Caitlin

Category: Dating Fails

  • Sneezed Straight Onto His Lap

    I still think about the sound more than the mess. That is the bit that lives rent free. Not even the splash. The actual noise. Like a goose getting kicked down a stairwell.

    Hayfever had been taking the piss out of me all week. Eyes itching on the Central line. Nose doing that little pre-sneeze twitch every time someone walked past with a bouquet or a dusty coat. I had taken a tablet at lunch and told myself I was fine. I was not fine. I was a loaded gun with mascara on.

    We had been circling each other since the Thursday drinks. He worked two floors up, something with numbers that was not quite as good as my numbers, which I enjoyed more than I should. Tall. Clean shirt. The sort of mouth that looks like it has been waiting for an excuse. I had a pint. Then another. Then I did that thing I do where I decide the night is already decided and everyone else is just catching up.

    His place was closer. Flatshare, same as mine, except his housemates were out and mine would have been sat on the sofa with Love Island and a bag of extra mature, offering commentary I did not need. We kissed in the hallway like people who have already agreed on the ending. Jacket off. Vape in the dish by the door because I am not an animal. Shoes kicked under the radiator. I was already pleased with myself and we had not even made it to the bed.

    His room smelled like clean sheets and a candle that was trying too hard to be sandalwood. Window cracked. That was the mistake. London spring air is not air. It is pollen with a travelcard. I should have clocked it. I did clock it. I just thought I was better than biology.

    We got on the bed and it was good in that first twenty minutes way. Hands, mouth, the usual competence. I like being good at this. I know I am good at this. There is a particular satisfaction in watching a man who spends all day pretending he is busy forget how to form a sentence because you decided to get on your knees. I like that bit. I like the shift in the room. I like knowing I put it there.

    So I did.

    Belt. Zip. That little pause where you both pretend this is still casual. It was not casual. I was already committed. I had my hair twisted out of the way and my knees on his rug and I was doing the thing properly, not the lazy half-hearted version some girls do when they want a medal for showing up. Tongue, pace, the occasional look up because I am not above a bit of theatre. He made that sound men make when they have underestimated you. I felt smug enough to bottle.

    Then my nose started.

    Not a cute sniffle. The deep one. The one that sits behind your face and rings a bell. I ignored it. Of course I ignored it. I have ignored worse. I have given head with a stitch, with a cramp, with a housemate walking past the door humming. A tickle is nothing. I breathed through my mouth and carried on like a professional.

    It got worse.

    You know that moment where your whole head fills and you think if I just swallow or freeze or think about spreadsheets it will pass. I thought about the Q2 report. I thought about my promotion. I thought about the fact I had a smear of lipstick on his thigh and I was still winning. None of it helped.

    The sneeze announced itself like a bus.

    There is no elegant way to sneeze when you are on your knees with a dick in your mouth. There is especially no elegant way to do it when you have been holding it for forty seconds like a martyr. It came out of me at full volume, no warning, no ladylike little achoo. Just a violent, wet, full-body explosion that I could not aim, could not stop, and definitely could not pretend was anything else.

    It went everywhere.

    I mean everywhere. His lap. His stomach. The base of him. A bit on my own hand which felt like a personal insult. For a second the room went completely silent except for the tail end of the sneeze still rattling in my sinuses. I could feel it on my lip. I could see it on him. There was a string of it catching the lamplight in a way that should be illegal.

    I looked up.

    He looked down.

    There is a particular expression a man gets when the night has taken a left turn and his brain has not caught up with his cock. That was the face. Shock. A bit of horror. A bit of something that was not horror at all, which I will come back to because it still winds me up.

    And then my mouth, traitor that it is, said, “Bless me.”

    Like a child. Like I had just sneezed on a packed District line and an old woman had given me a look. Not “sorry.” Not “fuck.” Not even a laugh. Bless me. I heard it leave my face and wanted to climb into the wardrobe.

    He blinked.

    I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, which did nothing except spread the evidence. “I am so sorry,” I said, except it came out as a laugh I could not swallow. Once I started I could not stop. Not a cute giggle. The ugly one. The one where your shoulders go and you make a noise like a kettle.

    He started laughing too, thank God, because if he had gone quiet I would have put my shoes on and walked into traffic. “Are you alright?” he said, which is the most English sentence in the world to say while someone has just sneezed on your erection.

    “Hayfever,” I said, as if that explained the Jackson Pollock on his thighs. “Tablet wore off. Your window. I should have… yeah no. That was grim.”

    I sat back on my heels. My knees were imprinted with the rug. My pride was somewhere near the skirting board. I reached for the box of tissues on his bedside like it was a fire extinguisher. He watched me mop at him with the sort of tenderness usually reserved for spillages in Waitrose.

    “You do not have to,” he said.

    “I do,” I said. “I absolutely do.”

    Here is the bit that still makes me cackle in the Tesco queue. He was still hard. Through the sneeze. Through the blessing. Through me wiping his lap like I was on a shift. Still going. Still interested. Still looking at me like the night had not, in fact, ended in a biohazard.

    Men are simple. I say that with love and a bit of despair. You can cough a lung onto them and as long as you do not say their mum’s name they will find a way to keep the plot.

