Chapter Five – middle weekend of February
The Upper Street Gallery is not, as I had supposed, in Islington near to where I lived for many years, but within the London College of Communication down at the Elephant and Castle. Before I had even met Carmen, back when we were talking over the internet about shared interests, it emerged that she was a real fan of the photography of Tom Hunter, which I had also been studying. I knew there was a show coming up and remember thinking it would make a suitable first date, but in the event things had moved quicker than that. But it had been there, in the back of my mind.
***
A few days after our trip down to the coast Alex texted me: “I am meeting a Kevin this evening! 6.00 at the pub. After he gets off the train from work…wishing you a happy sunny day.”
“Wow. I have assignation with Spanish girl. I hope I am not in too deep with this shit. I feel stressed. I’m off to the Whitechapel gallery at 10. Wanna come? I shall be peeling off about 3.”
“Actually I need to do a bit of work here. Have a good day and remember you’re in the driving seat. I have to admit it’s perked me up. Just the fact that this little app can transform your reality if you want it to. I had chat with Brighton guy. I will look him up next time I’m there.”
“ You femme fatale you. I can’t wait to compare notes. I reckon you can have a perfectly nice time even if there isn’t any chemistry, which isn’t guaranteed so it’s best not to get my expectations up. That way it’s a nice surprise if it works. Two frogs, one princess and one not sure. That’s 25 or 50% if you like statistics.”
“We’ll see. I have an addictive nature so this could be my next hobby!”
***
I had decided to make a day of it and cruise some galleries in the East End: it was half term, and I had some catching up to do. From the Whitechapel gallery we ventured on foot and by bus into the fastnesses of Bethnal Green. People set up commercial galleries in some remote places these days: it is hard to see how they make any money: it is hard to see how art galleries ever make money. It was late February, and cold in the wind, but a bright, clear day. We had lunch in one of the many new places springing up in Hoxton, behind Bishopsgate, and then it was time for me to make my own way down to the Elephant to rendezvous with Carmen. I do not remember feeling nervous: the arrangements were firm, and from our two previous encounters I knew that once Carmen had made an arrangement, she would in all likelihood turn up. Emerging at Elephant, I was disorientated: there are several stations there, with a number of exits, and I was on the wrong side of the roundabout. It took me a few extra minutes to negotiate my way to the front entrance to the London College of Communication, jumping traffic barriers and dodging traffic. As I passed through the glass doors I saw she was already there, waiting for me. This was disconcerting for me: I had envisaged being there first.
Carmen seemed taller than I remembered her: she was fresh back from Berlin, and had not even been back to her flat this time as she had her flight bag with her. She smiled an easy, friendly smile, kissed me on the lips and after a few moments we went through to see the pictures. Tom Hunter is best known for slickly produced, surreal, almost dream-like images: but these were different. It was a documentary of travelling culture in the eighties and nineties, when the artist had been part of a group who took their camper vans all over Europe and behind the Iron Curtain as it opened up. The images were a photographic record, cheaply produced laser prints on ordinary A3 paper, tacked simply to the wall. It was not about any one image, but about the story they told. There were some locations that I recognised, and I said so: I was not sure what Carmen was making of it all. She did not seem to be particularly interested, not like our first visit to Hannah Hoch. But at the end of the gallery, round a corner and in a recess, some videos were showing with a comfortable sofa available for the spectators. We sat down, watched the videos out of one eye, started to touch and caress in the semi-darkness. It was not long before I discovered that she was not wearing any underwear; she was physically aroused already and was going to enjoy herself without delay. “Imagine,” she had said, “when I meet you again, if I was wearing only a coat, tights and high heels. Imagine the feeling with the first kiss. .. smelling my neck.” She was as good as her word. After a while we decided we had been there long enough, and started the journey back to my place.
