The Bedsit

ONE

I smelt the dank carpets, saw a cockroach and with a broken heart, began my year in the bedsit.  It was Sunday, the week that he had said he would ring, and he hadn’t.  I had waited in most evenings.  Some evenings I had gone out because I couldn’t bear waiting in, going to sleep with the hurt it gave for no ring.  I did not want to turn to drink, but that Sunday night, I decided to take myself to the local pub.  I decided that I would have one glass of red wine.  I would stop myself from having a second and a third, falling into bed with some prickly bearded smoker for the night... I would have one glass.

If only it were easy as that to forget someone!  If only you could tear a piece of paper and that was them gone! When I got to the canal that lead to the pub, I took out the only copy I had of his phone number.  I looked at the numbers that I didn’t really need to look at because somehow they were in my mind and I tore the paper into tiny pieces and dropped them down a nearby drain, each fluttering petal of paper winged down into the black hole and disappeared. ‘Come on hate, come on, let me hate him, let me hate him.  If I could hate him then I could set my mind into the position of forgetting about him....’

I had met him about four months earlier.  It wasn’t clear then, if he liked me.  My brother just said:

“Did you get off with Tim?” It was one evening over a drink in Islington.

“No!” I said quickly, blushing.  I was surprised he’d brought it up, looked at my drink, my face burning. “Why do you ask?” I asked, my voice trembling a bit.

“Because I saw you two walk down the street together after the Rod’s private view”

“He went to get a bus home,” I said quickly.  My brother smiled, as if he knew better.  I was silent and I felt flustered.  Did he think I was a tart and had got off with him?  I had been nine years faithful to my boyfriend; did he think that I had two-timed him?  I didn’t want to seem like a tart.  “Who was he anyway?” I asked, finally.  I felt relieved to have a chance to ask about him.  I had thought that I would forget him quickly, but each day, I longed to know who he had been. He had only told me his name and his age and I had briefly met him in a gallery.

“Who are you here with?” he had asked me.

“My brother” I replied, clipped, for I had suspected he was a womaniser, but did not know for sure.  He had a young face with keen, boyish eyes, green, and they were so keen to have sex with me they flashed a lot, and he was really trying to dance like those pigeons you see fluffing up their feathers.

But at that moment I wanted to keep looking out for the artist, Rod.  It was his exhibition.  It was in a squatted warehouse in Islington and I was so impressed with him.  It was the size of an aeroplane hanger.  There was a man in a dinner jacket by the door, who was the bouncer and there was a port-a-loo.  The gallery was filling with people.  Journalists, performers, artists were there, holding glass goblets full of red wine and standing around a Gulliver – size sculpture of a man made of metal.

It got more like my mind was a radar scanner. My eyes constantly scanned the room for Rod, the artist.  I kept hoping that he might come over to me.  His sculptures were made of fragments of metal.  He had moulded limbs, ribcages, almost as if these were archaeological finds of Romans from 2000 BC

“Want some wine?”  Standing there was my brother.  Soon I had one goblet full of purple wine and I felt content to tuck myself at my brother’s side and just listen in to his conversations.  He was talking to a journalist from the Times and Rod was over the other side of the room, so I sometimes watched him.  I talked to a teacher with slashes in his jeans who went to get a drink, and never came back.  A little hurt, I went back to my brother’s side.  But my eyes didn’t stop looking out for Rod.  The warehouse was now very full and he was going around with bottles of wine, filling up the glasses of new arrivals.  The place sounded like a hive of bees. The wine was thick and red and going down in mouthfuls.  The artist was permanently laughing and I was beginning to notice how wavy his hair was, how thick and strong his arms.

“Do you want to stay and finish the wine?” he said to us quietly and exclusively, when the gallery was due to close and people were leaving. He looked pleased, for he had sold some pieces.  My brother and I happily nodded and some of us took a chair and sat in a group.  My eyes followed after Rod and I imagined his large hands exploring my body as Juan Carlos’s had.

