Page 16

JEM

I sit at the table for another fifteen minutes, finishing my glass of wine, to give Dee a bit of time on her own.

I can see why she’d be upset after being spoken to like that by her own father and I’m not sure what I could say to make her feel better right now.

My skin rushes with a murky sense of discomfort.

What with my less than friendly reaction to the incident in the bathroom earlier, then my misjudged attempt to fix it by kissing her in full public view where she was forced to go along with it, on top of her dad degrading and humiliating her in front of me and Jeff, she’s not exactly having a great day.

And I feel shitty for being partly to blame for that.

Dee isn’t a mean person. She can be infuriating and a little selfish sometimes, but the more I get to know her, the more I get why.

Her self-esteem has clearly taken some severe knocks in the past and she’s drawn a protective cloak around herself, using humour and what comes across as self-centred nonchalance to maintain her composure.

It was actually quite a turn-on to see her standing up for herself at the table just now.

She’s definitely got some balls and, it seems, is actually more like her dad than I gave her credit for.

I like that.

When I get back to the room, I find her sitting on the bed with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her shins.

‘Hey,’ I say, walking over and sitting on the edge of the bed.

‘Hey,’ she says, her voice flat. ‘Well, that was the most intense dinner I’ve ever had.’

‘Yeah,’ I agree. ‘Are you okay? Your dad was being a bit of a dick there at the end.’

‘You think?’ she says, loading her tone with sarcasm. She lets out a heavy sigh and flaps her hand at me, but doesn’t meet my eye. ‘But, yeah, I’m fine. It’s all just par for the course with me and my dad.’

There’s an uncomfortable pause.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Not really.’

‘Sure?’

‘I’m fine,’ she says, sounding a bit frustrated now. ‘You don’t need to coddle me.’

She’s closed down on me, the way I closed down on her earlier.

It feels really crap.

‘Look, I am sorry about the way I acted earlier,’ I say.

Unwrapping her arms from around her legs, she shoots me a tight smile, then gets off the bed. ‘You don’t need to apologise again. It’s okay. Really. I get it. It was a moment of madness, like you said. No harm done.’

I watch as she hobbles towards the bathroom and shuts the door, not giving me a chance to respond to that. Not that there’s any response I can give other than, Okay, good.

This doesn’t feel good, though.

I wait, sitting on the bed, till she emerges again in her pjs, her face free of the make-up she was wearing at dinner, looking more vulnerable and younger than I’ve ever seen her.

Something twists in my chest.

‘Bathroom’s free,’ she says, waving her hand towards it, but not looking directly at me as she moves to the other side of the bed from where I’m sitting.

‘Okay, thanks,’ I say. I guess we’re done with conversation now then. Maybe it’s for the best.

I get up and go into the bathroom, taking my time getting washed and dressed into my sleep shorts. When I come out, Dee’s already in bed, under the duvet, with the light out.

Trying not to make any noise and disturb her, I lie down on the sofa and pull the eiderdown that I took off the bed earlier to use as a cover over myself.

Once I’ve settled in, I lie there, listening to the sound of the wind outside.

It’s definitely got up since we were in the garden earlier and is making a hollow, howling sort of noise as it batters the walls of the house.

A bit like a low wail. It’s a little unsettling.

But I’m sure Jeff wouldn’t have left us here if he thought we’d be in any danger.

This house will have been pummelled by a lot of storms throughout the years he’s owned it and it’s still standing firm.

Dee turns over in the bed, distracting me from my musings about the weather, and I stare up at the ceiling trying not to think about everything that happened between us today.

But it’s no use. It all keeps going round and round my head on a never-ending loop.

I can’t stop thinking about how impossible I’d found it to walk out of the bathroom. How, deep down, I think I’d wanted it to happen. That I’d lost my mind for a while there.

My body rushes again at the memory of how amazing I’d felt in those moments. How buzzed. How alive .

Some devilish instinct inside of me wants more, too. But I really shouldn’t let myself go there. I’d be crazy to allow it to go any further.

Ugh.

I seem to have opened a portal to hell.

Well, maybe hell is a bit strong.

But some kind of purgatory, at least.

Dee turns over again with a frustrated-sounding sigh.

It seems like she’s having trouble sleeping too.

After another quarter of an hour of her tossing and turning, I hear her get out of bed, hobble towards the bathroom and quietly close the door.

A few moments later, what sounds like her electric toothbrush starts up.

The teeth-brushing goes on for quite a while and there’s another strange noise accompanying it that sounds a lot like heavy breathing. I listen in fascinated silence, straining to hear, and I’m rewarded with what sounds like a low moan. Then silence.

I turn over awkwardly on the sofa, adjusting my position so my erection isn’t pressing into the cushions any more.

Self-conscious heat washes over me.

It’s not surprising she needed to get herself off when I didn’t make any kind of move to reciprocate what she’d done for me earlier.

Not that I’d know exactly what to do. Things have never quite aligned for me when it’s come to sex and relationships with women.

Not that I haven’t wanted it to. In fact, I’ve been pretty frustrated at points, especially when I’ve come close but ended up thwarted for one reason or another.

So, as Dee discovered earlier, I’m still pretty green.

I’ve seen plenty of films with sex in them of course, but I’ve avoided watching any explicit porn.

I’ve always worried it was exploitative towards women and didn’t want to feel I had any part of that.

I should probably look up techniques for future reference though, should I need them at some point in the future.

Not with Dee, of course. That would be crazy.

The door clicks open and I freeze, pretending to be asleep, as she limps slowly out of the bathroom and back to her bed.

There’s the sound of her shifting around, plumping up the pillow, then pulling the duvet over herself. Then, finally, silence settles over us.

After a few more minutes, I hear her breathing slowing down and becoming more regular, as if she’s fallen asleep now.

I’m too wired to sleep, so I spend a while looking up the best techniques for making women orgasm on my phone. Huh. I had no idea there were so many different things to consider. It’s actually quite fascinating.

After I’ve read my fill of new, mindboggling information, I stare up at the ceiling for what feels like another hour before deciding to do something about the persistent hard-on that now just won’t bloody go down.

Carefully, and as quietly as I can, I roll off the sofa and creep over to the bathroom, closing the door behind me, and take Dee’s lead, giving my body the release it’s been desperate for since the last time I was in here.

Thank God we’re leaving tomorrow.