****
Carmen had never made it to Prague: there was some difficulty with the arrangements, and she ended up staying the week with a sick friend in Berlin, helping to look after her. From Berlin she sent me a series of pictures, messages, and a proposition: how about meeting up on her return, as she had a few days in hand before she had to go back to work? She would come to my place, and we would continue to explore our shared interests in the erotic and each other. I don’t remember exactly how she put it: but the proposition was clear enough. Already, there was a pattern emerging to my dealings with Carmen: it would be impossible to see her for weeks at a time, and then suddenly it would all drop into place. Within myself I recognised mixed feelings about this: excitement and liberation, along with frustration and disbelief. Each time, when the time was right, all the apparent difficulties would just get blown away like dust in a breeze. As it happened, I was free that weekend and her plan suited me perfectly. So I went down to Waitrose to invest in a supply of condoms and lube, reasoning that they would probably come in handy. I was a bit nonplussed by the range of choice: I had not been a frequent consumer, as there had been no need for these things in my earlier relationships. In the end I plumped for what you might describe as plain vanilla products. I don’t see the need for peppermint flavour, or glitter, or menthol in the nether regions.
***
From London Bridge we caught the train to where I had left my car and from there cross-country back home. She seemed to have no concerns about accompanying me to an unknown destination: although I tried to explain it on the train with the aid of a sketch map, she didn’t really take it in. She was in my hands, and quite comfortable with that. We drove on the back roads as the sun was going down on top of the Downs: it was a beautiful evening in a stark, February way, everything silhouetted in the fading light. I felt a pang of regret that the rest of our encounter would have to be conducted indoors, because of the dark and the cold outside. She sat cross-legged in the passenger seat, and guided my hand between her legs in between my occasional gear changes. At intervals she returned the favour. We talked a bit, but it was not necessary to fill the void: most of the time we travelled in silence together, bonded by physical contact.
It was dark when we got home: I can get to London in an hour if I want, but this route took longer. The lift to my apartment has a mirror in which two people can study each other: we both liked what we saw. “Nearly fucking in the lift,” she had said, ‘inside the room you turn me to the wall opening my legs and sliding your hard cock inside, moaning and breathing quickly.” Once inside we got down to it right away: the whole afternoon had been an extended episode of erotic foreplay, and we were both hungry and horny. We fucked without further ado, on the yoga mat, on the sofa, on the bed: using the entire flat as our prop. She came quickly, and then surfed the wave from climax to climax: I can go for a long time without needing to come, and so I did. After a while she asked me to fuck her ass, so I did that too: she seemed to get a lot of pleasure from this, but then she wanted me to come: she wanted to feel me throbbing inside her, as she had once said. So I did that as well, and then we rested for a while.
I don’t remember what we ate that night. Carmen generally travelled with organic food about her person: although she was an eclectic cook, at that time she was particularly into raw food and healthy eating, and was experimenting with vegan recipes. She was very knowledgeable about the nutritional value of different foods so generally I would let her decide what to eat, and eat it too. She had brought with her a little booklet on the essentials of healthy eating which she gave to me, and I found this touching.
We sat on the floor on yoga blocks, cross legged around a low table: it was very civilised. She told me some more about herself. When she was young, she said, she had lived with a man who was somewhat older than herself. He was possessive, although she loved him: out of respect for his feelings about this she always stayed faithful to him. For herself, though, she attached no great significance to sexual exclusivity. (She often used the word “fun” to mean sex.) The day came when she realised that he was developing an attachment with his secretary. It was obvious: she was friendly with the woman, so she could see. She challenged him with it, but he denied it: he blustered. The fact that he might be having an affair was not, of itself, important to her, so she said: it was the fact that he denied it: and above all, that he required a code of behaviour from her that was not natural for her, that had been her unconditional gift to him, but a code which he did not respect himself. I suppose it was a case of the old double standard: one rule for him, one rule for her.
