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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.
