‘You know.’
‘I know what?’ I asked.
‘Share the bed.’ The words rushed out of his mouth.
‘Well, why didn’t you just say that?’
‘I didn’t want you to think that I was deliberately trying to get you into bed.’
‘You are, though,’ I pointed out.
‘Well, not inthatway.’
‘What way?’ I asked.
He laughed. ‘God, you’re really bad at getting hints.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Yes, I am! But I also don’t see why I should have to always be trying to get hints. I don’t understand why people can’t just say what they mean. It would be so much easier and simpler, and certainly less time-consuming. Do you know how much time we’ve just wasted playing this unnecessary guessing game?’
‘Okay, fine then.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want you thinking that I’m suggesting we share a bed so we can have sex.’
‘Obviously! We said we weren’t going to be having sex again.’ I paused briefly. ‘Didn’t we?’
‘We did. Indeed, we did.’
We both paused, as if we were both waiting for each other to say something, only neither of us did.
I inspected the room. There really wasn’t anywhere else for someone to sleep. And the separate room would raise too many questions, and I was terrible at lying.
‘Sleeping in a bed together doesn’t need to lead to sex,’ I said.
‘Um . . . but sometimes it kind of does,’ Andrew replied.
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘The proximity, I guess. The connotation. I think it’s harder not to have sex when you share a bed, don’t you think?’
‘I’m willing to take that chance.’ I got up and headed for the bed. ‘What’s so special about a bed anyway? It’s not like we’re lying on top of each other. I don’t see how it’s any different to sitting next to each other on a plane, expect we’re horizontal, not vertical.’
But it was different.The second he climbed into bed I knewexactlywhat he’d meant. We lay on opposite sides, as far away from each other as possible, but it felt like the mattress between us was indented. A huge valley ran the length of it, and the slope was pulling us towards each other. I clung on to my side of the bed with my hands, battling this strange gravitational force that was being exerted on me. Battling this building desire to roll towards him. The room was still and quiet, so incredibly still that I think the waves must have stopped. Every shuffle he made, every slight adjustment to his pillow, blanket, movement of his feet against the fitted sheet, I felt through every fiber of my body. Warmth radiated off him as if he was the bloody sun. The warmth found its way to me across the mattress valley, and at first it was pleasant, but soon it made me so hot I had to throw off the blanket.
‘Fan!’ I jumped out of bed and turned the ceiling fan on. I lay back down and stared up at the blades as they started to build up their circular rhythm. The wind from the fan rushed at me, but it didn’t cool me down. Nor did it do anything to quell that idiosyncratic electric energy that was building in my fingertips. The energy made me want to reach out and touch him, even just let my fingertips graze his arm. His shin. His big toe. Anything. I would graze anything right now if I could.
Andrew also turned onto his back. The move brought his body closer to mine. I gazed to my right and calculated the distance between our hands: ten centimeters. Maybe a little more. But it wasn’t so much that if I had to brush my hand against his he wouldn’t think it wasn’t an accident. But as I was weighing this ‘accidental’ brush up in my head, the sheets crinkled and I felt something touch my baby finger. Andrew had put his pinky finger over mine. Not an accident. That was intentional. Pinky fingers didn’t get tangled up accidentally. Not that I knew of anyway.
I wrapped mine around his and squeezed, to let him know that I knew. Knew that his finger had made deliberate contact with mine and that I was okay with this. More than okay. We lay there, pinky fingers clutched together as if we were kids making a pinky promise about something important. The blades flew round in a blur and the wind on my body felt good now. Fresh. Then his pinky finger started moving. It rubbed itself up and down the side of my hand. I inhaled sharply; I had no idea I had so many nerve endings there! And I had no idea that those nerve endings seemed to be wired directly to a very specific place between my legs that was now throbbing.
He was right. Andrew was right. The chances of us having sex were greatly increased by the act of sharing a bed. The throb became uncomfortable, borderline painful, when he slipped his fingers through mine. I wanted to take his hand and put it on my body. Slip it over my breasts, put it between my legs and trap him there with my strong swimmer’s thighs until I was thoroughly satisfied. Thoughts of him and me and our naked bodies and hands and tongues started to consume me. Started to sweep me away on a fantasy rollercoaster. The rollercoaster climbed and climbed to the highest point, before it dived down, then it twisted and turned and gained speed and momentum until it became almost too much to bear—
‘What if we have sex?’ I asked, breaking the silence. ‘Why can’t we be, what do they call it . . .’
‘Friends with benefits?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But we’re not friends. We’re fake boyfriend and girlfriend. And remember what happened last time we had sex.’
‘Complicated,’ I sighed and pulled my hand away from his.