    “We can stop,” I said, because I have manners even when I have ruined a moment.

    “Do you want to stop?” he said.

    I thought about it. Properly thought about it. My nose was still buzzing. My eyes were watering. I looked like I had been maced. There was a used tissue in my fist that I did not want to examine. And underneath all that I was still turned on, which is a character flaw I have stopped apologising for.

    “Give me two minutes,” I said. “And close the window.”

    He closed the window. I went to his bathroom and washed my face like I was preparing for surgery. Looked in the mirror. Mascara doing a runner. Hair a state. The smugness had left the building and been replaced by something closer to hysteria. I vaped out of the bathroom window because I needed a reset and also because I am who I am. Mango. The universe has a sense of humour.

    When I came back he was sitting up against the headboard trying to look normal. He did not look normal. He looked like a man who had been sneezed on and decided to be a gentleman about it.

    “Come here,” he said.

    I did. Not straight back to my knees. I am not a machine. We kissed and I was careful with my face in case another one was brewing. Nothing came. The tablet, the closed window, the sheer force of embarrassment had scared the pollen into retirement. His hands were on my waist. Mine were in his hair. The laugh was still sitting between us like a third person.

    Then I went back down.

    I will not pretend I was as polished the second time. There was a self-consciousness now. A little check every few seconds in case my sinuses had another opinion. But I am good at this, and being good at something is how I claw dignity back from the wreckage. He lasted longer than I expected, or maybe it just felt longer because I was narrating the whole thing in my head like a crime reconstruction.

    When he finished I stayed where I was for a second, then sat up and said, “If you tell anyone I said bless me I will deny it until I die.”

    “I would not dare,” he said.

    He dared. Of course he dared. Not in a nasty way. In the way men do when they have a story and a pint and no sense of self-preservation. I found out the following Tuesday because a girl from his floor gave me a look in the kitchen that was fifty percent pity and fifty percent impressed.

    The walk home that night was its own comedy. I got an Uber. The driver had the window down. I nearly asked him to shut it and then remembered I have no authority over other people’s pollen. Sat in the back with my coat zipped up like a suspect. Texted my housemate: do not ask. She asked immediately. I typed the whole thing out, deleted it, typed it again, sent it, and put my phone face down.

    She was on the sofa when I got in. Pause button already hovering.

    “Tell me.”

    I told her. All of it. The window. The tablet. The noise. Bless me. The fact he still came. She screamed into a cushion. Proper screamed. Then she said, “That is the most you thing I have ever heard,” which I chose to take as a compliment.

    Sleep was a joke. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the look on his face. Not disgusted. That would have been easier. It was the slightly stunned, slightly fond look of a man who has just discovered you are a disaster and decided that is fine. I hate that look. I also chased it.

    Next morning I did my makeup like I was going to court. Smart casual. Blazer. The armour. I vaped on the balcony until my lungs filed a complaint, then went to work prepared to never make eye contact with the second floor again.

    He messaged at 11.42.

    You alive?

    I stared at it longer than a grown woman should stare at two words. Then I wrote: barely. my nose has retired.

    He sent a laughing emoji and then: still thinking about bless me.

    I put the phone in the drawer. Took it out. Put it back. I am twenty-five. I have a degree. I can do mental arithmetic in a meeting. And some bloke from two floors up had reduced me to a woman hiding her mobile from herself.

    We did not have a big conversation about it. That is not how these things go when you both have jobs and housemates and a shared kitchen at work that smells of burnt toast. We just… kept going. Not every night. Not a relationship. Something in the middle that I refuse to name because naming it makes it needy and I am not doing that.

    The second time at his, the window stayed shut. I took two tablets. I still felt my nose twitch once and I froze like a meerkat. He noticed.

    “You alright?”

    “If I sneeze on you again I am leaving the country.”

    He grinned. “I will risk it.”

    That grin. That is the problem. That is why I went back. Not because the first night was smooth. It was a car crash with good lighting. I went back because he laughed at the right time and did not make me feel small for being a human body with hayfever and a filthy streak.

    I told the other housemate a week later because secrets in a three-bed last about as long as a packet of biscuits. She said, “At least you did not cry.” I said, “Give me time.” We put Love Island on and I pretended I was watching it.

    Work became a minefield in the funniest way. Every time someone sneezed in a meeting I had to bite the inside of my cheek. A bloke from finance did a massive one in the Monday briefing and I had to look at my notepad until the urge to cackle passed. My manager asked if I was coming down with something. I said allergies. Which was true. Just not the whole truth.

    Would I change it?

    I think about that on the train sometimes, forehead on the glass, city smearing past. The dignified version of the night is boring. We go back. We have competent, quiet sex. I get an Uber. Nobody says bless me. Nobody has a story. I hate that version. It is tidy and it is dead.

    The real version is me on his rug with mascara everywhere, a tissue in my fist, laughing so hard I nearly set another one off. It is him still hard like the plot had not changed. It is my housemate screaming into a pillow. It is a Tuesday look from a girl two floors up. It is a text I should not have smiled at.

    I am not going to pretend I came out of it looking cool. I did not. I looked like a woman who lost a fight with spring. But I also looked like a woman who got back on her knees after wiping a sneeze off a man and still made him finish, which, if we are being honest, is the sort of stubbornness I respect in myself.

