Right. So.
I said the wrong name. Not in a cute way. Not in a whisper you can pretend was the telly. Proper full volume, right at the peak, like my mouth had filed the wrong paperwork and sent it out anyway.
Callum.
He is not called Callum.
I still hear it. That little gap after, where the room goes quiet and you realise you have just set fire to a perfectly good Friday.
It started like they all start when I am in a good mood and slightly too pleased with myself. After-work drinks. Nothing fancy. One of those places near the office that smells of warm wine and people lying about how busy they are. I had my smart-casual on, hair doing what it wanted, vape in the bag. Josh from two floors down had been clocking me for weeks. Nice face. Good shoulders. The sort of bloke who laughs at your jokes a beat too quick because he already knows where he wants the night to go. I knew as well. I always know.
We did the usual dance. Two drinks. Then three. I let him buy the fourth because I am not allergic to being looked after and he seemed the type who likes feeling useful. Conversation was fine. Work. Trains. How the lift in our building has a personal vendetta. I was funny. He was keen. My baseline is happy anyway, so I did not have to pretend. I just leaned into it.
By half eight I had already decided. Not because I was desperate. Because I fancied it and I am allowed. High sex drive is not a personality flaw no matter what my aunties think. It is just how I am built. Sex makes me feel like the volume on the day has been turned down. Safe, weirdly. Present. I do not need a sonnet. I need a door that locks and someone who can keep up.
His place was closer. That was the official reason. The unofficial one was my two housemates were in and I could not be arsed with the performance of being quiet. I like being loud. I am not going to apologise for that either. If I am into it, you will hear it. That is the deal.
Uber. Knee against knee. His hand on my thigh like he was asking permission and hoping I would not notice he already had it. I vaped out the window because I am not an animal. Mango. He said it smelled nice. I said he was easily pleased. He laughed. I thought, yeah, this will be fine.
His flat was the standard man version. Clean enough that I did not want to leave. Not so clean that I suspected a mother with a key. Couch that had seen things. Bedroom at the end of a short hall. I kicked my shoes off and that was that.
He was a good kisser. I will give him that. Proper into it, not the pecky little situation some of them do when they are trying to look respectful. Hands under the blazer. Mouth on my neck. I had him against the wall for a bit because I like starting that way. Lets them know I am not going to lie there like a decorative cushion. He made that low sound men make when they realise you are actually going to be work. I liked that sound. I always do.
Clothes came off in that messy half-laughing way. My bra ended up on his radiator. Classy. He got my knickers off with more enthusiasm than technique and I did not mind. I put him on the bed and got my mouth on him because that is one of the things I am actually good at and I know it. No point being coy. I like the control of it. The way their hands find your hair and then forget what to do with them. He swore under his breath. I looked up, smug as anything, and he said my name like it was a question. Cat. Not Caitlin. Good. At least he had that bit right.
We moved on. I got on top first because I wanted to set the pace and because I look better that way, which I know, and I am not going to pretend I do not. He had decent hands. Found what he was supposed to find without me having to draw a map, which already put him ahead of half the men in the greater Essex area. I was wet, properly into it, that warm restless feeling that makes me talk more. I told him harder. I told him not to be polite. He listened. Points for Josh. Real points.
Then he flipped me. One of those eager moves that is almost impressive if you do not think about it too long. From behind, his hand in my hair, the other on my hip. That is when my brain starts leaving the building. I get loud. I cannot help it. It is not a performance. It is just what happens when it is good and I stop managing myself. The headboard started tapping. I bit the pillow once and then could not be bothered. I said yes. I said fuck. I said his name.
Except I did not.
It built the way it does when you have had a long week and someone is finally hitting the right angle and your whole body decides it is done being a professional. That tight climb. The stupid little sounds. I could feel it coming and I did the thing I always do, which is get greedy and vocal and a bit feral. I wanted it. I chased it. My mouth opened to give him something filthy and encouraging.
What came out was Callum.
Not a mumble. Not a halfway thing you can swallow. Callum. Clear as a till receipt. Right at the peak, while I was clenching around him and making that broken noise I make when I actually get there.
Silence.
Not the sexy kind.
The other kind. The kind where even the headboard has the good sense to shut up.
He stopped. Still inside me. Hand gone from my hair. I could feel him looking at the back of my head like it had just committed a crime.
I laughed.
That was my first mistake after the name. I have a laugh for when I am winning and a laugh for when I have just driven the car into a hedge. This was the hedge one. Too bright. Too quick. I looked over my shoulder, hair in my face, trying to play it like I am hilarious.
I am not that funny.
“Did I?” I said, which is a stupid question because we both heard it.
“Yeah,” he said.
Just that.
I should have left it. I should have said sorry and pulled him back in and made it up with my mouth until the atmosphere recovered. That is usually my move. I am good at recovery. I can talk most rooms round. Communication is meant to be one of my strengths. Maths and talking. That was the degree. Fat lot of good it did me with my arse in the air and another man’s name still hanging over the bed.
“Last week’s,” I said, because my mouth had not finished ruining me. “I mean. Not. I don’t know why that came out.”
He pulled out.
There is a particular sound to a man leaving your body when the mood has died. It is not dramatic. It is just final. Like a door clicking.
I rolled onto my side. He sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me. Nice back, I will give him that as well. Shame.