My brother had stood up and gone and then his place was suddenly occupied by this small man.    

“What do you do?” he had said to me. At first his landing seemed rather like some light-footed insect, hardly noticed at all, but there beside me - asking me questions.

“Illustration “ I said, clipped again, for he had a slimy way about him, a way of asking questions to try and win women over and I felt irritated by it immediately, sensing him trying to pull a girl - addicted to doing it.

“What’s your name?” I looked at him.  He had this wavy brown hair that swirled upon his skull but was fairly short.  Then all at once someone was steadily sick and we all looked over.  The puddle of purple was like a kind of beetroot soup:  It splattered out and its producer was a honey blond that lay over the legs of a black-haired man. A couple of people laughed.  The artist hurried over with toilet paper.  Soon people were standing up to leave.  There was some talk of the pub.

“You coming with us Rod?” ‘Please come, please come,’ I was wishing. As I heard Rod shaking his head, saying he wasn’t coming with us to the pub my pride went sore and my longing eyes dropped and felt hurt.  The slimy womaniser hadn’t given up on me.  Part of me was pleased that he was still trying. In that quiet, we walked as a group in the wet street, I heard the womaniser beside me still trying to womanise, asking questions.  I felt a little threatened that he saw me as an objective, for suddenly it felt as if liking is such a pleasant thing that it is our password to heaven and ‘liking’, the verb, is an emotion that is more precious than all things.

 In a quiet sulk, I walked as a group in the wet street, I heard the womaniser beside me still trying to womanise, asking questions.  Most of the time I was thinking about Rod and feeling sad.  But I was glad to have the slimy man as a consolation.  We had tailed behind my brother a little, but continued walking up to the main street, travelling past light pool after light pool, flints of light on the wet pavement made by the streetlights.

Then I suddenly I said to this man:

“Do you want to come to my house, my boyfriend’s away?”

“Where do you live?” I gave him my address.

“I’ll meet you there because I don’t want my brother to see.”  We had stopped walking, so as to be out of hearing of the others. He almost stamped his foot

“No!” he said impatiently. “We’ll go there together” We stood and looked at one another for an instant.  An excitement, a flutter of butterflies entered me and I hurried along to say goodbye to my brother.

I fumbled around to make him coffee in the kitchen, spraying fresh coffee powder over the kitchen units, but I was sure that it sex was all he wanted.  Didn’t all men?  As the coffee spurted out of the coffee maker, he sat, still asking questions.  I found him some Russian cigarettes of my boyfriend’s because he had run out of Silk Cut and played him ‘Bird on a Wire’ by Leonard Cohen because he said that was his favourite singer.  “So miserable!” I cried.

“Well who do you like?” he asked quickly.  Without a thought I put on Nico.  ‘Requiem to Lenny’ and just as bleak…

“Oh” I said. 

“Can I see your illustrations?” he asked.  I led him to my bedroom.  He crouched on the floor and thumbed through them. I was touched by the way he knelt - with respect for the work.  To me they were juvenile paintings. They were not like Raphael’s, but I was sure his behaviour was just a cover: what he really wanted was sex, so meanwhile I had taken every scrap of my clothes off and had pounced upon the bed. I sat - my bare buttocks on the mattress in the lamp giving my breast a gold glaze. They dangled down like two shot bird heads. 

He noticed what I’d done, and put my paintings back in the folder, and stood up, a little surprised.  Like ‘follow my leader’ he took off his trousers too.  He wore these jeans that were tarred with dirt. He had a very thin chest - like it had never grown since he was ten and he had thin arms and the curls were around his neck like small roses and his legs were so stick thin I wondered if he ate.  He had this fair brown hair that swirled in locks but was fairly short and thin. He wore red underpants and his dick was the size of a polish sausage and didn’t seem in perspective with his slight; bird-like frame.  It seemed like one of those games children play - matching games and the children had got it wrong.

Suddenly I began to panic, really panic.  I knew suddenly that I liked him. I knew I liked him and worried I was right: that he was just a womaniser who lusted after me.  My heart began to beat, and flash like a blue police light and I pulled away.

