How Do You Like Me Now?

by Holly Bourne

  *

  I masturbate when Tom is sleeping. Or when he pops out to get us milk. Once I was masturbating in the shower and he barged in to brush his teeth and I had to pretend I was ‘just washing that area’ and he pulled a face and said ‘gross’. Anne, my counsellor, has told me to masturbate by the way. It’s my current homework. She says I can’t force Tom to be in touch with his sexuality right now but I can at least focus on my own sexuality. I am a woman and I have sexual needs and I have a right to be in a relationship where they are satisfied.

  She likes to talk about Tom a lot, my counsellor, even though that’s not what I’m supposed to be going to her for.

  ‘So, how’s your week been?’ Anne asks me at our session today. She is around forty and I like her very much indeed. I walk to her Victorian conversion flat every week and spill my heart out while admiring her mahogany furniture.

  ‘OK,’ I say. It’s what I always say. Initially. ‘I met my new nephew this week. His name is Ewan. He’s so cute.’ I dig in my pocket for my phone and pull up some photos to show her.

  ‘He’s very sweet,’ Anne comments neutrally. ‘I love that Babygro. So, what was it like, meeting your new nephew?’

  I sigh and remember all the feelings. The huge rush of instant love. My heart growing more room. The way Lizzie’s house felt – like it was a home, like it was safe. The way Ewan smelled and how I couldn’t get enough of it. The way holding him made my womb do this thump like the glass of water in Jurassic Park. I blink the feelings away and stare at the huge mahogany cabinet Anne has. How did she even get it up here? She’ll never be able to get it out again. ‘It was great,’ I reply. ‘It’s weird though, how primal the whole thing is. My sister’s doing well …’ I pause, weighing up whether I can say what I want to say. I don’t want Anne to think I’m shallow and selfish. She senses my hesitation and crosses her ankles the other way and waits.

  ‘This is going to sound stupid but I put a photo of me and Ewan up on my personal page. As you do. Just one shot. Captioned with something like “So happy to be an auntie again.” And, well, normally I mostly post career type stuff to my personal page, as that’s the thing that’s going most well in my life I guess.’ I cough and shake my head. ‘Well, this post about being an auntie, it got so many more likes than any of my other posts. I know it sounds stupid, but it really upset me.’

  I shake my head again and make a face at Anne, to show her I’m aware that I don’t think this is a real problem. But, because I’m paying her and everything, Anne doesn’t say ‘Dude, that is not a real problem. Get over yourself.’ Instead she says, ‘Why do you think it upset you?’

  And even though I knew that question was coming, it takes me more than a moment to construct a reply. ‘The thing is,’ I say, twisting my hands. ‘I don’t actually boast that much about my career on my personal pages. I think it’s crass and everyone knows my deal anyway. People are past the fact that they’re excited by my success, so, at first, I thought it might just be jealousy, or them thinking I’m boasting, but I’m really careful not to boast …’ I trail off and look out of Anne’s bay windows. Her counselling room overlooks an oblong of communal gardens that back onto several other oblongs of communal gardens. The trees are starting to turn their leaves. They are half green and half the colours of autumn – like you’ve whipped back the changing room curtain before they’ve finished.

  ‘Do go on,’ Anne says.

  ‘But I do post the odd career thing when it’s something really important to me. Like when I did the TED talk,’ I continue. ‘And, well, it’s always a bit tumbleweedy when I do. I get a few likes and a few comments but mostly it goes very quiet. But, yesterday, when I said I’m an auntie and I post a photo of me holding a baby, it goes mental. Likes and hearts and comments … and it’s such a noticeable difference, Anne. I’m not making it up. Tom says I am but I’m not.’

  God, I’m annoyed now. This really has annoyed me. I can feel the toxic sting of hate and anger burn in my fingers. It’s stupid, I tell myself. Stop being so stupid, Tor. But I cannot switch off my reaction to this. I cannot pretend that I don’t feel betrayed.

  Anne is deciding what to say next. She looks out of the window for one moment. She pulls her marigold cardigan further over her shoulders. I know she’s supposed to be neutral but I sense she’s on my side on this. She isn’t married and she doesn’t have kids. I could tell that much by how nice her furniture is. We are on the same side of the wall. I don’t think I could have a counsellor who was on the other side, quite frankly.

  ‘What does it mean to you, Tori? To have your friends like things that you’ve posted? What does it signify?’

  I squeeze each finger one by one. I shouldn’t have brought this up, it’s silly. I’m spending seventy quid to learn to be less needy and to stop losing weight. My BMI has gone into the ‘unhealthy’ zone, which I secretly think of as the ‘ideal weight’ zone. Instead, I’m wasting this time talking about people not liking my status updates. ‘A like means … well … it means you’ve done something good enough for people to make that subconscious decision to actually click on the tick. Think about it. Think about what you like or do not like when you’re online. You scroll through so much and you don’t like everything but you do like some things. It’s a subconscious thing … what prompts you to hit the screen with your thumb twice. It’s so … subtle, but it reveals a lot. What makes you scroll past something and what makes you pause long enough to let them know you approve? That you’re willing to have that very small interaction with them, ultimately letting them know you validate that particular choice?’ I hear the rumble of the downstairs flat’s central heating clicking in. I hear it clunking up the pipes. ‘That’s what it means. Well, that’s what I think it means anyway.’

