Chapter 1

As it turned out Freya and Jim were going to the Opera at Covent Garden that night and so they all shared a cab into the centre of the city. Andrew got out at Leicester Square where he had arranged to meet Helena. It was fascinating how seamlessly they carried on as soon as they met. It was more than four months since he had seen her and it seemed like it wasn’t even four days.

“You are looking well. How is life in publishing?”

“Busy, more tiring than I thought it would be but fun nonetheless. What would make a huge difference is finding somewhere to live. Or somewhere to live that is not awful or expensive or both. That will make a big difference. You know what I am like, not the best first thing in the morning. And now I have to get myself up after all these years of the human alarm clock. I am always on the lookout for somewhere and I just have to stay positive. Once I am in the city, on the Tube rather than British Rail then it will be fine. I have crashed at people’s houses occasionally but I can’t make that too much of a habit, especially at the Christmas season. I should stop complaining it is hardly the end of the world. I have a job that is paying more than I thought I would be getting, I just need somewhere to stay. The work is fine, quite intensive and really interesting.”

“So you edit books or manuscripts all day?”

“Hardly. Remember the assistant part to my title. I work with three other editorial assistants and the four of us support two editors and one of the directors. There is a lot of common sense, a lot of banging heads together, a lot of hand holding to get things complete. It is a real range of tasks. But the one thing I have not done yet is edit anything. It is all the parts round the publishing process that we all deal with. Liaising with the writers and authors, royalty agreements, the physical act of publishing, distribution agreements, returns and remainders. All the different parts of the industry. I have been out to Heathrow twice and Gatwick once to meet and greet authors as they arrive in the country. It has been quite the busy three months.”

“It sounds fascinating, and interesting. Are you enjoying it?”

“I am loving it. I am surrounded, immersed in the world of the written word. Everyone treats books as so important, writing as so important. I am really enjoying it.”

“What about your own writing?”

“The first six or eight weeks were tough, just settling in, finding my feet, and I was tired constantly. But the last month I have started to use the journey home as a time to think about stuff, jot some ideas down. It is too busy, too crowded, on the journey so is not conducive to actually writing but this morning for instance I went down to the local library and wrote for a couple of hours.”

“Why the library?”

Helena made a face.

“Just a bit of peace and quiet from Mum and Dad. I don’t think they are trying to drive me insane, they are just naturals at it! Returning to the family home while necessary until I can find a place has not been easy.”

Andrew looked at her quizzically.

“I know that you have completely moved away from your parents but mine still treat me as if I am a schoolgirl. Endless questions, endless complaining about, well whatever they can think of to moan at me about.”

She sighed.

“That is unfair but I swear I can see the speech bubble above Dad’s head, ‘my house, my rules’. It just gets wearing. I could cope on breaks or I wasn’t as round as much but with my little brother away at university himself now I am Mum’s sole focus. Never mind, ignore me, listen to me moaning about things. Tell me about life at Cambridge, what’s the news?”

Andrew filled her in on life that term, trying to capture all the little moments that had happened so far.

“So Pedro and Justin are worse than ever?”

“That is one way of looking at it. But Justin I think it was, said the Freshers are turning up looking to be hunted. Remember how Emma tried to hook up with me three years ago, but she did it badly and sober at dinnertime as opposed to drunk at 1.00 in the morning. How it was as if she had a list of things she needed to do. Well that attitude is even more prevalent. If you don’t get falling down drunk and have a couple of random one night stands then you are just not getting into the spirit of things!”

“Crap, it is not that bad.”

“Sure, that is full of generalisation and stereotype but it is also fundamentally true. Of course it is not everyone, maybe it is not even the majority but there are a lot of students both at Trinity and at the other Colleges where it is 100% accurate.”

“Wow. Although people in glass houses and all that.”

Helena giggled.

“I know, listen to me sounding like a right old fart, that was us three years ago. Although in our case neither of us were drunk and is was what? 100 nights? 75?”

They both sat and did a quick count.

“Something like that. It doesn’t matter. I even took you to a wedding for goodness sake.”

“That’s right. Am I the only person that has been to Edinburgh?”

“Yes you are. I have lived and worked in London all three summers and have never reciprocated all the hospitality I got.”

“Who have you stayed with?”

“You, Nigel and Justin the first Christmas, and I have been back to Justin’s twice since, as well as seeing him for the day a couple of other times as well. Pedro and I only got as far as Paris as his parents had moved, I was with Matt at New Year in 2^nd year and Abi straight afterward. It is only Justin I have stayed with more than once. You spent a lot of weekends with Navya and Abi, right?”

“Yes I did. Mr. and Mrs. Rai were always very pleasant to me. Unlike poor old Matt.”

“You heard about that?”

“Navya called me a couple of evenings later when her parents were out and had a right old moan. I think she was pretty embarrassed by her mother. Did Matt mention anything about it?”

“They both talked about it, but Matt was really low key. I think she made the worst of her comments in Hindi so although he knows she had some issues I think he is choosing to ignore the worst of them. The truth is the pair of them are in love, and are ready to deal with all the hassles that come from being a mixed race couple. His family have been very supportive and if there are comments at College then they are behind their back. I think they will be the first wedding among our College friends. Unless you have anything to share?”

Helena needed to learn to pull her punches.

“Ouch.”

“Serves you right. That was just unkind. It is another reason to get a place in the city. When you are at university you are never sure if you are maturing or not. The presumption is that you are, but you are too close to it to know for sure. Well returning to Hampshire showed me I had changed even compared to people who graduated from other universities. I don’t know, they were all a bit blah. So no, I don’t think I will beat Nav and Matt to the alter. What about you?”

