How Not to Fall in Love, Actually

by Catherine Bennetto

  ‘Better than Scott?’

  ‘Way better.’

  She took in a sharp breath. ‘Joe! I knew I should have got to him when he was hung over and vulnerable.’

  ‘Not Joe,’ I said, frustrated. ‘Why would I kiss Joe? And he’s not even here. It was Andrew!’

  ‘Who’s Andrew?’

  ‘The hot camera guy I told you about?’

  ‘Hmmm . . .’ Helen said, rapid clicks from her keyboard echoing down the phone. ‘Can’t remember. What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s hot,’ I said, a little miffed.

  When I’d hung up from Helen I thought about what kind of person kisses a man when they’re pregnant with someone else’s child. And what kind of person did that make him? Was he a lech with some kind of pregnancy fetish? Would he tell people? Would I mind? What would they think? Did being pregnant mean I wasn’t allowed feelings of attraction for someone other than the father of the child? Was I only allowed to have those kinds of feelings once the child was out and my body was once again my own?

  When Archie came off set at the end of the day I hugged and squeezed him till he politely asked me to stop. Then Martha strutted in holding Tilly by the hand. After setting the children up with an educational puzzle, she rounded on me.

  ‘So.’ She folded her arms across her chest, leant her weight back on one foot and tapped the other. It bothered me that she wore Crocs. ‘It looks like we’ve come to the end of your little bribery game, don’t you think?’

  I nodded. ‘How’s this going to go, then?’ I said, defeated.

  ‘Well . . .’ Martha said, devoted to the upper hand once again. ‘You still have your photo,’ she gave a derisive leer. ‘And I now have an irrefutable reason to get you fired.’

  I maintained a steady gaze. I did not want her to know that I was dying of embarrassment inside.

  ‘So?’ I prompted.

  ‘So.’ Her face hardened. ‘You keep to yours and I keep to mine. We don’t like each other – no need to pretend otherwise any more. You stick to the rule book and I won’t have to tell you what to do.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I won’t send my email,’ she continued. ‘And you won’t tell anyone . . . what you know. Ever.’ She kept her steely gaze on me.

  ‘OK,’ I said quietly.

  She threw out a fist and snatched the gummy bears from my hands. ‘And no more sharing.’

  The next day was the last day of the shoot, and I couldn’t muster the excited energy everyone else seemed to have. People gave me sideways glances on set. Pity glances! I would have preferred it if they were angry. Anything but feeling sorry for me. I kept to myself for most of the day, meekly complying with Martha’s every whim. After Archie and Tilly’s last scene everybody clapped, gave the kids hugs (Archie got given a prosthetic finger as a souvenir) and went back to set to complete the final scene. Archie, Tilly, Martha and I headed back to the barn house to pack up what had been our home for the past six weeks. Dinner and drinks were being put on in the main dining hall and it was expected to be a big night. I was dreading it. The last thing I felt like doing was hang out with a load of happy drunk and/or high people all trying to get off with each other. The next morning a car would arrive to take Archie and me back to our regular lives. I folded Archie’s clothes and wondered what, if anything, was going to happen to Andrew and me. We’d only had one kiss. Yes, I was pregnant but I was still a single girl in her twenties who deserved to find happiness and love. And just because I was about to give birth (yes, I know, to another man’s child) didn’t make me any less attracted to people. Although I was aware that I, personally was substantially less attractive. Andrew was clearly man and mature enough to see past this time of my life and, I hoped, to the girl I would be on the other side.

  Later, after kissing Archie and Tilly goodnight, Martha and I left the barn house and trekked through the warm early evening to the dining room in the main house. Production had provided us with a babysitter so we could both attend the last dinner with the cast and crew. Martha walked a few hurried paces in front. Now that filming was over she no longer needed to hold up the pretence that she felt anything other than contempt for me. I entered the great hall moments after Martha had let the door swing back in my face and slunk past the backs of the crew who were congregating in circles, enjoying champagne and canapés. I was helping myself to a sparkling water when Andrew approached.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, his cheeks already aglow with alcohol consumption. He bent down and gave me a kiss on the cheek. A mere peck, but it sent a tingle down my spine nonetheless.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  Caroline came over, sipping at a glass of champagne.

