The Last Year of Being Single by Sarah Tucker

having orgasms as regularly as most tourists ask for directions in London.
    It took just over an hour to get home. By the time we arrived I had arrived so many times I was dazed and confused and wanted urgently to take all my clothes off again. And his. But he kissed me on both cheeks (on the face) andsaid that I should go in and he had an early-morning meeting and he would call me. With one last sweep of the hand he undid a button, pushed my blouse aside and kissed and sucked my left nipple. Then he did up my blouse and left me standing there. In the middle of the road, with one nipple erect and the other jealous.
    12th November
    Dinner party at Paul’s home. I don’t want to be there. I’m not there, actually. I’m somewhere else altogether. I am with six of his friends. They are his friends. But because I am going out with Paul they are now my friends. They are nice enough people. Interesting and genuine and some kind. But they’re not my friends. Paul doesn’t like me mixing with my friends. He says he wants to meet them and then passes judgement that he doesn’t like them. These are not my friends. That sounds harsher than it is meant. I wouldn’t choose them in a crowded room to talk to. And I’m sure they feel the same way about me. It’s just that they have known Paul for x amount of years, and he likes them, and so they are here.
    I get the feeling with Paul that even if someone doesn’t want to be his friend he will somehow make them be his friend. Controlling. As a trader, he negotiates every day, and I think he takes this into his personal life. His relationships. He always negotiates to get the better deal. We always end up going somewhere he wants to go, and so much the better if I genuinely want to go there too. But in the end I wonder if I wanted to go there genuinely or am being so mind-fucked that I don’t know what I really want any more. But I know he wouldn’t want me to see John, so it’s nothing to do with him. But it has everything to do with him. So perhaps he’s still controlling me. See what I mean?
    Anyway. Dinner party for six. Two ask themselves unexpectedly. Paul is cooking boeuf en croûte. Never doneit before and likes cooking. Not washing up. He doesn’t have a dishwasher. I wash up. Then we have sex. Which is good and wonderful and worth it. Paul has an earthy quality. Knowing what to do, when to do it. He’s quite selfish without being rough. He’s a wonderful caring lover and it’s sad we don’t make love now…since the abortion.
    It affected him quite badly. Worse than I thought at the time. We agreed it was the right thing to do at the time. That it had happened and that I should have told him, but these things did happen. But Paul was traumatised and from then on we didn’t make love. Or hardly ever. And when we did afterwards there would be silence and he would, he tells me, be overcome with guilt. Guilt is something Catholics do well, it seems. It is part of their creed. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the Resurrection of the Body and the Power of Guilt. Amen. I would cry because it would be beautiful, but so rare these days that it upset me that now I couldn’t make love to this man. With all his controlling ways, I felt this was just another opportunity to control a situation. The problem was it wasn’t controlling it. It was stifling it. Hiding it. Not dealing with it.
    I tried to talk to him about it, but he wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to create an argument as I knew he was extremely sensitive and would burst into floods of tears, just like a young child who’s had his toys broken. And I loved him. Not just lust. A spiritual love. A love that comes when you first meet someone and know from the onset that you will marry them and that he is your soulmate. That it doesn’t matter about the fact he picks his nose and eats his bogeys (which he does) and doesn’t do any of the washing up and is selfish in