The One - No one said it would be easy by J.F. Goldsmith Page A

was always pleased to be back home alone, so that I could finally go to the toilet.
     
    There can’t be anything more embarrassing than to fart in front of your beloved. This happened to me with Number Five, and immediately I jumped up, ran to the window, threw it open, yelled at my boyfriend to get out of the room, in my panic managed to swipe a picture off the wall and fled back under the blankets, face burning with shame. Number Five found the entire episode greatly amusing. I am also embarrassed by the sounds you hear from the bathroom. This is especially bad if the bathroom is right next to the bedroom. Meanwhile I have some tricks up my sleeve, like leaving the water run in washbasin or shower. And the best remedy for potential smells is still a blown-out match. What I absolutely cannot understand is those couples who have no shame with regard to digestive activities. Peeing with the door open, or, even worse, doing the other? Or doing any of that while your beloved is in the bathroom with you? That’s an absolute no-no for any relationship! Lock it away in the relationship poisons cabinet, with ten skulls and crossbones painted on the door! Wrapped in three extra strong iron chains, secured with a five-ways kryptonite lock. There are some things best done alone. Even within a relationship, there are rituals that ought to be kept in a secret singles locker. Amongst those things to be executed alone, on small islands of solitude, are: going to the toilet, cutting your toenails, trimming your beard, squeezing your spots, and any other unappetizing matters of personal hygiene.   
    We spent our first holiday together on a sweltering Greek island that inspired us to all manner of liberties. We discovered this lonely almost deserted beach in a bay. There were very few people and nearly all of them were naked. So we did the same. To start with, we were a bit bashful – we weren’t exactly nudist freaks – but after a day or two we began to really enjoy the freedom. Spending the whole day sizzling in the hot sun, basking in the sand, clear cool water on your naked skin – that’s a grandiose feeling. Number Five wasn’t quite so able to enjoy himself as he had to fight with a permanent erection, which forced him to spend a great deal of time lying on his belly, thinking of letterboxes. Naturally, I thought that was most amusing and loved winding him up, for example by sitting in front of him, with my legs supposedly inadvertently spread apart, swimming in front of him or blubbering him one underwater. The beach, almost deserted, simply seduced you into being sexually unrestrained and silly. One time we tried to do it in the water. And failed miserably because saltwater entering a lady’s private parts is a thoroughly painful matter. Everyone who talks about screwing in the sea like it’s some kind of epiphany is lying! Instead we scheduled our sexual activities to the hours of sundown, when the beach really was deserted. Our only audience was a hermit living farther up the beach, and we didn’t mind him.
    During this holiday we took a lot of photos. Number Five was a photography freak, which was OK by me. The constant snapping of photos was kind of annoying but I loved all those beautiful pictures of us. We had real photo sessions, during the hour of golden sunrise on the beach, for which we got up at four in the morning. And of course, there were the obligatory erotic photos, too, where you try to act like a Vogue model. Even though some of them weren’t all that bad, afterwards I was hugely ashamed of most of those kinds of pictures. It went like this: oh shit, you can see all my cellulite; on that one I look totally shriveled; what’s that dopey expression about that I have on this one; and oh my God, on that picture my breasts look positively mingy. Meantime, several years have gone by since I split up with Number Five, and he has all those photos. I sincerely hope he won’t at some stage blackmail me with