Read Online The Last Year of Being Single by Sarah Tucker - Free Book Online Page B

whom think women should be seen and not heard, unless they are coming, and preferably very loudly, and with them underneath (but this is their favourite position because they have all told me at one time or another in the kitchen when they have been drunk at the end of one of Paul’s pissy pretentious dinner parties). They also like the idea of two girls together, perhaps twins, and always me and some other girl, possibly even their girlfriend. I think they are all wankers.
    They go to a local pub or club and drink and get drunk and don’t chat up girls. I go out with my friend Catherine to pubs and clubs and drink Diet Coke. Two glasses. Then dance for two hours. Then another Diet Coke. Then another two hours’ dancing. We never chat to guys, just dance. If we get surrounded by about four or five males, which sometimes happens, we stop dancing. Move to another spot and dance there. It works. We lose about four pounds in body fluid and probable fat and have a good time, with ears buzzing, knowing we’ve frustrated a few egos if not broken hearts.
    Anyway, Catherine is with her yoga instructor tonight. Bonking in the back of a car outside Pizza Hut. In a remote place where neither her boyfriend or any of his label-conscious friends would be so low as to go. She has been going out with Freddie for seven years. He is in sales. He looks as if he is in sales. He drives a big shiny BMW. Last year he drove a big shiny Porsche. Next year he will drive a big shiny Ferrari if sales are good. He treats Catherine likean appendage. Pretty thing on his arm. She’s bored and likes the yoga instructor because he has a fabulous body and is very flexible. The aerobics instructor is called Liam. He lives in Basildon but wants to move to Leigh-on-Sea, which I think is silly. Liam in Leigh. Sort of naff. Or perhaps it’s a marketing ploy. Anyway, he’s ambitious, and I think he thinks Catherine has money as well as a fab body—which she doesn’t, but I keep telling her to tell him she has.
    Liam has a squeaky voice, a bronzed body, which is usually oiled or looks oiled, and a long blond ponytail which she likes to pull. She is very much in lust and is walking on air and not thinking straight at the moment. Women who are in lust are interesting as girlfriends. They talk about sex as though it’s food. Women who are in love are dull as dirt. They don’t talk at all. They just smile and stare occasionally into the air and you want to poke their eyes out for being so self-satisfied. And dull.
    I have told Catherine about John.
    ‘Have you done anything yet?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Are you going to?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Think about Paul, Sarah.’
    ‘I have. That’s why I’m seeing John.’
    ‘Aren’t you happy?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘But he’s nice.’
    ‘He’s also very controlling and an emotional bully and he doesn’t want me to be me. He wants me to be what he wants me to be, which isn’t me. Do you understand?’
    ‘Yes. Same with Freddie.’
    ‘Exactly. Well, I can’t be that. He wants his mother. A nice Irish Catholic who dotes on her children and her husband and is the matriarch and the peacekeeper. I don’t want tobe that. I want to be a travel journalist and have fun, and lots and lots of wonderful sex in very sexy places with someone who loves and lusts after me. And stimulates me mentally and is on a spiritual keel with me, and smells nice. And has nice eyes. And big hands. And a nice bum. And good pullable hair. And says all the right things at the right time to the right people. I know it’s asking a lot.’
    ‘It is. He doesn’t exist.’
    ‘He does. Just not in Chelmsford. How is Liam?’
    ‘Vigorous. He came round to the house last week. Freddie was away on business. He just ripped off my clothes on the doorstep and took me in the hallway. And then on the stairs—hurt the back a bit—and then in the bedroom. Then we fell asleep for a few hours. Then he woke me up by going down on me. Then we had a shower