  ‘How are you holding up?’ she said, rubbing my back. She’d been checking on me all day.

  ‘I’m still really embarrassed.’

  ‘Don’t be. It could have happened to anyone,’ she said with a kind smile. ‘You’re coming to Scott’s tonight, right?’

  I opened my mouth to say no but Andrew interrupted. ‘Of course she is.’

  Caroline shot him a look then turned back to me. ‘It’s the last night, everybody’s going.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Come on. I know you haven’t wanted to come any other night but it’s the last night. You have to!’

  I was stunned. All that time I’d thought I wasn’t invited and she’d thought I hadn’t wanted to come. The pregnant belly was giving out all the wrong messages.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ‘I never eat green apples. They are so high in sugar it basically just becomes fat in, like, a day.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah, by the end of the day you’ll be, like . . . fatter.’

  ‘Excuse me, I’ve got to . . .’ I realised that neither of the undernourished girls who’d played Frightened Campers cared if I stayed or went. I was rotund, unfamous and irrelevant. ‘I have to go speak Dolphin to that candle and play The Blue Danube on those empty peanut casings.’

  ‘Bye,’ one said, looking vaguely surprised I was there at all.

  I pushed through the heaving mass of bodies. Cast and crew were drunk, high and happy. Scott zoomed through the crowd in a tight white t-shirt that said ‘Fuck me, I’m famous’, checking people’s drinks. He walked past with a tray of beer, made sure I was happy with the choice of nonalcoholic drinks with true sincerity, then boogied through the throng. Having subsisted on raspberries, green juice and undressed lettuce leaves for the past few months of scantily clad filming, Scott and Melody, who’d choppered in for the last few days of filming, had fallen upon a table of carbs like a pair of ravenous Labradors. Hot dogs, pizza and burgers served in the whitest, fluffiest, cheapest of buns with lashings of electric-red tomato sauce. The rarity of the treat had Melody in full-cheeked raptures. For me it was just a Thursday. I caught sight of Martha, who, contrary to what her size may have implied, had some serious skills in the dance department. One of the lighting guys shimmied on his knees Dirty Dancing-style while Martha gyrated a rap dancer’s routine round him. Despite my earlier reservations, and the fact that I was the only person who had not ingested enough vodka to lend flight to a small aircraft, I had fun. Andrew flitted around the edges of my evening, catching my eye while he was at the bar, grinning while he danced with a group of costume girls, laughing at me while I attempted the same. It wasn’t easy. All I was really capable of doing was rooting my feet to one spot and swinging from side to side. If I were a tad too enthusiastic I would lose the one-sided arrangement I had with gravity and lurch dangerously into someone. After Claire sang a seriously fabulous rock rendition of ‘Moonlight Shadow’, with a shirtless and shoeless Scott on drums, the iPod was back on and the serious partying began. Treks to the marble kitchen, where lines of coke were laid out like hors d’oeuvres, were more frequent and less covert. I’d never seen the bag of Es, but judging by the number of people who told me they ‘Really, really loved me. No, seriously. I really do’, I
knew they were in attendance.

  Much later than I’d planned and much cheerier than I’d anticipated, I hugged Caroline goodnight and watched her head back into the party, absorbed by the heaving, lively mass. Martha was somewhere in there. I’d last seen her being loose-wristed with a bottle of tequila as she poured an already inebriated grip truck driver a shot. I headed towards the balcony stairs, sure I’d be treated to the sounds of the driver’s orgasm in a matter of hours. Unless Martha was doing her tequila/erectile calculations wrong and she took him over the edge. A girl can hope.

  ‘Do you like to “move it, move it”?’ Andrew materialised before me, pulsing his hips to the current song.

  I laughed. ‘Occasionally. But right now I’m “moving it, moving it” to bed.’

