My Clocking In System

He’d said half 6 on the phone and he came off the bridge at 6 minutes to 7.

His own fault. He’d stood in that flat 20 minutes taking a suit off and putting a jumper on.

Then a bit longer than that with a watch in his hand he’d been told was his now.

By the time Thomas got the helmet out from behind the desk it was 20 to.

Lights against him the whole way down through Vauxhall.

He got onto her road at 5 past and was still getting the stand down when her door went.

"You’re late."

"I know."

"I’m later." She was doing her coat on the step. "So we’ll say nothing about it."

Green. Darker than the lace he’d picked out of her drawer that Sunday morning, near enough black under the streetlight.

Fitted through the waist and then not. Sleeves right down to the wrist. Something going on at the collar he could not have described then and cannot now.

She’d made it.

He knew, because he’d knelt on her rug in front of it while she pinned it, back when he wasn’t allowed to look at it in daylight.

"Well?"

"It’s..."

"Go on."

"I’ve not got the words for it. I don’t know what any of it’s called."

"That’s not a review, Danny."

"You look like somebody who’d never speak to me."

Jodie stopped with one arm in the coat.

"Oh."

She got the other arm in without looking at him doing it, and came down the last step, and he got hold of her by the waist and kissed her on her own pavement in November.

She came up onto her toes for it.

One hand went flat on his chest and stayed there and the other one went round the back of his neck.

It went on longer than either of them had planned.

"Right, that’s my lipstick gone."

"Sorry."

"You’re not sorry."

"I’m not sorry."

"No." She did it again, shorter. "Two hours on this hair and it’s going in that helmet. Noted."

Noted.

She’d said that to him with her mouth full on a Sunday morning. You’re loud in the mornings. Noted. Filing it.

"Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Nor me, and it’s not till quarter past 9, and I’ve had one packet of Quavers since half 2." She took the spare helmet off him. "So if I’m horrible in the pictures, that’s why."

Her arms came round him and her front went flat on his back.

At the lights her chin came onto his shoulder, and her hand went flat on his stomach, and then two inches lower, and stopped.

He put his hand over it.

She laughed into the back of his helmet where he could feel it and not hear it.

Bernadette does the tickets and the ice creams and comes round with the mop after.

"Two, love?"

"Two."

"Now it’s started, but you’ve only missed 4 minutes and the adverts. And I wouldn’t call the adverts a loss." She tore them off. "It’s the same four they’ve had in since the summer. There’s one for a garage in Peckham I could recite you word for word."

"Is it any good?"

"Terrible." She pushed the tickets over. "There’s 9 of you in there and one of them’s asleep. Don’t tell the distributor."

Old carpet and warm dust with something sweet under it.

Two couples down the front. A group of 4 in the middle. One bloke on the aisle with his coat on the seat beside him.

Back row.

She got her coat off, folded it over the seat in front, sat down, and put her hand flat and high on his thigh.

Then she watched the film with her whole face, like a woman who had come out to watch a film, and her hand did not move for a long time.

Danny sat next to her in the dark with his heart going like he was 17.

Then she leaned over.

"Are you watching this?"

"No."

"Me neither."

He turned his head and she was already there.

She kissed him in the back row of Bernadette’s with her hand still flat on his leg, and then not flat, and then over him through the denim, pressing.

He’d been hard since her front went against his back at the lights.

She found that out and made a sound into his mouth that nobody else in that room could have heard.

"Danny."

"Don’t."

"You were like this on the bike."

"I was like this on your pavement."

"Were you." Her hand shifted and he had to put his head back against the seat. "God. Do you know what that does to me?"

"Tell me."

"Not in here."

"Jodie."

"I’m not saying it in here." Her hand kept going, slow, in a room with 9 people in it. "I’ll say it at the table."

"Say a bit of it."

She laughed under her breath.

Then she stopped laughing, and put her mouth against his ear.

"I’ve been wet since I came down the stairs."

He got his hand under the hem of what she’d made and onto her thigh, and her knees came apart an inch, and then she caught his wrist and held it.

"No."

"No?"

"Because I’ll make a noise." Her grip was properly tight. "And it’s Bernadette’s."

"All right."

He started to take it back.

She didn’t let go of his wrist.

She sat there holding it about 20 seconds with the film going and her breathing doing something it hadn’t been doing before.

Then she moved his hand herself.

Up, and in, and she pulled the hem out of the way with her other hand to do it, and she put him exactly where she wanted him, and let go.

She was soaking.

Through the cotton and past it, hot and slick against his fingers the second he got there, and she made a sound at the back of her throat and turned her face into his shoulder.

"Jodie."

"Don’t say anything." Muffled, into his jumper. "Do not say one word."

He got the cotton to one side and slid two fingers over her cunt, slow, right up through the wet of her.

Found her clit with the flat of his fingertip and stayed there.

Her whole leg went tight against his.

"Ah."

"Ssh."

"I know." Her hand had gone round his forearm and she was gripping it hard enough to hurt. "Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop."

He didn’t stop.

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