Charlotte Tuxworth

Extract from Love and Other Habits

His name is Guy. He has hair that he ties at the nape of his neck, green eyes that crease at the corners. His life has been simple and fun: a life of smoking weed and skateboarding, of working in bars and pubs and charming the regulars with stories about travelling in Thailand.

I’m making assumptions – all I can really see is the three photos on his tinder profile. His aesthetic suggests all this, and that is why I choose him. He seems like an anti-Noah, a person living a life free of any large and sad complications. Guy is 21, two years younger than me, hot in a grungy tour-bus kind of way, and has big hands which suggests a big dick. 

The thought of having sex with him, of him paying my body attention, draws me out of my bed and to the mirror on the other side of the room. 

I examine my face first. Last night’s mascara is flaking off my eyes, dusting the bridge of my nose like ash. My lips are chapped and stained with the red wine Ruby and I drank at the random house we went to for afters. Last night was my third in a row. We went to a basement venue in Stoke Newington; someone Ruby knows was playing there. It was sweaty and loud and dark and we danced and talked and smoked and talked. We made friends with a girl in the toilet who gave us a pinger to share, and we took all the coke and ket we’d bought with us and got completely waved. I can’t rouse many specific memories of the night, but my mind gives me flashes. Strangers in the smoking area, lights and music blending into each other in the air.

I check my body for fresh bruises. There is a big one on my hip, purple in the middle and yellow on the outside. I press it with my thumb, and the pain is satisfying and conjures a recollection. Ruby and I in the downstairs toilet of the afters house, doing bumps. We were wobbly, and I crashed into the doorframe on our way out. We laughed – we laughed a lot. I press the bruise again.

I run my hand over the cluster of spots that are coming up on my chin, the red ugliness of them. I’ve been too fucked up to cleanse this weekend. I sigh and feel tears brimming in my eyes. I watch the water gathering in tiny pools, illuminating bloodshot whites then spilling onto my skin and down my cheeks. Watching myself cry, I think about how many drugs I have been taking, how much alcohol I have been drinking. I feel strongly that I am wasting my life and the potential I have as a human being. I think about how incredibly lonely I am, that no one will ever want me, deeply and for a long period of time.

Then my phone vibrates and I crawl back to my bed to check it. 

Guy and I are a match! A giddiness surges through my body, smothering my sadness. He’s sent me a message: a sunflower emoji. Cute. I don’t want to be too keen so I decide not to reply straight away. Whilst I wait, I put on an episode of Dinner Date and roll a spliff. 

I smoke and watch the female dating candidates run through their menus – the collections of recipes they have collated to best express their personalities. I watch and think: life could be worse. I could be making food for a random bloke on national television. The weed starts to settle and I feel my eyes do that pleasant relaxing thing, like they’re smiling. I decide that it’s time to reply to Guy.

Hi!

You’re sweet

What you doing this eve?

He starts typing straight way. 

I’m just chilling tonight – mad hangover – what about you?

Omg me too

I’m just watching TV in bed with a little smoke

Ah that sounds nice

What did you get up to last night?

It is nice, would be nicer with some company

You want to join?

I watch him typing, then he stops, and a few moments pass, and my stupid heart thumps against my ribs. I stare at the screen and nothing happens. I open Instagram and scroll for a bit, waiting for the notification to flash at me. Then I open Facebook. Nothing. I put my phone on mute and place it screen down on the windowsill. I take a breath and lean back into the wall behind my bed. Why did he stop typing? What was he going to say? Am I getting rejected right now?

I watch the show for a bit and feel a growing urge to check my phone again. My body is restless with it. The metal is glinting in the corner of my vision, a jewel to a magpie. When there is still no tinder notification, it hurts me in my chest. I dig deeper. I open the app, I open my chat with Guy. I reread our conversation. I guess I came on too strong. I go back to the main interface and swipe left on a few men:

Aaron, 27

Kai, 24

Leading a profile with a selfie is a big no for me. 

I throw my phone on the floor, I wish it didn’t exist.

