As Ben shifted to the sofa, Marcie fell down next to him, throwing her arm across his shoulder, then quickly leaning over to kiss him unexpectedly on the side of his face, somewhere near his eyebrow, before falling back with a satisfied sigh. But before he could reach over to stroke her affectionately, she was up again to reach for his reading book, which she must have noticed on the table, before settling down again.
“May I see how far you’ve got? I could do with reminding myself of exactly what happens too. I’ve reread them all since I was a child, maybe most recently when I was nineteen or twenty, and that’s why I thought they still had something worthwhile in, but I’ve not looked at them again since.” Then as she opened the book at the postcard that Ben had used as a bookmark she exclaimed, “Oh! I’d completely forgotten this was in here. Did you read it?”
“Yes. I’m sorry,” Ben admitted anxiously, though Marcie seemed unconcerned.
“Don’t worry. She doesn’t say much, does she?” Marcie commented, taking it out and turning it over in her hand with a smile, “Do you remember me mentioning Amber, my special girlfriend? She sent this in the summer holidays after our first year and Manchester Grammar, so we would have been twelve, maybe. That’s when I knew she was a true friend, I suppose, because she’d thought of me even though we’d not seen each other for weeks. I knew why she’d chosen this picture too, because of the beavers from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I guess you haven’t got to them yet, have you? You probably think it’s a bit of a suggestive joke, but I don’t think either of us had thought of that back then. We both just loved Narnia, and had read all the books, though neither of us liked The Last Battle.”
“What about Lewis? Was he being suggestive, putting beavers into the story?” Ben asked, adding, “I wondered about the fur coats too.”
“No, I don’t think so. He was a bit of an odd man, an academic specialising in Medieval English at Oxford, the archetypal bachelor don. Very Christian, obviously, though he’d kind of come back to it in adulthood, after losing his faith when his mother died while he was still a boy. I believe he was better known for his talks about God than these books in his own lifetime. Did I say all this before? Stop me if it’s boring.”
“No, it’s really interesting,” Ben reassured her, “You know so much.”
“But it’s all book stuff, isn’t it?” Marcie countered, as if with regret, “I don’t know useful, practical things like you do, about sailing boats or crafting models of them, or how to enjoy myself on a night out in my own city.” Ben scoffed, and she went on, “But I’ve read that some people, probably keen Christians themselves, think CS Lewis was almost sexless. He married, but only very late in life, to a woman who was dying of cancer at the time, an American divorcee. I think there was a film about it. Does it ring any bells? He’d had another odd relationship too, living alone with the widowed mother of a friend of his. He’d died in the First World War, at Lewis’s side as a young man, I guess, and perhaps he was just looking after the bereaved woman, perhaps as a substitute for his own mother, or perhaps there was a romantic aspect too. I guess we’ll never know.”
“So maybe he really didn’t know about the different types of furry beaver then?”
“No, maybe not,” Marcie admitted, giggling.
“But he writes about those dryads and fauns, the same as you were talking about. They sound quite naughty.”
“Yes, you’re right!” Marcie confirmed, leafing through the book, maybe in a half-hearted attempt to find the references to them. “Perhaps that really does reflect his own conflicted attitude about sexuality. We inherit that naughty stuff from the ancient world, the myths of classical Greece and Rome, and that’s still in our culture, in ourselves. Lewis maybe knew that, but he also thought he knew the importance of the Christian message, that we’ve learnt the Good News through the gospel now. So I imagine he felt very strongly that we have got to find ways to rein in our wild pagan passions, to subjugate our bodies to better serve Aslan’s will, to better cherish his kingdom.”
“Aslan?” Ben queried.
“Oh, the lion. You’ll get to him. See what you think, but he is meant to be a kind of fairy tale version of Jesus Christ. And Lewis did think he was writing fairy stories with Narnia, which was a good thing as far as he was concerned, but he must have also known that real fairy stories and medieval folklore can be pretty dark and sexual too. They tap into elemental life forces, I guess, and you put air and fire down on your list too, didn’t you? Were those two classical elements about the book too?”
