Read Online Malcolm and Juliet by Bernard Beckett - Free Book Online Page A

could think of and the silence was choking him. ‘It isn’t very professional.’
    It was meant to be a joke but Malcolm watched it burn up and crash to the floor. Tonight nothing would be easy.
    Juliet sat herself on the end of the bed. The room was thick with sex and money, making it hard to breathe.
    ‘Well then,’ said Juliet, looking at her watch. ‘I guess we should make a start.’
    ‘Um, could we talk a bit first?’ Malcolm asked.
    ‘Oh, suppose so. You’re the customer after all. What shall we talk about?’
    ‘I’m not sure. In fact I’m totally without a clue when it comes to this sort of thing. What do people usually talk about before sex?’
    ‘I think they mostly tell each other lies.’
    Malcolm lay back down and Juliet eased along the bed so she was sitting close to his stomach. When he looked up to her face he was confronted by the rise of her chest only centimetres above him.
    ‘You could tell me how much you like me, for instance.’
    ‘But I do.’
    ‘Well done. Tell me why.’
    ‘Because you’re not like the other girls.’ Malcolm relaxed a little. Talking was taking his mind off the woman beneath her clothes, and the child beneath his. ‘And you’re my friend aren’t you? How am I doing?’
    ‘Not bad, for a beginner.’
    ‘I’ve been doing a lot of reading. What should I say next?’
    ‘Tell me why I should have sex with you.’
    ‘I paid you, remember?’
    ‘But if you hadn’t.’
    ‘Well, I’m keen to learn, and I think you might be a good teacher.’
    ‘Not very romantic.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I knew I’d be no good at this.’ Malcolm got up from the bed.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘I don’t know. I think I’ve changed my mind.’
    ‘Don’t be silly. Come back here. We’ll skip talking. It’s not that important.’
    Juliet took off her jacket. Beneath it she was wearing a small black top with thin straps and, Malcolm was fairly certain, no bra. His mouth went dry. He coughed and made a sound that might have been the beginning of a word.
    ‘What was that?’ Juliet asked.
    ‘Um, nothing.’ Malcolm could feel his face burning up. ‘Um, should I take my clothes off?’
    He tried desperately to remind himself that this was science, that discipline and exactitude were all that mattered, but his body refused to listen.
    ‘Not yet.’ Juliet spoke gently, as if she could sense his rising panic. ‘Come here.’
    She held out her arm and he lay down beside her, slowly letting his body settle against hers. He was aware of every point of contact: the sweat building on his inside leg, where it rested against her thigh, the place on his arm where skin met skin, the flattening of her breasts against him, the heavy warmth of her breath and his impossibly anxious erection. He tried not to think of any of these things but they swirled about inside his head, a psychedelic mix of hormone and imagination.
    ‘Kiss me,’ Juliet told him. He opened his mouth and felt her lips touch his, colder than he expected, just lightly. He puckered slightly, because he wanted to contribute somehow, and released the grip of his right hand, which he suddenly realised had been squeezing her back. He felt something else, the end of her tongue flick against his, then disappear.
    It was all so thrilling that for a few glorious seconds nothing else in the world mattered, nothing that had been, nothing that could follow. There was only the now, the present building upon itself, spiralling upwards in a teetering tower of yes and please .
    Juliet’s hand moved down his back, then to his buttocks, steadily on with careful purpose, to the place where hundreds of thousands of years of genetic inevitability awaited them. Malcolm was seven again, the first time he ever rode a bike. Sailing down the driveway, perfectly excited, hopelessly unprepared. Juliet’s hand brushed the front of his trousers, the bike slid out beneath him and, in the panic of realisation, he fell off the bed.
    ‘Oh shit,’ he