Stories We Ruined Together Pt. 03

My Thursday was dull as dishwater. Work was a drag, and afterwards I dutifully called my parents but they had nothing to say except for some strict and old-fashioned instructions about how to live my life. They also guilted me into agreeing to visit soon, because I hadn't seen them in ages. There were good reasons for that. Being with them was mostly a chore, they were extremely negative people. They drew the energy from me, always left me feeling drained. It's a miracle I managed to grow up with any positivity at all. I'd always wanted a sibling but no such luck, I'd had to struggle through on my own. I messaged Brian, hoping to have a quick chat to vent concerning the call to my parents, but he was busy. Ranting to Ed about my parents didn't strike me as sensible. So I bottled it all up -- I was always quite good at doing that. I heard nothing from Ed, and sent him nothing.

Friday at work was hard-going, again, but I got through it. My usual lunch pals were absent, I ate on my own, and couldn't decide if I wanted more social time in my life or less. Less seemed a little almost obscene -- I already lived on my own, what more could I want? It had to be more. More social interaction, more people, more experiences. That had to be the answer.

At home I made a simple dinner, put on some music, and slouched on the sofa with Romeo. I stroked his soft black fur, and he ignored me. I wanted to read but felt too restless to concentrate. Just waiting down the clock, so that I could meet up with Ed, feel that thrill again, of wanting and being wanted. Our bar plan seemed incidental, I barely thought of it, like it wasn't going to happen at all.

We met at a bar neither of us knew well -- that was just logical. In case it went badly. Ed was in nondescript black jeans and a black jumper, and said that he wanted to 'blend in'. I said he looked a bit too preppy to blend in in this town. I was in my relaxed-fit blue jeans, with the holes at the knees, and a soft red cardigan. Not my most seductive, but if I was going to make a fool of myself, I was damn sure going to do so in comfortable clothes. I'd re-read the relevant part of my book before coming out, and it definitely, definitely needed re-writing. It was unconvincing, it read just like someone trying to imagine what drunkenly getting off with a stranger felt like. It wasn't good enough. And this was my chance to make it shine.

A table in the corner called to us, and we tucked ourselves away there, with wine. I set to work on getting myself tipsy, but I'm a slow drinker, and anyway I wanted to talk.

"Tell me more about your life." I said to him. What do you like to do for fun?"

"Fun?"

"Yeah, you know. You've heard of fun."

"I have, yeah. Well, apart from reading I play football a couple of times a week, and I do darts and snooker with a couple of old friends of mine. Otherwise I just stay home, reading."

"That sounds more social than me, to be fair. Good for you. What are these friends like?"

Ed smiled and shook his head. "They're real plonkers. Constant mischief. But I love them."

I'd not heard a man admit to loving a friend before. It made me like Ed more. And I suppose it gave me a little bit of early hope, that he could come to love me. Someone had to, surely. Someone had to see me and think yeah, yeah, this girl is something worth holding onto. I was starved of affection. Being leered at or harassed did not fill that void, it was merely unpleasant. I wanted something good.

"And what do you read?"

"All sorts, really. Anything, everything. I don't think there's a genre I don't like. Except maybe sports biographies... yeah. Those are pretty... well, they're awful, aren't they?" I said that yes, yes they are. "I'd probably be reading right now, if we weren't out. I don't mean that I'd rather be. I'm happy to be here, with you."

"Yeah? Tell me more about that. Because like, I'm happy to be here with you too. I like you. I feel good being with you." That was brave of me. Not especially articulate or persuasive, but brave.

"Same for me. It feels right, doesn't it? This is where we're supposed to be right now."

We spent a couple of warm minutes just looking at each other, then around the bar, which was sleek, modern and minimalist with lots of black and grey and chrome surfaces. It was filling, steadily. That atmosphere of building anticipation, the Friday night thing. People, possibilities, concealed frustration and longing. I cast my innocent eyes around, and tried to work out who might be the right one. Not that I really felt like doing anything, at that point. The only person I wanted to make out with was sitting right across from me. But I believed in the idea, I wanted to write well, and I didn't want to back out and look like a coward. I told myself just do this, and then you can take Ed home and do whatever you feel like doing. If he's up for it. Which he probably will be, because he's a man. Not that I should think like that, because that's a sexist idea.

