Thirteen Stops

by Sandra Harris

  There was, however, another reason why Laura hadn’t wanted to give up her job at first. At least she still got to see Paul every day. Out of sight, out of mind, wasn’t that what they said? Unless she was right in his eyeline every day from Monday to Friday, he’d forget about her. That was what men did, wasn’t it? This way, at least there was still a chance that she and Paul might get back together. If she was in another job, she wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting him to come back to her. He’d ignored all her texts and calls for the first couple of weeks after they’d split up. He’d been screening her calls, of course, but even when she’d put her number on private, he still hadn’t been caught out. She’d felt like she’d simply ceased to exist for him. It wasn’t a nice feeling, being so completely and utterly sidelined like that by someone who she’d thought loved her.

  After about two weeks, she’d changed tack. She’d stopped whinging about loving him to the ends of the earth and back, and instead had started talking his, Paul’s, language. She’d accompanied a phone photo of her unclothed breasts with the words: “Miss you so much. Am sooooo fucking horny!!!” and sent it to his phone.

  Five minutes later, he’d texted back.

  “Are u touching urself?”.

  “Yes,” texted back Laura immediately, although she wasn’t.

  Of course she bloody wasn’t. Women were mostly lying when they said they were, and men were stupid if they believed it. It was a Saturday afternoon. She was slumped on the couch in sweatpants in front of the telly and had never felt less like having sex in her life, but she talked such a good game that her reward was a phone photo of Paul’s erect willy in mid-excitement. It didn’t turn her on in the slightest but that wasn’t the point. The point was that, if she could still turn him on, he might miss the sex they’d had and come back to her. A few more messages later, and he was sending her his very own money shot. Laura smiled to herself in grim satisfaction. Operation Get Paul Back was off to a good start.

  She redoubled her efforts to look good in work, which was exhausting because she always went to great lengths to look good for work anyway, and had usually uploaded about a dozen glamorous selfies to social media each morning before most people had crawled out from under the duvet. Upping her game still further in the looks department was hard, mostly thankless work. The one day she’d tried the hardest, so hard she’d nearly killed herself, he’d been out sick, the bloody bastard. When he wasn’t off sick and she had to go into his office for something or other, she always had a couple of buttons undone on her blouse so that he could look down her top and admire whatever lacy, push-up bra she had on.

  The week after the phone sex (or the sexting, as it was now called), she’d sexted him again on a Thursday night, a night on which she’d been accustomed to having him come round to her flat, so she was hoping he’d be at a loose end.

  “So horny,” she’d texted. “Need u in me now. Can u come over?”

  An agonising half-hour passed with no response. Then her phone rang. She pounced on it.

  “I’m on my way over,” he’d said curtly. “Keep it hot for me, okay?”

  “Okay,” she’d breathed. “See you soon.”

  Then she’d rushed around the flat, frantically opening windows and spraying air freshener everywhere to cover up the fact that she’d been smoking like a chimney ever since the break-up. Her own appearance was picture-perfect. Stockings and suspenders, high-heeled silver glittery hooker shoes and a lovely new black bra-and-knickers combination. Her long blonde hair was straightened to within an inch of its life with the fancy new straightener and her make-up was flawless. They fell on each other like hungry dogs as soon as he was in the door. Laura felt as if she was putting on the performance of a lifetime, slapping him, scolding him and threatening him, even tying his hands to the bedpost with some black-velvet ribbons she normally used for her hair, ordering him to call her ‘Mistress’ and making him delay his orgasm for as long as he could. From her position on top of him, she was certain that she looked to Paul like the Queen of All She Surveyed, and it made him good and hard and it made the sex last for a long, long time. When he did come, when his ‘Mistress’ eventually ‘permitted’ him to come, he groaned long and loud before collapsing back against the sheets, his hands still bound to the bed with the black ribbons.

  “Untie these, will you?” he said, and Laura’s heart sank.

  He wasn’t going already, was he? She hadn’t expected him to stay for dinner or anything, although she’d bought a few nice snackables anyway, just in case he was peckish after all the sex she’d been hoping they’d have, but surely he wasn’t going to just bang her and bugger off straightaway, back to What’s-Her-Face? She untied his bonds and lay back down beside him hopefully.

  “Um, so how are things at home?” she chanced.

  He sat up on the edge of the bed away from her and ran his hands through his thick dark hair until it was all ruffled. “How do you think they are, Laura?” he said tiredly. “They’re fucking shite, that’s what they are. You really dropped me in it when you phoned Barbara.”

  He pulled on his socks and got to his feet to put on his underwear.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I really am.”

  “Well, I hope you’re happy with the results.” He picked his trousers up from the floor.

  By the sound of it, he’d deposited all his loose coins on her bedroom floor again. Some things clearly never changed.

  He slipped on his trousers and reached for his discarded shirt. “Barbara’s on my case twenty-four-seven now. She thinks I’m out doing late-night shopping right now for Christmas. I’ll have to stop at the supermarket on the way home and buy something Christmassy we don’t need just to prove I was doing what I said I was doing. She gives me no peace now. My time’s not my own any more. And as for telling her that you were up the spout! Well, that was a pretty low blow, especially since you know that Barbara’s pregnant now too. She could have lost the baby with the shock of that bloody phone call.”

