People...I’m shit at awkward conversations. I just don’t have them. I ignore them, and I pretend that they don’t apply to me. This has gone exactly as well as you’d expect. I’ve landed in some situations that were way more stressful than just having the conversation would have been. What I’ve learned from this is that it’s something I need to get much better at. And to get myself there, I’m going to start having THE conversation. Which conversation? The conversation that everyone should be having with each and every one of their relevant sexual partners.

“What will you do in the event of an unplanned pregnancy with me?”

There are a lot of conversations that we should be having before sex with new partners. And most of us aren’t having them. Conversations about consent, about boundaries, about STI testing. We avoid them. And it’s not hard to understand why.

Sex and dating is a delicate and elaborate dance in which we try to convince strangers that we’re totally Normal™ and that they can trust us with their naked body, while at the same time both parties are actively looking for any evidence that the person they’re talking to might in fact be a complete weirdo.

Don’t believe me? Spend some time on Bad Dates of Melbourne or Bad Dates of Australia and judge for yourself. 

I wish I could say that I have a solution to this problem.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve got a surefire way of raising the topic of STIs before having sex with someone, without risking both of you feeling awkward. I don’t have this solution. In fact, I’m about to make it ten times worse. Because using the word ‘abortion’ right before you start fucking isn’t exactly sexually lubricating (and if it is you’re going to need a whole different awkward conversation).

This article is not about how to make important sex-related conversations any less awkward.

This is about making the case for why the unplanned pregnancy conversation should be normalised to the point that it becomes a standard line on first dates and hookups.

“What will you do in the event of an unplanned pregnancy with me?” 

On its surface this is a conversation about whether or not the woman or uterus owner would seek an abortion if they become pregnant.

But it’s deeper than that.

It’s about informed consent for both parties. It’s about involving men and penis owners in the fight for reproductive rights. And it’s about normalising awareness of contraception efficacy and the necessity of abortion. Y’know, just some light back-and-forth before banging.

Unplanned pregnancy? That’ll never happen to me.

Those of us capable of becoming pregnant don’t like to think too hard about the odds of it happening while we’re having sex. I mean, I don’t tend to orgasm at the thought of statistics on condom efficacy. But unfortunately our optimism bias is drastically increasing the rate of unplanned pregnancies in Australia.

It’s estimated that literally half of all the pregnancies in this country are unplanned. It’s also estimated that 1 in 3 Australian women will have an unplanned pregnancy in their lifetime (unfortunately the data around these topics is overwhelmingly cis-normative).

Contrary to common belief, these “unexpectedly up-the-duff” numbers aren’t because we’re a nation of horn-bags devoted to shagging free willy style (translation for non-australians: these pregnancy numbers aren’t due to sexually active people rejecting condoms).

Most reports tell us that, of the people who find themselves with an unplanned pregnancy, over half of them were using at least one method of contraception at the time of conception. Which is why the argument that people ‘should have used protection’ instead of having the audacity to ask for an abortion, is complete and utter bullshit. 

So if you were looking at your script for The Pill thinking “Nah, I’m bulletproof” you might want to think again. No method of contraception is 100%, and most of us aren’t even using the methods that get us closer to that 100% efficacy anyway.

Pregnancies can, and have, overcome the most strenuous efforts to avoid them. So the best we can do is be mentally prepared for the situation where it happens. 

Your body, your choice

Now if you’re a uterus owner, your immediate reaction might be that it doesn’t matter what the other person plans on doing because it’s your body and it’s your choice. And you’re damn fucking right it is. Hopefully I don’t need to tell anyone on this site about why they should be pro-choice. We all know that consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy, right? Just because you bang doesn’t mean you want a baby.

When the abortion debates come up, we often hear the argument that ‘people shouldn’t have sex if they don’t want to get pregnant’. That is some Grade A bullshit. 

The implication from that argument is that a human child is a fair and expected punishment for sex. 

Imagine if we told children that that’s where babies came from. “Well sweetie, when two people get drunk after a Lizzo concert and end up banging in a bathroom stall, conservative politicians and religious leaders like to punish them by giving them a tiny human that will drastically disrupt both of their lives forever.” 

Now at this point some people might be concerned about the welfare of all these unexpectedly conceived ‘children’ that are getting aborted. And cool, if you believe that conception equals human life, then that’s a reasonable thing to be concerned with.

But let’s ponder the welfare of that as-yet-unborn-human, if its parents are forced to continue the pregnancy. 

We’re essentially telling the pregnant person, “You can’t have an abortion. You had sex, these are the consequences. Now raise this unwanted child in whatever way you’re inclined to until it’s old enough to survive alone. If your indifference, neglect, or overall lack of desire for this child impedes its growth in any way it will be foisted off to an equally unprepared relative or will enter a notoriously un-empathetic foster care system.” 

Because, realistically, some people who are forced into becoming parents because they were unable to access abortion, they might turn out to be great at it and really love the kid. But a whole lot more aren’t going to be financially or emotionally prepared for how drastically their life is going to change. And that’s basically punishing the people who had sex AND the resulting child, for the rest of all of their lives.

So, yes, I agree “someone think of the precious children” and allow universal abortion access on demand. No one should be forced to carry a pregnancy they don’t want, and no child should be born to a parent that doesn’t want them. So hell yes, if you have the uterus, you get to call the shots. 

And this, uterus-owners, is why it’s so important to communicate your intentions to your sexual partners. Because if you’re not talking about your intentions, you’re not gaining their informed consent.

I want to keep my pregnancy

Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy. It’s also not consent to parenthood. This means, if you’re a uterus owner and you know that if you became pregnant you’d choose to continue the pregnancy (rather than seek an abortion), you’d be signing your sexual partner up for parenthood without them being aware or informed. 

Sure, you might not expect them to be involved in the child’s life, or even contribute financially, but that doesn’t change the fact that they now have a biological child alive in the world. It’s all fun and games calling each other ‘daddy’ in the bedroom, but it can get a bit too real for some people.

In terms of consent issues, opting someone in to being a parent without their complete knowledge is rather a big one. Both for them and the subsequent child.

I want an abortion

Okay, but let’s say you’re the uterus owner and you know you’d get an abortion. Why do you need to have the conversation? It’s no one else’s business...right? Well, sure. But what if you ask your sexual partner the question and they say “Oh...well, of course I’d expect you to keep it. I mean, you wouldn’t kill a baby would you?”

Do you still want to fuck that person? Do you want to have sex with someone who, if you became pregnant, would not only want you to keep it but would also want to deny you the ability not to. Cos that’s oppressive as fuck. I sure as hell don’t want my pussy providing any kind of pleasure to someone that doesn’t respect the shit out of it. 

Imagine if you fucked someone, had an abortion, and then they used that as an opportunity to sue a family planning clinic for “killing their child”, thereby undermining the legislative framework for the very rights you’d just exercised. Cos that’s happened. 

Why men and penis owners need to ask the question

Okay, but what if you’re a penis owner? You might be thinking “Oh, uh I don’t know how I feel about bringing this up, because like it really isn’t any of my business.” Actually it is. Because you have every right to know what your sexual partner plans on doing in the event of an unplanned pregnancy. 

The ‘pregnancy trap’

There are many narratives online about how ‘men are tricked into parenthood’ or feel that they were lied to about circumstances leading to a pregnancy. Part of this comes from the lack of education many men receive about contraception efficacy and pregnancy. A recent survey about emergency contraception among school leavers found that the majority of them thought it was a “women’s issue”. In other words, “I can’t get pregnant, so why should I worry?”. Which is just part of why having this conversation is so important. Because we need men and penis owners to understand exactly what’s at stake each and every time sex happens.

You’re about to have sex with someone. You ask the question “What will you do in the event of an unplanned pregnancy with me?” And they tell you that they would probably keep the pregnancy, whether because they’re uncomfortable with abortion, or because they’re ready to become a parent, doesn’t matter. You now know exactly what you’re consenting to by having sex with this person and you now have the ability to withdraw your consent if you don’t feel comfortable with the situation.

If the person you’re about to have sex with indicates that they would keep the pregnancy, and you would still like to have sex with them, you can then make informed decisions about how to proceed. You might have both previously discussed being up to date on STI checks and had planned on not using protection - but this might change that decision for you. You can now ensure that you follow the ‘perfect use’ instructions for a condom and you may also choose to withdraw before ejaculating. All of this gives you control over your level of participation and risk.

You deserve the right to make those decisions and take those actions. And you can’t do that if you don’t have the conversation, or if you see contraception and pregnancy prevention as simply being a ‘women’s issue’. 

Exercising your penis privilege

If you’re the penis owner, and your sexual partner says they’d get an abortion, and you’re on board with that - great! But you should also know how you feel about facilitating that. After all, you’re 50% of the genetic material of that pregnancy, you’re half of the people having sex right now, therefore you should be prepared to contribute at least 50% of the financial costs associated with the abortion. And if this is the first time you’ve ever considered this, then I’d ask you to consider your penis privilege for a moment. 

Abortions aren’t always affordable and depending on where you are, they’re not always super accessible (which means travel expenses). If your sexual partner realises they’re pregnant before around 9 weeks, they might choose to have a medical abortion in their home. In which case they’ll need someone to help them out around the house while they’re going through the process. If they need (or choose to have) a surgical abortion, there’s a good chance they’ll be having IV sedation. That means they can’t drive and will need a support person for 24 hours afterwards. 

Now if the pregnant person is a one night stand, then sure, you’re probably not going to be their first choice. But there’s a lot of circumstances that could still lead to you being the one they ask for support. Are you prepared to take a day off work to drive them to the clinic, spend upwards of 4 hours waiting around with them, drive them home and stay with them and supervise them while they recover? Because here’s the thing - this is what abortion looks like. And if you didn’t know any of this - ask yourself why. Because for as long as you’ve been having sex, it’s more than likely you’ve been able to get someone pregnant.

For most penis owners, abortion represents a simple binary; become a parent or not become a parent. But the reality is that it’s a lot of fucking around - there’s a huge amount of labour, time, and money that goes into becoming not pregnant again. And before you consent to sex, you need to be prepared to consent to everything that an unplanned pregnancy and subsequent abortion actually entails. And if you’re not prepared to do all of that, you need to tell your sexual partner. Otherwise, it’s not informed consent, is it? 

For the sake of reproductive rights

On its surface, having this conversation is about making sure that everyone involved is provided with all the information they need in order to provide their informed consent to sexual activity. 

But it’s actually about a lot more than that.

Historically the ‘abortion debate’ has been dominated on one side by straight, cis-het, white men telling everyone else what they can and can’t do with their body.

On the other side are all of the people who are at risk of an unplanned pregnancy and want to have the choice to end that pregnancy - in other words, uterus owners.

The problem is though, there are a LOT of men and penis owners who benefit from abortion. Every abortion that happens is a pregnancy that could have hugely impacted more than one person’s life. Because it’s not just the person carrying the pregnancy, it’s the person who helped conceive that pregnancy as well. And any other children that either of them already have, that would have less resources once there’s an additional life to care for. And often, in situations where the sexual partners couldn’t have supported a child, it means that their parents or siblings aren’t going to be asked to step in to help raise a child they didn’t expect.

That’s a whole lot of men and penis owners whose lives have continued; uninterrupted by unexpected parenthood, thanks to abortion. And yet rarely do we see them throwing their time and money into advocating for reproductive rights.  

For some men there is a hesitancy to discuss contraception due to concerns about encroaching on the bodily autonomy of their sexual partner. Arguably many men and penis owners might feel the same about abortion. But there is a way to discuss this without it impacting autonomy. All it requires is that it’s about lines of enquiry, not asserting demands. Basically if you’re a penis owner and you’re worried about talking to a sexual partner about contraception or abortion, just remember that you’re allowed to ask questions and offer support or help, you’re not allowed to dictate their actions or issue ultimatums. That’s it. 

Once men and penis owners start to see reproductive rights as something that directly affects them (which it does), we as a society can start to have reasonable conversations about what reproductive legislation actually means. It takes two people to create a pregnancy, but only half of those people are expected to fight for their right to end that pregnancy, even though it would drastically affect both their lives.

By having this conversation before sex, and making sure that everyone involved understands exactly what’s on the line, we can start to look at reproductive rights through an equal lens. Because we all deserve to be informed about what we’re agreeing to, and we all deserve to be able to make decisions about our bodies. 

That is all.

You may go now. 

[Estimated reading time: 17 minutes]

People…I have HPV. And I’m in good company, because up to 90% of us will be infected with at least one genital type of HPV at some time in our lives. But HPV is also the cause of nearly all cervical, anal, penile, vaginal, vulvar, and oropharangyal cancers. Admittedly, most cases of HPV won’t even result in symptoms and are completely harmless. But mine wasn’t.

HPV and STIs in general aren’t things we talk about a whole lot. And when things don’t get talked about openly, they tend to attract myths and misinformation. Like many people, I was under the impression that HPV was something that could only be contracted through unprotected sex. I also used to, like many people, confuse it with herpes (HSV) all the damn time. This is such a common mistake that there are hundreds of educational websites dedicated to teaching you the difference.

I’ve been in an open relationship for most of my adult life, and one of the rules my partner and I follow is to always use protection. Neither of us has ever broken this rule. However...both of us have engaged in unprotected sexual activity.

See, here’s the key thing, when people talk about condoms and dams preventing STIs, they’re right. But what most of us don’t realise is, you have to use them for absolutely all physical contact. Because if there is any genital to genital contact without a barrier in place AT ALL, that’s enough for you to contract HPV. This goes for oral and anal, and anything else you can think of.

And even though HPV is transmitted via skin-to-skin contact (as opposed to fluids) it can be contracted from sharing sex toys.

You don’t just have to have protected sex, you have to have protected sexual activity.

Basically, there has to be something in place, at all times, stopping either of your potential infection sites (genitals, anus and mouth) from touching. If it sounds like you need to wrap yourselves in glad wrap before getting down to sexy times, I’m not going to kink shame that.

What exactly is the cervix?

I know. We all had high school biology, we all know what the cervix is. It’s that weird woovy part after the vagina, but before the uterus, right? 

But how familiar are you with your cervix?

Did you know that some forms of contraception prevent pregnancy by changing your cervical mucous?

Did you know that you can measure the changes to your cervix throughout your cycle to help you figure out the best time to conceive?

Did you know that it looks like a squishy pink donut?

Have you ever looked at photos of the cervix at different stages of the menstrual cycle?

Your cervix might look like a chubby kid’s belly button, but it’s actually a crucial part of your reproductive health system.

But, like Uncle Larry’s indoor hot tub it’s a wet, warm enclosed environment, which means that like the hot tub it’s prone to STIs.
Which is why it’s so important to stay on top of testing. 

The Pap Smear & Cervical Screen

Now, I’m not a brave woman. When it comes to matters of blood and gore, I’ve had to ask other people to put band-aids on my paper cuts.

It’s not that I don’t have a great pain threshold, it’s that I am very easily terrified by any of the things that belong ‘inside’ my body ending up on the outside, or worse, anything going wrong with the bits inside me. And this is why I’ve always struggled to be pro-active about my cervical health.

Most cervix owners have spent their lives being told to get regular ‘pap smears’. Aside from the decidedly gross name, it’s not a super enjoyable procedure. I can still remember my first one. I felt like such a grown up. Here I was, sexually active, asking a nice lady doctor to swipe a Q-tip on my inside parts. What more does a girl dream of when growing up? She asked me to take off my jeans and knickers and lie down with my legs splayed out to either side. Then she asked me to sit on my hands, which I found super weird and assumed she was worried I would reach out and try to push her head down like my partner did whenever his pants were off. Turns out it helps tilt the pelvis up so it’s easier to see the cervix. She then showed me the speculum. If you’ve never seen a speculum, it looks kind of like a duck’s bill and opens and closes a bit like one. I make this comparison because my doctor said “Looks like a duck!” and then made it quack...right before she covered it in lube and put it inside my vagina. I felt like she was making me her muppet. Which honestly was preferable to what happened next.

My doctor had shown me the swab that she would be using to collect the sample, and from where I was sitting it looked kind of like a cotton tip, y’know those things you’re not meant to clean your ears with but totally do because it’s kind of like a tiny orgasm in your ear (an eargasm?). Turns out it’s more like a tiny toilet brush. So when it started scrubbing against my cervix, I was not anticipating the sensation. I mean, aside from anything else, my cervix had never really been touched before. But it felt like someone was trying to poke something out of my from inside my belly button. It was the most deeply uncomfortable sensation I’ve ever come across. It didn’t exactly hurt, it just felt seriously wrong. And for hours after it was over whenever I thought about it I involuntarily crossed my legs, bent over and just made various “blergh” noises.

The second time I had a pap smear, I told the doctor I was feeling light headed. She told me it would pass, and ushered me out to pay at reception. I passed out at the front desk and woke up in a recovery room with a stranger who informed me she’d been left there to watch me and then insisted on showing me photos of her pet bunnies for 45 minutes...I fucking hate bunnies.

So when Australia replaced the ‘pap smear’ with the ‘cervical screen’ I was hugely relieved. Not only because it’s a less gross thing to say, but also because the cervical screen is more effective than that pap smear it only needs to be done half as often. The problem with a more effective screening tool though - it’s more likely to pick up on anything bad lurking in your cervix. So when I got the call from my GP telling me I had abnormal cells, I was shook.

How did I get HPV? What was that vaccine for?

I couldn’t figure out what I’d done that could have exposed me to HPV. I always had protected sex, and I always made sure my sexual partners were up to date on their STI checks.

But here’s the thing, standard STI testing for penis owners doesn’t actually check for HPV. This is despite the fact that recent studies have shown nearly half of all men have genital HPV. And yet men are not tested for it and they’re not vaccinated against it (which is doubly problematic when you consider that many men still die from throat cancer caused by HPV).

In case you’re wondering, the standard asymptomatic STI screening practice in Australia only recommends testing for HIV, chlamydia, syphilis, hep B and gonorrhoea (and gonorrhoea is only recommended for at risk populations).

So if you end up with anything asymptomatic outside of the Big Five, chances are you’ll have no idea if you’re passing it on or not.

Once I realised that any unprotected sexual contact was enough for a transmission to occur, I realised that almost everything I’d ever done would have been enough for me to have contracted it. Every sexual action that wasn’t conducted through a barrier suddenly loomed large in my mind.

What then bamboozled me was how this had happened if I’d had all of my Gardasil shots. Wasn’t that the point of a vaccine? If it didn’t protect me against HPV and it didn’t give me autism, what was it good for?!

Well, it turns out that when I got my vaccinations, Gardasil only covered 4 strains of the virus (HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18).

To be fair, 2 of those strains cause around 70% of cervical cancers and most of the other HPV related cancers, and the other 2 strains cause around 90% of genital warts cases - so it’s not nothing. But even though the new vaccine now covers 9 strains of the virus there are over 200 strains of HPV out there, so it’s not impossible to contract it even if you are vaccinated.

What do I do about the HPV?

Because the new cervical screen test is much more thorough than the old pap smear, the first thing that usually happens after your doctor tells you they’ve found abnormal cells, is that you wait.

If you had normal test results, you’d only need to have a cervical screening test once every five years. But if something suspicious shows up they’ll test you again in 12 months to see if your body has cleared the virus on its own.

So if you get an abnormal test result, you just need to chill for a year and hope that your body takes care of it. And in the vast majority of cases, that’s exactly what happens. You go back for your follow up and your doctor will let you know that there’s nothing suss on your cervix. Yay!

What if my body doesn’t clear the virus?

If after a year, your test results come back and say “Hey, your inside donut still has some danger sprinkles” I’m afraid you’re in for a colposcopy.

Currently the word ‘colposcopy’ is uncommon enough that most people think you mean a ‘colonoscopy’ which is where they stick a camera up your butt to check for cancer (which you should also do regularly if you have any cause to believe you might be at risk of bowel cancer). But I suspect in the next 5 years, in Australia at least, we’re gonna get a whole lot more familiar with colposcopies.

A colposcopy is usually done by an Obstetrician/Gynaecologist, but you can also have them done at a public hospital, or by a proceduralist centre. I went to a Gynae, because I’m already paying a fortune for my health insurance to cover my psych treatment, so why not make that shit work a little harder for its premium?

But what IS a colposcopy?

Have you ever been to the optometrist to have your eyes checked? You know that part before they test your ability to decide between two equally fuzzy pictures of letters (1...or 2...1...or 2, I don’t know Janet they both look the fucking same!), the part where they have that giant scope thing that looks beyond your eyeballs and into your very soul? Okay, so a colposcopy is like that, but instead of looking into your eyeballs, they’re looking into your cervix. Deep into your cervix.

The goal is to check for the same abnormal cells that showed up on your cervical screen and to take a small sample of them (a biopsy) to send away to pathology. This all sounds simple enough if you’re a hardened uterus owner who can handle their shit. It turns out though, I am not one of those. I sweat my way through just the cervical screen, for me this was some next level shit.

For a start, I’d never been up in stirrups before - that part was fine. Pretty comfortable actually, like those ergonomic office chairs from the 90s. But as soon as the speculum went in I started breathing like I was getting paid $5 for every inhalation.

Just when I was starting to calm down and my body was prepared to consider that maybe this wasn’t the most traumatic experience it had ever had, my gynae looked up and said “Great, so I’m just about to finish up here. I’ll grab a small sample and then you’re done!”

My brain is like “Cool, cool, nearly done, cool, cool.” And the next thing I knew my partner was standing next to me fanning my face saying “I think she’s coming back now.”

I’m not actually sure at what point I passed out, but apparently my partner thought I’d just up and died. My eyes had rolled back into my skull, my face went completely slack and my partner looked to the gynae for support and realised she was still elbow deep inside me and couldn’t really do much.

Thankfully, my gynae is a very lovely and non-judgemental person. So she told me that I’d been a great patient and to just take my time gathering myself, before going back to her room next door to discuss next steps. And as soon as she’d closed the door behind her I just burst into tears, legs still spread-eagle in the stirrups. Definitely one of my classier crying sessions. Thankfully my partner was there to help me put my knickers back on and try and gather what little shreds of dignity I had left.

After I made it safely back to the gynae’s office, still sniffling, she explained that she would likely have the test results back in less than a week and would give me a call with the results. She reassured me that it would most likely be some benign cells that we would just have to wait for my body to clear.

A few days later she called to let me know that my cervix was currently housing some pre-cancerous cells and that they would need to be evicted - by lasers.

What to expect after your colposcopy

Because my body needed to heal fully from the colposcopy before I had the follow up procedure to remove the abnormal cells, I had about a month of recovery before round 2. Now, obviously every body is very different, and my experience is certainly not the benchmark by which to set your expectations. But here are a few things to potentially keep in mind.

Expect some weird discharge. You know how if you make a cup-a-soup and then you forget about it for too long and come back to it and it has that weird skin over the surface? Imagine that, but it’s the colour of iodine. It doesn’t last too long, but it’s definitely on the gross-fascinating matrix the first time you encounter it.

I also experienced pain for quite a while. Not an all-the-time, debilitating pain. But if I sat cross-legged and leant forward for something, it felt like a particularly large dick was poking me in the cervix and demanding to know if I was going to cum or not. I also had sporadic spasms of pain, kind of like period cramps but a bit sharper and shorter - these lasted almost the whole month of recovery.

None of the pain was intolerable, but I did reach out to a few friends who had also had to procedure to check that it was normal and expected. They confirmed that, unfortunately, yes it was. Yay for cervical healthcare!

What to expect from your LLETZ/LEEP

You’ve probably never come across the term LLETZ or LEEP before. I know I hadn’t. I assumed it was some kind of internet jargon for people who posted the wrong gifs on 4chan. Turns out they’re more or less interchangeable terms for the same procedure, which involves running an electrified wire across the surface of your cervix to remove the surfaces that house the abnormal cells. Apparently this procedure is often performed with just a local anaesthetic applied to the cervix, and the patient remains awake the whole time.

Thankfully my gynae, obviously still traumatised by my histrionics at the colposcopy, performed mine under sedation. This meant that I got to rock up to the Epworth Hospital, change into a sexy assless gown, exchange some banter with the anaesthetist and then I was off to sleep for the next 20 - 30 minutes.

When I woke up some lovely nurses fed me tea and biscuits until I could string a coherent sentence together and I went home. But the best part was that at some point during the procedure they pumped me full of some 24 hour painkillers and anti-inflammation medication, so I didn’t even need to take a Panadol after it was done. I had absolutely zero pain.

What to expect after your LLETZ

After your LLETZ you can not have sex, use tampons, or insert anything into your vagina for about a month afterwards. This is to reduce the risk of infection, and also to give your cervix time to heal. Do not ignore these instructions, because if you do you can dislodge the scab that has formed over the wound on your cervix. This can then necessitate a trip to your gynae so that they can pack the wound with a clotting agent. Unpleasant.

One of the instructions you’ll receive whenever you have any kind of procedure relating to your vagina, cervix or uterus, is to keep an eye out for possible infection.

Signs of infection include fever, pain and flu-like symptoms. But one of the main signs of infection is smelly discharge. I promise that you will spend at least 20 seconds, sniffing the air around your crotch and pondering just how smelly is ‘smelly’. Because your vag will send forth some unique odours while your cervix recovers.

It starts with the soup skin, which by now you’re used to. But you’ll then get some ‘brown watery discharge’ for between a few days and a few weeks. Some people get clear watery discharge that has a strong umami odour. Some people get spotting. Some get bleeding.

Or maybe, like me, you’ll be one of the rare cases who gets small chunks of charcoal.

About 2 weeks after the procedure, I started to notice a kind of burned, smokey smell coming out of my vag. However, this coincided almost perfectly with the worst bushfires in Australian history, and smoke pollution from those fires covering most major cities and drastically affecting air quality. I assumed that since I’d been inhaling the equivalent of 20 packs a day for the last 48 hours, that this was just a particularly dire side effect.

Then the charcoal appeared. A little smudge of black on the toilet paper at first. Then some more noticeable flecks. Then it got to the point where there were enough small clots of it every time I wiped that I could have produced a charcoal drawing of my pussy and won myself a feminist art prize.

Every time I dropped my pants I had a faint whiff of a small brushfire in the distance. Whenever I went to the toilet I worried that I might actually be miscarrying the antichrist.

I wasn’t panicked by any of this, since to me it made sense. They had burned off chunks of my cervix with a hot wire, of course there were some burned crispy bits making their way out through the only available exit. But what began to bother me was when the clear-ish discharge I’d been told to expect started to mingle with the charcoal and suddenly I was finding my pad soaked with what looked, and kind of smelled like, satan’s semen.

It wasn’t infection level smelly, it didn’t want to make me want to gag. It was more like someone had turned the ‘generic pussy smell’ up to 11. Every time I uncrossed my legs it felt like it was wafting out of me, like I suddenly had Pepe Le Pew pussy (minus the sexual assault).

Thankfully all of the discharge and smell was gone a few weeks after the procedure. But it did make me realise there’s a market for smell-proof pads.

What happens now?

I’m now fully recovered from my LLETZ procedure. Which is handy, because the standard follow up for cases like mine means that I’ll be heading back for another cervical screen, and possibly another colposcopy, in about 6 months. Because I didn’t have quite enough fun the first time around.

Now, it’s pretty easy at this point to feel like the takeaway from all of this is that cervical health is a fucking horrific experience and to be avoided at all costs. But that’s not actually what I’m getting at. There is every chance that these abnormal cells could have been hanging around in my cervix for years, but were only picked up thanks to the new cervical screening process. If this had happened to me 20 years ago, it might not have been picked up until it was too late. And yes, the colposcopy was deeply unpleasant and having a brushfire in my bush was less than ideal - but I would (and will) do it all again happily. Okay, well slightly begrudgingly, but you get the point.

After losing far too many people in my life to cancer, I am infinitely grateful to live in a time when I can be tested and treated before I even get cancer. So if you’re putting off your regular testing, whether it’s cervical screens, colonoscopies, or just getting that lump checked out - please follow it up. I know how scary it can be. I know how uncomfortable it can be. But take advantage of the science we have available to us - get tested, get vaccinated. The world is a much nicer place with you in it - let’s keep it that way.

That is all.

You may go now.

Some people were more prepared than others though. In fact, for some people, the developments COVID brought have been a vast improvement on their day to day living situations. Because for some people, being isolated, unable to leave home, and having reduced access to the world at large IS normal. And suddenly finding that everyone else is willing to accommodate these circumstances is a welcome change. Because it turns out, living in a pandemic is almost exactly what it’s like to live with chronic illness.

In the course of this plague I’ve found myself talking to friends who have been diagnosed with a variety of different chronic illness (to be clear, I was talking to them before the pandemic as well). But in recent conversations, I noticed a trend emerging. My fellow chronic illness comrades were much better equipped, in many ways, to see the benefits this situation has delivered.

A friend with a compromised immune system pointed out that she hasn’t been able to casually leave her house since her diagnosis. The increased availability of delivery services has been a game changer for her.

A friend with chronic fatigue pointed out that they no longer had FOMO from all the amazing events that were going on, that they knew they wouldn’t be able to attend.

A friend with unstable mental health said that having the ability to work from home meant that he could hide his more intense breakdowns from his colleagues, while still getting his work done - his boss is suddenly delighted with his performance.

For people with chronic illness, the pandemic has brought accommodations that we would never have dreamt of.

Now, clearly, a global pandemic is not a good thing. People are dying from this disease, and those that don’t die from it are facing serious long term health consequences. Nothing about COVID itself is a good thing. What has been good though, is some of the ways in which the world has adapted. As someone with chronic mental illness, I found myself hoping, in the first 8 weeks of lockdown, that everything wouldn’t go back to normal straight away. Turns out that was a complete monkey’s paw wish, since Melbourne is currently about as far from normal as it has ever been. But my hope was less about lockdowns and more about the sudden insight, and hopefully empathy, that people might have for those of us whose lives more closely resemble lockdown life than they do pre-pandemic life.

Life with chronic illness is kind of like having social hypothermia. If you get lost in the snow, and your body starts freaking out about how cold it is, the first thing it does is to draw warmth away from your extremities in order to protect your vital organs. Basically your body knows you can live without toes, fingers, or even entire limbs. It also knows you can’t live without your organs.

When you have chronic illness, you have things you know have to get done for you to survive. Things like maintaining an income, finding food and water, keeping the power and internet connected. But by the time you’re done keeping those vital organs warm, you realise too late that there’s not enough warmth left for things like catching up with friends, going out to see a show, or playing a sport - the extremities that you can physically live without, but that none of us would volunteer to give up if we had a choice.

During the pre-pandemic, not being able to attend social gatherings meant going without. It meant you didn’t get to see those people. But, interestingly, when the first lockdowns started, healthy people began making the effort to communicate in different ways. All of a sudden a lot of people with chronic illness had busier social lives than ever before. Because suddenly everyone was forced into a situation that actually accommodated the restrictions in their life.

The number of times I’ve been looking forward to a party, only to find that the night of the event rolls around and I’m sidelined by a breakdown. On those nights I would have to call or message the host, apologise profusely (often feel obliged to lie about the reason why I couldn’t make it) and then spend the rest of the night thinking about what a great time everyone else was having while I slowly drove myself further into insanity by listing my many shortcomings.

Not with lockdown though! With lockdown, none of those events are happening. Instead, people are inviting me to video chats, where I don’t have to wear pants, where I can hide the state of my home with a backdrop, and where I can turn my video off if I need to suddenly start crying.

Socialising went from a 9/10 effort to like a 3/10 effort.

Socialising has become so much more achievable that online dating is almost worth doing again. Everyone is taking it slow, actually spending time getting to know each other and letting genuine connections develop, because they literally have no choice. The people who are shit at conversation can no longer rely on washboard abs to get by. It’s a utopia for someone who loves the ‘talking to new people’ part of dating but is terrified of the ‘meeting up with strangers to see if they want to fuck me’ part of dating.

Incidentally, chronic mental illness also does a pretty remarkable job of preparing you for lockdown life. Watching neurotypical people describe the unique hellscape that is their mental state right now is like listening to my old diary entries being read out by a new narrator. Everything they’re saying is shit I know intimately well. Because I’ve lived it my whole life. But suddenly there’s a million and one articles reminding everyone that it’s totally okay and normal to feel the way they’re feeling. If you can’t concentrate, feel sad for no reason, want to scream at the sky and have gained 100 pounds...that’s okay. That’s normal. Don’t panic. And I’d be lying if there wasn’t a small part of me that wanted to gleefully rasp to all the otherwise healthy people “Welcome to the shitshow buddy, clearly you’re new around here.”

Despite being better prepared for lockdown than the average bear, the pandemic situation has definitely brought new and unique challenges in the mental health department. Mostly in the form of constant empathy overwhelm. The individual suffering of every worker and business owner in a ‘non-essential’ industry who has lost everything almost overnight - it’s beyond devastating. All those places and people that worked so hard to bring us joy and to make our lives less miserable, from arts and culture to hospitality and travel, to sex workers and tattoo artists. They are the people, places and businesses that helped make life worth living. And now they’re suffering the most. Every time I open the internet I see news stories documenting the unseen impact the pandemic is having. And that shit leaves me unable to get out of bed some days. Because I’m used to the lockdown life, and missing people, and not being able to go outside for days and weeks at a time. But human suffering is not something you ever get used to. It will kneecap you every single time.

My life has changed very little since the pandemic. Even when my city briefly came out of lockdown for a few weeks, I struggled to motivate myself to change anything, to leave the house, to see friends. Because lockdown life is my normal, and has been for years. But the state of the world right now is definitely not my normal. What’s going on globally undermines the few benefits that lockdown has brought to my life. Watching what is unfolding in America, in China, in Belarus, in Hong Kong, in Russia, reading about the conspiracy theories, the human rights violations, the protests of people whose leaders refuse to listen...and then watching the climate crisis escalate globally; it leaves me unable to breathe. It makes me feel like I’m watching the end of modern humanity, and I’m filled with a crippling existential ennui.

