Bad Actor

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I’m dunking the teabag under the water with a teaspoon and swilling it around when a cramp hits me down below and I groan. I reach inside my handbag, grab some ibuprofen and swill it back with my freshly made tea.

  The pain is bad and not normal for me.

  This is weeks of pent-up anguish finally unleashed.

  I didn’t even feel any pain during the train journey; I must have been oblivious, just so excited to be with him again.

  It hits me that I don’t have to feel guilty about throwing a sicky now. A period this heavy just about counts as grounds for a day off, especially all the feelings I’m now experiencing…

  The sight of blood is bringing it all back to me.

  After my miscarriage I lay in bed for a couple of weeks crying, then not crying, but all the time feeling like I should be crying even when I wasn’t. Really, all I felt was numb.

  Perhaps my body rejected Paul. Now that I’m past caring about him, maybe I have to look at it like that. I’m past him.

  I went for a thorough check-up after the miscarriage, just to make sure, but they said I’m fertile, no STDs, but perhaps I should go back on the pill just to take the edge off. I didn’t go back on it, despite them urging me to, like the first thing I’d do is try to have sex again straight away. I couldn’t even think about having sex ever again.

  My mother and Lauren visited me during my incapacitation and looked at me like I was some slut. They’re both as much of a prude as the other. One good thing happened, though. Mum realised she was too hard on us growing up and should’ve encouraged us to want more for ourselves. She only admitted that when Lauren was out of the room, I think because she knows it’s too late for my elder sister, but perhaps not for me. Mum told me to forget Paul and never think of him. She warned if he came back into my life, she would unleash unholy Catholic hell and I believed her.

  Meanwhile my father has never done well with women’s issues and didn’t visit me at all. I went for Sunday lunch recently though and he asked me if I needed anything. I said I needed a hug and some money for a new mattress. He gave me a ten-minute hug and a cheque for £1000 my mother was furious about. I cashed it and bought a new mattress, all new bedding and new pillows, duvet and throws. The works. My bloodstained mattress got taken away by the council and I thought I’d never have to think of it or look at it ever again. How wrong was I.

  It will always be a part of me.

  The thing that most let me down was my own womb and she’s come back into season, hasn’t she? To remind me she’s still there. Maybe I am fertile… maybe Paul’s sperm was rotten. Maybe it wasn’t the right time and I was stressed with work. Perhaps it was entirely the wrong person. All I know is that love hurt. It hurts. And I do want another baby, the nurses were right. I feel like it’ll be the only thing to cancel out the pain. I’m also a slave to my urges at the end of the day, designed to procreate and desperate to fulfil my potential in that department.

  I finish my tea, wander to the wardrobes and dig out a huge man-sized hairy cardigan of Theo’s. I pull it around my shoulders, crawl into bed surrounded by his scent and feel grateful when the sky darkens outside and a few splashes of rain hits the windows. I cry a little until I fall asleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  ~LILY~

  Even when he arrives home I refuse to move and get out of bed. He calls my name but I don’t answer so he switches on all the lights and I groan.

  “Ooh, what’s going on?” he chuckles.

  I pull the sheet above my head and he turns the lights down, switching on just the tall lamp in the corner so there’s enough light for him to move around without falling over.

  I hear his jeans hit the floor and then there’s a huge hunk of man bouncing across the mattress towards me. He gets under the covers and spoons up behind me, arms all around my body.

  “God, fuck, I was hoping you’d be waiting for me in bed.”

  I freeze and he definitely notices, pulling back from me a little. He keeps his arms around me but removes the bulge in his shorts from the dip between my buttocks.

  “We got done earlier than expected so I’m home for the evening, or what’s left of it.”

  “What time is it?” I mumble.

  “Eight o’clock. I know loads of places we could eat but I could rustle us something up.”

  He smooths his hand over my bottom and finds me wearing bucket knickers. I never wear buckets. Then he notices the sanitary pad.

  “Oh,” he murmurs, moving his hand away. “I see.”

  I don’t know why, but I burst into uncontrollable, snotty, gross, disgusting tears.

  He turns me over, pulls my face onto his bare chest and kisses my forehead.

  “Hey, hey, hey.”

  I wrap my leg over his waist and cry into his smooth chest. He’s hard and beautiful and not as hairy as most of my former lovers. He’s different in every way, a sort of unexpected pleasure – not my original type, though I’ve definitely been converted.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “I lied to you. Now you’re going to leave me.” I continue to sob because it’s true and I’m a mess.

  “I’m not leaving you. Tell me the lie.” He strokes my hair, keeping a tight hold of me.

  “I’m not back on the pill. I mean, I’m definitely not pregnant, but I’m also definitely not on the pill either. I lied.”

  “Okay, so I’ll wear condoms from now on, just to be safe.”

  “For how long?” I snuffle into him.

  “I don’t know, but I want children eventually.”

  “How many?” I pout.

  “I don’t know, maybe three? Four if we’re feeling it.”

  “FOUR!” I yell, half-joking.

  Then the room falls quiet.

  “Why did you lie?” he asks.

  “Because… I… I don’t know.”

  “You do know.”

