I think he gets it. And I think it’s enough for now.
It’s nothing but us now, the creak of the bed, the skin on skin. But the eye contact is the thing I’m not prepared for. He’s looking at me and now I know for certain what his words had only sixty-five per cent convinced me of: he is looking atme.Having sex withme.
And now I know that before tonight, I, like Drew Barrymore, had never been kissed.
Arthur groans and that’s when I remember that I haven’t warned him about the skylight. Face down on the pillow, he fumbles blindly across the floor for his pants and extracts his phone. It’s six in the morning.
‘Your skylight sucks,’ he says. I do not disagree. ‘I’m going to buy us both those really fancy sleep masks for Christmas.’ I try not to read too much into this extremely casual long-term planning, like he’s going to be here, in my bed, at Christmas time. He groans again, reaching for me and dragging me inby the waist, trapping me against him, my back to his warm chest. ‘I don’t wanna go to work,’ he whines.
I snort at this, throwing his arm off me, and the blanket off him, exposing his bare ass to the day. He hides his head under the pillow. ‘Oh no, woe is me,’ I snark, ‘with my regular hours, guaranteed salary and legally mandated holiday and sick leave! How will I go on in this cruel, cruel world?’ Dodging the flying pillow throws a dent in my Shakespearean riff.
It’s all very domestic. He showers while I make tea and display our selection of muesli, yogurt and milk like a cutesy bed and breakfast. My knee brushes against his under the table while we eat, and it’s totally intentional this time. He smirks, so I know he knows. I tell him that I’m out for drinks tonight. He says he’ll text me later. Hopefully we can hang out over the weekend when I’m not working.
‘Forgive me if I’m overstepping,’ he says as we walk down the hall to the door. ‘But when you joked before about regular full-time hours, I just wondered why you don’t ditch hospo and try something else.’
‘It’s not that simple. I have a general degree and no real work experience. And rent.’
‘But what would you do if there was nothing holding you back?’ Arthur was definitely told when he was growing up that he could be anything he wanted to be.
‘I have no idea. I don’t generally entertain impossibilities.’
‘Maybe now’s the time to start?’ He seals our night together with an easy, cheesy sitcom couple kiss on the way out. It feels like a promise.
Where does the day go after that? Unclear. But all of Bee’s washing is done and put away. I have fresh sheets on the bed. And my room has been tidied so if anyone—any random person—happens to be in there again soon it’s not an embarrassment. Thank goodness he didn’t take a close look around and see my pile of dirty undies and bras in the corner, my makeshift floor hamper. Or the scrunched-up kebab wrapper. Arthur texts four times, so that’s four times I have to spend roughly ten minutes drafting a perfectly chill, unrehearsed response in my notes app. And then another five minutes waiting to type it out and send it so that I don’t look like I have been hanging around waiting on him.
I’m the last one at the bar even though I’m three minutes early. Five pairs of expectant eyes suggest that Nicole and Reg have been gossiping. In fact, Reg takes one look and declares me ‘freshly fucked’. A glass of prosecco is placed in front of me, and the interrogation begins (though with much more alcohol and swearing than I imagine is the case for most interrogations).
Reg wants to know how the sex was, and I’m disappointingly coy. José will be wanting details, but I don’t kiss and tell. Do you suck and tell? Reg asks, and I nearly spit a whole gulp of prosecco in his face.
Stewart demands to see a picture of Arthur, but fuck if straight men’s social media isn’t entirely useless for showing them off to your friends. Once you swipe past all the pictures of person-less scenery, it’s slim pickings. No, not that one with the Covid haircut. No, ah, Iswearhe’s better looking than this in real life.
‘To be fair, I did catch a glimpse of him once, and he is cute in an old-guy way.’ We’re all well aware that you’re twenty-two, Nicole, and anyone over thirty must seem ancient to you.
He texts at one point hoping that I have a good night with my friends, and Nicole squeals right in my ear. Reg steals my phone and demands a better picture of him by which they might evaluate his suitability. I steal my phone back and promptly apologise. Although I’m not sad to receive the bespectacled, behoodied selfie taken from his couch a moment later. He’s not pulling a silly face this time. Save to contact.
Reg approves.
They do move on eventually—Stewart has a complex situationship that needs dissecting. I feel warm and fuzzy, not just from orgasms and two days of consistent drinking. In this micro ecosystem of a group of work colleagues turned friends, I finally feel on equal footing. I get a turn. I’m not working to get their approval because that’s not what friendship is. Now I just get to enjoy hearing about Stewart’s cheeky nightclub pash that may or may not be cheating on his poorly defined current sexual partner, and Reg’s garden (not a euphemism), and Nicole finally, nearly, potentially, maybe dumping her deadweight boyfriend.
But I also get a turn.
And then I drunk-text Arthur all the way home in the cab because did he know he’s really hot? And really nice? And really just a dynamo in the sack? Does that sound weird? Is that a thing people say? How does one compliment a suitor’s skills in the bedroom department via the medium of text message?
When I’m sober, I realise one probably doesn’t and likely sticks to in-person praise.
I’m going to discover in the morning that I’ve spelt next to none of these words correctly. And I fell asleep midway through typing a text about the many positive qualities of his penis, so it’s probably best that this one didn’t make it past the goalie.
But it’s okay. Because his last message says that he thinks I’m an adorable drunk. Let’s hang out Sunday arvo.
He calls me babe.
THIS MARRIAGE ISnot going to last. The groom seems more preoccupied with drinking the menu with his buddies, and no blushing bride should give this much of a shit about the arrangement of the accoutrements on the charcuterie table that no one is touching. (The crudités are leaking vinegar onto the smoked meats, which is an emergency.) And like, the bride and groom aren’t touching each other.
I give it a year.
For the first few hours, work is uneventful, if perhaps a little tougher because my body can no longer handle two days of drinking in a row and then be expected to function. That earns commiserations from Reg. Unsympathetic laughter from Nicole. I’m not worried about it; her time will come.
I’m counting down the seconds. I can hear my bed calling me. I didn’t even drink that much—last night, at least—so why is my body punishing me like this?
