Kitabı oxu: «In at the Deep End»
Copyright
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Kate Davies 2019
Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photograph © Ros Roberts/Getty images
Kate Davies asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to events or actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008311346
Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008311360
Version: 2018-12-13
Dedication
To my one true Spud
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1. SEX NOISES
2. NO-MAN’S-LAND
3. THOSE AREN’T MY TITS
4. UNSEXY SEX
5. NEVER SAY NEVER
6. A SEXY, WORDLESS TONGUE CONVERSATION
7. LICKING THE SNAIL
8. WELCOME TO THE FAMILY
9. SCARY LESBIAN EYES
10. A SEX-CUPBOARD STAPLE
11. WHIPS ARE VERY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
12. A SALTY RIM
13. AUBERGINE EMOJI
14. TEFLON-COATED BY HAPPINESS
15. EMERGENCY DOUGHNUTS
16. NO ONE STARTS WITH JUST ONE JUGGLING BALL
17. I CAN REALLY SEE THAT YOU ARE A MAMMAL
18. AN UNUSUAL LESBIAN SAINT
19. ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET
20. MR LOVER LOVER
21. THE WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION
22. GIMP MASKS AND WAGON WHEELS
23. NOT THAT KIND OF MARRIED PERSON
24. I HOPE YOU’VE BROUGHT YOUR PYJAMAS
25. ALL OF THE BAD WORDS
26. SAM LOVES JULIA
27. THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS
28. A VERY ATTRACTIVE CAR CRASH
29. BAISE-MOI!
30. CONDOMS ON THE PILLOWS
31. MÉNAGE À TROIS
32. POLYAMORY FOR BEGINNERS
33. SAVING CONTENTMENT FOR MY RETIREMENT
34. ELIMINATION DAY
35. VINDICTIVELY CALM
36. VERY SCOTTISH TINNITUS
37. SHUT IT, YA BAWBAG!
38. SHRIVELLED PEA
39. A TERRIBLE HUMBLEBRAG
40. LEMON DRIZZLE v BLUEBERRY TART
41. EL JEFE
42. NO WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL
43. A COUPLE OF PIROUETTES
44. LOVE, ACTUALLY?
45. SHAG PILE VIRGIN
46. A DYKEY FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN
47. BACK
48. RESIDUE
49. WOW
50. CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR
51. IT’LL PASS
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
1. SEX NOISES
One Saturday morning last January, Alice pointed out that I hadn’t had sex in three years. I knew I’d been going through a dry patch – I’d been getting through vibrator batteries incredibly fast, and a few days previously I’d Googled penis just to remind myself what one looked like – but the full force of how much time I’d wasted not having sex hadn’t hit me till then.
The last time I’d had sex was nothing to write home about either, let me tell you. He was a twenty-one-year-old editorial assistant from Alice’s office with an unusually large forehead, and it happened after a terrible house party that left our flat stinking of pastis. I tried to take him to my room, but a couple were already in there, dry-humping on top of the duvet, so we did it on the fake leather sofa in the living room. I kept getting stuck to the sofa, sweat pooling in the gap beneath my lower back. I don’t think he’d ever fucked anyone before, so it was a bit awkward and thrusty, and he cried and hugged me for too long afterwards. It comes back to me in flashes all the time – I could be boarding a bus, washing my hair, or sitting on a particularly squeaky sofa when suddenly I see his clenched red face or his sweaty pubic hair and flinch involuntarily. Enough to put anyone off sex for, say, three years.
To be honest, I’d always preferred the idea of sex to sex itself. In my imagination, I was experimental, confident, uninhibited, a biter of shoulders, a user of words like ‘pussy’. I could think about sex in the filthiest terms and speak frankly about it to friends – but when it came to actually doing it, or talking to someone I might do it with, I clammed up. I struggled to think of myself as sexy when I was with another person. I struggled to say sexy things with a straight face. It all felt performative to me, ridiculous, too far removed from the way I behaved in a non-sexy context, like I was playing a part in a porn film, and playing it badly. I couldn’t even flirt convincingly, certainly not when I was sober. Which might go some way towards explaining why it had been so long since I’d fucked anyone.
Alice and Dave, on the other hand, did have sex. A surprising amount of it, actually, considering they’d been going out for five years. The Friday night before that Saturday morning, I was alone in the living room, trying to ignore the sex noises coming from their bedroom. Our flat had incredibly thin walls, so it was almost as if I were there with them. How can something that is so much fun when you’re doing it (though not always – see previous note about sweaty sofa sex) be so repulsive when overheard? I didn’t mind living with a couple; having three people in the flat brought the rent down. Also, Dave had several Ottolenghi cookbooks and some very tasteful mid-century furniture, so we were better fed and more stylish than we would have been without him. But sex-noise-wise, I’d had enough.
The next morning, I heard Alice walk Dave to the door. They whispered to each other revoltingly and kissed wetly. I sat on my bed, picking the dry skin on my fingers, practising my speech in my head.
Alice walked into my room without knocking; people tend to do that when there’s no risk you’ll be shagging. She sat on my bed, her hair rumpled, a post-coital smile on her face. ‘Do you fancy brunch?’ she said. ‘I’m starving.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ I said, which wasn’t how I’d intended to broach the subject.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why aren’t you surprised? What do you mean?’
‘Well – you and Dave sounded like you had fun last night.’
‘You listened to us having sex?’
‘I didn’t listen. I heard. It wasn’t an active choice.’
‘We weren’t that loud,’ said Alice, as though asking for reassurance.
‘You asked him to—’
‘To what?’
I looked away. ‘You know what you asked him to do.’
‘How do I know if you won’t say?’
‘Fine. You asked him to stick a finger up your arse.’
‘Julia!’
‘You’re the one that said it!’
‘That’s private!’
‘So keep your voices down!’
Alice’s cheeks were pink.
There was an unpleasant silence.
‘Did you really hear us?’
‘Yes! I always hear you!’
‘You can’t always hear us. We don’t even have sex that often any more—’
‘Three times a week isn’t often?’
‘Not for us.’
‘Well. I’m very happy for you.’
Another silence.
‘You wouldn’t care so much if you had a boyfriend too.’
‘I don’t want a boyfriend, thank you.’
‘Sex, then.’
‘I have sex.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she said. And that’s when she pointed it out, about the three years.
I went back to bed after that, and stayed there for most of the day, eating cheese and trying to remember what sex was like. I’d never had really, really good sex, the kind that resulted in the sort of noises I heard Alice and Dave making. Oral always felt a bit like someone was wiping a wet flannel over my nether regions, and having a man on top of me made me feel quite claustrophobic.
The thing is, sex had never been particularly high on my list of priorities. In my teens, I was too obsessed with becoming a dancer to worry about having a relationship. I did manage to lose my virginity after my first year at ballet school, though; my friend Cat took me to Jamaica to stay with her grandparents, and I did it on the beach with a boy named Derrick, who had terrible acne and a bottle of cheap rum, which is what led to the sex. We didn’t use a condom; the sheer terror I’d felt afterwards at the prospect of being pregnant and the mechanics of trying to procure a morning after pill without Cat’s grandparents finding out had put me off sex for years after that. I still can’t drink daiquiris. But I was pleased to have got it over with – I felt more sophisticated than the other girls in my year, enjoyed muttering wisely, ‘Don’t do what I did. Wait until you’re ready,’ whenever we talked about sex at sleepovers.
Then there was Leon. I met him during a Freshers’ Week toga party at Warwick. He’d looked very fetching in his white sheet, and it was only later that I realized he wore corduroy trousers every day. Nevertheless, we stayed together, right up until he dumped me just after graduation because he wanted to ‘travel the world’ and be ‘free of ties’. He moved to Peckham three months later and started a graduate training scheme in management consultancy.
Leon and I had quite fun sex in the early days – we tried out the reverse cowgirl, did it standing up in the shower, things like that – but by the end of the relationship he could only get in the mood by listening to the ‘Late Night Love’ playlist on Spotify, and I knew exactly where his hands would be at which point in each track, so it was a bit like an obscene, horizontal line dance. The boring sex was bad for both of us, self-esteem-wise, I think. After we broke up I decided to have a bit of a sex break, and the longer I left it, the scarier sex seemed, like crossing a big, naked Rubicon. I had a couple of drunken one-night stands – including the sofa sex – but most of the time going home alone seemed like a much more sensible, less humiliating option, and far less likely to lead to stubble rash.
I masturbated, though – I had a couple of reliable vibrators, a Rampant Rabbit and a small bullet-shaped one that I took on holiday with me. The only thing I didn’t have was someone to grab my breasts. I tried to do it to myself sometimes, but it wasn’t the same.
Dave made us roast beef that Wednesday night. As he was cooking, I sat on the sofa imagining myself fucking him – something I swear I’d never done before – and I found my heart speeding up a bit. Dave is objectively a very good-looking man, despite his massive beard. I found myself staring at the beard, wondering whether it got in the way during oral sex, and looking at his knuckles, imagining what they’d feel like inside me. I couldn’t look him in the eye for a little while after that. I didn’t really want Dave’s fingers inside me, honestly. But I did want something inside me. Something live and warm and moving and not made of pink latex.
I was more awkward than usual during dinner that night, which isn’t that surprising, really. Dave did most of the heavy lifting, conversation-wise, asking me lots of questions about work in his lovely northern accent and pretending to be interested in my answers, even though I was a civil servant at the Department of Health and Social Care, answering letters from members of the public about foster care and NHS waiting times and other things I’d rather not think about, and he was a graphic designer, which is both cooler and less depressing.
He passed me the horseradish and asked, ‘Get any good letters this week?’
People don’t usually send letters to the government unless they are very angry and very old. But there are exceptions.
‘Got another one from Eric,’ I said.
‘The Bomber Command vet?’
I nodded. ‘He’s upset about the cuts to social care.’
‘Didn’t he write to you about that last month?’ Alice asked, through a mouthful of beef.
‘Last month it was the standard of hospital meals.’
‘Getting old’s a bastard, isn’t it?’ Dave said, but his eyes were fixed on Alice, and I could tell he was playing footsie with her under the table. I stared down and concentrated on the steam curling up from my potatoes, but the footsie continued.
There was a pause in the foot fondling while Alice cleared the table and served our dessert (Ben & Jerry’s), but then it started up again, and it put me off my ice cream – no easy feat. So I ate it as quickly as I could, then pushed my chair back.
‘Thanks for cooking, Dave,’ I said.
‘No worries,’ he said, smiling at Alice.
Alice looked up at me. ‘Stay and hang out with us,’ she said. ‘There’s that Benedict Cumberbatch thing on tonight.’
‘I’m not really into Cumberbatch,’ I said. ‘And I’ve got a bit of a headache.’
I went to my room and switched on my TV. I tried to watch a cooking show, but Alice and Dave were soon snogging so loudly that I could hear them above the shouty presenter. So I opened my laptop and put my headphones on, and then I switched on private browsing and searched for real couples on Pornhub.
There’s something comforting about watching ordinary people having sex; I always think I’d probably do it better than them. Maybe that’s not the point of porn, but I don’t care – their incompetence turns me on. I clicked on a video and watched a thin, pale man adjust his shaky video camera and walk over to the bed where an overweight woman was waiting for him. I pulled my trousers down to my ankles and started to wank as the pale man slapped himself arrhythmically into his partner. That’ll show the patriarchy, I thought. I’m going to give myself an amazing orgasm in about two minutes, because I know how to push my own buttons – I don’t need a man to do it for me.
But then it was over, and I felt hollow and desperate to come again. The video ended, and an ad for Hot local sluts popped up. I flinched and clicked on it to make it go away, but I accidentally clicked on the ad instead, and a woman with huge, spherical breasts filled my screen, panting and rubbing her nipples. I tried to shut it down, but hundreds of windows had popped up, each one filled with hot blondes, or dirty Russians, or naughty teens, like endless mirrors reflected in mirrors. Looking at them turned me on, and that made me feel sordid again, so I slapped down the lid of my laptop and hugged my pillow. It didn’t hug me back.
I told Nicky about my unsatisfying wank. Bringing it up was a bit awkward; it was only my third session and I wasn’t that comfortable with her yet. I wasn’t that comfortable with the idea of being in therapy at all; I never thought I’d have a shrink at 26, even a semi-amateur one. A therapist feels like the sort of thing only glamorous New Yorkers should have, the kind who can afford to buy olives from Dean & DeLuca and who say things like ‘My ob-gyn told me to eat less wheat.’ This is how it happened: I’d been suffering from constant, low-level anxiety, the sort of feeling you get when you realize you’ve forgotten to turn the hob off, but all the time. Then one day I had a panic attack in the middle of a team meeting about letterheads at work, probably triggered by the fact that I have a job which involves team meetings about letterheads. Nobody noticed – it was a subtle panic attack – but that evening I burst into tears in the middle of the Sainsbury’s frozen-food aisle, holding a packet of fishcakes. So I went to the GP.
‘Would you say that you’ve been excessively worried, more days than not, for over six months?’ the GP asked, looking down at a checklist.
‘I don’t know if I’d say excessively worried.’
‘What sort of things are you worried about?’
‘Just – everything, really.’
‘Probably excessive then.’ She smiled at me. ‘Do you think the world is an innately good or evil place?’
‘Definitely good,’ I said, pleased, because I knew that was the correct answer.
‘And you haven’t thought about hurting yourself? You don’t have suicidal thoughts?’
‘Never.’
‘Do you feel like you can’t cope with everyday things?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have trouble making decisions?’
‘Not really.’
‘And do you often find yourself crying for no reason?’
‘No. I mean – I cry quite a lot, but I usually have a reason.’
‘OK,’ said the GP. ‘It’s unlikely that you have clinical depression.’
‘Hooray!’ I said, giving myself a little cheer.
The GP smiled again – a patient smile, I now realize, looking back on it. ‘You appear to have what we call Generalized Anxiety Disorder,’ she told me.
I was very excited to have an actual disorder.
‘I’ll refer you for talking therapy,’ she said. ‘But it might be better to go private – the NHS waiting list is nine months long.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘The Department of Health and Social Care gets a lot of letters complaining about that.’
I felt calmer than I had in ages. I went home and Googled cheap counsellor north London anxiety, and Nicky’s name came up. She was still training to be a therapist, which is why I could afford her, and she had an un-therapist-like way of voicing her very strong opinions on almost every topic. When I told her about the anxiety, and about feeling lost and directionless in life, she said it was no wonder I was anxious, and that my job sounded so dull they should ‘prescribe it to insomniacs’.
Anyway, I told Nicky about the wank. I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into the armchair as I spoke, as though it was recoiling from me. She didn’t recoil, though. She wanted to know all about it.
‘What did the couple look like?’
‘Does that matter?’
‘I don’t know until you tell me.’
‘She was overweight and black. He was skinny and white.’
‘Aha.’ She nodded in a therapist-like way.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ She scribbled something in her notebook and underlined it several times.
‘Do you often masturbate thinking about Alice?’ she continued.
‘I wasn’t thinking about her!’
‘But you said you were wanking out of resentment.’
‘I was pissed off with them for having such loud sex, that’s all.’
‘Because you’re not getting any?’ She gazed at me, unblinking.
‘Look, I’m not repressed, all right? I’d have sex if anyone wanted to have sex with me, but no one has for ages.’
‘So you’re just waiting for someone to offer it to you on a plate.’
‘Well, no—’
‘That’s what it sounds like to me. It’s just like your career. You’ve just decided to sit back and stay in this dead-end temp job—’
‘I’m a contractor, actually, not a temp. And I might apply for the Fast Stream this year,’ I said.
‘Why didn’t you apply last year?’
I hadn’t applied because that would mean saying ‘I’m a civil servant’ when people at parties asked, ‘What do you do?’ and then having to answer a lot of questions about NHS funding and whether I approve of the government. I hate it when people ask, ‘What do you do?’ I assume everyone does, even if the answer is ‘I’m a novelist,’ or ‘I’m a surgeon specialising in babies’ hands,’ because even then you know someone will say, ‘Will you show my book to your agent?’ or ‘Can you look at this lump on my finger?’ I missed being able to say, ‘I’m a dancer.’
I looked at the floor. There was some sort of stain on the carpet – ketchup, possibly.
‘You need to make an effort with your career,’ Nicky said. ‘It’s the same as your love life. You’re not prepared to put yourself out there.’
‘I’m not going to go looking for a relationship. I don’t need one to make me complete. I’m independent.’
She put down her notebook. ‘Are you independent?’ she asked. ‘Or are you really, really sad?’
I maintained a dignified silence.
‘It’s OK to cry,’ she said.
‘I’m not that sad,’ I said.
‘Just let it out.’
‘I’m not crying,’ I said, which wasn’t strictly true.
She handed me the tissue box triumphantly.
I called Cat on my way home from Nicky’s. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts, and I could always rely on Cat to tell me an anecdote about her terrible career to put my problems in perspective.
‘Do you fancy a drink?’ I asked, when she picked up the phone.
‘I wish,’ she said. ‘I’m in Birmingham. Doing the life cycle of the frog again.’ She sounded a little out of breath. She’d probably been having energetic sex too.
‘When are you back?’ I asked, sidestepping a puddle.
‘Not for ages,’ she said. ‘It’s a UK tour.’
‘Ooh!’
‘Of primary schools.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m probably going to get nits again. Or impetigo.’
Cat couldn’t get work as a dancer after school – every company she auditioned for said, ‘You have the wrong body type,’ which is the legal way of saying ‘You’re black.’ But instead of doing what I did when my dance career ended – moving back in with my parents and swearing never to perform again, except to sing my signature version of ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ at karaoke nights – she retrained as an actor. Now she earned most of her money performing in Theatre in Education shows, playing roles like ‘frog’ and ‘plastic bottle that won’t disintegrate’ and ‘uncomfortably warm polar bear’. I think we probably stayed close over the years because neither of us could stand our other friends from dance school, with their OMG I just got cast in Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake! #Blessed Instagram posts. I did feel envious of Cat sometimes, though. She still got to experience the thrill of applause, even though the people applauding sometimes pulled each other’s hair and had to be sent to the naughty corner.
