Chapter 36: stant in All Other Things“… please?”

  I’d returo an annoyed ‘boyfriend’ bemoaning the length of time women spend ioilet and now the starters were cold. He’d drank most of the champagne and was looking flushed. We were in that awkward interlude between starter and main, and his inexplicable rese stalled the versation. Taking Dan’s hand and holding it between mine, I smiled, a little pleadingly, and leaned closer. The soft light glimmered entigly, I hoped, in the gloss of touched-up lips. “Just listen, okay?”

  He visibly drooped. “I’ve been a pain tonight, haven’t I? I’m sorry, I am, it’s just…”

  “Dan….”

  “It’s been a weird week, you know, a stressful one? First Fatima leaving, then the promotion, and—”

  “Dan.”

  “And I don’t even know if I’m ready for this step up, it’s a lot of responsibility. And I know I was te tonight, and I’m sorry about that, but there’s a reason, see—”

  “Dan.”

  “And….”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  His eyes widened, he opened his mouth to protest—caught the look I was giving him—finally!—and shut it. Dropping dy’s innate sweetness, I gave him a hard gre. “For the love of God, will you just—stop? When a girl wants to talk, let her talk.”

  He waited a moment, then he fact he thought I needed his approval infuriated me.

  “Good– just… chill. You’re trying way too hard, man. Like, way, way too hard. I’m here, okay? You asked me out and I said yes. You don’t o impress me with fancy steak and drink. And I don’t need you to take charge, yeah? I like you, you’re a nice guy, but for Chrissake, let a girl get a word in edgewise? Let her order her own food, let her order her own drink.” I gave his hand a gentle squeeze and pulled away, fingernail trailing a path across his palm.

  Hiding a sudden grimace behind the flute and sparkle of a final sip of champagne, I resehe o go gently with this guy, and the unfortable flutter in my belly at the physical tact, the flirtatious trag of a long fingernail lingering. Dan sat silently for a moment, dark eyes ptive. Rese and frustration seemed to war with regret across his features: he drew back his hand, fingers curling into fists, but his face seemed suddenly sad.

  “I was going to cel tonight, you know,” he suddenly said. “It’s why I was te.”

  “You probably should have,” I said.

  “I’d made other pns,” he said. “Last minute.”

  “Sure. You were celebrating your promotion.”

  He nodded.

  “With friends,” I guessed. “But you’d already booked this pd asked me out st week.”

  “Yeah.” His lips curled in a sardonic smile. “Some friends.”

  “What happened?”

  “They bailed,” he said. “We were a couple of pints in, and Hasan got a call from his fiancée, so off he went; and Derek followed soon after, of course.”

  “Just Hasan and Derek? No girls?”

  He grimaced, then nodded. Would a real girl have been jealous? Offended? Maybe. dy should’ve been hurt but I got where he was ing from: ued promotion, cause to celebrate—why spend the night with a girl you barely know, even a pretty one, when already in the pany of good friends?

  “And were you going to let me know the date was off after the sed or third beer?”

  He had the good grace to look at least a little ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “I had a feeling those guys were going to bail.” He shrugged. “And well, you’d already said yes and—”

  “You wao get id.” I interrupted. “You’d gotten a promotion and the irls weren’t having it, and you thought, hey, I deserve to celebrate, I worked hard for this thing, right, I deserve a reward, and that dy girl, she looks pretty easy and frankly, I’m doing her a favour, a fich like me, right?”

  He gaped at me for a moment, recovered, frowned. “I never said you look easy.”

  “That’s hardly a denial.” I tossed the st of the filo pastries at him. “Jesus Dan, rex; I’m not angry.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Look at this pce,” I said, with a sweepiure taking in the restaurant and our table. “And this food’s amazing. What’s not to like? Sitting here with you, champagne, shitake mushrooms, steak? It sure as hell beats sitting alo home, you know?” I smiled. “Even if the pany so far has been a bit shit.”

  “Hey!”

  “Just—st so hard. Here, let me clear the air a bit. Let me make it easy for you. One: I’m not your backup pn. You want to do something else—fine. But then so do I. I’ll let it go this time, but I am no fug pn B, got it? I’m top of your list or I’m not on it, got it?”

  Feeling a little flushed with power—a rare feeling for dy—I smiled wickedly and added: “And two: you are not fug me tonight.” Maybe the bubbly had goo my head a bit—it came out a touch louder than I’d intended. “Yeah? I want to be absolutely clear on that point. You’ve got zero ce of getting into my paonight, got it?”

