Meeting Andrew

I needed to blow off some steam. After arriving in Sussex on Sunday I hadn’t done much, I slept a lot. Keeping up appearances was exhausting. The relative I’m staying with didn’t know about my relationship with J. I think she suspected, but I never told her outright. I knew she would disapprove. I didn’t have the energy to explain, to fight for the validity of it. After all, my relationship with J was no longer valid. How could I fight for something that I no longer believed in?

I decided to go to Brighton on Wednesday, a friend who used to go to uni there assured me that bars would be open on a Wednesday. Brighton was like London, there was always a party somewhere, you just had to find it. And I was determined to. It took about an hour to get there, as I walked down from the station I passed the shop where J and I had brought cakes the last time we were there. I bought a tray of chips from a stand on the pier, the same place I’d bought chips with J the year before. I stood  by the railings and watched the sea. The tide was in, and a dense fog was settling atop the waves. I watched it draw closer and engulf the sea. My feet hurt so I took off my boots. I knew of a bar along the seafront. R Bar, I’d been there before (with J, of course). 

It didn’t take me long to find it. I peered through the windows to try and gauge the crowd, mostly older men with their partners, what looked like a few heterosexual couples… I stood outside and smoked a cigarette whilst I considered whether I had the balls to do this. This is coming from a girl who had never set foot in a nightclub before, never “gone out on the pull”, never even made the first move when it came to people I was interested in. I kept my head down as I walked in, briefly making eye contact with a girl sitting on a bar stool in the doorway, I thought she might’ve been a bouncer. She looked at me strangely but no move to stop me, so I slunk in and found an empty stool next to the bar.

The place was nearly empty, and mostly men. I ordered a drink and pulled out my phone.
“This was a stupid idea.” I told my friend via text. I scrolled through my facebook newsfeed and tried not to look too out of place. I wondered if people thought I’d been stood up, or if I had any idea that I was sitting in one of Brighton’s most prolific gay bars. I was on my second drink when he came in, he stood next to me at the bar with his friend and they ordered their drinks. I saw him give me the once over and I felt a bit braver. He made a point of telling the bartender that his friend was just that, and he “didn’t go that way, no offence.” I was pretty sure that comment was for my benefit. His friend excused himself to take a call and he turned his attention on me. I can’t remember how the conversation started, only that it friendly, bordering on flirtatious. I asked him his name, and he shook my hand, caressing my wrist and taking in the tattoo there.

“My dog.” I explained, watching his thumb stroke the inked paw prints. He showed me the tattoo on his left wrist, an amateur crucifix. He told me he hadn’t had enough money to get the full thing, he explained what he had envisioned and I tried to look like I was listening. I was uncomfortably aware of how inexperienced I was in this situation, but he didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he found it endearing. His friend returned some time later, I had the distinct impression as giving us space. Andrew, as I found out he was called, invited me to join them. He told me it was a friend’s birthday and they were up from London celebrating. I told him briefly about J. We went upstairs to join the rest of his friends. I remember him asking;
“So, do you prefer men or women?”
“Depends on my mood.” I told him.
“So you’re volatile?” He smirked.
“You could say that.”  I replied.

We didn’t stay in R bar for long before Patrick, the birthday boy, suggested we move on elsewhere. Andrew disappeared for a moment and the rest of the party moved on, I stood outside with his friend, Farai and we had a cigarette. I found out that the group were nurses. And I joked that Farai should know better about the dangers of smoking. Farai smiled and told me.
“We’re gonna die anyway.”

Next stop was Poison Ivy, a small bar slightly further away from the sea front. The place was pretty much dead. Our party of eight making up the majority of the patrons. They had a stage for karaoke set up, and it didn’t take long for the group to make the most of it. Andrew offered me a seat and I took it graciously, my feet were killing me, and I enjoyed the attention he was lavishing me with. Andrew hovered protectively by my chair, his hand on the back, or resting on my upper thigh. He bought me a drink and I finished it quickly, too quickly perhaps, because he commented:
“You’ve been drinking like a fish since I met you.”
“I’m on a mission.” I told him, he smiled.
He finished his drink a while later and went up to the bar, returning with not two, but five drinks.
“Who are those for?” I asked.
“Us.” He smirked.
“You don’t need to get me drunk, you know.” I told him, Andrew shrugged.

This part’s a bit fuzzy, I remember drinking, and singing (at the table, not the mic, I wasn’t that drunk) I remember getting a phone call from a friend that I could barely hear over the music from the speakers. I remember being on the phone to J, ‘though I have no recollection of calling her, and telling her how I was about to “fuck this guy” when she told me she was busy and had to go.

I remember leaving the bar, briefly, all though I don’t know why I did. I remember standing in a doorway with Andrew, pressing my body against his and kissing him. I remember thinking he kissed too hard, and not like J did. I remember kissing him again anyway. We went back to the bar for a few more drinks, at some point another friend of theirs, Mariam, joined us. I remember slipping a condom from a “safe sex” leaflet in my pocket.

We were in a car park, I sat in the back with Andrew. Farai was driving and Mariam was in the front passenger seat. We drove to the beach. I couldn’t find my cigarettes, Farai give me some of his spliff instead. Andrew got a little more hands-on, I remember feeling indifferent to his touch and faced forward, thoughts of J pushing themselves to the front of my mind. He unzipped his fly and I felt him, he asked me if I wanted to fuck and I said yes. I felt in my pocket for the condom I’d picked up earlier but it wasn’t there, I asked if he had one, he didn’t.

I freaked the fuck out.

It was most probably the weed talking but I was suddenly convinced  that he wanted to kill me. He tried to calm me down, reassure me, but I was hysterical. I remember him convincing me to get back into the car, but then he took my shoes and I freaked out again. He didn’t want me to get out. I was beside myself. I wormed my way out of the car and ran. Farai came after me, saying that he had my shoes. I told him to stay where he was, drop my shoes, and leave. He complied.

So there I was, wandering the streets of Brighton at two o’ clock in the morning, high as a fucking kite. I called a friend and he attempted to direct me to the train station, before realising the last train was long gone. In desperation I thumbed down a taxi, told the man to take me to the nearest cash point so I could withdraw the money for a taxi back to the house. Ninety pounds. That’s the cost for an hour long journey in a Brighton taxi at two in the morning. And I was now officially into my overdraft.

I got back around three thirty, I remember making some toast and then laying down in bed to eat it, consequently dropping the toast on my face. I bid good night to my friend and that should’ve been the end of it really, I should’ve just woken up the next morning with a sore head and an interesting story to chalk up to experience. Did I go to sleep? Of course not.  I called J.

I called her mobile at first, she rejected my calls. Inspiration struck when I remembered she was working on a helpline, I googled the number and sure enough, there she was. I don’t know what I was hoping to happen. I suppose I wanted to share my night with her, I was scared and I wanted her to look after me (old  habits are hard to kick). It was stupid, I know. I was desperate. She told me she wasn’t interested, we needed to make a clean break, she said I reminded her of her mother. She hung up.

I went to bed with a heart as heavy as my head and dreamt of her again.