Bad Friends

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  We roll over so I’m on top and he accidentally falls out. I position him back inside me and slide all the way onto him, giggling as he groans that I took him a little too fast.

  He sits up and I wrap my legs around him as he crosses his beneath me. Embracing him around his head, I dig my hands in his hair and rock with him, softly mewling as he buries his face in my breasts and loses himself sucking, kissing and licking my nipples.

  “Oh god, Paul,” I groan, those daggers of desire overwhelming me again.

  His hands move across my back and behind, caressing my skin, holding me tight, close, safe and secure. His lips move to my throat and he kisses the skin just beneath my ear, his breath warm and heavy.

  I grab his hair tight and cling to his shoulders harder, tossing my head back as I use the strength of my arms to help me lever and swing across his lap faster and harder.

  “Uh, Lily,” he groans.

  I feel the shake in his arms as he comes, bursting into me all at once. I don’t come as hard as before, but it’s no less pleasurable watching him shatter in my arms, flooding the inside of me.

  We lie down together, my head on his chest, leg thrown over his waist.

  “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Me, too,” he admits, his hand stroking my calf.

  I lean up over him and kiss him all over his face.

  “We should take a bath and then try that thing you were on about,” he says with a big, happier-than-happy smile on his face.

  “Okay, why don’t you start running it?”

  “My pleasure.” He kisses my forehead, then leaves the bed.

  I hear the taps thunder, filling the big tub in the bathroom. I checked earlier – it’s one of those two-person tubs with room for two bums, one in each corner.

  The next thing I hear is him whistling, obviously covering the sound of him taking a pee. I should probably do the same to prevent infection down below.

  Once the toilet flushes, I tap on the door and he opens up.

  “I’m going to pee so either stay or go, up to you,” I tell him, my bladder bursting now I can hear the sound of running water.

  I let go and chuckle as he watches me, not bothered at all. I spread my legs to wipe and he’s staring as I clean up.

  “That’s all my cum all over you,” he says, looking at the inside of my thigh which is covered in sticky white cream.

  “Yes.”

  I finish cleaning myself up but once I’m done, he turns off the taps and throws me up into his arms, making me scream.

  “Back to bed we go,” he says, “bath can wait.”

  He throws me onto the bed and I shriek the moment he throws himself on top of me.

  “Deny me,” he goads.

  “Never.”

  We melt into one another, only feeling whole when it’s like this.

  The morning after, I wake knowing I’m a different person to the one I was yesterday. I’m no longer someone desperate to find love but sure I never would.

  We never did get to try out bum sex last night. In fact, I think the bath is still half-full out there. Paul and I made love one more time, then fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms, the occasion and the drink and the sex having worn us out.

  That’s odd, though – I can’t feel him wrapped around me this morning.

  I roll over in bed and he’s not in it.

  “Paul?” I call.

  Nothing.

  I lie back and try to be calm. He could have gone down to breakfast, or to see if his mother is okay. However, after sitting up, I scan the room and notice his case is gone – clothes, too.

  On the nightstand next to me is a note, my name on it.

  I open it up, my hands shaking: It’s easier this way, Lil. I meant it, though – I do love you.

  I’m crushed, reading and re-reading until my eyes sting.

  The insides of me churn and I run to the bathroom, throwing up in the sink.

  “Bastard,” I groan, “you bastard.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Strange. It’s exactly one year since I first spent the night with Paul, and tomorrow will be a year since I became single – Ian having dumped me on Christmas Day morning.

  I’m back at the old pub tonight, it being Christmas Eve. Except this year, there are noticeably fewer of us. In fact, I almost went out with my colleagues tonight instead, but I felt guilty when Theo rang me and said he wouldn’t get through Christmas unless we all gathered together tonight. It’s like most of us have gone from refusing to accept adulthood, clinging onto our childhood with the same haunts, the same regular gatherings – to now having accepted life moves on, and we must with it.

  Theo has already drunk his way through four pints, at least. We’ve only been here for an hour. I dragged Sass out tonight to help, just in case he gets crazy and needs carrying home. Among the few of us actually here, there’s also Steve the plumber, the only one of our group to have bucked the trend and not gone to university. He’s already richer than the lot of us put together. Then there’s Darren who’s at every gathering like this, no matter the occasion or the venue, he shows up. We all grew up knowing he was somewhere on the scale but to us, he’s Darren – whereas to others on the outside, he might seem a bit strange.

  Chloe is still abroad, trekking through the outback with a torch her only route to the toilet at night, and I’m quite glad of that because if she were here, she’d be interrogating me about Ian and why I haven’t moved on yet. Where would I start? Also, Marie is pregnant again, so we’ll probably only see her in passing on the street from now on.

  Our group has always included some of the hangers-on from school who weren’t in the same ambitious camp as us. They’d occasionally show up, tag along, and you’d greet them as if nothing had changed since school though you hadn’t seen them in years and it was rather random of them to show up now. Even they’ve given up this year. Since Adam and Susan’s wedding, a tidal wave of change has occurred – unless it’s the lack of Chloe, the perennial party planner and social butterfly.

