When words are not enough…

Amy can’t believe she’s let herself be bullied into a write off with the odious Dave. Now she needs to produce twenty pages of a story by next Friday – the content is to be of a very particular nature!

Fortunately Amy has an advantage: she’s a secret – and voracious – reader of erotica and she knows just what turns her on! But when it comes to putting her own words down on paper embarrassment and nerves have left her with a severe case of writers block…

Enter her good friend Phil. While she’s always thought him too sexy to be true her crippling shyness has held her back. But with Phil as her willing muse, Amy’s reality is suddenly more erotic than any fantasy…

Dirty Talk

Jane O’Reilly

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Jane O’Reilly 2015

Jane O’Reilly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474030717

Version date: 2018-07-23

Jane O’Reilly started writing as an antidote to kids’ TV when her youngest child was a baby. Her first novel was set in her old school and involved a ghost and lots of death. It’s unpublished, which is probably for the best. Then she wrote a romance, and that, as they say, was that. She lives near London with her husband and two children. Find her at www.janeoreilly.com, on Twitter as @janeoreilly and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/janeoreillyauthor

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Endpages

About the Publisher

Dedication

For Patrick

Chapter One

It’s a typical Friday night in the pub, and the usual crowd is here. Two men, two women, two pints of lager, two glasses of white wine and a conversation that inevitably steers in the direction of the thing that men and women do after too many pints of lager and too many glasses of wine. It’s gone there tonight, unsurprisingly, though about ten minutes ago, it took an unexpected turn. I should have kept quiet, I know I should, but if we’re going to discuss literature, I feel it’s my duty to join in.

‘Book sex is not better than real sex,’ Dave says, his voice loaded with derision.

I don’t like Dave. I want to clarify that up front. I tried to like him, really I did, ever since Jules said that she’d met this really amazing guy at work. She said he treated her like a princess, that he made her feel like the most important woman in the world, that she couldn’t believe a man like him would be interested in a woman like her. I tried the first time I met him, and the second. By the third, it was getting a little difficult. I surrendered to the inevitable shortly after that, though I didn’t tell Jules, because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.

‘I guess that depends what sort of book you’re reading,’ Phil replies. ‘And what sort of sex you’re having.’

I like Phil. We’ve been friends since college. I met him when I couldn’t work the photocopier in the college library, and he helped me out. As for the sort of book I’m reading, well. I can’t help thinking about the one I started reading last night, Spank Me Sir, and the delicious scene I’d got to, in which the hero, Mr Smith, had bent the heroine Sally over the end of the bed and was preparing to do some shocking things to her bare backside. I squirm a little in my seat just at the memory of it, and wish that I was home right now, finding out exactly what those shocking things are, because that’s the sort of sex I’m having. The imaginary kind.

‘Amy’s read one,’ Jules says.

That jerks me back into the conversation, not just because that’s the first thing Jules has said all evening. ‘Read what?’ I also like Jules, or at least I used to, before she started going out with Dave. She had the room next door to mine in halls. We met on our first day, when we didn’t know anyone else, and it stuck.

‘A dirty book,’ she replies, with enough emphasis to let me know that I’m supposed to know what she’s talking about.

My face flushes, an instant of panic, until I catch my breath. ‘I don’t read dirty books!’ I say loudly. It’s a lie, of course. I wipe the condensation from the edge of my glass. They don’t know that I was up until midnight, barely able to breathe as I devoured page after page of one.

‘Yes, you do,’ she replies. ‘You had a copy of Fifty Shades in your bathroom. I saw it last time I was over.’

‘Oh, well, everyone has read that,’ I say. ‘It hardly makes me an avid consumer of erotica.’ Though some of the other books I’ve got might.

‘I haven’t,’ Dave says. ‘I bet I could write a book like that, though. How hard can it be?’ He puts a little pressure on the word hard, and sniggers a little at his own joke. He’s such a smug bastard. Unfortunately, he and Jules are in one of their on phases, which means that I have to put up with his sexist jokes and boorish teasing.

‘Too difficult for you,’ I mutter. I wish I hadn’t come tonight. I wish I’d gone straight home. I wish I was neck deep in a bubble bath with Spank Me Sir, right now. But I come to the pub with everyone every Friday. It’s routine, it’s our way, and every week I tell myself that it will be fun, though if I’m honest it never quite hits the mark.

