I should have gone home. That is the whole article, really. I should have got on the last train like a person with a job she actually wants to keep, vaped on the platform, eaten a supermarket wrap over the sink and gone to bed smelling like Prosecco and printer paper. Instead I stayed for one more, then one more after that, then decided a Travelodge two streets from the venue counted as a grown up decision.
The work do was the usual mess. Too warm, too loud, someone from accounts crying in the toilets about a man who was also in the room eating cocktail sausages. I was in the smart casual thing I always wear when I want to look like I tried without looking like I tried too hard. Blazer. Nice top. The sort of shoes you regret at eleven and defend at midnight. I had been good most of the night as well, which is how I always get myself in trouble. Good meaning I talked about the promotion like I was already halfway in the chair. Good meaning I laughed at Helen’s jokes. Helen is my manager. Helen has a laugh that could strip wallpaper. Helen also booked herself a room because she lives in Kent and refuses to do the late train on principle.
I knew that. That is the bit that makes me want to walk into traffic.
The bloke was Tom from the Manchester office. In town for two days, leaving in the morning, the exact type of situation I tell myself is clean. Tall enough. Nice hands. The sort of northern accent that makes ordinary sentences sound like he has already decided you are coming upstairs. We had been circling since the speeches. He bought a round I did not need. I let him. I vaped outside with two girls from reception and told them I was going home. I was not going home.
By the time the bar started putting chairs up I had already done the maths. Train missed. Uber surge looking filthy. Hotel next door with the company rate still sitting in my inbox from when I booked Helen’s room three weeks ago like the helpful little PA I am. I booked a second one on my phone in the queue for the cloakroom. I told myself it was practical. It was not practical. It was me being horny and smug and a bit drunk and very sure I could keep my voice down.
The room was fine. Beige. Thin carpet. A kettle that had seen things. Tom kissed me against the door before I had even put the keycard in the slot properly and I laughed into his mouth because I always laugh when I already know I am going to be filthy. He tasted like lager and those mints people suck when they think they are being considerate. I dumped my bag on the chair, kicked the shoes off, and had my hand in his jeans before the light was fully on.
I am not shy about it. Never have been. If I want something I tend to just get on with it, and I wanted him on the bed with his shirt half off and my mouth on him before he could start doing that polite checking-in voice men do when they are not sure if you are actually like this. I am actually like this. I got on my knees on that cheap carpet and took him out and I was good at it, which I know, and I did not pretend otherwise. He swore under his breath and put his hand in my hair and I looked up at him because I like watching a man realise he is not running the room anymore.
That should have been the point where I thought about the walls.
I did not think about the walls.
The headboard started tapping when he pulled me up and bent me over the end of the bed. Not dramatic. Just that cheap hotel knock, knock, knock against whatever was on the other side. I heard it. I heard it and I decided it was someone else’s problem. I was wet and impatient and he was saying my name like he had only just learned it, which he had. Cat. Then louder. Then I started talking back because I do that when I get close and I cannot help it. Filthy stuff. Ordinary stuff. The sort of sentences you do not want attached to your Outlook calendar. I told him harder. I told him not to stop. I made that noise I make when it is actually good and not just polite good. He got a hand between my legs and I came first with my face in the duvet, swearing into the polyester like it had personally wronged me.
We should have stopped for water. We should have laughed and gone quiet and remembered we both had to be in the same building as other people in a few hours. Instead I rolled him onto his back and sat on him and I was not quiet then either. The bed complained. I did not. I put my hands on his chest and rode him like I had something to prove, because I always do, and I said things I would not say in a meeting even if you paid me. Explicit. Specific. The sort of running commentary that sounds hot when you are in it and sounds like a court transcript when you replay it sober.
There was a thump next door at one point. I thought it was pipes. I thought it was a suitcase. I thought a lot of convenient things.
Tom lasted longer than I expected, which I would normally put in the plus column. He flipped me again, got my leg up, and the headboard really went for it. Knock knock knock, proper little drum solo against the wall. I laughed. I actually laughed, breathless and smug, and said something like they can file a complaint in the morning. He laughed too. Then he came with this broken sound and collapsed on me and we lay there in the dark breathing like we had done cardio.
I vaped out of the window after, because of course I did. Night air. Mango. The street still wet from earlier. Tom was on his back talking rubbish about trains and how he hates London. I made agreeable noises and already knew I would not see him again in any way that mattered. That was fine. That was the point.
I slept in my makeup. I always do when I have been an idiot.
Morning came in that grey hotel way where the curtains never quite close. My mouth was dry. My head was doing that polite throb. Tom was already in the shower talking to himself. I checked my phone and had three emails I should have answered last night and a calendar alert for breakfast that Helen had put in the shared invite weeks ago. Complimentary breakfast. Same hotel. Same dining room. I sat on the edge of the bed in last night’s top and felt the first little drop of dread, like rain through a ceiling you have been ignoring.
