Let's Make This Thing Happen Read online

  She swallowed, his juices sticky on the back of her throat. And then she dropped to her knees and hugged him to her, not caring that his wet dick was in her hair and she would have some serious fixing up to do before she could leave.

  Not caring at all.

  There was nothing beyond this moment.

  §

  She could barely stand, let alone manage the narrow staircase.

  As he stripped her, she paused only briefly to marvel that she didn’t care about what he would see. She wanted him to see her naked, to drink her in. Wanted him to carry on enjoying her body.

  He led her to a big bed and helped her in, then went to get a hand towel to wipe his semen from her.

  She lay there, like a woman in one of those classical paintings. That was the best way she could think of it. Something by Rubens... Leda and the Swan, perhaps – minus the swan, of course.

  And he stood there, just looking down at her naked body.

  He slipped the leather jacket off, then pulled the t-shirt clear. His chest was smooth, hair-free, his belly slim with a ripple of abs beneath sparse black hair that thickened below his navel. His jeans were unbuttoned, just hanging from his hips.

  The way he stood, it was like a pose she remembered from one of those posters. The four members of the Angry Cans lined up against a desolate industrial background. They all wore dark shades, and Ray wore just an open leather jacket and blue jeans, the top button undone.

  She realized this was the first time she’d thought of him like that in hours. Somewhere along the line he’d stopped being that teen heart-throb and become something else.

  Now he slipped his jeans down, pulling his shorts free, too, pausing only to kick his boots away, until he straightened again, naked. Black hair tangled at his groin, and his manhood hung semi-erect. Was he starting again, or had he not gone down fully after his climax? As she watched, there was a twitch, a shift and she saw that he was starting to fill out again.

  She slipped a hand down over her belly to cover the narrow strip of hair. She slipped her middle finger down between wet folds, then coyly drew one knee up. Immediately, his shaft visibly filled out some more and she pressed down with that finger and felt a stab of pleasure.

  And now, he stepped forward, put a hand on her knee, forcing her raised leg to flop sideways and expose her sex to him.

  He looked down at where her hand lay, and she pressed again with that middle finger, sliding it across the hard nub of her clit.

  He kneeled on the mattress before her, and he was almost fully hard again.

  He leaned forward, and the hand on her knee slid down her thigh, the pressure firm, almost painful. Pushing that leg further sideways, he took her other leg and moved it away, spreading her, and then he lowered himself so that she could feel his hot breath on the back of her hand.

  He kissed her knuckles, working gently across all four fingers. Then the tip of his tongue started to press and probe, finding the hollow between the base knuckles of each finger, a strangely intimate, sensitive spot. The pressure of his tongue on her hand made it shift against her, and now he moved up to kiss the back of her hand, pressing his face so that her palm and fingers ground down on her sex.

  God, but that was intense, and unlike anything she’d ever felt before! So intimate and yet, somehow, teasing, removed.

  His tongue slid down, following the crack where her middle and index fingers pressed together. Probing, forcing them apart, and then she felt the hard tip of his tongue slipping between the wet folds of her labia.

  She pulled her hand away, exposing herself to him, and his mouth closed on her. His upper lip mashed against the soft, fleshy hood that covered her clit, sliding against it. At the same time, he worked his jaw, gliding his lower lip across her softness and then... his tongue drove deep inside her.

  How did he get his tongue so deep?

  The hard column of his tongue filled her, pressed up against the front wall of her vagina. He started to thrust his tongue, and then his whole face, filling her and grinding against her simultaneously. So many different sensations, not least the growing tightness in her belly.

  She arched her back, pressing her head into the mattress and thrusting herself against his face.

  She balled her fists in pillow and sheet, as if hanging on for her life, and still that tightness grew.

  So close... so close!

  He pulled away, teasing, pulling at her labia with soft lips and then running his tongue along the folds of her sex. Flicking tantalizingly across her clit and then ducking back down to lick and pull at those soft folds.

  Now, the pressure was starting to build again. Slower this time, transformed from a focused tightness to a whole lower body thing, a sensitivity to every touch, to every subtle difference in touch.

  When gentle licking became long sweeps of the tongue, she arched again, pushed up, and now each sweep ended in pressure on her clit, his tongue pressing against her and holding before withdrawing, heading back down.

  Relentless... it was like the most exquisite torture, that slow, slow build. Growing steadily to that peak until it was almost like a different peak altogether, one she had never known was there.

  He slid his tongue inside her again, then pulled up, the sweep of his tongue following her wet groove until it pressed against hardness and held, held, held...

  She could feel it building, heading for that point of no return. She reached down, buried her hands in his hair and clamped his head in place, just daring him to move away, to carry on teasing, when she was ... so ... damned ... close!

  It took her like an earthquake, a deep tremor, a clenching, and then she thrust up against his face, hard. Holding him there, just using his head like a tool, matching wetness, soft lips, tongue and teeth to just where she needed pressure, softness, hardness.