Anyway, this was the beginning of the end of the relationship: it took her back to Spain, and ultimately to London where, rather than work in restaurants, she worked as the private chef to a series of rich families. Although she had been doing this for a few years now, it was supposed to be a means to an end, rather than an end in itself: she was trying to use it as a vehicle which would enable her to find a true outlet for her creativity. I knew her for a creative person: she had a good eye for colour and composition, be it a photograph or a plate of food; she had an instinctive love of art in its various forms, and was carelessly well-educated about it as Europeans so often are. She had other boyfriends along the way: she had left one behind when she had moved to London, where initially she had shared accommodation for a while before eventually getting her own flat. Sometime, she had decided to avoid permanent attachments with men for good. It seemed like she had more than enough experience of men being possessive, and she was highly averse to being controlled: Spanish men, she said, were too… macho; and she explained what this meant. So now she had a good network of friends, many of them gay men: and she would meet straight men, as she would say, for fun. And then she went on Tinder: and so she met me, one among others.
I learned about her family background. Although she was from Catalonia, her family originated from the south. I could see a Moorish influence in her face, although her skin was pale – and did not tan easily, she said, although it did not burn either. She had a couple of brothers and sisters; her parents were still alive and living together, although their relationship was not good and never had been. It seemed like it was one of those marriages which says to the offspring: don’t do this. Do it differently, but whatever you do, don’t do this. But she was close to her family, and it seemed like they were all fond of each other. Love, in its various forms, was important to Carmen. “I have a lot of love to give”, she said.
In her personal philosophy she was upbeat, living for the moment, making the most of the opportunities as they came along: highly sociable, and yet happy in her own company. She seemed like a well balanced person, although I sensed that there was some dissatisfaction in her life. The fact was that she was having to run fast to stand still: she was working ten hour days five days a week, which left little time to explore other possibilities, and she had to make the rent each month which, being in zone two, was expensive. It necessitated a flatmate, who, as bad luck would have it, seldom went out. She was one of those women with an almost religious belief in the power of positive thinking: many of my women friends have been like that.
So eventually we went to bed and fucked some more through the night. I have an unusually short refractory time, so even after I’ve come I can do it again quite soon. Why would I want to? well, it depends on the woman. For me, sex is very much about the woman. With Carmen, there was just this chemistry: it is either there or it is not, and with her it very much was. So this made me want to do it again and again – you either understand, or I can’t really explain. The odd thing, in a way, is that this chemistry had come so easily, so quickly after I had begun my experiment with Tinder. I was lucky in this, and later on I came to appreciate just how lucky.
Carmen needed to leave early the next morning. I took her to the station: I wanted to impress on her how easy the journey to London would be, so as to encourage her to do it again. And once again so we went our separate ways for the rest of the weekend.
“Have a good journey”, I texted later, “and a great day! It was lovely to see you and be with you.” And I added three xs, as one does in moments of affection.
“Me too. I had a wonderful time with you. I like to touch your hands, face, shoulders …all your body and I like the silence between us. Thanks for the lovely dinner and breakfast. Thanks for kisses and fuck me so well. I’m going for a coffee, the only coffee I have during the week. In a sunny terrace, relaxing legs, reading a book or thinking about sensual-sexual time with you. Enjoy the weekend! Xxxxx”
“You are a truly beautiful woman, inside as well as out. I am glad to have connected with you,” I said. And that was how I felt about it.
Later, and strangely, I found myself missing Iryna with an intensity I had not felt for some time. I felt moved to write it down:
“Last night
As I fucked with my new friend
Hard and hot
I suddenly missed your body
Familiar
Soft
Warm
Moist
And the noises you make
I thought you should know.”
I was still really angry with her. I sent her the poem, ands that made her really angry too. So that was a result of sorts. We had unfinished business, me and her.
***
I don’t think Alex’s date with Kevin was a huge success. He may have been the one with bad breath, or maybe he was the one who copped her for lying about her age – it happened that they talked about their grandchildren, and he was quick with the maths. This might not have been a showstopper in itself, except she had also felt impelled to lie about where she lived. As luck would have it, he was a bit sensitive about the lying, having had a previous girlfriend who lied to him a lot.
Love Me Tinder 