"Have you found a target?" Ed asked me. He very carefully withdrew a slim notepad and biro from his pocket, then slid them back, like he was revealing some Class A drugs.

"Not yet. Aren't you supposed to be helping me?"

"Not with that bit. Do you need another drink?" He went off to the bar, and I watched him. Everything about him spoke of quiet, gentle confidence. He was so at ease. When he returned I took a big gulp. This place was expensive but the wine was good, worth it. The ambience was a bit...posh. I felt I should have dressed up a bit more. Never mind, too late now.

"I need another hour."

"No worries."

"Sorry, I just need more of a buzz, you know? And it'll be easier when the place gets full, so people don't see me make an idiot of myself. Are you really going to stay sat here in the corner, when I'm getting off with some guy?"

Ed shrugged. "Yeah, probably. I'll watch, and make some notes."

"Ah, that's your thing, is it? You like watching?" I'd been with a guy like that before, years ago. He wanted me to sleep with other men in front of him. I'd not liked that, there was something weird about it. And he wasn't the kindest of boyfriends, or the most supportive. So instead of sleeping with people in front of him, I'd done it behind his back. Which I'm not proud of. I've learned a lot since then. I've got more self-respect now, and higher standards. I think.

"No, but I can do it when I need to. Like now. We're going to make this book the best it can possibly be, it's going to be... vivid. Everything it describes will pop off the page. Your writing was really good. It just needs more colour."

"And that's what we're here for. So, tell me about your ex-girlfriend. The most recent one."

Ed sighed, and had a sip, then leant back and frowned, like he was deciding how much to reveal. "Well, she was our age. I say our age -- you're late twenties, right?" I said I was thirty-one, and he said he was thirty. "So, around our age, and we met online, and we were together for around... around a year. She was a lot of fun, and a really good person. I liked her a lot."

"What went wrong?"

"Why does something have to have gone wrong?" He poked his tongue at me, a childish gesture of his that I was beginning to enjoy.

"Well, you're not with her, so..."

"Yeah, well, we just weren't right for each other. We wanted to be, but we weren't. Different interests, different ideas about life... I think we both got a bit bored." It definitely seemed that there was more to it than that, but clearly he didn't want to go into it right now. "And you? Your last one?"

That was a sneaky pass of the baton. A classic distraction tactic. But alright, I would talk a bit. "He was a bit of a rat, to be honest. Nothing awful, just the way he used to look at other women, and little things like that. And he wasn't... I don't know. He wasn't... present, you know? Maybe I'm just angry at him for that. He wasn't really there, when we were together. He was so into his phone, so into social media. Sometimes I felt like I didn't exist. I mean -- I'm not clingy, okay?" I felt the need to establish that. Although stating it in that way made me seem a bit too defensive. "But when you're there with someone, eating a meal or having a drink, or a walk or whatever, I think it's best to try to really be in that moment, and not talking to someone else, or scrolling your feeds, or thinking about work. I don't know. He was nice, in some ways. He wasn't really a rat. I suppose it's more that I found him very... disappointing."

The conversation shifted, onto family, and then onto the town, and the places we liked and loathed. I got through glass of wine number two, and Ed offered me the second half of his, saying that I needed it more than him. Very true. I knocked it back and sighed. Time to get to work. Ed pointed, subtly, at a guy in his thirties who was on the edge of a group standing round the bar, looking bored. The rest of them were chatting away, he looked to be half-listening. They were all in boring office attire, this had post-work drinks written all over it, and clearly he was just trying to run down the clock, and get out of there. Not an unattractive man. I quite liked his close-cropped hair, and tidy beard. Okay, come on. Do this. You've drunk enough. It's after ten pm. This is an acceptable context for snogging some randomer. No one is going to take any notice. Please, please, no one take any notice.

