My Weekend

R and I drive a long way to visit D. It's been nearly a year since we saw him. B is coming too, from a different city. I don't allow myself to believe that he'll turn up: I don't want to be disappointed. But there he is, looking strangely smart and unlikely in his work clothes.

When B and I first reunite on Friday we are polite and keep our distance, physically and emotionally. He kisses me chastely on the cheek. He buys disgusting shots in the pub and we walk back with our arms around each other. I hold his hand where it rests on my shoulder. We keep it light and friendly. We drink bottles of beer and we all make each other laugh a lot.

On Friday night we sleep close to each other, him on the sofa while R and I are sleeping together on the floor. When I open my eyes he is looking right at me. He looks away quickly. Much much later, close to dawn on Sunday morning, when we are sitting outside curled up together with our fifteenth cups of gin and tonic, he tells me that he was watching me sleep.

"You look strange when you sleep."
"Ugly?"
"No, you look pretty. But you frown. You don't look like you're ... in repose. You look more relaxed when you're awake."
"You were looking right at me when I woke up."
"I had a massive erection," he says. "I was wondering if there was any polite way of asking you to help me with it."

But at the time, on Saturday morning, I have no idea if he still wants me at all. He likes my hair a lot: "bewitching Oriental waves" he said once. He touches it as often as he can. On Saturday morning the excuse is that he wants to feel whether it's going dread-y. He puts his hand underneath my hair, on my neck, and tangles his fingers in it. Twists them around. For a long time. And this in front of D, our mutual friend.

"Thanks for that," I say, keeping it light. B is too sleepy (or pretending to be) to restrain himself.

Later, in the pub, I argue with him about the distinction between andros and anthropos. I borrow R's pen and scribble Greek words messily on the back of a receipt. I am fired up and at that articulate stage of drunkenness. Impulsively B kisses my cheek, fast and hard, in front of D and R. The kiss is chaste enough but I wonder if it seems strange to the others.

By the time we are in the almost empty club, he is kissing my face, my hands, my neck: anywhere but the mouth. Every moment the two of us are alone (the smoking ban helps this - it's obligatory to divide the group every few minutes to go off, in pairs, for a fag) he is talking to me, holding me, looking at me in a way that makes me melt. He puts his arms around me and pulls me close to him. Tangles his hands up in my hair and says my name, over and over. Buries his face where my neck meets my shoulder.

I dance to punk remixes and try unsuccessfully to get off with a girl in the club. She's flirting but ultimately says no. I am very frustrated and drunk and horny. The four of us stumble home at 3.30am. B and I walk behind the others with our arms round each other. Back at D's flat, we stand outside smoking. I ask B if he wants to feel something. He says yes. I take his hand and guide it inside my jeans, inside my knickers, til his fingers brush against my deep, damp, desiring cunt. "Fuck, you're so wet," he says.

D and R fall asleep. B and I stay up, refilling our g&ts and smoking whole packets of Marlboro. We sit against the wall, limbs tangled up together, trying to talk it all out. We make each other laugh and tell each other that it's like communicating with yourself, almost - our connection is so transparent and uncensored.

He tells me that he had to leave the room earlier to masturbate because of what I was saying. "I came almost instantly," he says.

I ask him why he hardly ever makes eye contact with me.

"Because then I'd have to kiss you," he says.

I kiss him a few times. He switches rapidly, repeatedly, between resistance and desire. He talks about the stars we can see. I think this is cheesy.

He tells me he was worried I was falling in love with him. That he loves his girlfriend and that he has had enough of turmoil and passion and it always ends badly. That yes, he and I have something unique, but so do he and his girlfriend. And so do me and R. He has difficulty reconciling his different selves.

Eventually we go inside. The sky is already light around the edges. In the hallway we kiss again, briefly. I try to tempt him further but he refuses.

Inside, R is asleep on the floor. B sits on the sofa and pulls me down next to him. He holds me more tightly and for longer than I can remember being held. Eventually his breathing deepens and I realise he's asleep, head on my breast, arms locked around me. I disentangle myself and change into sleeping clothes. I take his shoes off with a maternal ache inside. Then a struggle to wake him up and convince him to take his jeans and jumper off and to get into his sleeping bag. I am ready to go to sleep on the floor but, barely conscious, he puts his arms around me and pulls me into him. We lie pressed close together, my legs sandwiched between his, my head on his shoulder. I can feel his cock throbbing against my leg. Barely awake myself, I let my hand stray there and (finally!) hold it through his boxers. He moans quietly. His hand finds its way to my breast and he strokes my nipple, slides the bar back and forth, circles it with his thumb. All the while I have his cock in my hand, I'm holding him gently but firmly. Lying like this, we drift off into sleep.

I wake up some time later. It's light and R is still asleep on the floor only a few feet away. Reality knocks, distantly. This is dangerous. I readjust my clothes and try to get up, but deep in inebriated sleep, B tightens his arms around me. Eventually I extricate myself and fall asleep where I should be, next to R.

In the morning R is horny and I am still drunk and still hot. To ward off the hangover I swig gin and tonic and suck his cock inside the sleeping bag. B is asleep - I think. But I like the possibility of him seeing us, hearing us. I know he thinks about me doing it to him; he's told me. R fucks me with his fingers and I let myself moan and wriggle, just a little. It's inconclusive though, and we both fall back asleep.

We spend Sunday trying to ease our way back into reality. D and R don't drink. B and I keep knocking back the gin, the vodka, the beer, and holding each other whenever we get the chance. He says he doesn't remember much of what happened after we went to bed. I half-believe him.

We decide we are very grown up and have dealt with this in a mature way and we're not going to agonise over it any more. I half-believe this.

We part ways on Sunday evening with a quick hard kiss on the mouth and then he's gone, and R and I are driving home through end-of-weekend motorway rain, listening to The Streets and bracing for the rude shock of real life.