  Again and again, the tightening took over her whole body and she’d never known anything like it. Then, gradually, each wave of orgasm became something lesser than before until she was lying there, still holding him against her, his mouth still working but now a gentle caress, until even that stopped and he pulled away.

  He looked up, and she’d never seen such need in a man’s eyes before.

  Arms spread to either side of her, he made a couple of crawling movements until his thighs were against the insides of hers and his long, hard dick hung down, the head nuzzling against her wet opening.

  One thrust and he would be deep inside her.

  She started to roll her hips, never breaking that eye contact with him.

  When he realized what she was doing, he held his body rigid over her, let her lead.

  The swollen head of his manhood pressed against her, dipping into her briefly and then a roll of the hips would flip him out, have him sliding against her wet groove. Another roll and the head would pop inside and then out again.

  He edged a fraction forward, and now each time he slipped inside he went deeper, submerging the head and part of the shaft before she flipped him free and slid her wetness against the underside of his shaft.

  Another fraction, and now she couldn’t flip him out, and instead that rolling, fluid movement of her hips steered the head of his dick around inside her, sliding him against front wall, back wall, changing the angle so that he could barely slide in and then... finally... she took him deep.

  Took his full length until his balls were squashed against her ass and the hard bone just above the base of his shaft was against her clit.

  She held him deep and he lowered himself until his chest was squashing her breasts down and her mouth could work across his face, kissing him and licking her own juices off him.

  She drew one leg up and wrapped it around his waist as he started to thrust.

  He reached down and took her ass in his hand, squeezing and stroking.

  As he pulled away from each thrust, he almost came clear and then drove home in a fast and hard motion, slamming against her now.

  He was like an animal, having her. Fuc
king her.

  He took her wrists in his strong hands and pinned them above her head. She remembered holding his face against her, manipulating it like a tool as she rode out her orgasm. That’s what she was now: a tool for him, an object.

  He was close, she could sense that now from the way he moved.

  She spread her legs further, let him have her. She wanted it to be good for him. Wanted it to be as incredible as it had been for her. Right now: it was all about him, and it was exhilarating!

  And then... that knot in the pit of her belly. Those stabbing, tightening sensations...

  She started to push up and meet his thrusts, couldn’t believe it was happening again so soon, but it was...

  She just had to...

  He drove deep and there was a sudden heat inside her. He held himself there and she could feel a throbbing, pulsing sensation and she didn’t know if it was him or her as she tightened around him, pushed up and that stab of pleasure as her clit ground over his pubic bone was all it took and she was climaxing once again, clinging to him desperately as she came.

  9

  Darkness outside.

  Shit shit shit.

  How long had she been here?

  How long since he had eventually managed to pull away, roll free, and they had fallen into a tangle of wet, spent bodies?

  She sat up, and he was awake already, eyes glinting, studying her.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Only just nine. I was going to wake you.”

  “I... I can’t...”

  He sat, then kneeled before her and took her face in his hands so that he could draw her to him and kiss across her brow. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s fine. I’ll get you a cab and it’ll take you wherever you need to go.” And then: “Or you could stay?”

  “No. No, I can’t. I...”

  “It’s okay. Emily, really: it’s okay.”

  §

  It was a proper cab, which was a relief. She’d suspected that by ‘cab’ he might have meant it would be a late-night call on Mo, and lovely as Ray’s righthand man was, that would just have been seedy, somehow.

  Despite her protestations that she just needed to get to a train, the cab took her all the way out of the city to her home station, where she’d left her car that morning. “I’ve been paid up front,” the driver said. “Might as well get the most out of it, love.”

  This morning... seemed so long ago.

  She climbed into her car and sat for a few minutes, trying to find calm. Then she switched the interior light on and checked her face in the vanity mirror. Funny how last night on the train she’d panicked and checked and rechecked everything for signs of betrayal, even though she had done nothing. Or, at least, not much. But tonight... tonight all that didn’t seem to matter.

  She looked okay in the mirror. Hell, she looked good.

  She fired the ignition, put the car into gear and headed for home.

  §

  The lights were on, but Thom had gone to bed already.

  Emily surveyed the debris of his evening, hesitated, then left it. Let Thom clear his mess up tomorrow.

  Upstairs, she stripped and washed in the bathroom. Naked, she stood for a moment, hugging herself.

  She should feel worse than this, she thought. Where was the guilt? Or even the fear of being found out?

  She really shouldn’t feel this good.

  She went through, climbed into bed, said, “G’night,” to Thom’s unresponsive back. And, ironically, slept the sleep of the innocent.

  §

  “So you’ve stopped even letting me know?” said Thom, from the far side of the kitchen.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped.

  Where had his sullen silences gone, just when she needed one?

  “I forgot.” So lame.

  Thom grunted and turned away, and she had never been so thankful. She couldn’t bear his scrutiny, his accusatory look.

