One Take Only

by Lynsey M. Stewart

  “Did you reply?”

  “I sent a thumbs up emoji.”

  “Bloody hell, Will!” Stacey got up and struck a hands-on-hips pose. Never good. “I may take back the job offer because you are a waste of space and I don’t need that at my gaff. Stop moping about, bite the bullet and do something!” She sighed and dropped the frustration. “She’s coming home. You’ll have to face her at some point. Whatever happens next between you, even if it’s nothing, her biggest fear is losing you as a friend.” She knelt down before me, rested her hands on my knees. “Forget everything else. Park it for a while and remember your friendship.”

  I nodded. Everything she said made sense. “I’ll go back to my parents so that we’re not thrown together.”

  “That’s a good plan.”

  “You still want me to start work on Monday?” I asked, just to be sure. She frowned. “Just checking.”

  “Does being a knobhead come naturally or do you have to work at it?”

  28

  Skye

  “Thank you for picking me up from the airport.”

  “No problem,” Stacey said.

  I put the flowers down on the kitchen table. “And thanks for these. It was a lovely touch.” Stacey started laughing. “Particularly the banner saying welcome home from the sex clinic.”

  “Matt’s idea,” she replied.

  “Such a joker,” I said bumping her with my hip.

  “I’m cooking tonight.”

  “Is that wise?” I asked, knowing that the last time Stacey attempted to roast a chicken she put it in the oven still in its plastic wrapper, thinking it was a great way to keep it moist.

  “You’re not the only one who has taken a few months to grow.” She pulled out a large frozen lasagne from the freezer and pierced the lid frantically with a fork. “I’m practically Gordon Ramsey.”

  “I’m sure he’d be very proud.”

  “I’ve tidied the flat, just how you like it. I’ve even washed your sheets because…” She looked panicked and started to waffle. “Erm…because…I thought you would like fresh sheets. Yep. No other reason.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, shrugging.

  “I’m going to drop my bags in my room. I’ll be out for this amazing culinary experience in a few.”

  Being back in the flat was a strange mix of comfort and agitation. I wanted to be home, felt it deeply, but I wondered if the work I’d put into myself felt more profound because I was in a different place? Would I revert back to the old Skye now that I was back in Brighton. Ready to push people away before they pushed me?

  The door to my bedroom was slightly open. More fresh flowers were on my bedside table, the smell of fresh linen was in the air. Everything was tidy and polished. I dropped my bags onto the floor, opening one to pull out my face wipes. Sitting down at my dressing table, I started wiping off my make-up but noticed immediately that the table was covered in Post-It notes.

  You are enough.

  You are loved.

  You are unstoppable.

  I believe in you.

  Your potential is unlimited.

  I picked them off one by one and cradled them in my hands. Will’s handwriting. Reminders.

  He’d been here. He remembered.

  “Stace?”

  She popped her head around the door, tomato sauce smeared on her cheek. “Yeah.”

  “Has Will been staying here while I’ve been gone?”

  She took a deep breath. “Yep. For some of the time anyway.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s gone back to his parents,” she replied, unable to give me eye contact.

  “Why?”

  “He wondered if you…needed space.”

  I laughed. “Haven’t I had enough?”

  She came behind me, took the notes out of my hand, smiling as she read them. “I told him to call you.”

  “He left notes instead.”

  “When is this going to stop?” she asked as she put her arms around me, resting her chin on my shoulder. “Remember how we talked about Matt being the right man at the wrong time?” I nodded. “Doesn’t that apply to you and Will? You needed time to work on yourself and now…it’s right.”

  “I’ll call him.” She looked surprised but nodded. “Can you leave me for a while?” She blew me a kiss as she closed the door.

  I picked up my phone and held it, wondering what my first words to him would be when my last words had been a flimsy goodbye.

  Love had always been complicated for me. It was a wonderful addition to my life when it was there. Platonic love from my grandmother and Elliott. Quick and crazy love with men that were never quite the right fit. The love wrapped in friendship with Stace…and then Will. I was always terrified that it would leave me like the other versions of love I’d experienced. When Will told me he loved me, it became too much to bear. The heaviness of wondering when he’d leave after he saw the real me.

  But that was it.

  The secret.

  The clue.

  He’d already seen the real me.

  The scary sides, the good, the weak and vulnerable. The funny, loud sides. Every single piece of me was unfolded for him. Slowly, over years, but so fucking true. It was the equivalent of peeling the skin off my bones and showing him what lay underneath.

  In Amsterdam, I talked. I let myself listen to my truths rather than hushing them quiet. Through group counselling sessions I heard other people’s stories and walked with them a while. I saw people at their worst, through their lowest moments and was fortunate to be part of their highest highs. I shed the selfish side of me and looked through different eyes until I realised that I was tired of fighting. I had a good heart. I deserved to feel that good heart working, stretching and breathing and full of life. My counsellor said I owed it to myself to create a life I wouldn’t look back on with regret. To think of the moment I would take a final breath and ask myself what I’d like that last thought to be. I wanted that thought to be the certainty that I’d loved and been loved. That Elliott’s death shouldn’t be the marker of my life.