“I’ve got this theory,” I said all at once.  He and rolled onto the bed beside me - naked.

“Come on Maria, tell me your theory”

“It’s called lust blindness.  You just have one-night stands because you fancy people and it’s all crap.  One night stands are rubbish,” and my heart was so frightened, I wanted to get away from him and went to the living room.  “One night stands are crap” I murmured.

The womaniser followed me, looking at the Spartan living room. 

“It’s as if nobody lives here!” he said.  I sat confused on the carpet.  “Oh carpet burns?  Haven’t had those in a long time” he said and his hands smeared my body with tingling.  Looking at his cute, innocent smile, I knew it was going to be dangerous for I would feel pain after it was over.  I knew I not only lusted for him but I liked him and it was going to be dangerous.

“One nights stands are really awful,” I said, again, to cut him down to size.

“But Maria” he said, “I think you’re the sweetest woman I’ve slept with” and before I could stop him he kissed me. When he used the word woman and I did not associate it with myself.  I was some kind of overgrown girl gosling…  but he put his mouth on mine.  His tongue was like a little fat stickleback fish jutting it around my own tongue.    A current of happiness ran down my body.  I began to smile.  An extraordinary feeling of relief, like a time in a prisoners of war camp is over and my mind went millions of miles into a starlit heaven.

“It’s over,” I said to myself.  I felt a relief to have found someone to wipe out Juan Carlos.  I sent a thought to Juan Carlos. It said ‘Fuck you Juan Carlos.  Here’s someone better than you in bed’

We got back into bed and he said

“You smell so sweet”

“Sweet?” I said, and I felt him snuffling his way down to between my legs, and lick around a bit, before coming up with the face like an iced bun I tasted sea salt and felt he had been rather kind to say something that tasted so salty ‘sweet’.

“Sweet like this” and he kissed me again. But each time he tried to womanise, some lurking feeling knew he was a stud.  The charmers say all the same kind of things.  They’ve learnt the right psychology. But my vagina was so ecstatically happy. Something told me not to let him come.  He wasn’t going to enter me so easily.  However suddenly he said.

 “I want to fuck you,” he said in my ear - with a giggle in his voice, so wearily I reached for the condoms, and gravely gave him one, but he shook his head and instead all night we fiddled with our sex organs. He still snuggled up to me and charmed me - I think the water board would have paid me a lot for the fluid I produced that night.

 Beside me in the dark, a grey face - with a sparkle on each eye - like sparklers hissing in my heart.  I lay worrying he was going make me fall like this, in a land of love and yearning and it was going to be so very hurtful, in case he wouldn’t want me.

“One night stands are so horrible” I told him wearily.  But like a wave he merely came over to me again and kissed me, filling me with joy. “No,” I said, “ one night stands are so horrible”

He didn’t listen and the more I pulled away the more I wanted to go back to him and feel the supple leather of his back; feel the ferny surface of his thin legs and the knobbly egg cup knees.

An hour slipped by like silk and though he still wore his underpants I was burning up now like some kind of pan on a gradual heat that now I couldn’t turn back.  His fingers slipped and gently moved over my clitoris; like they were carving the very sexual burning itself out of some silky clay.  How light he felt - how thin and ribbed he was.  He had pushed his underpants between me and rubbed the parcel of fleshy stiffness against me.  I slipped my hands inside and stroked the creature bundled up inside - causing a sort of hypnosis to his body.  Then I unthread the pants off his wiry legs like a bead for a string and gently stroked the strangely large form for a body so small.

