You, Me & the Sea Read online

  He hadn’t intended to stay with her, but she had nobody else, and there hadn’t seemed to be a good moment to say goodbye and fuck off out of there. Once they arrived at the hospital everything had happened quite fast. Or it hadn’t, but it’d felt as though lots of things happened and there wasn’t a space in between. Kelly was hooked up to a monitor and then he heard the baby’s heartbeat and from then on he didn’t really want to leave.

  Charlie was born at 8.33 in the evening. Fraser had cut the baby’s cord, even though afterwards he’d felt he should have told them all that this wasn’t his baby. Nobody seemed to care much, though, and Kelly certainly didn’t seem to mind. She’d been absolutely beaming with joy from the minute the pain stopped. When he had seen her with the baby, snuggled up with his wee hat on, he’d felt such a rush of something. It wasn’t love. It was just … pride at what she’d done, what she’d achieved. And an overwhelming urge to make sure that nothing bad ever happened to the boy.

  He can see that same look in Rachel’s eyes in that photo. The elation at having done it, at having survived it, at having this little life in front of her. She’s not smiling, though, in the picture. He thinks she looks utterly shell-shocked. And really quite beautiful.

  ‘It was okay,’ Rachel says. ‘I don’t know if I’m remembering it differently now. It was quicker than they expected. I was going to have an epidural but there wasn’t time. I was shit-scared and that made it all hurt a lot more, but at least it was quick. When I got to the hospital she was already on her way.’

  ‘Was your sister with you? For the birth?’

  ‘Yes, and her husband. Ian. My brother-in-law.’

  ‘No. Seriously? You were okay with that?’

  She hesitates.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘it was his baby. I suppose he had a right to be there.’

  ‘I’d say you were the one with all the rights.’

  ‘Hmm.’ There is a little pause. ‘That’s not how my life seems to work out.’

  She waits, taking a drink of her wine. Not looking at him. Her thoughts are off somewhere, he thinks, back in that hospital room, the pain and the shock and the stress of it.

  ‘You can ask.’

  ‘Ask what?’

  ‘You want to know how we did it. That seems to be what people want to know.’

  ‘None of my business.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she says.

  Her smile, curved around the rim of her wine glass. He’s not going to rise to it.

  ‘Put it this way,’ she says, eventually, ‘I haven’t had actual sex with anyone since Amarjit. That feels like a bloody long time ago.’

  ‘Right,’ he says, trying to work out the mechanics of it and coming down on the side of IVF.

  ‘Funny, though,’ she says. ‘One of the hardest things is that it felt as if my insides belonged to them. All the most private bits of my body weren’t mine any more.’

  ‘I guess it would feel like that.’

  ‘I don’t even like him that much. My brother-in-law, I mean. I didn’t really like him in the first place. He’s all skinny and accountanty. He’s got this laugh – like heh heh – sounds really creepy. And his family, well, they’re just so weird. All of them. His sister said to me at their wedding that she thought I looked like a face that missed a sneeze.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘I know. I’m still trying to work out what that means.’

  She sits up, then, quite abruptly. Puts her glass firmly down on the table, leans forward, hands between her knees. Her hair sticking up over her ears. He thinks he could look at her for the rest of his life and not get tired of it.

  ‘You want to know something really TMI?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says.

  ‘Lucy asked me not to have sex while I was pregnant. I mean, not that I was with anyone. Not that I even felt like it.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Something to do with alien sperm. She’d read a theory that having multiple partners causes miscarriage.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘I have no idea. It’s just Lucy was reading up on everything, you know, totally obsessing about it. For my own benefit, of course, as she was always fond of telling me. Anyway – I didn’t. But the weird thing was, I didn’t do anything else either.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I mean, on my own. I didn’t have a single orgasm for a whole year.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Is that too much information? Sorry if it is. I never told anyone that before.’

  He’s concentrating very hard on her lower lip, thinking about the time that’s passed since the fourteenth of January. Thinking about how many orgasms she might have had, on her own, since then. Can’t stop thinking about it at all. He’s very aware that this feels a lot like the ‘fuck it’ moment; he’s been expecting it, and now here it is, and whatever he says next might as well be those actual words.

  Fuck it.

  ‘Your body’s not theirs any more, though, is it?’ he says, quite calmly.

  She takes a sharp breath in. Shakes her head. And looks at him for a long time.

  Rachel

  She doesn’t know where the bravery comes from but perhaps she’s just tired of waiting. Perhaps she’s just too drunk, or too turned on, or too sad. She gets up, goes to the sofa and straddles him, sitting on his lap and kissing him, no confusion about it this time, straight on the mouth. And to her relief he doesn’t hesitate about responding. His hands move up inside her bra, and she has to pull away and breathe and tell him to be gentle because her breasts are still quite tender. He says sorry into her mouth and then his touch changes to something else, feather-light, sending bolts of pure heart-stopping desire straight through her. There is an awkward slipping down on the sofa until they are both horizontal. His hand moves from her chest down inside her leggings and grips her backside. She can feel his hardness against her leg as he pulls her tighter against it, and there is something really quite alarming about the size of it and then Rachel feels short of air, because he is half-lying on her and he is big and heavy and his mouth is entirely covering hers.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she says.

