Twenty-Two

 

Seph held her shoes in one hand, swinging them back and forth as she walked down the street. She looked up at the early morning sky, streaked with thin lemon sherbet clouds and pulled in a deep breath of air. Finally, she could breathe. How had she been able to cope before? She’d been so constricted and restricted. So pinned down and under pressure. But now?

Seph swung her shoes a little higher and twirled in a circle midstride. She’d never felt so good. So relaxed. She could actually feel things again, like the delicate swish of her skirt skimming her thighs as she walked. Her mind was like a newly cleaned window, completely clear and open, in ways it hadn’t been before. The dustbin lorry clunking along the road was like music and the motorbike following it was an exhilarating rush of adrenaline. Leaves rustling in the trees were whispers of happiness, ushering her along the pavement. Seph skipped across the road, as light on her tiptoes as a fairy, listening to the sounds of the city around her all the way home.

The warehouse greeted her like an old friend and she smiled, closing the front door behind her. She threw her shoes onto the heap in the corner and pulled the dress over her head before flinging it over her head. She hopped along the floor towards the bathroom, pulling her stockings off as she went. They were laddered and a little sticky, and she wrinkled her nose before scrunching them into a ball and aiming it in the bin under the sink.

Seph stood under the shower and sighed with pleasure as the first drops of water hit her skin. She turned up the heat and reached for her shower gel. This was heaven. Pure bliss. The water was hot and as smooth as silk, gliding across her shoulders. But then she found herself inside a billowing fog of lemon-scented steam and the good feeling began fading away. She could almost see it sliding off her skin with the slick gel. The happiness she’d just felt ran down her belly, between her legs and feet. The beautiful, luxurious sparkly feeling chased after it, disappearing off into the plughole and spinning in a whirlpool as it went.

That stream of happiness, those tingles of ecstasy – they’d all gone, scattering like shrapnel. Seph clenched her eyes shut. She had the distinct feeling of being out at sea with skies so dark, she couldn’t see a horizon. Her feet were firmly planted in the bath, but she swore there were waves lifting her up and crashing her back down. She reached a hand out and splayed it flat across the tiled wall to steady herself. Seph clenched her jaws against a swell of nausea but the lemon shower gel was cloying and sweet. She barely made it to the toilet in time after lunging over the side of the bath.

Painful spasms wracked her body as she heaved over the toilet. Beads of sweat dotted her upper lip and trickled down her back as she slumped down onto the floor and leaned back against the bath. Seph covered her naked body with her arms and shivered. How many martinis had she actually drunk last night? Seven? Eight? A recollection of holding a conical glass in her hand and laughing girlishly in a bar flashed across her mind and she groaned, heaving over the toilet again. Lifting her arm a few inches to press the flusher felt like a Herculean effort. And then she remembered: Ben wouldn’t be home from Cannes until the early hours of tomorrow morning. Seph let her chin fall to her chest. Hot tears scalded her skin as they cascaded freely down her cheeks. She didn’t want to be alone. She couldn’t be alone. She might die.

Never in her twenty-seven years had she ever felt this bad. It was as if she’d been poisoned with something far worse than alcohol because this was no normal hangover coming on. She felt disgustingly, hideously awful. Her stomach felt like it had been wrung inside out, her head was beginning to split and her feet burned. She looked down at them and grimaced. A huge blister was bubbling under the pad of her left big toe. How long had she been walking? And, come to think of it, where the hell had she even been walking from?

Seph slowly pulled herself up from the floor, fighting the pressure of her headache and trying to keep her stomach under control. The idea of even putting her toothbrush in her mouth almost made her throw up again, so she rinsed her mouth out with water instead. As she spat it back out, she winced at another recollection, this time of herself counting down to take a shot of something, followed by laughing uncontrollably afterwards. But, it wasn’t just a recollection of memory. It was as if her entire body was reliving that moment. Had she been spiked with something? Was she high right now? How else could she really be feeling a memory? She could actually feel her throat burning with alcohol, her stomach fizzing over with laughter and warmth rushing through her entire body from head to toe. Seph squeezed her eyes. She was too afraid of what she might see or feel next. The warmth she’d just felt reminded her that she hadn’t been alone.