‘That is why he is confident with women he has been blessed with a big one’ I thought ‘and such a pleasant shape red, brown and purple domed and shining with the triumph of excitement’ I rolled away, but was glad that he rolled after me and continued coaxing parts of my body.  Our tired bodies had fallen together - and like thirsty creatures by a river mouths stopped, drinking our hands were slowly stroking one another’s sex - and the last part, unable to go still:  At last I turned my back to him; to cut it to a stop and closed my eyes:  This time he let me go; and though my eyes were closed; I did not sleep:  I merely wished I had not turned my back from him:  I merely thought about how pleasant it had just been and how foolish I had been to turn my back to him.  How over sensible I had been to try and get sleep - to live on beyond this dream; in a real and difficult world.

And soon the alarm hooted and I faked yawning and stretching as though I had slept as though I had fallen asleep without a care.  Hearing the alarm, he sat up in bed and smiled with a sleepy, hazy bewilderment in his eye. He gave me a smile of complicity as I dressed and washed. I think this smile went when he felt alone suddenly because my feelings weren’t his.

He borrowed a toothbrush and when he left the white toothpaste foam on his cheek, hope rose: maybe he is ugly; maybe a fool and I won’t like him?  It really was hope: maybe I won’t like him so he won’t be able to hurt me and reject me?  At the same time it was also a flash of dread - maybe I’ll find him unattractive and wonder what on earth I’ve done picking up a fool? 

“Do you want a cup of tea?” he asked politely.  I looked at him clipped.  ‘Ah, he’s trying to make himself seem like a really nice guy, when really he’s got this womanising down to a fine art so as to make one night stands seem like really nice things - and make himself seem so nice that I fall in love with him- not only does he want the challenge of an exploit, he also wants to take my heart...’ I nodded, gratefully.  I went into the kitchen to drink tea with him.  He was easy, relaxed and he smiled with fun, as, for him this was fun, but for me it was excruciatingly painful.  His skin on his face was rippling with ease.  I could hardly speak and I sounded like when I managed to answer him, that I was going to cry. 

“I have to go in five minutes,” I said, making the deadline clear.  I liked him to think I wasn’t as lost and helpless as I felt... that I had a life and a direction.  We slurped.  I opened the window and the sky was clear, blue -  “What a beautiful day!” I said.  He nodded in agreement.  Then said

“It’s changed... the atmosphere... this morning...”

“It always is after a one night stand,” I said sharply, stopping his womanising in its tracks.

“That wasn’t really a one night stand,” he said, a bit sorely, as though he’d not got intercourse and been robbed of full release.

 “I’ve got to take twenty five year olds swimming,” I said cheerfully. “I’m really horrible to them”

“Yes; I can imagine you being horrible” he said quickly.  And that cut me up.  That really did.  He not only made me fall in love with him, but also now, sensing I had, was trying, kindly to put me off the scent and tell me he didn’t love me back, so I would not expect more of him there and then.  His face darkened, and he looked at me; almost it seemed in hate and I felt he was annoyed to realise I had seen through him so easily and was accusing him of exploitative womanising.  He lost his relaxed smile and didn’t look at me in so relaxed a way:  He held his cigarette like it was a chalk he was going to sketch with.  He sipped on his tea and drank in my behaviour with his green eyes peering over the rim of his yellow mug.  The tea was brown; very strong - but not sweet.

I felt he could see my hurt already - and felt like it was the colour of the intestines of transparent fish - all there to be seen and I felt uncomfortable and quite looked forward to being able to forget about him and the hurt of my pride to recover.

Then we ran for the bus:  I wanted him to know that I could run for buses and did not give up and let them get away; for some reason; that I was a fighter.  There were a lot of people - and we were separated on the bus - but through the peoples’ shoulders and heads I saw him - and it gave me the utmost pleasure to smile in complicity at his friendly face.  The smile was soft and joined us again.  ‘Perhaps he would like to meet again that evening?’ I thought hopefully. Such sweet happiness of meeting him again the very next day came to my mind, but, when we got off the bus, just as I was about to suggest it, he turned, saying

“Well, goodbye then” and he was gone, disappearing off into the crowd.

https://www.amazon.com/Bedsit-Keziah-Shepherd-ebook/dp/B00DFOL5Y8/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1500551309&sr=8-7&keywords=Keziah+Shepherd