by Kate Davies
Nicky crossed her legs. ‘There’s good evidence that ACT is very helpful for anxiety, so I thought we should give it a go.’
‘OK,’ I said.
‘OK,’ she said.
I looked at her. She looked back.
‘So how do we do it?’ I asked.
‘Close your eyes,’ she said, in a new, strange voice that she obviously thought was ‘relaxing’.
I closed my eyes.
‘Now. We’re going to do a simple grounding exercise to connect to the present moment.’
I couldn’t stop myself smiling.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Why are you laughing at me?’
‘I’m not!’ I said, trying and failing to get rid of the smile.
‘You are.’
‘It’s just the voice,’ I said, opening my eyes. ‘Do it in your ordinary voice.’
‘Close your eyes,’ she said again, sternly, in her ordinary voice. I did as I was told. ‘Just check in with yourself. How are you feeling, at the level of the body? At the level of the thoughts and emotions?’
‘I have a slight feeling of dread,’ I said.
‘That was a rhetorical question.’
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Right. Take a deep breath in. Now empty your lungs completely. Let them fill up again of their own accord.’
I took a deep breath through my nose. Nicky’s living room smelled musty, like damp towels that hadn’t dried properly. I could smell something meaty, too. Maybe she’d had bacon for breakfast.
‘If any thoughts come into your mind, just notice them and let them float gently away, like clouds, or balloons.’
I let the thought of bacon drift away. And then, unbidden, Smriti and Tom’s faces came into my mind. I imagined them floating into the air, balloon shaped. And then I thought about Sam. Sam’s face. Sam’s smell. Sex with Sam.
‘If any thoughts hook you in, just let them drift on by, like leaves on a stream,’ said Nicky.
Sam wouldn’t drift. But I didn’t mind being hooked in by thoughts of Sam.
22. GIMP MASKS AND WAGON WHEELS
I didn’t see Sam much in the week leading up to the SM club. She had loads of work to do in preparation for her show, she said, and she cancelled our dinner plans on Thursday night because an artist friend of a friend was visiting from the States.
‘Can I come?’ I asked.
‘It’ll be boring, babes,’ she said. ‘We’ll just be talking about art.’
‘OK,’ I said, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit rejected.
I woke up with a racing heart the next day, and felt sweaty-palmed all day at work. What was I letting myself in for? What if I hated SM? What if it … hurt? But I had another letter from Eric, describing the first time he went on a bombing raid, which put things in perspective:
The flak they shot at us looked so beautiful from 12,000 feet, like fireworks, red and green and blue and every beautiful colour you can imagine. It felt like a miracle that we got back alive, but I tell you what, there’s no high like it.
That was real danger. SM seemed dangerous but it wasn’t. That was the point.
I went to Sam’s after work, and we ate takeaway sushi and drank beer and discussed what we were going to wear to the SM club the following night.
‘Less is more,’ Sam told me, with a mouth full of California roll. ‘Do you own a corset?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘A thong?’ Sam said, dipping a nigiri in my soy sauce.
‘Yes,’ I said, feeling a little less sure about the whole thing.
‘So wear the thong and just tape over your nipples with gaffer tape. I have some leopard-print gaffer tape around here somewhere.’ She wandered over to the kitchen and rifled through a few drawers until she found it. ‘Boom,’ she said, and tossed it to me.
The roll was almost full, but the edge was ragged, curled up at the corners.
‘Friend brought it back from America for me,’ Sam said.
I knew ‘friend’ meant ‘person I used to fuck’. I let the ripple of jealousy pass through me.
Sam went to the studio again the next morning. I slept late, turned the radio on for company and experimented with the gaffer tape. I managed to make myself quite a supportive bra, though it didn’t look particularly sexy – a bit like a sports bra – and it left unsightly marks on my breasts when I pulled it off. I had a long, hot shower, in an attempt to remove the marks. By the time I got out, I had three missed calls from Sam.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked, when I called her back.
‘I was in the shower.’
A silence. ‘You’re still at my flat?’
‘Yes,’ I said, not sure that was the right answer, suddenly.
‘Are you on your own?’