‘Lacey’s playing the frogspawn,’ Cat continued, ‘and she won’t stop going on about the musical she’s writing about periods.’
‘I bet that’s actually going to be really successful,’ I said.
‘It is, isn’t it? Oh God …’
I heard a muffled sort of stretching sound on the other end of the line.
‘Are you taking your tadpole costume off?’ I asked her. ‘Go on, sing me the tadpole song again.’
‘I’m the frog this time. Fucking green leotard is a size too small.’
‘You’ve been promoted!’
‘Very funny,’ said Cat. ‘One of the kids came up to me today and said, “You’re not a real frog. You’re too big.” I swear six-year-olds are getting stupider.’ More stretching and shuffling, and then a grunt of effort. ‘Got it off.’
‘So now you’re naked.’
‘Yep. This is basically phone sex,’ she said.
‘This is the closest I’ve come to a shag in three years.’ I gave myself a mental pat on the back. At least I could joke about it.
‘I thought I had it bad,’ Cat said. ‘Lacey’s been shagging Steve, the new tadpole, all tour, and I’ve been feeling like a total third wheel.’
‘You’re best off out of that,’ I said. ‘Tadpoles shagging frogspawn is all wrong. Sort of like incest.’ I tucked my phone under my chin and unlocked the front door.
‘How are you anyway? How’s work?’ asked Cat.
‘Too boring to talk about.’
‘You need a creative outlet outside work.’
‘No thanks,’ I said. All I wanted to do was watch TV without listening to people have sex. I sat on the sofa, coat still on, and felt around between the cushions for the remote. Come Dine with Me was on, and Alice and Dave were out. This was shaping up to be a good evening.
2. NO-MAN’S-LAND
I was a little late to work the next day, so my usual desk was taken. I waved at Owen, who I usually sit with, across the grey no-man’s-land of desks and chairs. I could feel other people looking up at me from the trenches, so I ducked down into the nearest seat, next to Stan, one of the press officers. I usually try to avoid Stan, because he breathes loudly and eats crisps all day. An unsociable combination. This morning he’d gone for salt and vinegar rather than cheese and onion, which was a blessing.
I couldn’t concentrate on logging the new emails and letters – my session with Nicky was still playing on my mind – so I pulled out the latest letter from Eric, the Bomber Command vet, written on thin, yellowing lined paper in shaky blue biro, and started drafting my reply.
You’re not supposed to draft a stock response to government correspondence – you’re supposed to treat each letter writer as an individual. There are guidelines that tell you how to address a Baroness (‘Baroness Jones, not Lady Jones; it’s important to distinguish Baronesses from women who become Ladies when their husbands become Sirs’) and how to refuse an invitation to a Minister (‘Unfortunately, pressures on her diary are so great that she must regretfully decline’). Sometimes you take letters to the Minister for their signature. Sometimes, if the letter isn’t addressed to the Minister, you sign it yourself. Some people write back over and over again, so working on the correspondence team is a bit like having lots of self-righteous pen pals. Eric, the Bomber Command veteran, wasn’t self-righteous, though.
The care home staff are under so much pressure that they don’t have as much time to spend with us as they used to. I think the cuts to social care are a crying shame. Older people are an easy target, because once we reach a certain age, we’re hidden away out of sight.
Most of the old dears at my care home don’t get any visitors at all. That just breaks my heart. I’m lucky – I have a daughter who comes and sees me twice a week. She’s very good. But it’s very lonely getting older. I miss Eve, my wife, more than I can tell you. She died four years ago. Have I told you about her already?
Lovely Eric. He reminded me of my granddad, who I missed every day. When I was at university, Granddad had written to me every month or so, in wobbly, old-fashioned handwriting, telling me stories about his allotment and his cats, always slipping a ten-pound note into the envelope. I had usually been too busy getting drunk to write back. So I took extra care with my letters to Eric. I typed out the old lines about difficult choices and austerity, and then I asked him to tell me more about his wife, because I knew what it was like to be lonely. I caught myself thinking: At least he had a wife. And then I realized that being envious of a bereaved care home resident was taking self-pity too far, and decided to pull myself together.
I finished my letter and I was wrangling with the printer – usually you have to put the headed notepaper in face down, with the letterhead closest to the printer, but someone had fiddled with the settings – when I saw Owen heading to the kitchen for a coffee. I decided to corner him.
I glanced into the hallway to check that no one was about to interrupt our conversation and asked, ‘How long has it been since you had sex?’
Owen spends most nights gaming, and most of his lunch breaks reading comic books, and not a lot of time with members of the opposite sex. So I thought his response to my question would make me feel better. I was wrong.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Two and a half hours.’
‘You had sex this morning?’
‘That’s right.’ Owen crossed his arms and smirked.
‘No need to be so smug about it.’
‘But I am smug!’ said Owen. ‘Do you know how long it had been before I met Laura? Four years.’ He grabbed my arm and gave it a little shake. ‘Over four years. I hadn’t had a shag since I was twenty-four!’
I felt slightly better after that. ‘I haven’t had sex in three years.’
I could see Owen trying to arrange his face into an expression of sympathy. ‘Poor you,’ he said.
‘So. Who’s Laura?’
He shrugged. ‘We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks.’
‘Great.’ I nodded and smiled, as convincingly as I could.
‘She does roller derby. She has tattoos all over her thighs.’
‘I don’t think I need to hear about her thighs,’ I said, lowering my voice as a group of Fast Streamers walked past the kitchen, speaking to each other in low voices as if they knew something we didn’t, which they undoubtedly did.
‘Sex is great,’ he said, smiling to himself in a way that let me know he was thinking about Laura’s thighs. Or what was between them. Grim. ‘I’d forgotten how good it is.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Don’t rub it in.’
The sex chat made us late to our team meeting. Owen and I huffed into the glass-walled meeting room, breathless, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ as we sat down.
Tom didn’t look up. He had a very passive aggressive management style – that’s what I’d have liked to say in the annual Staff Engagement Survey, but our team was so small I thought he’d trace the feedback to me and passive-aggressively punish me for it. Probably by making me answer all the correspondence about Brexit.
There were three of us on our immediate team besides Tom: me, Owen and Uzo, who was smiling up at me kindly now. Uzo was always smiling at me kindly. She’d been working on the correspondence team for twenty years and had the least ambition of anyone I’d ever met. Whenever I messed up, she’d say things like, ‘Don’t worry, girl. You won’t care when you’ve worked here as long as me,’ and I’d go and quietly hyperventilate in the toilets. She did have a lovely collection of statement necklaces, though.
‘As I was about to say,’ said Tom, still not looking up, ‘they’re bringing in a new Grade Six.’
Owen and I looked at each other.
‘What, another senior manager?’ said Owen.
‘Yes, Owen,’ said Tom, smiling his tight smile.
‘Above you?’ said Owen.
‘Yes,’ said Tom, his smile tighter still. ‘Above me.’
‘But we thought you were going to be promoted,’ said Owen.
‘Yes, well. So did I,’ said Tom. He fiddled with his tie.
‘Fuck,’ said Uzo, which, to be fair, was what the rest of us were thinking.
‘And I have it on good authority that the new Grade Six is hardline on swearing in the workplace.’
‘Shit,’ said Uzo.
‘That was a joke,’ said Tom.
‘What’s his name?’ asked Uzo.
‘Her name,’ said Tom, ‘is Smriti Laghari. I’m pleased to see you were paying attention during unconscious bias training.’ Sarcasm was another of Tom’s management techniques.
Owen took out his phone and started Googling Smriti. ‘She’s with Private Office at the moment. Used to be a banker.’
Groans from around the table. Former bankers were the worst for trying to make the Civil Service more efficient, which often meant getting rid of people and cutting ‘luxuries’ such as having enough desks for people to sit at.
‘According to LinkedIn, her interests include Cardiff University, Pineapple Dance Studios and the London Amateur Violinists’ Network,’ continued Owen.
‘I can play the cello,’ said Uzo. ‘Maybe we could form a quartet. Ha!’
Tom closed his eyes a moment, as though trying to gather his strength. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘We just need to cut down on the backlog before she gets here. Let’s show her what a brilliant, efficient team we are. Shall we?’
We stared at him. He had never used the words ‘brilliant’ or ‘efficient’ to describe us before. Nor, it’s safe to say, had anyone else.
It was dark by the time I left work. I called my mother as I walked down Victoria Street to the Tube, trying not to slip on the lethal rotten leaves that covered the pavement.
‘It’s me,’ she said, as she picked up.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I called you.’
‘Oh, sorry. I’m a bit distracted. I’m on the computer, doing the Sainsbury’s shop. They have a very good offer on olive oil, if you need any.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, imagining her in the lovely warm kitchen in leafy North Oxford, my dad at the table next to her, reading his undergraduates’ essays and grumbling about how badly academics are paid these days. I suddenly wanted to be there with them. ‘How are you?’
‘Awful, if you must know,’ she said. ‘The neighbours are digging out the basement and doing a loft conversion.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’
‘A nightmare. Nothing but dust and banging. And the mess in the street. They’ve thrown away the Victorian doors!’
‘Not the original features!’ I said.
‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Julia,’ she said. ‘The house is going to look ridiculous. And it’s not as if they need more space. There are only four of them! They’re knocking down all the walls downstairs to build an entertainment centre.’
I was approaching a new tower block on the corner of Vauxhall Bridge Road. It looked like a middle finger, mocking me.
‘Sorry, darling,’ said Mum. ‘You caught me at a bad time. They just came round for a chat about the party wall and called our kitchen “quaint”. What can I do for you, anyway?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m about to get on the Tube.’
‘Wait, darling. What were you calling to tell me?’
‘Nothing much. Just a new Grade Six joining our unit.’
‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘What does that mean?’
‘She’s going to be in charge of our department. It sounds like she might want to make things more efficient.’
‘I’m sure you’re very efficient, darling.’
‘No, I’m not. And I’m a contractor, so I’m easy to get rid of.’
‘No one has said anything about you losing your job yet. Have they?’
‘No.’
‘Well then. Anyway, it’s not as though you’re the Health Secretary.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Come on, darling. You know what I mean. You’re selling yourself short, staying in that job.’
‘I’m not qualified for anything else!’
‘Rubbish! You could train to become a Pilates teacher. Or an osteopath.’
‘You think osteopaths are quacks!’
‘Fine. A barrister then!’
‘Be serious.’
‘You could! You could go to law school!’
‘Who’s going to pay for that?’ I said.
‘Or edit books, like Alice does. You have exactly the same qualifications as her.’
‘Yeah, because that’s a great way to make money. She’s been doing it for five years and she still has “assistant” in her job title.’
I heard her sigh.
‘I miss dancing, Mum,’ I said.
‘Of course you do,’ she said. ‘But I did warn you.’
That felt like a low blow, but it was true. Mum had been a ballerina too, and had done all right for herself – a stint at the Royal Ballet, dancing as soloist in a couple of Kenneth MacMillan productions – but it’s hard to have children and keep dancing, so she retired soon after meeting my dad. ‘You’ll be washed up at thirty,’ she had told me, when I got into ballet school. ‘You’ll feel guilty every time you eat a potato. And you’ll never meet a man who isn’t a homosexual.’ But I was sixteen, and when you’re sixteen thirty is ancient, and anyway, being washed up is sort of glamorous, the way being addicted to painkillers is glamorous. I didn’t think I’d be over the hill at nineteen, though. The summer after I graduated – after, against the odds, I’d been hired by the English National Ballet for their production of The Nutcracker – I broke my ankle turning a pirouette on a sticky floor during class and that was the end of that.
I think it was Martha Graham who said that a dancer dies twice and that the first death – the one that comes when you stop dancing – is the most painful. I didn’t know what I was, if I wasn’t a dancer. I didn’t know who I was, either. I felt like the only good and interesting thing about me had been taken away. I still felt like that, sometimes.
‘Look, darling,’ said Mum, ‘I know it’s hard. But I find a lot of satisfaction in doing walking tours. It appeals to the performer in me. You could come home for a while and try it out, see if you like it.’
‘That’s never going to happen,’ I said.
‘Well. The option’s there if you need it.’
I didn’t say anything. The idea of moving home and working at my mother’s walking-tour company made me want to die.
‘I’m not leaving London. All my friends live in London,’ I said, really wallowing in it now. ‘Not that it matters. They’re basically all in relationships. Everyone has someone except me.’ My voice rose to a squeak. ‘I thought I was independent. But I’m just really sad.’
‘Your therapist told you that, didn’t she?’
‘She’s very intuitive.’
‘You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. If you want to meet someone, go online! Isn’t that what everyone else is doing these days?’
‘Last time I went on a Tinder date, the bloke talked for half an hour about why Dysons are the only vacuum cleaners worth buying. And he made fun of how quickly I eat.’
‘Well, darling, you do tend to bolt food down—’
‘Plus I kept getting—’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just – horrible messages.’
Mum whispered, ‘Dick pics?’
‘Yes,’ I said. And then: ‘How do you know about dick pics?’
‘They were talking about them on Woman’s Hour,’ she said. ‘Repulsive!’
‘Exactly.’
‘Still, darling. You can’t complain until you’ve really put yourself out there.’
‘That’s what my therapist said.’
‘Maybe she’s not completely hopeless then.’ She sighed again. ‘Listen, I have to go. If I don’t pay for this shop in two minutes I lose my delivery slot. Do you want to come up for dinner tonight?’
‘No thanks, I’m OK,’ I said.
‘All right. But you’re coming for Dad’s birthday?’
‘Yes.’
‘He wants a nice shirt or a biography of Hitler.’
‘OK.’
‘Take up gardening. It’ll do wonders for your anxiety levels.’
‘I don’t have a garden.’
‘You can always come over and help me with the pruning.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Are you feeling better?’
It took me a moment to reply. ‘A little bit.’
‘Remember, being alone isn’t the same as being lonely. Believe me, being single is a damn sight better than being with someone who makes you miserable.’
In the background, my father muttered, ‘I heard that, Jenny.’
So I gave in, and that Friday, I ‘put myself out there’ for the first time. I’d been watching a lot of US box sets on Netflix, which led me to believe that sitting alone at a bar knocking back shots was acceptable, even attractive, behaviour; it always seemed to lead to handsome strangers saying ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ and whisking you upstairs for well-lit sex. But it didn’t quite happen like that for me.
I live in Manor House, which is convenient if you like the Piccadilly line and Finsbury Park and kebab shops, but not if you’re looking for a ‘putting yourself out there’ location. I decided to walk down to the Rose and Crown in Stokey; I’d seen Jarvis Cocker there once, and I’ve always found him attractive, despite the age difference. Apparently he used to live in Paris, and I thought his voice would sound sexy saying ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?’ or perhaps something slightly smoother. Not that I expected him to do all the chatting up.
I felt quite powerful when I was getting ready to go out. I’d never been to a pub on my own before. It seemed like the sort of thing a grown-up, sexy, independent person might do – I could see myself swishing in, stilettos clacking, leather skirt squeaking erotically, as I signalled authoritatively to the barman for a shot of vodka. Now, I didn’t own a leather skirt, and I always find it hard to get a barman’s attention, but whatever. I was a good-looking woman taking charge of her own destiny! Maybe I’d find someone I sparked with. Or someone who didn’t laugh when I did my ‘sexy’ face – I’d settle for that at this point.
I put on my good pair of underpants (not as faded as the others) just in case I got lucky, and my most flattering jeans. I didn’t have a clean bra, but hopefully the lighting would be low if I got to the point of taking my top off. I considered wearing heels, then remembered that I’d once bruised my coccyx dancing the ‘Macarena’ in a pair of wedges, so I went for trainers instead. I brushed my hair and nodded to myself in the mirror. ‘Looking good, Julia,’ I said out loud, panicking momentarily before I remembered that Alice was out at a book launch and wouldn’t hear me chatting myself up. (A low point.)
I left our flat and marched down Green Lanes towards the pub listening to the ‘Young, Wild and Free’ playlist on Spotify, my heart beating louder than the music, my breath white in the cold night air. I was alive! Anything could happen!
And then I was at the Rose and Crown and the whole thing suddenly seemed like a terrible idea. The windows were steamed up with the breath of everyone having a lovely time inside without me. But I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d turned back.
I pushed the door open and did my best to swish my way to the bar. It wasn’t easy – the pub was packed with tight-knit groups of friends, laughing at in-jokes, not looking particularly open to being chatted up by lone women. There was no sign of Jarvis anywhere. I sat at the bar and drank a large glass of house red incredibly quickly, trying to catch someone’s eye, but I was hemmed in by tall men leaning over me to order drinks, knocking into me with their rucksacks.
One man did notice me – an old bald man with a very red nose at the other end of the bar. As he raised his pint to me, I looked away, and then realized that I probably looked just like him – a lonely borderline alcoholic, albeit younger and with more hair.
I rummaged around in my bag for a bit after that, trying to look purposeful, a ‘Where are my paracetamol?’ expression on my face – and then my phone buzzed with a text from Alice: Where are you, Jules? Me and Dave going to a party with some of his friends, want to come?
I ran all the way home, my vision jarring as my feet pounded the pavement in that fun way it does when you’ve had some wine and you’re about to have a lot more.
3. THOSE AREN’T MY TITS
The party was at a warehouse in Hackney Wick, which was quite exciting – the sort of place trendy people who have lots of sex might go on a Friday night, I thought. As we walked up the concrete stairs, edging past a couple in his-and-hers fur coats drinking rum straight from the bottle, my body began to pulse with possibility. Who knew what was on the other side of that door?
