Part Thirty-Three
Both George and Jo had been on something of a high for the rest of the afternoon, neither feeling remotely capable of going back to the office, to tidy up their unfinished paperwork before the weekend. They both however knew this to simply be one of the job's many irritations. If they'd been in court for too much of the week, other things were left until late on Friday to complete. When they left to go their separate ways, George gave Jo a broad smile, ran a teasing tongue along her upper lip as a promise of what was to come later, and roared away looking extremely pleased with herself. But as Jo drove back to her office and began catching up on a couple of day's worth of e-mails, she couldn't get that image of George expertly fellating John out of her mind. Was it John who had taught her to do that? Jo supposed it was. But what had possessed George to want to learn in the first place? Then she remembered what John had told her the week before, about George's desire to be bad, to feel as though she was digressing against a normal moral code of decency. What was it in George that made her like this, Jo wondered, and therefore, could she really find Jo as sexually inviting as she always said she did?
When she eventually arrived at George's at around eight-thirty that night, after detouring home for a shower and a change of clothes, she wondered if John would already be there. After a little while of self-enforced celibacy, he would be very eager to make up for lost time. But John hadn't yet arrived. When George opened the door, she was wearing nothing but the thin, silk robe Jo had bought her for her birthday. "I do like you in that," Jo said as she came in and closed the door. "That's excellent taste for you, darling," George said, kissing her. "Have you eaten?" "No, and I'm starving," Jo told her, smelling something wonderful coming from the kitchen. "It's only chicken casserole out of the freezer," George told her as they moved towards the tempting aroma. "I really couldn't be bothered to cook tonight." She had heated up some rice to go with the fragrant casserole, and they sat at the kitchen table to eat it. "Is John not joining us?" Jo asked, seeing only two places. "Not yet," George replied, filling two glasses from a bottle of rich Burgundy. "He's having dinner with Monty, to discuss Barbara's case. But I shouldn't imagine anything will keep him from joining us as soon as is politely possible."
They ate in companionable silence for a while, George's gaze soft on Jo, because she could see that Jo's brain was gradually working up to asking her something. After taking a mouthful of the Burgundy, Jo finally broached the subject that had been creeping into her awareness all afternoon. "What on earth made you want to learn to do that?" Smiling broadly at her, George said, "I wondered how long that would take you." "I don't mean to be quite so predictable," Jo said a little sheepishly. "Darling, you're not, but coming from someone who isn't a particular fan of what I did this afternoon, it's a perfectly natural thing to ask. You surprised the hell out of me when you appeared, you know, because I really hadn't been expecting an audience. I wasn't sure if that was something you would really want to see." "George, when I opened the door, and took in what you were doing to him, it was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen. Where you were was probably quite a significant part of that. It occurred to me that I could have been anyone, Coope, Ian Rochester, anyone, but neither of you cared. That's what made it so intense, the fact that both of you were prepared to take such a risk. Watching you do that, it was, I don't know, as though my eyes had been opened far more than they previously had been." As they'd both finished eating, George reached across the table, laying a hand over one of Jo's. "I remember the first time I ever did that for John," George told her with a slightly fond smile. "I'd tried it before, with a couple of other men, but I hadn't been especially successful at it. This made me very wary of trying it with John, because he was such an incredible lover, so I didn't want to disappoint him. But you know John, he manages to worm confidences out of you so skillfully, that before you know it, you've told him more than is really good for you. I think I'd been sleeping with him for about four months, when I finally plucked up the courage to try it. John didn't criticise what I did, he taught me how to do better. John is even now, an incredibly patient lover, and he could see that doing that for him was something I badly wanted to achieve. You could say I wanted it so badly, because I needed to give something back. I wanted to make him feel just as special as he always made me feel. He wouldn't let me take him all the way like that for a very long time, not until he knew I was confident enough with the rest of it. Perhaps the most valuable lesson John did teach me during the years of our marriage was to accept me for who I was. He taught me that it was perfectly all right to explore the sexual side of my character with complete freedom. I'm not entirely sure why I like some of the things that I do, things that most people would consider slightly abnormal to say the least, but I always had John's constant reassurance that it wasn't wrong to feel as I do. Yes, I know he became very unsettled over the idea of me being with another woman, but we both know that was because he felt threatened, not something he'd ever previously felt by any other of my slightly outlandish fantasies." After a short, thoughtful silence, Jo said, "Taking all that into account, I don't want you to end up finding me too," She hesitated over the right adjective, "predictable. Sleeping with a woman is about as far as my alternative sexual exploration has gone." "And I don't want to frighten you off or in any way disgust you," George told her seriously. "The thing that John almost told you but didn't, is something we haven't done since we were married. I'm not even certain that John would still consider doing it for me if I asked him. It took me nearly two years to tell John about that, and I had to get pretty drunk to even contemplate saying it then. He wasn't especially surprised when I finally told him what I wanted, but then you know just how infuriatingly difficult it is to really shock him at any time. So, if I do ever get around to telling you about it, which I honestly doubt, it won't be until I know you an awful lot better than I do already."
As they cleared away the meal, Jo said a little ruefully, "John always has enjoyed playing the part of tutor." "Yes," George agreed with a laugh. "Nothing makes him happier than to pass on knowledge or expertise of some form or another. Law, bed, music, you name it. Did he do that with you too?" "Sometimes," Jo admitted a little sheepishly. "I occasionally found myself feeling like a virgin all over again." "I doubt he'd ever admit it," George said dryly. "But I suspect John once had a thing for seducing virgins. It would give him an incredible boost of ego to introduce someone to the delights of making love." "Perhaps when he was in his twenties," Jo suggested meditatively. "But once he really got the taste for picking up random strangers, the responsibility of taking someone's virginity would have been too great for him. It would have meant his having to take a lot more care with their feelings than he otherwise might have done." It felt odd to both of them, discussing John like this in his absence, but they both knew it to be a product of their growing intimacy with each other. Neither of them entirely knew what to expect when John arrived later that evening, but they did know that the more they talked, the more they tried to get to know the woman they'd avoided knowing for so many years, their relationship with both John and each other, would only continue to strengthen, enabling them to provide the stability and depth of warmth that John so badly craved.