Close Too Close (23 page)

What is it, then, to look back on past intimacy? Sex has a memory which is quite different from the remembrance of other experiences – no more reliable, just different. Still, it’s a fictionalised account, not
the truth
– I know this. And after all, even
the moment
lies because eroticism is all magnified senses . . . .

I should stop dithering uselessly and try one more time.

To cut a long story short, my story is about ‘conference sex’.

Many have experienced it, I’m sure, and I did as well, when I travelled to attend a conference in South Asia. That conference itself can be verified, even now, years later, with an internet search. Some random details of conference presenters, keynote speakers, panels, and workshops are cached in the ways that are now familiar to web users. Of course, no record stands of what I call ‘conference sex’. I need to look to my memory for that, but it is not similarly searchable.

One day of the conference must have passed before I met her: one day of very fine papers, speeches, posters, and discussions, all of which got through to me before we met, talked, and I became cocooned in a haze of feeling in which only she existed. That is, one day after my arrival at the conference, and two days before my departure, so it happened in a flash! I remember hoping that my face wouldn’t give me away, that it wouldn’t show how struck I was by her long black curly hair, expressive dark eyes, and crooked knowing smile. ‘Hi,’ she said briefly, when introduced. That smile. ‘Hi,’ I said back, nonchalantly. Her name was Shalini.

At the end of the day’s sessions, I glanced around the room airily. No one in particular interested me, my eyes were saying; I’m just idly looking. ‘Do you want to stretch your legs?’ Shalini asked from behind me. Outfoxed, my face slipped its guard. I agreed eagerly.

We stepped out into a cold evening, two other conference participants with us. In fact, we were with people – lots of people, actually, as it is at a conference break at the end of the day when everyone is conferenced-out and dying to get away for a hot shower, hot dinner, cold beer – maybe secretly, even hot sex! When we all sat down together, I sat across from her so that I could observe her without being too conspicuous. Did she even like women? It was impossible to know. Presumed straight until declared otherwise, is the wisest way to go, of course. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Six or seven of us retreated with our ice-cold beer and munchables to a secluded spot where other conference attendees (i.e. those who were not welcome) would not spot us and ask to join us. Once settled, we puffed on our cigarettes and re-hashed the day’s worth of good insight and argument and petty controversy. Not shy, she was in there with the rest of them, holding her own, laughing, teasing, rolling her eyes dramatically, always a little withholding so that you were still interested at what she must be keeping back. This kind of after-hours conference chat was familiar to me; it had its own conventions, nothing too daring. But, by degrees, I did become flustered. It was her manner. It was covertly flirtatious.

She looked at me for just that one second longer than could be accounted for, and she smiled with just that level of appeal that was more than nice. Small things, but some part of me knew and wondered whether to take it further, and if so, how. Very soon, a beery lot of the group got up and left us. There was a goodnatured sense of ‘all good things’ etc. amongst the rest, but I didn’t want the evening to end. ‘Where are you staying?’ I asked her. Not far from my accommodation, it turned out. All very well, but what, conceivably, could be on offer? Not a nightcap, certainly. Maybe tea or coffee, but it was all horribly transparent. I felt gauche, choked by self-consciousness. Every possibility seemed to have the look of manipulation. Also acting against me was the setting. A conference was a place to display your smarts, to be self-aware, and droll and ironic – a place to forget about the body or to talk about it cerebrally, not to grub around with such carnal thoughts and invitations. Also, she was nobody’s fool, clearly. She would have to consent to the invite on her own terms, unspoken as those terms were.

Delay resolved things. We said goodbyes all round, turning our cheeks perfunctorily to everyone until we came to each other. Something magical happened then. I bent to her, my breath frosting in the cold air. Her face reached up. Our arms moved us close into each other, and my face was in that wonderfully fragrant hair. Wiry to the touch, surprisingly dry, and dense, very dense. I could feel her face in my neck. A surge of excitement passed through me, uncontrollable, urgent. It was like nothing I had felt before. Quite simply, it was without my volition that I found myself pulling back blindly from her embrace and bending to her, mouth open. A kiss, madly, unthinkingly. Right there, in front of everyone who had not still left. Except, of course, sanity prevailed at the last minute. I found myself holding her by both arms, quite tightly, my face inches from her lips, my body quite tense with the effort to remember that it was not a good idea, that it was, in fact, a very bad idea to do this in public. It was too late, of course. One of the conference attendees was already adjusting her face into a smooth mask of unflappability meaning: I didn’t see anything, I won’t say anything. I hrrumphed, and Shalini – I can’t remember what Shalini did. I only know that we made it up the dark, quiet road silently, back to our accommodation, pretending that we were all grownup, these things happen, not to worry, and it was good that it ended that way before it even began.