    Hayfever season will come round again. It always does. I have already bought better tablets. I have already decided that if I am going to anyone’s flat between March and June the window stays shut and the candle can do one.

    And if it happens again, I will not say bless me.

    I will say sorry.

    Then I will probably say bless me anyway.

    Some habits are deeper than pride.

  • Tesco Meal Deal Struck Back

    I should have known. That is the whole article, really. I should have known the second I clocked the sandwich looking a bit too shiny under those Tesco lights and still thought, yeah no, I will be fine.

    It was late. Proper late for a Wednesday. I had been at work since half eight, answering emails like my life depended on it because the promotion thing is sitting there in the back of my head every hour of the day. By seven I was starving and smug in that dangerous way where you start making decisions with your stomach and your knickers at the same time. He messaged. Come over. I have wine. I have a flat that is not currently hosting two other girls and a vape cloud the size of Essex. I said give me forty minutes.

    Forty minutes is how long it takes to convince yourself a meal deal is a personality.

    I went into Tesco like I had a plan. I did not have a plan. I had a rumbling gut and a man waiting in his boxers, probably, and the kind of confidence that only shows up when you have already decided you are getting laid. Ham and cheese looked sad. The chicken one looked like it had been through something. I picked the meal deal anyway because I am twenty five and I still treat that little yellow sticker like it is a treat from the government. Sandwich. Crisps. A drink that was far too fizzy for a girl about to be on her back. I ate half of it walking to the station and the rest on the train, picking bits out of my teeth in the window like a lady.

    It sat in me. I felt it sit. That heavy, polite little weight right under the ribs. I told myself it was just food. Food does that. You eat, you digest, you go and have sex like a functioning adult. I even had a vape on the walk from his station and told myself I felt mint.

    His flat was nicer than I expected. Not posh. Just clean in that way that makes you think, oh he might actually rinse a mug. Shoes off. Wine poured. Music on low enough that you could still hear yourself think and I do not like that, generally, but I let it happen. He kissed me in the kitchen like he had been waiting all day and I kissed him back like I had not just committed a crime against my own intestines.

    I will give him this. He was good with his hands. Not frantic. Not that awful stabby thing some of them do like they are looking for a light switch. He got my shirt off without making it a performance and when he put his mouth on my neck I made that noise I only make when I am actually into it. We barely made it to the bedroom. My skirt ended up on the chair. His jeans ended up in a heap that said he had not planned this as carefully as he wanted me to think. I was already wet and a bit too pleased with myself, which is usually when the universe starts writing notes.

    I like being on top. I know that about myself. I like the control and I like watching their face when they realise I am not just going to lie there looking pretty. I pushed him back on the bed and climbed on and for a few minutes it was exactly what I had come for. His hands on my hips. That thick slide of him inside me. Me rolling my hips like I had somewhere to be and all night to get there. I was talking a bit. I do that. Nothing poetic. Just filthy little bits, half laughing, telling him harder when I wanted it and slower when I wanted him to feel it. He swore under his breath and I felt that smug heat in my chest like, yes, Cat, you still have it.

    Then my stomach spoke.

    Not a cute gurgle. Not the little polite bubble you can pretend is the radiator. This was a long, low, traitorous roll from somewhere south of my belly button, the kind of sound that has a beginning, a middle and a punchline. It happened while I was mid-grind, while he was looking up at me like I was doing something impressive. The noise filled the room. It was not sexy. It was not even human in a useful way. It was a meal deal announcing itself.

    I froze. He froze. For one awful second neither of us pretended it had not happened.

    I laughed. Of course I laughed. That is what I do when I want the floor to swallow me. I said something like, ignore that, and tried to keep moving because I am arrogant enough to believe I can out-sex a sandwich. I lasted maybe ten more seconds. Another noise came, sharper this time, and with it a cramp that made my whole face change. That was it. The mood did not die. The mood was assassinated in its sleep.

    I got off him so fast I nearly kneed him in the chest. I said bathroom, now, sorry, and I was already walking like a woman who knew the next thirty seconds would decide her entire reputation. His hallway felt longer than it had any right to be. I found the door, locked it, sat down and accepted my fate.

    Twenty minutes.

    I am not proud of what happened in that bathroom. I am also not going to dress it up. The meal deal had been waiting. The fizzy drink had been waiting. The train sandwich that should have stayed in the fridge had been waiting. They all arrived at once, like they had planned it in a group chat. I sat there with my knickers round one ankle, forehead on my knees, listening to my own body betray every sexy thing I had done in the last half hour. At one point I thought, this is it, this is how I die, on a stranger’s toilet, still wearing mascara, while a hard man in the next room wonders if he should put trousers on.

    He knocked once. Soft.

    You alright?

    I said fine, which was a lie so bold I almost respected myself for it. Then I said give me a minute, which became five, which became the kind of silence that makes a man start boiling a kettle because he does not know what else to do with his hands.