She felt like Gretel, picking up a breadcrumb trail of memories as she staggered to the bedroom. With every step, she remembered more: giddy laughter and breathless anticipation. Desire unfurling like a flower opening its petals, right in the very pit of her body. The thrilling rush of adrenaline. Dark jeans, a white shirt, tanned skin and sparkling green eyes. Seph groaned as she crashed into bed and tried to push the memory away. If she couldn’t remember, then it couldn’t really have happened. Maybe she was hallucinating. She must be, because there’s no way she’d have done that to Ben. No way. None at all.

Seph looked at the armchair by the window. It was old and the leather had seen better days, but it was beautiful. She and Ben had found it dumped on the street shortly after moving in. It had taken forever to carry it home, but leaving it behind had been unthinkable. It fit under the window as if it was made to be there and Ben had adopted it as his reading chair. But her loving, unsuspecting boyfriend wasn’t sitting on it today. His place had been taken by the bag she’d brought home yesterday from Coco de Mer and simply looking at it was enough to open the floodgates to what happened last night.

The man with the green eyes had run his fingers down the length of her back, teasing the ticklish skin in the hollow of her spine. He’d slid the hundred pound knickers she’d bought earlier that day down over her thighs and calves before dropping them to the floor. She remembered the wild abandon that had taken over, the way she’d completely given herself to him. The only thing she couldn’t remember, was trying to stop the process. Not even once. In fact, she had the sickening feeling that she might have been the one to initiate it all.

Seph turned on her side, clamping her eyes shut and squeezing them as hard as she could. She didn’t want to see that expensive paper bag ever again. The underwear she’d spent a fortune on just yesterday was now lying on a floor in someone else’s bedroom. Her chest caved and her heart ached.

She’d slept with someone behind Ben’s back. She’d cheated. She’d broken a fundamental, unspoken promise to be faithful to her boyfriend and suddenly, the whole world was black. She was an awful, horrible and detestable person who drank too much and hurt everyone. What was happening to her? Why hadn’t any red flags waved at her? Where had her sense of what was right and what was wrong gone?

Tears squeezed through her closed eyes. Something wasn’t right. It couldn’t be normal to do what she’d done, to go from absolute elation to this in less than twenty-four hours. She shivered, realising that if she could just go out on a whim and cheat on her boyfriend - a boyfriend she loved and respected - then she couldn’t trust herself. She pulled the covers over her head and enveloped herself in darkness.

This wasn’t her. This wasn’t how she behaved, how she lived. This wasn’t acceptable in her moral code. Words flashed across her mind, plucked from the internet sites she’d visited: mania, depression, irritability, euphoria, and inappropriate behaviour.

Seph curled up into a tiny ball, burrowed under the duvet. First, she needed to sleep. And when she woke up, the first thing she was going to do was call a doctor.

 

Ten hours later, Seph stretched her legs out on the pavement as she sat huddled with Joe in his little doorway.

‘What I’m saying is, that mass media has led us to this point.’ She deepened the crease between her eyebrows. ‘Do you understand what I mean?’

She twisted the top half of her body to look at him. The dirt etched into his skin was much more pronounced this close up, especially when he frowned. Clearly, he had no idea what she meant at all.

‘Most top jobs in the media are held by men, right?’ she explained, bellowing a plume of smoke from her mouth as she did so. ‘Which means that most portrayals of women are from the male perspective. Which means that for the last however many years, we’ve been ingrained with a standard view of life we’ve never even thought to question before.’

Seph tapped her cigarette and ash fluttered down to the pavement. Ten hours of uninterrupted sleep hadn’t been enough to escape the hangover. The alcohol had evaporated from her system, sucking her insides and brain dry, so much so that her head had actually tingled with dehydration. She’d felt as parched as the desert ground at midday as she’d stood in the kitchen, gulping down glass after glass of water. She’d almost been able to feel her dried body plumping back out again and it wasn’t just hydration for her organs, muscles and tissue. It was also a balm for her soul. With every mouthful, she felt more human and less demonic. Less like the version of herself she’d fallen asleep with. She’d had sex with someone else, yes. But was it really cheating?

As her brain had begun to function again, she’d reasoned that even though she’d technically slept with someone else, she’d been driven by something that wasn’t really her. It had been something else, something other and completely foreign that had led her to sit in that bar and flirt as outrageously as she had. It had consumed her from the moment she’d walked into Coco de Mer and had only increased when she’d looked at herself in the mirror. She’d been consumed by the need for sex and Ben’s appreciative reply to her picture messages hadn’t been enough to dampen it. If he’d had been at home instead of being in Cannes with Clara, then he would have been the one she’d have slept with. That was when she’d had a breakthrough.