‘So my friend Jane lives here with about six other artists,’ said Dave, knocking on the door. ‘She’s a conceptual painter. Her work is kind of confrontational – you’ll see what I mean in a minute.’
The door swung open and we edged our way into the warehouse, past a DJ playing electro on actual decks. The walls were covered in canvases splashed with phrases like You’re a cunt and What are you looking at?
I stopped in front of a huge blue square bearing the words No one likes you.
‘Sell a lot of these, does she?’ I said to Dave, but he was standing at the makeshift bar with his arm around Alice, pouring vodka into two plastic cups.
I looked back at the painting. I was beginning to take it personally.
‘What do you think?’ A woman had sidled up next to me and was standing with her arms crossed. She had a blunt bob and was wearing high-waisted trousers; she looked just like I do in the daydreams where I’m a bohemian novelist (and part-time detective) living in Berlin.
‘They give a lovely homely feel to the place,’ I said.
‘Ha!’ she said, and turned to face me. ‘I like that. You’re funny.’ She held my gaze for longer than was comfortable.
‘You painted them, didn’t you?’ I said.
‘Yep.’
I opened my mouth to say something, but my humiliation had slowed down my thought process a bit.
She waved away my embarrassment with her hand. ‘To be fair, I was going through a bad break-up at the time,’ she said. ‘My new stuff’s much softer. I’ll show you some of it.’ She caught me by the hand and pulled me through the fog of sweaty, dancing bodies to the far end of the warehouse.
‘Here,’ she said. She pointed to a pink canvas with curving purple script that read Your cunt tastes delicious. ‘What does this one make you feel?’
I considered the painting. ‘Flattered? Sort of?’
She raised her eyebrows.
I turned back to the canvas. ‘Violated’ was the honest answer, so I said that out loud, and she seemed pleased. ‘Are these all things someone has said to you?’
‘They’re things I’ve wanted to say to people but never worked up the nerve.’ She looked me in the eye again. Not smiling any more.
‘Right,’ I said, focusing on the painting while I thought of something to say. Was she hitting on me? ‘I guess you’re going out with someone you like now, then.’ I said.
‘Nah,’ she said, shrugging. ‘It was a one-time thing.’
‘Right,’ I said again.
‘You seeing anyone?’ she asked. I could feel her eyes on me.
‘Not right now,’ I said, still not looking at her.
‘You ever been with a woman?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said, flicking my gaze at her and away again straight away. I wasn’t drunk enough for that level of intense eye contact.
‘You should try it,’ she said.
‘Maybe I will!’ I said, in an Enid Blyton sort of voice. I started nodding and didn’t seem to be able to stop. ‘Do you need another drink?’
‘Nah, it’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m on the K. Want some?’ She held out a wrap.
I looked at the wrap. It was made of a flyer for a club night that I’d never been to; the photos on Facebook were full of trendy genderqueer people and I’d always assumed I was too boring to get in. This was my chance to be cool, to be young and spontaneous.
I’d always vaguely wondered what it would be like to be with a woman; I had occasionally masturbated while thinking about Beyoncé, and I’d even half-heartedly come out as bi to Cat when we were 17. We’d talked about it in whispers, and hugged melodramatically, and then somehow I just sort of … forgot about it. Maybe I should seize the moment, have a line of ketamine and a little light lesbian sex. But I’d just read an article in the Guardian about ketamine damaging your bladder, and I can’t even handle cystitis without wanting to scratch my insides out. Besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted Jane to taste my cunt. Apart from anything else, she was obviously a cunt connoisseur, and I wasn’t sure mine would be up to standard. I couldn’t think of anything worse than being the subject of a painting that said something like You need to trim your pubic hair, or Your cunt did not taste as good as that other cunt.
So I shook my head.
‘Another time then,’ she said, already on her way to the toilets.
I looked around for Alice and Dave, but they were dancing in a corner, foreheads together, grinding into each other like a pestle and mortar. I needed wine, a pint of red wine, preferably. There was none in the bar area so I walked around the edge of the room, picking up every bottle I came across. They were all empty or dark with cigarette ash, the butts floating on the surface like drowned flies.
I took out my phone and texted Cat. At a party with Alice and Dave. They are basically having sex on dance floor. Help.
She replied straight away: If you can’t beat em join em, mate. And she put a wink emoji at the end. She knows I hate the wink emoji.
Eventually I found a half-full bottle of vodka on a windowsill and took a swig. It was like a delicious slap in the face, if there can be such a thing. I stood there for a while, drinking and watching the people on the dance floor. Almost everyone was in a couple – a relatively recent one, judging by the level of groping that was going on. I turned and looked out of the window, over rows of graffitied brick walls towards the glow of the Olympic Park, the party behind me reflected in the glass. Fuck this, I thought to myself, drinking a bit more vodka. I was not going to stand there staring mournfully out of a window like a Jane Austen heroine. I too could have a casual fuck. I’d turned over a sexy new leaf. Conceptual artists wanted to have lesbian sex with me. I would find a man and I would snog him. Maybe I’d even bang him if the snog got me in the mood.
I took another swig from the bottle – a longer one this time, till my gag reflex kicked in and my body started to buzz – and then I walked with purpose into the thick of the party, giving what I thought were sultry come-hither looks to the men I passed.
Everything is a little bit blurry after that. Or soft-focus – let’s go with soft-focus. I remember dancing for a while, standing in a big circle, opposite an angular woman in dungarees who was waving her cigarette around above her head, the tip striping the air with fire. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jane emerge from the toilets. She felt her way around the room, her hands against the wall, clearly not trusting herself not to fall over. I looked down at my vodka bottle and was surprised to find it almost empty.
I don’t remember how I met him. The first thing I remember is pushing him out of the circle towards the fire escape, both of my hands on his back, the two of us stumbling and laughing. And the next thing I remember is being pressed up against him, him stroking my face and murmuring to me in his sexy Irish voice. He had green-brown eyes and very red lips, and stubble. He smelled a bit like he hadn’t washed in a few days, but there was something appealing about that, something raw and masculine and unconventional.
I kissed him first. I’m proud of myself for that. He kissed back and pushed me against the fire escape railing so it dug into my back. I closed my eyes and let my hands wander over his arse, using his body to turn myself on. I’d bloody done it. I was touching another human being. I’d broken the bloody spell.
‘Come home with me, like.’ He breathed into my ear, hot and damp. ‘I want to see what’s underneath that T-shirt.’
It occurred to me that the answer to that question was ‘an old M&S multi-pack bra’.
‘I don’t know …’ It was so fucking nice to feel the warmth of another human being, but the world was beginning to tilt and lurch, and the vodka was threatening to reappear.
‘Your tits are so firm,’ he said, running a hand over the pointy edges of my ribcage.
‘Those aren’t my tits,’ I said, picking up his hand and moving it upwards.
He laughed. ‘Thank fuck for that. Come to the toilets with me.’
That’s when Alice’s face appeared over his shoulder. She gave me two thumbs up and ducked away.
I pulled away from him and called to Alice. ‘Wait!’ I began to walk back into the warehouse.
He grabbed my hand. ‘What, you’re not going, are you?’
‘Yeah. Sorry. Thanks, though.’
‘Swap numbers then?’
‘Sure.’ He gave me his phone and I typed in my number with the slow deliberation of the extremely drunk.
My phone buzzed in the taxi on the way home. Gonna dream about you tonight ;) Finn x
I smiled to myself. I’m going to have sex with you, Finn, I thought. And if you’re lucky, I’ll let you have sex with me back.
I couldn’t quite believe how bad my hangover was the next morning. I could practically feel my brain knocking against the sides of my skull when I moved. I lay on my back, as still as possible. What had happened to me last night? Why did I feel like I’d been rubbing a cheese grater against my cheek?
I had a sudden vision of an empty bottle of vodka and a fire escape and a hand fondling my ribcage. Finn. Finn and his stubble. I’d snogged Finn.
Even though I was concentrating very hard on breathing in and out and not vomiting, I felt very pleased with myself. I had kissed an actual man – I had not forgotten how. And although I couldn’t imagine enjoying anything at all at that particular moment, I had a feeling I’d really enjoyed the kiss, too.
Not only that, but I had been about two units of alcohol away from fucking him on a ketamine-covered toilet cistern in Hackney Wick. I closed my eyes and thanked the universe that I hadn’t had sex for the first time in years while in a vodka coma. I wanted to remember such a momentous occasion.
I was woken again by Alice opening my door, which was a little awkward, as I wasn’t wearing any clothes. She handed me a cup of tea; as I took it, I had to clutch the duvet with my chin so she didn’t get a flash of nipple.
‘Feeling rough?’ she said cheerfully.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do we have any Haribo, or crisps or anything?’ I took a sip of tea. It seemed to curdle in my mouth.
‘I’ll get you some later. Tell me about the guy you snogged!’ Her arms were crossed. She was far too excited about it.
‘I don’t really remember …’
‘He had great hair. Reddish.’
‘Did he?’ I said, putting my tea down and delicately lowering myself onto my back again.
‘Yes! I couldn’t really see his face, though, the angle you were at.’
‘He definitely smelled quite masculine,’ I said, closing my eyes. I could hear birds singing and the pounding of the blood in my head.
Alice took the hint. She padded out of the room, ostentatiously quietly, and returned clutching a pack of Haribo Starmix.
‘Thank you,’ I said, and she sat there, smiling at me indulgently, as I piled the sweets into my mouth, one after the other.
I had a mouth full of cola bottles when my phone started to ring. I reached out for it, swallowing hastily and narrowing my eyes against the glare of the screen.
It was Finn.
I waved Alice out of the room. She went as slowly as she could, clearly trying to overhear as much of our conversation as possible.
‘I feel like shit this morning,’ said Finn. His voice was deeper than I remembered, a lazy drawl.
‘I literally think I’m about to die,’ I said.
‘Not because of me, I hope,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said, trying to ignore Alice, who was standing in the doorway, grinning at me.
‘Cool,’ he said. ‘So, like – do you want to go for a drink sometime then?’ He sounded like he wasn’t arsed either way, and yet he obviously was arsed, because here he was calling me the morning after we’d met. ‘Next Friday maybe?’
‘Sounds good,’ I said. He must actually like me, I thought. This could genuinely lead to sex. I wasn’t sure I could remember how to do it. What if I couldn’t – what’s the female equivalent of ‘get it up’?
4. UNSEXY SEX
I thought about sex on Sunday and did an emergency underwear wash. I hung my black bra to dry on the radiator in my bedroom, so that it would be ready for my date. I thought about sex on Monday on the packed Piccadilly line, my face pressed up against someone else’s armpit, and then I stopped thinking about sex because I had a sudden vision of what it would be like to shag the owner of the armpit and started to feel queasy. As I walked to the Victoria line platform, I allowed myself to check out the other commuters. I hadn’t done that in years – it felt pointless and liable to lead to disappointment, like window shopping in Knightsbridge. That man has hands, I thought to myself. What a lovely smile. (I was a bit out of practice.)
Once I arrived at the office, all thoughts of sex fled from my mind, as if they’d been chased away by a very unsexy person. In a way, I suppose, they had; Tom followed me into the lift.
‘Ready?’ he asked, looking straight ahead, as the lift carried us up to our floor.
‘For what?’
‘Smriti. It’s her first day.’
There was an atmosphere in the office. I’d never known there to be an atmosphere in the office before, apart from a general sense of ennui. Owen was wearing a tie. Uzo was sitting up straighter at her desk than usual and, worryingly, wasn’t checking her mobile phone every five minutes. In fact, her phone seemed to be in her bag.
The lift opened with an ominous bing! and there, all of a sudden, was Smriti Laghari, our new Grade Six.
We pretended to work for about ten minutes, our attention very much focused on where Smriti was in the office, our bodies turning slightly to face her, like sunflowers following the sun. Smriti was a little bit like the sun – she was shiny, or at least her teeth were. Her hair too. Looking at her made me feel a bit unwashed, though I’d had a shower that morning and shampooed my hair twice by accident.
After about a quarter of an hour, Smriti walked into the middle of the office – next to the cupboard where we keep our biscuits – and said, ‘Hey guys!’ Even her voice was sunny. Everyone swivelled towards her. ‘I just wanted to introduce myself.’
‘She shouldn’t have said “just”,’ I whispered to Owen. ‘It weakens her message.’
‘This is my first role outside private office, so I hope you’ll be patient with me as I get up to speed. I’m psyched to be working with you guys!’
‘She shouldn’t have said “psyched”, either,’ muttered Owen. ‘No one should say “psyched”.’
There was an awkward silence – people didn’t usually make speeches on their first day in a new job – and then a half-hearted round of applause, because she seemed to expect one. I could see people on other teams looking round to see if it was a birthday or a leaving party, and whether there might be cake.
‘She didn’t mention restructuring,’ said Owen.
‘Would have been a bit bold to lead with that, wouldn’t it?’ I said.
‘She didn’t even say “streamlining”. I think we’re going to be OK.’
We watched Smriti walk, smiling at everyone she passed, into her new glass-walled office, followed by Tom. Uzo gave Tom a thumbs up. Tom looked straight ahead, like a child in a school play pretending not to see his parents.
Once Smriti’s office door was shut, the rest of us relaxed a little. Uzo took her phone out and started texting. Owen offered to make a tea round. Across the office, I saw Stan open a bag of ready salted.
‘I already wish it was Friday,’ said Uzo, eyes on her phone.
‘Me too,’ I said.
‘Doing anything exciting this weekend?’ Uzo asked.
‘Not really,’ I said, casual as anything. ‘Just going on a date.’
‘A DATE?’ boomed Uzo. ‘Owen. Owen, man. Did you hear that?’
Owen put the mugs down in a hurry, spilling a little tea on the pile of correspondence on my desk. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘What have you heard?’
‘Nothing about work,’ I said. ‘Uzo’s just excited because I’m going on a date on Friday night.’
‘Oh! Who with?’ asked Owen.
‘No one,’ I said. ‘Just a guy I met at a party.’
I sipped my tea and logged the latest letters and emails in the system. I had to draft replies to several urgent emails from the Treasury, but I had another letter from Eric, the Bomber Command vet, so I read that first.
I’ll always remember the day I met Eve – 9 October 1943, in the sergeants’ mess at RAF White Waltham. She was a First Officer in the Air Transport Auxiliary and she could fly a Spitfire like the best of them! I liked the look of her, so I went to say hello, and she smiled at me, and that was that. She had beautiful blue eyes – right up until she died, they were the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. We were married for seventy years. I’ve got the telegram from the Queen framed here in my room at the home; I’m looking at it now, as I write to you. I don’t know why she had to die first. But I’m very lucky to have had her as long as I did, I suppose. Here’s a photo of us on our wedding day. (I photocopied it at my local library. Aren’t libraries smashing?)
I’ll let you go now, my dear. I’m sure you have much better things to do than read any more of my drivel!
Yours (as ever),
Eric Beecham
P.S. – Are you married? Or do you have a fellow?
Not yet, Eric, I thought. The ‘yet’ shows you how optimistic I was about my date. I looked at the grainy black-and-white picture of the young couple outside a church, squinting in the sunlight. They were arm in arm, beaming, Eve in a white dress and Eric in his RAF uniform, his ears sticking out beneath his Brylcreemed hair. They looked so young and happy. I tucked the picture into my wallet, so I could look at it when I needed a dose of Forties optimism.
My impending date was the talk of the correspondence team for the rest of the week. On Wednesday, Uzo sent me a link to an article about depilation and advised me not to use expensive new face products in the run-up to the date in case they irritated my skin. ‘I’m not going to make that much of an effort,’ I told her. ‘I’m not desperate.’ Uzo gave me a look that clearly meant, ‘You should be.’
And as I was getting ready to leave on Friday, Owen decided to give me some first date advice. ‘Ask him which three bands sum up his taste in music,’ he said. ‘Or what his childhood nickname was. If you get him to talk about himself, he’ll think you’re a good listener.’
‘You Googled “conversation starters” before your first date with Laura, didn’t you?’ I asked.
‘No!’ he said. ‘I just happened to read an article about them in Men’s Health.’
The idea of Owen reading Men’s Health made Uzo snort so loudly that Smriti came out of her office to see if anything was wrong.
‘Text us and let us know how it’s going, yeah?’ said Uzo, as I shut down my computer.
‘I am not going to text you in the middle of my date,’ I said. ‘Unless it’s really bad and I need someone to come and rescue me.’
‘I hope you don’t,’ said Owen.
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Me too.’
I met Finn outside the BFI. It was my idea to go there; if he turned out to be incredibly unattractive or boring, at least I’d have seen one more Derek Jarman film, which would give me something to talk to my dad about.
I stood at the entrance, eavesdropping on a conversation between two women smoking at an outdoor table, coats clutched close against the cold.
‘Michelle did it with Joe last night.’
‘She never!’
‘I know! Apparently he asked her to piss on him.’
I felt a bit sick all of a sudden. Maybe the rules of sex had changed since my encounter with the twenty-one-year-old. What if Finn wanted me to piss on him, but I had performance anxiety or an empty bladder?
I took out my book, a collection of essays by Nora Ephron, but I couldn’t concentrate. I read the same sentence three or four times: Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from.
I glanced up, looking for Finn. Would he recognize me? I was pretty certain I’d have no idea who he was. I tried to remember if he had any distinguishing characteristics. Nice reddish hair, according to Alice. Abrasive stubble. A distinctive unwashed smell.
I looked back down at my book. Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from, I read again. I was getting a bit ahead of myself.
And then there he was, calling to me.
‘Julia!’
It felt like he was giving me a compliment just by saying my name in his malty, barrel-aged voice. He walked towards me, hands in his pockets, hips thrust forward, smiling. He leaned in to kiss me; he was wearing cologne. He’d made an effort. This was promising.
‘How are you, then?’ I said.
