"Wait," I squeaked, jumping out of bed and running after him. "It's not how it looks."
I gabbled out an explanation. We'd gone out for a drink to wind down after all the chaos at work, it had gotten late, we'd ended up here. The couch is small and the bed wide: where else was she going to sleep?
"Look," I said. "I still have my underwear on. Would that happen if I'd just been through a night of passion?" It was a good argument. This was the man I'd slept naked next to, just the night before last. I stood before him now, doing my best to look forlorn. The damsel in distress routine goes against every principle I have. But as I may have said before, there are times when playing it straight just doesn't get the job done.
I recalled what Jamie had said last night -- how confessing to the smaller crime would come easier if I committed a bigger one and kept it secret. She had it backwards. I could plead forgiveness for a night of passionate lesbian sex, easily and with a clean conscience -- doubly so as it never actually happened -- but to say sorry for putting a work crisis ahead of drinks with Paul was still further than I was prepared to go. You may consider that a warped sense of priorities, but there it was. I felt what I felt and there was no changing it.
Was Paul wavering? Perhaps a tear would help? I tried, but my physiology proved it has more integrity than I have. No tears came. Still, a girl trying to summon up the wherewithal to cry on demand looks almost as pathetic as a girl actually crying. I felt an added pang of disappointment that the room lacked a mirror in which I could have assessed my performance. Still, there was the mirror of Paul's face. It softened. He started toward me. Stopped. My bottom lip quivered. He started again. We hugged.
I was still in my bra and panties and it did occur to me to wonder whether this might have the effect on Paul that it normally would. It didn't seem to, but then perhaps he was tangled in his underwear.
"Work was a complete shit show," I repeated. "By the time all the mess got cleaned up, it was already late. I was too wired to go straight home. We went for a drink, that's all. Just me and Jamie. Came back here to sleep it off. Nothing else. Honestly."
"It's all right," said Paul. "I believe you."
"You do?" The way he said it was not entirely convincing. I gave him an extra squeeze but his body remained stiff in all the wrong places. I tried a different angle. "Getting caught in bed with another woman is not something I ever expected to have to find excuses for." I forced out a little laugh. "That's probably why I can't think of any." This was true. "All I've got is the truth. Nothing happened."
"Relax," he said. "I get it."
"Jamie's a lesbian," I added. I realized this was unlikely to help my cause, but felt I should put it out there in the spirit of full disclosure.
"A lesbian?" repeated Paul, a note of curiosity in his voice that my previous explanations had not elicited.
"Yeah. Just a fun fact. But it doesn't change that nothing happened."
"Okay... And you're telling me this because ..."
"I have no idea. Because it's true. Because I'm hungover and I've just been dragged from sleep by a nasty shock ..." None of this seemed to be getting me anywhere so I changed tack. "Look, you want to be a good boyfriend? What I need right now are coffee, breakfast, and a large glass of water." A tip, girls: give your man a chivalrous deed to do and you'll soon have him wrapped around your finger.
I untangled myself from Paul to poke my head back through the bedroom door. Jamie had dressed while all this had been going on, was standing by the bed looking her usual nervous self.
"It's all right," I told her. "You can come out now. The beast has promised not to bite."
Out she came, head slightly bowed and with a nod to Paul that was almost a curtsy. "Good morning," she said. "Lisa's right -- I am a lesbian. But, honestly, nothing happened." She lifted her head. "She's very attractive -- as I'm sure you appreciate -- but she plays hard to get."
It was an extraordinary thing to see: in the space of a single sentence she had gone from apologetic to impertinent. Were it not for the words
I am a lesbian
, I might almost have thought she was flirting.
This sudden deluge of events was making my head spin -- a head that had been none too steady to begin with. I tottered over to the kitchen to see what was on offer, getting that glass of water for myself and examining the cupboards. I'd been over at Paul's so often lately that my grocery shopping had been neglected. A quick inspection found cereal and some milk of a rather dubious vintage, but nothing else remotely breakfast-worthy. I informed the others of this discovery.
"Let me buy you breakfast," said Jamie. When Paul protested, she shushed him. "I owe it to you. I've been nothing but a jinx so far. One of my people made the mistake that kept Lisa back at work last night. And this morning I nearly caused a major misunderstanding between the two of you. Seems breakfast is the least I could do to make amends."
As Paul blustered something about how we "couldn't possibly", a sudden chill in the morning air reminded me that the other two were fully dressed whereas I was still in my underwear. "You two figure it out," I told them. "I need to shower and change. I won't be long."
From the bathroom I could hear Paul's voice through the wall -- some lame joke about the
Rights of Women
, which included taking her own sweet time about getting ready. On another day I would have poked my head back out and said something cutting in response. Instead, with matters seemingly on their way back to some sort of normal, I let it slide. Even the sound of Jamie tittering in response failed to provoke me.
Stepping into the shower was pure bliss. I stuck my head under the nozzle, nudged the temperature up a notch or two higher and let the flow of water flush the thoughts from my head as it washed the dirt from my body. For a while I just zoned out.
Not long after I was ready. It hadn't taken anything like the half-hour Paul had predicted. No more than twenty minutes at most.
So off we went. Jamie and Paul went through the usual
get-to-know-you
routine while I trailed along in silence, wondering what they could have been talking about while I was in the shower. Jamie was being quite bubbly by her standards, showing no ill effects from the night before. A
morning person
, no doubt. None of this was helping my mood.
Had Paul bought my story -- my true story? It was hard to tell. Normally I would have pushed him about it but that wasn't really possible with Jamie tagging along. At least the café wasn't far. The need for coffee was becoming a life mission -- one achievable goal at least.
Once we were seated and had ordered, Paul and Jamie launched into a discussion of sexism in the workplace that somehow segued back to the topic of lesbianism (you might have though Jamie would be heartily sick of the subject by now, but apparently not). Paul, too, seemed to have acquired an interest I'd seen no sign of in the past. Meanwhile, neither of them was doing anything to keep their voices down. The couple at the table next to us were staring avidly into their phones, but they weren't fooling me. Their ears were as good as flapping in the breeze.
Wine aside, dinner last night had been a slice of takeout pizza eaten on the run followed by bar snack peanuts for dessert. The hole inside me was more than a glass of water could fill. Mercifully, the coffee was quick to arrive. A flat white. The first sip was a full-body experience: a rich nose-filling aroma, a pleasant bitterness on the palate, a flow of warmth down my throat, best of all that a feeling of caffeine hit permeating its way to every last corner of my body.
I sighed inwardly. Feeling a little more human now, I zoned back into the conversation.