We reached and turned towards each other. ‘A packed day tomorrow,’ she sighed, ‘I’m already exhausted. Will you attend everything?’

‘Not everything,’ I hedged.

‘There’s a market I’ve been meaning to visit. You’re welcome to come if you’re free,’ she offered tonelessly, turning away at her door.

‘Sure,’ I said, ‘I’ll come around at ten or so.’ Undoubtedly we had made a pact to be naughty, to play truant at the conference. In my mind, as serious conference attendees, this meant that we had broken the unspoken rule and were already intimate.

Nine thirty a.m. arrived, and I knocked on her door. She greeted me, recently bathed and perfumed, and more than a little overwhelming in a white tee and blue cotton shorts. Something did not seem right to me. She was clearly not ready for a trawl through the market. In fact, she didn’t seem interested in it at all anymore. Instead, there was coffee, some cookies, and what looked like a deliciously long morning in ahead. I said nothing about the change of plans. The conference languished, abandoned.

Plenty of room on her bed for us to perch without touching. Somehow, though, the space between us kept closing imperceptibly, even as we sipped our coffee and chatted. She talked to me about her family – a sister who was doing well at work, was married, and parents who were still together and had the adorably South Asian parenting style of never letting go of their obligations towards their children. The words ‘marriage’ and ‘husband’ came and went in her conversation about her sister. We laughed together, and felt closer, but this was possibly still her conference persona. What was she like outside, in the everyday world? Kind, funny, well-meaning, impatient, sociable? Jolly, insecure, domineering, jealous, large-hearted? Grumpy, needy, driven, selfish, reclusive? No clue from our light-hearted patter.

It was my turn. I have always found the life story hard work and a bit of a sham, but this time, on her bed, in her cool scented room, it was more loaded. I rose sturdily to the challenge. Early ambitions (more sharply defined to make myself look purposeful); university degrees (passed over with a quick modesty); and my work (mentioned ruefully, because I wasn’t unimaginatively and uncritically invested in it, was I?). She looked at me levelly throughout this performance, giving nothing away, only waiting for the next thing, perhaps something I had not said. We were toe to toe, almost adversarial.

Our coffee was done, the cups on the bedside table. We had slipped comfortably into lounging in silence, lying across the bed, our faces turned away from each other. Street noises filtered up vaguely. Feeling her move on the bed, I turned. She had turned and was looking right at me – just looking. We gazed at each other in silence for what seemed a minute, gradually unable to conceal our tension.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said jerkily. I continued to look at her. Desire, excitement – it was on my face, on her face, between us. ‘Oh, great!’ was all she said, heavily. Next, we had crawled into each other’s arms. Her tongue in my mouth was gentle, her breathing quick. Eyes closed, I bit her lip, held her tongue in my mouth in a gentle, rhythmic suck. The room was very quiet except for our sighs, the hiss of our breathing. Her legs, moving restlessly, pulled my knee in between. A catch of breath, of pleasure, my leg squeezed between hers.

No time to think ‘Is this really happening?’ and ‘Is this a good idea?’ Our shirts were off, our trousers and shorts on the floor. On top of each other, nothing gentle about our kisses, my mouth inside hers, her lips stretched wide. That amazing hair was all over me when she pushed me roughly on to my back and kissed and bit my breasts. A snail trail of wet down to where I was waiting impatiently, and then her wonderful tongue, dividing me, flicking teasingly, and then settling instinctively into what I liked. I managed a quick gasped question about safe sex and being tested. But I was being pushed over the edge of the bed, my head angling back, my eyes unseeingly meeting the tacky picture on the wall. Pulling my legs up, her two fingers went in without asking – painful! Retreating, she pushed her fat thumb in. Gloriously fast, rough, and hard. My body shuddered under the impact.

The freshly showered scent of her was intoxicating. My tongue found her armpits, the back of her knees, the fragile shell of her ear. Our hands were interlaced. Her legs wrapped around my back, and I ground myself into her repeatedly, wildly. Reaching between us, I drove into her and we rocked against each other.

Surfacing many minutes later, we lay on the bed in a sweat, our breath coming fast. Conversation was out of the question. We had tested each other before with our probing life stories, then surprised each other with sex, and now what?

I strained against the awkwardness, the silence in the room. She was turned away, a slight unreadable smile on her face. It must have been hours since I entered that room – hours away from the conference, and for the first time I felt a guilty pang. ‘No one saw you come in,’ she said, her face still turned away, her voice coming from the end of a long tunnel. How she had anticipated my anxiety I will never know.