  So many of the original gang are abroad and the rest are either partnered off, too busy with their careers, even living in another town or city and not making the journey home this year – sorry! It’s kind of sad being here and seeing this dwindling crew, given I could’ve gone to a karaoke bar tonight with my colleagues and shared some of the blackest humour I’ve ever heard. Hey! We’re psychologists. It’s the only way to cope.

  Although, I suppose, the real reason it feels so empty here for me tonight is the lack of Paul, who always did light up a room.

  Darren and Steve bugger off, moving onto a club, possibly fed up of maudlin Theo.

  Theo has never been close to those two. His best mates included Tom, who’s currently living in Asia somewhere, working for some major engineering company. A genius, but always stoned. Theo’s other best mates obviously include Adam, who’s now truly embracing married life by avoiding these dreadful gatherings, plus Paul, of course. For some reason, Theo refuses to move on and find new mates, even leaving London just to come here and get smashed with the likes of me. He could probably find a legion of friends down there, but I wonder, is he still refusing to move on?

  There’s just Sass, Theo and me left sitting around the table. It feels sad and a little pathetic, actually.

  “I’d better go. Things to do.” Sass kisses us both super-fast and is out of the door before we can even breathe.

  Once she’s gone, I try to think. How can I pull Theo out of this mess?

  “Shall we go somewhere else?” I ask him.

  “Where?” he asks, yelling over the din of the crap metal band around the corner of the pub, which normally doesn’t bother me but because the crowd is small tonight, I’m hearing more of it.

  “I don’t know, anywhere.”

  “Can we go to yours?” he asks, slurring.

  “Great idea.”

  He drinks up and we grab the first cab we can find, asking him to take us to my ne
w place.

  The first thing I do when we arrive home is put the kettle on. Theo stumbles around, searching the fridge and finding only a small prosecco in the door. He grumbles but pops it open without even asking.

  I hear him groan as he slams his arse down on my sofa, switching on the TV.

  I’m renting a flat not far from Leeds University. It’s an area I know, it’s safe, and it’s got a good vibe. So there we go. And yes, it’s a couple of streets away from where I used to live with Ian.

  When things get tough at work, I walk home telling myself I could always go back to university and start again, but I already did that once and look where it got me: a failed relationship and a job that’s harder than I could have ever imagined. I would like to sit down with Ian and pick apart what went wrong, but when I say that to Sass or my big sister, they shoot me down and remind me Ian was a prick. End of. No dissection needed.

  I take two cups of tea into the lounge and find Theo, having already drunk the cheap prosecco, watching It’s a Wonderful Life with tears in his eyes.

  I pass him his tea and he rolls his eyes.

  “Anyone told you lately, you’re becoming a bit of a prick?” I can’t help being harsh; he’s been a wretch tonight. I’ve tried the softly-softly approach with him in the past but that doesn’t seem to have worked.

  “Thanks,” he smarts, crying as he watches the film.

  “No, I’m being serious, Theo. You’re being a dick. I’m not impressed.”

  I’ve really had to scale back our nights of dumping (or rather his dumping) ever since I began proper working hours and gained regular patients. It’s too much to do it at work, then come home to it, too. I can imagine there are a hundred things he could do each weekend in London, but for some reason he still seems to be coming back here all the time and staying at his mum’s.

  “Gee, thanks.” He leans back into the sofa, shuts his eyes and rubs them.

  I grab the remote and switch the TV off, another distraction from what’s going on with him.

  “You need help, Theo and I’m saying that as someone who cares. You can’t go on like this, it’s ridiculous. She married Adam. She’s deliriously happy.”

  “Oh god,” he growls, “it’s not her. It’s everything. I fucking hate London. It’s soul destroying. I’m not getting work. I hate myself.”

  “Well, you need to sort yourself out, Theo. It’s not worth it. If it’s making you unhappy, find something else. I don’t know, try your luck around here.”

  He shakes his head. “This was always the dream and it’s become a nightmare. My mother paid out thousands so I could live the dream, and if I give up now, it’ll be like it was all a waste. The shame of it… admitting failure. I couldn’t bear it! I was meant to make it in London Town.”

  I put my arm around him and let him rest his forehead on my chest for a while. It seems to help. After a while, he drinks some tea and I start to see the old Theo return, a little life back in his eyes.

  “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone else?” I stare at him with desperation. I need to talk to someone about this. Anyone. I’m going insane.

  “Will it make me feel less shit about myself?”

  “Probably.”

  “Go for it, then.”

  I proceed to tell him everything.

  How me and Paul shagged last Christmas Eve (leaving out the shag in the toilet at Chloe’s mum’s house), then about how Ian caught us the next day, hence the break-up.

  I also tell him about how Paul treated me at the wedding…

  I tell him how I’ve struggled to move on. How I’ve tried to date, but Paul’s never far from my thoughts.

  “I hate to tell you this, but Adam said Paul’s got a girlfriend out in Japan.”

  I shake my head. My chin wobbles.

  I’m not surprised, just hurt.

  Theo holds me as I cry, then wail, then softly sob against his chest.

  “Shall we make a pact?” he asks.

  “What pact?”

