A Brand New Me

by Shari Low

  ‘Why are you here, Ben?’

  ‘Because I still love you. And I want to know if it’s too late for us. Is it, Leni? I’ll do whatever you want me to do to make this right, because I just can’t be without you any longer. Just tell me, Leni–whatever you want.’ To his credit, he didn’t even seem to register the thud from the other side of the wall.

  How could this be happening? On the way home I’d been looking forward to a bath, a liquidised snack that could be consumed through a straw and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on the telly. Instead, the toes that weren’t mummified by a crushingly tight elastic bandage were curling as my emotions were fed through a shredder.

  Immediately after I discovered his heartbreaking betrayal–urgh, starting to sound like a News of the World front page–I’d gone through most of the stages of grief: denial, anger, devastation, etc., and somewhere along the process slipped in ‘isolation and absorption in trash telly and books’. Every night I’d leave the giddy world of ballcocks, come home, take the phone off the hook, force down a cheese toastie and read masterpieces like What Becomes of the Broken Hearted–how to survive the pain and The Ex-Girlfriend’s Secret Guide to Big Bastards, until I finally fought off the breaking-heart insomnia and drifted off for a couple of hours’ sleep.

  My heart had been broken. In pieces. And even now, as he sat in front of me, lovingly pretending not to notice that I had a face like a space-hopper, I didn’t know if those pieces could ever be mended.

  I felt two fat tears squeeze from my eyes and run down my cheeks. Fabulous. Bloody fabulous. My body was now adding bloodshot eyes and puffy lids to my list of attractive features.

  He leaned over and brushed them away. ‘I’m so, so sorry, Leni.’

  I should have left it at that. I should have taken it at face value and accepted his apology, but I needed more information. I needed to understand how and why the man I once thought I’d spend forever with had managed to lie to me so easily for so long.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I had to. If I’d told you the truth it would have been over,’ he repeated. ‘Look, I know I was a selfish prick, and if you can’t get past what I did then I’ll understand, but I had to come back and try.’

  Bravery–wasn’t that what had attracted me to him in the first place? He’d disarmed the yob on the train, he loved his role in the marines and relished every mission, he flinched from nothing, and throughout our time together all my worries or fears had been quelled by the complete confidence that no matter what went wrong, he’d take care of it, he’d sort it out. Except the whole double-life thing, obviously.

  My mouth opened and shut but nothing came out because I had absolutely no idea what to say. Should I tell him to get out? Talk some more? Stomp around Little Sweden in a blind, riotous rage? Helplessness enshrouded me and, true to form, the woman who regularly spent twenty minutes trying to decide between beans on toast or spaghetti hoops was at a complete loss.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything just now. Look, why don’t you go and lie in the bath and I’ll phone in some dinner and then we can talk more.’

  On the way there, I stopped at the freezer for a packet of frozen peas. After slipping into the lukewarm bubbles I pressed them against my lips. Twenty minutes later, the swelling had subsided a little, so I reached for my phone.

  ‘Stu, it’s me–can you talk?’

  ‘Sure, Verity is signing autographs–we got mobbed on the way into the Ivy so I’m at the bar waiting for her. What’s that noise?’

  ‘Water–I’m in the bath.’

  ‘Eeeew, mental picture I could live without there, Lomond,’ he laughed.

  ‘Shut up, this is serious.’

  ‘Are you using the earphones I bought you or do you have the phone against your ear?’

  ‘Ear.’

  ‘Leni, get the earphones! How many times do I have to tell you that there are serious indications that mobile phones can cause brain tumours?’

  The sigh was out before I could stop it. I wanted to talk about my trashed life, and Stu was busy reciting medical theories that a Notting Hill hairdresser wouldn’t necessarily be expected to have on the tip of his tongue.

  ‘Ben’s here,’ I blurted.

  That stopped him. ‘What? In the bath with you?’

  For a horrible moment I thought I was going to get a lecture on the statistical probability that two people having sex in a bath could get wedged in there, die of hunger, and their bodies could go undiscovered until a neighbour called environmental health to complain about the smell.

  But no.

