by Kate Davies
And I said, ‘Yes.’
Claudette tasted of stale beer – a little like Finn, in other words – but I closed my eyes and tried to get into it. She began to run her hands down my back. I opened my eyes and saw Virginie and Sam on the other side of the club, kissing and swaying to the music. I closed my eyes again and put my hands in the French woman’s hair, but all I could see was my girlfriend with her hands on another woman’s arse and sure, maybe it was hypocritical, but I felt like I’d been slapped.
Claudette pulled away and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, which I took as an implied criticism of my kissing technique. ‘Shall we go back to my flat?’ she asked.
I had never felt less turned on in my life.
‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘but no.’
So I only had myself to blame that two hours later I was sitting propped up on floral pillows in Virginie and Charlotte’s guest room, listening to aggressively loud metal music and flicking through Polyamory for Beginners, trying to distract myself from what was going on in the other rooms. Charlotte had brought her boyish woman back with her – they tried to persuade me to have a threesome with them, but I politely declined. I turned down a nightcap, too. I took a half-finished bottle of wine into my room instead and tried to create a cosy, serene, self-loving space for myself, as the book recommended.
The book was actually very absorbing, particularly the diagrams. I looked at a line drawing of four people in a complicated, Twister sort of arrangement. Four isn’t a chore! read the caption, but I wasn’t convinced. Unfortunately, though, not even the book could distract me from the dull thumping noises coming from the other rooms. Every time I heard someone moan, I told myself it was Charlotte, but who was I kidding? I’d had sex with Sam enough times to know what she sounded like in bed. Plus I didn’t think a French woman would be able to say, ‘Harder!’ or ‘You like it, do you, you filthy whore?’ in such a convincing London accent. Polyamory for Beginners offered:
When my partner is in the guest room with another lady, I sometimes find myself feeling jealous. I know that in situations like that, the best thing to do is to treat myself! I ask myself, what would I be doing if my partner was just out at work and I had the evening to myself? I run myself a scented bath and lie there listening to classical music; I read a few chapters of a gripping novel; I put a face pack on and watch old movies. Audrey Hepburn films are my favourite! The possibilities are endless. Take this time for yourself. Enjoy it! And then, when your partner comes back into your room, still smelling of her juices, kiss him and say, ‘Did you have fun?’ He’ll be so impressed that you care so much about his pleasure. By then, it’ll all be over, and you’ll think, it wasn’t that bad!
I tried to read up on the competencies for my job interview, but I couldn’t concentrate. I listened to a meditation podcast, but the soothing voice kept telling me to pay attention to the noises around me, which was the last thing I wanted to do. I began to cry hot, silent tears.
Treat yourself as you would if you had a cold, advised Polyamory for Beginners, but I didn’t have any Vicks VapoRub with me, and I didn’t think it would be very helpful if I could find any. Maybe I was taking the book too literally? Try to put things in perspective, said the book. When your partner is with another woman you might feel like you’re being tortured. But you’re not! Think of what other people around the world are suffering right at this very minute. Good point, I thought; I plugged myself into my laptop and watched documentary after upsetting documentary, about genocide, murder, racism and homophobia. I cried about the things humans do to other humans, and I cried for myself, too, and I felt better, until my laptop battery ran out and I realized I’d left the charger in the living room.
Things went downhill after that. I paced the room, biting my fingers till they bled. Was Sam curling into her, like she curled into me? Did she kiss her in the night whenever she turned over? Was she whispering ‘I love you’ in her ear? And was I a hypocrite to mind this so much, considering what had happened the night before? I felt like I was going mad. It was nearly four in the morning, but this was an emergency, so I called Alice. She picked up on the fourth ring.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked. I could tell from her voice that I’d woken her up.
‘No,’ I said.
I could hear her sitting up in bed. ‘What’s happened? Are you still in Paris? Where’s Sam?’
‘I’m not in Paris,’ I said in a small voice. ‘I’m in Lyon.’
‘But – isn’t that where Virginie lives?’
