I didn’t want that. I’d never done that before and I didn’t want it.
No. The word bubbled up in my mind.
No. I tried to form with my covered-up lips.
No. I tried to express with my now still, unresponsive body.
No. No. No.
‘Why did you do that?’ I asked him the moment he had finished and rolled off me.
He was breathing as though he had run a race and took a few seconds to steady himself. Eventually he propped himself up on one elbow and began tracing his fingers down the centre of my chest. I slapped his hand away. I could barely stand to look at him, let alone have him touch me right now.
I felt his frown but didn’t properly see it in the dark of the bedroom. ‘Do what?’ he asked.
‘Why did you take the condom off?’
‘Didn’t you want me to?’
‘No, I did not want you to.’
‘But we talked about it. We agreed that we’d stop using them.’
‘No, you brought it up, I said I’d think about us stopping condoms at some point in the future.’
‘But it’s much better without it. I feel so much closer to you. And anyway, what’s the problem? We’re together, neither of us is seeing anyone else. It’s not like I’m looking elsewhere. Are you?’
‘No! Of course not.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is, I didn’t want to do that. I wasn’t ready. And I’m not on any other contraception.’
‘You’ll be fine.’
‘How do you know I’ll be “fine”? I don’t mess about with contraception, Logan. I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I have to decide what to do about a pregnancy.’
‘Would it be a big deal if you did get pregnant? Really?’
‘Yes, it would be a huge deal.’
His almost jovial, carefree attitude dissipated then, and he looked very troubled; upset and hurt. I hid from his pain by scooching myself up, pulling away the duvet and sliding into the cold, cotton embrace of the bed, pulling the duvet right up to cover most of my face.
‘Why would it be a huge deal?’ he asked in a tight voice. ‘Don’t you love me?’
My stomach flipped. ‘Of course I do,’ I replied straight away because if I didn’t, he’d think I didn’t love him.
‘So why would it be such a problem? We love each other.’
‘I am literally on the verge of getting my dream job. I’m twenty-four, I haven’t even done a fraction of what I want to do with my life. A baby is not part of my near-future plan.’
‘Not even my baby?’
There was no way to answer that question without getting myself into trouble, I realised, so I said nothing.
‘Well, your silence speaks volumes,’ he stated, looking and sounding wounded. ‘I thought we had something special, unique, but clearly I was wrong.’
I carried on with my silence, because very quickly this conversation had moved into tricky waters.
‘Look, Vee, is our relationship just some stop on the way to you finding the man you want to settle down with? Tell me now if I’m nothing more than a consort and I’ll try to prepare myself for when the end comes.’
What was I supposed to say? I loved him, had never felt like this about anyone, but I wasn’t ready for a baby. And no one could convince me otherwise.
‘Wow, did I read this whole thing wrong?’ he breathed to my continued silence.
A familiar feeling crept across my chest. Sometimes it was all I felt, this sensation that I was doing something wrong. I loved being with Logan, but the guilt – from how we met, from not telling my parents, from sometimes feeling like he was more into me than I was him, that I wasn’t giving him enough of myself and my attention and my heart – was a constant, unwelcome companion.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Tried to centre myself, tried to find a space where everything was cool and I wasn’t feeling so many conflicting emotions about the man next to me. I held my eyes closed, sure that it was there in the dark somewhere – a place that was safe and secure.
‘Shall I just go?’ he asked as though defeated.
No! I screamed inside. No! Don’t go. When you go and it’s like this, I feel sick with worry and guilt. And I want you back here with me.
Yes! I yelled internally. Yes, go! And take all the guilt and stress and uneasiness you push onto me with you.
I don’t know, I whispered into my safe, dark space. I don’t know if you should stay or if you should go. I don’t know anything because I sometimes wonder if things shouldn’t be simpler than this. If these times shouldn’t happen with such regularity.
‘If you want,’ I replied to my boyfriend.
‘No, what do you want?’
To be sitting at the table working, like I should be. I shrugged slightly but kept my eyes closed. I couldn’t deal with this conversation so I decided not to engage.
‘Look,’ Logan said after a few moments; his tone had changed. ‘I don’t know where all the baby talk came from, but can we shelve it for now? I mean, it’s quite an emotive subject because it has so many implications for our future. And I’m not sure if either of us is ready to be talking in such terms right now.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ I murmured, relieved that this conversation was over, but slightly annoyed that he was making out I had brought it up. This was all in response to what he had done. But I relaxed a little, knowing we weren’t going to keep on talking about it. ‘Let’s change the subject.’
It felt safe to open my eyes because we’d agreed to park that topic.
Logan was still leaning up on one elbow and he looked so cute. Fine. The gorgeous man that I did truly love. I wished things with him weren’t so complicated. That I could talk to my mum or my dad about what was going on. Even in general terms.
‘Hey, good-looking,’ he said with that smile that melted every part of me.
‘Hey, yourself,’ I replied as he leant down and kissed me. This time when I closed my eyes it wasn’t to hide or find comfort in the dark, it was to fully enjoy the sensation of being with the man I loved.
Now
The muscles in Mum’s jaw are undulating like waves in the sea by the time I finish my story.
She drove us to Devil’s Dyke before I started to talk because neither of us could stand to keep looking at the sad B&B that had been her home for a little while. And I wanted to be outside, to share this story in a wide-open space.
We lean against the bonnet of the car while I talk. I’ve told her the story as briefly as I could, not adding in too many details but keeping in enough for her to understand what I am trying to say.
And now the story is done, she stares furiously down at the ground in front of us, her jaw working overtime as she struggles with something. I can’t tell exactly what she’s thinking, but she’s not happy. Is it because of breaching that barrier most of us should have with our parents and letting her know about my sex life? I had warned her about freaking out.
I had to tell her, though, because it’s one of those things that’s confused me ever since it happened. It’s niggled and fretted away at the back of my mind, like a movement just on the periphery of your vision – it is constantly there, it takes up the tiniest fraction of your attention, but not enough to make you turn your head. There are a few things like that that I need to talk to someone about. And since Mum has told me talk to her, I have braved it.