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3
Rebecca
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was one of Tyler’s lean, bronzed and unusually hair-free thighs hooked over my left knee. I blinked, trying to get some life into me, rubbing at the corners of my eyes. A chink of blue winter light was twinkling through a gap in my curtains and, realising this wasn’t normal, I felt around on my bedside table for my phone, checking the time. It was usually still dark when I woke up.
7.25?! I’d forgotten to set my alarm, which really wasn’t like me. But then again, nothing I’d done the night before had been anything like me. For a start, I’d had sex with someone I didn’t know very well and was sober enough to remember it this time. Coming out of a long-term relationship, I worried that I wouldn’t know what to do any more, that I’d only be able to do it the way Dan and I (occasionally) did it. I was pleased to note that it had all come back very naturally to me and also that I didn’t feel all clingy and into him, or have butterflies over whether or not he’d want to see me again, which was what I’d dreaded happening. Instead, I wasn’t bothered either way: mission accomplished.
I watched Tyler snoring softly, his lips parted, his eyelids flickering, the beginnings of stubble sprouting out of his jaw, a combination of grey and black and the odd fleck of ginger. I noticed he had tiny, fine lines fanning out from the corner of each eye. If that had been Dan, he would have been slathering on jarfuls of expensive eye cream by now and wearing sunglasses twenty-four/seven to avoid squinting. He hated the idea of getting older and once referred to people over thirty-five as being ‘washed up’, which I’d vehemently disagreed with. Tyler, on the other hand, seemed perfectly comfortable in his own skin. If anything, I bet he looked better now than he had at thirty.
I eased my leg out from underneath him, relieved he didn’t stir when his knee flopped like a dead weight onto the duvet cover. Then I slid sideways out of bed, attempting to keep my body perpendicular to the mattress, before melting onto the floor like a slinky so that I ended up on all fours on the carpet. It wasn’t the most elegant manoeuvre, but needs must.
I peeked at Tyler – good, still asleep. I’d make myself look presentable and then I’d wake him – we’d have to leave soon if I wanted to be in the office for nine.
I tiptoed into the bathroom, where I splashed my face with cold water, cleaned my teeth, brushed my hair and put it up in a ponytail because I wouldn’t have time to straighten it. I slicked on some lip balm and was tempted to put on the full works, but thought that might be taking it a bit far. I hated feeling like this, that men would be disappointed when they saw me without make-up. Sometimes I wondered about Dan. Whether after sixteen years together I’d stopped making an effort and that was why he’d ended things. Rationally I knew it couldn’t have been just that. Rationally I knew a lot of things, but him leaving still felt deeply painful, as though it was my fault, which, in a way, it was, since he’d cited me being emotionally unavailable (even though he understood why, he said) as the excuse for him shagging somebody else. Pushing all thoughts of Dan away, I headed to the kitchen.
I made me and Tyler a coffee. He was vegan, he’d announced last night (I was glad I hadn’t bothered cooking) and since nut milk wasn’t the sort of thing I had hanging around in my fridge, he was going to have to have it black. I did some frantic tidying, washed up the cocktail glasses, tipped empty husks of lime into the bin. My head was pounding, so I took two paracetamol. Hardly surprising considering we’d drunk three – or was it four? – Margaritas each. What had I been thinking, drinking on a work night? I was usually very strict with myself about stuff like that.
I took our coffees through to the bedroom. I couldn’t see Tyler at first because he wasn’t in the bed where I’d left him. My initial thought was that he’d got off without saying goodbye, although surely he couldn’t have made it past me and out of the front door without me noticing? Then I saw his head bobbing up and down at the side of the bed, which I was relieved about because nobody wanted to think the person they’d spent the night with was so repulsed they’d had to do a runner.
‘Morning, beautiful,’ he called over his shoulder, his naked body stretched out like a plank, his rock-hard glutes disappearing and then reappearing again.
I put the coffee down on the side.
‘You’re doing press-ups,’ I said, stating the obvious and trying not to stare.
‘I have a morning ritual,’ he replied, breathing heavily out of his nose after every other word.
‘Oh yeah? What’s that, then?’ I asked, smarting with envy that he had enough willpower to stick to a full-on early-morning exercise regime. I was getting well into my running, but this was a whole different ball game.
‘Three sets, each working a different muscle group, and then the same again at night,’ he said, still bobbing up and down.
At night? He really did have an impressive work ethic, which probably explained why I could see his shoulder muscles undulating under his skin and his biceps bulging under the weight of his taut body. At forty-five, he was officially the oldest person I’d seen naked, but also undisputedly the fittest. The most Dan had ever managed was a half-hearted jog around the block once a week, after which he’d proceeded to whinge about not having abs like the models on the front of Men’s Health magazine. That had been him all over, actually: having these big dreams but – unlike Tyler - not being prepared to put in the hard work required to make them happen. My aggressive new neighbour, Jack, looked as though he worked out, from the little I’d seen of him in his strange all-black get-up. He was probably one of those vain types who spent hours preening at the gym and whipping off his top to take photos of himself for Instagram.
I perched on the edge of the bed, listening to Tyler huffing and puffing and feeling guilty and as though I should be doing something more productive. In desperation, I smoothed out the duvet cover and plumped up the pillows.
When Tyler had finished the press-ups, he flipped over onto his back and went into a round of crunches. Yep, those abs were straight out of Men’s Health magazine.
I picked up my coffee, blowing on the surface of it, watching the way the liquid rippled out from the centre and wondering if I should do some asanas at the end of the bed, or something. I bet that’s what the women he dated in New York would have done. Either that, or they’d have been to a spin class and back by now.
‘I think I’ll go and have a shower, while you’re doing that, then,’ I said.
If this was what casual sex felt like the morning after, I didn’t think I’d been missing out on much. I didn’t feel closer to Tyler than I had the night before, or even the last time I’d slept with him; I just felt awkward and as though I wanted this bit to be over with. I’d slept with precisely one other person since Dan had left, and I’d managed to avoid all this because he’d had to get off just after midnight to feed his cat. I’d been relieved about that, because I couldn’t see the point of postcoital chit-chat if you had zero intention of seeing each other again.
By the time I got back to the bedroom, Tyler was on his feet. And still naked. He’d opened the curtains and was standing by the window, which seemed a little brazen, considering half the neighbours were probably up by now and could see straight into my flat.
‘Is that the famous heath you were telling me about?’ asked Tyler, looking out at the treetops and the rolling green grass beyond.
‘Yeah. What do you think?’
He nodded slowly. ‘It really is something.’
‘Towel?’ I said hopefully, handing him my nicest, fluffiest one.
I’d handpicked it from the depths of my linen cupboard presuming he’d want a shower. I always kept a pristine set ready in case of visitors.
‘You think of everything,’ he said, which I was pleased about, because I liked to think I did.
I wondered what he was doing when he started stretching out the towel and holding it taut between his hands. Everything became clear when he suddenly hooked it around my body, pulling me into him. I was dressed already, in a cream silk blouse and my best black cigarette pants. He had sweat running down his temples and I didn’t want to stain my top.
