Dirty Talk Read online

  ‘I’m not doing anything,’ he says, the liar. But I don’t call him on it. Partly because if I do, it will mean acknowledging that he is doing something. And if we acknowledge it, I’ll have to ask him to stop.

  And I don’t want him to stop.

  I’m not sure what is happening here. I’m not sure why we’re doing it. I know it’s a mistake. That’s about the only thing I am sure of. That, and the fact that he is really, really fucking good at it.

  He’s not looking at me any more, instead he’s holding my skirt up with one hand, as the other continues to flick me off. He gives my clit just enough attention to make me squirm, although I don’t. Every muscle is locked stiff.

  And then he eases back from my clit, and spreads me open. He does it so gently, and a slight smile pulls at the corner of his mouth, and oh god, he’s looking at me, and he’s smiling, and he’s Phil, he’s my friend, and this isn’t supposed to be happening.

  But it is. It is. I turn back to the book.

  ‘What do you want, Sally?’ he asked her, pinching her clit tighter.

  She shook her head, refusing to give in to him. Refusing to ask for what she so desperately wanted. To do so would be to fail. Rules were rules. She would not deviate from them.

  ‘Tell me what you want,’ he said.

  And this time it was a command.

  ‘Tell me what you want,’ Phil says, echoing my words.

  I shake my head.

  ‘I want…’ Sally said. But she couldn’t ask him for that. It was wrong, it was perverted. It was dirty. She was not that sort of girl.

  ‘Oh, Sally,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘What am I going to do with you? You know I will have to punish you now.’

  Yes. Yes she did.

  She held her breath, wondering if this time the punishment would be the one that she desired so very, very badly. The one that she dreamt of. The one that she ached for.

  ‘What do you dream of, Amy?’

  My mind flashes back to that image of him pleasuring himself, but I keep it to myself.

  But the stinging slap of his palm against her bare flesh didn’t come. Instead, he pushed her legs back, and shoved his cock deep inside her. The invasion was shocking but welcome. He didn’t even give her the chance to adjust to his size before he began to fuck her, hard and deep, giving her no respite.

  I pull in air, gasping, my eyes closing as Phil finds my clit again. He presses a hand flat against my belly, holding me in the chair as he puts his fingers inside me and works my clit hard with his thumb.

  This isn’t supposed to be happening, I think to myself. This wasn’t part of the plan. But I’m right on the edge, and I can’t seem to stop myself, and he’s touching me just right, almost roughly, almost as if he knows that’s what I need, even if I’ve never admitted it to myself.

  ‘Come on, Amy,’ he says. ‘Come all over my hand. You can do that, can’t you?’

  When he talks to me like that, I can’t not.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Amy,’ he says. ‘Amy, are you OK?’

  I cover my face with my hands. ‘Of course,’ I say, though I don’t think I am OK. I think I might be about to die of shame. I know we’re both adults, and I know we didn’t do anything wrong, and it’s not like we actually had sex, but I just came in front of him. I just sweated and swore and writhed my way through quite possibly the best orgasm I’ve ever had in front of the best friend I ever had.

  I want to be all adult and cool about it, but I’m neither. I don’t have casual sex. I’ve never had casual sex. I’ve had two boyfriends, and I treated both relationships with the respect they deserved. And OK, so maybe in hindsight the sex was boring, but it never made me feel awkward. Not like this. I drop my hands away from my face and tug at my skirt, pulling it back down into a respectable position.

  I glance across at Phil. He’s picked up his sweater from the sofa and he’s pulling it on. ‘I guess I should be going,’ he says. ‘Early start tomorrow. You know how it is.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I should probably be getting to bed soon too.’ I fake a yawn.

  ‘I guess I’ll see you later.’

  And before it even occurs to me that he came here to work on my story and we haven’t managed to write a single word, he’s gone.