I don’t know where the world is going to be when this pandemic ends. But I do know that we will measure history differently from this point on.

I know that future generations will look at history as pre and post pandemic. And I want to believe, desperately, that it will be an age of compassion and enlightenment. I want to believe that it will be a turning point for humanity when we suddenly understood what it was to live another person’s life.

When we prioritised accessibility in a way we’d never done before, because we suddenly understood its importance.

When we reconsidered the systems and industries that rely on human confinement and isolation to function, because we understand the unique cruelty that is to endure.

When we renewed funding to the arts with more passion and purpose than ever before, because we understood that without them we would have gone insane in isolation.

When we increased funding to mental healthcare, because we suddenly understood the level of debilitation mental illness could cause.

When we renewed our faith in the sciences, because we saw what it could have prevented and what it could cure.

And we saw the importance of having a globally united front against a threat to our existence, because we saw how many died needlessly when we weren’t united.

But most days, I have a sinking feeling that it won’t be a new era of humanity. Most days I worry that it will mark the beginning of the end.

Because everything changed, but we just went back to ‘normal’.

That is all.

You may go now.

[Estimated reading time: 20 minutes]

*If you’re interested in becoming an OMGyes cast member, you can learn more here!

People...I’m naked on the internet. I have been for a long time now. Somewhere in the ether there are photos of me in states of semi to complete nudity. There’s also footage of me, fully clothed, masturbating my way to orgasm, y’know for posterity. This doesn’t bother me. I mean, if it did, I wouldn’t have done it. But when I was invited to be a cast member with the incredible sex education and research institute known as OMGyes, I had second thoughts. I had third and fourth thoughts as well. But ultimately, I decided to once again get naked on the internet. So here’s how that went down.

After filling in, what I suspect was meant to be a short survey, but which I managed to turn into War & Peace with dildos, I was invited to have a conversation with the incredible humans at OMGyes. We agreed on a mutually godawful time (my AM their PM), and had a lengthy conversation about what I liked to put up my ass and why. Mysteriously they seemed keen to see more of me and invited me to fly to San Francisco to be a cast member of their third season.

Before travelling to the other side of the world, I was kindly given access to the OMGyes website so that I could get an idea of what I’d be signing up for. I’d heard so much about it, and had even recommended it to so many people, and yet I’d never gotten around to getting myself an account. So I logged in and started clicking around. It felt like someone had gone into my brain and taken out everything I knew about vaginas and then organised it with military precision, added delightful diagrams, charts, and explainer videos. It was everything I’d dreamed of and more!

Hearing women talk about their own pleasure and their own skills and techniques was validating, heartwarming and empowering all at once. But when the video cut to footage of one of the cast members demonstrating her technique...I freaked out. I mean, lesbi-honest, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen a lingering close up of a vulva on my screen. But for some reason, my heart started racing and I started sweating.

This was when I realised that it wasn’t some abstract thing that I was considering doing. The women on my screen - I would be one of them. I was about to join the ranks of these incredible human beings, individuals who were so badass they weren’t just talking the talk, they were fapping the fap - truly embodying sex positivity.

I was not them. I could not be them.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not a small woman. I’m what my mother frequently referred to in my childhood as a “big girl”. Sure, I’m tall and I’m busty and I’m curvy, but to be honest I’m also fat. And thanks to decades of self development, I’m mostly okay with that. Fat and beautiful don’t need to be mutually exclusive terms.

But the idea of appearing on camera, in all my fatness. Showing my actual face to an internet that isn’t exactly known for embracing the idea of ‘body positivity’ was starting to seem like an unwise move. And then following it up with what I’d seen these other women start to do...my pussy was not like theirs. Mine was fat. I didn’t even know what it would look like on camera, and thinking about finding out made me want to fear vomit until my shoes were full.

Fat girls and sexual pleasure are not things that go hand in hand. I’ve learned from years of media representation that when it comes to sex and fat girls, it’s usually exclusively the realm of comic relief. Think Melissa McCarthy’s sexually aggressive character in Bridesmaids. Or Rebel Wilson’s overtly aggressive body confidence in, well, anything. It’s funny when fat or ugly women are sexually aggressive and confident, because they’re fat and ugly so, y’know, they’ve got no good reason to be. We never see conventionally attractive, well-adjusted femme characters behaving in the same way - because there would be no punchline. Try and imagine that Bridesmaids scene with Margot Robbie, and suddenly it looks a whole lot different.

The idea of me, a fat girl, talking about my batcave and the rogues gallery of sex toys I put into it was bringing up a lifetime of unsolicited comments about my body, comments that I’d tried my best to never think of while I was naked.

Spoiler alert: obviously I ended up doing it. I realised that I actually had to. Not because anyone else was making me, but because I needed to put my feminism where my pussy is.

I’ve bored more than one dinner party guest with my diatribe about how we need more women of size in the media, more diverse representations of them than simply fat comedic relief. I’ve ended up in heated debates about how the lack of sexually empowered fat women on screen leaves women like me feeling that if we’re lucky we can be funny, but we will never be fuckable.

I realised that if representation is that important to me, then what could be better than seeing someone exactly like me on screen talking about sexual pleasure? This was a political act.

I basically debated myself into a corner and then regretted being so good at making compelling arguments. So I signed the fuck up and made my way to California.

Carrying a 30kg suitcase containing every sex toy I could get through customs, I staggered up and down a street, somewhere on the outskirts of San Francisco, struggling to find a street number through the rain. It was 5am and I was intensely regretting every thought I’d ever had that told me this was a good idea. But 30 minutes later I was in a chair getting my makeup done by one of the most lovely humans on earth, and my only regret was not becoming a famous porn star a decade earlier.

I was prepared to look in the mirror, once my makeup was done, and not recognise the person staring back at me. But it turns out that a talented makeup artist will spend two hours turning you into someone that is actually 100% more you than you ever realised you could be. Every time I went to the bathroom, walked past a mirror, or took a selfie, I didn’t see some wannabe Instagram influencer with flawless skin and eyebrows for days - I saw myself as I had always been in my own head.

This moment became a kind of metaphor for the rest of my time on set. Everything that I’d thought would require me to put on a bit of an act to get through, actually ended up being the complete opposite. Working with OMGyes was the ultimate exercise in self actualisation. A day where I got to be so completely and honestly myself that I almost didn’t recognise it, because I so rarely have that opportunity.

Looking in the mirror became a completely unexpected moment of body confirmation, and it helped to buoy my confidence every time I felt it flagging. There was a moment much later in the day where I was about to shove something up my butt, in front of a room full of strangers and I took a break to fortify myself in the bathroom. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was nervous as hell. But looking at my face, and seeing this self staring back at me, I felt like I’d been looking for her my whole life. It was definitely A Moment (™). Unfortunately my butt didn’t agree and refused to cooperate with the butt plug, which only goes to show you that a great face can only get you so far in this world.

By the time makeup was done the crew were starting to arrive. A parade of new faces who were definitely less interested in me than they were in the room I was in, and what the lighting was doing. It was a deliciously brief respite before I would spend the next five hours talking non-stop about myself, my opinions, my body, and my masturbation habits. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt, those five hours will remain some of the best I will ever experience. I mean, everyone loves talking about themselves, but having a small crowd of people who are so absurdly engaged that they make you feel like some kind of Dildo Deity every time you open your mouth - it’s intoxicating!

I have a tendency to make jokes when I’m nervous. I suspect this often makes me a somewhat obnoxious party guest, and insufferable at funerals. But the OMGYES team just went with it, they let me tell my stupid jokes, swear like I was getting paid for each profanity, and just generally be my normal, overly expressive self. As a woman, and as a fat woman, I have spent a lifetime being told to ‘tone it down’, being told that sometimes I’m just ‘too much’ and being made aware of how much space, both physically and verbally, I take up. To have a room of people not only allowing me to expand, but actively celebrating it was cathartic in a way I don’t think I can ever adequately describe.

Talking about sex, wanking, etc is pretty easy for me. I mean, for a start I don’t really experience socialised shame or embarrassment about topics of conversation, so that helps a lot. But I’ve also been writing about exactly how I wank for the better part of a decade, so a lot of what I talked about became a kind of live-action rendition of some of the toy reviews on this very site, I just substituted gifs for finger guns.

But there were still a lot of scenarios that I hadn’t actually written about or discussed before, and finding a way to describe what a string of anal beads feels like in your own ass is a uniquely challenging party game. Somewhere there is footage of me trying to convincingly make the argument that having a rectum full of anal beads is exactly the same as shoving your mouth full of Skittles, purely because I refused to resort to saying that it gave a feeling of ‘fulness’.

Despite being in a room with up to 8 people at a time, there was a designated interviewer that I was to direct all my answers to. The fact that she was an absolutely delightful and wonderfully expressive human who silently laughed at all of my jokes was an added bonus. But what became a weird social challenge was remembering that regardless of who asked the question, I had to address my answers to her. At any point a member of the crew might ask me to clarify something, or ask a question. But then I had to act like the rudest bitch on the planet and act as though my interviewer had asked me. I kind of felt like a U.S Press Secretary, “Question in the back? Why yes Mr Trump I would love to tell you why President Trump is the best. CNN, I see your hand but I shall continue to ignore you until you die in front of me from old age.”

The other hard part was remembering that I was only allowed to speak in ‘I’ statements. Try it for a day, seriously. It’s amazing how much we hide behind second person statements in some kind of attempt to distance ourselves from the subject matter. In other news, if I had a dollar for every time I start a story with “You know when you…” I’d be able to custom build my own sex toys from now until death.

After the interview was over, it was time for the demonstration. Since I hadn’t watched the demonstration portions from the website, I’d based my expectations about this section on the information emailed through to me. But we all have a tendency to fill knowledge gaps with our closest relevant reference point. So when I read that I’d be masturbating on camera, I referred back to various experiences with porn, and other naked-on-camera scenarios.

I figured I’d be set up in a room, a camera would be turned on, and maybe one of the crew members would stay to keep everything in focus, but otherwise I’d be alone. I figured that I would furiously fap away until I demonstrated my patented orgasm technique, with my preferred masturbation utensils, and they’d call “cut”. Then later my dialogue would be added over the top of the footage so I could explain what was happening at each moment. Funny thing about assumptions…

Imagine going into a stranger’s bedroom, one that’s been flooded with more light than any human being ought to be comfortable with.

In the middle of the room is a bed. Surrounding the bed are half a dozen cameras and monitors. Wedged between those and the walls are 8 fully clothed, impressively professional individuals, each with a litany of insanely awesome accomplishments to their name.

It’s here you learn that what you’ll be doing is, ever so gracefully, hoiking up your dress, attempting to make wriggling out of your knickers look sexy, before spreading your legs as wide as humanly possible while 8 people stare up into your holiest of holeys.

You will then proceed to slow jerk yourself with a series of increasingly absurd sex toys, all while maintaining direct eye contact with your heavily pregnant interviewer, answering questions and offering a running commentary about how your wank efforts feel, and describing exactly what you’re doing to your genitals right now.

There’s vulnerability, and then there’s what I did the day of that shoot.

Because of the situation, I realised that I really didn’t want to orgasm. Doing the demonstration in a way that was professional and informative worked for me. Or alternatively, lying back and having a wonderful semi-private wank and a few explosive orgasms worked for me. But sitting upright, telling my new friends about my techniques and then randomly screaming out my own name as I potentially squirted all over the bed linen, kind of felt like more vulnerability than I was capable of.

Sort of like how you’re fine with peeing in front of your partner, but not pooping and suddenly you’re on the loo and they’re looking you in the eyes and your body spasms and you make the poop face and you both realise what’s happening but there’s no way for either of you to stop it and the relationship will never be the same afterwards.

One of the other things I didn’t realise was how many toys I’d be demonstrating with. I was told to bring over whatever toys I was comfortable with, but I assumed this just meant whatever toys I masturbate with regularly. But it turned out that literally everything I mentioned during my interview process, they wanted demo footage of. This meant that each time they passed me a new toy for me to start wanking with, I’d just sit there and silently think “mother always said my big mouth would get me in trouble one day”.

In hindsight I do regret that I wasn’t able to overcome my nerves and awkwardness better. By the day after the shoot I felt like I was ready to go back and give a repeat performance, one where I could be more engaged, and look less like the world’s most awkward porn star. There’s no real reference point for what body language to use when you’re staring down the barrel of a camera, with one end of a strapless strap-on inside you, and the other end waving around like you’ve spontaneously grown a giant purple dick, and you can’t figure out how to address the elephant (dick) in the room. It feels kind of weird to just leave a giant purple erection between your legs as though it’s an ornamental vase on a dresser. Like, should I stroke it? But also...doing that while making direct eye contact with my heavily pregnant interviewer…

There were a number of points where I found myself thinking “I’m having a great conversation right now, and I really want to elaborate on this point, but I am acutely aware of the fact that there’s 9 inches of untethered dildo sticking out of me” and the whole thing became the greatest exercise of “I don’t know what to do with my hands” I’ve ever had.

I stopped fapping at one point, with the Njoy wand inside me, to gesture to something and make a point, but when I realised I’d said everything I needed to, I didn’t know how to casually proceed. My brain had a panicked run down “Do I just keep casually fapping? Do I kind of leave it here and take my hand off it? What if it just plops out on its own...that would be embarrassing. Do I leave one hand on it? It kind of feels like I’ve got my hand on the tiller of my own ship - chart a course for orgasm skipper! But if I take my hand off, it’s going to flop over to one side and possibly take out one of my ovaries as it goes. Finishing school never prepared me for this!

There were points where I felt like I was hosting my own cooking show,

“Today we’re going to show you how to cook an orgasm. All you’ll need for this recipe is a stainless steel dildo, a small bullet vibrator, and some natural lubrication. If you don’t make your own lubrication, store-bought is fine, we’re not here to judge. Now if we could get a close up on my vulva, I can show you the best way to get a nice, fluffy g-spot.”

At one point I realised I was about to put some stainless steel anal beads inside me, while I had a vibrator on my clit, and there was an equal likelihood of me either shitting myself or squirting all over the front row of cameras and crew. Feeling more than a wee bit vulnerable, I asked if anyone could share some embarrassing stories. Every person in that room delivered fucking spectacularly, managing to not just make me laugh and help with my anxiety, but also sharing genuine emotional experiences that helped me feel connected to the people who were casually documenting my south holes.

With my self-imposed orgasm ban though, that particular combination became really fucking tricky. As the first few inches of the Fun Wand went inside me I felt a thrill of pleasure wash over me. It had been ages since I’d played with butt toys and my asshole went “Oooooh yeah” and my clitoris said “Oh hello” And my brain went “DON’T YOU FUCKERS DARE!”

I’d said in my interview that I normally inserted all 3 of the beads inside me, so I’m trying to count as they start slipping in, but I’m shit with numbers at the best of times, and trying to fight off an orgasm while my body violently resists me isn’t really conducive to things like counting.

Eventually the shoot ended, and everyone got to go home - except that the crew had to be back at 5am the next day to do it all again, whereas I would be enjoying the next leg of a vacation. Or so I thought.

What I hadn’t anticipated at all, was the absolute heartbreak and grief I would feel the next day. It’s something I should have realised, since I tend to have pretty epic comedowns. I’m the kind of girl that cries for 2 days after each Pixar movie. But I didn’t see this one coming. And of course, so much of this is simply a reflection of how my brain processes things. A lack of emotional regulation means I experience everything unfiltered. There’s no cap on my highs, but no bottom to my lows.

I’d spent nearly 20 hours with the most incredible people. Each of whom I’d revealed parts of myself to (not just those parts), emotional parts that I’d never really exposed before. I’d talked so much about myself, my opinions, my experiences, my feelings - but I felt like I hadn’t learned enough about any of them. I felt guilt, and heartache. It was the most vulnerable I had ever been, and probably would ever be, with 8 people that I would probably never get to see again. And now I had to just go back to an ordinary life, like it had never happened. The depression was fucking strong with this one.

And maybe this is because, as someone who spent their life struggling with self esteem, struggling to be seen, struggling to feel like they were valid, I spent a day with people who did nothing but tell me how incredible I was.

Between every take, in the background of every shot, there was a collection of people whose opinions I already cared deeply about. People who were telling me that I was not just good, but great! People who were delighted with every part of me that I’d always thought I needed to keep hidden. My daggy (apparently not a word outside of Australia) jokes, my stupid one liners and goofy facial expressions, my absolute nerdiness about sex toys. Every opinion I had, every experience I recounted, every seemingly unrelated anecdote that I somehow turned into an orgasm euphemism. Everything that makes up who I am, and that I had often assumed was something that was tolerated, was all of a sudden celebrated.

That’s an incredibly difficult high to walk away from.

So when I woke up the day after the shoot I felt suffocatingly isolated. I realised that no one I ever met would ever understand, no matter how well I described it. I was suddenly part of this incredible, exclusive club, one whose other members I’m unlikely to ever meet. And that meant getting to carry all of this joy and overwhelming excitement, so much that it felt like there wasn’t room for it all to fit.

But with one sleep my life felt like it was a million miles from where it had ever been before - I was a normal person, but felt forever changed by this experience. For me this meant an indescribable grief. An overwhelming sense of loss for something I could never have back. It took me weeks to recover from the crash.

This isn’t surprising, since after the last incredible life experience I had, I ended up in a psych ward. All things considered I probably did a lot better this time around. It’s been several months now, and I can look back on the whole thing with a distance that keeps the strongest emotions at bay, but the fondest memories on the surface.

I’ve always struggled with the idea of having pride in personal growth. A lifetime of therapy and working every day on developing healthy coping mechanisms kind of strips the idea of victory out of these things. So it’s with a fair amount of surprise that I look at what I did with OMGYES and feel pride.

I was offered an opportunity - one that on one level was everything I’d ever wanted, and on another level was the most deeply terrifying thing I had ever considered. I not only did the thing, I fucking owned the thing. I let myself become the person I’d always dreamed of being. And I couldn’t have done it without the people in the room that day. I truly did leave my heart in San Francisco - but I know the people I left it with will take good care of it.

That is all.

You may go now.

*If you’re interested in becoming an OMGyes cast member, you can learn more here!

[Estimated reading time: 11 minutes]

People...I love words. I like to use as many different ones as possible each day. Because I understand that language is important. When we’re communicating with other people, the exact words we choose carry weight. Sometimes two words can appear to have the same meaning, but have hugely different impacts. The difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is the difference between anatomy and identity. The difference between Ms and Mrs is a hard won acknowledgement that a woman’s marital status is not relevant to how we treat her. And the difference between ‘baby’ and ‘foetus’ is the difference between two vastly different opinions around reproductive rights. Words aren’t inherently bad, but using them in the wrong context can cause problems.

So today I wanted to talk about the difference between ‘childless’ and ‘childfree’.

A person who desires to become a parent, but currently has no children is childless. They’ve made the choice that children are something they wish to have as part of their life, but at this point don’t have any. This could be for a variety of reasons; the biological inability to have them, not having met a partner yet, or not being ready to start a family. But the implication is clear; there is a desire to have a child or children in their life.

Childfree on the other hand is a term we hear less often. To be childfree means making the decision that your life will be free from children. A childfree person neither wants, nor anticipates wanting them, at any point. People who are childfree are committed to living out their entire lives without procreating. This is not a small fringe movement either, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 24% of women are making the choice to be childfree for life and it’s expected to reach 30% by the next census results.

Selfishness has nothing to do with being childfree.

Despite the fact that being childfree is a choice that an individual, or couple has made and that it really only impacts them, those that choose to go public about their decision face extensive scrutiny from the world at large. Most discussions and representations of childfree people tend to be negative.

An analysis of media representations of childlessness in the United Kingdom revealed selfishness as an explanation of the phenomenon. Surveys of parents, students and the general public demonstrate that women without children are considered to be selfish, deviant, undesirable, empty and ultimately unfeminine.

This is despite the fact that, for many people, the decision to be childfree comes from a place of selflessness. The actual reasons for being childfree are as diverse as the individuals within the community.

People who are concerned about passing on genetic issues and don’t want future children to suffer needlessly.

People worry that their own mental or physical health issues would make them unfit parents.

Others worry that their financial situation will never be viable enough to raise a child with enough opportunities.

Some worry that the current state of the world is too unkind a place to raise future children.

People who were raised in a home with domestic violence are often reluctant to have children of their own.

Others take an environmental stance and recognise that not having a child is the most significant decision a person can make to lower their impact on the globe.

And many more recognise that having a child is simply not something they want, in much the same way people don’t want to own pets or a car.

All of these people recognise that a child that isn’t wanted isn’t going to be fair on either them, or the child.

None of these are selfish reasons, they are decisions that can only reached by putting a potential child’s needs before the personal desire to be a parent.

Contrast that with the reasons given for wanting children and it becomes hard to understand where this perception of selfishness comes from.

In Australia, there were 311,104 births registered in 2016.

During the same time period, there were 315 adoptions.

This means that for many people, the desire to have a child is not intrinsically linked to wanting a child, but to wanting their own child.

And yet it’s estimated that around 50% pregnancies in Australia aren’t planned which means that it’s not even necessarily about wanting a child, so much as it is simply going along with it once it’s happening.

In 2016, over 47,000 children were placed in out-of-home care by Child Protection Australia the same year, with over 60,000 cases of substantiated abuse being reported. These are children that have been subjected to verified cases of emotional, physical, sexual abuse or neglect. Perhaps if these parents had put as much thought into their reasons for wanting/having children as their childfree counterparts, these statistics would be lower.

So when are you having kids?

Both childfree and childless people face a litany of social interactions that range from uncomfortable to outright offensive. In social settings both are often asked why they don’t have children; because, in our society, we view procreation as a social default.

Social defaults are a phenomenon that we engage with almost every day, but that many people don’t recognise as applying to not having children. For instance many people will make the assumption that the person they’re talking to is heterosexual, because being straight is seen as the social default. Australians have a bad habit of asking people of colour where they’re “really from” because being white is viewed as a social default. And when it comes to not having children, people feel entitled to know why.

This is regardless of the fact that many people without children are unable to have them. A fact that should really be enough to dissuade people from asking in the first place. If there’s a possibility that the person you’re talking to has been struggling with infertility, that they’re going through the emotional ordeal of trying to conceive and being unable to, that they might have recently experienced a miscarriage or other similarly intense event - why would you risk bringing that up? Especially if it’s just for the sake of your curiosity about their family life. If a person does have children, they’ll usually come up in conversation naturally - you don’t have to ask.

But even on the political stage, Australians aren’t immune from commentary on their family status. Australia’s treasurer at the time, Peter Costello, decreed that when it came to kids, Australians should have ‘one for the husband, one for the wife and one for the country’. As though it never occurred to him that having ‘none’ was also an option.

In 2007 Senator Bill Heffernan implied that Julia Gillard was unfit to lead the country because, “I mean anyone who chooses to remain deliberately barren… they’ve got no idea what life’s about.” Because achieving the highest office in the land still comes second to being a mother. Obviously this is why we have such a rich history of maternal Prime Ministers.

The choice about whether or not to have children is a deeply personal one between two people. It involves conversations around sexual intimacy, personal finance, long term plans, career aspirations, not to mention personal ethics and mental and physical health.

But despite the private nature of this information, perfect strangers feel entitled to weigh in on an individual or couple’s final decision.

Ultimately, you don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s head, in their body, or in their relationship - so don’t ask them about children and certainly don’t try and disagree with them if they give you an answer that’s different to your own.

No one else knows what’s best for you

Commentary from anti-childfree audiences will often revolve around happiness; that children bring a joy to life that can’t be found through any other avenue. However a study from a research centre in Canada produced different results. The study compared the experiences of childfree women to their childbearing counterparts.

It found that 70% of women had made the decision to be childfree before the age of 29, further reinforcing that for the majority of childfree people it’s a conscious decision, not an accidental status.

84% said that not having children had a positive impact on their career, and the only significant negative impact reported was that they were expected to pick up the additional workload left by colleagues with children.

96% reported advantages in their personal lives as a result of not having children.

30% even said the decision had strengthened their relationship with their partner.

It’s easy to believe that people who are opposed to the childfree are limited to individuals with antiquated attitudes towards women and the role of motherhood. Sadly though studies on social perceptions of the childfree have shown that there’s no gender bias around these attitudes. Leslie Ashburn-Nardo, a psychology professor at Indiana University led a study into the moral outrage that people feel towards childfree individuals. She pointed out that,

“There was no gender gap in how the non-parents were viewed; participants believed both child-free men and women were less likely to lead happy lives.”

Women who are childfree can be seen as ‘unnatural’ and denying their partners the right to be a father. Men who are childfree can be seen as immature individuals with a Peter Pan complex, who simply haven’t caved in to their partner’s demands.

Women are often told that they’ll change their mind when they meet the right man (often in spite of the fact that they’re either currently in a stable relationship, or not attracted to men in the first place).

This is all on the milder end of the spectrum compared to much of the commentary that childfree people receive, particularly online.

When 29 year old Holly Brockwell wrote an article about her difficulty in accessing permanent contraception as a childfree person, she received a litany of abuse. Brockwell told Mic,

"The insults were all ones that are only used towards women — horrible, degrading words that I wouldn't say to anyone, no matter what they'd done. One of the nastiest tweets talked about crowdfunding an operation to render me physically unable to speak. I think that says everything about what the trolls want.

They want women like me silenced.

They want to take away our power to be heard."

And Brockwell is far from alone in this experience of both the abuse, and the difficulty in finding permanent contraception options.

Children are a choice.

Reproduction is a choice; it should not be an expectation. No one owes the world children. And no child should be brought into the world to parents who are anything less than exhilarated to have them.

Despite this though, many people face intense pressure from family members to stick to the social script; love, then marriage, then a child or several. If you’re the person placing these expectations on others...stop.

Before you ask someone whether they have or want children, ask yourself if there’s a different question that you’d rather ask (and if you can’t think of one, here’s a handy guide for you). Is there something else you could ask them in order to get to know them better. Perhaps ask if they have pets, or where their last holiday was, or what was the last movie they saw. These might seem like slightly more obscure ice breakers, but none of those questions involve intimate details about a person’s sexual relationship, their physical health, their financial stability or their personal ethics around procreation. You’re not going to risk emotionally traumatising a childless person by asking them about their holiday destinations.

If you don’t know a person well enough to know whether they have children, then you definitely don’t know them well enough to tell them that they should have them. If someone tells you they don’t have children and/or aren’t planning on any, don’t tell them that they’ll change their mind or that they’re missing out. You literally do not know that, and it has nothing to do with you. Children are a choice, you’ve made yours, let others make theirs.

If you are childfree and your partner, spouse, or significant other is trying to pressure you into having children and you know that you do not want them - that is reproductive coercion. It is not okay, it is abuse.

If you’re facing scrutiny from family members, friends, or even casual acquaintances, remind these people that it’s your body, not theirs, and therefore it’s your choice whether you’re going to use it to create children or not. You don’t owe anyone children; you were not put on this earth as an incubator or inseminator, you are a full and complete human being with or without offspring.

Be brave, be strong, and know your mind and don’t let the world tell you that the decision you’re making is shameful or wrong, just because it is different. You are the best person to decide what you want from life, and there is no shame in not wanting to have children.

That is all.

You may go now.

People...I've never been pregnant. This has been due to a large amount of diligence on my part, and I guess partially also a proclivity for butt sex. But the important part is, that as a woman who never wants to become pregnant, I will be spending around 40 years or more of my life working my ass off to keep myself deliberately barren. Welcome to The Vagina Burden: Part Three 

The Contraceptive Burden

Our bias towards contraception (and its failure) has been relatively consistent throughout history; even during times when contraception was the responsibility of men (e.g when condoms or withdrawal were the only options on the table). If a serving girl got pregnant to the lord of the manor, it was a brief chastisement for him and most likely a nunnery for her. We've always had a narrative of the “fallen woman”; the one who lost her chastity and fell from the grace of God. And yet there's been no equivalent term for a man who has done the same. Because only women deserve to be punished for their sexual acts. It’s nice to think that the days of shaming women for their sexual exploits are far behind us, but let’s be honest, slut shaming is alive and well (at least in the Australian Parliament anyway).

We've spoken before about the double standard attributed to male and female presenting bodies. Basically, women aren't allowed to have sex for pleasure, but men are. What's fucked up though is that despite the fact that women aren't allowed to pursue sex for pleasure, they're still almost solely held accountable for the consequences. For instance, look at the commentary around women who get abortions. How often is the focus on how she should have had more self control, about how she should have just used contraception, or simply kept her legs closed? But how often do we hear an equal amount of vitriol hurled at the partner who necessitated an abortion in the first place?

We seem to view an abortion as a woman’s responsibility since she’s the one who can get pregnant and therefore is the one who needs to deal with the consequences, even though consciously we know it takes two to tango. Recently a Mormon mother’s twitter post garnered international attention when she dared to extrapolate on this exact issue.

She points out that since women can orgasm without penetrative sex or ejaculation, it’s the male orgasm that causes pregnancy: "Unwanted pregnancies can only happen when men orgasm irresponsibly [not using a condom or withdrawing]." For that reason, she says, focusing on men and male behaviour could have a massive impact on the rates of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Naturally the majority of the internet lost its collective mind at such an assertion. Men, be responsible? How very dare!

Contraception exists within a sexist system

There have been a large number of studies on contraception and family planning and they've unanimously come back reporting what women have known all their lives; the burden around issues of reproduction falls almost exclusively on them.

On the surface this might not sound like a lot of work, but when you break it down you’ll start to realise how much time, effort, energy and money women are investing in reproductive health.

From doing the research on available options, to finding something that will work for their bodies and their cycles, to making the appointment with the Doctor, visits and re-visits for scripts, insertions, removals, trial and errors. Just getting access to the right contraceptive is a battle in and of itself, since many doctors won’t prescribe, for instance, long term contraceptives to women who haven’t had children.

If a woman has chosen an IUD it’s their responsibility to find someone who will insert it. If they go to their GP (as opposed to a proceduralist, like at a family planning clinic) there’s a good chance the doctor won’t have had extensive experience with the procedure and will perform the insertion without the assistance of local anaesthetic. Dudes, if you’re trying to picture this, imagine someone shoving a paperclip into your bladder via your urethra. You’d want some fucking anaesthetic, wouldn’t you?

Once the IUD is in, it still needs to be monitored for movement or changes, because it’s possible for it to become dislodged. If the GP refuses to prescribe an IUD, they might recommend a user-action contraceptive; such as the contraceptive pill, a vaginal ring, a diaphragm, etc., which then becomes the woman’s responsibility to ensure that they’re consistently using it ‘perfectly’ for maximum efficacy. But the contraceptive pill and/or condoms sounds like a reasonable measure, right? Yeah, until you take into account that half of all the abortions performed in Australia are on women who were relying on the pill and/or condoms for their contraception.

All of this is before we begin to look at the side effects that can come from hormonal birth control, or the stress of remembering to use other methods as perfectly as possible. It’s completely understandable that some women choose to forgo hormonal or barrier contraception and rely on natural family planning or the pull out method, even though these both have some of the lowest efficacy rates in terms of pregnancy prevention. But hey, speaking of contraceptive failure, whose responsibility do you think it is when it fails?

There’s no risk, or physical burden, to the male partner if a contraception method doesn’t work. Men will complain about condoms because it affects his pleasure, because he has the luxury of associating sex purely with pleasure. At no point is he considering that if he doesn’t wear a condom, he might have to source a morning after pill, an abortion, or childbirth for a kid he doesn’t want. This leads condoms to be less of a penis-responsibility and more of a joint effort from both parties to ensure that one gets worn (and after working in the sex industry I can tell you for a fact that a lot of men are quick to eschew that responsibility if they think no one is looking). The fact that removing a condom without a partner’s knowledge is referred to as “stealthing” and not “rape” is indicative of how little thought many men give to the consequences of unprotected sex.

It’s interesting that taking contraceptive pills, getting IUDs, marinas, implanon, diaphragms or the assortment of other variously invasive, uncomfortable, expensive and life affecting preventatives, is considered the responsibility of the one who can get pregnant, and yet reproductive legislation is predominantly the responsibility of people who will never get pregnant.

When you start examining it closely, it’s not hard to see that women are doing a huge amount of physical, emotional and mental labour to ensure that their relationship is protected against an unwanted pregnancy. All of which feels a lot more offensive when studies show that 52% of men don’t see any personal benefit from a woman in their life having birth control.

So why aren’t there more contraceptive options for men?

For men there are really on three options on the table. Withdrawal, condoms, or a vasectomy…that’s it. Withdrawal has a high failure rate, condoms are great and offer protection against STIs, but they can be tedious to use every single time if you’re in a long term relationship. And a vasectomy is an awesome choice, if you know you never want kids, or you and your partner don’t want any more children, but if you’re young and unsure about your future it’s a pretty permanent decision. There are many men who would happily shoulder the contraceptive burden for their female partner, so where are all the other options?

The answer lies in the fact that medicine takes the pain or suffering of men far more seriously than it does women. For every female contraceptive that’s available, along with a litany of undesirable side-effects, there’s a male counterpart still undergoing rigorous testing to eliminate side effects altogether.

A perfect of example of this was a recent clinical trial. It was halted because the side effects were deemed too severe for participants to tolerate, even though the majority of men in the study said they were happy to keep going.

The fact that will really twist most women’s ovaries is that the side effects these men were experiencing were significantly less than those currently experienced by women on existing hormonal contraception. But hey, this is what clinical trials are for, right? You take a pill, you say “This pill didn’t get me pregnant, but it did make me grow a tail, so back to the drawing board everyone.”

Except that this isn’t how clinical trials work for women’s drugs. Women fought for over two fucking decades to have depression acknowledged as a side effect of the contraceptive pill, and even that conclusion is still being contested by many in the medical field.

It’s easy to think that this is an anomaly, that maybe it’s hard to prove the pill causes depression, because depression is so common these days or something. Well it’s actually completely in line with most women’s experiences of not being taken seriously when it comes to reporting pain or negative side effects to medical professionals.

