Carrie Williams - The Exchange

I started to lose control. Wishing I knew where Rochelle kept her vibrators – she must have one, I reasoned – I massaged the hot nub of my clit while looking around me for something to go inside. My fingers wouldn’t do. I wanted a cock, a big, hard cock. On the window I spotted a plastic shampoo bottle that looked as if it would do the trick. I grabbed it, ran it under the hot tap for a few moments, and then eased it inside myself. A moan of pleasure escaped me. I gritted my teeth at the almost unbearable ecstasy that began to flood my veins. Climax wasn’t far away, but I wanted to ride it with this couple, not before them. I wanted to be part of their union, even if from afar.

Again, as if there was something in the air or as if he heard the whisper of my thoughts, the boy, losing control, grabbed the gusset of the girl’s knickers and pulled them roughly aside to reveal the golden fluff of her public mound. Even from where I knelt, I could see the glisten of it. My knees started to quiver. I couldn’t hold off much longer. I tried to slow down the pumping of the bottle inside me but it was as if a force greater than myself had taken possession of me. Lips parted, I moaned and moaned.

‘Fuck … Fucking hell … Oh FUCK FUCK FUCK!’

Taking hold of his cock, the boy rammed himself inside the girl, who jerked backwards, puppet-like, at the force of his intrusion, eyes wide as if in shock and awe. Then she fell back over him, strands of hair sneaking loose from where it was tied and falling about her shoulders like a golden rain.

Backwards and forwards, gyrating round and round, she rode him. His hands, on her hips, pulled her tight to him. On the sink unit, I rocked backwards and forwards to meet the bottle as I thrust it into me, the fingers of my other hand pressed tightly against my clit. I glanced down every now and then, delighted by – fascinated by – my own pleasure, but then I looked quickly back up, not wanting to miss them coming.

And then suddenly they did, at the same time, or almost. She threw her torso and head back and began wailing like a she-wolf, and that must have unclenched his pleasure, for all at once he started bucking on the bed, hands still clutching her hips as he came with full force.

As he did so, his head also thrown back, chin tilted up towards the ceiling, his eyes opened wide and met mine across the courtyard, through our respective open windows. And by now, I was coming too, mouth wide open, breath fast and frantic. From where he lay, he wouldn’t be able to see what my hands were doing, but it must have been pretty clear that I was getting off on what they were doing to each other.

But it was too late – I was lost to the orgasm flooding me, unable to shrink back from the window much as I wanted to. And so our eyes stayed locked on each other, and I got my wish – to be part of their union – after all.

***

Hopping down from the sink, I sought out a clean flannel and gave myself a quick soapy wash. Then I stood up, straightened my clothes, and risked a peep out the window in the direction of the couple’s flat.

The girl was kneeling on the bed now, in the window, looking out. From across the courtyard I heard snatches of her words:

‘Weird … Could have sworn … Didn’t you hear anything?’

Christ , I thought. Did I really make that much noise? I felt my cheeks burn red. This wasn’t like me at all. I didn’t know what had come over me.

I’ve always had voyeurism in me, and it was obviously a factor in my ‘choice’ of profession, although sometimes I do wonder if I ever had any say whatsoever in my career. Neither of my parents had any photographic skills or interests, but from very early childhood I was obsessed with cameras and making images. Even when I wasn’t taking photographs, I was creating albums or cutting images out of magazines and making collages. In early teenagerhood, I graduated to buying up faded old photographs I found in charity shops, and going to photography exhibitions. It became inevitable that that would be my choice of degree

But I never thought my voyeurism would bring me to this – to watching other people fuck and getting so bloody turned on by it that I have to give myself a good seeing to. I’ve never done anything like this before, but now I wonder if this isn’t the natural outcome of my tendencies. Has my photography always been about spying on people? And hasn’t it always been about my being on the sidelines of life, looking at it but not daring to get involved – a way of keeping my distance?

In an effort to halt my thoughts and the self-doubt they engendered, I climbed back onto the sink and reached for my camera. I was just looking out of the window again, noticing that the boy and girl had disappeared but that the elderly lady and her pampered pooch were back, and thinking they would make a good shot, when the intercom went.

Climbing down, feeling sheepish, I went to the door and pressed the button.

‘Hello?’ I said, and then: ‘ Bonjour ?’

‘Hi,’ said a deep male voice in English, with a heavy French accent, and for a moment my heart thudded. It was the boy from across the courtyard, come to bawl me out for spying on him and his new girlfriend. But then:

‘We’re friends of Rochelle’s. We thought you might be lonely. We’d like to show you around town.’

I paused for a moment, and then I took a deep breath and spoke into the intercom:

‘Come up,’ I said.

Kyle did come back, though I didn’t phone, and when he did, I was glad. It was hard, not knowing anyone, but I didn’t dare go out alone, for fear of myself and getting into scrapes. It was the story of my life, but this was a new start for me and I was determined not to blow it.

I kicked my heels around Rachel’s flat, looking at her books, mucking around on my laptop, chatting to a few friends back in Paris on Skype, trying not to sound as lost as I felt. I went out, of course, but not far – for brief strolls in Hyde Park, to a bookshop in Notting Hill, and – one day – through Portobello Market. There, trinkets and baubles glittered on stalls, winking at me lasciviously, as if they knew me, knew my lack of willpower. I bought a vintage purple paste ring that was going for a song, but I resisted the rest – the silk slips, the feather boas, the aubergine ruched-velvet elbow-length gloves. I had enough, I kept telling myself. Why gorge myself on stimulation, and why fill Rachel’s apartment with more stuff? Why not try and just be ? Only then might I find myself.

I was beginning to get bored, and that’s when Kyle called – as if hearing my unconscious call. He said he was still at a loose end, that a mini-tour had been cancelled after a soprano had fallen ill. He said he was missing Rachel, and that it’d be a real pleasure to show me around.

When he picked me up, he suggested – given my lack of knowledge of London – that we get tickets for one of those hop-on hop-off sightseeing buses. It would give me some sense of where things were in relation to one another, he said – something one remained remarkably ignorant about if one travelled about by Tube, as most people did. And getting one’s bearings, he said, was crucial.

I agreed – it was a sunny day and it sounded like fun to sit on the open-air top deck and see the sights with minimal effort, especially since he’d offered to pay for the tickets. We could get off, Kyle reminded me, if I wanted to see anything in greater depth.

We climbed aboard and headed upstairs, his hand at my elbow. I admit I wasn’t wearing the most sensible shoes. In fact, I don’t have any sensible shoes, period. But his gesture seemed a little over-intimate. I remembered his face of a few days before, when he’d suddenly seemed to take interest in me, a girl so ostensibly different from him she could have been from another planet. I wondered if I’d done the right thing in accepting his invitation.