Sex in the City--London Read online

  He was warming to his theme, startling me with his passion. I was so used to students who only worried about how everything affected them that it made a real change to listen to someone who really seemed to care about his wider environment. But then he’d never actually said he was a student. I only assumed he was because of his boyish looks and the raincoat which would once have been just another charity shop purchase but now came with the label “vintage”.

  “Take a look at these,” he said. He flipped through his sketch pad, showing me scenes I walked past almost every day: the stalls on Brewer Street market; the Patisserie Valerie on Old Compton Street, its window a riot of elaborate gâteaux; the entrance to a strip club on Archer Street, a curvy woman lurking enticingly in the doorway. Places and people alike were rendered with an accurate yet sympathetic eye.

  “They’re good,” I told him, meaning it.

  “Yeah, everyone knows these places, but they’ll be around for ever. Even the strip club, though I’m sure the council would like to see that close down just like the pub over there. They’re taking all the dirt from underneath Soho’s fingernails, you know. So many places have shut in the last few years, or been gentrified beyond all recognition …”

  I wanted to laugh. The way he talked, you’d have thought he’d been working in the area as long as I had. I’d certainly seen the changes he mentioned over the years. Not all of them were bad, despite what he said: no one really mourned the passing of the clip joints, where gullible men were overcharged for watered-down drinks and paid for sexual favours which never materialised. But the old Marquee club, where everyone from the Rolling Stones to Joy Division had played, that was a loss, and so were some of the speciality shops and cafés, pushed aside by the imported coffee shop chains with their comfy sofas and their unlimited wi-fi access. Popular as it was, Vettori’s was part of the past, and when Papa Vettori died, or decided he’d had enough, I doubted whether any of his sons or daughters would really have the heart to keep the business on.

  I could have happily argued the point with him, but it wasn’t just the possibility of more customers which was distracting me. A couple of times as he flipped over the pages of his pad his arm brushed against mine. The contact sent little sparks of sensation through me and I pulled back. It had been a while since any man had aroused such a sudden, physical reaction from me, and I couldn’t understand why. He wasn’t my usual type: I liked slightly rough-looking men who worked with their hands. He was too young, too pretty, too soft. But I’d been on my own for a while now. My last boyfriend, Tamas, was a Polish builder who I’d met while I was on one of my rare nights out with the girls. He was wiry and muscular from hard manual work, he had a dirty, cigarette-roughened laugh and incredible stamina in bed. I’d really started to think we had a future together, but once work had started drying up for him he decided to go back to Gdansk. My body was obviously missing what had been great and very regular sex and was reminding me it was time I did something about it.

  Not that I was going to have the opportunity to do anything about it tonight. From behind me, Joe called, “Excuse me,” and by the time I’d dealt with him, a group of men had come in who had seen a write-up of Vettori’s on a website devoted to classic cafés and wanted to see if the food and ambience were as good as the author claimed. Four orders of egg, bacon, chips and beans later, I looked round to see that Sketch Pad Boy had gone, leaving behind enough money to cover his bill plus a generous tip. Clearly, he had enjoyed my company, but he hadn’t even told me his name.

  Two nights later, the rain was back and so was he. Same table, same order, same intent concentration on his sketch pad. I didn’t think I would get a moment to talk to him this time; Papa was in, and though he was in a good mood as his wife was responding well to treatment, I was still aware of the need to look busy in front of him.

  When I went over with Sketch Pad Boy’s sandwich, I realised that he was actually drawing Papa. The man was ripe for caricature, with his saggy jowls and the black, bushy eyebrows that contrasted so strikingly with his white hair, but the sketch had somehow caught the essence of him: a mixture of pride at everything he had achieved, coupled with an evident weariness. Disappearing Soho, in all its glory.

  “Are you going to show it to him?” I asked.

  “Not till it’s finished,” he replied. “And then I’d like to draw you, if you don’t mind.”

  “Why, am I an old landmark, too?” I couldn’t really object if that was the opinion he’d formed of me. After all, I had been working here so long, I sometimes felt as though I was as much a part of the furniture as the chipped formica tables and the brown leatherette booths.