In 2001 a study was done by the University of Maryland that concluded women experience pain more severely, more frequently and for longer durations than men, but that they’re consistently treated for this pain less aggressively.

Basically, if you present as a woman people are going to assume that you’re being a “pussy” about any pain you experience, and they’ll medicate you accordingly. How does this translate to contraception? It means that when companies are testing potential male contraceptives, they’re more likely to place a higher priority on the feedback men give around side effects.

Let’s say you’re testing the same birth control pill on both men and women. The men say “This makes me feel unwell” you’re likely to withdraw the product, and continue developing it until the test group stops reporting that symptom. Whereas if the women say “This makes me feel really unwell” statistically (and historically) you’re most likely going to ignore this feedback and sell the product anyway.

Sounds far fetched doesn’t it? Like, surely this is all hyopthetical, right? Nope. It’s exactly what happened with the first iteration of the oral contraceptive pill.

“Incidentally, [the creators] had originally looked at hormonal birth control for men. ‘It was rejected for men due to the number of side effects,’ says Grigg-Spall, ‘including testicle shrinking.’ It was believed women would tolerate side effects better than men, who demanded a better quality of life.” Those side effects are still there by the way. Men might not put up with a massively lowered sex drive, bloating, weight gain, tenderness, headaches or mood changes, but women are expected to shoulder it and be grateful for the privilege.

Okay, but like, we all know that the contraceptive pill was developed right in the heyday of sexism and racism. No one would get away with that shit these days. If a viable male contraceptive came along, of course it would be greenlit. Well, look no further than the Reversible Inhibition of Sperm under Guidance (RISUG) project; it’s an alternative to a vasectomy, except that it’s completely reversible. RISUG has been in a state of constant improvement since 1979; but it’s still awaiting approval to be sold. But hey, maybe it has some flaws that make it really uncomfortable or dangerous. You wouldn’t want to approve an unsafe product, regardless of what gender it’s for, right? You’d think so, but hey, have you met Essure?

Essure was developed as an alternative to tubal ligation (getting your tubes tied). Medically speaking it’s a contraceptive coil designed to induce fibrosis and block the fallopian tubes. Translating for the those of us without a medical degree,  fibrosis is defined as “the thickening and scarring of connective tissue, usually as a result of injury.” Basically it’s little chunks of metal that are shoved into your tubes to make them freak out and scar over so that the scarring blocks the passage. And yup, it got approved.

It got approved by the FDA after two non-randomized, non-blinded, prospective studies that lacked a comparator group. In science talk, that’s a fucking half-assed study.

Since its release this contraceptive coil has received 16,373 medical reports of side effects including: accounts of devices that broke apart inside the body, coils that migrated out of the fallopian tubes and/or punctured other organs, systemic autoimmune reactions, pregnancies (about 1,100), miscarriages and stillbirths.

If that doesn’t piss you off, then prepare yourself for what comes next. When you hear about those effects it’s easy to speculate that maybe this was the result of some completely unforeseen aspect of the product that couldn’t possibly have been replicated in trials. Noooooope.

Fun fact: Essure coils are made from 55% nickel.

Follow up, totally random Fun Fact: Nickel allergies are known to lead to autoimmune reactions.

Additional, but totally unrelated Fun Fact: Approximately 20% of ALL women have nickel allergies.

And yet, at no point did the marketing or packaging for this product mention nickel allergies as a contraindication.

In addition to the nickel, having a device that’s capable of breaking apart inside the body seems like something that could, and should, have been anticipated. I’m sure you don’t need an illustration to understand how painful it would be to have small shards of metal wandering around your insides, perforating your other organs. I mean, surely that one isn’t a gendered pain issue and we can acknowledge that women aren’t lying about this being a fucked up product...right?! Well in Australia the device was withdrawn by the manufacturer after the Therapeutic Goods Administration put a warning on it; however despite a class action lawsuit being led by Erin Brokovich, it’s still being inserted into our American sisters*.

The lack of male contraceptive options isn’t solely caused by men’s pain being taken more seriously though. It’s also a case of pharmaceutical companies refusing to fund research into male contraceptives at all. Case in point, two of the three most promising options for male contraceptives are currently being researched and developed by not-for-profit organisations relying on philanthropic donations.

Vasalgel, a similar product to RISUG, has been proven to be successful in primates (who have similar biology and even more sperm than humans) but there are no pharmaceutical companies willing to take the product on, so it’s now basically relying on crowdfunding…like some kind of internet bake sale for balls.

There’s also a pill that can be taken before sex that prevents the muscles in the vas deferens from moving sperm, thus creating ‘dry orgasms’. It’s been in development since 1988 and has proven successful in tests on rams. But, once again, no pharmaceutical companies want to take it on. Some argue that it’s because pharmaceutical companies don’t see any profit in it. This directly contradicts findings made as far back as the 1990s, where pharmaceutical company Organon discovered that a male birth control option could garner up to HALF of the current contraceptives market.

Herjan Coelingh Bennik is a gynecology professor who helped develop the contraceptive devices Implanon and Cerazette as head of R&D in women’s health for Organon International from 1987 to 2000. When asked why these companies were reluctant to invest he replied

“The fact that the big companies are run by white, middle-aged males who have the same feeling—that they would never do it—plays a major role. If those companies were run by women, it would be totally different.”

Easing the contraceptive burden

It can be incredibly overwhelming to read all of this, particularly if you’re a socially conscious bloke. It can feel like you’re participating in, and benefiting from, an incredibly unfair system even though you don’t necessarily want to.

If you’re looking for ways to make a difference and help ease the burden on a female partner, consider taking responsibility for the contraception in your relationship. This can mean buying condoms, but it can also mean researching different contraceptive options and making time to have a conversation with your partner about what’s available and suitable, if they’re open to that. You can also show your support by attending appointments for things like contraceptive implants, injections, IUD insertions, or even pap smears. It can mean going to the pharmacy to pick up the script for the pill, or looking into a vasectomy if you’re considering longer term options.

You can also look into donating to the male contraceptive projects that are available, and get involved in advocacy to make things like the contraceptive pill available over the counter (so that women aren’t paying a doctor’s fee every time they need to get another script for it). And if you want to buy some contraceptive offsets, so to speak, to help out women who otherwise can’t afford access to contraception, you should really consider donating to the Australian Choice Fund.

Most importantly though, you can make the time to just listen and engage with the women in your life when they talk about their experiences. Socially we tend to not believe women when they tell us about their pain, their discomfort and their health, so being mindful of that bias not only when talking about contraception, but in general, is incredibly important. Be part of the change that we need to see in the world; help to shoulder the burden.

That is all.

You may go now.

[Banner image vagina by B. Damm from the Noun Project]

*Accurate at time of writing. 

People...my vagina and I, we've been on some adventures. I've been relatively lucky in terms of the health of my reproductive anatomy; with the exception of crippling period pain, mysterious and undiagnosed ovarian pain each cycle, vaginal dryness from antidepressants, and an allergy to semen, my vaginal health is pretty low maintenance. Not everyone is so lucky though. Depending on where you live and what your life holds in store, it can get a lot worse.Welcome to The Vagina Burden: Part Two

The Healthcare Burden

Even in the developed world healthcare is not exactly supportive of vagina ownership. A recent study by ResearchGate revealed that there are more than five times as many studies for erectile dysfunction as there are for PMS, you know, despite that fact that 90% of women report experiencing symptoms of PMS as opposed to the 19% of men who have had issues with wang failure.

We live in an age where there’s a pill to get your dick hard for 8 hours, but there isn’t one to increase the female libido. The implication being, it doesn’t matter if women want sex or not, all that matters is that we can get a man hard enough to have sex for as long as he wants. This inequality was highlighted in spectacular fashion by a South Carolina representative, Mia McLeod, who put forward a new bill regarding men’s access to Viagra. The bill aims to highlight the bullshittery that women have to go through to obtain an abortion. If passed, it would require that all patients pursuing Viagra are submitted to the following caveats:

• Wait 24 hours to access the medication

• Submit a notarized affidavit from at least one sexual partner affirming that the patient has experienced symptoms of ED within the last 90 days

• Be examined by a state-licensed sexual therapist to make sure his ED isn't "attributable solely to one or more psychological conditions."

• Attend three sessions of outpatient counseling within six months, "including sexual counseling and resources for patients to pursue celibacy as a viable lifestyle choice"

• Submit to cardiac stress tests to ensure they are able to manage the physical stress of sexual intercourse

The attitude towards health care for vagina owners leaves a lot to be desired. We still don’t have effective or satisfactory treatment for the symptoms of polycystic ovaries, endometriosis, menopause, menstruation or a variety of other vagina related health issues. But we have entire months devoted to saving breasts from cancer. We have sexualised cancer campaigns (which is probably the most nausea inducing sentence I’ve written lately). Campaigns like Save the ta-tas and marketing that encourages people to donate based on how much we all enjoy tits, help to create a standard in health care where we only fund the things that are directly useful to straight, cis-men. Straight dudes don’t need to worry about the crippling pain and debilitation of menstrual cramps, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids and the like. But they sure as shit don’t want to live in a world with less tits.

The pregnancy burden

It doesn’t get any better once you start having children either. Sure, you go in expecting Itchycoo Park to be torn asunder in the most excruciating way possible, but you get a baby at the end of it, so it’s all worth it, right? Many people who give birth don’t talk about the trauma of the experience because they’re meant to be grateful their child is healthy and safe. But to give you an idea of what can happen, consider the case of Catherine Skol.

When Catherine went into labor her regular obstetrician was on leave. Dr. Scott Pierce took over and proceeded to complain about having to come into work (while Skol was having contractions), he refused to give her pain relief for several hours of her labour, positioned her in a way that put pressure on the herniated discs in her spine and wouldn't let her move. He refused to answer any questions she had about how the birth was progressing, or the health of her baby. At one point, in the middle of a contraction, he decided to do a vaginal exam. Catherine cried out, literally saying “No! Stop!” but he ignored her and proceeded to do a rough vaginal exam that exacerbated her pain. It gets a lot worse, and if you’re interested I recommend reading the full article. But Skol is by no means alone.

Many people go through experiences like this. It can leave psychological scars around something that society expects people to be jubilant about. As Birth Trauma Truths puts it,

A vulnerable woman, who is powerless to leave the situation, is at times held down against her will, has strangers looking & touching at private parts of her body...perhaps she has fingers or instruments inserted without her consent, and sometimes against her consent, invading and crossing decent boundaries. She is fearful of what is happening to her and perhaps for the wellbeing of her baby, and receives no reassurance that either she or her child are ok.

The trauma doesn’t stop after birth. Even in developed countries, there is little to no publicly provided education around vaginal health, post-birth. A fact that is highlighted by France’s recent decision to subsidise la rééducation périnéale, a public initiative providing up to 20 sessions of physical therapy to help restore pelvic floor health after birth. According to one participant,

There haven’t been extensive studies done, but what studies exist show that la rééducation significantly reduces incontinence and pelvic pain at nine months after giving birth.

Of course this is mostly motivated by a desire to get wives back in shape so their husbands don’t go looking for a mistress, but it’s still an improvement on the lack of support most new mothers receive regarding their pelvic floor health. One particular friend, after complaining to her doctor about experiencing incontinence post-birth, was informed that she’d just have to live with peeing herself every time she laughed, sneezed or coughed...for the rest of her life.

Vaginal mutilation

And all of this, dear readers, is if you’re fortunate enough to live in a family with westernised values and culture. Depending on where in the world you’re born, and what religion or culture you’re born into, owning a vagina can be an automatic subscription to genital mutilation. You’ve possibly heard of “female circumcision” before. Depending on the region and the cultural or religious role of the practice it can include anything from surgically scratching the clitoral hood to complete removal of the clitoris and cauterising the nerve endings behind it.

You might have assumed that the practice was limited to more regional areas in Africa or the Middle East. You’d be wrong. World Health Organisation (WHO) data indicates that there’s 60 million victims of FGM (female genital mutilation) in Indonesia alone. They consider FGM an act of violence against women and are calling for the global eradication of the practice. This seems like an easy enough thing to achieve in countries like America, Australia and Western Europe, right? Not so much. According to this 2015 report by Dr Nawal Nour, (founder of the African Women's Health Centre at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital),

Many girls and women who are born and raised in western countries are taken to the countries from which their families originate, on the pretext of a holiday and then circumcised in hospitals under the supervision of medical practitioners - a practice often referred to as "vacation cutting"

According to the report, more than 125 million girls and women globally are living with female genital mutilation, and three million undergo such procedures every year. While there are some medical practitioners out there trying to aid in reversing the procedure it still constitutes a large out of pocket expense for victims, and is mostly only available in America.

How to be a vagina ally

If all of this has you feeling pretty heartbroken and despondent about the world...I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you that I made this whole thing up, and that equality was achieved centuries ago. I also wish I could tell you that Hogwarts is real and your owl is arriving any day now. But sadly both of those things are equally untrue. But what I can tell you is that we can make a difference. It won’t be overnight, and it won’t be easy, but we can change things.

Regardless of what you have between your legs here’s a few things you can do.

Learn about the anatomy of the vagina and vulva (yeah, they're totally different things and you should be able to tell them apart). Take some time to educate yourself about what they do, how they work, and what they’re all called. Explore your own, explore others (if that’s your thing), or try and find some sex-positive educational websites that have good videos or images. Dedicate some time to comprehending the diversity of them. Acknowledge that any beauty standards ascribed to them are a statistical anomaly that only a few magical vaginas live up to, rather than something that can be attained by just anyone. To this end, I can not recommend the Labia Library enough, but there’s also a heap of other brilliant galleries on the internet, that are devoted to collecting images of other people’s Mufflers.

If you’ve ever felt like your vagina is more weird than wonderful, have a browse through galleries of other people’s Golden Snitches and remind yourself that vaginas are as vast and varied as human brains - each one is utterly unique.

Take some time to reflect on the language that you use around vaginas. Try not to use vaginal slang as insults (unless you’re making cat puns, in which case never stop). And try not to indulge in childish euphemisms like “hoo-ha”, especially around kids. For a start, it makes you sound like someone who should not legally be allowed to have sex, and second, it reinforces the idea that there's shame around owning or talking about vaginas. Refusing to correctly address vaginas turns it from Voldemort into He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. If you’re going to speak in euphemisms, do it with pride, let it become part of the language that reclaims genital equality. Refer to your vag as Her Vajesty, not because you’re afraid to say vagina, but because she is a goddamn Queen and shall be addressed as such.

Keep yourself informed. If you have a vagina, take the time to read about vagina ownership, how to look after yours, and some self-care practices for reminding your vagina that it’s loved. If you don’t have a vagina, try and keep up to date with the things that are happening to vagina owners, and use any privilege you have to work against that.

This might include calling out a friend or coworker for making jokes about a “loose fuck”, or making the effort not to allow conversations about vaginal health to be shamed or shut down in any way. If a co-worker, family member, or friend complains about painful period cramps, ask if you can heat them up a wheat bag, or offer them some pain killers.

And penis-owners, if you really want to be a bro, have a packet of tampons or pads in your desk drawer or in the office First Aid kit in case anyone ever needs them. Not saying you have to, just saying it’s a nice gesture.

If you’re in a position to contribute financially, or through volunteering, here is a list of 16 charities that are fighting to end female genital mutilation across the globe. It might feel like an insurmountable problem, but every contribution makes a difference. Throwing money and support behind organisations like these helps to remind governments that these are issues we care about, and can help to contribute to legal and cultural reform.

The most important thing you can do though, is listen to the experiences of vagina owners; regardless of whether or not you have one yourself. Every person’s experience is different and if someone is telling you that they were traumatised by their experience of giving birth, or that they’re self conscious about the appearance of their vagina, or that their menstrual cycle leaves them physically or emotionally distraught...listen. Validate their experience and let them know that you support them.

My fellow vagina owners, you are brave, you are beautiful and you are magnificent. You, and your vagina, deserve to be treated with respect. You do not deserve to feel shame or pain as a result of vagina ownership. I dream of living in a world where buildings are uterus shaped, where men complain about receiving unsolicited pussy pics, and everything related to vagina healthcare is painless and fully subsidised. Until then though, I’ll continue to tell my vag that he’s a handsome devil, and will remain committed to supporting causes that support vagina ownership.

That is all.

You may go now.

[Banner image vagina by B. Damm from the Noun Project

People...my vagina prefers male pronouns. I’m not being glib here, I legitimately feel fucking weird about referring to my vag as “she” or “her”. Part of this came from growing up queer and being afraid of anyone finding out. It felt gayer to refer to my lady-parts as an actual lady, since that would mean when I was masturbating I’d kind of be having girl-on-girl sex, right? Whereas if my vagina was a dude, then having a wank kind of became semi-hetero. I’m not saying any of this is healthy or well-adjusted. It’s not. But it gives you a good insight into the kind of complex relationship I have with my vag. I like to think of us as a buddy-cop duo.

The point of my brief vagina monologue is to highlight that vaginas and our relationships with them are incredibly complex, and no two are the same. A large amount of this is influenced by systemic and social attitudes towards them. So today I thought I'd introduce a new series where we focus on just some of the issues that face vaginas in the 21st century. I hope you'll join me as we dismantle myths, tackle stigma and stare down some entrenched biases;  welcome to part one of The Vagina Burden:

The Burden of the Double Standard

As I just mentioned, a person’s relationship with their vagina is a complex thing and can be dictated by all sorts of experiences, such as body dysmorphia, sexual identity, gender identity, sexual assault, genital mutilation, religious guilt or shame, or just the usual unattainable beauty standards laid down by society. That last one is probably the most common source of contention between most vaginas and their owners. We live in a society that reinforces at every turn what a pretty vagina is meant to be - white, tight, clean and hairless.

Vaginal Beauty Standards

Despite surrounding myself with sex positive feminists, I still have several friends who’ve admitted to feeling shame about how their Whisker Biscuit looks, or smells, or tastes. A few have even confessed to wanting labiaplasty to rectify perceived flaws with their Cave of Wonders. I myself, upon first squatting over a mirror, realised that one side of my labia minora (the smaller, inside lips) was larger and protruded outside my labia majora. I wanted to trim it back, so it was neat, tidy and attractive. I was personally offended by this imperfection, and it made me start asking how anyone could want to spend time down there if my Pink Palace was such a hideous monstrosity. I have since reconsidered my stance and I now see my escapee labia lip as like a fold of tissue paper popping out of a very expensive gift bag. But it was a hard journey to get there.

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about women’s rights to their bodies and the politicisation of female reproductive organs. I don’t want to dive into abortions or even menstruation at this point, because they deserve their own dedicated space. But I do want to explore the experience of owning a vagina, and examine some of the things that vagina owners are subjected to. The first step to achieving change is understanding, so let’s dive face first into this Muff Menagerie and try to understand why owning a vagina in the 21st Century is still such a burden.

We live in a world that thrusts overwhelmingly unattainable beauty standards in our faces. This is especially the case for female presenting people. This isn’t to say that male presenting people don’t also experience something similar, but the difference is that as a society we see men as having value beyond their appearance. A man can be overweight and conventionally unattractive, but if he’s also funny then he's proven his value (see almost every American family based sitcom). If a woman is overweight and conventionally unattractive, it doesn’t matter if she’s funny, charming, kind and intelligent, her value in society is significantly less. Not convinced? Have a look at any opinion about female politicians, comedians, scientists, etc. Women whose value isn’t, and shouldn’t be, based around their appearance will still be judged on how they look, what they wear and how fuckable they appear. Have a look at the comments section on most media produced by women and it won’t be rational discourse about how their argument is flawed.

So what does this have to do with vagina ownership? Well that unreasonable beauty standard extends to our genitalia. More and more vagina owners are opting in to labiaplasty to try and conform to a socially mandated standard of vaginal beauty. From 2001 to 2013 the number of people having the surgery more than doubled, and those statistics are only for patients having it done through the public system. If you really want to make yourself sad, check out this study that was conducted and revealed that most patients put forward as candidates for labiaplasty don’t actually have “abnormal” labia (clinically speaking) and that even when advised of this, they would still seek surgery. Some of the patients put forward were as young as 11 years old, and 61% of study participants had never had sexual intercourse before, which given one of the side effects of the surgery can be reduced sensitivity and sexual function, is more than a little disconcerting.

Ultimately, it’s an individual’s choice about whether or not they want surgery. But when increasing numbers of women are presenting to doctors to request serious and irreversible surgery, we have to examine why, and where this trend is coming from. Surgical follow up studies have found that patients do not experience an improvement to their general psychological well-being or to the quality of their intimate relationships.

One commonly held theory about the origins of this vaginal beauty standard is a combination of subpar sex ed, and the plethora of porn made for the male gaze. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of porn, but comparing your vag to the ones you see in adult movies is kind of like comparing your hair to Disney Princesses. It’s just not a fair comparison. Realistically, there is no such thing as a “good looking” or “normal” vagina, there’s only a standard that’s been established by a society (of predominantly straight, white men) that is hell bent on making women conform to be the most pleasing version for said men.

This beauty standard becomes even more harmful when it’s then attached to the idea that vaginas are inherently dirty or disgusting if they don’t live up to porn star standards. Our social revulsion towards our Closet to Narnia translates to a physical revulsion for many vagina owners. It extends to the point that people are afraid to get familiar with theirs on any level. This can result in situations where strangers are more intimately familiar with your genitals than you are; where your sexual partner knows more about how your vag works than you do.

This in turn leads to a whole heap of misinformation floating around, which can be fucking damaging. Like for instance the clean panties challenge, wherein people took photos of their knickers in an attempt to prove that they don’t have any form of vaginal discharge. Because we all know that vaginas are revolting caverns of filth, and if we want to attract the opposite sex or outdo our vagina-owning rivals, then we need to keep our Magic Carpet Bag sparkly clean. When you’re not educated about the fact that your vagina has a delicate pH balance, which impacts things like thrush and yeast infections, it’s easy to resort to unsafe home remedies, or using douching products in a misguided attempt to make your vagina “cleaner” or to “detox” it. Vaginas are self cleaning, it’s how they survived for thousands of years without chemical cleaners, deoderants, and douches. But there’s not too many companies out there that will let science get in the way of shaming you into shoving chemicals up your Batcave in an attempt to get it squeaky clean.

Vaginal sexual standards

But the vagina improvement market doesn’t stop at keeping them clean. If you own a vagina, it’s not enough that you should feel ashamed of how it looks, you should also be paranoid about how it feels for others who are using it. Thus we have a whole host of, often unsafe, products marketed as ‘vaginal tighteners’. The idea of vaginal tightness is an interesting one. Many penis owners will point out that they also run the risk of being shamed for not being big enough, or that the size of their dick is equated with their sexual performance. While this absolutely happens, it’s not on the same socially institutionalised level as the shame that occurs around vaginas. Implying that someone has a small dick or is bad in bed is not the equivalent of suggesting that a sexual partner was loose or a sloppy fuck. A man who is bad in bed does not experience the same stigma as a woman who is accused of being a slut, which is essentially what the vaginal tightness argument boils down to.

Tightness is just one more arbitrary and harmful standard for vagina owners to try and live up to, and has no basis in reality. For a start, even if vaginal looseness were a thing (and it’s no more a thing than getting a loose face-hole after too many big yawns), it wouldn’t affect the actual owner of the vagina. Tightness is literally all about penis pleasure. It’s a physical standard that demands that we be more pleasurable for our sexual counterparts, with no thought to the actual person who owns the vagina in question. It comes from a place of unapologetic slut-shaming. Despite the fact that a vagina owner in a monogamous, long-term relationship is likely to have a LOT more sex than their single, sleeping-with-strangers counterpart; society will make jokes about someone who sleeps around, but not about a devoted and faithful partner. Apparently vaginas have their own laws of physics and will only lose elasticity when not in a committed relationship.

The great irony in all of this is, vaginas are actually designed to get moderately looser when they’re aroused, to allow for painless and pleasurable entry of the penis. This becomes especially heartbreaking when you realise that most google searches relating to vaginal looseness are men worried their partners are cheating on them, when in fact it means they’re just really turned on. One day I hope to live in a world where hetero-cis men brag about how loose they managed to get their partner, like “Nah bro, I’m so fucking good in bed, her vagina was looser than RBGs judicial robes when she’s presiding over the Supreme Court. BAM!”

For most of history, the idea and concept of being penetrated has been considered a weakness. One of my favourite experiences in school was studying pottery from Ancient Greece that depicted the Greeks butt-fucking the Persians after winning a war. It’s a source of constant amusement to me now that we refer to anal sex as “Greek”, but that the Greeks themselves considered having penetrative sex with other men abhorrent. To them it was fine to have a romantic relationship between two men (the erastes and eromenos), but if you penetrated your lover you were emasculating him to a state of womanhood...and even back then, there was nothing worse than being a woman.

Clementine Ford articulated it well, when she said,

“...Consensual sexual encounters are reframed as women allowing men to degrade and use them. Our bodies are discussed via metaphors. We are cars whose resale values plummet as the number of our owners increase...Even the act of heterosexual consent is frequently discussed as a kind of relenting: we "let" men f--- us and "give in" to pressure...The practice of shaming cisgender women for having heterosexual, penetrative sex (whether vaginal or oral) has always perplexed me. Throughout history, the phallus and what it supposedly represents (power, strength, beauty) has been revered. And yet, penetration with this powerful, beautiful, revered object is akin to being defiled. What a curious paradox that is.”

Vaginal objectification

It is often argued that there’s no gender divide between male and female genitalia, that society shames all genitals equally in a puritanical attempt to enforce standards of modesty. This might be true to an extent, but if you think that there’s an equal amount of shame around male and female genitalia, consider the propensity of dick pics. Consider the sheer volume of penis owners who are so comfortable with their genitals that they will photograph it and send it to complete strangers, or post it online. Dick pics are so ubiquitous that, if you’re female presenting, you can’t really engage in online dating without expecting to be sent them at some point. When asked about why they send these images, most men admit to not really believing that women wanted to see their cock, implying that they did it for themselves; either because they’re proud of their mighty member, or as a power play and assertion of dominance.

By contrast, if you’re female presenting, and spend any amount of time on the internet, you will quickly become accustomed to the catchcry of “Tits or GTFO”. Women are expected to sexualise themselves for the attention and approval of men, because men feel entitled to women’s bodies (and will then slut shame them for providing said bodies). But unlike dick pics, women’s naked selfies are rarely taken for their own pleasure, pride or power. They’re taken for the approval and judgement of straight men. This is why women will rarely send unsolicited pussy portraits to a potential date.

If you want a perfect example, behold the Vagina Beauty Contest. Seriously though, watch that fucking video, as a straight, white man who manufactures sex toys for men, tries to demonstrate different vagina types with cold cuts of meat, before going on to encourage women to submit photos of their (hairless) vaginas so random men can vote on which one they’d most like to fuck in the form of a masturbation machine. Not sure it gets more objectifying than literally turning you into a disembodied object to be fucked.

Vaginal masturbation

While we’re on the topic of masturbation, much as there’s the taboo around straight men owning sex toys, there’s still a huge bias in our attitudes towards vaginal masturbation. As children, we’re almost all taught that it’s wrong to touch our genitals in public. But as we grow the attitude towards boys is that it’s inevitable that they’ll be wanking away while no one is looking. Girls on the other hand...it’s considered dirty, gross, and downright weird for a young girl to be playing with her genitalia on the reg (because vaginas exist solely for male pleasure, not for self-pleasure).

This attitude further impacts any attempts at self-spelunking in our South Hole, since there’s no information available on how to do it effectively or safely. This is how we end up with young vagina owners attempting to use electric toothbrushes, hairbrushes, deodorant cans, and an assortment of other ill-fitting, unsafe objects, to get themselves off. The attitude towards grown women masturbating has improved somewhat in the past decade, but we’re still stuck with a lack of information and education around early pubescent masturbation, but then an expectation that “healthy, well-adjusted” women will know how to rub one out when they’re in their 20s (without ever addressing where this education is supposed to have come from).

Vaginal vocabulary

Even in the language we use, we’re reinforcing this genital inequality. If someone is being a bit mean, or a bit inconsiderate, or just generally acting like a bit of a tool we might refer to them as being a dick, or a cock, or a knob. When someone is irredeemably hated, we’ll call them a cunt, because using the word cunt is the equivalent of a verbal K.O. Unless you start getting really creative with your insults, it’s hard to find a worse word than that.

When we’re telling someone to be strong we tell them to “grow a pair” or “nut up”. If we want to highlight how weak and pathetic someone is being, we’ll call them a pussy or make a joke about when the last time they changed their tampon was. Because, for most men, they’d rather submit to doing something they don’t want to and won’t enjoy, than own or become a vagina. In fact some men are so uncomfortable with even hearing the word vagina, that they banned its use during a House discussion about abortion legislation. Pack of cunts.

All of this, dear readers, is before we look into the expense, pain and discrimination that goes into physically maintaining the health of a vagina. So I hope you'll join me next time when we take a closer look at the vagina burden. 

 

That is all.

You may go now. 

[Banner image vagina by B. Damm from the Noun Project

Preface

This is a work of satire. By taking the original text of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and swapping the genders of all characters, we’re able to see how deeply mainstream erotica relies on gendered tropes and stereotypes.

What I’ve done:

• I have swapped the gender of every single original character in the text

• I’ve changed certain gendered references to be gender neutral

• I have lightly altered wardrobe and appearance for characters to fit the standards their swapped genders would adhere to

• I have not changed the gender of literary references - Jane Eyre will not be John Eyre

• I have changed sexual activities to be the closest paralell for the swapped genders

• I have not otherwise changed the dialogue, descriptions, settings, etc.

Chapters will be uploaded as I write/adapt them.

UPDATE - Now at Chapter 7.

Chapter One

I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair – it just won’t behave, and damn Kyle Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet. I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale, brown-haired boy with blue eyes too big for his face staring back at me, and give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward hair and hope that I look semi presentable.

Kyle is my roommate, and he has chosen today of all days to succumb to the flu. Therefore, he cannot attend the interview he’d arranged to do, with some mega-industrialist tycoon I’ve never heard of, for the student newspaper. So I have been volunteered. I have final exams to cram for, one essay to finish, and I’m supposed to be working this afternoon, but no – today I have to drive a hundred and sixty-five miles to downtown Seattle in order to meet the enigmatic CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc. As an exceptional entrepreneur and major benefactor of our University, her time is extraordinarily precious – much more precious than mine – but she has granted Kyle an interview. A real coup, he tells me. Damn his extra-curricular activities.

Kyle is huddled on the couch in the living room.

“Andy, I’m sorry. It took me nine months to get this interview. It will take another six to reschedule, and we’ll both have graduated by then. As the editor, I can’t blow this off. Please,” Kyle begs me in his rasping, sore throat voice. How does he do it? Even ill he looks gamine and gorgeous, strawberry blonde hair in place and green eyes bright, although now red-rimmed and runny. I ignore my pang of unwelcome sympathy.

“Of course I’ll go Kyle. You should get back to bed. Would you like some Nyquil or Tylenol?”

“Nyquil, please. Here are the questions and my mini-disc recorder. Just press record here. Make notes, I’ll transcribe it all.”

“I know nothing about her,” I murmur, trying and failing to suppress my rising panic. “The questions will see you through. Go. It’s a long drive. I don’t want you to be late.”

“Okay, I’m going. Get back to bed. I made you some soup to heat up later.” I stare at him fondly. Only for you, Kyle, would I do this.

“I will. Good luck. And thanks Andy – as usual, you’re my lifesaver.” Gathering my satchel, I smile wryly at him, then head out the door to the car. I can not believe I have let Kyle talk me into this. But then Kyle can talk anyone into anything. He’ll make an exceptional journalist. He’s articulate, strong, persuasive, argumentative, beautiful – and he’s my dearest, dearest friend.

The roads are clear as I set off from Vancouver, WA toward Portland and the I-5. It’s early, and I don’t have to be in Seattle until two this afternoon. Fortunately, Kyle’s lent me his sporty Mercedes CLK. I’m not sure Wally, my old VW Beetle, would make the journey in time. Oh, the Merc is a fun drive, and the miles slip away as I floor the pedal to the metal.

My destination is the headquarters of Ms. Grey’s global enterprise. It’s a huge twenty story office building, all curved glass and steel, an architect’s utilitarian fantasy, with Grey House written discreetly in steel over the glass front doors. It’s a quarter to two when I arrive, greatly relieved that I’m not late as I walk into the enormous – and frankly intimidating – glass, steel, and white sandstone lobby.

Behind the solid sandstone desk, a very attractive, groomed, blonde young man smiles pleasantly at me. He’s wearing the sharpest charcoal suit jacket and white shirt I have ever seen. He looks immaculate.

“I’m here to see Ms. Grey. Andrew Steele for Kyle Kavanagh.”

“Excuse me one moment, Mr Steele.” He arches his eyebrow slightly as I stand self consciously before him. I am beginning to wish I’d borrowed one of Kyle’s formal blazers rather than wearing my navy blue jacket. I have made an effort and worn my one and only pair of slacks, my sensible brown boots and a blue sweater. For me, this is smart. I tuck one of the escaped tendrils of my hair behind my ear as I pretend he doesn’t intimidate me. “Mr Kavanagh is expected. Please sign in here, Mr Steele. You’ll want the last elevator on the right, press for the twentieth floor.” He smiles kindly at me, amused no doubt, as I sign in.

He hands me a security pass that has VISITOR very firmly stamped on the front. I can’t help my smirk. Surely it’s obvious that I’m just visiting. I don’t fit in here at all. Nothing changes, I inwardly sigh. Thanking him, I walk over to the bank of elevators past the two security women who are both far more smartly dressed than I am in their well-cut black suits.

The elevator whisks me with terminal velocity to the twentieth floor. The doors slide open, and I’m in another large lobby – again all glass, steel, and white sandstone. I’m confronted by another desk of sandstone and another young blonde man dressed impeccably in black and white who rises to greet me.

“Mr Steele, could you wait here, please?” He points to a seated area of white leather chairs.

