Page 37 of Filter This
‘Yep, I trawl Mumsnet like most guys do Pornhub,’ Sam deadpanned. ‘What? Is it really so hard to believe that I’m excited about my baby? Right, what else do we need to put in here?’ He squinted at the app. ‘We have your due date, obviously … what are the chances, like?’ He smiled up at her.
‘Yeah …’ Ali wasn’t so sure about his delight in the fact that their hypothetical baby was due on 9/11 – if anything it seemed to spell disaster. ‘D’you not think that’s, like, a negative? Maybe we should just move it by one day. No one’ll realise.’
‘But it was a huge moment in history, Ali.’ Tinder Sam was apparently stunned that she wasn’t considering it some kind of serendipitous timing.
Was he some creepy type who admired terrorists for their, like, tenacity? Or argued in pubs about how the Third Reich’s infrastructure had been pretty solid if you just discounted all the genocide?
‘It was an unimaginable tragedy,’ he continued, ‘but the heroism of everyday people and the way the city pulled together and all those people calling their loved ones from the planes.’
‘Riiight.’ Ali flashed back to theLove Actuallyposter. Evidently he was a pathological emoter. He looked like he was blinking away tears.
‘Anyway, I’m not an enthusiast about random pregnancies … just this one!’ Then to Ali’s horror, he went in for a belly kiss.
She intercepted his bump assault, literally pushing his face away with her hand. Jesus, she was tempted to get pregnant just to get out of the awkwardness of this situation. ‘Eh, it’s very sensitive,’ she lied.
‘Are you getting stretching pains? Cramps? Has there been any discharge?’ Tinder Sam’s concern was sweet if a little gross. He seemed unaware that half of South William Street had just heard him question her about her discharge – a woman sitting outside the painfully hip cocktail place they were passing looked close to throwing up.
‘Shhh.’ Ali was giggling in spite of herself.
‘What? Discharge?’
Ali, laughing, cocked her head at the disgusted woman clutching her martini.
Tinder Sam rounded on the smoking pen of the bar and spoke directly to the woman. He was a good head taller than the glass that surrounded her and the twenty or so other cocktail swillers, vaping and scrolling on their phones. Ali didn’t reach the top of the partition and shrank even lower. Oh god, what was coming?
‘Are you shaming my girlfriend for her vaginal discharge?’
‘Oh Jesus,’ muttered Ali, trying not to laugh and praying there were no Insta-mavens among the group.
As one, the assembled vapers took on the look of studied avoidance adopted by all humans when confronted with erratic behaviour of any description.
‘Discharge is a perfectly normal function of a healthy vagina. We’ve just been conditioned by porn culture to expect vaginas to be groomed like some thoroughbred pet. Well, no more, I say. She is growing life inside her!’ He pointed at Ali, who waved helplessly and pulled him away.
‘OK, OK, you can drop the woke-man act,’ Ali scolded.
‘Their faces, though!’ Tinder Sam looked delighted with himself.
‘Yeah, yeah, you’re great. Vaginas everywhere are applauding you for defending their right to discharge.’
‘What does an applauding vagina sound like?’ he asked, completely straight-faced.
Ali started to laugh and then was struck by a thought both pleasing and unnerving. She was enjoying herself. Like, really enjoying herself. She was having as much fun as if she was out pissing about with Liv – her barometer for all people, not only dates. Before Ali could delve further into the murky territory of whether or not she even could, never mind should, enjoy herself with Tinder Sam, a person she was lying to on a scale even she found troubling, he grabbed her hand and pulled her close. That smell. It was intoxicating, intoxicating enough to make her forget aboutLove Actuallyand the fake foetus and his abundance of feelings regarding 9/11. Tinder Sam leaned in and brushed her lips with his and then buried his face in her neck, breathing deeply.
‘Fuck! You smell so good,’ he whispered in her ear, sending shivers (literally shivers, like in a Danielle Steel novel) down her spine. Ali allowed herself to sink into his kiss. It was all getting out of control, she thought vaguely as a not-altogether-unpleasant feeling of vertigo swooshed through her.
‘What’s the deal with sexing a pregnant person?’ he whispered.
Ali smiled, trying not to flinch at the P-word. ‘What does your app say?’
Tinder Sam took out the phone, his cute little brow furrowed as he scrolled. He surfaced and said with a solemn look on his face, ‘Pregnant women require regular vaginal servicing of a sexual nature.’
‘Fucking ewww,’ Ali squealed, batting him away.
‘I’m sorry, Ali, it’s the rules.’ He advanced on her. ‘To promote healthy discharge.’
‘No. More. Discharge,’ Ali shouted, startling several people in the vicinity and giving herself and Tinder Sam a fit of giggles that lasted all the way up to Stephen’s Green.
They got a taxi and without any debate headed towards Rathmines and Tinder Sam’s basement. Ali was hyper alert to the proximity of Sam – maybe it was time to drop the Tinder prefix? – and the anticipation and anxiety were mingling to produce a heady atmosphere in the back seat. Was he even aware of it? She stole a look. He was staring straight ahead, apparently lost in his own world. It was weird to think of herself as a character in someone else’s life. What did Sam know about her? She was Ali: she took pictures of her food, had wavy, dirty blonde hair and brown eyes? Lived with her friend Liv. Had, at least as far as he knew, a little blueberry-sized amalgam of their two bodies growing inside her. How could he be so fine with all that?
