Mrs s, p.18
Mrs S, page 18
Listen it’s no big deal. The horse has finished his meal. She wipes her palm against her suit trousers without thinking. Wet glistens against the dark fabric. I mean it is, you’re, I assume anyway, fucking the headmaster’s wife, I’ll say it aloud so you don’t have to. Don’t talk like that. Like what? Like it’s only fucking. Oh for Christssake, it’s a relationship, is that it? Girlfriend and girlfriend? Have you even fucked yet? Or is it all just, the tantalizing, the forbidden fruit. I smile, I want to calm her down. Don’t be jealous. Fuck off, I’m not jealous, you cunt. She smiles back. Returned to me.
I have, we have slept together, we are sleeping together. Flies dive for the moisture of our eyes and lips. The Housemistress huffs, hoping to displace them with her breath. Jesus. Yes. Is it, I don’t know, good? Yes. Jesus. You think, I mean, is she gay? I don’t know, haven’t really had to ask so far. God they, the two of them, just seemed so fucking straight, like. She shakes her head. I know, well, she’s not that, she’s definitely not straight. In the pause between us she bends to pick more grass, then changes her mind. Do you know what you’re doing? Her mothering look. Eyebrows raised, set stern. Nostrils flared. But her eyes give away her core. Kind, fearful. No, I don’t. Do you need me to tell you to stop? What difference would that make. She sighs dramatically, wags her finger. You should stop, there, now I’ve said it, it would stand up in court, with these horses as my witness. A shirtsleeve unravels, she pushes it back up. I don’t talk about you, I haven’t said anything. She puts her hands on the fence. Looks upwards. Said anything about what? She knows what I mean, that I haven’t outed her, that I would never. Just us, that’s all, our friendship. Why would I worry about that? I’m just saying, you don’t need to worry. Sure you’re not doing much talking at all.
The larger horse stands by the fence. He waits for more grass. The Housemistress offers him her empty palm. She flinches slightly as his lips rub against her skin but does not pull away her hand. Realizing it is empty, he snorts, walks purposefully towards the centre of the field. You should have given him something. Oh I’ll be sure to bring him an apple next time to make up for it. A bell rings, in the near distance, perhaps the one at the art block. Shit. I check my watch. Shit, I’m late, are we OK? Of course we are, you don’t have to keep this stuff from me, who are you going to tell if it’s not me. I know. Do you? Yeh. The Housemistress stops to watch the other horse, the one further away, drop to the ground to roll, his great weight of muscle and bone twisting in the dried earth. His body soon obscured by dust.
I show Mrs S around my room like a child, pointing out this and that. There is not much to see. The clumsy ceramic mug made by an ex, my only long-term ex, a love heart carved as a signature on the bottom. She turns this over. Runs her fingertip over the heart. Someone loved you. They did, might still do. Is that right? Her face a new mood, one only just revealed. Lips folded in. For once she needs to know more. Maybe I will oblige. We broke up when I left, when I was coming here for the job. Recent, then. Sort of. Do you miss her? No. I lower my eyes for effect, so she might think I am lying. Of course the truth is I have not thought about my ex, not on purpose, her face appearing only as I masturbate, when my imagination fails me.
She touches my books, one by one. Reading the summaries, opening each at random and holding a sentence in her mouth. Clever, aren’t you. Not really. A big fan of hers then? She lifts my old edition of the dead author’s novel. Of course, aren’t you? Sure, I was at school at least, although maybe now I might not be able to read her work in the same way. She turns the book to the opening chapter. Because of being here, because of the school, now you’ve seen it? Yes, it changes things, makes it too, I don’t know, too close, it’s all too close, tragic, really. For a moment I think she might read the dead author aloud. An intake of breath, she has found some pertinent line. But the book is closed suddenly. Instead she sits on my bed, smooths a hand across the centre. So this is where you lie and think of me. Yes.