‘Of course I’m on my own!’ I said. ‘Who else would I be with?’
I heard her breathe out. ‘I was worried when I couldn’t get hold of you. I thought something might have happened to you.’
‘What would have happened?’
‘I don’t know. I’m being silly. Answer the phone when I call you, babes, OK?’
‘OK,’ I said. I felt like I’d been told off. ‘Sorry,’ I added.
‘That’s all right, babes,’ she said. And I resented her saying it, for implying I’d been right to apologize.
She said she wasn’t going to be back till seven, so I took a bus home, playing with the gaffer tape as I watched people on the streets of Hackney on the way to their nights out, sticking and unsticking my finger in time to my heartbeat.
I had arranged to meet Sam in the queue to the SM club. I don’t know what I expected her to be wearing – nipple clamps or something, I suppose – but when I spotted her, face lit by her phone screen, she was dressed in a Navy uniform, complete with jacket and boots. She hadn’t told me that would be an option; I felt a little foolish now, in my thong and gaffer tape, though I was wearing my wrap dress and a coat, too, for the benefit of everyone on the Piccadilly line.
I couldn’t see any other women in the queue, only men with artistic facial hair and long coats. We walked to a harshly lit locker room and got rid of our coats. I felt a whole lot less self-conscious when I saw how little everyone else was wearing beneath theirs. Sam kissed me, took me by the hand and led me down a corridor.
Everywhere I looked there were naked male bums attached to buff male bodies. It felt impolite to stare, so I tried to avert my gaze, but there was nowhere to avert it to, because everyone was pretty much naked. The social rules I’d obeyed all my life obviously didn’t apply here, not when the outfit of choice for most of the men was a cock ring and nothing else. So I tried to calm the anxious, uptight voice in my head that was screeching ‘My eyes!’ and breathe, and smile. I’d never seen so many beautiful people. I found myself feeling grateful that I wasn’t a gay man; they seemed to have put an awful lot more effort into their abs than I was prepared to.
As we walked past the men’s toilets, I saw a man lying on the floor, with a plastic funnel attached to the mouth of his gimp mask. I shuddered, internally, so as not to offend anyone. He looked like something out of a horror film.
‘That’s Jim,’ said Sam.
‘What’s he doing?’ I asked.
And that’s when a man walked up to him and peed into the funnel.
‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘He’s kind of into extreme water sports.’
We came to a pulsing concrete dance floor filled with writhing, naked bodies. From the wild hand movements and beatific smiles, I’d say most people were on drugs.
‘Let’s get something,’ I said to Sam. ‘MDMA?’ I noticed a shifty-looking man in a corner, too fully clothed, not joining in with the dancing. ‘He looks like he might be selling.’
But Sam didn’t like mixing drugs and sex. ‘It dilutes the experience,’ she said. ‘I’m a purist when it comes to fucking.’ And I took it from her tone that I wasn’t allowed anything either.
The next room we went into was clearly a sex room. Gay porn was being
projected onto the walls, the groans of the men just audible over the dance music. I stood in a corner and watched groups of men fucking each other, still feeling strange and distant, as though I wasn’t really there. Occasionally a man would walk up to the group and start fucking someone, seemingly at random. Then he’d get bored and wander off again. I felt as though I was watching a nature documentary.
In the middle of the room were rows of slings, laid out like gothic hospital beds with neat little shelves full of toilet paper, latex gloves, lube and condoms. There were men lying in the slings, apparently waiting to be fucked by anyone at all who wandered past. Perhaps the element of surprise was sexy. I wondered what they’d think if I walked up and pulled on a glove.
‘Do you fancy it?’ Sam said, indicating a sling.
‘I don’t think they’re interested in me,’ I said.
‘No. I mean, why don’t you lie in one?’
I took a step away from the slings. ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘They don’t look very hygienic.’
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fun.’ She picked up the bottle of antiseptic spray the club had thoughtfully provided, and wiped the sling down. She patted the leather pillow. ‘Hop up,’ she said.
So I did. Climbing onto it was challenging – a bit like mounting a horse – but I managed it eventually. Sam helped me put my feet in the stirrups. I felt as though I was about to have a cervical smear.
