Alex George - Working It Out

Staring at the small nubs of her erect nipples through the black fabric, Johnathan took a deep breath and reached behind Kibby and ran his hands over the bare skin of her back. His hands descended on the bra hook. He felt tentatively along the line of the strap. It was particularly unfair that he wasn’t even allowed to see what he was supposed to be doing. He wrestled with the clasp, which refused to yield to his clumsy touch. After a few moments of silent struggle, his tongue sticking half out of his mouth in concentration, he looked up at Kibby. She smiled down at him and pushed her breasts towards his face in encouragement. The sight of so much flesh spurred Johnathan on. He began fiddling like a man possessed. Kibby yawned. Eventually she said, ‘Would you like me to do it?’

Johnathan nodded. Three seconds later the bra was on the floor. Kibby had effortlessly unhooked it with one deft swoop of a single hand. Johnathan didn’t mind. Kibby had beautiful breasts, and they were now swaying gently in front of him, about six inches from his face. His erection was staging something of a recovery.

Johnathan reached up, gently cupped one of Kibby’s breasts in each hand, and squeezed. Kibby let out a small sigh. She ran her hands through Johnathan’s hair, and when they were clasped firmly around his head she pulled him fiercely towards her right nipple, urging it into his mouth.

Startled, Johnathan began to flick the end of his tongue over Kibby’s nipple, but as she continued to pull his head closer he took it wholly into his mouth and began to suck it, stopping occasionally to take quick gasps of air. Kibby sighed again, more deeply this time.

Eventually she pulled back. Her face was flushed.

‘Time for bed,’ she said.

Some time later, Kibby said, ‘Well.’

‘Sorry,’ said Johnathan.

‘Don’t be,’ said Kibby. ‘It was nice. Have you got an ashtray?’

‘Somewhere. Hang on.’ Johnathan rolled off the bed. He pulled on his dressing gown which was lying by the door and went to the kitchen. There he took a plate from the drying rack and brought it back to the bedroom. He presented it to Kibby.

‘Thanks,’ said Kibby, who had retrieved her cigarettes from her handbag and was now puffing away contentedly. ‘I always enjoy my post-shag fag more than any other,’ she said. ‘It’s an integral part of the whole process. Of bonking.’

‘It probably takes longer, too, if that performance is anything to go by,’ said Johnathan gloomily.

Kibby eyed him critically. ‘Are you one of these men who worry about their sexual performance so much that unless he can keep it up for an hour and a half and the woman has nineteen multiple orgasms he considers himself a failure?’

‘Yes,’ said Johnathan.

‘Oh God,’ said Kibby.

‘Sorry,’ said Johnathan again.

Kibby rolled over to face him. ‘Look, there is nothing to apologize about, really. It was fine. It was nice. It was cuddly. Please don’t start torturing yourself about it. I enjoyed it.’

‘Cuddly’? thought Johnathan, appalled. Since when was sex supposed to be cuddly? Weren’t words like ‘magnificent’ in the more traditional lexicon of sexual epithets? Or at least ‘passionate’? But ‘cuddly’. Johnathan felt as if he had been compared in bedroom prowess and technique to Humpty Dumpty.

It had been nice. It had also been very quick, and rather humiliating. They had repaired to Johnathan’s bedroom, and undressed as quickly as they could. Kibby had straddled Johnathan and lowered herself on to him. She bent forwards to kiss him softly on his mouth and then whispered in his ear in her best Clint Eastwood voice, ‘Go on, spunk, make my day.’

Johnathan had duly obliged, there and then.

As he came, the pleasure was somewhat eclipsed by his horror of an ejaculation so premature as to be in the wrong time zone. Kibby saw the look of mortified despair which passed over his face. She stopped moving.

‘What’s wrong? Am I hurting you?’ she asked.

‘Not exactly.’

‘What then?’

‘Ah.’ Johnathan had rolled his eyes nervously, silently praying that she wasn’t going to make him say it. She wasn’t. Instead she said:

‘Oh.’

‘Sorry.’

Kibby exhaled languorously, studying the glowing end of her cigarette. ‘You really mustn’t worry,’ she said. She stubbed out her cigarette and carefully put the plate by the side of the bed. She rolled over on to her front and looked at Johnathan. ‘So. Are you going to ask me to stay the night or are you proposing to banish me outside at this ungodly hour?’

‘Well, you can stay, of course. I was hoping you would.’

‘Good,’ said Kibby. ‘In that case do you think I might have something to wear? An old T-shirt or something?’

‘Let me go and see,’ said Johnathan, wearily whipping back the duvet a second time. He was starting to feel very tired. He rummaged around in the corner of his bedroom and found a T-shirt, which he passed to Kibby.

‘Thanks,’ said Kibby, slipping it over her head. She reached out and held Johnathan’s hand. ‘I don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow morning, so I think we should have another go then. OK?’

‘OK.’

‘Got any breakfast?’

‘Cornflakes, but no milk.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Don’t worry, there’s a shop nearby. It sells most things. You can have whatever you want for breakfast.’

‘Goody. I’ll start off with some more of your delicious sausage.’ Kibby laughed again, more softly this time. She kissed Johnathan tenderly on the cheek, and then moved to the other side of the bed and settled down with her back to him. ‘Night.’

Johnathan stared up at the ceiling. He thought of how Chloe would have reacted to his performance. She would doubtless have begun explaining compassionately how he should not be embarrassed by this sort of thing, but should confront it–indeed, here was just the book to help him– 90s Man in the Bedroom: Placid and Flaccid.

‘Night,’ he said absent-mindedly. Who was this woman who cared so little for social etiquette, the politics of sexual encounters? Who was this woman with the finely-honed bullshit detector? Who was this woman who didn’t mind sexual failure on a truly epic scale? And, above all, what on earth was she doing in his bed?

Ever since his university days, Sunday mornings in Johnathan Burlip’s life had been reserved for doing precisely nothing, except possibly for taking some pills to temper the Saturday night hangover, and then lying very still until it went away.

When Johnathan woke on this particular Sunday morning he was alone in the bed. From the kitchen came the clanking sound of pots and pans. Johnathan swung his feet on to the floor and went into the kitchen. Kibby was standing by the fridge, fully dressed, surrounded by green plastic bags. Schroedinger was sitting on his bean bag, watching her with benign interest.

‘Hello,’ said Johnathan.

Kibby smiled at him. ‘I’ve been to the shop.’

‘So I see.’

‘Do you want some coffee? I’m going to do scrambled eggs with mushrooms, bacon and sausages. Sound OK?’

Johnathan nodded. He surreptitiously pinched himself.

‘I think I’ve worked out how to use your coffee machine,’ continued Kibby as she began to unpack the bags. ‘Why don’t you go next door and let me deal with all this, and I’ll bring you a coffee and some mango and guava juice. Sounds disgusting, but it was all they had.’

‘Right,’ said Johnathan, feeling a little overwhelmed. He went into the sitting room and switched on the television. A very old children’s show which had been popular fifteen years earlier was on. He watched distractedly. A few minutes later Kibby came in with a glass of juice and a steaming cup of coffee. She put them on the table and came and sat down next to him.