“Look what you’ve done!” Tom said, appearing behind me.
“What’s going on?” Viv asked, confused, agitated. She looked at Tom and me, then to the mess on the floor.
“Ask your son!” I said, stepping over the cake and walking toward the front door.
“Don’t fucking walk out,” Tom groaned. “Why have you always got to take this stuff so seriously?”
I looked at Tom, saying nothing as I pulled my sneakers on.
“The silent treatment has started already?” Tom put his hands to his temples. “Fucking hell, Queenie.”
I stepped out the door and slammed it behind me, then walked down the front path and onto the silent suburban street. I looked behind to see if Tom had followed me, but the front door stayed closed. I carried on walking until I eventually got to a smelly bus shelter and perched cautiously on the bench inside, making sure not to sit on the wet patch at one end or the brown patch at the other. I didn’t have my phone and I’d given up smoking ages ago, so had no way to occupy my hands. I was forced to sit with my own thoughts until I calmed down. Why would Tom never stand up for me? What would happen in ten years’ time when his uncle was saying that word, making racist jokes to our children? Would he defend them, or would they have to grow up being attacked by their own family? I wished there was some sort of interracial dating handbook to consult when these things happened.
I stayed sitting in the shelter until it got dark and I got frightened. I’m not used to this provincial silence, I need sirens and noise from passing cars to make me feel safe. “I should have handled it better,” I ended up telling myself. “His uncle is an idiot and a bigot, but he didn’t mean it,” I repeated over and over. Maybe it was better for me to suffer these things in silence. Buses came and went, passengers and passersby alike looking at me more cautiously the closer to nighttime it got. I stood up to walk back to the house, the late autumn air making me shiver gently.
“Queenie.” I peered into the darkness. Tom.
“This is where you are. It smells awful in here,” he said, before taking a deep breath. “Sorry I got angry earlier on.” I kept my mouth shut. “But you can’t keep doing this, Queenie,” he said, disappointed. “I know that in your family everyone is loud and you solve problems by shouting about them, but my family is different!” He looked at me as if searching for an apology. “This keeps happening, and I don’t know what to do, I can’t protect you when it’s my family you think you need protecting from.” Tom ran his hands through his hair dramatically, and I rolled my eyes. “You know what my uncle is like, he’s from a generation where they said the n-word quite a lot.” I looked at him and blinked slowly. By now he knew that this meant: “If you think I feel sorry for you, you’re wrong.” “Not that I’m excusing it,” he said quickly, “but come on, you can’t ruin my mum’s birthday because of it.”
Silence. “Here you go,” he conceded eventually, handing me my coat and rucksack. “All your stuff is in there.”
“Thanks.” I felt myself soften at this act of kindness. Plus, easy to forgive someone bringing you a coat when you’re freezing cold. “You didn’t need to do that,” I said quietly, reaching out for my things. I put my coat on and moved into Tom.
“No,” he said, stepping back.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Let’s forget it. I needed a bit of space, but I’ve calmed down now. I should apologize to your mum. I feel so bad, that cake was so nice, and the sentimental valu—”
“You should go home,” Tom said firmly, cutting me off mid-ramble. “You ruined my mum’s birthday, Queenie. She’s been wiping bits of cream off the walls since you slammed out. I don’t want any more drama.”
I felt the anger that had dissipated in the bus shelter rise again. “Me? Drama? Me?” I spluttered.
“You can get the bus from here to the station, the next train is in an hour,” Tom said, looking over my head. “I’m going to stay with my family for a few more days.”
“So I’m just meant to go back to the flat alone?” I asked. “You know I can’t sleep anywhere by myself!”
“It’s constant, with you. It’s too much,” Tom said, his voice cracking. “You’re too much, Queenie.”
I opened my mouth to speak but closed it again.
“Hope you get home okay,” he said, turning to walk away.
“Do you know what?” I shouted behind him. He stopped walking. “I hope your next girlfriend is white, Tom. That way she won’t be too fucking much for you.”
He stood still for a second before continuing on, disappearing into the darkness.
• • •
“I’m just going to go to the bathroom,” I said, slipping away from Rich and into James’s bedroom, where I sat on the bed to have a minute for myself.
I was about to leave when I heard footsteps outside the door. I went to it, opened it slightly, and saw Fran at the end of the corridor trying with clumsy hands to open the front door. James ran past me peeking out of his room and stopped next to her. “Fran, for fuck’s sake, stop running off!” he hissed. Were my drunk ears and eyes deceiving me? What could “couple goals” be arguing about?
“It’s okay, you go back in there and carry on chatting to her,” Fran shot back, her unnaturally high-pitched voice piercing the air. “Why did you invite her? Who invites their ex, the ex they know is still in love with them, to the fucking party they throw with their girlfriend?”
I knelt on the floor by the door and leaned against a pile of waxed jackets to get comfortable. It’s not often that you see the perfect pair disintegrate before your eyes.
“Oh, come on, she’s got a boyfriend, Fran,” I could hear James plead.
“Does she? Nobody has met him, James. And she can’t take her eyes off of you. And—and I know that you’ve been checking her Facebook, even though you hang out with her once every two weeks!” Somehow her voice was getting even higher.
