‘Hey,’ he replies.
I feel the sensation of something warm against my face, a warm flannel wiping away the sand and, I assume, any vomit stuck to my face. I feel it against my hands and I make little comforting moans to let him know it’s nice.
‘Chloe, I’ve brought you some water. I’m just going to put this straw in your mouth so you can have some sips.’ I feel a finger on my lips as he inserts the straw and the cool water glides down my throat as I take a few deep sucks. It’s an incredibly soothing feeling. His hand goes to my hair, stroking my head and curling errant strands out of my face. He picks something out of my hair with his fingers, and I pray it’s fluff as opposed to a chunk of something I vommed.
I then feel something cold on my arm, it stings a little but I don’t even have the energy to flinch. He holds something to the area and then gently swabs some cotton against it and applies something to it; I will assume a plaster.
‘You’ve got a little cut on your arm so I’ve patched that up,’ Ben explains. ‘I’m going to leave some painkillers here for you and some crackers; there are also tissues and the bin if you need to throw up again. Can I get you anything else?’
‘Can you take off my bra?’ I mumble. ‘I want to go to sleep.’
I hear him laughing. ‘I don’t think you’re wearing one.’
‘I’m not? Oh yeah.’ It was the dress. It was a slip and I forgot to pack a strapless bra. I didn’t think we’d be dancing. ‘I have little boobs anyway, it doesn’t matter,’ I mutter, realising that sentence might not make sense without the rest of my train of thought. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’
‘For throwing up. Where did I throw up?’
He pauses for a moment. ‘On the beach. You threw up on that mean girl in the sarong. It was quite spectacular. She said she was going to call the police,’ he informs me.
‘The police,’ I say, my eyes springing open in shock but then rolling shut again.
‘There were no police. We ran before that. You should have seen the others. It was quite a sight. I think Zara may have been queen bee in a prison gang in another life. She really took no prisoners,’ he says chuckling.
‘You threw up again by the car and then we stopped halfway home and you threw up outside asupermercado,’ Ben continues.
Well, I may have erased any ounce of dignity I may have left.
‘You are a very polite vomiter though. You apologise a lot in between chunders.’
‘I do?’
‘Yes,’ says Ben. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry. Bleurgh…’
I manage a whisper of laughter hearing how well he can imitate me throwing up. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asks.
‘I can taste Christmas.’ He won’t know what that means.Maybe there were drugs in thatHierbas? I’m hallucinating Christmas. ‘I’m also really sandy. Why am I so sandy?’
‘We were on a beach.’
‘Oh yeah…’
‘And you kind of wrestled with that girl on the sand.’
‘Oh. Did I win?’ I ask.
‘If I was judging, I’d say yes.’
I try to punch an arm in the air to celebrate that victory. However, I can still feel the prickle of sand in between my toes, in my scalp and lining my crack. I guess I’m still out of my mind and I also want to sleep comfortably, so I reach down and take off my knickers, throwing them across the room. I hear laughter and I realise that may have looked like an invitation.
‘I’ve just got sand in my…’Find a word, a polite word, a word you can use around him that is neither crude nor sexual. ‘Flange.’
Ben laughs so hard that I have no choice but to giggle too, limiting my movement because my head still hurts.
‘Did you want me to hose you off?’ he jokes.
‘You make me sound like a wet dog,’ I murmur. ‘I think that goes beyond the service you should be offering. Yes, come for a retreat: eat, dance and let me de-sand your flange.’
