unhappy with your husband, you’ve been unhappy with him for so long, he asks why you’re turning back to a man you don’t love. I never said that, you bristle, you shake your head: it’s too big a question, he has no right. He says let’s go to Spain, let’s go be together for more than a few hours.
There’s a little villa by the sea, that my family owns.
You stand. You know in this moment that Gabriel is at your mercy, you can do what you want, he is completely yours and with the knowledge of that something goes, you can feel it slip from you like a fish through the net.
I don’t want this to stop, he says. You don’t either, he says. We can’t. We’re part of each other’s lives now. You know it. Don’t lie to yourself. I feel like the past couple of months have been the happiest time of my life; the only time I’ve been living.
You step back. Gabriel has fallen in love and you almost despise him for it; it’s all messy before you, he’s a man wild with uncertainty and want. He’s broken the rules; insisting on exclusivity and demanding nights. You’re not sure, suddenly, what it was that bound you to him. Infatuation, perhaps. The craving for a man to be tender with, to touch. The challenge, the thrill of the chase. Revenge. The desire to learn, to open up your life.
And then he was caught.
And you’re at a loss, in this moment, over what to do next.
You stand before Gabriel with your hand covering your mouth, as if in shock at some terrible news, as if you’re about to be sick. You feel you’re learning everything about love as you watch him, from the other side. He imagines you leaving your cosy London world for a man in his thirties who has no real job, who still travels on buses, who’s never found a firm footing with his life. The poet, the dreamer, and you would have fallen for it once. But you’re too old, now. You just want to fuck. As did the author of your little book.
Where trow yee finde a man be hee ever so kind and curteouse to his wife that was willing to substitute another man in his place.
There was nothing in there about leaving her husband. That wasn’t the point.
Gabriel’s still on the bed, the heel of his fist at his forehead. You assess with your head, not your heart. You want him to have more of a life than you, to have other women, to open out his world. The idea had once given you a frivolous thrill: you dreamt of him going off and finding other women and learning their secrets too, and bringing all that he gathered back to you.
Like a snail prodded with a stick, you retreat.
Are you going home to your husband, he asks.
Yes.
Fuck you.
There’s such a force in that ‘fuck you’, it brings you up sharp, it’s a side of him that takes you by surprise: he’s masked it well.
And fuck him too, he spits.
Something curdles up within you; a defensiveness, a protectiveness. Leave Cole out of this, you say. You want your husband, suddenly, very much. His calm, his dependability, quiet. You fear for him suddenly, for what Gabriel might do. For you’ve seen now the vehemence of someone who shakes a girl to rattle the laughter from her, shakes her so hard that she will never come back.
You dress. You leave. In silence.
opium eaters grow lean and hollow-eyed and yellow-skinned, and always appear to be looking out for something
The lessons must stop. You can see Gabriel, suddenly, hijacking your life.
And you have a strange, new tugging in you for Cole; you weren’t expecting it, you never thought the moribund relationship could be woken up.
You stick out your arm for a cab and feel the vivid bareness between your legs as you stretch your body out. The cab driver asks you where you want to go, he’s young, not very good-looking, a father, perhaps. But he has a beautiful nape. You say, bewildered, barely thinking, I want to have sex, do you want to sleep with me, I need it, please, and he turns and looks at you, he pulls up. You repeat the question. You will never see him again, you will make sure of that. You will dye your hair after this, you will change your look, you will be someone else. You say, I’ll meet you in two hours at…at…and across the street, a little way up, is a Hilton Hotel. At the Hilton, you say. The room will be under Green. And you are floating as conventions and assumptions drop away on all sides and the words slip from you, so easily, so quick, for you’ve rehearsed what to say, what to do, for so long, at night, in your head.
Two of you would be good, you add, I think.
He looks at you, as if he knows exactly where you’re coming from. You turn your head, your fingertips appalled, trembling, at your mouth. He lets you out. You pay with a twenty. You do not take the change. He doesn’t say if he will come.
You know exactly what to do. You ask at a paper shop where the nearest hole in the wall is. You get out cash, a lot. You check in under the name Green, you like the name Green; you give Theo’s address. You hand across your credit card for an imprint, realise suddenly it has your surname on it but the woman doesn’t even check, you’re too respectable-looking for that. You go to the room, you shower, you pour yourself a glass of red wine, and another, and you wait.
There are three of them.
You tell them to do anything.
Your face is still young, still sweet, you can see their surprise: they never expected this. It is what you have always wanted, even as a child on the cusp of adolescence, you’d always dreamt of it, naked, spreadeagled, and a group of men or boys fondling you, curious, growing bolder, getting more excited, moving in. You do the things you’ve always wanted to do, what you devoured in the letters pages of the porn magazines you filched from your uncle when you were fifteen. You are not shy with these men because you are not interested in any connection being made, you’re not interested in talk, in anything that will give you away. You will never see them again. You will not be coming to Gabriel’s flat any more, the lessons must stop, you will not be getting a taxi for a very long time. This will be the end of this chapter in your life. It is all worked out and so you are free, in this hotel room, to do whatever you want.
They are rough, whether they sense that is what you wanted or not you don’t know. It is what you want. They don’t respect you. You are nothing but a vessel, a series of holes to be filled up. Your cunt, ass, mouth, all are used, sometimes simultaneously, all are fucked. You are passive, compliant, it is exactly what you want. To erase Gabriel, to start afresh.
You tell them when you’ve had enough, they’re reluctant, you push them off. Go, please, get out.
You don’t want a shower. You catch the tube home, your head bowed, you are reeling, triumphant, your palms cupped across your mouth and nose. Breathing in deep that afternoon that you will never have again, that you will never forget, while the stiffness in your thighs sets. You are engorged, swollen, and a trickle of cum leaks from you as you shift on the seat, you can feel it, and the rawness between your legs, and on your pubis, from the stubble of the men, it burns, the harsh grate, God knows how long it will last.
You’re home, promptly, by six, you’re never late.
Grubby
