Chapter 4
Mallory
I sit on the bed next to Ronan’s unconscious and naked body, honing in on his hairless nipples. Tiny stubs of black peek through their pink circumference, desperate to be seen.
We have never spoken about the fact that he shaves them.
I have sometimes left my Veet out in plain view on the side in our en-suite, because I could see little cut marks on his actual areola, but he never touched it.
Ronan doesn’t like to be helped. Prefers things to go unsaid.
It’s safer that way. And yet here are his nipples, all stubbly and grazed, on his smooth and chiselled torso.
He looks dead. Like a dead model from a perfume advert.
He passed out pulling his cords off, mumbling something about bringing the gifts up from the kitchen. I think he was about to ask for sex, but the heavy intoxication of J?ger and adoration mercifully stopped him.
He’s so fun.
He doesn’t even snore.
I reach down to the carpet and take my half-full (of white wine) coffee cup that I have brought with me for company, sit back up and glug, then, biting the skin around my nail, stare at the armchair in the corner.
I taste blood.
Stepmother’s blessing.
That armchair cost fifteen hundred pounds. We did the attic dormer conversion last year because Ronan wanted more space for when we have a child.
We should start a family, when you’re up to it, Mal.
I shudder at the memory of what the conversion made me: uncontrollably feral for picking bathroom tiles and hoarding carpet swatches, like my life depended on it.
It took months to plan, as I found it an incredible distraction from my boredom.
I had a new zest for life. (I turned into a homeware lunatic.) I threw myself in, meeting with the architect and the designer, and scrawling through Instagram and Pinterest for effortlessly inspired choices: the colour palate, the correct shade of Farrow it’s also going to have the screen production companies hot-footing it to snap up the screen rights – it would make for a wonderful—
It never happened.
Why did the film never happen?
P.K. got her film, her executive producer credit.
I scan down the review to the bit I’m looking for.
I can’t wait to see what Maddox brings to the table next.
I long for something hard-hitting, thoughtprovoking and brave.
I think we can count on her for this. She has an unhinged bravery that more authors should possess.
The literary world is crying out for writers like this.
Where will Maddox take us? I for one can’t wait to find out.
Unhinged bravery.
Not meek.
Blood coats my tongue as I chew harder, staring at the wall. The paint shade is called White Lies.
Ever so slightly grey.
I don’t want to be a therapist, or a counsellor. I never did.
I want to write. And to write, I need to see life.
Go gay.
Gay sells.
I look at my phone screen.
I think of Nick. My brother.
Gay and Sad. Gold dust.
I suddenly remember.
I was once called an honorary gay.
Yes. Or should I say, Yas!
I was.
Just like Judy Garland or Barbara Streisand or Madonna or the Babadook. Sure, this was at school, and it was Joanie who said it after I dressed up as Dumbledore on World Book Day. But she was right. I’ve always been an ally.
I have the background work done. I do think I have a good knowledge of gay things.
Case in point: the cool gay men who congregate at the Maynard Arms like me.
I’ve seen them in the pub a few times, actually.
The last time was when I tried to get them to dance with me to ABBA, and OK they said no but I could tell they thought I was a rollicking good time.
I was drunk, and probably a little sad – so perhaps they related to my inner world.
Before Ronan dragged me away, I think one of them actually once called me Mother – which I know is a term of utmost reverence for a queer icon.
I know because I was – still am – up to date with queer trends and terminology.
Of course I watch RuPaul and Queer Eye. Yas, mama!
Slay! (I love Slay, it’s so fun.) Granted, I can’t quite remember if he said it in the context of being legendary and iconic, or in the context of being dowdy and knackered, but regardless, I felt respected.
They liked me. I felt we had some kind of affinity. A kinship.
Ronan liked it when they called me Mother. But I don’t think he fully understood. He thinks drag race is exploitative.
I make an almost cartoon-esque hiccup.
I need A Discreet Gay.
Do they exist?
Ha.
See?
They’d find that funny.
Mother is mothering. Isn’t that what they say? People like Lady Gaga? I type into Google: Where to meet discreet gays near me? Hit enter.
The top result is an app suggestion.
Grindr
Meet discreet gay men in your local area
Interesting.
I do not judge.
Free love, right? The progressive, liberated way to be outside of conventional norms. (Although I can’t help but immediately think of the Grindr killer – there was a dramatised TV show based on him, with Stephen Merchant trying to win awards by playing a gay psychopathic murdering sex-maniac.
I actually think he was quite good in the role.)
I hiccup again.
This is fun.
I am also fun!
I open up my app store and type in Grindr.
I could just have a conversation or two. What harm could it do? It says it’s an online location-based social networking site to ‘discover, connect and explore’.
Explore.
Yes. (Yas.)
My finger is going numb now, from the biting, and perhaps the excitement. The excitement of what? A way out.
A new life.
Away from—
‘Honey?’
Shit.
Ronan is stirring. I push my phone down by the side of my leg.
When I can no longer hear him moving, I press download.