“No, that wasn’t the book,” Ben corrected her, wondering how he’d explain what he’d felt, “But maybe it was about the forces of life. Erm, I was in the kitchen, standing at the sink, and I felt a bit sad.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Marcie rushed to say.
“No,” Ben rushed to explain, “That’s not my point. I was sad, but then I felt uplifted. I thought of what you’d said about the clear air, our escape. I can choose a positive future, I don’t need to be sad, and you’ve enabled that. It’s like an angel is lifting me up, into the open sky above us,” Ben paused, not sure how to say that he’d thought Marcie wasn’t the saintly angel herself. He wanted to be sure that she felt flattered, but he wanted her to know he wasn’t a fantasist too. He settled on adding, “It’s not a real angel, I know it’s just you and me, being together. We’re making it work, finding the way into the new fresh air.”
Marcie remained silent while she listened, smiling dreamily as she stared into his eyes, her hands still on the closed book in her lap. So Ben carried on, “And then I thought those feelings, our relationship, well, they’re like a fire, an inner fire that can power my new life. We’ve kindled something together, a radiant force, bright and dangerous energy from nothing, and I want to nurture that. I want to tend the fire, so it doesn’t go out, but so that it doesn’t burn up too fierce, either. You know how you give a real fire time, until the big logs are burning on the embers, little flames dancing all over them? That’s where the serious heat is, when you can cook on it, when you know it can take anything thrown on it. That’s what I want to feed for us. Now our flame had caught, I want to care for it. Does this make any sense? Do you know what I’m feeling?”
“Yes,” Marcie replied, smiling wholeheartedly now. She gently set aside her book to take his hand, resting on his knee, while she put her other arm around his shoulder again to cradle his head. Still looking deep into his eyes, she went on, “Yes, I think I know what you’re feeling. I think it’s called love, Ben, and I’m feeling it too.”
He knew she was right, that all his fizzing thoughts and feelings came down to that one simple word, and he felt uplifted again to hear her confirm that it was in her heart too. Acting as one, they brought their mouths together. Ben felt his heart hammering as they kissed, bringing his free hand to Marcie’s jaw, but this was a slow and tender kiss. Their lips were parted, their tongues played softly, their hands lightly stroked the other’s hair and face, but their actions were in such contrast to their earlier hungry passion. This was the calm serene opposite to that, coming softly from their shared affection in an easy and relaxed flow, now that they’d sated their physical hunger for each other.
Ben let his hand fall down, caressing Marcie’s neck the brushing down the soft fabric of her blouse until it came to rest at her breast. As he carefully held its round mass in his cupped hand she sighed and gripped the back of his head tenderly.
“Oh Ben, what a day!” she said with a heavy sigh, barely above a whisper, still almost touching his lips. He was aware of the rise and fall of her chest beneath his hand, as well as the air from her mouth on his face. She drew another deep breath as she started listing everything that had happened, “I started finding a new tutor, you’ve started with a new medical regime, then you’ve had a heavy conversation with your work, and we’ve started your legal claim as well.” He listened respectfully, his hand still against her as she went on, “But we’ve made love properly for the first time, and we’ve agreed that we’re genuinely living together too. And that’s the really important thing in all this, isn’t it? That we’re together, that we want to stay together. Oh Ben,” she repeated as she seemed to reach her conclusion, “You’ve saved me.”
“No, you saved me, for real Marcie,” Ben argued in a low murmur, putting just a little pressure on her breast, “You saved my life, and you’re still saving it, with everything that you do.”
“We’re saving each other, then,” Marcie conceded, “Summoning our own heavenly guardian angel together, as you said.”
