Carrie Williams - The Exchange

‘But Rachel said it was you who suggested …’

‘I did. But I don’t really know why.’

Kyle smiled. ‘Impulsiveness,’ he said. ‘I like that.’ He studied his fine, long fingers. ‘It’s something I don’t have enough of.’

‘Oh?’ I cocked my head to one side.

‘In the orchestra my nickname is “Mr Unspontaneity”.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I have to weigh everything up from every angle before I can make a decision or commit to something. It’s like – it’s like a disease.’

I looked at him, intrigued. ‘I couldn’t be more different,’ I said, wondering what it was like to be so configured. ‘I guess at least you don’t get yourself into trouble that way.’

Now it was Kyle’s turn to look intrigued. ‘Trouble? What kind of trouble?’

‘Oh … you know.’ I shook my head, try to laugh it off. ‘Just stuff.’

He stared at me. ‘What do you do, in Paris?’ he said.

I hesitated. ‘Didn’t Rachel tell you?’

He shook his head.

‘I’m an exotic dancer,’ I said.

He stared harder. ‘A … An exotic … You mean a stripper?’ he managed at last.

I shrugged. ‘There’s a lot more to it than that.’

‘But you – you take your clothes off for men.’

I nodded. ‘Mainly for men, yes.’

For a moment he sat there, looking intently at the tips of his brown brogues. I looked away too, out of the window towards the treetops of Hyde Park, fluttering in the breeze.

When I looked back, he’s was staring at me again. ‘I’ve never met a … an exotic dancer’, he said.

‘Then you’ve not lived,’ I countered quickly.

A half-smile flitted around his lips. ‘Clearly,’ he said, and his eyes held mine. He’s was good-looking, I thought, and yet not at all my type. As I stared back, my mind turned to Konrad and I wondered what he was doing. It was earlyish, still – he was probably in bed after another night at Queen with his model pack of pretty boys, some of them gay, some of them straight, and some of them swinging both ways. That was unless he had a job, of course. But he seemed to have taken a bit of a step back from modelling over the previous few months. He loved the lifestyle but not the discipline, and for the moment he had amassed enough money not to have to worry about going for jobs. He wasn’t the kind of guy to worry about the future.

Kyle was still looking at me, and in his eyes I saw the first fire of obsession. I knew it so well – I know the effect I have on guys. And for Kyle I must have been like a creature from another planet – unattainable, and thereby exquisitely fascinating. He’d torture himself about me, he’d wank with images of me in his head, all the while knowing that we were about as far apart as it’s possible to be.

As if he had access to my thoughts, he stood up. He was still looking at me, but suddenly his eyes were far away.

‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘But just give me a call when you’re ready for me to show you around.’

I nodded and smiled, and I saw him out, wondering if he’d ever be back, in spite of his offer. He was interested in me, but he knew it was an unhealthy interest. He was terrified of me too. He’d never met anyone like me before and he was afraid.

I headed for the bathroom, where I stood in front of the mirror, eyes appraising, trying to imagine what it must be like to see me for the first time, to try to get to know me.

You’re trouble, I said under my breath. And then again, with relish: Trrrrouble .

I was crouched on the bathroom sink when the intercom beeped and I nearly fell off backwards. Only the thought of my expensive camera lying in pieces on the bathroom floor kept me from plummeting to the floor.

I climbed up here when I realised that the bathroom window of Rochelle’s apartment has one of those classic Rear Window vistas into a courtyard surrounded by people’s windows. Since then, I’ve been mesmerised by the glimpses of life in this Parisian apartment block that I can get from this vantage point. In the last half-hour alone, I’ve witnessed – and photographed – a gay guy shaving in a wash of sunlight while his much younger lover talks earnestly at his reflection in the mirror, and in another window an elderly lady feeding her dog expensive-looking chocolates as she talked on the phone in an agitated, distracted manner.

I didn’t photograph – but I did watch – as a pretty young girl with shiny golden hair came into her apartment with a boy of around the same age. They were in their late teens, I’d say; probably, from their attire, students. At first their body language was stilted, self-conscious – it was clear that the boy hadn’t been to the girl’s apartment before and that they were finding it hard to relax in each other’s company. It was clear, even from a distance, that they had the massive hots for each other. Normally I might have taken a few snaps, but for once I was too caught up in their ‘dance of love’ to think to do so.

It was like watching some pre-ordained ritual, some choreographed display. The couple knew all the moves but couldn’t skip any – they were in thrall to convention and to the idea of what they expected of each other. It would have been so much easier to just grab each other, as they so obviously wanted to do, but that would have taken some of the fun out of it. For a while, it was all about the anticipation, about the deferral.

They shared a pot of tea, the sunlight filtering in and over her patchwork bedspread. She was in an armchair beside the bed, he was on the bed itself – but on the very edge. He seemed to be trying to lighten the atmosphere with jokes; through the open windows I could hear the tinkle of her slightly over-eager laughter. Her honeyed tresses, pulled up at the nape to reveal a slender brown neck and delicately freckled shoulder, glinted in the sunshine. Her teeth flashed when she laughed, mouth open.

The boy watched her closely, awaiting his moment, anxious not to blow it. I found myself becoming wet, and where I was kneeling, one leg either side of the sink on the wooden surround, I slipped my hand into my knickers and rubbed at myself, softly to begin with and then more vigorously as my excitement mounted. I put my camera on the windowsill and clutched the wall for safety, not wanting to get down and lose myself in my pleasure, causing me to miss theirs. For their pleasure and mine was inextricably bound together. I hadn’t felt this horny in ages.

As if my act had unleashed something in them – as if it had changed something in the very air itself – the girl, suddenly decisive, brave, wanton, stood up and stepped towards the boy. For a moment he looked almost frightened. And then, as the girl placed one hand on his cheek, he smiled and relaxed into her seduction.

Pulling her skirt up around her hips and pushing the boy back onto the bed, she placed herself astride him. Astride the sink, I let my eyelids flutter closed for a moment, imagining it was me atop this handsome boy with his closely cropped blond hair. I didn’t miss Kyle, and I hadn’t thought I was missing sex. But it had been two months, and in all that time I hadn’t even wanked. This was long overdue.

Opening my eyes again, I stared as the girl circled her hips over his. The boy’s head was thrown back – he was enraptured, bewitched. Women’s power over men, I thought, is unbounded. Get them to this point and they will do anything – anything . It was almost frightening to have this power. I thought again of Rochelle, like a spider catching men in the web I imagined her to weave nightly out of her sex magic.

The girl started to fiddle with the flies of the boy’s jeans. Finally getting him unzipped, she released his cock like a caged animal and grasping it in her fist began to move her hand up and down it, slowly at first but gradually building up a more dynamic rhythm.