The Plus One

by Sophia Money-Coutts

  ‘Just an itch.’ I sat back in the taxi.

  ‘You’re not coming in,’ I said, in my sternest voice, when the car pulled up outside my flat.

  ‘’Course I am. I need to make sure you get in safely,’ he replied, opening his door and getting out.

  So, as alarmed as I was about my ape-like levels of hairiness, I let him in, whereupon he immediately started looking through my kitchen cupboards. I kicked off my shoes and sat at the kitchen table, watching him, still hiccupping.

  ‘Shhhhhh, my flatmate’s asleep,’ I said to his back, as he inspected the labels of five or six half-empty bottles he’d discovered in one cupboard.

  ‘This’ll do.’ It was a bottle of cheap vodka, the sort that turns you blind. ‘Where are your glasses?’

  I pointed at a cupboard above his head.

  ‘I can’t drink all that,’ I said, as he handed me a glass.

  ‘Yes you can, just knock it back.’ He swallowed his in one and looked at me expectantly.

  I lifted my glass, nearly gagged at the vapours, then opened my mouth and took three slugs.

  ‘Good work.’ He took the glass back as I shivered and put it down on the table. ‘I mean, why do the Russians like this so much? It’s disgusting, swallowing it makes me—’

  He interrupted me by cupping my face with his hands and kissing me. His tongue tasted of vodka.

  ‘Which one’s your room?’

  I pointed at a door, and he took my hand, pulled me off the kitchen table and into my room, where I froze. There were two embarrassing things I needed to hide: my slightly shrivelled, browning earplugs on the bedside table, and my ancient bunny rabbit, a childhood comforter, which was lying between the pillows, his glass eyes glaring at me with an accusatory air.

  I reached for both, opened my knicker drawer and stuffed them in there. I felt briefly guilty about my rabbit and then thought, You are about to have sex for the first time in five hundred months, Polly, now is not the time to be sentimental about your stuffed toy.

  Callum sat down at the end of the bed and started unlacing his shoes.

  ‘Hang on, I’m just going to do something.’ I picked up a box of matches on the bedside table and lit a candle next to it.

  And here is a list of the things that happened next, which illustrates why I should never, ever be allowed to even think about having sex with anyone.

  Having lit the candle, I sat next to Callum and he started unbuttoning my shirt. But then I panicked about him doing this while I was sitting because of the fat rolls on my stomach, so I lay down instead, pulling him back onto the bed. He then undid the rest of my shirt buttons and there were a few undignified moments where I flailed around like a beached seal trying to get my arms out of it.

  The tussle of the bra strap. Callum reached for it, clearly wanting to be one of those nimble-fingered men who just have to blink at a bra strap – any bra strap – for it to ping free. ‘I’ve nearly got it,’ he said, after several seconds of fiddling while I arched my back.

  Getting my knickers off. This required me to waggle my legs in the air like an upturned beetle.

  Callum then moved his way down my stomach until he was kneeling on the floor, his head between my legs. I wondered whether to make a joke about needing some sort of Black & Decker machinery to get through the hair and then decided it would kill the vibe. So, I started worrying about my breathing instead. It’s awkward to just lie there in silence, so I decided to start panting a bit as he used his tongue on me. But it’s quite hard to pant when, after a promising beginning, Callum – perhaps encouraged by my erratic breathing – started working harder with his tongue, like a dog at a water bowl. So, then it started hurting, as opposed to feeling remotely pleasurable, and I decided I’d lost sensation in my entire vagina and instead lay there wondering when to suggest that he came back up again. And how do you do that, anyway, without causing offence?

  The worst bit of all. I tapped him on the head and he looked up. ‘Come up,’ I said, in what I hoped was a seductive, come-hither way.

  He looked up from between my legs and frowned. ‘Why? Aren’t you enjoying it?’

  Oh, GOD, why is sex this embarrassing? Does it always have to be this embarrassing?

  ‘No, no, I just want to, erm, return the favour.’

  CRINGE. I thought I might die. I might actually die from cringing.

  So Callum crawled back up and rolled over, lying on his back, still with his boxers on. I then climbed on top of him, trying not to slouch again so that my stomach didn’t crease into rolls of fat. Then I noticed that I hadn’t plucked my nipple hairs recently either. Too late. I wriggled backwards so that I was kneeling between his legs and started pulling his boxers off. Another difficult move because I had to stand up to pull them out from underneath him.