  “I’m sorry, Paul,” Laura said again, though from what she’d heard of Barbara that day on the phone, she genuinely thought that the lady was made of sterner stuff than that. “I only did it because I was so angry and hurt at being dumped like that.”

  He sat down on the bed again to pull on his socks and shoes.

  “Well, I’m the one who got dumped in it, right up to my balls.” There was so much bitterness in his voice. “Barbara will never let me live this down. And she’ll never let me go either, not now we’re having Baby Number Three.”

  “How far along is she?” Laura tried not to sound jealous but it was very hard. If only it were her having Paul’s baby, a baby that would tie the two of them together for ever! Maybe she should come off the Pill and try to trap him or something. She wished she’d thought of that before tonight – she could even now be pregnant with his child. He surely couldn’t leave her if she was having his child.

  “Five months.” He dropped his head in his hands and groaned out loud.

  Laura stared at him. Five months ago, it had been summer, one of the best summers she could ever remember. She and Paul had had a wonderful, magical time together. Laura had almost been able to forget that Paul was a married man with kids and responsibilities and, for a while, until Barbara had reminded him, so had Paul. They’d gone to the Barge Pub in Portobello together after work nearly every day of the heatwave, and sat outside on the canal with the rest of the sun-worshippers, drinking in the unaccustomed sunshine and enjoying each other’s company and feeling endlessly, endlessly horny with the heat. They’d go back to Laura’s flat afterwards and make love. Then they would lie entwined on Laura’s bed, drenched in sweat with their limbs locked together. The heat and sweat played havoc with Laura’s carefully applied make-up and straightened hair, but it was worth the extra effort she’d had to go to. But had Paul really gone home after those wonderfully special evenings and made love to Barbara too? He must have, thought Laura, who was hurt
more than she could say by this thought. What a bastard! What a lying, cheating rat! How easily the lies came to his lips!

  But now wasn’t the time to ask him about his sex life with Barbara, not now when she was trying to win him back, so, instead, trying hard to keep her voice light and bright, she said, “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?”

  “Barbara knows but she won’t tell me,” Paul said gloomily. “She says she’s not telling me until she’s absolutely certain that I’m not planning to do a runner on her.”

  Chance would be a fine thing, thought Laura. “Right. I see.”

  Well, what did you say to a thing like that? What could you say to a thing like that? She sat up in bed and began stroking Paul’s back, his arms and his shoulders, which were tight and all knotted up with tension under his shirt.

  “Poor Paul.” She forced a sympathy into her voice which she in no way felt. Encouraged by the fact that he seemed to be enjoying her impromptu massage, she ventured lightly: “It’s going to be so hard on you for the next few weeks and months, Paul. Don’t forget that I’m always here for you if you need me.”

  “Thanks.” He got to his feet. “I might just take you up on that.”

  Laura’s heart momentarily lifted, then it sank again when he turned to her and said, “Look, Laura, there’s nothing in this for you any more. What kind of life would you have, constantly waiting for me to have a few free minutes when I could sneak out and see you? Barbara and the kids will be wanting more and more of my time and attention over the next few months and I’m going to have to give it to them. I could be the kind of shit who keeps you hanging on, dangling on the end of a string, always waiting for those few snatched minutes here and there. But I’m not quite the lowlife bastard that everyone makes me out to be, and I don’t think I could do that to you. It’s better for everyone if we just have a clean break from each other.”

  “But I really don’t mind all the waiting around,” Laura lied brightly. “I don’t mind it at all as long as I can just see you sometimes.”

  “You don’t mind that Barbara’s having our third baby, and that I’m going to have to be very much around for the pregnancy and birth and all the night feeds and the nappies and shit?”

  Laura, aware that she was telling the biggest lie of her life, nodded, smiled. “I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”

  “It would only be for the sex,” Paul said then. “I’m being brutally honest here but I have to be. There’d be no future in it. You couldn’t expect any commitment from me and you’d have to accept that. Could you accept that?”

  “Sure,” Laura said, as if it were no big thing he was asking her to do. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It’s not what I want.” His mouth was set in grim lines. “But it’s the way things have to be. And if Barbara finds out, it has to end immediately, and permanently, okay?”

  Again, Laura nodded, her smile a little less bright this time.

  He shrugged on his jacket. “Right then, I’ll have to head off.” He was openly looking at his watch now. Before, he would have peeped at it discreetly when he thought she wasn’t looking. “I still have to get to a supermarket somewhere, remember, and buy something Christmassy before I can even think of going home. I’ll text you, but it won’t be for a few days, okay?”

  She nodded, smiled again and lifted up her face for his goodbye kiss, which barely grazed her cheek.

  When he was gone, she went straight to the fridge. There was a full bottle of white wine and half a bottle of red wine there. She always drank a glass or two before Paul came over, to put her in the mood for sex or, more correctly, to fortify her for the kind of sex Paul wanted, the pervy prick. Now she took out the two bottles. She returned with them to the bedroom, then flopped disconsolately down on the bed and began to drink.