“Just calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! I can’t keep doing this, James. It’s not just you and Evie. It’s me working a full-time job and coming here to iron your shirts and cook your dinner and then you coming home late or not at all! Yet you still won’t let me move in! It’s the lads’ nights taking precedence over our nights, or your nights with Evie that you think I don’t know about. How could I not? She Instagrams every aspect of her day, and trust me, you get the most flattering filters! Three years we’ve been together, no sign of marriage, all signs of you wanting to have me around but not commit. I can’t do this.” She might take off at this point; she was doing a good job of sounding like she’d inhaled helium, at the very least.
“Oh, Fran, come on,” James snorted. “I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink.”
I locked eyes with Fran as she suddenly came toward James’s room and pushed the bedroom door open.
“Sorry, I was just looking for my—” Fran stepped over me and I got up off my knees.
“I’m going home,” Fran squeaked. “Night, Queenie. Sorry about Tom, by the way.” She grabbed her bag from James’s desk and breezed past first me, then James, and slammed out the front door. I slipped past James as I walked back into the living room.
“It’ll be all right, mate,” I said, patting him on the arm.
* * *
I tried to get back into the party but could think about nothing but Tom. We’d hurt each other, but that’s what couples did, right, they wound each other up. Look at Fran and James! I got my phone out of my pocket and tried to call Tom. No answer. I called again, nothing. Twice more. Nothing. I sat on the sofa as everyone chatted and danced around me. The phone buzzed in my hand.
Tom
Clean break, Queenie
I read Tom’s text through blurring eyes. I missed him so much that my chest started to ache. Did he not miss me? How could he just ignore my calls? I snuck away and stood outside the house, about to order an Uber. The cold air sobered me. “Shall we?” An arm wrapped around my waist as Rich slotted himse
lf into me presumptuously. I didn’t want to go back to my new house alone, but as I looked into the unkind eyes of Rich and remembered how I felt when I first locked eyes with Tom, I knew that I didn’t want to go home with him. I got my phone out to call Tom again. He still wouldn’t pick up. What would make me feel better? I thought. Nothing. What would make me feel happy? I asked myself. Tom was the answer. But if Tom wasn’t answering, what would distract me until he did?
Queenie
Adi, can you meet me outside some luxury apartments in Fulham? We can go for that drive you’re always on about
I tried my luck. It was two in the morning. I’d give him five minutes and then I’d get an Uber.
Adi
You serious?
He replied before I could put my phone in my coat pocket.
Queenie
Sure. Why not?
Adi
For real? You’re not tricking man?
Queenie
I’m about to change my mind, I’m cold
Adi
Okay okay, what about your white boy, is he there? He can watch me at work, innit, man will show him how it’s done
Queenie
We’re on a break
Adi
For real?
Adi
LOL
Adi
No such thing as a break
Queenie
Are you coming or not?
Adi
Queenie, if I’m gonna hit it, man needs to come into the yard. A bum like yours needs room for maneuver, you get me? No space in a car for you, TRUST me
Queenie
Just moved house, everything is in boxes. No bed. Also so much of that is offensive
Adi
Alrite, alrite, don’t start. I’ll come get you. Text me the address
Twenty minutes later I was back in the passenger seat of Adi’s flash black BMW, the seat reclined completely backward because “these ends are hot and I don’t want anyone to see that I’m driving some girl who isn’t my missus.”
I lay back, the nasality of Drake’s voice making me vibrate on my makeshift bed. “Where are we going?” I asked in the absence of being able to see for myself. The adrenaline that was flooding my system had canceled out any trace of alcohol.
“Don’t worry, innit, just relax,” Adi said, digging a hand into my thigh and flashing me a smile that was, genuinely, somewhere on the way to charming. I dissociated by thinking about how his teeth were so white. He must put a lot of money into keeping them that way; I know how much he smokes.
As Adi drove, unease started to rise in me. What was I about to do? Was sex okay, given the whole gynecological situation? I wished the doctor had given me just a little more information. The car slowed down. “Can I sit up now?” I asked, sitting up anyway. “I’m starting to feel queasy.”
I looked around as Adi parked. When he turned the headlights off and my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I saw that we were in some sort of warehouse parking lot.
“Do you come here often?” I asked, to no response. Adi didn’t think I was very funny.
“I want you to take your thong off, innit,” he said, wasting no time. I pulled my dress up and put my thumbs in the sides of my knickers, ready to pull them down.
“Why are you wearing full knickers? I like my girls in thongs.”
“You can just drive me back home if you want,” I suggested, pulling my dress back down.
“Nah, don’t be so hasty! Man was just saying, innit.” I pulled my knickers off and, in trying to be sexy, got them tangled at my ankles before I put them in the glove box.
“All right, so now I want you to just turn round and face the back,” Adi told me.
“What, like in the back of the car?” I asked, obviously not understanding the request.
“Nah, just turn in the passenger seat and pull your dress up so I can look at your bottom.”
“What? Why?” I still wasn’t getting what he was asking.