I am shy. The room becomes pathetic. The bed slopes slightly, the mattress pings. I see the dust, the past damage to the walls, the old poster of a Victorian steam train I never bothered to remove. Green carriages cutting through greener fells, a perfect holiday promised in a happy, yellow font. In her half of the building The Nurse puts on one of her tapes. As if on cue. It is her favourite, played a few times a week, an entire album of piano covers, wordless versions of famous songs from famous films. Mrs S listens in, tapping out the familiar tune on my bedspread. She laughs and I put my finger to my lips. Oh, The Nurse would die to know about us. She laughs again when the next track begins. I go to her and put my own finger to her lips. She takes me quickly in her mouth, grazing my skin with her teeth, before forcing my finger deeper, reaching a choke. I feel her throat constrict. Yes. Mrs S kisses me. A new habit, before our lips touch, I echo her yes. What’s mine is hers. Yes, yes, yes. I stand above her. It feels good, to have her look up at me. Yes, yes, yes. I make her wait, undoing the button of my jeans, putting my own hand inside, fucking myself. She reaches out for my knees, to show me what she needs, to be inside me, or for me to touch her. I grab her chin and turn her head from side to side. No. She needs to be quiet, I tell her. Be quiet. Please. She stays sitting, tries to take my forearms, to stop my fucking. Please. Her voice breaks. Please. I don’t stop.
Instead she interrupts me, she breaks my focus. Do you have anything we could use? This is how she will win. What do you mean? You know. I don’t. Her game, to never name anything, as if she can slip so easily from her own reality. You do know. She grabs my crotch. What she is asking for is my cock. Yes, she will win. I go to the laundry basket and pull out what I have. You’re in luck. She holds them one by one, feeling their weight, rolling them up and down her inner thigh. Before making her final choice she begins to undress. What do you want? I hope to sound authoritative, hardening my voice. All of it. Flesh-coloured, her lips around the tip, stare unbroken. I have made her wait long enough. I sit on the bed. She opens her legs. Fuck me. Puts a hand on her breast, moving the nipple between her thumb and forefinger. Fuck me.
I hold the cock at my clit. Go towards her on my knees. Around her, when I am around her, there is no choice but to like myself. Even love, right now, I love myself. I love myself. I spit on my palms and slick the tip. She watches. How she watches. Bared to me, her legs still open, I am only inches away. Press my cock lightly against her. She moves, only slightly. I adjust, sliding up then down, she can’t have me yet. Please, please. She moves to accept me once more, her hips urgent, until she finds a new pleasure. Her voice travels from octave to octave. I hush her, I cannot hold out any longer.
You. Her new habit. She announces me to myself. I fall into place. You. It is as if she has always been waiting for this arrival, of me into my body. You. I don’t have a name. Isn’t it so much better, to not have a name, to be dropped straight from the clouds? Today we meet in full daylight. Wild garlic, the smell somehow reminiscent of our fucking, the sweetened damp of the interior. She pulls me in the direction of my annexe, my room. No. I stand still, feet firmly planted. Let’s go to your house. Mine? I have shocked her. Yes. We shouldn’t, we can’t. Mr S, his trip extended to see family. We can, he’s away, it’s not like I’ve not been to your house before, no one would suspect anything. I don’t know. She is caught off guard, unable to find a reason to deny me, I like to see part of her give way under my gaze. I want to fuck among her things. I want to leave a trace, to be lodged in her memory, to have her see their bed and think of me. She bites the flesh around her fingers. It is unrefined, gorgeous, part of the pressure of my gaze. You really want to? More than anything. Don’t be dramatic. Come on, he’s away, surely now is our only chance. I kiss her neck, I think of it as cheesy, to kiss someone’s neck, like a thing from the films, a thing that other people do, a thing that he might do. But today I want to be like other people. I keep going, I kiss the mound behind her ear. She wriggles out of my grip, shuddering, the touch too much. Stop it, stop it, OK, we can go. I smile. She offers me her neck again.