  Callum’s penis wasn’t quite hard, so I opened my mouth and gently started sucking the head of it. He groaned. I ran my mouth slowly down it, trying to ignore the musty smell. After a few minutes, my thigh muscles started to burn. For God’s sake. How much longer was this going to go on for? I wriggled my knees in a bit closer, then opened one eye and squinted at his penis. Why do they look like giant earthworms? Then his moaning started getting louder and I felt one of his hands on my head, pressing my mouth down. I’d read magazine articles before that said you should suck their balls as well, but I’d never been sure I could fit everything in my mouth at once. It would be like tackling a foot-long Subway. Or were you supposed to suck just one ball at a time?

  I gagged as his penis hit the back of my throat, then he gave a sudden shout and my mouth filled with warm semen. Slightly salty, slightly sweet. I swallowed as quickly as possible. The thought of that swimming around in my stomach with the vodka was ungodly.

  ‘Just going to get a glass of water,’ I said through a sticky mouth, climbing over him and picking up an empty glass from the bedside table. In the bathroom, I wiped my mouth with some tissue and looked in the mirror. Well, that bit’s done so that’s something. And it’s always quite gratifying to get there, isn’t it? Mostly because then your thighs get a break, but also because it means that you’ve done something right and your teeth didn’t get in the way. And anyway, I decided, filling up the glass from the tap again in case he wanted a drink, it’s my turn. That’s the rule. He should possibly have tried harder to sort me out first. But never mind. He could make up for it now.

  ‘D’you want some water?’ I whispered, walking back into the bedroom and holding out the glass. Callum was standing up with his jeans back on and his phone in his hand.

  ‘No, I’m good, thanks. I’m actually going to get an Uber. Got golf in the morning so I need to get home.’

  ‘Oh. OK. Cool. No problem,’ I stuttered.

  WHAT?

  ‘Thanks though, that was great.’ He reached down for his t-shirt, pulled it over his head, patted his jean pockets, then – while I was still standing there, naked, cold, holding the glass of water – leant in and kissed me on the cheek.

  ‘Good to meet you.’

  ‘Er, yeah. You too. Hang on, I’ll let you out.’

  ‘Nah, don’t worry. I can let myself out. See you soon.’

  ‘Oh… Sure. OK… Bye,’ I said, still holding the glass of water, as he walked out.

  I heard the front door close, put the glass down and stood naked in my bedroom thinking. Was that now a thing? Can men just Uber at – I looked at my phone – 2.54 a.m. after a blow job, having not returned the favour, and think that’s acceptable?

  2

  WHEN I EMERGED FROM my bedroom in the morning, Joe was in the kitchen making toast. He was wearing threadbare boxers and an old rugby shirt, both of which were too small for his sixteen-stone frame.

  ‘Morning, my little chou fleur, want some breakfast?’

  I’d met Joe via a Gumtree advert three years earlier, when I moved out of my mum’s place. I was too old to have my knickers ironed for me, I’d decided back then. And Joe had since become a sort of surrogate
boyfriend-slash-brother figure, a proper friend to both me and my mates. Our flat was above a corner shop run by a large Jamaican lady called Barbara who was obsessed with horoscopes. I’d go in there to buy bacon on a Saturday morning and come out half an hour later, having been told how my weekend would pan out. It was always bad news. Barbara would suck in her cheeks and say that Mars was doing something weird with Jupiter and that Saturn was all over the shop, and so I should be very careful about any mysterious men that crossed my path.

  ‘No. I’m feeling a bit delicate this morning. Can you put the kettle on?’

  ‘How was last night?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Dinner at Bill’s. Brought someone back here to have sex for the first time in nine hundred years, nearly choked to death giving him a blow job before he Ubered straight out of here.’

  ‘Polly, my darling, how dramatic. Why didn’t he stay?’

  ‘Beats me.’ I collapsed on the sofa and caught sight of the vodka bottle on the kitchen counter. ‘I don’t know how I manage it.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘A mate of Bill’s. Kind of handsome. Lives around here somewhere.’