    I could hear him out there. Cupboard. Tap. The little clink of a mug. That is when the shame properly landed. Not the bathroom part. The tea part. A man making you tea because your stomach has declared war is a specific kind of intimacy I did not ask for. I wanted him to be a bit of a dick. I wanted him to sigh and check his phone. Instead he was being kind and that made it worse. Kindness when you are half naked and detonating is unbearable.

    I cleaned myself up like I was prepping for a job interview. Washed my hands twice. Checked my face in the mirror and saw a girl who had been so sure of herself an hour ago and now looked like she had seen God and he was wearing a Tesco uniform. I pulled my skirt back into place. I found my vape in my bag because of course I had brought my bag into the bathroom, like a woman preparing for exile. One hit. Mango. It did not help. It just made me taste fruit on top of humiliation.

    When I opened the door he was in a t-shirt and boxers with two mugs on the side. Tea. Actual tea. Not wine. Not a joke. He looked at me the way you look at someone who has been through a mild natural disaster.

    I said, so.

    He said, food poisoning or just Tesco?

    I could have kissed him for that. Or left. I did neither. I sat on the edge of his bed like a guest who had overstayed and wrapped both hands round the mug. The tea was too hot. I drank it anyway. We did not talk about the sex. We talked about meal deals like they were a shared enemy. He said he once ate a prawn one on a night bus and saw things. I said I had a maths degree and still could not calculate risk when I was horny and hungry at the same time. He laughed. I laughed. It was almost nice, which made me want to scream into a cushion.

    I did not get back on him. There are limits. Even I have them. The body had spoken and the body had been extremely clear. He offered to call me an Uber and I said yes before he could offer the sofa. I wanted my own bed. I wanted my housemates’ terrible telly and the safety of a bathroom I pay rent for. I wanted to not be the girl who turned a decent shag into a digestive event.

    On the way down the stairs I caught myself in the hallway mirror. Hair a bit wrecked. Lipstick gone. That smug look I usually wear had been replaced by something smaller. I still looked fit. That was the insult of it. I looked like a woman who should have been leaving with her legs a bit shaky for the right reasons.

    The Uber driver did not speak. Thank God. I vaped out the window and texted the group chat one line.

    Do not, under any circumstances, fuck on a meal deal.

    One of them replied immediately. Details.

    I said later.

    I did not say later because I am shy. I said later because I needed to sit in the back of that car and replay the noise in my head until it became funny instead of fatal. It is funny now. It was not funny when I was clenched on his toilet whispering please to my own insides. It is funny in the way all my worst nights become funny once I have had a shower and a bit of distance and a story I can tell with my eyebrows up.

    I got home and both housemates were on the sofa. They took one look at me and one of them said, that is not a just-been-fucked face. That is a crime-has-occurred face.

    I told them. Not every wet detail. Enough. The sandwich. The ride. The sound. The tea. They screamed. Proper screamed. I sat there eating toast like a nun and swore I would never buy another meal deal after six again.

    I bought one the next day at lunch. Of course I did. I am not a changed woman. I am just a woman who now does a quiet little risk assessment before she takes her knickers off.

    He texted in the morning. Hope your stomach’s alright. No pressure. Last night was still fit until it wasn’t.

    I stared at that for a long time. It was a good message. Decent. The kind of message that almost makes you consider a second attempt, in daylight, after porridge, after your body has signed a peace treaty. I replied with a laughing face and thanks for the tea and left it there. I have a promotion to think about. I have a flat to keep. I have a reputation in my own head as someone who is good at this, and I need a week before I test that theory again.

    Here is what I know. I can talk a man into bed. I can get on top and make it look easy. I can be filthy and funny and leave him a bit stunned. What I cannot do is outrun a Tesco chicken sandwich that has been plotting since 8pm.

    If you are going to someone’s flat late, eat something boring. Eat toast. Eat nothing. Do not put three questionable items in a paper bag and call it dinner and then expect your pelvic floor to behave like a professional. Your gut does not care that you are confident. Your gut does not care that you have a good arse and a filthy mouth. Your gut has a schedule and it will ruin you on it.

    I still think about him sometimes when I walk past that Tesco. Not in a romantic way. In a haunted way. The wine. The bed. The ten minutes where I was actually excellent. Then that noise, like a trombone under the duvet.

    Never again.

    Until the next time I am starving, horny and convinced I am invincible. Which, being honest, is probably Thursday.

  • Let One Go Mid-Kiss

    I clocked him before I even sat down. That is the truth of it. After-work drinks, Thursday, that slack hour where everyone pretends they are only staying for one and then nobody leaves. Smart-casual coat on, the black one that makes me look like I have my life together, hair doing what it wanted, vape in the bag. I had been in the office since half eight pretending to care about a calendar invite. By six I wanted a pint, a bit of attention, and if the night went my way, something more useful than either.

    He was at the end of the bar with two lads from the other floor. Josh. Dark hair, that slightly too-pleased-with-himself smile I recognise because I wear one myself. Not my usual type on paper. On paper I like them a bit rougher, a bit quicker to get to the point. But he had good hands. I noticed the hands first. Then the way he looked at me like he already knew I was going to let him.

    I am not shy about that part. I like sex. I am good at it. I do not do the whole coy dance unless it serves me. So when he bought the next round and found a reason to stand in my space, I let him. Close enough I could smell his aftershave and the lager on him. Close enough that when I laughed at something dumb one of his mates said, I did it into his shoulder on purpose.