‘Yeah?’ Dave replies. I jerk my gaze up to him. There’s a teasing tone to his voice, but his brown eyes are hard. He’s got both hands wrapped around his pint, and he’s leaning forward in his seat. He’s got that polished, suited look that a lot of women find attractive, and he knows it. ‘Fifty quid says I can write a better dirty story than you,’ he says. Then he sits back in his seat, his eyes gleaming, daring me to refuse.

My mouth goes dry as I try to work out what to say. The obvious thing to do is to laugh it off. But I don’t. I swallow, and I lick my lips.

‘Might as well hand over the money now,’ Dave jeers at me, holding out his hand. ‘Save yourself the embarrassment.’

I still don’t say anything. I don’t want to say no. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.

‘Be careful, Dave,’ Phil interjects. He’s lolling back in his seat, his half-finished pint in his hand. ‘You know what they say about the quiet ones.’

‘Yeah,’ Dave says. ‘They’re quiet.’

Jules laughs, and he squeezes her thigh.

I feel a bit sick, a bit shaky, if I’m honest. I know they all think I’m a frigid prude, and maybe I am. But I don’t want to let Dave win this one. I’m tired of being the butt of his jokes. I’m tired of being laughed at because I’m a little shy, because I don’t know how to flirt, because somewhere along the line, I missed the seminar on how to be good with the opposite sex.

When I’m alone in my flat, I can lose myself in my books. I find people who have kinks and quirks and find like-minded people to share them with. I read all the dirty words and imagine that I’ve met a man who knows how to use them, who doesn’t play around with euphemisms and smooth words and charm. A man who just gets straight to the point, and says Fancy a fuck, Amy? And I say If you insist, and he says Pussy or arse? and I say Oh, I can’t decide. How about both?

I’m not that Amy here. Instead, I’m weird, awkward Amy, who always turns up ten minutes early, who never has more than two glasses of wine, who always goes home alone.

‘I…I don’t have any money on me,’ I say. Something inside me crumples.

‘Of course you don’t,’ Dave replies. ‘Any excuse.’ He takes another pull on his pint, and laughs, and Jules laughs too.

My face is burning. I stare down at my drink, and the urge to leave is overwhelming. I reach for my bag.

But then Phil stops me with a hand on my arm. I feel a faint tremor of heat under my skin. I always feel like that around Phil. ‘Amy could beat you, easy,’ he says to Dave.

‘If we were betting on who could write the worst story,’ Dave replies.

Phil looks at him. He sighs. He tolerates Dave, because of Jules, but I can tell that even he is starting to run out of patience. Then he turns to me. ‘Go on, Amy,’ he says. ‘Take the bet. You can do better than this ape.’

Everyone is looking at me. A strange quiet has fallen, as they wait for my answer. Overpriced chardonnay burns in my stomach. Can I? I think to myself.

The answer, when it comes, rushes through me with a pure certainty. I look at Dave, with his smug face, with his tanned hand resting on Jules’ thigh. I look at Jules. You used to be my friend, I think to myself. What happened to you? I can’t look at Phil. I don’t know why. I can feel the weight of his gaze on me, heavier than all the others. If I say no, Dave will never let it go. He’ll use it to embarrass me for weeks. But that’s not what is bothering me now.

It’s not why I accept the bet.

‘OK,’ I say. I drain the rest of my wine, using it to choke down my nerves. ‘We both bring ten pages we’ve written with us next week.’

‘Make it twenty,’ Dave says.

‘All right,’ I reply. ‘Twenty. Well, I better make a move. I guess I’ve got a story to write. See you later, everyone.’

I get to my feet, and linger for a moment, waiting to see if Jules will try to stop me, if she’ll say no, Amy, don’t go, have another drink. But she doesn’t. She says ‘Bye!’ And ‘have a good evening!’ and that’s it. It’s another nail in the coffin of our friendship. We used to talk every day. Now I barely see her, except on these Friday nights.

Phil picks up his bag and pushes to his feet. ‘I think I’ll call it a night, too,’ he says.

I make my way to the door, not wanting to hang around. I’ve got more important things to do than worry about that. First, I’ve got a hot date with the rest of Spank Me Sir, and then I’ve got to work out how the hell I’m going to fill twenty pages. I’m almost at the door when Phil catches up with me. He reaches out and pushes the door open just as I get to it. My gaze locks onto the rose tattooed on the back of his hand, and I swallow, hard.

