The female perspective

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It wasn’t as bad

It wasn’t as bad in 2015.

It was bad, but it wasn’t like this. She didn’t feel it as much. She watches people more now. She takes the tram and everyone has their phone in their hand. They wear masks. They look down not up.

Everyone looks down.

When they look up they look out the window. As if they’re trying to digest what they’ve seen. Cases rising in Belgium. Cases rising. A man twiddles his thumbs. He gets off the tram. He keeps looking at his phone. Everyone is looking. Rows of seats staring at screens. Someone could die in the tram corridor but it wouldn’t matter: the deaths are on the phone. That is where death matters.

She can’t bear to look. She gets off. She wishes she could get off. She walks to her apartment, contemplating where she could find a night shop. They all close at 10 now. She wonders when the evening stops and the night begins. Every shop she goes to is closed.

She stops outside one. It’s closed. She turns around and a man in a mask stares at her. She can’t see his mouth but she can see his eyes. They are dark and scared. He dodges her. She walks home.

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Lockdown

She starts arguments with him a lot during lockdown. He is a guy she is seeing casually, and now he’s in a different country and they have little to talk about. There is little point in them talking at all, but she keeps up an incessant regime of messaging to assert control.

Nothing is going on; there’s no offices, no structures or friends holding up the scaffolding of their fragile relationship. No distractions to shield the worst parts.

She works all day and then the evening is play time. She tells him she thinks the economy can’t be shut down forever. He doesn’t like this and says people are dying. She can’t equate death with life in the same way he can, and she continues to drink her wine in silence.

Scenes of hospitals in Italy appear on the TV. A warning to stay at home. People hosting zoom calls. WhatsApp buzzes with messages. She sits on her phone. People message saying how awful it is. She might as well be on Mars in her indifference.

She looks up only if someone enters the living room, which they rarely do. Her mum comes in sometimes and tries to make conversation, then leaves when she gets nothing back.

She tells herself the wine is deserved for a hard day of home working, that it’s not a survival mechanism or a liquid grip to sanity. This is the new normal.

At night, she tries to imagine dying with Coronavirus. How would it feel to have this intruder sit on her lungs and collapse her, like a pin bursting a balloon?

To bring her idea to life, she packs her suitcase full to the brim and lies down. She puts it on top of her. The wheels crush her chest. It’s very uncomfortable. She removes the suitcase. She rolls over and sleeps. It’s 3am.

*********

There’s nothing to do on Saturday night, so she thinks she might as well make him feel bad.

She has grand plans about it all day as she sits working; things she’ll say. She looks forward to the cold white wine filling her organs and giving her courage.

It never goes as she wants it to. It usually starts as a debate around covid, and quickly descends into something deeper and more personal. She wonders if he realises that this is not about the virus, but an attempt to address their volatile and fragile relationship. It annoys her that he plays video games and gets high all the time. It annoys her that he doesn’t express anger at the lockdown. She wonders if he feels it but gets validation from being stoic and maintaining that this is the right thing to do. She wonders if he likes feeling above her. She wonders if like her he enjoys suffering.

She doesn’t understand what right thing to do means. Suffering to her has always been inevitable. Maybe some won’t die, but she can’t get away from the niggling knowledge that people will die in another way. Physically they will be intact, mentally they’ll be a shell; reduced to 10am zoom calls and one walk a day. She dislikes the filtered scenes of people exercising and playing guitars on tv. Maybe you speak to someone in person, maybe you won’t. Maybe she’ll text him again.

********

He’d probably squirm at the word relationship. She doesn’t use it around him. He uses words like situation and agreement. As if they’re bound by a contract. He’s incapable of seeing her as a serious partner, probably because he sees her as a fully human person. She isn’t sure how she feels about this. As time goes on in lockdown, his flaws become more apparent through his erratic texts and lack of commitment.

He’s seen too much, and she knows that there’s no taking it back. She thinks about this a lot. How if she just said one thing differently, maybe 5 months ago, or held back, or acted aloof instead of wanting maybe he’d see her differently. Maybe they wouldn’t be in lockdown. Then she thinks this is ridiculous and goes back to what she was doing before; drinking wine, looking at the wall or at her laptop.

Most of the stuff on her screen doesn’t stick. She sees images and text but it all becomes one swirly puff of garble; even things her friends post don’t elicit emotion. She’s seen too much. She remembers when she used to get excited at friends posts. A snap from Spain. A new relationship status. Now she merely looks because it’s what she’s used to doing; she can’t think how to fill the time in other ways. Hours pass and she scrolls; consuming everything, seeing nothing. It takes her til 1am most nights to sleep.