My heart is beating fast and I feel like I need to shake something from my body. I go to the bathroom, I look at myself in the mirror, pull some dry skin off my lips. I go to Anya’s room. She has been at Max’s all weekend – I didn’t respond to her invitation to meet them for a coffee and a walk round Battersea Park. I lie on her bed, creasing the perfectly smoothed duvet-cover-and-throw-arrangement. I rub my face into her pillows, which are soft and old and smell like her childhood home, the place where her mother made us fish fingers and peas to eat in front of MTV. I wonder what Anya would say if she was here, if I showed her Guy’s pictures. Something like: ‘Ooo, ponytail – nice!’ I smile at the thought, then I feel sad.

When I get back to my room, Guy has replied, and I’m embarrassed about how much I fixated on a twenty minute pause in conversation. 

Sure  

y not

I’ll bring my weed

Hahaha yea babe cest la vi 

Yeah you better you’re not smoking mine lol

Haha jk 

I’ll have one ready when you arrive 

Cool

Cool. I send Guy my address – he says he’ll be here in a few hours. I lie on my bed and breathe in and wish I wasn’t so high.

I examine my vagina. It’s pretty hairy, growing way beyond my bikini line. The man I slept with last weekend didn’t mind, but we were very drunk. Noah never minded. It’s always a risk though, with someone new – some guys are disgusted by it, by the hair that grows on our bodies to help maintain our PH balance and keep dirt out of the beautiful vessels that can take dicks and store babies. I take my razor to the shower with me, and shape my hair into a small, neat triangle for Guy. 

Afterwards I moisturise: a scent called ‘sweet vanilla.’ I use eye drops for my red eye and watch them become brighter in the mirror. I try my best to cover the breakout on my chin. I layer on concealer, then foundation, powder. In the end I apply thick eyeliner to serve as a distraction. There are a lot of Q-tips involved, a lot of shaping and reshaping.

I choose high-wasted tracksuit bottoms and a strappy crop top: I want to look like I haven’t made an effort to dress up, but still show off my figure. I painted my toenails a few nights ago, so I can wear my feet out. I feel like a lot of men find this suggestive, bare feet. It also means there’s no chance of me ending up having sex with socks on. (I hate seeing my own socked feet during intercourse, they always look absurd). 

Looking at my reflection, I’m relatively satisfied. I consider the fact that all the aesthetic decisions I’ve made in the last hour and a half have been for Guy, a man I don’t know. I wonder what he did to prepare.

When I open the door, I am pleased because Guy looks better than his pictures. He is taller, more masculine, and he’s got a sexy gap in between his front teeth that I couldn’t see in the photos. He is also carrying a skateboard (I knew it). When he says hello, he runs his hand over his head like he is nervous. He has a buzz cut, which is a talking point. 

‘So – you’re a catfish,’ I say.

He looks confused and says: ‘Nah.’

I laugh. ‘Your hair! It’s all gone.’ 

‘Oh, yeah, ha,’ his hand runs over his head again. ‘Thought I’d try it out.’ 

‘Well, sorry, I only have sex with guys with ponytails.’ 

He laughs awkwardly and looks at the ground. 

‘I’m kidding, of course. I think you’re beautiful.’ 

‘Thanks. So are you.’

‘Can I touch it?’

He smiles and nods and I rise onto my toes and run my hand over his hair. I like playing this confident character: a powerful woman who is allowed to objectify men, to boil them down to their parts. 

‘It’s very soft,’ I say. ‘And I bet you don’t even use conditioner.’

We go to the kitchen, and Guy makes it look small with his wideness. I pour him a glass of water from the fridge. As he drinks it I notice his hands again; the backs of them are broad, the tendons connecting his fingers to his wrists are thick and raised.

This is a time I love. The time just before you have sex with a new person, with someone who is a stranger to your body. When you both know you are going to do it and are waiting. The waiting is part of the foreplay, the sizing up of one another’s bodies, the imagination of being pressed against it, inside it, wrapped around it. A fantasy unfolding which each movement, each moment.

‘You want something stronger?’ I take two green beer bottles from the fridge and they are cold on my hot skin.

‘Yeah, go on – hair of the dog and all that.’

I lead him out to the balcony and unfold the camping chairs. We sit side by side, the rooftops in front of us losing definition in the twilight. I light the spliff and I feel him watching me.

‘It’s cool you smoke weed,’ he says. ‘I don’t know many other girls that do – not properly, anyway.’

