Leave It

Some of these stories happened. Some of them nearly happened, which can be more troublesome. Some I have improved beyond recognition, and some were perfectly indecent before I got anywhere near them.

I don't label them.

You may decide what you believe. I reserve the right to enjoy your mistake.

Fraser went soft while I was on top of him.

Not dramatically. No tragic deflation, no cinematic pause, no warning bell. One moment I could feel him hard inside me, my knees braced on either side of his hips, his hands warm against my waist. The next there was less pressure, then less again.

I stopped moving.

Fraser looked away.

That was the first mistake.

Mine came three seconds later.

"It's fine," I said.

His face changed.

I knew exactly what I'd done.

"Please don't."

"I only meant--"

"I know what you meant."

He put one hand over his face.

I was still straddling him.

There are positions from which reassurance becomes physically absurd.

I lifted myself off and sat beside him.

We were both naked.

That made the silence worse.

His chest was flushed from sex. A faint pressure mark from my knee was whitening on one thigh. Sweat darkened the hair below his ribs. Nothing about his body looked uninterested.

His cock lay soft against his stomach.

I looked at it.

Fraser saw me looking.

"Please don't examine it."

"I wasn't."

"You were."

"I was looking."

"You have a professional version of looking."

I sat back against the headboard.

"Bloody hell, Fraser."

He swung his legs off the bed.

There were his trousers on the chair, his shirt on the floor, one sock under the bedside table for reasons neither of us could explain. My black slip had ended up hooked over the brass handle of the wardrobe.

Ten minutes earlier this had all seemed encouraging.

Now it looked like evidence.

Fraser bent for his boxers.

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere."

"You're putting clothes on."

"Underwear. It's not emigration."

He pulled them up.

I watched his back.

Fraser is forty and makes a living taking photographs. He has spent enough years carrying cases, tripods and lighting stands up staircases to know the difference between being tired and being unable to do something. That was probably why my questions irritated him so quickly.

He sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees.

I waited.

Waiting is not one of my better skills.

"How tired are you?" I asked.

Fraser turned his head.

There it was again.

The professional version of looking, this time with sound.

I'm a doctor in psychosexual medicine, which gives me useful knowledge and, apparently, an intolerable bedside manner.

"I'm tired."

"Work?"

"Kate."

"Fine."

He rubbed both hands over his face.

I lasted perhaps eight seconds.

"Any new medication?"

Fraser stared at me.

"Oh, for Christ's sake."

"That's a completely normal question."

"In your consulting room."

"We're not in my consulting room."

"Exactly."

I stopped.

Fraser stood and crossed to the window.

My bedroom overlooks a narrow strip of New Town backs: stone walls, chimneys, bits of roof and, depending on the season, somebody else's trees behaving better than mine. At half past nine the glass reflected us more clearly than anything outside.

Fraser in black boxers by the curtains.

Me naked against the headboard with my knees drawn up.

I looked like the person more comfortable with the situation.

This was inaccurate.

"I'm not diagnosing you," I said.

"You're three questions from asking about morning erections."

"I wasn't going to ask that."

He gave me a look.

I had been going to ask that eventually.

"Bollocks," Fraser said.

I laughed once.

Wrong response.

He pulled the curtain closed.

"All right. The laugh was unfair."

"Good start."

"And the questions."

Fraser looked at me.

I added, "Most of them."

"Jesus."

"I'm trying."

"You're fixing."

That landed harder than it should have.

I pulled the sheet over my lap although modesty had no possible relevance now.

Fraser noticed.

His face softened by a fraction.

"I know it happens," he said. "I don't need the brochure."

"I wasn't giving you a brochure."

"You had the voice."

"What voice?"

"The calm one. Something goes wrong and suddenly you're the safest woman in Scotland."

"That seems useful."

"It's infuriating."

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

He knew that voice.

Not from work.

From me.

Fraser and I had been sleeping together long enough to have acquired patterns neither of us had formally approved. He knew I disliked being fussed over when ill. I knew he left damp towels on the floor despite otherwise functioning as an adult. He knew that if I said I didn't mind where we ate I was usually lying. I knew that when he went quiet rather than sarcastic, I should take him seriously.

