Free Don't You Want Me? by India Knight Page B

– council-house Glaswegian, say, just to pick an entirely random example. Dr Cooper’s upper-middle-class cadences didn’t really sit comfortably with the language he was using, and after a little while I became tired of the way he said ‘pooseh’ and ‘cork’. I think Dr Cooper dyes his chest hair, too, because when we’d finished there was a strange, dark grey sheento my breast. He must immerse himself completely in a bath of dye. And his penis was stubbornly untanned; ghostly, glimmering palely in the darkness, looking somehow both blind and albino.
    Once the deed was done, I waited ten minutes or so and then started getting ready to leave. All sorts of thoughts were whizzing round my head: 1) how I don’t think being on top is really
at all
an option after the age of thirty-five, as everything sags forwards horribly; 2) how it was surprisingly unsurprising to have sex again; 3) how perhaps I should have saved myself for someone I found less ridiculous; 4) how I did exactly the right thing – he may have been slightly ridiculous, but it was a perfectly decent shag; 5) how I really hate it when men lie there not taking the condom off afterwards, so that their penis looks all small and wrinkly and like it’s wearing a poor-quality, cheaply transparent anorak.
    ‘How was that, baby?’ Cooper said as I struggled into my pants.
    ‘Great,’ I said, looking for my tights in the dark. ‘Very nice. Thank you.’
    ‘Where are you going?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you want – ’ he licked his lips, which shone like mucus in the darkness – ‘don’t you want … more? Huh? Huh? More, you dirty girl.’
    ‘Not really, William. I have to get home. I have to get my daughter up in a few hours.’ Mentioning Honey made me feel grubby, somehow, unmaternal, slappery. I continued to gather my things, which were scattered all over the floor.
    ‘Nurse,’ said Cooper. ‘Nurse?’
    ‘What?’ Why was he speaking without verbs? ‘No, actually, I mainly bottle-fed. Anyway – thank you for, you know,
having me
, ha ha, and, er, see you.’
    ‘Nurse, Mrs Midhurst is ready for her exam now,’ Cooper leered, addressing his imaginary colleague. ‘The full physical, I think.’ He whinnied again, his hand fumbling horribly under the sheet.
    Oh, stupid, stupid
moron
me. Why did I mention playing doctors? Suddenly, the idea filled me with something not a million miles away from disgust.
    ‘I’ll just get my instruments,’ Cooper continued, getting out of bed now, still addressing the invisible attendant.
    ‘I really have to go,’ I said, standing up and following him out of the bedroom. ‘But it was very nice to meet you. No, really,’ I had to add, as he started rustling about in his doctor’s case and re-emerged triumphantly clutching a stethoscope and a pair of latex gloves. ‘I
really
, really have to go. So, um, goodbye.’
    ‘Come by next week for your examination,’ Cooper said, standing by the door naked except for the pair of rubber gloves, which he’d snapped on. ‘I’ll ring to confirm,’ he winked.
    ‘Bye,’ I said, and ran all the way down the stairs.
    ‘Raaaa,’ he called at my back. ‘Raaaaaaah!’
    Standing in Marylebone High Street looking for a black cab, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both.
    ‘Well?’ says Frank, the following morning. ‘I thought I’d let you lie in. Mary’s here and she’s taken Honey to the zoo, by the way. Some special owl thing, apparently. What happened?’
    ‘You got her up? That’s incredibly kind of you.’ I haven’thad a hangover for months, and also – though this may be psychosomatic – my pelvis hurts slightly: I feel like I should be walking with my legs in the shape of a Y.
    ‘No problem. Anyway, so?’
    ‘Hang on, I’m just making myself some tea. Was everything OK last night?’
    ‘Absolutely fine. She went to bed at seven thirty and she didn’t budge. I read her two
Angelina Ballerina
stories. She really loves them,