Fine Lines, Chapter Six

Fine Lines is a fictional series charting the implosion of 45-year old Tara Hewson’s world, and the curious bird that flaps up from the ashes…

Chapter One // Chapter Two // Chapter Three // Chapter Four // Chapter Five

‘It gets my creative juices flowing.’ Susan said, mounting the stripper’s pole she’d had custom-fitted in her office.

‘Right.’ I said.

‘When you look at me, Tara, what do you see?’

She was monkey-humping the pole.

‘Em, I see Tan Thursday?’ I said, referencing her weekly sprayer at Itsy Bitsy and mottled mahogany legs in micro shorts.

‘Deeper than skin, Tara.’ She said, irritated.

‘I see a woman.’ I said, wracking my brain. ‘Who is unafraid to share intimate parts of her body with her work colleagues?’

‘Do you see a Disruptor, Tara?’ She said, spreading her legs and lifting her ankles to her ears.

‘Yes!’ I said, relieved to find her stride. ‘That’s exactly what I see.’

‘Do you see a powerful leader challenging her team to grab each day by the balls?’

Susan’s glass-sided office overlooked the account management and project design teams, most of whom were men under 35. I looked out to see all of them, heads-bowed, fixed to their screens, no doubt live-messaging her debut performance.

‘If there’s one person to incite ball grabbing, it’s you.’ I said.

She’d been sucking up to me since the disastrous ‘double date.’ This happened occasionally, where she went too far with something and momentarily grew a conscience. Setting me up with a fifteen-year-old child thankfully registered as a breach of covenant. Freebies were ceremoniously gifted, work was praised and early Friday knock-offs were encouraged.

When that period of grace lapsed, as it always did, and the real Susan Kennedy convulsed back in to her earthly vessel, things always got dark.

‘Tara, what have you brought in in the last 3 months?’ She said.

‘As in..?’ I said.

‘New accounts?’ She back-bended towards the floor and held a reverse hand-stand for a second before rounding off like an elite assassin.

‘How much money have you contributed to this company in the last three months? It’s a simple question.’

This was something Susan asked when she felt cheated, when she supposed that she was the only person in the building who did a tap of work.

‘Well, a lot of my time is spent on existing accounts.’ I said carefully. ‘New business is tricky as it requires a lot of time and our production costs aren’t competitive…’

‘I asked you how much?’ She said, flicking the Velcro straps on her fingerless leather gloves.

‘I mean, if you really wanted to be technical...’

‘I do.’ She said.

‘In the last three months, probably zero.’ I said.

‘Zero. And does zero keep people’s jobs?’

‘No.’

‘Here’s what I think, okay? I think if you don’t win the Bang Noodles pitch tomorrow we’ll be having a serious conversation about your value to the business.’ She said.

‘But I haven’t even been working on that pitch, I’ve nothing to do with it?’ I said.

She swiped her phone to accept a call and ushered me out the door.

***

Susan’s management style was Classic Abuser. She worked to a simple debase–ridicule–threaten model. Money was her master. To her, that was a motivational chat, a task ticked off her long list, a reminder that I was utterly disposable.

I’d clocked up way more than my 24 hours per week trying to meet the increasingly outlandish demands of long-term clients who were by then routinely challenging our fees too.

Susan didn’t care about retention. Expending energy to mind money that was already in the bank was useless to her. She was fixed on growth, on board-driven targets. She was committed to winning no matter the odds or pending market implosion.

M used to say that I had developed a kind of work-specific Stockholm Syndrome. At 45, I was still Susan’s bitch. Her words still reached the darkest part of me, reminded me that I was a pointless, ineffective human winging it all the way. After a pep talk like that, usually I would cancel everything, pull an all-nighter, reimagine the pitch and pour every atom of my being into nailing it.

I’m not sure what had started to shift in me around then, if it was the meditations Flavia had dragged me to - the yoga, the swims, the kickboxing I couldn’t get enough of – but Bang Noodles was not my problem. I caught the DART home as planned to prep for my ‘date’ with Alex.’

***

I’d pulled out the emergency Agent Provocateur bag, a stash I’d dipped into over the years for birthdays and special occasions. The pretty, delicate bras were all bought for a pert pair of 34 C’s many, many years before. I could just about fold my 36 DD’s into them but there was nothing alluring about the emergent four-titted woman.

Maybe if I’d had four nipples in the right place I could cash in. As it was, I had two rogue nipples that had to be manually centred even in the bras that fitted me, the flesh-coloured, practical ones. I had hoped that lifting the puckered flesh upwards, day after day would train them back into that pre-baby space but their limp insistence on pointing floor-ward said their job was absolutely done.

I wore the practical one, for shape, and brought some sexy (four-titted) options with me in an overnight pack. The knickers from the good bag all sat about two inches below my jagged caesarean scar and the numb belt of redundant flesh above it. I grabbed a short, baby blue, cotton nightie I hadn’t worn since the ’90s and hoped for a pitch-black body reveal. Morning sex would be out of the question.

***

Alex and I had been texting for a couple of weeks, which had been an excellent distraction from M who was aggressively ignoring me at home.

Flavia was hoping for a dick pic and was disappointed that Alex never offered one.

