“What a load of old cock,” he muttered to himself. He sat down at the desk and set about studying the cover with unbridled disgust. The guy had a lot to learn about customer service.
“Look, just tell me how much I owe you and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Why do you want to read this pile of shite?” he said, tossing the book across the desk. He bent down and started rummaging beneath the desk, surfacing with the collected works of John Dos Passos. “Read this instead,” he said, handing the tattered paperback to me.
I looked at the cover. “Already have,” I said, handing it back to him. “How much do I owe you?” I put on my most haughty face.
He leaned back in his chair, put his feet on the desk and sighed. “Oh, fuck it, I don’t know. Three quid?”
I pushed the change across to him and slipped the book in my bag, pausing on my way out to admire the antiquarian section. It was the only clean part of the shop and there, inside the freshly polished glass case, was a beautiful first edition of Black Beauty.
It had been my favorite book as a kid—my mom used to read it to Meg and me before bed, and I read it to myself as I got older. I’d been obsessed with horses until I was ten, and Black Beauty embodied everything I loved about them: the freedom, the spirit, the sense of wildness. My edition had been an old cheap hardback, but this one was gorgeous: thick brown leather with purple embossed lettering. I coveted it, hard.
I turned back to the bookseller, who was now in the process of pulling a thread from his cardigan that appeared to threaten the structural integrity of the whole thing, and said, “How much is this copy of Black Beauty?”
He let out a little harrumph but didn’t bother looking up. “It’s not for sale.”
“Are you sure?” I said, leaning closer to the glass to get a better look. “It’s gorgeous.”
He got up from the desk with a bang and hurried over to the case. “Well, don’t breathe all over it!” he said, shooing me away.
“All right! All right!” I said. “You don’t have to get all angry about it. Sheesh.”
“It’s quite valuable, actually,” he snapped. “It was mine when I was a boy.” His voice softened and for a minute he looked . . . sweet. He shook himself out of it and looked at me with renewed annoyance. “Now, if there’s nothing else you need, it would be marvelous if you would bugger off so I can finally shut.”
I made a swift exit, already dreading the next time I needed a book. The new guy was easier on the eyes, but he was definitely lacking his grandfather’s charm.
I made my way to the nearest pub, ordered myself a glass of wine and cracked open my new guide, eager to learn the apparently myriad benefits of chastity. I guessed the first one would be the money I’d save on condoms.
Close Your Legs, Open Your Heart is meant to be a modern take on abstinence. You choose chastity not because of religious beliefs or moral codes; you choose it because of science. That’s right! Apparently sex triggers some sort of neediness love chemical called oxytocin (not to be confused with hillbilly heroin, though apparently it’s just as addictive). As yet another example of Nature’s little ironies, the more orgasms you have, the more this chemical invades your brain and tells you that the man giving you those orgasms should be clung to like the last remaining life preserver in a cruise ship disaster. (Not that I can really blame my brain for this. There are worse things to cling on to than a man who can produce orgasms.)
So sex is bad because sex leads women to act like slavering, love-drunk possums. Of course, the author purports that this bonding drug is only released in women; men can sleep with a different woman every hour on the hour and never feel the need to plan a four-course meal for them on a Tuesday, “just because.” In fact, the book’s premise stems from the idea that somehow men only fall in love with women they are NOT having sex with, thus casting aside hundreds of years of reproductive science.
So it seems women aren’t built to have casual sex. We just love too much! Sure, personal experience suggested otherwise. I’m fairly certain that every woman I know can name at least one man with whom they’ve slept where Cupid’s arrow didn’t strike. In fact, I’d be reluctant to share a croissant with at least three of the men I’ve had sex with, never mind a life. But the book insists that we’re delicate creatures who can’t handle sex without having our brains reprogrammed, so for the next month I was determined to be as pure as the driven snow.
Apparently, abstinence can have some profitable side effects.
For instance, I would be more assertive in the workplace because I wouldn’t be having sex on my desk. Cathryn would certainly be relieved. I would also be more clear-eyed, goal oriented and self-confident. At least there were a few silver linings.
I thought the best way to tackle the prospect of a month without sex was to prepare myself as best I could, so I went shopping. First stop was Holland and Barrett for some valerian root. As I wasn’t even allowed to, uh, take care of business myself (as masturbation fuels the sex drive, and my sex drive was now Public Enemy Number One), the author recommends taking valerian root as an alternative way to unwind. I bought a jumbo bottle, plus three bottles of wine from the liquor store next door. I had a lot of unwinding to do.
Second stop was Cos, where I picked up several high-necked white button-downs and a long, light-blue dress. If I was meant to act like the Virgin Mary, I might as well dress like the Virgin Mary.
Last but not least was an M&S bumper pack of extremely ugly underwear. I know it’s a cliché of Bridget Jones proportions but I suspected that when push came to shove, I’d be a bit more virginal knowing that any man traveling south would be faced by acres and acres of high-waisted cotton.
I also canceled my Brazilian appointment and hid my box of Durex.
