Free The List by Joanna Bolouri Page B

on the way to work this morning and have come to a pretty obvious realization. In previous relationships I’ve always been a total doormat, making myself completely available and always afraid to rock the boat. Of course no one has ever fought for me; I didn’t give them any reason to. I’m positively bleeding self-awareness these days and grateful I don’t have to worry about this crap any longer.
    Work was still brimming with unimaginative bouquets of red roses, but it was back to business as usual. Stuart is still being secretive about his girlfriend and I saw him shuffling off to the toilets with a funny walk after a lengthy conversation with her at lunchtime. It must have been hot. I’m going to put his phone in the bin when he’s not looking.
    Wednesday February 16th
    Oh, look, Alex outside his work having a fag at the same time as me. Is he doing it on purpose? That man spent most of our relationship moaning at me to stop smoking after he quit and now he’s started again. Ha, maybe he’s finally realized he’s shagging someone who should be in a museum and the stress is too much. He looked good though. Really good.
    The trouble is, no matter how much I hate him (and I do), every time I see him I still get a knot in my stomach and for a minute I miss him. I still remember how much I adored him. Then I remember how it felt when he cheated on me and it disappears pretty quickly. I know I loved him, but I can’t quite remember why any more … so why won’t the feeling go away?
    He can spot me from his office window directly across the street. She converted some old office space into a physiotherapy clinic, which pretty quickly attracted a large client base of footballers and sporty types. I once visited his office. It’s much fancier than mine – loads of state-of-the-art machinery and oak panelling.
    The fact that our offices are on the same street and directly face each other used to be ‘cute’ when we were together; we could wave at each other from the window, have our ciggy breaks together and meet up after work, but now that we hate each other it’s just plain creepy. In future I’m going to have to adopt a cunning disguise, if he’s going to come down to smoke whenever I do. I bet that while Iwas waving at him in his office last year, SHE was under the desk giving him a tit-wank. The beasts.
    Thursday February 17th
    I managed to have my smoke breaks without catching sight of Miss Tits or Alex today. Of course, when I don’t see him I wonder what he’s doing, and when I do catch sight of him I’m praying he’ll set himself on fire with his own fag.
    Lucy came into work today covered in love bites, barely hidden underneath a white polo neck.
    â€˜I know! Don’t say a word,’ she shouted over when she saw my face. ‘Bloody love bites. At my age!’
    From: Lucy Jacobs
    To: Phoebe Henderson
    Subject: I feel like a dick
    Any girl I’ve snogged has never hung off my neck like a fucking fruit bat, so why do guys feel the need to? Maybe it’s an ownership thing, like a branding. I didn’t even notice him doing it until it was too late. I now stink of toothpaste, which, by the way, doesn’t help to get rid of hickeys AT ALL. I might as well just have covered them in your Auntie Pat’s jam.
    So Lucy’s snogged girls and, more remarkably, I have an Auntie Pat! I don’t. Was it a euphemism?
    Friday February 18th
    Back to my challenges, and the only thing I haven’t managed to master in terms of masturbation is female ejaculation. It’s more elusive than the G-spot, according to some people. I’ve only witnessed the phenomenon in porn films, where it basically looks like the woman is urinating over some poor sod and passing it off as an explosive, screaming orgasm. The more I’ve read about it, and watched it (mostly with a look of bewilderment), the more curious I’ve become.