He worked his way south until his head was between my legs and he was very lightly flicking my clit with his tongue. I looked down a couple of times to check his head was there and this was actually happening. A tiny thought bubble had formed in my mind: Is there any way I can take a photo to preserve this moment where a stupendously handsome climber with a body like a classical statue is going down on me? Jess had once knowledgeably told me that handsome guys were bad in bed because they didn’t have to try so hard. But I wasn’t at all sure I believed her, right at this moment. Max knew exactly the right pressure and where I wanted to be touched, so I wasn’t lying there thinking, ‘Down a bit, up a bit.’
I arched my back again and exhaled loudly as he carried on flicking his tongue over me, and then gently pushed a finger into me at the same time. I could feel an intense heat growing, spreading across my belly, and I rolled my hips in time with his tongue but just before I came, he stopped and pulled himself up. ‘Uh-uh, not yet.’
WHAT?
Maybe that was his problem. Maybe he was a sadist.
‘I’m going to grab a condom,’ he said, kneeling up on the bed.
I shook my head. ‘It’s OK, I’m on the pill,’ I said quickly. I couldn’t bear to delay this moment, a moment which felt like it should be in a film it was so perfect, with a basic discussion about contraception.
It’s often this way when you’re having sex with someone new, right? You’re hardly going to raise the matter in advance at the pub because you don’t necessarily know you’re going to have sex with them.
‘Excuse me, I know we’re only on our second round, but do you mind if we have a quick chat about contraception so it’s not awkward later?’
I don’t think so.
So the subject is left until you’re rolling around together, often pissed. But this never feels like the right moment to have a big discussion either. Unromantic. It breaks the rhythm. So you mumble at one another about it being ‘all right’ or needing to ‘be careful’. Irresponsible, I know, but in that second, I was so seduced by the surprisingly erotic turn of my evening that I didn’t want anything to ruin it. I wanted to experience the kind of sex I’d read about and watched onscreen, but never quite managed myself. No pauses. No awkward fumbling with a fiddly plastic packet. No carpet oyster afterwards. Nobody ever steps on a squishy, cold, carpet oyster in the movies.
So the condom was ignored and Max carried on, putting his hands under each of my bum cheeks and pulling me to the edge of his bed, before lifting my legs up so each was resting on his shoulders. Then, slowly, so slowly, he pushed himself into me.
‘Fuccccccck,’ I said, as he carried on thrusting in and out of me, unhurriedly, as if he was teasing me. I wasn’t sure it was the most flattering position in the world. I glanced down at my stomach and the rolls had all bunched together so they looked like packet ham. Plus my legs were over my head; my feet were, in fact, dangerously close to his head and I worried they might smell. But it felt so good, and Max was staring at me so intensely, that I forgot about my feet.
After a few minutes, he then pulled out and turned me lengthways across his bed. I tried to shift position as gracefully as possible. Never sexy to be thrashing around on top of a duvet like a dolphin, but Max had a knack of sweeping me around effortlessly so I was suddenly underneath him and we were doing it missionary, his head buried in my shoulder as he kissed my neck.
I rocked with him, running my nails down his back as we kissed properly again, mouths wide, tongues pushing against one another. Ha! All those worries about forgetting how to do it, I thought. Not a problem. Look at us go. Look at me having sex with this beautiful man. I moved my nails down over his bottom and then up across his back again. I am a modern, single woman, enjoying myself, being all liberated, enjoying being back on the dating scene again. It’s a Saturday night and instead of getting drunk with Jess, I’m having sex with Max. No more stalking Jake on social media. No more moping over old selfies of us. No more tears on a Sunday evening. I am free! I can do whatever I want! I am—
Suddenly, Max pulled out and, reaching underneath my back with one of his muscly arms, flipped me on to my stomach. I tried to look over my shoulder at him in what I hoped was a smouldering way, although I knew my eye make-up had probably smudged again so I looked like Noel Fielding. Max was on his knees behind me, but lowered his head to kiss my left shoulder, then my right shoulder, then, slowly, he kissed his way down my spine. His beard gently tickled my back and I sighed into my pillow. Then the kissing stopped and I was pulled backwards by my legs, Max’s hands underneath my thighs. My bottom was now on the end of the bed, my knees on the carpet.
‘Give me your hands,’ he said, so I lifted my arms from under my head and moved them behind me.
‘Here, put them here,’ he said, putting one hand on each of my butt cheeks and spreading them apart slightly. There I was, lying on my chest, with my hands on my bottom as if I was about to do a naked version of the Macarena.
Max then buried his head in my crease, starting to flick up and down with his tongue again, harder this time. It felt so good that I didn’t even worry about what my bottom looked like at that angle. I just wanted him to carry on, harder, faster, harder, faster, harder, faster, until that hot feeling of being on the cusp of exploding again and I came, moaning into the pillow.
‘That was amazing,’ I whispered, looking over my shoulder.
‘Good,’ he replied, and then, within seconds, he was lying on top of me, having pushed his cock into me again. His forearms were on the bed and he moved back and forth, breathing loudly and more urgently until he too made a sort of roar and flopped down on my back.
I silently congratulated myself for the performance then wondered how long I had to lie there underneath him before trying to move. I needed a wee.
He kissed my neck and rolled off a few moments later.
‘I’m just going to nip to the bathroom,’ I said, sitting up on the edge of the bed.
‘That one,’ said Max, inclining his head towards a doorway besides his wardrobe.
‘Thanks,’ I said. Strange how you could suddenly go into polite mode when moments ago someone was licking your bottom.
I sat down on the loo in his bathroom – grey marble and black and white photos of mountains on the walls – and tried to wee. It took ages. Come on, Lil, he’ll think you’re doing something revolting in here if you don’t hurry up. Finally, I weed. Then I wiped, stood up and looked at my face in the mirror. My cheeks were flushed, my lips pink. I reached for the Colgate, lying beside the basin, and dabbed it on my forefinger. Then I ran the finger over my teeth and gums, turned on the tap, palmed a pool of water into my mouth and swilled it around.
I tiptoed back towards his bed and got into it, glancing across at him as I lay down. He was lying on his back, one arm bent above his head on his pillow, but rolled on to his side as soon as I was lying down.
‘Head up,’ he instructed, so I lifted it and he put one arm underneath it and wrapped the other over me. Spooning someone you’d met only hours earlier seemed weirdly intimate. Even more intimate than them licking your bottom. But it was the perfect end to this most perfect night, and I fell asleep without even a second of neurosis that I shouldn’t have gone home with him on the first date.
The only thing was, when I woke up in the morning, Max wasn’t there. I lifted my head to survey his room, listening for clues. Ouuuuuuuuchhhhhh, my head. It felt as if my brain had grown too big for my skull overnight. Throb, throb, throb. I tried to ignore the pain and listen for any noise in the flat. But the place was silent. What time was it? I looked on the floor for my bag. No bag. I must