  I stand in the middle of my living room, clutching my iPad and wondering what the hell just happened. My knees are wobbly and I feel quite lightheaded and strange. I set down my iPad, stagger into the kitchen and flick on the kettle, because everyone needs tea in moments like this.

  I just had a sexual encounter with Phil.

  A really exciting, horny sexual encounter.

  He told me to come all over his hand.

  And I did.

  He talked dirty to me. Phil talked dirty to me.

  And I liked it.

  By the time I’ve downed my second coffee with two sugars, I’ve replayed the entire scenario over in my head a dozen times. I’ve also over-caffeinated myself so much that I can’t sleep. I crawl into bed and switch on the TV. I pick up a book that I’ve been meaning to read for weeks, but I can’t seem to keep my attention on the page. My skin is hot, tight, my mind replaying the slide of Phil’s hands up my thighs, the rude invasion of his fingers inside my pussy, the orgasm that went on and on and on.

  I grab the notebook and pen from the bedside table. And then I start to write. I scrawl words across the page, dirty, joyous words. I fill that page, and then I start on another. Phil dominates my thoughts and my words, becoming the inspiration that I asked for. The rose becomes a bird, and the setting a mansion, the hero an escaped convict and the heroine a reclusive heiress. Then I shove the notebook under my pillow and lie there, trembling, until sleep finally overtakes me.

  It takes three coffees to get me going the next morning, and two blouses, as I drip some of the aforementioned coffee down the pale silk of the first one. I open the shop on time, just, and start the usual morning procedure of dusting and inventory and searching internet auction sites for first editions of Lord of the Rings. Not surprisingly, I don’t find any.

  I keep thinking about what I wrote the night before. It isn’t a story, not even close. But it’s a start. It’s something. The thing is, I need more. I twiddle around for another hour. I sell two books on gardening and a copy of Catcher in the Rye. I keep thinking about Phil, too, about what happened. He left so quickly that I can almost convince myself I imagined the whole thing.

  I didn’t, though, and that’s the problem. What do you do after you have a sexual encounter with a friend? It’s not like we were drunk, so we can’t use that excuse. I pick up my phone. And before I lose my nerve, I call Phil.

  ‘Phil Jefferson speaking,’ he says, in his work voice.

  ‘Phil, it’s me.’ My voice is small and cowardly.

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Hold on just a minute, will you?’

  I hear the phone hit the desk, and various noises – creaking, rustling, voices. I think about hanging up. Get a grip, Amy, I tell myself. He’s your friend.

  ‘Hey, Amy,’ Phil says, coming back on the line. ‘What’s up?’

  My throat closes up. Maybe this was a mistake. ‘I just…I wanted to see how you were.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he says.

  ‘How’s work?’

  ‘It’s work,’ he replies. His words are easy, and for a moment I wonder if I did imagine it. Then I decide that my imagination isn’t that good. Maybe he’s as freaked out by the whole thing as I am. But if he wants to pretend it never happened, that’s fine with me. And that, right there, is the reason why we’re friends. ‘How is the story coming along?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I tell him. ‘After you left last night, I wrote something. It was the first thing I’ve been able to write that didn’t make me want to throw myself under a train.’

  ‘So your muse theory worked?’

  ‘I guess it did.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  I set my elbows on the counter. I sneak
a glance around the shop, which is empty. I lower my voice. ‘She’s a reclusive heiress and he’s a convicted criminal,’ I say. ‘And he breaks into her house in the middle of the night and she catches him.’

  ‘Sounds interesting.’

  ‘She’s alone,’ I say. ‘She’s been alone for a very long time. And at first, she’s frightened, but she’s attracted to him, too. He’s not like the other men that she knows.’

  I can feel the low throb starting between my thighs as I talk, as I think about what he did to me, about the words that I spilled onto paper afterwards, about the fact that we’re both pretending it didn’t happen. But it did. And I’m not so naive that I can’t see the connection between what he did to me and what I wrote afterwards. I want to find out what happens next. I want to spill more words onto paper. ‘Will you come and see me after work tonight?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘Tell me a bit more about your reclusive heiress and her criminal.’

