He had just peeled off her tights when she sat up and smoothed her hair. ‘I was looking at something on the Internet,’ she said. Weltering there, half undressed, with a hard-on, he made a token effort to hold on to her. When that failed, he lay there for a minute or two staring into space and thoughtfully stroking himself through his trousers.
‘I’m just taking Hugo for a walk,’ he said. She was still on the Internet.
‘M-hm.’
‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
‘Okay.’
He did a slow lap of Mecklenburgh Square and found her at work with a toothbrush. (She was always fiercely energetic with a toothbrush in her hand, the head of her own was terrifyingly splayed and flattened.) She had tied her hair up. Her dress was still unzipped and the exposed skin, a wide tapering swathe the length of her spine, looked like old ivory in the forty-watt light. He kissed it while she washed her mouth out.
Her mouth was wet and minty. They were standing next to the bed, trying to kiss and undress at the same time, his jeans and shorts fettering his ankles. It turned out she wasn’t wearing any knickers. Then he was supine on the bed with her astraddle him. She still had the dress on, though he was already inside her. From where his head lay he was able to peer in a haze of pleasure over the hairless plain of his torso, over the low hillock of his stomach with its one winding path of hair, to the site of that impossibly exquisite prehension. ‘Is this nice? Is this nice?’ she said. In a single movement she pulled the dress over her head and was naked. At the sight of her whole skin the pleasure intensified terminally. He put his hands on her working hips and swung her off him. And then he was over her, looking down at her, at her streaming tears, her oscillating midriff, the square prow into which he was…
His weight on her seemed to double from one second to the next. She felt the slippery warmth on her stomach and lower down. She smelled its white, polleny scent. His head sagged.
‘I’m sorry.’ The words emerged as a single exhalation.
‘It’s okay.’ She stroked his hair. ‘I’m sure you’ll… have a second wind.’
He nodded, and kissed her soft nipple—which happened to be next to his mouth—though he was fairly sure he would not. He felt unimaginably tired. He felt as if he would be able to fall asleep instantly and sleep for twelve hours. However, she was waiting for him to do something, and the longer he just lay there, slobbering on her tit, the more utterly exhausted he would feel. He struggled to sit up. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.
‘That’s okay.’ She was still lying there, her legs parallel to each other. Heatless semen slid down from the smooth shadow of her navel and matted the russet stubble of her pubic hair.
‘Have you got something to wipe that up?’ she said.
Leaning over the edge of the bed, he picked up his shorts.
His lack of desire, as he wiped her—wiped her stomach and the seam of her pussy like an exhausted waiter wiping a table—was extraordinary. He felt like he would never want to fuck another woman in his life. In the last minute, the way he saw her had undergone a profound metamorphosis. He noticed the sanded soreness around her mouth, the zones of irritation—little livid spots—where she had shaved part of her pubic hair, the twofold meatiness of her sex… When he had finished wiping her he threw the smeared shorts onto the floor. Then he stepped into the bathroom and, holding his shrivelled prick, made water in the dark. When he had done that, he filled a glass from the kitchen tap.
She had pulled the duvet over her and was lying on her side with her face away from the light. It was with a sort of sad, shameful relief that he saw she had put on his pyjamas while he was away. ‘Do you want some water?’ he said quietly, and she sat up and took the glass.
*
The sound of rain splashing and trickling in the area. It was lovely to lie there in the warmth, still half asleep, holding her small body and listening to the rain. He would have liked to lie there for hours. For years. He listened to it intermittently pinging on the metal steps—sometimes it pinged several times in quick succession, sometimes there were long intervals—and whingeing quietly in the drain. She was wearing his pyjamas. He squeezed her and she whispered something. He stroked her instep with his foot.
She said, ‘What time is it?’
He did not want to move but he leaned over and looked at his watch. He had to stare at it for a few seconds in the semi-darkness. It was surprisingly late. It was nearly ten.
‘Will you make some coffee?’ she said.
He mumbled something and a minute later swung his long white legs out from under the duvet. He was pulling on his shorts when he said, ‘Oh.’
‘What?’ she said.
‘They’re…’ He stopped.
‘… stiff with spunk.’
‘Yeah.’
It was at this point, pulling on the spunk-stiff shorts, that he remembered the wash he had put on yesterday morning, and that it was still sitting wet in the machine.
The music of the rain was less lovely now that he was no longer in bed. It seemed to lay siege to the flat’s ill-lit interiors. Hugo greeted him in the hall, in the grey light that leaked through the small pane of glass over the front door. His white tail waved like a shredded flag. When he yawned the sound was like something moving on unoiled hinges. James patted his head, and scratched his ears, and in the windowless vault of the kitchenette put on the kettle. While it was heating up he opened a kilogram tin of offal and fish-meal and forked the pinkish paste into the St Bernard-sized feed-bowl. He washed the fork while Hugo set to without finesse.
‘Do you want something to eat?’ he said to her.
She shook her head.
He told her about the stuff in the washing machine. ‘I think I’ll have to wash it again.’
She didn’t seem terribly interested.
‘I might as well do that now.’
The old washing machine was in the kitchen, the hard plastic hook of the outflow pipe still secured on the edge of the sink. When he had started it, he went back to the bedroom. She was moving about, picking up her things from the floor, putting them on. ‘Are you leaving?’ he said.
‘M-hm.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to go home.’
‘Why don’t you stay?’ he said. ‘For a while.’
‘I want to have a bath,’ she said. His tiny bathroom had only the mouldy shower stall.
‘Stay for a while. It’s pissing down out there.’
‘I know,’ she said, sorting her tights out. ‘Have you got an umbrella?’
For a few seconds he said nothing.
‘Have you got one?’ she said, looking up.
‘Yes.’
‘Is it okay if I borrow it?’
‘Of course.’
He fetched it from the living room, where the rain was thrumming noisily on the skylight.
‘Why don’t you stay?’ he said, even though she was now dressed and looking for her shoes.
‘I want to go home. I want a bath.’
They were standing in the hall. He switched on the overhead light and she put her shoes on. ‘Is everything okay?’