  ‘So, is this grand romance going to continue?’ Joe sat down in the armchair opposite me with his plate of toast.

  ‘I doubt it. And anyway he plays golf.’

  Joe shuddered. ‘Revolting.’

  I sighed. ‘Why can’t I be a normal person and have any kind of normal, functioning relationship? Or not even a relationship, just normal, straightforward sex? The only thing I’ve had in my vagina recently is a speculum.’

  ‘More poisson in the mer, my darling. Beating ourselves up won’t help. What plans for the weekend?’

  ‘Well, first I’d quite like you to close that gaping hole in your boxers,’ I said, my gaze accidentally dropping to his crotch. ‘Then I might kill myself. And not much else really. Going over to Lex’s tomorrow. And seeing Bill maybe. What about you?’

  ‘The usual, just a bit of light pillaging. Got a date this afternoon.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Lovely chap called Marcus, he plays the French horn.’

  ‘Does he indeed. Where did we find him?’

  ‘Teaches at the academy. He’s got an arse like Tom Daley’s. It might be love.’

  It was ‘love’ quite often with Joe. In the past few months, various of these loves had passed through the front door. There had been Lee, a waiter from a pub in Kilburn; Josh, who Joe had picked up in the Apple Store buying a new iPhone; Paddington, a footman from Buckingham Palace, and Tomas, an Argentine polo player who insisted he was straight, but liked Joe to do unmentionable things to him with various leather props that he kept under his bed in a box. I tried never to go into Joe’s room in case this box was lying open.

  The thought of Joe’s box made me feel a bit weak again.

  ‘I’m going to go back to bed actually, forget the tea.’

  ‘Okey-dokey, my petal, I’ll be quiet later. It’s only a first date, don’t want to scare the poor boy. And don’t worry about your boyfriend running off like that, happens to the best of us.’

  ‘Does it?’

  He paused. ‘Well, not me, no.’

  ‘Great, that’s very helpful, thanks.’ I plodded back to my bed and put my earplugs in.

  By 3 p.m., I’d had a bath, eaten seven pieces of toast and honey, drunk three cups of tea and I was lying on the sofa watching an old DVD of Three Men and a Little Lady. I’d also carefully stalked Callum on Instagram and spent two hours wondering idly whether I could follow him. Then my phone vibrated with a WhatsApp from Bill.

  You get home safely?

  I typed out my reply, unsure whether he knew anything about Callum. I could tell him tomorrow. Didn’t feel up to it now.

  Yes! Thank you for dinner! How’s the office?

  Alright. But listen, do you mind if I don’t come for lunch tomorrow? I’m seeing Willow for a drink.

  COURSE, don’t be silly. Where you guys going?

  Dunno. Southbank maybe. Good date place, right?

  I sent back a row of thumbs-up emojis and then flicked back to Callum’s Instagram again. Mostly pictures of rugby games and foreign beaches. Bit boring, if I was honest. Why was I obsessing over it?

  I woke the following day feeling human again after spending the evening horizontal on my sofa, spooning Thai green curry and sweet clumps of coconut rice into my mouth. Lex had changed our lunch date to brunch, which seemed unlike her because she wasn’t much of a morning person. Eggstacy was a café in Notting Hill which, as its ludicrous name suggested, specialized in breakfast. Great folds of buttery scrambled eggs with Gruyère cheese grated over the top, creamed mushrooms, ramekins of smoky beans, thick slabs of white bread. Butter by the bucketful. I made myself walk there from the flat in preparation, given my supper the night before. It had not been a good weekend for calories.

  Lex and I had known one another since we were eleven, when Mum and I moved to London. That was the year I left my primary school in the country, where I’d been taught by a teacher like Miss Honey in Matilda, and went to a secondary school near Mum’s flat in Battersea. The same school as Lex. There were no Miss Honeys there. Instead, I found classmates who were already into boys and eyeshadow and something called Take That. Lex took pity on me in the way that you might take pity on a cowering stray on the street.

  ‘Do you want to look at my sticker book?’ she said one lunchtime, which is still the best pick-up line that anyone’s ever used on me. And so, in the sweetly uncomplicated way that children do, we became friends. And we stayed friends.

