This is part of an autobiographical series.
Click here for the first instalment.
The full list of instalments is in the sidebar to the right.
Note
Please check that you’ve read the current version of instalment 5 before you read
this instalment.
(I say this
because I have posted and reposted several different versions of instalment 5
and probably confused everybody. Many apologies. I'm hoping that the current version is the definitive one. )
So
I did what I always did in such circumstances. I switched my feelings off and
my brain on. The relief. The world was normal once again. And if it was a bit
mundane, that was a small price to pay.
John was sitting on the other side of the mattress, looking at me. He seemed at a loss, or waiting for me, or something. So I moved towards him. Sex was obviously the answer. That was what people normally did in these circumstances, wasn’t it?
The trouble was, John and I seemed to have started at the wrong end. We’d started with our souls and left out all the rest of us. How did we catch up?
And I didn’t even have a teenage romance in my past, a gentle love affair where I could have learnt about sex slowly. I’d been nabbed a few times at teenage parties but the results had disgusted me. I couldn’t even talk about them. And then, of course, there was B in London.
I moved closer to John and touched him, but he reared back against the wall.
‘No, no,’ he cried out. ‘Something’s wrong.’
I started to cry. It was the best thing he could have done. The only thing.
Men had been pursuing me, grabbing me, following me since my teens. It was exhausting, frightening, destructive. I never had a chance to feel my own feelings. I was overwhelmed by other people’s lust. And here was someone, the first ever, refusing me for some reason.
What a gentleman.
And once I started to cry, I couldn’t stop. I found myself pouring out the whole story of B and London. I soaked a pillow with my tears.
As before, at the party, John listened without comment. I knew that this was partly because he didn’t know what to say, but perhaps that again was the right way to be. I didn’t want advice or comfort. I just wanted truth.
I must have fallen asleep as the next thing I remember is waking up, my head on a damp pillow, and the door opening.
Kitten
sashayed in, followed by John wrapped in a torn green coat and carrying a bowl
and a mug.
‘I didn’t know whether you took sugar in your tea,’ he said, ‘but I put some in anyway.’
Kitten did a flying leap and landed dead centre on the mattress. She’d obviously done the manoeuvre before. I shuffled away from her to give her space. She struck me as the sort of cat you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of.
As I ate my bowl of muesli, John and I looked at each other and smiled. Again, we didn’t know what to say to each other. We’d gone beyond small talk. Or skipped it.
‘I’ve
got to go to work soon,’ said John. ‘Shall I give you a lift to the campus or
back to your house – wherever you want to go?’
I retrieved my clothes from the piles on the floor, relieved to find them. Some time during the night I must have removed them but I didn’t remember doing so.
On
the way in to Exeter, John played a cassette of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’, drumming
along on the steering wheel.
Did she make you cry
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love?
Is it over now
Do you know how
To pick up the pieces and go home?
He
was happy, and if he was happy so was I. That was enough for the moment.
John was sitting on the other side of the mattress, looking at me. He seemed at a loss, or waiting for me, or something. So I moved towards him. Sex was obviously the answer. That was what people normally did in these circumstances, wasn’t it?
The trouble was, John and I seemed to have started at the wrong end. We’d started with our souls and left out all the rest of us. How did we catch up?
And I didn’t even have a teenage romance in my past, a gentle love affair where I could have learnt about sex slowly. I’d been nabbed a few times at teenage parties but the results had disgusted me. I couldn’t even talk about them. And then, of course, there was B in London.
I moved closer to John and touched him, but he reared back against the wall.
‘No, no,’ he cried out. ‘Something’s wrong.’
I started to cry. It was the best thing he could have done. The only thing.
Men had been pursuing me, grabbing me, following me since my teens. It was exhausting, frightening, destructive. I never had a chance to feel my own feelings. I was overwhelmed by other people’s lust. And here was someone, the first ever, refusing me for some reason.
What a gentleman.
And once I started to cry, I couldn’t stop. I found myself pouring out the whole story of B and London. I soaked a pillow with my tears.
As before, at the party, John listened without comment. I knew that this was partly because he didn’t know what to say, but perhaps that again was the right way to be. I didn’t want advice or comfort. I just wanted truth.
I must have fallen asleep as the next thing I remember is waking up, my head on a damp pillow, and the door opening.
‘I didn’t know whether you took sugar in your tea,’ he said, ‘but I put some in anyway.’
Kitten did a flying leap and landed dead centre on the mattress. She’d obviously done the manoeuvre before. I shuffled away from her to give her space. She struck me as the sort of cat you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of.
As I ate my bowl of muesli, John and I looked at each other and smiled. Again, we didn’t know what to say to each other. We’d gone beyond small talk. Or skipped it.
I retrieved my clothes from the piles on the floor, relieved to find them. Some time during the night I must have removed them but I didn’t remember doing so.
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love?
Do you know how
To pick up the pieces and go home?
To be continued . . .
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