It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake

by Claire Christian

He breathes in deep before he asks, “Are you happy?” “I think so,” I say and I mean it. I haven’t been able to distinguish any kind of feeling apart from numb for the longest time, but this feels good, this feels like an improvement. “I am happy you think so,” he says.

“Ugh! Paperwork on the weekend? Bor-ing!” What is wrong with me?!

“Have a good weekend, Miss.” A tiny grade-seven kid waves at me.

“You could help him out,” he says. Why is he calling it a him?

What if no one ever finds me attractive again?

Um.

How do I want to feel? I don’t even know.

“I can!” I holler. My voice booms weirdly in my quiet apartment.

“Fuuuck!” I yell as I hit Send.

I like her. She’s wearing bright red lipstick and her enormous boobs perch perfectly out of the top of her tight dress. We’re roughly the same size, and I think she’s gorgeous. But I’d never be confident enough to wear a dress like that. Or would I?

“No.” I look in the mirror and all I see is my stomach paunch. “What about this bit?” I say, pointing to it. “Your stomach?” She looks at me with her eyebrows raised. “Everyone has one, doll.”

I can’t help it—I start to cry. I don’t want to cry. I don’t know why I’m crying—it’s involuntary. But tears well and spill, well and spill. I wipe them from my cheeks and Jools doesn’t say anything. She lets me cry.

Thank you for your service, old Noni. But I will no longer be needing you. It’s time to let you go. I’ve decided to move in a new direction, try something new. I wish you all the best with your future endeavors.

Working with teenagers means that you get an instant—and very loud—throng of comments on your appearance the second you change anything. Today the kids had whistled and smiled and said things like “Good hair, Miss,” or “I like your hair, Miss.”

One of the receptionists, Carol, who was just a little older than me, grabbed my arm in the photocopy room and blinked her big green eyes as she said, “Good on you, Noni. I wish I could do that. I’ve always wanted to.”

He starts giggling, too, all raspy, through his nose. He touches my shoulder in solidarity. I’m very aware of his hand on my body.

“You think if this is how I feel doing small things, imagine what might happen if I do something big,” I say.

It’s great. Although I’ve heard from numerous sources that it’d be infinitely better if you were here. When I read this, I swooned.

Will I ever know this level of detail about someone else? “I know you,” I mumble.

“I really fucking miss you,” she says. The tears spring into my eyes and I try to smile through them. “I really miss you too,” I mumble.

“Would you like me to hit on you, Noni?” he asks and my insides squelch.

My smile comes from someplace that’s not my face; it comes from someplace lower.

I cry at check-in. I cry while drinking a coffee. I cry while going down the escalator to customs. An airport official in her fifties, with a frizzy perm and a thick accent, looks at me curiously. “You in love? Only women in love cry like that.”

I’ve built whole narratives for each of the tables. A first date. They met online. He used old photos and now she’s not as interested. He’s trying to be as impressive as he can, and he’s a nice guy, but she’s spending the whole meal looking forward to leaving and hate-fucking her ex.

I have ceased being a person and am now instead just made up entirely of wanting.

Pleasure isn’t a person. It’s personal.

has fantasies that infiltrate her actual life.

Though I also feel a slight pang that him having manners is a turn on for me, because how fucking low does the decency bar have to be for men?

I can see his bicep muscles move through the fabric of his dark green shirt. I swallow hard.

You can do whatever the fuck you want to do, my darling.

Pleasure must lead,

“I love this song,” I announce to the whole room, closing my eyes and rolling my shoulders with the joy of it all.

He pulls at the bun on his head and his shoulder-length hair unravels around his face as he thrashes about, laughing with his friends. My eyes bulge joyously at the sight.

“Will you let me know if you’re around Edinburgh again? I’m in London often too,” he says. I stare at him, amazed by his honesty. “You just say what you’re thinking, don’t you?’’ “I’m nearly forty, Noni. I’ve played a fuck-load of games in the past and now I’m of the opinion that it’s better to say what you want.”

“I hope I hear from you, and I hope that I see you again. That’s what I want.” “Okay” is all I can manage.

Between guys with photos of them shooting a gun or holding a large fish, and girls being very specific about what they liked or didn’t like, my insecurities were deeply triggered.

“Yes, on a scale of don’t touch me to Beyoncé ‘Partition’ fucking in a limousine, how do you want to feel?”

“Go easy on yourself, though, Noni. The idea that everyone is on the same timeline and that we’re all striving for perfection is absolute bullshit. There’s always mess. Always. We’re always having to clean up, or process, something. All we can do about it is be kind to ourselves.”

The word lose in this sense is not quite right, I know, because the Moon Cup isn’t lost, I know roughly where it is, I just don’t know exactly where. Kind of like telling someone you’ll meet them at the botanical gardens.

I find a bathroom and stare in the mirror. I look like a fucking wreck. I’m wearing a tracksuit and no bra. I had let my hair dry on its own after getting out of the shower, being too distracted trying to reach my hand into my own vagina to worry about the perfect blow-dry, so I look like an adolescent boy trying to be Eminem circa 2002.

I’m not used to this kind of unabashed flirting. This direct level of dreamy-wants being spoken loudly.

It takes all of my willpower to not “aww” audibly.

I wish there was a word to describe this thing that happens when you meet someone new. The way they look at you through a new lens and notice things about you that you didn’t even realize about yourself. The delivery of this information is like these little explosions of recognition. Feeling seen and surprised all at once.

“Oh.” I laugh, leaning into him so our lips are close, but they don’t touch. “Something like this?” “Something like this,” he says and he kisses me.

“These photos are just a celebration of your body on this day. In this moment,” she says. And I like that. In this moment, on this day, this woman feels fucking happy in this body.

“She’s beautiful.” I nod in her direction and pick up my drink for distraction. I want to see what he does. I want to bring up the us situation. I want to see if he’s shagging other people and try to feel out what I want to be doing too. He turns his head and looks quickly at the woman and then looks back at me. “Yeah,” he says. “So I was thinking we could get a takeaway—” I try to say it nonchalantly. “You should go and call her Sassenach.” I smile so he knows I’m not being weird. “I don’t want to fuck her, Noni,” he says, his forehead pinched as he tries to read me. “That’s not what I said.”

Fuck meditation apps and mindfulness practice—what they should tell you to do is have a Viking make you cum in an alley, because I’ve never been more present in my life.

“Someone once said I was like living glitter.”

“You’re stunning, Stef,” I say without thinking. “Thank you,” she says with an ease and comfort that makes me smile wide and take a big deep breath.

“I can’t bear to be around you,” I say. He kisses my neck. “You’re infuriating.” He nuzzles in closer so his beard tickles me and I giggle, throwing my head back and grabbing his shoulders.