Sam pulled on a glove. ‘Wait,’ I said. She didn’t hear me, so I closed my eyes and pictured myself at home in my nice, clean bed, with my door firmly locked, but the sling was squeaking so loudly it was really putting me off my rhythm.
Just then, I felt someone groping, inexpertly, at my right breast. From the position Sam was in, I knew it couldn’t be her. I opened my eyes to see one of the buff gay men touching me curiously, as though my breasts were exhibits in the interactive section of the Science Museum. He didn’t seem that impressed.
I felt, distant, bemused. I wondered if I should feel something else – violated, maybe, or angry. I hadn’t consented to him touching me. Had I? By being in this place, was I consenting to whatever happened? There didn’t seem to be a lot of consent-seeking going on among the men. I shook my head at the man. He shrugged, and wandered off, leaving me wondering if it had really happened. I felt that strange, distracted, floating feeling again.
All the time, Sam was still fucking me. I wasn’t really in the mood any more.
‘Let’s dance,’ I said.
‘I haven’t finished,’ Sam said.
I tried to sit up, but Sam pulled me back down and carried on. I could have pushed her away if I’d really wanted to. But there was something so sexy about her wanting to fuck me so badly that I felt myself getting turned on, and being in the sling made the sex more intense, and Sam said, ‘My God, you’re so open,’ and before I knew it she was fisting me.
‘That’s fucking hot,’ said another buff man, sauntering past.
I closed my eyes again, unsettled and aroused in equal measure, and had one of the most bizarre orgasms of my life.
Sam seemed satisfied after that. She said she felt too hot to dance in her Navy get-up, so she’d stand at the side and watch. I was grateful, actually. I was pleased to have some time on my own.
I felt self-conscious on the dance floor, just me in my gaffer tape and hundreds of naked men, but dancing has always relaxed me. I lifted up my hands and closed my eyes, and soon I felt elated, a strange artificial-feeling joy, as if I had taken MDMA after all. I caught the eye of a man wearing nothing but a cock ring. He smiled at me. ‘I love your outfit! You look fabulous!’ he said.
‘So do you!’ I said. And then I blushed, as I was essentially complimenting him on his penis. He asked me if I wanted to go outside for a cup of tea, and I realized there was nothing I’d like more.
His name was Gareth. He led me to a food truck selling tea and Wagon Wheels. We sat at picnic tables, which left grooves on our naked thighs, and chatted away to the other naked men.
‘Lovely weather for it tonight,’ said a man in a gimp mask. He’d unzipped the mouth and was nibbling on a KitKat. ‘Feels like Barcelona in the middle of summer.’
‘I’ve never been there,’ I said.
‘Oh, you must go,’ said Gimp Mask Man. ‘The Gaudí architecture is stunning.’
Talk soon turned to careers, and I told the others that I worked in the Civil Service. ‘My husband does, too!’ said Gimp Mask Man. ‘Something to do with roads. Sounds very boring to me.’
‘What do you do?’ I asked Gareth.
‘I hate it when people ask me that,’ he said. ‘It’s so embarrassing.’
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Tell me.’
‘I’m an accountant,’ he said.
‘That’s not boring,’ said Gimp Mask Man. ‘That’s sexy. So authoritative.’
‘Do you really think so?’ said Gareth.
Everyone nodded, impressed.
‘Julia?’ I turned. Sam was standing in the doorway. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, standing up. I had done something wrong again.
‘I was worried.’
‘Sorry,’ I said again. I smiled an apology to my new friends.
Gareth raised his eyebrows. ‘I guess we know who wears the trousers in your relationship,’ he said.
‘Gareth,’ said Gimp Mask Man. ‘That’s homophobic.’
‘I’m only joking,’ said Gareth, but it stung. I didn’t like what he’d implied. I wanted to be in a relationship where we both wore the trousers. Matching ones, preferably, with elasticated waists.
Sam apologized for calling me away from my cup of tea, which made me feel much better about Gareth’s trouser comment and everything else. She had just been worried that I’d been abducted by a fetish-loving bisexual with a penchant for gaffer tape.
