The I.T. Girl Read Free

he sang.
    I leaned him against the wall while I opened the door and then
pulled him inside.
    ‘Is this a dungeon?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes,’ I said, switching on a low lamp. ‘Would you like a glass
of wine?’
    ‘Great,’ he said, collapsing on the bed.
    The landlord’s cat appeared at the window. ‘ Hsst ,’ I warned with a pointed finger. It sprang away making
the window rattle. Fridge light illuminated the room for a moment, reaching sleeping
porcelain figures along the bookshelf. I poured us a glass of wine to share and
began taking off jewellery.
    ‘Oh steady on.’ I held his arm as he struggled out of his trousers.
    ‘What’ll I do with these?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh just throw them... Here, give them to me.’ I folded them
over a chair.
    ‘What will I do with my watch?’ He held it up with a clink.
    ‘You can put that on the dressing table.’
    He took off his shirt and handed it to me. Then he sat back heavily
on the bed. I stole a glance over his body. Dark hair spread across the top of his
chest and continued in a line down the middle, making a tee-shape. His legs were
long and pale, covered with dark curly hair. I watched as he bent over struggling
with his socks, his body swaying as if he was under water. When the second sock
came off he collapsed back on the bed and made a groaning sound that seemed like
the last of his energy. I stripped down to my pants and got in bed next to him.
    ‘I don’t think I can perform sexually,’ he said.
    ‘You only have to perform sleep.’
    He opened up an arm for me and as I lay my face near his heartbeat,
he began to snore.

 
    I woke to the sound of busy traffic and turned, remembering the
night before. He was awake already, staring at the ceiling.
    ‘Morning,’ I said.
    ‘Morning,’ he croaked.
    ‘You okay?’
    ‘ Er , yeah... what happened last night?’
    ‘You chatted me up at the CPR party
and I brought you home.’ I watched him for a reaction. ‘Are you okay?’
    ‘Yeah. I don’t usually drink.’
    ‘No shit.’
    He lifted the covers and looked down.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You’re still a virgin.’
    ‘Jesus, I’m sorry.’ He laughed. ‘Hope I wasn’t too much trouble.’
    ‘No trouble at all.’
    He looked around the room and saw his clothes folded on the chair
‘I hope er ... you didn’t have to kick me in the nuts at
any point?’
    ‘You were a gentleman.’ I turned towards him and closed my eyes.
After a while, body parts brushed and our faces nudged towards each other. In the
extra silence of caught breath our mouths connected. We kept still except for the
kiss – aware of goose-pimpled flesh below the covers – until I brought my hand down
his chest like a paw and we let skin open up to skin, as if we had been trying to
tell each other something the whole time.
    Saturday changed London for me. An event had happened that I
couldn’t control, in the same way that I controlled work. We had left our mark on
each other. After six months of working for CouperDaye ,
I would no longer feel like a shadow coming and going from the office.
    We slipped into each other’s curves as the morning went hazily
by until the light from the curtains could not be shut out and we realised we were
starving.
    I brought him to the greasy spoon where I was beginning to be
known. Going about the serious business of replenishing our hung-over systems, talking
about our plans for the week ahead, the intimacy which descended earlier slipped
away. Outside the café, in the grey afternoon, he must have been thinking the same
thing that I was when he came towards me with pursed, goodbye-lips. What would happen when we saw each other in CouperDaye ?

 

 
 
    Chapter Two

 
    I rose earlier than usual for a Monday morning. I had to be in
for European market open since my new feed was going live. I showered and dressed
while the rollout checklist scrolled through my head. My hair was a quick job –
blow-dried holding my head upside down, then I