“And that’s another thing, two things, you missed from your list, about what makes today special,” Ben thought to add, “They’re probably not your Catholic heaven, but I’ve discovered two magical secret worlds, one in your old children’s book, an imaginary one, through the fur coats in the wardrobe, and one inside you, a real place of private joy, through the enchanted fur of your Vixen.”
“Oh Ben, you come up with the most unexpected things!” Marcie exclaimed giggling, leaning back a little to look at him with twinkling eyes, even as their hands still held each other.
“I thought I’d been coming up with exactly what you’d expected,” Ben quickly responded, relishing the double entendre. Marcie laughed aloud, and Ben was excited to feel her shaking beneath his hand. Still, he dropped it, folding it over their clasped hands now, releasing her politely lest she think he was just trying for a sordid grope.
“Ooh, and I so want to help you keep coming up in that same old way, all sticky and creamy, time and time again!” she said with entreatment, gripping his hand and head even as Ben felt his arousal stirring again, “But time is slipping away, isn’t it?”
Ben let her pull her hand away from his as she raised both arms out wide, stretching in a luxuriant way and filling her lungs. His eyes inevitably fell to her blouse, where he noticed how this gesture raised her breasts out towards him. She went on unselfconsciously as if she were rousing herself from slumber, “I need to shower and get dressed up. And you could keep making yourself useful by bringing the washing in,” she concluded as she exhaled and looked warmly into his eyes.
Ben felt a little disappointed that he wouldn’t get the opportunity to keep Marcie company in the shower, to see more of her naked body again, but he was eager to be helpful. He rose from the sofa, recovered the wash basket and headed through the back door as she disappeared into the bathroom. He could hear the shower start to run as he gathered the clothes and sheets, and it was still going when he got in. Not everything was dry, but he’d noticed an airer folded up in the cupboard, so he got that out in the living room to use for the few bits that were too damp to fold, making stacks of the other laundry on the table.
“Oh, thank you,” Marcie said as she came out of the bathroom wrapped in her towels, explaining as she pointed to the airer, “I normally put that up in the bedroom when I need it, but it’s fine here if we’re going out.” She leant towards him as she drew close to peck his lips. “I was thinking of wearing the same dress you saw me in the evening before last. Do you think that’s okay? It will reveal a bit more than I’m used to showing off in public, but if I remember, that was what you suggested,” she said with a shy smile as he put his hand on her waist, resting it on the damp towel’s thick fabric.
“Aye, you’ll look wonderful, if you’re okay with that. There will be plenty of others, well, with a lot more on show,” Ben tried to reassure her.
“Aye, I’ll be brave,” she said, imitating his affirmation, simpering a little before she gave him another pecked kiss, then making for the bedroom.
“I’ll have a shower too, when I’ve finished this,” Ben called, hoping that he’d be okay to join her in her bedroom to get dressed.
He was indeed glad of the shower, to clean his slippery and slightly tender penis especially. He washed his hair, thinking that he may need to pick up some more non-essential toiletries like his hair gel from his old flat. Once dry, he wrapped his towel around his waist, then went to visit the spare room to pick up clean underwear and the shirt from his meagre pile of clothes. The shirt was surely still clean enough to go out in, he figured. He remembered how he’d modestly taken it off just two days ago, stoically preparing to get into the camp bed on his own, and thought how much things had changed since then.
Ben heard the hairdryer as he approached the half-open bedroom door. “Knock knock,” he said loudly as he put his shoulder to the door, remembering the way that Marcie had come into the bathroom when he was in the shower. He didn’t want to intrude if she were being modest, though in fact he’d already glimpsed her through the doorway, sat at her little dressing table with her back to him, already in her blue summer dress.
“Just come in, silly,” she called out, adding, “If I’d wanted some privacy, I’d have closed the door properly.” She twisted around to smile up a him, still drying her matted hair, holding the hairdryer up in one hand and a large spiky hairbrush in the other. Ben smiled foolishly himself, feeling excited to see her in that dress again, revealing her wide deep cleavage wonderfully, just as it had before. Marcie was already turning back to the mirror though, commenting, “Now you’re living here, I’m afraid you’ll probably be spending a lot of time watching me do battle with this hair.”