  I told her that someone used to say my veins were full of rainbow syrup and she smiled and said I know exactly what they mean.

  My hands shook as I found his name in my contacts. The ringing seemed to last days…long months, a year.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey.”

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “I’m good.”

  One word here, a few words there.

  In other words, torture.

  “Are you home?”

  “Yeah. Just got back and found your messages.”

  “Reminders,” he corrected.

  I nodded against the phone. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” he replied.

  “So…”

  “How’s the film going?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah, great. It’s all finished,” I replied. “I erm, wanted to ask if you’d like an invitation to the premiere?”

  “Is that why you’re calling?” he asked.

  I bit my lip. No. I love you. I want to see you. “Yeah.”

  “Oh,” he replied, disappointment in one word.

  “And…it would be good to see you.”

  “Would it?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I whispered. I didn’t want to get upset over the phone, but I couldn’t read him. He felt like a book written in another language, a crossword I didn’t have the letters for.

  “I don’t know what to say, Skye…what you want to hear from me.”

  “Anything,” I replied, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried to stop the tears.

  He went silent for a second, I could only hear his breaths. “I…I want to say…”

  “Yes?”

  Another breath.

  “I couldn’t help seeing the spark in you that you felt no one else tried to look for.”

  I dropped the phone. The sobs taking over. His word
s finding their way to my vulnerabilities and holding them all safely in his hands. He said everything I needed to hear and for once I didn’t question if I deserved it, I knew without doubt that I did.

  29

  Skye

  The night of the premiere had taken a lifetime to arrive. Not only Elliott’s lifetime but what felt like mine, too.

  Robson had taken over the arrangements and Margot had finalised the film, slicing it together, editing pieces I wasn’t sure about. I’d noticed they had some weird vibe going on. She giggled in his presence and he blushed down the line of his throat. They were getting it on, and I was happy the film had brought them together. I felt like it had a habit of doing that. Finding love in many different ways.

  I tapped my pocket, feeling my notes of the speech that I’d slaved over for steady days and long nights. I knew they contained everything I wanted to say. They were together with Elliott’s note. The one I found on the bed beside him. Two keynote speeches with very different ends.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Skye, the woman who had a vision and didn’t stop until she made this film her own.” Robson stepped back from the podium and joined in with the applause from the audience. I felt slightly spacey, that the film had been seen and received well by the audience full of porn industry giants, but more so now that I had to make a speech. A speech I’d spent days perfecting.

  “Thank you,” I said, catching Stacey’s eye as she clapped and whooped. Matt stuck his thumb up, but the glaringly obvious empty seat next to him made my stomach flip. Will hadn’t arrived, and despite assurances that he wanted to be at the premiere, he wasn’t in his seat.

  “Oh my goodness, this all feels like it’s been a long time coming. Not just the length of time it took to put it together, but the journey before that. The one that brought me here.” I looked to Dr Chris, sitting in the front row who was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. It had a rainbow flag embroidered in the corner and the bright colours were so vivid to me, it was like Elliott was shining a light on them.

  “My brother, Elliott took his life when he struggled to accept his sexuality. I made it my mission to make his short life mean something. I started volunteering at the LGBTQ+ sexual health clinic – where we had been given so much support – and through this work I realised that young people are continuing to struggle in more ways than I had anticipated. Social media and instant connection are powerful. It’s both positive and negative, hard and soft. It has an impact. Young people are comparing each other. There is so much competition and most of it is unobtainable. The young people I work with are chasing perfection, whether it be body image, lifestyle, relationships or sex.” I took a breath and smiled before carrying on. “Porn is readily available. People are accessing it at a younger age, all tastes are catered for, all levels of soft and hardcore porn can be found with the click of a mouse or the tap of a screen. I’m not against the porn industry, but I am against the acceptance that in reality, sexual relationships have an anything goes mentality. This film is about the promotion of mutual consent and safe sex. It’s about taking the stigma out of testing yourself for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. I wanted to show that it should be an acceptable part of self-care and sexual health. We want conversations to happen as a result of this film.” Margot held up her hands and whistled. “I didn’t want to be the next big thing in porn.” I laughed, stepping back from the podium and collecting myself. “I’m not going to change the porn industry. There will always be films catering for all tastes and kink, but if I can deliver one thing, it’s the message of safe sex and that porn doesn’t have to be nasty or scandalous. It can be beautiful and made out of love.”

  I heard a door at the back of the cinema. Mickey opened it and his silver sequinned jumpsuit, catching the sparkles of the large chandeliers above was eclipsed by the person standing next to him. Will looked around until he found me in the middle of my speech standing at the front of the packed cinema. He was holding a bunch of red roses and he held them up, offering them to me from so far away. I smiled as Mickey looped his arm with his and took him to the seat that had been waiting for him since the beginning of the night.