Behind the leather chairs is a spacious glass-walled meeting room with an equally spacious dark wood table and at least twenty matching chairs around it. Beyond that, there is a floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the Seattle skyline that looks out through the city toward the Sound. It’s a stunning vista, and I’m momentarily paralyzed by the view. Wow.

I sit down, fish the questions from my satchel, and go through them, inwardly cursing Kyle for not providing me with a brief biography. I know nothing about this woman I’m about to interview. She could be ninety or she could be thirty. The uncertainty is galling, and my nerves resurface, making me fidget. I’ve never been comfortable with one-on-one interviews, preferring the anonymity of a group discussion where I can sit inconspicuously at the back of the room. To be honest, I prefer my own company, reading a classic British novel, curled up in a chair in the campus library. Not sitting twitching nervously in a colossal glass and stone edifice.

I roll my eyes at myself. Get a grip, Steele. Judging from the building, which is too clinical and modern, I guess Grey is in her forties: fit, tanned, and fair-haired to match the rest of the personnel.

Another elegant, flawlessly dressed blonde comes out of a large door to the right. What is it with all the immaculate blondes? It’s like the Third Reich here. Taking a deep breath, I stand up.

“Mr Steele?” the latest blonde asks.

“Yes,” I croak, and clear my throat. “Yes.” There, that sounded more confident. “Ms. Grey will see you in a moment. May I take your jacket?”

“Oh please.” I struggle out of the jacket.

“Have you been offered any refreshment?”

“Um – no.” Oh dear, is Blonde Number One in trouble?

Blonde Number Two frowns and eyes the young man at the desk. “Would you like tea, coffee, water?” he asks, turning his attention back to me. “A glass of water. Thank you,” I murmur.

“Oliver, please fetch Mr Steele a glass of water.” His voice is stern. Oliver scoots up immediately and scurries to a door on the other side of the foyer.

“My apologies, Mr Steele, Oliver is our new intern. Please be seated. Ms. Grey will be another five minutes.”

Oliver returns with a glass of iced water.

“Here you go, Mr Steele.”

“Thank you.”

Blonde Number Two marches over to the large desk, his shoes clicking and echoing on the sandstone floor. He sits down, and they both continue their work.

Perhaps Ms. Grey insists on all her employees being blonde. I’m wondering idly if that’s legal, when the office door opens and a tall, elegantly dressed, attractive African American woman with short dreads exits. I have definitely worn the wrong clothes. She turns and says through the door. “Golf, this week, Grey.”

I don’t hear the reply. She turns, sees me, and smiles, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners. Oliver has jumped up and called the elevator. He seems to excel at jumping from his seat. He’s more nervous than me!

“Good afternoon gentlemen,” she says as she departs through the sliding door. “Ms. Grey will see you now, Mr Steele. Do go through,” Blonde Number Two says. I stand rather shakily trying to suppress my nerves. Gathering up my satchel, I abandon my glass of water and make my way to the partially open door.

“You don’t need to knock – just go in.” He smiles kindly.

I push open the door and stumble through, tripping over my own feet, and falling head first into the office.

Double crap – me and my two left feet! I am on my hands and knees in the doorway to Ms. Grey’s office, and gentle hands are around me helping me to stand. I am so embarrassed, damn my clumsiness. I have to steel myself to glance up. Holy cow – she’s so young.

“Mr Kavanagh.” She extends a long-fingered hand to me once I’m upright. “I’m Christina Grey. Are you all right? Would you like to sit?”

So young – and attractive, very attractive. She’s tall, dressed in a fine gray suit, white shirt, and black tie with unruly dark copper colored hair and intense, bright gray eyes that regard me shrewdly. It takes a moment for me to find my voice.

“Um. Actually–” I mutter. If this lady is over thirty then I’m a monkey’s uncle. In a daze, I place my hand in hers and we shake. As our fingers touch, I feel an odd exhilarating shiver run through me. I withdraw my hand hastily, embarrassed. Must be static. I blink rapidly, my eyelids matching my heart rate.

“Mr Kavanagh is indisposed, so she sent me. I hope you don’t mind, Ms. Grey.” “And you are?” Her voice is warm, possibly amused, but it’s difficult to tell from her impassive expression. She looks mildly interested, but above all, polite. “Andrew Steele. I’m studying English Literature with Kyle, um… Mr Kavanagh at Washington State.”

“I see,” she says simply. I think I see the ghost of a smile in her expression, but I’m not sure.

“Would you like to sit?” She waves me toward a white leather buttoned L-shaped couch. Her office is way too big for just one woman. In front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, there’s a huge modern dark-wood desk that six people could comfortably eat around. It matches the coffee table by the couch. Everything else is white – ceiling, floors, and walls except, on the wall by the door, where a mosaic of small paintings hang, thirty-six of them arranged in a square. They are exquisite – a series of mundane, forgotten objects painted in such precise detail they look like photographs. Displayed together, they are breathtaking. “A local artist. Trouton,” says Grey when she catches my gaze.

“They’re lovely. Raising the ordinary to extraordinary,” I murmur, distracted both by her and the paintings. She cocks her head to one side and regards me intently.

“I couldn’t agree more, Mr Steele,” she replies, her voice soft and for some inexplicable reason I find myself blushing.

Apart from the paintings, the rest of the office is cold, clean, and clinical. I wonder if it reflects the personality of the Venus who sinks gracefully into one of the white leather chairs opposite me. I shake my head, disturbed at the direction of my thoughts, and retrieve Kyle’s questions from my satchel. Next, I set up the mini-disc recorder and am all fingers and thumbs, dropping it twice on the coffee table in front of me. Ms. Grey says nothing, waiting patiently – I hope – as I become increasingly embarrassed and flustered. When I pluck up the courage to look at her, she’s watching me, one hand relaxed in her lap and the other cupping her chin and trailing her long index finger across her lips. I think she’s trying to suppress a smile.

“Sorry,” I stutter. “I’m not used to this.”

“Take all the time you need, Mr Steele,” she says.

“Do you mind if I record your answers?”

“After you’ve taken so much trouble to set up the recorder – you ask me now?” I flush. She’s teasing me? I hope. I blink at her, unsure what to say, and I think she takes pity on me because she relents. “No, I don’t mind.”

“Did Kyle, I mean, Mr Kavanagh, explain what the interview was for?”

“Yes. To appear in the graduation issue of the student newspaper as I shall be conferring the degrees at this year’s graduation ceremony.”

Oh! This is news to me, and I’m temporarily pre-occupied by the thought that someone not much older than me – okay, maybe six years or so, and okay, mega successful, but still – is going to present me with my degree. I frown, dragging my wayward attention back to the task at hand.

“Good,” I swallow nervously. “I have some questions, Ms. Grey.” I smooth a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“I thought you might,” she says, deadpan. She’s laughing at me. My cheeks heat at the realization, and I sit up and square my shoulders in an attempt to look taller and more intimidating. Pressing the start button on the recorder, I try to look professional.

“You’re very young to have amassed such an empire. To what do you owe your success?” I glance up at her. Her smile is rueful, but she looks vaguely disappointed. “Business is all about people, Mr Steele, and I’m very good at judging people. I know how they tick, what makes them flourish, what doesn’t, what inspires them, and how to incentivize them. I employ an exceptional team, and I reward them well.” She pauses and fixes me with her gray stare. “My belief is to achieve success in any scheme one has to make oneself master of that scheme, know it inside and out, know every detail. I work hard, very hard to do that. I make decisions based on logic and facts. I have a natural gut instinct that can spot and nurture a good solid idea and good people. The bottom line is, it’s always down to good people.”

“Maybe you’re just lucky.” This isn’t on Kyle’s list – but she’s so arrogant. Her eyes flare momentarily in surprise.

“I don’t subscribe to luck or chance, Mr Steele. The harder I work the more luck I seem to have. It really is all about having the right people on your team and directing their energies accordingly. I think it was Hayley Firestone who said ‘the growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.’”

“You sound like a control freak.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“Oh, I exercise control in all things, Mr Steele,” she says without a trace of humor in her smile. I look at her, and she holds my gaze steadily, impassive. My heartbeat quickens, and my face flushes again.

Why does she have such an unnerving effect on me? Her overwhelming good-looks maybe? The way her eyes blaze at me? The way she strokes her index finger against her lower lip? I wish she’d stop doing that.

“Besides, immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control things,” she continues, her voice soft.

“Do you feel that you have immense power?” Control Freak.

“I employ over forty thousand people, Mr Steele. That gives me a certain sense of responsibility – power, if you will. If I were to decide I was no longer interested in the telecommunications business and sell up, twenty thousand people would struggle to make their mortgage payments after a month or so.”

My mouth drops open. I am staggered by her lack of humility.

“Don’t you have a board to answer to?” I ask, disgusted.

“I own my company. I don’t have to answer to a board.” She raises an eyebrow at me. I flush. Of course, I would know this if I had done some research. But holy crap, she’s so arrogant. I change tack.

“And do you have any interests outside your work?”

“I have varied interests, Mr Steele.” A ghost of a smile touches her lips. “Very varied.” And for some reason, I’m confounded and heated by her steady gaze. Her eyes are alight with some wicked thought.

“But if you work so hard, what do you do to chill out?”

“Chill out?” She smiles, revealing perfect white teeth. I stop breathing. She really is beautiful. No one should be this good-looking.

“Well, to ‘chill out’ as you put it – I sail, I fly, I indulge in various physical pursuits.” She shifts in her chair. “I’m a very wealthy woman, Mr Steele, and I have expensive and absorbing hobbies.”

I glance quickly at Kyle’s questions, wanting to get off this subject.

“You invest in manufacturing. Why, specifically?” I ask. Why does she make me so uncomfortable?

“I like to build things. I like to know how things work: what makes things tick, how to construct and deconstruct. And I have a love of ships. What can I say?”

“That sounds like your heart talking rather than logic and facts.”

Her mouth quirks up, and she stares appraisingly at me.

“Possibly. Though there are people who’d say I don’t have a heart.”

“Why would they say that?”

“Because they know me well.” Her lip curls in a wry smile.

“Would your friends say you’re easy to get to know?” And I regret the question as soon as I say it. It’s not on Kyle’s list.

“I’m a very private person, Mr Steele. I go a long way to protect my privacy. I don’t often give interviews,” she trails off.

“Why did you agree to do this one?”

“Because I’m a benefactor of the University, and for all intents and purposes, I couldn’t get Mr Kavanagh off my back. He badgered and badgered my PR people, and I admire that kind of tenacity.”

I know how tenacious Kyle can be. That’s why I’m sitting here squirming uncomfortably under her penetrating gaze, when I should be studying for my exams.

“You also invest in farming technologies. Why are you interested in this area?” “We can’t eat money, Mr Steele, and there are too many people on this planet who don’t have enough to eat.”

“That sounds very philanthropic. Is it something you feel passionately about? Feeding the world’s poor?”

She shrugs, very non-committal.

“It’s shrewd business,” she murmurs, though I think she’s being disingenuous. It doesn’t make sense – feeding the world’s poor? I can’t see the financial benefits of this, only the virtue of the ideal. I glance at the next question, confused by her attitude.

“Do you have a philosophy? If so, what is it?”

“I don’t have a philosophy as such. Maybe a guiding principle – Carnegie’s: ‘A woman who acquires the ability to take full possession of her own mind may take possession of anything else to which she is justly entitled.’ I’m very singular, driven. I like control – of myself and those around me.”

“So you want to possess things?” You are a control freak.

“I want to deserve to possess them, but yes, bottom line, I do.”

“You sound like the ultimate consumer.”

“I am.” She smiles, but the smile doesn’t touch her eyes. Again this is at odds with someone who wants to feed the world, so I can’t help thinking that we’re talking about something else, but I’m absolutely mystified as to what it is. I swallow hard. The temperature in the room is rising or maybe it’s just me. I just want this interview to be over. Surely Kyle has enough material now? I glance at the next question.

“You were adopted. How far do you think that’s shaped the way you are?” Oh, this is personal. I stare at her, hoping she’s not offended. Her brow furrows. “I have no way of knowing.”

My interest is piqued.

“How old were you when you were adopted?”

“That’s a matter of public record, Mr Steele.” His tone is stern. I flush, again. Crap. Yes of course – if I’d known I was doing this interview, I would have done some research. I move on quickly.

“You’ve had to sacrifice a family life for your work.”

“That’s not a question.” She’s terse.

“Sorry.” I squirm, and she’s made me feel like an errant child. I try again.

“Have you had to sacrifice a family life for your work?”

“I have a family. I have a brother and a sister and two loving parents. I’m not interested in extending my family beyond that.”

“Are you gay, Ms. Grey?”

She inhales sharply, and I cringe, mortified. Crap. Why didn’t I employ some kind of filter before I read this straight out? How can I tell her I’m just reading the questions? Damn Kyle and his curiosity!

“No Andrew, I’m not.” She raises his eyebrows, a cool gleam in her eyes. She does not look pleased.

“I apologize. It’s um… written here.” It’s the first time she’s said my name. My heartbeat has accelerated, and my cheeks are heating up again. Nervously, I tuck my loosened hair behind my ear.

She cocks her head to one side.

“These aren’t your own questions?”

The blood drains from my head. Oh no.

“Err… no. Kyle – Mr Kavanagh – he compiled the questions.”

“Are you colleagues on the student paper?” Oh crap. I have nothing to do with the student paper. It’s his extra-curricular activity, not mine. My face is aflame. “No. He’s my roommate.”

She rubs her chin in quiet deliberation, her gray eyes appraising me.

“Did you volunteer to do this interview?” she asks, her voice deadly quiet. Hang on, who’s supposed to be interviewing whom? Her eyes burn into me, and I’m compelled to answer with the truth.

“I was drafted. He’s not well.” My voice is weak and apologetic.

“That explains a great deal.”

There’s a knock at the door, and Blonde Number Two enters.

“Ms. Grey, forgive me for interrupting, but your next meeting is in two minutes.” “We’re not finished here, Andre. Please cancel my next meeting.”

Andre hesitates, gaping at him. He appears lost. She turns her head slowly to face him and raises her eyebrows. He flushes bright pink. Oh good. It’s not just me. “Very well, Ms. Grey,” he mutters, then exits. She frowns, and turns her attention back to me.

“Where were we, Mr Steele?”

Oh, we’re back to ‘Mr Steele’ now.

“Please don’t let me keep you from anything.”

“I want to know about you. I think that’s only fair.” Her gray eyes are alight with curiosity. Double crap. Where’s she going with this? She places her elbows on the arms of the chair and steeples her fingers in front of her mouth. His mouth is very… distracting. I swallow.

“There’s not much to know,” I say, flushing again.

“What are your plans after you graduate?”

I shrug, thrown by her interest. Come to Seattle with Kyle, find a place, find a job. I haven’t really thought beyond my finals.

“I haven’t made any plans, Ms. Grey. I just need to get through my final exams.” Which I should be studying for now rather than sitting in your palatial, swanky, sterile office, feeling uncomfortable under your penetrating gaze.

“We run an excellent internship program here,” she says quietly. I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Is she offering me a job?

“Oh. I’ll bear that in mind,” I murmur, completely confounded. “Though I’m not sure I’d fit in here.” Oh no. I’m musing out loud again.

“Why do you say that?” She cocks her head to one side, intrigued, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” I’m uncoordinated, scruffy, and I’m not blonde.

“Not to me,” she murmurs. Her gaze is intense, all humor gone, and strange muscles deep in my belly clench suddenly. I tear my eyes away from her scrutiny and stare blindly down at my knotted fingers. What’s going on? I have to go – now. I lean forward to retrieve the recorder.

“Would you like me to show you around?” she asks.

“I’m sure you’re far too busy, Ms. Grey, and I do have a long drive.”

“You’re driving back to WSU in Vancouver?” She sounds surprised, anxious even. She glances out of the window. It’s begun to rain. “Well, you’d better drive carefully.” Her tone is stern, authoritative. Why should she care?

“Did you get everything you need?” she adds. “Yes ma’am,” I reply, packing the recorder into my satchel. Her eyes narrow, speculatively. “Thank you for the interview, Ms. Grey.”

“The pleasure’s been all mine,” she says, polite as ever.

As I rise, she stands and holds out her hand.

“Until we meet again, Mr Steele.” And it sounds like a challenge, or a threat, I’m not sure which. I frown. When will we ever meet again? I shake her hand once more, astounded that that odd current between us is still there. It must be my nerves.

“Ms. Grey.” I nod at her. Moving with lithe athletic grace to the door, she opens it wide. “Just ensuring you make it through the door, Mr Steele.” She gives me a small smile. Obviously, she’s referring to my earlier less-than-elegant entry into her office. I flush. “That’s very considerate, Ms. Grey,” I snap, and her smile widens. I’m glad you find me entertaining, I glower inwardly, walking into the foyer. I’m surprised when she follows me out. Andre and Oliver both look up, equally surprised.

“Did you have a coat?” Grey asks.

“Yes.” Oliver leaps up and retrieves my jacket, which Grey takes from him before he can hand it to me. She holds it up and, feeling ridiculously self-conscious, I shrug it on. Grey places her hands for a moment on my shoulders. I gasp at the contact. If she notices my reaction, she gives nothing away. Her long index finger presses the button summoning the elevator, and we stand waiting – awkwardly on my part, coolly self-possessed on hers. The doors open, and I hurry in desperate to escape. I really need to get out of here. When I turn to look at her, she’s leaning against the doorway beside the elevator with one hand on the wall. She really is very, very good-looking. It’s distracting. Her burning gray eyes gaze at me.

“Andrew,” she says as a farewell.

“Christina,” I reply. And mercifully, the doors close.

Chapter Two

My heart is pounding. The elevator arrives on the first floor, and I scramble out as soon as the doors slide open, stumbling once, but fortunately not sprawling on to the immaculate sandstone floor. I race for the wide glass doors, and I’m free in the bracing, cleansing, damp air of Seattle. Raising my face, I welcome the cool refreshing rain. I close my eyes and take a deep, purifying breath, trying to recover what’s left of my equilibrium.

No woman has ever affected me the way Christina Grey has, and I cannot fathom why. Is it her looks? Her civility? Wealth? Power? I don’t understand my irrational reaction. I breathe an enormous sigh of relief. What in heaven’s name was that all about? Leaning against one of the steel pillars of the building, I valiantly attempt to calm down and gather my thoughts. I shake my head. Holy crap – what was that? My heart steadies to its regular rhythm, and I can breathe normally again. I head for the car.

As I leave the city limits behind, I begin to feel foolish and embarrassed as I replay the interview in my mind. Surely, I’m over-reacting to something that’s imaginary. Okay, so she’s very attractive, confident, commanding, at ease with herself – but on the flip side, she’s arrogant, and for all her impeccable manners, she’s autocratic and cold. Well, on the surface. An involuntary shiver runs down my spine. She may be arrogant, but then she has a right to be – she’s accomplished so much at such a young age. She doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but why should she? Again, I’m irritated that Kyle didn’t give me a brief biography.

While cruising along the I-5, my mind continues to wander. I’m truly perplexed as to what makes someone so driven to succeed. Some of her answers were so cryptic – as if she had a hidden agenda. And Kyle’s questions – ugh! The adoption and asking her if she was gay! I shudder. I can’t believe I said that. Ground, swallow me up now! Every time I think of that question in the future, I will cringe with embarrassment. Damn Kyle Kavanagh!

I check the speedometer. I’m driving more cautiously than I would on any other occasion. And I know it’s the memory of two penetrating gray eyes gazing at me, and a stern voice telling me to drive carefully. Shaking my head, I realize that Grey’s more like a woman double her age.

Forget it, Andy, I scold myself. I decide that all in all, it’s been a very interesting experience, but I shouldn’t dwell on it. Put it behind you. I never have to see her again. I’m immediately cheered by the thought. I switch on the MP3 player and turn the volume up loud, sit back, and listen to thumping indie rock music as I press down on the accelerator. As I hit the I-5, I realize I can drive as fast as I want.

We live in a small community of duplex apartments in Vancouver, Washington, close to the Vancouver campus of WSU. I’m lucky – Kyle’s parents bought the place for him, and I pay peanuts for rent. It’s been home for four years now. As I pull up outside, I know Kyle is going to want a blow-by-blow account, and he is tenacious. Well, at least he has the mini disc. Hopefully I won’t have to elaborate much beyond what was said during the interview.

“Andy! You’re back.” Kyle sits in our living area, surrounded by books. He’s clearly been studying for finals – though he’s still in his flannel pajamas decorated with rabbits, the ones he reserves for the aftermath of breaking up with girlfriends, for assorted illnesses, and for general moody depression. He bounds up to me and hugs me hard.

“I was beginning to worry. I expected you back sooner.”

“Oh, I thought I made good time considering the interview ran over.” I wave the mini disc recorder at him.

“Andy, thank you so much for doing this. I owe you, I know. How was it? What was she like?” Oh no – here we go, the Kyle Kavanagh Inquisition.

I struggle to answer his question. What can I say?

“I’m glad it’s over, and I don’t have to see her again. She was rather intimidating, you know.” I shrug. “She’s very focused, intense even – and young. Really young.” Kyle gazes innocently at me. I frown at him.

“Don’t you look so innocent. Why didn’t you give me a biography? She made me feel like such an idiot for skimping on basic research.” Kyle clamps a hand to his mouth. “Jeez, Andy, I’m sorry – I didn’t think.”

I huff.

“Mostly she was courteous, formal, slightly stuffy – like she’s old before her time. She doesn’t talk like a woman of twenty-something. How old is she anyway?” “Twenty-seven. Jeez, Andy, I’m sorry. I should have briefed you, but I was in such a panic. Let me have the mini-disc, and I’ll start transcribing the interview.”

“You look better. Did you eat your soup?” I ask, keen to change the subject.

“Yes, and it was delicious as usual. I’m feeling much better.” He smiles at me in gratitude. I check my watch.

“I have to run. I can still make my shift at Clayton’s.”

“Andy, you’ll be exhausted.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll see you later.”

I’ve worked at Clayton’s since I started at WSU. It’s the largest independent hardware store in the Portland area, and over the four years I’ve worked here, I’ve come to know a little bit about most everything we sell – although ironically, I’m crap at any DIY. I leave all that to my mum. I’m much more of a curl-up-with-a-book-in-a-comfy-chair-by-the-fire kind of guy. I’m glad I can make my shift as it gives me something to focus on that isn’t Christina Grey. We’re busy – it’s the start of the summer season, and folks are redecorating their homes. Mr. Clayton is pleased to see me.

“Andy! I thought you weren’t going to make it today.”

“My appointment didn’t take as long as I thought. I can do a couple of hours.”

“I’m real pleased to see you.”

He sends me to the storeroom to start re-stocking shelves, and I’m soon absorbed in the task.

When I arrive home later, Kyle is wearing headphones and working on his laptop. His nose is still pink, but he has his teeth into a story, so he’s concentrating and typing furiously. I’m thoroughly drained – exhausted by the long drive, the grueling interview, and by being rushed off my feet at Clayton’s. I slump on to the couch, thinking about the essay I have to finish and all the studying I haven’t done today because I was holed up with… her.

“You’ve got some good stuff here, Andy. Well done. I can’t believe you didn’t take her up on her offer to show you around. She obviously wanted to spend more time with you.” He gives me a fleeting quizzical look.

I flush, and my heart rate inexplicably increases. That wasn’t the reason, surely? She just wanted to show me around so I could see that she was queen of all she surveyed. I realize I’m biting my lip, and I hope Kyle doesn’t notice. But he seems absorbed in his transcription.

“I hear what you mean about formal. Did you take any notes?” he asks.

“Um… no, I didn’t.”

“That’s fine. I can still make a fine article with this. Shame we don’t have some original stills. Good-looking son of a bitch, isn’t she?”

I flush.

“I suppose so.” I try hard to sound disinterested, and I think I succeed. “Oh come on, Andy – even you can’t be immune to her looks.” He arches a perfect eyebrow at me.

Crap! I distract him with flattery, always a good ploy.

“You probably would have got a lot more out of her.”

“I doubt that, Andy. Come on – she practically offered you a job. Given that I foisted this on you at the last minute, you did very well.” He glances up at me speculatively. I make a hasty retreat into the kitchen.

“So what did you really think of her?” Damn, he’s inquisitive. Why can’t he just let this go? Think of something – quick.

“She’s very driven, controlling, arrogant – scary really, but very charismatic. I can understand the fascination,” I add truthfully, as I peer round the door at him hoping this will shut him up once and for all.

“You, fascinated by a woman? That’s a first,” he snorts.

I start gathering the makings of a sandwich so he can’t see my face.

“Why did you want to know if she was gay? Incidentally, that was the most embarrassing question. I was mortified, and she was pissed to be asked too.” I scowl at the memory.

“Whenever she’s in the society pages, she never has a date.”

“It was embarrassing. The whole thing was embarrassing. I’m glad I’ll never have to lay eyes on her again.”

“Oh, Andy, it can’t have been that bad. I think she sounds quite taken with you.” Taken with me? Now Kyle’s being ridiculous.

“Would you like a sandwich?”

“Please.”

We talk no more of Christina Grey that evening, much to my relief. Once we’ve eaten, I’m able to sit at the dining table with Kyle and, while he works on his article, I work on my essay on Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Damn, but that woman was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong century. By the time I finish, it’s midnight, and Kyle has long since gone to bed. I make my way to my room, exhausted, but pleased that I’ve accomplished so much for a Monday.

I curl up in my white iron bed, wrapping my father’s quilt around me, close my eyes, and I’m instantly asleep. That night I dream of dark places, bleak white cold floors, and gray eyes.

For the rest of the week, I throw myself into my studies and my job at Clayton’s. Kyle is busy too, compiling his last edition of his student magazine before he has to relinquish it to the new editor while also cramming for his finals. By Wednesday, he’s much better, and I no longer have to endure the sight of his flannel-with-too-many-rabbits PJs. I call my dad in Georgia to check on him, but also so he can wish me luck for my final exams. He proceeds to tell me about his latest venture into candle making – my father is all about new business ventures. Fundamentally he’s bored and wants something to occupy his time, but he has the attention span of a goldfish. It’ll be something new next week. He worries me. I hope he hasn’t mortgaged the house to finance this latest scheme. And I hope that Barb – her relatively new but much older wife – is keeping an eye on him now that I’m no longer there. She does seem a lot more grounded than Wife Number Three.

“How are things with you, Andy?”

For a moment, I hesitate, and I have Dad’s full attention.

“I’m fine.”

“Andy? Have you met someone?” Wow… how does he do that? The excitement in his voice is palpable.

“No, Dad, it’s nothing. You’ll be the first to know if I do.”

“Andy, you really need to get out more, honey. You worry me.”

“Dad, I’m fine. How’s Barb?”

As ever, distraction is the best policy. Later that evening, I call Rachel, my stepmum, Dad’s Wife Number Two, the woman I consider my mother, and the woman whose name I bear. It’s a brief conversation. In fact, it’s not so much a conversation as a one-sided series of grunts in response to my gentle coaxing. Rachel is not a talker. But she’s still alive, she’s still watching soccer on TV, and going bowling and fly-fishing or making furniture when she’s not. Rachel is a skilled carpenter and the reason I know the difference between a hawk and a handsaw. All seems well with her.

Friday night, Kyle and I are debating what to do with our evening – we want some time out from our studies, from our work, and from student newspapers – when the doorbell rings. Standing on our doorstep is my good friend Josie, clutching a bottle of champagne. “Josie! Great to see you!” I give her a quick hug. “Come in.”

Josis is the first person I met when I arrived at WSU, looking as lost and lonely as I did. We recognized a kindred spirit in each of us that day, and we’ve been friends ever since. Not only do we share a sense of humor, but we discovered that both Rachel and Josie Senior were in the same army unit together. As a result, our mothers have become firm friends too.

Josie is studying engineering and is the first in her family to make it to college. She’s pretty damn bright, but her real passion is photography. Josie has a great eye for a good picture.

“I have news.” She grins, her dark eyes twinkling.

“Don’t tell me – you’ve managed not to get kicked out for another week,” I tease, and she scowls playfully at me.

“The Portland Place Gallery is going to exhibit my photos next month.”

“That’s amazing – congratulations!”

Delighted for her, I hug her again. Kyle beams at her too.

“Way to go Josie! I should put this in the paper. Nothing like last minute editorial changes on a Friday evening.” He grins.

“Let’s celebrate. I want you to come to the opening.” Josie looks intently at me. I flush. “Both of you, of course,” she adds, glancing nervously at Kyle.

Josie and I are good friends, but I know deep down inside, she’d like to be more. She’s cute and funny, but she’s just not for me. She’s more like the sister I never had. Kyle often teases me that I’m missing the need-a-girlfriend gene, but the truth is – I just haven’t met anyone who… well, whom I’m attracted to, even though part of me longs for those trembling knees, heart-in-my-mouth, butterflies-in-my-belly, sleepless nights.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Perhaps I’ve spent too long in the company of my literary romantic heroes, and consequently my ideals and expectations are far too high. But in reality, nobody’s ever made me feel like that.

Until very recently, the unwelcome, still small voice of my subconscious whispers. NO! I banish the thought immediately. I am not going there, not after that painful interview. Are you gay, Ms. Grey? I wince at the memory. I know I’ve dreamt about her most nights since then, but that’s just to purge the awful experience from my system, surely?

I watch Josie open the bottle of champagne. She’s tall, and in her jeans and t-shirt she’s all shoulders and muscles, tanned skin, dark hair and burning dark eyes. Yes, Josie’s pretty hot, but I think she’s finally getting the message: we’re just friends. The cork makes its loud pop, and Josie looks up and smiles.

Saturday at the store is a nightmare. We are besieged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton, Joanna and Patricia – the two other part-timers – and I are all rushed off our feet. But there’s a lull around lunchtime, and Mr. Clayton asks me to check on some orders while I’m sitting behind the counter at the till discreetly eating my bagel. I’m engrossed in the task, checking catalogue numbers against the items we need and the items we’ve ordered, eyes flicking from the order book to the computer screen and back as I check the entries match. Then, for some reason, I glance up… and find myself locked in the bold gray gaze of Christina Grey who’s standing at the counter, staring at me intently.

Heart failure.

“Mr Steele. What a pleasant surprise.” Her gaze is unwavering and intense. Holy crap. What the hell is she doing here looking all tousled-hair and outdoorsy in her cream chunky-knit sweater, jeans, and walking boots? I think my mouth has popped open, and I can’t locate my brain or my voice.

“Ms. Grey,” I whisper, because that’s all I can manage. There’s a ghost of a smile on her lips and her eyes are alight with humor, as if she’s enjoying some private joke. “I was in the area,” she says by way of explanation. “I need to stock up on a few things. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr Steele.” Her voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel… or something.

I shake my head to gather my wits. My heart is pounding a frantic tattoo, and for some reason I’m blushing furiously under her steady scrutiny. I am utterly thrown by the sight of her standing before me. My memories of her did not do her justice. She’s not merely good-looking – she’s the epitome of female beauty, breathtaking, and she’s here. Here in Clayton’s Hardware Store. Go figure. Finally my cognitive functions are restored and reconnected with the rest of my body.

“Andy. My name’s Andy,” I mutter. “What can I help you with, Ms. Grey?”

She smiles, and again it’s like she’s privy to some big secret. It is so disconcerting. Taking a deep breath, I put on my professional I’ve-worked-in-this-shop-for-years façade. I can do this.

“There are a few items I need. To start with, I’d like some cable ties,” she murmurs, her gray eyes cool but amused.

Cable ties?

“We stock various lengths. Shall I show you?” I mutter, my voice soft and wavery. Get a grip, Steele. A slight frown mars Grey’s rather lovely brow.

“Please. Lead the way, Mr Steele,” she says. I try for nonchalance as I come out from behind the counter, but really I’m concentrating hard on not falling over my own feet – my legs are suddenly the consistency of Jell-O. I’m so glad I decided to wear my best jeans this morning.

“They’re in with the electrical goods, aisle eight.” My voice is a little too bright. I glance up at her and regret it almost immediately. Damn, she’s stunning. I blush. “After you,” she murmurs, gesturing with her long-fingered, beautifully manicured hand.

With my heart almost strangling me – because it’s in my throat trying to escape from my mouth – I head down one of the aisles to the electrical section. Why is she in Portland? Why is she here at Clayton’s? And from a very tiny, underused part of my brain – probably located at the base of my medulla oblongata where my subconscious dwells – comes the thought: she’s here to see you. No way! I dismiss it immediately. Why would this beautiful, powerful, urbane woman want to see me? The idea is preposterous, and I kick it out of my head.

“Are you in Portland on business?” I ask, and my voice is too high, like I’ve got my finger trapped in a door or something. Damn! Try to be cool Andy!

“I was visiting the WSU farming division. It’s based in Vancouver. I’m currently funding some research there in crop rotation and soil science,” she says matter-of-factly. See? Not here to find you at all, my subconscious sneers at me, loud, proud, and pouty. I flush at my foolish wayward thoughts.

“All part of your feed-the-world plan?” I tease.

“Something like that,” she acknowledges, and her lips quirk up in a half smile. She gazes at the selection of cable ties we stock at Clayton’s. What on Earth is she going to do with those? I cannot picture her as a do-it-yourselfer at all. Her fingers trail across the various packages displayed, and for some inexplicable reason, I have to look away. She bends and selects a packet.

“These will do,” she says with her oh-so-secret smile, and I blush.

“Is there anything else?”

“I’d like some masking tape.”

Masking tape?

“Are you redecorating?” The words are out before I can stop them. Surely she hires laborers or has staff to help him decorate?

“No, not redecorating,” she says quickly then smirks, and I have the uncanny feeling that he’s laughing at me.

Am I that funny? Funny looking?

“This way,” I murmur embarrassed. “Masking tape is in the decorating aisle.”

I glance behind me as she follows.

