His Mum FaceTimed Mid-Shag

His mum FaceTimed mid-shag. I still cannot say that sentence without wanting to walk into traffic.

It started like every other Thursday that gets out of hand. After-work drinks. The kind that begin as one polite pint because someone is leaving and end four hours later with your coat over one arm and a decision you will defend in the morning even when you should not. He was from the building. Not my desk, not my team, just one of those faces you clock in the lift and then suddenly he is buying a round and leaning in when he laughs. Fit enough. Clean enough. The sort of bloke who smells like decent aftershave and poor impulse control. I was in that smug mood I get when the day has gone my way and my vape is full and I have already decided I am not going home to watch telly with the girls.

We left together like it was an accident. It was not an accident. We both knew. The walk to his was short and cold and I spent most of it talking too fast about nothing, which is what I do when I already know I am going to take my tights off in someone else’s hallway. His place was fine. Not a palatial thing. One bed, bits of gym kit, a kitchen that had seen a meal deal and given up. Phone went face up on the bedside table the second we got near the bed. I saw it. I clocked the big bright screen and the cracked corner and I thought nothing of it because I am an idiot who thinks the universe is on her side when she is horny.

Clothes came off with that greedy little rush you get when you have been thinking about it since the second pint. He was good with his mouth. I will give him that. I had my hands in his hair and one knee up and I was making that low sound I make when I stop performing and actually feel it. He got a condom on without the usual faff, which already put him in the top half of my recent list, and then he was in me and it was that first stretch that makes your brain go quiet. I like that bit. I like being a bit loud about it too. Not porn loud. Just honest. Hips, breath, the odd filthy sentence because I cannot help myself when it is landing right.

We found a rhythm. Me on top for a minute because I like the view and I like being in charge, then he rolled me and got deeper and I had one hand on the headboard and the other in my own hair like a woman who has never been embarrassed in her life. The phone sat there the whole time. Little black rectangle. Innocent. Face up. Bright enough that if anyone had called, the whole room would know.

Someone called.

The noise cut through everything. That cheerful little FaceTime trill that should only exist in kitchens and group chats. For half a second I thought it was an alarm. Then the screen lit the ceiling and I saw the name.

Mum.

Not “Home.” Not a number. Mum. With a photo. A nice woman. Soft jumper energy. The kind of face that makes scones and asks if you have eaten.

I made a sound that was not sexy. More like a fox going under a fence. He was still moving. Still in me. Still doing that focused face men get when they think they are about to ruin you in the best way. I slapped his shoulder.

“Phone,” I hissed.

He glanced over, saw the name, and I watched the blood leave his face in real time. Which would have been funny if I was not currently impaled and half naked with my tits out and my hair a state.

“Don’t,” I said.

He answered.

I do not know what lives in men. I have slept with enough of them to have theories and none of those theories cover answering your mother on FaceTime while you are mid-thrust. He did it with this panicked politeness, like missing the call would be ruder than letting her see his glistening chest and the top of some random girl’s head.

I dived.

Duvet up, body down, face in the mattress, arse probably still visible because duvets never cover what you need them to cover. I could hear my own heartbeat in the pillow. I could also hear her.

“Hello love, you all right? You look flushed.”

He was flushed. He was inside me. I was under a duvet trying to become furniture.

“Yeah, just, training,” he said.

Training. I bit the sheet.

“You said you were staying in. Have you eaten? There’s leftover lasagne if you want to come over. Your sister’s here Saturday, don’t forget, and she is bringing the baby so I need you to move the cot down.”

I was still wet. That is the detail that haunts me. Body had not caught up with the social death. He had gone still but he had not pulled out, which I only realised when I shifted and felt it and had to clamp my mouth shut on a noise that would have ended the family.

“I ate,” he said. Voice tight. “I’m a bit busy.”

“Who’s that?” she said.

Silence. The worst kind. The kind where everyone in the room knows someone is under the duvet.

“Just a friend.”

“From work?”

He made a noise that could have been yes. It could have been a sob.

“The girl you mentioned? The assistant one? You said she was sharp.”

I am sharp. I am also naked under his bedding with mascara on his pillow and his mum on a live video call. Sharp does not cover this.

“Mum.”

“Well put a top on, you look like you have run a mile. Are you sure you are all right? Your colour is high.”

“I’m fine.”

“Is she there now?”

I stopped breathing. Under the duvet it was hot and dark and I could smell sex and his deodorant and my own perfume going sour with panic. A bit of my hair was out. I knew it was out because I could feel air on it. Dark hair on a white duvet, right at the edge of frame, like a crime.

“I’ve got to go,” he said.

“Don’t be rude, put her on. I only want to say hello if she is the one you keep talking about.”

