A Penchant For Anal

An unexpected phone message yesterday, Christelle, my student lover from France, hello R, I’m in London, would you like to meet up? Arrangements duly made, meet at midday for a stroll around St James’s Park, find somewhere for lunch, maybe move on to the Tate.

The small hours of last night, lying awake, thinking of her, of my luck in meeting her, of my greater luck in being chosen by her. The perfect woman for a young man, slightly older, confident in her world view, blowing away my juvenile preoccupations.

Sex with her, a matter for unfettered discussion and vigorous practice. All without boundaries. Or, lying in bed thinking about it, the house’s night sounds clicking and stirring softly, it wasn’t so much that there weren’t boundaries, nobody’s mind can work like that for long and stay sane, it’s that her boundaries were different and wider than mine.

Yes, that was it, she was the first woman I knew that knew what she wanted, and the things that she wanted were outside my experience, and were wonderful. Other women had been willing, not all that often, but sometimes. But with them we’d landed up doing the things that I wanted. So with them I was never certain whether they liked it because of it or because I wanted it, or maybe they didn’t really like it at all.

On my bed last night, my facial muscles aching slightly, been smiling too long at memory of her. Christelle. Different from the others. I just had to be present, and avoid being obtuse, and take cues. Wish I could apply that more widely. But with her, easy. Her body made it clear what she wanted. God, makes me horny now, remembering, seems impossible, at one point I used to wish she didn’t have quite such a penchant for anal.

Shifting on the bed, rearranging the pillow, still smiling. Those student days with her, months rather, they seemed like one unending summer. Wine and sex and discussions about deconstructionism, she was a Frenchwoman, she thought she necessarily knew more about all of them than me, she was probably right.

And now here I am standing by the little bridge at St James’s Park, one minute early, she’ll be at least fifteen minutes late but I wouldn’t dare. Oh no, look, there she is, waving, making her way to me.