I do not usually mess this up. That is the bit that still winds me up. I am good at this. Proper good. I have been told. I have practised. I treat it like a skill, same as I treat a spreadsheet, except nobody at work wants the spreadsheet version of me on my knees. After three double vodkas I decided I was going to be impressive. I was going to be that girl who makes a man look at the ceiling and forget his own name. What I actually did was decorate his work blazer like a crime scene and then sit in an Uber tasting bile and mango vape, wondering if I could legally change my name.
It started normal. Too normal, which should have been the warning. Thursday. After work. That pub two streets off the station that smells of lemon cleaner and damp coats. I had been in the office since half eight, smiling at people I do not like, booking things for a man who cannot find his own calendar. By six I wanted noise and a drink and someone who was not asking me to chase an invoice. I still had my smart casual on. Blazer off, top that looked like I had made an effort without looking like I had made an effort. Hair doing that thing where it looks messy on purpose. Vape in the bag. Always.
He was already at the bar. Not from my office, thank God. I have a promotion in my head and I am not stupid enough to throw up on someone who sits in the same building. He worked nearby. Finance, I think. Or something that required a nice blazer and the sort of watch you glance at when you want people to notice you glancing. Tall enough. Clean. That slightly smug look I recognise because I wear it too. We got talking because I am good at talking. Maths degree, English degree, personal assistant, Essex mouth. I can do charming. I can do filthy. I can do both in the same sentence if the vodka is doing its job.
First double vodka went down like a decision. Second one made me lean in. Third one made me certain I was going to take him home, or let him take me home, and do something memorable. I was already in that mood. High sex drive is a polite way of putting it. I like sex. I like being good at it. I like the bit where someone looks a bit stunned that the girl from accounts adjacent just took over. It makes me feel settled in a way telly and music do not quite manage. Safe is a weird word for it. It is still the true one.
We stayed for another round I did not need. He paid. I let him. I am not above that. Outside it was that damp English evening where the air feels like a cloth. We kissed against the wall by the side door like we were twenty and had nowhere better. He tasted of gin. I tasted of vodka and the mint I had chewed so I would not taste of vodka. His hand was on my waist. Mine was in his coat. I was already planning the route. His flat was closer. Of course it was. Men who wear good blazers do not live in the sort of place I live in with two mates and a bathroom that has three different shampoos fighting for the ledge.
In the Uber I was cocky. Proper cocky. Sitting there with my knee against his, vape in my fingers, talking too fast the way I do when I am happy and a bit pissed. I told him I was good with my mouth. Just said it. No poetry. He laughed like he thought I was joking and then stopped laughing when I did not smile like it was a joke. I like that moment. The little shift. The bit where they realise you are not being cute, you are being accurate.
His place was fine. Cleaner than mine. Smelled of whatever posh laundry stuff people buy when they have a salary that is not assistant money. He poured water I did not want. I put my bag down and took my jacket off and left the vape on the side like a little flag that said I live here now, at least for an hour. We did not make it to a slow undressing. That is never how I do it when I have decided. Sofa first. Then standing. Then I had his belt undone and I was on my knees on his living room rug thinking, yes, this is the bit I am good at, watch this.
He still had the blazer on. That is the detail that haunts me. He had taken his coat off. Shirt still on, sleeves shoved up, blazer hanging open like he was too keen to bother hanging it. Navy. Nice. The sort of thing you wear to a meeting where you pretend you understand the quarterly figures. I should have told him to take it off. I should have been a grown woman and said, babe, that is a dry clean only situation. I did not. I was too busy being impressive.
I will not dress it up. I had his cock out and I was doing what I do. I like it. I like the weight of it, the way a man goes quiet, the little sound they make when you stop being polite about it. I am not shy. I use my hand. I use my tongue. I take it deeper than most people bother with because I can, and because I like the look on their face when they realise I can. After three doubles my judgement was not sitting where it normally sits. My judgement was in the pub, finishing someone else’s crisps.
I went for it. Proper deep. The showing off version. The version I do when I want someone to remember Thursday night in six months and still shift in their seat. He made that noise. His hand went to my hair. I thought, yes, there we go, Cat, you legend. Then my throat decided it had other plans.
It was not a cute gag. It was not a little hiccup you laugh off and keep going. It was the full, humiliating, no-coming-back lurch. One second I was being excellent. The next second my stomach joined the meeting uninvited. I pulled back too late. It came up fast and messy and warm and there it was, all over the front of his navy work blazer. Shirt too. A bit on the rug. A bit on me. The smell hit before the shame did, which is rude, because the shame was right behind it with a cricket bat.
I knelt there with spit and worse on my chin, staring at this man’s nice clothes like I had personally declared war on smart casual. His cock was still out. That felt extra rude, like the situation had not had the decency to pause for dignity. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and I actually laughed. I could not help it. It came out of me high and shocked and a bit hysterical. Then I looked at the blazer again and the laugh died in my throat, which was rich of my throat, given the night it was having.
He was sweet. That almost made it worse. A different man would have sworn or gone cold or made a face that said I had just dropped ten points. This one crouched down, still half dressed, and said it was fine. It was not fine. There was vomit on a garment that cost more than my weekly food shop. He asked if I wanted water. He asked if I was all right. He even went to the kitchen and came back with kitchen roll like we had spilled wine and not the contents of three double vodkas plus whatever sad desk lunch I had eaten at two.
