Chapter 11

So far that weekend Andrew had deliberately left Ara’s nipples alone. At first it was to get a reaction that wasn’t aided by her hyper-sensitive nips and then the previous day had been more talking through stuff as opposed to fucking around. When he returned from his run on the Sunday he looked through the limited clothes he had with him and found a jumper that was a little coarser than most and carried it over to the bed. Sliding under the bottom of the duvet Andrew kissed Ara’s calves and started to gently push her knees apart. Her legs fell open and he heard a loud ‘hmmm’ as he started on her thighs. Ara’s bum cheeks filled his hands perfectly and Andrew combined to pull himself up and pull her down the bed. His tongue met her pussy and he savoured the smell, the feel and most of all the taste. But this was not Friday night, all he wanted to do was to gently wake her and arouse her. He continued kissing his way up her body, taking care to avoid her nipples before lying beside her. Ara had no compunction about kissing him despite her taste upon his lips.

“I could get used to waking up that way.”

Andrew’s arm reached down and grabbed the jumper wedged at the bottom of the bed. Ara looked confused as she saw him with a jumper on a warm summer morning but suddenly her eyes widened.

“What are you going to do with that Andrew?”

“You know what I am going to do with that. Lift your arms up. Come on.”

As he pulled the rough jumper down over her body she shivered.

“You bastard.”

Andrew nearly dropped the condom he was in such a hurry to get it on but once he had calmed his shaking hands he was wrapped and rolled Ara onto her back. Despite knowing what was coming her legs pulled him into and onto her. Her weight trapped the jumper against her back but her body moved against the front of the jumper constantly. Tormenting her sensitive nipples. Cradling her head so that he could kiss her Andrew fucked Ara with vigour. But he had been right on Friday, it was too easy. Ara’s body was hard-wired differently to any other he had known or even heard of. Within two minutes he pulled her upright and tore the jumper off her body but the damage was done. Andrew had turned Ara up to 11 and it was a thing of magnificent beauty. As the man who had done this to her, all he thought was that it was an enormous ego boost. To have an intelligent, beautiful woman with a great body coming repeatedly as you fuck her is without compare. And yet it didn’t seem earned, it was too easy. He stopped fucking her and rolled onto his back pulling Ara onto him as he did so. Andrew held her as she recovered but her response was unexpected.

“Why did you stop?”

He tried to explain although he guess he butchered the explanation based on her reaction.

“You need to stop that shit right now.”

Er.

“Did it never occur to you, you self-absorbed idiot, that I wanted exactly what you were doing to me? Did you not think I knew what that jumper would do to me?”

“Oh.”

“Andrew, I want to gorge on you, on this, on us. Do you have any idea how long I have waited to feel like that?”

It looked like he could still be annoying and paternalistic. He leaned over and grabbed the discarded jumper from the floor. Ara’s look was ‘about time’. Once it was again covering her body he flipped her off him.

“Head down, arse up.”

Near the end he was sure he was torturing poor Ara. He couldn’t surf but had seen movies where the surfer is defying the wave, almost riding in a tunnel, a second away from being swamped and dragged under. It is a clunky analogy but it is the best that he could come up with. Andrew didn’t think Ara was constantly orgasming, he couldn’t see how someone could do that physiologically. It was an enhanced or heightened sexual state and as mentioned previously it was bloody fantastic. He hung on as long as he could but there was no way he was going to last with such a partner writhing under him. Slumping over Ara Andrew tried to deal with the condom before collapsing beside her. A few minutes later he padded through to the bathroom and ran a facecloth under the cold tap before bringing it back to the bed. He helped Ara sit up and peeled the jumper off her taking care to pull it out and away from her front. When he dabbed the cold cloth on each breast she hissed but held still. Rather than lie on him Ara lay beside him, her head resting on his left arm. The flow of words started.

“You see me differently than others do. Because you believe in me, because you have always been supportive of my dreams, I can relax and be this person too. Nobody treats me like this, but then I don’t let anyone get close enough. My thoughts are all over the place just a mishmash of random bits of information but I will tell you this. I have no idea if I am any good at sex, I am not very experienced, but good lord do I enjoy it. I am floating on a sea of sexual excess and all I can think of is doing it again. I am going to have to train my body to cope with what my mind wants to happen.”