    Three pints. Then a double. Then the nachos someone in our group insisted on, which in hindsight was the first crime of the evening. Cheese, jalapeños, that sour cream that sits in your stomach like a dare. I ate them because I was hungry and because I was performing being easy and fun, which I am, and because I had already decided I wanted his mouth on me later. Not in a romantic way. In a I-have-had-a-long-week-and-I-want-to-feel-someone way.

    We talked about nothing. Work. Trains. How the office coffee tastes like punishment. He was well spoken enough, a bit pleased with his own jokes. I matched him. I can do that. Degree on the wall at home I never look at, PA by day, and I know how to sound like I belong in a conversation without giving away that I am already picturing him with his jeans round his thighs.

    By nine the group had thinned. My lot were talking about last orders and taxis. His mates were getting loud. Josh looked at me like the question had already been asked. I looked back like the answer was obvious.

    Outside was cold in that early autumn way that makes you pull your coat tighter and pretend you are not bothered. The pub door kept slapping open behind us. Buses on the main road, that wet hiss of brakes, a group of girls screaming at each other in a loving way down the pavement. I lit the vape. Mango. He made a face and I told him to get over it. He laughed. I liked that he laughed.

    We stood under the awning like we had planned it. I was feeling cute. That is the dangerous bit. When I feel cute I get cocky. Coat collar up, a bit of lip left, that warm buzz in my stomach that was half the drink and half the knowledge that I could have him in a cab in ten minutes if I wanted. I did want. I was already thinking about the flat, whether both housemates would be in, whether we would even make it past the sofa. I was thinking about his mouth. I was thinking about putting his hand where I wanted it. I was thinking, very specifically, about how good it would feel to stop performing for one night and just get off.

    He said something about sharing an Uber. I said something about seeing how the next five minutes went. Then he stepped in.

    First kiss outside a pub should be simple. It is a public, stupid, slightly messy thing and I like it for that. No candles. No speech. Just cold air and someone deciding they have waited long enough. He was a good kisser, I will give him that. Soft at first, then surer, hand on my waist over the coat, the kind of kiss that tells you he has thought about it for the last hour. I kissed him back properly. Not polite. I do not do polite when I have already made my mind up. I had one hand on his jacket and the vape still in the other because I am not a person who puts things down when I should.

    And then my body committed a hate crime.

    It was not a little polite escape. It was not something you could blame on a chair or a passing lorry if you really committed to the lie. It was loud. Unmissable. A proper, round, traitorous sound that arrived in the middle of his mouth on mine like it had been waiting all night for its cue. The nachos. The pint. The second pint. My stomach had been muttering for twenty minutes and I had told it to behave, which is not how stomachs work, especially not mine after a week of desk lunches and vape and not enough actual food.

    I felt it leave me. I heard it. Worse, I felt him hear it, because he went still in that awful way people do when their brain has to file a new piece of information mid-kiss.

    I said pardon.

    Like my nan. Like I had bumped someone in Iceland. Little lift of the chin, quick, automatic, the word out of my mouth before I could swallow it back. Pardon. In a smart-casual coat, with his hand still on my waist, mango vape in my fist, having just tried to start a night that was supposed to end with his face between my legs.

    He did not laugh. Not immediately. His eyes flicked past me to the road as if salvation might be coming on two decks. A bus heaved past at the exact wrong useful moment, that big diesel shove of noise, and he seized on it like a man grabbing a life ring.

    Bus, he said.

    Yeah, I said.

    We both looked at the bus like it had personally saved the evening. It had not. The bus had done nothing except exist. The sound had come from me. We both knew. I knew that he knew. He knew that I knew that he knew. There is a special kind of silence that arrives after that. It is not the sexy kind. It is the kind where your pulse is still up from the kiss and your pride is on the pavement.

    I laughed. Of course I laughed. What else was I going to do, faint? I am not built for shrinking. I made it a joke before he could decide it was disgusting. I said something about the nachos filing a complaint. He smiled with his mouth and not quite with his eyes. The hand on my waist loosened. Not gone. Just less sure.

    We stood there. Coat. Cold. The pub door banging again. Someone inside shouted for a taxi. I took a pull on the vape because if I was going to be mortified I was at least going to be occupied. He rubbed the back of his neck. That little tell men do when they are recalculating the night.

    I still wanted him. That is the pathetic, honest bit. The kiss had been good. My body had not got the memo that the mood was dead. I was still warm from it, still thinking about taking him home, still aware of how close his hip was to mine. Embarrassment and being turned on are not opposites for me. They just make a stupid cocktail. I could have recovered it. I am good at recovering things. A filthy comment, a tug on his jacket, walk him towards the rank and make the sound belong to a funnier version of the night.

    I did not. I said pardon again, quieter, which made it worse, and then I looked at my phone like a coward.

    He filled the air. Nice of him, really. Asked if I wanted another drink. I said I should get back. He said fair. We did that little shuffle people do when the script has ripped. He kissed my cheek. Not my mouth. The cheek is where a night goes to die. I let him. I smelt his aftershave again and hated my own guts.