  She was torn between terror and defiance, just then. She hated the possibility that he might see through her and work out what she’d done. But at the same time, she wanted to shout it from the rooftops that, yes, someone actually found her attractive!

  She stopped herself, clamped down on everything, got her things together and left for the station.

  Was that all it had really been? A pathetic attempt to prove herself?

  No. She hated that it might have been as crude a thing as that.

  It wasn’t true.

  It had been so much more than that.

  §

  “So there was this guy...”

  Marcia just sat there, chopsticks poised, waiting for Emily to go on. They’d met for lunch – Emily’s suggestion. She just had to share all this with someone; it had been racing round her head all morning.

  “I feel so bad,” Emily finally said. “I... I’m still married.”

  “You want to know what I think?” asked Marcia. “I’ll tell you anyway, so you might as well say ‘yes’.”

  “What do you think?”

  “You said ‘still’. ‘Still married’. That speaks volumes to me. It says what a miracle it is that your marriage to that waste of space has lasted this long, and it says you see it as a finite thing that will end. So stop feeling bad and tell me all about it.”

  She gave her the polite version, rather than the ‘he made me come harder than I’ve ever come before just by pressing his face a little harder against me’ version.

  “You’re making this up, right?” said Marcia, when Emily’s story had ground to a halt. “You haven’t really been banging an Angry Can.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I don’t know. I just... I think I’m just reassessing you. You know like when a naturalist decides a particular monkey belongs to another family altogether and has to re-do all the charts of how things are related? Like that, but with you. You’re not who I thought you were, Emily Rivers.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Hell no! I love it. So when are you seeing him again?”

  §

  She didn’t hear anything all day. She’d never been this distracted at work. She’d never checked her phone so often, never been so frustrated that there was nothing: no missed calls or voicemails, no text messages. Nothing.

  She had his number, or Mo’s at least. She should call. Nobody thought it looked needy if it was the woman who called, not nowadays. Things had moved on.

  Had she been a fool?

  Had she allowed herself to be distracted by the possibility that someone actually found her vaguely attractive and blinded herself to what was really happening?

  I don’t do this shit any more.

  I bet that’s what you tell all the girls.

  All the groupies.

  He’d had her, and moved on.

  He was Ray Sandler. This was what he did.

  She shouldn’t be surprised at that, and she was a fool if she thought there was anything more.

  One day... one day she would find a way to see it as the beautiful encounter that it had been.

  One day.

  §

  At six that evening, Emily sat in the Costa across the road from her office, reluctant to head for the station and home. Whether it was accusing Thom or sullen, silent Thom, she didn’t care. She couldn’t deal with that right now. Not when she was dealing with her own incredibly complicated feelings about the last couple of days.

  She was still married. Marcia was right: that ‘still’ said it all.

  She was still married, technically.

  She didn’t even feel the buzz of her phone vibrating. She’d buried the thing in her bag in an effort to stop herself thinking in circles like she had all day.

  It was only as she came to the conclusion that she really must leave that she checked.

  There was a text message from a number she didn’t know.

  She opened it and read:

  Like nothing that I knew


  But always had to do.

  There’s half of me that’s you.

  Hey baby, can’t live with only maybe,

  Let’s make this thing happen.

  ...and she’d swear that her heart really did skip a beat.

  Moments later, another message came through:

  We can make this thing work. I really believe that. If even a tiny part of you believes it too, call me. R.

  She sat back in her seat, and read the messages again.

  All she had to do was scroll to the top, tap the Details link with her thumb, tap again to dial. Call him.

  She sat there for several minutes, staring and thinking, staring and not thinking.

  Then she tapped the Details link and the phone symbol came up. Tapped again, raised the phone to her ear, heard the ring tone.

  He answered on the second ring, and before he could say a thing, she said, “I think... I think there’s a part of me that believes. A part of me that’s scared, and a part of me that’s crammed full of doubts, but yes, there’s a part, too, that believes. So what do we do? What next? How do we make this thing happen?”

  §

  Part 2

  A Hundred Ways to Break Up

  If there are ninety-nine ways to get together,

  There’s a hundred ways to break up

  Ray Sandler

  §

  1

  “It works, you know. Those shades really disguise you. You could pass almost anywhere unrecognized in those.”

  “Really?”

  Emily loved that about him. The layer of innocence and naivety that undercut the worldly rock-star cool. The fact that she could say almost anything and his starting point was always to believe her. That said a lot about someone, and not just that he was a sucker for bad jokes at his expense.

  She raised an eyebrow, and he got it. She was joking. The Ray-bans, the scuffed leather jacket and black jeans... there was no disguising that this was Ray Sandler standing before her, former frontman of the Angry Cans. Those Ray-bans could never disguise a face that had featured on the cover of almost every glossy magazine in the world, particularly when he’d often been wearing shades in the photographs.