  ‘Noooo,’ he said. ‘Come dance with me!’ His eyes sparkled and had that unfocused haziness men get two beers before they become drunk and useless. He ran his hand down the back of my arm and stopped at my elbow, cupping it in his hand. ‘Come on. One dance.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘No, I physically can’t.’ I pointed to my stomach. ‘I can only stand and sway.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So,’ I said, slipping my elbow out of his grip. He caught my hand in his. ‘I also have to be up with Archie at 7 a.m. Plus I’m growing the baby some fingernails at the moment and if I don’t get enough sleep I’ll do it wrong and the fingernails will come out on its nose. Do you want to be the reason my baby has no nails?’

  Andrew glanced back inside, then swayed his attention back to me.

  ‘I’ll walk you.’ His thumb stroked the back of my hand.

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘I know. But I want to. Wait here, I’ll get another beer for the trip.’

  He pushed his way through the crowd and, moments later, emerged with two more beers. He shunted one in his back pocket and cracked open the other, flicking the lid off the balcony, then followed me down the stairs and across the spongy forest floor. When we reached the densest part of the forest, where we could no longer see the moon, Andrew reached for my hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I stopped to face him.

  Flutters of expectancy danced in the base of my throat. With the determined confidence that comes from being several beers past merry, Andrew slid into what my paisley-skirt-wearing social science teacher called ‘my personal space bubble’. Nervy and jittery, I stepped back and hit up against a rough tree trunk.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about how you kissed me yesterday,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ I moved my face to get out of the stream of his beer breath. ‘I wanted to apologise for that, actually. I didn’t—’

  ‘You didn’t want to?’ He took a step closer and rested his hand with the beer bottle on the tree above my head. His face hovered over mine.

  ‘No . . . well, yes but . . .’

  He leant down; his lips brushed the side of my cheek.

  ‘I want to fuck you.’ His breath was hot in my ear. At least he was to the point.

  ‘I . . . I think I should probably . . .’ I mumbled, my heart thudding so hard I was sure it was audible.

  He pulled back.

  ‘You are so . . .’ His gaze skimmed the exposed tops of my breasts before settling on my face. ‘Do you even know how sexy you are?’

  I definitely wanted to kiss him. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about sleeping with him. But I wanted to do it when I wasn’t pregnant. Whoever was in charge of dealing out my hand had majorly screwed up the order of the cards. I should have met Andrew before I got pregnant by Ned and shagged him then. Or, you know, not got pregnant, met Andrew and then done the shagging.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ I said.

  Andrew lowered his lids and peeled his lips back into a knowing grin. I noticed his eye teeth. Sharp and pointy. I had an inexplicably strong attraction to pointy eye teeth.

  ‘I see the way you look at me,’ he said.

  ‘I’m just interested in how you . . . frame up.’

  Andrew looked down at my breasts again. ‘I’ll frame you up.’

  He was plastered, and traversing the very fine line between exceedingly sexy and exceedingly creepy. One part of me wanted to grab him by the waistband of his jeans and get down with the reverse cowboy on the forest floor. The other much more rational side (where had that come from?) was repelled by the thought of the reverse cowboy and was making little dry-retching noises at the thought of my naked pregnant belly hefting back and forth with the thrust of frenzied forest-floor sex. Andrew moved his face closer to me in stages, assessing my reaction with each inch. I kept my eyes on his until he got so close I lost focus. Then we were kissing. His stubble grazed my skin. He pushed closer but was impeded by my pregnant belly. My pregnant belly! What was I doing? I put my hands on his chest and prised him off. His eyes begged, his face pained with wanting. Knowing I was the cause was a powerful turn-on.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ he murmured. He dipped his head and placed tiny kisses along the cool flesh of my neck.

  ‘It just doesn’t feel right . . .’

  Andrew trailed his lips over my collarbone.

  ‘. . . because of the . . .’ I swallowed as he ran the tip of his tongue up the other side of my neck and kissed my earlobe ‘. . . baby.’

  It had been years since I’d been this turned on from just kissing. Ned was more of a ‘get in, get it done, get back on eBay’ kind of guy.