When she wakes up she forgets about him for a few seconds. He appears in fragments. Texts he sent, remnants of their latest fight. It’s funny because they have never fought in person, but since she’s moved back in with her parents she is bored and annoyed. There is little room in her house for expression or anger, so she turns to her phone and directs it at him. She’d never admit she enjoys seeing his name and his angry messages. It shows her that he at least still cares; he’s in a different country but he can still express outrage at her theories or opinions.

He doesn’t like it when she expresses herself fully. When she does, he often can’t handle it. She wonders why her dislike of a virus shutting everything down annoys him. She wonders if she were a male friend whether he’d react the same way to her opinion, or if the fact that she is a woman who can’t bring herself to feel the horror of death is what angers him so much. She should be soft and sensitive and she is not. She should be fearful. She wonders if he is right.

She isn’t sure what right is. She reads an article at 11pm about how ibuprofen can make Coronavirus worse. She takes 3 just to make sure she doesn’t have it. She wonders how she’d know if she has it. She might die, but then she wouldn’t know.

She stays awake trying to feel things. Sometimes feelings come so rapidly that she can’t understand what’s happening.

Sometimes she sends provocative messages to him just to wake up her senses; like a shot of espresso to her nervous system. He doesn’t understand her. She is obsessed with him saying the things she wants him to say. He very rarely does; if they were out of synch in real life, they are worse via text, this much she knows. It doesn’t stop her speedy fingers.

She tries to picture herself saying the things she texts him to his face. She can’t. She calls him entitled. She believes it, but never had courage nor reason to say it before. He stops replying during their worst fight and she knows she has gone too far. She should leave it, but she wants him to respond. When he doesn’t, she feels empty.

*********

The next day it’s like it didn’t happen. She will win him back. She’ll apologise and say she was drunk, even if she wasn’t.

She is mentally fragile, she is struggling. Let me explain. This isn’t me. The lockdown is getting to me. Let’s not fight. Please.

Once he sees her as weak again, she stops being scary to him, and he forgives her.

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Grease

I’ve just woken up. My eyes blink and a grey ceiling is above me, speckled with black splodges, and a stringy cobweb in the corner. My hangover lingers in the background, like a radio on low volume, threatening to ruin the day, but not bad enough to stop me from sitting up and looking around properly. Not bad enough to stop me from remembering.

I rub my eyes. The room hints at smoke, but alcohol overpowers it – a putrid whiff of whiskey, mixed with the faint essence of shit beer. A bottle gives the game away. It sits, empty, propped against the couch, its green neck slanted on the stained carpet. Old burns from cigarettes tinge a matted surface; they’ve been wiped again and again, but the grey stains won’t budge.

I sit up, planting my feet on the carpet. I look ahead to the window. I can’t see anything except for grey, and I can’t hear but for the faint patter of droplets on the window pane. There is nothing except the mist that engulfs the neighbouring flats; the watery mass alludes to the presence of the renovated medieval buildings but gives little away, and I accept that I can’t see what’s going on outside and, after gathering myself, I stand up. The view behind me is much worse. The cigarette stains are clustered around the door, as if he sat there one night right next to it, smoking his way through packs of Marlboro lights and stubbing them out to make a bizarrely symmetrical pattern. He’d puff after every fag, vowing it was the last one. I step over them. I walk towards his room, and I’m almost at the door, when the stench of smoke makes me nauseous. I run to the toilet, holding my nose, and a gush of yellow vomit streams from my mouth. I gasp after, clinging to the seat, praying he doesn’t wake up. I hear snoring. The smoke is coming from the kitchen. I stand up slowly; reeling from the sickness, and walk into the kitchen. The oven has been left ajar; a cheesy crust covers the grill at the bottom, and the faint smell of cheap, thick crust pizza lingers. I walk over and close it. I feel the grease seep into my palms from touching the door; the handle is caked in whatever we cooked last night. I turn to the table and there is an overflowing ashtray, its glassy bottom has stopped a puddle of beer from hitting the floor; the slight yellow liquid is masked by the worn brown wood of the old, fragile table. I sit and scan the table for a cigarette, and when I can’t find one, and when I can’t think what to do next, I make my way to the bedroom.

It is exactly how I left it last night. He is still fast asleep. It’s only 10am, and we were up until 5. I look at the man in the bed for a while. I play with my hair, contemplating whether to wake him: how I should go about this. His hairy thigh straddles the duvet, his mouth is slightly open, his arm lightly cups the crease of the covers. He looks like a baby. I sigh loudly, as if that would be enough to wake him from his potentially still drunk sleep. I contemplate getting in beside him, wrapping his rigid arm around me and acting like I was there the whole night, but I can’t. I clear my throat and leave the room.