"Hiya."

"Evening." The man replied to me, and in that instant he was halfway between his colleagues and me, awkwardly backed against the bar, with me on one side and them the other. Waiting to see if I wanted to talk more or if I was just some friendly gal who says hello to everyone she comes across.

"Are you out with work?" I raised my eyebrows in a kind of sympathetic, confide in me type way. It worked like a charm.

"Yeah, I am," he said, gratefully, glancing quickly to the left to make sure they were still engrossed in their conversation. "It's one of those things that isn't mandatory... but also, it's kind of mandatory."

"Sucks. Fuck your life."

He laughed. "Exactly. How about you? What's your deal?"

Ah, that was a difficult one. I resisted looking back to Ed. This guy might be a bit hesitant about making out if he knew I was here with a male human person. "Just got bored at home." Perfect. Bored at home. Brilliant. I congratulated myself on my quick-thinking. "Can I buy you..." - a quick look at the near-finished drink he clasped -"another cider?"

"Okay, sure. Thanks very much."

"You can talk to me instead of those drones. They look like zombies." Pull it in a bit, I had to remind myself. Tipsy me can be a little bit... unkind. It's all in jest, it's all in good fun. But not everyone realises that. Some people think that I'm mean. I'm not mean. They're mean, for saying that about me, or thinking it.

He turned away from them and talked to me, about his job teaching at the local college, and I saw a couple of his colleagues look over with interest, and one whispered to another. I hoped they wouldn't keep on looking. Things would get more awkward. Could I try to do this outside, instead? In the book Rosie has her fun in the bar, but the location wasn't the important part. The key bit was being slightly drunk and trading saliva with a stranger for a good long time. We chatted on, my side of the conversation a set of increasingly complicated lies, in order to hide because... well, I wasn't sure why. Perhaps just because I could. I told him my name was Rosie, I told him I was a university student, I told him I lived with my best friend and I alluded to a sort of vague crisis in my life, and he believed it all. Which I suppose makes sense, why shouldn't he. We generally assume people are telling the truth, unless what they're saying sounds implausible.

"Hey, do you want to go out for a smoke?" I felt this was a stroke of genius on my part. Before he could reply I took his hand and led him quickly out.

It was dark outside, of course. And also very very cold. But there was privacy -- almost no cars came past there at that hour, and there was only one actual smoker, and she was engrossed in a phone call, wandering back and forth and ranting to some unfortunate person.

"I don't actually smoke," he told me, with a laugh.

"Neither do I." I grabbed him by the front of his shirt -- a bit too hard, a button came off in my hand but I suppose it must have been attached quite weakly -- and kissed him, very fully, standing on my tiptoes to reach his height. It lasted a few difficult, tongue-wrestling seconds, and then I drew back to see if he was going to shout for help or go back in for more.

Someone how I knew that Ed was looking out at us, carefully from the doorway. The man looked to be torn between two minds, but in the end he leaned forward to me, and we kissed again, and I tried to pretend I was with Ed, and that didn't work, so instead I imagined how envious and aroused this might, hopefully, make him, and that got me going a bit. I put my hand on the guy's belt -- more for stability than any other motive --and he clumsily pawed under my cardigan and grabbed my left breast and squeezed it - too hard, it hurt. I exacted revenge by biting his lip, and then he grabbed a fistful of my hair and twisted, and his other hand found my nipple through my thin t-shirt and thinner bra, and he pinched it sadistically. I bit harder and tasted his blood, and he broke free, jumped back, staring at me with a mixture of hate and lust. That was a bit worrying. My drunk mind was trying to figure out what on earth was happening, and what my next move should be, when suddenly a shrill voice was yelling in my ear.

"Get away from him, you stupid slut!"

Who, me? I turned -- it was one of the man's group screaming, I recognised her extravagant hairstyle. She was livid, absolutely livid.