Helena looked at him with unfeigned interest.

“You know me.”

“That’s it? Come on, crack open the door and share a secret.”

He laughed.

“Force of habit, you know how I am. Catherine and I are doing the same thing as Meredith and I did last year. It has been an interesting transition.”

“How do you mean?”

“Meredith was Olivia’s friend at Newnham, I had seen her around for months and she was often with us in the Library studying away at the end of 2^nd year. So I had a sense of her as a person. It felt, it feels more dispassionate with Catherine, I don’t think I know her as a person yet.”

“Do you think it will work out?”

“At the beginning I wasn’t sure but now I think it will last the whole year. But it is very different.”

“Don’t stop, don’t make me drag it out of you one sentence at a time.”

“Alright, you don’t need to keep hitting me.”

He gathered his thoughts.

“The sex is different. She needs less, and comes across as afraid to let herself go. She is much more like Abi was than you or Meredith. You and Merry were two very different people but sexually you were very similar. You enjoyed sex and you gorged on it. We gorged on it. When we fucked it was not once and then we were done, it was until we were drained, sore, exhausted, pick the word. She is not like that. But what I have found is she is much more like you in the conversations. Remember in 2^nd year we would talk about life after university, how we would cope with life. Moving for jobs, schooling, both people working and trying to raise kids, all these sorts of things. Well with Catherine we have started to talk more in the evening. Last week we had a long talk about politics for example.”

“Gorge on sex?”

“Endlessly indulge then if it makes you feel better. It is something I have thought about in the mornings while swimming. Sex is important to me, I like fucking. But Catherine being more, I don’t know, careful rather than carefree has made me consider what I want from somebody.”

“This is interesting, Carry on.”

“How to try and explain this. It is some combination of pushing and even breaking taboos together with having someone who mentally engages and thrives off fantasies. And the fantasies can be both ones that they would love to do as well as the more outrageous ones that stay firmly in the realm of fantasy.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Lots. Anal sex, period sex, being tied up, tying someone up, highly inappropriate language, a hooker fantasy. All of these would be considered pushing or breaking taboos. I have done a lot of them with you, done most of them with Merry and have done them all with various partners over the years. Do I want my wife to have period sex with me every month? No, but at the same time I want a woman who will consider it, isn’t freaked out by it, and the fact that I want to do it with her, turns her on. I want an engaged sexual partner who is prepared to try anything, just like I am prepared to do almost anything with her. Does any of that make sense?”

“So it is not just seeing your wife as a sex object, you want your wife to see you as a sex object?”

“That is a way of looking at it. Remember you had these long rambles where you worried about how to be a professional woman with a career in the 1980s but at the same time still be a woman. I think that is a key part of it as well. Just because I treat her one way in the bedroom, and not all the time, does not mean that I don’t respect her and her career. That seems to be one of the main reasons that Catherine is more careful in bed. She is worried about being judged, even when I am in no position to judge.”

Andrew shrugged. Helena sat thinking about what he said for a couple of moments.

“Just the way you were talking about all that was echoing in my head, it touched a nerve. We talked about that, you are right. We talked about how I loved that when we fucked it was mutual and most of the time you let me set the pace but also the inherent contradiction of just wanting you to take me every now and again. It is absurd, how can you know when I want you to act that way, without me giving some kind of exaggerated signal.”

Helena sighed nut Andrew nodded in agreement.

“That might be the apex of ultimate fantasies, Helena. A partner who knows you so well, can read you so well that he or she instinctively or intuitively knows what is the right approach.”

“Yes, that really is just fantasy. Do you think you will find that person?”

“No idea.”

Helena looked at him, her face a very alluring mixture of wholesome and alluring.

“What am I thinking right now?”

Andrew leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“You are thinking that you should have been more thorough in your bathing.”

Helena gasped but rather than express outrage she just blushed instead.

“My room at the flat has an ensuite.”

“We are going to go back to Lord Barnes’ flat?”

“Well it is that or walk down to The Savoy and check in with no baggage.”

“Don’t sit there looking so smug. Did you think this was the way the evening was going to unfold?”

Rather than answer her Andrew went to the bar and got them two more drinks before returning to their little corner table. Although it was awkward and looked really naff, he wedged himself into the corner and guided Helena back against him. It was the public version of a couple snuggled together on the couch. But what it meant was Andrew could whisper in her ear.

“Did I expect this? No, but I would be lying if the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. If you had moved on, been seeing someone, anything like that, then I would have had a fun evening with you, kissed you goodnight and nothing else would happen. But that is not the case. Instead I get to sit here with you and tease you, whisper things to you, a verbal Trojan Horse. And in some ways, it is too easy. You know how much of a devil I can be. Just me sitting here whispering like this to you, it has you all flustered. Your imagination is already racing ahead, excited by, and yet at the same time worried, what I am going to whisper to you.”

Andrew stopped and swallowed some beer.

“What do you want me to say to you? How do you want me to challenge you? Maybe it is nothing more than you are a beautiful woman that deserves to be ravished thoroughly, properly, completely. Drink up.”

It took Helena a second to realise the last thing was a command but the gin and tonic was gone before Andrew finished his beer. They headed out into the November evening, Helena grabbed his hand and they walked down to Charing Cross Tube Station. 22 minutes later Andrew closed and locked his bedroom door behind them. Helena looked great, her body still firm and tight and nubile. And best of all her range of facial expressions was still incredible. Any delusions of not still being on a hair trigger were always immediately challenged. And when she had him coming all too soon she made sure he saw her expression of smug victory. Andrew’s revenge was just as sweet and musky and tasty. But their oral adventures were just an aperitif to maximise their pleasure in the coming hours.