  ‘She finds him stealing food from the kitchen. He’s dirty and exhausted, and at first, she’s frightened, but she’s worried for him, too. She decides that the least she can do is offer him a warm bed for the night. She gives him food, a hot bath.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘This is supposed to be a sexy story, Amy.’

  ‘She watches him bathing, and he doesn’t know she’s there, and he…he.’

  ‘He what?’

  ‘You know!’

  ‘He’s playing with his plastic duck?’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘I hope it’s not the way you put it in your story,’ he says.

  I can’t talk. I press my knees tightly together as my courage runs out. He helped me yesterday because I asked him to, because of the story, because he doesn’t like Dave any more than I do. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean he wants to do it again. ‘I’ve got a customer,’ I lie. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘I’ll be there at seven,’ he says. And then the line goes dead.

  I put down my phone and rest my head on the desk. I stay like that until the bell over the door jangles and someone comes in.

  I force myself upright, paste on a smile. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ I say, as Dave and Jules come strolling over. I can’t imagine that either of them wants to buy a book.

  ‘Nice to see you too, Amy,’ Dave says. He moves away from Jules, who reluctantly lets go of his arm, and goes over to browse the shelves at the other side of the shop.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Jules asks, fidgeting with the strap of her bag, which is navy blue and plain and not the sort of thing the Jules I knew would ever have chosen.

  ‘Slow,’ I say. I glance around the empty shop. ‘But my website is doing pretty well.’

  ‘Not the shop,’ she says. ‘The story.’ She lifts a finger to her mouth, then drops it back down, as if she was going to bite her nail but then thought better of it.

  ‘Oh, that.’ I reach for my coffee, knock back a mouthful, and try not to spit it out when I realise that it’s gone cold. And is quite possibly left over from yesterday. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘So you’re writing something?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say. I slide a glance at Dave, who has bent down to pick up a book. I can tell he’s listening, even though he’s pretending not to.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she says. ‘I mean, we all know how Dave is. You could just give him his fifty quid. Everyone would understand.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I say. I put down my cup and fiddle with a pen instead. ‘How is Dave getting on with his?’

  ‘Brilliantly!’ she says. It doesn’t mean much, if I’m honest, because when they’re in one of their on again phases she thinks his farts smell like flowers. ‘Oh, Amy, you should read it. It’s so good. I think he’s got a real talent.’

  ‘I’m sure he has,’ I reply. I don’t want to get into this. I want them both to leave. I want to think about Phil and my heiress and his criminal. About what happens next, when he gets out of the bath and catches her. About the way his hands feel as they slide over her thighs, climbing higher, higher…

  Dave wanders over, a smarmy grin on his face. ‘Amy,’ he says. ‘Ready to hand over your money?’

  ‘No,’ I say. I want to be strong, to tell him where to get off, but I can feel myself shrinking under his gaze. I don’t know how he manages it, how he always makes me feel so inadequate, but he does. When Jules first met him, I wanted us all to be friends. She was my best friend, and I wanted to like him. I imagined the three of us doing stuff together, fun stuff, going to the cinema and hanging out. But it hasn’t quite worked out that way. Dave is massively competitive. In fact, he’s more than that. He takes it to the point of insanity. And Jules, carefree, relaxed Jules, who never gave a damn about that sort of crap, always wants him to win.

  Or maybe she was always like that, I just never noticed. It doesn’t really matter. When she’s with him…when she’s with him, I don’t like her. She’s unpleasant. But she’s my friend, and she’s been my friend for a long time, and I don’t want to lose that, so I look the other way and I say nothing and I pretend I haven’t noticed that she’s different.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Dave pick up a book. He comes strolling over with it, slaps it down on the counter. He’s staring at me in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. I try to ignore it as I put the book through the till and he hands over the money. I don’t comment on the fact that he’s buying an old copy of the Story of O.