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The last time

The last time we were together

You played with my hair and said this could be forever

The first time I went to sleep without you

I turned on my laptop

And I instantly knew

You wouldn’t see me as I was before

I would never look the same

You could see my face and know my name

But I was losing currency

Minute by minute

You were there and I was gone

You erased me

Crossed me out, made me non

I walked in a daze

People said its just a phase

But years later I still think

About your hands

Your face

And the single bedded place

Where someone else now lies

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As I

As I watch a screen

You are outside roaming

As I sit in my shower

You walk the streets, drifting

As I jump to conclusions

You walk without conscience

As I stare in the mirror

You order another

As I put on more makeup

You pay the bill for both

As I lie hungover

You’re sober

As I sit waiting in the doctors

You message to say we’re over

As I pay for my pills

You message emojis

You’re light and fluffy

I’m ill and stuffy

As I touch myself I,

Think of you touching her

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ELLA1

When Ella was twenty-five, she joined an acting group. Though outgoing and vivacious, she found it hard to make herself known and truly connect with those around her in her first few months there. She had a budding passion for theatre. She wanted starring roles in shows, but felt neither bold nor integrated enough in the company to make her full talents known. She settled for a backing role in her first production, watching from the side as loud, boisterous women took centre stage, making notes mentally.

She joined theatre because salsa, another hobby of hers, along with her dead-end shop job had become tedious. She wanted to meet new people. Working as a retail assistant 6 days a week, she craved Wednesday nights at theatre when she could take off her fitted black work trousers and blazer with her name tag on it. ‘Ella Burns’.

Taking them off was like shedding a skin that wasn’t hers; she would do her makeup properly and change into jeans and a sparkly fitted top, sidling into the hall where she rehearsed and standing at the back, as if the last 8 hours of the stifling shop floor hadn’t happened. Each day there was an assault to her senses. From the men that leered at her as she folded jumpers and kept her eyes down pretending not to feel their gaze, to the old, wrinkled women that spoke to her as if she were a child, sighing and puffing when she didn’t have their size, ambling out the automatic doors in pairs, she felt herself fragment as every hour passed.

She always acted like she didn’t care. She wondered if her co-workers felt the same discomfort every day of servitude, or if they were actually as ambivalent as they made out; some of the girls were like robots, letting rude comments run off them like water. A puddle of discontentment grew deeper every day.

They looked at her strangely when she mentioned her new hobby. Their lives revolved around their jobs, makeup, and men. Those that were single stood in the stockroom with their phones out, propped against the brick wall, analysing and dissecting messages from men, tutting at their mistakes and failure to give them what they wanted.

Ella played along, interjecting with appropriate sighs and gestures when she had a few minutes away from the shop floor to talk to the other girls and hang up clothes. It was during these moments she brought up her acting. One of the girls looked up from her phone, confused at the change of topic: ‘Why you doing that?’. She seemed almost accusatory; her gaze was violent. Ella shrugged and went back to the shop floor.

Most of the time she felt cut off from her environment. Her manager said she was an asset; she looked good and always attracted the right attention to the shop; she smiled and was bubbly, he said. Maybe if she played her cards right, she would be promoted to assistant manager. The other girls knew he liked her. She did everything she could not to show through.

**********

When she wasn’t working or out at her hobbies, she lived at home with her parents. They lived in a small flat about twenty minutes from the city centre, and she could easily commute via bus to her job, which was essential because she couldn’t drive, and couldn’t afford to learn. The flat was nice but too small for her and her parents now she was an adult. She had everything she needed there, except privacy and independence. She sometimes longed to come home and order greasy takeaway, but she knew her parents would disapprove. Having boys round was also a problem; she chatted to a few guys on dating apps, but they ghosted her when she mentioned her living situation.

Some evenings, she would sit with her parents eating dinner, talking as a formality before she could finally slouch in front of her laptop. Taking a sip of water, her mum would look up and meet her gaze. Ella’s stomach would sink as she knew what the look meant:

‘So, how’s work? Met any nice men?’

Her dad would look up too, chewing loudly to mask the dingy silence and tension. She’d shrug and laugh, shaking her head. Her mum would nod and go back to her water, her mouth a slanted snear.

Sometimes, she’d look away when her smile trembled, and wonder why she bothered smiling at all.

***********

Her salsa friends were the only true friends she had then. A group of boys and a few girls, they would get beers after classes and gossip about other people in the group. She had dated a guy there years ago, but the romance had faded and become a jovial friendship.