I sat on his rug and dabbed at his blazer like that was going to do anything. It was not going to do anything. Navy wool and bile are not friends. I kept saying sorry in that bright, too-fast way I talk when I am embarrassed and trying not to be. Sorry. I am so sorry. I am not usually like this. I am actually really good at that. Which is a mental thing to say while you are holding kitchen roll and a man’s ruined workwear. He smiled anyway. Soft. A bit helpless. The sort of smile that says he will tell this story one day but he will be kind about it.
The sex was over. Obviously. You cannot recover a blowjob after you have thrown up on the outfit. I did not even try. I have pride. Misplaced, filthy, Essex pride, but it is there. I went to his bathroom and rinsed my mouth until I could not taste myself. I looked in the mirror and I was shiny and smudged and tragic. Happy girl gone wrong. I vaped out of the window like a teenager even though I am twenty five and pay rent. Mango. Always mango. It did not help. It just made the bathroom smell like a corner shop and shame.
When I came back he had taken the blazer off and put it in a bag like evidence. Shirt too. He had put a jumper on. He looked younger without the work armour. I almost stayed. Part of me wanted to, because he had been decent and I like decent more than I pretend to. The bigger part of me wanted to leave before I did something else unforgivable, like cry or try to give him a footjob as an apology, which I did consider for one insane second. I am good at that too. It would not have fixed the blazer.
I called the Uber myself. I would not let him put me in one. I stood in his hallway with my bag and my ruined dignity and I thanked him like we had just had a normal night. He said text when you get home. I said I would. I did not. I could not face the typing. What do you even write. Thanks for being nice about the vomit. Sorry I treated your work clothes like a bucket. Fancy a retry when I have not had three doubles.
The car smelled of air freshener trying too hard. I sat in the back and vaped even though you are not supposed to, window cracked, eyes on the dark streets, replaying it on a loop. The confident bit. The knees on the rug. The noise he made. Then the lurch. Then the splash on navy. Then my own laugh, which now sounded unhinged. I wanted the earth to open. I wanted a new mouth. I wanted to go back to six o’clock and stop at two drinks like a person with a brain.
My flat was quiet when I got in. One housemate asleep. The other still out. I kicked my shoes off and stood in the kitchen drinking tap water like it could rewind time. I put telly on for the noise. Some reality thing I was not watching. Music in my headphones after that, because that is what I do when my head gets loud. Not sad music. I refuse. Something with a beat so I could pretend I was fine.
I kept thinking about the blazer. Not even the sex. The blazer. The fact it was a work thing. The fact he would have to explain it or hide it or take it to one of those expensive cleaners and stand there while a stranger held it up and knew. I imagined him in a meeting the next day in a different jacket, sitting there remembering my face over his zip. I covered my own face with both hands in my empty kitchen and made a sound that was not a laugh and not a sob. Something in the middle. Very me.
In the morning I was still mortified and also, traitorously, a bit hungry. Hangover brain is disgusting. I showered for too long. I did my makeup like I had somewhere to be that required competence. I went to work and I was excellent, because that is the deal. You can throw up on a man’s blazer on a Thursday night and still send a clean email at nine. That is the whole personality. Smug. Capable. Filthy. Then suddenly human in the worst way.
He texted at lunch. Just a question mark and a you okay. I stared at it on my work phone like it was a bomb. I typed three different replies. One funny. One filthy. One honest. I sent the funny one because I am a coward when I am sober. Something about owing him a dry clean and a better performance. He sent back a laughing face and said do not worry about the jacket. Which means he was worrying about the jacket. Of course he was. It was a nice jacket.
I have not seen him since. I could. That is the annoying part. He was sweet. He was fit enough. He did not make me feel like a disaster even while I was kneeling in one. I still cannot picture walking into that pub again and clocking the same navy on a stool. My throat closes and not in the fun way.
Here is the truth I keep circling. I got cocky. I treated my own body like it was a party trick after three drinks and no food worth mentioning. I wanted to be the best at the thing I am already good at, and my stomach filed a complaint in the most public way possible. It is hilarious now, in the daylight, if I tell it fast and keep the details sharp. It was not hilarious on that rug. It was hot and then it was awful and then it was kind, which is a strange order to feel in one evening.
I still like sex. Obviously. That has not changed. I still like being good at it. I still like the look on someone’s face when I take over. I just have a new rule, and I hate rules, so you know it is serious. Blazer off first. Shirt off first. Water first. Food if the vodka count has gone past two. And if I am going to show off, I am going to do it when my throat and my pride are on the same team.
If he ever reads this, which he will not, unless the universe is as petty as I am, I am sorry about the blazer. I am sorry I laughed. I am sorry I left like I was fleeing a fire. You were decent. I was a liability in lipstick. Next time I will swallow my pride instead of everything else. Or I will stay on the sofa and use my feet and keep everybody’s workwear out of it. I am good at that too. Less risk of weather.
Until then I am back to after-work pints I can actually handle, a vape on the balcony, and the private knowledge that I once tried to be legendary and ended up tasting like regret and mango. It is a look. It is not my best one. It is still mine.