    The walk to the stop was short and long at the same time. He talked about the office. I talked about the office. Two people who had just had their tongues in each other’s mouths now discussing printers. A bus that was not the guilty bus arrived. I got on it. He did not. Through the window I watched him put his hands in his pockets and look at the pub like he might go back in and pretend I had not happened.

    I sat downstairs because upstairs felt like too much commitment. Vape in my coat. Headphones in, not playing anything. My face was hot. Not cute hot. The other one. I kept hearing it. The timing. The pardon. My nan would have been proud of the manners and horrified by the rest.

    The flat was lit and messy in the usual way. One housemate on the sofa with some police thing on the telly, the other in the kitchen eating cereal like it was a personality. I dropped my bag. I took my coat off like it had betrayed me too.

    Do not, I said, before either of them spoke.

    Which of course meant I was going to tell them. I lasted as long as it took to put the kettle on. Then it came out in one run, no dignity, standing there in the kitchen with my work top still on. The pub. The kiss. The noise. The pardon. The bus that did not do it.

    They screamed. Proper screamed. The cereal one had to put the bowl down. The sofa one paused the programme and demanded the sound effect, which I refused to give because I still have standards, just not many. I laughed until my stomach hurt, which felt rude given what my stomach had already done. I called him fit. I called myself a liability. I said I had been this close to bringing him back and ruining the sofa as well as the pavement.

    They asked if I texted.

    I had. Of course I had. I am not fifteen. I sent something light on the bus, the sort of message that pretends you are both in on the joke so he does not get to hold it over you. He replied with a laughing emoji and a yeah that bus was mental. I stared at that sentence for a long time. Then I put the phone face down and ate toast I did not want.

    Later, in bed, it was worse in a different way. Quiet flat, telly off, just me and the replay. I thought about the kiss more than the sound, which says a lot about my priorities. His mouth. The hand on my waist. The plan I had for him that never got out of the starting blocks. I was still wound up. Annoyed at my own body for choosing violence. Annoyed at him for going to the cheek. Annoyed at myself for saying pardon like I was queuing in a post office.

    I did not sleep quickly. I put music on low. I thought about texting someone else, which I nearly did, because I am not above solving one humiliation with a better night. I did not, in the end. Even I know when to leave a scene alone.

    Friday in the office I saw him by the lifts. He did that nod people do when they would like the ground to help. I did the same nod back, smug as I could make it, like I had meant the whole thing as performance art. I went to my desk and answered emails like a person with a future. I thought about the promotion. I thought about money. I thought about how I would tell this story again, tighter, funnier, with me as the one who survived it.

    Because I did. That is the point. It was mortifying. It was loud. It killed a kiss that was actually going somewhere I wanted it to go. I still replay the pardon and want to walk into the sea. But I also know I looked good in that coat. I know he had been into it until my stomach filed for divorce. I know that if the same night happened again I would still eat the nachos, still stand too close, still let him kiss me outside a pub on a Thursday.

    I would just skip the second pint.

    Maybe.

    He texted a week later. Casual. Drink sometime. I left it on read long enough to feel like myself again, then said I was stacked with work, which was half true. I was stacked with not wanting to stand on that same bit of pavement and hear a bus that was not the problem. He said no worries. That was that.

    The girls still bring it up. Of course they do. Any time someone so much as mentions nachos. Any time I put that coat on. Any time I say I am popping out after work and might be late back. I tell them to shut up and I laugh anyway, because it is funny, and because if I do not laugh I have to sit with the other feeling, the one where I was about to get exactly what I wanted and my own body shouted over it.

    So yes. First kiss. Outside the pub. Cute coat. His mouth. Then me, announcing myself to the whole street like a brass band. I said pardon. He blamed the bus. It was not the bus.

    And if you are eating nachos before you try to pull someone, learn from me. Or do not. I am going to do it again at some point. I know I am. I just hope the next time my stomach waits until we are somewhere with a door.

  • Vaped Straight Into His Mouth

    I still taste mango when I think about it, which is tragic, because I used to like that flavour. Now it just reminds me of a grown man coughing in my face while I had my tongue halfway in his mouth and one hand on his belt. I am twenty five. I have a degree. I can do a spreadsheet with my eyes half shut. None of that saved me.

    It started like most of my bad ideas start. Thursday. Work had been long in that boring, email heavy way that makes you want a drink more than food. I am a personal assistant, which sounds organised and calm on paper and feels like being glued to someone else’s calendar in real life. By half five I was done being polite. Smart casual, dark hair shoved into something decent, vape in the bag because of course it was. I told the girls in the flat I would be late. They already knew what that meant.

    We went to the pub round the corner from the office, the one with sticky tables and a landlord who pretends he cannot hear people being filthy in the corner. After work crowd. Cheap wine. Pints. That warm noise you get when everyone has taken their lanyards off and started acting like they have a personality again. I was in a good mood. Proper good. The kind where you know you look alright and you are not pretending otherwise.

    Callum works two floors up. Not my boss, thank God, because I do actually want that promotion and I am not stupid enough to shit where I eat on purpose. Tall enough. Nice hands. Talks a bit too much about football and not enough about anything else, but I was not there for a TED talk. He bought the second round. I let him. I am not above being bought a drink when I already know how the night is going to go.