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t be drawing you here.” He scribbled something on a scrap of paper and pushed it over to me. His name – Andrew – and an address. “Come and see me on Sunday. Wear your uniform. I’ll explain.”

  His cool assumption that I was free, or would drop any plans I had made in order to go and see him, should have been infuriating, but something about him intrigued me. I was curious to know how he saw me, how he would render me on paper. And, more than anything, I wanted to be alone with him. I didn’t say anything, just stuffed the note he’d given me into the pocket of my overall and went to clear tables.

  Andrew had an apartment above a wholesale jeweller’s on Berwick Street, which explained his familiarity with the area. It didn’t strike me as a typical student residence, and I thought again how little I really knew about him. He soon put that right, filling me in on his background over coffee which he had laced with a generous amount of brandy. He’d left school with a good set of A-levels and joined an investment bank, but had quickly grown tired of the pressurised environment and the boorish culture that surrounded the job. When the financial markets began imploding, the bank had looked for people prepared to accept a generous redundancy package. Andrew immediately put his name forward, knowing he had enough money behind him to go back to college and take a foundation course in Fine Art.

  In return, I told him how I’d married too young, to a man my parents didn’t really approve of. Phil and I had had an explosive sex life, but once the initial physical attraction had worn off we had realised that was pretty much the only thing which was keeping us together. The sensible thing to do was to go our separate ways so we could both start afresh. In the immediate period following the divorce, I had found the job at Vettori’s, intending it to be a temporary thing while I sorted my life out. Obviously I hadn’t sorted it out all that well, because I was still there, still waiting on tables, nearly twenty years later.

  “I always meant to move on, but they’re like family to me now,” I told him, finishing the last of my coffee.

  “And that’s why I want to celebrate places like Vettori’s,” Andrew said, “because they’ve been important in people’s lives for so long. And then one day they’ll be gone, and you’ll walk past the sushi bars that have replaced them and struggle to remember what was there before.”

  I knew he could talk about the changing face of Soho all day, but that wasn’t why I was there. “So how do I fit into all this?” I asked. “And if you’re so desperate to draw me, why can’t you do it in the café? Papa loved the sketch you did of him. I’m sure he wouldn’t object.”

  “Because if you posed the way I wanted you to, we’d both get arrested.” Andrew stood up. “Come with me.”

  I followed him into what I suspected had originally been a bedroom, but had been converted into an artist’s studio. The big windows let in plenty of natural light. A blank canvas stood propped on an easel, and finished paintings hung on the wall. I was drawn to another of the street scenes Andrew loved. Its centrepiece was an American-style diner, painted on a rainy night, its reflected neon sign seeming to melt into the wet pavement. I couldn’t understand how someone who clearly had so much talent had ever been attracted to a career in investment banking.

  “That’s not what I wanted to show you,” he said. He produced another sketc
h pad and handed it to me. As I leafed through it, I found myself looking at a series of nude studies, some of a man who must have been in his sixties, the rest of a younger, rather overweight black woman. “I did those in life modelling classes,” he said. “I enjoy drawing nudes, but I’ve been wanting to find a subject who isn’t a regular on the circuit.” He gestured to a sketch of the old man posing in the lotus position. “Bill’s a good old lad, but there’s only so many times I can look at his scrotum.”

  Sudden realisation hit me. “And you want me to pose for you. Naked.”

  “Not quite,” he said. “But as soon as I saw you, I thought how much I’d love to paint you half-out of your uniform.”

  In a club, after a few drinks, that line would have sounded like a sleazy come-on. Here, in Andrew’s studio, it was a proposal that was both flattering and sexy. I was beginning to become aware of the erotic tension between us once more; Andrew must have noticed it as well, but he just watched me, waiting for my answer.

  “What would it involve?” I asked.

  “Well, I’d produce some preliminary sketches of you today, and then you’d come back a couple of times while I worked on the actual painting. We’ll work round your shifts at the café – I take it you usually get Sundays off?”