I step out into the cool evening air, practising a few cool, easy things to say in my head, a few casual ways to say goodbye. But when my mouth opens, none of them come out. I should have predicted that, really. I should have predicted that I’d make a prat of myself. ‘I can’t believe I agreed to that,’ I tell him. I rub a hand over my face. ‘God, what was I thinking?’

‘Relax, Amy,’ Phil says. ‘It’s going to be fine.’

‘How is it going to be fine? I can’t write a book. I especially can’t write a…a dirty book.’

‘Why not?’

I start to walk, and Phil falls in alongside me, his stride loose and relaxed.

‘Because I’m me,’ I point out. I almost roll my eyes, it’s so obvious.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘You are.’

‘There has to be a way to get out of it,’ I say. ‘I’ll say I was ill and I didn’t have time, or something. No one is taking it seriously anyway. No one is actually expecting me to do it.’

‘Come on, Amy,’ he says gently.

‘I can’t do it, Phil. I just can’t.’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘No,’ I say. I turn to him then. All of the things I wanted to say back there in the pub are boiling up inside me, and I can’t seem to control them. ‘I can’t. And I can’t back out of it either, because Dave will never let me hear the end of it, and you will all laugh, and go oh look, it’s frigid Amy. And I wouldn’t be in this position if you hadn’t pushed me into it.’

‘Let me make it up to you,’ he says.

‘How?’

‘I could help you write it,’ he says.

Those words hover in the air between us, loud and heavy. We stare at each other, and my face is hot, and I start to sweat, but I can’t look away. This is Phil, I think to myself. I can’t talk about sex with Phil. The last time we went to the cinema together, I pretended I needed the loo so I could make a hasty exit during a love scene. We’ve got a comfortable, casual friendship, partly because sex is absolutely not on the table. I wouldn’t be able to cope with him if it was. He’s got this sort of acute masculinity, the kind that makes me ache a little inside. Every part of him, from the dark hair, to the bright blue eyes watching me from behind heavy-rimmed glasses, to the striped shirt, to the newly grown beard, screams Y chromosome.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I say. And then I run up the steps and disappear inside my flat.

Chapter Two

By Sunday, I’m in trouble. I’ve written precisely three paragraphs, and they’re mostly the heroine waxing lyrical about the hero’s tie. Every time I try to get either of them naked, my hands start to shake, and the only key I can find is delete.

I can’t do it. I’m trying, but it’s just not happening.

But I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it if Dave wins, either. So I pick up my phone, and before I can lose my nerve, I call Phil. He answers almost immediately.

‘Amy,’ he says. His voice does something to my insides, to my knees, to my everything. Actually, it mostly does it to my pussy. It’s the same sort of feeling I get when Mr Smith bends Sally over the bed, in my favourite scene in Spank Me Sir. I can’t deny that I like the feeling, though I’d die from embarrassment if he ever found out. But he got me in to this, and now he has to get me out of it. ‘How’s the story going?’

‘Badly.’

‘How much have you written?’

‘Do you want an exact word count?’ I ask, fiddling with the corner of a sofa cushion. ‘Or the ballpark figure?’

There’s a sigh. ‘Do you want Dave to win?’

‘No, of course not. It’s just…I’m no good at this sort of thing, Phil. I’m not that sort of person.’

‘So you haven’t written anything?’

‘I have tried,’ I tell him. ‘I just…I can’t do it, Phil.’

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Jules said you had a dirty book. She saw one in your bathroom. Read me some of that instead. Let’s see what we’re aiming for.’

I sit upright on the bed. ‘I really don’t think…’

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Read me what you’ve got.’

‘Don’t you think this is a bit weird?’ My face is on fire and my palms are sweaty, and I don’t know why I don’t just make some excuse and hang up, but this is Phil. He’s been my friend for as long as I can remember, even longer than Jules. We can talk about this. It’s fine.

‘Weird how?’

‘You know,’ I say. ‘Weird you and me. Talking about sex weird.’

‘Sex is weird,’ he says. ‘What’s your point?’

I wish I knew. ‘It’s just weird, that’s all.’

‘Amy,’ he says. ‘You can trust me. You know that, right?’