    We stood too close at the bar. That was the first tell. Then his knee found mine under the table and stayed there like it had paid rent. I vaped between sips because I cannot sit still and because the mango one makes me feel like I am on holiday even when I am in a pub in zone whatever with a bloke from accounts. He watched my mouth when I did it. I noticed. I always notice.

    By the third drink I was already deciding the logistics. His place was closer. Mine had two flatmates and a hallway that squeaks like it is judging you. I like an audience in theory. I do not like an audience when I am trying to get someone’s trousers off and one of my housemates is heating up leftover pasta. So his. Fine. I said it first, because I am not one of those girls who waits to be invited like it is 1952.

    “You living far?”

    He said ten minutes in an Uber. I said go on then. Just like that. No speech. No pretending I needed another drink to think about it. I wanted him. I wanted to get out of that pub. I wanted to feel like the day had been for something other than calendar invites and smiling at people I do not care about.

    Outside was colder than it looked. I pulled my coat around me and he put his hand on my lower back in that way men do when they think they are being subtle. I did not move it. We waited for the car under some awful office lighting that makes everyone look a bit ill. I had the vape in my right hand the whole time. I always do. It is like a dummy for adults. I hit it twice on the pavement, sweet mango, bit of ice on the back of the throat, and I caught him looking again.

    “You going to share that or what?”

    I laughed. “You can have a go in the car if you are good.”

    I thought I was being cute. I was being an idiot. There is a difference and I only clock it after the fact.

    The Uber pulled up. Clean enough. Driver with the radio on low, some chart thing I half knew. Back seat. That weird polite silence you get for the first thirty seconds while everyone decides whether they are going to behave. We did not behave.

    His place was twelve minutes according to the map. Plenty of time to be a nuisance. Coat still on. My thigh over his. He kissed my neck first, which I like, and I tipped my head back against the seat and let him, vape still loose in my fingers like a cigarette in an old film. The city slid past the window. Wet road. Brake lights. That feeling in your stomach when you know you are about to get exactly what you came out for.

    I turned his face and kissed him properly. He was a decent kisser, I will give him that. Not sloppy. A bit eager, which I do not mind when I am in that mood. My free hand went to his shirt. His went under mine, warm palm on my waist, then higher, thumb brushing the underside of my bra like he was checking I was real. I made a small noise into his mouth. Not even performing. Just that first spark when your body catches up with your mouth.

    The vape was still in my right hand. I want that on the record. I did not forget it. I just treated it like it was part of my body, which, if you vape as much as I do, it sort of is.

    We broke apart for air. I grinned at him, smug as anything, and I went back in.

    That is when I did it.

    I must have lifted the thing as I moved. Muscle memory. Same way you check your phone without thinking. I drew on it as I kissed him. A proper pull. Then I breathed out, because that is what you do after you inhale, and I breathed out into his open mouth.

    Mango. Cold. Thick. Straight down his throat.

    It was not a cute little puff. It was a cloud. I felt it leave me. I saw it for a split second in the gap between our faces, this pale sweet fog, and then it was in him.

    He made a sound I have never heard a grown man make. Not sexy. Not even shocked in a hot way. It was the noise of someone who has just swallowed a scented candle. He jerked back so hard his head nearly hit the window. Then he coughed. Proper coughed. Bent forward, fist to his mouth, eyes watering, the full performance.

    I laughed.

    I did not mean to. It burst out of me before my brain could catch it. That awful bright laugh I do when something is so bad it loops round and becomes funny. I still had the vape in my hand. The little light was on. Mango hanging in the air between us like I had just vaped a dessert into his lungs.

    “Oh my God,” I said, which was useless.

    He coughed again. The driver glanced in the mirror. Of course he did. I wanted the seat to eat me. I wanted the road to open. I wanted to be anyone else, anywhere else, preferably a woman who does not bring a flavoured stick into a snog like it is an accessory.

    “You alright?” I asked, still laughing, which made it worse.

    He nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again, wheezing out, “What the fuck was that?”

    “Mango,” I said, as if that helped. “Ice. I think.”

    “You vaped in my mouth.”

    “I know.”

    “Into my actual mouth.”

    “I know.”

    He coughed a third time and then, to his credit, he started laughing too. Not straight away. There was a horrible five seconds where I thought he was going to tell the driver to pull over and let the mental girl out. Then he wiped his eyes and looked at me like I was a problem he had not budgeted for.

    “You are unbelievable.”

    “I get that a lot.”

    I said it cocky, because that is my default setting even when I have just waterboarded a man with fruit vapour. Inside I was on fire. Not the good kind. The I will remember this in the shower for three years kind.

    The car kept moving. That was the worst part. There was still eight minutes on the map. Eight minutes of sitting there with the taste of mango and toothpaste and shame. My lipstick was smudged. His shirt was creased. The moment that had been heading somewhere very obvious had been replaced by the ghost of a tropical vape.

    I put the thing in my bag like that would undo it. Bit late.

    He cleared his throat and looked out the window, still smiling in that stunned way. I put my hand on his knee because I am incapable of leaving a silence alone.

