I chewed on my lip … There must be a common denominator somewhere. Of course! Dons were all queer, weren’t they? Perhaps I should just take a chance – leave my clothes in a neat pile outside the door, and go in naked. Or go in wearing transparent trousers and no pants ? Or at least go in with my prick dangling out between my fly-buttons. At least. Or—
I heard the telephone ringing. Jen and Norm had gone out to dinner so I put the Folder down and trotted upstairs to answer it. Rachel, possibly.
It was not Rachel. It was Gloria.
‘Christ. How are you?’ I said.
Gloria wasn’t too bad. In fact, she was at a call-box just round the corner and was wondering if she could pop in for half an hour or so. Could she?
‘Okay. Yes, by all means. See you in a minute then.’
I stood in the passage, winding my watch for something to do.
‘And I got so bored. Tel [Terry] wouldn’t leave me alone. He wouldn’t leave me out of his sight, went spare if I so much as talked to another guy. I mean, you like that at first but it gets on your bloody nerves after a bit.’ Gloria gave a scandalized laugh, a hand raised to cover her small, untidy teeth.
‘You poor thing. So what did you do then?’
Gloria scrutinized her gin. ‘I towed him. Straight.’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘He belted me. And he said I was a slag. That was it.’
I gave a speech, in idiomatic lower-middle, on the mischiev-ousness of sexual jealousy in all its forms. (Half-way through, Gloria took off her leather jerkin, her eyes intently on mine, to reveal a snug purple T-shirt, which I suppose clashed rather with her tiny brown suede shorts. Although she was obviously wearing panties she was just as obviously not wearing tights, or a bra.) As the speech was about to end, the telephone rang again.
‘… unless you’ve got your heart set on having a bad time. Don’t go away.’
I trotted upstairs.
Call-box pips. Terry ? No, Rachel.
‘Charles ? Oh Charles, you’ll never guess what’s happened.’
‘Well?’
‘Mummy’s found out. She found out about Paris.’
‘How?’
‘She came to see Nanny – and it all came out.’
‘How?’
‘Oh I don’t know…’ She seemed about to cry, but went on wanderingly. ‘Mummy came round, saw how small Nanny’s room was, asked where I slept… I don’t know.’
‘I see. Where are you now?’
‘Nanny’s. Mummy threw me out of the house.’
‘You’d better come round.’
‘Right. I’ll have to stay here for a while,’ she said in a brisk voice, ‘because Nanny is in a bit of a state. She thinks it’s all her fault and —’
‘ — Well it is all her —’
‘What’s the time now? Look, I’ll be there about nine. All right?’
As I swung my way downstairs I stopped dead for a moment, thinking.
Gloria had taken off her shoes and was lying on the bed. I sat on the edge of it.
‘You’re so nice to talk to, Charles. You always cheer me up.’
It was eight three precisely.
Eight five. Intricate tangle of bodies. Gloria’s fingers were jogging my belt-buckle. Mine trembled between suede and moist cotton. Swampy kisses.
Eight fifteen. Gloria moved clear and pulled at her T-shirt. Blankly I started undoing buttons. Then I stopped undoing them. But Gloria freed her dear little shorts; they fell to the floor and she stepped out of them. Those wonderfully un-subtle, unliterary big breasts. Gloria smiled.
‘I’m not on the pill, Charles.’
‘Not you too – I mean, not to worry, I’ve…’
I hesitated again, and felt a shudder of sobriety. Gloria looped her thumbs in the band of her panties. And her panties bulged extraordinarily – as if housing a whole cock, if not two.
‘I have some contraceptives,’ I said.
Eight twenty-five. After some neck-ricking soixante-neuf and a short period inside her unsheathed, I clawed at the little pink holder and took its final trojan. — Not to worry, because this is my equivalent of a flash cigarette-case; the real supply is elsewhere.