  ‘When was the last time you had sex?’ he said. ‘Don’t you want it? Don’t you miss it?’ He ran his hand down my back and grabbed a fistful of my left butt cheek. The force of his grip had my breath running ragged. He bent down and kissed me again. I put a hand round his neck and pulled him harder against me. Encouraged, he dropped the bottle he’d been holding and clasped my breast. Beer hissed on the ground by our feet. Yes, I missed it! Back up at the party the music changed to something drum and bass-y, intensifying the atmosphere. I reasoned with myself. Andrew and I were both consenting adults. What we were doing was morally fine. I wanted this. But did my baby want this? I pushed him away again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I panted. ‘I just don’t know . . .’

  He squeezed my breast, his thumb moving over the cloth of my dress making rapid circles round my nipple.

  ‘Don’t you want to?’

  The strap of my dress fell off my shoulder; the bra strap went with it. Still making circles, he leant down and kissed my neck.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I . . . I’m not sure now’s the right . . . time . . .’

  I wasn’t presenting my argument convincingly. I uttered the words but my actions, fingers dragging through his hair and my eager kisses, said otherwise.

  ‘Just tell me to stop,’ he said in my ear, his voice low and intense.

  He straightened and, with his eyes locked on mine, ran a single finger down my chest, pulling at the neckline of my dress. I watched as he pulled the fabric more. More. His finger caught my bra, all the while watching me, giving me the opportunity to stop. His eyes stayed on mine as my dress and bra dropped down, fully exposing my breast. My nipple stood erect in the cool air. I gave an almost imperceptible nod. Andrew grinned, then bent down and took my nipple in his mouth, sucking and biting. I gripped the back of his head and moaned, succumbing to the zings of pleasure. I guided his face up and kissed him, now with heated purpose. I was edgy with wanting.

  ‘God, you are so fucking sexy,’ he groaned.

  I reached for his belt.

  ‘Pregnant women are so horny.’

  I struggled with the buckle.

  ‘Everything’s so swollen.’ He moved my hands out of the way and undid the belt himself. ‘My wife used to come so easily.’

  His what?

  I pulled back. ‘What?’

  He’d undone his fly. He stood motionless; a single thumb tucked into the waistband of his fitted white boxers.

  ‘You’re married?’

 
; He swayed on his feet and blinked. ‘Ah . . .’

  ‘Oh my god!’

  Everything snapped into focus. I was leaning against a tree in the middle of a forest, my left breast hanging out, the strap of my maternity bra dangling off my shoulder, wide and functional like a mountaineering harness, and Andrew swaying before me, a huge erection showing through his boxers, his eyes glazed. And my pregnant stomach filled the void between us. My pregnant stomach.

  ‘You’re fucking married?!’ I said, tucking my shameful nudity away.

  Andrew broke out of his stupor. ‘Hey,’ he cajoled. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘No, I didn’t! I would never have . . .’ I shook my head and pushed him away from me.

  ‘I’m OK if you’re OK,’ he slurred, stumbling on a tree root.

  I hurried down the forest path, twisting my dress into position. I was even more disgusted with myself when I heard the crack and hiss of a beer opening. I looked back and saw Andrew hoisting his jeans up with one hand, beer in the other, struggling to stand straight. He wasn’t even going to bother to follow me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ‘I need a rest. Can we stop?’ I said, spying a bench seat a few yards ahead.

  ‘Sure.’ Joe lobbed Brutus’s stick miles ahead with ease. ‘It’s been about two minutes since your last half-hour rest; you must be exhausted.’

  ‘I’ll have you know that not only am I carrying around the equivalent of a fully stuffed piece of carry-on luggage but I’m also putting the finishing touches on a DNA helix. And growing eyelashes. It’s very exhausting.’

  ‘You’re a creative genius.’

  ‘I’m practically a scientist.’

  We arrived at the bench seat and I oh-ed and ah-ed as I lowered myself onto it.

  ‘It’s a good thing I’m not easily embarrassed. You make extremely loud sex noises every time you sit down,’ Joe said, sitting next to me.

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Do too. That couple over there thought you really, really liked this seat.’