  “You’re being a little presumptuous here,” I told him. “I haven’t actually said yes yet.”

  “But I know you want to, Geri.”

  He was right: perhaps I was looking for an ego boost; perhaps I wanted to do something which was utterly removed from the routine I had fallen into, but whatever the reason, I was suddenly eager to pose for him.

  “So what do you need me to do?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Well, first of all you can help me move the sofa.”

  Once we had manhandled his wicker sofa into the studio, Andrew told me to go behind the screen in the corner of the room and take my underwear and tights off. When I returned, barefoot and with my uniform overall fastened over my nakedness, I saw that Andrew had draped a soft grey wool throw over the sofa, to make it more comfortable for me to lie on.

  Suddenly feeling incredibly self-conscious, I went to lie down, waiting for instructions on how I should arrange myself. Instead, I felt Andrew take hold of the neckline of my overall and pull the poppers apart roughly, baring most of my body to his gaze. Then he gently contorted my limbs into the position he wanted. By the time he had finished, I had one arm sprawled above my head, and one leg slightly bent. Posed like that, I knew my pussy would be visible and a prominent part of his painting. I hadn’t been expecting that, but I didn’t object or try to close my legs. Not when Andrew was looking at me with such obvious lust and admiration.

  “Right, turn your head to look at me,” he ordered. “Yes, that it’s it. You look fantastic, but let me know if you start to get uncomfortable, and we’ll take a break.”

  He reached for his sketch pad, and began to work with the same concentration I’d seen him display that first night in Vettori’s. Despite his concerns, I found I was able to hold the pose for quite a while; the room was pleasantly warm, not some draughty pre-Raphaelite artist’s garret, and the throw kept the wicker beneath it from pressing into and marking my skin. When I finally rose from the sofa after an hour, limbs just a little stiff, and padded over to where Andrew was sitting, I was stunned by what I saw. Like almost every woman, I’d never been entirely comfortable about undressing in front of a man for the first time, and, as I’d grown older, I had become conscious that my breasts weren’t quite as perky or my stomach as taut as they had been when I first married. But in the strokes of Andrew’s pencil I saw a body that was soft and enticing, rounded in all the right places and subtly framed by the open flaps of my overall. It was a startlingly erotic image, with my bare breasts and my rudely parted legs, but one which was a celebration of my femininity.

  “I – I don’t know what to say.” This wasn’t like me. I was never speechless; I could deal with the occasional obnoxious drunk who stumbled into Vettori’s, or the customers who complained about everything from the strength of their tea to an egg yolk that wasn’t runny enough, but looking at Andrew’s beautiful drawing had completely thrown me. Finally, I managed to add, “Apart from thank you, obviously.”

  “I’m glad you like it, but this is just the beginning,” Andrew replied. “When you come back, we’ll get into the real meat of the work.”

  As I was leaving the flat, on impulse I gave him a hug. It was the only real physical contact we’d had, apart from when Andrew had arranged me in the pose he wanted. For a moment, he pulled me tight to him; I could feel the solid bulk of his cock trapped against my body, more erect than I might have expected. Our lips met, and we kissed with a passion that left us breathless. Andrew’s hands cupped the cheeks of my arse, gently squeezing them. And then I reminded myself that Andrew was a good fifteen years my junior, and I pulled away. “I have to go,” I told him. “I’ll see you next Sunday.”

  A hundred yards down the street, I turned and saw him standing in the doorway that led up to his flat, looking utterly bereft. I stepped up my pace and didn’t look back; it was the only way to avoid the temptation of going back and letting him fuck my brains out – which, I told myself firmly, would be a very bad idea, however obvious it was that we both desperately wanted each other.

