Page 69 of Am I Allergic to Men?
‘And more,’ Cass says, whispering but not.
Darren puts a finger to his lips and looks up to the ceiling. All I know is at seventeen, I didn’t even know an orgasm was a thing, at least not something you experience with another person. It was something I did by myself, for myself, not even knowing what that sensation was really. I scrunch my face up in reply.
‘Surely I could have done that myself without having to interact with her, or even found someone a bit warmer.’
‘We often questioned your decisions when it came to your sexual partners. You had sex with a fifty-year-old hot yoga instructor once. He’d come for drinks in leggings.’
‘I did?’
‘His name was Roger. Bendy as fuck, saggy balls,’ Darren tells me.
‘We’d get school reports on them all, Luce. They gave us life.’
Imogen suddenly appears back at the table. ‘The wine selection here is horrific. Not sure how long this has been lingering in their fridge.’ She puts her bag down on the table, blocking Cass out of view. ‘What were we talking about?’
‘Yoga,’ I reply. ‘Do you do yoga?’
‘I’m not into that hippy shit,’ she says blankly.
‘Oh. So remind me why we slept together?’ I say bluntly. I have no idea who I am but I have a feeling I’m not the sort of person who’s going to fake a whole evening of conversation for the sake of it. She seems perturbed to have to speak so openly about it in front of my friends.
‘It was fun?’ she says, not looking too entirely sure.
‘Your face is really reading fun right now.’
‘I don’t do sarcasm.’
‘I do.’
Darren and Cass sit that much closer to each other to take this all in, hoping I might do us all a favour and just get rid.
‘I don’t get why I’m here then? You said it was your birthday? Is this it? Is this the party?’
‘Yeah?’
She looks around. Was she expecting balloons? Vol-au-vents? She seems upset that she even had to buy her own drink. She studies my face, disappointment framed in her impeccably groomed eyebrows.
‘You’ve changed,’ she mutters.
‘Getting hit by a bus will do that. I was under the impression we maybe cared about each other so you might give a damn that I nearly died or that it is my birthday…’
‘Happy birthday?’
‘No card?’
‘People don’t do cards any more.’
‘These two got me a card.’
Darren identifies himself as the card-giver by putting his hand in the air. It had a monkey on the front wearing lipstick and a beret.
‘Look, what we had was just casual,’ she adds. ‘I don’t even know your last name. We’d have sex and that was it, you were never so uptight about it before?’
Darren and Cass look at each other with bated breath, waiting for my response.
‘In fact, you were more fun. If you’ve had some accident and some sort of lightbulb moment about what we were then I can’t sign up to that. I’m sorry.’
I’m unnaturally quiet for a moment as I study her face. She’s pretty, there is no doubt about that, but I can’t quite tell where the sexual attraction is here. Why you? Why women? This still confuses me. I was always under the impression that people knew about their sexuality from a young age. But at seventeen, those feelings were still deeply embedded somewhere. I don’t want you. I don’t want to kiss you, see your boobs or have your fingers anywhere near my bits. So what I do is just nudge my drink forward and have it spill in her general direction, over what looks like quite an expensive handbag.