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘But…’

‘Read,’ he says.

I can feel my stomach pushing its way up into my throat. I don’t want Phil to know how hard I’m finding this. I don’t want him to think badly of me. I sit there, gripping the phone in my sweaty hand, breathing too loud, too fast.

‘Enough of the heavy breathing already,’ Phil says. ‘Come on.’

‘OK!’ I snatch up my iPad and start to read.

He dug his fingers into her shirt and ripped it away from her body, exposing the full bounty of her sensitive breasts. Her nipples poked out, hard and dark, and he pinched them until she whimpered with delight. Yes, he said, yes. Tell me, Sally. Tell me what you want.

I rush through those few lines, stumbling over the letters. I have to stop and start again a couple of times. My tongue feels too big for my mouth, and I can’t believe I’m actually reading this out loud. To Phil.

‘Keep going,’ Phil says. His voice is soft, and there’s something about it, something different. I don’t know what it is.

But I am suddenly all too aware of a low throb between my legs, almost like a heartbeat.

‘What is it, Sally?’

‘Please, Sir. Please, let me pleasure you.’ She kept her hands at her sides, knowing that if she moved, he might deny her what she craved so badly. The hot thrust of his erection into her mouth, as he fucked her face over and over.

‘You want to suck my cock, Sally? Is that right?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Very well.’

His elegant fingers slowly lowered the zipper of his beautifully tailored trousers. Sally could feel her body humming with excitement. She made no move to touch him, not yet, but she could smell the musky scent of his aroused cock, that heady mixture of warm skin and soap and sweat and the slippery moisture that lubricated his shaft when he was aroused.

Long fingers sank into his open fly, and then he slowly pulled his stiff prick free.

‘Fuck,’ Phil whispers. ‘That’s sexy.’

‘Do you…do you like it?’

It takes him a moment to reply, a moment in which my heart seems to stop. ‘Yes,’ he says finally. ‘Read me some more.’

I push my laptop aside, move myself further up the bed, until I’m leaning back against the pillows. I look at the words on the page, the familiar, dirty words. I swallow. I take a deep breath. And then I read some more.

Sally gazed at his erection, so long, so thick. Her mouth watered with anticipation. She had waited for this. She needed this.

‘Open your mouth,’ he commanded her.

Sally obeyed without question

The first thrust was sudden, sharp, deep. He sank his fingers into her hair, holding her firmly. She couldn’t breathe, but it didn’t matter. She could taste him, rich and musky. Her clit throbbed, and she could feel how wet her pussy was becoming. But she didn’t touch herself. She couldn’t, not unless he commanded it. She was his to use, as he would a toy for his pleasure.

‘Ah, Sally,’ he said, as he pulled back, and thrust again into her mouth. ‘No one sucks cock quite as well as you.’

She closed her lips around his thickness then, and began to suck, pressing her tongue against the thick vein that ran the length of the underside of his erection.

He groaned, and pushed himself deeper into her throat, until the heavy swing of his balls pressed against her chin. Then he withdrew.

Sally gasped, pulling in the air she needed, already seeking him again.

‘No,’ he said.

I pause. I’m clutching the phone tightly, and for a moment, I wonder if Phil is still there. I half hope he isn’t, because I’m not sure I can read the next part. My pussy is throbbing insistently, aching with the need to be touched. I move my legs restlessly. My knickers are damp. He can’t see you, I remind myself. Not that it matters. I’m still not about to masturbate while he’s on the other end of the phone. But I’m so hot. I shove myself upright, pull up my skirt, and tug my knickers off. Cool air settles on my heated skin. Better. Much better. I tug my skirt back down.

‘Amy,’ he says. Just my name, that’s all. Just that one word.

‘Yes?’

‘Carry on.’

I should stop this. What we’re doing is weird and wrong and inappropriate. But I don’t, because it might be all those things, but it’s also shockingly, undeniably exciting.

‘Amy,’ he says. ‘I’m waiting.’

There’s something in his tone, something rough and demanding. I’ve never heard him speak that way before, not to me anyway, and it switches something on inside me.

‘Touch yourself,’ he ordered her. ‘I want to see you touch yourself, Sally. Show me what a wanton slut you are.’

‘Yes, Sir.’ Sally lifted her skirt. Underneath, she wore the smallest red satin panties that exposed almost everything. She slipped her fingers inside herself, frantic now, aroused almost to breaking point by the feel of his gaze on her.