The first time Ella met Jake was 5 years ago. Honestly, she didn’t really think much of him at the time. He wasn’t really her type. He was balding by the time he turned twenty four, and he didn’t hang out with the same crowd as her. He was quiet and reserved, whereas she was full of energy and spirited. They got to know each other through salsa dance classes she did with friends. She was never paired with him, so they didn’t have much reason to talk, and she was often unsure why he came along at all. She usually danced with her other male friends. When she did talk to Jake, it was either small talk or as part of a larger group. He never had that much to say.

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FKA Twigs ‘MAGDALENE’: an insight into female pain

FKA TWIGS’ VIDEO: HOME WITH YOU, 2019

I’ve been in a long-term relationship with FKA Twigs’s music since I was 21.

I stumbled upon Twigs when a friend recommended her. I remember the day vividly. I played her music on Spotify as I got ready for a night out; half-listening, half absorbed in doing my makeup. I paused her voice as I grabbed my bag and raced out the door of my tiny student room in France, where I was living at the time.

I woke up the next day hungover and disoriented, but I remembered the strange music I’d heard the night before. The twisted melodies. The disturbing videos. The athletic dancing. The feeling that I wouldn’t be able to not listen to more of whatever this was.

I listened to Twigs’ discography throughout the day, popping out occasionally to get food and drinks. I didn’t speak to anyone. I revelled in the artistry of ‘Papi Pacify’ (in the video Twigs, choked by a black man, his fingers in her mouth, looks too turned on to be acting) and ‘Hide’, two tracks I still listen to daily four years later.

Image result for twigs papi — Imagery from Twigs’ video, ‘Papi Pacify’, 2013

Most striking to me was Twigs’ subversion of the male gaze and her ability to be vulnerable yet not objectified; she somehow managed to be weak but displayed an immense amount of strength, both through her eerie gaze in videos like ‘Water Me’ or her fantastic dancing (she is professionally trained). Her gaze in ‘Water Me’ is so doll-like, so feminine that it makes a mockery of traditional femininity, flitting from sexual to creepy in a second.

Image result for twigs water me — **Twigs in ‘Water Me’, 2013**

I dipped in and out of her work for the remainder of my time in France, unearthing hidden gems like TW Ache (a dance-visual with an instrumental song only on Youtube). I found some of her songs scattered and messy, and grew frustrated because I felt she could be more coherent, or just bit more melodic, or even a bit more accessible. When Arca’s (one of her producers) production became too much for my senses in its obscurity, I’d return to my more familiar, safe RnB music, and then rush back to Twigs when I got bored.

…………..

The summer after my year in France, I developed endometriosis. I had felt ill for a while, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Personal problems, the end of my year abroad, a badly infected vaginal cyst and then endometriosis ate my body and mind like a shark. The decline was rapid: I woke up one day and wasn’t ok. I had a long essay to write and a university degree to finish. I had an operation to remove the endometriosis – which by the time I got it, had sank deep into the back of my pelvic structure – in August 2015.

I awoke from the operation, confused, and was violently sick on the nurse. Anything I ate came right back up, even dry, sweet biscuits. The nurse looked concerned and wondered why I wasn’t getting better. A few hours later, they knew something was seriously wrong.

My belly was distended, and I was taken to another room for a scan. I looked at the doctor’s face as he moved the monitor around inside me, seeing my interiors in all their shadows and crevices. He told me I had a blood clot and would need another operation. My body had rejected the first surgery; had overreacted to the opening of my abdomen so violently that it had formed a large blood clot near the surface of my stomach. My surgeon, on his way home, received a call from the hospital: he had to come back to remove the clot immediately. If they waited until morning, it could get infected.

After the second operation, I woke to a dull ache low down. I was on strong painkillers, but I no longer felt sick. I was, however, incredibly weak. I spent the next two nights in intensive care, where a nurse came in three times a day to check my bloods, the bruising on my arms worsening with every prick. I was very low on red blood cells, and if the situation didn’t improve quickly I would need a transfusion. The thought was enough to make me vomit in the bucket that was permanently beside my bed.

The idea of someone else’s blood inside me wracked my dreams. I saw people come in and out of intensive care as I rested in bed. I had no energy for anything. I swigged down iron tablets and felt my stomach cramp. I bled on and off. The only thing I had the energy for was raising a spoon to my mouth and going to the toilet, where a nurse stood outside in case I fainted. I was quite certain, at around 5am on the second morning, that I was going to die.

……………….