Keep talking about. I filed that away for later destruction.

“She is in the bathroom.”

I was not in the bathroom. I was under the duvet with his cock still in me because neither of us had the coordination to solve that problem while his mother discussed lasagne.

“All right, well tell her I said hello. And eat something. You get lightheaded.”

The call ended. The room went quiet in that awful way rooms do when something unholy has just occurred.

He pulled out. Finally. I came up for air like a woman rescued from a well. My face was hot. My hair was a nest. There was a condom situation that needed addressing and I could not look at it because if I looked at anything practical I was going to scream.

“You answered,” I said.

“I panicked.”

“You panicked into FaceTime.”

“I thought if I ignored it she would call the landline. She does that.”

“You have a landline?”

“My mum does. In her head I still live there.”

I sat on the edge of the bed with the duvet around me like a shame cloak and reached for my vape. Hands shaking. First drag was messy. I laughed then, which made it worse, because once I start I cannot stop and it comes out mean and helpless at the same time.

“She thinks I am the girl from work.”

“You are the girl from work.”

“I know I am the girl from work. I did not need her to know I am the girl from work who was just getting fucked on a Thursday.”

He sat there with his hands on his knees like a man at a job interview he has already failed. Still hard, which felt rude. Biology has no manners.

We did not finish. How could we. The ghost of his mother was in the room talking about a cot. I put my knickers on inside out and did not notice until I was in the hall. Tights in my bag. Blazer on over a top I am fairly sure was his. I left my earring. I know I left it. I have not asked for it back.

The walk to the main road was cold enough to slap the heat off my face. I ordered an Uber and sat on a wall and vaped until the mango started tasting like regret. Texted the group chat because I am constitutionally unable to hold a disaster privately.

His mum FaceTimed. Mid-shag. He answered.

Three dots. Then a flood. One of them sent a prayer emoji which felt optimistic. Another said I should change my name and move to Kent. The third asked if he was still in me when she said lasagne. I typed yes and put my phone away because even I have a ceiling.

Next morning was worse in a quieter way. Work. Same building. Same lifts. I did my job like a person who had not been introduced to a man’s mother via her son’s naked torso. He came out of a meeting at eleven and we did that tiny nod colleagues do when they have seen each other naked and also spiritually ruined. I went to the toilets, locked a cubicle, and sat there laughing into my hands until it turned into a sound I did not like.

She thinks I am that girl from work. I am. That is the bit that keeps circling. Not the sex. The sex was fine. Better than fine until the ringtone. It is the lasagne. It is “put a top on.” It is “the assistant one” said in a warm voice by a woman who now, whether she admits it or not, has a mental image she did not ask for. I keep seeing her at Saturday lunch, holding a baby, and suddenly remembering her boy’s flushed face and a streak of dark hair on a pillow.

He texted that night. Sorry. Then a second message: she asked your name. I stared at that for a long time on the sofa while one housemate painted her nails and the other one ate cereal at 10pm like a raccoon. I did not reply with my name. I replied with a full stop. Then I ruined it by sending another message that said do not tell her. Which is the same as telling her I care, which I do not, except I do in the small ugly way where I still want a promotion and I still have to walk through that lobby.

A week later I saw him by the coffee machine. He said she keeps asking if I eat properly. I told him to say I am an adult. He said he already did and she said assistants never eat properly. I laughed so hard I spilled oat milk on my sleeve. Then I went back to my desk and answered emails like my soul had not left my body in his bedding.

I have not been back to his. Not out of morals. Out of self preservation. There are men you can shag and still look in the eye. There are men whose mothers have seen your hair during penetration. Those are different lists.

Would I do the Thursday drinks again. Yes. I am not going to pretend a FaceTime from somebody’s mum is going to turn me into a nun. I like sex. I like being wanted. I like the bit before the fall when I still think I am the cleverest person in the room. I will put phones face down now. That is the entire lesson. Face down. Silent. In another room. Preferably in another postcode.

She still thinks I am that girl from work. I am. I just wish she thought it because I am good at my job and not because her son answered a video call with his hips flush against mine and a condom on and my mouth full of duvet.

If you are going to be filthy, be filthy with the screen off. If you cannot manage that, at least have the sense not to say training. Nobody looks like that from training. Nobody. Not even the liars in the gym at 6am.

I vape on the balcony most nights and tell the story when it comes up, which is often, because I have no chill and my friends are ghouls. It still makes me cackle. It still makes my stomach drop. Both things can be true. That is the whole job of being twenty five and messy and a bit too sure of yourself until a woman in a jumper says hello love and the universe reminds you that you are not, in fact, untouchable.

Put the phone down. Face down. Then you can be as loud as you like.