Mrs S laughs at things that surprise me. The sudden slipping of the cock, today it is her cock, from between my legs. The hard catch of muscle and skin, my gasp. She didn’t mean to. It is her first time fucking somebody else. I understand from this that she has fucked herself. This intimate knowledge, her private routine, she shares with me. When she turns me over I ask her to hit the gentle rise of my cheeks. She does. Again and again, she lifts her hand, hovers for a second, my breath breaking in the pause, bringing it down until she finds the right sound, wet and ripe. Whispers can I take it, I say yes. Abandons the cock and uses her fingers. More questions, she widens her palm, does it hurt, am I the only one who has touched you like this. Yes. Trust, this kind, I did not expect. My body hands itself over, I give her my pain, even the possibility of my pain, I grow bigger. Grab her hand and push it deeper. I sob into the pillow. Not wanting her to see, not realizing the sound that leaves me, a wail I only hear after my mouth has already closed. Oh God, I have, I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry. No, no, you haven’t, I’m fine, really. She withdraws her fingers slowly. Understanding, I hope, that in these moments she makes me feel like myself. I want her skin. Lift off my t-shirt, then binder. She has not seen me like this. I start to loosen it, to peel it from my chest. Other questions are forming in her mouth, the kind that take the air from the room. In doing this, by revealing myself, I know I will have to answer them.
I pull over the covers. She finds me underneath. Raises my arm and strokes my armpit. I let her. Hand travelling down my side, the places nobody touches, only my second skin of elastic and cotton. Ribs shocked by the sudden space. I allow myself extra breath. Under her fingertips are the worn grooves, the raw creases. Creep of blisters. Scars. Here, this part of me, is patterned stone. What she can trace I don’t know. Her nails trip a raw piece of skin. A livewire. Nerves spill over and subside. Summer has worn me away. My tolerance of pain, I realize, it was already there.
Her hand reaches around, towards my tits. I catch her fingers. Don’t, not there. She tries to be soft. I find you beautiful. I shake my head. It’s not that, that’s not the point. She curls her torso away. A signal. I have begun to owe her something, now we have to talk. I know the moment. We are hermetically sealed. You don’t trust me to see you naked? No, that isn’t it either. There is no explaining, I do trust her and also trust is not the word here, not for this, how do I tell her I need to control perception, her perception, in order to stay intact. I do, I do trust you, of course I do. Then what is it? You mean what is this? I roll over, pick up the binder. I thought it was some kind of sports bra, I thought perhaps you were shy. It’s different, it’s. I can’t remember how to finish the sentence. What have I said before? She moves closer. You can tell me. Her empathy is working overtime, she prides herself on an instinct for those that struggle. It’s hard to explain. Please try, do try. I use it to flatten my chest. I let her do the rest. Flatten it? Yes. What, so, to be more like a man? Here is another word that doesn’t work. Man. The priority she affords it. I want to correct her. I don’t know if it’s ‘like a man’, it’s more about masculinity. Same thing. I don’t think it is.
She inhales. OK, I’m not sure I follow you, is it about feeling manly, how about that. She needs more detail. I don’t know, I never know, how to provide it. To talk it through, to use language as it is already known, requires how I feel to be a fixed state. It isn’t. A self always on the move. I give in to a simplicity I don’t believe in. I guess, yeh, it lets me feel more manly. She seems satisfied. Takes the binder. Slips her hands inside and pulls it taut. It must hurt. It does, I don’t notice it so much anymore. Tough, aren’t you. Guess so. She kisses me, reaches for the cock, turns it over in her hand. I think I can understand it. She puts the cock between her legs, held against her pubic bone, where it was only moments ago. It does feel good, powerful, to be manly. But she doesn’t understand. And yet understanding is everything to her, she cannot see the ego in it, her need to grasp it all, rather than accept what she does not know. It’s fine, I reassure myself. At least the question is over. I don’t want to push. My heart rate levels, the certain self-loathing that comes with this relief. I should have more pride. There are too many things I want.
Afterwards I get up and begin to dress. Boxers, jeans. I pick up the binder and pull it with difficulty over my head. Think of the shape of her hands inside it. My shirt lies close to the doorway. Crumpled, arched. Still a little muscle in the fabric. I wash our cock in their sink. All dildos are eventually an artwork. Especially now, rude and proud against the porcelain. Sex and its afterwards; full of procedures. She gets up, gives me one look, then resumes a sort of busyness. Our rhythms are smoothed out of the sheets, the curtains pulled apart, window opened. The afternoon returns. That powerful sun rearranges the room. As if our conversation never happened. Later I know she will wash the sheets. Get rid of my smell. For now she places the pillows over the duvet, tugs at their corners. A glass of water is handed to me. I have to exit quickly. That is the unspoken rule. There’s no time to be leisurely. Today I am grateful for it.
