Free Offcomer by Jo Baker Page B

her, and was surprised to find how cold her skin was, how rough it felt, pocked and puckered all over with goosepimples. It had looked so smooth in the candlelight. But she smelt good, and when he kissed her dry lips her cool silky hair brushed against his cheek, and her eyes when she looked at him were dark and wide and beautiful, and his balls ached for her. He pulled his jumper over hishead, kicked off his trainers, unzipped his jeans, bent to pull off his pants. She stood, prickling arms wrapped round her, not watching. When he tried to lay her down on the sofa, she seemed stiff and unsupple, and they struggled for a moment, staggered, crumpled onto the cushions. Her breasts were firm to his mouth, the nipples hard. She was cold and dry between her legs, so he licked his finger. He realised then that he should have cut his nails.
    He leaned away from her to rummage in his jeans pocket for a condom. She watched him tear off the foil, roll the latex down his penis. He smiled at her, leaned in to kiss her, and there was another awkwardness as skin adhered to rubbery skin, as limbs were shifted and rearranged. He pushed into her with some difficulty, and it occurred to him that she might have been a virgin. She was quiet underneath him. Perhaps she was nervous.
    “It’s okay,” he said.
    He closed his eyes and came, shuddering. He felt his whole body go slack, his mind melting with relief. Winded and delighted, he felt he could almost laugh out loud. A whole different arena, he thought, from masturbation. A whole different world. He had almost forgotten. He sighed deeply, satisfied, and reached down to grip the condom, and withdrew. He sat up, began to ease the condom off.
    “You okay?” he smiled at her.
    “Yes,” she said, “fine.”
    She sat up awkwardly. He knotted the condom, dropped it on the floor. He put his arm around her shoulders, but that felt awkward, so he drew her to him, held her a moment. He felt the curve of her breast against him, felt her breath on his chest. He felt himself expand.
    “Bit cold,” she said, and drew away from him.
    He rubbed her arms, chafing them.
    “I’ll put some clothes on,” she said.
    He smiled as he watched her go through to the other room. She walked stiffly, arms wrapped across her breasts. He slumped back into the sofa, and closed his eyes. He could hear her moving around in his bedroom. Her scent hung around him, reminding him, oddly, of pink wafer biscuits from Christmas tins, that weren’t quite a mouthful, were there-and-gone, leaving just a sweetness on the tongue.
    She was sharp, too, had to be. Nineteen, she would be. Nineteen or twenty. Good looking, an Oxford undergraduate. Wait till he told Paul. Alan’s eyes opened, he reached round for his pants, his lips still tender with the memory of her nipples, like raspberries they were, dark pink. He stood to pull his pants on, picked up his jeans. Her eyes had sharpened, he remembered; he had seen something click into gear when he’d started talking philosophy. Heidegger. Where had he put his Heidegger? Alan settled his softened cock into place, padded across the room as he zipped up his flies. He ran his hand over the dark spines of his books, tugged
Being and Time
from the shelf. He turned at the sound of her feet, smiled.
    She was dressed, her hair long and loose, a slightly bruised look about her eyes. She tucked in her lips, pushed her hair back from her face. He came close to her, put his arms around her, kissed her, unexpectedly, on the ear. She shifted, made a small sound: he released her, walked back to the sofa, filled his glass. He smiled at her. Draining the lees of the wine into her glass, he began to talk. In philosophical terms, he said, it was impossible to prove that either wine or glass existed. She perched on the arm of the chair, tugged her hair back into aponytail, secured it with a band. He outline the proposition that the Universe exists because man perceives it, that man exists in order