I keep telling myself I go out for the people watching. That is a lie I have been polishing since I was about nineteen. I go out because something in me still lights up when a room is too loud and a stranger looks at me like he has already decided how the night ends.
Last Friday it was Sweeties. Tenth floor of The Standard in King’s Cross. The one with the views and the disco ball and the sort of crowd that pretends they are not clocking every door that opens. Mia had a plus one on a table. Sophie said she was staying in and doing a face mask, which in our flat means she would still be awake at 1am asking who I was with.
I wore the black dress that looks sensible until you sit down. Dark hair done. Brown liner. The red lip I always redo in the lift mirror because I cannot help myself. If there is a reflective surface I will use it. That is not vanity. That is maintenance.
He was already at the bar when we got there. Tall enough. Dark shirt. The kind of face you do not clock as special until he smiles and then you think, oh. Right. That one.
How it started, which is never how you plan it
I was two dirty martinis in and pretending to listen to Mia talk about a boy from work. He leaned in to order and his arm brushed mine. Not accidental. I know accidental. This had intent.
“You look like you are about to leave,” he said.
“I look like I am deciding,” I said.
That was it. No speech. No name, not properly. He told me later it was Tom, or Tommo, or something that started with T and I have already decided I do not care enough to get it right. What I remember is the way he watched my mouth when I spoke. People always do that when the lipstick is doing its job.
We talked about nothing. The DJ. The lift on the outside of the building. How King’s Cross used to feel grim and now it feels like a film set. He was funny in that dry way that makes you lean closer without noticing you have done it. I liked his voice. Low. London. Not trying too hard.
Mia gave me the look. The one that says I know exactly what you are doing and I am not saving you. Fair. I would not have saved her either.
The queue was the problem
I needed the loo. That part was genuine. The other part was that he followed, and I let him, and neither of us pretended it was a coincidence.
The toilets at Sweeties are not designed for patience. There was a line of girls doing the usual shuffle. Phone out. Lip gloss. Someone saying they were going to be sick and then laughing. A door opened. A door shut. You could hear the bass through the tiles.
He stood behind me like we were a couple. Hand at the small of my back. Warm. I should have told him to wait by the sinks. I did not.
When a stall freed up I went in and he came with me. No discussion. I turned to say something clever and his mouth was already on mine.
The lock clicked. Someone in the queue made a noise. I do not know if they clocked two sets of feet under the door. I also do not know that I cared in that second. That is the honest bit. The risk was part of it. It always is with me. I can dress it up as spontaneity but I like the chance of getting caught. I like the story forming while it is still happening.
Against the cistern
There is nothing glamorous about a toilet stall. Anyone who writes it like silk sheets is lying. It smelled of perfume and bleach and other people’s nights. The floor was sticky in one corner. The cistern was cold through the back of my dress.
He kissed like he had been thinking about it since the bar. Properly. Not pecking. His hand went to my jaw first, then my throat, then over my mouth when I made a sound that was too loud for the gap under the door.
That hand is the part I keep coming back to. Not in a poetic way. In a physical way. Palm over my lipstick. Fingers pressing just enough that I had to breathe through my nose. I could taste my own product and his drink. Gin. Something bitter.
My back hit the cistern. The porcelain dug in. I hooked one leg around him because there was nowhere else to put it. The dress rode up with no help from me. His other hand was under it, then past it, and I was already wet which I will not dress up as a surprise. I had been halfway there since he watched my mouth at the bar.
He did not fumble. I like that in a man. The ones who treat a cramped stall like a puzzle they have already solved. Fingers first. Then he was inside me, not gentle, not brutal, just sure. The angle was awkward and that made it worse and better at the same time. Every time I tried to make a noise his hand tightened. I bit at his palm. He made a sound into my hair.
Someone knocked on the next door. A girl said, “Are you going to be long?” and I nearly laughed, which would have given the whole thing away. His rhythm did not change. That should have been annoying. It was not. It was the opposite.
I came first, which I was not expecting in a place that ugly. It hit sharp and quick and I had to grab the top of the partition with one hand so I did not slide. He followed not long after, forehead against my temple, breathing like he had run for the last train.
No one said anything useful after. That is how these things go. You do not suddenly become eloquent with your knickers around one ankle and a cistern in your spine.
“All right?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Move.”
Lipstick everywhere
The mirror over the sinks was unkind and accurate. Red all over my chin. A smear on his collar. A print on the side of his hand. I looked like I had been eating fruit badly.
I did the face in under a minute. Compact. Liner. The lip again. He washed his hands like a man leaving a meeting. We did not speak in there. A girl came out of a stall and glanced at us and then at the floor. I gave her the smile I use when I want someone to mind their business. It usually works.
Walking back onto the floor felt louder than when we left it. The room had not changed. I had. That flushed, slightly ruined feeling you cannot hide even when the makeup is back on.
Mia clocked it immediately.
“You were gone ages.”
“Queue,” I said.
She looked at my mouth. Then at his collar. Then she stole an olive off my napkin and said nothing else. Good girl.
Another dirty martini
I went back to the bar and ordered the same drink. Dirty. Extra brine. Like nothing had happened, which is the whole point of doing it in a place like that. If you make it a production you lose the joke.
He stood next to me for one more song. His knuckles brushed mine on the counter. I did not take his number. He did not ask for mine in a way that required an answer. That is the other lie people tell about nights like this. That someone always wants the next chapter. Sometimes the chapter is four minutes against a cistern and a walk back to your friends with your pulse still stupid.
I finished the drink. I checked my reflection in the dark window. London underneath us, trains and cranes and that ugly beautiful stretch around the station. I looked fine. Better than fine. A bit smug, if I am being accurate, which I try to be.
In the Uber home I redid the lip again. Force of habit. Sophie was on the sofa with a mug and a look.
“Good night?”
“Standard,” I said, and I did not even mean the hotel.
She snorted. “You have lipstick on your jaw.”
I wiped it with my thumb. Missed a bit. Left it. Some evidence is allowed to stay until morning.
I am not going to pretend this was romance. It was not. It was heat and timing and a locked door with a queue on the other side. It was my back against cold porcelain and a stranger’s hand turning my voice into something private. It was walking out, ordering another drink, and feeling that little private win you only get when you do something you are not supposed to and get away with it.
Would I do it again? Look. I already know the answer. I will be in that lift mirror next week, fixing my face, telling myself I am only going for one. That is the story I sell myself. The true one is shorter.
I like the stall. I like the risk. I like the martini after.
And I like that nobody in that queue can prove a thing.