Instead of dying, I went back to Twigs. My mum stayed with me when I was out of intensive care, propping up books and turning pages so I could write my essays. My thoughts slowly began to clear and I finished most of the essay in three days, after which I was discharged. I realised Twigs had released new music: a five-track project called M3LL155X (MELISSA), along with accompanying visuals.

Much more coherent and nuanced than her past work, M3L155AX plays with age, sexuality and subversion, in a statement that amounts to a defiant study on female power, or the lack of it.

Image result for twigs im your doll — Twigs as a delflated blow-up doll in ‘I’m Your Doll’, 2015

‘I’m Your Doll’, a track that presents Twigs as submissive and wanting of a lover’s attention, has an accompanying visual of her as a plastic blow up doll with her normal face, being licked and raped by the man she presents as her lover, as she deflates. The concept isn’t quite that simple, though; she dances like a snake throughout the track, wearing a white pyjama set, her long dark braids swinging like a weapon as they mimic her body movements.

‘In Time’ (an oriental, defiant song and by far the best track on the album), opens with a heavily pregnant Twigs waking up, looking confused, and then dancing defiantly with two women as a man gazes at her through a screen (a clear jab at the male gaze and its problems). His face crumples as her pregnant belly suddenly erupts and streams of multicoloured liquid flow down her legs. She stamps on the puddles in time to the music. Through all this madness, she still manages to look amazing and graceful.

My own hospitalisation and pain ran in parallel to the release of M3LL155X. There is no piece of art or music that has affected me as much as that five-track album did. I took from it that I could be in pieces, but I could still be powerful.

…………….

‘Apples, cherries, pain/ Breathe in, breathe out, pain/ No, no, novicane/ Still maintain my grace.’

These are the lyrics to the first verse of Twigs’ recent song, ‘Home with you’. The apples and cherries are what she described in an interview as a ‘fruit bowl of pain’; a reference to the huge fibroid tumours that grew inside her womb in 2017, after her split with Robert Pattinson. The surgery left her scarred mentally and physically; a pain amplified by the breakup and relentless tabloid attention. The tumours grow back when she’s stressed.

To call MAGDELENE a break up album is a gross simplification, and an extension of the misogynistic treatment Twigs has received since she started dating Pattinson. The album is, on many levels, about Twigs’ struggle to deal with separation and being in the public eye (‘A Thousand Eyes’ is a choral chant about her leaving Pattinson and awakening the media monster), but it is also a messy, often difficult-to-listen-to magnifying glass on Twigs the woman, the person.

In her past work, as on M3LL155X, there was always a saving grace; an element of power and rising from the depths of pain. She shielded herself with art and defiance, shifting shapes so as not to reveal herself in full. Here, this cloak is absent. MAGDALENE is a breakup album, but more so it is a portrait of a woman falling apart and exposing herself. Gone is the teasing sexuality, and in its place is a revelation of pain that is at times ugly and jarring.

Four years after my own surgery and depression, I am a different person altogether. I get the feeling that Twigs is too. Twigs ends the album with her most vulnerable song ever, ‘Cellophane’, asking desperately ‘Didn’t I do it for you?’. Her once confident sexuality has been knocked, but she still does it for me.

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Where have I been?

Writing a blog is sometimes like screaming into an abyss. You are faced with the reality that noone is reading your content; no one is listening to your voice. Perhaps no one cares that you vanished for months.

Sometimes the urge to write is backgorund noise; a whisper I ignore. Today I feel the need to write again. I moved to Brussels, Belgium a month ago to do a traineeship at the European Commission, and I’m no longer temp working. This shift in my working life has been positive albeit fractured by the relentless undercurrent of Brexit news and turbulent political sentiment of the moment.

What is it like to work in a European institution when your home country has caused arguably the greatest political upheaval of the decade?

Unsettling. Challenging. Sensitive. Frightening.

I feel more at home in Brussels than I have in my own country (Scotland, with a brief and unsuccessful move to London this summer) for years. I don’t feel queasy and restless when I wake up, and anxiety doesn’t rip through me as I walk to work. I don’t feel like I should be somewhere else. Perhaps this new calm has silenced my urge to write.

I don’t know why this strange city, with its multitude of nationalities and faces, makes me feel at home. I think it truly shows that home is not necessarily where you are born and brought up. Yesterday my friend turned to me in a lift and said ‘This place is full of weirdos. It’s like we don’t fit in where we’re from so we’ve all ended up here’. I think she’s right.

Crazy

Out of all the insults thrown at women, ‘she’s crazy’ has to be one of the most damning.

