He walks out of the room again, and when he returns, he’s holding a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“Oh . . . okay . . .” I say as he sits on the sofa beside me.
Marcus pours a generous amount of wine into a glass.
“Just a little,” I say quickly as he starts to fill the second one. Be open, I tell myself. Relax.
He sets the bottle on the floor, then hands me a glass with a smile. God, he’s sexy.
We clink our glasses and check each other out as we sip.
He stares at me with those gorgeous eyes of his before stretching out an arm and resting it casually on the top of the sofa. Then slowly, he reaches for my hair, and with soft, delicate fingers, he fiddles with the ends, his eyes trained solely on my lips.
Oh shit. I remember my wig, then imagine his reaction if it suddenly fell off.
Marcus is still touching my hair, his gaze intense now.
“You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he says, and I flush all over.
Before I can tell him to kindly refrain from touching my hair—he obviously hasn’t been with a Black woman before, otherwise he would know this is rule number one—he puts his glass on the floor and does the same with mine without asking.
Suddenly, he’s closer. He’s sitting right up next to me. My heart seems louder than usual, my breath is coming up short and slow. For a while, he just looks at me, his eyes flickering over my face. Then at the same time, we latch onto each other, our tongues lashing as though we’re fencing. I feel butterflies. Fireworks. A tingling between my thighs. God, it’s been so long.
As Marcus cradles me, my mind swoops to my wig. He’s pushing me backward, all with the force of his mouth, so now my spine is squished against the armrest, but I don’t care.
“Your lips are so soft,” he says, this time in a low whisper. He kisses my neck and I giggle. Then his mouth indulges mine, his tongue sweet and warm.
Okay, we should probably take it slow. But I haven’t kissed a man since Femi. It’s not like we’re going to have sex or anything. I just want to be in the moment.
And for a good while, I am in the moment. Until Marcus gropes my breast.
“Hey, slow down, tiger,” I hear myself say with a sputtering laugh.
But Marcus only gropes harder.
“You like that, don’t you?” he says gruffly as he massages the little flesh beneath my bra. Sigh. It’s a pain having small tits.
Marcus’s fingers have now wormed their way to the zipper of my jeans. He’s poking at my knickers—which are old and fading and from Primark—and he’s breathing, “You’re so wet, aren’t you? Tell me you want it,” as he kisses my neck.
My senses jolt and instantly, I wake up. “Okay, that’s enough,” I snap as he presses harder and lets out a groan. “I said, that’s enough!” And this time, I shove him. Marcus draws back and clambers off me.
I push myself up against the armrest, and do my zip up quickly.
Marcus looks ruffled, though thankfully, not annoyed. “Got carried away there.” He gives me a rueful smile.
There’s a pause for close to a minute as he adjusts his shirt while I pat down my wig, praying the center parting is still in the middle. I bite my lip. I have to ask.
“You didn’t expect me to have . . . sex with you, did you?” I say, cringing slightly.
Marcus’s eyes widen into two shiny marbles. “No, of course not. I just got lost in the moment, that’s all.” He runs a hand over his blondish hair, which is now disheveled from me stroking it earlier. “It’s only date number two so . . .”
He looks at me as though I should fill in the rest.
“So it’s still early days, right?”
He grins at me as though I’ve given him the right answer. After pecking my lips, he reaches down and grabs both our drinks. He hands me my glass. I swallow.
“So, if it was, saaay, our eighth date, would you still call it early days?”
Marcus makes an incredulous pfft sound. “Yeah, as if we’ll manage for that long.”
I gulp. Shit. This is bad.
“Well, the thing is . . .” I stop to clear my throat. “Um, well, I’m not in a rush to have sex any time soon. And by any time soon, I mean, by the eighth date . . . and any dates after that.”
Marcus frowns as though he has misheard me. “What do you mean?” he asks, shifting slightly.
“I mean—” I let out a sharp exhale. “I mean, I’m saving myself for marriage.”
His mouth expands to the size of a golf ball. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I manage to say, and he practically winces. “I thought you would have guessed.”
“Sorry, Yinka, but how would I have guessed?”
I flounder. “Well, for starters, um, we’re both Christians. Sorry, I assumed when we had that conversation about our faith that we were on the same page.”
The conversation I’m referring to is one we had on the phone before we met for the first time. I asked Marcus about his faith and he was pretty candid about it. He attends a Methodist church and grew up in a Christian home. For some reason when he told me this, I thought, Phew. That will make the conversation on celibacy easy. But as I’m sitting here, my thighs rubbing as they jiggle, it’s fair to say I was greatly mistaken. Gosh. I’m so stupid. Not every Christian is the same.
“So what, you’re a . . . virgin?” Marcus might as well have said a tomato. Or a lobster.
I sigh. This is exactly why I don’t open up to people about my sex life.
Or lack of.
“But you’re in your thirties,” he cries.
“Yup. I’m a thirty-one-year-old virgin woman. Call me Virgin Mary.”
Marcus doesn’t laugh at my attempt to lighten the mood. Instead, he blinks at me, his expression still one of immense shock.
“Wow,” he says, “that’s impressive but very rare. Wait—are you telling me that you and your ex didn’t do any funny business?”
I glance away. “We made out, yeah. But sex . . . no.”
“Bloody hell,” he exhales, taking a gulp of his wine. He stares ahead at the black TV screen, clearly in shock.
I bite my lip. “Will this be a problem?” In the wait that follows, my heart is thundering.
To my relief, Marcus eventually faces me. The corner of his lip has lifted a little. “No,” he says softly, and my stomach contracts.
Consumed with a wave of affection, I shuffle closer, resting my palms on his cheeks. “Thank you.” I gaze into his eyes. “Thank you for being understanding.” I press my lips against his again, and he jolts.
“Whoa!” Marcus says, shifting back. “I, uh, really don’t think that would be a good idea, do you?”
“You’re right,” I reply, embarrassed. I retreat to my side of the sofa.
We need to talk
WEDNESDAY
“Your call has been forwarded to the T-Mobile voicemail service of 07916—”
“Argh!” I end the call, heaving in frustration. I haven’t heard from Marcus since Sunday. After we’d cleared the air, he relaxed a bit—thanks to the red wine—and we watched a movie, his arm around me for two solid hours.
So now I’m standing outside the Costa in Peckham before meeting JoBrian, agitated to have reached Marcus’s voicemail, yet again. How have we gone from that to this?