When making their bet, Laura also posted an online ad for him, saying he needed a guy’s cock to suck to distract him from smoking, which is how Dan turned up. Adrian is just about getting over his fear of a potential relationship with him, while working too hard. Stu and Gareth were college friends of Adrian and Laura, and they’re all still close.
___________________________
Over the next couple weeks, I hear about the saga of Adrian’s firm needing to hire someone new. He’s been overworking, so glad they’re doing something about that. Not that I’m much less busy myself — I manage to confirm a Tuesday evening for our one-month celebration. I’ll need to leave by half ten, it being a school night.
He texts to confirm he’s on his way, so I leave work.
Getting to Ade’s was a bit of a rush, but I get there a few minutes after he does, sitting on the steps of the building to change out of my sensible lace-ups. I’d put the little skirt on on my way out of the office — no-one could see it under my long coat. I love these stilettos — veritable ‘fuck-me shoes’, but given I can’t manage more than a few yards in them, they don’t get worn much. Perfect for reclining on a sofa and showing off your legs, though, which is what I do after impressing Adrian with my outfit and having a quick hello snog. I could get used to that. Removing a coat to expose stockings and a skirt Dave calls a ‘nice pelmet’ – with crimson high heels — is always fun. He reacts just as I’d hoped.
I stretch out my legs, pointing my toes. “I love this sushi place. Good choice.” Adrian grabbed three large sushi platters and a few dumplings from a place by the station. Munching steadily through various nigiri and uramaki rolls, I’m pretty happy no matter what we end up doing.
Ade puts more pieces on his plate and snuggles up to me, all warm and male. “Mm. I love this stuff.”
“Hard to believe, fifteen years ago there were no sushi take-aways here.”
He agrees. “I remember when I first moved to Kilburn, wanting food, anything that wasn’t an Irish pub, there was this small grotty Japanese restaurant up til Cricklewood Broadway, all painted white chipboard. They had picture menus. I got a bento box the first time, liked it, and eventually dared a platter of sushi. Shocking, raw fish was, then. I liked all but the eel.”
“I remember that place. Very local-place-for-local-Japanese-people, wasn’t it? They never even bothered trying to speak English at you, just carried on in Japanese and you had to figure out what was going on.”
“I admired that. Nothing that wasn’t solved by keeping cash on the table, so they could charge for everything as you went along. Why should they adapt to the English?”
This attitude would explain why Adrian still sounds as Irish as he did at eighteen, at least when he’s not having to compromise to be understood, while Will’s accent has mellowed significantly more, despite his recent years of living back in Belfast. Stubborn git, but you have to kinda admire the principle.
“They probably sold much more food once they had a basic menu in English, though. Like that BMW guy who lectured us said, ‘when we want to sell to you, we will speak English. If you want to sell to us, then you must speak German.'”
“Genau. Das kann ich.”
“You’re a man of endless talents.”
“Indeed I am!” He grins and runs the tip of his tongue along his top lip. “If you want me to be showing you some more of them, best be getting ‘yer tap aff’.” My top off, only in the vernacular also meaning to have a good time, like in an unexpected heatwave. “It was ‘upstairs inside, downstairs outside’ you were offering, yeah?”
That’s one way of summarising our agreement. “I don’t think anyone’s seriously used that phrase since The Professionals was on! You were barely born then!”
Ade grins. “They’re showing repeats at the moment. It’s mostly fascinating for the backdrops, showing all this part of London, Waterloo, all blackened with coal dust, and before glass and steel became a thing.”
“Uh-huh. And Bodie and Doyle driving round in their Ford Cortina like low-budget James Bonds doesn’t attract at all?”
He’s letching at me in ironic fashion, as if he were a Seventies spy, then changes the subject. “It’s traditional to eat sushi off a naked woman’s body, isn’t it?”
“So they say. I think it’s just an excuse to get a naked woman involved. I suppose it did help keep the fish slightly warm so you could taste it better.”
“You’ve…?”
Always fun to get Ade speechless. One point to me. Ha!
“Oh no, I wasn’t the model. Just picking up sushis with chopsticks. Then fingers. There was a long debate about potential effects of wasabi on certain body parts, I recall…”
“Huh. I’ve seen you knocking back entire packets of the stuff.”
“Easy way to impress laddy students, that was! Yeah. I still like it, but I don’t eat that much unless I’m desperate to clear a really bad cold. Wanna test how skin temperature affects the flavour?”
I’m here to get topless; might as well get a move on.
I pull off my T-shirt. I’m wearing a lined bra that’s pretty modest, and turn round to let him deal with the fiddly catches.
