Look, I was not planning a story. I was planning a large white wine and a sit-down that did not involve anyone’s belt. That is how these things always start, with me lying to myself in a pub toilet mirror while I put more gloss on a mouth that already knows too much.
Thursday. Soho. The sort of place that still rings a bell for last orders like it is 1998 and the landlord has a personality. Sticky floor, decent wine, a boy at the bar who kept looking over like he had already decided and was just waiting for me to catch up.
I caught up.
He Was Fit In That Annoying Way
Ollie. That is the name I have in my notes. Could have been Olly. I did not ask him to spell it. He had the sleeves of a navy jumper pushed up and a watch he kept touching when he talked, which is either nerves or a man who wants you to notice he owns a watch. I noticed. I also noticed the way he said my name after I gave him the short version, Chels, like he was trying it on.
We did the usual rubbish. What do you do. Where do you live. Why are you here on a Thursday when you could be at home being a better person. I told him I write. He told me he was in “property adjacent,” which is a sentence that should come with a warning label. I still leaned in. I contain multitudes. I also contain a high sex drive and a low tolerance for going home early.
Mia was meant to join and then sent a voice note from a cab that was “definitely coming” and then another one from her bed. Sophie was already home, doing that thing where she pretends she is not waiting up. So it was me and a second wine and this boy who kept finding reasons to brush my wrist.
Last orders was twenty minutes off. You could feel it in the room. That little panic London gets when the night is about to be confiscated.
The Decision Was Not A Decision
I went to the loo. Not because I needed it. Because I wanted to look at my face and decide if I was going to be good.
I was not going to be good.
The lock on the cubicle was the kind that turns and does nothing. You know the one. Metal button, years of drunk thumbs, a door that still opens if someone really wants it to. I held it shut with my knee while I redid my mouth and thought, right, we can just go back out and finish the drinks like adults.
Then there was a knock that was not a knock so much as a question. I opened it thinking it was some girl wanting the mirror.
It was him.
I should have said no. I said “are you actually serious” and then I pulled him in by the jumper. Same thing, different font.
Occupied
The cubicle was not built for two people with opinions. My back hit the cistern. His mouth was on my neck before the door had even settled. I had one hand in his hair and the other still holding the door because the lock was a rumour.
Someone knocked. Proper knock this time. Two taps, polite, the kind of person who still believes in queues.
I said “occupied” like I was booking a meeting room. Calm. Slightly bored. As if I had a calendar invite called Quick Shag, Cubicle Two, 22:41.
They muttered sorry and went away. I nearly laughed into his mouth.
He had me turned to the wall by then, dress up, my own pants around one ankle because there is no elegant way to do this and anyone who tells you there is has never tried it in a Soho loo before last orders. I made him stop long enough to take the condom out of my bag. Yes I carry one. No I am not going to apologise for being the only organised person in a four-foot cubicle. He looked almost impressed. He should have been.
It was not pretty. It was not supposed to be. Tile cold against my palm. His belt buckle ticking the dispenser every other thrust like a metronome with no manners. I bit the inside of my cheek so I would not make the kind of noise that gets you barred from a place you actually like. He was better than the watch suggested. Not gentle. Not trying to win a prize. Just present, which is rarer than people admit.
Someone tried the door. Not a knock. A push. The door moved an inch against my shoulder and I put my foot to it and said, again, “occupied,” except this time it came out less meeting room and more do not even think about it.
They left. Bless them.
I came first, which I will be putting on my gravestone, thank you. Quiet. Ugly. One hand over my own mouth because I am many things but I am not giving a free show to a stranger washing their hands. He followed not long after, forehead on my shoulder, breathing like he had run for a bus. Very romantic. Very tiled.
Then You Have To Walk Back Out
That is the bit nobody puts in the films. The standing there afterwards, pulling a dress down, trying to look like you only came in for a wee. I checked my face in the phone camera because the actual mirror was outside and I was not doing the walk of reconstruction under fluorescent light if I could help it. Gloss gone. Hair doing something chaotic. Pupils huge. I looked like I had been told a secret. I had.
He opened the door first. Classic. I waited ten seconds, flushed even though I had not used the toilet for its intended purpose, and walked out to a woman at the sinks who looked at me once and then very pointedly at the floor. She knew. Of course she knew. The whole postcode knew.
I washed my hands like a citizen.
Back at the bar the bell had already gone. Last orders in the most literal sense. He had bought another round anyway, two drinks we were not supposed to have, and he grinned at me like we had got away with a bank job. I clinked his glass. I did not sit on his lap. I have some standards, they are just on a sliding scale.
“So,” he said.
“So,” I said.
That was the whole conversation for a minute. Which I liked. Men who need to narrate what just happened are exhausting. He had the sense to drink his drink and look pleased with himself in a way I could live with.
I Did Not Take Him Home
This will disappoint the people who think I have no off switch. I have an off switch. It is just poorly wired.
He asked. I said I was going back to mine and that mine already contained two flatmates and a fridge that judges me. He took it well, which raised him half a point. We split a cigarette in the doorway like it was 2009. He put his number in my phone. I put mine in his. I will not pretend I have texted. I also will not pretend I deleted it.
The night bus was half empty and too bright. I sat there with my bag on my lap and the ghost of tile still on my palm and thought, well. That happened. Then I opened notes and wrote “occupied like a meeting room” before I could forget the only good line of the night.
Sophie was on the sofa with a mug and a look. She did not ask where I had been. She asked why my dress was inside out at the waist. I said the pub was poorly lit. She said “sure” in a voice that has known me for four years and has heard the headboard more than once.
Mia, from her room, shouted “was he fit at least.”
I said yes.
She said “then shut up Sophie.”
Which is the closest this flat gets to a moral framework.
What I Keep Coming Back To
It is not even the sex, although the sex was the point. It is the knock. That little British politeness happening two inches from my shoulder while I was getting fucked against a cistern. The apology through the door. The way I heard myself say occupied and sounded like my mother booking a dentist.
I keep thinking about that woman at the sinks. I hope she got a story out of it too. I hope she went home and told someone. I hope I am someone else’s gossip this week. That feels fair. I take enough.
Would I do it again? Stupid question. I already looked up whether that lock has been fixed. It has not. I checked the pub’s Instagram like a freak. They posted a picture of a pie.
Anyway. If you are in that loo in the next fortnight and the lock still does nothing, maybe do not lean your full weight on the door. And if you hear someone say occupied in a weirdly professional voice, give it a minute. Some of us are in a meeting.
Last orders came and went. I still got what I wanted. That is the whole post, really. That and the fact I had to buy new gloss this morning because the old tube is somewhere on a cubicle floor in Soho, living its best life without me.