‘Not bad, not bad,’ he said, looking at me and smiling. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all week.’
‘Me too. You, I mean.’ I really was very bad at this.
He didn’t reply. He just grabbed my hand and led me into the cinema. It was so nice to feel that I belonged to someone.
We sat right at the back with our knees pressed up against the seats in front, like teenagers on the bus to school. I’d smuggled in a bag of Maltesers and he had a hip flask full of whisky – a delicious combination.
The film seemed to go on forever. I couldn’t follow the plot, which might have been because there wasn’t one, but I’m going to give Jarman the benefit of the doubt here. I couldn’t concentrate on anything except the fact that I was on a date with a man, a man who was sitting next to me, a man who had his actual hand on my actual knee. I’ve never been much good at mindfulness but I was fully present in that moment. I remember the way the seat fabric felt through my trousers; the sound of Finn’s breathing, so close to me; the musty, sweet smell of popcorn and other people’s perfume. My body seemed to be one throbbing nerve ending.
After about an hour, Finn looked across at me and said, ‘Is it me, like, or is this film a load of shite?’
‘I don’t think it’s you,’ I said. I smiled to myself: we agreed about something. We had something in common already.
Finn put his arm around me and pulled me closer. I put my head on his shoulder as an experiment. He put his head on mine. I began to get a crick in my neck. The film wasn’t any better from a ninety- degree angle.
On the screen, some punks were getting beaten up by the police, which was probably the most exciting bit of the whole film. I’m not sure, though, because by this point I was looking into Finn’s eyes, and he was staring into mine. His eyes were green when the light from the screen flashed bright across them, then brown. And then he closed them and I closed mine and we were all over each other, hands up each other’s T-shirts, leaning over the armrests to get closer, ignoring stares and disapproving tuts from the other cinemagoers.
We pulled apart and grinned at each other. ‘Want to get out of here?’ Finn said.
We practically ran back to the Tube station and stood all the way to Leyton, kissing messily. I felt reckless for the first time in ages – reckless, at least, in a way that didn’t just involve spending the last of my overdraft on two bottles of corner-shop wine and drinking them both myself.
The teenagers opposite us laughed at us openly. ‘Ooooh, you’re going to fuck. You haven’t fucked yet, have you?’
The youth of today are very observant, I thought. And yes, I fucking well hope I’m fucking going to fuck. I felt like I might explode. Nothing seemed to matter any more except coming, coming in the presence of another human being, being made to come by someone else.
We nearly missed our stop. We lurched out of the Tube carriage onto the platform and the abrupt change from warmth to cold made me self-conscious all of a sudden. It felt like coming down from MDMA and realizing you’re sitting in a cat basket, stroking a stranger’s face.
‘How far is it to yours?’ I asked, as we tapped our Oyster cards on the exit gates.
‘About fifteen minutes,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Cool,’ I said.
He nodded back.
As we walked, I became increasingly aware of the echoing of our feet on the pavement and of Finn’s hand in mine, large, dry, unfamiliar. Increasingly aware that I knew nothing about this man other than his first name and that he had unpredictable grooming habits. I considered texting Alice to let her know where the police should look for me if I didn’t arrive home the next day, but I didn’t want to break what remained of the pre-sex atmosphere with the light from the screen. At last he slowed, stopping in front of an unremarkable Victorian terraced house.
‘This is it,’ he said, fumbling with the key. ‘I think my flatmates are in, so be quiet, yeah?’
The flat smelled of mildew. There were T-shirts drying on the radiators and a curling Clockwork Orange poster Blu-Tacked to the wallpaper. ‘My room’s up here,’ he said, running up the stairs two at a time.
He opened his bedroom door and ushered me through. ‘Welcome to my spacious abode,’ he said, shutting the door behind us and leaning against it.
‘Great,’ I said.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘You need the toilet or anything?’
‘No, it’s OK.’
There was a silence.
‘Nice room,’ I said.
‘No, it’s not,’ he said.
‘Yeah, all right, it’s not.’ The room was barely big enough for both of us to stand in. It was entirely taken up with a single bed and a clothes rail, crammed with jumpers and jeans in shades of brown, green and grey. The only attempts at decoration were a few moody photos of arm creases, knees and foreheads pinned to the walls.
He sat on the bed, grabbed my hand and pulled me down next to him.
‘Did you take those photos?’ I said.
He nodded, looking me in the eye now, still holding my hand.
I looked away, back at the photos again. ‘So is that what you are, then? A photographer?’
And then he licked his lips, which made them look sausagey and wet all of a sudden, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be there any more.
‘Julia,’ he said, stroking my face. ‘You’re beautiful.’
I felt the urge to push him away; I was fully sober now and very aware of him entering my personal space. But I managed to pull myself together and stared meaningfully back at him. He leaned in slowly and kissed me. I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy the sensation, but kissing felt ridiculous all of a sudden; someone breathing all over your face, licking the inside of your mouth. Why do we do it?
I’m kissing a man, I thought to myself. He is kissing me. This is sexy.
He drew back and looked at me in a way that made me feel very aware of my own face, not necessarily in a good way.
Then he started to kiss my neck and leaned in to pull my cardigan off. I had to shrug to help him. Neither of us spoke. I became aware of some kind of gurgling noise coming from the pipes. I wished he’d put some mood music on; I was nostalgic now for the ‘Late Night Love’ playlist my ex-boyfriend used to play. At least that had helped me get into character as a person who enjoyed sex.
He started with my bra, and then pushed me back on the single duvet and pulled off my jeans, then my underpants. I was naked. Do not cross your arms, I said to myself. It is not sexy to cross your arms. It was really cold in his flat, though. At least that meant my nipples were erect.
Help, I thought – am I supposed to undress him now? I’ve never been good with buckles.
I knelt up and pulled his T-shirt over his head. It got stuck for a bit, and then when he pulled his head free, his face was slightly purple.
He clearly decided I was no clothes removal expert, because he hurriedly took off his own jeans while I lay back on the duvet, the colour and stiffness of a corpse at this point, probably.
He wasn’t wearing boxers. His penis was there, erect, waving from side to side as though it was greeting me. I’d forgotten how hideous-looking penises are. Penis is not a sexy word, I thought. But was cock better? I didn’t know. I had been out of the game too long. I prayed I wouldn’t have to say either word, or, in fact, anything else.
He was lying on top of me now, rubbing himself against me. ‘Talk dirty to me,’ he said.
Fuck. ‘Mmm,’ I said.
‘Tell me what you like.’
‘This is really nice.’
‘What do you want me to do? Do you want my big cock in your—’
Right. So he said cock.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘I’m going to fuck you good,’ he said. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Go on. Ask me to fuck you.’
‘Just – do it.’
I had turned into a human Nike advert.
He stood up to get a condom. It took him ages to rip the packet open. He looked so proud of himself as he rolled it on.
And then he clambered back onto the bed. The mattress shifted as he positioned himself above me. Staring into my eyes, he went to push himself into me. He missed.
‘Jesus. That’s never happened before,’ he said. He picked up his penis and guided himself in, frowning as though he was trying to assemble a particularly tricky piece of IKEA furniture.
He started to thrust, thwacking against me in the horrible silence of the room.
‘Yeah?’ he asked, looking at me again now, smiling, nodding.
‘Mmm,’ I said.
I tried to clench my pelvic floor muscles so I could feel him inside me – he was no Rampant Rabbit, let’s put it that way.
I looked past him, staring over his shoulder at the ceiling. Spider webs hung in the corners and there was a dark brown smear on the ceiling just above me. A dead fly, maybe. I wonder if he’d thrown a book up there to kill it and not wiped it off.
He moved faster, then slower, without any discernible rhythm. A bead of sweat fell from his forehead to my neck.
‘Have you come yet?’ He was slowing down now, breathing hard, or maybe out of breath – I couldn’t tell.
‘Just about to,’ I said, closing my eyes, trying to imagine I was somewhere else. But I couldn’t think of anything else, anything at all.
Panting, that’s what’s needed, I thought. ‘Uh, yeah, that’s good,’ I tried.
‘Yeah?’ he said, encouraged, speeding up.
‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘Oh! That’s right!’
‘Yeah? You like it hard, you dirty bitch?’
I had a lot of feminist problems with that question, but I didn’t think this was the time to get into them.
‘Mmm!’ I said, breathing faster now. I panted out a pained ‘Oh!’ and then sighed, slowing down my breathing, opening my eyes.
‘Was that it?’ he said, unimpressed.
‘Yeah,’ I said, anxious now. Was that not a convincing orgasm? Was I too quick? I couldn’t really remember how long it usually took when another person was involved.
He clambered off me and lay there, looking straight up at the ceiling. He was still hard. ‘I can’t come,’ he said, pulling off the condom and flicking it into the bin. ‘Will you sort me out?’
I should have said no. I see that now – I should have stood up, told him I’d had a nice time but that it wasn’t really working for me, and walked out. But that seemed impolite.
As I’ve said, he didn’t smell as though he washed very often. I wished he’d kept the condom on. But I thought I could get the whole thing over with quickly. I had faith in my blow job abilities. I’d practised on a fair few blokes at university and they’d never complained.
I did my best, taking his dick (I’m going with dick) as deep into my throat as I could, eyes closed, willing him to come.
‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘That’s not how you do it.’
I stopped and said, ‘Yes, it is.’
‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘You’re being too mechanical.’
I tried to process the insult. ‘What do you want me to do, then?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong. I always come, like.’
I just looked at him.
‘Are you going to wank me off, or what?’
Saying no seemed too difficult, somehow.
I knelt by the bed and gave him a hand job, trying to put some feeling into it, trying to vary the pressure, but I felt as though I were pumping a particularly resistant bicycle tyre. Finn lay there, silent. I could feel him growing flaccid in my hand.
‘This has never happened to me before,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve broken my penis.’
He pushed my hand away and tried to get the job done himself, his face clenched with the effort.
I knelt there, wondering what to do. Should I just leave? Should I join in somehow? Or did he just want to be left alone to enjoy himself in peace? He didn’t say. It seemed rude to leave without saying goodbye, and I didn’t really want to interrupt, so I stayed there on my knees while he kept wanking. I looked up at the clock above the window. It was one in the morning now.
At 1.16, he switched hands and carried on.
At 1.34, he paused for a few seconds to catch his breath, eyes still tight shut.
At two, I began to feel like I was hallucinating. I had never known time to pass so slowly. I had never been so viscerally aware of every sensation, every sound. It felt like punishment for every time I’d felt like life was rushing past me and I’d willed it to slow down.
He wanked for over an hour. And I just knelt by the bed and watched him, hypnotized by his broken penis.
And then, at 2.05, he grabbed my hand and wrapped it around his dick, pumping it up and down, eyes still closed. This was it. The home straight. The end of the hellish marathon.
At long, long last he came, all over my hand and his horrible pale chest. He breathed out, apparently as relieved as I was that it was all over. I discreetly wiped my hand on the side of his mattress.
And then he turned to me, and said, ‘Thanks, yeah, but I think it would be better if we were just friends.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I agree.’
I got dressed as quickly as I could, stumbling as I pulled up my jeans, while he lay there on his back with his eyes closed. I picked up my shoes and walked as quietly as I could out of the room, down the stairs and into the street, sitting on the doorstep to pull them on. And then I ran and ran, to find a night bus that would take me as far away from him and my humiliation as possible.
As I sat at the bus stop, eyes down to avoid the attention of two teenage boys, shouting at each other with 3-a.m. rage, I made a resolution: I was done with sex. It was disgusting, unnatural, inexplicable. And I never, never wanted to see a penis, dick, cock, whatever you want to call it, ever again.
5. NEVER SAY NEVER
I went straight into the bathroom when I got home. I turned up the shower as high as I could bear, hot enough to turn my skin red, till I could see steam evaporating from my body. My knees were still dimpled with the texture of Finn’s carpet, and I couldn’t seem to rub them smooth. The smell of his cum clung to my fingers. I washed my hands – both of them, just to be safe – till they were pink and tender, scrubbing beneath my nails with Alice’s nailbrush.
‘Julia? Are you OK?’ The shower must have woken Alice up.
I didn’t answer. I was concentrating on making my mind as blank as possible, but I couldn’t keep the sex flashbacks at bay:
Kneeling by his bed.
His thigh slapping against mine.
The dead fly on the ceiling.
‘You’ve broken my penis.’
Why did I let him get away with saying that to me? Why didn’t I just walk out of there? How fucking dare he blame me because he didn’t come? I hadn’t fucking come either, but at least I’d had the decency to fake an orgasm.
I spent the following week going to work, coming home, and going straight to bed. I watched comforting old TV shows on repeat and imagined myself back to a purer time; a time when the thing I wanted most in the world was berry-coloured lipstick from The Body Shop and the furthest I’d got with a boy was when Phil Green kissed me on the cheek after his Bar Mitzvah.
Alice tried to comfort me by telling me about the time that her ex-boyfriend Joe tried to prove he could give himself a blow job; he’d thrown his legs over his head in the yoga plough position but he hadn’t been able to reach, and then he pulled a muscle in his neck and screamed in pain till she helped him lie flat on his back again. That did make me feel slightly better. Not better enough to want to have sex with anyone ever again, though.
Work was a distraction of sorts, but I wasn’t behaving normally, I knew that; I chose the desk next to Stan every day, to avoid my team and their questions about the date. Uzo cornered me one lunchtime and said, ‘So? How was the hot date?’ but I just said, ‘Fine, thanks,’ and then Tom called her into his office to tell her off for buying stuff from ASOS during work hours.
Luckily there was a new sense of purpose in the office, everyone bustling around trying to impress the new Grade Six, not as much small talk. I couldn’t really look anyone in the eye, least of all Owen – he’d probably want to tell me how fantastically it was going with Laura and compare date stories, and I didn’t think I’d deal with his happiness well. But I couldn’t avoid him forever, and on Wednesday he insisted on taking me to Pret for lunch.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked me, as we finished off our chicken and avocado sandwiches. ‘Did something happen on your date?’
I nodded. ‘I had sex,’ I said, and to my horror I felt my eyes filling with tears.
‘I hope Laura doesn’t cry when she tells people that,’ he said.
‘I’m guessing you’re not as bad in bed as Finn was,’ I said, still crying, but laughing a bit too.
Owen frowned. ‘He didn’t— he didn’t hurt you—’
‘No …’
He put on what he obviously thought was a caring face. ‘You can tell me.’
‘He masturbated for an hour, and I just sat there.’
‘Wow. What a wanker.’
‘Literally,’ I said, nodding.
He patted my arm. ‘Do you need some company tonight? We could go to the cinema or something, if you like.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but Cat’s got a few days off between shows, so I’m going to meet her for dinner.’
‘I haven’t met Cat yet,’ Owen said.
‘Sorry, Owen,’ I said. ‘You’re not invited.’
Cat took me for a curry in Brick Lane. We sat at a tiny corner table in the windowless downstairs room, next to a tank full of fluorescent fish.
‘At least you banged someone. You needed to get that out of the way,’ Cat said, ladling dhal onto my plate.
‘I’m never going to do it again,’ I said. I bit into a samosa, hoping that was the end of the conversation.
‘Never say never,’ Cat said. ‘Remember how I was feeling like a third wheel with Lacey and Steve, the new tadpole?’
I nodded.
‘I fucked someone last night. A year-five teacher.’
‘Is that ethical?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be? I’m not a student. I’m a pretend frog.’
‘I wasn’t sure where the line was drawn.’
‘The point is, it wasn’t the best sex, but it’s not going to put me off forever. You wouldn’t stop drinking just because you got one bad hangover, would you?’
‘This is different,’ I said. ‘I broke his penis.’
‘I wish you actually had broken his penis,’ she said. ‘Then he wouldn’t be able to inflict shitty sex on anyone else.’
But here’s the thing – the next morning I was writing a letter to a man who was very, very angry about the cost of prescriptions when I felt an unmistakable hollowness within me, a deep ache between my legs. I was turned on – turned on and bored, a very common combination for me – and I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate till I came, silent and hard, in the disabled toilets.
There was no point in trying to resist it. I locked myself into the cubicle, sat on the closed lid, pulled down my trousers and Googled Women’s erotica on my iPhone. I wasn’t in the mood to be fussy, so I scrolled quickly through the worst of it, looking for a story about two consenting adults fucking anonymously, preferably somewhere they could be caught. The words handcuffs and dripping pussy caught my eye – I like directness – and I wanked, leaning forward into my hand, rocking as I came, my face a wordless scream.
Maybe I needed to give sex one final chance.
6. A SEXY, WORDLESS TONGUE CONVERSATION
So when Alice and Dave invited me to a house party in Dalston at the beginning of February, I said yes. It was hosted by another of Dave’s arty friends – a designer who embellished H&M vest tops with sequins and sold them for huge amounts of money on Etsy.
‘You’re sure Finn won’t be there?’ I asked Dave, as we walked along Kingsland Road.
‘I checked,’ he said. ‘He’s home in Ireland for the weekend.’
The party was sedate compared to the one in Hackney Wick. There was no DJ, just a Spotify playlist, and the flat was lit by IKEA standard lamps rather than industrial strip lighting. The place was rammed, people pressed up against one another like rush-hour commuters. I went straight to the kitchen, poured three glasses of red wine and carried them carefully back to Alice and Dave, who had somehow found space on a sofa. They edged closer together to make room for me.
But soon they were arguing about a wedding they’d been invited to, that way couples do when they’ve been together for a few years and have stopped pretending to like each other’s friends.
‘We’ve got to go. She’s the editorial director. It’s flattering that she’s invited me at all.’
‘No. You’ve got to go.’
‘You’re coming. I’ve RSVPd for both of us.’
‘But I won’t know anyone.’
‘I’m sure she’ll sit us next to each other at dinner.’
‘Everyone will talk about books and wanky authors and I won’t know what to say.’
