Chapter 25
25
brINGING SEXY BACK
‘How did that feel for you?’ Gabby asks as we finish the massage and she hands me a glass of iced water to drink.
‘Well, it was quite lovely,’ I tell her, my face still flushed with embarrassment at how my body had reacted to her touch. Am I the female equivalent of a dirty old man? I wonder. Then again, there was no inappropriate touching. I didn’t ask her for a happy ending and while I may have called the name ‘Erin’ out loud I think that might just have coincided with her unknotting a muscle in my back. Honest, guv. I haven’t had some kind of lesbian awakening on the massage table, my body has just remembered what it was like to be touched in a tender way. It wasn’t sexual, but it was nice.
And it made me realise that maybe having someone else – someone I’m attracted to – touch me in a tender way might be nice as well. It might be worth taking a chance on the dating apps after all, even if the thought terrifies me. Niamh will no doubt ask me what I have to lose, but I don’t think she’ll be happy when I reply, ‘My last remaining crumbs of self-worth.’
I have generally accepted that no one with an ounce of wit would find me attractive in that way. This was compounded by Simon taking up with another woman while we were still very much married. It reaffirmed that I don’t bring a lot to the table in that regard. That’s been a tough one to shake.
Maybe if I tried a little more – didn’t exist in my hoodies and leggings and hadn’t fallen under the spell of my fur-lined Crocs – I’d feel more confident in myself.
Or if I was the kind of woman who didn’t want to tear acrylic nails from her hands five minutes after spending a fortune to get them done. If I found the notion of a Brazilian wax to be appealing and not my idea of an actual nightmare. Splayed on a hard bed with someone tearing hair from my poor, tattered and Frankensteined-back-together perineum? No thanks!
Maybe if I was a gym-bunny, or a super bendy yoga girl. Daniel gets me out walking with him but he’s such a plodder it hasn’t succeeded in helping me transform my post-twin babies’ pouch into a toned, flat stomach. I didn’t even have a toned and flat stomach before I had the twins, so I suppose it was always going to be a big ask of the universe to expect I could earn one afterwards with minimal effort.
But there’s a little voice inside me that screams at me that I have to stop tearing myself apart. I’ve a body that grew two wonderful human beings and brought them into this world. My hoodies and leggings are comfortable, but I do have other clothes. Or I can get other clothes. Maybe I could get Laura to help me with that. She seems to pull off effortlessly stylish well. She looks trendy but isn’t a living example of mutton dressed as lamb. Or Niamh’s Jodie might be able to help – if I want to push myself completely out of my comfort zone.
And as for intimate hair removal, well that’s a bridge I can cross if I ever get to it but even I know other options exist outside of parboiling your genitals in hot wax.
A little shiver of something long forgotten in the very pit of my stomach reminds me that somewhere inside I am still a woman with needs. It’s just been so long since I even allowed myself to consider any form of sex life, I’ve grown to live without it, and stopped even trying to send sexy vibes out into the universe.
Could it be fun to do a full Justin Timberlake and bring sexy back? I hum the tune as I have my nails painted a vibrant red, as if I’m a harlot. I’m surprised how good it makes me feel to look down at my fingers and see a splash of colour instead of my plain, short, unremarkable nails. Who needs fancy rings when you have pillar-box red, glossy gel nails? Already I feel a little sexier. Maybe that’s the key. Attractive is as much about self-belief as it is about nice clothes and toned tummies. Nothing is as sexy as a confident woman.
Sixteen-year-old me desperately wanted to know what it was like to get a boyfriend and be kissed. It seems forty-six-year-old me feels just about the same – and she owes it to her younger self to start believing she’s worthy of both.
I feel as if I’m floating on a saucy little cloud by the time Gabby has finished. She has treated my skin to quite the makeover and she didn’t even make me feel bad about my absolutely awful skincare regime. Instead, she complimented me on how youthful I looked even though a part of me knows she is playing the role of a bloody good salesperson and I probably look like I was a passenger on the Ark along with Noah and his cast of animals.
So when she makes her helpful suggestions about which quite spendy skincare products she would recommend for me, I gladly let her fill her beautiful paper shopping bag and stuff the top of it with an essential oil scented tissue paper. I manage not to stroke out when she tells me how much it all costs, reminding myself that thanks to Niamh’s generosity I’m not actually paying for my treatments. But surely that means I should treat Niamh to something as a thank you? So I double up on some of the spendy products and Gabby beams with delight at a job well done all round. I resolve to worry about balancing my books on a future date and allow myself to feel glam, sexy and wealthy with my perfectly prepped and preened skin and my beautifully wrapped packages.
I’m sitting in the lobby area relaxing when Laura appears from her treatment room, glowing and looking as if the weight of the world has been lifted off her shoulders. She hugs her therapist and I’m sure I hear a little muffled cry from both of them, before she joins me on the sofa and lifts a freshly poured glass of Prosecco to her lips.
‘You know, that was exactly what I needed and what I absolutely hadn’t realised I needed until I was right there in the middle of it. That poor girl had to deal with me snivelling and wailing like a banshee. There’s something magical in her fingertips,’ Laura says. ‘Whatever she did, it unlocked a lot of… well… grief and feelings and guilt.’
