Eliot and I were a couple now (he officially asked me to be his girlfriend when we were at a bar; in my day it was just assumed after a couple of drunken nights out) but we were not ready to go on holiday together. I had my three kids; he had his friends.
That summer, he and his mates booked a holiday to Malaga, leaving early from Stansted. As we still didn’t have a place for ‘alone time’, what with his flatmates and my children, Eliot asked if I would I like to stay the night with him at the Premier Inn at the airport, an hour and a half away.
It was hardly the Ritz in Paris, but I said yes immediately. I would have said yes to a cupboard in Caithness, because the truth was that I was crazy about him.
The closest we’d got to a holiday so far was an ill-fated camping trip. But two weeks earlier, we’d both carved out an hour from our afternoons and caught the Thames Clipper. I looked at Canary Wharf rising above the glittering water, then kissed him. I love London for all its variety, and that afternoon it felt brand new.
At Greenwich we walked along the river holding hands. At the bottom of algae-dotted steps I slipped my sandals off and paddled. We kissed again.
‘I told him the words forming behind my lips: ‘I love having sex with you.’ What I actually meant was: ‘I love you’, writes Annabel Bond
But as we sat down for a drink I realised I only had 15 minutes left before I had to pick up Hector and Maude from their swimming lesson. So instead, we leant our foreheads together, my knees between his. I pressed my palm above his heart onto the heat of his chest.
Eliot said: ‘I think about you every minute of every day. You make me feel special.’
‘I feel the same,’ I said.
But our parting was always imminent. I had to get back to my kids. He had to get to work. More than that, the 20-year age gap meant that Eliot had hardly started on his life, whereas I was more than half way through mine. I knew he wanted children one day, and a wife.
In the meantime, we had the Stansted hotel.
My ex-husband was at home looking after the kids, and I’d chosen my outfit carefully: high-waisted jeans and a vintage flowery shirt. I wanted to look effortlessly cool, but now I regretted it – I was too hot.
Eliot wore a black T-shirt that showed off his pecs, and shorts that showed off his legs. As I caressed his arms on the train, a woman my age grinned supportively from the other side of the carriage.
When we got off I insisted on walking to the hotel but it turned out to be along several dual carriageways.
I felt embarrassed and tried to cover it by talking pretentiously about the theory of airports being ‘non-places’.
Before I could get far, Eliot kissed me on the hard shoulder, pulling me into him – probably because he wanted me to stop talking about cultural theories. But the ‘non-place’ of the airport hotel was perfect for Eliot and me. We were not ‘for ever’.
The narratives of our lives dissolved when we were together; there was no past and no future. I wanted there to be a future, but I couldn’t give him children – I was too old, and had three of my own.
I’d have to settle for the Premier Inn at the edge of the runway. The hotel was blandly tasteful. But everyone else at the check-in desk, including Eliot, had enormous suitcases. I had a clean pair of pants and make-up in my handbag. Ironic, because out of the two of us, I had the most baggage.
Annabel and Eliot stayed at a Premier Inn at the edge of Stansted airport
Once in the room, I went to wash. I stared at myself in the mirror, willing my sense of self to return. I didn’t know who I was in this new reality.
When I returned to the bedroom Eliot was lying on his front, his eyes squeezed shut. I knew he had seen me staring at myself in the mirror, but he didn’t say anything.
Once in bed, my sense of dislocation made everything more intense. Eliot did everything he promised he would do on the wildest of our sexts; it was amazing. I turned my head away afterwards willing myself not to cry.
The following morning, before he left, we had sex again while it was still dark. It was even more intimate. We switched positions: him on top, me on top, my hands pressing on his chest, his hands on my breasts.
He asked that we try a position that I never wanted to do in my marriage, but with him I loved it. His body was so big and strong, the whole of it was an erogenous zone for me.
I hoped I would tire of him through all this sex, but the opposite was happening. I told him the words forming behind my lips: ‘I love having sex with you.’ What I actually meant was: ‘I love you.’
He said nothing, only kissed my face for a long time. Then he got up, pulled on his clothes and was gone.
Annabel Bond is a pseudonym. Names have been changed.