Suddenly, the idea of him being away with his ex didn’t fill her with dread. The jealousy that usually ate away at her insides when it came to Clara was nowhere to be seen, because there was nothing to be jealous of. It was just sex. It was just need - no different than hunger or thirst. It had driven her last night and who knew, maybe it had driven Ben, too. And what right did she have to deny him that? Where had she got this ridiculous notion of monogamy from anyway? She was an artist; she should be free. If she’d have been alive in the twenties, she’d probably have been part of some bohemian crowd with a handful of lovers. This new way of thinking was like a revelation and the best part was, she’d realised it all on her own. There’d been no need for doctors or expensive therapy. It had been one intense hangover and she resolved never to have so much booze again if the level of post-alcohol heebie-jeebies were going to be that bad. But, ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, it had been for a good reason.

Joe yawned next to her and wiped a hand on his grubby sleeping bag. ‘Seph? Thanks for the meal and all, but…’ he tailed off. He looked at her sheepishly.

‘What is it?’ she asked, and he looked down at the ground, rubbing a hand over his wiry, straggly beard.

‘I’m really tired. I’m so full and well, it’s late.’

She looked down at her watch. Had she really been sitting here for an hour already? Along with a clear and objective mind, she’d also woken up with a ravenous hunger and had popped out for some food. She’d seen Joe sitting in his doorway and after buying herself some thick cut chips drenched in salt and vinegar, she’d ordered some for him too. After all, he was homeless. Who knew when he’d last had a hot meal, and she fancied the company.

‘You should talk to your fella,’ he added quickly. ‘And your mum. You ain’t got nothing if you ain’t got people around you. You don’t want to end up like me.’

His eyes were brimming over with compassion but it was as if they’d just fired bullets at her. What had he said that for? He must have been talking about Ben. But weren’t they just talking about female representation in the media? And what did her mum have to do with anything?

Seph had only wanted to stop and chat a little. Actually, she’d wanted to float the idea about the book she wanted to write to him. Her realisation that morning, coupled with the drama of finding out about Nico would, in her opinion, make a great novel. She’d seen a battered copy of George Orwell’s 1984 by Joe’s side once and guessed he might be a good person to talk to, but they hadn’t got anywhere near the subject yet.

Seph dug a fist into her pocket and dug out the ten-pound note she’d got in change from the chip shop. She couldn’t quite look him in the eye as she stuffed the crumpled note in his hand and wished him goodnight. His protests at the amount of money she’d given him fell away into the air as she stepped down from the doorway onto the pavement. She needed to get home. Now.

She rubbed her hands over her bare arms as she rushed down the street. When had it got so cold? It had been warm when she’d left the house, but now the air felt fresh with the first hints of autumn. She’d sat there for way too long. And what the hell had happened to her verbal filter? It had disappeared again. Why had she spoken to him about Ben and her mum?

The first thing Seph did when she got back inside was to turn the heating up full blast, and the second was to throw the Coco De Mer bag in the bin. There was no need to keep it lying around. The third, was to light a cigarette. She paced the living room, engaged in a battle of wills with the jittery feeling in her belly.

Joe, a man who lived in a doorway and never even knew where his next meal would be coming from, had asked her to leave. She’d got thrown out by someone who didn’t even have a place to throw her out of. How was that even possible? Seph nibbled the skin on the side of her thumb and looked out of the window. It was still a while until Ben would be home, and she couldn’t face the idea of sitting around doing nothing until then.

She took a long pull on her cigarette before striding across the bare floorboards to sit on the sofa. The look on Joe’s face played on her mind as she smoked the cigarette down to the butt, almost burning her fingers in the process. As she pressed it down in the ashtray, her embarrassment started to fade and she reached over to get her laptop from the coffee table. She was being silly. She’d sat with Joe for a reason. She might have strayed a little off track with her storytelling, but it didn’t change the fact that she was onto something potentially revolutionary. She’d finished her series and now she had time to do something else, something that made sense and might actually help other people in her situation. The kernel of an idea she’d woken up with began to gather momentum, and after quickly plotting out chapters, Seph began to write.