by David Louden
“You don’t remember me do you?” Teased the blonde.
“This is probably going to result in me wearing your drink, right?”
She laughed. That rang a bell.
“You clearly didn’t pleasure yourself to me…I’m hurt.” She said. This sparks more than a simple memory as I cross my legs to disguise it.
“Mary. From the Garrick…how was the oral?” She says, finally releasing me from my turmoil.
“Of course,” my laugh sounds odd, I’m more relieved that I realised. “I’ll have you know that I did in fact pleasure myself to you.”
“And how was I?”
“Incredibly open to new ideas,” I offer before pushing out the armchair opposite me with my foot “…by all means please.”
“Oh I can’t I’m with a group of girls and you know how they get. I just saw you and figured I’d see how I was.” Her smile was warm.
“How’s about I give you my number and we can discuss it over dinner?” I offer.
“That’s smooth Doug, I like that.” Extending her hand.
I take it in mine; her hand is smooth, soft and a little cold. I write my phone number on the back of it. She smiles, her face inches from mine. Pushing forward Mary plants herself in my lap before wrapping her arms around her and brushes her lips against mine. Soft at first then a little more forceful and before I realise it both mouths are open and her tongue is inside mine. I slip a hand between her legs and up inside her skirt, feeling around I find the side of her panties and guide them to one side before sliding a finger inside her bald, damp mound. There’s a tap on my shoulder and we’re asked to break it up, our lips part to the satisfaction of the doorman who is completely unaware as to the location of three of my digits.
“I’ll call you.” Said Mary earnestly.
I smile as she dismounts and disappears out of the library and up the wooden stairs. Her scent lingers on my smoking hand for the rest of the evening.
I would see Mary leave with the rest of her girlfriends at the end of the evening. As they clamber into the back of two large people carriers with fluorescent lights on the roofs I would map the contours of her body as the wind blew her skirt tight against her hips. As she took her seat by the curb side window she would shoot me a knowing glance. The walk home alone brought with it the first text “I’ve got your number, now you’ve got mine ;) x”. I appreciated she didn’t communicate with text speak. I hate all that C U L8R M8 bollocks.
Arriving home I find Danny half asleep and twice as drunk. He’s convinced he’s locked himself out again but in actual fact he will have put his key in his shoe so he didn’t lose it. I play along, letting him in – “no need to break his cycle” I thought. After climbing the mass of stairs to our apartment I collapse into the settee and allow Danny to make me a coffee and some pasta with pesto. The house is quiet; everyone else is apparently sleeping over at a significant others.
“I think he’s knobbing your mate Marcy.” Proclaimed Danny as he sipped his Gold Blend.
“A port for every storm.”
Buzz-buzz, buzz-buzz. My phone was busy for 2AM. Checking the screen it shows a new MMS message from Mary. Clicking into it I download what I’m assuming is Mary from the neck to the knees on a bed, naked with two fingers inside of her and the caption “Sweet dreams ;)”. Excusing myself I set my pasta to one side, sip from my coffee before slipping next door to my room. Turning on the light I unbutton my jeans and remove my hard prick before lining up a flattering angle, snapping a photo and replying to Mary with the message “thinking of you”. By 3AM she’s soaking wet and demanding serviced, and has taken the next and daring step of texting me her address. I throw a blanket over Danny, who’s now unconscious before checking that all appliances are switched off and call a cab – racing across town.
I reach Mary’s house on the Cavehill Road in the north of the city in record time. The early morning streets of Belfast are traffic free and friendly to the booty call. Advising the driver to keep the change I leap from the cab and with three strides I’m at the well lit doorstep of her lofty four bedroom restoration project. The large front door opens as I reach it; the oddest feeling of ominous déjà vu would rush across my consciousness in that moment, tripping me, taking me out of my stride before I recovered. Looking back I put the recovery down to sheer ignorance, had I lingered on the fleeing tail of emotion that was going, going, gone I would have known and then I would have been done for the evening. It would be the next day before I’d know what caused it. My brain would have had the time to subconsciously interrogate itself on the “where” and the “why” that caused the slightest of sickly feelings in the pit of my stomach while I entertained my new friend Mary.
Kelly and I had been going strong for six months, living together for three…maybe a little longer. I had finished my degree and was pulling off some time on sets; working pretty much for free as a runner on the larger end of low budget and Assistant Director on the bottom rung of the ladder for just about any and all small, short and student films I could get involved in. It was pitiful earnings. I worked evenings and weekends at any retail job I could get and stand long enough to complete training in and when that didn’t help the ends meet I would busk. Banjo in hand, the soul destroying walk to Castle Street proof if proof was required that the sins of the father had not only come to visit upon me but had unpacked and were living rent free. Kelly was in her second year and hurdling towards her dreams. She had got a job in the University’s main library, “filing-n-fining” is what she called it, wrestling linguistics with pseudo academics fleeing from mainstream living but it allowed her to read and she read everything. In later years a lot of business would come her way because of stock meetings her line manager would pass off to her to take so he could grab an extra thirty minutes for lunch or go home early.