  ‘And you are upset that people subconsciously validate you holding your nephew more than your career achievements?’ Anne asks, making a small note in her book.

  I nod and I’m not sure why I feel so very much like crying. ‘Yes. Because it means that everything I’ve achieved means nothing unless I have a baby … I know that’s what these friends must think. I know that’s what they must use against me. Maybe not consciously, maybe they don’t ever even talk about it. But, in the whispers in their head, they will be thinking Well, she’s met the Queen and sold two million copies but she’s not had a child, has she? That must be the subconscious thought otherwise why would they like me holding my nephew more than my screenshot from my TED talk?’

  ‘Do you want a baby?’ Anne asks, out of the blue.

  My mouth falls open uselessly. Nobody has ever asked me this question.

  ‘I don’t know’, I admit. ‘How are you supposed to know?’

  She shrugs. My counsellor actually shrugs.

  ‘If I want one,’ I say, ‘I want one for the right reasons. I want one because I want one. Not because I think it will bring Tom and me closer together, not because everyone fucking else is doing it, not because I feel insecure that my life isn’t being validated by people I actually don’t like that much,’ I tick this all off on my fingers, ‘not just because I may as well, as a backup, otherwise I’ll regret it when I’m forty-eight, not because I think it will give my life meaning, not because I want to dress them in cute outfits, not because I don’t want to get abused in the old folk’s home.’

  I run out of breath and I grind to a halt.

  ‘Well,’ Anne says, making more notes. ‘It sounds like you’ve thought of lots of good reasons not to have a baby.’

  I lie back in the brown leather of her sofa and cross my arms. ‘I think I do want one … soon … I wish I could talk about these things with Tom,’ I admit. ‘I wish I could have this conversation with him.’

  ‘So you and Tom haven’t discussed children?’

  ‘Not really. He says he definitely wants to have them some day. But “some day” is always this pie-in-the-sky in the future. It was fine four years ago, and even three years ago. But I find it … weird he won�
��t let me talk about it even now. I mean, shouldn’t I be allowed to talk about it?’

  I’ve asked her a question which is a silly thing to do because she never answers them. Even though I know she knows the answer. Anne keeps all her answers bunched close to her chest and only reveals one once I’ve figured it out myself.

  ‘Do you want to be in a relationship where you can discuss children?’ she asks.

  ‘Well, yeah. I’m not saying I definitely want them, but it would be good to at least talk about it. I think he does want them but … but …’ I feel the tears starting, the emotion throbbing in my chest, catching in my throat. A salty tear spills down my face and probably messes up my mineral foundation. ‘I worry he just doesn’t want them with me.’

  She leaves another silence.

  ‘If that’s the case, then I don’t understand why he stays with me,’ I say.

  ‘Why do you stay with him?’ Anne asks.

  ‘Because I love him I guess.’

  ‘You guess?’

  I let out a sigh. ‘I do love him, it’s just so hard.’ The tears keep coming. Anne hands me a tissue and I dab at my face and then twist it into knots. ‘It’s hard that we always argue. It’s hard that he won’t let me talk about the future. It’s hard that he seems … let down whenever I’m myself. I’m exhausted by us constantly treading on each other’s toes, and arguing, and both of us saying “I didn’t want to fight” and “me neither” but somehow we end up fighting anyway. I resent him …’ It spills out in my monologue. The truth. A golden pearl of it that could ruin everything.

  Anne spots the pearl. She picks it up off her antique rug and holds it up to the autumn light. ‘You resent Tom?’

  I nod. I dab the ruined tissue at my face. ‘This is stupid,’ I say, balling it into my fist. ‘I’m not here to talk about all this. I’m here to be less needy. I’m here to sort out my eating. It’s nothing to do with Tom.’

  Anne raises both eyebrows. ‘Do you not think perhaps your neediness is triggered by Tom’s behaviour? That you’re not the only one creating this situation?’

  I think about it. ‘I brought that up with Tom, but he said it wasn’t that,’ I reply. ‘He argues it can’t be him, because I didn’t used to be like this in the past.’

  ‘But you were younger then. You didn’t need commitment then.’

  ‘I guess.’

  Anne takes a fresh tissue from the box and hands it to me without mentioning it. I take it from her and wipe under my eyes, blow snot into it with a loud, unattractive splutter.

  ‘It’s OK to want commitment, you know?’ she says. ‘I know you pride yourself on being a strong woman, but you can be strong and still want a partner to meet your needs.’

  I let out a slight sob and try to push it back down inside. I can’t unleash these emotions. I can’t. I don’t know how to push them back in again once they’re out.

  I think of those likes under the photo of me and Ewan. I think of how many more there were than normal. ‘If I lose Tom,’ I say quietly, ‘I lose more than just Tom. It’s everything Tom stands for.’ I screw the tissue up in my palm, ruining this one too. I twist it into tiny spikes. I rip bits off and roll them into balls that get lost down the side of the sofa. ‘And what about my fans?’ I ask her. ‘Tom is my happily ever after. Tom is my plotline. Tom is the thing they hold on to knowing it’s all going to be OK in the end. I was a mess when I met him … a mess. My whole career depends on people thinking I know what I’m talking about. If I lose him, they won’t trust me any more.’