  “Maybe so I didn’t spoil the moment at Brown’s?”

  He sighs and waits for me to tell him the truth.

  “Because I want a baby. I want lots of babies, Theo. I always have.”

  “I know, kitten.” He continues cuddling, kissing and lavishing attention on me. “But you need time to heal your wounds and your heart. It’ll happen when it’s meant to. There’s no need to rush. Neither of us is going anywhere. We both have time.”

  “I know, but…”

  He rolls to his side and we face one another. My face feels hot and even hotter when he touches my cheek. “But what, kitten?”

  “It feels like a baby might make everything better again.”

  I hate myself and try to hide my tears against his chest.

  “There’s something I need to ask—” He stops himself, but I hear his breathing change, his heart become anxious.

  “What?” I look up and into his fretful eyes.

  “With Paul… did you try and get pregnant without telling him you’d stopped taking the pill?”

  My chin wobbles furiously. “Yes.”

  “Why?” he asks gently.

  “He didn’t ask me if I was still on the pill. I came off it after what he did to me at Susan and Adam’s wedding. I didn’t want to have sex with anyone ever again. But when he came back into my life…”

  His face twists with worry. “Lily, why did you do it?”

  Emotion wells up inside of me and my face goes numb. Tears spring from my eyes without any help at all and my tongue eventually decides to move itself. “Because I thought a baby would keep him with me, because I thought it’d heal him.”

  I wipe the tears from my eyes and struggle to contain my ugly crying. He holds both of my cheeks and tells me, “When we have a baby, it won’t be to fix anything. Our baby will be born because its parents love one another dearly and that little life will be ours because we nurtured our love. Our children will be the result of our peace and happiness. You just have to give this time. I’m going to show you it can all be so different. You just have to wait and see.”
r />   “I know,” I say shakily, “I know. I love you.”

  He kisses me hard on the mouth. “I love you more.”

  We enjoy a few minutes of peace and quiet before I ask, “So, how’s the play?”

  “It’s fine, but we’re not talking about the play. Your job tonight is to get me thinking about anything but the play so I can just sleep without thinking about the play.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, I like your place. It’s very you. I got here and wandered around, just knowing it was all you.”

  “And a bit of Mum,” he admits.

  “The ottoman?”

  “Well, yeah…”

  “The pans and the reading corner and the huge tapestry?”

  “Yeah,” he chuckles. “But the shelves were already here. I bought the bed.”

  “I must have slept four hours on this thing, it’s bloody good.”

  “Why thank you.” He rubs my bum but only because he knows it feels good to have my booty rubbed. “I also picked out the coffee table.”

  “I see.” I restrain my laughing.

  “A friend of Mother’s owns this building, you see.”

  “Now it all makes sense,” I giggle.

  “I got a slightly reduced rate but really, it’s still fucking extortionate. Mum paid the deposit for me on the proviso I hold down this job and see it through. She was pretty firm about that. Told me she’d cut me off and everything if I didn’t succeed.”

  “She didn’t?” I gasp, though I know he’s joking.

  “Well…” He kisses my temple, his body heat making me warm through. The temperature really drops on cool evenings in these big old apartments. “Do you want me to put on the wood burner?”

  “No, no, it’s still summer.” But I do love me a fire.

  “Let me build milady a fire?” he asks, sincere.

  “You twisted my arm.”

  I sit up in bed and watch him stride over to the living area where there’s a wood burner in the middle that goes up into the ceiling. Earlier I thought it was just an industrial pipe or something, but maybe it was converted.

  “Come and sit,” he asks, after he’s got it going.

  He grabs some throws from the ottoman and lays them out on the couch for me. I get comfy and watch the flames dancing inside the glass. Underneath the metal coffee table are a few hidden logs. He must stock up with more come winter.

  He disappears around the corner and I hear the wardrobe doors open and close. He reappears wearing baggy shorts and a white t-shirt. Soon enough, he’s throwing food together in the kitchen, chopping and frying and all sorts. I’m mesmerised by the comfort of a roaring flame and by everything he represents, such as comfort, loyalty, warmth and trust. Maybe I just need to relearn how to be happy again without trying to force everything.

  After a while he says, “Dinner will be ready in five.”

  I’m jolted from my hypnotic staring contest with the flames and look up, noticing the oven hood has been switched on, there’s the smell of noodles and Thai green curry in the air and he’s opened a bottle of wine.

  “I’ll pop to the loo before dinner.”

  I get the nasty business out of the way but this time it doesn’t feel as traumatic as it did before. When I return to the room, dinner is waiting on the coffee table and he’s already got his feet propped up in one corner of the sectional seating, making himself comfy. Plate balanced on his hand, he’s blowing on the hot food and willing it to cool. He looks famished.

  “I know I said for us not to talk about the play but I just remembered Gustav has requested you join us tomorrow night.”

  “Erm, why?” I exclaim, between eating his delicious food and washing it down with sav blanc.

  “He wants you there, don’t ask me why. Something about seeing if you like the new version.”