‘I get a bit overprotective sometimes,’ she said, as we walked back inside. ‘I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to me,’ I said, and she hugged me tight. I was flattered by her fierceness.
I’d had enough of the club, though. The sky was beginning to get light, and my eyes were stinging with exhaustion. Sam and I collected our things from the locker room and walked hand in hand out into the dawn.
‘So, what did you think?’ asked Sam, on the night bus back to hers. I looked out of the window on the upper deck, my head on her shoulder. We were crossing Waterloo Bridge and the lights of London were reflected in the Thames.
I thought about it: the problematic orgasm, the unsolicited groping, the gimp masks, how uncomfortable and turned on I’d felt at the same time. And then I thought about the attractive gay men, and the strange rush of elation I’d experienced, and the lovely chat I’d had with Gareth over a Wagon Wheel. ‘I liked it,’ I said.
‘Good,’ she said, squeezing my hand. ‘I was worried you wouldn’t get it. Makes you feel alive, doesn’t it?’
I thought about it. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘That’s what I love about SM. It forces you to live in the moment.’ She pulled me closer. ‘Talking of which,’ she said, ‘I love you.’ She smiled at me expectantly. ‘I haven’t said that to anyone for a while.’
‘I love you too,’ I said, and saying it seemed to confirm it. The feeling filled me up all of a sudden, like liquid, and it seemed as if some might spill out through my eyes, which would have been embarrassing, because who cries when someone tells you they love you?
‘Babes,’ Sam said, kissing my face. ‘Don’t cry. You don’t need to worry. You’re safe with me. I’m not going anywhere.’
Whenever I wake up with a hangover of shame – when I’ve cried about something that seemed important at midnight but trivial at 10 a.m., or come on to someone who turns out to be deeply unattracted to me, or had sex in public at an SM club – I go to the most comforting place I can think of, which is the Oxford Street branch of Marks & Spencer. The smell of the cotton p
yjamas and chicken-and-stuffing sandwiches reminds me of my granddad, and it’s a good opportunity to stock up on black high-leg underpants. The morning after the SM club, I had one of the biggest hangovers of shame I’d ever experienced. The disjointed, floating feeling had drained away while I was asleep, leaving a grainy, dirty guilt behind, like the detritus at the bottom of a sink.
Alice came with me that Sunday morning. We walked around the hosiery department, Alice whispering ‘Gimp masks?’ and ‘Cock rings!’ while I said ‘Shh!’ and tried to look interested in support tights.
‘Having sex in a sling … that’s another thing I’ll never do now I’m settled with Dave,’ Alice said. She held up the sample tights to her arm and asked, ‘Do you think I should get sixty denier, or eighty?’
‘Sixty,’ I said. ‘Is Dave the only thing stopping you going to a gay sex club?’
‘You know what I mean,’ she said, looking at me with what could have been envy, but I wasn’t sure, as it had been so long since someone had looked at me enviously. ‘You’re really living.’
M&S was working its magic, and as I thought about the previous night, about the extreme water sports and the public fisting and the ripped bodies in leather harnesses, I felt a bit more positive about the whole thing. I’d had fun, and some of it had been pretty hot. Something to tell the grandchildren, if I ever had any. When they were over eighteen.
The best thing had been Sam’s declaration on the night bus, and the teary kiss we’d shared, and the intense sex we’d had that night, whispering, ‘I love you,’ to each other instead of breathing, practically. That was love, and Alice had that already.
‘Settling down is really living,’ I said to Alice. ‘That’s what people are supposed to do in their twenties.’
‘It’s not. Having sex in public is what you’re supposed to do in your twenties. Settling down is for your thirties. If you have to do it at all.’ She’d walked over to the sock section and was fingering an ankle-length three pack.
‘Well, then, you’re breaking the mould.’
‘I can’t do it, Julia.’
She looked at me. She was about to cry.
I could see a shop assistant walking towards us, probably to ask if we needed any help; there’s only so long you can look at black cotton socks without attracting attention. I took Alice’s arm and led her to the lingerie section.