  ‘Is his wife with him?’ he asked, with uncharacteristic venom.

  What was going on? Stu did mellow, he did funny, he did neurotic, but he very rarely did bitchy and malicious. By some weird powers of osmosis, we were both channelling Trish tonight.

  ‘No, they’ve split up and he wants me back.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And…I don’t know. I have no idea. Stu, you know how long it took me to get over him, and I don’t think I could ever go through that again, and…’

  ‘…and you don’t think you could ever trust him again?’

  ‘No, I…’

  ‘…and you’re over him and you’re not in love with him any more?’

  ‘No, I…’

  ‘…and you’ve moved on and there’s no place in your life for him now?’

  ‘LET ME SPEAK!’

  Aaaargh, he was like Sister Stu, Agony Aunt with a cliché for every occasion. Eventually, a muted, ‘Sorry, carry on,’ came down the line.

  ‘I was going to say that I’d sworn I’d never forgive him, but now, seeing him here, I’m not so sure. He was the love of my life, Stu.’

  Apparently, the clichés were contagious.

  ‘Honey, I can’t help you with this one. Just know that whatever you do we’ll support you. If you reject him we’ll be there for you, and if you take him back we’ll support that too. And Leni, I have to tell you something from the heart…’

  His words were choked with emotion.

  ‘You do know that after what he did to you…’

  My stomach flipped with anticipation, his voice was so measured and thick with feeling.

  ‘…I’d have kicked his ass if he wasn’t a marine.’

  I laughed so much I dropped the frozen peas in the bath, immediately reducing the water temperature by several degrees. What would I do without Stu? Even in the depths of confusion, pain and self-pity he could snap me back to amusement and optimism in seconds.

  There was a loud commotion at his end.

  ‘Is that Verity arriving? It sounds like chaos–I’ll let you go.’

  ‘Are you sure? I can stay on the phone as long as you want.’

  ‘No, don’t be crazy. You’re with the most desirable woman in the country! Go and lavish her with affection and promises of wild sexual antics.’

  ‘Nooooo, none of that–I could pull a muscle or get a hernia or piles,’ he joked.

  ‘G’night, Stu!’

  ‘Call me back if you need me, babe,’ he added softly.

  What a sweetheart.

  In the time it took to wash my hair, manoeuvre myself out of the bath, dry off and limp through to the bedroom in search of clean clothes, my plan of action swung like Verity’s buttocks on a catwalk. I should tell him to go. I should tell him to stay. I should go and have a cup of tea and a Garibaldi with Mrs Naismith and ask her what she thought.

  Like a robot on automatic pilot, I dried my hair and dressed in an old pair of distressed jeans (chosen to coordinate with my emotional state) and a white vest.

  Back in the hall, the smell hit me before I even opened the door to the lounge. The aroma of deep-fried wontons, crispy pork and soy noodles assaulted my senses. Although, how I was going to suck up noodles with this lip was beyond me. Perhaps I could mash them up.

  He’d made such an effort. He’d set the IKEA coffee table with IKEA bamboo placemats, large IKEA wine glasses and a set of cutler
y–that wasn’t IKEA, my granny had bought it from QVC as a going-away present when I’d left for college (on the same night she bought a Dustbuster, a leopard-print handbag, a bust enhancer, a foot spa and a dog blanket–even though she didn’t have a dog. We made her stop watching it after that). Half the set was missing, but I didn’t have the heart to throw the rest out.

  It was perfect. He’d remembered my favourite foods, my favourite wine, and there was a white lily, my favourite flower, sitting in a tall, thin vase in the middle of the table.

  Combined with the unarguable truth that for a long time he had been my favourite man, it was a pretty compelling package.

  I sat on the floor, one leg sticking straight out so that I didn’t have to bend the now-unbandaged toes.

  ‘The swelling has gone down a bit,’ he said with a smile, gesturing to my lip.

  ‘I know. Another hour or so and I’ll have shrunk from “seriously swollen” to “Angelina Jolie”. Some women pay good money for that look. Saves me a visit to the beautician to…’

  One of the most important nights of my life, and there I was rambling nonsense yet again.