I told myself she would have gone home. I told myself Kent women of a certain management level do not stay in Travelodges next to the work do. I told myself a lot of things while putting on yesterday’s knickers and trying to make my hair look like I had planned this.
The dining room was already busy. That smell of hotel eggs and cheap coffee. People from last night in slightly softer clothes, doing that morning after voice. I saw Tom first, which was awkward enough. He lifted his eyebrows like we were in on a joke. I gave him the smallest smile and went for the coffee machine because I needed something to do with my hands.
Then I saw Helen.
She was at a table by the window with a poached egg and the face of a woman who had not slept. Not tired exactly. Aware. She had her glasses on. She had a notebook open like she might start a performance review in the baked beans. Our eyes met and I knew. I knew the way you know when you have sent an email to the wrong person. There was no confusion on her face. No polite blankness. She had heard me. She had heard the headboard and the swearing and the bit where I told Tom exactly what to do with his mouth. She had heard me come. More than once, if we are being honest, which I am trying to be.
I walked over because not walking over would have been worse. My voice came out normal for about four seconds.
Morning. Sleep alright?
Helen looked at me over the glasses.
I slept, she said. Eventually.
That eventually did more damage than if she had just sworn at me.
I sat because my legs asked me to. Tom had the good sense to stay at the buffet poking sausages like they held classified information. Helen poured tea with the calm of someone who has raised teenagers. I asked about the last train. She asked if my room had been comfortable. I said yes. She said the walls in these places are a disgrace. Then she took a sip and added, almost kindly, that she hoped I had a glass of water.
I wanted the floor to open. I wanted to be back in the flat with my housemates and the telly on and no career. I wanted my mum, which is a rotten thought to have over hotel tomatoes when you are twenty five and supposed to be chasing a promotion.
We ate. Or she ate. I moved food. Someone from reception waved and I waved back like a hostage. Helen talked about the morning’s debrief as if my sex life had not been the late show on the other side of her headboard. She mentioned the promotion pack. She mentioned that she needed me sharp next week. She did not smile when she said sharp. I said of course. I sounded like I was presenting a passport.
When the waitress came I asked for the bill in a whisper. I do not know why I whispered. The room was full of talking. It just happened. My voice went small and guilty, like I had been caught stealing biscuits. Helen heard it anyway. She signed for her room on the company card and I signed for mine on mine, because I was not putting last night on expenses even in my head. Tom appeared with a backpack and a look that said he would like to die in Manchester. He said nice to meet you properly to Helen. Helen said she believed they had already been introduced last night, in a manner of speaking.
I could have left the country.
Outside I vaped so hard my throat hurt. Tom tried to do a goodbye that involved a hug. I let him, because I am not actually cruel, and then I told him to have a good journey in the same voice I use for couriers. He got in a taxi. I stood on the pavement in last night’s blazer feeling like my skin was on inside out.
The fallout did not arrive as one big explosion. It arrived in pieces. Helen put me on the note taking for the next three meetings even though that is not my job anymore. She did not mention the hotel. She did not need to. Every time she said Cat in that even tone I heard myself on the other side of the wall saying it much louder for a completely different reason. I started wearing quieter shoes. I started leaving work dos at ten. I started checking hotel wall thickness like a woman inspecting a crime scene.
Tom texted once. Good night, sorry about breakfast. I sent back a thumbs up like a coward and muted the thread.
My housemates got the edited version first. Then they got the real one, because I cannot keep anything in when I have had a drink and a vape on the balcony. They screamed. One of them fell off the sofa. The other one said I should put it in a risk assessment. I laughed until I felt sick, then I went quiet, then I laughed again because what else are you meant to do when you have moaned your way through a thin wall into your manager’s ear and then asked her for the bill like a child in a library.
I still want the promotion. That is the stupidest part. I am good at the job. I can run a diary and a crisis and a room full of men who think they are being charming. I can also, it turns out, be loud enough to brief the woman who decides my pay rise.
Would I say I regret the sex? Not really. It was good. I came. He was decent. I liked being wanted after a night of nodding at speeches. I regret the venue. I regret the wall. I regret every filthy sentence that left my mouth as if the Travelodge had been soundproofed by God himself.
Mostly I regret thinking I am smoother than I am.
If you need me I will be at my desk, speaking at a normal volume, drinking tea like a person who has learned a lesson. I have not fully learned it. I know myself. But I have learned this much. Next time I do something that stupid I am checking who is booked either side of me, and I am keeping my mouth busy in ways that do not carry.
And if Helen ever brings it up properly, I am going to look her in the eye and ask if the headboard kept her up, because there is no point pretending now. She already knows I am not as polished as the calendar makes me look. She has heard the evidence. I just have to survive the next appraisal without whispering.
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