I pause for a moment, force myself to stay calm, because I know what happens next and I want Phil to know too. There is something deliciously erotic about what we’re doing. This is Phil, I think to myself. It doesn’t dampen my arousal. If anything, it makes it stronger. This is Phil. My friend, Phil. I know I shouldn’t think about him and sex together, but I do. I often wonder what he’s like in bed. I wonder what he likes, what he doesn’t. I wonder what his cock is like.

I bet it’s big. I bet it’s really, really big.

‘Amy,’ he says.

‘Yes?’

‘Why have you stopped?’

God, his voice. ‘No reason,’ I say, the words spilling out too quickly. I make myself focus, start to read again, though I stutter and rush.

Two fingers. Three. She leaned back, exposing herself to him, wanting him to see what she was doing, knowing he would appreciate it.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Very good.’

His hand slid round the thick length of his cock, and his wrist began to pump. He held himself so tightly, squeezing until the head of his erection darkened. Sally had asked him once if it hurt, when he pleasured himself that way.

‘Yes,’ he had replied. ‘All pleasure is pain, don’t you think?’

I sink my teeth into my bottom lip. This is wrong, this is so wrong. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should stop, now, before things get any more out of hand. If I stop now, I can pretend this never happened.

‘Amy,’ he says. ‘Don’t stop.’

His voice is rough and aroused. Is he touching himself? For a moment, the world seems to freeze as an image of Phil with his trousers unfastened and his cock in his hand flashes into my mind. I try to hold onto it, but it slips away from me, a fleeting, blurry thing.

I sit upright on the bed, listening intently. I’m reading the words from the page but I’m not listening to them. I’m listening to Phil, desperate for any clue, trying to get that image back. Trying to see it clearly.

‘I want to see you come, Sally,’ he said. ‘I want to see your lovely breasts flush and your clit throb and you back arch as you get yourself off. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

His words aroused her even more. She rubbed at her clit, uncontrollable sounds of pleasure escaping from her as her excitement grew, as her heart pounded. She spread her legs wider, hips jerking, body crying out for the hard possession of his cock. And just when she thought she could stand it no longer, he moved closer, fist pumping.

‘Now, Sally,’ he said. ‘Now.’

Hot strands of thick come coated her face, her lips, her tongue as her orgasm rushed through her. She cried out her pleasure as he spilled his seed all over her face.

I stop reading. My pussy is wet and my back is slippery with perspiration. I’m so strung up and aroused and shocked that I can barely breathe. I always find that scene exciting. I always masturbate after I read it. It’s the only way I can persuade my body to calm, to settle. But that’s a private thing, a secret thing, and this isn’t private, or secret. ‘Phil?’

A silence. A space. A pause. I force myself to breathe.

‘Yeah?’

‘Are you OK?’

‘Absolutely,’ he says. ‘Are you?’

I don’t know. ‘Of course.’

‘Do you have a lot of books like that?’

‘A few,’ I admit, turning my hand over and looking at my nails. Even though he can’t see me, I’m blushing like mad. Because I’ve just realised something. The reason why I can’t get past paragraph three. The reason why everything I write sounds wrong. ‘Phil, can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘I think that…I think that the problem is that I can’t picture the male character. Every time I try to write something, that’s where I get stuck. And I think that if…if I had someone I could base him on, I’d be able to do it.’

‘Like a muse?’

‘Yes,’ I say, clinging onto that word, because it makes it sound like something arty and serious, instead of kinky and weird. ‘Exactly like that. I need a muse.’

‘I could do that,’ he says, his tone thoughtful. ‘Shall I come round tomorrow, after work?’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘Yes. Fine. See you then.’

And then I end the call. I toss the phone onto the bed and stare at it, my hands pressed against my cheeks like a real life version of The Scream. What have I done? When did I become the sort of person that does this sort of thing?

And when did I start to like it?