Ben muttered that he was fine with that. He kept to himself that he quite liked watching Marcie’s vigorous methodical movements, her elbows raised, twisting as she turned her head one way and then another in front of the mirror. He looked away though, as he dropped his clothes on the bed next to the piles of things that she must have moved temporarily from her chair and table. She apologised again for the mess, but they both also agreed again that there would be plenty of time to sort through everything. Then Ben also dropped his towel from his waist to begin getting dressed, knowing full well that Marcie could see him in her mirror.
“You are an exhibitionist, aren’t you?” she lightly remarked over the noise of the hairdryer, explaining, “I’m not sure these gauzy drapes really stop prying eyes. I closed the curtains to get dressed just now.”
“I’m sorry I missed that,” Ben said honestly, risking her thinking he was being voyeuristic himself by going on, “I’d have liked to see you, in your underwear, maybe trying clothes out.”
“Well, I found something blue to go with the dress, but you’ll just have to wait to see them,” Marcie replied airily. Ben knew he’d look forward to that, though he had already noticed her sky-blue bra strap. “You really didn’t think to draw the curtains, though?” she asked, returning to her point as he quickly got dressed.
“I guessed no one else would be looking, maybe,” he explained, “Maybe I am showing off for you, but I suppose, fundamentally, I’m not really bothered.” He reflected on his thoughts a little deeper as he sat down carefully on the bed just behind her, making eye contact in the mirror, “It’s not polite, maybe. And it would be awful if kids, girls, saw me and thought I was flashing. But it’s not like nudity is against my religion, or anything. We’re all just humans underneath our clothes, aren’t we? As nature intended. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, however old or whatever shape we are. And I guess sometimes, like on a ship, you can’t be too precious, you know, about modesty. I remember my first trip out of Tynemouth, changing into wetsuits to get into dinghies, I saw others just getting behind the van, hiding from the road but not from the rest of us, stripping right down. I saw a slightly older woman’s small boobs and bush, and I guess it was a cheap thrill for me, at the time, when I was still maybe just nineteen, but I thought, ‘Oh right, it’s like that is it? Well, I’ll not worry either.’ And then when it was my turn, I just dropped my boxer shorts along with everything else, to save them getting wet, then zipped into the neoprene.”
Marcie had stopped the hairdryer while he’d been talking and was now brushing her hair out, giving it the fluffy volume that Ben had been so amazed by when he’d first seen it. “That’s an interesting story. It’s like those other stories we were sharing last night. You don’t need to tell me everything though, you know, about sneaky peeks at other women’s vulvas or whatever.”
“No, I wasn’t saying it to confess,” Ben said, then considered, “Well, maybe, a bit. But maybe I’m saying it like a warning too, to sound things out for us two. I hope I’ll keep sailing, or doing other outdoor things, and maybe that will mean being naked, briefly, in front of virtual strangers. I’m hoping you don’t mind, and I guess that works both ways. I’m saying I don’t mind if others see you undressed. But I guess it’s like the old advice, ‘You can look, but don’t touch.’ That gives us a rule, a line we don’t cross, and then we know we’re staying faithful, to each other. Right?”
“Right,” Marcie confirmed cautiously, peering closely in the mirror with her glasses off as she put on her eye makeup, “I don’t think my previous boyfriends thought like that, about it working both ways around especially I’m sure, even if we’d never talked about things as honestly as you are with me now. I think I’d be too shy to slip everything off in front of strangers, strange men, to get into a wetsuit though. Maybe it’s like topless sunbathing. I remember when I first heard about it, on holiday in Malta, my mum or someone telling me that women did it on other beaches around the Mediterranean. My first self-conscious young teenage thoughts were, ‘I’m glad they don’t do that here, it’s certainly not for me.’ But it’s reassuring to know that you wouldn’t be the jealous possessive patriarchal male about that kind of thing if it came down to it,” then she turned and asked, “What do you think?”