Crazy encompasses a wide spectrum of unruly female behaviours, from being too persistent , to not getting over someone quickly enough, to over-sharing or being jealous or petty or hormonal or loud or horny or emotionally attached… the list goes on. If you are a woman, and you have at some point in your life not been the receptive, docile creature you should’ve been, chances are you have been called crazy. Maybe not to your face, but someone somewhere has said it about you.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve held back words or actions for fear of being labelled crazy or too much. ‘Too much’ is just a diluted version of crazy, dressed up in slightly more palatable vernacular to make it seem like the woman can, if she tries a bit harder to temper her fluctuations, achieve a normal status. Too much is verging on crazy, but there’s hope for the woman yet.

Plenty of men appear to be cool with sexually liberated women on paper (or apps), but not comfortable with the reality. On a date with a guy from Belgium, I decided early on that I would like to sleep with him. We met in a busy park and walked around for half an hour, talking about inane things like the pond and the trees that lined it. People walked past us. I sat on a bench and swang my legs back and forth; I felt uneasy and anxious, sick yet very alive.

About ten minutes into our conversation, he told me he was autistic. I said I didn’t care. Looking back, he probably thought I meant I didn’t care that he was autistic in the sense that I would consider dating him seriously, but I meant I didn’t care because I didn’t understand how being autistic guy would affect sex.

After toying with the idea of my dry spell continuing for another five months, I looked him in the eye and told him I wanted to go back to his place. I suggested maybe we could go to a bar first. He said loud spaces made him feel anxious and he didn’t like drinking. He asked if I needed to drink to have a good time. This threw me so I said I’d go back to his on the condition I could send my friend my location and keep them updated on my whereabouts.

He didn’t react well and insisted he wasn’t a creep. For the next few minutes, I did the delicate dance many women do of soothing a potentially dangerous man’s injured ego. I said no, of course I knew he wasn’t a creep but I had to be safe, you know? I fluttered my eyelashes in innocence and hoped he’d play along. He nodded and started to walk so I followed him.

*******************

The conversation on the way back was polite. I told him I wrote a blog, and he expressed his interest in it, badgering me to send him the link. When I told him I wrote about feminism and art that expresses female perspectives, I watched his response closely. He took the route of taunting me for my interests, but not too maliciously. I decided to keep following him.

When we got to his flat I was suddenly wary again; tension was briefly abated by the walk. He lived on the top floor of a block and the ‘apartment’ was a minimalist studio: not in an edgy, artistic way, but in a barren, I-could-be-a-serial-killer way. I’ve watched too much Penn Badgley in ‘You’; too much real-crime to not assume the worst in men, and I fully admit this potentially damaging tendency.

I felt very aware of my sobriety in this unknown man’s apartment. The cloud of alcohol wasn’t there to act as a safety veil or dull the persistent throbbing of my fight or flight instincts that lingered like a headache. I didn’t know where to look or what to say. Why was I here? I sat at a low wooden table and said I was hungry. He confessed he didn’t have much in the way of food, but he could rustle up something if I was prepared to wait. I nodded again and made more inane chat, trying to patch up my intentions with light humour and questions about his job.

He said he was a real estate agent. I said that was an odd choice for someone who struggles with human interaction. He said it brought him out of his shell. I nodded and pressed my palms into my thighs. I asked if he had a beer and he said yes. He got up and went to the fridge, placing the beer in front of me. The chat warbled on like a television in the background of a busy room; I spoke and listened, but I felt like a sliver of myself.

He took a deliberately long time to make food. At one point he stood up and claimed he forgot to put the oven on. I laughed at his jokes, some of which were funny, some of which weren’t. I looked behind me and saw a steep staircase leading up to what I assumed must be his mezanine room.

He smiled when I turned back to face him and said ‘Something on your mind?’ I smiled and sipped at the beer he’d given me, praying for my mind to turn off so that I could get through the conversation.

I wolfed down the food. A dry burger with sweet potato and peas. I hadn’t eaten for eight hours, and I felt weak. He watched me, pointing out my messiness. I smiled but was completely focussed on finishing, painfully aware of the time and not wanting to miss the last tram home. I washed down the last morsels of meat with the bitter beer, and then I sat forward and said ‘let’s go’.

*****************

When we got upstairs, the bed was propped against a wall, and there was a bookshelf cluttered with magazines and ornaments. I sat down on the bed and took off my shoes. He kept talking, and I kept up with the light banter, feeling the beer run through my blood and flood my brain. I swirled my tongue across my teeth, checking for any pieces of meat that had become lodged in between the cracks. He switched on his laptop and I got under the covers, shifting around to get comfortable on this strange bed island we were on together.