  “Oh my god, no!” I almost drop my plate as it all comes back to me… how I was telling some stranger the play was a bit farcical and, then, the guy turned out to be the director. “That’s why the extra hours this week.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” he explains, “but only because I wanted it to be a surprise when you saw it next, but then earlier this evening he gripped my neck and basically said if I don’t get you there tomorrow he’s going to do untold things to me backstage.”

  I tip my head back laughing. “What a rotten bastard.”

  “It’s good, that’s all I’m gonna say, it’s good.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t tomorrow like the bigwig premiere? For the bigwigs? The scary critics blah blah blah.”

  “He’s saving you a seat next to him, Lily.”

  I touch my hand to my mouth. “Shit.”

  “Shit,” he repeats. “He always saves a seat for his dead mother. Now it’s yours. Big shoes to fill, Lily. Big shoes.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I’ll have to buy a dress now. I brought only dirty lingerie with me and jeans to travel in.”

  I look at the place where they’re stuck in the machine and wince. He seems to catch me looking over there. Strewth.

  “Go and look in the wardrobe, to the far right. I was passing a shop in the week and thought of you. Bought it just in case. Tags are still on and I still have the recei—”

  I’ve got up and retrieved it before he’s finished.

  It’s a pale pink shirt dress, very short actually, but with long sleeves and a matching belt. The price is hidden by permanent marker but the dress is dry clean only.

  “Pink isn’t my colour.”

  “Oh, I think it is.”

  I take off his cardigan and my blouse and pull on the dress in the middle of the room. It is very short, but does still cover my derriere. I walk into the corridor leading to the bathroom where there’s a full-length mirror and check myself out.

  Pink, eh? Kind of does suit me.

  “What do you think?” he asks with glee.

  “I don’t know… it’s slutty.”

  “I like slutty. Plus, it shows off your best assets.”

  “What are those then?” I stand looking down at him, hand on hip.

  “Those mega Amazonian legs. You’d better show them off more. I demand it.”

  I frown. “They’re twig legs.”

  “You’re bloody ridiculous. They’re the best legs I’ve ever seen.”

  “Fine,” I huff, not taking off the dress as I sit back down and carefully eat my dinner.

  “You like it then?” he whispers after a while.

  I stretch my legs out across the sofa and put my feet in his lap. “I’ll need shoes.”

  He’s grinning wildly. “There are loads of shops on your doorstep.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Lily?”

  I look up at him, spitting sarcastically, “Yes, master?”

  He winks. “That’s better.”

  I smile slyly, finishing the last of my dinner.

  Once I’m done, I clear the plates away and he smacks my bum as I walk past. He fed me so now I get to wash the dishes in his beautiful big double sink.

  I’m careful not to get my new dress wet, even as I wash up his many pots and pans.

  “There’s a bit of chocolate in the cupboard,” he says, “I swore I thought you’d have sniffed it out already.”

  I paw through his cupboards, not really knowing my way around, when I come across a rather empty shelf with just a big box of Thornton’s chocolates waiting right there for me.

  “You must have known, boy.”

  Dishes done, I get comfy on the sofa next to him and we tuck into the chocolates together, wrapped up tightly and cuddled beneath one of the throws.

  “How’s it going with your transfer?” he asks.

  “Laughable,” I grunt. “They can’t decide whose jurisdiction I’m under. I’m on secondment from the NHS so the police have said I need to apply through the NHS, even though the work I’m doing is for the police and I’m proposing to still continue working for the police. I’m tempted to te
ll them all to go fuck themselves.”

  I snigger like I’m joking, but a part of me isn’t.

  I haven’t been happy since I qualified and I don’t know why.

  “So, quit. Why not?” he says seriously.

  I turn my face to him. “I can’t. Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m planning to maybe do one more job before winter and then have a few months off. Why not quit? I’ll have enough to float us.”

  “Theo…”

  “Think about it, kitten.”

  “Well, I did have one thought…”

  “Yeah?” he asks.

  “Even as a medical secretary in London, I’d be earning three times more than what I’m on now, plus I could work in mental health still, maybe feel out some places… why limit myself? It’s just a job… it’s just money.”

  “I think whatever makes you happy, Lil. I think that. But I also think you might want to rethink the pink dress as a secretary dress. The patients will keel over if they see you in this.”

  I slap him playfully. “You bought me it!”

  “I know, how wrong of me.”

  We’re kissing suddenly and I’m yearning for his arms around me, his cock buried deep inside me.

  “Does it bother you?” I ask, as his lips move to my throat.

  “No, does it bother you?” He nibbles my ear.

  I shake my head.

  “Shower?” he asks.

  “You read my mind.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  She’s bundled in my arms, snug against my chest. It’s the first time this week I’ve been in bed at any kind of reasonable hour. We’re just enjoying cuddles for a change.

  “Are you thinking about the play?” she asks, and it feels like she’s grinning though I can’t see her face, which is buried between my pecs.

  “A little but not as much as I would have been if you weren’t here distracting me.”

  “Hmm,” she sighs, content and satiated in my arms.

  She just had multiple orgasms as I held her off the floor and up against the shower wall. It was something else.

  Her warm breasts are heavenly against me and she feels like the only thing in the world I care about. Yes, I care about the play and will do well, but only so I can make her proud and provide for her.