Things I’m  learning about myself from this  ’thing’ with BB:

• I think about sex too much.
• But I’m congenitally incapable of doing casual sex very well.
• Because I’m too emotional a person. I need to feel I belong with a man. I need to be acknowledged on an emotional level. I also care too much. I wake up in the morning and wonder if he had a good night. I sit at home having lunch and wonder if he’s having lunch with his friends, alone? What is he having? Is he enjoying it? I listen to travel updates and ask myself whether he’s stuck in traffic somewhere bored out of his brain. When he gets home, is he happy to see his baby? Does he spend his weekends making funny faces and making him laugh?
• Also because my PCOS drives me mad. Immediately after my period, unless I really trust someone  it can be quite an effort for me to have sex. Too many true and false PMS-esque symptoms during that time. And I just can’t sit someone down – someone who is essentially still not close to me and start explaining all my reproductive woes. I’d rather pass the sex itself at that time. So I worry a lot instead, mostly about him, not me. Mostly about how I seem not to be in the mood.
• And what does that say about me? I’m pathetic. End of story. But of course I want  a very healthy relationship.  That I’m sure of. I may suffer from a terrible and great deal of low self-esteem and other great crazy but that’s one thing I’m sure of. That’s why I said no to Fish. I’m not at my best emotionally and if I said yes I would lose him – something I don’t want to do because I want him in my life. If he still wants me when I’m ‘healed’ then I think I will say yes. At the moment it’s ok for any other woman to have him, although there isn’t any yet.
• I like and prefer intelligent men. I mean,  BB isn’t dim, but God knows we don’t have any mentally stimulating conversations. Of course I’m aware life is about compromise so I can compromise if a man brought something else to the table, like kindness, unconditional love, streetwiseness and money, yes money – don’t get me wrong but I’m a woman, I don’t just lay with anyone, there are consequences to think of, it’s nature. And I won’t be PC about it, in fact all women shouldn’t be PC about it. All women who pretend to be PC about money in regards to relationships want to have the good life to themselves and leave you out to dry. True story. So where was I? Yes, intelligence. An intelligent man is powerful to me. A powerful man turns me on. I have respect for a powerful man and in order for me to love a man I have to respect him. Money = Power too, that’s why I can compromise. A powerful man also makes me feel protected and taken care of. I feel safe in the company of a powerful man. I feel my future children will be safe with a powerful father. A powerful man doesn’t worry about his position in society so he doesn’t have time to have ‘issues’, instead he has the time to love me.
• I need to be more kind to myself.
• Unmasking myself and allowing myself to be vulnerable is actually good for me. Allowing people to see the real me and being honest about my situation is good for my personal growth. BB is the only person in a long time who has actually seen how bad my financial situation is. Most of the times I feel ashamed by what is essentially a situation that is not my fault, but what can I do? He still insists on seeing me, so that’s what he’ll see.
• I am beautiful – I know this but I needed a reminder after a very long time. From the first day that he met me, BB told me that I was beautiful every single time we met. Every single time. He’s never stopped. No faffing around with words, he just says these exact words every single time: You are beautiful.
• I like kissing men’s noses.

It’s 3:40 pm, I turn over in my duvet-heavy bed and sluggishly glance towards the door of my room. BB is standing there. Am I dreaming? I ask myself and try to sit up. No I’m not. Oh dear God. Panic. That is BB standing at the door.

Then it hits me. What???? No, no, no, no!  This man did not just ambush me in my place? I did not remember any talk of  meeting him today. He’s appeared unannounced, to find me at my most undignified. A stinking room, dirty bowl and spoon with dried weetabix bits on them,  on the bed beside my head, a packet of sainsbury’s basics sultanas next to it,  bits of used tissue and dirty clothes all over the floor and my menses stained knickers hanging at the corner of my bed. I’m ashamed. I want to die. Oh the humiliation! It’s unbearable. I want to get up but I’m incapacitated with self loathing.

“Hello, I wasn’t expecting you, how did you get in?”

“The woman opened the  door for me”

“Oh, eerrm…I was reading then I fell asleep”

“I can see that, is it warm in there? I’ll join you”

No, please no. You wouldn’t like the smell in here. At this point I’m thinking…hide the dirty stuff on display…hide that bit of the second duvet that’s worn out…do something…save yourself from this shame. But I can’t. He’s already removed his clothes and has jumped next to me. Feelings of rage start to creep up within me. He has no right! He can’t just turn up. He has no right to turn up like this and make me feel less of a human being due to the conditions I live in. In times like these I want to be alone. I don’t want anyone to see the crazy state I’m in. When I’m alone, I don’t have to pretend. I can wallow in my depression and continue fighting a loosing battle with my insomnia whilst indulging and entertaining my glorious disturbed sleep patterns. Then he comes in like this. This is not a part of me I want him to see. Then I calm down – it’s not my fault after all, I didn’t ask him to turn up impromptu.