I propped my head against my hand, watching him log into Netflix. He slid his hand under the cover and put it on my thigh. I looked at him and kissed him. The laptop was shoved to the floor. He had muscular arms and a short sleeved t shirt on. Just the feeling of his chest against mine and his hands on my hips made me pulse in excitement. I felt, for the first time since I met him in the park, a huge release of tension and that I’d made the right decision.

*****************

After, we lay in silence. He half-heartedly stroked my arm. It always amazes me: two people who minutes before were consuming each other with such voracity can be sat in a lifeless daze with nothing to say. The flaws of the other person are suddenly fully visible again, shunted into daylight like a curtain pulled back on a bright morning. We lay like this for a few minutes, and he said he wanted to see me again. I said I did too, which was a lie, but I felt vulnerable again, aware that this was when something bad was most likely to happen.

We chatted and then I said it, the words slipping out in a rush: ‘I need to leave because I have work tomorrow.’ He didn’t look up and said sure, that’s fine. I got dressed quickly and before I walked down the stairs, he made a saluting motion that made me cringe.

I went as fast as I could down the staircase, feeling dizzy from the sharp turns, and when I got to the door that led outside, I flew out without considering which direction I was going in.

When I got home he texted me: ‘That was amazing. I can’t wait to see you again. You felt so good. Let me know you’re home ok xxx’

I replied with ‘Hi. It was fun yeah. I’m back, sleep well x’

The next few days were uneventful and I went to work. We texted on and off, most of the texts sexual in nature.

I became increasingly busy with work and social obligations, so I stopped texting as much. The weekend after we met up, I received a text from him:

‘Yo, why aren’t you messaging? I want to see you again.’

My heart sank. I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried, see myself sitting through more awkward conversation for the result of a reasonably satisfying sexual encounter. I ignored him for a few hours, then:

‘Hello?’

I replied:

‘Hey, I’m really sorry if I’ve led you on, but I don’t think we want the same things. I want to see other people’.

The words ‘typing’ immediately appeared, and I hastily closed Whatsapp. He frantically sent me several messages in a row, each one growing more incredulous and frustrated than the last:

‘What??? Hey I know I can be a bit much sometimes, but give me a chance!’

What did I do to deserve this?

Was I that bad in bed?

I can get better! You need to show me what you want!’

My heart was racing as I typed, deleted, and then typed again.

I settled on:

‘No its nothing you’ve done, I just want to be alone. Again I’m sorry’

He sent more:

‘Dude

Just one last time, please

Let’s talk about this. You are the one who made this sexual. I wanna see you now. What’s your address I’ll get you an Uber.’

At the mention of an Uber I closed WhatsApp again. I was shaking and put the phone down. I went into my bathroom and thought if he could possibly know my address. I decided that he couldn’t. I picked up my phone again and blocked his number. A few moments passed before I saw the yellow Snapchat icon with his name next to it appear: typing.

I swore and grabbed at my phone, trying to block him before he could send anything.

It was too late and I received two messages:

‘You double dating little slut

Come suck me deep’

I watched the messages come in one by one, shaking too much to pick up my phone. I bit my nails and saw the small black text dance across the screen. The next message he sent me read:

‘I hope you die of HIV’.

I snatched the phone and blocked him on Snapchat.

*****************

I slept fitfully that night. I was bleary eyed as I went to work the next day. I told several friends and they reacted with a mixture of shock and disbelief, urging me to report him. I said no, I just wanted to forget it ever happened. People’s concerns were tinged with disapproval: why did you put yourself in that situation?

Few could understand the logic of me going to a random man’s flat. I could, until I’m red-faced and breathless, explain that I just wanted to, but this isn’t a valid reason for my actions. There must be something wrong with me, some underlying cause that propelled me to go back to this clearly unstable man’s place without getting to know him first. If I had gone on a few dates with him, gotten to know him better, his actions would be monstrous. Instead, because of my haste, they were merely a bit creepy. I had, in most people’s opinions, acted crazily by giving myself so easily to a man I didn’t know. I had deserved, in some shape or form, what had come to me.

I still don’t know if this man had given me his real name, or if he was really autistic. One friend suggested he had made up his autism to excuse his violent reactions. The perspective that struck me the most came from a male friend: ‘you can do so much better than that’.

There, in that small yet significant sentence, I found the true meaning of people’s concern: it was, to many, more frightening that I had defied the gold standard rule of courtship (a woman being placid and passive, keeping my dignity by refraining from sex) than that a man had sent me death threats. Next time I date, I’ll try not to be so crazy.