    “We can pretend that did not happen.”

    “Cat. I can taste mango in my chest.”

    “That is actually quite romantic if you squint.”

    “It is not.”

    Fair.

    I thought that was it. Night over. Embarrassing anecdote for the group chat. I was already writing the message to the girls in my head. You will not believe what I have done. Do not let me go out with the vape again. Burn it.

    Then he looked back at me, eyes still a bit wet from coughing, and he said, “You still coming up or are you going to gas me again?”

    I blinked.

    “You what?”

    “I have water,” he said. “And windows. I am not dying. I am just flavoured.”

    That should not have been attractive. It was a bit attractive. I am not proud of my standards in that moment. I bit my lip to stop another laugh and nodded.

    “Yeah. I am coming up. I will keep it in the bag. Scout’s honour.”

    “Were you ever a scout?”

    “Do I look like I was a scout?”

    He looked at my smudged mouth and the coat slipping off one shoulder and said no. Correct.

    The last few minutes of the ride were quieter. Not dead. Just careful. His hand found my thigh again, higher this time, and I let it, because the heat had not actually gone anywhere. It had just been interrupted by a fruit based war crime. When I kissed him again I did it slow, no props, no accessories, just mouth and a bit of teeth, and he made a better sound that time. The driver turned the radio up. Bless him.

    His building was one of those new ones that all look the same. Lift with a mirror I should not have looked in. I did anyway. I looked like I had been in a fight with a dessert. He unlocked the door and I stepped in, bag still clutched like the vape might leap out and finish the job.

    He got me a glass of water. I drank it. He drank two. Then he backed me into the counter and kissed me properly, and this time both my hands were empty, which felt like progress.

    I will not pretend the rest of the night was ruined, because it was not. Once we got past the coughing and the laughing and me saying sorry for the fifth time, it was good. He was good. I was better, which I say because I know what I am doing and I am not going to be shy about it after I have already admitted to vaping into a man’s respiratory system. Clothes on the kitchen floor. My skirt round my waist because I could not be bothered to take it off properly. His mouth on my neck, my hand in his hair, that first slide of him against me that makes your brain go quiet in the nicest way.

    At one point, when I was on my knees and he was trying very hard to be normal about it, he looked down and said, “No vape.”

    I gave him a look that could have stripped paint.

    “I am busy,” I said, and got back to it.

    He did not last as long as he probably wanted to after that, which I took as a compliment and also as karma for the mango incident. We ended up in his bed after, lights off, my head on his chest, him still smelling faintly of tropical ice like a duty free shop.

    “I am never hitting that thing near you again,” I said.

    “You can hit it,” he said. “Just not in my mouth. I have limits.”

    “Noted.”

    I got an Uber back at half one because I like my own bed and I did not want the morning conversation. The flat was dark. One of the girls had left the bathroom light on. I stood on the balcony in my coat and, yes, I vaped. Mango. I hated that I still liked it. The city was quiet in that fake way London gets at night. I sent the group chat a message.

    I vaped into his mouth. On purpose. Not on purpose. You know what I mean. He coughed like a Victorian child. Then I still went home with him. I am a disgrace. Do not reply, I am going to sleep.

    They replied anyway. Obviously.

    Fallout lasted longer than the cough. The driver must have said something because the rating on my account dipped and I had to sit there the next morning looking at three stars like I had committed a crime against transport. At work I saw Callum by the lifts. He had a coffee. I had a face that said do not speak to me in public. He smirked. I smirked back because I cannot help myself. Later he messaged.

    Still taste it.

    I sent back a mango emoji and nothing else. Let him sit with that.

    The girls would not let it die. Every time I picked up the vape in the living room one of them started coughing on purpose. Very funny. Really mature. I told them they would miss me when I moved out on a promotion wage, which made me sound more sorted than I am, but the bit about the wage was true. I want the money. I want the title. I also want to go out on a Thursday and not assault a man with dessert air. We cannot always have everything.

    I bought a different flavour that weekend. Blueberry. It felt like a fresh start. It lasted four days. I am back on mango. I am weak.

    Here is the thing I keep coming back to, standing on that balcony with the little light glowing in my hand. I am good at a lot of the bits people get awkward about. I know how to use my mouth. I know how to read a room. I can talk someone into leaving a pub with me in under an hour and I do not even think that is a special talent, I think it is just being honest about what you want. And then I will do something so stupid, so completely preventable, that it knocks the whole performance over.

    That is me, I think. Confident until I am not. Smooth until I vape into someone’s lungs. Happy, mostly. Horny, often. A bit arrogant because it is easier than being shy. Essex in the voice even when the emails come out clean.

    Callum still talks to me. We have not repeated the Uber. I have rules now. Vape in the bag before the kiss. Hands free. No flavours in shared airspace. It is not sexy. It is public safety.

    Would I tell the story again? I just did. Would I go back to that Thursday and take the vape out of my hand before I got in the car? In theory. In practice I know myself. I would still have it. I would still lean in. I would still think I was being cute.

    And some poor bloke would still get a mouthful of mango ice at the exact moment he thought he was getting me.

    He coughed. I laughed. Then I wanted the earth to open.

    It did not. So I went upstairs with him anyway.