There’s something in the way she is looking at me as she says the world guilt that makes a chill run down my spine. And it’s not a sexy nice chill, like the one Gabby unlocked in me earlier this afternoon. It’s a very real reminder that we still have much to discuss. But not here and not now.
‘I’m glad you found it beneficial,’ I say. ‘And when I have a couple more glasses of this fizz, I’ll tell you what happened to me during my massage.’
She raises her eyebrows in curiosity. ‘You have me intrigued,’ she says as there is the sound of another door opening. A smiling Niamh walks out but I can’t help but notice how pale she is.
‘All okay?’ I ask her as she sits down opposite us.
‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘That was lovely. Totally relaxing. I even fell asleep at one point. I’m told I didn’t snore but I don’t believe that for a second. Paul says I’d wake the dead at times.’ She laughs but I know my friend, and I know that something just isn’t sitting right about this whole scenario. She’s hiding something.
‘Here,’ Laura says. ‘Enjoy your Prosecco – you might as well get your money’s worth and besides, we’re on a mission to get Becca here drunk enough to reveal her deep dark secret to us.’
Niamh lifts the glass and brings it to her lips, taking the smallest sip. ‘A deep, dark secret?’ she asks, raising her own eyebrow so that it perfectly twins with Laura’s.
‘Drink first, major revelations later,’ I say. There is no way I’m revealing to these girls, in the front lobby of a prestigious spa, that getting a massage awoke things in me that had long since dried up and been blown to the four winds.
‘So where shall we go on to once we’re done?’ Laura asks. ‘Bishop’s Gate, or The Blackbird?’
‘Wherever is dimly lit,’ I say, aware that while I feel amazing my facial has stripped my skin of any make-up and left it with a slightly oily glow as it absorbs the rich products Gabby slathered all over me. ‘And wherever we can get a couple of cocktails. We can pretend we’re the Sex and the City girls and sip Cosmos and discuss how fabulous we are. It would be exactly the kind of afternoon that sixteen-year-old us would’ve loved.’
‘I don’t know,’ Niamh says. ‘I don’t want to be a party pooper, but Paul has been with the kids all day and I don’t want to take the piss by staying out too long. And I’ve marking to catch up on. The life of a science teacher isn’t an easy one,’ she says with a small smile. ‘Especially coming up to Christmas. We’ve just had the end of term assessments…’
I can’t help it. I’m a little disappointed. The thought of extending our afternoon into the evening with cocktails and giggles is so appealing, but I guess we still have our responsibilities. It’s hard to remember sometimes that Niamh has three children still at home relying on her – and if Jodie isn’t home for the weekend, she and Paul have to divide their down time. Leaving the teenage boys to look after young Fiadh would be a disaster in the making.
‘I suppose I should probably get home to Daniel too,’ I say, even though I left him with food, water, the heating on and the TV on so he could watch Dogs Behaving Badly all afternoon, and maybe learn a thing or two.
‘Are you sure you couldn’t stay out?’ Laura asks, looking from me to Niamh and back again.
‘I’m sorry,’ Niamh says, and I notice she puts her Prosecco glass back down on the table still full to the brim. ‘But there will be other times – and didn’t we all have a lovely time getting pampered?’
‘We did!’ I say. ‘And I got you a little something to say thank you.’ I hand her the beautifully styled gift bag and blush to my roots when I see her tear up a little.
‘Oh, this is lovely,’ she says. ‘But you didn’t need to. This was my treat. I wasn’t expecting anything in return, it’s too much.’
‘Nonsense,’ I tell her with a warm smile.
‘How about I grab a bottle of wine and we go back to yours,’ Laura says, pulling my attention away from Niamh.
‘I’m not sure,’ I tell her, already feeling the shift in the mood in the room. Right now, even though I feel relaxed, all I really want to do is get into my pyjamas and give Daniel a giant belly rub. What I don’t want to risk is a head-to-head between Laura and me. Not tonight. ‘I’m starting to feel really tired now,’ I tell her. ‘All those essential oils must be doing their work. I’ve not felt this relaxed in ages.’
It’s a blatant lie but one made with kindness at its very heart.
‘Okay,’ Laura says mournfully, lifting Niamh’s untouched Prosecco and making pretty decent headway on knocking it back. ‘I suppose I should probably spend some time with Robyn and Aidan anyway. But we’ll do it another time?’
‘Of course,’ I say and Niamh chimes in to agree.
‘And you’ll tell us about whatever it was that happened to you during your treatment?’
‘We’ll see,’ I say with an elusive smile.
As we hug our goodbyes a short time later, I hold Niamh a little tighter than normal. ‘You’d tell me if something was wrong?’ I whisper. ‘Because you know whatever it is, I’ll have your back.’
‘I’m fine, Becca, honest,’ she says, giving me a perfunctory squeeze back. When she doesn’t so much as glance back in our direction after climbing into her taxi, I know more than I’ve ever known anything before that my best friend is lying.