Someone asked recently what services I would be unwilling to provide, and I was unable to think of anything good. Now “imitating stick-insect Freddie Mercuries from Lowestoft” has become the first entry on the list. mercredi, le 28 janvier
Last night I had friends over, not so much a celebration as an excuse to clear the pantry of bottles that have been hanging around since time out of mind. Rang a few people, sent a few e-mails, all very last-minute. Happily, chez Jour is just large enough to accommodate the dozen or so who saw fit to turn up without anyone having to go out on the roof. And I’d hate to do that to a body in this weather, really I would.
At one point, discussing the painting of the Italian Renaissance and the Low Countries, the conversation segued elegantly to the revelation that there is an exhibition at the Royal Academy of pictures of women with come on them. If true, I am so there.
By 3 a.m. I was left with two rather drunken but helpful guests who collected bowls and glasses, loaded the dishwasher, and shooed out the neighbor’s cat. But they were clearly not in any condition to drive. Sleeping arrangements had to be sorted. Unfortunately, the two remainders were N and First Date, the fellow I disastrously slept with last week.
We hung on to the last shreds of conversation until it was far too late to do anything else. N was clearly not going anywhere in a hurry, and neither was First Date-I expect he wanted to get me alone again. It was well past my accustomed bedtime and I hoped one or the other of them would give up and go home, but they did not. “Well,” I said. “The bed sleeps two and there are three of us-so it’s the sofa for some unlucky soul, I believe.”
They looked at each other. They looked at me. Neither volunteered for the sofa. Neither volunteered for the bed.
“Seeing as the two of you are both tall, why don’t you boys take the bed? I’m the only one short enough to sleep here easily.” Again, no response. “Don’t all volunteer at once, guys.”
Another minute of silence passed while I tried to decipher the eyebrow semaphore that passed between them. “I’ll have the sofa,” First Date offered. We took turns changing in the bathroom and I brought out a quilt and two blankets before turning in. First Date spread out the blankets.
“It’s going to be cold tonight,” I said. “Won’t you use the quilt?”
He shrugged. “Leave it out, just in case.”
N and I went up to the bedroom. N shut the door. “Don’t do that,” I whispered. “He’ll think we’re having sex.” I pulled it ajar.
“Why do you care? Besides, he’s probably already asleep.”
I didn’t know why I cared. It just seemed a bad idea to close the door completely.
A few hours later I woke, mouth dry from too much alcohol. Walked down to the kitchen for a glass of water. First Date was curled tightly on the couch. He’d put on the quilt and looked very cold indeed. I went back up to the bedroom, took out the sheepskin, and wrapped it around his feet. He didn’t wake. jeudi, le 29 janvier
People are either more trusting than I expect them to be or I appear more trustworthy than I am. Recently I successfully strong-armed the landlady into a spot of redecoration at my place. With the excuse that most of the kitchen fittings need replacing anyway, I have made the case for a full-on Chintz Removal which will hopefully culminate in a pagan ritual in which all Colefax and Fowler prints are gleefully thrown onto a crackling blaze.
In the meantime, I will be experiencing minor household disturbance. Not unbelievable, mind, just inconvenient. I was talking to one of the As about the impending redesign recently.
“Well, if they get their pants together at work, I’ll be at a conference the next fortnight. Do you want the keys to mine?”
“Surely, darling, but aren’t you afraid I’ll spill something on the carpet?” A is notoriously fussy about his home and has been known to reserve only a single shelf for his girlfriend’s belongings. Even if she lives there.
“I trust you,” he said, sipping a whisky and soda. “I know you know how to iron the sections of the paper just as I like them.”
Ah, if only he were kidding.
Another case in point: a recent customer booked me for the better part of an evening at his own home. Having exhausted most of a bottle of gin, the springs of his bed, and all reasonable conversation, he slipped away for a quick shower.
Such interludes make me nervous. It’s not as if I plan to rob the place, but I am a compulsive confessor-even to things I haven’t done. At school if the entire form was being reprimanded for the action of a single student, I am sure I felt the guilt most of all. Especially if I wasn’t involved.
Most customers are wary of us anyway-when in their own home instead of a hotel, they more often put off the bathing ritual or suggest a joint shower, so as not to leave me alone. I’m not offended.
But this client, he threw on a dressing gown and scampered off to the bath. I sat on the couch. Considered pawing through his CD collection, but decided that would be rude. I carefully examined the watercolors on the wall. And with nothing more to do, no calls to make or return, nothing to read, I did what any reasonable person would do.
He emerged from the bathroom to find me busily washing up.
Perhaps I am more trustworthy than I thought. vendredi, le 30 janvier
Snow yesterday afternoon-near UCL, students dashed out of the Union and Archaeology to gather up handfuls of snow and throw them at each other. Clusters of girls walked by in twos and threes, huddling under umbrellas. Though it had gone dark, the light was calm, diffuse: a warm glow of streetlights reflecting off the puffy duvet-sized flakes coming down.
I went to meet A2, who hasn’t had a date any time this geological era. He recently hooked up with someone at a conference, though, a girl from Manchester. It seems a long way to go for sex. He assures me it isn’t just about the sex. A2 is a great chap, but an extremely poor liar.
We installed ourselves in a gastropub-cum-bar to watch the buses outside pile up in the icy street. It was one of these places with a high ratio of leather seating to bar space, where they turn up the music automatically at 7 p.m. regardless of how many customers are inside. We were practically shouting over the background noise to hear each other.
“So what do you think of latex?” A2 bellowed.
“Latex?” I asked, unsure if I misheard. “A good idea, generally.” Unhappily, I am discovering a recent sensitivity to the stuff, having come away from a blowjob at work with swollen, tingling lips. Hardly a scientific experiment, though. It could just as easily have been the spermicide on the Durex.
“No, I mean like-” he mimed putting on a rubber glove. “Latex. The feel of it, you know, for-”
“You’re talking about rubber sex already?”
“She’s a hell of a girl,” he mused. “So, have you ever done it?”
The squeaky squeaky? “Not full coverage, no. You mean with the catheter and head mask and everything? No.” Ugh. Up your urethra is probably the least arousing phrase I can imagine, ever.
“I so want to go there.”
“Careful, you’ll scare her off.”
“It was her idea. So-tips?”
“Lots of baby powder, I should think. I don’t even want to think about what this would smell like.”
“Mmm, I do.”
Where do people come up with this stuff? And wouldn’t it get rather sweaty in there? “Freak. You said this was-and I quote-not just a sex thing.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Who, me?” I put a hand to my chest in mock surprise. “I would absolutely never. I’m as pure as the you-know-what,” I said, nodding toward the snow outside.
“Sure you wouldn’t. You having another?” A2 yelled over a god-awful cover song by an unmentionable boy band.
“Something hot, if they have it. With plenty of alcohol. Only way to banish this music. And the mental image of you humping a blow-up doll.” samedi, le 31 janvier
In weather like this, one must admit defeat, ignore the “never too thin” mantra altogether and give in to a new paradigm. This can best be summarized as the tights-fishnets-socks under trousers, “please don’t let me have to use a public toilet juggling all this getup” design for life. It is perhaps a small price to pay for living in a winter wonderland of slush.