She stopped and Andrew could see the endorphins bleeding out of her system as she calmed beside him. Ara rolled to her right so that she could look at him.

“I don’t know why I do this to myself. Great sex and then I will hardly see you for, what, four months? What I said a moment ago is true. I don’t trust men very much, too many disappointments, too many times I have seen their true nature. The memories of unkind comments growing up, sexist comments, jealousy, I so rarely get to let the mask slip and be this person. I don’t even know if this is the real me. I hope it is, but maybe it is a swing too much the other way.”

She stopped and looked pensively at him.

“I was different with you than I normally am, I could let go. Normally I am the bossy one in bed.”

Andrew looked at her, confusion on his face. Her reddening face clued him in. Gwen.

“I see.”

“You don’t care, do you?”

He laughed.

“I think I once told you I so didn’t care that I wanted to be a fly on the wall. That hasn’t changed. If you talk about for more than a couple of minutes I will show you exactly how much I don’t care.”

“Pig.”

“True.”

She leaned over and her throaty laugh echoed in his ear.

“So if I told you all the things that I do with poor Gwen you will become enflamed and slake your beastly lusts upon me.”

Andrew gulped, unable to speak, and nodded.

“Goodie.”

The stories would have to wait as Andrew’s beastly lusts had made an early appearance. Ara covered him up before seating herself. There was a look of amusement on her face, presumably at how easily he was aroused by the thought of her in the arms of Gwen. Just thinking about Ara like that had him excited and his hips started to lift off the bed. Ara’s hips met his and they charged to the finish line. Ten minutes later they were once again lying on the bed, a sheen of perspiration on their bodies.

“So am I safe from you for a few minutes?”

“I might ask you the same thing young lady.”

“Well, for a few minutes I suppose so. All joking aside Gwen has been my friend for years. You know from what I told you in Edinburgh that I had been with her. It is nothing regular, it is a way for the two of us to get pleasure. She is like your friends, the ones you told me about, she is not interested in men at all. Whereas for me it is a nice distraction but as I think you can tell, I am very interested in men. I often think I am being unfair to her because I know that ultimately nothing will come of it.”

She stopped and checked Andrew’s reaction but he was happy to let her talk. He leaned down and kissed her gently and Ara carried on.

“Our relationship has evolved over the years and now when we are together I am very bossy with her. I suppose I imagine I am playing the role of the man. Whatever the reason I am in charge, and I use her to release all my pent-up horniness. That is what I meant when I said I don’t act like I normally do. With you all the pressure is gone, you are the experienced one and I let myself go. I think the jumper was that manifested.”

She stopped again.

“I am thinking and talking at the same time. I don’t know what it all means I just know that right at that moment it felt right. I knew what was going to happen when you pulled the jumper on, I remember the blanket from Edinburgh. Like I said it was nice to let go.”

Ara cuddled tight up to him.

“Gwen was very good to me, very good for me, I am going to miss her, miss the softness.”

“Why are you going to miss her? Is she moving away?”

Ara’s head sprang up.

“Don’t be silly Andrew. I am not going to see her again, at least that way.”

“Er, why not?”

Ara’s mouth opened to speak at least twice but both times she caught herself. Finally she spoke.

“So we are not going to be exclusive?”

There was no point in dissembling.

“No. You are not my exclusive girlfriend. You are one of my closest friends and I want to continue to spend time with you but this weekend does not change anything.”

Andrew wondered whether he was about to see Ara storm off. Silence reigned for what seemed like an uncomfortably long time.

“I have never asked you about other people, and I doubt you would tell me.”

She sighed.

“I want to scream at you and demand that you give everyone else up for me but it doesn’t make sense. And that annoys me, in a frustratingly feminine way.”

He supposed a whack was better than hearing the front door slam.

“So if I went and spent next Saturday night with Gwen what would you do, or say?”

“I am a pig, I would ask you to tell me all the intimate details then slake my beastly lusts with you.”

