MAKE ME UP

CONFESSIONS AND CLOSE-UPS

My clothes rack is bare, not because I did an impromptu wash, but because in my panic and despair of what to wear for our evening, I’ve tossed all my dresses on to the bed. Stood in my tights with my only matching bra and underwear set on, I’m throwing daggers at my not-so-sexy wardrobe. Why do I only own black smocks and crocs? The hair that I had curled with rags since I got home and that looked beautiful an hour ago is now stuck to my face. I could cheerfully scream the entire block of flats down, but just before I do, divine intervention knocks on my door.

Luis is standing there, smiling with some accessories. I’ve just thrown my Bambi nighty over my head. He looks at me from toe to tip.

“No dearest, this outfit doesn’t scream s*x Goddess, maybe deer in the headlights”, he laughs at his own joke.

“I have nothing to wear. This might be my best outfit”. I confess.

Luis looks at the war ground that is my bed, outfits lying disjointed, they have won the battle, but now I have reinforcements. With no inhibition, Luis pulls out various hangers, placing them back on the rail. Triumphantly, he holds up a maroon woolen dress. It looks warm and flattering, but I can’t see s*x appeal written anywhere on the label. Nevertheless, Luis tells me to put it on while he is looking in my box of shoes…sorry, I mean a box of Crocs. Therefore, I am beyond shocked when he retrieves a brown pair of mid-calf-length boots, with crossed-laces up the front, and a two-inch heel. I bought these when I first moved to London. They were part of my aim to find a place to go where I could wear them. At the time, I had a coffee shop in mind. When I wear them, I start to feel more powerful. It’s funny how shoes can make you feel formidable, almost like make-up can. Admiring the pairing in the mirror, I feel closer to being ready than I have all night. It still seems a little plain from the knee up, but I’m only going for a chat at his house. That’s why I’ve put my only matching set of underwear on, because it will make me more eloquent, while I share the greatest shame of my life so far. Reaching around, Luis fastens a brown belt about my waist and chunky bracelets on my wrist with matching dangling earrings. There she is. The woman that’s been missing for so long. I don’t want to cry with happiness, but the lump in my throat would beg to differ.

“Hello hourglass, it’s been a while”. I joke, but Luis, the best friend ever, just clicks his tongue.

I reach over to grab his hand, allowing his support to settle my nerves. What if tonight is the last time that Lincoln looks at me the way he has been? In his company, I feel special, wanted, and desirable. I know that I should be able to generate that sense of worth for myself, but I can’t deny that it helps when I’m with him.

“I have to tell Lincoln something about my past tonight. I'm worried it will be the end of us”. I tell Luis.

He pats my hand comfortingly.

“I doubt it, but if it is, you’ll come home, we will watch a film, eat pizza and think of all the reasons we are happy to be single. Smelly socks and housework come to mind first”. He kisses my cheek, and waits with me until the chauffeur arrives. When I look back, he’s waving through the window.

The iron cast gates open leading on to Lincoln’s estate and the only thing I can think of is ‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again’. His home is wild and free, bold and distinctive. It is like a personification of Lincoln’s personality, his risk-taking, but also his steeliness and determination. Little flowers hide behind the hedges, and it reminds me of his tenderness towards the people he cares for. I pray I’m still on that list after tonight. When we arrive at the door, Lincoln dashes out and the light floods onto the steps. He kisses me, outside on his grand porch, knowing that no-one can see us, he is about to take me into the place he feels safest in the world, and it just doesn’t feel right. I don’t deserve to go inside there until I am honest with him.

“Can we talk out here?” I ask, but I’m already lowering myself to sit on the step.

I wonder if I look pale, because I feel sick and the sweat on the back of my neck is uncomfortably sticky.

He nods, and waits for me to speak.

“When I was about to start university I started to date my first boyfriend. He was a little older than me. He had his own business and my parents were really welcoming to him. At the time, I thought his attentions were sweet, I mistook his behaviour for affection. I moved to London to get away from him the day after he proposed. After ten years, I realised that if I married him I would be trapped in a miserable life that I didn’t want. My parents treat him like a son, even now. We don’t really get on anymore, but they have no idea what he is really like. When I came to London, I started to read about similar controlling relationships. I came to see his years of weekly gifts for exactly what they were: love bombing. A concealer to cover up all the rules that were chipping away at my independence. The calendar in the kitchen wasn’t a schedule, but a plan to ruin all my friendships so that my world became smaller, until it was just me, him, and my parents on a Sunday, for the roast dinner. I thought when I came to London, I would be able to start again, but when he realised that I had left, he became the truer version of himself”. I take a moment to pause, and Lincoln holds on to my shaky hand, his jaw looks set in anger.

I take a deep breath.

“However this continues, it won’t alter what I think of you. You’re not to blame”. He reassures me, and it does slow down my racing heart.

“When I was on my journey down here, he called me, first telling me we could work it out, then he became angry, saying I had embarrassed him. I was about to hang up, it seemed futile to sit there when he was yelling at me, but then he laughed. For some reason, it chilled me to the marrow. He said ‘I’ll let you have your time, but every night I’ll text you at ten o’clock, and you will reply to my message’”.