  But he does. ‘Research,’ he says, gesturing to it.

  ‘Do you want a bag for that?’

  ‘Probably for the best,’ he says, chuckling. ‘Wouldn’t want anyone to catch me with this.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Oh god. I asked. I should have just kept my mouth shut.

  He leans forward, and his aftershave hits me.. ‘Because it’s a dirty book, Amy.’

  Why am I blushing? Why? ‘I’m aware of that,’ I reply, as I shove it into a brown paper bag and seal it with Sellotape.

  ‘I have to admit, I was a little surprised to find that you’ve got a porn section,’ he says.

  ‘It’s erotic fiction,’ I tell him. ‘Not porn. And I sell books in every genre.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know erotic fiction if it jumped up and bit you on the arse,’ Dave says. And then he turns, and winks at Jules, and I look to her for something, anything. But as soon as my gaze meets hers she looks away, and fiddles with her necklace, and I think we used to be friends and I don’t understand why that changed.

  I don’t understand why a man came between us. Especially not this man.

  But I don’t ask her. I sit there, angry and blushing, until he takes her hand and leads her out of the shop and she doesn’t look back at me, not once.

  More than anything, now, I need to write this story, and I need to do it well. And if I’m going to do that, I need more of what Phil gave me last night. I need him to give it to me with not just his hands, and his voice, but with his mouth and his tongue and that other male part of him. I need him to give it to me hot and hard and now.

  I get up from behind my desk, lock the door of the shop and flip the sign to closed. Then I pick up the phone and call Phil.

  ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ he says.

  I get straight to the point. ‘Can you come to the shop?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, now.’

  ‘I never had you pegged as the bossy type, Amy.’

  A visit from Dave will do that to me. ‘Can you? Please?’

  ‘Depends,’ he says. I can hear his chair creaking as he adjusts his position in it. ‘What’s it for? Because if you’re trying to make me alphabetise the foreign language books again, I already told you I only know French and German. I can’t help you with those books in Mandarin that may or may not be about how to murder your neighbour without anyone realising.’

  ‘It’s not for that,’ I tell him. ‘Dave and Jules were jus
t here.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. There’s a pause. ‘How were they?’

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Can you just come over? I could really use a friend right now.’

  ‘I’m on lunch in half an hour,’ he replies. ‘Think you can wait that long?’

  No. ‘Sure.’

  ‘See you then,’ he says. Then he ends the call, and I put my head on my desk and groan. I curl one hand into a fist and thump it just for good measure. I used to know where I stood, have everything neatly compartmentalised, but now I’m not even sure which way is up. I thought Jules and I would always be friends, but it’s time that I faced up to facts. Our friendship is dying. It might even be already dead. Maybe I’m clinging onto a zombie friendship and at any moment, she could turn round and eat my face. And then there’s Phil. I don’t understand what is happening with him at all. A few days ago, we were friends, and that was all. We’d never crossed the line. We’d never even talked about crossing the line, because I am not his type, and I’d always accepted it.

  But now? Now I just don’t know where the hell we are.

  Thirty-five minutes later, when he raps on the door of the shop, I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. I unlock the door and pull it open. Phil walks in, and he’s smiling.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I ask. I check my clothes. They seem OK.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘I’m just pleased to see you, that’s all.’

  ‘You saw me yesterday,’ I point out.

  ‘So I did.’

  I stand there and stare at him, and then I realise that I can see the outline of a vest underneath his shirt, and something inside me goes all funny and strange, which is weird, because what could possibly be attractive about a man in a vest? But I feel it anyway, and then I notice how blue his eyes are behind his glasses, and I see the rose on his hand, and I know what it is that I want to do. I know what my heiress wants to do, what she wants more than anything. What she’s wanted ever since she watched the stranger pleasuring himself in her claw-footed tub.

  ‘So,’ he says. ‘What’s up?’