And other folks must be catching on too, because simply everyone does it these days. By the time it was mentioned on Sex and the City, all my friends shrugged. “So what?” they wanted to know. “We’ve been doing that for yonks.”
I fully anticipate by next year Charlotte Church will have a glittery T-shirt that reads “My Barbie takes it up the ass.” Maybe I should make one and send it to her.
Yes, anal. The new black. Out there is not so out there anymore. Last night N and I were perusing a top-shelf mag he picked up for me, one page of which featured a woman of grandmother age being fisted in both holes. And she was smiling. And, I wasn’t even fazed. Few things shock me, really. But there is one that always gets to me-every time.
I know anal sex is the new black, because my bloody mother just rang to talk about it.
But as long as I had her on the phone, I thought I could break the news about the Boy. To her credit, she didn’t say a thing until I was finished. “Poor little creature,” she said, and it was just at that moment I felt the first tears dropping. Yes. Poor, poor me. What luck I have such a sympathetic mother.
Who then made me wait on the line as she turned to tell the whole story to my father, verbatim.
They agreed I should go home for a couple of days. I was powerless to argue. lundi, le 12 janvier
My head fell further toward the surface of the table. I didn’t want the steaming mug of tea in my hands. I didn’t want breakfast. My mother sighed. She obviously wanted to say something. “I suppose at least each failed relationship raises my standards for the next one,” I grumbled.
“Honey, don’t you worry that someday your standards will get so high no one will satisfy them?”
If I had the energy to lift my forehead off the rim of the mug, I would have given her the evil eye to end all evil eyes. “I don’t even know why it happened,” I groaned. “I mean, I know why it happened, but not globally why.”
Father rattled his paper and looked concerned. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said. “He was probably seeing some other girl and just looking for a reason to end it.”
“Oh, that helps very much, ta.”
Come to think of it, maybe he was. Oh, there were a few times, a few texts, a few phone calls that seemed odd at the time. And one big thing, several months back. “You never surprise me,” he used to say. He said it often. Usually when we were in the throes of a gentle argument, when my attitude rubbed up against his ego and the first word someone said wrong threatened to tip everything into oblivion. “You never surprise me,” he’d say, and anticipating the coming list of Things I Have Done Wrong in the Last Year, I would go to another room and disconnect: closed door, television, toilet, whatever it takes. I already knew the list off by heart. It ranged from a brief period in which I went back to an ex, to less concrete items like whether or not I introduced him to other people as my boyfriend or as just a friend. Headphones on. One hour of silence would make him apologize.
I was in an expansive mood one morning in December. The sun was just coming up and, for reasons I cannot quite put a finger on, I woke with the birds. Never surprise you? We’ll see. I walked down to the Kentish Town train station and waited for a train on the southbound platform.
A taxi dropped me at his doorstep at the other end. The air was damp and smelled salty. It was still before nine in the morning. The back door is usually unlocked and I didn’t want to wake his housemate. I crept up the stairs and put a hand on the handle of his door.
Turned. No luck. Turned harder-Regency house, sometimes the weather makes the fixtures stick-no. Locked. I tapped on the door. Already my heart was sinking.
There was a noise of whispering inside. The creaking bed. “Hello?” came a whisper from the other side of the door. His voice.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Oh.” More muffled talking.
“Um, can you let me in?”
“Wait in the back garden. I’ll meet you there.”
Heart sinking? It was obliterated. My stomach took up residence somewhere in the middle of my throat. “What’s going on?” I squeaked.
“Can you go outside?” he said, only slightly louder. There was more noise from inside the room.
“No,” I said, raising my voice. “Let me in.” He came outside-very quickly. Shut the door behind him firmly. I lunged for the door. He held me off easily.
“For goodness’ sake-don’t embarrass me,” he said. His eyes pleaded with me. No way, I thought. There’s someone in there. But there was no getting past him. He started to walk down the stairs, taking me, struggling, with him.
“What the hell is going on?” I shrieked. I could hear the other bedroom doors in the house opening, and his housemates came out to see what was happening. He bullied me into the kitchen. There was a girl in there, yes, he said. Friend of his housemate. In the spare foldaway bed? No, in his bed. Who was she? I screamed. Don’t embarrass me, he kept saying. Don’t embarrass me. She was a medic, he said. An army officer. A friend of a friend, but nothing happened. Like fuck it didn’t, no one shares a bed and look-you’re not wearing anything under that dressing gown, are you? I dove at his crotch. It was true, he wasn’t.
“Trust me,” he pleaded. “Go to the cafe at the end of the road. We’ll talk about it later?”
“Trust you? Trust you? Can I trust you?”
His face fell. He made accusations. He played the Whore Card.
The phrase “losing your rag” has always seemed imprecise. I didn’t know what it meant, exactly. One of those sayings that defies explanation and only makes sense in context.
This was the context. I lost my rag.
“You have never found me in bed with someone else. You never will. This is the price I pay for honesty?” I am digging my own grave, I thought. No one values the truth over perceived fidelity. I fuck other people for a living, and yes, I tell him as much as he wants to know, but, oh. Oh. Oh. My heart has always been in the right place, I think. My head stopped using words to communicate.
I left. I went to the shore and waited for the shops to open, bought a bag of coconut-covered marshmallows. The water was high and the wind against the tide made white horses on the sea. My phone rang and rang-the Boy. I turned it off. He left messages. Nothing happened, he swore up and down. It was a plot by his housemate, the one who hates me. The medic (blonde, thin, I waited long enough in the bushes over the road to see her come out. But not pretty. Not pretty) was very drunk, she fell asleep in his bed in her underwear, he was too tired to set up the spare bed for himself or go down and sleep on the sofa. Whatever. I didn’t ring back. I caught a train home and took three appointments that day. After, smelling of sweat and latex, I listened to Charles Mingus and drank port until the wee hours. We made it up through texts, over a few days.
Still sat at my parents’ breakfast table, the mug of tea cold in my grip. Daddy refolded the paper and left it at my elbow. Go home, go to work, get over it, I said to myself. mercredi, le 14 janvier
I ran some errands shortly before an appointment and walked to the hotel from the bank in full-on makeup, suit, and heels. As I passed the park a man stopped.
“My God, you’re beautiful. Are you a model?”
Cripes, has that line ever actually worked? “No, I work near here.” Think fast-what’s near here? “Over in Royal Albert Hall.” I couldn’t have picked a more unlikely place, could I?
He: “You like it there?”
Me: “It’s pretty nice. The people I work with are interesting.”
“Plenty of prima donnas, right?”