Three Angry Women And A Baby

2. Steven

Chapter Two

Steven

Great s*x comes when you least expect it.

Turns out the consultant did know me, or rather he recognised me, and I wasn’t sure it was a compliment or not. He had remembered me from ten years ago in Glasgow, where my dancing, according to him, had inspired his daughter.

Did I look that bad ten years ago, or did I look that good after having a baby?

The notion had me staring into my tea until the older nurse kindly explained he had recognised me from my notes.

“And here’s me thinking I hadn’t aged.” I laughed out loud and yet again burst into tears.

Ten years ago, I performed to a crowd-filled street in Glasgow and also saw Steven in his boxers for the first time. I ripped them off in a frenzy of lust and wine and he had to eat his fry-up in commando the next morning, which we both found strangely erotic.

In fact, for the next few years, everything was erotic to us, from dipping strips of bread into a boiled egg to polishing a doorknob; one look a mundane task could send us searching for the great underrated “quickie.”

That night, in my hotel room, Steven declared that I was his muse, his best friend, and that life without me was not worth living. We had emptied the complimentary drink cabinet at the time, which was enough to make a packet of out-of-date peanuts taste like luxury and removing a coin belt as difficult as untangling a wool ball.

“Never try to strip with a coin belt,” I laughed, unhinging it from my bra. “It catches everything.”

Steven wrapped it around his boxer shorts and managed a few pelvic thrusts that had me ripping his boxer shorts off and tossing them in the bin. All those hours of waiting and eye contact. He was like a present sitting under a Christmas tree—waiting to be opened.

That night, as the whole world (well, Glasgow) celebrated Nefertiti’s dancing, Steven walked me back to our hotel and never left my room.

Nefertiti, my belly dancing teacher, had pulled a group of us together and called us the Sisterhood. Our first performance was in Glasgow. For me, a tubby woman who didn’t like being seen in a bathing suit, let alone showing my belly, it was a liberating experience that set my libido soaring. Hips circling can do that to a girl, especially in front of a cheering audience in a costume that would make Miss Piggy shaggable. We had been practicing for months, and on the big day, Steven, who was in charge of driving, had the journey planned, with freshly ground coffee, herby baguettes filled with salad and cheese, and some yoghurt to follow.

“Something light,” he said, “before the performance.”

How could a woman turn down a homemade herby baguette? Especially when feeling like the Queen of Sheba?

We danced to drums, and I, in the front, was, for one song, the main event. The funny thing was, the only person I saw was Steven.

His warm body took me by surprise. We laughed and talked on a creaky bed that rocked with each movement and a headboard that crashed against the wall louder than any moans. We messed up the bed and caused mass destruction in the bathroom and laughed until we fell asleep.

I forgot about the moaning and the rattling bedhead until the next morning, when Steven, sitting uncomfortably in his jeans dipping bread into his fried egg, was asked by the waitress if he had “slept well?”

The old man at the next table glared over his scrambled egg, then muttered to his wife, “Sleep well? This place is like a knocking shop with friggin’ tissue paper for walls.”

Within a year, Steven had moved in, helping to set up my “no job too small” DIY business. I was living in a converted garage in my mother’s garden. It had been converted on the cheap; I hadn’t planned to stay long. Ten years later, staring at the blue strip of the pregnancy test, Steven looked about the tiny sitting-room-come-kitchen-come-pull-out-bed-bedroom and muttered about moving.

Moving from my mother wasn’t easy—she liked us there. Her and George had an ongoing on/off sort of relationship.

To be honest, I was surprised there was ever any on; she was unbelievably hard to live with. Mum was uncompromising on all fronts, from breakfast to the remote; everything was a minefield with her.

“Don’t burn the toast.”

“You call this cooked?”

“Coffee, no sugar, just a hint of milk—no, not heated, warmed.”

George, a patient man with an excellent sense of humour, had a tendency to leave and not come back for days. He called it “downtime.” He had two set of toothbrushes, a selection of PJs—in fact, two of everything. However, Mum didn’t like being alone. She, for all her claims to “love” her independence, liked someone within yelling distance. She hated wheeling herself out of the house unaccompanied. She liked to know, as she put it, that if she overbalanced in her wheelchair, someone was just a shout away.

She had no truck with the so-called care in the community; as she said, “the council is full of t**s and arseholes” (she always reverted to body parts when angry) and “I’m not spending an afternoon on the floor waiting for someone to answer my friggin’ buzzer.”

We looked at the blue line of the pregnancy-testing kit, still trying to take it in.

“Steven,” yelled Mum. “Don’t forget to take the bin out.”

“We really need to move,” he said.