does he even need that money for anyway if he’s some kind of duke?’
Ruby hadn’t yet considered this, and she felt the discomfort of rage course through her. ‘Who the fuck knows – just wants to make sure none of us upstart riff-raff get a look-in?’ Ruby tried to sound unbothered.
Heather seemed to sense the incongruence between her words and her feelings. ‘What’s going on between you two? I can never figure it out.’
‘You’ve been trying, have you?’ Ruby felt a flicker in the pit of her stomach at the thought of being on Heather’s mind.
Heather shrugged, and even scrutinising her face, Ruby couldn’t get a read. It was unsettling. ‘I don’t know. He’s a weird bloke. Reeks of … insecurity.’
Ruby nodded slowly. Her first instinct was to defend Johan, which surprised her, but if she was being honest with herself, she agreed with Heather.
She’d never quite been able to put her finger on it; maybe something about the magnetism of the attraction between them had blinded her to it, but now that she thought about it, he was a man who needed to be reassured.
Reassured that she wanted him, reassured that he was desirable.
Every night that she had sneaked into his bedroom he had asked her to spend the night.
Usually he tried to play it off as nonchalant.
‘Will you be staying tonight?’ But each time that her answer was no he failed to hide his disappointment.
And then there was the kissing thing. Ruby hadn’t done it on purpose; in fact she’d been taken aback when he mentioned it.
‘You know we’ve never kissed?’ Johan had said.
And Ruby had resisted the urge to protest just long enough to realise it was true.
That first night in the corridor their lips had never met, and since then, their lips had made acquaintance with almost every other part of each other’s bodies.
But it was true that when they were fucking, it was always at arm’s length.
They would watch each other more than they would hold each other.
In Ruby’s mind that made sense; they were combatants rather than partners.
When Johan had brought it up, though, it was plaintively. The conversation had been so off-putting that Ruby had fled his bed even quicker than usual.
‘I’d say that’s a fair assessment.’ Ruby held Heather’s gaze, simultaneously daring Heather to ask more and fearing that she would. Heather didn’t push it. It was Ruby who felt compelled to say something more. ‘We’ve fucked a couple of times, but I think he’s more keen than I am.’
Heather’s eyes dropped suddenly and this time her expression betrayed her. Ruby saw the surprise.
‘What is it?’ Ruby was going to push.
‘I don’t know, I mean it’s stupid. I kind of knew there was something going on but I also …’ Heather faltered and pulled her knees under her chin, her toes retreating with them. Ruby stared at the gap of white enamel that had opened up between their feet.
Heather took a deep breath. ‘I thought you might tend towards the dykier end of things.’ Heather laughed in an effort to hide her evident discomfort.
Ruby was contending with her own cauldron of feelings.
She too felt embarrassed, but then there was something like the fear of being discovered, a dollop of shame and just a sliver of excitement.
She thought of the feeling of Cindy’s lips on hers and the sliver grew.
It was an awkward manoeuvre, but Ruby slid towards Heather, grabbing her face as she looked up.
Her eyes glowed like embers, and Ruby was frozen for a moment, suddenly struck. The constellation of freckles across her cheeks, the rays of fine laugh lines. Studying Heather’s face up close was like examining the spiral of a fern, or the texture of a petal, almost mesmerising in its composition.
Ruby couldn’t be sure how long they stayed like that, but it was Heather who braved the tiny but terrifying final inch of the tightrope.
As their lips met, Ruby felt her chest expand, as though she was breathing freely for the first time.
They kissed slowly, not tentatively but deliberately.
Ruby had no sense of which way was up but they found themselves side by side in the tub, limbs intertwined and breathing in only each other’s air.
It took a long time for Ruby to form coherent thoughts again, to regain a sense of time passing, but as she did, the spikier feelings began to take over.
Why was she doing this? Maybe it only felt good because she was stoned.
Suddenly Heather’s hands on her waist felt too soft, too hot, too forceful.
The crescendo of shame built quickly. And at the climax was that look Ruby had seen so vividly before.
Heather’s face, a mirror of Cindy’s: shock, hurt, disappointment.
Ruby was out of the bath and pacing across the tiles, Heather’s arms slowly crossing over her chest in a haze of self-preservation and confusion.
‘Ruby …’ Heather started quietly.
But now Ruby couldn’t stand the sound of her voice, or look at her face. ‘Can you go, now, please.’ Ruby kept her eyes trained above Heather’s head as she spoke. Only a blur of vibrant red in her periphery confirmed that Heather was standing up to leave.
Ruby tried to concentrate on the sound of the door shutting, but found to her alarm that she couldn’t hear anything but ringing.
She stood still in the bathroom staring at the spot where Heather had been for what felt like a long time, only then peeking her head around the door to make sure her bedroom was empty. It was.
And then, almost in a dreamlike trance, Ruby walked down the corridor.
When Johan answered the door, he looked surprised to see her, but he didn’t say a word as he led her to his bed.
She stood passively as he unzipped her dress, watching the plum fabric pool at her feet.
He undressed and the two faced each other.
He could have his kiss, Ruby decided. She leant in and it was only the scratch of his stubble against her cheek as their lips met that broke the spell.
There was nothing complicated here, just flesh on flesh.
Desire surged in her stomach, but there was no tightening in her chest. She reached for his hardening cock and sighed into the sensation of his thumb grazing her nipple.
Ruby revelled in the simplicity of her hunger, unspoiled by any thoughts of the moments after these.
With Johan it was a contained exchange of pleasure.
He thrust until he found an angle that made Ruby’s brow furrow and her mouth fall slightly open, and then he wouldn’t stop until he heard her guttural moans and saw the vein in her neck dance beneath the skin.
She in turn would take him onto his back and swirl her hips over him, watching him watch her until, almost imperceptibly, she ticked up the tempo and his eyelids fluttered shut and he shuddered beneath her.
Afterwards Johan stroked Ruby’s hair, as she lay on her back, and whispered in her ear. ‘So you’re not that pissed about my little deception?’
Ruby found it borderline psychopathic that he had kept up the phoney accent even as he moaned her name, but her revelation of his true heritage didn’t affect her attraction to him. If anything it only solidified her conviction that there was nothing between them apart from sex.
‘I better be going.’ Ruby sat up. She could picture the look on his face without having to see it.
He said nothing as she pulled his shirt over her shoulders.
She waited for his plaintive cry for her to stay, but it didn’t come.
As she closed the door she allowed herself one last look.
He was facing away from her, and she was relieved.