I looked around for someone else to talk to but I was hemmed in by a sea of legs. Legs in jeans; legs in dresses; legs that obviously spent more time in the gym than mine did. I drank my wine steadily, for something to do.
‘Do I have to wear a suit?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s not a traditional wedding. She got a tattoo instead of an engagement ring.’
‘Nice.’
I pushed myself up off the sofa and carried my wine glass to the toilet queue that was already taking up half the living room. I looked around; I vaguely recognized a few people from the Hackney Wick party – the couple in matching fur coats, and a bloke with an undercut who I remembered being a bit of a liability on the dance floor.
And then, in that mysterious way you often can, I felt someone looking at me. I glanced over towards the kitchen and there, framed in the doorway, was Jane, the conceptual artist. A woman with long dark hair was leaning towards her, gesturing and chatting away intently, but Jane was staring straight at me, as direct as one of her paintings. She raised her hand and smiled at me. I smiled back – but then two men stumbled out of the toilet, rubbing their noses, holding hands, and it was my turn.
I sat on the toilet staring at my fingers, the harsh halogen light throwing up every wrinkle, every nibbled nail. I decided to take myself home; I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and I was being stared at by a sexually confident lesbian. I had a feeling that something would happen if I stayed.
As I was putting on my coat, I felt someone walk up to me.
‘You’re not going yet, are you?’ said Jane.
‘I’m not feeling great,’ I said, trying to sound casual, though I could feel my heart speeding up. ‘Not in a sociable mood.’
‘Nor am I,’ she said. ‘But I’d make an exception for you.’
She looked at me till I had to look away.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Stay and have a drink with me.’
There was something compelling about her. My body began to throb with the promise of something I didn’t even know if I wanted.
‘All right,’ I said.
One of the many lessons I learned from the seminal classic Sliding Doors is that the most insignificant-seeming things can change your life. If Gwyneth Paltrow had caught that Tube, she wouldn’t have ended up with such a terrible haircut. And if Jane had poured me a glass of red wine or a beer, I might not have— but I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, I can’t handle vodka. And that’s why everything that happened, happened.
Jane was sitting on the kitchen work top, pouring Smirnoff into two tumblers.
‘Let’s do shots,’ she said, handing one to me. ‘Down it in one.’
We clacked our glasses together and tilted our heads back. I managed to dribble half my vodka down my chin.
‘That’s cheating!’ she said. ‘You have to do it again now.’
She twisted the lid off another bottle of Smirnoff.
A new song came on, with a bored-sounding female vocalist.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Dance with me.’
She jumped down from the work surface and put her arms around my waist. I put mine around her neck, feeling self-conscious, like a girl at a prom in a teen movie, only not, obviously. She moved her hips against mine in time to the bass line. I tried to focus on her face, but it seemed to flicker. The vodka was buzzing in me, and I couldn’t tell if we were swaying, or the room was, or both, but it didn’t matter.
Jane looked up at me through her fringe. ‘I’m going to kiss you now,’ she said. ‘Stop me if you don’t want me to.’
I didn’t stop her. I closed my eyes instead.
I’d never kissed a woman before, except once during spin the bottle at university. That kiss was just for play, though, not so much a lesbian kiss as an impression of one – lips barely touching, tongues waggling around outside our mouths, wet in every sense of the word. Kissing Jane wasn’t like that at all. Her mouth was hard one minute, soft the next. I felt as though we were having a sexy, wordless tongue conversation. She pushed herself into me until I was leaning against the hob. I accidentally pressed the ignition with my bum. I could hear it sparking behind me, like an unsubtle metaphor.
A man came into the room and immediately backed out again, saying ‘Shit, sorry,’ shutting the door quietly behind him. I heard him say, ‘There are two women kissing in there.’
The door opened again as someone peered in to see for themselves. It must have been Alice, because a moment later I heard her voice in the corridor: ‘Julia’s in there! Kissing Jane!’
‘You’re joking.’ It was Dave. ‘Isn’t she straight?’
Jane and I stopped kissing for a moment and looked at each other.
‘You don’t seem very straight to me,’ she said.
I shrugged and pulled her to me again, feeling powerful and young and spontaneous.
‘Come back to mine,’ Jane said.
But I shook my head. ‘I can’t tonight,’ I said. I hadn’t sufficiently recovered from the Finn incident to have drunken sex with a stranger again.
On the night bus home, Dave turned around from the seat in front and smiled, leerily. ‘That was hot,’ he said, breathing beer on me. Not that I could talk; I could barely feel my mouth, I’d drunk so much vodka.
‘You’re disgusting,’ said Alice, hitting his arm.
‘Well, it was,’ he said, scratching his beard. ‘I could have watched that for hours.’
‘Don’t be such a misogynist,’ said Alice. But she turned to me and said, ‘Do you fancy her? She’s sort of dangerous seeming.’
‘Jane’s not dangerous,’ said Dave. ‘She just knows how to get what she wants.’ He was still looking at me, unsteadily. ‘Are you bi, then, or what?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m pissed.’ I didn’t know what I was, or how I felt, except that I was excited.
Alice moved to the seat next to mine and leaned close to me. ‘I don’t think you can really know if you’re gay or whatever until you’ve – you know.’
‘Until I’ve gone down on a woman.’
‘Exactly. It might be disgusting! Like licking a snail.’
‘But blow jobs are disgusting,’ I said.
‘What? No, they’re not,’ said Alice.
‘Yes, they are,’ I said. ‘Who would actually want to put a penis in their mouth?’
‘Not me,’ said Dave.
‘Maybe you are a lesbian!’ said Alice. She seemed very excited by the idea.
‘Maybe I’m a lesbian,’ said Dave.
‘Can we stop talking about it now, please?’ I said.
We swung off the bus into the February air. I let Alice and Dave walk ahead of me, casting one long shadow in the streetlights. I wanted to be on my own for a moment to think about Jane, and to remember the kiss.
7. LICKING THE SNAIL
I was nearly fifteen minutes late for my session with Nicky that week. I arrived at her door panting and sweaty, despite the cold, and as soon as I was waist-deep in the terrible armchair, she asked me, ‘Why were you late?’
‘Sorry,’ I said, still breathing too quickly. I hate being told off. ‘I lost my keys—’
‘No,’ she said, holding up her palm to me. ‘No, no, no.’
I frowned. ‘What do you mean, no?’
‘I mean why were you really late?’
‘Honestly,’ I said, ready to get angry, ‘I must have dropped them in the kitchen—’
‘When we are late for things,’ Nicky said to me in a sing-song voice, ‘it’s because somewhere inside us we really don’t want to go to them. Which reminds me. I had a dream about you last night.’
‘Are you supposed to tell me that?’ I asked. ‘What was I doing?’
‘We’re not really here to discuss my dreams, Julia. Why didn’t you want to come here today?’
‘I did want to come.’
She seemed disappointed. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
‘I’d quite like to talk about your dream.’
‘Why don’t we talk about what you did at the weekend?’
I was a bit thrown. ‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. ‘I went to a party.’
She looked at me for a long time. I could feel myself reddening.
‘What happened at the party?’
I frowned. ‘What?’ I said, my face getting hotter.
‘Something happened, and you’re a tiny bit embarrassed about it.’ She looked at me with her head on one side.
‘Well, yes,’ I said, ‘but that’s true every weekend, pretty much.’
‘You had bad sex again.’
‘No!’ I said. ‘I just kissed someone.’
She nodded and started writing in her notebook. ‘Knew I’d get it out of you,’ she said.
‘You didn’t “get it out” of me,’ I said. ‘I’m supposed to tell you things.’
She stopped writing and looked at me again. ‘But you didn’t want to tell me. So you must have kissed someone … unusual. Was it a relative?’
‘What? No!’
‘Look, I’m not here to judge.’
‘Seriously?’
‘My grandparents are first cousins.’ She shrugged.
‘I did not kiss my cousin. All my cousins are teenagers. I kissed a woman.’
She leaned back and crossed her legs. ‘A woman.’ She held my gaze and nodded. ‘That makes a lot of sense.’
‘What—’
‘Was it good?’
I let myself remember the kiss. ‘It was really good.’
‘So. Are you going to see her again?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Did you fancy her?’
I thought about it. ‘Yes. But I’d had a lot of vodka.’
‘So?’
‘So I don’t think I actually want to go on a date with her. I don’t have anything in common with her.’
‘Have you fancied women before?’
I felt I was losing my grip on the conversation. ‘Well, I mean – I had crushes on girls at school—’
‘Have you ever considered that you might be gay? Or bi, at least? Do you think that might be where some of your anxiety is coming from? Not acknowledging who you really are?’
‘Just because I kissed a woman, doesn’t mean I’m gay,’ I said.
‘Answer the question.’
I breathed out. ‘Yes. I’ve thought I could be.’
‘But you’ve never done anything about it before.’
‘… No.’
‘Why’s that? Why haven’t you ever dated a woman? And don’t tell me it’s because no one’s ever asked you.’
‘But no one has ever asked me!’
She stared me down. I picked at the cuticle on my thumb.
‘Maybe I’m scared,’ I said.
‘Of dating a woman.’
‘Yes.’
‘Right.’ Nicky made a few more notes. I tried to read what she’d written. I was sure I could see the word ‘passive’ underlined.
It’s fair to say I was pretty het up by the time I left Nicky’s house. I went for a walk in Clissold Park to calm myself down. I bought a hot chocolate from the café – I don’t like hot chocolate, but I wasn’t thinking properly – and walked past the skate park, down the slope, around the pond and back up the hill, over and over again, my brain a blur.
Sure, I had questioned my sexuality as a teenager, but I hadn’t thought about it much since then. I’d had a horrible, painful crush on Louise from my musical theatre class when I was 16. She’d loved Andrew Lloyd Webber, so I pretended I loved Andrew Lloyd Webber too; I bought a black leotard to match hers, and I stuck pictures of bands she liked on my locker, hoping she’d notice. She never did. I hadn’t fancied her, though. I’d wanted to be her, to be her best friend, to move like she did onstage, to be close to her. But I never had sexy thoughts about her. The way I felt about her had seemed much more real, more intense, than any crush I’d had on a boy. Less trivial.
Which, to be fair, does sound pretty gay.
And yes, I had told Cat that I was bi when I was 17 – but as a teenager, the idea that I might fancy other girls made me feel predatory, like my friends might not trust me, as though I would be a danger at sleepovers. It just seemed easier not to.
Now, though – now being queer seemed positively aspirational. The world felt very different from the one I’d lived in as a teenager. Then, same-sex couples couldn’t marry, and teachers had failed to step in when kids called each other ‘fag’ and ‘dyke’ in the back rows of classrooms, and when people came out, they’d labelled themselves: gay, lesbian, bi. Everything felt more fluid now. Plenty of people slept with men, and then women, and then men again without feeling the need to make a big deal out of it.
‘Excuse me, miss?’ said a park warden. ‘I have to shut the park now.’
I nodded, blinking, and walked out onto the street. I hadn’t even noticed the sun going down.
I thought about what Nicky had said all that week. At night, the idea of sleeping with a woman seemed bigger, filling my thoughts and my bedroom, keeping me awake until the sun came up and the streetlights blinked out. Could I do it? What would it mean? What if I hated it? What if I loved it? What would my parents say? In the morning, I’d wake with my heart racing, wondering whether I should try to make it happen – and how I could make it happen. I was a virgin again, essentially. Would that put women off? What if I was shit in bed, lesbian-wise? There was only one way to find out.
As the days passed, I felt more comfortable with the idea, less nervous, more excited – and angrier, too, with Nicky, for calling me passive. Fuck her. I wasn’t too scared to go out with women.
During quiet moments at work – fewer and fewer these days, because Smriti had a habit of popping up behind people’s desks and saying, ‘Just run me through what you’re doing!’ – I Googled the Civil Service Rainbow Alliance. They organized meet-ups. They even marched in Pride. But the next drinks night wasn’t for a couple of weeks, and I was worried I might lose my nerve before then.
So that Friday night, when Jane texted me, asking What are you doing later?, I decided to seize the moment. I was meant to be meeting Alice in Dalston for Turkish food, but I called her to put her off.
‘I’m going to have sex with Jane,’ I explained.
There was a silence.
‘What?’
‘Jane. I’m going to have sex with her.’
‘But do you even fancy women?’
‘I don’t know until I’ve licked the snail.’
‘Are you sure? Come on, just come and have Turkish food with me. We can rent Tipping the Velvet or something if you need to get it out of your system.’
‘No. I’ll text you if I’m not coming home.’
‘But what about the Your cunt tastes delicious paintings?’
‘See you later.’
I finished the call and stopped in the middle of the pavement to reply to Jane before I could change my mind. Not much, I texted. What are you doing?
My phone buzzed in my hand a few seconds later.
You? ;)
I had a pretty thorough bath when I got home. I moisturised more than usual. As I was getting dressed, I searched lesbian on Pornhub to see what I might be getting myself into, but the women didn’t seem into it; they were rubbing each other’s nipples pointlessly and staring off camera as though seeking some anonymous third person’s approval.
My hands felt shaky as I did my make-up. I poured myself a large glass of wine to steady myself. I couldn’t back out now. I had to go through with it.
I rang Jane’s doorbell, feeling sick. I couldn’t work out how to stand naturally, or how to smile. What the fuck was I doing here?
But then the door opened, and the situation was out of my hands. Jane didn’t even say hello. She grabbed my hand, pulled me towards her and kissed me. She kicked the door shut behind us and kept kissing me as we stumbled to her bedroom. She turned away from me for a second to light a candle, and then she joined me on her bed and started kissing me again.
This was really happening. I was kissing a woman. We were almost certainly going to fuck. And I really, really wanted us to fuck. So much that I forgot to feel nervous, or self-conscious, or anything other than completely and utterly turned on.
I reached up and stroked Jane’s face, so smooth compared to a man’s. She mirrored me, touching my cheek. I have discovered sexual equality, I thought. I have discovered feminist sex.
‘I’m going to take your top off now, if that’s OK,’ she said.
‘That’s OK,’ I said, holding up my arms. She was asking for my consent and I was giving it. This was what adults did in bed.
Jane pulled my T-shirt over my head as she clearly had with tens – hundreds? – of other women. She didn’t paw me or grope me; she knew exactly what she wanted her hands to do. She was precise, which doesn’t sound hot but it honestly was. She knew exactly where to touch me, and what it would do. And when she fucked me, oh my GOD I finally understood what all the fuss was about. I went down on her too, which was easier than I expected, probably because I’m a clitoris owner myself. I didn’t fuck her, though. I couldn’t quite get the nerve up.
I learned a lot that night. That hands are a lot more versatile, and reliable, than penises. That women know how to use their tongues. That touching another woman’s breasts can transport you to a place of unexpected ecstasy. And that women are amazing at sex.
You know when you wake up after something awful has happened to you, and everything seems fine and normal for a moment before reality smacks you in the stomach? The morning after I had sex with Jane was exactly the opposite of that. I lay on my back, smiling stupidly at the memory of the best sex I’d ever had in my life. The best sex anyone had ever had, possibly – sex so technically excellent that I thought anyone would have enjoyed it, regardless of their sexuality. It hadn’t been perfect, obviously – she’d leaned on my hair as she fucked me, and she’d interpreted my yelp of pain as pleasure; I’d been pretty tentative about going down on her, and my tongue had got a bit tired about halfway through, and it had taken her a while to come. But she had come. And I’d felt sexy. I’d licked the snail, and I’d loved it. I’d felt like an equal partner in the whole thing. I felt, more than anything, a huge sense of relief.
Jane’s side of the bed was empty. Through the curtainless window I could see a man in the warehouse opposite brushing his teeth. Which meant that he could see me; I was lying on top of the duvet, completely naked, my legs glowing pastily in the sunlight. I scanned the room for my underpants and found them folded on a chair with the rest of my clothes. As I picked them up, I felt hot with horror for a moment – the crotch was as stiff as a board. I had obviously been quite turned on.
And then I smiled again. I had been totally turned on. Possibly for the first time in my life.
I got dressed and walked out into the main warehouse to find Jane. She was standing where the DJ had been at her party, barefoot, her blunt bob swinging as she painted a canvas red. I stood and watched her for a moment, trying to decide on my opening gambit. Frankly, I just wanted to thank her for the amazing sex, but I didn’t think that would be very cool.
She turned and noticed me watching her. ‘All right?’ she said. ‘How you feeling this morning?’
‘Great, thank you.’ Smiling stupidly. Standing there awkwardly.
‘Coffee’s in that pot on the hob if you want it.’
I nodded and poured myself a cup, grateful to have something to do.
‘You were great last night,’ she said, eyes still on her painting. ‘I’d never have known it was your first time with a woman. Guess I’ll be getting another toaster!’
She turned to look at me and laughed as if we were sharing a joke, so I laughed along, but I can’t have done it very convincingly, because then she said, ‘You’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, have you?’
‘Not really.’
‘You’ve got a lot to learn, girl. Google it.’
As we said goodbye, I asked her, ‘Do you want to do this again sometime?’
‘No offence,’ she said, rubbing my arm, ‘but once is usually enough for me. Have fun exploring the ladies, though.’
I wasn’t offended. I practically bounced out of the warehouse, laughing my way through the streets of Hackney Wick, people staring as I ran past. The reds and blues and yellows and pinks of the street art felt like they’d been painted just for me, a riot of rainbow against the grey sky. I hadn’t felt so at home in my stupid body since I’d stopped dancing. I’d never felt so alive. I wasn’t weird or bad at sex. I wasn’t an outsider.
Definitely a lesbian, I texted Alice.
A full one?
Enough of one.
You did the deed?
Fucking loved it.
!!!!!!!