  ‘We shouldn’t do this,’ he growls into her hair, breathing hard.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  He kisses her again, devours her, for several minutes before answering, as if he needs that in order to think.

  ‘Had too much to drink,’ he manages.

  ‘Really?’ she says, sliding her hand down the front of his jeans to double-check. Bloody hell.

  ‘Fuck, not that. Didn’t mean that.’

  More kissing. Take a breath. She has forgotten about Lefty, next door in his little den. What if he comes in?

  ‘Consent,’ he says. ‘You know. I don’t want to take advantage.’

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ she says, really quite loudly. ‘I’m not that bloody pissed, Fraser.’

  His hand still on her arse.

  ‘You want to?’ he says.

  He sounds a bit amazed. Pulls away from her so he can see her face.

  ‘Just sex,’ she says, her eyes on his.

  ‘That’s what you want?’

  She nods emphatically. ‘Yes. Do you?’

  He’s not going to say no. Is he?

  Funny to think that in the previous eighteen months she has had no sex, but she’s been pregnant and had a baby.

  Within a week of the decision, Lucy had been charting Rachel’s basal temperature. A week after that, Lucy had decided Rachel was probably ovulating, and, giggling, had suggested ‘having a try’. They’d discussed clinics, different methods, discussions that had left Rachel baffled and numb. Those conversations are all a blur, now, because after that conversation about ‘giving it a try’ there weren’t any clinics, any interventions, because there wasn’t any need.

  Rachel had accepted the syringe full of her brother-in-law’s sperm at the door of the spare bedroom, taking it between finger and thumb and trying not to pull
a face. Listened to the murmurs of conversation from Lucy and Ian’s bedroom next door while she lay on the bed with the syringe next to her, wondering what the fuck she thought she was doing. And just a moment later she’d thought what the hell, just do it and had inserted the syringe as far as it would comfortably go, and pushed the plunger down. She had stayed still, nose wrinkled in disgust at the thought of Ian’s little swimmers flapping around in confusion next to her cervix, thinking that there was no way it was possible to get pregnant like this, but if it made Lucy happy …

  Of course Lucy hadn’t been content with one little syringe. They’d done it four times over the next day and a half, and each time Rachel had had to physically stop herself from racing home so she could get in the shower. Meanwhile Ian was beginning to look as if he would vastly prefer the expense and medicalised justification of IVF to the indignity of having to wank into a cup with his sister-in-law within earshot, even if Lucy was there when he was doing it. Rachel didn’t want to think about that too much. The whole thing was just insane.

  In any case, those four times were all that was required. Two weeks later they’d done the test, and she was pregnant. Rachel had barely had time to think about it.

  Fraser follows her up the stairs, Bess trotting after him. On the landing she looks from her room to his, suddenly at a loss.

  Then he takes her by the hand, leads her into his room, and shuts the door behind her.

  Fraser

  He never meant for this to happen. He didn’t plan it but here they are: they are in his dark bedroom alone and between them the air is boiling. His heart is absolutely pounding.

  He turns on the overhead light.

  ‘Want to see you,’ he says, moving towards her, vaguely expecting her to flinch, or turn away, but instead she leans into him a little, anticipating, and he kisses her, intending to be gentle this time but then not managing gentle at all. He hears, feels her give a little squeak into his mouth. His hands are around her, cupping her arse and pulling her against him and then pushing her gently back against the nearest solid surface, the chest of drawers, so that she’s higher, and her arms are around his neck, her fingers in his hair, her other hand fisting the fabric of his shirt.

  He pulls back, breathless, to look at her. Her pupils are huge, her irises somehow darker, sea-blue, her skin porcelain, flushed with two red spots high on her cheeks.

  He is as hard as he has ever been in his life, his crotch pressed against hers, grinding into her like a fucking teenager. His hands push up under her top, the smooth hot skin of her back, the gentle bumps of her ribs and her spine, the planes of her shoulderblades. He feels a further rush of blood, moves back. Deliberately, he moves her towards his bed, turns her round so she is facing away, pushes his hands under the waistband of the tight grey leggings she’s wearing, smooths them down, over her arse, down her thighs, crouching as he does so: plants his face against the hot skin and kisses her, nibbling at her, sliding his fingers between her thighs. She is wet, slippery with it, makes a noise in her throat as he pushes one finger inside her: but in the same moment he can feel the tension in her thighs, in her buttocks, and he stops, reluctantly. Lets her go.

  She climbs on to the bed. Holds out a hand for him.