This is a comment I’ve heard before. It reminds me of the boys at school who said that girls had ‘no banter.’ I don’t say this to Guy though, as I’m worried about the conversation we might have. I want to have sex with him, and I don’t want to find out he is a misogynist before I do that. I take the chat in a different direction: ‘Yeah, I can’t do a hangover without it. Or a weeknight actually.’

He laughs as I hand him the spliff. ‘Ha, yeah! Blaze everyday.’

His words send a cringe through me, they make him seem young. I think about Noah’s thoughtfulness and knowledge. I shift in my seat to shift the thought. Guy leans closer to me so that his arm is touching mine. The feeling of it – his skin warm, the fine hairs tickling me – makes me forget about the weed comment. 

Whilst we smoke we talk a bit. He didn’t want to go to uni, so he’s saving up to move somewhere. He might go and live in Australia, or Berlin, or Japan and teach English. He says my job sounds cool.

I take a big gulp of beer, and I feel the alcohol and the weed in my brain, moving through the neurons. It’s comforting and exciting, the feeling of these two things. I feel happy and sexy and adventurous.

‘You wanna go in?’

‘Yeah, let’s.’ He raises his eyebrows at me and then drains his beer, tipping his head back.

He is behind me as we walk inside, and he puts his hands on my hips. It is light, his touch, and the contact sends a quiver through me. Then he grips harder, his fingers in my bare flesh. I hear him breathe behind me, a breath of desire. I stop by the kitchen counter and turn to face him. His hands grip me again, they encircle my waist and I gasp.

‘Your body is amazing,’ he says, and I feel that familiar rush of validation. My body is amazing, I am not lonely.

I put my hands on his chest, then I run them under his t-shirt, over his taut stomach. He shivers and moves his face closer to mine. There is something safe about his body: it is so solid in front of me, strong and stoic. 

He says, ‘I want to fuck you, Nina,’ and I feel this intoxicating ache. An ache I don’t get from my vibrator: the joyous and desperate ache of being wanted by a person, a feeling that can’t be simulated. An ache that feels so profoundly significant, so sacred. I can feel how wet I am, how ready.

We kiss, and he is good at it. It has an intense energy to it, our kissing, nothing tender; it is about flesh, the biting of lips and the wrapping of tongues and noise; groans come from both of us, noises of hunger. He pulls away and pushes my hair back from my face, then his mouth moves to my ear. The feeling is amazing; his teeth on this delicate part of me. I cry out because I love it, and because I feel so much anticipation, because I cannot wait for him to fuck me. He moves closer to me, lifts me with ease onto the counter. He pulls down my trackies and underwear then he lifts his hand to my mouth. I wet his fingers, keeping my eyes on his, then he starts to touch me.

‘You’re so wet,’ he says. Then his fingers are inside me, and I throw my head back and I feel it, I feel his skin enclosed in mine, the throbbing contact of it.

‘That feels good,’ I tell him.

‘Yeah?’ he says, and he pushes harder and further. ‘Take your top off.’ 

I obey, and then he starts to move his mouth and tongue around my nipples. I am inside him, he is inside me, and my body is hot with pleasure. I want to touch him, so I say: ‘Let’s get on the floor.’

He responds: ‘Where’s the sofa?’

I tell him, and he takes his hand out of me and wraps my legs around his waist, gripping my thighs. Like that he carries me to the living room.

The sofa doesn’t happen. It is the rug we land on, and I push him lightly and roll over so that I am straddling him. ‘I’m gonna suck your dick,’ I say. I can feel it, pulsing through his trousers, a solid thing that wants me.

It is huge, perhaps too big. One of those dicks that feels like it’s hitting your bladder. I start to use my tongue, his skin is warm and smooth. When I use my lips too, he says: ‘yeah, yeah,’ and he takes my hair in his hand. At first he just holds it there, and I think there is something tender about it, this movement, that he is caressing me. But then he grabs and pulls, and it hurts because I wasn’t expecting it, but I don’t say anything because his dick is in my mouth and because I don’t want to ruin things, to make things awkward. He lets go for a while, he groans as I move further down his dick, which is hitting the back of my throat. 

Then his hands are on the back of my head, and he pushes it, hard. Further down onto him so that his whole dick is down my throat and I can barely breathe.