Gay clubs were my clubs now. Carhartt trousers, rainbows, team sports, But I’m a Cheerleader, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Pride parades, Moonlight, the Pet Shop Boys, vegetarian food, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Orange Is the New Black, Old Compton Street, San Francisco, the colour pink, k.d. lang, Ellen, Dusty Springfield, Brighton, musical theatre, Tegan and Sara, lip-synching – some of the best things in the world belonged to me. Lucky, lucky, lucky me.
8. WELCOME TO THE FAMILY
‘But are you sure you’re a lesbian?’
Alice and I were shopping for vintage clothes in Stoke Newington. She was looking for a fake-fur coat. I was hoping to find some tweed trousers that didn’t smell of funerals. I wanted to wear more tweed, now that I was gay.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You’d understand if you’d been there during the sex.’
‘I’m very glad I wasn’t.’
‘So am I.’
‘Maybe Jane was just really good at sex, though,’ said Alice. ‘That doesn’t mean you should rule men out altogether.’
‘I think it does,’ I said. Since my night with Jane, I had thought back to every sexual experience I’d had with a man – to the grunting, and the chest hair, and the noises I’d feigned. I used to think I just wasn’t very expressive during sex, and I’d always made a conscious effort to look like I was having fun, because staying silent when someone’s fucking you is a bit like not laughing during a stand-up set (very bad for the performer’s morale). But I hadn’t needed to make an effort with Jane. Now that I had something to compare it to, sex with a man seemed like a dodgy imitation of the real thing, like instant coffee, or frozen yoghurt, or the Miley Cyrus cover of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. Since I’d realized I was probably a lesbian, I had started seeing attractive women everywhere, a bit like the way you see a word everywhere as soon as you’ve learned what it means.
Alice picked up a pair of gold clip-on earrings and said, ‘I promise I won’t make fun of you if you start dating men again.’
‘I’m not going to,’ I said.
‘Did you know an ex-lesbian is called a “hasbian”?’
‘Stop it.’
I turned up to my next session with Nicky with an uncharacteristic smile on my face. Nicky had dyed her hair black since I’d last seen her. She was wearing bright-red lipstick, too – essentially, she was one bowler hat away from being Liza Minnelli in Cabaret.
‘So you’re officially a dyke,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I prefer the word lesbian, though.’
‘You have problems with the word dyke.’
‘It just sounds a bit weird, hearing you say it.’
‘How do you feel about homosexual?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Or queer?’
‘That’s fine too.’
‘Gay?’
‘Any of those words are completely fine,’ I said.
‘But not dyke,’ she said. ‘Does the word dyke have bad connotations for you?’
‘It’s not the sort of word you expect your therapist to use. It’s pretty pejorative.’
‘Ooh,’ she said. ‘Pejorative. Nice big word.’ She wrote it down. ‘You’re wrong, though. Dyke isn’t a pejorative word any more. It’s been reappropriated.’
‘It’s been reappropriated by lesbians. So only lesbians can use it, surely.’
‘You’re making assumptions about me,’ said Nicky, wagging her pen at me.
‘What,’ I said, ‘are you gay?’
Nicky shook her head. ‘I keep telling you, Julia. These sessions are about you, not me. So. Why the need to label yourself?’
‘Because I’ve figured out who I am, and I’m not ashamed about it.’
‘Are you seeing Jane again, then?’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Are you seeing anyone else?’
‘Not right now.’
‘OK, so, off the record? Just go on Tinder, or whatever. The Internet. That’s where all the dykes meet each other now. Even the cool ones.’
‘Right.’
‘That’s what I’ve heard.’
‘OK.’ I shifted in my seat. ‘I’ve been wondering about telling my parents,’ I said. ‘I’m going to see them for my dad’s birthday on Wednesday.’
‘I feel as though you’re rushing things a bit,’ said Nicky. ‘Are you coming out so soon to stop yourself chickening out of dating women?’
‘No …’
She tilted her head on one side.
‘… maybe.’
‘Would you like to role-play coming out to your parents?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Come on. I’ll be your mother.’
‘It’s OK, I’ll be fine.’
But Nicky was already saying, ‘Hello, Julia!’ in a snooty accent.
‘She’s not that posh,’ I said.
‘Just go with it,’ Nicky said.
‘OK.’ I tried to get comfortable in the chair. ‘Mum,’ I said, ‘I have something to tell you.’
‘Can’t you think of a more original opener?’
‘I don’t want to be original – I want her to know what’s coming,’ I said. ‘It’s like saying, “We need to talk” to your boyfriend.’
‘Or girlfriend,’ said Nicky.
‘Or girlfriend,’ I agreed.
‘OK,’ said Nicky. ‘Give me your line again.’
‘Mum, I have something to tell you,’ I said.
‘Oh God, darling!’ said Nicky, in the snooty voice. ‘What is it? Are you dying?’
‘I really don’t think she’s going to say that.’
Nicky shrugged. ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we?’
So far, being a lesbian was pretty much the same as not being a lesbian. My alarm clock went off at 7.30 a.m. just like it always did. I snoozed it till 8 a.m., as usual. I put on the same tights with the holes in the toe, spooned down a bowl of Alpen and felt out of breath running for the bus just as I had before. I’d have thought I’d imagined the whole thing if I didn’t still feel bruised and sore between my legs.
I called Cat to tell her my big news, but she didn’t seem particularly surprised. ‘You made me go and see Les Misérables three times because that girl Louise was in it,’ she pointed out. ‘By the third time I couldn’t wait for her to get shot.’
‘She wasn’t exactly a triple threat, was she?’
‘She was shit,’ said Cat. And then: ‘Hey! This means we’re both minorities! You’re a bit less privileged now!’
‘You’re right!’ I said. I looked forward to being a lot more self-righteous on social media, now that I was a lesbian.
I felt a secret sense of achievement that helped me stand a little taller as I walked into the Department of Health and Social Care building and swiped my pass on the security gate. I felt like I belonged, at last, in the world of the sexually fulfilled. Now I had a sense of purpose. I was going to find someone to be a lesbian with – a girlfriend, someone I respected and who respected me, someone I could fall completely in love with. She’d be funny and creative; she’d have a better job than me, probably, and she’d inspire me to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. She’d identify as a feminist and drink at least as much as me and we would go on dates to immersive theatre shows and classical concerts. She would be my best friend. We would have a truly equal relationship. I wasn’t going to be lonely any more. I couldn’t wait.
Tom, Smriti and the other managers were out at an all-day meeting, so I took the opportunity to look for lesbians on the Internet. I couldn’t bring myself to go back on Tinder; I knew there was a much lower chance of dick pics, now that I was dating women, but I hated the idea of swiping past thousands of nameless people, knowing they were doing the same to me. I thought it might be nice to meet someone in real life. I found gay vegan meet-ups and a lesbian volleyball team and a stressful-sounding lesbian architecture appreciation society, none of which really appealed to me. And then I saw an ad for something called Stepping Out:
QUEER SWING DANCE CLASSES Fun, friendly, suitable for beginners and more experienced dancers. All LGBTQ+ people welcome. Sundays, Upstairs at the Kings, £7 a class.
I felt Owen walk up behind me. I minimized the screen.
‘Are you going to go to that?’ he asked.
‘Might do,’ I said, glancing back at him to gauge his reaction.
Owen raised his eyebrows and nodded. ‘Cool,’ he said. And then, ‘My sister’s gay.’
‘Good for her,’ I said, and I turned back to my screen and started clicking through my emails.
‘Are you gay?’ he asked.
‘Shh.’ I nodded across to Uzo; I didn’t want her to know – not yet, anyway. She had a habit of ‘whispering’ secrets extremely loudly in the kitchen, for everyone to hear. Plus I’d heard her say ‘What a waste’ once, when we were talking about Sir Ian McKellen being gay (she had a thing for white-haired white men). I wasn’t sure she’d react brilliantly to my news.
‘Sorry,’ Owen said, crouching by my desk. ‘Are you, though?’
‘Might be.’ I felt like a bit of a fraud, to be honest. I wasn’t sure one (highly enjoyable) episode of lesbian sex was enough to qualify me.
‘That’s cool,’ he said again. ‘So’s Catwoman.’
‘As in – the comic-book character?’
Owen nodded. ‘She’s thinking of having a baby with her girlfriend,’ he said.
‘Catwoman?’
‘No, Carys. My sister.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘I’m not at that stage yet.’ I went back to my emails.
Owen didn’t. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
‘To what?’
‘To the gay dance thing.’
A thought struck me, and I looked up at him. ‘Are you gay, Owen?’
‘No! No. No. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.’
‘Right.’
‘I’m going out with Laura, remember?’
‘Of course.’
‘I just like gay people,’ he said.
‘All of them?’
‘No, you know. Like Cara Delevingne. And Ellen Page.’
‘You mean, you fancy lesbians.’
‘No! Well – only the hot ones.’
I looked at the Stepping Out website when I got home. There was a video of the Friends of Dorothy, their Solo Jazz group, competing at the London Swing Dance Festival in sequinned hot pants (surprisingly flattering). They had won first prize. Watching the video, I felt the potent combination of nostalgia, envy and self-pity that comes whenever I watch people perform. I had gone cold turkey on dance after my ballet career ended. I thought it would be too painful to teach, or to try contemporary, or move into administration or anything; I even found Zumba classes a bit triggering. Maybe going to a swing dance class would be like opening an old wound. Maybe it wouldn’t, though. Avoiding dance hadn’t made me miss it any less. I decided to give it a go.
I made the most of the time before the first class by practising telling people I was gay. I announced it via WhatsApp to my school friends, none of whom seemed particularly surprised, and when I got my legs waxed, I told the beauty therapist that I was going to a queer dance class. ‘So I’ll be dancing with other women, because I’m gay, which means I fancy women, because of being gay,’ I told her.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Can you turn over for me?’
I also did a fair bit of lesbian Internet research. I discovered that the toaster thing was a hilarious lesbian in-joke – when a woman ‘converts’ another woman to lesbianism, she’s supposedly given a toaster as a thank-you from the lesbian community.
One click led to another, and I found myself reading a dictionary of lesbian slang. Apparently if I noticed a fellow lesbian walking down the street, say, I was supposed to say ‘She’s family’ to whomever I was with. It seemed there was a whole lesbian language I knew nothing about, but I liked that; I felt I was being invited to join a secret club. I liked the idea of being part of a family.
I found a wikiHow article called How to be a lesbian, illustrated with pictures of women in pastel clothes, smiling at each other like the couples in the erectile dysfunction ads you see on the Tube. ‘You can’t make yourself a lesbian if you aren’t one already,’ it told me. You can’t make yourself a straight, either, I thought. Yes, I’d had the odd Jarvis Cocker fantasy. I’d enjoyed the occasional fumble on a single bed. But I’d never really got the point of sex till now. Touch your partner like you touch yourself, said wikiHow. A come-hither motion always works. All right, I thought, I’ll give that a try. When I’ve found someone to be a lesbian with.
I took my time over getting ready. I changed into my best jeans and flossed my teeth, and I tried to ignore my stomach, which was making all sorts of unsociable noises.
‘I think you’re really brave,’ said Alice, standing in my doorway, watching as I put my make-up on.
‘Don’t be patronizing,’ I said. I looked in the mirror. ‘Do I look like a lesbian?’
Alice considered the question. ‘Now you mention it, yes. It’s your hair.’
‘No – it’s my shirt.’ A tartan one, buttoned to the very top.
‘Do you want to borrow one of Dave’s ties, too? You know, ram the point home?’
‘No thanks,’ I said. I stood with both hands on my hips, which makes you feel more confident apparently, according to a TED Talk I’d seen. It didn’t really work. ‘I’m off. See you later.’
‘Unless you get lucky!’ said Alice, as I edged past her to the front door. Now she’d got used to the idea, she really was very excited about the prospect of my new lesbian sex life. Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard so much of her and Dave recently.
‘At a dance class? I think everyone will be able to contain themselves.’
‘You never know.’ She gave me a kiss on the cheek. ‘Promise you won’t make any friends you like better than me?’
‘Promise,’ I said.
The class was in a pub just off Clerkenwell Green, in a pretty, Dickensian corner of the city. I felt immediately at home, as the walls were the same shade of dark red that I’d painted my teenage bedroom. The tables were crowded with thirty-something men drinking pints. There wasn’t a queer dancer to be seen. The barman saw me looking around and jerked his head towards the stairs. ‘They’re up there.’
‘Right!’ I said cheerily, pleased to have been identified as a lesbian, and walked up the creaking staircase, wondering what I’d find at the top.
I hesitated in the doorway of a large, loft-like room. Women and a few men were standing around, some chatting in twos and threes, some on their own, leaning against the radiators for warmth, arms and legs crossed for comfort. A woman wearing purple lipstick was sitting on a table at the front of the room, swinging her legs back and forth. ‘Can everyone pay me now, please!’ she called. ‘There are labels here for you to write your name on.’ I wrote JULIA on a label in thick black marker, stuck it to my shirt and walked to the edge of the room, next to a woman with short brown hair, who was wearing bright-red braces and, amazingly, a bow tie. Her clothes were intimidatingly trendy, but she moved awkwardly, as though she didn’t realize how long her arms and legs were, and that made her seem more approachable.
‘Hello!’ I said, waving at close range, the way I do when I’m nervous. I pointed to my name tag and said, ‘Julia.’
‘Hello!’ she said back, and pointed at her name tag. ‘Ella!’ She grinned at me, like she was delighted to see me. I liked her immediately.
The woman wearing purple lipstick clapped her hands and walked to the middle of the room. ‘I’m Zhu,’ she said. ‘Great to see so many new faces here today! Obviously, this is a queer dance class, so we’re gender neutral – it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman or outside the binary. If you want to try leading, you lead, if you want to follow, you follow.’
I decided to lead. I hadn’t been leading enough in my life lately. Ella, it turned out, was a follower.
‘Shall we?’ I said, holding out my hands, and we learned to do a rock step.
From the moment Zhu turned on the music – Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘Tain’t What You Do (It’s The Way That You Do It)’ – I was in heaven. I hadn’t danced for so long, and when I had danced it had been my job, tied up with my self-esteem and my body image and whether Cat was going to get picked for a solo over me. I had forgotten what it was like to dance for fun, to be in sync with your partner, with the music. I’d forgotten how free it made me feel. Everyone had their own way of dancing – we switched partners every time we learned a new part of the routine, and I danced with a girl named Annie, who was quite stiff and awkward, and a guy named Ollie, whose arms were loose, like skipping ropes – but everyone, everyone had broad smiles across their faces. You couldn’t not smile when you were swing dancing, it seemed. I hadn’t been so purely happy in years.
‘You’re really good at this,’ said Ella when we came full circle and danced together again at the end of the class. Ella was my favourite partner. She flailed her arms and kept kicking with her left leg instead of her right, but she seemed so delighted to be dancing that none of that mattered.
Some of us went downstairs for a drink after the lesson. I sat with Zhu and Ella and a woman named Rebecca – dark brown hair, a lot of earnest opinions on almost every subject – who had her arm around Bo, very smiley, round glasses, wearing a badge reading They/Them. In fact, all of my new swing dance friends smiled a lot, which was relaxing. I had been worried I’d have to hang out with intimidating people like Jane, now that I was a lesbian.
‘Rebecca’s my girlfriend,’ said Bo, unnecessarily. I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to have someone who was that proud of going out with you.
Bo, it turned out, was a freelance coder, which was appropriate, because they moved in a slightly robotic way. Rebecca worked in social media for Greenpeace.
‘She met Gillian Anderson for work the other week,’ Bo said, hand on Rebecca’s knee.
‘Such a waste,’ Zhu said. ‘She doesn’t even fancy her.’
‘She’s a bit too femme for me,’ Rebecca said, shrugging.
It was wonderful to be surrounded by queer people, casually throwing words like ‘femme’ into the conversation.
‘What do you do?’ I asked Ella.
‘I’m a dentist.’ She fiddled with her bow tie.
I stared at her for a moment. ‘Wow.’
‘I know.’
‘Was that like … a vocation?’
‘Not really,’ said Ella. ‘But the money’s good, and I have lots of time to do fun things outside work.’
‘Look at her teeth,’ said Bo.
Ella opened her mouth for me to inspect them, like a horse. They were flawless.
I started gabbling away about the class, talking too fast and too loudly, about how much I had loved it.
‘Own up,’ Zhu said in her teacherly voice. ‘You’ve done swing before.’
‘I haven’t,’ I said, but I explained how I used to be a dancer.
Rebecca leaned towards me. ‘How did you feel about that? Working in such a heteronormative world?’
‘I didn’t really think about it at the time,’ I shrugged. ‘I wasn’t a lesbian then.’
‘Are you a new recruit?’ asked Zhu.
‘Very new,’ I said, because I’d had some beer.
‘So,’ said Zhu, ‘does that mean you’re single?’
‘Zhu,’ said Ella, shaking her head at me, apologizing silently.
‘What?’ said Zhu. ‘Fresh meat!’
I swapped numbers with everyone before I left. Ella hugged me – a really tight hug – and said, ‘Welcome to the family!’
I felt the loveliest, warmest feeling of belonging.
As I was walking home from the Tube, I got a message from Ella. Great hanging out with you! Are you coming next week? I was about to text her back to say yes, I was definitely coming next week, when my phone buzzed with another message.
Come at seven next Friday. Dad’s joined a wine club so there’ll be lots of booze. Don’t tease him about being nearly sixty or about his thread veins, belly, liver spots etc. He’s feeling a bit delicate.
9. SCARY LESBIAN EYES
I caught the coach to Oxford straight after work the following Fri-day. I wrapped the Hitler biography and wrote a card as we rumbled through West London, hoping Dad wouldn’t mind the wobbly handwriting. I felt sick; I knew I didn’t have to come out to my parents yet, but I wanted to get it out of the way. I’ve never liked uncertainty, and I hated the idea of sitting at the dinner table, listening to Mum talking about party wall agreements and Dad gossiping about his graduate students, wondering how they’d react when they found out. In a way, I wished I didn’t have to do it. Telling them I enjoyed fucking women felt a bit like telling them I liked it from behind.