  Anne is quiet. Anne is thinking.

  Anne eventually says, ‘I thought your career was built on you telling the truth?’

  I give that breakthrough the moment’s silence it deserves.

  ‘That too,’ I say. ‘But … well, I tell the truth and I also have my shit together. That’s the package. People only listen to the truth if they think you’re … successful.’

  ‘And what does successful mean, Tori?’

  ‘I don’t know. Having it all.’

  ‘But what if you had it all and you weren’t happy?’ she presses. ‘Is that still success?’

  I laugh and wipe my nose with the back of my hand. ‘You’re making my brain hurt!’

  I think about the word ‘success’. I think about how often people use it about me. About how my time with that word is running out because the goalposts are changing. If I don’t get married and don’t have children then soon I will be seen as less successful. Even if my new book sells ten million copies, my lack of a man loving me, of that man spunking into my womb and growing a person, will deem me unsuccessful. ‘Because it came at a cost, didn’t it?’ they will say. And don’t pretend for a moment that they won’t say it.

  ‘I guess true success,’ I start to say, nervous I’ve got the answer wrong. ‘True success is living the life you want to live and not caring what other people think.’

  Anne gives me a look. The look says ‘bingo’.

  ‘I want my boyfriend to love me more than he does,’ I admit.

  ‘You cannot control how much Tom loves you.’

  I raise an eyebrow. ‘And now you’re going to say something all Oprah, like “But you can control how much you love yourself”.’

  Anne gives me another look. This look says ‘bingo’.

  ‘I don’t think I’m brave enough to leave him.’

  ‘Maybe not today.’

  ‘What if I’m never brave enough? What if I waste my life when there could be someone so much better out there?’

  ‘Then that’s what you’ve chosen to do. You have to take responsibility for that choice.’

  ‘What if there is no one better?’ I ask. Like she’s a psychic. Like she knows the answer. Like she’s got someone better hiding in her mahogany cupboard, just waiting for the moment I say ‘I’m leaving Tom’ to jump out and go ‘Surprise! Here’s your reward for being brave. I love you wholeheartedly. We’re going to have great sex and I’ll never once criticise any part of your personality.’

  ‘You’re unlikely to meet anyone else when you’re with Tom,’ Anne says.

  Her eye twitches above my head at the clock. Our time is running out. As always after a session, I feel no different. More confused than anything. Tom doesn’t even approve of me going to counselling any more. ‘You’re always weird with me afterwards,’ he complained the other week.

  ‘Why is Tom not leaving me?’ I ask, even though we have no time to go there today.

  ‘Let Tom worry about Tom,’ Anne says. ‘And you worry about you.’

  *

  FEMME FATALE FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

  HEADLINING: TORI BAILEY

  ‘STAND BY YOUR MAN’ October 30th 7p.m.-8p.m.

  The bestselling author of Who The F*ck Am I?

  is our special guest in this panel event

  about how to make long-term love last.

  @WhatTheFckFanGirl @TheRealTori This is a joke, right?

  @RealityBabes @TheRealTori Umm, since when did you become a 1950s housewife, Tori? I expected better from you

  @LizLizLizzy @TheRealTori STAND BY YOUR MAN?!!? I THOUGHT I KNEW YOU

  @JenniferJJ @TheRealTori I was looking forward to your new book but I’m going to boycott it if it’s a marriage manual – just so you know

  @RandomFacelessEgg @TheRealTori Feminism is cancer

  *

  From: Tori@WhoTheFckAmI.com

  To: Jenny@Hawkpublishing.com

  Subject: Femme Fatale Festival

  Hi Jenny

  How are you? Good I hope?

  This is a bit of a tricky one, but I’ve just seen the schedule for this year’s Femme Fatale Festival and I’m a bit thrown by my event. It says I’m down for a panel discussion called ‘Stand By Your Man’? I know the title is deliberately tongue-in-cheek, but I’m still a bit confused as to why I’ve been booked. Who The F*ck Am I? doesn’t have a man in it until the last chapter! Has there been some kind of mistake?

  Thanks for looking into
it.

  Tori x

  *

  From: Jenny@Hawkpublishing.com

  To: Tori@WhoTheFckAmI.com

  Subject: RE: Femme Fatale Festival

  Hi Tori

  I’m good thank you, and yourself? Writing coming along nicely? Everyone here is so excited to read your new manuscript!!

  Regarding FFF, I’m sorry you have concerns but I think it’s a really good opportunity. This was actually an event pitched by us. We want to start re-positioning you in the market, and think this is a great place to start. And, yes, of course the title is tongue-in-cheek! I’m sure you’ve seen the outrage about it online already. Great publicity! Of course, when the event actually happens people will realise it’s not about that at all. It’s just going to be a friendly chat with other extraordinary women about heterosexual relationships and how to navigate them when you’re a kick-ass femme fatale such as yourself!!!