Addicted

Which he continues to, in great and varied detail.

‘I’ve been arrested a couple of times for things like that – in changing rooms, and so on and so forth. I guess I’m just really sort of into being naked, you know? And that … uh … has gotten me into trouble a few times. My ex-girlfriend’s mom once caught me in her greenhouse without any clothes on – maybe ’cause I was kind of communing with nature, or something else that probably isn’t true. And then I, ahem, communed with her and her daughter.’ He pauses, and I know – I know – he’s trying not to laugh. About a second before he adds: ‘And their friend Alan.’

Alan. Did he say Alan? Oh, Jesus, I think he did. I think he’d be raising both eyebrows and grinning devilishly, now, if he thought he could get away with it.

But everyone is nodding so sympathetically, and the Scottish woman is telling him that she’s using crystals to de-cloud his sexual aura, so really he can’t do anything of the sort. He can’t do anything but continue into what I can only describe as bragging, now. He’s bloody bragging, I swear to God.

‘And then there’s the reason why I’m here – I went over to see a couple of friends of mine, a couple of girls. Not girls I was screwing around with, or anything. They just said, “Oh, come around, Dillon,’ so I did. I came around thinking I’d maybe get a sandwich – and God knows I can never say no to a sandwich. I’d probably go to Hitler’s house if I thought I’d get some pastrami between two slices of bread, so you know. It’s not like I can be blamed, right?’

It’s OK, Dillon. I totally understand your predicament. I’d be round Hitler’s house with you, munching on a slice of wholemeal slathered in strawberry conserve.

‘I mean, how was I to know one of them was going to take her top off? She just did it right out of the blue, halfway through the cheese and pickle she’d made me. I’ve literally got it hanging out of my mouth, and her friend’s in the middle of totally ordinary conversation about some British sport I don’t understand – then bam. Naked time.’

I get the impression that naked time kind of happens to him a lot. Maybe because his thousand-yard stare of utter sex just melts the clothes right off women’s bodies.

Though, to his credit, he actually doesn’t seem smug about any of this. If I was going to identify his expression, right now, I’d probably call it bemused and/or amazed. As though sex is some facehugger that sneaks up on him in the night. Vaginas just attach themselves to his face, before he knows where he is.

‘And then the other friend takes her top off, too. I’m just sat there eating my sandwich, with a naked girl on either side of me. I mean, what am I supposed to do here?’

Not sound like you’re actually asking, I think, but of course I can’t say that.

Everyone’s completely engrossed by what he’s saying – even the girl who hates the word ‘vagina’. In fact, she looks almost as giddy as I feel. She’s vicariously living through Dillon Holt, and I don’t blame her in the slightest. In fact, I feel slightly better about my own desperate need to hear more.

‘So I kiss one,’ he says, and, oh, I can almost see it. I bet she was tall and blonde, like Lori, and in my head, when he presses his mouth to hers, she dissolves under the pressure. Her lips part to invite him onward, to get more of that softness pressing and working against her – and then maybe after a while some of that slippery, sinful tongue. I bet he’s forceful, when he gets going. I bet he’s lewd about it, thrusting in a way that mimics the rhythm he’d use later on … and ohhhh God.

All of this from imagining a kiss?

Clearly I’m going to pass out, if he goes any further.

‘And she gets all squirmy, the way a girl gets when she’s really excited, you know?’

Oh, Lord, he’s going further. And he’s talking about the way girls get, as though he’s really, really experienced in that field. He’s a Professor of Lady Arousal, and now he’s going to rub that fact right in my face.

The last guy I dated thought clitoris was an island off the coast of Greece.

‘Then the other girl starts getting kind of irritated that I’m paying the first one the most attention, and she wants a kiss too. I couldn’t very well say no. So I give her one – only she’s not satisfied with the usual, polite, cheese-sandwich-and-a-cup-of-tea sort of peck. Yeah, she’s kind of wanting the same thing, only lower down. And by this point, I really want to go lower down. I’ll say it right now – I love eating pussy. I could eat pussy all day every day until the end of time, just to get a girl all flushed the way she gets, and hear those little soft, desperate moans or maybe even the loud, aggressive ones … I don’t mind. Pull my hair, call me names, sit on my face, I’ll take it and come back for more, I swear I –’

He cuts himself off here, but it’s fairly obvious why. It’s kind of like seeing someone wave a beer around at a meeting of alcoholics anonymous. Or a meeting of people who can’t drink, because drink makes them insanely nervous. The group is split between those who’ve gorged themselves to breaking point, and those who are starving in the desert.