This was the danger of an affair surviving long enough to become familiar.

You acquire evidence.

Fraser picked up his shirt and put it on without fastening it.

"I'm thirsty."

It took me a second to understand that the conversation had ended without my permission.

"That's it?"

"For now."

"You're very annoying."

"I know."

He left the bedroom.

I stared at the empty doorway.

Then I put on the cotton robe from the foot of the bed and followed him.

My house is old enough that the staircase makes opinions known about every foot placed on it. One board near the turn always gives a long complaining creak.

Fraser stepped over it.

I noticed because last month he had stepped on it at two in the morning and nearly frightened me into cardiac arrest.

That annoyed me for reasons the floorboard could not reasonably be blamed for.

In the kitchen he opened the fridge.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting water."

"You know where the tap is."

"The bottle's cold."

He took it out.

Then he ignored the glass beside the sink, reached into the cupboard and took down a clean one.

I leaned against the island.

Fraser drank half of it.

"Long day?" I asked.

He lowered the glass.

"That sounded almost normal."

"Enjoy it while it lasts."

"Six o'clock start. Job out near Musselburgh. Then back to edit because somebody changed their mind about what 'natural light' meant after seeing natural light."

"You should invoice for philosophy."

"I should invoice for attempted murder."

"Of the client?"

"Myself."

I smiled.

His shoulders dropped slightly.

"I slept badly," he said. "Beth was up late."

He said it while looking into the fridge for something else.

Beth was Fraser's partner of many years. They shared a home, and she didn't know he was sleeping with me.

Her name entered my kitchen and changed the temperature by about three degrees.

Fraser came out with the butter.

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm hungry."

"You're making toast?"

"That's usually what butter means."

He opened the bread bin.

Correctly.

I watched him take out two slices.

"You know where everything is."

Fraser looked over his shoulder.

"I've been here before."

"Yes."

"Several times."

"I know."

He put the bread in the toaster.

I was suddenly aware of my bare legs under the robe, his unbuttoned shirt, the clock above the cooker and the absurd intimacy of a man making toast in my kitchen after losing his erection in my bed.

It felt more exposing than the sex had.

Fraser leaned against the worktop while the toaster clicked and heated.

"You went quiet at Beth."

"I noticed."

"She was working late. I was awake. That's all."

"You don't usually talk about her here."

"No."

"Why tonight?"

"Because you asked why I'm tired."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"What did you mean?"

I hated the question because there was no useful answer that didn't make me sound ridiculous.

Fraser waited.

The toast sprang up behind him.

I flinched.

He almost smiled.

"I don't like details," I said.

"About Beth."

"Yes."

"I know."

The fact that he knew was worse than the fact itself.

Fraser buttered the toast.

He handed me one slice without asking whether I wanted it.

I took it.

This was how bad habits become domestic rituals: first by accident, then because arguing would take longer.

"I know she exists," I said.

"That's generous."

"Oh, get stuffed."

Fraser bit into his toast.

I took a bite of mine mainly so I could stop talking.

We chewed in mutual irritation.

Then he said, "You like me better when the rest of my life stays outside."

"Of course I do."

The answer came too quickly.

Fraser looked at me.

I swallowed.

"That sounded worse than I meant it."

"It sounded accurate."

"I'm not pretending Beth doesn't exist."

"No. You just prefer her without dialogue."

I put the toast down.

"Careful."

Fraser's expression changed.

That was my serious voice, the one without volume.

He knew that one too.

"Fine," he said. "But you asked me a question and I answered it. I was tired because I slept badly. Beth was awake. I was awake. Then I worked all day. My cock went soft. That's the whole thrilling sequence."

"I wasn't asking for a confession."

"I know."

"And I'm not judging you for being tired."

"No. You're judging the bit where my life carried on before I got here."

I stared at him.

Fraser ate the rest of his toast.

There are moments when the person you are having an affair with becomes offensively difficult to reduce to the affair.

I hated how well he had timed this one.

"You're in my kitchen wearing half a shirt," I said.

"So?"

"So perhaps don't make me sound like I'm keeping you in a cupboard."

"You've got better cupboards."

I laughed despite myself.

The laugh let some of the anger out.

Not all of it.

