“What did I say to Tia then?”
“. . . You said that I could be any type of black girl that I wanted to be.”
* * *
By the time Friday came around, I was so nervous that all I could eat were two tiny fruits for breakfast and half a carton of soup, sip by sip, at lunch.
Although Balding Alpha and I were meant to go to dinner, I panicked at 4 p.m. and asked if we could go for a drink instead. I still wasn’t great at eating, and a first date didn’t seem like the setting to accommodate that.
Darcy had to escort me to Brixton after work and sit with me in the pub opposite the bar he’d suggested until it was time for the date.
“But why are you so nervous? Balding Alpha seems like a nice guy!” she said, sitting down at the table.
“Exactly that, Darcy,” I said. “This one is nice. Plus, it’s been a long time since I went on a date! Don’t forget that since Tom, despite me wanting them to be nice and romantic, all of my dates have been sex appointments. What if my chat is all rubbish, and so he hates me and just thinks I’m annoying?” I groaned, suddenly regretting everything.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Darcy said, opening a bag of crisps.
“No, please don’t do this! I’m not fishing, my self-esteem is legitimately so low that I actually feel like he’s going to walk in, take one look at me, and then walk out.”
“Queenie,” she said sternly, offering me a crisp.
“No. I don’t know how you can eat at a time like this.” I pushed the bag away. “Anyway, just as importantly, in the unlikely event that he does fancy me, I’m not going to have sex with him.”
“I think that’s wise,” Darcy said, chewing carefully. “You’ve been through a lot, and I think that if you are going to have sex again, it should possibly be with someone who is not an arsehole—”
“I’m not, I mean it,” I promised. “I’m trying to turn over a new leaf with this sort of thing.”
“Okay, good.”
“One question, though. If by some fluke he is blind and so is attracted to my personality, can I go home with hi—”
“No.” Darcy shook her head quickly, her dark hair flashing across her face.
“But just to kiss him?” I asked.
“Do you want to go back to how you were before?”
“What do you mean?”
“Put bluntly, when you were just going along with what men did or didn’t want from you.”
“All right, all ri—” I started.
“Queenie,” Darcy interrupted, impatient. “If you’re serious about prolonging anything, and I absolutely hate to say this, but you should at least wait until date two. Women should be free to have sex on date one, two, fifteen, without being judged or cast aside, but sadly, men aren’t as evolved as women.”
“Okay. Fine. Anyway, all pointless, and yes, I’m being repetitive, but it won’t even come to that,” I predicted.
“Let me look at the messages?” Darcy asked, reaching for my phone. “There’s one in particular that proves that he isn’t going to see you and recoil, and also suggests that you are the one who won’t like him. It made me cringe so much, Queenie.”
I watched my hands tremble slightly as I slid the phone over. Darcy opened WhatsApp and scrolled up through the dozens of messages we’d exchanged in the last few days.
She paused, furrowing her brow as she skimmed volumes of getting-to-know-you chat. “This.” She pushed the phone back toward me and spun it around.
I have always felt grateful that I never wanted to pigeonhole myself into having “a type,” I never felt that way. I think any kind of woman can be attractive, but I do not find all women attractive.
For example, and I hope this comes across well, but I’ve got white mates who are honest and say they don’t find nonwhite women attractive. They aren’t racist, I wouldn’t be friends with them if they were, it’s just a preference for them I guess. I have a black mate who says the same about white women. I got a mate who only likes big women. Some of them only seem to go out with petite women. Or some tall and thin women (we’ll come to the size zero thing, I have a bit of a problem with that) and some only like blondes. You hear this all the time from men and women; having a type.
I just think it’s a shame to be made that way. Not their fault or even anything they can do about it. I’m just grateful that I can see beauty in any variety.
“What’s wrong with that? I thought that it’s literally the most normal thing a man has said to me in the last year?”
“Firstly, Queenie, he obviously likes the sound of his own voice a lot, so you’ll have to get on board with that tonight. You don’t need to know all of that stuff!” Darcy said. “Nobody does. You didn’t even ask what his type was, but he’s written a small thesis on it.”
“I think it’s quite nice, it’s just him explaining that he doesn’t always like traditionally good-looking girls, and that he can see beyond that and fancy girls like me,” I said, trying to bat off years of negative reinforcement and failing.
“But you are traditionally good-looking!” Darcy spluttered. “I don’t know why you have it in your head that you aren’t! It makes me so sad that you can’t see what I do.”
I looked down at the table and moved so that I sat on my shaking hands.
“Anyway, look, you’ve got two minutes until he gets here. You’ll be fine. And you can leave anytime you want to.”
* * *
I left the pub and crossed the road, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as I waited outside.
I could see Darcy watching me through the pub window, and laughed when I saw her giving me a thumbs-up that emerged from behind the curtain.
“What’s so funny? Come here, give us a kiss, then.” A man that I hoped was Balding Alpha in real life descended upon me from nowhere, kissed me on both cheeks, and slipped a hand down so that it rested on my bum. I hadn’t expected him to be this forward; big disconnect between his messages and his actions.
I stepped back and took him in. He looked like his pictures. Slightly older, but it was definitely him, even though he was wearing a flat cap to cover his bald head.
“Hello!” I hugged him and did a thumbs-up behind his back for Darcy’s benefit.
“Shall we?” he said, holding open the door of the busy bar I’d been looking at nervously for the last hour.
Balding Alpha ordered a bottle of wine and we drank it quickly, speaking nonstop. We laughed about our families, moaned about living in London, compared dream holidays, our hands occasionally touching and our legs constantly pressed together under the table. He ordered another bottle, and before I could realize how much I was drinking, we’d made our way through a glass of it each, when he leaned over the table and said, “How about I ask them to cork this and we walk back to mine?”
“Maybe,” I said, standing up to go to the loo. I had to hold on to a stool to steady myself as it hit me how much I’d had to drink, and in such a short amount of time. I made it to the bathroom and opened my bag, retrieving my phone with unusually clumsy hands.
I called Darcy with some difficulty, looking in the mirror above the sink, staring at myself in some weak attempt to sober up purely through focusing my eyes on my own reflection.
“Are you okay? Are you safe? Is he a psycho? Are you having a wobble? Do you need me to come and get you?” Darcy asked, her voice high. “Simon, get my coat!”
“No! But shall I go home with him, Darc? I’ve, I’ve had I think the equivalent of, like, a bottle of wine and so, Darcyyyyy, I am feeling quite loose and free!” I leaned on the sink to balance myself. “Fuck it. Did you see that he snogged me when he saw me? He is so confident. It’s ’mazin’. And his bald head is quite sexy.”