It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

“You’ve got the craziest tits I’ve ever seen.”
I am lying, naked, on my back, looking up at him. It takes a while to form the words. “What did you say?”
We both look at my breasts. “You have got the craziest tits I’ve ever seen.”

Earlier, in the bar, as we kissed, arms listlessly by my sides, I wondered what I was doing there. Then the optimistic part of me, the part that wants to make a rainbow out of every shit storm, decided that maybe if I got into it, faked it a little, that maybe I’d get there. So I leant in and imagined I was kissing someone I was crazy about. Someone who was going to bang me into next week.

“I thought you had the cigarettes?”
“I thought you did! Wait here. I’ll go ask that guy for some.” A minute later I return with two Luckies. “Ugh.” I slip into my high pitched voice. “Look at you! Whoring me out!” Even though he is frowning, I laugh.
“You’re being weird.” He lights our fags and passes one back. “You’re hot when you’re normal.”

In the shop, buying more cigarettes for the journey home he opens his wallet. The free drinks are swirling round my head: rum, absinthe, tequila, beer. The constant imploring to ‘just be normal’ is making me act out like a naughty toddler. I am hopping from one foot to the other, thinking about the time I danced round a 7-11 in Guadalajara with my friends, high as a kite. He takes out his wallet, checks how many notes he has. A couple of receipts are sticking out and I grab them, tear them up and throw them on the floor. He calls me weird again and I tell him I’m going home. Outside I can’t decide if I’m more angry with him for being so square, or myself for deliberately acting like a manic pixie dream girl. I hail a cab for us anyway.

“If you want to go home with some normal girl who doesn’t do silly voices every two seconds then you’re standing with the wrong person.”
He pushes the beer across the table at me. “But you can be normal, I’m sure you can.”
“Why bother trying to be something I’m not?”
“Like I said, you’re hot when you’re normal.”

When I wake up I stare at the wall for a minute or so. We are spooning and there is nowhere to wriggle to. When he wakes up it starts again. I wonder if I pretend a little more whether I’ll start to enjoy the seventh hour of fingerbanging. In my head I am flying through a glitter filled sky fucking Michael Pitt but even that can’t get me there. For the first time in five years I fake it. It seems, to the uninitiated, rather convincing. He leaves looking chuffed and a little hungover. I shut the door before he can ask for my number, go back into my flat, put on the loudest song I can find and bunny hop round the front room till I feel ill. Me and my crazy tits feel much hotter now we’re not pretending to be normal.

Stills from artworks by Jeremy Blake