Tess had just called off her wedding – she had got the seventy two hours fear of God proximity alert and reassessed everything in a heartbeat. Miriam spent two nights on the phone with Kelly, relaying messages via her “good daughter” to the tennis mad disappointment who’d passed on a man who loved her and shown the family up.
“Mum, Mum, Mum…take a breath and shut up!” Kelly interjected “I understand you’re disappointed but by the sounds of things you loved Jason a little more than Tess did and that’s a little bit screwed up.”
The phone was far enough away from me that I didn’t have to take onboard her mum’s ranting but not that far that I couldn’t hear the tin can hum of a voice too loud for communication.
“…and what does Daddy think?” Kelly queried “Just take it down a notch is all I’m saying. Tess is a lil stressed and she gets defensive when you go all mumzilla and all that so just chill Mum. Listen to her, she deserves to be happy…Christ everyone can only ask so much.” She blew me a kiss which I toppled the armchair reaching back to catch. A giggle is smothered as I hit the floor.
Her monthly visitor was late, it wasn’t like her. “My lady carriage runs like a German transportation system” she’d brag days before and like clockwork it would arrive…but not this month. Kelly put it down to the stress of dealing with her mother and playing model U.N between her and Tess. There was a long stalemate of silence. The two only got talking again whenever Miriam found a lump on her breast that would ultimately turn out to be nothing but having lost Nana the same way the Marley women took no chances and came together again. Still it didn’t come; eventually I took my day’s wages working on 28 Kegs Later – a dreadful student horror film made by a dreadful film student for dreadful student film screenings and bought Kelly a handful of home tests.
“How much pee do you think I carry around with me?” She’d ask when I dropped the bag of pregnancy tests in her lap.
“Don’t use them all, some of them are for me.”
“I thought you looked glowing and radiant this morning.” She said with a smile.
“Charmer, are my ankles getting fat?” I’d ask as I dropped into the armchair by the
window.
“Ok you’re too good at this game, I’m gonna go do wee-wee.”
The tests were unanimous; the result staring us in the face…Miriam was going to go bat shit crazy. “At least she’ll end up talkin’ to you through Tess” I would offer but it wasn’t much consolation. I was working for nothing on the limited Belfast film scene, scraping the rest of my living from selling scratch cards and knowing that the barcode for a Cadbury’s Crème Egg was 50201600 because they would never scan. Kelly was in her second year, this would mean year three, graduation, her own business and dreams would all be scrapped or at the very least put on hold.
Kelly simply nodded. I lit a cigarette – breaking the no smoking in the bathroom rule and we tried getting our heads around what was sitting before us. It would be ok. I’d get a job that paid actual money, the Belfast film scene was never going to be what paid the bills anyway so it was no great loss plus I was pretty sure that most of them hated me. I could probably even get a job that would pay for a qualification that I could actually use. Kelly could defer for a while, she was smart enough that she could probably catch up but putting deferring on the table meant that there was no pressure. When the little one came along people would be around to help. I had a few friends who were solid; we all lived in each others pockets. I wouldn’t be one of those people that forgot to make plans with anyone simply because they had a little person to take care of. My mum would help, my sister too, my brother could probably teach the wee one Xbox when the time came and of course we had The Clan Marley. They would certainly be involved.
Kelly had put out the idea of moving to Bangor, I had wanted to say “Christ-fuckin-no!” Northern Ireland wasn’t exactly the centre of the world but if I had to be in Northern Ireland it would be Belfast. Derry, maybe, if I could avoid all those fucking hills but not Bangor, it felt too grown up to be a real place to me and I knew we’d end up either in an extension Alan would have built for us or within walking distance. But I nodded. “She’s pregnant with your demon seed” I thought “don’t make this harder than it needs to be. There’s plenty of time for a ‘Say no to Bangor’ campaign”. It was all a little early in the relationship for this but these things happen plus we were living together surely it was a case of we would be together anyway, this was just moving things forward a little faster than my brain could consider.
The following morning I rose from our bed knowing I would spend the day job-hunting for something real, it took me a moment or two to realise why and when I remembered I had felt a little scared from reality hitting home again. Dropping a deuce would become considerably easier until it became a reality for me. For the rest of that day we didn’t really talk about it. The next day was shaping up that way too until Kelly had rested herself on the arm of the chair as I was reading, half paying attention to Elmore half watching the Saturday football results.
“Hey…” was her opener.
“Hey yourself lady.”
“So I was thinking. We haven’t really talked about this thing since…”
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked.
“You scared?”
“Terrified woman; this is some real shit goin’ down.”
“Yeah…” she paused, considering the words perhaps “…look we’ve only been together for six months. If you don’t want this then here’s your pass. I won’t hate you; you can be as involved as you want. I just don’t want you to…”
I kissed her to shut her up, I was going nowhere.
“I love you, please stop talkin’ it’s your least good quality.” I said.
“Least good, really? Good thing you only minored in English Lit.”
I kissed her again; she was cute as a smartass.
I’d interviewed for an administrative post at Queen’s University. It had been two months without word so I assumed I hadn’t got the job and was in the process of filling out an application form for a call centre opening down on the Lagan when the letter hit the mat like a dead weight.
