I’m like a foot taller than him in the shoes I’m wearing, and I take a minute to stand over him. I take a picture of his back. The way his spine curves, his bones beneath his skin, freckles, shoulder blades, dimples either side of his coccyx.
I drop the camera. My hand lifts, stops over his waist, like I want to touch him, like one of those awkward pictures of fat high school boys hover-handing a hot girl. I’ll edit that out.
I spank him, really hard, and he goes, ‘Ouch! Irina!’ I do it again, and I laugh on the video.
He goes, ‘Um.’
I remember doing it, but not laughing. I remember his skin.
I had a dream once, where I sat up in bed and left my body behind. And I rolled next to her – to my body. I touched her skin. I kissed her lips, and they were soft, and mine, but cold and rubbery.
Watching the video is like that dream; I know that’s me. I know that’s my body. But she isn’t cold and rigid, she’s pink in the face, and frantic, snapping photos, pinching and grabbing flesh like a greedy child.
She gets to be there forever. Skinny and gorgeous and young, and I’m stuck out here. I’m stuck watching the video over and over again, rotting.
I pull down his underwear and brandish the wine bottle I’d been drinking from. He squeals when it goes in. And he flinches. His elbows give way and he flops over the arm of the couch like a flaccid dick.
I step back, take a bunch of photos. I lie down on the floor to get a better angle. I stumble on my heels, which I’ll edit out as well because it looks so stupid.
I didn’t notice it at the time, but you can see him trembling. You can see the shallow, sharp rise and fall of his shoulders. He was hard the whole time, I’m sure, but on film it reads less like poorly contained arousal, more like a prey animal, pinned, helpless.
‘You good?’ I ask him. ‘Hey – you good?’ And he splutters, in the bunny head; you hear him splutter.
I stomp over to the tripod and stop the film. He picked himself up from the couch, his chest making a wet, peeling sound as it parted from the leather, took off the bunny head. He’d been crying – probably the entire time. Not like crying like an emotional release; it was just genuine distressed crying.
I probably would have stopped if he’d said something.
I told him, if you were uncomfortable, you should have told me. Don’t put this on me. You’re a Big Boy, Eddie from Tesco. He shrugged. His arse was bright red, and he winced when he pulled on his jeans. He stared at the floor instead of my face or my tits.
‘I’m fine. It’s fine,’ he said. But I didn’t believe him.
He left. He gave me a shifty goodbye and left. He walked home, I think. I don’t know.
That was a week ago. I’ve been feeling strange about it. Bad, but then annoyed that he’s made me feel bad. Like, don’t make it my fault, you know? Say something? I watch the video again and again. I watch it until the sun goes down.
Then he turns up at my door, paralytic drunk and sobbing. He knocks – hammers – saying he’s sorry for freaking out, and being weird and yes, he should have said something, and can he please come in. I don’t open the door. I pretend I’m not in, but I don’t think it works.
‘Why is my life always like this?’ he asks. He starts punching the door, and screams for about twenty minutes before wandering back off into the night. I feel creeped out. Actually frightened, in a way I know I have no right to be, given the things I might have done.
There’s a story about Ted Bundy – that during his trial lots of women turned up dressed like his victims. They would wear hoop earrings, dye their hair brown and part it in the centre. And there was one girl who would sit in the courtroom, dressed like that, and mouth I love you, over and over again to Bundy, I love you. And Bundy asked his girlfriend to stop this weird groupie from coming to court because she was creeping him out so much. Like, I’m Ted, and I’m about to ring Flo to see she if she’ll come round and wait with me, in case he comes back. Fucking Susan comes over to ask if I’m alright, and I don’t even have to pretend to be shaken up. I tell her that I’m going to call the police. I beg her not to tell my mam, then I threaten her.
‘I swear to God,’ I say, ‘if you tell my mam, if you fucking dare tell my mother about this…’ I don’t finish it. She leaves.
Like putting on my American Apparel dress after a few weeks of errant bread consumption, this is a lesson in self-control. It’s a lesson in fucking sad little men.
The video is cool, though. Very effective. A nice souvenir.
At least I know he’s leaving Tesco in September – I can’t go to Waitrose every day. I’m not made of money.
Irina,
This is a hard email to write. I assume you think I’m thick because I work at the Tesco and I’m training for primary and because of the way you speak to me in general, but I do actually have an English literature degree, from Leeds and everything, so I can write well if I want to. I am drunk.
I’m not even sure if I’m going to send this, and if I do send it, it’ll probably be because I’ve gotten even drunker, and it’s 3am, and I’ve decided that I’d rather just send you my heart on a platter than let all of this fester inside of me with what’s left of my dignity. I don’t know how to feel about what we did together, and I don’t know how to feel about you. When I’m with you, I feel like the only person in the whole world, and no one at all at the same time. No one has ever made me feel so wanted （which is a weird thing for me to say, because I don’t think I’ve ever ever ever felt sexually desirable before） but so awful at the same time. It’s weird. I don’t know if you realise how you speak to people sometimes, the way you feed people table scraps. I know that’s what I get from you, table scraps, but because it’s scraps from your table, it’s better than a 3 course meal with someone else. And you’ve given me glimpses into your life, your real life, and I wonder if it’s your fault. I wonder if you’ve got anything but scraps to give.
Everyone is always telling me I’m too sensitive. And I think I am. Every little knock with relationships leaves me in pieces. I always manage to pull myself back together again, but I think there’s only so many times you can break and glue your bits back together before you start to lose pieces of yourself. I always looked at these times where my heart gets smashed as the climax to a relationship. The smashing is Ben ignoring me in the pub, or the girl i was in love with for 2 years in high school telling me ‘you must be at least this tall to ride’ and holding her hand a foot above my head. It’s realising you’re being catfished after nine months. Long, drawn out things.
I’ve only been with you a handful of times, and I feel like I get smashed up and put back together on the hour – every time you open your mouth, or put your hands on me, or send me a text, I don’t know if I’m about to fall to bits or feel brand new.
I don’t think this is healthy. But I’ve never been good at healthy.
I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I don’t know if I’m trying to tell you it’s for the best if I stay away from you, or if I’m begging you to stay with me forever. Do I want to keep these shitty pieces of myself together, or do I just want to give them all to you.