“Callum,” he said, tasting it. “Right.”
“It did not mean anything.”
“No. Course not. You just keep him in a drawer for special occasions.”
That one landed. I sat up, pulled the sheet over my chest like that would restore my dignity, and tried again. “I was into it. I was properly into it. My head just glitched.”
He nodded at the floor. “Yeah. I got that.”
The laugh tried to come back. I killed it. I am arrogant on a normal day. I know that. People clock it in the first five minutes. Smug, fun, confident, a bit much. It works when the night is going my way. It does not work when you have just moaned another bloke’s name into a pillow.
He reached for his jeans.
That is the image I cannot get rid of. Not the sex. The jeans. The way he stood up and stepped into them like the conversation was over and the body that had been inside me thirty seconds ago was now just a man getting dressed in his own bedroom. Belt. Button. The whole civilised performance.
“You do not have to go,” I said, which was a lie. He was already gone. He was just still in the room.
“I think I do.”
I found my knickers on the chair. My bra still on the radiator, warm, ridiculous. Getting dressed after a failed shag is a special kind of comedy. Everything feels louder. The zip. The shoes. I vaped without asking because at that point manners felt optional. Mango again. The room smelled like sex and fruit and embarrassment.
He did not walk me to the door like a gentleman and he did not slam it like a child. He just opened it. Hallway light. That was it.
“For what it is worth,” I said, hovering there like an idiot, “it was good. Before I opened my mouth.”
He almost smiled. Almost. “Yeah. It was. Until it was not.”
Then the door shut.
I stood in the corridor of a building I did not live in, fully dressed, still a bit wet, with my vape in one hand and my pride in the other, and I thought about texting Callum. That was the brain’s next brilliant idea. Ring the source of the problem and see if he fancied a late one. I did not. Even I have a line.
The stairs felt longer than they were. Outside it was that damp Essex night that makes your hair go wrong. I ordered an Uber and sat on the little wall like a woman who had just been evicted from her own orgasm. The driver was fine. Bless him. He did not ask why I looked like I had been personally insulted by God.
I vaped the whole way home. Music on my phone. Nothing that would make me feel things. I do not sit with the sad stuff if I can help it. Music. Telly. Someone else’s skin. That is the system. The system had just spat me out onto the pavement.
Housemates were up. Of course they were. One look at my face and they knew. You cannot live with two people and hide a walk of shame. I dropped my bag, kicked the shoes under the table, and said, “I called him Callum.”
They lost it.
Proper screaming. The good kind, the kind that makes you want to laugh and disappear at the same time. I told it from the drinks to the radiator bra to the jeans. I did not spare myself. What would be the point? They already know I am promiscuous. They already know I treat sex like a hobby and a comfort blanket. They have heard worse through the wall. This was just the first time the punchline was a name.
“Was it at least a good Callum?” one of them said.
“That is the annoying part,” I said. “It was. That is why he was in there.”
Last week had been better. Not in a romantic way. In a body way. Callum had this unhurried mean streak in bed that made my brain go quiet. Josh had been perfectly decent. Keen. Fit enough. The problem with being the way I am is my head keeps a private league table and sometimes, at the worst possible second, it reads the results out loud.
I made tea I did not want. Put the telly on. Something loud and stupid. Sat there in yesterday’s makeup feeling the ghost of the climax and the much louder ghost of the silence after it. My phone lit up once. Not Josh. Not Callum. A work email about Monday. Promotion still sitting there on the horizon like a well-behaved adult. I am good at my job. I can talk anyone round. I can add a spreadsheet without blinking. I cannot, apparently, keep last week’s dick out of this week’s mouth.
I nearly texted Josh an apology that sounded like a person. Then I wrote one that sounded like me.
sorry about the name. genuinely was having a good time. brain is a slag.
I did not send it. There is confident and there is begging a man who is already back in his jeans to like you again. I know the difference. Most days.
Sleep did not come quick. I lay there replaying it, not the sex, the second after. The way he said “yeah” like he had just confirmed a rumour. The laugh I threw at the fire. How I actually said “last week’s” out loud, as if that would help. Who does that? Me. Obviously me. Smug until it goes wrong, then still a bit smug while it burns.
In the morning I did the normal things. Shower. Smart-casual. Vape on the balcony. Train. Office. I walked past his floor and did not look in. I am not a coward. I am just not a mug either. If I saw him I would have made a joke and it would have been too soon and I would have hated myself for needing the last word.
Did I learn anything?
Not really.
I learned I should not say names if I cannot guarantee the filing system. I learned my timing is appalling. I learned that being good with your mouth in one context does not save you when your mouth does something else. I learned Josh looks fit in jeans even when he is putting them on to leave you.
I will do it again. Not with him. With someone. That is just the truth of it. I like sex. I like the noise and the heat and the way it shuts the rest of the week up for twenty minutes. I like being wanted. I like being good at it. Sometimes my head will drag last week into the room and dump it on the pillow. That is the risk. I can live with the risk. I just wish, for once, it could have waited until I had come down and put my own jeans on first.
Callum texted on Sunday. Just a selfie and a question mark. I stared at it longer than I should have. Then I put the phone face down and put a film on.
I did not reply.
Not because I am reformed.
Because I have some pride left, and it is currently sitting in a heap next to a radiator in a flat I am never going back to.