‘Yes. They’re having sex in her room and I’m on my own, and I can’t believe I let this happen—’
‘Wait there,’ said Alice. ‘I’ll try and get a Eurostar or something.’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘You are not staying there. Get out of there. Get a hotel.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘It’s not like that. I knew this was going to happen.’
‘Julia,’ said Alice, ‘this is not OK. It is not OK that she has asked this of you.’
‘But I had sex with someone else last night—’
‘What?’
‘Sam was there too—’
‘Did you want to have sex with someone else last night?’
‘Sort of. At the time.’
She didn’t say anything. I sat there, listening to the comforting not-quite-silence on the other end of the phone for a while.
‘I love her,’ I said.
‘Julia,’ she said. ‘I think you’re obsessed with her.’
‘I’m supposed to be obsessed with her. She’s my girlfriend.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not.’
‘I need her.’
‘We need to get you home.’
‘I’m coming home tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Is there somewhere you can go now?’
‘No, it’s OK. Really, it’s fine. I’m sorry I woke you up.’ I hung up the phone and sat there, breathing erratically. Alice called back a few seconds later but I rejected the call. She didn’t understand. I barely understood myself. I wasn’t well. All I knew was that I had to do something to change the way I felt, and I wanted to hurt myself in some way.
That isn’t a feeling I’ve had often in my life; just once before, actually, shortly after the end of my dance career. I’ve never been a very practical person, so I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. And I can’t have wanted to hurt myself that badly, because instead of a kitchen knife or the prescription painkillers my dad used for his sciatica I used a ladybird-shaped drawing pin from my parents’ noticeboard. I tried to push it into my wrist, but I didn’t try particularly hard; I ended up with the world’s tiniest bruise, and even that was gone a day later.
Tonight, that out-of-control, sliding-off-the-world feeling was back. I opened the sex cupboard and found a nipple clamp. I put it on my arm and tightened it till my skin turned red, then white. I felt calm; the pain was focused and clean, white and cold and outside me. And then I realized what I was doing, and I pulled the nipple clamp from my arm and rubbed the place where it had been. ‘Get it together, Julia,’ I said to myself out loud. I forced myself to breathe in and out until the sex noises stopped at about 5 a.m., and then I finally, finally fell asleep.
I managed about three hours of sleep, punctuated by strange dreams about having sex with the blonde drag queen from the bar, before I was woken by the smell of coffee and the tinkle of sexually fulfilled French laughter. I sat up in bed and tried to work out what I’d say to everyone over breakfast. ‘I had a great night, thanks. Learned about conditions in Bergen-Belsen and then self-harmed with a nipple clamp’?
I spent a long time in front of the mirror making sure my make-up was flawless while I listened to the voices in the other room. They were speaking English, so I guessed Sam was out there. I waited until I heard someone shut the bathroom door and turn on the shower, so I wouldn’t have to face all of them at once, and then I smiled an unfeasibly wide smile and opened the bedroom door.
> It’s fair to say I’ve had pleasanter breakfasts than the one I ate that morning, and I’m including a fruit salad in Marrakech that gave me diarrhoea. I opened the bedroom door to find Virginie, Charlotte and Sam sitting around the kitchen table, drinking coffee and eating croissants in their dressing gowns. Virginie’s hair was rumpled. Sam’s lips looked red and puffy.
‘Sit here!’ said Virginie, pulling out the seat next to her. ‘How did you sleep?’
‘Fine, thank you’ I said, sitting down.
‘The coffee is fresh,’ said Charlotte, pushing the cafetiére towards me.
‘Great,’ I said, and poured myself a cup, grateful to have something to do with my hands. ‘Chloe is in the shower,’ said Charlotte.
‘She’s the woman you brought home?’ I asked, glad not to have to look at Sam or Virginie.
‘Yes. We had a lot of fun,’ she said.
‘And you, Julia, what would you like to do this morning? What time is your Eurostar?’ asked Virginie.