She looked at him myopically, blinking while her smile twinkled, obviously hoping for a compliment, but perhaps teasingly flirting with her batted eyelids too. Ben was quite powerfully struck by the effect, with her exaggerated eyeliner and grey-blue eyeshadow, her face framed under the centre parting in her cloud of hair. “You look amazing,” he said honestly, “Like a sixties icon, Elizabeth Taylor or Claudia Cardinale maybe. No, that’s not right,” he quickly corrected himself, contrasting her square jaw, her strong profile, her dappled skin and her light eagerness to his mental picture those posing devas, with their unreal perfection that was merely artificial. He tried to backtrack, “You look like you, unique, and you’re beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she said, briefly peering at herself closely in the mirror again before leaning back as she put her glasses back on, “It’s when I put some effort into makeup like this that I sometimes wish I had contact lenses.”
“No,” Ben tried to reassure her, “You’re beautiful in your glasses too. They add to your sophistication, your strength, your confidence. It’s like you’re in control.”
“If you say so,” she said sceptically. She obviously wanted to go back to their discussion though, carrying on as she picked out a lipstick, “Still, to get back to your exhibitionism, ‘Look, don’t touch,’ certainly works for me. I’m happy if you stick to that ethic when you’re showing your bits off. But is that what were you were thinking when you saw Shona getting them out too?”
“No!” Ben immediately replied, as that morning’s embarrassing moment had not been on his mind at all. He evaluated his knee-jerk reaction carefully though, realising that at some inappropriate level it had also been sexy. He emphasised, “No, really. Shona wasn’t being an exhibitionist, and I wasn’t there to be a voyeur. It was just an accident. Like you said, I did notice her breasts, but perhaps that’s not surprising. Truly, you can be sure, it is only you that I want to see, that I want to watch getting dressed, and undressed, to watch in the shower.”
“Well, maybe I’ll let you help with some of those things sometime,” Marcie said coquettishly, turning towards him again, now with her lips a deliciously deep glossy russet, as Ben couldn’t help but notice when she pouted and leant towards him.
“You look gorgeous,” he said feebly in his dumbstruck way.
“Well, there’s no kissing or pawing at me now, at least until we’ve met your friends, okay? Now, are we nearly ready to go? We’re catching the Metro to Monument, is that the plan? I just need to find my nice boots and a little bag. My satchel would be overdoing it, I think, for that whole bespectacled sexy librarian look. I just need my purse, keys, phone, tampon, lipstick and a pen.”
“A pen?” Ben asked in surprise, though he also found himself wondering about where Marcie was in her cycle, if she was thinking of a tampon.
“A teacher once told me, ‘Always carry a pen.’ And now I’m doing a PhD at a top university. I guess it’s a habit, or a token of my studiousness. Anyway, the point of this evening was to see if I could catch the eye of some cheeky Geordie chappies, wasn’t it? I might need to write down a phone number.”
“I thought you said that was a fantasy,” Ben said, feeling a little unsure of how seriously Marcie was taking this.
“I’m teasing! Surely you know I’m just teasing you?” she repeated with a worried frown, squeezing his knee, “Maybe some lads will try and flirt with me tonight, I don’t know, and maybe I’ll feel a bit flattered and even play along with it, however briefly. Again, I just don’t know. I’m not used to this sort of thing, remember? But whatever happens, I can give you a cast-iron guarantee that it’s you that I’ll be coming home with. I swear it by Holy Mary, or whoever you wish, by Aslan, by Mother Earth. I’m taking you, only you, to my bed, tonight. You’ll remember that, won’t you? You won’t get jealous? I don’t want to be worrying about that coming up to spoil our evening. And I also think, if anyone’s going to get jealous, it will be me when I see some statuesque blonde setting her sights on you, homing in as like attracts like.”