Fraser drank more water.

I looked at the glass in his hand, the butter knife on the board and the crumbs on the worktop.

He had made toast in my kitchen without asking where anything lived.

That bothered me more than it should have.

Fraser put his glass down.

"Are you still turned on?"

The question arrived without warning.

"Yes."

"Good."

"That's all?"

"What else do you want me to do with the information?"

I looked at him.

He looked back, still annoyed with me and still wanting sex.

That, at least, I understood.

Fraser came around the island.

I stayed where I was.

He stopped close enough that the edges of his shirt brushed my robe.

His hand went to my waist and pulled me in before I could interpret it.

I kissed him before he could say anything else.

His mouth opened against mine. The edge of the island pressed into my lower back.

Fraser's hand slid under the robe and gripped my arse.

I pushed against him.

His body was warm through the shirt and boxers.

I could feel no erection.

I felt desire everywhere else.

For once I managed not to turn that difference into a question. His hand was firm at my arse, my robe had bunched between us, and his mouth was impatient enough to make the point without assistance from the rest of him. I pressed closer because I wanted the contact, not because I was checking for a change.

He shifted his grip and the edge of the island caught me higher on the back. I moved half a step sideways. Fraser followed without breaking the kiss, his palm flattening at my waist until I was steady again. The adjustment was ordinary and clumsy and, after the bedroom, unexpectedly relieving. Nothing had to prove anything. We could simply want one another badly and still have bodies doing different things.

Fraser bit my lower lip lightly.

Then he said, "Not upstairs."

"Why?"

"I don't want the bed just now."

Fair.

He looked towards the drawing room.

I laughed.

"What?"

"You're choosing rooms now."

"I'm branching out."

"Very adventurous."

"Shut up."

We went through.

The drawing room had one lamp on beside the sofa and the curtains open onto black windows. Books, records, two paintings I had bought years apart and a recent photograph of my children, Sophie, thirty, and Dan, twenty-seven, which I had no intention of looking at during sex.

I turned the photograph face down on the side table.

Fraser watched me do it.

"Thank you."

"Adults or not, they don't need to supervise."

He sat on the sofa.

I stood between his knees.

Fraser reached for the belt of my robe and looked up.

I nodded.

He opened it.

The robe fell apart.

He looked everywhere.

Breasts first. Stomach. Pubic hair. Thighs.

My body at fifty-five was not an argument I required him to win. The skin below my navel had softened; my breasts had weight and movement; silver-white hair mixed with darker strands over my mound. None of it required a defence.

Fraser ran both hands up my thighs.

His thumbs stopped just short of my cunt.

My breath changed.

He heard it.

One thumb slid through the wetness between my folds.

I gripped his shoulders.

Fraser looked up at me.

"Still horny?"

I stared at him.

"You really are forty."

"That's not an answer."

"Yes."

"Good."

His thumb moved over my clit.

I inhaled sharply.

"Very," I added.

"That sounded more convincing."

He touched me more firmly.

My legs opened without instruction.

Fraser leaned forward and put his mouth against my stomach just above the pubic hair.

He kissed once.

Then lower.

The robe slipped from my shoulders and dropped around my elbows.

I pulled my arms free and let it fall behind me.

Fraser's mouth reached my cunt.

The first lick was broad and slow.

I tightened my hands on his shoulders.

He did it again.

I had known this mouth for months.

That didn't mean it always behaved the same way.

His tongue moved through my wetness and over my clit, then away before the sensation became too sharp.

I shifted closer.

Fraser put both hands around the backs of my thighs.

The position was unstable.

I was standing. He was sitting. My knees began to complain about the arrangement before the rest of me did.

"Wait."

Fraser stopped instantly.

I lifted one knee onto the sofa beside his hip.

That helped but twisted me sideways.

"This is stupid."

"Yes."

"Move."

He slid along the sofa.

I sat beside him and turned, one leg over his lap.

Fraser leaned back into the corner cushion.

I settled sideways across him, my back against the sofa arm and both legs over his thighs.

Better.

His hand went between my legs.

Two fingers moved through the wetness and circled my clit.

I closed my eyes.

Fraser touched my knee.

"Look at me."

I opened them.

The line should have sounded theatrical.