I was ready.
June 2
As sex wasn’t an attainable goal this month, I decided to give myself a different type of physical challenge: I signed up for Tough Mudder.
For the uninitiated, Tough Mudder is a thirteen-mile assault course that includes scaling walls, crawling underneath barbed wire and, as a special treat, being electrocuted in a mud bath. I figured I could capitalize on all the clear-eyed assertiveness I was about to develop.
Now, I considered myself to be in pretty good shape: I ran a couple of times a week and I always ate my vegetables. But when I watched the promo video for Tough Mudder, which was filled with brawny men grimacing as they pulled tractor wheels up an enormous hill and chucking themselves off precipices into dubious bodies of water, I realized I might need to do a little bit of extra training. Especially as the race was at the end of the month.
I decided to start with a few push-ups. I hadn’t done them since high school, but I thought I could easily knock out a quick set of twenty. By the third, my arms were shaking like a shitting dog and sweat had started to pool in new, alarming places.
There was definitely work to be done.
So, aside from abstinence, the new additional goal for the month was to be able to do twenty push-ups and at least one pull-up. I’d never managed more than a dangle in the pull-up department, so I knew this would be a challenge. Thankfully, I was going to have lots of time on my hands and energy to burn.
June 4
Push-up update: three and three-quarters before collapse
Pull-up update: dangling
• • •
Popeye and I went on our final date tonight.
The effects of the petting party had lingered on; over the past two weeks or so, Popeye had bombarded me with texts asking what I was doing, where I was going, who I was with, what I was wearing . . . the works.
At first, it was kind of sexy. The “what are you wearing” question led to me describing a gorgeous Coco de Mer lingerie set I’d seen in the shop window recently. In reality, I was wearing a pair of eighties basketball shorts and a T-shirt so full of holes it was e
ssentially just a loose collection of atoms: such is the magic of our digital age.
But soon, it all started to get a little heavy. One night, when I told him I was having a night in with Lucy, he asked if I was sure no one else was in the flat with us, as though we had men stashed away in closets or under the floorboards. And when I canceled our dinner plans because of a crisis at work, he turned up outside my office with a takeout. I know that sounds sweet, but I had the feeling he was there to check up on my story rather than offer moral support.
Anyway, it started to freak me out. I worried that the petting party and Adrian had broken his brain and that his true nature as a possessive psychopath was about to be revealed.
Still, he did have great arms and I don’t like to miss out on a potentially entertaining date story, so I kept our plans. Anyway, under the constraints of the new book I could only gaze at him demurely from across a dinner table.
We met at a sushi restaurant in Notting Hill, best known as a good place to spot Elizabeth Hurley sucking painfully on an edamame bean. I was wearing a long black dress that was so concealing I had an English Defence League member spit at me on the street.
Popeye was already there when I arrived, drink in hand and staring pointedly at the door. He looked relieved when I walked through it, and then annoyed.
“You’re late,” he said as he kissed my cheek. “Where were you?”
“Sorry!” I said, instantly chastised. I glanced at my watch. “Actually, I’m only six minutes late.”
“I was worried. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”
“Well, that’s just nuts,” I said. “What are you drinking and can I have one?”
“Gin and tonic. I’ll get the waiter.”
Drinks firmly in hand, we settled into our booth and started discussing the week’s events. I was knee-deep into a story about Lucy and me going to the Horse and Groom and ending up in a long discussion about German expressionism with a Russian man and his two mistresses.
“. . . and the two of them even went to get waxed together! Can you believe that? It was like something from the Playboy mansion.”
Popeye didn’t seem to be enjoying hearing about the mistresses’ beauty regimes. He rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t understand how you and Lucy end up in these conversations.”
“Everyone’s off their faces in that place. It’s like shooting ducks in a barrel.”
“Fish. Shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Well, ducks seem like they’d be easier to hit, and you get my drift. Anyway, the guy said I could come take a look at his Kirchner collection whenever I wanted.”
His eyes darkened. “I’ll bet he did.”
“Oh, please. He has not one but two freshly waxed twenty-one-year-old Eastern Europeans at his service! I don’t think his intentions were untoward. I think he was just happy to talk to someone about his art collection who wasn’t mentally adding it to his net worth.”
“You must be more careful, darling. More sensible.”
“I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree if that’s what you’re after.”
He sighed a long, disappointed sigh. “Lauren, I’m just a little concerned about you. You’re nearly thirty—”
“Uh, hang on a second, buster—”
“And you’re out running around with Lucy talking to all of these strange men! Like that fellow Adrian who was at your party the other week. And that man who kept reciting those terrible poems.”
“Some of them weren’t bad. I thought the one about the tractor was decent.”
“That’s not the point! The point is, I like you. I want to look after you.” He reached across the table, covered my hand with his big manly one and smiled. “I just want you all to myself. When I first met you, you were a quiet, demure little dove. Now all I seem to hear about are other men and mad drunken nights out. I want you to settle down. With me.”
