Trying to Throw my Arms Around the World

Happiness levels

Happiness levels

“Good,” Roz said and put her empty glass down. “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, but I really need to be touched right now.” She reached for the glass in my hand, drained it, and set it next to hers on the coffee table. “I realise I don’t exactly look my best and I’m just a shadow of the woman you had the hots for, but, I don’t know. I just don’t know, Lee.” I had zero desire to sleep with Roz, not because she looked tired and was well on her way to being smashed, but because my whole being, everything, was consumed by longing for Lou. Lust was hardly trickling out of Roz’s glazed-over eyes either. She just needed some company, someone to hold her, tuck her in.

“Come on, Roz. I’ll take you to bed. I’ll stay with you if you want, but I’m not, huh, touching you like that.”

“Don’t go all noble on me now, please. I just want to feel something else than all this loneliness and rejection.”

“You will, soon, but tonight’s not the night for it.” I shouldn’t be here, I thought. I shouldn’t see my shrink in this position. I should be in Lou’s bedroom, trying to decipher which muscles in her face cause the left side of her cheek to dimple like that when she half-smiles. I escorted Roz to her bedroom, which was a mess of unwashed clothes and empty bottles.

“My cleaning lady’s coming in tomorrow. Never mind all this. She can scrub my house clean, but really, what’s the point?”

“You need to get away from this for a while, Roz. Take a holiday. Anna will handle your clients.”

“Will she handle you?” Roz sat down on the bed and fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, her hands too shaky to open them.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” I could always try Vivian Carsey, I thought, but her fees would be astronomical.

“Will you stay with me, please? I’m so sick of waking up in an empty house.”

“Sure, I can sleep on the couch.”

“No, sleep here with me.” Roz took a sleeping pill and nodded off in a matter of minutes and I just lay there, cornered by insomnia once again, only the woman snoring next to me was different − again. The sadness trapped in Roz’s house soon closed in on me and added itself to the general despair of the entire evening. Who was happy these days? Only the people in a steady long-term relationship like Liz and Andrew and Alex and Ben, I concluded. All the rest of us, Lou, Lucy, Roz, Joan, me, were miserable as fuck. I thought of Claire then and wondered about her happiness levels. I turned on my side and just to feel something, some warmth, some humanity, I curled my arms around Roz’s peacefully breathing body. 

I woke up in what seemed the middle of the night, only surrounded by complete darkness and the soft smooching sound of lips kissing my stomach. The lips travelled upwards until Roz’s head emerged from under the covers. I figured she may have been caught in a very expressive erotic dream, but then she looked up, fastened her eyes on mine and said, “Please, fuck me.” She hoisted herself up until her face floated over mine, catching my t-shirt in the motion and lifting it up over my chest. I was too drowsy for a quick reaction and Roz didn’t wait for my reply. Maybe it wasn’t even a question.

To be continued…