  He can’t help himself: he devours her mouth again, his hands on her waist, pushing against her. He feels her fingers at his belt buckle, pulling at it; hears the clink of her releasing it, her fingers on the buttons of his jeans. Not yet. She makes a sound into his mouth, and he lets her go in case she can’t breathe, in case she’s trying to speak. Instead there is just a little gasp.

  He moves down the bed, pushing up her top and planting kisses on her stomach, on the curve of her hip, on her thigh. Sits up, then, and drags her leggings down and off in a purposeful way. Thinks maybe he should check, again, that she’s up for this. He looks up at her, half-sitting, her weight on her elbows.

  ‘This okay?’ he says.

  She nods. ‘Yes. I mean …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I just—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘I know.’

  He pauses. It’s not that she looks scared, exactly.

  ‘If you don’t want to …’ he says, thinking, Please don’t say you don’t want to.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Definitely sure. Will you … have you got condoms?’

  He clambers over her to the bedside table, turns on the lamp, then gets up and turns off the overhead light, which is making his bedroom look as if he hasn’t cleaned it in weeks.

  Although, actually, he hasn’t.

  He sits on the edge of the bed and rummages around in the drawer, finds nothing, then the sports bag under his bed that he uses when he goes to the mainland. In his washbag he finds the box of condoms. He has had them a while, checks the expiry date on them surreptitiously, wondering in the same moment what the fuck he’s going to do if they are out of date. To his immense relief they still have a couple of months left.

  ‘Here we go. All right?’

  She nods.

  ‘So, you want me to stop, you just say. Right?’

  She nods again.

  ‘Now I’m going to carry on with what I was doing, if that’s okay with you.’

  He thinks, I can’t believe this is happening.

  He thinks, this is probably a mistake.

  Rachel

  ‘What?’ she asks. He has said something, muffled, kissing her side. She pushes a hand through his hair.

  ‘I said, you need to eat more. I can feel ribs here.’

  Charming.

  ‘You taste good.’

  That’s all right, then, she thinks, and then he nudges firmly at her thigh with one huge, warm hand, and she opens her legs and thinks, don’t look down, because there’s always been something so disconcerting about making eye-contact with a man performing oral, but then she thinks maybe he isn’t going to after all, because his beard is tickling her inner thigh, as though he’s skipped that bit and is going down her legs instead – surely he wouldn’t – and she almost drags him back up by his hair, almost gives a little growl, and then he’s there, his tongue, and she thinks, oh.

  For several minutes she doesn’t think very much at all. And then his fingers join in and she thinks of his hands, how she finds them somehow the sexiest thing about him because he has huge, beautiful, practical hands. Turns out they’re actually quite skilled.

  She asks him to stop. Breathe, she thinks, because she hasn’t been. She feels light-headed, spacey, exhilarated. His fingers are still, but they’re right there, waiting. She touches his head again, stroking her fingers down the side of his face, until he catches them, kisses them, bites them. She pulls him back to her, and this time he doesn’t build up to it, as if he’s hungry, as if he can’t wait – and she throws her head back against the pillows and gasps. Something intensely erotic about it, his unfamiliar fingers inside her. She feels close to it but the climax keeps slipping away, and then she starts thinking that he must be getting fed up and at that point she tells him to stop.

  He does as she asks, which makes her think that probably he was getting bored. He crawls up the bed to lie next to her, casually wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Will you take these off?’ she asks, pulling at his clothes.

  ‘You want me to?’

  ‘I just asked.’

  He sits on the edge of the bed, his back to her. Pulls his T-shirt off, over his head.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Stand up. I want to watch you.’

  ‘I’m not a fucking stripper.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to dance.’

  He obliges, then. She can tell he’s embarrassed, although he has no reason to be. He’s actually, she thinks … what’s the word for it? How to describe him?

  He’s not one of those smooth bronzed vain boys, the ones she’s supposed to go for. His chest is covered in dark hair, which extends t
o his arms – tanned forearms, pale every where else – and even his shoulders. His chest and back and shoulders are broad and strong and muscled, his belly rounded, but hard with muscle too. Just before he pulls down his shorts he catches her eye and actually manages a smile, which she thinks is the sexiest thing she’s ever seen.

  Her vest is rucked up around her chest anyway, so she sits up and pulls it off, discards her bra off the edge of the bed. She is still really quite ridiculously turned on. He looks down at her, hesitates. She sees his eyes travelling from her toes up her legs all the way up to her face.

  There is a really long pause where he’s just staring at her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re in my bed,’ he says. ‘And you’re…I don’t know.’

  Out of nowhere, bizarrely given what he’s just done, she has that flash of having transgressed, somehow. ‘You want me to go?’

  ‘Fucking no. Of course not.’

  Then she finds one of the condoms in the tangled duvet, kneels on the bed, kisses him. She hears him take a deep, gasping breath in. She was just going to kiss him once and put the condom on but now she’s here, close, and he’s really just beautiful and she can’t help herself. Cups his balls. Kisses them. Runs her tongue up and down. His hands thread through her hair. He pulls himself away, takes the condom out of her hand, applies it.