“Have you worked here long?” Her voice is low, and she’s gazing at me, gray eyes concentrating hard. I blush even more brightly. Why the hell does she have this effect on me? I feel like I’m fourteen years old – gauche, as always, and out of place. Eyes front Steele!

“Four years,” I mutter as we reach our goal. To distract myself, I reach down and select the two widths of masking tape that we stock.

“I’ll take that one,” Grey says softly pointing to the wider tape, which I pass to her. Our fingers brush very briefly, and the current is there again, zapping through me like I’ve touched an exposed wire. I gasp involuntarily as I feel it, all the way down to somewhere dark and unexplored, deep in my belly. Desperately, I scrabble around for my equilibrium.

“Anything else?” My voice is husky and breathy. Her eyes widen slightly.

“Some rope, I think.” Her voice mirrors mine, husky.

“This way.” I duck my head down to hide my recurring blush and head for the aisle.

“What sort were you after? We have synthetic and natural filament rope… twine… cable cord… ” I halt at her expression, her eyes darkening. Holy cow.

“I’ll take five yards of the natural filament rope please.”

Quickly, with trembling fingers, I measure out five yards against the fixed ruler, aware that her hot gray gaze is on me. I dare not look at her. Jeez, could I feel any more self conscious? Taking my Stanley knife from the back pocket of my jeans, I cut it then coil it neatly before tying it in a slipknot. By some miracle, I manage not to remove a finger with my knife.

“Were you a Boy Scout?” she asks, sculptured, sensual lips curled in amusement. Don’t look at her mouth!

“Organized, group activities aren’t really my thing, Ms. Grey.”

She arches a brow.

“What is your thing, Andrew?” she asks, her voice soft and her secret smile is back. I gaze at her unable to express myself. I’m on shifting tectonic plates. Try and be cool, Andy, my tortured subconscious begs on bended knee.

“Books,” I whisper, but inside, my subconscious is screaming: You! You are my thing! I slap it down instantly, mortified that my psyche is having ideas above its station.

“What kind of books?” She cocks his head to one side. Why is she so interested? “Oh, you know. The usual. The classics. British literature, mainly.” She rubs her chin with her long index finger and thumb as she contemplates my answer. Or perhaps she’s just very bored and trying to hide it.

“Anything else you need?” I have to get off this subject – those fingers on that face are so beguiling.

“I don’t know. What else would you recommend?”

What would I recommend? I don’t even know what you’re doing.

“For a do-it-yourselfer?”

She nods, gray eyes alive with wicked humor. I flush, and my eyes stray of their own accord to her snug jeans.

“Coveralls,” I reply, and I know I’m no longer screening what’s coming out of my mouth.

She raises an eyebrow, amused, yet again.

“You wouldn’t want to ruin your clothing,” I gesture vaguely in the direction of her jeans.

“I could always take them off.” She smirks.

“Um.” I feel the color in my cheeks rising again. I must be the color of the communist manifesto. Stop talking. Stop talking NOW.

“I’ll take some coveralls. Heaven forbid I should ruin any clothing,” she says dryly. I try and dismiss the unwelcome image of her without jeans.

“Do you need anything else?” I squeak as I hand her the blue coveralls. She ignores my inquiry.

“How’s the article coming along?”

She’s finally asked me a normal question, away from all the innuendo and the confusing double talk… a question I can answer. I grasp it tightly with two hands as if it were a life raft, and I go for honesty.

“I’m not writing it, Kyle is. Mr Kavanagh. My roommate, he’s the writer. He’s very happy with it. He’s the editor of the magazine, and he was devastated that he couldn’t do the interview in person.” I feel like I’ve come up for air – at last, a normal topic of conversation. “His only concern is that he doesn’t have any original photographs of you.”

Grey raises an eyebrow.

“What sort of photographs does he want?”

Okay. I hadn’t factored in this response. I shake my head, because I just don’t know.

“Well, I’m around. Tomorrow, perhaps… ” she trails off.

“You’d be willing to attend a photoshoot?” My voice is squeaky again. Kyle will be in seventh heaven if I can pull this off. And you might see her again tomorrow, that dark place at the base of my brain whispers seductively at me. I dismiss the thought – of all the silly, ridiculous…

“Kyle will be delighted – if we can find a photographer.” I’m so pleased, I smile at her broadly. Her lips part, like she’s taking a sharp intake of breath, and she blinks. For a fraction of a second, she looks lost somehow, and the Earth shifts slightly on its axis, the tectonic plates sliding into a new position.

Oh my. Christina Grey’s lost look.

“Let me know about tomorrow.” Reaching into her back pocket, she pulls out her wallet.

“My card. It has my cell number on it. You’ll need to call before ten in the morning.”

“Okay.” I grin up at her. Kyle is going to be thrilled.

“ANDY!”

Pauline has materialized at the other end of the aisle. She’s Mrs. Clayton’s youngest sister. I’d heard she was home from Princeton, but I wasn’t expecting to see her today.

“Er, excuse me for a moment, Ms. Grey.” Grey frowns as I turn away from her. Pauline has always been a buddy, and in this strange moment that I’m having with the rich, powerful, awesomely off-the-scale attractive control-freak Grey, it’s great to talk to someone who’s normal. Pauline hugs me hard, taking me by surprise.

“Andy, hi, it’s so good to see you!” she gushes.

“Hello Pauline, how are you? You home for your sister’s birthday?”

“Yep. You’re looking well, Andy, really well.” She grins as she examines me at arm’s length. Then she releases me but keeps a possessive arm draped over my shoulder. I shuffle from foot to foot, embarrassed. It’s good to see Pauline, but she’s always been over-familiar.

When I glance up at Christina Grey, she’s watching us like a hawk, her gray eyes hooded and speculative, her mouth a hard impassive line. She’s changed from the weirdly attentive customer to someone else – someone cold and distant.

“Pauline, I’m with a customer. Someone you should meet,” I say, trying to defuse the antagonism I see in Grey’s eyes. I drag Pauline over to meet her, and they weigh each other up. The atmosphere is suddenly arctic.

“Er, Pauline, this is Christina Grey. Ms. Grey, this is Pauline Clayton. Her sister owns the place.”

And for some irrational reason, I feel I have to explain a bit more.

“I’ve known Pauline ever since I’ve worked here, though we don’t see each other that often. She’s back from Princeton where she’s studying business administration.”

I’m babbling… Stop, now!

“Ms. Clayton.” Christina holds her hand out, her look unreadable.

“Ms. Grey,” Pauline returns her handshake. “Wait up – not the Christina Grey? Of Grey Enterprises Holdings?” Pauline goes from surly to awestruck in less than a nanosecond. Grey gives her a polite smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Wow – is there anything I can get you?”

“Andrew has it covered, Ms. Clayton. He’s been very attentive.” Her expression is impassive, but her words… it’s like she’s saying something else entirely. It’s baffling.

“Cool,” Paul responds. “Catch you later, Anndy.”

“Sure, Pauline.” I watch her disappear toward the stockroom.

“Anything else, Ms. Grey?”

“Just these items.” Her tone is clipped and cool. Damn… have I offended her? Taking a deep breath, I turn and head for the till. What is her problem?

I ring up the rope, coveralls, masking tape, and cable ties at the till.

“That will be forty-three dollars, please.” I glance up at Grey, and I wish I hadn’t. She’s watching me closely, her gray eyes intense and smoky. It’s unnerving. “Would you like a bag?” I ask as I take her credit card.

“Please, Andrew.” Hier tongue caresses my name, and my heart once again is frantic. I can hardly breathe. Hurriedly, I place her purchases in a plastic carrier. “You’ll call me if you want me to do the photoshoot?” She’s all business once more. I nod, rendered speechless yet again, and hand back her credit card.

“Good. Until tomorrow perhaps.” She turns to leave, then pauses.

“Oh – and Andrew, I’m glad Mr Kavanagh couldn’t do the interview.” She smiles, then strides with renewed purpose out of the store, slinging the plastic bag over her shoulder, leaving me a quivering mass of raging male hormones. I spend several minutes staring at the closed door through which she’s just left before I return to planet Earth.

Okay – I like her. There, I’ve admitted it to myself. I cannot hide from my feelings anymore. I’ve never felt like this before. I find her attractive, very attractive. But it’s a lost cause, I know, and I sigh with bittersweet regret. It was just a coincidence, her coming here. But still, I can admire her from afar, surely? No harm can come of that. And if I find a photographer, I can do some serious admiring tomorrow. I bite my lip in anticipation and find myself grinning like a schoolgirl. I need to phone Kyle and organize a photo-shoot.

Chapter Three

Kyle is ecstatic.

“But what was she doing at Clayton’s?” His curiosity oozes through the phone. I’m in the depths of the stock room, trying to keep my voice casual.

“She was in the area.”

“I think that is one huge coincidence, Andy. You don’t think she was there to see you?” he speculates. My heart lurches at the prospect, but it’s a short-lived joy. The dull, disappointing reality is that she was here on business.

“She was visiting the farming division of WSU. She’s funding some research,” I mutter. “Oh yes. She’s given the department a $2.5 million grant.”

Wow.

“How do you know this?”

“Andy, I’m a journalist, and I’ve written a profile on the lady. It’s my job to know this.”

“Okay, Clarke Kent, keep your hair on. So do you want these photos?”

“Of course I do. The question is, who’s going to do them and where.”

“We could ask her where. She says she’s staying in the area.”

“You can contact her?”

“I have her cell phone number.”

Kyle gasps.

“The richest, most elusive, most enigmatic woman in Washington State, just gave you her cell phone number.”

“Er… yes.”

“Andy! She likes you. No doubt about it.” His tone is emphatic.

“Kyle, he’s just trying to be nice.” But even as I say the words, I know they’re not true – Christina Grey doesn’t do nice. She does polite, maybe. And a small quiet voice whispers, perhaps Kyle is right. My scalp prickles at the idea that maybe, just maybe, she might like me. After all, she did say she was glad Kyle didn’t do the interview. I hug myself with quiet glee, rocking from side to side, entertaining the possibility that she might like me for one brief moment. Kyle brings me back to the now.

“I don’t know who we’ll get to do the shoot. Lucy, our regular photographer, can’t. She’s home in Idaho Falls for the weekend. She’ll be pissed that she blew an opportunity to photograph one of America’s leading entrepreneurs.”

“Hmm… What about Josie?”

“Great idea! You ask her – she’ll do anything for you. Then call Grey and find out where she wants us.” Kyle is irritatingly cavalier about Josie.

“I think you should call her.”

“Who, Josie?” Kyle scoffs.

“No, Grey.”

“Andy, you’re the one with the relationship.”

“Relationship?” I squeak at him, my voice rising several octaves. “I barely know the guy.”

“At least you’ve met her,” he says bitterly. “And it looks like she wants to know you better. Andy, just call her,” he snaps and hangs up. He is so bossy sometimes. I frown at my cell, sticking my tongue out at it.

I’m just leaving a message for Josie when Pauline enters the stock room looking for sandpaper.

“We’re kind of busy out there, Andy,” she says without acrimony.

“Yeah, um, sorry,” I mutter, turning to leave.

“So, how come you know Christina Grey?” Paulina’s voice is unconvincingly nonchalant.

“I had to interview her for our student newspaper. Kyle wasn’t well.” I shrug, trying to sound casual and doing no better than her.

“Christina Grey in Clayton’s. Go figure,” Pauline snorts, amazed. She shakes her head as if to clear it.

“Anyway, want to grab a drink or something this evening?” Whenever she’s home she asks me on a date, and I always say no. It’s a ritual. I’ve never considered it a good idea to date the boss’s sister, and besides, Pauline is cute in a wholesome all-American girl-next-door kind of way, but she’s no literary hero, not by any stretch of the imagination. Is Grey? My subconscious asks me, eyebrow figuratively raised. I slap it down.

“Don’t you have a family dinner or something for your sister?”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“Maybe some other time, Pauline. I need to study tonight. I have my finals next week.”

“Andy, one of these days, you’ll say yes,” she smiles as I escape out to the store floor.

“But I do places, Andy, not people,” Josie groans.

“Josie, please?” I beg. Clutching my cell, I pace the living area of our apartment, staring out of the window at the fading evening light.

“Give me that phone.” Kyle grabs the handset from me, tossing his silken red-blonde hair.

“Listen here, Josie Rodriquez, if you want our newspaper to cover the opening of your show, you’ll do this shoot for us tomorrow, capiche?” Kyle can be awesomely tough. “Good. Andy will call back with the location and the call time. We’ll see you tomorrow.” He snaps my cell phone shut.

“Sorted. All we need to do now is decide where and when. Call her.” He holds the phone out to me. My stomach twists.

“Call Grey, now!”

I scowl at him and reach into my back pocket for her business card. I take a deep, steadying breath, and with shaking fingers, I dial the number.

She answers on the second ring. Her tone is clipped, calm and cold.

“Grey.”

“Err… Ms. Grey? It’s Andrew Steele.” I don’t recognize my own voice, I’m so nervous. There’s a brief pause. Inside I’m quaking.

“Mr Steele. How nice to hear from you.” Her voice has changed. She’s surprised, I think, and she sounds so… warm – seductive even. My breath hitches, and I flush. I’m suddenly conscious that Kyle Kavanagh is staring at me, his mouth open, and I dart into the kitchen to avoid his unwanted scrutiny.

“Err – we’d like to go ahead with the photo-shoot for the article.” Breathe, Andy, breathe. My lungs drag in a hasty breath. “Tomorrow, if that’s okay. Where would be convenient for you?”

I can almost hear his sphinx-like smile through the phone.

“I’m staying at the Heathman in Portland. Shall we say, nine thirty tomorrow morning?”

“Okay, we’ll see you there.” I am all gushing and breathy – like a child, not a grown man who can vote and drink legally in the State of Washington.

“I look forward to it, Mr Steele.” I visualize the wicked gleam in her gray eyes. How can she make seven little words hold so much tantalizing promise? I hang up. Kyle is in the kitchen, and he’s staring at me with a look of complete and utter consternation on his face.

“Andrew Robert Steele. You like her! I’ve never seen or heard you so, so… affected by anyone before. You’re actually blushing.”

“Oh Kyle, you know I blush all the time. It’s an occupational hazard with me. Don’t be so ridiculous,” I snap. He blinks at me with surprise – I very rarely throw my toys out of the pram – and I briefly relent. “I just find her… intimidating, that’s all.”

“Heathman, that figures,” mutters Kyle. “I’ll give the manager a call and negotiate a space for the shoot.”

“I’ll make supper. Then I need to study.” I cannot hide my irritation with him as I open one of the cupboards to make supper.

I am restless that night, tossing and turning. Dreaming of smoky gray eyes, coveralls, long legs, long fingers, and dark, dark unexplored places. I wake twice in the night, my heart pounding. Oh, I’m going to look just great tomorrow with so little sleep, I scold myself. I punch my pillow and try to settle.

The Heathman is nestled in the downtown heart of Portland. Its impressive brown stone edifice was completed just in time for the crash of the late 1920s. Josie, Tricia, and I are traveling in my Beetle, and Kyle is in his CLK, since we can’t all fit in my car. Tricia is José’s friend and gopher, here to help out with the lighting. Kyle has managed to acquire the use of a room at the Heathman free of charge for the morning in exchange for a credit in the article. When he explains at reception that we’re here to photograph Christina Grey CEO, we are instantly upgraded to a suite. Just a regular-sized suite, however, as apparently Ms. Grey is already occupying the largest one in the building. An over-keen marketing executive shows us up to the suite – she’s terribly young and very nervous for some reason. I suspect it’s Kyle’s beauty and commanding manner that disarms her, because she’s putty in his hands. The rooms are elegant, understated, and opulently furnished.

It’s nine. We have half an hour to set up. Kyle is in full flow.

“Josie, I think we’ll shoot against that wall, do you agree?” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “Tricia, clear the chairs. Andy, could you ask housekeeping to bring up some refreshments? And let Grey know where we are.”

Yes, Master. He’s so domineering. I roll my eyes, but do as I’m told. Half an hour later, Christina Grey walks into our suite.

Holy Crap! She’s wearing a white shirt, open at the collar, and a grey flannel skirt that hangs from her hips. Her unruly hair is still damp from a shower. My mouth goes dry looking at her… she’s so freaking hot. Grey is followed into the suite by a woman in her mid-thirties, a pixie cut and glasses in a sharp dark suit and tie who stands silently in the corner. Her hazel eyes watch us impassively.

“Mr Steele, we meet again.” Grey extends her hand, and I shake it, blinking rapidly. Oh my… she really is, quite… wow. As I touch her hand, I’m aware of that delicious current running right through me, lighting me up, making me blush, and I’m sure my erratic breathing must be audible.

“Ms. Grey, this is Kyle Kavanagh,” I mutter, waving a hand toward Kyle who comes forward, looking her squarely in the eye.

“The tenacious Mr Kavanagh. How do you do?” She gives her a small smile, looking genuinely amused. “I trust you’re feeling better? Andrew said you were unwell last week.

“I’m fine, thank you, Ms Grey.” He shakes his hand firmly without batting an eyelid. I remind myself that Kyle has been to the best private schools in Washington. His family has money, and he’s grown up confident and sure of his place in the world. He doesn’t take any crap. I am in awe of him.

“Thank you for taking the time to do this.” He gives her a polite, professional smile. “It’s a pleasure,” she answers, turning her gray gaze on me, and I flush, again. Damn it.

“This is Josie Rodriguez, our photographer,” I say, grinning at Josie who smiles with affection back at me. Her eyes cool when she looks from me to Grey. “Ms. Grey,” he nods.

“Ms. Rodriguez,” Grey’s expression changes too as she appraises Josie.

“Where would you like me?” Grey asks her. Her tone sounds vaguely threatening. But Kyle is not about to let Josie run the show.

“Ms. Grey – if you could sit here, please? Be careful of the lighting cables. And then we’ll do a few standing, too.” He directs her to a chair set up against the wall. Tricia switches on the lights, momentarily blinding Grey, and mutters an apology. Then Tricia and I stand back and watch as Josie proceeds to snap away. She takes several photographs hand-held, asking Grey to turn this way, then that, to move her arm, then put it down again. Moving to the tripod, Josie takes several more, while Grey sits and poses, patiently and naturally, for about twenty minutes. My wish has come true: I can stand and admire Grey from not-so-afar. Twice our eyes lock, and I have to tear myself away from her cloudy gaze.

“Enough sitting.” Kyle wades in again. “Standing, Ms. Grey?” he asks. She stands, and Tricia scurries in to remove the chair. The shutter on Josie’s Nikon starts clicking again.

“I think we have enough,” Josie announces five minutes later.

“Great,” says Kyle. “Thank you again, Ms. Grey.” He shakes her hand, as does Josie.

“I look forward to reading the article, Mr Kavanagh,” murmurs Grey, and turns to me, standing by the door. “Will you walk with me, Mr Steele?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say, completely thrown. I glance anxiously at Kyle, who shrugs at me. I notice Josie scowling behind him.

“Good day to you all,” says Grey as she opens the door, standing aside to allow me out first.

Holy hell… what’s this about? What does she want? I pause in the hotel corridor, fidgeting nervously as Grey emerges from the room followed by Ms. Pixie-Cut in her sharp suit. “I’ll call you, Taylor,” she murmurs to Pixie-Cut. Taylor wanders back down the corridor, and Grey turns her burning gray gaze to me. Crap… have I done something wrong?

“I wondered if you would join me for coffee this morning.”

My heart slams into my mouth. A date? Christina Grey is asking me on a date. She’s asking if you want a coffee. Maybe she thinks you haven’t woken up yet, my subconscious whines at me in a sneering mood again. I clear my throat trying to control my nerves.

“I have to drive everyone home,” I murmur apologetically, twisting my hands and fingers in front of me.

“TAYLOR,” she calls, making me jump. Taylor, who had been retreating down the corridor, turns and heads back toward us.

“Are they based at the university?” Grey asks, her voice soft and inquiring. I nod, too stunned to speak.

“Taylor can take them. She’s my driver. We have a large 4x4 here, so she’ll be able to take the equipment too.”

“Ms. Grey?” Taylor asks when she reaches us, giving nothing away.

“Please, can you drive the photographer, her assistant, and Mr Kavanagh back home?”

“Certainly, ma’am,” Taylor replies.

“There. Now can you join me for coffee?” Grey smiles as if it’s a done deal. I frown at her.

“Um – Ms. Grey, err – this really… look, Taylor doesn’t have to drive them home.” I flash a brief look at Taylor, who remains stoically impassive. “I’ll swap vehicles with Kyle, if you give me a moment.”

Grey smiles a dazzling, unguarded, natural, all-teeth-showing, glorious smile. Oh my… and she opens the door of the suite so I can re-enter. I scoot around her to enter the room, finding Kyle in deep discussion with Josie.

“Andy, I think she definitely likes you,” he says with no preamble whatsoever. Josie glares at me with disapproval. “But I don’t trust her,” he adds. I raise my hand up in the hope that he’ll stop talking. By some miracle, he does.

“Kyle, if you take the Beetle, can I take your car?”

“Why?”

“Christina Grey has asked me to go for coffee with her.”

His mouth pops open. Speechless Kyle! I savor the moment. He grabs me by my arm and drags me into the bedroom that’s off the living area of the suite.

“Andy, there’s something about her.” His tone is full of warning. “She’s gorgeous, I agree, but I think she’s dangerous. Especially to someone like you.”

“What do you mean, someone like me?” I demand, affronted.

“An innocent like you, Andy. You know what I mean,” he says, a little irritated. I flush.

“Kyle, it’s just coffee. I’m starting my exams this week, and I need to study, so I won’t be long.”

He purses his lips as if considering my request. Finally, he fishes his car keys out of his pocket and hands them to me. I hand him mine.

“I’ll see you later. Don’t be long, or I’ll send out search and rescue.”

“Thanks.” I hug him.

I emerge from the suite to find Christina Grey waiting, leaning up against the wall, looking like a model in a pose for some glossy high-end magazine. “Okay, let’s do coffee,” I murmur, flushing a beet red.

She grins.

“After you, Mr Steele.” She stands up straight, holding her hand out for me to go first. I make my way down the corridor, my knees shaky, my stomach full of butterflies, and my heart in my mouth thumping a dramatic uneven beat. I am going to have coffee with Christina Grey... and I hate coffee.

We walk together down the wide hotel corridor to the elevators. What should I say to her? My mind is suddenly paralyzed with apprehension. What are we going to talk about? What on Earth do I have in common with her? Her soft, warm voice startles me from my reverie.

“How long have you known Kyle Kavanagh?”

Oh, easy questions for starters.

“Since our freshman year. He’s a good friend.”

“Hmm,” she replies, non-committal. What is she thinking?

At the elevators, she presses the call button, and the bell rings almost immediately. The doors slide open revealing a young couple in a passionate clinch inside. Surprised and embarrassed, they jump apart, staring guiltily in every direction but ours. Grey and I step into the elevator.

I am struggling to maintain a straight face, so I gaze down at the floor, feeling my cheeks turning pink. When I peek up at Grey through my lashes, she has a hint of a smile on her lips, but it’s very hard to tell. The young couple says nothing, and we travel down to the first floor in embarrassed silence. We don’t even have trashy piped music to distract us.

The doors open and, much to my surprise, Grey takes my hand, clasping it with her long cool fingers. I feel the current run through me, and my already rapid heartbeat accelerates. As she leads me out of the elevator, we can hear the suppressed giggles of the couple erupting behind us. Grey grins.

“What is it about elevators?” she mutters.

We cross the expansive, bustling lobby of the hotel toward the entrance but Grey avoids the revolving door, and I wonder if that’s because she’d have to let go of my hand. Outside, it’s a mild May Sunday. The sun is shining and the traffic is light. Grey turns left and strolls to the corner, where we stop waiting for the lights of the pedestrian crossing to change. She’s still holding my hand. I’m in the street, and Christina Grey is holding my hand. No one has ever held my hand. I feel giddy, and I tingle all over. I attempt to smother the ridiculous grin that threatens to split my face in two. Try to be cool, Andy, my subconscious implores me. The green man appears, and we’re off again. We walk four blocks before we reach the Portland Coffee House, where Grey releases me to hold the door open so I can step inside.

“Why don’t you choose a table, while I get the drinks. What would you like?” she asks, polite as ever.

“I’ll have… um – English Breakfast tea, bag out.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“No coffee?”

“I’m not keen on coffee.”

She smiles.

“Okay, bag out tea. Sugar?”

For a moment, I’m stunned, thinking it’s an endearment, but fortunately my subconscious kicks in with pursed lips. No, stupid – do you take sugar?

“No thanks.” I stare down at my knotted fingers.

“Anything to eat?”

“No thank you.” I shake my head, and she heads to the counter.

I surreptitiously gaze at her from beneath my lashes as she stands in line waiting to be served. I could watch her all day… she’s tall, broad-shouldered, and slim, and the way that skirt hangs from her hips… Oh my. Once or twice she runs her long, graceful fingers through her now dry but still disorderly hair. Hmm… I’d like to do that. The thought comes unbidden into my mind, and my face flames. I bite my lip and stare down at my hands again not liking where my wayward thoughts are headed.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Grey is back, startling me.

I go crimson. I was just thinking about running my fingers through your hair and wondering if it would feel soft to touch. I shake my head. She’s carrying a tray, which she sets down on the small, round, birch-veneer table. She hands me a cup and saucer, a small teapot, and a side plate bearing a lone teabag labeled ‘Twinings English Breakfast’ – my favorite. She has a coffee which bears a wonderful leaf-pattern imprinted in the milk. How do they do that? I wonder idly. She’s also bought herself a blueberry muffin. Putting the tray aside, she sits opposite me and crosses her long legs. She looks so comfortable, so at ease with her body, I envy her. Here’s me, all gawky and uncoordinated, barely able to get from A to B without falling flat on my face.

“Your thoughts?” she prompts me.

“This is my favorite tea.” My voice is quiet, breathy. I simply can’t believe I’m sitting opposite Christina Grey in a coffee shop in Portland. She frowns. She knows I’m hiding something. I pop the teabag into the teapot and almost immediately fish it out again with my teaspoon. As I place the used teabag back on the side plate, she cocks her head, gazing quizzically at me.

“I like my tea black and weak,” I mutter as an explanation.

“I see. Is she your girlfriend?”

Whoa… What?

“Who?”

“The photographer. Josie Rodriguez.”

I laugh, nervous but curious. What gave her that impression?

“No. Josie’s a good friend of mine, that’s all. Why did you think she was my girlfriend?”

“The way you smiled at her, and she at you.” Her gray gaze holds mine. She’s so unnerving. I want to look away but I’m caught – spellbound.

“She’s more like family,” I whisper.

Grey nods slightly, seemingly satisfied with my response, and glances down at her blueberry muffin. Her long fingers deftly peel back the paper, and I watch, fascinated.

“Do you want some?” she asks, and that amused, secret smile is back.

“No thanks.” I frown and stare down at my hands again.

“And the girl I met yesterday, at the store. She’s not your girlfriend?”

“No. Pauline’s just a friend. I told you yesterday.” Oh, this is getting silly. “Why do you ask?”

“You seem nervous around women.”

Holy crap, that’s personal. I’m just nervous around you, Grey.

“I find you intimidating.” I flush scarlet, but mentally pat myself on the back for my candor, and gaze at my hands again. I hear her sharp intake of breath.

“You should find me intimidating,” she nods. “You’re very honest. Please don’t look down. I like to see your face.”

Oh. I glance at her, and she gives me an encouraging but wry smile.

“It gives me some sort of clue what you might be thinking,” she breathes. “You’re a mystery, Mr Steele.”

Mysterious? Me?

“There’s nothing mysterious about me.”

“I think you’re very self-contained,” she murmurs.

Am I? Wow… how am I managing that? This is bewildering. Me, self-contained? No Way.

“Except when you blush, of course, which is often. I just wish I knew what you were blushing about.” She pops a small piece of muffin into her mouth and starts to chew it slowly, not taking her eyes off me. And as if on cue, I blush. Crap!

“Do you always make such personal observations?”

“I hadn’t realized I was. Have I offended you?” She sounds surprised.

“No,” I answer truthfully.

“Good.”

“But you’re very high-handed,” I retaliate quietly.

She raises her eyebrows and, if I’m not mistaken, she flushes slightly too.

“I’m used to getting my own way, Andrew,” she murmurs. “In all things.”

“I don’t doubt it. Why haven’t you asked me to call you by your first name?”

I’m surprised by my audacity. Why has this conversation become so serious? This isn’t going the way I thought it was going to go. I can’t believe I’m feeling so antagonistic towards her. It’s like she’s trying to warn me off.

“The only people who use my given name are my family and a few close friends. That’s the way I like it.”

Oh. She still hasn’t said, ‘Call me Christina.’ She is a control freak, there’s no other explanation, and part of me is thinking maybe it would have been better if Kyle had interviewed her. Two control freaks together. Plus of course he’s almost blonde – well, strawberry blonde – like all the men in her office. And he’s beautiful, my subconscious reminds me. I don’t like the idea of Christina and Kyle. I take a sip of my tea, and Grey eats another small piece of her muffin.

“Are you an only child?” she asks.

Whoa… she keeps changing direction.

“Yes.”

“Tell me about your parents.”

Why does she want to know this? It’s so dull.

“My dad lives in Georgia with his new wife Barb. My stepmum lives in Montesano.”

“Your mother?”

“My mother died when I was a baby.”

“I’m sorry,” she mutters and a fleeting troubled look crosses her face.

“I don’t remember her.”

“And your father remarried?”

I snort.

“You could say that.”

She frowns at me.

“You’re not giving much away, are you?” she says dryly, rubbing her chin as if in deep thought.

“Neither are you.”

“You’ve interviewed me once already, and I can recollect some quite probing questions then.” She smirks at me.

Holy shit. She’s remembering the ‘gay’ question. Once again, I’m mortified. In years to come, I know, I’ll need intensive therapy to not feel this embarrassed every time I recall the moment. I start babbling about my father – anything to block that memory.

“My dad is wonderful. He’s an incurable romantic. He’s currently on his fourth wife.”

Christina raises her eyebrows in surprise.

“I miss him,” I continue. “He has Barb now. I just hope she can keep an eye on him and pick up the pieces when his harebrained schemes don’t go as planned.” I smile fondly. I haven’t seen my dad for so long. Christina is watching me intently, taking occasional sips of her coffee. I really shouldn’t look at her mouth. It’s unsettling. Those lips.

“Do you get along with your stepmother?”

“Of course. I grew up with her. She’s the only mother I know.”

“And what’s she like?”

“Rachel? She’s… taciturn.”

“That’s it?” Grey asks, surprised.

I shrug. What does this woman expect? My life story?

“Taciturn like her stepson,” Grey prompts.

I refrain from rolling my eyes at her.

“She likes soccer – European soccer especially – and bowling, and fly-fishing, and making furniture. She’s a carpenter. Ex-army.” I sigh.

“You lived with her?”

“Yes. My dad met Wife Number Three when I was fifteen. I stayed with Rachel.” She frowns as if she doesn’t understand.

“You didn’t want to live with your dad?” she asks.

I blush. This really is none of her business.

“Wife Number Three lived in Texas. My home was in Montesano. And… you know my dad was newly married.” I stop. My dad never talks about Wife Number Three. Where is Grey going with this? This is none of her business. Two can play at this game.

“Tell me about your parents,” I ask.

She shrugs.

“My mother’s a lawyer, my father is a pediatrician. They live in Seattle.”

Oh… she’s had an affluent upbringing. And I wonder about a successful couple who adopt three kids, and one of them turns into a beautiful woman who takes on the business world and conquers it single-handed. What drove her to be that way? Her folks must be proud.

“What do your siblings do?”

“Ellen’s in construction, and my little brother is in Paris, studying cookery under some renowned French chef.” Her eyes cloud with irritation. She doesn’t want to talk about her family or herself.

“I hear Paris is lovely,” I murmur. Why doesn’t she want to talk about her family? Is it because she’s adopted?

“It’s beautiful. Have you been?” she asks, her irritation forgotten.

“I’ve never left mainland USA.” So now we’re back to banalities. What is she hiding?

“Would you like to go?”

“To Paris?” I squeak. This has thrown me – who wouldn’t want to go to Paris? “Of course,” I concede. “But it’s England that I’d really like to visit.”

She cocks her head to one side, running her index finger across her lower lip… oh my.

“Because?”

I blink rapidly. Concentrate, Steele.

“It’s the home of Shakespeare, Austen, the Brontë sisters, Thomas Hardy. I’d like to see the places that inspired those people to write such wonderful books.” All this talk of literary greats reminds me that I should be studying. I glance at my watch.

“I’d better go. I have to study.”

“For your exams?”

“Yes. They start Tuesday.”

“Where’s Mr Kavanagh’s car?”

“In the hotel parking lot.”

“I’ll walk you back.”

“Thank you for the tea, Ms. Grey.”

She smiles her odd ‘I’ve got a whopping big secret’ smile.

“You’re welcome, Andrew. It’s my pleasure. Come,” she commands, and holds her hand out to me. I take it, bemused, and follow her out of the coffee shop. We stroll back to the hotel, and I’d like to say it’s in companionable silence. She at least looks her usual calm, collected self. As for me, I’m desperately trying to gauge how our little coffee morning has gone. I feel like I’ve been interviewed for a position, but I’m not sure what it is.

“Do you always wear jeans?” she asks out of the blue.

“Mostly.”

She nods. We’re back at the intersection, across the road from the hotel. My mind is reeling. What an odd question… And I’m aware that our time together is limited. This is it. This was it, and I’ve completely blown it, I know. Perhaps he has someone.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” I blurt out. Holy crap - I just said that out loud? Her lips quirk up in a half-smile, and she looks at me.

“No, Andrew. I don’t do the girlfriend thing,” she says softly.

Oh… what does that mean? She’s not gay? Oh, maybe she is - crap! She must have lied to me in her interview. And for a moment, I think she’s going to follow on with some explanation, some clue to this cryptic statement – but she doesn’t. I have to go. I have to try to reassemble my thoughts. I have to get away from her. I walk forward, and I trip, stumbling headlong onto the road.