Chapter Three

A little while later, reality hits me like a truck. I get my laptop and sit up in bed until three in the morning, typing, deleting, typing, deleting, trying to prove myself wrong. Trying to prove that I don’t need help, especially not from Phil. By the time I give up and surrender to exhaustion, I’ve got three sentences. It’s not much, but it’s more than I had, and I cling to that knowledge. At the bookshop, I keep a notepad on my desk, and scribble in it every chance I get. Every time someone comes in, I jump about three feet in the air and flip the notepad over. The last thing I want is for someone to ask me why I wrote ‘his cock was big and long’ and scribbled it out. Several times. By half four, I’ve written another three sentences. I’ve also drawn 78 cartoon penises. I’ve never been so relieved to have a day end.

I grab my bag and my jacket and make my way home. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Six sentences is more than I had, but it’s not enough to win the bet. And I’m not even sure they’re good sentences. Several times, I take out my phone and think about calling Phil and telling him not to bother, but I don’t. Because those six sentences are all about a woman listening to a man masturbating on the other end of the phone. What happened last night changed something. I don’t just want to win the bet any more, I want to put these words on paper. I need to.

Phil knocks on my door at half past six exactly, and I open it. ‘Hi,’ I say.

‘Hi,’ he says back. And for a moment, we just stand there and stare at each other.

‘Can I come in?’ he asks, eventually.

I step back. ‘Sure.’

He’s never looked out of place here before, but now he seems like a giant, all long legs and big hands. He drops his bag on the floor next to the sofa, and makes himself at home, resting his scruffy Chelsea boots on my coffee table. ‘How was work?’ he asks, as he pulls off his tie and shoves it into his bag.

‘It was OK.’ I don’t sit down. I stand and fidget. ‘Want a drink?’ I hastily disappear into the kitchen and put the kettle on. I don’t know how to deal with him, or what to say. All I know is that I need a minute alone to sort through my disordered thoughts and get my head together. It would help if those thoughts didn’t keep pushing in Phil’s direction.

He’s wearing a white shirt today, with a sleeveless jumper pulled over the top, and the swirls of coloured ink that cover his left arm are visible though the fabric, and that makes me feel strange. I’ve noticed all these things about him before, of course I have, but I’ve never been so aware of him, and I don’t know what to do with the way I’m feeling. It’s bound to spill out. He’s bound to notice. And then what will I do?

When the kettle flicks off, I turn to find him lounging in the doorway. ‘So,’ he says. ‘How are we going to do this?’

‘I haven’t worked out the details yet.’ Other than a very vivid, very hot dream last night that involved asking him to strip off in the middle of my living room, and I’m not sure either of us is ready for that.

‘Have you written anything?’ he continues, taking mugs off the tree and setting them out.

‘Six sentences.’

‘Amy.’

‘I know, I know.’ I pull open the fridge, take out the milk. ‘I’m seriously thinking about just telling Dave he wins. It’s easier that way.’

‘Do you really want to do that?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘But I don’t want to make a complete fool of myself either.’

‘You won’t,’ he says.

‘How do you know?’

He reaches out, touches my shoulder. That’s all it is. He’s touched me that way a thousand times before. There’s nothing sexual in it, I’m sure there isn’t, but I couldn’t have felt it more if he’d put his hand down my top. ‘Because I won’t let you,’ he says.

Milk slops onto the worktop. ‘Bloody hell.’ I set down the bottle, flap around for a cloth, clean it up. At least it stops me from having to look at him. But he doesn’t let me get away with it. He moves in, closer, and takes the cloth from me, and gently cleans up the mess. His hands are so big, so warm, and my gaze settles on that rose tattoo, and I can’t seem to make myself look away. I know he doesn’t see anything but a friend when he looks at me, and I don’t want to see anything other than that when I look at him, but I can’t seem to help myself.

‘These six sentences,’ he says. ‘Are they good sentences?’

‘They’re OK,’ I say. And something changes inside me. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what makes me say it. ‘I…I think reading to you helped.’

His hands stop moving.

We stand there like that, side by side, not moving. Neither of us speaks.

‘Would you like to read to me some more?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’d like that very much.’

I turn towards the doorway. He moves back, and I move past him. I go into my bedroom, pick up my iPad. I take it back through into the living room. I don’t tell him to take a seat. Instead, I curl myself up in my armchair, which is my favourite place to sit. I tuck my feet under myself, keeping my gaze on the screen as I turn it on and open up Spank Me Sir.

The words swim a little before my eyes, then settle down. My heart doesn’t, though. My pulse feels strange, too fast. I swallow, as if I can eat my nerves, then I begin.

‘What do you want, Sally?’

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