  The days fell into a kind of pattern after that for a bit. She’d go to work and try to get through the day, being largely ignored by Paul on the one hand and sniggered at by her bitchy female co-workers on the other. Then she’d head home, stop off at the Off-Licence near her flat for a bottle of wine, go home and drink it. She drank at least a bottle of wine a night, sometimes more. She might have something modest to eat, maybe a salad she’d nibble on for a minute or two like a fussy rabbit, but mostly she’d just drink, keeping her phone on in case he called. When he didn’t, she’d collapse into bed and sob herself loudly and messily to sleep, only to wake up again a few hours later with a rotten headache, a raging thirst and a frustrating inability to get back to sleep, so that she was always exhausted at work. A few times, she’d even had a glass of wine or two before work, at eight o’clock in the morning. She was a wreck. Three weekends on the bounce, she went to a nightclub on Leeson Street that was infamous for the number of married men who frequented it and pulled without the slightest difficulty. Those places were like fucking meat markets.

  When she took the first guy home to her flat, he’d dived naked onto her bed except for his grey socks and his wedding ring, lay on his back with his hands clasped comfortably behind his back and said: “Go on then!”

  “Go on, what?” She’d stared at him, puzzled.

  “Turn me on, Blondie. Whatcha think?” He’d looked at her as if she were thick or something.

  What are you then, the bloody immersion, she wanted to ask him but didn’t. While she was soullessly doing what he’d asked, she felt dead inside. It wasn’t a fun experience. She was glad beyond measure when he had left without even a proper goodbye.

  The next guy was so drunk he couldn’t really manage the sex at all, and the third fella made it clear he thought she was a slut for going home with him on less than an hour’s acquaintance. That was rich of him, she’d thought at the time. He was doing the exact same thing as she was doing, plus he was married with a child, but it was okay for him because he was a man. It wasn’t okay for her –– it made her a slut – because she was a woman. The double standard made her feel sick.

  After three weeks, Paul still hadn’t texted her to meet up, even though she’d sent him a load of texts herself, ranging from the casual and non-threatening to the downright desperate. Hey you, what u up 2? Hiya, fancy a chat? Hey there, u horny? I could use a chat/a hug/sex/whatever crumbs u feel like throwing in my direction, please txt me back, Paul, I’m dying here and so on and so on. He finally texted on a Friday night. Barbara and the kids had gone to stay with Barbara’s sister Suzanne for the night. Suzanne and her partner Ida were having a party, to celebrate life, was how Suzanne had so oddly put it, whatever all that was about. It was probably some mad lesbian thing, according to Paul, or maybe it was a mad Swiss thing, because Ida was from Switzerland. Paul wasn’t exactly in favour with either of the sisters at the moment so he wasn’t invited. This party was for the women and children only. They were making a huge big deal out of it as well.

  Laura was at home by herself nursing a bottle of wine. She’d been feeling too battered by recent experiences to chance going to the nightclub on Leeson Street again. She was feeling particularly sorry for herself and missing Paul desperately when he finally texted – a curt, cold little text message: Are you available?

  Even though his message made her feel uncomfortably like a prostitute, she’d texted back immediately – Yes, come on over – wildly happy again suddenly to be needed, to be wanted, by him. She charged around the flat madly, throwing on sexy lingerie and make-up and perfume with hands that shook, and brushing her teeth until her gums bled, to disguise the smell of drink and cigarettes.

  When he arrived at her flat, they went straight to bed. Laura, more than a bit pissed, did her dominatrix act as usual but with so much careless vigour that at one point he had to cry out: “Take it easy, for fuck’s sake, will you? I don’t want my face to be marked!” Even though his wife and kids were staying at Barbara’s sister’s house for the night, he still didn’t stay the night with Laura.

  He doesn’t want me to get any mad ideas about us being properly back together, Laura thought
miserably as he sat on the edge of the bed getting dressed with his back to her. I don’t think I can stand this. I don’t think I can bear it. I love him so much!

  He turned suddenly as he was putting on his jacket. “I forgot – I’ve brought something to show you.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his jacket pocket and passed it to her.

  Laura, sitting up in bed naked, trying desperately not to cry about the fact that he was going home already rather than opting to stay the night with her as he might once have done (if he could persuade Barbara that he was watching all-night sport at a mate’s house), looked at it curiously. What the fuck . . .? It was one of those scan photographs that the midwife gave expectant mothers when they went for their baby-scan, usually around the fifth month of pregnancy. It was a photo of a tiny baby in its mother’s womb, a tiny baby with all its limbs, a baby that looked for all the world as if it was sucking its thumb. Jesus Christ!

  “This . . . this is your baby?” she said slowly, stunned.

  He nodded, grinning like a village idiot. He actually looked as pleased as Punch with himself, the bastard.

  “It’s a boy.” He was grinning like the bloody Cheshire cat now, all over his smug face. “Barbara told me last night. We told the kids together this morning. They’re thrilled to bits. We’re already planning all kinds of blue things for the new nursery. Our first boy. Can you believe it?”