“No,” Ben said, taking her words on board seriously, clarifying, “No jealousy, and no rivals.” But then he tried to lighten things up again, adding, “Anyway, if you’ve got your phone, he can just key his number straight into your contacts.”
She swatted at him playfully across the shoulder as she rose to her feet, then said firmly as he began raising his own hands in retaliation, “Ah-ah, no pawing at me, remember?”
Ben watched her move around to the far side of the bed, then squat down to search in the drawer on its far side. She eventually pulled out a small black leather bag, not much more than a purse itself, on a long strap, as well as a pair of elegant lace-up boots, also in soft black leather. She sat down next to him, close enough to brush his hip with hers, and began putting these on, wrapping the long laces around a dozen or more metal hooks.
“I like those,” Ben remarked, admiring their delicate pointed toes and modest heels.
“Oh, why are men are so predictable?” Marcie scoffed as she finally tried the first bow, halfway up her shin. “They’re a bit scuffed though, aren’t they? Still, I bet you’d like them even more if I was just wearing them with suspenders and a basque.”
“Is that a possibility?” Ben asked, only half joking, adding, “And I could polish them up for you.”
“Well, at least I know what I need to do if I want to encourage you to do something really awful, like regrouting the bathroom tiles or fixing a new mortgage,” she said with mock resignation.
“Do you really have a basque then?” Ben asked casually, but with genuine curiosity too.
“No,” she admitted, then shot him a twinkling smile, “But I could get one, just for you. It would be cheaper than hiring a tiler or a financial advisor. Oh, I nearly forgot jewellery. I don’t have much,” she said apologetically, returning to her dressing table. She pulled out a snaky silver chain with a plain cross on it. “There’s this, from my other grandmother, but it’s a bit Christian. I could take the cross off though.”
“Don’t worry. You’re beautiful as you are, your bare neck especially,” Ben reassured her, “And we’re just going for a pizza, then a bar. It’s not like it’s the opera.”
“Okay, I’ll just put these bangles on then,” she decided for herself, pulling out a stack of thin silver-seeming hoops to put over her wrist. She popped her lipstick into her bag, then said “I’ll just pick up my other bits. Are you ready to go?”
“I need to pick up my phone too,” Ben said rising to his feet too.
“Ooh, and your inhaler, that needs to always be on your list now,” she reminded him.
“You’re right! Thank you,” Ben, genuinely grateful, made a show of patting his pockets, “Wallet, keys, phone, puffer. I’ll remember.”
They gathered their things, but before they left the flat, Marcie decided she’s like something to cover herself up with a little more, “Just while we’re on the streets,” she assured Ben. She picked up a short white cardigan from the bedroom, then said briskly, “Right, I’m ready. You’re sure you don’t want your jacket? Let’s do it then, let’s face Newcastle’s finest!”
They held hands as they took the short walk to the Metro station, then as they sat close to each other waiting on a bench too, leaning their heads together, Ben enjoying the fragrance of Marcie’s fresh perfume and clean hair. They spoke only a little, as Ben let his thoughts run. When Marcie had shown him her silver necklace, he’d had thought of a piece of jewellery that he could pick up from his flat to give to her, a Nordic silver hammer, and he hoped he’d remember it when they popped over there tomorrow. However, a part of him was also worrying about what they’d been talking about in the bedroom.
He thought he may have made a mistake by saying he stuck to the rule, “Look, don’t touch.” He reflected that it sounded like the kind of thing a lap-dancer might say to her client, and he didn’t want Marcie to think that he’d ever look for that kind of seedy thrill. By extension, it might also imply that he’d been looking for Marcie to condone his voyeurism through pornography. He thought guiltily of the few magazine cuttings and even a Russ Meyer video stashed away back at his own flat, evidence of his occasional curiosity about seeking stimulation from such things. He knew for sure that he didn’t want to bring them into his relationship with Marcie, to try sharing them with her. He recognised that they represented an exploitative industry, or misogynistic attitudes at least, which he understood as degrading to their male audience as well as the women who did the work. Perhaps he had carelessly objectified some women’s bodies in the past, but he wanted the opposite of that with Marcie. He wanted to see her whole, as a woman with a beautiful body, a brilliant mind, a passionate heart and a precious soul, with an entire inner world.