I let Sam answer. Then everyone discussed the weather and if we had time to go for lunch before we left. I focused all my attention on taking a croissant, buttering it and eating it in small bites; swallowing wasn’t easy. No one was acknowledging what had happened the night before. No one had asked me how I was, or how I’d found giving up my girlfriend for the night; I don’t know what I’d expected – it wasn’t as though I wanted them to act ashamed, or to pity me, but I felt like someone should have acknowledged the sacrifice I’d made.
‘I missed you,’ Sam said, coming over to kiss me on the head. She smelled of Virginie’s perfume.
I got through the rest of the day somehow, and by ‘somehow’ I mean ‘by drinking a lot of red wine’. Luckily Sam was so tired from her night of hot French sex that she was happy to sleep all the way home. But when we got back to her flat and she asked me how I’d enjoyed the weekend, I couldn’t stop myself bursting into tears.
‘Shh,’ she said stroking my head. ‘That was all a bit new for you, wasn’t it?’
‘Please could you have another shower? You still smell of her.’
‘OK, babes,’ she said. ‘It gets easier, you know. It really does.’
‘I don’t know if I want it to get easier,’ I said. ‘I think I’m going to go home tonight.’
‘Please don’t go,’ she said, reaching for my hand. ‘You still want me, don’t you? You have to tell me you still want me.’
‘I still want you,’ I said. And then I made myself say, ‘But I don’t think I can share you. It hurts too much.’
‘You’ll feel different tomorrow,’ Sam said, her voice decisive. ‘Everything is very raw right now.’
But I felt stronger than usual – something to do with the heady cocktail of anger and humiliation and sleep deprivation. ‘I don’t think I will,’ I said. ‘Virginie isn’t just some random woman you’ve had sex with. It’s not the same as having a threesome at a sex party. You love her. I didn’t sign up for that.’
Sam dropped my hand and made a strange little scoffing noise. ‘You’re not seriously asking me to choose between you?’
I wanted to say ‘No,’ and have her hold me again, and maybe have some sex and eat Chinese food and forget about the whole thing until she next went to France, but that was the problem – there would be a next time, and I didn’t want there to be. So I said, ‘Actually, yes, I am.’
I took the Overground home. My mind felt clean. As I walked up Green Lanes, I could see people playing tag in Finsbury Park. I could smell chargrilled meat. I was hungry.
I didn’t see Sam for two weeks after that.
33. SAVING CONTENTMENT FOR MY RETIREMENT
I called in sick the day after we got back from Lyon and lay in bed, crying and threatening never to get up again. Alice came in to see me when she got home from work and insisted that we watch a period drama together, so that I would remember there were good and beautiful things in the world – BBC adaptations of classic novels, for example – and I shouldn’t give up on it altogether.
I did get up the next day – I had to, to go to my job interview. To say that I was underprepared is an understatement. I had tried to do some work the night I got back from Lyon, but it’s hard to come up with an example of a time you dealt with a mistake at work when you’re shovelling peanut butter cups into your face and sobbing. I had hoped that my verbal communication skills would get me through (they ‘exceeded expectations’, according to my last appraisal), but as soon as the interviewers came out to meet me, I knew the whole thing was hopeless. Even my handshake was weaker than usual.
‘How did it go?’ Owen asked, when I got back to the office after the interview.
I dropped my bag on the floor and sat down. ‘Shit,’ I said.
‘What did you say for the question about influencing a senior manager?’
‘I told them about the time we asked Tom for database training,’ I said to him.
Owen nodded.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘You think it’s a rubbish example.’
‘I don’t!’ he said. ‘It’s just – you’re supposed to say “I” not “we”, so it’s clear you’re not taking credit for something someone else did.’
I closed my eyes. ‘I’m not going to get the job.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do,’ I said.
‘I probably won’t get it either,’ said Owen. ‘We can be unemployed together and do fun unemployed things.’
‘What,’ I said, ‘like not have enough money to eat?’