  ‘I love you.’ It came right out of the blue and cut right across my witterings. ‘Sorry, I just had to say it again,’ he explained. ‘Just so that you know.’

  What was he doing to me? It was like he was lining up all my inhibitions, barriers and reservations, then obliterating them with a large AK-47.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ben, but this is just too weird for me. Can we…Can we just talk about normal stuff for a while? Anything. Nonsense. Smart stuff. I don’t care. Anything but us.’

  If it was anyone else, they might have got uncomfortable or defensive, but not Ben. A foil container of pork was split between our plates, noodles heaped on the side, and we left the crispy wontons in a bowl so that we could pick at them throughout the meal–all exactly the way we used to do things.

  My wine glass didn’t spend much time on the table. The lip only stung with incredible pain for the first few slugs, before it got strangely easier. By halfway down the bottle it was only a minor twinge.

  ‘So, how’s Trish? Still terrorising the world, or did a judge do the sensible thing and lock her up for life?’

  ‘Come on, you loved her!’ In the darkest times of devastation and ‘how did I not see that coming?’ self-doubt, one of the things that had kept me going was that Trish, who has an entry in the Guinness World Records in the category of ‘World’s Most Cynical Woman’, had been as shocked as I was when the truth had emerged. Now she hated him with a passion, but that was born of loyalty rather than anything to do with him personally.

  ‘I did. Still do. Although I don’t think I’d go within a hundred yards of her now without an armed regiment behind me.’

  ‘Smart tactical move.’

  ‘And what about Stu–you and him got together yet?’

  It was said with a smile, but it was the same one that the bad guys in the movies use right before they attempt to cut off the hero’s bollocks. My relationship with Stu had been Ben’s Achilles heel, the one and only insecurity I ever saw in him. Ironic, when in hindsight he was shagging someone else the whole time. Ouch, that hurt.

  ‘How can you still think that? PLATONIC! Don’t you get that?’

  ‘No.’ Simple answer, with accompanying shrug. ‘He’s gorgeous, you’re gorgeous…’That’ll be the cataracts again. ‘And I always thought you’d make a great couple. But I’m glad you didn’t.’

  ‘We didn’t.’

  ‘Did you meet anyone else?’

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘No.’ I speared a wonton with my chopstick, desperately avoiding eye contact.

  ‘Never?’ he replied, shocked.

  ‘A couple of flings here and there, but no one special.’

  My cheeks were burning, and not just from my Olympic wine consumption. Another glass and I’d fall into the Daily Mail’s category of ‘binge drinker’.

  ‘You don’t want to talk about this either, do you?’ His powers of observation were acutely accurate, as always.

  I shook my head as I answered. ‘And I don’t walk to talk about us, what happened, you, your family, or anything that’s happened in the past.’

  His dog tags jangled as he laughed. ‘Doesn’t leave much then, does it?’

  ‘Nope.’ There was a pause and a break in the food consumption as we just stared at each other for a few seconds with daft grins on our faces.

  ‘So…’ I eventually asked, ‘banged any thugs off a train table lately?’

  It was entirely un-funny, but it was enough to tip us over from surreal to ridiculous. We both creased with laughter, the raucous, uncontrollable kind that takes on a life of its own and carries on until you can’t even remember what you were laughing at. My jaw began to ache, my stomach hurt, my throat became hoarse and the tears began to stream down my face. And that’s when I realised that somewhere in the middle of it all my tears of hilarity had turned into great big racking sobs: heaving, wrenching exclamations of pain that I just couldn’t stop.

  Ben snapped back to reality, his expression morphing from joy to horror as he dived around to my side of the table and threw his arms around me. ‘Leni, Leni, I…’

  Something snapped. Two years of hurt and pain and regret exploded, and I, for the first time in years, was white-rage livid. Furious. I pushed him away, slapping his hand off my shoulder.

  ‘How could you do that?’ I yelled, just inches from his face, sobs punctuating every few words. ‘How, Ben? How could you lie and lie? What were you thinking? How could you plan things with me, talk about the children we’d have and where we’d live and what we’d do when we were old, when all the time you were with someone else? How could you do that?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t let you go!’