Once I’ve slithered the contraption down my arms and rubbed over the red lines on my sides, I turn back towards him.
Adrian is mesmerised. I have to admit, my tits are my best asset. They’ve grown as I’ve put weight on over the years.
“Go on then, pick up a couple pieces and put them on me.” I indicate the top of my breasts. If I lie back on his sofa, it’s near enough to horizontal.
Shaking his head, he picks up a salmon and a tuna sashimi slice and lays them reverently on my left breast with his chopsticks. “What else?”
“Sea bass,” I suggest. It’s my favourite.
He lays the nigiri rectangle on its side, both rice and fish against me, then reaches for another nigiri.
“No, not mackerel! The smell’s too much!”
He drops that and goes for a California roll, instead. It’s not like this is any authentic experience, after all.
I stay still.
“Pass me a whisky too, would you? Anything that goes…”
Adrian stands up, fetches another tumbler, and selects a bottle. “Japanese one. This is one of their peated whiskies, this — Hakushu. They say it goes with shrimp; let’s give it a whirl.”
He pours a generous measure for each of us.
“Cheers,” I say, from my reclining position.
“Sláinte.” You can take the boy out of Ireland…
“Why don’t you take your shirt off, too?”
It’s another loose brushed-cotton, the lack of wrinkles less impressive once I’d learned Ade took his shirts to the dry-cleaner’s over the road. Tactile. But then, so’s his body.
He meets my eyes as he slowly unbuttons.
Topless, he sits down, carefully shifting to be next to me again, and picks up the tuna off my breast. He holds it to his nose. “Mm. Adds a certain something.” Transferring it to his chopsticks he takes a bite, then offers the remaining piece to me.
We both chew, solemnly.
“Not bad.”
We do the same with the salmon and the seabass, though I let him munch the whole California roll.
“Full?”
“For now. Come here.”
He solemnly licks the last of the fishiness off my décolletage, suppressed laughter twitching at the corner of his mouth. We share a kiss, but rapidly want somewhere more comfortable.
Ade stands up, pours himself a drink. “Try this.” He passes me a glass with a dribble of golden liquid. Lagavulin.
“It’s my new smoking substitute. Beats that fucking gum.”
It is indeed smoky, and peaty, with a bit of saltiness offsetting both. “That’s rather good! I don’t think I’d buy it myself, but it’s good.”
“Wait up.” He’s poured a measure of another. I didn’t see what it was, but he’s replaced the bottle in its box and there’s a gap on his top shelf. “Try that, before heading to the bedroom.”
I take a sip.
“Smooth, smoky and stylish, the reviews say. Kinda like me, really.”
It’s good. Similar to the previous one, only so much more refined and interesting, like a top wooden musical instrument versus the plastic basic version. It’s smoky, yes, but flows in my mouth smooth as silk. There’s a sweetness in the aftertaste that balances out the salt and the peat. “I like the warm sweet notes at the end. Did they use sherry casks?”
“I think so.” He checks the box. “Aye, you’re right. Good spot. It’s the Distillers edition, 1991, bottled in ’07.” He pours himself a similarly restrained measure. “Bring it with you.”
I set my glass on the far bedside table and turn back to where Adrian is lying on his side. He’s looking happy, with what can only be described as a shit-eating grin.
“Enjoying the view?” I ask.
“Obviously. I mean, I know I’ve seen you topless before…”
“Oh god. That party.” Half-way through first year. That might have been the one where Adrian passed out on the stairs and had to be bumped down to the bottom, with people stepping and tripping over him in the hallway all night. Or maybe not, if he could remember me running around, thanks to that game of Truth or Dare?
“Aye, that one. That was when I first got it together with Gareth, too.”
“First? You mean it was more than that once?”
“Aw, fuck.”
“Tell.”
He takes a larger sip of the Lagavulin. “Not much to tell. Half a dozen times, from then to late second year, couple of times relieving stress before Finals… That’s it. Couldn’t do more; he’s too much of a romantic wee sod…”
“Ah. Can see how that wouldn’t work.”
“Mm. You, now. You know what you’re getting into. Just something you do with a mate.”
“Exactly.” I giggle. “Dave asked me recently, if I wanted to see the full Lord of the Rings trilogy at the IMAX. The director’s cut. Twelve hours of bloody hobbits and goblins! I told him, that’s something you do with your other girlfriend, you sick pervert…”
Ade laughs. “Did they?”
“They did. All-night showing, so I bet they fell asleep for a bit. I mean, yet another orc battle — how would you tell?”