My mother answered the door wearing a draped sheet-type dress, the sort of thing they sell in Hampstead Bazaar for about a thousand pounds. She’d cut her hair since I’d last seen her – it was cropped close to her head and was greyer than I remembered it being. She looked strange but good, like a national treasure.
‘Julia, darling,’ she said, doing a little twirl. ‘Do you like my outfit?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very bohemian.’
‘I had to stop wearing pencil skirts when I cut my hair. I looked all wrong, like a human Heads, Bodies and Legs.’ She leaned towards me and whispered, ‘Have you seen what they’re doing next door?’
I glanced over to the house next to theirs, currently hidden from view by chipboard and scaffolding.
‘Isn’t it hideous?’
‘I don’t think that’s the final look they’re going for, Mum.’
Mum shook her head and ushered me into the hall. ‘You’re no fun to moan to,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to agree with me and say how awful it is.’
Dad was at the kitchen table, flicking through the Radio Times and ranting on about how one of his colleagues had become a media don and was presenting a documentary about the Victorians on the BBC. Dad has always wanted to present documentaries, but he has a slight lisp, which puts the commissioners off a bit, I think.
‘Just look at his face,’ said Dad, pushing the magazine towards me.
I looked down at the photo of Geoffrey, a fellow English lecturer at Oxford Brookes, standing in front of some stately home or other with his arms crossed.
‘He looks pretty smug,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Dad, sipping his wine. ‘And unnaturally smooth. Like an alien. Never trust a man with a smooth face. Just look at Stalin.’
‘I don’t think Stalin’s face was that smooth, Dad,’ I said. ‘He did have quite a prominent moustache.’
‘Yes, but underneath the moustache, he was extremely smooth, I promise you. Same with Hitler, Napoleon, Cliff Richard …’
I took that as my cue to give him the Hitler biography. We opened the book to the glossy photograph pages and argued about the smoothness or otherwise of Hitler’s skin until Mum came in with the dinner.
‘Now,’ said Mum, as we were all tucking into our roast chicken, ‘have you got over your loneliness?’
‘What?’ said Dad, glancing up.
‘Julia was feeling lonely the other week. I told her to get out there and meet people on the Internet.’
‘And I did,’ I said.
‘See?’ said Mum, smiling a self-congratulatory smile. ‘And?’
Dad sat up suddenly and pointed to the radio. Radio 4 was babbling in the background. ‘Is that that Portia de Rossi woman?’
I listened. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘She has lovely hair,’ said Dad, taking another forkful of chicken.
Mum turned to me. ‘Your father has been rather passive aggressive since I cut my hair. He keeps drawing my attention to celebrities with nice hair.’
‘That’s not true, Jenny,’ said Dad. ‘Your hair is very becoming. It was an innocent comment: I like Portia de Rossi’s hair. That’s all.’
‘Fine.’ My mother speared a roast potato.
‘You needn’t feel threatened,’ said Dad. ‘It’s not as though I fancy Portia de Rossi.’
‘Dad,’ I said, ‘please don’t say the word “fancy” in my presence again.’
‘Well, I don’t. She’s an odd woman. Is she Australian? Is she American? Who can tell? And she’s married to Ellen DeGeneres. Very nice hair, though, nevertheless.’
I looked up at Dad. ‘By “odd”, do you mean “gay”?’
‘No, Julia,’ he said. ‘I have no problem with alternative sexualities.’
‘Good,’ I said, preparing myself.
Mum frowned. ‘You aren’t about to tell us that you’re a lesbian, are you?’
I was a bit taken aback. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Yes, actually.’
‘Really?’ she said, eyebrows raised.
‘Yes, really,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said. And then: ‘Good for you. Later in life lesbians are quite the thing these days, aren’t they?’
‘I’m not later in life, Mum,’ I pointed out.
‘No, I suppose not,’ she said, ‘but it must be comforting to know you’re on trend.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said. I felt a bit deflated. I’d expected a little bit more of a reaction from her.
I looked at Dad. He seemed to be trying very hard to settle on the appropriate facial expression.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked him.
‘Of course I am.’
‘You’re not,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing! Nothing,’ he said, cutting a potato into unnecessarily small pieces. ‘I just think you’re being silly. You’re not really gay, are you?’
‘Why would I say I was gay if I wasn’t?’
‘Have you got a friend, then?’ asked Dad, much more blustery and starchy than usual.
‘I have lots of friends.’
‘No, a friend friend. A lover.’
‘Not right now,’ I said.
‘Then you’re not a lesbian,’ said Dad, wiping his mouth with his napkin. ‘You can’t just decide to be a homosexual. You have to try it out.’ He stood up and took some mustard from the fridge, as if the conversation was over.
I wasn’t really sure what to say. I opened my mouth, but I shut it again, because I felt as though I might be about to cry. I hate crying in front of my parents, and I do it surprisingly often.
‘Martin,’ my mother said, in her cold, telling-off voice.
‘What?’ Dad said.
‘Don’t listen to your father,’ she said to me. ‘He’s being ridiculous.’
‘I’m not being ridiculous,’ said Dad. ‘I’m just stating the facts. You have to actually have homosexual sex to be a homosexual.’
‘Well, if you must know—’ I started, but Dad put his hands over his ears like a 5-year-old and sang, ‘Lalalalalalalalalala!’
‘You are such a hypocrite,’ Mum said. ‘Do you have no memories of the Seventies whatsoever? What about that time you and I had a threesome with James? And that other time, with Melinda?’
‘Oh God,’ I said, closing my eyes to block out the mental images. James was my dad’s best friend. He looked like David Attenborough. He used to take me to the park and push me on the swings.
‘That was different,’ said Dad. ‘That was what everyone was doing then.’
Which gave me an interesting insight into life in the Seventies. I thought everyone was wearing flares and using typewriters and walking around in the dark because of power cuts. But they were also having threesomes, it turns out, left, right and centre.
It gave me an interesting insight into my parents’ sex life, too. Clearly they were more sexually adventurous than me. I resolved to change that.
‘Well,’ said Mum, while I sat twitching at the kitchen table, ‘I’m delighted you’re a lesbian, Julia. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be interesting. And now you really are.’
Not as interesting as my bloody parents, though.
I texted Cat on the way back to London to tell her I’d come out. Well done, mate! she texted back. Let’s go lesbian dancing to celebrate. Tomorrow?? PS do you think I have a German aura? My agent thinks I do.
I texted Ella, too, because I wanted to tell someone who would appreciate the importance of what I’d just done and who wouldn’t immediately change the subject to make it all about them.
Hooray!! So brave!!!! she replied. Please can I buy you a drink to celebrate? Some swing dance people are going out in Dalston tomorrow night, if you’d like to come.
I said yes. For the first time in ages, my life was moving forward, and not in a depressing, hurtling-towards-the-grave way.
I was a bit nervous about going out in Dalston; I hadn’t been clubbing in months, partly because I was always skint and partly because the last time I’d been clubbing I’d taken too much ecstasy and ended the night by cutting my eyebrows off with a pair of scissors. I was fairly sure I’d learned my lesson since then, though. My eyebrows were probably safe.
Alice was a bit suspicious of my new friends. ‘It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? You barely know them,’ she said as we pushed our trolley around Sainsbury’s. She paused in front of the milk. ‘Don’t you think we should switch to whole milk for tea? It really makes a difference to the taste.’
‘Sure,’ I said, about the milk. And then: ‘I think the rules are different with queers. If you find people you like, you hang onto them.’
She didn’t look convinced.
‘You should come out with us,’ I said, putting some yoghurt in the trolley.
She cheered up a bit at that. ‘OK then,’ she said.
‘Cat’s coming too.’
‘Oh!’ said Alice, trying and failing to sound pleased. Alice and Cat pretend to like each other for my sake, but I know they don’t really. We have a three-way WhatsApp group that only I send messages to. ‘How long is she back?’ Alice asked now.
‘Just for a week. She’s got an audition.’
‘What for?’
‘An ad for a German supermarket. Her agent says her aura appeals to Germans.’
Alice started laughing and didn’t stop until we’d reached the cheese section, where we had a minor argument about mature versus extra mature cheddar.
By the time we arrived at the club that night, the queue was snaking around the block. A power-drunk doorman wearing a fascinator with a flamingo on it was walking up and down the queue, picking out people wearing particularly exciting outfits and hustling them inside before everyone else. Cat, Alice and I were not chosen.
‘What if he doesn’t let us in?’ Alice asked, hugging herself against the cold.
‘He will,’ said Cat, smiling at the doorman. He ignored her. ‘Dickhead,’ she muttered.
Ten minutes passed. I began to feel hot and impatient, anxious to get inside. I texted Ella: Sorry. Stuck outside.
Eventually the trendy people ran out and we made it to the front of the queue. But the doorman dropped his arm in front of us like a camp portcullis.
‘You know this is a gay club?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m gay.’
‘You don’t look it,’ he said.
‘Why?’ said Cat. ‘What does a gay person look like?’
‘Even if you are,’ he said, ‘I can’t just let every gay person in London in.’
Bo appeared in the doorway of the club. ‘Hey!’ they called to us. ‘You coming in?’
‘If we’re allowed to,’ I said. I gave the doorman what I hoped was a cold, hard stare.
He swivelled around to look at Bo. The flamingo on his fascinator bobbed in the breeze.
‘Hey, Orson,’ said Bo.
‘They with you?’ asked Orson.
‘Yeah. Can you let them in?’ Bo gave him a golden smile. He didn’t stand a chance.
‘Sorry,’ said Orson. ‘I didn’t realize.’ He stood aside. ‘Have a great night.’
We hurried inside, before he could change his mind.
‘That was really cool,’ Alice said to Bo, in a really uncool way.
‘He was in my year at uni,’ said Bo, shrugging. ‘His real name’s Tim.’
Bo led us to the corner of the dance floor where Ella and Rebecca were dancing, their coats in a pile on the floor between them. Ella was dressed eccentrically again, in a jumpsuit that looked like a tuxedo. I was nervous introducing them to Cat and Alice, but I needn’t have been. The heat and darkness of the club made everyone stand closer together than they otherwise would have done, shouting into each other’s ears like deaf old friends. Soon we were on our second bottle of house red, and Rebecca was talking to Alice – I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but there was a lot of intense nodding – and Ella was teasing Cat about her advert audition.
‘Why are they auditioning British people?’
‘Maybe no one in Germany wants the job,’ Cat said.
‘Are you fluent in German?’
‘Do I look like I’m fluent in German? It’s a non-speaking role,’ Cat said. ‘I just have to look enthusiastic about sausages in a German way.’
Ella laughed again, throwing her head back, showing her perfect teeth. ‘She’s brilliant!’ she said to me.
‘She is,’ I said, and I gave Cat a hug.
The music seemed to get louder and the club hazier, though it’s possible it just seemed that way because of all the wine. People started dancing and we joined in, eyes closed, hands in the air. Bo and Rebecca were dancing together, trying out some lindy hop moves to the EDM.
‘We should go out more!’ Cat shouted in my ear, over a dance tune I didn’t know.
‘Yeah!’ said Alice. ‘I love lesbians!’
‘Me too!’ I said, draining my glass and trying to refill it, then realizing we had run out of wine. ‘I’m just going to the bar,’ I shouted.
‘What?’ Alice shouted back.
‘The bar!’ I did a drink mime.
I pushed my way through the sweaty, smelly bodies, looking over my shoulder at my oldest friends dancing with my newest friends, feeling a surge of happiness and gratitude.
I ordered another bottle of house red and was waiting, half dancing, when I noticed a woman at the other end of the bar, long curly hair, leather jacket, staring at me – a ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ sort of stare.
I looked away, a bit put out, but when I looked back she was still staring, still apparently hating me for no reason. When she caught my eye, she tapped her friend on the shoulder and whispered something in her ear. Her friend turned and then started walking towards me, looking me up and down, like we were in a Western and were about to have a shoot-out. I clutched my glass of wine in what I hoped was a threatening manner.
‘All right?’ she said, raising her chin to me.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘My friend – the one with the curly hair? Yeah – she thinks you’re hot. Are you single?’
I turned the woman down – the staring put me off – and went to tell the others what had happened.
‘Don’t you know about that yet?’ said Ella, taking charge of the bottle and refilling everyone’s glasses.
‘About what?’ I asked.
‘About the scary lesbian eyes. It’s a thing,’ said Ella. ‘If you fancy someone in a lesbian bar, you have to stare at her like you want her dead. And she stares back like she wants you dead.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then you have sex,’ said Rebecca, shrugging.
I looked at Cat and Alice. They seemed as fascinated as me. ‘Without speaking to each other?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes,’ said Bo.
‘But how does that work?’ I asked. ‘How do you go from death stares to kissing?’
‘You just do,’ said Ella. ‘Although I’ve never got past the staring stage, personally.’
‘Try it,’ Cat said to me. ‘Pick someone. See if it works.’
I scanned the room. Several of the lesbians were wearing baseball caps at a jaunty angle. I noticed more than one undercut. I felt out of my depth. And then I saw a woman standing next to the DJ booth who seemed more sure of herself than anyone else in the room. She was probably in her late twenties, tall and angular, with golden skin and short, dark hair, curly on top and shaved at the sides. She was standing up, shoulders back, surveying the room like she owned it, which made her seem even taller; her posture was the first thing I noticed about her. The second thing I noticed was that I found her incredibly attractive.
I looked at Cat. ‘Do it!’ she said.
‘She’s too cool for me,’ I said.
‘She’s not,’ said Ella.
‘She’s looking away now, anyway,’ I said.
‘Go on!’ Alice said.
So I stared at the woman until she looked away from the woman she was talking to and looked back at me. I kept staring. The others sniggered and turned their backs, but they were obviously still half-watching us, because I heard Ella say, ‘She’s coming over!’
The attractive woman walked up to me and leaned towards me, so close that I could tell she was wearing men’s cologne, to introduce herself over the music.
‘Sam,’ she shouted.
‘Julia,’ I shouted back, and as we shook hands, I noticed the muscles in her forearm tense. They were pretty well developed, and I had a sudden vision of that forearm having sex with me.
Sam smiled a half-smile like she knew what I was thinking, holding my gaze. Her eyes were a very dark brown. ‘I like your jumper,’ she said.
‘I like your face,’ I said.
Sam laughed. I felt very pleased with myself. Maybe I wasn’t so bad at flirting, after all.
‘I’ve seen you somewhere before, haven’t I?’ she asked, one arm against the wall, blocking my view of my friends.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. But there was something vaguely familiar about her.
‘Are you an artist too?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said, but then I realized. ‘You know Jane, don’t you? Did you go to a party at her warehouse in Hackney Wick a few months ago?’
She gave me another half-smile. ‘That’s where I saw you. She was trying to chat you up but you weren’t having any of it.’
I started to contradict her – I was pretty proud of the lesbian sex I’d had – but Sam was looking at her phone.
‘Listen,’ she said, glancing up, ‘I’m meant to be meeting a friend now – but I’d love to buy you a drink sometime, if you like.’
‘Great,’ I said.
‘Have you got your phone? I’ll give you my number.’
I was collecting numbers wherever I went these days. I hardly knew myself.
I looked around Sam as she typed her number into my phone, wanting the others to notice that she had chosen me. Me!
I drop called her and we said goodbye, and then I just sort of stood there for a minute, everything brighter and louder and more exciting suddenly. And then the others ran up to me, practically rubbing their hands together.
‘Did I just see you give Sam your number?’ Rebecca asked.
‘Yeah,’ I said, as casually as I could.
Cat shook her head, apparently very proud of me. ‘Mate,’ she said. ‘You fucking did it.’
‘You’re going to have fun,’ said Rebecca.
‘What?’ I said.
‘With Sam,’ she said.
‘Have you …?’ I raised my eyebrows.
‘When I first came out,’ said Rebecca. ‘She’s really good.’
‘Oi,’ said Bo, who had been listening to our conversation.
‘What?’ said Rebecca. ‘She is!’
You might think I’d have been put off by Rebecca’s revelation, but I wasn’t. I hoped Sam would fuck me, teach me all about lesbian sex and send me on my way a seasoned lesbian, capable of discussing my past conquests in Dalston clubs with people I’d only just met.
Sam texted me that night as I was getting into bed. Sleep tight, beautiful Julia … I’m free next weekend if you are. Sam x
I crafted a reply that was neutral and noncommittal but open to sex: Yeah sure. Maybe next Saturday? Julia x
She texted back straight away: Brilliant, babes. I’ll think of somewhere good to take you and let you know. Looking forward to it … will be thinking about it all week. She put a kiss emoji at the end of the text, which gave me a bit of a thrill.
I closed my eyes and said a silent thank you to the universe. When I’d been sleeping with men, theoretically at least, I’d gone three years without so much as a bit of half-hearted fingering, and here I was, about to have sex with my second woman in as many months.
10. A SEX-CUPBOARD STAPLE
That March was the rainiest on record, and there was a leak in our terrible flat’s terrible skylight, but my swing dance classes and my new friends and the prospect of a date with Sam made the world seem sunny and the flat seem like a luxury apartment designed for Chinese investors. The Monday after I met Sam, I cheerfully put a washing-up bowl underneath the skylight and left for work, smiling at people as I walked to the Tube. My anxiety had a purpose now; it was excitement making my heart race, not nameless dread. But by Thursday, I still hadn’t heard from her. She had told me she’d be in touch, so I didn’t want to text her first. I spent my days listening out for her text, snatching up my phone whenever it buzzed in my pocket, keeping it in front of my computer screen at work so I wouldn’t miss anything. The only texts I got were PPI spam, or Alice telling me to buy milk, or Ella asking What’s happening?? When’s the date????