  We went on to Leeds together, both reading English, as did Bill, to study Physics. We formed an unlikely trio. The science nerd (Bill), the short, sex-obsessed blonde (Lex) and me, the tall, frizzy-haired romantic who was fixated with Sense and Sensibility and on the lookout for my own Willoughby.

  Lex was already at a table by the time I got to Eggstacy, sweating from the exertion of walking up Holland Park Avenue. I waved at her from the door and pushed my way through the clusters of tables to the back.

  ‘Hi, love,’ I said, as she stood to hug me. ‘Welcome home. How was it?’

  ‘It was…’ She smiled at me coyly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was… Well… This happened.’ She thrust her hand towards me.

  ‘Lex, oh my God!’ There was a diamond ring on her finger. I took her hand in mine and pulled it towards my face. A diamond the size of a broad bean in the middle of the ring, surrounded by lots of smaller diamonds. ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘No! It would be quite a weird joke, wouldn’t it?’ she said, smiling at me.

  ‘You’re engaged? To Hamish?’

  ‘Yes! Again, it would be quite weird if I’d got engaged to anyone else since I’d last seen you.’

  ‘Right, yes, ’course. Bloody hell. You could blind someone with that thing,’ I said, looking at the ring again. ‘I mean, congratulations.’ We were still both standing up so I reached over the table to hug her again. It felt weird though. Not the hug. The news. Lex was engaged. To Hamish. To someone she’d only been going out with for, what, a year? To someone I wasn’t wholly sure about. And I mean what’s the deal in this situation? When your best friend gets engaged to someone you’re not sure about?

  ‘Could I have a coffee?’ I said to a nearby waitress. ‘A really strong Americano?’

  She nodded and went off.

  A quick summary. Hamish was Lex’s boyfriend. Fiancé, I suppose I should call him now. He was a former rugby player-turned-banker with lumpy ears who Lex met in a pub in Kennington. I’d never been sure about him because he was the sort of man who made jokes about women staying in the kitchen. But whenever I asked why Lex put up with him, she’d smiled in a pathetic way and said that she liked him. After a couple of months of dating, she’d said that she loved him.

  We sat down. ‘I mean, blimey,’ I went on. ‘Sorry. I’m just trying to process it. I had no idea,’ I said. ‘Did you?’<
br />
  ‘No, not really,’ she said, holding her hand out in front of her. The broad bean caught the bulb overhead and twinkled as if it was winking at me.

  ‘How did he do it?’

  ‘In bed in the hotel, classic Hammy.’

  I nodded slowly. The way that Lex sometimes called Hamish ‘Hammy’ made me feel ill. Where was my coffee?

  ‘It was just after he tried to strangle me with my own hair actually,’ she went on.

  ‘What?’ I frowned at her.

  ‘Well, it was New Year’s Eve, in the morning. And we were in bed, just indulging a bit of harmless foreplay, when suddenly he grabbed a handful of hair and pulled it across my neck. I mean, what’s up with that?’

  A man on the next-door table looked across at us.

  ‘What did you do?’ I whispered.

  ‘I kind of pretended to go along with it for a bit. Because you have to, right? And then he came and it was while we were lying there afterwards that he proposed.’ She had a sip of her tea and put the cup back down on its saucer. ‘Guys are so weird.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘The proposal?’

  ‘No! The hair thing. But yes, also the proposal.’

  ‘I didn’t not like it. It’s something a bit different, isn’t it, being throttled by your own highlights? And, yes to the proposal.’ She paused and looked directly across the table at me. ‘I know it’s quite quick. But, Pols, lying there, in that hotel room, it felt right. Honestly.’

  I nodded again. I felt like there were a million questions I should be asking. Had they set a date? Had she told her parents? Had she thought about a dress? Were they having any sort of engagement party? But I wasn’t sure I could ask them genuinely enough. Convincingly enough. Was that bad? It was quite bad, wasn’t it? Unsupportive.

  ‘You’ll be my maid of honour, right?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, of course I will,’ I said, smiling back even though I felt alarmed at the prospect, worried that this meant traipsing down the aisle behind Lex like a giant 4-year-old in a hideous dress.

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘I’m psyched about dress shopping. I’ll send you some dates because appointments get booked up.’ Lex works in fashion PR. I suspected she’d have ambitious ideas for her wedding dress.