Dear Mr. Morgan,
blah blah blah We are pleased to offer you this position of blah blah blah we would appreciate a formal acceptance of the position no later than one week from the date on this correspondence blah blah. Your employment will commence on Monday blah blah report to the Finance and Administration building…
All of a sudden I had a job. A job with real and regular money, granted it was a job I didn’t need to spend three years studying at the same University to get but that didn’t matter. I had convinced myself that didn’t matter; I was doing this job for something more than me. For them.
I had a cubicle in an office on the third floor with a keen view of the neatly kept and impossibly green lawn in the centre of the University grounds to the rear of the Grand Hall. I’d catch myself daydreaming as I watched the fresh faces bask in the sunlight and warmth of their own potential. Every once and a while I’d catch a glimpse of Kelly as she cut through the grounds going from auditoria based lecture to one of the houses on University Road for a meeting with her Advisor of Studies. It was usually enough to snap me out of it and get me back to work. The first pay cheque came to my desk welcomingly; my hands outstretched and open, ready to embrace the comfort of my newly acquired wealth.
While on lunch on payday I dropped into No Alibis bookstore on Botanic Avenue. I used to go there regularly for crime fiction, less regularly for academic books and was finding myself crossing its threshold, greeted by the owner, to purchase something along the lines of So you’re about to become a parent and are shit fucking scared. He bagged it up for me; it felt like back in the pre-internet days when pornography had to be plucked from the top shelf and bought with extra strong mints and a bottle of Lucozade. Skulking back towards the University I took up a position under the glass foot bridge that connected the front of the main entrance of the library to the other half of the building facing it, I lit a cigarette and started reading.
I’d walk home that day with my head in the book, it was pretty insightful in listing the problems you’ll most likely face when confronted with the intimidating task of raising another in your image. It was somewhat shy in laying down solutions to a lot of the things I was worrying about. Kelly would arrive home an hour later having met up with friends for a coffee and a chin wag. Her face looked as though it might beam bright red with joy before melting when she came across the most unlikely sight of me cross legged in my armchair thumbing through a baby book. I thanked her internally for not taking the piss out of me, if the roles were reversed I would have been merciless, she simply ran her hand through my hair before kissing me firmly on the forehead; lingering long enough for me to know how much she appreciated my ‘shit yourself and jump in with both feet’ attitude.
“You’ll make a great dad.” She whispered.
“Heaven help gentleman suitors if that little bump is a lady.” I preached.
“Testify!”
Kelly took to the prospect of motherhood with all of her usual ‘one hundred percent, if you’re going to do it be great at it’ commitment. “I want two mains I’m eating for two now” was one of her favourites whenever we’d frequent the Lisburn Road’s finest Indian restaurant, The Jharna. I’d order it and she’d be too full to even make a dent in it, every time she’d eagerly and openly relish the prospect of double dinner only for her stomach to let her down each time and I’d never bring up her past failings. She smiled when she said it, it made her happy. That was worth more than an £8 chicken dish in coconut milk.
The public holidays would give me two days off, completing my three day week I packed a small bag, gave Kelly and the belly a kiss before heading off to Donegal on the west coast for a friends stag party. The send off was enormous, he was the most dedicated of bachelors. The last sign of wildness was gone, if he could be tamed what hope did the rest of the forever young commitment free males have? We had barely unpacked when I got a text from Kelly telling me she was going to stay with a friend as she didn’t like our empty bed. Three drin
ks in with the music blasting in the centre of the city’s nightclubs it was easy to miss the sound of my phone ringing constantly. I’d see it in the morning when I recharged it and know something was not right. The call was short, the answer “get home Doug” short and sweet from Jenny. I’d arrive home and rush straight to Jenny’s house. I remembered the next day, Jenny’s house was one street over from where Mary lived…the front doors were exactly the same. The sickening shudder so obvious in the clear light of day. Jenny would tell me that Kelly was in the hospital, she drove me there at top speed and in silence.
Kelly sat upright, eyes red and tear soaked. She’d attempt a smile as I rushed into the hospital room but it, like our child, would fail to come to term. As I sat down beside her she began to sob.
“I’m sorry Doug,” was all I could make out.
“Hey,” I took her hand and forced eye contact “…you don’t owe me an apology, you don’t owe anyone anything.”
“I don’t know what I did wrong, I tried to make it stop but it wouldn’t and I’m sorry.” Her eyes filled with water. “I’m so sorry baby I’m sorry…and you’ve read all those books and I’m sorr…”
I’d kiss her and hold her for as long as it took for her to stop crying, it felt like forever. It was for the best, that’s what we would tell ourselves, that’s what we’d tell each other. That was how we got through and I think that’s when Kelly began to grow in a differing direction from me. She had said it first but when it was all over and done with I always felt that she resented the fact that I didn’t protest the statement. That I didn’t demand we try again, that I nodded and echoed her words “for the best”. It was also the only time in our relationship when she needed me, she never got sick or blue, she had taken care of me during my explosive moments and kamikaze moments and when my family would fuck up and leave it by my feet for me to fix. She had none of that, she needed me once and I was at a nightclub for the scariest part of it; arriving at that door too late.