  “If we’re single when we’re thirty… that sort of thing.”

  “What?” I snort with laughter.

  “Okay, let’s make it thirty-five. If we’re still single, both of us with no baggage or anything, we agree to marry and make babies for the sake of our mothers. I mean, we get on. I’m not bad looking, you’re not bad looking. We could both do worse.”

  “True. I guess.” Though right now, even with Paul halfway around the world, his dick in some other girl, I still can’t imagine wanting to be married to anyone else.

  “For what it’s worth, he’s behaved like a total prick, Lil. But to be honest, I think he’s gone out there looking for something, like, I don’t know…”

  “Closure?” I worry I’ve hit the nail on the head.

  “No, no… therapy. You know? I think he’s got some demons.”

  “He must have.” Otherwise, how else could a man confess love one minute, then turn his back on it the next?

  “Thirty-five then, Lil?”

  “Thirty and you’re on, wanker. I want to pop out a few kids before I’m over the hill.”

  We shake hands, affirming our pact.

  I can see from the look in his eyes, he already feels better about everything – he just needed to know he’s not alone and that other people are also going through a lot of the same suppressed emotions, not to mention dreams unfulfilled.

  He takes the remote and switches the TV back on, the same film still playing. I fetch a load of snacks from the kitchen and dump them all on the coffee table. Theo picks up the peanuts while I break into the Doritos.

  “Mary, Mary!” he cries, mimicking James Stewart’s voice.

  I fall about laughing because he sounds so like the character, George Bailey.

  “Mr Potter,” he exclaims, “Mr Potter!”

  He can put on any voice and it scares me how he does this. I could be sitting next to a psycho and I might never know because he’s such a good actor.

  I rest my chin on his shoulder and snuggle into him. “Something will turn up, T.”

  “Fucking better had or I won’t know what to do. Don’t wanna relegate myself to teaching or worse, singing for my supper.”

  “What would be wrong with that? You’re an amazing singer.”

  It gets to the part where they’re singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and Theo sings the lyrics badly, putting in a terrible rendition on purpose.

  “I take that back,” I laugh, holding my stomach, he’s so funny.

  He pulls me in close and kisses my temple, somehow much calmer and more settled now than he was before. He’s always been very touchy feely with me but that’s just him being a luvvie, right? This is what they’re like.

  “What I meant was that I’d have to start going begging and sleeping with the right people to get in the right circles. I hate that about my industry.”

  Okay, so maybe it’s only me he’s like this with, then?

  “But you are betrothed to me,” I announce dramatically, “and unless it’s for a role, why should you have to get naked with some stranger? True, I know you don’t mind getting naked, but you still shouldn’t have to.”

  “True.”

  The film finishes and some late-night carol service plays next. We don’t turn it over because we know nothing else is on now until tomorrow. Instead, I get out my Die Hard DVD and he rubs his hands with excitement.

  “Ain’t Christmas till you’ve watched this, mate,” I exclaim.

  We dance around the room in a jagged, discotheque fashion as Run DMC’s ‘Christmas in Hollis’ comes on. Theo pretends like he’s above it but I know he still enjoys being silly on occasion, even though he seems so serious all the time.

  We take the sofa again, my back resting against him. He has his arm slung loosely over my shoulder and sits quietly, saying nothing.

  “I hear you thinking,” I mumble, as Bruce Willis makes it to Nakatomi Plaza.

  “I hear you breathing,” he says, �
�but I don’t judge you for having big lungs.”

  “Nice, you think you have a big brain. I expect people with low intelligence do always think they’re right.”

  We chuckle and then there’s more silence.

  “I think I’m over all that Susan crap,” he murmurs. “Well, I hope so. Anyway, I have bigger worries. Like actually earning a living from acting instead of temping, running improv classes and being an understudy all the time.”

  “Yeah but you did say understudies get paid well.”

  “Not in here,” he says, smacking his chest, “not in here. I need to be allowed to run free.”

  “Don’t we all, boy. Don’t we all.”

  All I know is that once Theo starts taking off Bruce Willis’s epic one-liners, I can hardly breathe, it’s so funny. Life’s not that bad, really. Not bad at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  January. A new year. New beginnings. Christmas is done with, for another twelve months. I wonder if I’ll now always associate Christmas with disaster? I hope not.

  I’m driving Theo out of Leeds to Adam and Susan’s new place. Theo is, apparently, Susan’s favourite out of all of Adam’s friends – Adam told him so, and Theo relayed this to me with more than a hint of glee. Anyway, when Theo got an invite to dinner at their new house, he asked if I would come as his plus one. To be honest, a free meal isn’t the only attraction. I’d quite like to have a nosey around. Plus, they live outside Leeds and Theo doesn’t drive, also my new car needs a good run out.

  “How are you doing?” I ask, as we travel down the M62 to Castleford, which is quieter than the city and is also a cheap place to buy a house, hence moving there – I assume.

  “I’m alright.”

  “But you’re happy you’re going to see her?”

  He chuckles. “Some days I don’t think about her at all. I’d call that progress. Maybe if I see them in their little love nest, it might help me to realise she’s with him. No chance of nicking her out from under him.”