"He's my guy, I found him," I said, slowly and stupidly. She slapped me round the face quicker than I could even comprehend -- one moment her hand was down by her side, then next it was descending from its sharp blow, and my cheek stung, pain intensified by the cold air.

"That's my boyfriend, you skank."

Despite not wanting to actually make any kind of claim to this man, who had turned out to be a little more intense than I had expected, I felt the need to defend myself in some way.

"He came on to me, you dumb bitch." That seemed like the right thing to say, even if it wasn't strictly true, or very dignified. I looked for Ed -- no sign.

"He's my boyfriend!!"She really screamed it this time, right down my ear. Fuck. The boyfriend hadn't moved, he was regarding us with fear and interest. The prick.

"Okay, okay. I'm going!" I spun around to go, but spun too far and fell over on the pavement, quite heavily. I heard more than one person laugh, unkindly. But then someone was lifting me gently up, and it was Ed, and he whispered in my ear that we should be going now. I agreed.

I put my arm around him and we made our way, slowly and with a couple of small falls, to my apartment. He was patient when I stumbled, and he joked that the woman was chasing us, made me laugh with impressions of her. Upon our arrival I got the key into the lock in impressively quick fashion, and he helped me to the sofa, where I collapsed.

"I'll get you some water."

"That bitch was lucky I'd... I'd had too much to drink. I could have taken her down. Down to the ground."

"You actually only had two and a half glasses of wine," Ed pointed out, returning with a mug of water and sitting down beside me. "Here you go."

"Yeah but they were like, strong glasses. That was strong wine. Wasn't it."

"No, it wasn't. It was normal wine."

"Sorry, I'm a lightweight." I closed my eyes, and slouched against him. "My nipple hurts."

"Ah, sorry."

"Did we do it right? Will I be able to write the scene now?" We slipped into a fit of the giggles, but I managed to pull myself out of it. "Do we have to make some notes or something?"

Ed nodded sagely. "Yeah, we do." He took the notebook from his pocket, opened it, and I saw a whole page of messy scribbles.

"Wow, you saw a lot worth writing about, didn't you?"

"I did my best. So, tell me. How did it feel. How did it feel when you were buttering him up, to start with." He motioned to the mug and I obediently drank some water, but made no effort to raise myself from my position resting on him. I was too comfy.

"Okay. I felt...fake. Sort of... inauthentic. Like I was trying to fool someone into wanting to do something with me. Which I suppose I was. Although most men don't take a lot of persuading, if they think a girl's good-looking, that's usually enough. So it was like I was playing some sort of game. Like... like it actually mattered what I said. It didn't matter. He didn't care. He didn't care at all. I could have been anyone. This water takes like shit, is this really from my tap?"

"Yeah, it's from your tap. Where else would I have... anyway. How about when you asked him to go out for a smoke with you, what was that moment like."

"Oh, you heard that? That felt weird. Because, again, it was like he knew I was full of lies, but he didn't mind. The moment itself... walking out with him... that was fun, in a way. It was exciting. I liked it. I felt brave, and I felt like I'd accomplished something. But I hadn't. Not really."

Ed nodded and wrote some things down. "And the kiss?"

"You saw it. It was awful. Ridiculous."

"We need to know how it felt for you though. That's what's important here, that's what you need to get to."

"It felt... cheap. And weird. And contrived. Because it was contrived, it didn't just happen naturally. I suppose I can always change the scene. Maybe Rosie plans the whole thing, to show that she can be daring. Trying to push against her own limits and boundaries. That could work alright."

"Was it exciting?"

I thought about that for a bit, eyes closed, still resting against Ed. "Yeah. It was exciting. I felt like somebody else, and that was a nice change. Maybe I could have even enjoyed it, if he hadn't been so bloody rough about things. I specifically went for someone who looked sane, and vanilla, and just... yeah. Anyway. I'm tired." I opened my eyes and trained my neck a bit to look up at him, and I hoped the seductive eyes I had practised in the mirror really were seductive and not just sort of... weird. "Can we go to bed?"

***