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Chapter Three
Elizabeth
I open my eyes. It’s pitch black in the room, the only light coming from a small red dot of a TV on standby. I’m confused, because I don’t have a TV in my room at home. The red display on the alarm clock on the bedside table reads 03:11.
I lift my head and groan as the room spins. Ahhh… why do I do this to myself? I love alcohol, but I detest this part of being drunk.
My stomach churns, and I groan again and push myself up to a sitting position. I recognize the layout of the room—I’m in one of the suites at Huxley’s. I’m shoeless but fully dressed, and lying on top of the covers.
Nausea rises inside me, and I get up and stumble into the bathroom, where I vomit into the toilet. When I’m done, I lurch back into the bedroom, taking off my jacket, trousers, and shirt as I go, leaving them where they drop. In just my underwear, I pull back the duvet, collapse into bed, pull the duvet over my head, and fall asleep.
At 04:16, and again at 05:27, I rise and vomit again. The third time, I force myself to drink half the bottle of water that was sitting on the bedside table before I fall back asleep.
The next time I wake, there’s light coming through the crack in the curtains. The clock reads 06:39.
My head’s still spinning, but I feel a bit clearer. Gradually, memories of the night before bloom in my mind.
Cautiously, I look to my right. The bed’s empty. I lift my head and look around the room. It’s the kind of standard suite I’ve slept in at Huxley’s many times before when I couldn’t be bothered to go home.
How did I get here? I honestly don’t recall. Why didn’t I go back to my apartment?
What’s the last thing I do remember? My brain is like a rusty machine, the cogs squeaking as the mechanism clicks into gear. I was in the Churchill Bar, talking to Victoria. Then Huxley came in, and Victoria left. I remember Huxley dismissing Ian, who brought a bottle of whisky over before he left. Hux and I had a few more drinks while we talked…
I asked him if he’d donate for me.
And then, gradually, the rest of the conversation filters back.
Pulling a pillow over my head, I press my hands on it as if I could suffocate myself.
I asked him to donate for me. And he said no. But he did clarify it withI said I wouldn’t do anything in a cup. But I am prepared to get you pregnant the old-fashioned way.
I breathe slowly, trying to calm my racing heart.
Slowly, I lift the pillow and drop it onto the bed.
I told him about Tim, and Rich, and that Steve hit me. I remember the twenty or thirty swear words he used, one or two I hadn’t even heard of. His quiet outrage. Sweet, sweet Huxley, riding in on his white charger.
I think I rambled on about how sex was overrated. Jesus, that would be like a red rag to a bull to a guy like Huxley. And it’s why he saidGo to bed with me. Let’s have some amazing sex, and get you pregnant in the process.
Covering my face with my hands, I try to keep calm.
I think we kissed. Yep, he definitely gave me a long, luscious smooch. Oh my.
We’d make the most beautiful baby.
Tears prick my eyes. It’s the after-effects of the whisky, I tell myself, but I know it’s not. I want to cry because more than anything in the world I want to say yes. But I can’t.
I meant it when I told him I had a non-healing fracture in my heart. Disappointment after disappointment in love have made me determined not to date ever again. I’ve cried too much over men. After my failed relationships, I can only conclude there must be something seriously wrong with me. I’m too demanding, too prickly, too unwilling to settle. My standards must be too high. And yet I can’t bear to lower them. What is it that Bill Pullman says to Meg Ryan inSleepless in Seattle? Something about marriage being difficult enough without bringing such low expectations into it?
Do I ask too much? I expect monogamy in a relationship. I understand that some people are happy to play around at the beginning as they try different partners on, but I’ve never done that. I’ve never had a one-night stand. Never done the Tinder thing. When I’ve met a guy I’ve liked, I’ve gone on a few dates and then we’ve mutually agreed to be exclusive. Tim slept with someone else while we were a couple. Is it wrong of me to have dumped him for that?
I do like sex, whatever I said to Huxley. I like sharing myself with someone in a physical way. But I understand that the body doesn’t always work the way you want it to. I didn’t leave Rich because he sometimes suffered from premature ejaculation. I would have been prepared to work with him, if he’d been willing, and to find ways to deal with it. But he was embarrassed, furious even, every time it happened. It came out as resentment and anger toward me, and I couldn’t deal with that.
Steve was the most difficult one in many ways, because mostly we were a good fit. He didn’t cheat. He was okay in bed, although the issues I told Huxley about were mostly connected with him. But we liked the same music and movies. He was smart and good looking and funny—not in Huxley’s league by any means—but not bad. He had a terrible temper, though, and lost his rag all the time about stupid things like computers going wrong or missing a program on TV. It was impossible for me not to compare him to Huxley, who gets angry, of course, but never about small things, only when it matters: to defend someone who’s been bullied or mistreated, or over unfairness, or injustice.
The day Steve hit me, he’d lost his temper because something had gone wrong with the oven and it burned the dinner. Usually when he started shouting, I’d walk out or try to defuse it by solving whatever had wound him up, but that night I’d been tired, and frustration had made me yell that I wished he was more of a man like Huxley. Steve was already jealous of our friendship, and he’d accused me of cheating on him with Hux, and then hit me.
I didn’t tell Huxley that bit.
