Chapter 25 #2
It had happened often enough that Ruby had begun to assume that for other women, this distinction didn’t even exist. That one was innately tethered to the other and that by submitting to being penetrated, you were also granting unlimited access to the excavation of your mind.
For Ruby, these two things did not feel connected to one another at all.
If anything, she was more likely to trust those who had no interest at all in her sexually, with her innermost secrets.
In Ruby’s opinion, to engage in that kind of trust with a man who has just derived most of his sexual satisfaction with imagining you as an object, as a toy to be played with, was foolish and dangerous.
‘What were you thinking about?’ Johan spoke to the faded wallpaper above their heads.
‘When?’ Ruby tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. This was exactly the line of questioning that she’d hoped to avoid.
‘Just then, when you … ?’
‘When I came?’ Ruby was baffled by his sudden coyness.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you really want to know? Or do you only want to know if I say that I was thinking about how sexy you are and how much I’ve wanted to fuck you since the moment we met?’
Johan was silent as he pulled the sheet over himself, as though suddenly deeply uncomfortable with how exposed he was. ‘I’m guessing that means you weren’t thinking about me at all.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Ruby wasn’t sure she really was, but she knew that she didn’t want to endure his self-pity any longer.
‘If it makes you feel better, I was thinking that just before I came; it just wasn’t, you know, the tip-over moment …
the trigger if you will.’ Ruby tried to keep her tone light and conversational.
‘OK, fine, so tell me what was?’
‘You’ll laugh.’ Ruby hoped he might. ‘I was thinking about Opal catching us, and like … watching.’
He did not laugh. Instead he sat up and lowered his head into his hands. Ruby was finding this whole exchange rather tiresome. Suddenly, her eyelids felt heavy.
‘So this really is all about Opal?’ Johan’s voice was small.
Ruby sighed. She was finding it hard to indulge in Johan’s crisis of confidence.
‘I mean, this is her house, isn’t it? We’re fucking on her sheets, eating her food, doing her bidding in our little play pens whilst she sits back and goads us with her truckloads of cash.
This entire thing is about Opal. How could I not be thinking about her?
’ Ruby could hear the defensiveness in her tone, and it surprised her.
She believed what she was saying; it made sense, and yet it didn’t seem to quite sit right with her gut.
Johan turned then, hitching a tanned, blonde-haired knee onto the mattress to look down at her.
‘You know what I think? That what you just told me is a nice little convenient story that you’ve told yourself, because you don’t want to admit that you’re obsessed with Opal.
Not because of your intellectual or artistic curiosity or whatever, but because you want to be like her.
You envy her. The formidable Ruby Tongue is just a wannabe social climber like everyone else. ’
He shrugged, and Ruby lay there, frozen in place by the onslaught. ‘Being seen by her, being exposed in front of her, naked, fucking – that’s what you really want. That’s what gets you off. You want her attention.’
Johan had reverted to his old self, bravado flowing. The wounded little boy, desperate for a postcoital cuddle, locked back up into the corner of his subconscious, where he was used to residing. Ruby was mostly relieved. She didn’t like that boy any more than Johan did.
Once the initial sting of his verbal assault had subsided, Ruby reasoned that perhaps he wasn’t so wrong.
She was disturbed by how, despite her best efforts, she found herself impressed by the house, the grounds, and the opulent prevalence of polished dark wood.
Maybe she did envy Opal. Once she’d accepted that, the rest of his analysis lost its bite.
Why wouldn’t she want attention from someone who could offer her, if not her own kind of wealth, significantly more than where Ruby came from?
‘You might be right there, Johan. Who knows.’ She sat up and stretched, satisfied to see her reaction having the precise effect she’d intended: shock. She retrieved her T-shirt and pulled it over her head as he spluttered his way through a retort.
‘So … so you’re admitting it?’ He wore the same petulant look that Martin had earlier that evening.
Ruby shrugged. ‘I guess so.’ She pulled on her pants. ‘Anyway, goodnight.’
That last pleasantry was almost cartoonishly cheery, but Ruby walked back to her room feeling satiated, in more ways than one.
Not only had she come away now ready to sleep and unburdened from want, but she had left Johan in bed with his racing thoughts.
Despite her starting on the back foot that evening, she felt that whatever little game they were playing had swayed into her favour.
As she drifted between wake and sleep, though, her mind pulled her back, once again to that feeling she’d had in Cindy’s bed.
A feeling more potent than calm, serenity perhaps, and she couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever feel it again.
In comparison, the smug satisfaction she felt now was a hollow imitation.