“Shit, Andy!” Grey cries. She tugs the hand that she’s holding so hard that I fall back against her just as a cyclist whips past, narrowly missing me, heading the wrong way up this one-way street.

It all happens so fast – one minute I’m falling, the next I’m in her arms, and she’s holding me tightly against her chest. I inhale her clean, vital scent. She smells of fresh laundered linen and some expensive body-wash. Oh my, it’s intoxicating. I inhale deeply.

“Are you okay?” she whispers. She has one arm around me, clasping me to her, while the fingers of her other hand softly trace my face, gently probing, examining me. Her thumb brushes my lower lip, and I hear her breath hitch. She’s staring into my eyes, and I hold her anxious, burning gaze for a moment or maybe it’s forever… but eventually, my attention is drawn to her beautiful mouth. Oh my. And for the first time in twenty-one years, I want to be kissed. I want to feel her mouth on me.

Chapter Four

Kiss me damn it! I implore her, but I can’t move. I’m paralyzed with a strange, unfamiliar need, completely captivated by her. I’m staring at Christina Grey’s exquisitely sculptured mouth, mesmerized, and she’s looking down at me, her gaze hooded, her eyes darkening. She’s breathing harder than usual, and I’ve stopped breathing altogether. I’m in your arms. Kiss me, please. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and gives me a small shake of her head as if in answer to my silent question. When she opens her eyes again, it’s with some new purpose, a steely resolve. 

“Andrew, you should steer clear of me. I’m not the woman for you,” she whispers.  What? Where is this coming from? Surely I should be the judge of that. I frown at her, and my head swims with rejection. 

“Breathe, Andrew, breathe. I’m going to stand you up and let you go,” she says quietly, and she gently pushes me away. 

Adrenaline has spiked through my body, from the near miss with the cyclist or the  heady proximity to Christina, leaving me wired and weak. NO! My psyche screams as she pulls away, leaving me bereft. She has her hands on my shoulders, holding me at arm’s length, watching my reactions carefully. And the only thing I can think is that I wanted to be kissed, made it pretty damned obvious, and she didn’t do it. She doesn’t want me. She really doesn’t want me. I have royally screwed up the coffee morning.

“I’ve got this,” I breathe, finding my voice. “Thank you,” I mutter awash with humiliation. How could I have misread the situation between us so utterly? I need to get away from her. 

“For what?” she frowns. She hasn’t taken her hands off me. 

“For saving me,” I whisper. 

“That idiot was riding the wrong way. I’m glad I was here. I shudder to think what  could have happened to you. Do you want to come and sit down in the hotel for a moment?” She releases me, her hands by her sides, and I’m standing in front of her feeling like a fool. 

With a shake, I clear my head. I just want to go. All my vague, unarticulated hopes  have been dashed. She doesn’t want me. What was I thinking? I scold myself. What would Christina Grey want with you? My subconscious mocks me. I wrap my arms around myself and turn to face the road and note with relief that the green man has appeared. I quickly make my way across, conscious that Grey is behind me. Outside the hotel, I turn briefly to  face her but cannot look her in the eye. 

“Thanks for the tea and doing the photoshoot,” I murmur. 

“Andrew… I… ” She stops, and the anguish in her voice demands my attention, so I  peer unwillingly up at her. Her gray eyes are bleak as she runs her hand through her hair.  She looks torn, frustrated, her expression stark, all her careful control has evaporated. 

“What, Christina?” I snap irritably after she says – nothing. I just want to go. I need to take my fragile, wounded pride away and somehow nurse it back to health. “Good luck with your exams,” she murmurs. 

Huh? This is why she looks so desolate? This is the big send off? Just to wish me luck in my exams? 

“Thanks.” I can’t disguise the sarcasm in my voice. “Goodbye, Ms. Grey.” I turn on  my heel, vaguely amazed that I don’t trip, and without giving her a second glance, I disappear down the sidewalk toward the underground garage. 

Once underneath the dark, cold concrete of the garage with its bleak fluorescent light, I lean against the wall and put my head in my hands. What was I thinking? Unbidden and unwelcome tears pool in my eyes. Why am I crying? I sink to the ground, angry at myself  for this senseless reaction. Drawing up my knees, I fold in on myself. I want to make  myself as small as possible. Perhaps this nonsensical pain will be smaller the smaller I am. Placing my head on my knees, I let the irrational tears fall unrestrained. I am crying over the loss of something I never had. How ridiculous. Mourning something that never was –  my dashed hopes, dashed dreams, and my soured expectations. 

I have never been on the receiving end of rejection. Okay… so I was always one of the last to be picked for basketball or volleyball – but I understood that – running and doing something else at the same time like bouncing or throwing a ball is not my thing. I am a serious liability in any sporting field. 

Romantically, though, I’ve never put myself out there, ever. A lifetime of insecurity  – I’m too pale, too skinny, too scruffy, uncoordinated, my long list of faults goes on. So I have always been the one to rebuff any would be admirers. There was that girl in my chemistry class who liked me, but no one has ever sparked my interest – no one except Christina damn Grey. Maybe I should be kinder to the likes of Pauline Clayton and Josie Rodriguez, though I’m sure neither of them have been found sobbing alone in dark places.  Perhaps I just need a good cry. 

Stop! Stop Now! - My subconscious is metaphorically screaming at me, arms folded, leaning on one leg and tapping his foot in frustration. Get in the car, go home, do your studying. Forget about her… Now! And stop all this self-pitying, wallowing crap.  

I take a deep, steadying breath and stand up. Get it together Steele. I head for Kyle’s  car, wiping the tears off my face as I do. I will not think of her again. I can just chalk this incident up to experience and concentrate on my exams. 

Kyle is sitting at the dining table at his laptop when I arrive. His welcoming smile fades when he sees me. 

“Andy what’s wrong?” 

Oh no… not the Kyle Kavanagh Inquisition. I shake my head at him in a back-off  now Kavanagh way – but I might as well be dealing with a brick wall. 

“You’ve been crying,” he has an exceptional gift for stating the damned obvious  sometimes. 

“What did that bitch do to you?” he growls, and his face – jeez, he’s scary. “Nothing Kyle.” That’s actually the problem. The thought brings a wry smile to my  face. 

“Then why have you been crying? You never cry,” he says, his voice softening. 

He stands, his green eyes brimming with concern. He puts his arms around me and hugs me. I need to say something just to get him to back off. 

“I was nearly knocked over by a cyclist.” It’s the best that I can do, but it distracts him momentarily from… her. 

“Jeez Andy – are you okay? Were you hurt?” He holds me at arm’s length and does a quick visual check-up on me. 

“No. Christina saved me,” I whisper. “But I was quite shaken.” 

“I’m not surprised. How was coffee? I know you hate coffee.” 

“I had tea. It was fine, nothing to report really. I don’t know why she asked me.” “She likes you Andy.” He drops his arms. 

“Not anymore. I won’t be seeing her again.” Yes, I manage to sound matter of fact. “Oh?”

Crap. He’s intrigued. I head into the kitchen so that he can’t see my face.  

“Yeah… she’s a little out of my league Kyle,” I say as dryly as I can manage. “What do you mean?” 

“Oh Kyle, it’s obvious.” I whirl round and face him as he stands in the kitchen doorway. 

“Not to me,” he says. “Okay, she’s got more money than you, but then she has more money than most people in America!” 

“Kyle she’s– ” I shrug. 

“Andy! For heaven’s sake – how many times must I tell you? You’re a total babe,” he interrupts me. Oh no. He’s off on this tirade again. 

“Kyle, please. I need to study.” I cut him short. He frowns.  

“Do you want to see the article? It’s finished. Josie took some great pictures.”

Do I need a visual reminder of the beautiful Christina I-don’t-want-you Grey?

“Sure,” I magic a smile on my face and stroll over to the laptop. And there she is,  staring at me in black and white, staring at me and finding me lacking.  

I pretend to read the article, all the time meeting her steady gray gaze, searching the photo for some clue as to why she’s not the woman for me – her own words to me. And it’s suddenly, blindingly obvious. She’s too gloriously good-looking. We are poles apart and from two very different worlds. I have a vision of myself as Icarus flying too close to the  sun and crashing and burning as a result. Her words make sense. She’s not the woman for me. This is what she meant, and it makes her rejection easier to accept… almost. I can live with this. I understand. 

“Very good Kyle,” I manage. “I’m going to study.” 

I am not going to think about her again for now, I vow to myself, and opening my revision notes, I start to read. 

It’s only when I’m in bed, trying to sleep, that I allow my thoughts to drift through my strange morning. I keep coming back to the ‘I don’t do the boyfriend thing’ quote, and I’m angry that I didn’t pounce on this information sooner, when I was in her arms mentally begging her with every fiber of my being to kiss me. She’d said it there and then. She didn’t want me as a boyfriend. I turn on my side. Idly, I wonder if perhaps she’s celibate? I  close my eyes and begin to drift. Maybe she’s saving herself. Well not for you, my sleepy subconscious has a final swipe at me before unleashing itself on my dreams. And that night, I dream of gray eyes, leafy patterns in milk, and I’m running through dark places with eerie strip lighting, and I don’t know if I’m running toward something or away from it… it’s just not clear. 

* * *

I put my pen down. Finished. My final exam is over. I feel the Cheshire cat grin  spread over my face. It’s probably the first time all week that I’ve smiled. It’s Friday, and we shall be celebrating tonight, really celebrating. I might even get drunk! I’ve never been drunk before. I glance across the sports hall at Kyle, and he’s still scribbling furiously, five minutes to the end. This is it, the end of my academic career. I’ll never have to sit in rows of anxious, isolated students again. Inside I’m doing graceful cartwheels around my head, knowing full well that’s the only place I can do graceful cartwheels. Kyle stops writing and puts his pen down. He glances across at me, and I catch his Cheshire cat smile too. 

We head back to our apartment together in his Mercedes, refusing to discuss our final paper. Kyle is more concerned about what he’s going to wear to the bar this evening. I am busily fishing around for my keys.

“Andy, there’s a package for you.” Kyle is standing on the steps up to the front door holding a brown paper parcel. Odd. I haven’t ordered anything from Amazon recently. Kyle gives me the parcel and takes my keys to open the front door. It’s addressed to Mr Andrew Steele. There’s no sender’s address or name. Perhaps it’s from my dad or Rachel. 

“It’s probably from my folks.” 

“Open it!” Kyle is excited as he heads into the kitchen for our ‘Exams are finished  hurrah Champagne’. 

I open the parcel, and inside I find a half leather box containing three seemingly identical old cloth-covered books in mint condition and a plain white card. Written on one side, in black ink in neat cursive handwriting, is: 

Why didn’t you tell me there was danger?Why didn’t you warn me? 

Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks...

I recognize the quote from Tess. I am stunned by the irony as I’ve just spent three  hours writing about the novels of Thomas Hardy in my final examination. Perhaps there is no irony… perhaps it’s deliberate. I inspect the books closely, three volumes of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I open the front cover. Written in an old typeface on the front plate is: 

‘London: Jack R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., 1891.’ 

Holy shit - they’re first editions. They must be worth a fortune, and I know immediately who’s sent them. Kyle is at my shoulder gazing at the books. He picks up the card. 

“First Editions,” I whisper. 

“No.” Kyle’s eyes are wide with disbelief. “Grey?” 

I nod. 

“Can’t think of anyone else.” 

“What does this card mean?” 

“I have no idea. I think it’s a warning – honestly she keeps warning me off. I have no idea why. It’s not like I’m beating her door down.” I frown. 

“I know you don’t want to talk about her, Andy, but she’s seriously into you. Warnings or no.” 

I have not let myself dwell on Christina Grey for the past week. Okay… so her gray eyes are still haunting my dreams, and I know it will take an eternity to expunge the feel of her arms around me and her wonderful fragrance from my brain. Why has she sent me this? She told me that I wasn’t for her.

“I’ve found one Tess first edition for sale in New York at $14,000. But yours looks  in much better condition. They must have cost more.” Kyle is consulting her good friend, Google. 

“This quote – Tess says it to her mother after Alec D’Urberville has had his wicked  way with her.” 

“I know,” muses Kyle. “What is she trying to say?” 

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I can’t accept these from her. I’ll send them back with an equally baffling quote from some obscure part of the book.” 

“The bit where Angel Clare says fuck off?” Kyle asks with a completely straight face. 

“Yes, that bit.” I giggle. I love Kyle, he’s so loyal and supportive. I repack the books  and leave them on the dining table. Kyle hands me a glass of champagne. “To the end of exams and our new life in Seattle,” he grins. 

“To the end of exams, our new life in Seattle, and excellent results.” We clink glasses and drink. 

The bar is loud and hectic, full of soon to be graduates out to get trashed. Josie joins us. She won’t graduate for another year, but she’s in the mood to party and gets us into the spirit of our newfound freedom by buying a pitcher of margaritas for us all. As I down my fifth, I know this is not a good idea on top of the champagne.

“So what now Andy?” Josie shouts at me over the noise. 

“Kyle and I are moving to Seattle. Kyle’s parents have bought a condo there for him.” 

“Dios mio, how the other half live. But you’ll be back for my show.” 

“Of course, Josie, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I smile, and she puts her arm around my waist and pulls me close. 

“It means a lot to me that you’ll be there Andy,” she whispers in my ear. “Another margarita?” 

“Josie Luis Rodriguez – are you trying to get me drunk? Because I think it’s working.”  I giggle. “I think I’d better have a beer. I’ll go get us a pitcher.” 

“More drink, Andy!” Kyle bellows.  

Kyle has the constitution of an ox. He’s got his arm draped over Lisa, one of our fellow English students and his usual photographers on his student newspaper. She’s given up taking photos of the drunkenness that surrounds her. She only has eyes for Kyle. He’s all tight shirt, tight jeans, and heeled boots, hair artfully styles with tendrils hanging down softly around his face, his usual stunning self. 

Me, I’m more of a Converse and t-shirt kind of guy, but I’m wearing my most flattering jeans. I move out of Josie’s hold and get up from our table. Whoa. Head spin. I have to grab the back of the chair. Tequila based cocktails  are not a good idea. 

I make my way to the bar and decide that I should visit the powder room while I am on my feet. Good thinking, Andy. I stagger off through the crowd. Of course, there’s a line, but at least it’s quiet and cool in the corridor. I reach for my cell phone to relieve the boredom  of waiting in line. Hmm… Who did I last call? Was it Josie? Before that a number I don’t recognize. Oh yes. Grey, I think this is her number. I giggle. I have no idea what the time is, maybe I’ll wake her. Perhaps she can tell me why she sent me those books and the cryptic message. If she wants me to stay away, she should leave me alone. I suppress a drunken grin and hit the automatic re-dial. She answers on the second ring. 

“Andrew?” She’s surprised to hear from me. Well, frankly, I’m surprised to ring her.  Then my befuddled brain registers… how does she know it’s me? 

“Why did you send me the books?” I slur at her. 

“Andrew, are you okay? You sound strange.” Her voice is filled with concern. “I’m not the strange one, you are,” I accuse. There - that told her, my courage fuelled  by alcohol. 

“Andrew, have you been drinking?” 

“What’s it to you?” 

“I’m – curious. Where are you?” 

“In a bar.” 

“Which bar?” She sounds exasperated.  

“A bar in Portland.”  

“How are you getting home?” 

“I’ll find a way.” This conversation is not going how I expected. 

“Which bar are you in?” 

“Why did you send me the books, Christina?” 

“Andrew, where are you, tell me now.” Her tone is so, so dictatorial, her usual control freak. I imagine her as an old time movie director wearing jodhpurs, holding an old fashioned megaphone and a riding crop. The image makes me laugh out loud. “You’re so… domineering,” I giggle. 

“Andy, so help me, where the fuck are you?” 

Christina Grey is swearing at me. I giggle again. “I’m in Portland… s’a long way  from Seattle.” 

“Where in Portland?” 

“Goodnight, Christina.” 

“Andy!” 

I hang up. Ha! Though she didn’t tell me about the books. I frown. Mission not accomplished. I am really quite drunk - my head swims uncomfortably as I shuffle with the line. Well, the object of the exercise was to get drunk. I have succeeded. This is what it’s  like – probably not an experience to be repeated. The line has moved, and it’s now my turn. I stare blankly at the poster behind the urinal that extols the virtues of safe sex. Holy crap, did I just call Christina Grey? Shit. My phone rings and it makes me jump. I yelp in surprise. 

“Hi,” I bleat timidly into the phone. I hadn’t reckoned on this. 

“I’m coming to get you,” she says and hangs up. Only Christina Grey could sound so calm and so threatening at the same time. 

Holy crap. I pull my jeans up. My heart is thumping. Coming to get me? Oh no. I’m  going to be sick… no… I’m fine. Hang on. She’s just messing with my head. I didn’t tell her where I was. She can’t find me here. Besides, it will take her hours to get here from Seattle, and we’ll be long gone by then. I wash my hands and check my face in the mirror. I look flushed and slightly unfocused. Hmm… tequila.

I wait at the bar for what feels like an eternity for the pitcher of beer and eventually  return to the table. 

“You’ve been gone so long.” Kyle scolds me. “Where were you?” 

“I was in line for the restroom.” 

Josie and Lisa are having some heated debate about our local baseball team. Josie pauses in her tirade to pour us all beers, and I take a long sip. 

“Kyle, I think I’d better step outside and get some fresh air.” 

“Andy, you are such a lightweight.” 

“I’ll be five minutes.” 

I make my way through the crowd again. I am beginning to feel nauseous, my head is spinning uncomfortably, and I’m a little unsteady on my feet. More unsteady than usual. Drinking in the cool evening air in the parking lot makes me realize how drunk I am. My vision has been affected, and I’m really seeing double of everything like in old re-runs of Tom and Jerry Cartoons. I think I’m going to be sick. Why did I let myself get this messed up? 

“Andy,” Josie has joined me, “You okay?” 

“I think I’ve just had a bit too much to drink.” I smile weakly at her. “Me too,” she murmurs, and her dark eyes are watching me intently. “Do you need a hand?” she asks and steps closer, putting her arm around me. 

“Josie I’m okay. I’ve got this.” I try and push her away rather feebly. “Andy, please,” she whispers, and now she’s holding me in her arms, pulling me close. “Josie, what are you doing?” 

“You know I like you Andy, please.” She has one hand at the small of my back holding me against her, the other at my chin tipping back my head. Holy fuck… she’s going to kiss  me. 

“No Josie, stop – no.” I push her, but she’s a wall of hard muscle, and I cannot shift her.  Her hand has slipped into my hair, and she’s holding my head in place. “Please, Andy, cariña,” she whispers against my lips. Her breath is soft and smells too sweet – of margarita and beer. She gently trails kisses along my jaw up to the side of my mouth. I feel panicky, drunk, and out of control. The feeling is suffocating. “Josie, no,” I plead. I don’t want this. You are my friend, and I think I’m going to throw up. 

“I think the gentleman said no.” A voice in the dark says quietly. Holy shit! Christina Grey, she’s here. How? Josie releases me.  

“Grey,” she says tersely. I glance anxiously up at Christina. She’s glowering at Josie, and she’s furious. Crap. My stomach heaves, and I double over, my body no longer able to tolerate the alcohol, and I vomit spectacularly on to the ground. 

“Ugh – Dios mio, Anndy!” Josie jumps back in disgust. Grey gently leads me over to a raised flowerbed on the edge of the parking lot. I note, with deep gratitude, that it’s in relative darkness. 

“If you’re going to throw up again, do it here. I’ll hold you.” She has one arm around my shoulders – the other is gently patting my lower back. I try awkwardly to push her away, but I vomit again… and again. Oh shit…  how long is this going to last? Even when my stomach’s empty and nothing is coming up, horrible dry heaves wrack my body. I vow silently that I’ll never ever drink again. This is just too appalling for words. Finally, it stops. 

My hands are resting on the brick wall of the flowerbed, barely holding me up - vomiting profusely is exhausting. Grey takes her hands off me and passes me a handkerchief. Only she would have a monogrammed, freshly laundered, linen handkerchief. CTG. I didn’t know you could still buy these. Vaguely I wonder what the T stands for as I wipe my mouth. I cannot bring myself to look at her. I’m swamped with shame, disgusted with myself. I want to be swallowed up by the azaleas in the flowerbed and be anywhere but here. 

Josie is still hovering by the entrance to the bar, watching us. I groan and put my head in my hands. This has to be the single worst moment of my life. My head is still swimming as I try to remember a worse one – and I can only come up with Christina’s rejection – and this is so, so many shades darker in terms of humiliation. I risk a peek at her. She’s staring down at me, her face composed, giving nothing away. Turning, I glance at Josie who looks pretty shamefaced herself and, like me, intimidated by Grey. I glare at her. I have a few choice words for my so-called friend, none of which I can repeat in front of Christina Grey CEO. Andy who are you kidding, she’s just seen you hurl all over the ground and into the local flora. There’s no disguising your lack of dignity. 

“I’ll err… see you inside,” Josie mutters, but we both ignore her, and she slinks off back into the building. I’m on my own with Grey. Double crap. What should I say to her? Apologize for the phone call. 

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, staring at the handkerchief which I am furiously worrying with  my fingers. It’s so soft. 

“What are you sorry for Andrew?” 

Oh crap, she wants her damned pound of flesh. 

“The phone call mainly, being sick. Oh, the list is endless,” I murmur, feeling my skin coloring up. Please, please can I die now? 

“We’ve all been here, perhaps not quite as dramatically as you,” she says dryly. “It’s about knowing your limits, Andrew. I mean, I’m all for pushing limits, but really this is beyond the pale. Do you make a habit of this kind of behavior?” 

My head buzzes with excess alcohol and irritation. What the hell has it got to do with her? I didn’t invite her here. She sounds like a middle-aged woman scolding me like an errant child. Part of me wants to say, if I want to get drunk every night like this, then it’s my decision and nothing to do with her – but I’m not brave enough. Not now that I’ve thrown up in front of her. Why is she still standing there? 

“No,” I say contritely. “I’ve never been drunk before and right now I have no desire  to ever be again.” 

I just don’t understand why she’s here. I begin to feel faint. She notices my dizziness and grabs me before I fall and hoists me into her arms, holding me close to her chest. “Come on, I’ll take you home,” she murmurs. 

“I need to tell Kyle.” Holy Moses, I’m in his arms again. 

“My sister can tell her.” 

“What?” 

“My brother Ellen is talking to Mr Kavanagh.”

“Oh?” I don’t understand. 

“She was with me when you phoned.” 

“In Seattle?” I’m confused. 

“No, I’m staying at the Heathman.” 

Still? Why? 

“How did you find me?” 

“I tracked your cell phone Andrew.” 

Oh, of course she did. How is that possible? Is it legal? Stalker, my subconscious  whispers at me through the cloud of tequila that’s still floating in my brain, but somehow,  because it’s her, I don’t mind. 

“Do you have a jacket or a bag?” 

“Err… yes, I came with both. Christina, please, I need to tell Kyle. He’ll worry.” Her  mouth presses into a hard line, and she sighs heavily. 

“If you must.” 

She sets me down, and, taking my hand, leads me back into the bar. I feel weak, still drunk, embarrassed, exhausted, mortified, and on some strange level absolutely off the scale thrilled. She’s clutching my hand – such a confusing array of emotions. I’ll need at least a week to process them all. 

It’s noisy, crowded, and the music has started so there is a large crowd on the dancefloor. Kyle is not at our table, and Josie has disappeared. Lisa looks lost and forlorn on her own. 

“Where’s Kyle?” I shout at Lisa above the noise. My head is beginning to pound in  time to the thumping bass line of the music. 

“Dancing,” Lisa shouts, and I can tell she’s mad. She’s eyeing Christina suspiciously. I struggle into my black jacket and place my bag over my head so it sits at my hip. I’m ready to go, once I’ve seen Kyle. 

“He’s on the dance floor,” I touch Christina’s arm and lean in and shout in her ear,  brushing her hair with my nose, smelling her clean, fresh smell. Oh my. All those forbidden, unfamiliar feelings that I have tried to deny surface and run amok through my drained  body. I flush, and somewhere deep, deep down my muscles clench deliciously. 

She rolls her eyes at me and takes my hand again and leads me to the bar. She’s served  immediately, no waiting for Ms. Control-Freak Grey. Does everything come so easily to her? I can’t hear what she orders. She hands me a very large glass of iced water. “Drink,” she shouts her order at me. 

The moving lights are twisting and turning in time to the music casting strange colored light and shadows all over the bar and the clientele. She’s alternately green, blue, white, and a demonic red. She’s watching me intently. I take a tentative sip. 

“All of it,” she shouts.  

She’s so overbearing. She runs her hand through her unruly hair. She looks frustrated, angry. What is her problem? Apart from a silly drunk boy ringing him in the middle of the night so she thinks he needs rescuing. And it turns out he does from his over amorous friend. Then seeing him being violently ill at her feet. Oh Andy… are you ever going to live this down? My subconscious is figuratively tutting and glaring at me over half moon specs. I sway slightly, and she puts her hand on my shoulder to steady me. I do as I’m told and drink the entire glass. It makes me feel queasy. Taking the glass from me, she places it on the bar. I notice through a blur what she’s wearing; a loose white linen shirt, snug jeans, black Converse sneakers, and a dark pinstriped jacket. Her shirt is unbuttoned at the top, and I see her cleavage in the gap. In my groggy frame of mind, she looks yummy. 

She takes my hand once more. Holy cow – she’s leading me onto the dance floor. Shit. I do not dance. She can sense my reluctance, and under the colored lights, I can see her amused, slightly sardonic smile. She gives my hand a sharp tug, and I’m in her arms again, and she starts to move, taking me with her. Boy, she can dance, and I can’t believe that I’m following her step for step. Maybe it’s because I’m drunk that I can keep up. She’s holding me tight against her, her body against mine… if she wasn’t clutching me so tightly, I’m sure I would swoon at her feet. In the back of my mind, my father’s often-recited warning  comes to me: Never trust a woman who can dance. 

She moves us through the crowded throng of dancers to the other side of the dance floor, and we are beside Kyle and Ellen, Christina’s sister. The music is pounding away, loud and leery, outside and inside my head. I gasp. Kyle is making his moves. He’s dancing his ass off, and he only ever does that if he likes someone. Really likes someone. It means there’ll be three of us for breakfast tomorrow morning. Kyle!  

Christina leans over and shouts in Ellen’s ear. I cannot hear what she says. Ellen is short with a petite frame, curly blonde hair, and light, wickedly gleaming eyes. I can’t tell the color under the pulsating heat of the flashing lights. Ellen grins, and pulls Kyle into her arms, where he is more than happy to be… Kyle! Even in my inebriated state, I am shocked. He’s only just met her. He nods at whatever Ellen says and grins at me and waves. Christina propels us off the dance floor in double quick time. 

But I never got to talk to him. Is he okay? I can see where things are heading for him and her. I need to do the safe sex lecture. In the back of my mind, I hope he reads one of the posters above the urinal. My thoughts crash through my brain, fighting the drunk, fuzzy feeling. It’s so warm in here, so loud, so colorful – too bright. My head begins to swim, oh no… and I can feel the floor coming up to meet my face or so it feels. The last thing I hear before I pass out in Christina Grey’s arms is her harsh epithet. 

“Fuck!”

Chapter Five

It’s very quiet. The light is muted. I am comfortable and warm, in this bed. Hmm… I open my eyes, and for a moment, I’m tranquil and serene, enjoying the strange unfamiliar surroundings. I have no idea where I am. The headboard behind me is in the shape of a massive sun. It’s oddly familiar. The room is large and airy and plushly furnished in browns and golds and beige. I’ve seen it before. Where? My befuddled brain struggles through its recent visual memories. Holy crap.I’m in the Heathman hotel… in a suite. I have stood in a room similar to this with Kyle. This looks bigger. Oh shit. I’m in Christina Grey’s suite. How did I get here?  

Fractured memories of the previous night come slowly back to haunt me. The drinking, oh no the drinking, the phone call, oh no the phone call, the vomiting, oh no the vomiting. Josie and then Christina. Oh no. I cringe inwardly. I don’t remember coming here. I’m wearing my t-shirt and jocks. No socks. No jeans. Holy shit. 

I glance at the bedside table. On it is a glass of orange juice and two tablets. Advil. Control freak that she is, she thinks of everything. I sit up and take the tablets. Actually, I don’t feel that bad, probably much better than I deserve. The orange juice tastes divine. It’s thirst quenching and refreshing. Nothing beats freshly squeezed orange juice for reviving an arid mouth. 

There’s a knock on the door. My heart leaps into my mouth, and I can’t seem to find my voice. She opens the door anyway and strolls in.

Holy hell, she’s been working out. She’s in gray sweat pants that hang, in that way, off her hips and a gray singlet, which is dark with sweat, like her hair. Christina Grey’s sweat, the notion does odd things to me. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I feel like a two year old, if I close my eyes then I’m not really here. 

“Good morning Andrew. How are you feeling?” 

Oh no. 

“Better than I deserve,” I mumble. 

I peek up at her. She places a large shopping bag on a chair and grasps each end of the towel that she has around her neck. She’s staring at me, gray eyes dark, and as usual, I have no idea what she’s thinking. She hides her thoughts and feelings so well. 

“How did I get here?” My voice is small, contrite. 

She comes and sits down on the edge of the bed. She’s close enough for me to touch, for me to smell. Oh my… sweat and body wash and Christina, it’s a heady cocktail - so much better than a margarita, and now I can speak from experience. 

“After you passed out, I didn’t want to risk the leather upholstery in my car taking you all the way to your apartment. So I brought you here,” she says phlegmatically. 

“Did you put me to bed?” 

“Yes.” Her face is impassive. 

“Did I throw up again?” My voice is quieter. 

“No.” 

“Did you undress me?” I whisper. 

“Yes.” She quirks an eyebrow at me as I blush furiously. 

“We didn’t,” I whisper, my mouth drying in mortified horror as I can’t complete the  question. I stare at my hands. 

“Andrew, you were comatose. Necrophilia is not my thing. I like my men sentient and receptive,” she says dryly. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

Her mouth lifts in a wry smile. 

“It was a very diverting evening. Not one that I’ll forget in a while.” 

Me neither – oh she’s laughing at me. I didn’t ask her to come and get me.  Somehow I’ve been made to feel like the villain of the piece. 

“You didn’t have to track me down with whatever James Bond stuff you’re developing for the highest bidder,” I snap at her. She stares at me, surprised, and if I’m not mistaken, a little wounded. 

“Firstly, the technology to track cell phones is available over the Internet. Secondly, my company does not invest or manufacture any kind of surveillance devices, and thirdly, if I hadn’t come to get you, you’d probably be waking up in the photographer’s bed, and from what I can remember, you weren’t overly enthused about her pressing her suit,” she says acidly. 

Pressing her suit! I glance up at Christina, she’s glaring at me, her gray eyes blazing, aggrieved. I try to bite my lip, but I fail to repress my laughter. 

“Which medieval chronicle did you escape from?” I giggle. “You sound like a courtly lady.”

Her mood visibly shifts. Her eyes soften and her expression warms, and I see a trace of a smile on her beautifully sculpted lips. 

“Andrew, I don’t think so. Dark sorceress maybe.” Her smile is sardonic, and she shakes her head. 

“Did you eat last night?” Her tone is accusatory. I shake my head. What major  transgression have I committed now? Her jaw clenches, but her face remains impassive. 

“You need to eat. That’s why you were so ill. Honestly Andrew, it’s drinking rule  number one.” She runs her hand through her hair, and I know it’s because she’s exasperated. 

“Are you going to continue to scold me?” 

“Is that what I’m doing?” 

“I think so.” 

“You’re lucky I’m just scolding you.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, if you were mine, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week after the stunt  you pulled yesterday. You didn’t eat, you got drunk, you put yourself at risk.” She closes her eyes, dread etched on her lovely face, and she shudders slightly. When she opens her eyes, she glares at me. “I hate to think what could have happened to you.” 

I scowl back at her. What is her problem? What’s it to her? If I was hers… well I’m  not. Though maybe, part of me would like to be. The thought pierces through the irritation I feel at her high-handed words. I flush at the waywardness of my subconscious - doing its happy dance in a bright red hula skirt at the thought of being hers. 

“I would have been fine. I was with Kyle.” 

“And the photographer?” she snaps at me. 

Hmm… young Josie. I’ll need to face her at some point.  

“Josie just got out of line.” I shrug. 

“Well the next time she gets out of line, maybe someone should teach her some manners.” 

“You are quite the disciplinarian,” I hiss at her. 

“Oh, Andrew, you have no idea.” Her eyes narrow, and then she grins wickedly. It’s disarming. One minute, I’m confused and angry, the next I’m gazing at her gorgeous smile. Wow… I am entranced, and it’s because her smile is so rare. I quite forget what she’s talking about. 

“I’m going to have a shower. Unless you’d like to shower first?” She cocks her head to one side, still grinning. My heartbeat has picked up, and my medulla oblongata has neglected to fire any synapses to make me breathe. Her grin widens, and she reaches over and runs her thumb down my cheek and across my lower lip. 

“Breathe, Andrew,” she whispers and rises. “Breakfast will be here in fifteen minutes. You must be famished.” She heads into the bathroom and closes the door. I let out the breath that I’ve been holding. Why is she so damned attractive? Right now I want to go and join her in the shower. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. My hormones are racing. My skin tingles where her thumb traced over my face and lower lip. I feel like squirming with a needy, achy… discomfort. I don’t understand this reaction. Hmm… Desire. This is desire. This is what it feels like. 

I lie back on the soft feather filled pillows. ‘If you were mine.’ Oh my – what would I  do to be hers? She’s the only woman who has ever set my blood racing around my body. Yet, she’s so antagonizing too; she’s difficult, complicated, and confusing. One minute she rebuffs me, the next she sends me fourteen-thousand-dollar books, then she tracks me like a stalker.  And for all that, I have spent the night in her hotel suite, and I feel safe. Protected. She cares  enough to come and rescue me from some mistakenly perceived danger. She’s not a dark sorceress at all, but a white knight in shining, dazzling armor – a classic romantic hero. 