It didn't.

His voice was too rough for theatre.

Fraser touched me slowly.

Tonight the pace gave me time to feel each change.

The pad of one finger passing around my clit.

His other hand cupping my breast, thumb moving over the nipple.

The weight of my legs over his lap.

His chest rising under the open shirt.

At first he kept the circles small. I found myself trying to hurry him with my hips, then having to stop because the angle dragged my thigh against the sofa seam. Fraser adjusted his hand rather than commenting on it. He shifted my knee a few inches higher over his lap and the pressure changed immediately, less awkward at my hip and more direct between my legs.

I let my head rest against the sofa arm. His thumb brushed my nipple again while the fingers between my legs slowed almost to nothing. The pause made me aware of how wet I was and how much of my weight he was taking across his thighs. I could feel the muscles there tighten when I moved.

Then he resumed, firmer this time, not faster. The difference ran through me sharply enough that my stomach tightened. I caught his wrist, not to stop him, only to hold it where it was. Fraser understood the pressure of my hand and stayed there.

His fingers slipped down and pressed at the entrance of my cunt.

I pushed towards him.

He entered me with one finger.

I made a sound that was more breath than voice.

Fraser curled the finger once.

"More?"

"Yes."

He added a second.

The stretch was familiar and immediately good.

His thumb returned to my clit.

I put my hand against the side of his neck.

Fraser's pulse was fast.

Mine was worse.

I kissed him.

His fingers kept moving inside me while we kissed. For several strokes I could feel myself chasing them, lifting slightly off the cushion each time he curled them. Then I lost the angle and the sensation thinned. I made an irritated sound into his mouth.

Fraser drew back just enough to look at me. He changed the tilt of his hand, braced his forearm against my thigh and tried again. The next movement landed exactly where I wanted it. I exhaled against his cheek and let my leg fall heavier over his lap.

My body began to tighten around them.

I pulled away from his mouth.

"Same pace."

Fraser kept it.

The steadiness mattered more than force. He did not speed up because I was getting close. His fingers continued the same short movement inside me while his thumb kept the same pressure outside, and the lack of drama made it easier to stop thinking about whether he was watching for a result.

The orgasm began as pressure rather than urgency.

A gathering low in my pelvis.

I gripped the sofa cushion with one hand.

Fraser's other hand moved from my breast to the side of my face.

He didn't say anything.

That helped.

The first contraction was deep enough to make my heel dig into the sofa.

I gasped.

Fraser's fingers stopped moving inside me but stayed there.

His thumb continued over my clit.

Another contraction followed.

Then another.

My cunt tightened around his fingers in slow pulses.

I pressed my forehead against his shoulder and swore into his shirt.

Fraser waited until my thighs relaxed.

Then he withdrew his hand.

For a few seconds I could hear only breathing.

Mine.

His.

The clock on the mantel ticking with absurd confidence.

Fraser kissed my temple.

I looked down before I could stop myself.

His boxers showed a half-hard bulge.

Fraser followed my gaze.

His mouth twitched.

"Subtle."

"I was aiming for nonchalance."

"You missed."

"I've had an orgasm. My standards have dropped."

"That explains a lot."

I slid off his lap and knelt on the rug between his knees.

Fraser's expression changed.

"Kate."

"I want your cock in my mouth."

He went still.

I kept my hands on his thighs.

"If you don't want that, say so."

Fraser looked at me for several seconds.

"I do."

"Right."

"If I ask you to stop, stop."

"Obviously."

He lifted his hips enough to push the boxers down.

His cock lay heavy against his thigh, partly swollen, the skin warmer and darker than the rest of him. Not erect enough to stand away from his body. A clear bead of fluid sat at the slit.

I looked because it was there.

Then I put my mouth on him.

Softness changed the act.

There was more give under my tongue. His cock filled my mouth differently, broader when I flattened it against my tongue, warmer against my lips. I could take more of him without the same pressure at the back of my throat.

Fraser inhaled hard.

His hand moved into my hair.

"Can I?"

I nodded around him.

His fingers settled against the back of my head without pushing.

I used my tongue along the underside and drew him slowly into my mouth again.

Fraser made a rough sound.

His thighs tightened beneath my hands.