I know that in many of the romantic comedies at the start of this millennium, a speech like that would have triggered a tear of happiness to bead up in the heroine’s eye as she realized that she had the love and protection of a strong-armed, strong-jawed man who wanted her all to himself. She would throw out her cigarettes, pour all of the whisky in her cupboard down the drain and start tagging meat-heavy recipes on Pinterest.
But as I mentioned at the beginning of this experiment, I wasn’t looking for a knight on a noble steed, or Gerard Butler on a motorcycle, or even Ryan Gosling in a boat in the rain. I’d had enough of that back in Maine and the experience taught me that these things end in tears. I felt a pang of guilt. Popeye was a decent guy, even if he could be a little territorial. I couldn’t lead him on.
I slowly extricated my hand and smiled.
“You’re a great guy, but I’m just not looking for a relationship right now.”
His smile faltered. “What do you mean? I thought this was going somewhere.”
“I thought we were just having fun,” I said, knowing that wasn’t exactly the truth.
“But surely that has to lead somewhere? At some point, Lauren, you’re going to have to grow up. Time isn’t kind to women over a certain age. You don’t want to wake up one day and find out the party’s over, do you?”
I swallowed my feminist outrage: there was no point in getting into a heated debate about gender ethics. “You’re a great guy, and you have fantastic arms, and I’m sure there are loads of girls who are desperate to meet someone like you. Look at you—you’re a total stud!”
He perked up a bit at this. “Mmm. But I thought we were on to something.”
“We had a good time. Isn’t that enough?”
“I’m afraid not, and I’m afraid you’re not the woman I thought you were. If it’s all right with you, I’d like us to say our good-byes now.”
“Of course. I don’t feel much like sushi at the moment, either.”
Popeye got the bill (a gentleman to the last) and we parted ways outside. I smoked a cigarette on my way back to the tube, thinking how odd it was that I’d never see him again. I realized I felt fine about it. Really, I felt nothing. He was a nice guy, if a little chauvinistic, but we’d both been playing roles that didn’t suit us. It was for the best that the curtains had closed.
I sent Lucy a text telling her I was on my way home before stubbing out my cigarette and walking down the steps to the tube, careful not to trip on my skirt.
June 8
Push-up report: five (better!)
Pull-up report: still dangling. I might try doing one backward tomorrow and see if that helps.
• • •
Abstinence is boring and the valerian root is giving me a stomachache. So far, I hate this month.
Meghan called from Maine to check in on me this afternoon.
“Hey, kiddo. How’s it going?”
“It’s going. Thanks for the postcard.” It had arrived last week: a picture of an old clapboard mansion in Portland, days before it had been demolished. The front yard was covered in rusted-out car parts and green vines had nearly consumed the front porch. On the back, she’d written:
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see”—Confucius
Love you, M
I had tucked it in the pages of my journal along with the last one.
“Just a little reminder of home,” she said. “So how’s the experiment? Any conclusions yet?”
“Well, Popeye and I parted ways last night.”
“What happened? I thought he was a good egg.” I heard the sound of a dog whimpering in the background. “Hang on a sec, I’ve got to let Harold out.” I heard a screen door creak open. “There you go, buddy! Where’s Maud? Huh? Go find Maud!”
Maud was their new kitten, bought to catch mice in the farmhouse kitchen.
“Are you sure Maud really wants to be found?”
Meghan laugh
ed. “Are you kidding me? She rides on Harold’s back like he’s a horse! They love each other. Now, tell me what happened with Popeye.”
“He wanted me to be Maud to his Harold.”
“Oh. Well, I guess that proves that at least one of the books works, right?”
“I guess so. I’m still not getting what I want, though.”
“I know, sweetie. No strings attached, no lovey stuff, no feelings, no emotions . . .”
“Exactly.”
“People aren’t robots, kid. People fall for other people, emotions get in the way, irrational decisions are made. You know that better than most. You can’t keep yourself away from that forever. You’ll have to let some light in there at some point.”
“No, I don’t. Why does love have to be the ultimate goal, the end result? I give zero fucks about love. I’m happier on my own.”
There was a sigh on the end of the line, and then I heard an almighty crash in the background.
“Maud! Get down from there! Kid, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go: the cat has just scaled the china cabinet. Look, I’m sorry. I just worry about you.”
“I’m fine! You don’t need to worry. I’ve got everything under control.”
“You’ve been saying that since you learned how to talk. ‘I’m fine’ were practically your first words. That’s what I worry about.”
“Yeah, yeah. Love to you, love to Sue.”
“Love to you, too.”
I hung up and threw my cell phone onto my bed. I glanced down and saw the small cardboard box peeking out from under the bed. I thought about opening it and picking through the old photographs and letters like week-old scabs. Instead, I grabbed my trainers and headed out for a run. Reminiscing wasn’t going to get me anywhere: I had an obstacle course to train for.
June 9
Push-ups: five and a half (steady if slow progress)
Pull-ups: half a backward one with the help of a chair
Love by the Book Page 9