And I don’t know who it’s worse for.

Me, I think, me, though I can’t say why. Because he’s so casual about it? Because it’s so easy for him? He makes sex sound like all the tales I’ve always wanted to tell, instead of the reality it usually is. This is the reality, I know – people who want to heal and transcend and eventually become …

What he is.

Happy.

Lord, he’s so happy.

‘But obviously I realise the detrimental effect this unhealthy pussy-eating obsession has on my psyche.’

He doesn’t realise that at all, and we know it. Even the Scottish lady knows it. She’s just as caught up in his tale as everyone else, cheeks pink and eyes bright with that one idea he represents. That one great, good idea that she actually promotes: sex should be something exciting and positive and good.

‘Well, I don’t know about that, Dillon,’ she says, and when she does her voice flutters, the way I imagine mine would if I was talking to someone like him. And she’s toying with the crystal on the chain around her neck in this very specific sort of manner, too – a very amusing manner. I want to giggle hysterically, but I rein it in just in time to hear him say this:

‘OK, maybe the love of oral sex isn’t so bad. But jumping out of a second-floor window when one of the girls’ husbands comes home – just in time to see his wife riding me like a bronco while her friend smothers me on the other end … yeah, that’s probably not that cool. You should have seen my knees, man! Skinned them all the way to the bone. Had to walk into the emergency room wearing a cardboard box; so it really wasn’t a surprise when the nurse who patched me up sent me here.’

I love the fact that he’s so concerned about his knees. And that he jumped out of a window, naked. I know probably I shouldn’t, but I do just the same. In fact I think I look as moony as the Scottish lady does, if his amused expression is anything to go by. He’s levelling it right at me, those blue eyes suddenly as sparky as someone’s finger in a socket.

And he doesn’t leave off – not even after she’s turned her attention my way.

‘We have another new member of the group today,’ she says, and like an idiot I glance around, searching for this other person. Maybe they’re even more handsome and beguiling than Dillon Holt, and I can focus all of my faint-heartedness on them instead.

Only then I realise. I realise about a second before she says my name.

‘Kit.’

I wish I’d given her a fake one. I could have got an extra thirty seconds’ respite out of her calling for a Cassandra who doesn’t actually exist.

‘Oh. Yeah,’ I say, but those two non-words don’t buy me any time. I have to decide now what I’m going to go with: shy incompetent or wild party girl?

Judging by his expression, he expects the former.

Which is probably why I go with the latter. I paint a vague picture of Kit the lonely one-night-stand addict, hopping nightly from bar to bar in the hopes of making some connection. And though it kind of sounds like hokum, while I’m saying it, that last word leaves me feeling … I don’t know.

Unsettled?

I find myself thinking back over my life, sifting through various relationships and friendships … things that should have stood me in better stead than trawling night spots for tail. But really, when I consider it … when have I ever connected with anyone?

I haven’t. And that slight sinking of his oh-so-amused expression confirms that much. He can see it in me, I think. He can tell that I’m being honest, in some tiny way – that I’ve just exposed a part of myself I didn’t want to give.

And now he’s sad for me.

Christ.

‘I can’t really say any more,’ I say, to the circle. At which, they all nod sympathetically and give me reassuring pats on the back, and the kindly Scottish aunt says, ‘Well, why don’t we move on to some healing, wholesome one-on-one time?’

I’m almost relieved, in the few precious moments before I realise what that means. In fact, I make it all the way over to the squash and cake table, before it comes to me. I’ve got a cookie in my hand and I’m thinking, Hey, at least I’ve got some kind of epiphany out of this. Maybe I can ask Tom from the library out, the next time he rubs against me between the stacks. That’ll be some kind of connection, all right. Or at least it’ll prove I’m open to connections.

And then I see him, out of the corner of my eye. I see Dillon Holt, strolling towards me, in a way that makes me want to glance over my shoulder. You know, just in case there’s a sexier, wilder sort of chick behind me, and she’s actually the one he’s aiming for.

This imaginary woman has to be the one he’s aiming for.

Right?

Only I don’t think I’m right at all. The kindly Scottish aunt said ‘one-on-one time’, and this obviously does not mean what it did in my head thirty seconds ago. My head thought she was suggesting we have a deep, meaningful discussion with a slice of ginger cake, but I can see now that I was wrong.

‘That’s right,’ she calls out, over the mostly paired-up room. ‘Hold your partner in your arms, and show them that you’re there for them.’