As the days passed, the memory of the terrible interview faded. Anyway as Ella and Zhu pointed out, it wasn’t as though I really wanted the job anyway. It was July and London was in the throes of a heat wave; I felt weirdly high during those two Sam-free weeks as I walked the baking streets, listening to songs about being young and single, smiling stupidly at blue skies and people in shorts. It turns out that when you’re not having extremely satisfying sex all the time, or talking about having sex, or getting drunk with the person you have sex with, you have time to take part in the Women’s March, watch queer cabaret acts at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and experiment with recipes for strawberry cake. But then I’d see something that reminded me of Sam – a packet of Marlboros, an advert for the Eurostar, the Tate Modern – and I’d break down again, sobbing on Alice’s shoulder that I’d lost the love of my life.
Alice would make soothing noises while I bleated, ‘I love her! She makes me feel alive!’ But that first Saturday, as we were browsing for feminist literature in Waterstones, she said, ‘I just think she’s trying to have her tarte tatin and eat her Victoria sponge, too. There are people I fancy, but I don’t do anything about it, because I’m engaged to Dave, and that’s that.’
That perked me up a bit. I looked up from the three-for-two table and asked, ‘Who do you fancy?’
‘Never you mind.’ She held up a copy of The Blind Assassin. ‘Have you read this one? I haven’t read enough Margaret Atwood.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Tell me who you fancy.’
‘Fine,’ she said, putting the book down. ‘Ahmed at work. And Owen.’
‘Owen from my office?’ I asked.
‘Yes. And John from next door. And the Turkish bloke from the corner shop.’
‘Wow,’ I said.
‘But I’m not going to have sex with any of them, because I’ve made a vow.’
‘Are you and Dave all right?’ I asked.
Alice nodded and smiled. ‘We’re fine!’ she said.
‘Great.’
‘Most of the time,’ said Alice.
‘OK.’
‘Except for the sex drought.’
‘That’s normal, though,’ I said. ‘You’ve been going out for years.’
‘But you and Sam have been together for a while now.’
‘Only a few months, really. And I’m not sure we’re even together any more.’
‘
OK. But whatever. When you see her, you have sex all the time.’
‘Yeah, but Sam’s special. She’s got an unusually high sex drive for a woman.’
Alice gave me a cold little smile. ‘You’re right. I should be grateful I don’t have to sit there while Dave has sex with a French woman and then disappears for a week.’
But Sam hadn’t disappeared altogether; photos kept popping up on Instagram. Sam dry-humping Jasper at a polysexual club night; Sam smoking in London Fields; Sam apparently shopping on Bond Street (quite uncharacteristic – she usually bought her clothes in the Dalston branch of Oxfam). Some of the photos were selfies, but most weren’t, and I drove myself ever so slightly mad trying to work out who had taken each photo based on the angle they were taken at. Was she taller than Sam? Was she some sort of high-maintenance West Londoner, hence the Bond Street trip? Or had Sam just purchased a selfie stick? Anything was possible.
I was having fun too, though – pretending to on social media, at least. I arranged to see friends every night after work so that I wouldn’t have to be alone with my thoughts. I surprised Owen by suggesting a team drink, and we ended up doing shots with Uzo, who turned out to be very good at karaoke. I actually had a little cry during her rendition of ‘Without You’. I did a yoga class with Cat, who was back in London briefly before going up to Edinburgh for Menstruation: the Musical which was widely tipped to be the cult hit of the Fringe.
‘Sam’s a twat,’ Cat whispered, trying to wedge her left foot into her groin – quite challenging. ‘Come to Edinburgh with me. There’ll be loads of queer people for you to choose from.’
‘I don’t want loads of queer people. I want Sam,’ I said.
And then the teacher shot us a look, because if you can talk when you’re doing one-legged pigeon pose, you’re not doing it properly.
I went back to Stepping Out too; Ella and I discussed the ethics of BDSM as Zhu taught us the shim sham.
‘I’m obviously more conservative than I thought I was,’ I said, shuffling to the right.
‘If being conservative means you don’t want to be led around on a lead, I think that’s OK,’ Ella said, shuffling to the left.