Then on Friday, during a briefing about the new measures to tackle childhood obesity, my phone lit up with a text from Sam. Tom’s eyes flicked towards it. I pulled it under the table before he could read it.
Still up for meeting? What’s your address? I’ll pick you up at eight tomorrow.
I had never been picked up at eight before.
Smriti was saying something impressive about ‘horizons of expectations’ and everyone was nodding, so I nodded too. Owen looked at me and raised his eyebrows in a question.
‘Sam,’ I mouthed. ‘My date.’
‘Nice,’ he mouthed back.
‘Everything OK, Owen?’ Tom asked. ‘Anything you wanted to share with the group?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Just – I agree with Smriti, really.’
‘About …?’
‘About what she was just saying.’
I was nervous about the date, mostly for sex reasons. Jane had done much of the doing when we’d banged, and we hadn’t used any accoutrements. I had started watching The L Word as research, and from what I’d seen, I was worried that lesbian sex might be quite accoutrementheavy. I was hoping that things like dildos were for advanced-level shagging – not the sort of thing you’d whip out on a first meeting – but I didn’t want to expose myself as a beginner. I decided to text Ella for advice.
Do you think Sam will expect me to have a strap-on? The Internet says it’s a sex-cupboard staple. I need some lesbian sex help.
She replied straight away, with three laughy-cry-face emojis. I am NOT a sex expert but I’ll do my best. What are you doing on Saturday during the day? Want to go to a sex shop?!
I’d never been to a sex shop before – hadn’t needed to. You can get everything you need for straight sex in Boots or in a vending machine in the pub toilets, if push comes to shove.
‘Where is it?’ Alice asked that morning as I was getting ready to go out. She was putting on her foundation, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
‘Shoreditch,’ I said. I edged around her to pick up my toothbrush. ‘Can I get to the sink for a minute?’
Alice sighed and stepped back to let me in. ‘You could have asked me to come.’
I looked at her. ‘Why would you want to come to a sex shop?’
‘I have sex!’
‘It’s a women-only sex shop.’
‘I’m a woman!’
‘I’m going to be buying a dildo.’
‘Maybe I need a dildo.’
‘To use on Dave?’ I whispered.
She shrugged. ‘Might spice things up a bit,’ she said, voice quieter now.
‘I can get you one,’ I said.
Alice looked as though she was about to argue and then she shut her eyes for a moment and said, ‘Sorry. I’m being an idiot.’
‘Only a bit of an idiot,’ I said. The truth is, I liked Alice being jealous of me. I’d felt the same when she’d got together with Dave, all those years ago; suddenly the person I was used to doing everything with had someone else to do everything with. I’d hated it. But now Alice was going to have to get used to doing without me.
The sex shop Ella took me to was called Sh!. ‘Everyone comes here,’ she told me. ‘It’s a rite of passage.’ As is the way with most things designed for women, it was decorated in various shades of pink and red and purple, so walking in felt like entering a large, latex-scented vagina. There were shelves full of sex toys and feminist porn, but I went straight for the books and cards. You know where you are with a book or a card. They might have nipples on them, but the nipples are non-threatening, two-dimensional nipples and no one will expect you to attach clamps to them or anything like that. But Ella wasn’t having any of it. She put her hand on my back and steered me towards the shelves of dildos, saying, ‘We did not come here to buy cards.’
I glanced up at the dildos and glanced away again. I found them terrifying, frankly. I’d never been a big fan of penises, and I’d certainly never aspired to wield one myself. What if I was no good at thrusting?
I scanned the shelves for an unintimidating cock. There were black ones and blue ones and purple ones, some as small as an index finger, some as thick as an arm.
‘What do you like the look of?’ Ella asked. She was studying me curiously and I had a feeling she was thinking about the size of my cunt.
‘I don’t think we know each other well enough for this,’ I said.
‘Just pick one.’
I was baffled by all the choice. ‘Is this for someone else to use on me?’ I asked her. ‘Or for me to use on someone else?’
‘Both,’ she said. ‘Or you could buy several?’
‘I’m a junior civil servant,’ I pointed out. ‘Buying one massive latex penis is a luxury as it is.’
‘OK,’ said Ella, ‘first of all, don’t call it a penis. There’s no man in this equation.’
‘Good point.’
‘Second of all, this isn’t a luxury. It’s a lesbian essential. Once you’re properly seeing someone, you’ll come back and pick out a cock together. So think of this as your fall-back cock.’
‘My emergency cock.’
‘Exactly!’
A shop assistant wandered up to us. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Not sure,’ I said. ‘Just looking, really.’
‘Have you bought a cock before?’
‘She hasn’t,’ Ella said, before I could answer.
She nodded. ‘Are you into girth? Or, like, length?’
I wasn’t sure, to be honest. I was used to taking what I was given when it came to cocks – having to choose my own felt like picking out a personality for myself. I ruled out the massive black ones as they seemed like the equivalent of a Ferrari – promising too much up front. I also ruled out the little thin glittery ones because really, what was the point? You might as well just use your fingers.
‘I like girth, I think,’ I said. ‘But I was thinking of something quite … all purpose.’
‘Got it,’ said the sales assistant. She reached up to a high shelf and took down a medium-sized dildo with ridges along its length. ‘This one’s good for beginners,’ she said. Which was embarrassing; a bit like someone at a pharmacy saying, ‘Good condoms for virgins, those.’
‘That looks great,’ I said, reaching for it, just wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible.
‘Ribbed for your pleasure,’ she said as she handed it over.
‘Lovely.’
‘Easy to aim, if you know what I mean.’
‘Great.’
I walked over to the till, but the shop assistant didn’t follow. ‘You’ll need a harness, too,’ she said, running her fingers over the display. ‘Leather is more traditional. Or you could try the underpants. They’re easier to get on and off, but they’re not as sexy.’ She picked up what looked like a pair of Y-fronts with a hole in them and stretched them to demonstrate their elasticity.
There was an apple sticker stuck to the floor. I scuffed it with my foot.
‘The stretchy pants are easier,’ said Ella.
‘Don’t get them,’ said the shop assistant. ‘You need a real harness. It’s part of the ritual.’
Ella laughed. ‘Yes, the ritual of having to stop in the middle of foreplay to strap yourself into a medieval torture device, and then you realize you’ve put your leg through the bum hole, and then you have to take it off again, except you’re stuck, and whoever you’re having sex with has to help you get out of it, and the moment’s totally gone—’
‘You get used to it,’ said the shop assistant. ‘If you do it often enough.’
Ella rolled her eyes. ‘Try on a harness, then,’ she said.
The shop assistant tossed me one.
Working out how to put on the harness was like doing kinky cat’s cradle. I stepped into one of the holes, but Ella was right – it turned out to be the wrong one. She had to help me figure out how to put it on. She pulled on the straps to tighten it.
‘Now you put the cock in,’ said the sales assistant, handing it to me. I pushed it through the cock ring and there it was, standing up proudly in front of me, ready to pleasure the ladies. I felt completely ridiculous.
‘I’m telling you,’ said Ella. ‘The pants are much easier.’
‘But much less sexy,’ said the shop assistant, shrugging.
I bought the leather harness.
There was a display of mini-vibrators at the till point. I picked up a blue one and handed it to the shop assistant. ‘This too, please,’ I said. I’d give it to Alice, to make up for having new friends.
‘Now you’re a proper dyke!’ said Ella, as we left the shop.
‘Hooray!’
‘What are you doing now?’ said Ella. ‘Want to come to a vintage fair in Bethnal Green?’
‘I’d better not,’ I said. ‘I have to go home and get ready for my date.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Your date!’
I felt a little ripple of foreboding.
11. WHIPS ARE VERY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
I spent an unusual amount of time washing when I got home. I took the shower head and sprayed it inside my vagina. I wanted to make sure Sam wouldn’t have any complaints if I ended up going home with her. Or would she expect to come back to mine? In which case should I change the bed sheets? Should I trim my pubes? Or should I leave them unshaven so I couldn’t take my underpants off, taking that decision out of my hands? And did wanting to trim my pubes make me a bad feminist?
Sam rang the doorbell at eight exactly. I opened the door, trying to block the view of the piles of shoes and coats in the un-Hoovered hallway, my arms crossed self-consciously; I was wearing Alice’s push-up bra. Here she was, an actual woman who actually wanted to take me on a date. And she was sexy, too, in slouchy black trousers and a black silk shirt.
I felt sick with excitement. Or was it fear? I felt sick, either way.
‘You look gorgeous,’ she said, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek.
I made an involuntary noise. I felt like I might not make it through the evening without yelping through pure pent-up sexual frustration.
‘You too,’ I said.
I smiled the smile of a woman who was totally used to going on dates with other women, no big deal. But as I unhooked my coat from the peg, I brought four other coats down with me, including Alice’s mad, oversized leopard-print rug of a jacket. I managed to hang the others back up, but the leopard-print rug slumped off the peg every time, collapsing at my feet, and I was growing frantic.
Sam came up behind me and gently took the coat from my hand. She examined the neckline calmly, finding the fabric loop and slipping it over the peg. ‘Happens to me all the time,’ she said. She picked my coat up from the floor and held it out for me to slip my arms into, the sort of thing a receptionist at an expensive hairdresser might do.
‘Shall we?’ she said, offering me her arm.
The light was fading and the windows of the houses opposite glowed yellow. A large part of me wanted to go back inside and curl up on the sofa with a bar of Green & Black’s, but Sam was leading me towards her car. She owned a car; I’d never been on a date with someone who owned a car before. It was a shit car, but so shit that it was trendy – an old Volvo painted brown on top and orange on the sides. Inside it smelled vaguely of cigarettes. Maybe she smoked. I didn’t know if I wanted to date someone who smoked.
‘The place we’re going is round the corner from my flat,’ she told me, as she turned the key in the ignition.
‘You didn’t have to come all the way out here to get me!’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m old-fashioned. In some ways. I know how to treat a lady on a first date.’ I winced – I do not like being called a lady – but then she squeezed my knee and the vibrations travelled up my leg to my cunt and I was tempted to pull the handbrake and beg her to fuck me right there in the car in the middle of Green Lanes.
I didn’t, though, obviously. Instead, I asked, ‘What’s the restaurant called?’
‘Butter. Have you heard of it?’
I had indeed heard of Butter; I’d seen endless photos of their dishes on Instagram. It wasn’t the sort of place badly paid public-sector employees went for dinner; even the bread basket was out of my price range. Would Sam be paying for the meal, as she’d asked me out and chosen the restaurant? But where would she get that kind of money? She was an artist, possibly the only job that paid worse than mine. And if she paid, would she think I owed her something – i.e. weird sex? No, I told myself. That is not how sex works. You never owe anyone sex.
We walked up one of those recently posh East London streets to the restaurant, which glowed with the promise of expensive food. Sam helped me off with my coat and pulled my chair out. She was really, really chivalrous; there’s no other word for it. She seemed determined to be a gentleman, and I’d decided not to go out with gentlemen any more. But she wasn’t a man, clearly. She looked nothing like a man, and sounded nothing like a man; she just had an incredible energy about her – feminine and masculine at the same time. Somehow she made me feel more female than I ever had in my whole life.
I ordered asparagus to start.
‘We won’t be doing water sports tonight then,’ she said, ripping a piece of bread in half and taking a bite.
‘Sorry?’
‘I don’t really like the taste of asparagus piss. This is the stuff, though,’ she said, chinking her glass to mine. ‘Prosecco’s perfect if you’re about to get kinky.’
‘Not champagne?’
‘Depends how often you want to do it. It can get expensive.’
That set the tone for the evening. Sam brought everything back to sex, which, needless to say, wouldn’t have been my specialist subject on Mastermind. She asked me what I liked to do in bed in such a frank, disarming way that I almost answered. The only reason I didn’t was that I didn’t know what I liked to do in bed yet.
There was no use pretending – I came clean and told her I’d only slept with one woman.
‘You shagged Jane? That night at the party?’
‘After a different party.’
‘Fuck!’ Sam nodded, eyebrows raised, impressed. ‘Well done. She’s hot. She’s a twat, though. But still – hot.’
‘Why is she a twat?’
‘I used to go out with one of her friends. She was a total dick about it, turned her against me. I think she was just jealous. Anyway, tell me more. Did she let you fuck her? And I hear she’s good with her tongue.’
She wanted to know literally every detail of the encounter, and hearing me talk about it seemed to turn her on, which turned me on. I was so far out of my comfort zone I felt like I was pretending to be someone else; I was telling her things I’d barely let myself think before, let alone say.
‘Sex is my hobby,’ Sam told me, once we’d exhausted my sexual history (which took approximately three minutes). ‘It’s the number-one thing I love to do. I met most of my friends through the SM scene. We go to sex conventions together, things like that.’
‘Sex conventions.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have to wear a lanyard to get into those?’
‘A really kinky black one.’
‘Right.’ I concentrated on my food while I tried to work out what to say next. ‘And SM – that’s the same as S and M?’
Sam nodded. ‘People in the scene don’t tend to use the “and”, though,’ she said.
‘Right,’ I said again.
Sam looked at me and smiled. ‘Don’t be scared,’ she said.
‘I’m not scared,’ I said, looking her in the eye. Which was a lie, but never mind – I was definitely more turned on than terrified.
‘The SM community is really friendly,’ Sam said. ‘And no one would ever make you do anything you didn’t want to do. Consent is a big deal.’
‘So you wouldn’t get a whip out on a first date or anything,’ I said.
‘Is that a request?’
After we’d eaten, Sam took me for a walk through the streets of Hackney, towards her flat. She stopped at a bench and lit a cigarette.
‘You smoke,’ I said unnecessarily.
She made a face. ‘I tried to give up, but I have an addictive personality.’ There was something sexy about the way she smoked, even though I knew there shouldn’t be. She noticed me looking at her and held out the cigarette for me.
Why not? I thought. I felt reckless with Sam, as though the rules I usually lived by didn’t apply. I took a drag. It was weirdly delicious, much nicer than I remembered cigarettes being.
We walked on, past a poster for the BFI, and I had a momentary flashback to my night with Finn; I already felt like a different person from the one who had been on that date. We paused outside Homerton station and Sam put her hands on my shoulders, and turned me to face her, and kissed me. It was a gorgeous kiss – soft and stubble-free.
Women were definitely, definitely better kissers than men.
Sam was getting really into it, but I was holding back slightly. You can do this, I told myself. You can totally have sex with her in her dungeon. You are an open-minded, sex-positive woman. Whips are very twenty-first century.
But she must have tasted my fear because she pulled away.
‘Let’s get you home,’ she said, as though she was a kind uncle who’d taken me for a day at the zoo. Not, just to be clear, that any of my uncles has ever kissed me like that.
‘I don’t have to go home,’ I said, leaning into her now that she was distancing herself.
‘Not tonight,’ she said, laughing, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’ And she walked towards the entrance of the Overground, leaving me to follow behind.
She sat with me till the Overground came, and told me more about her art.
‘I did an MFA in New York,’ she told me. ‘Figurative painting is big over there, but most people here are still obsessed with fucking installation art.’ She kicked a chocolate wrapper away from the bench we were sitting on.
‘So you paint portraits?’
She nodded. ‘Of women. From the point of view of the queer female gaze instead of the male gaze.’
‘Do you paint full time?’
She nodded, then shrugged. ‘I’m doing pretty well at the moment, but mostly in the States. I’m represented by this gallery in LA, the Night Gallery?’
I made an impressed noise, though I’d never heard of it.
‘I had a painting in the BP Portrait Award, though, so people here are starting to hear about me. Ingvild Goetz bought one of my paintings. She’s an important German collector,’ she explained, seeing my blank look. ‘Still not represented by a UK gallery, though.’ That, judging by her facial expression, was a sore point.
‘Can I see your work?’
‘I’m having my first solo show in London soon, so you can see it then. If you play your cards right.’ She nudged me with her hip. ‘Anyway, what about you? Did you always want to work at the Civil Service?’
I laughed. ‘Has anyone always wanted to work in the Civil Service?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘They have good pension schemes, don’t they?’
‘Not any more,’ I said. ‘I used to be a dancer. I broke my ankle and had to give up.’
She looked me in the eye and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ As though she really meant it. ‘I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I couldn’t paint.’
She understood. I felt a rush of gratitude towards her.
She put her arm around me. A man with a Fitness First rucksack a little further down the platform looked at us, as though trying to work out our relationship.
‘It must be amazing,’ I said, ‘making money from the thing you love to do.’
‘I thought it would be,’ she said, ‘but I’m always comparing myself to other people. Like, Jane – she’s represented by this Hackney gallery, Revolution. And her work is such bollocks.’
‘It is bollocks.’
‘But bollocks is what people care about at the moment.’
‘People don’t want bollocks in their houses.’
‘I know you don’t, at least,’ she said. ‘Not literal bollocks anyway.’ She winked at me.
And then, too soon, the train pulled into the platform.
‘I’ll be thinking of you all night,’ she said, as the door closed between us.
I didn’t try winking back; my winking technique is a bit hit and miss. I watched her waving as the train pulled away, my heart pounding, my head rushing.
She was so fucking sexy.
My bed felt empty that night. I lay awake, too turned on to sleep, wishing I’d gone home with her. So I unwrapped my dildo and tried it out, imagining Sam using it on me, slamming it into myself with the palm of my hand. It was pretty good; I kept at it till I felt myself getting sore. But I didn’t come.
I couldn’t get to sleep afterwards. I watched YouTube for a while, trying to soothe my racing mind with make-up tutorials, but I felt more awake than ever. Fuck it, I thought. I’ll text her – just to say thanks, and that I’d had a nice time.
She texted straight back. Any time babes. It was a pleasure to have such a delicious woman on my arm. Hopefully next time you’ll come back to mine to check out my sketchbook.
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