  ‘That’s not enough of a reason!’

  We were screaming at each other now, our faces contorted, mine with rage, his begging for understanding. Instinctively, without thought or reason, I snatched the lily out of the vase and lashed out with it, catching him across the chin.

  Was this what it had come to? Was this really how low I’d sunk? I was hysterical, borderline manic, and attempting to batter a sergeant in Her Majesty’s marines with a cut flower.

  He grabbed my wrists. ‘Leni, please, don’t, don’t do this. Leni, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.’

  Again, something changed, ricocheting off in another direction. The roller-coaster of blind fury reached its peak, then plummeted down the other side, and before I could deploy rational thought he was lying flat on his back on the floor and I was lying on top of him, kissing him with a force I hadn’t even realised I possessed, the pain in my lip completely wiped out by the intoxicating combination of adrenalin and Merlot.

  It was Ben. Ben was back, and all I wanted to do was to cancel out every moment since he’d left and focus on right here and right now. Erm…apparently that was right here and right now, the X-rated version.

  I pushed his T-shirt up over his head, in charge for the first time, our breathing coming in shallow, frantic gasps as we clawed at each other, an irresistible power coming into play. I’d only ever seen this in movies–angry, crazy, irrational make-up sex that I knew was a really, really, REALLY bad idea, but somehow I didn’t care. My hand went to the button at the top of his trousers and with one finger I flicked it open and wrenched down the zip. Still joined at the mouth, his hands were under my vest now, my bra pushed up over my breasts as his fingers deftly, desperately massaged my nipples. He slid down, his hands around my rib cage, supporting me as his lips replaced his fingers and he sucked, his tongue flicking against the tip of my nipple, sending signals that reached my toes.

  But–and oh, get me!–I wasn’t ready to give him control yet.

  Palms flat on the floor, I pushed myself up, pulling out of his mouth, and worked my way down his body, kissing, nibbling, licking every rock-hard inch of his chest, his stomach, his hips. On my knees and straddling him now, I slippe
d my hands under the waistband of his trousers and pulled them down, his bravery kicking in again as he only mildly winced at the pain of his cock scratching against his zip as it sprung to freedom and stood erect, pointing at the ceiling. My pelvic muscles contracted at the sight of it, in all its huge, glistening, that-is-never-going-to-fit glory. In the turmoil since we’d broken up I’d managed to take the memory of how well-endowed he was and pummel it to death with what had been left of my ego.

  Underneath me, he kicked his trousers off the rest of the way, as I bent down, on all fours now, and ran my tongue up the inside of his thigh. Inch by inch I moved higher and higher, until I reached the base of his dick. I switched from long, languorous tongue movements to shorter, more precise strokes; slow, repetitive licks that ran from the bottom of his shaft to the tip, each one rewarded with an ecstatic groan. Eventually, when the moans had changed to desperate whispers of ‘Baby, oh fuck, baby,’ I rose up, clenched my lips around the tip of his cock and slid him deep inside.

  Fireworks exploded in my head, but not in the way that the A–Z of Effective Blow Jobs would have predicted. My head jerked back with the searing, unadulterated agony of a burst lip that had started to heal but had just been traumatised by a swift and unexpected meeting with a ten-inch-long penis.

  Thankfully, I managed to retreat without amputating any vital part of his manhood. Okay, so blow jobs were out, so that meant…Shit, my jeans were still on. To his obvious surprise I went back to my previous licking motion, this time massaging him with one hand while the other frantically attempted to push my jeans off.

  Success! I just had to move forward a few feet, and then I’d be right above him and I could lower myself down, taking him inside…

  No condom. Even in my befuddled, insane-with-hormones state, I could hear Stu’s voice lecturing me on the dangers of unprotected sex and making me swear on the holy bible of the Cosmopolitan Christmas Special that I would never, ever, for the rest of my life, have condom-free sex with a man who hadn’t arrived with a health certificate signed by an eminent doctor no more than one hour before.

  No, I couldn’t do it. But at the same time, I was fairly sure that there were no condoms left after my encounter with Nurse Dave.