When the train arrived, it wasn’t overcrowded, in the lull between rush hour and the true night out crowd. They squeezed together as they found a pair of seats, letting the train carry them down into the heart of the city. They remained quiet but petted at each other’s hands, just as they had on the station’s bench. And just as he had then, Ben had to keep on reminding himself to not try kissing Marcie’s made-up lips.
They emerged from the station to join the other couples and small groups drifting through town, each absorbed in their own evening out it seemed, as Ben led Marcie toward the restaurant. When they passed a doorway to a sleazy venue that had a sign advertising pole dancing, Ben saw his chance to unburden himself of his thoughts.
“I know we talked about nudity being okay,” Ben said in a low voice, lowering his head to bring himself close to her ear as they kept walking, “But I wouldn’t want to go somewhere like that, you know, with you or without you.”
“Hey, you don’t have to tell me all your secrets, you know,” Marcie said, smiling kindly once she’d followed his eyes and realised, after perhaps a moment’s surprise, what he was talking about.
“No, I mean it. I said it was okay to just look, if you don’t touch, but I didn’t mean it about things like that. I’m not that kind of man, the kind who pays women to be strippers. I never want to be.”
“I know,” Marcie reassured him, squeezing his hand, “You said you were sorry about what happened in Tallinn all those years ago, and I believe you. I know exotic dancing isn’t the same thing, but it is all sex work in a way, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s even bigger than that, isn’t it?” Ben said, now resolved to carry on, “It’s the whole porno business too. And now we’re a couple, I don’t want any of that, to bring it into our new world.”
“Woah, Ben,” Marcie cautioned him, “I know pornography is a minefield for men and for couples. Let’s take baby steps with this. I know what you’re saying, it’s a seedy industry. Hey, is this your restaurant?” she asked as they turned down another side street and saw the signs.
Ben confirmed it was, but Marcie suggested, “Let’s just pause here a moment, so I can say my piece before we get inside. I think some women in porno say they’re empowered by it, but I’m sure there’s still exploitation. I know now that you’re a kind and thoughtful man, so I know that you’d never want to exploit or degrade anyone, and I trust you absolutely, I trust your fidelity to me. But I won’t ask you to make a promise you can’t keep. I do know that porno is fantasy, and I know we can keep fantasy in our heads without confusing it with the real thing. My first impulse is to say, ‘Just keep it to yourself,’ but maybe that’s not right. Maybe I’ll be curious one day, but then again maybe I’ll find I’m appalled by what you’ve been looking at.” She paused briefly, gathering her thoughts, whilst Ben thought anxiously of what she might be disgusted by that he’d seen. Then she went on, “Hmm, I think I know how we might handle this. Let’s remember what we agreed before about, well, about our sexual expression. We’re honest with each other, as you’ve just been demonstrating, and that means we’re allowed to just come out and say what we want to do. Then the deal is the other one can just say, ‘No thanks,’ and we get on with other things.”
“Thank you, genuinely,” Ben said, “But I still won’t bring any into your flat.”
“Our flat, now, remember?” Marcie replied, adding with a sly smile, “Well, if you change your mind, just remember I’m a librarian. Show me what you find, then, so long as I don’t just say, ‘No thanks, put that one straight in the bin,’ I’ll catalogue it and check it in, giving it shelf space even if I don’t read it myself.” Ben found himself smiling as he agreed to that, so Marcie concluded, “Right, that’s sorted then. Are you ready to eat now, or what?”