  He went a little red, but before he could respond the waiter arrived. “Chateaubriand,” she announced, with the good grace to not ent on a versation she’d clearly overheard. Instead, she slid the steak iween us, a fine sb of real meat, red and juid sliced for serving. She dotted small bowls of sides around the table. It all looked amazing; it smelled amazing; putting up with Dan’s crap was totally worth it for a meal like this.

  There’s no way dy could afford a meal like this on her budget. And sure, Julia had dragged me out for some excellent meals, but she always insisted on trolling what I ate: steak for her, sad for me, that kind of shit.

  And singly, I had to admit that there were definite advao being young, attractive and female. Hell, if I didn’t exploit them, I might never enjoy quality food and drink again.

  The wine followed, a in silence as she withdrew the cork and poured out a sample.

  “Sir?” she asked, passing the taster to Dan.

  With all the finesse of a man out of his depths, he gulped it down and shrugged. She poured out two gsses a—fshing me a wry smile and quick wink as she passed.

  He speared a slice of beef for himself and grabbed some potatoes and greens and silently attacked his meal. Shrugging, I followed suit, and was about to take my first bite when Dan put down his cutlery with a ctter and leaning closer, blurted, “Girls like guys who take charge!”

  “Sure,” I answered, fork poised at the edge of my lips, suct meat impaled on its tines. “Some do.” I waved the morsel at him. “Some people like their steak rare, some blue, some”—I gave an exaggerated shudder—“well done.” Taking the fork into my mouth, I ed my lips around the steak and ched down and moa the release of fvours. “Oh, dear God that’s good,” I said, eyes fluttering with pleasure.

  I swallowed and speared a potato shiny with butter, spotted with chives. I waved the fork at him again. “And sometime, they don’t even want steak. They want a potato.”

  His eyes danced from the steak to the potato, to my eyes, and the hint of a smile curved his lips. “You’ve lost me,” he admitted. “Your metaphor sucks.”

  “Sometimes, a girl knows exactly what she wants,” I said, reag for the wine. “And sometimes, she doesn’t have a fug clue and wants you to decide. Either way, she knows what she doesn’t want.

  “Your job,” I added, raising my gss in mock cheer, “is to figure it out.”

  Dan took another bite. “Why not just tell me?”

  I gave a little ugh. “Where’s the fun in that?” I answered and took a drink of the wine. “And you’re assuming we know it ourselves.” The wine was good and paired better with the steak than I would’ve expected.

  “Doesn’t seem fair to me.”

  “Maybe.” My fingers drummed out a beat oable as I worked through my response. “Is it fair I get paid less at work?” I swept my hand along fad fnk, taking in the efforts of the evening: makeup and hair, earrings and under rigging, the whole agonising and humiliating e that helped vihe world I was a girl. Could I be bmed if my voice took on a bit of a frustrated edge?

  “Or that I’m expected to put all this on for you?” My hand swept across the room. “Or that at least one of the women in this room is statistically likely to go home tonight ahe shit kicked out of her by her partner?”

  Dan winced. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know.” I shrugged. “But what the hell does ‘fair’ even mean when we’re pying the same game by different rules?”

  He went to answer, seemed to thier of it, and hid his doubt behind some wine. Mirr him, I also took another deep drink, and in the brief lull my eyes slid across the room, taking in all the other couples, the murmur of versation, and the intricate dance of their iions. Increasingly I found myself paying attention to the womeifying with them—taking pleasure in their appearance, sure, but also taking note, learning from their gestures, ghe small signals they gave their partners and each other. Assessing them, evaluating, studying.

  That woman there: tall and slim in an enviably elegant long dress, brilliantly white and backless, slit to the thigh, legs crossed at the knee beh the drape of fabric, hand delicately held to her slim throat as she ughed, a precise fall of notes like a tinkling chord on a piano; but with eyes that fred like a freshly struck match, and when the man sat opposite turo call the waiter she grimaced and her fingers curled into a small, tight fist around the at her neck.

  Or the woman sat in the er, early thirties, navy skirt suit and fitted blouse, both feminine and serious, subdued makeup but ky jewelry, hair set in soft waves that offset the sharpness of her attire – sitting with impeccable poise opposite a man in jeans and faded t-shirt, slovenly, belly threatening to overpower his belt, unshaven, ughing, rexed and happy. His humour seemed forced, quickly cut off as the woman began to shake with silent tears, tiny glimmers rolling down her cheek as she maintained both posture and presence.

  Or that girl—dy’s age—in bold colours and tight, short clothes—sat opposite a man at least two decades older—listening ily like a dog to its master as he spoke, dangling earring sparkling like Christmas ors as she o the ce of his emphatic gesticution… how she rolled her eyes and sighed wheood to go to the toilet, and she gazed longingly at the exit as she waited for his return.

