Page 26 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
‘That I was his wife, that I can still do things… because I love him. I love him so much and I don’t want him to leave me for someone else. I don’t want to lose him to sex toys. I love him. It was just such a big dildo and it caught me by surprise…’
Jo McArthur can see I’m going off piste here in quite dramatic directions. If I was a dog, this is when the muzzle would go on. She pretends to adjust the sides of the bed.
‘And I can’t lose him to someone else, to another woman. It would kill me. It would…’
And with that, the curtain is pulled back and Danny stands there with his brother. Oh, that curtain wasn’t soundproof, was it? Stu looks confused. Danny. I can’t quite read it. But his head shakes, a look of infinite sadness in those cloudy blue eyes. I can’t bear to see it. So I grab on to my bed railings, lean over and throw up over the side of the bed.
I lost my virginity when I was eighteen. I’d snogged and done all the other stuff in college but by the time I got to university, I knew I was late to the game and doing ‘it’ felt like something I needed to cross off the list with some urgency. So who did I do the deed with, who was the taker of my flower? Why it was one Alex Gamble.
I’m not exactly sure why but for some reason, as I am in this hospital bed, flitting in and out of consciousness in a state of pure delirium and pain, I can see his face. His blonde curly hair like a bath loofah, the potent taste of tequila on his breath, a room adorned with a clothes horse drying sports socks and a Breville sandwich maker in racing green with matching kettle. And not just his face, his contorted sex face is etched into memory; flared nostrils and biting on his bottom lip. I recall after some preliminary poking, Alex asked me to navigate him towards where he needed to be. This hadn’t been the first penis I’d touched but I remember his felt like how I’d imagine a very soft snake might feel. He poked around for a while until he entered me. I have no memory of the sensation but will always remember Alex Gamble’s face, framed by a very random poster of Damon Hill on the wall, a polyester orange curtain and some cork tiles.
Needless to say, the experience was not arousing, for me at least. I felt friction, the sort of nagging irritation that comes from wearing a badly fitted shoe. Alex came in about three minutes which he announced via his legs straightening and him saying to the room, ‘I’m gonna go! You ready?!’ I wasn’t sure what he meant so I nodded. But I felt a strange feeling of relief; this wasn’t special, I didn’t love him, but it was now done. I got it out of the way; from that moment on, I was a non-virgin.
But why can I see his face? Why is he telling me to wake up? That there’ll be a wait for an X-ray?
The light suddenly goes bright white and I open my eyes. Joanne McArthur’s face is there. It’s not a face I expect so I appear shocked and move my eyes from side to side. I’m no longer in Alex Gamble’s bedroom. I am in a cubicle, on a hospital bed on crispy sheets and the side guards up for my own safety. I burp quietly. There is no Danny.
‘You need anything? Water?’
‘What happened?’
‘You were just having a little nap,’ she tells me. The large circle of drool on my pillow tells me differently. I look down. I’m in a gown that allows for a peculiar draft to my downstairs region. My leg is bandaged around the shin and another tighter bandage encases my ankle. She finishes writing on her charts and comes over to adjust my pillows. She’s close enough for me to notice that her hair smells like summer berries. She’s the sort of woman who looks perpetually beautiful. She’s probably spent most of this evening dealing with drunks in various states of incapacity like me, but still her skin radiates health, she has emerald eyes and a soft curve to her cheeks. She would never have been dropped during sex.
She senses me staring deep into her soul and smiles awkwardly. She vacates the cubicle with a smile conveying pity, all the pity. Have Danny and Stu just left me here? I feel my lip wobble and I picture how it must have gone down. My allegations of infidelity would have enraged Danny. After me spewing on the floor and then passing out, he’d have cast me looks of scathing embarrassment before disowning me. She’s no wife of mine! You can keep her with her shredded leg and accusations! A tear rolls down my face. I feel Danny’s abandonment in every part of me, even more so than this morning when I found evidence of all those sex toys, when I saw him flirting with Briony Tipperton. What did Emma say? I’m a Callaghan woman, I don’t break. At least not here in this soulless clinical room that has curtains for doors and a bed with a rubber mattress. In the cubicle opposite me is the pregnant woman from before, strapped to monitors as she glugs from a two-litre bottle of Diet Pepsi. She notices me and says something to her companion in conspiratorial whispers. I bow my head from the shame.
A voice. ‘Chuffing hell, Meg. Just shut your legs. You’re not wearing panties.’
Danny? ‘I thought you’d gone?’
‘Yeah? To drop Stu back home. And get you some clothes from home. It’s nearly two in morning.’
More tears well in my eyes. You’re still here. His face reads confusion but also sadness. In his hand is a Dora the Explorer rucksack filled to the brim. He’s still wearing his hoodie that has remnants of baby porridge smeared down the front. He stands by the end of the bed for a moment too long, then draws the cubicle curtains and comes up to sit next to me, tentative, nervous. He looks down for a moment to compose himself. Just spit it out, man.
‘They’ll amputate tomorrow when they’ve got a theatre free then they’re going to fit you with a bionic leg.’
He laughs, nervously. I have no words or tears left. He looks me in the eye and I bring him in to nestle my head into his chest. He’s here, he’s not gone; that’s everything at the moment. He still looks worried, delving in the rucksack to find some M&Ms, hoping that may break the impasse. He kisses the top of my head gently then looks at my leg.
‘You might have a scar,’ he pauses. ‘And you’ve got a bruise the shape of Australia on your arse.’
‘That may have been when I fell off the bath.’
‘I guessed. You told McArthur’s wife that much. You also told the doctor who was gluing you back together.’
‘There was a doctor?’
‘Yup, you told him about the dildo from this morning too. You asked him if it was possible for an appendage to be too big, and he told you about a woman who came in once with a deodorant stuck up her parts.’
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘You asked if it was a roll-on or spray. He explained to you that your vagina contracts when it’s aroused so can feasibly house quite a large penis if it wanted to. It was a comfortable conversation all round.’
He sits next to me like someone making nice with an elderly relative. He puts a hand in mine. He seems fraught, the way he’s trying to endear himself to me so completely different to his usual surly self. Is his hand shaking? I grip it tightly.
‘Did you explain to them about the dildo this morning then?’ I ask.
‘I didn’t.’
I am silent. ‘Maybe you need to explain to me then. Maybe give me the truth this time.’ I stare him out, fear consuming me about what the truth might be.
