The table

He had sex with me on the table because he wanted her to see. She was eating her breakfast at the table, a mountain of food. I wondered how she could eat so much and still remain so willowy. She was a little doll, the kind of girl who would have once been mesmerised by her little plastic Barbie, made almost exactly in her image.

This morning I watched her flick her long pale hair over her shoulder and I was jealous and desirous all at once. He watched her too.

I had slept with him the night before because of her, and I resented it. He had come into my bedroom full of grinning teeth.

"She says that you will sleep with me if I ask."

She says. If she said I should jump off a precipice I might have, shrieking her name in the direction of my descent. I shrugged and I slept with him. A quick, disinterested fuck. When it was over I lay there thinking about her body, wishing he would leave my bed so that I could masturbate in private.

So in the morning there she was eating breakfast.

"I fucked your friend" he said to her. Those teeth bothered me. I couldn't bare them, all spit and sparkle.

She smiled at us as if she approved and I love-hated her completely.

"Don't you believe me?" he asked her, even though it was clear that she did.

"You told me she'd have sex with me and so she did."

I was invisible. It was all about them. I watched her smoldering glance burn through the rich fall of her hair. I wondered when he would leap across the table, pushing aside the chairs and the vase of wilted flowers that I had bought and the bowl of cereal and my body, all those items superfluous to the purpose of their conversation. I wondered how long until I saw him kiss her horribly wonderful mouth.

Instead he reached for me and lifted me and put me up on the table for display. He was going to have sex with me on the table. He was going to fuck me in front of her. I wasn't certain what my reaction should be. I watched as she paused, placed the spoon back into the bowl. She pushed breakfast to one side and watched us with that half-lidded bored expression that she had perfected. She wanted to watch him fucking me on the table. She wanted to watch me being fucked. I wanted her to watch me. I wanted her.

He was clumsy with my clothing, scratching my thighs with overlong fingernails as he struggled down my knickers. He lifted one of my legs to point to my vagina. She looked. I felt her eyes on me, sharper than his finger as he pushed it inside. She was looking at his one finger, two, then three, disappearing inside my body and I wished it was her fingers. I would tolerate her ridiculously manicured nails, I would enjoy the little nips of her talons, tearing at my soft flesh. I wanted to be this open for her and when he pushed me around and spread my knees for her to see the slightly parted labia I hoped that she would lean over and inspect them more closely. She didn't.

He turned me back around and plucked one of my condoms from his pocket. He had planned this. He had taken it when he was dressing. He had thought about the process of fucking me in front of her in the shower, and when he was brushing his teeth.

He fucked me on the table. He was the brother of her boyfriend and I was nothing in this. It was about him and it was about her, but I peeled my shirt off because I wanted her to see that I had breasts too. I bent and suckled on my own breasts because I wanted her mouth there. I was modelling behaviour. I hoped that this scene would be repeated without her boyfriend's brother. I wanted her all for myself.

He came before I was ready and it was finished. I wanted her to finish me, but, heavy lidded, she pulled her bowl of cereal towards her and continued to eat without a word.

I was suddenly shy. I hadn't had an orgasm. I wanted to be bold enough to turn towards her and show her how my climax might be achieved with a slight fluttering of her fingertip. I wanted to but I didn't. I was suddenly self conscious as I slid off the table and pulled my pants back on.

Later in the shower I barely needed to touch myself. There was the scent of her shampoo on the walls and the slipperiness of her highly scented soap beneath my feet. There was her razor on the soap dish and she had stood naked under the same scald of water. I had to hold the wall with shaking fingertips to stop myself from falling. I heard her little breathy bird-voice in the kitchen, asking some question of the brother of her boyfriend. Have you seen the milk? Do you want another cup of coffee? My clitoris tugged towards the sound of her voice. I held the open cap of her shampoo close to my face and fell a second time, silently sliding to the floor of the shower and placing a hand over the wild race of my heart.