  Jesus. What did the women here see when they looked at me?

  “If you weren’t here with me tonight,” Dan intruded on my observation. “Where would you be?”

  Fug Julia, probably. “At home. Alone.” Also possible. “Washing my hair. Hand washing underwear and stogs.” Sadly, also true. “Maybe watg something with a gss of wine.” Or a bottle, followed by jerking off. “What about you?”

  “A lot more drunk,” he said, gazing into his wine gss.

  “Why’d your friends ditch you?”

  Exhaling loudly, he hacked at the shared steak and served himself another portion. “Because, dy,” he said, and souired, “friendship is stant in all other things, save in affairs of love.”

  “In the office,” I corrected him, somewhat to my own surprise. The words just sort of came unbidden.

  “Excuse me?” he said.

  “You got it wrong,” I said. “Whie is it? Love’s Labour’s Lost? Much Ado? One of those, right? It’s ‘in the offid affairs of love’.”

  “You know I did my degree in English Lit, right?” he said. He sounded annoyed. “With a focus on Shakespearian adaptations for my Masters dissertation.”

  “And I’m just a silly bimbo with a high school education,” I answered. “Great tits and blonde hair, right?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Well, I don’t need a fug degree to know a little Shakespeare,” I snapped. “I’ve got a good memory.”

  I’d also dated a professor of Literature, years ago, though Dan didn’t o know that. Akiko, beautiful, sexy Akiko, who used to prep her lectures naked in bed, reading out samples of text to me where they etched themselves indelibly into memory, forever mixing the poetry of nguage with the sensual image of her skin, her hot breath whispering in my ear, soft kisses down my hard chest, and her lips ….

  “Look it up,” I gasped and as he reached for his phone, I refilled my gss with iced water and gulped it down, hiding my sudden, painful arousal.

  A mier he grunted. “Huh, you’re right.”

  “Though she be but little,” I said, huskily. “She is fierce.”

  He looked at me then—really looked at me for the first time, it felt, this whole “date”. It was as though the previous hour he’d been imagining being elsewhere, with someone else; but suddenly, I’d bee worthy of his attention. He smiled; his eyes sparkled as he reached across the table for my hand. Grudgingly, I extended mine iurn and his thumb traced gentle circles across the bay hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, and for the first time sounded like he meant it.

  “It’s… okay.” His hand, softly stroking mine, brought something ued, catalysed by those earlier thoughts of Akiko, of days iogether ily making love amidst the prose and poetry of her profession. The memory of her touch mingled with the currey of Dan’s. fusiered a powerful yearning, an ag arousal that echoed the one I’d felt earlier this evening, reag even further back to the ghost of another’s toud the promises of something more.

  Trembling at the gentle sensation of his fingers, his touch trailing lines of fire as he caressed my skin, my eyes closed and I imagined myself falling into—his?—somebody’s arms, being held close, and—my lips suddenly felt warm; a hot flush crawled up through my belly, tendrils uncoiling through chest and neck; and I felt—

  Angry; suddenly, so fug angry aful, to find myself trembling and timorous as a schoolgirl blushing with guilt and desire she couldn’t aowledge let alone uand. And I felt—

  Scared, by this rising tide threatening not only my self-trol but my very sense of self. And I felt—

  Disgusted, by this man’s toud by dy’s feverish response. And I—

  Wao escape; wao submit. Wanted… release.

  And release came, though not as expected. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep shuddering breath. I struggled against the crash of powerful flig emotions, but the struggle was brief: I lost, and sah the waves.

  “Hey, hey you okay?”

  I shook my head in a silent, desperate ‘no’ as the first, shameful tears began to dribble down my cheeks. I snatched my hand away, hid them beh the table; clutched at my legs, and dug those long fingernails, Julia’s gift, into the fleshy softness of my thighs, hoping the pain might bring some sense of trol.

  And then he was kneelio me.

  “I’m….” A shuddering breath, a struggle to stifle a sob. “Sorry.”

  “No, I am, I’ve been a jerk,” he said, his hand was on my bare shoulder, and I gasped at his toubsp; With his other hand he gently stroked my hair, like one would soothe a pet, then cupped my . “I’m sorry.” He wiped away a tear with the back of a finger.

  Eyes squeezed shut, I could sense his closeness, feel his heat, red berries and steak, sandalwood and smoke, and the ge of prods tilting my head towards him. My lips parted in a sigh, aion of need.

  “Please—”

  Author's Notes

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