‘Sort of. Some guy I met the other night might be coming over, I don’t know. Better to have it and not need it, eh?’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Hey… Feel free to tell me I’m crossing a line, here, but…’ He clears his throat. ‘Ah, never mind.’
‘Come on. What’s up?’
‘Just… It’s funny you came in, because… Have you checked your phone?’
I raise my eyebrows and pull my phone from my pocket. I tell him I didn’t see his texts, that I’ve been busy all day.
‘If you already have, like… a date, though… I was just… You know. You mentioned you liked, like, Pink movies and J-horror and I just picked up—’
‘All Night Long. Just read it.’ I shrug. ‘I’ve seen one through three already.’
‘That’s fine. I understand you’re too busy.’
‘Have you seen In a Glass Cage? It’s Spanish,’ I say. ‘It’s pretty hardcore – we could watch that instead.’ It just comes out. He looks so wounded, and he’s trying so hard not to, and then he lights up. I see that gap between his teeth, and his dimples, and I melt.
It’ll be fine, just this once. What’s the worst that could happen, you know?
‘Oh. No. I mean… I’m not really into… I just like Japanese stuff, I guess. But um…’ He brightens. ‘So, you want to come over?’
‘Yeah, sure. What time do you finish?’
He finishes at seven. I say that’s fine and tell him to come get me once he’s finished his shift. I tell him I have a laptop full of shit, and I’ll just bring that. That way he can look at his photos, too. When I leave, I regret not asking for a second shopping bag, as the wine bottles clank together dangerously and tug at the flimsy plastic handles of this so-called bag for life. 10p, fucking liberty.
I have an hour and a half to get ready by the time I get back. I eat half the cucumber, and half a tin of tuna, and one of the peppers like it’s an apple. I brush my teeth till my gums bleed. I shower again and shave my bikini line. I am too cavalier with the razor and almost bite through my tongue when I nick the left lip of my cunt.
I drop the razor. I gather myself, take a deep breath and watch a trickle of blood run down the inside of my leg and down the plughole, before I pick the razor up again. I finish my bikini line and give my legs and armpits a once over before climbing out of the shower to attending to my cut, pressing a lump of toilet tissue to it, and watching it slowly soak through with blood. I swear to myself. I smack the sink with my palm and grit my teeth.
I top up my face with BB cream, and put on a little mascara, not wanting to look like I’ve made an effort, and pack an overnight bag. I put on matching underwear: pink and frilly, because he seems like the kind of boy who probably likes women in pink, frilly things. I put my jeans back on and replace the T-shirt with a crop-top, also pink, with shiny buttons, and little puffy sleeves, cut in a way that shows off my cleavage and my neck, but not in an obvious way.
I look soft. I can look hard, if I’m not careful. Hard and cold and intimidating. I put my hand on my neck, and squeeze it, looking at myself in the mirror as I do. I play with my hair, putting it up, taking it down, brushing it, tossing it around.
I get stuck there, for a while.
The doorbell rings. I make him wait as I pack my laptop and my charger into my backpack. Unable to tolerate the thought of flat shoes, I slip on a pair of baby pink stilettos, answering the door as I put them on.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Jesus Christ, mate, is that your car?’
He looks over his shoulder at a battered, baby blue Micra.
‘I’m saving for a new one,’ he says.
‘It looks like a toddler’s shoe,’ I say.
‘It’s my mum’s old car.’ A little snappy, but then he pads it with a laugh, an admission that it’s awful.
‘I used to have my dad’s old BMW,’ I tell him, as I clop towards his stupid little car. ‘But I sold it. Living so close to town and stuff,’ I say.
‘Yeah, insurance is a killer. I only keep this because my parents live all the way up in Amble and they’d go crackers if I didn’t visit. It’s good to have the quick escape, you know?’
I hum, and get in the passenger’s side, my knees knocking against the glovebox. He joins me in the car, and puts the seat back for me.
We drive to his, which is in Walker. The journey takes five minutes longer than it should because he drives down the Coast Road instead of going down past the Biscuit Factory. I tell him as much, and he shrugs, and says he doesn’t know Jesmond very well. But he works here. Does he drive up the Coast Road every day? How much petrol has he wasted on that five extra minutes?
We arrive at his. A big detached house which, he explains, has been split into two flats. He lives on the top floor, above an elderly woman who bangs her ceiling with a broom if he watches telly past nine p.m.
‘It’s not as nice as your house, but, you know, it does me,’ he says, turning around on the stairs to smile at me. He lets me in his front door, and I am met by the smell of bachelorhood. Unhoovered carpets, unaired rooms and unbleached surfaces. Immediately, I open a window.
‘You should get some scented candles in here,’ I say. The air is clammy and stale. ‘Do you have a fan?’
‘In my bedroom. I’ll get it in a second,’ he says. He seems to notice my nose wrinkling as I run my eyes over his dusty telly and PlayStation. ‘Sorry. I guess… I mean, especially compared to yours, it’s a bit minging in here.’ He chews his lip. ‘Do you want me to hoover?’ Before I can answer: ‘I’ll hoover, and I’ll get the fan, just, hang on. Have a look round, if you like.’
He hoovers. I look in his bedroom. It is juvenile, but neat. If you told me this was the recently tidied bedroom of a thirteen-year-old, I’d believe you.
The walls are lined with bookshelves that seem to exclusively contain manga, graphic novels and comic books. There are figurines on his windowsill, and he has that Akira poster that everyone has, as well as a Bruce Lee poster, and a bunch of pictures of some idol girl group. There are stickers on the headboard of his bed. I imagine grabbing the headboard and feeling stickers under my palms.
I look closely at the manga. He’s filed all his porn onto the bottom shelf, as if he hoped no one would bother to bend down and look there.
He catches me with my nose in a comic where, I gather, the protagonist is this boy who has been purchased by a MILF who dresses him as a maid and keeps him trapped in her house. I flip through and stop at a double-page spread of the MILF sitting on the boy-maid’s face. The proportions are bad, but the perspective is worse. Everyone’s hands are huge, and the MILF character’s back is twisted in a bizarre shape, so you can see her breasts and her backside at the same time. I snort.
‘What are you doing?’ asks Eddie from Tesco. I turn the comic round and show him.
‘Being nosy,’ I say. ‘The art in this one is shockingly shit.’
‘Did you look at anything else?’
‘No. Why, do you have anything worse?’ He does. I can tell by the look on his face. I stick the manga back on the shelf, and my knees click when I get up. I talk before he answers. ‘Thanks for hoovering.’