After a while we were outside the town (I told you it wasn’t large) and driving through a forest. He turned off the main road on to a smaller one, and then on to a track. Finally we came to a place where there was a hill on one side and a wooded valley on the other, and he stopped the bike there.
“There’s a good view from here,” he said, pointing to the spot where the ground dropped off into the valley. “Let’s sit down there a while.”
We did. The grass was thick and spongy and so of course I took off my shoes and socks and rubbed my feet in it. Below us the trees gave way to a distant river and then a flat green plain. The sun, going down behind us, painted it all in golden evening light.
“Do you come here often?” I asked. “You know this place well, obviously.”
“Sometimes. You should see this place on a full moon night.”
“You come here alone then?”
He hesitated. “Not always.”
I laughed. “I knew it. And you have sex with her on this grass. Admit it.”
“Well, it feels good. And it reduces stress. As you should know.” He glanced at me. “You aren’t a virgin, are you?”
“Of course not. But why do you ask?”
“Maybe this is a personal question, but how long has it been since you’ve had sex? With another human, I mean?”
“Too long. Never mind how long, it’s too long.” It had been the longest dry spell since I’d lost my virginity, going on for fourteen months.
“That’s a pity. Regular sexual intercourse is one of the best stress reducers there is. But never mind that. Did you enjoy the bike ride so far?”
“Oh yes.”
“Great. I’ll take you back now, but you’re more than welcome to come out with me again.”
I put on my footwear and the helmet, we rode back into town, and he let me off, at my direction, in front of my flat. Before he rode away again he looked steadily at me.
“So how about this weekend?”
“Pardon me?”
“How about riding out with me again this weekend? Unless you have something better to do.”
“I don’t have anything better to do,” I said. “Not unless the Bitch (I had told him what I called her in my mind) gives me orders to the contrary, that is.”
“Great,” he said. “See you Saturday morning. Ten or so?”
“That’ll do fine,” I said.
Friday was bad. The Bitch was in an awful mood for whatever reason, spent the entire day in the office, and reduced her secretary to tears. She also scrapped my entire next quarterly business plan, substituting some “inspired” thing she’d dreamt up, which anyone with half a brain could have told her would never work. And then she ordered me to get the profit projections for her hairbrained schemes ready for her by Monday. Well, I could have given her the answer in half a second, and the answer would be “zero”, but I’d had to stay up till eleven in the evening working on my computer to come up with some kind of explanation of why her ideas would not, er, meet expectations of revenue. And after emailing the whole mess to her I’d hardly been able to get a proper evening’s sleep.
So on Saturday I woke with a headache as well as a stomach ache, and was half tempted to call Dylan and beg off. But the prospect of spending the day alone wasn’t exactly appealing, either, so at ten I was standing on the pavement, wearing a pair of sunglasses because the day was hot, and carrying a satchel over my shoulder in which I’d made and packed a light lunch for us; tuna sandwiches and apple juice if I remember right. He was right on time, and looked me up and down.
“Stressed more than ever, are you?”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“You have that look about you. The Bitch, was it?” Without waiting for an answer he handed me the spare helmet. “Well, we’ll try to get rid of that stress.”
That was the first real ride we had, up and down roads and pathways I never knew existed, down twisting lanes and through woods where the leaves filtered the sun to a green haze, and my sunglasses turned it into a murky green sea. A little after noon we stopped for a rest by a little brook, and dipped our bare feet into it to cool them. I took out the food I’d brought.
“Good girl,” he said. “Do you like today’s outing so far?”
“Very much,” I said. It was green and peaceful, the water around my toes cool, the stones under them smooth and round, the grass under my hands soft, and we were all alone. I could almost imagine the Bitch didn’t exist. “Do you think it would be unethical for a patient to kiss her gastroenterologist?”
“I won’t tell any professional associations if you…” he didn’t finish because my mouth was on his. The tip of my tongue pressed against his. I don’t know how long it took till we broke the kiss but I was breathless.
“Wow,” he said. “You weren’t joking when you said you hadn’t had any human contact in a while.”
Suddenly I felt deeply crushed, as though a stone had fallen into the pit of my stomach. “You mean I haven’t got fucked. That’s what you mean. ‘Human contact’ might as well be my hairdresser.”
“You’re right. But this is the kind if human contact you need.” He leaned in for another kiss. “You do like kissing, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. But it’s only kissing. It’s not actually making things better.”