I scramble out of her bed frantically searching for my jeans. She emerges from the bathroom wet and glistening from the shower, with just a towel around her, and there am I – all bare legs and awkward gawkiness. She’s surprised to see me out of bed. 

“If you’re looking for your jeans, I’ve sent them to the laundry.” Her gaze is a dark  obsidian. “They were spattered with your vomit.” 

“Oh.” I flush scarlet. Why oh why does she always catch me on the back foot? 

“I sent Taylor out for another pair and some shoes. They’re in the bag on the chair.” Clean clothes. What an unexpected bonus. 

“Um… I’ll have a shower,” I mutter. “Thanks.” What else can I say? I grab the bag  and dart into the bathroom away from the unnerving proximity of naked Christina. 

In the bathroom, it’s all hot and steamy from where she’s been showering. I strip off my clothes and quickly clamber into the shower anxious to be under the cleansing stream of water. It cascades over me, and I hold up my face into the welcoming torrent. I want Christina Grey. I want her badly. Simple fact. For the first time in my life, I want to go to bed with a woman. I want to feel her hands and her mouth on me.  

She said she likes her men sentient. She’s probably not celibate then. But she’s not made a pass at me, unlike Pauline or Josie. I don’t understand. Does she want me? She wouldn’t kiss me last week. Am I repellent to her? And yet, I’m here and she brought me here. I just don’t know what her game is? What she’s thinking? You’ve slept in her bed all night, and she’s not touched you Andy. You do the math. My subconscious has reared its ugly, snide head. I ignore it.  

The water is warm and soothing. Hmm… I could stay under this shower, in this bathroom, forever. I reach for the body-wash and it smells of her. It’s a delicious smell. I rub it all over myself, fantasizing that it’s her - her rubbing this heavenly scented soap into my body, across my chest, over my stomach, between my thighs with her long fingered hands. Oh my. My heartbeat picks up again, this feels so… so good. 

“Breakfast is here.” She knocks on the door, startling me. 

“Okay,” I stutter as I’m yanked cruelly out of my erotic daydream. 

I climb out of the shower and grab a towel. Hastily, I dry myself, ignoring the pleasurable feel of the towel rubbing against my over-sensitized skin. 

I inspect the bag of jeans. Not only has Taylor brought me jeans and new Converse, but a pale blue shirt, socks, and underwear. Oh my. Clean jocks – actually to describe them in such a mundane, utilitarian way does not do them justice. They’re an exquisite design of some fancy European fashion house. All pale blue and buttery soft. Wow. I’m in awe and slightly daunted by this underwear. What’s more, they fit perfectly. But of course they do. I flush to think of the Taylor in some lingerie store buying this for me. I wonder what else is in her job description. 

I dress quickly. The rest of the clothing is a perfect fit. I brusquely towel-dry my hair and try desperately to bring it under control. I take a deep breath. Time to face Ms. Confusing. 

I’m relieved to find the bedroom empty. I hunt quickly for my bag – but it’s not in  here. Taking another deep breath, I enter the living area of the suite. It’s huge. There’s an opulent, plush seating area, all overstuffed couches and soft cushions, an elaborate coffee table with a stack of large glossy books, a study area with a top-of-the-range Mac, an enormous plasma screen TV on the wall, and Christina is sitting at a dining table on the other  side of the room reading a newspaper. It’s the size of a tennis court or something, not that I play tennis, though I have watched Kyle a few times. Kyle! 

“Crap, Kyle,” I croak. Christina peers up at me. 

“He knows you’re here and still alive. I texted Ellen,” he says with just a trace of  humor. 

Oh no. I remember his fervent dancing of the night before. All his patented moves  used with maximum effect to seduce Christina’s sister no less! What’s he going to think about me being here? I’ve never stayed out before. He’s still with Ellen. He’s only done this twice before, and both times I’ve had to endure the hideous PJs for a week from the fallout. He’s going to think I’ve had a one-night stand too. 

Christina stares at me imperiously. She’s wearing a white linen shirt-dress, collar and cuffs undone, belt highlighting her waistline. 

“Sit,” she commands, pointing to a place at the table. I make my way across the room and sit down opposite her as I’ve been directed. The table is laden with food. 

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I ordered a selection from the breakfast menu.” She gives me a crooked, apologetic smile. 

“That’s very profligate of you,” I murmur, bewildered by the choice, though I am hungry.  

“Yes, it is.” She sounds guilty. 

I opt for pancakes, maple syrup, scrambled eggs, and bacon. Christina tries to hide a smile as she returns to her egg white omelet. The food is delicious. 

“Tea?” she asks. 

“Yes, please.”  

She passes me a small teapot of hot water and on the saucer is a Twining’s English Breakfast teabag. Jeez, she remembers how I like my tea. 

“Your hair’s very damp,” she scolds. 

“I couldn’t find the hairdryer,” I mutter, embarrassed. Not that I looked. Christina’s mouth presses into a hard line, but she doesn’t say anything. 

“Thank you for organizing the clothes.” 

“It’s a pleasure, Andrew. That color suits you.” 

I blush and stare down at my fingers. 

“You know, you really should learn to take a compliment.” Her tone is castigating. “I should give you some money for these clothes.”

She glares at me as if I have offended her on some level. I hurry on. “You’ve already given me the books, which, of course, I can’t accept. But these clothes, please let me pay you back.” I smile tentatively at her. 

“Andrew, trust me, I can afford it.” 

“That’s not the point. Why should you buy these for me?” 

“Because I can,” her eyes flash with a wicked gleam. 

“Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should,” I reply quietly as she arches an eyebrow at me, her eyes twinkling, and suddenly I feel that we’re talking about something else, but I don’t know what it is. Which reminds me… 

“Why did you send me the books, Christina?” My voice is soft. She puts down her  cutlery and regards me intently, her gray eyes burning with some unfathomable emotion. Holy crap – my mouth dries. 

“Well, when you were nearly run over by the cyclist – and I was holding you and you were looking at me – all kiss me, kiss me, Christina,” he pauses and shrugs slightly, “I felt I owed you an apology and a warning.” She runs her hand through her hair. “Andrew, I’m not a hearts and flowers kind of girl, I don’t do romance. My tastes are very singular. You should steer clear of me.” She closes her eyes as if in defeat. “There’s something about you, though, and I’m finding it impossible to stay away. But I think you’ve figured that out already.” 

My appetite vanishes. She can’t stay away! 

“Then don’t,” I whisper. 

She gasps, her eyes wide.  

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” 

“Enlighten me, then.” 

We sit gazing at each other, neither of us touching our food. 

“You’re not celibate then?” I breathe. 

Amusement lights up her gray eyes.  

“No, Andrew, I’m not celibate.” She pauses for this information to sink in, and I flush scarlet. The mouth-to-brain filter is broken again. I can’t believe I’ve just said that out loud. 

“What are your plans for the next few days?” she asks, her voice low. 

“I’m working today, from midday. What is the time?” I panic suddenly. 

“It’s just after ten, you’ve plenty of time. What about tomorrow?” She has her elbows on the table, and her chin resting on her long steepled fingers. 

“Kyle and I are going to start packing. We’re moving to Seattle next weekend, and I’m working at Clayton’s all this week.” 

“You have a place in Seattle already?” 

“Yes.” 

“Where?” 

“I can’t remember the address. It’s in the Pike Market District.” 

“Not far from me,” her lips twitch up in a half smile. “So what are you going to do for work in Seattle?” 

Where is she going with all these questions? The Christina Grey Inquisition is almost as irritating as the Kyle Kavanagh Inquisition.

“I’ve applied for some internships. I’m waiting to hear.” 

“Have you applied to my company as I suggested?” 

I flush… of course not. 

“Um… no.” 

“And what’s wrong with my company?” 

“Your company or your Company?” I smirk. 

She smiles slightly.

“Are you smirking at me, Mr Steele?” She cocks her head to one side, and I think she looks amused, but it’s hard to tell. I flush and glance down at my unfinished breakfast. I can’t look her in the eye when she uses that tone of voice. 

“I’d like to bite that lip,” she whispers darkly. 

Oh my. I am completely unaware that I am chewing my bottom lip. My mouth pops  open as I gasp and swallow at the same time. That has to be the sexiest thing anybody has ever said to me. My heart beat spikes, and I think I’m panting. Jeez, I’m a quivering mess, and she hasn’t even touched me. I squirm in my seat and meet her dark glare. 

“Why don’t you?” I challenge quietly. 

“Because I’m not going to touch you Andrew - not until I have your written consent  to do so.” Her lips hint at a smile. 

What? 

“What does that mean?” 

“Exactly what I say.” She sighs and shakes her head at me, amused, but exasperated too. “I need to show you, Andrew. What time do you finish work this evening?” 

“About eight.” 

“Well, we could go to Seattle this evening or next Saturday for dinner at my place, and I’ll acquaint you with the facts then. The choice is yours.” 

“Why can’t you tell me now?” I sound petulant. 

“Because I’m enjoying my breakfast and your company. Once you’re enlightened, you probably won’t want to see me again.” 

Holy shit. What does that mean? Does she slave-trade small children to some God forsaken part of the planet? Is she part of some underworld crime syndicate? It would explain why she’s so rich. Is she deeply religious? Is she frigid? Surely not, she could prove that to me right now. Oh my. I flush scarlet thinking about the possibilities. This is getting me nowhere. I’d like to solve the riddle that is Christina Grey sooner rather than later. If it means that whatever secret she has is so gross that I don’t want to know her any more then, quite frankly, it will be a relief. Don’t lie to yourself – my subconscious yells at me– it’ll  have to be pretty bloody bad to have you running for the hills. 

“Tonight.”

She raises an eyebrow. 

“Like Eve, you’re so quick to eat from the tree of knowledge,” she smirks. 

“Are you smirking at me, Ms. Grey?” I ask sweetly. Pompous ass. 

She narrows her eyes at me and picks up her phone. She presses one number. “Taylor. I’m going to need Charlie Tango.” 

Charlie Tango! Who’s he?

“From Portland at say twenty-thirty... No, standby at Escala… All night.”

All night! 

“Yes. On call tomorrow morning. I’ll pilot from Portland to Seattle.” Pilot? 

“Standby pilot from twenty-two-thirty.” She puts the phone down. No please or thank you. 

“Do people always do what you tell them?” 

“Usually, if they want to keep their jobs,” she says, deadpan. 

“And if they don’t work for you?” 

“Oh, I can be very persuasive, Andrew. You should finish your breakfast. And then  I’ll drop you home. I’ll pick you up at Clayton’s at eight when you finish. We’ll fly up to Seattle.” 

I blink at her rapidly.  

“Fly?” 

“Yes. I have a helicopter.” 

I gape at her. I have my second date with Christina oh-so-mysterious Grey. From  coffee to helicopter rides. Wow. 

“We’ll go by helicopter to Seattle?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why?” 

She grins wickedly, “Because I can. Finish your breakfast.” 

How can I eat now? I’m going to Seattle by helicopter with Christina Grey. And she  wants to bite my lip… I squirm at the thought 

“Eat,” she says more sharply. “Andrew, I have an issue with wasted food… eat.”

“I can’t eat all this.” I gape at what’s left on the table. 

“Eat what’s on your plate. If you’d eaten properly yesterday, you wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t be declaring my hand so soon.” Her mouth sets in a grim line. She looks angry. I frown and return to my now cold food. I’m too excited to eat, Christina. Don’t you understand? My subconscious explains. But I’m too much of a coward to voice these thoughts aloud, especially when she looks so sullen. Hmm, like a small child. I find the thought amusing. 

“What’s so funny?” she asks. I shake my head, not daring to tell her, and keep my eyes on my food. Swallowing my last piece of pancake, I peek up at her. She’s eyeing me speculatively. 

“Good boy,” she says. “I’ll take you home when you’ve dried your hair. I don’t want  you getting ill.” 

There’s some kind of unspoken promise in her words. What does she mean? I leave the table, wondering for a moment if I should ask permission but dismissing  the idea. Sounds like a dangerous precedent to set. I head back to her bedroom. A thought stops me. 

“Where did you sleep last night?” I turn to gaze at her still sitting in the dining room  chair. I can’t see any blankets or sheets out here – perhaps she’s had them tidied away. 

“In my bed,” she says simply, her gaze impassive again. 

“Oh.” 

“Yes, it was quite a novelty for me too.” She smiles.

“Not having… sex.” There – I said the word. I blush – of course. 

“No,” she shakes her head and frowns as if recalling something uncomfortable. “Sleeping with someone.” She picks up her newspaper and continues to read.  What in heaven’s name does that mean? She’s never slept with anyone? She’s a virgin? Somehow I doubt that. I stand staring at her in disbelief. She is the most mystifying person I’ve ever met. And it dawns on me that I have slept with Christina Grey, and I kick  myself – what would I have given to be conscious to watch her sleep. See her vulnerable. Somehow, I find that hard to imagine. 

Well, allegedly all will be revealed tonight. In her bedroom, I hunt through a chest of drawers and find the hair dryer. Using my fingers, I dry my hair the best I can. When I’ve finished, I head into the bathroom. I want to clean my teeth. I eye Christina’s toothbrush. It would be like having her in my mouth. Hmm… Glancing guiltily over my shoulder at the door, I feel the bristles on the toothbrush. They’re damp. She must have used it already. Grabbing it quickly, I squirt toothpaste on it and brush my teeth in double quick time. I feel so naughty. It’s such a thrill.  Grabbing my t-shirt and jocks from yesterday, I put them in the shopping bag that Taylor brought and head back to the living area to hunt for my bag and jacket. Christina is watching me as I pull my jacket on, her expression unreadable. I feel her eyes follow me as I sit down and wait for her to finish. She’s on her phone talking to someone. 

“They want two?… How much will that cost?... Okay, and what safety measures do we have in place?… And they’ll go via Suez?… How safe is Ben Sudan?... And when do they  arrive in Darfur?... Okay, let’s do it. Keep me abreast of progress.” She hangs up. “Ready to go?” 

I nod. I wonder what her conversation was about. She slips on a navy pinstriped jacket, picks up her car keys, and heads for the door. 

“After you, Mr Steele,” she murmurs, opening the door for me. She looks so casually elegant.  

I pause, fractionally too long, drinking in the sight of her. And to think I slept with  her last night and, after all the tequila and the throwing up, she’s still here. What’s more, she wants to take me to Seattle. Why me? I don’t understand it. I head out the door recalling her words – There’s something about you – Well the feeling is entirely mutual Ms. Grey,  and I aim to find out what it is.  

We walk in silence down the corridor toward the elevator. As we wait, I peek over at her, and she looks out of the corner of her eyes at me. I smile, and her lips twitch. 

The elevator arrives, and we step in. We’re alone. Suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, possibly our proximity in such an enclosed space, the atmosphere between us changes, charging with an electric, exhilarating anticipation. My breathing alters as my heart races. Her head turns fractionally toward me, her eyes darkest slate. I bite my lip. 

“Oh, fuck the paperwork,” she growls. She lunges at me, pushing me against the wall of the elevator. Before I know it, she’s got both of my hands in one of hers in a vice-like grip above my head, and she’s pinning me to the wall using her hips. Holy shit. Her other hand grabs my hair and yanks down, bringing my face up, and her lips are on mine. It’s only just not painful. I moan into her mouth, giving her tongue an opening. She takes full advantage, her tongue expertly exploring my mouth. I’ve never been kissed like this. My tongue tentatively strokes hers and joins hers in a slow erotic dance that’s all about touch and sensation, all bump and grind. She brings her hand up to grasp my chin and holds me in place. I am helpless, my hands pinned, my face held, and her hips restraining me. I feel the heat from her as she presses against my erection. Oh my… She wants me. Christina Grey, Greek goddess, wants me, and I want her, here… now, in the elevator. 

“You. Are. So. Sweet,” she murmurs, each word a staccato. 

The elevator stops, the doors open, and she pushes away from me in the blink of an eye, leaving me hanging. Three women in business suits look at both of us and smirk as they climb on board. My heart rate is through the roof, I feel like I’ve run an uphill race. I want to lean over and grasp my knees… but that’s just too obvious.  

I glance at her. She looks so cool and calm, like she’s been doing the Seattle Times crossword. How unfair. Is she totally unaffected by my presence? She glances at me out of the corner of her eye, and she gently blows out a deep breath. Oh, she’s affected all right  – and my very small inner god sways in a gentle victorious samba. The businesswomen exit on the second floor. We have one more floor to travel. 

“You’ve brushed your teeth,” she says, staring at me. 

“I used your toothbrush,” I breathe.  

Her lips quirk up in a half smile. 

“Oh, Andrew Steele, what am I going to do with you?” 

The doors open at the first floor, and she takes my hand and pulls me out. 

“What is it about elevators?” she mutters, more to herself than to me as she strides across the lobby. I struggle to keep pace with her because my wits have been thoroughly, royally, scattered all over the floor and walls of elevator three in the Heathman Hotel.

Chapter 6

Christina opens the passenger door to the black Audi SUV, and I clamber in. It’s a beast of a car. She hasn’t mentioned the outburst of passion that exploded in the elevator. Should I? Should we talk about it or pretend that it didn’t happen? It hardly seems real, my first proper no-holds-barred kiss. As time ticks on, I assign it mythical, Arthurian legend, Lost City of Atlantis status. It never happened, it never existed. Perhaps I imagined it all. No. I touch my lips, swollen from her kiss. It definitely happened. I am a changed man. I want this weman, desperately, and she wanted me.

I glance at her. Christina is her usual polite, slightly distant self. 

How confusing.

She starts the engine and reverses out of her space in the parking lot. She switches on the MP3 player. The car interior is filled with the sweetest, most magical music of two women singing. Oh wow… all my senses are in disarray, so this is doubly affecting. It sends delicious shivers up my spine. Christina pulls out onto SW Park Avenue, and she drives with easy, lazy confidence. 

“What are we listening to?”

“It’s the Flower Duet by Delibes, from the opera Lakmé. Do you like it?” 

“Christina, it’s wonderful.”

“It is, isn’t it?” she grins, glancing at me. And for a fleeting moment, she seems her age; young, carefree, and heart-stoppingly beautiful. Is this the key to her? Music? I sit and listen to the angelic voices, teasing and seducing me.

“Can I hear that again?” 

“Of course.” Christina pushes a button, and the music is caressing me once more. It’s a gentle, slow, sweet, and sure assault on my aural senses. 

“You like classical music?” I ask, hoping for a rare insight into her personal preferences. 

“My taste is eclectic, Andrew, everything from Thomas Tallis to the Kings of Leon.  It depends on my mood. You?” 

“Me too. Though I don’t know who Thomas Tallis is.” 

She turns and gazes at me briefly before her eyes are back on the road. 

“I’ll play it for you sometime. He’s a sixteenth century British composer. Tudor,  church choral music.” Christina grins at me. “Sounds very esoteric, I know, but it’s also magical, Andrew.”  

She presses a button, and the Kings of Leon start singing. Hmm… this I know. Sex on Fire. How appropriate. The music is interrupted by the sound of a cell phone ringing over the MP3 speakers. Christina hits a button on the steering wheel. 

“Grey,” she snaps. She’s so brusque. 

“Ms. Grey, it’s Welch here. I have the information you require.” A rasping, disembodied voice comes over the speakers. 

“Good. Email it to me. Anything to add?” 

“No ma’am.” 

She presses the button, then the call ceases and the music is back. No goodbye or thanks. I’m so glad that I never seriously entertained the thought of working for her. I shudder at the very idea. She’s just too controlling and cold with her employees. The music cuts off again for the phone. 

“Grey.”

“The NDA has been emailed to you, Ms. Grey.” A man’s voice. 

“Good. That’s all, Andre.” 

“Good day, ma’am.” 

Christina hangs up by pressing a button on the steering wheel. The music is on very briefly when the phone rings again. Holy hell, is this her life? Constant nagging phone calls? 

“Grey,” she snaps. 

“Hi, Christina, d’you get laid?” 

“Hello, Ellen – I’m on speaker phone, and I’m not alone in the car,” Christina sighs. “Who’s with you?” 

Christina rolls her eyes.

“Andrew Steele.” 

“Hi, Andy!” 

Andy!

“Hello, Ellen.” 

“Heard a lot about you,” Ellen murmurs huskily. Christina frowns. 

“Don’t believe a word Kyle says.”

Ellen laughs. 

“I’m dropping Andrew off now.” Christina emphasizes my name. “Shall I pick you  up?”

“Sure.” 

“See you shortly.” Christina hangs up, and the music is back. 

“Why do you insist on calling me Andrew?” 

“Because it’s your name.”

“I prefer Andy.” 

“Do you now?” she murmurs. 

We are almost at my apartment. It’s not taken long. 

“Andrew,” she muses. I scowl at her, but she ignores my expression. “What happened in the elevator - it won’t happen again, well, not unless it’s premeditated.” 

She pulls up outside my duplex. I belatedly realize she’s not asked me where I live - yet she knows. But then she sent the books, of course she knows where I live. What able, cell phone-tracking, helicopter owning, stalker wouldn’t.  

Why won’t she kiss me again? I pout at the thought. I don’t understand. Honestly,  her surname should be Cryptic, not Grey. She climbs out of the car, walking with easy, long-legged grace round to my side to open the door, ever the lady - except perhaps in rare, precious moments in elevators. I flush at the memory of her mouth on mine, and the thought that I’d been unable to touch her enters my mind. I wanted to run my fingers through her decadent, untidy hair, but I’d been unable to move my hands. I am retrospectively frustrated. 

“I liked what happened in the elevator,” I murmur as I climb out of the car. I’m not sure if I hear an audible gasp, but I choose to ignore it and head up the steps to the front door. Kyle and Ellen are sitting at our dining table. The fourteen-thousand-dollar books have disappeared. Thank heavens. I have plans for them. He has the most un-Kyle-like ridiculous grin on his face, and he looks mussed up in a sexy kind of way. Christina follows me into the living area, and in spite of his I’ve-been-having-a-good-time-all-night grin, Kyle eyes him suspiciously. 

“Hi Andy,” he leaps up to hug me, then holds me at arm’s length so he can examine me. He frowns and turns to Christina. 

“Good morning, Christina,” he says, and his tone is a little hostile. 

“Mr Kavanagh,” she says in her stiff formal way. 

“Christina, his name is Kyle,” Ellen grumbles. 

“Kyle.” Christina gives him a polite nod and glares at Ellen who grins and rises to hug me too. 

“Hi, Andy,” she smiles, her blue eyes twinkling, and I like her immediately. She’s obviously nothing like Christina, but then they’re adopted sisters. 

“Hi, Ellen,” I smile at her, and I’m aware that I’m biting my lip. 

“Ellen, we’d better go.” Christina says mildly. 

“Sure.” She turns to Kyle and pulls him into her arms and gives her a long lingering kiss. Jeez… get a room. I stare at my feet, embarrassed. I glance up at Christina, and she’s  watching me intently. I narrow my eyes at her. Why can’t you kiss me like that? 

Ellen continues to kiss Kyle, sweeping him off his feet and dipping him in a dramatic hold so that his hair nearly touches the ground as she kisses him hard. “Laters, baby,” she grins.  

Kyle just melts. I’ve never seen him melt before – the words comely and compliant  come to mind. Compliant Kyle, boy, Ellen must be good. Christina rolls her eyes and stares down at me, her expression unreadable, although maybe she’s mildly amused. She tucks a stray strand of my hair that has worked its way free, behind my ear. My breath hitches at the contact, and I lean my head slightly into her fingers. Her eyes soften, and she runs her thumb across my lower lip. My blood sears in my veins. And all too quickly, her touch is gone. 

“Laters, baby,” she murmurs, and I have to laugh because it’s so unlike her. But even though I know she’s being irreverent, the endearment tugs at something deep inside me.  

“I’ll pick you up at eight.” She turns to leave, opening the front door and stepping out onto the porch. Ellen follows her to the car but turns and blows Kyle another kiss, and I feel an unwelcome pang of jealousy. 

“So, did you?” Kyle asks as we watch them climb into the car and drive off, the burning curiosity evident in his voice. 

“No,” I snap irritably, hoping that will halt the questions. We head back into the apartment. 

“You obviously did, though.” I can’t contain my envy. Kyle always manages to  ensnare women. He is irresistible, beautiful, sexy, funny, forward…all the things that I’m not. But his answering grin is infectious. 

“And I’m seeing her again this evening.” He claps his hands and jumps up and down like a small child. He cannot contain his excitement and happiness, and I can’t help but feel happy for him. A happy Kyle… this is going to be interesting. 

“Christina is taking me to Seattle this evening.” 

“Seattle?” 

“Yes.”

“Maybe you will then?” 

“Oh, I hope so.” 

“You like her then?” 

“Yes.” 

“Like her enough to… ?” 

“Yes.” 

He raises his eyebrows.  

“Wow. Andy Steele, finally falling for a woman, and it’s Christina Grey – hot, sexy billionaire.” 

“Oh yeah – it’s all about the money.” I smirk, and we both laugh. 

“Is that a new shirt?” he asks, and I let him have all the unexciting details about my night. 

“Has she kissed you yet?” he asks as he makes coffee. 

I blush. 

“Once.” 

“Once!” he scoffs. 

I nod, rather shame faced. 

“She’s very reserved.” 

He frowns. 

“That’s odd.” 

“I don’t think odd covers it really,” I murmur. 

“We need to make sure you’re simply irresistible for this evening,” he says with determination.  

Oh no… this sounds like it will be time consuming, humiliating, and painful. 

“I have to be at work in an hour.” 

“I can work with that timeframe. Come on.” Kyle grabs my hand and takes me into  his bedroom.

The day drags at Clayton’s even though we’re busy. We’ve hit the summer season, so I have to spend two hours restocking the shelves once the shop is closed. It’s mindless work, and it gives me too much time to think. I’ve not really had a chance all day.  

Under Kyle’s tireless and frankly intrusive instruction, my back and chest are waxed to perfection, my face shaved, and I am buffed all over. It has been a most unpleasant experience. But he assures me that this is what women expect these days. What else will she expect? I have to convince Kyle that this is what I want to do. For some strange reason, he doesn’t trust her, maybe because she’s so stiff and formal. He says he can’t put his finger on it, but I have promised to text him when I arrive in Seattle. I haven’t told him about the helicopter, he’d freak. 

I also have the Josie issue. She’s left three messages and seven missed calls on my cell. She’s also called home twice. Kyle has been very vague as to where I am. She’ll know he’s covering for me. Kyle doesn’t do vague. But I have decided to let her stew. I’m still too angry with her.

Christina mentioned some kind of written paperwork, and I don’t know if she was joking or if I’m going to have to sign something. It’s so frustrating trying to guess. And on top of all the angst, I can barely contain my excitement or my nerves. Tonight’s the night! After all this time, am I ready for this? My inner Sex God glares at me, tapping his foot impatiently. He’s been ready for this for years, and he’s ready for anything with Christina Grey, but I still don’t understand what she sees in me…mousey Andy Steele - it  makes no sense.  

She is punctual, of course, and waiting for me when I leave Clayton’s. She climbs out of the back of the Audi to open the door and smiles warmly at me. 

“Good evening, Mr Steele,” she says. 

“Ms. Grey.” I nod politely to her as I climb into the backseat of the car. Taylor is sitting in the driver’s seat. 

“Hello, Taylor,” I say. 

“Good evening, Mr Steele,” her voice is polite and professional. Christina climbs in the other side and clasps my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze that I feel all the way though my body. 

“How was work?” she asks. 

“Very long,” I reply, and my voice is husky, too low, and full of need.

“Yes, it’s been a long day for me too.” Her tone is serious. 

“What did you do?” I manage. 

“I went hiking with Ellen.” Her thumb strokes my knuckles, back and forth, and my  heart skips a beat as my breathing accelerates. How does she do this to me? She’s only touching a very small area of my body, and the hormones are flying. 

The drive to the heliport is short and, before I know it, we arrive. I wonder where the fabled helicopter might be. We’re in a built-up area of the city and even I know helicopters need space to take off and land. Taylor parks, climbs out, and opens my car door. Christina is beside me in an instant and takes my hand again. 

“Ready?” she asks. I nod and want to say ‘for anything’, but I can’t articulate the words as I’m too nervous, too excited. 

“Taylor.” She nods curtly at her driver, and we head into the building, straight to a set of elevators. Elevator! The memory of our kiss this morning comes back to haunt me. I have thought of nothing else all day. Daydreaming at the register at Clayton’s. Twice  Mrs. Clayton had to shout my name to bring me back to Earth. To say I’ve been distracted  would be the understatement of the year. Christina glances down at me, a slight smile on her lips. Ha! She’s thinking about it too. 

“It’s only three floors,” she says dryly, her gray eyes dancing with amusement. She’s telepathic surely. It’s spooky.  

I try to keep my face impassive as we enter the elevator. The doors close, and it’s there,  the weird electrical attraction crackling between us, enslaving me. I close my eyes in a vain attempt to ignore it. She tightens her grip on my hand, and five seconds later the doors open onto the roof of the building. And there it is, a white helicopter with the name Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc. written in blue with the company logo on the side. Surely this is misuse of Company property. 

She leads me to a small office where an old timer sits behind the desk. “Here’s your flight plan, Ms. Grey. All external checks are done. It’s ready and waiting ma’am. You’re free to go.” 

“Thank you, Joanna.” Christina smiles warmly at her.  

Oh. Someone deserving of the polite treatment from Christina, perhaps she’s not an employee. I stare at the old woman in awe.

“Let’s go,” Christina says, and we make our way toward the helicopter. When we’re up close, it’s much bigger than I thought. I expected it to be a roadster version for two, but it has at least seven seats. Christina opens the door and directs me to one of the seats at the very front. 

“Sit – don’t touch anything,” she orders as she clambers in behind me. She shuts the door with a slam. I’m glad that the area is floodlit, otherwise I’d find it difficult to see inside the small cockpit. I sit down in my allotted seat, and she crouches  beside me to strap me into the harness. It’s a four-point harness with all the straps connecting to one central buckle. She tightens both of the upper straps, so I can hardly move. She’s so close and intent on what she’s doing. If I could only lean forward, my nose would  be in her hair. She smells, clean, fresh, heavenly, but I’m fastened securely into my seat and effectively immobile. She glances up and smiles, like she’s enjoying her usual private joke, her gray eyes heated. She’s so tantalizingly close. I hold my breath as she pulls at one of the upper straps. 

“You’re secure, no escaping,” she whispers, her eyes are scorching. 

“Breathe, Andrew,” she adds softly. Reaching up, she caresses my cheek, running her long fingers down to my chin which she grasps between her thumb and forefinger. She leans forward and plants a brief, chaste kiss on my lips, leaving me reeling, my insides clenching at the thrilling, unexpected touch of her lips.  

“I like this harness,” she whispers. 

What?  

She sits down beside me and buckles herself into her seat, then begins a protracted procedure of checking gauges and flipping switches and buttons from the mind-boggling array of dials and lights and switches in front of me. Little lights wink and flash from various dials, and the whole of the instrument panel lights up. 

“Put your cans on,” she says, pointing to a set of headphones in front of me. I pop them on, and the rotor blades start. They are deafening. She puts her headphones on and continues flipping various switches. 

“I’m just going through all the pre-flight checks.” Christina’s disembodied voice is in my ears through the headphones. I turn and grin at her. 

“Do you know what you are doing?” I ask. She turns and smiles at me. “I’ve been a fully qualified pilot for four years, Andrew, you’re safe with me.” She gives me a wolfish grin. “Well, while we’re flying,” she adds and winks at me.

Winking… Christina! 

“Are you ready?”

I nod wide eyed.

“Okay, tower. PDX this is Charlie Tango Golf – Golf Echo Hotel, cleared for take-off.  Please confirm, over.” 

“Charlie Tango - you are clear. PDX to call, proceed to one four thousand, heading  zero one zero, over. ” 

“Roger tower, Charlie Tango set, over and out. Here we go,” she adds to me, and the helicopter rises slowly and smoothly into the air. 

Portland disappears in front us as we head into US airspace, though my stomach remains firmly in Oregon. 

All the bright lights shrink until they are twinkling sweetly below us. It’s like looking out from inside a fish bowl. Once we’re higher, there really is nothing to see. It’s pitch black, not even the moon to shed any light on our journey. How  can she see where we’re going? 

“Eerie isn’t it?” Christina’s voice is in my ears. 

“How do you know you’re going the right way?” 

“Here.” She points her long index finger at one of the gauges, and it shows an electronic compass.

 “This is an EC135 Eurocopter. One of the safest in its class. It’s equipped for  night flight.” She glances and grins at me. 

“There’s a helipad on top of the building I live in. That’s where we’re heading.” 

Of course there’s a helipad where she lives. I am so out of my league here. Her face is softly illuminated by the lights on the instrument panel. She’s concentrating hard, and she’s continually glancing at the various dials in front of her. 

I drink in her features from beneath my lashes. She has a beautiful profile. Straight nose, high cheekbones – I’d like to  run my tongue along her face. She isn’t wearing makeup and this makes the prospect doubly tempting. Hmm… I’d like to feel how soft it is beneath my tongue, my fingers, against my face. 

“When you fly at night, you fly blind. You have to trust the instrumentation,” she interrupts my erotic reverie. 

“How long will the flight be?” I manage breathlessly. I wasn’t thinking about sex at  all, no, no way. 

“Less than an hour, the wind is in our favor.” 

Hmm, less than an hour to Seattle… that’s not bad going, no wonder we’re flying. I have less than an hour before the big reveal. All the muscles clench deep in my belly. I have a serious case of butterflies. They are flourishing in my stomach. Holy shit, what has she got in store for me? 

“You okay, Andrew?” 

“Yes.” My answer is short, clipped, squeezed out through my nerves. I think she smiles, but it’s difficult to tell in the darkness. Christina flicks yet another switch.  

