Chapter 6
It was several weeks before they moved beyond friendship and SJ found Tom’s patience both sweet and unsettling.
Her overactive imagination went into overdrive.
She began to worry he might have some hidden reason why he didn’t want to seduce her.
Perhaps he had a complex about his body, like a guy she’d been out with at college who’d insisted they always make love in the dark.
Then on one memorable morning when he’d stayed over and all the covers had fallen off she’d woken up to find herself face to face with a life-size tattoo of Kylie Minogue’s head on his back. That had been very disconcerting.
One evening, about two months after Tom had first asked her out, they were having a midweek drink at The Feathers, a pub between her house share and his maisonette in Barking.
They mostly saw each other at weekends, but they spoke on the phone three or four times a week too.
It was a slow-burn relationship and SJ had been glad of that at first, but lately she’d felt ready to move things on a bit.
Now, she asked him if he had any tattoos.
‘Yeah, I have actually,’ he confessed, smiling at her. ‘I had it done when I was on a jolly with the boys. I was drunk at the time – I’ve regretted it ever since. Why? Don’t you like tattoos?’
‘It depends,’ SJ replied, feeling her heart start to thud. ‘It’s not a person, is it?’
‘No.’ Tom looked amused. ‘It’s no one’s name either – I wasn’t that drunk.’
‘Phew,’ SJ said, although she hadn’t considered girls’ names.
That wouldn’t have been too good either – finding a girl’s name tattooed down your lover’s manhood would be very off-putting.
Not, of course, that Tom had said where the tattoo was – but she’d seen most bits of him.
It had been a blazing summer and they’d sunbathed in the park quite a bit, as well as visiting the gym when she was feeling industrious – Tom loved the pool – and she’d seen no sign of any tattoos, so it had to be somewhere quite discreet.
‘Where is it?’ she pressed.
‘On my bum.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘I don’t see why not. Although I don’t think I ought to show you in here. We might get kicked out.’
‘Let’s go back to your place.’ SJ gulped down her wine, her inhibitions having vanished with the second glass, and wondered if she’d have suggested such a thing if she hadn’t drunk quite so much.
Tom looked at her thoughtfully.
‘I’ve never known you so anxious to leave a pub before. Is that a proposition?’
‘Yes,’ she said, feeling slightly embarrassed that she’d had to ask for a peek at his tattoo in order to move things on a bit. He should have been the one doing the asking. Jacob had seduced her within hours of their first meeting.
On the way home, she worried that Tom might have some other reason for not wanting to take her to bed.
Perhaps he had genital herpes or some other horrible disease.
Perhaps he was impotent. Or shy? Or had only one testicle – or no testicles at all.
Perhaps he was transitioning and hadn’t mentioned it.
Oh, God, what was she doing? Perhaps she should call the whole thing off before they got to his flat.
But the real reason was so blindingly obvious it never even occurred to her. He told her what it was when they got back to his maisonette – although he was pretty oblique, even about that.
‘SJ, are you sure about this?’ he asked, one hand on his bedroom door.
‘Sure about seeing your tattoo? Yes, I can’t wait.’ She smiled at him. ‘Why? Have you changed your mind about showing me?’
He blinked a couple of times and frowned. ‘We’re not just talking about seeing my tattoo, though, are we?’ He was blushing, she saw, feeling a little tug of tenderness. He was such a nice man.
‘You’re not a virgin, are you?’ The words were out of her mouth before she’d put her brain in gear.
And she wished she could retract them because they sounded so tactless.
Besides, there was nothing wrong with being a virgin, even at thirty-five.
Tom was a very nice guy. He was bound to have a good reason.
‘No, of course I’m not a virgin.’ He shut his eyes and sighed. ‘I just don’t sleep around. As, I’m sure, you don’t.’
‘No.’ She felt light-headed with wanting him, and the idea of them making love, now it was out in the air, was impossible to put back in its box.
Yet still he hesitated and suddenly she was afraid it was her. He didn’t want her because she wasn’t attractive, because she’d been too pushy, because he didn’t see her as anything other than a friend. In an instant she was full of self-doubt.
‘I’ve never slept around,’ SJ said again, aching with insecurity and shame.
She’d had boyfriends at college and uni, sometimes quite unsuitable ones, but once she’d met Jacob that had been it – and there had been no one since.
Her confidence had been smashed to pieces when they had separated.
It was Tom, she realised, who had helped her pick up the pieces again.
‘And I wanted you to be sure you were ready,’ Tom continued softly.
Ready? If she got any more ready she’d need another pair of knickers. She nearly told Tom that, then decided he might think that too pushy as well. But it really was amazing how a bit of drawn-out expectation could heighten your arousal.
‘Yes, I am absolutely sure I’d like us to make love,’ she said, putting a hand on Tom’s arm and propelling him into the bedroom. Which she thought was incredibly restrained – because what she actually wanted to do was hurl him to the floor and rip off all his clothes.
‘So are you going to show me your tattoo?’
He still wasn’t in a hurry. He crossed the room, drew the curtains and put on the bedside light, which threw soft shadows over his red and black striped duvet cover.
She’d never seen his bedroom before. It was a typical bachelor room – neat, with a grey towelling robe on the back of the door and a copy of a Jack Reacher novel on the bedside table. The way she felt now, SJ couldn’t believe he’d managed to keep her out of it for so long.
‘I haven’t got any tattoos,’ she joked as he came back across the room. ‘I haven’t got anything interesting to show you.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ He kissed her and she found herself hoping he wasn’t a man who spent hours on foreplay. Their slowly building relationship had been all the foreplay she’d needed – not to mention the long months of celibacy before it.
She slid her hands up his back and tugged his shirt from his jeans.
‘So impatient,’ he said, but that was the last resistance he put up, thank God. Within a few moments they were both undressed, from the waist up anyway. He had a great body: finely muscled, with a light smattering of dark hair on his chest and a thin line leading downwards.
He let her unfasten his jeans, but he tugged them down himself. His boxers came with them, and he kicked them off onto the carpet.
‘I thought you wanted to see my tattoo,’ he said, huskily, as she stared downwards. He had a pretty fine erection, which was much more interesting than his tattoo, but she decided to humour him and had a peek at his bottom.
‘Delicious,’ she said, touching the curved warmth of his skin.
The tattoo itself was a rose and didn’t hold her attention for long.
Fortunately, he didn’t seem too set on giving her a full inspection of it either.
He tugged her towards the bed with a slight moan, then skilfully removed the rest of her clothes, and SJ got so carried away she forgot to hold her stomach in.
Ah, well – he’d find out soon enough that her washboard stomach was the result of hold-you-in pants and not workouts.
They collapsed on the duvet in a tangle of limbs.
After that, apart from a brief pause while he foraged for a condom in his bedside table, there were no further distractions.
Considering the build-up they’d had, it wasn’t the most exciting sex in the world.
It was over too soon for SJ’s liking, but she put that down to newness.
Perfection came with knowing each other.
They could work on the finer details later.
‘Sorry,’ Tom said. ‘I’m out of practice.’
‘It was wonderful,’ SJ said. And it had been. Tom was the complete opposite of Jacob, who had never made her feel this beautiful when they’d made love. Tom was gentle, thoughtful and generous. He was also hardworking, handsome, dependable and solvent.
And now, as she looked at the strong planes of his face, she was filled with a quiet contentment. So maybe she was not the ugly unlovable person she had felt since things had gone so horribly wrong with Jacob. Maybe she would be able to love again.