Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [39]
Amanda
Amanda had imagined Ed was taking her to a party. He’d arranged to meet her at the underground station at 8:00 P.M. She was excited. She’d met a few of his friends, people he was at college with, before Christmas, at the pub, and they were fun. She’d dressed carefully in a dress, which was rare—this dress being pretty much the only one she had—and heels, which was rarer. She didn’t wear makeup normally, but tonight she’d put on mascara and lip gloss. It was really cold, and she knew her nose and cheeks were pink.
It was crazy, really. Being so excited. She barely knew him. They’d been out, what, five times? Three of those had been in a big crowd, where conversation was almost impossible. One coffee, and one curry. A few kisses—standing-up variety. One brilliant Christmas present, and a few phone calls while she’d been home. He wasn’t her type, he wasn’t in her plan, and she didn’t, for the life of her, know why she was having palpitations standing here in the freezing cold. She should be with her wacky flatmates and a thousand drunken idiots at a rave in Lewisham.
But the palpitations just sped up when she saw him walking toward her. He didn’t say hello, he just pulled her toward him, and kissed her, more seriously than he had done before, his hand on the back of her head, holding her, close and insistent. “I missed you.”
“There are a couple of parties we could go to. Or there’s the big crowd in Trafalgar Square. I know a good pub near there, full of Canadians. We could go there. Or…”
“Or?”
“Or we could go back to my place.”
“Who’s there?”
“No one. I’m the only one who’s in London for New Year’s.” He looked sheepish. “It would just be us. But…I mean…we don’t have to…”
“That sounds good.” It did. She realized that she didn’t want to be in a crowd. She wanted him all to herself. Somewhere where it wasn’t so cold that you felt like your feet might shatter if you took one more step.
HE PAUSED, PUTTING THE KEY IN THE LOCK. “I DON’T WANT YOU to think…I mean, just because…I’m not expecting…”
She pulled him through the open door and slammed it closed behind them. “Shut up, Ed.” She kissed him, hard. “I’m expecting….”
Like everything else about this new relationship, this was not really her style. There had been a handful of lovers before Ed. She supposed, if she were ever itemizing them, that they represented an average amount for someone her age. She always knew them really well. She always thought long and hard about moving to the next level with someone. She was circumspect with herself. Her sexual practice was slightly at odds with her free spirit, she knew. Sometimes she wished she were a little more like Lisa, who had slept with, she imagined, and it always sounded like, dozens of guys before Andy. Lisa treated sex a bit like a sport. A highly aerobic, heavy contact sport requiring no special equipment. Although, knowing Lisa, special equipment was almost certainly involved at some points. It was fun, it was healthy, it was good for you, and as long as you were careful, both with your health and with your feelings, it was okay to do it with anyone you fancied who fancied you back. On paper, Amanda believed that there was nothing wrong with that. It just wasn’t how she felt about it. As far as she knew, Jennifer had only ever slept with Stephen, and the boyfriend she had before him, the university one. So she was somewhere in the middle of the two of them on the morality ladder.
But right now, she didn’t want to think about it, and she didn’t want to wait. She wanted to do what she never normally did, and just go to bed with this guy. She wasn’t pretending this was love—it couldn’t possibly be, could it? Maybe it was just lust, and she was going to give into it, and maybe there was nothing wrong with that. And then there