Chapter 22

The next day I started to write a story. It was a Thursday, I didn’t have class until three, and I was sitting up in bed with a cup of black coffee on my bedside cabinet. I didn’t plan to write a story, I just noticed after some time that I wasn’t hitting the return key and that the lines were forming full sentences and attaching to each other like prose. When I stopped, I had written over three thousand words. It was past three o’clock and I hadn’t eaten. I lifted my hands from the keyboard and in the light from the window they looked emaciated. When I did get out of bed, a wave of dizziness came over me, breaking everything into a shower of visual noise. I made myself four slices of toast and ate them without butter. I saved the file as ‘b’. It was the first story I ever wrote.

*

Bobbi and Philip and I went for milkshakes after the cinema that night. During the film I had checked my phone six times to see if Nick had replied to a message I sent him. He hadn’t. Bobbi was wearing a denim jacket and a lipstick that was such a dark purple it was nearly black. I folded our milkshake receipt up into a complex geometrical pattern, while Philip tried to convince us to start performing together again. We were being evasive about it, though I didn’t know why exactly.

I have college work, Bobbi said. And Frances has a secret boyfriend.

I looked up at her with an expression of total horror. I could feel it in my teeth, a hard banging of shock in the nerve endings. She frowned.

What? Bobbi said. He already knows, he was talking about it the other day.

Talking about what? said Philip.

About Frances and Nick, Bobbi said.

Philip stared at her, and then at me. Bobbi lifted her hand to her mouth, slowly, the hand flat and horizontal, and gave one tiny shake of her head. It was enough to signal to me that she was really freaked out and not playing a game.

I thought you knew, said Bobbi. I thought you said it the other day.

You’re joking, Philip said. You’re not really having some kind of affair with him, are you?

I tried to work my mouth into a sort of casual expression.

Melissa was going away to visit her sister for the weekend, and I had messaged Nick asking if he wanted to come and stay with me while she was gone. Bobbi won’t mind, I wrote. He had seen the message and not replied.

He’s fucking married, said Philip.

Don’t be a moralist, Bobbi said. That’s all we need.

I just continued folding my mouth up smaller and smaller and didn’t look at anyone.

Is he going to leave his wife? said Philip.

Bobbi scrubbed at her eye with a fist. Quietly and with a tiny mouth I said: no.

After a long and uninterrupted silence at our table, Philip looked at me and said: I didn’t think you would let someone take advantage of you like that. He had a choked, embarrassed expression on his face while he pronounced these words, and I felt sorry for all of us, like we were just little children pretending to be adults. He left then and Bobbi slid his half-finished milkshake across the table toward me.

I’m sorry, she said. I honestly thought he knew.

I decided to drink as much milkshake as I could without taking a breath. When my mouth started hurting I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop when my head started hurting either. I didn’t stop until Bobbi said: Frances, are you planning to drown there? Then I looked up like everything was normal and said: what?

*

Nick invited me to come out and stay in his house that weekend.

He was cooking when I arrived on Friday evening and I was so relieved to see him that I wanted to make some kind of silly romantic gesture, like throwing myself into his arms. I didn’t. I sat at the table chewing my fingernails. He told me I was being quiet and I tore a piece off my thumbnail with my teeth and looked at the nail critically.

So maybe I should tell you, I said, I slept with this guy I met on Tinder the other day.

Oh, really?

Nick was cutting vegetables into small pieces in the neat methodical way he always did. He liked to cook, he told me it relaxed him.

You’re not angry or anything, are you? I said.

Why would I be angry? You can sleep with other people if you want to.

I know. I just feel foolish. I think it was a stupid thing to do.

Oh really? he said. What was he like?

Nick hadn’t looked up from the chopping board. He moved the diced onion pieces to one side of the board with the flat part of his knife and started to slice a red pepper.

He was awful, I said. He told me he loved Yeats, can you believe that? I practically had to stop him reciting ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ in the bar.

Wow, I feel terrible for you.

And the sex was bad.

No one who likes Yeats is capable of human intimacy.

We ate dinner without touching one another. The dog woke up and wanted to be let out, and I helped clear the plates into the dishwasher. Nick went outside for a cigarette and left the door open so we could talk. I felt like he wanted me to leave and he was too polite to say so. He asked how Bobbi was. Okay, I said.

How’s Melissa? He shrugged. Finally he put the cigarette out and we went upstairs. I got onto his bed and started to undress.

And you’re sure this is what you want? Nick said.

He was always saying this kind of thing, so I just said yes or nodded and unbuckled the belt I was wearing. Behind me I heard him say abruptly: because I just feel, I don’t know. I turned around and he was standing there, rubbing his left shoulder with his hand.

You seem kind of distant, he said. If you’d rather be … If there’s somewhere else you’d rather be, I don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped here.

No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to seem distant.

No, I’m not … I feel like I’m having trouble talking to you. Maybe it’s my fault, I don’t know. I feel kind of …

He never usually trailed off his sentences this way. I started to feel agitated. I said again that I didn’t mean to be distant with him.