‘Hold it for me,’ he says. But I don’t want to, my throat is rejecting it, it is so wide and uncomfortable and my jaw is already aching from the size of it. Water is streaming from my eyes now, I feel trapped. So I reach up and move his arm off my head. He lets go and I come up for air.

‘Do you realise how big your dick is? I can barely breathe when you hold me down like that.’

A smile plays on his lips. ‘I’m sorry, I just got carried away. You were doing such a good job. Sorry. Come here.’ Then he grabs my waist, pulls me to the ground and is on top of me. He puts his hand on me again, and I can feel how wet I am, and then I forget about the head holding. My body is saying yes again. 

He makes me come with his hand, and it is a good orgasm. Then he enters me quickly and without warning. He puts it all the way in, there is no easing, nothing gradual, and it hurts. I wince, but he doesn’t see me; he has his eyes closed, mouth open. I can see he is enjoying himself, and on top of the pain I take note of this and it makes me happy, another layer to my thoughts, to the complicated thoughts around sex and bodies, around men and wanting and being wanted. My body starts to open up to him, but he is still hitting the back of my cervix too hard, without care.

I tell him: ‘it’s too deep.’

He groans and then says, ‘you’re just so tight.’ 

Another glimmer of affirmation: my vagina is what it should be. He eases off for a few minutes and it feels good. I put my hands around his back and bite his arm, and he takes this as an invitation; he pulls my left leg up and places it on his shoulder. I usually like this position, but with his dick it is too much, and I am wincing again.

Then I suddenly remember: how could I fucking forget? ‘Make sure you pull out,’ I say.

I look at him, but it’s like he didn’t hear me. His face is moving to climax and he is moving faster.

‘Hey, Guy – make sure you pull out.’

But then he cries out, and he pushes into the depth of me, three hard thrusts.

‘For fuck’s sake! Did you just fucking come? Did you not hear me?’ I push his body away from mine, his dick springs out of me and semen drips onto the rug.

He rolls over onto the floor beside me and puts his hand on my hip. He looks satisfied and I suddenly think he is ugly. ‘I’m sorry – I couldn’t stop it – it just happened. You should have told me earlier.’

‘Or maybe you should have fucking asked.’

He breathes out of his mouth like I’m being unreasonable. ‘So you’re not on the pill then? How come? Clearly you’re sexually active.’ He squeezes my hip and laughs. 

I feel my face heating up. Why do men always manage to do this, to make things seem so simple, so straightforward. ‘I came off the pill for my mental health.’

I detect a movement in him, he seems uncomfortable. I feel stupid for telling him the truth. ‘Oh, OK.’

I feel a burst of anger. ‘You shouldn’t have fucking come inside me – I told you to pull out!’

He sighs. ‘I said I was sorry, OK? Sometimes these things are just hard to control.’

‘Hard to control! All you have to do is pull your fucking dick out – for fuck’s sake!’ My voice quivers at the end of the sentence.

‘All right – look, it’s OK,’ he says. He pulls his phone from his trouser pocket. ‘How much is the morning after pill? I can pay for it. I’ll transfer you right now.’

‘Oh, thanks, you’re a fucking saint,’ I say.

He stands up and starts putting his clothes on. He sighs again, an exasperated sigh, the sigh of a father who is looking after three small children in the supermarket, arguing over biscuits. It hurts me, this sigh, because I know that there is such a huge void between the things I understand about my body and the things he understands about it, and it makes me feel hopeless.

‘I’ll send you twenty quid, alright? Just message me your bank details.’

‘You’re leaving?’ I say, and it sounds desperate. Even though I want him to leave, I want to see the back of him, I also don’t want him to leave. I want a body next to mine. 

‘Yeah, I’m gonna go home. It was good to meet you.’ 

He makes his final adjustments: he does up his belt buckle, glances at himself in the mirror and runs his hand over his head again. I get up to open the door for him, because I feel like I should. It would be worse if he just walked out into the corridor and that was it. He doesn’t look me in the eye – he gives me a quick, stiff hug and says: ‘Thanks again.’

Then the door is closed, and he is gone, and the flat is quiet except for the buzzing of the fridge and the lights and the other things that make that hum of loneliness.