I used one hand at the base while my mouth worked higher. The change in firmness was impossible not to notice because it altered what fitted comfortably between my lips from one pass to the next. I let that be information rather than a verdict. When he softened, my hand took more of the movement. When he thickened again, I shortened the stroke and used my tongue.

His fingers tightened in my hair.

"Fuck."

I kept the pace.

There was no clean progression to it. His cock thickened in my hand, softened a little, then thickened again. His breathing changed more reliably than anything else: slow at first, then rougher when I drew my tongue over the underside, then held for a second when I took him deeper. The muscles in his thighs kept tightening beneath my palms even when his erection eased.

I shifted back on my heels because my knees were beginning to ache. Fraser loosened his hand in my hair while I moved, waiting until I had settled before touching the back of my head again. I took him into my mouth once more at the same unhurried pace.

I kept going until Fraser's hand moved from my hair to my shoulder.

"Come up."

I lifted my head.

He was flushed and breathing hard.

"Finished?" I asked.

"With that, yes."

"All right."

For a moment neither of us moved. His hand remained on my shoulder, not holding me there, simply resting. The change from sexual urgency to stillness was abrupt enough that I could feel my own breathing slow in response. His cock was still partly hard, but that was no longer a piece of evidence I needed to collect.

I swallowed the first question that came to mind and stood.

Fraser caught the belt of my robe where it lay on the floor and tossed it onto the chair.

"You're not putting that on."

"That sounded suspiciously like an instruction."

"It was a request with confidence."

"Better."

He held out his hand.

I took it.

He pulled me down beside him.

This time we lay along the sofa rather than trying to sit with dignity. Fraser on his side, me facing him, one of my legs between his.

His boxers stayed at his thighs until he swore, kicked them the rest of the way off and sent them under the coffee table.

I laughed.

"Elegant."

"Pack it in."

He kissed me, unhurried.

His mouth moved from mine to my cheek, then to my neck.

I felt his stubble along the skin below my ear.

My body was still sensitive from the orgasm. Each small touch landed more clearly than it should have.

Fraser's hand went around my back.

He pulled me closer.

His cock was soft against the front of my thigh.

I noticed.

Then his mouth found my breast and I stopped caring what shape anything else was.

He sucked slowly, then bit just hard enough to make me inhale.

My hand went to the back of his neck.

His palm stayed on my arse.

I was wet again.

My cunt was considerably less interested in the evening's argument than I was.

Fraser switched breasts.

I pushed my thigh more firmly between his legs.

He made a sound and moved his hips once against me.

I felt his cock shift between us.

Fraser felt me notice.

We both went still for half a second.

Then he laughed, tired of the whole subject.

"Leave it," he said.

I kissed him.

"That I can do."

I meant it more literally than he probably realised. I stopped monitoring the contact between us and let the next few minutes become what they were: kissing, warmth, the soft drag of his shirt against my breasts, his leg caught awkwardly under mine until we shifted it free. The evening did not suddenly become uncomplicated. Beth still existed. I had still behaved like an idiot upstairs. Fraser was still tired. None of those facts prevented his mouth from feeling good against mine.

His hand slid down my back and squeezed my arse.

I moved closer.

He kissed me again without hurry. I could feel his chest move against mine each time he breathed. When my hand wandered over his stomach and down towards his hip, he covered it briefly with his own, not stopping me so much as keeping it there. I left it under his palm. The small restraint was enough. We stayed like that until he let go first.

There was still desire in the room, but no job left for it to complete.

When his fingers came past my face they smelled faintly of butter from the toast. I caught his hand and bit one knuckle.

Fraser laughed into my shoulder.

Then he rolled me onto my side with my back to him.

He fitted himself behind me and put one arm around my waist.

His mouth touched the back of my neck.

I reached down and laced my fingers through his.

After a while he said, "I should get my trousers."

"They're upstairs."

"I know."

"You sound resentful."

"I'm naked in somebody else's drawing room."

"My heart breaks for you."

Fraser kissed my shoulder, then pushed himself upright.

He disappeared into the hall.

A few seconds later the staircase creaked once near the bottom.

Then nothing.

I listened despite myself.

He had remembered which board to miss.