"You're a hustler. I love you."
Karen, Phillipa, Cate. Lisa. All these women and yet - Jay is still looking at me.
In the pub, at Liam’s, in other people’s houses - Jay and I always met in groups. In a group, Jay had an audience. He had a crowd. He had people around him and talking with him - listening to him - as he lit another B&H, tapping it out of the box like every movie star, eyes sparkling “To be quite honest…” and, taller and older than everyone, Jay would provide his worldly wisdom, of how South Africa is better, better better, of his view of the Serbian war, the best mark of Golf, his deep laugh and high voice cutting in, hands arms waving about.
And he would talk about Karen, Phillipa and Cate. Liam would tell me that Jay would talk about Karen, Phillipa and Cate. Jay talked about these girls, their bodies and his reading of them, eyes tightening pupils shrinking with the effort, long leg bent out the side of the pub table foot bouncing bouncing.
They would all talk on over pints of Fosters, talk talk about the girls our bodies, what they’d do with us, what they’d done with us. Jay’s eyes and smile would warm as he thought about each body in turn, the possibilities, the potential.
Karen was more his age; like them, she was an army cadet, beret pointed and smoothed, shiny boots and olive army trousers ironed and tucked into the boots. She was studying something useful like economics or accountancy. Her skin was clear from all that wholesome exercise, her body taught and neat. I have always tended to the soft, the physique of the book reading, toast eating, messy haired shabble.
I’d see them together, the neat deep ginger of her bob tucked around the strong jut of her chin, her freckles soft over the bridge of her nose, back straight. She never stayed long, Karen, not drinking so she could drive home and be back up for work or running or some other admirable and employable activity. Jay would stand close to her, the light catching each thick link on his silver chain as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, cocking his head to catch her eyes. She was tall, too, her smile small, reserved, tucking tucking that beautiful bob behind her ears.
But now, here in the quieter smoking section of Wetherspoons, Jay tells me he “actually likes me properly, as much as Wetherspoons is a big pub”, the crinkle and reach of his voice as it softens and babies.
Surrounded by his neatly ironed friends, he says “I love you - no, no forget it” he shakes his head, embarrassed, the mounds of his cheeks soft.
I knew that it wasn’t possible to love someone yet but - but - he’d stopped talking about Karen, Phillipa and Cate. He all was about me, this he me he I have him now. “What are you doing to me, you fucking hustler” all softness now, lovely Jay. His friends my friends they could see, in front of them he showed them that me, that I was the most the more important. That I wasn’t stupid to think he liked me because here he is with these soft eyes and big smile I see him give it only when he happy. And here I see the stretch of that smile those lips and they are smiling for me, because of me.
I saw myself, confident, grown, powerful - playing the game of Jay.
I could take his professions of love and, like every schoolboy I’d known, it would just peter out.
At home, in bed the next day, I write in my diary. I write it all out. I write out that I won’t tell my best friend Angel because she won’t take it the right way, that she doesn’t like Jay. So I don’t tell her that I think he wants me just for sex or that I know he doesn’t can’t love me. That he talks about Karen and Phillipa and Cate. “Maybe that’s for a reason” I write, and then I think I think about him and him wanting to wake up with me and that we still haven’t gone out just the two of us. But he loves me. But but but.
For now, for the months before I could maybe go to India, or if a university might take me (looking increasingly unlikely, week on week). For now I can handle him, this not very bright man. As no-one said in 1999, I’d got this. I was fine.
A few years later one of my brothers looked at Jay and said “It’s the ones in ironed trousers, tucked in shirt and polished shoes that are the dangerous ones”. Jay roared with laughter.
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Other narratives on coercive control and confusion
fka twiggs on her allegations of abuse at the hands of Shia LeBeouf, thanks for Courtney Tenz for the recommendation
Upcoming film Herself, thanks to London Writer’s Salon member for the recommendation (sorry I don’t remember your full name, terrible memory)
New novel Insatiable really chimed with me and HUGE thanks to LWS for my copy (I won a freebie).
Photo by Alexander Popov on Unsplash