  Oh, man, he looked good. His white shirt framed him like a boss. Dark denim jeans, formal shoes. His hair was longer. Curly. He’d tried to tame it, but it had given him a delicious just-rolled-out-of-bed look. His face had the best kind of scruff and he was wearing his Clark Kent glasses. I placed my hands on the podium and tried to take deep breaths, remembering a breathing technique where you imagine you’re blowing a bubble until it popped.

  I laughed as Stace gave him a death stare and mouthed, Where the fuck have you been?

  “Before I go,” I continued. “I wanted to say that this film came from a place of love. In fact, it was surrounded by love. The love for my brother and keeping his memory alive. My love for Doctor Chris and the clinic. Reid and James, a real-life couple who were kind enough to show their love on camera.” I watched as they kissed, and laughed as they stood and took a bow on my avid encouragement. “Thank you so much for being real and raw. The importance of having an emotional connection is non-existent in sex education and it was so important to me that we captured it within this film.” More applause, more cheers, more whoops. I waited until it calmed down and there was an opportunity for me to meet Will’s gaze and talk only to him.

  “Love grew for me because of this film, with a man who should be credited as joint producer because there were so many ways he helped me through this. I found a clear focus because of him. He showed me what sex should be like.” I looked up and found him staring at me, he couldn’t take his eyes away. “We did a lot of pissing about, Will.” He smiled. “Denial was the culprit. I didn’t want to ruin a good thing with sex, but we didn’t ruin it. We only increased what we had…doubled it in size. Tripled it!”

  The crowd cheered again, and Matt slapped Will on the back. He didn’t flinch. Eyes on me. Hooded. Lustful. Full of wonder. “I thought I messed it up.” He fiddled with his glasses. “I was scared because I’d never had anyone stand by me like him, believe in me, encourage me in everything I do. Did I fuck us up? Well, he’s here and he’s smiling at me now so, maybe not.” He shook his head and it was all I needed from him.

  You didn’t fuck us up. I’m here.

  “I just want to say one more thing about sex. No one can underestimate connection. Whether it’s shiny and new or a weathered relationship that just fits. Connections happen all the time. Grab them. Don’t let them slip away. It can change the rest of your life and enhance you beyond the point of recognition.”

  I waited for quiet again and held my hand across my heart. “My brother wrote a beautiful note to me. I don’t call it a suicide note. Not since I met a wonderful bereavement counsellor who helped me to understand my grief in a totally different way. I call it his farewell. He said I couldn’t have done more for him. Loved him. Cared for him. Made him laugh even in the tough times. He told me not to see his death as an end but more of a passing through.” I dropped my eyes to his farewell that I’d brought with me for moral support. I ran my fingers over the paper and looked out to the audience as I finished my speech.

  “I dedicate this film to him.”

  Will

  She worked the room like she was born to. Shaking hands, smiling, talking with passion about the project and she was in her element. I stood back and watched in awe. I knew she was doing what she had to do, but the tiny glances and little smiles she kept giving me showed me that I was always on her mind.

  “Alright, mate?” Matt put his hand on my shoulder and handed me a bottle of beer.

  “Just watching poetry in motion.”

  “Jesus, you are in love,” he replied. “Shouldn’t you be mingling? You are the cameraman.”

  “I’m lying low on that. Don’t want to upset my new boss.”

  He laughed. “She’s a tyrant, that’s for sure.” He offered Stacey a look that I was sure resembled my
own when my eyes fell on my girl. “Listen, people forget. My escorting is rarely mentioned now and from what I saw tonight, it’s a beautifully shot film that happens to feature a couple having sex. It’s not porn…it’s art.”

  “Thanks,” I said trancelike as Skye made her way towards me. She looked like an angel, a dirty angel. Her white suit offering an air of masculinity that was completely blown out of the water when I saw what was underneath. A white corset, see-through and covered in sequins. Collar bone and boob curves. Pale, perfect skin. Heaven. It came down to a point just above the place I wanted to worship tonight. She dropped her eyes to see where my attention was. I wanted her, her pussy, her snark, but most of all, I wanted her love.

  “William,” she said, a smile tugging at her lips.

  “Sorry I’m late. I didn’t need to see the film again. I can relive it when I close my eyes.” She rolled her eyes and smiled. God, I’d missed that. I pulled her by her hand, fitting her body against mine and whispered into her ear. “Do you know how brave you are?”

  “Beginning to,” she replied.

  “You look fucking edible.” A hitch of breath and tilt of her head told me I’d got her.

  “So do you,” she whispered, her hand sliding round to rest on my arse.

  “I can’t find the words to tell you how much I’ve missed you.”

  “Take me somewhere more private,” she said, as I imagined ripping that corset from her body. “Not for that, perv. To talk.”