Up until now he had only been to my place once – after I had done a massive clear out and cleaned the place up and now. And of course after apologising profusely for the state of it – most of which wasn’t my poor self’s fault – the stained and discoloured roof for starters. Ugh. On that occasion it went well though. He didn’t seem to mind and even helped me take out some rubbish that The Witch thought convenient to tell me off about in front of him. But this was different.

One hour after he got naked, I put my hand over his torso  and a few minutes later I hear:

“We should stop doing this”

“What?”

“Having sex”

Oh dear me. This is it.

“I don’t spend quality time with you”

So why the hell did you fucking come over today? How about you should have told me this via earlier and not turned up. Or how about you should have turned up and NOT got naked, but just you know…tell me this and then go?

I remain silent. I play with his hair a little, he tells me to stop then gets up to dress. He notices the sultanas and makes a comment about how good sultanas are. All I can think of is that they are just sainsbury’s basics. Cheap. I’m a total and massive contrast to his comfortable middle class existence. No wonder he wants out? He also mentions something about how warm my bed is. Do I like to keep warm he asks? I pull a duvet over me as he says:

“We should stop because it’s not fair to you. I don’t make enough time for you”

He leans over to kiss me. Tears start forming. God please no, I can’t start crying now. Not for this man. Please.

“But you are funny, you don’t care”

I do. I fucking care. I fucking care so much. I fucking care so much that I’ve had to suppress my tears. He said I didn’t care because two weeks ago, while apologising for yet another flying visit I told him it doesn’t matter when he sees me. It was his life I said and I will not force him to see him. It’s not like I was married to him or was his girlfriend, I continued, matter of factly. I didn’t mean that. I was hurting and angry…and needy so I just said this to appear ‘cool with it’. He remembered it.

“It’s not that I don’t care”, I smiled faintly and swallowed a huge lump in my throat. He stood up to put on his jumper and said that it wasn’t fair that he couldn’t see me enough but would make sure to find sometime for us to do something ‘more’. So what is it? Is that it or do I have to wait and see if he has found the time to do ‘more’ things together?

He blew me a kiss and left. I lay in bed  thinking of that scene in Bille August’s The House of the Spirits, where Esteban visits a prostitute and asks her  to be tender with him and pretend to care for him, just for that day. Substitute  the prostitute with BB.

I wish I’d never met him.

**An hour letter I check my emails and see one from him, sent at 2:32 pm, without a body, titled ‘Hello are yyou home at 3.30pm?’ I wasn’t online so I couldn’t reply, but why would he just turn up? If you don’t get a reply you wait for one!

BB is an adventurous lover. But he’s not tender or overtly affectionate. I get a hint of his inner struggle to be loving with me but not to get too carried away. He wants to be cautious – but of course he slips, unconsciously.  The way he grabs my hand; strong enough to pin me right where he wants me but gently enough for me to see that he cares. He always goes for my right hand. He clasps it  protectively, and then kisses me hungrily.  Like a famished carnivore, he devours me. It’s almost like a ritual to him. And then when he’s close to the climax he puts a finger in my mouth and I drink him in. I feel his strength draining out of him. He relishes this moment.

But I miss tender  fucking. The kind of fucking where there is so much unbridled passion, of the ‘so good I want to die’ variety. The kind of fucking where it doesn’t matter if it’s about love or not but a man is giving himself to me, only for that moment. The kind of fucking where no one is rushed. Where we are just allowing ourselves to get lost and meshed in each other without a care in the world about whether we’ll still be together after we orgasm or not.

Once, after a beautiful orgasmic groan - something that caught me by surprise because he’s the silent type - he immediately turned and fell into a foetal position beside me, hands between his thighs, whimpering softly. I looked at him and at that moment, I really did not know what to do, so I stroked his hair. I was fascinated; what is it about sex that  reduces a grown man to this?

Went out for lunch with BB yesterday. One pint later I started talking about my time at uni and my dad. So he asked, “Is that why you are seeing me? To rebel?”

“No, I’m seeing you because I like you,” I answered.

There was a brief pause. I looked at his eyes. God, I love those eyes. And his hands too.

Then he said, “You know I always miss you. When I don’t see you a lot during the week it’s not because I’m ignoring you. You are always on my mind. I just have  a lot of things to take care of. You do understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“I want to be with you all the time. You are very beautiful. Just understand that.”

“I do honestly.”

“OK, kiss?”

Smiles. Kisses.

Back to the food.

“I’m really sorry for the flying visit,” says BB as he slows down outside my house.

“I wasn’t expecting to have him today, but something’s come up and I have to spend the day with him.”

“I’ll have to think of a fun father and son activity before I get there,” he chuckles.

“Do you hate me?” he asks.

Of course I hate you. I hate that you are not organised. I hate that you are going to leave me disappointed and I’m going to spend the rest of the day thinking about you, while you go away and play happy daddy. Of course I hate you.

“No,” I answer and kiss him.

I get out of the car and head for my front door.