She laughed and whacked him again. The smile faded.

“Do you think we have a chance?”

Andrew nodded.

“I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I have spent the last year trying to reprogram myself, to see beyond the teenage crush. I would not have done all that if I didn’t want us to get to a point where that was a possibility. I also know I am still very young.”

“It is a good way of thinking about it. Not closing the door but not rushing into something too soon. As you annoyingly, but correctly, keep reminding me, the next year will be tough for us both.”

She shook her head, in frustration at the glacial passage of time as much as anything. They shook off the momentary gloom and figured out what to do with the day. It was the first time that Andrew missed having the car. It would have been nice to have the freedom to get out of the city. Thinking about all the different train options brought Brighton to mind. Andrew called Justin, co-ordinated trains and he joined them at Balcombe station on the way to Brighton.

“It is good to see you both, summer is dragging on.”

By the time they had got to Brighton they had caught up on their lives. Justin was excited for Ara’s trip to Istanbul, and a bit jealous as well.

“Turkey sounds fantastic. When do you leave?”

“Four weeks today I think, just under a month. It will be hard work but it should allow me to reference and support my thesis and let me graduate in the summer, around the same time as you guys. That’s the plan anyway. What about you?”

It was a sunny day down at the coast and they wandered along watching the world go by chatting away. They found a mini golf course down at the front and ended up being way too competitive trying to hit a golf ball past a spinning windmill, among many other challenges. Justin and Ara tied and took great delight in mocking Andrew’s distant third place finish.

“You are really crap at this.”

In his defence the putter he had been given was designed for someone the size of Renee. But mostly he was crap.

“I’ll get the beers in. Come on.”

Andrew dropped his hat at the table and went to the bar. When he returned Justin was looking at the hat.

“Where did you get this?”

“Cyprus, I think. Yes, I got it last summer when I was there working.”

“What is this logo?”

“No idea.”

In fact the hat was one of the two that Hermès had made for him at the end of the summer, based on the design of the hat Veronique had bought him in Cyprus. But Justin did not know that Andrew modelled. Ara’s eyes were sparkling with secret amusement but she kept quiet. He stuck the hat down beside him and out of the way.

“Where are you working this summer?”

“At the Ministry of Defence again. Same thing, helping them update their files.”

“Where are you based.”

“It sounds very arsey and mysterious but I am not allowed to talk about it.”

Justin shrugged.

“Why not?”

He wasn’t pushing he just sounded surprised and interested.

“I don’t know actually. It is dull repetitive work but I had a briefing at the beginning and I was told not to talk about it. I don’t really understand why but they made the point of emphasising it so I go along. Like I said if I could tell you it would be easier.”

“Yes, it does raise more questions than it answers. But as you said it is typical summer student grunt work.”

Ara helped move the topic off him.

“What about you Justin, what are you doing?”

“Second summer at Philips, the auction house. Doing a lot of different things, a little bit of everything really. Two thirds is dull and I could be anywhere but the other third is great, attending auctions, even if I have to work, listening to experts assign a value to a painting, things like that. But the best part was when a painting was brought in for an appraisal and it was discovered to be significant. I stood at the back of the room and listened but it was amazing the way they took a thought, in this case was it a work by Hogarth, and they built up the case. It was so collaborative based on a look, on an initial gut instinct, but then it became scientific as well, things like the age of the canvas, the composition of the paint. Like I said it was a privilege to see how they took a painting brought in by a family for appraisal and how it ended up as the star turn at an auction, a previously unknown Hogarth. It is that sort of thing that inspires me.”

Justin could not hide his excitement over his job this summer. The day passed with lots of moments like that, the three of them chatting away. They stayed in Brighton until just after dinner before getting the train to head back into London. In six weeks Andrew would see Justin back in Cambridge.

“It was good to get out of the city, even if just for the day. The two of you are odd friends. You don’t have a lot in common with a History of Art graduate.”

“I suppose not, it was just the luck of the draw with the room assignments in first year.”

Andrew gave Ara the example of Malcom the architecture student where they had never managed to get past superficial stuff.