Temporary part four

When I make it back to the kitchen, I start setting out the fruit. Half of it in the basket, half of it in the cupboards. Seven bananas in the basket. Five apples. Five oranges. A bunch of grapes. Men slip in and out behind me, pouring themselves cups of coffee. Some of them talk to each other. I hear mentions of budget cuts and people leaving; a sign of the times.

I take as long as I can setting out the fruit to avoid going back to reception. I take some of the fruit out of the cupboard. When it overflows the sides of the basket, I take it out again and put it back in the cupboard. I do this process for around 20 minutes.

I then take the plastic bottle that I sat next to the fruit basket and fill it with water. 3/4 full. I start to walk back to reception. I panic and walk the wrong way. I know that everyone knows I’ve gone towards the wrong door; I can’t get through without a fob, and I still done have one. I’m so struck by panic that I don’t notice a young man sitting on a laptop at a table near the door.

He looks up and says ‘do you need through?’

I nod. He stands up and produces his fob, opening the door for me. I smile and scuttle past him, feeling like an ant carrying food to its nest. I breathe a sigh of relief as I reach the kitchen near reception, placing the bottle next to the kettle, feeling my arms ache from its heaviness.

The piercing buzz of the reception bell rings, this time louder than before. I rush to the office entrance and see around eight men peering at me through the glass slit. I smile and press a green button, pleased at my sudden authority over the space. I stand back as they walk in, one by one, hands in pockets, chatting about their day. None of them acknowledge me.

‘So we need to bring up the costs, I don’t see any reason why we can’t get this sorted today. I was on site yesterday and my god it was a dump… the contractors have no respect. Josh, did you bring the files I told you to bring?’

A thin man at the back of the group nods, looking down. I’m not sure whether I should stay standing or go and sit back at reception. I look at all of their faces. They look relaxed and content, like they’re where they’re supposed to be. I start to move towards reception but the man who is addressing them turns to me:

“Tea and coffee?”

His eyes flicker, he wants to know what my story is. He wants to know why I’m here and where the normal receptionist is. He doubts my ability to make his coffee the way he likes it. I nod, smiling. I make towards the kitchen. Joanne comes in, looking harassed and worried.

“How many teas? How many coffees? Did you ask? They’re in the Pentland suite. Did you set out biscuits? They’ll need biscuits. Oh and the milk…. here…”

She bends down to the fridge, opening it and taking out two bottles of semi skimmed milk. Green tops. She grabs a round tray from a cupboard. She arranges the biscuits meticulously into a pretty assortment; the packets intersect one another to create an origami effect, the printed sides to the back and the pictures of biscuits at the front. The milk is poured into jugs. The kettle is on. The chatter of the men fades as she escorts them into a room. Their banter increases as they sit down, laughing about the last time they were here when the computer froze and they had to make up the figures as they went along.

Joanne asks me to take all of the trays through to the men. I smile, a warm ripple of fear flowing from my belly to my vagina and back up again, sitting firmly in my chest. I pick up the tray and walk towards the meeting room. I kick open the door with my foot, the suddenness of the gesture causing all the men to look up from their conversation. I walk to a small table and put down the tray. One of the men looks at the milk jug and comments:

“Just one cup of coffee between all of us then!”

They burst into laughter. I smile and leave the room.

Joanne rolls her eyes, ‘just ignore them. Big boys the lot of them. Sense of humour of five year olds. Just keep an eye on the milk and the coffee, sometimes they want more. Im up to my neck in invoices. You can’t really do anything until you’re on the system. So just give me a buzz if you need me: my extension is 220. Ok!”

Before I can say anything, she’s at the fob door, beeping her way through to the main office. Reception is silent, and I am alone. I walk towards my desk slowly. I realise that none of the men have signed the guestbook.

To fill up the page, I write my own name:

’Imogen Allan, 01/02/19, temp worker’

I scrawl my signature underneath it. I resign myself to my chair. When I sit I play around with the mouse, even though I can’t log on. A faint chatter comes from the meeting room. I take my phone out and flick through my messages. I’m still getting good luck ones from all my friends. My mum is asking how my day is, she wants to meet up tomorrow for lunch. I reply saying sure, but I’ll need to see how busy I am with my reception duties. She replies: “of course”.

I swivel around in the chair. If I turn to face the window, I can see a large, castle-like school with vast grounds and playing fields, the turrets piercing some low clouds. The rolling Corstorphine hills frame the landscape; housing developments have started to sprout up at the bottom of the hills. The browns and greens create a marshy heaven. This wet, earthy world feels miles away from my reception bubble. I turn back to face the computer, waiting for something to happen.