I’d like to leave the cock to dry on her sink. For a moment I admire it beside the his-and-hers toothbrushes. Pink, blue, silicone skin. I laugh quietly. A devastation so mild. How long before he would notice? It would catch his eye as he pissed, maybe. If not, if he was too long enjoying the sight of his back garden through the window behind the toilet, he might graze it with his hand as he reached for his green mouthwash. I carry the cock out of the bathroom and put it inside my tote bag. She sits, half-naked, on the bed opposite the window. Today the church bells are rehearsed, clumsy, a tune starts and then falters, chords hang in my teeth. Last minute I kiss each of her knees. See you soon. Yes, soon.
There is a swift surge of panic as I exit the bedroom. I leave myself behind, I’ve given too much of myself away. Outside, I try not to look up at her window, to need her reassurance, she will not be waiting to look for me. The smell of sex hangs between my nose and mouth. The faint drone of my pelvic bone, the lasting pressure of the cock. Weak legs. I haven’t eaten since yesterday. Out of sight of the house I lean against the last curve in the churchyard’s stone wall. I should not have shown her, I should not have kissed her knees. The surge again. Why did I kiss her knees. Not thinking I walk back up towards the school. I have an idea to visit the larger library, to try and find the particular book of poems by the dead author. The idea is to be alone, but not completely.
The cock lends the tote bag a comical, bouncing weight. It spins and bangs against my hip. All I want to do now is talk to her. Everything is too quiet. The day deflates. The Girls are leisurely. Two or three nod in false solemnity as they pass me on my way up the grand staircase. Some lounge on the grass. I avoid the front entrance. Sex is still warm on my fingertips too. Four Girls play messy doubles on the tennis court. A small audience has gathered, music comes from a radio. One Girl waves but I can’t see her face through the sun. Vague haloes attach to each head, each racket, each tree.
I wave back. The muscles of my forearm ache. Play a game Miss? The Girl stands up. Other heads turn. Not today. She shrugs and sits back down. I imagine sitting with them, the cock rolling out of the tote bag and down the hill, coming to an unsteady stop against the net. The Girl’s shoulders are pink. Sun cream! My voice cracks halfway through the command. Put some sun cream on! No one responds. I pretend to reach into the tote bag and feel only silicone. Somebody, one of The Girls, laughs. Then another. I kissed her knees because I didn’t know what else to do.
My birthday, out of nowhere. I check the post, those great lumpy sacks hung each morning in the corridor. Nothing. What did I expect? She forgets things, my mother. I am old enough now, she might say, I no longer need a card, the stuff of childhood. I can’t help but call her. Prompt her memory. She is vague, busy, reading a magazine while she talks. Sections offered aloud to me. A marriage, royal, he is very sexy, very handsome, he’s a real man, a good wedding is in the details. At the end I say I love you. A minute’s silence. She is always grieving me. Yeh I know. Her standard reply. She can’t end it there, gives me some parting gossip, an aunty’s broken ankle, God knows how much Baileys, at least a bottle. Bye, I say, goodbye, as if it could be forever. But she cannot locate the drama in my voice. Speak soon, enjoy the weather.
The Housemistress finds me. Phone receiver still in my hand, her long gone. Fancy seeing you here. I look up. Jesus who died? She panics. Oh God did somebody actually die? No, no. Fucking phewf. Rumbles her top lip. You had me going there. Grips the back of my plastic chair. It bends slightly under her strength. Sorry. Everything OK? Yeh, no. I decide whether or not to tell her. What? What is it? She doesn’t give me a choice. It’s my birthday, actually. What the fuck, happy birthday! Thanks. I’d take you straight to the pub but I’m on bloody duty. That’s OK, don’t worry, it’s not your responsibility. Responsibility? Birthdays are supposed to be fun, a good thing, you know. Scratches her chin. Have you told your lover? Gross, don’t call her that. That’s what she is though. A challenge, I can barely rise to it. My lover, no, I haven’t told her. You should, she’d probably give you something good, silverware, a fat cheque inside a card. Piss off.