“You might feel better after riding a bit further,” he said. We got on the bike and rode on, but my heart wasn’t in it. I could still feel his lips pressing against mine, but the throb of his bike engine between my legs only reminded me of the awful, terrible emptiness of my life, which seemed concentrated in the emptiness of my vagina.
The shadows were long when we turned back for the city, and we stopped off in a diner for food and a visit to the washroom. Dylan looked at me searchingly over our coffee. “What’s bothering you, exactly? You were much happier earlier. Something’s changed. Is it something I said?”
“Oh no,” I replied. “It’s not about you. It’s just that…” I felt a hot tightening in my throat and behind my eyes. “You know, I have no life. I haven’t been with anyone, and I don’t even mean sexually, for over a year except you this afternoon. And I’m dreading turning on my computer after getting home and seeing what the Bitch replied to my work of last night.”
“It’s only Saturday, you know,” Dylan said. “You’re on your own time. You don’t actually have to check her reply till Monday.”
“But I’ll be brooding over it all night and through tomorrow,” I said. “It’s better that I get it over with. Assuming she bothered to reply at all. Maybe she’ll just fire me.”
“No, she won’t. I don’t know her but I know the type. They know they really can’t run things by themselves; it makes them furious because they’re intensely aware of their own limits, and they take it out on their employees, the ones who actually run things.”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve been telling –”
“Let me finish. It’s because they know they aren’t competent that they don’t dare fire their employees. You’ll be fine.” He put his hand over mine. “In any case, remember that you’re a human being and that your primary duty is to make yourself happy.”
“And how do I do that? Short of finding another job, which I would have already if I could.”
“How about going out with me for a ride once in a while? You were certainly able to put it all behind you for the whole morning, weren’t you?”
I considered. “That might be a good idea. As long as your wife or girlfriend or lover doesn’t mind.”
He laughed. “I’m divorced and I haven’t exactly been actively searching for a replacement. So there’s nobody to mind.”
“Oh? In that case I accept. How about next Saturday, then?”
He made a small bow over the table. “Your wish is my command.”
Later, after he’d dropped me home, I took the medicines he’d given me and turned on my computer, deciding to get it over with. Astonishingly, the Bitch’s reply was almost conciliatory. She “appreciated my suggestions”, thought they “looked good”, and told me to try them out. Meaning I would be using my original plans after all.
She must have got herself thoroughly laid last night, I thought, and called Dylan and told him so.
“How about coming to my place for lunch tomorrow?” I asked, on an impulse. “I’m a terrible cook, but if I poison you, then you can medicate yourself out of it.”
“I’ll bet you’re no worse than me,” he replied. “I’ll be there.”
********************************************
I’m not joking when I say I’m a terrible cook; but the next morning I at least tried to put in a modicum of effort. Not that I went online to check fancy recipes or even went out for exotic groceries, you understand; I just wanted to eat with another person at home and feel like someone with a normal life. And the Bitch’s change of tone had filled me with such relief that I was still feeling elevated from it. My jaws hadn’t even ached when I’d woken up that morning.
So when Dylan showed up at my door I was able to greet him with something approximating a spread. He’d brought a bottle of red wine, and we shared it while we ate. I let him do the talking, and he told me about his life, how he’d been born in a place not far from my own hometown, but taken abroad when still a baby. His parents had died abroad, and he’d come back and got his medical degree, and then got married to a fellow student in medical college. But the marriage had gone sour very quickly, they’d only lived together for a few months, and after the final divorce he’d decided to stay away from long term relationships for the foreseeable future.
Then we talked about films; we both liked science fiction, and Avatar and District Nine were both still recent enough that we could discuss them. I loathed, to this day I still detest, the former – just imagine a planet-wide deity who ignores her own children’s calls for help but comes to some alien, white, American, saviour’s assistance – and loved the second. Dylan loved Avatar for the special effects, said District Nine was “too gritty”, and we argued a bit about that.
“Look here,” I remember saying at a certain point, leaning forward, “District Nine, I mean Neill Blomkamp, made an entire film with less than Avatar’s damned promotional budget, so…”
He leaned forward at the same moment, and more by accident than design our faces were suddenly almost touching, and it was only natural to just kiss. Our lips met, our tongues slipped over and round each other. And then his hands were on my upper arms, raising me to my feet.
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