Free The Last Year of Being Single by Sarah Tucker Page B

really. John’s hair is dark and curly and soft and good to run fingers through. Notice my nails are badly bitten. Must do something about this.
    He starts to touch my ankles and I remember I haven’t remembered to wax for weeks. Shit. Oh well. First impressions.
    After ten minutes of ankle tickling and hair massaging I ask if that’s enough.
    ‘Fine.’
    I sit by the fire. Unwaxed legs on show. John leans over and starts to blow—yes, blow —on my calves. I initially think this is weird and I don’t like it. Then think it a bit kinky. Perhaps it’s an erogenous zone I haven’t heard of. Anyway, it’s working and I have this desire to rip his clothes off and force myself on him.
    He gets there first.
    I’m naked with John Wayne.
    I’m naked with John Wayne.
    I can’t believe I’m actually, sort of, almost having sex with this man. For once in my life someone I’ve lusted over I’ve now, er, got. I’ve never got anyone I really, really fancied. Only ones who were nice and I thought would grow on me, but for one reason or another never did because they had bad breath, or no personality, or an eating disorder, or combination of all three. I want to cry because I haven’t been touched for such a long time like this, and it’s wonderful and I’m angry with Paul for withholding sex but I don’t want to cry because it’s a turn-off for John and it’s unfair on him. So I hold it back. And swallow the pain with the pleasure.
    But here I was, with a man I was in lust with, and he was actually wanting to have sex with me. Lucky, huh? I kept looking at him, and he had his eyes open too. He kissed hard and held me very tightly, almost crushing my ribcage at times. Then stroking my back, from the top to the bottom of my spine. Caressing my cheeks (on bottom). Gently persuading me to move this way and that without telling me or forcing me, and making it seem natural, as if it was my idea. It wasn’t, but every time he did it I thought, I wish I’d thought of that.
    ‘I can’t close my eyes, Sarah. Every time I look at you I think, Hey, I’m kissing Sarah Giles. I’m naked with Sarah Giles.’
    I smiled. ‘I’m thinking that about you, but didn’t want to tell you. You’ve slept with sooo many women. They must all tell you the same things and I would like to be original and keep my own counsel.’ I stroked his hair and started kissing him again and closed my eyes.
    We were completely naked, lying side by side, but hadn’t (as they say at school) ‘done anything’.
    John—‘I don’t want to sleep with you tonight. I want to wait.’
    Sarah—‘What for? Do you respect me?’ I said half jokingly.
    John—‘Yes.’
    This made me feel uneasy. It was much easier to think John a hardened womaniser rather than a man with feelings and sensibilities who actually cares about the women he sleeps with rather than just uses them. I reassured myself this was just part of his spiel, and the real, tough John would come out later—if not tonight, at some stage during the next month. At least I would have some time with the lust of my life—albeit brief. And anyway that’s what lust is all about. Brief liaisons, furtive, forbidden and above all short. And dangerous and anything goes.
    Sarah—‘OK, then. Are you going to take me home?’
    John—‘Yes. I think so. I’ll get dressed.’
    And with that my dark prince withdrew, and put on his Next underpants.
    He drove fast back along the M25. The journey was quiet. We listened to Dido—‘All You Want’. He had one hand on the wheel, the other between my legs. Making me come every ten minutes with the fingers of an expert who knows what he’s doing without looking. This was a little disconcerting, but my body didn’t seem to mind. And my mind was somewhere else completely.
    Through the tunnel. He stopped to get the pound coin, pay, and then resumed his position as I resumed my composure, smiling at the attendant as though nothing was happening and I wasn’t