‘Maybe he has one of those tiny baby penises?’ She said. ‘Just prepare your face, prepare to tell him how big and majestic it is.’

‘Why would I lie?’ I asked.

‘Because you can still find pleasure, even with the little ones, you just have to be a bit more creative. If you make him feel bad about it the spark will be gone. Game face, Tara.’

It was all I could think of as I walked towards Bertie’s that Thursday. Game Face.

He’d suggested meeting at 11.30 pm, after work, which was usually the time I’d be flagging a taxi down to go home.

‘Where are you off to?’ He said, looking at my stuffed tote.

‘Oh, I just brought a change of clothes, some bits.’ I said.

‘Do you really think I’m that kind of boy?’ He laughed.

He was more built than I remembered, broader, thicker arms. I knew that he was Venezuelan, that he lived in Smithfield with three Brazilian girls and one Argentinian guy and that he was 31.

‘Are you going to be able to dance in that thing?’ He said, nodding towards my shoulder, which was still strapped up.

‘I think so. Are we going dancing?’ I said.

‘It’s merengue night at Dylan’s, should be fun.’

‘Is that like a salsa night?’ I said.

‘Kind of, merengue has more Caribbean influences.’ He said.

I hated choreographed couples’ dancing but Game Face was already in play and I was open and ready to welcome new worlds.

Dylan’s was rammed and Alex appeared to know everyone there. The women were young and impossibly beautiful, bodies of every size and shape, skin beaming with health, swaying sensuously into the music. Some danced together, some had male partners, some danced alone. The men wore tight trousers and led with their groins.

The air was thick with sex. I couldn’t tell if it was being teased, if there was a line that everyone hugged and didn’t cross or if looking like you were having sex in your clothes converted to a naked, sideways dance at some point later in the night.

I felt like my mother.

Alex handed me a tequila shot and a lime wedge and poured some salt on my hand.

And we were off.

I really wanted a beer after that but didn’t want to be gassy later when I was fumbling for treasure in the dark. I ordered a vodka, lime and soda – safe and disgusting – and a Redbreast on the rocks for Alex.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’ He said, sticking out his tongue. There was a little brown pill on it.

‘What’s that?’

‘MDMA.’ He said.

I hadn’t done anything since my mid-twenties. It felt like a moment to be responsible, to maybe walk away. It felt like something a dependable mother of two shouldn’t be doing.

I leaned in and caught the tab with my tongue sinking it with a gulp of my gaggy drink.

‘Hey, we were supposed to share that!’ Alex said, pulling another one from a tiny pillbox and swallowing it theatrically.

We didn’t talk much. I was happy soaking it all up, trying to figure out who was with who, how the boundaries were invisibly drawn. Alex was approached by one person after the next, mostly women, introducing me when I was looking in their direction.

Within about forty minutes I’d started rushing, surges of adrenaline ripping through my body and flushing my face. I could nearly feel the prickles of Rosacea popping on my cheeks. The music had slowed to the point that Luis Fonsi’s Despacito was an imminent threat.

‘I need to get out of here.’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ Alex said. ‘We haven’t even started dancing.’

‘I need to pump it out.’ I said.

‘What, like sex, now?’

‘No!’ I said, frustrated. ‘I need to Pump. It. Out.’ I thrust my arm in and out to demo the classic 90’s rave pump.

He didn’t want to leave Dylan’s but swiftly picked up on my manic energy and followed me out the door.

‘We can just go back to my place?’ He said.

I explained quickly and efficiently, using a lot of words, why not dancing it out would be a huge mistake for me. It went something like this:

Every neuron in my body has been activated, yeah? My neural network has been engaged, do you understand? And now, the energy that I’m storing in my body - so much good, positive, excellent energy - needs to be released. It needs to be zapped into the bodies of so many other people so that I can empty my energy surplus and not explode, yeah?

That was around the time that I ripped my shoulder harness off and fired it onto the road.
Alex looked alarmed. I do remember that.

And finally, the god of Every Excellent Thing delivered unto us a banging techno club just off Fishamble Street. It was small, dark and underground. Jackpot.

There was no sex in that room, it was all love and a lot of whooping. I found a proxy platform, which might have been a chair and pumped it OUT, a rhapsodic smile fixed to my face, euphoria sweeping the crowd. It was a beautiful purge, freeing the past and welcoming the future. I was home.

Alex hated it. He owed me nothing but stayed three whole hours just to be polite. When he finally said that he could take no more ‘pumping’ I left with him. It was 4 am and we were both still buzzing.

‘Wow, you really let it go in there.’ He said.

‘Yeah, wasn’t it amazing?’ I said.

‘A little different to the night I planned.’ He said, passing me a joint.

We sauntered back to his place playing never have I ever...until all the secrets had been shared. We were whispering over a cup of tea when I remembered my overnight bag, which I must have left at one of our stops. Even if I’d had all of my disguises with me, I don’t think I would have taken my clothes off. It just wasn’t that vibe.

He did sleep naked though, which was perfectly natural. I’d say fraternal but sleeping beside your naked brother would be weird. I almost asked him if I could take a selfie with his penis for Flavia but worried it might sound pervy.
It was about 7.30 am when we finally got to sleep and Bang Noodles couldn’t have been further from my mind

Rhona McAuliffe, June 2020.