“ ’Cause I love black girls’ bums, innit, Queenie. Das why. My wife, yeah, she’s got a pretty face but she’s skinny. No bum.”
He maneuvered me into the position he wanted, and I did as I was told because, frankly, it was easier to just do than to think. If I thought about what I was doing, I’d have to think about why I was doing it, and I wasn’t prepared for that at this moment. “Can you turn the heating up?” I asked. “It’s a bit chilly.”
“Shhhh,” Adi whispered, smacking my bottom once. I winced as I stared out the back window, trying to direct my attention to something completely removed from the car. I focused on a streetlight in the distance.
He smacked my bottom again. “You like that, yeah?” I glanced at Adi, and he flashed the charming smile again. I looked at the streetlight.
“Yep,” I said.
“Nice, nice.” He smacked me again and this time kissed the area. It stung as his facial hair grazed the skin.
“Do you want to see my tings? I’m hard.” Adi gestured to his crotch.
“Your . . . ?”
“My tings, my dick, innit.” He smiled.
“No, I know what you mean when you say your ‘tings,’ but why are you asking? I assumed that at some point in the evening I would see everything, you don’t need to ask.” I laughed.
“You’ve always got to make man feel dumb, innit? I didn’t go uni and I don’t talk all posh like you, but I’m not a idiot,” Adi grumbled.
“No, no, I’m not, sorry, go on,” I encouraged him. “I didn’t mean to. Please, Adi. Let me see your ‘tings.’ ”
“All right.” He smiled, his angry pride retreating. “That’s more like it.”
His hands shook as he unzipped his jeans and pulled them, along with his long johns, down. It was cold, but not cold enough for so many layers. When he got himself naked from the waist down, he, very proudly, presented me with his “tings.” Circumcised. Along with having sex with men in cars, another first for me.
“What do you think?” Adi asked, flashing a nervous grin.
“Of your penis?” I asked politely.
“Yeah, of my tings, innit.” He shrugged.
“Nice?” I asked. What was the right answer here?
“Is it big, though?” Adi questioned, almost agitated that I wasn’t showering his manhood with praise.
“Why does that matter? That shouldn’t matter,” I said.
“So what you saying, that it’s small?!”
My eyes must spend at least 50 percent of any given day rolled to the back of my head. “No, Adi. It’s huge. The hugest I have ever seen in my little life. How will it fit?” I said flatly.
“Yeah, that’s it, that’s what I’m talking about.” Adi bounced in his seat excitedly. “Do you want to touch it?”
I placed my hand around it and, as I started to move my hand rhythmically, was struck by how odd a dick feels when it’s exactly that: an anatomical penis from a science book, and not the familiar and less hostile penis of the person that you love.
• • •
“Queenie, wake up!”
“I’m up!” I said. “I’m up. What’s going on? Where am I?”
Light from Tom’s lamp filled the room. “You’re okay. We’re at mine,” he said, stroking my arm. “I think you were having a nightmare.”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I groaned, and turned away from him, embarrassed.
“I thought the house was being robbed, you landed a punch right on my jaw and started shouting at me.”
“What was I saying?” I asked quickly, looking at him. What had I revealed?
“Nothing I could work out,” Tom said, touching his jaw tenderly. Relief filled me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I meant to warn you, but we must have fallen straight to sleep.”
“You fell straight to sleep, you were hammered.” Tom handed me a glass of water.
I sat up and downed it. “I should have warned you I was a cheap date too.”
“Two g
lasses of wine,” he said. “Two.”
“I hadn’t eaten!” I said, handing the glass back.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Tom asked, wrapping his arms around me and covering us with the duvet in one move.
“Are you? Sorry for the punch.” I wriggled around so that we faced each other.
Tom shrugged. “Nothing I don’t deserve.”
“I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again,” I said quietly. “It’s a ‘thing.’ ”
“That’s all right. Everyone’s got a thing,” Tom said, kissing my forehead.
“Yeah, but my thing could have knocked you out.”
“I think you’re overestimating your strength, Queenie.” Tom laughed.
“Maybe I can kiss it better?” I kissed Tom softly on the jaw.
“That feels better,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll stop,” I said, closing my eyes.
“No, no, it’s actually really hurting again, I think you need to keep doing that.” Tom stuck his jaw out.
I went to kiss his jaw again and he moved so that our mouths connected. As we kissed, he moved again so that he was on top of me.
“Hold on, Tom, you’re leaning on my hair,” I said, trying to pull my head free.
“Shit, sorry!” Tom said, lifting his arm. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and smiled up at him. We kissed again, me enjoying his weight on top of me. I felt safe underneath him.
“How easily do these things come out?” Tom stopped to ask, lifting a handful of my twists from the pillow.
“They’re not going to fall out!” I laughed. “But I don’t know how wet I’m going to get with a headache.”
“Okay. Maybe you should tie it up.” Tom lay back and watched as I stood up and ran over to my rucksack. I reached inside for a hairband and ran back over to the bed, climbing under the covers.
“Could you not just stare at me like that, please? This is the first time you’ve seen me naked, and I’m going to worry that you’re looking at all of my bad bits,” I said, turning away from him.
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