  There were a couple of moments during the course of the next week when I wondered whether I should ring Andrew and tell him I’d changed my mind and wouldn’t be returning for a second sitting after all. Maybe I’d just imagined the fervour of his kiss and the strength of his erection pressing into me. Even though I’d heard female customers talking in Vettori’s about their conquests of much younger men and proudly referring to themselves as ‘cougars’, I thought there was something sad about women who went chasing toy boys. It was as though they were so determined to hang on to their disappearing youth, they didn’t care how ridiculous they made themselves look in the process. I couldn’t deny that I found Andrew really attractive, but even though I spent that Sunday evening with my fingers in my knickers, fantasising about what it would have been like to let him fuck me in that airy studio of his while I brought myself to a hot, breathless orgasm, I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself over him.

  And what if he’d decided I was some kind of prick-tease and no longer wanted anything to do with me? For all I knew, once he had gone back into his flat, he had crumpled up the sketch he’d made of me and thrown it in the bin. So it was with some trepidation that I found myself standing in front of that doorway on Brewer Street, hoping he would let me in.

  To my relief, when I buzzed the entry phone he answered at once. “Hang on, Geri, I’ll be down in a second.”

  “I’m sorry I had to dash off like that last time,” I said, as I followed him up the stairs.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “Come on, let’s have a drink and then we can get down to work.”

  Again we hauled the sofa into the studio, and I changed behind the screen, though this time when I emerged I did so with my overall already open, no longer quite so concerned about being half-naked in front of Andrew.

  I settled myself on the sofa, taking up the pose Andrew had previously asked me to adopt. I had expected him to start painting on a blank canvas, but to my surprise, he pulled a cloth off the easel to reveal that he had already copied the outline of my body from his initial sketches.

  He fussed around with tubes of paint, holding a couple alongside my overall so he could choose the shade which most resembled the real thing. It was hard to keep my composure, having him so close to me when I was so scantily dressed, but I did my best not to react when I felt his hand accidentally brush the top of my thigh.

  It was strangely soothing to lie there and watch Andrew at work, squeezing paint on to his palette and dabbing at the canvas. It was an unseasonably warm day, and the window was open; I could hear voices and laughter from time to time as people passed on the pavement beneath us, but apart from that all
was quiet. Andrew kept looking over at me, making sure every detail was accurate, and occasionally our eyes would meet, making me shiver with desire.

  Eventually, Andrew put down his palette, stretched and said, “I think that’s enough for today. Do you want to see how it’s coming along?”

  I got off the sofa and went over to the easel. Andrew had filled in much of the background colouring and was beginning to pick out the streaks of honey-blonde in my hair where it fanned out over my red uniform, working with broad, definite strokes.

  “I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished,” I told him.

  “I’m pleased you like it,” he replied, and then we were in each other’s arms, mouths locked together in a fierce kiss.

  Andrew thrust me up against the wall and pulled the overall down off my shoulders. I loved his aggression and his desire to take control, but even so I stilled his hands before he could strip me completely. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” I said. “Think about it, I’m old enough to be your mother.”

  “Do you think I have a problem with that?” he asked, tracing his finger along the soft skin beneath my eyes, where the first crow’s feet were starting to form. He was no longer looking at me with an artist’s eye, but regarding me in the manner of a man who wants to imprint every detail of the woman he’s in love with on his memory.

  “No, but what would people think if they knew?”

  He snorted. “Who gives a fuck what they’d think? Geri, you must know how I feel about you – it’s in every brush stroke on that canvas, for God’s sake …”

  And with that he dragged me back over to the sofa, pushing me back so I sprawled in much the same wanton, abandoned pose he had had me adopt for the painting. I didn’t resist, not now I knew how much he wanted me. Instead, I lay back waiting, my body open to him.

  He dropped to his knees and began to kiss his way up the insides of my thighs. He deliberately took his time, so I was squirming with anticipation and impatience as he neared my pussy. At the first touch of his mouth on my lips, I couldn’t help but groan; the soft, sucking pressure felt so good. My fingers snagged in his shaggy dark hair, keeping him in place while he licked and teased me. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter that Andrew was so much younger than me, or that he was ambitious and passionate about the bigger things while I was stuck in my safe waitressing rut; on this level, at least, we were perfectly matched.