I refused, but he just laughed again.

He said, “I would never make you do something you didn’t want to Gem, so you don’t have to reply. Just make sure you have read them…because if you don’t, all those pictures you let me take of you will be posted through your parents’ letterbox. They will be rampant on social media, you’ll be the most famous breasts in Europe by the time I’m finished”.

Silence fell between us. I remembered the photos being taken. Tim had said it would be fun, that we needed to revolutionise our s*x life. We had been a couple for five years. I very rarely said no to any of his suggestions by that point, and I genuinely thought we would be together forever, and no man would share intimate photos of his partner. It was only ever supposed to be lingerie pictures, but Tim could always make me question my better judgment. I cringe to think of the images he has, of how far I let it go. No. I mean how far he pushed me to go.

I’m lost in my thoughts, and the porch is quiet except for the insects weeping for me, as once again I will have to pay for my past mistakes. Lincoln wraps his arms around me, and I burst into tears on his shoulder. I’m mortified, but I also feel lighter for sharing my most humiliating secret. He’s the only other person that knows.

“Why does he always text at ten o’clock?” Lincoln asks me.

“That was bedtime. We had to be ready to sleep by then. It was a house rule”. I explain.

“He sounds like a boring bastard as well as the world’s biggest c**k womble. I’m so glad you ran away to London, and that you told me. It doesn’t change what I feel for you, you are still the most inspiring, impressive and incredible woman I have ever met”.

I laugh at his artistry when it comes to profanity. He doesn’t say anything else, before he picks me up from the step, and carries me inside his house. I wish I could describe the interior to you, but it passes me by as Lincoln delves his tongue into my mouth as if I am air, and he is drowning. It’s very sweet, but he doesn’t understand what this could mean for him.

I feel my bum settle on a bar stool, and I look at the arrangement that Lincoln has made us. There’s a cacophony of fruit chunks and chocolate dips, he retrieves a pot of maple syrup and cinnamon sugar. Unfortunately, I know nothing can be sweeter than the taste of his mouth on mine.

“Lincoln, if he does make good on his threat, being with me could ruin your reputation. People will say you’re dating a wh0re”.

“They won’t if they don’t want to meet me in the courtroom. I know you feel powerless, and I can understand how he has manipulated you to make you feel that way. You trusted someone who hadn’t shed their skin at that point. He’s a snake, and you’re a victim of his very long-played-out game. I still love you, the same way I did when you left the car, the same way I did when you kissed me in the air balloon…”

“You love me?” I interrupt him.

He comes closer to me, smiling with satisfaction.

“Now we have a real problem. If I’ve not made that blatantly obvious, then I’ve completely failed with my courtship”.

I laugh at the use of his old-fashioned word, and then I ask myself the inevitable question: do I love him too? Twenty minutes ago, I felt like if he had told me to go back to my flat and never speak to him again, that I would have left my broken heart on his porch, and watched the last of its beats as I was driven away. That seems like love to me.

“I love you too”.

I pull him close to me and kiss him deeply, but slowly. Savoring the taste of strawberries on his mouth, the sense of safety in his arms and longing in his body as it presses against my inner thigh. Wrapping my legs around his hips, he carries me into his bedroom. The lights are bright, but he clicks his fingers, and they dim to a softer, more sensual glow. The weight of his body on mine makes me feel goose bumps on my skin. We are fully dressed, but his hand explores every curve and bend in my body. I run my hands over his muscles, and trace his powerful jaw line with my thumb before giving in to my need to lick it. Pulling at his top, he leans up and helps me to take it off. I take a moment to appreciate his crafted body, the muscles sit beautifully on his stomach, it seems that Michael Angelo has been busy on his Apollo’s belt, and like a fine procurer of renaissance art, I run my finger over every line, enjoying his hiss of pleasure. Eventually, he can’t restrain himself any longer, and my clothes join his in a crumple on the floor. The details are lost in my euphoria, but we move like ballroom dancers, there’s no space between us, but the rhythm and the joy is unprecedented. I’ve never felt anything like it. We are connected in more than the physical sense. I can see my future with him. Our foreheads never part as we rock together, building the pressure within each other. Building towards an ascension, I grip onto his Atlas mimicking shoulders as we soar in tenderness and tension. Panting, we disconnect, but hold on to each other, afraid of losing this intense correlation between his heart and mine.

It was perfect. Better than I had the imagination to think was possible. We were drifting off. Cosy and comfortable and happy beyond the concept of explaining. Happy in a way that I think only the two of us could ever really comprehend. He kissed me softly on the lips. My phone buzzes, and I feel a similar disappointment as when something new gets the first scratch on it. It’s ten o’clock. I don’t read it, but I open it, then leave it on the side. Lincoln holds me again, but the bubble has burst, and for the first time I realise how much I hate Tim Murphy. Not because of how he hurt me, but for how my action have just hurt Lincoln.