I didn’t understand what he was trying to say and I was afraid of what it might have been.

If you’re doing this for any reason other than just wanting to, he said, then don’t do it. I really don’t, you know, I don’t have any interest in that.

I murmured something like sure, of course, but in fact it was unclear to me what he was talking about now. It sounded like he was worried that I’d developed feelings for him and he was trying to say that he wasn’t interested in anything other than sex.

Anyway I agreed with him whatever he meant.

In bed he went on top and we didn’t make eye contact very much. Impulsively I lifted one of his hands and pressed it against my throat. He held it still for a few seconds and then said: what do you want me to do? I shrugged. I want you to kill me, I thought. He stroked the hard muscle of my throat with his fingers and then lifted his hand away.

After it was over, he asked me about the bandage on my arm.

Did you hurt it? he said. I looked at it but didn’t say anything. I could hear Nick breathing, hard, like he was tired. I felt a lot of things I didn’t want to feel. I felt that I was a damaged person who deserved nothing.

Would you ever hit me? I said. I mean if I asked you to.

Nick didn’t look over at me, his eyes were closed. He said: uh, I don’t know. Why? Do you want me to? I closed my eyes too, and

breathed out very slowly until there was no air in my lungs and my stomach was small and flat.

Yeah, I said. I want you to do it now.

What?

I want you to hit me.

I don’t think I want to do that, he said.

I knew that he was sitting up now, looking down at me, though I kept my eyes closed.

Some people like it, I said.

You mean during sex? I didn’t realise you were interested in that kind of thing.

I opened my eyes then. He was frowning.

Wait, are you okay? he said. Why are you crying?

I’m not crying.

Incidentally it turned out that I was crying. It was just something my eyes were doing while we were talking. He touched the side of my face where it was wet.

I’m not crying, I said.

Do you think I want to hurt you?

I could feel tears coming out of my eyes, but they didn’t feel hot like real tears. They felt cool like little streams from a lake.

I don’t know, I said. I’m just telling you that you can.

But is it something you want me to do?

You can do whatever you want with me.

Yeah, he said. I’m sorry. I don’t really know what to say to that.

I dried my face with my wrist. Never mind, I said. Forget about it. Let’s try and get some sleep. Nick didn’t say anything at first, he just lay there. I didn’t look over, but I sensed the tension of his body on the mattress, like he was preparing to sit up suddenly.

Finally he said: you know we’ve talked about this, you can’t just lash out at me whenever you feel bad.

I’m not lashing out, I said.

How would you feel if I was sleeping with other women and then coming to your house to brag about it?

I froze. I had actually forgotten by then about the date with Rossa. Nick’s reaction when I’d told him had been so blank that the incident immediately felt insignificant, and I hadn’t thought of it

again. I hadn’t even considered that it might have prompted Nick’s strange mood. Privately I had to admit that if he’d done the same thing to me – sought out another woman, had meaningless sex with her, and then flippantly told me about it while I prepared his dinner – I would never have wanted to see him again. But that was different.

You’re fucking married, I said.

Yeah, thanks. That’s very helpful. I guess because I’m married that means you can just treat me however you want.

I can’t believe you’re trying to play the victim.

I’m not, he said. But I think if you’re honest with yourself, you’re actually glad I’m married, because it means you can act out and I have to take the blame for everything.

I wasn’t used to being attacked like this and it was frightening. I thought of myself as an independent person, so independent that the opinions of others were irrelevant to me. Now I was afraid that Nick was right: I isolated myself from criticism so I could behave badly without losing my sense of righteousness.

You promised me you were going to tell Melissa about us, I said. How do you think I feel about lying to everyone all the time?

I don’t think it bothers you that much. To be honest, I think you only want me to tell her because you’d like to see us fighting.

If that’s what you think of me, why are we even doing this?

I don’t know, he said.

I got out of bed then and started to put my clothes on. He thought I was a cruel and petty person intent on destroying his marriage. He didn’t know why he was still seeing me, he didn’t know. I buttoned my blouse, feeling a humiliation so deep it was difficult to breathe comfortably.

What are you doing? he said.

I think I should go.

He said okay. I pulled on my cardigan and stood up from the bed. I knew what I was going to tell him, the most desperate thing I could possibly tell him, as if even in the depths of my indignity I craved something worse.

The problem isn’t that you’re married, I said. The problem is that I love you and you obviously don’t love me.

He took a deep breath in and said: you’re being unbelievably dramatic, Frances.

Fuck you, I said.

I slammed his bedroom door hard on my way out. He shouted something at me on my way down the stairs but I didn’t hear what it was. I walked to the bus stop, knowing that my humiliation was now complete. Even though I had known Nick didn’t love me, I had continued to let him have sex with me whenever he wanted, out of desperation and a naive hope that he didn’t understand what he was inflicting on me. Now even that hope was gone. He knew that I loved him, that he was exploiting my tender feelings for him, and he didn’t care. There was nothing to be done. On the bus home I chewed the inside of my cheek and stared out the black window until I tasted blood.