“PDX this is Charlie Tango now at one four thousand, over.” She exchanges information with air traffic control. It all sounds very professional to me. I think we’re moving from Portland’s air space to Seattle International Airport’s. 

“Understood Sea-Tac, standing by over and out.” 

“Look, over there.” She points to a small pin-point of light in the far distance. “That’s Seattle.” 

“Do you always impress men this way? Come and fly in my helicopter?” I ask,  genuinely interested. 

“I’ve never bought a boy up here, Andrew. It’s another first for me.” Her voice is  quiet, serious. 

Oh, that was an unexpected answer. Another first? Oh the sleeping thing, perhaps? 

“Are you impressed?” 

“I’m awed, Christina.” 

She smiles.  

“Awed?” And for a brief moment, she’s her age again. 

I nod. 

“You’re just so… competent.” 

“Why, thank you, Mr Steele,” she says politely. I think she’s pleased, but I’m not sure. We ride into the dark night in silence for a while. The bright spot that is Seattle is slowly getting bigger. 

“Sea-Tac tower to Charlie Tango. Flight plan to Escala in place. Please proceed. And standby. Over.” 

“This is Charlie Tango, understood Sea-Tac. Standing by, over and out.” 

“You obviously enjoy this,” I murmur. 

“What?” She glances at me. She looks quizzical in the half-light of the instruments. 

“Flying,” I reply.

“It requires control and concentration… how could I not love it? Though, my favorite is soaring.” 

“Soaring?” 

“Yes. Gliding to the layperson. Gliders and helicopters – I fly them both.” 

“Oh.” Expensive hobbies. I remember her telling me during the interview. I like reading and occasionally going to the movies. I am out of my depth here. 

“Charlie Tango come in please, over.” The disembodied voice of air traffic control  interrupts my reverie. Christina answers, sounding in control and confident. Seattle is getting closer. We are on the very outskirts now. Wow! It looks absolutely  stunning. Seattle at night, from the sky… 

“Looks good, doesn’t it?” Christina murmurs.  

I nod enthusiastically. It looks otherworldly – unreal – and I feel like I’m on a giant  film set, Josie’s favorite film maybe, ‘Bladerunner.’ The memory of Josie’s attempted kiss haunts me. I’m beginning to feel a bit cruel not calling her back. She can wait until tomorrow… surely. 

“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Christina mutters, and suddenly my blood is pounding in my ears as my heartbeat accelerates and adrenaline spikes through my system. She starts talking to air traffic control again, but I am no longer listening. Oh my… I think I’m  going to faint. My fate is in her hands. 

We are now flying amongst the buildings, and up ahead I can see a tall skyscraper with a helipad on top. The word Escala is painted in white on top of the building. It’s getting nearer and nearer, bigger and bigger… like my anxiety. God, I hope I don’t let her down. She’ll find me lacking in some way. I wish I’d listened to Kyle and borrowed one of his suits, but I like my black jeans, and I’m wearing a soft mint green shirt and Kyle’s black jacket. I look smart enough. I grip the edge of my seat tighter and tighter. I can do this. I can do this. I chant this mantra as the skyscraper looms below us.

The helicopter slows and hovers, and Christina sets it down on the helipad on top of the building. My heart is in my mouth. I can’t decide if it’s from nervous anticipation, relief that we’ve arrived alive, or fear that I will fail in some way. She switches the ignition off and the rotor blades slow and quiet until all I hear is the sound of my own erratic breathing. Christina takes her headphones off, and reaches across and pulls mine off too.

“We’re here,” she says softly.  

Her look is so intense, half in shadow and half in the bright white light from the landing lights. Dark sorceress and white knight, it’s a fitting metaphor for Christina. She looks strained. Her jaw is clenched and her eyes are tight. She unfastens her seatbelt and reaches over to unbuckle mine. Her face is inches from mine. 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You know that don’t you?” Her tone is so earnest, desperate even, her gray eyes impassioned. She takes me by surprise. 

“I’d never do anything I didn’t want to do, Christina.” And as I say the words, I don’t quite feel their conviction because at this moment in time – I’d probably do anything for this woman seated beside me. But this does the trick. She’s mollified. 

She eyes me warily for a moment and somehow, even though she’s so tall, she manages to ease her way gracefully to the door of the helicopter and open it. She jumps out, waiting for me to follow, and takes my hand as I clamber down onto the helipad. It’s very windy on top of the building, and I’m nervous about the fact that I’m standing at least thirty stories high in an unenclosed space. Christina wraps her arm around my waist, pulling me tightly against her. 

“Come,” she shouts above the noise of the wind. She drags me over to an elevator shaft and, after tapping a number into a keypad, the doors open. It’s warm inside and all mirrored glass. I can see Christina to infinity everywhere I look, and the wonderful thing is, she’s holding me to infinity too. 

Christina taps another code into the keypad, then the doors  close and the elevator descends.  

Moments later, we’re in an all-white foyer. In the middle is a round, dark wood table, and on it is an unbelievably huge bunch of white flowers. On the walls there are paintings, everywhere. She opens two double doors, and the white theme continues through the wide corridor and directly opposite where a palatial room opens up. It’s the main living area, double height. Huge is too small a word for it. The far wall is glass and leads on to a balcony that overlooks Seattle.  

To the right is an imposing ‘U’ shaped sofa that could sit ten adults comfortably. It faces a state-of-the-art stainless steel – or maybe platinum for all I know - modern fireplace. The fire is lit and flaming gently. On the left beside us, by the entryway, is the kitchen area. All white with dark wood worktops and a large breakfast bar which seats six.

Near the kitchen area, in front of the glass wall, is a dining table surrounded by sixteen chairs. And tucked in the corner is a full size, shiny black grand piano. Oh yes… she probably plays the piano too. There is art of all shapes and sizes on all the walls. In fact, this apartment looks more like a gallery than a place to live. 

“Can I take your jacket?” Christina asks. I shake my head. I’m still cold from the wind on the helipad. 

“Would you like a drink?” she asks. I blink at her. After last night! Is she trying to be funny? For one second, I think about asking for a margarita – but I don’t have the nerve. “I’m going to have a glass of white wine, would you like to join me?” “Yes, please,” I murmur.  

I am standing in this enormous room feeling out of place. I walk over to the glass wall, and I realize that the lower half of the wall opens concertina-style onto the balcony. Seattle is lit up and lively in the background. I walk back to the kitchen area – it takes a few seconds, it’s so far from the glass wall – and Christina is opening a bottle of wine. She’s removed her jacket. 

“Pouilly Fumé okay with you?”

“I know nothing about wine, Christina. I’m sure it will be fine.” My voice is soft and  hesitant. My heart is thumping. I want to run. This is seriously rich. Seriously over-the top Bill Gates style wealthy. What am I doing here? You know very well what you’re doing here - my subconscious sneers at me. Yes, I want to be in Christina Grey’s bed. 

“Here.” She hands me a glass of wine. Even the glasses are rich… heavy, contemporary, crystal. I take a sip, and the wine is light, crisp, and delicious.  

“You’re very quiet, and you’re not even blushing. In fact – I think this is the palest I’ve ever seen you, Andrew,” she murmurs. “Are you hungry?” 

I shake my head. Not for food. 

“It’s a very big place you have here.”

“Big?” 

“Big.” 

“It’s big,” she agrees, and her eyes glow with amusement. I take another sip of wine. “Do you play?” I point my chin at the piano. 

“Yes.” 

“Well?” 

“Yes.” 

“Of course you do. Is there anything you can’t do well?” 

“Yes… a few things.” She takes a sip of her wine. She doesn’t take her eyes off me. I feel them following me as I turn and glance around this vast room. Room is the wrong word. It’s not a room – it’s a mission statement. 

“Do you want to sit?” 

I nod, and she takes my hand and leads me to the large off-white couch. As I sit, I’m struck by the fact that I feel like Tess Durbeyfield looking at the new house that belongs to the notorious Alec D’Urberville. The thought makes me smile. 

“What’s so amusing?” She sits down beside me, turning to face me. She rests her head on her right hand, her elbow propped on the back of the couch. 

“Why did you give me Tess of the D’Urbervilles specifically?” I ask. 

Christina stares at me for a moment. I think she’s surprised by my question. 

“Well, you said you liked Thomas Hardy.” 

“Is that the only reason?” Even I can hear the disappointment in my voice. Her mouth presses into a hard line. 

“It seemed appropriate. I could hold you to some impossibly high ideal like Angel  Clare or debase you completely like Alec D’Urberville,” she murmurs, and her gray eyes flash dark and dangerous. 

“If there are only two choices, I’ll take the debasement.” I whisper, gazing at her. My subconscious is staring at me in awe. She gasps. 

“Andrew, stop biting your lip, please. It’s very distracting. You don’t know what  you’re saying.” 

“That’s why I’m here.” 

She frowns.  

“Yes. Would you excuse me a moment?” She disappears through a wide doorway on the far side of the room. She’s gone for a couple of minutes and returns with a document. 

“This is a non-disclosure agreement.” She shrugs and has the grace to look a little embarrassed. “My lawyer insists on it.” She hands it to me. I’m completely bemused. 

“If  you’re going for option two, debasement, you’ll need to sign this.” 

“And if I don’t want to sign anything?” 

“Then it’s Angel Clare, high ideals, well, for most of the book anyway.” 

“What does this agreement mean?” 

“It means you cannot disclose anything about us. Anything, to anyone.” I stare at her in disbelief. Holy shit. It’s bad, really bad, and now I’m very curious to know. 

“Okay. I’ll sign.” 

She hands me a pen.

“Aren’t you even going to read it?” 

“No.” 

She frowns.  

“Andrew, you should always read anything you sign,” she admonishes me. “Christina, what you fail to understand is that I wouldn’t talk about us to anyone,  anyway. Even Kyle. So it’s immaterial whether I sign an agreement or not. If it means so much to you, or your lawyer… whom you obviously talk to, then fine. I’ll sign.” She gazes down at me and nods gravely. 

“Fair point well made, Mr Steele.” 

I lavishly sign on the dotted line of both copies and hand one back to her. Folding the other, I place it my purse and take a large swig of my wine. I’m sounding so much braver than I’m actually feeling. 

“Does this mean you’re going to make love to me tonight, Christina?” 

Holy shit. Did I just say that? Her mouth drops open slightly, but she recovers quickly. 

“No, Andrew it doesn’t. Firstly, I don’t make love. I fuck… hard. Secondly, there’s  a lot more paperwork to do, and thirdly, you don’t yet know what you’re in for. You could still run for the hills. Come, I want to show you my playroom.” 

My mouth drops open. Fuck hard! Holy shit, that sounds so… hot. But why are we  looking at a playroom? I am mystified. 

“You want to play on your Xbox?” I ask. She laughs, loudly.  

“No, Andrew, no Xbox, no Playstation. Come.” She stands, holding out her hand. I let her lead me back out to the corridor. On the right of the double doors, where we came in, another door leads to a staircase. We go up to the second floor and turn right. Producing a key from her pocket, she unlocks yet another door and takes a deep breath. 

“You can leave anytime. The helicopter is on stand-by to take you whenever you want to go, you can stay the night and go home in the morning. It’s fine whatever you decide.” 

“Just open the damn door, Christina.” 

She opens the door and stands back to let me in. I gaze at her once more. I so want to know what’s in here. Taking a deep breath I walk in. 

And it feels like I’ve time-traveled back to the sixteenth century and the Spanish Inquisition. 

Holy fuck.

Chapter Seven 

The first thing I notice is the smell; leather, wood, polish with a faint citrus scent. It’s very pleasant, and the lighting is soft, subtle. In fact, I can’t see the source, but it’s around the cornice in the room, emitting an ambient glow. The walls and ceiling are a deep, dark burgundy, giving a womb-like effect to the spacious room, and the floor is old, old varnished wood. There is a large wooden cross like an X fastened to the wall facing the door. It’s made of high-polished mahogany, and there are restraining cuffs on each corner. Above it is an expansive iron grid suspended from the ceiling, eight-foot square at least, and from it hang all manner of ropes, chains, and glinting shackles. By the door, two long, polished, ornately carved poles, like spindles from a banister but longer, hang like curtain rods across the wall. From them swing a startling assortment of paddles, whips, riding crops, and funny-looking feathery implements. 

Beside the door stands a substantial mahogany chest of drawers, each drawer slim as if designed to contain specimens in a crusty old museum. I wonder briefly what the drawers actually do hold. Do I want to know? In the far corner is an oxblood leather padded bench, and fixed to the wall beside it is a wooden, polished rack that looks like a pool or billiard cue holder, but on closer inspection, it holds canes of varying lengths and widths. There’s a stout six-foot-long table in the opposite corner – polished wood with intricately carved legs – and two matching stools underneath.

But what dominates the room is a bed. It’s bigger than king-size, an ornately carved rococo four-poster with a flat top. It looks late nineteenth century. Under the canopy, I can see more gleaming chains and cuffs. There is no bedding... just a mattress covered in red leather and red satin cushions piled at one end. 

At the foot of the bed, set apart a few feet, is a large oxblood chesterfield couch, just stuck in the middle of the room facing the bed. An odd arrangement… to have a couch facing the bed, and I smile to myself – I’ve picked on the couch as odd, when really it’s the most mundane piece of furniture in the room. I glance up and stare at the ceiling. There are karabiners all over the ceiling at odd intervals. I vaguely wonder what they’re for. Weirdly, all the wood, dark walls, moody lighting, and oxblood leather makes the room kind of soft and romantic… I know it’s anything but, this is Christina’s version of soft and romantic. 

I turn, and she’s regarding me intently as I knew she would be, her expression completely unreadable. I walk further into the room, and she follows me. The feathery thing has me intrigued. I touch it hesitantly. It’s suede, like a small cat-of-nine-tails but bushier, and there are very small plastic beads on the end. 

“It’s called a flogger,” Christina’s voice is quiet and soft. 

A flogger… hmm. I think I’m in shock. My subconscious has emigrated or been struck dumb or simply keeled over and expired. I am numb. I can observe and absorb but not articulate my feelings about all this, because I’m in shock. What is the appropriate response to finding out a potential lover is a complete freaky sadist or masochist? Fear… yes… that  seems to be the overriding feeling. I recognize it now. But weirdly not of her – I don’t think she’d hurt me, well, not without my consent. So many questions cloud my mind. Why? How? When? How often? Who? I walk toward the bed and run my hands down one of the intricately carved posts. The post is very sturdy, the craftsmanship outstanding. 

“Say something,” Christina commands, her voice deceptively soft. 

“Do you do this to people or do they do it to you?” 

Her mouth quirks up, either amused or relieved. 

“People?” she blinks a couple of times as she considers her answer. “I do this to men who want me to.” 

I don’t understand.  

“If you have willing volunteers, why am I here?” 

“Because I want to do this with you, very much.” 

“Oh,” I gasp. Why? 

I wander to the far corner of the room and pat the waist high padded bench and run my fingers over the leather. She likes to hurt men. The thought depresses me. “You’re a sadist?” 

“I’m a Dominant.” Her eyes are a scorching gray, intense. 

“What does that mean?” I whisper. 

“It means I want you to willingly surrender yourself to me, in all things.” I frown at her as I try to assimilate this idea. 

“Why would I do that?” 

“To please me,”s he whispers as she cocks her head to one side, and I see a ghost of a smile.

Please her! She wants me to please her! I think my mouth drops open. Please Christina Grey. And I realize, in that moment, that yes, that’s exactly what I want to do. I want her to be damned delighted with me. It’s a revelation. 

“In very simple terms, I want you to want to please me,” she says softly. Her voice is hypnotic. 

“How do I do that?” My mouth is dry, and I wish I had more wine. Okay, I understand the pleasing bit, but I am puzzled by the soft-boudoir-Elizabethan-torture set up. Do I want to know the answer? 

“I have rules, and I want you to comply with them. They are for your benefit and for my pleasure. If you follow these rules to my satisfaction, I shall reward you. If you don’t, I shall punish you, and you will learn,” she whispers. I glance at the rack of canes as she says this. 

“And where does all this fit in?” I wave my hand in the general direction of the room. 

“It’s all part of the incentive package. Both reward and punishment.” 

“So you’ll get your kicks by exerting your will over me.” 

“It’s about gaining your trust and your respect, so you’ll let me exert my will over you. I will gain a great deal of pleasure, joy, even in your submission. The more you submit, the greater my joy – it’s a very simple equation.” 

“Okay, and what do I get out of this?” 

She shrugs and looks almost apologetic.  

“Me,”she says simply. 

Oh my. Christina rakes her hand through her hair as she gazes at me. 

“You’re not giving anything away, Andrew,” she murmurs, exasperated. “Let’s go  back downstairs where I can concentrate better. It’s very distracting having you in here.”  She holds her hand out to me, and now I’m hesitant to take it. 

Kyle had said she was dangerous, he was so right. How did he know? She’s dangerous to my health, because I know I’m going to say yes. And part of me doesn’t want to. Part of me wants to run screaming from this room and all it represents. I am so out of my depth here. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, Andrew.” Her gray eyes implore, and I know she speaks  the truth. I take her hand, and she leads me out of the door. 

“If you do this, let me show you.” Rather than going back downstairs, she turns right out of the playroom, as she calls it, and down a corridor. We pass several doors until we reach the one at the end. Beyond it is a bedroom with a large double bed, all in white…  everything, furniture, walls, bedding. It’s sterile and cold but with the most glorious view of Seattle through the glass wall. 

“This will be your room. You can decorate it how you like, have whatever you like in here.” 

“My room? You’re expecting me to move in?” I can’t hide the horror in my voice. “Not full time. Just say, Friday evening through Sunday. We have to talk about all that, negotiate. If you want to do this,” she adds, her voice quiet and hesitant. 

“I’ll sleep here?” 

“Yes.” 

“Not with you.”

“No. I told you, I don’t sleep with anyone, except you, when you’re stupefied with  drink.” Her eyes are reprimanding.  

My mouth presses in a hard line. This is what I cannot reconcile. Kind, caring Christina, who rescues me from inebriation and holds me gently while I’m throwing up into the azaleas, and the monster who possesses whips and chains in a special room. 

“Where do you sleep?” 

“My room is downstairs. Come, you must be hungry.” 

“Weirdly, I seem to have lost my appetite,” I murmur petulantly. 

“You must eat, Andrew,” she admonishes and, taking my hand, leads me back downstairs. 

Back in the impossibly big room, I am filled with deep trepidation. I am on the edge of a precipice, and I have to decide whether or not to jump. 

“I’m fully aware that this is a dark path I’m leading you down, Andrew, which is  why I really want you to think about this. You must have some questions,” she says as she wanders into the kitchen area, releasing my hand.  

I do. But where to start?  

“You’ve signed your NDA, you can ask me anything you want, and I’ll answer.” 

I stand at the breakfast bar watching her as she opens the refrigerator and pulls out a plate of different cheeses with two large bunches of green and red grapes. She sets the plate down on the worktop and proceeds to cut up a French baguette. 

“Sit.” She points to one of the bar stools at the breakfast bar, and I obey her command. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to have to get used to it. I realize she’s been this bossy since I met her. 

“You mentioned paperwork.”

“Yes.”

“What paperwork?”

“Well, apart from the NDA, a contract saying what we will and won’t do. I need to  know your limits, and you need to know mine. This is consensual, Andrew.” 

“And if I don’t want to do this?” 

“That’s fine,” she says carefully. 

“But we won’t have any sort of relationship?” I ask. 

“No.” 

“Why?” 

“This is the only sort of relationship I’m interested in.” 

“Why?” 

She shrugs, “It’s the way I am.” 

“How did you become this way?” 

“Why is anyone the way they are? That’s kind of hard to answer. Why do some people like cheese and other people hate it? Do you like cheese? Mr. Jones – my housekeeper  – has left this for supper.”

She takes some large, white plates from a cupboard and places one in front of me. We’re talking about cheese… Holy crap. 

“What are your rules that I have to follow?”

“I have them written down. We’ll go through them once we’ve eaten.” 

Food. How can I eat now? “I’m really not hungry,” I whisper. 

“You will eat,” she says simply. Dominating Christina, it all becomes clear. “Would  you like another glass of wine?” 

“Yes, please.” 

She pours wine into my glass and comes to sit beside me. I take a hasty sip. “Help yourself to food, Andrew.” 

I take a small bunch of grapes. This I can manage. She narrows her eyes. 

“Have you been like this for a while?” I ask. 

“Yes.” 

“Is it easy to find men who want to do this?” 

She raises an eyebrow at me, “You’d be amazed,” she says dryly. 

“Then why me? I really don’t understand.”

“Andrew, I’ve told you. There’s something about you. I can’t leave you alone.” She  smiles ironically. “I’m like a moth to a flame.” Her voice darkens. “I want you very badly, especially now, when you’re biting your lip again.” She takes a deep breath and swallows.

My stomach somersaults – she wants me… in a weird way, true, but this beautiful, strange, kinky woman wants me. 

“I think you have that cliché the wrong way round.” I grumble. I am the moth and she is the flame, and I’m going to get burnt. I know. 

“Eat!” 

“No. I haven’t signed anything yet, so I think I’ll hang on to my free will for a bit  longer, if that’s okay with you.” 

Her eyes soften, and her lips turn up in a smile. 

“As you wish, Mr Steele.” 

“How many men?” I blurt out the question, but I’m so curious. 

“Fifteen.” 

Oh… not as many as I thought. 

“For long periods of time?” 

“Some of them, yes.” 

“Have you ever hurt anyone?” 

“Yes.” 

Holy shit. 

“Badly?” 

“No.” 

“Will you hurt me?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Physically, will you hurt me?” 

“I will punish you when you require it, and it will be painful.” 

I think I feel a little faint. I take another sip of wine. Alcohol - this will make me brave. “Have you ever been beaten?” I ask. 

“Yes.”

Oh… that surprises me. Before I can question her on this revelation further, she interrupts my train of thought. 

“Let’s discuss this in my study. I want to show you something.” 

This is so hard to process. Here I was foolishly thinking that I’d spend a night of unparalleled passion in this woman’s bed, and we’re negotiating this weird arrangement. I follow her into her study, a spacious room with another floor-to-ceiling window that opens out onto the balcony. She sits on the desk, motions for me to sit on a leather chair in  front of her, and hands me a piece of paper. 

“These are the rules. They may be subject to change. They form part of the contract, which you can also have. Read these rules and let’s discuss.” 

RULES 

Obedience: 

The Submissive will obey any instructions given by the Dominant immediately without hesitation or reservation and in an expeditious manner. 

The Submissive will agree to any sexual activity deemed fit and pleasurable by the Dominant excepting those activities which are outlined in hard limits (Appendix 2). He will do so eagerly and without hesitation. 

Sleep:

The Submissive will ensure he achieves a minimum of seven hours sleep a night when he is not with the Dominant. 

Food: 

The Submissive will eat regularly to maintain his health and wellbeing from a prescribed list of foods (Appendix 4). 

The Submissive will not snack between meals, with the exception of fruit. 

Clothes: 

During the Term, the Submissive will wear clothing only approved by the Dominant. The Dominant will provide a clothing budget for the Submissive, which the Submissive shall utilize. 

The Dominant shall accompany the Submissive to purchase clothing on an ad hoc basis. 

If the Dominant so requires, the Submissive shall during the Term any adornments  the Dominant shall require, in the presence of the Dominant and any other time the Dominant deems fit. 

Exercise: 

The Dominant shall provide the Submissive with a personal trainer four times a week in hour-long sessions at times to be mutually agreed between the personal trainer and the Submissive. 

The personal trainer will report to the Dominant on the Submissive’s progress. 

Personal Hygiene/Beauty:

The Submissive will keep himself clean and shaved at all times. 

The Submissive will visit a salon of the Dominant’s choosing at times to be decided by the Dominant, and undergo whatever treatments the Dominant sees fit. 

Personal Safety: 

The Submissive will not drink to excess, smoke, take recreational drugs, or put himself in any unnecessary danger. 

Personal Qualities: 

The Submissive will not enter into any sexual relations with anyone other than the Dominant. 

The Submissive will conduct himself in a respectful and modest manner at all times. 

He must recognize that his behavior is a direct reflection on the Dominant. 

He shall be held accountable for any misdeeds, wrongdoings, and misbehavior committed when not in the presence of the Dominant.  

Failure to comply with any of the above will result in immediate punishment, the nature of which shall be determined by the Dominant. 

Holy fuck. 

“Hard limits?” I ask. 

“Yes. What you won’t do, what I won’t do, we need to specify in our agreement.”

“I’m not sure about accepting money for clothes. It feels wrong.” I shift uncomfortably, the word ‘ho’ rattling round my head. 

“I want to lavish money on you, let me buy you some clothes. I may need you to accompany me to functions, and I want you dressed well. I’m sure your salary, when you do get a job, won’t cover the kind of clothes I’d like you to wear.” 

“I don’t have to wear them when I’m not with you?” 

“No.” 

“Okay.” Think of them as uniform. 

“I don’t want to exercise four times a week.” 

“Andrew, I need you supple, strong, and with stamina. Trust me, you need to exercise.” 

“But surely not four times a week, how about three?” 

“I want you to do four.” 

“I thought this was a negotiation?” 

She purses her lips at me.  

“Okay, Mr Steele, another point well made. How about an hour on three days and  one day half an hour?” 

“Three days, three hours. I get the impression you’re going to keep me exercised when I’m here.” 

She smiles wickedly, and her eyes glow as if relieved. “Yes, I am. Okay, agreed. Are you sure you don’t want to intern at my company? You’re a good negotiator.”

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I stare down at her rules. 

“So, limits. These are mine.” She hands me another piece of paper. 

Hard Limits 

• No acts involving fire play 

• No acts involving urination or defecation and the products thereof 

• No acts involving needles, knives, piercing, or blood 

• No acts involving gynecological medical instruments 

• No acts involving children or animals 

• No acts that will leave any permanent marks on the skin 

• No acts involving breath control

Ugh. She has to write these down! Of course – they all look very sensible, and frankly, necessary… any sane person wouldn’t want to be involved in this sort of thing surely? Though I now feel a little queasy. 

“Is there anything you’d like to add?” she asks kindly. 

Crap. I’ve no idea. I am completely stumped. She gazes at me and furrows her brow. “Is there anything you won’t do?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean you don’t know?” 

I squirm uncomfortably and bite my lip.  

“I’ve never done anything like this.” 

“Well, when you’ve had sex, was there anything that you didn’t like doing?” 

For the first time in what seems to be ages, I blush. 

“You can tell me, Andrew. We have to be honest with each other or this isn’t going  to work.” 

I squirm uncomfortably again and stare at my knotted fingers. 

“Tell me,” she commands. 

“Well… I’ve not had sex before, so I don’t know.” My voice is small. I peek up at her, and she’s staring at me, mouth-open, frozen, and pale - really pale. 

“Never?” she whispers. I shake my head. 

“You’re a virgin?” she breathes. I nod, flushing again. She closes her eyes and looks to be counting to ten. When she opens them again, she’s angry, glaring at me. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” she growls.

People...it’s time I came out of the closet. There’s a secret I’ve been living with for over a year now and it has been weighing heavily on my chest. I wrote about my experience of being admitted to a psych ward and I mentioned that while there I got diagnosed with one of the most despised disorders available. To anyone with any mental health awareness, you probably immediately knew what that was. But for everyone else, let me end the suspense...

I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Announcing this to people always reminds me of a scene in Justice League Unlimited.

Lex Luthor and Wally West (A.K.A The Flash!) switch brains. So Lex is in Flash’s body. He decides that since he’s in the body of one of the members of the Justice League, he’ll find out the guy’s secret identity.

So he goes to the bathroom, pulls down Flash’s hood, stares in the mirror and goes..."I have no idea who this is."

What I’m saying is, for many of you reading, this isn’t an interesting revelation.
So, let’s look at what exactly BPD is so that you’ve got some context if you find yourself caring about someone with it (or so you can react appropriately to my mental health revelations).

There’s a list of 9 symptoms that relate to Borderline Personality Disorder. In order to be diagnosed you need to exhibit 5 of them, and have experienced them for a long period of time.

In case you’re curious the nine rings for the world of men are named:

• fear of abandonment

• unstable relationships

• unclear or unstable self-image

• impulsive, self-destructive behaviors

• self-harm

• extreme emotional swings

• chronic feelings of emptiness

• explosive anger

• feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’re looking at that list and thinking “Well fuck, that’s basically a list of things that are incompatible with ever being loved.” Because who wants to love someone with all that baggage right? Well, let me ask you a different question. How would you feel about dating someone with PTSD? The reason I ask is because there’s a lot of debate about whether or not BPD should be re-classified as “Complex PTSD”.

PTSD and BPD often develop in people who have had similar experiences. Both come about as a result of experiencing some form of trauma, and both leave the patient struggling to regulate their emotions. Usually Borderline patients experience trauma in childhood, while PTSD patients are more likely to have experienced trauma after adolescence.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are so common in people diagnosed that a study about childhood trauma and BPD it was found that 81% of subjects had childhood abuse in their past;

• 71% reported physical abuse

• 68% sexual abuse

• 62% had witnessed severe domestic violence

A lot of the difference between PTSD and BPD comes down to the way we characterise them. Borderline is often seen as manipulative behaviour, emotional outbursts, fear of abandonment and a constant need for reassurance.

PTSD is often characterised by traumatic flashbacks, emotional numbness and increased likelihood of irritability and anger issues.

I say characterised because this is how we collectively think of these disorders, but not necessarily how they manifest. What I personally find interesting though is that women are waaaay more likely to be diagnosed with BPD.

It’s curious to note that the one that’s known as being emotionally unstable and a bit hysterical seems to be universally diagnosed in women, but the one that’s about emotionally shutting down and getting angry seems to be attributed mainly to men.

I wonder what that’s about?

So how and why are people with BPD like this? Remember that childhood trauma thing? Well it kind of has a big impact on people. When you’re a kid growing up in an environment that doesn’t meet certain emotional and physical needs, you learn to resort to more indirect methods of getting what you need to survive.

For example; if you have a parent who controls your access to food, you might learn to manipulate other adults into feeding you by getting invited to friend’s houses for dinner a lot.

Unfortunately, you don’t get to unlearn this shit when you find yourself as an adult and free from that environment. I mean, for a start no one has taught you that the world is different to your abusive environment. You still believe the whole world will keep treating you the way you’re used to, so you keep your coping mechanisms.

The problem is it can become a self fulfilling prophecy. If you’ve taught yourself to push people away because you’re scared of being hurt, you’re going to end up confirming your own beliefs about everyone abandoning you.

When I was diagnosed with BPD the nurse who took me back to my room in the psych ward told me not to advise any of the other staff about the diagnosis because they would “treat me differently.” I actually had trouble finding a psychiatrist after I was released, because many of them started seeing me as a “difficult patient”, despite the fact that I was the same person I’d always been and had never had a problem finding a therapist before.

In mental health circles Borderline tends to have the same kind of reputation as Crystal Meth; you just don’t fuck around with it.

At this point you might be asking yourself why it has such a bad name. Like, that list of symptoms doesn’t sound great, but as long as you’re not dating someone with it, it shouldn’t be too bad right?

An online mental health resource called The Mighty talked to people with BPD and asked them what behaviours they display that gets mistaken for manipulation.

Needing Constant Reassurance or Validation

“I ask for reassurance because I worry I’m miscommunicating or misinterpreting someone. But I’ve found some people think I do it to force them to say something I want to hear. Which really isn’t the case at all! I just don’t have the social skills to know if my communication is effective and often am consumed with anxiety about thoughts and judgments being made.” — Kirsty D.

Threatening Suicide

“I used to get so depressed after a breakup I would become suicidal, so people thought I was just trying to keep them from leaving by threatening suicide. In reality, I’m so afraid of abandonment that I’d rather die than feel alone again. I know this can seem manipulative and it’s no way to deal with a breakup, so I now handle these things in healthier ways.” — Heather D.

Having Intense Emotional Reactions

“Crying. I feel things immensely so when I’m hurting, it shows. I’ve had people tell me I’m ‘just trying to get attention’ or ‘I want people to ask me what’s wrong so I can get sympathy.’ In all reality, I hate that I can so easily cry in front of people because I don’t want them to ask.” — Antasia H.

Being ‘Too Clingy’

“I always become too clingy around my ‘favorite person.’ Then when I feel like they’re about to leave me, I do it first so I can avoid getting my feelings hurt.” — Glory P.

Being ‘Too Distant’

“Pulling people closer then pushing them away then pulling them close again. It is an endless cycle of wanting to be loved but being absolutely terrified that a person will abandon you.” — Megan K.

I can only tell you what Borderline is like for me. I don’t have all the symptoms, and I most likely don’t have the same ones as that friend of a friend you have who got diagnosed. But for me, Borderline is like being in one of those films where you can’t tell if you can trust the narrator or not.

You know those movies where the main character may or may not be crazy/imagining people that aren’t there and you kind of spend the whole movie trying to figure out what’s real and what’s inside their head? It’s like that; you’re constantly paranoid about everything you think and feel and whether it’s real or not.

Because on good days your emotions and mood are stable, but on bad days, it’s like someone stripped the insulation off the wires that carry your emotions around. As soon as something touches them they go off like a live wire through your brain and you find yourself reacting emotionally to things before you’ve even logically registered what they are.

I message a friend.

Facebook Messenger tells me they’ve seen the message, but they haven’t replied.

Some people might get anxiety from this; they might spend time wondering whether they’ve upset that person and stewing on it until they get a reply. But for Borderline this is a perfect opportunity to start connecting some dots.

You see, not only did they see the message and not reply, but the last three times we spoke it was me who initiated contact. Also, the last time we caught up in person they seemed really distracted and like they’d rather be somewhere else. I look them up on social media and see that they’ve posted recently, so obviously they’re not too busy to be trying to get all the likes, but they’re too busy to message me.

Now that I think about it, it’s always been a pretty one sided friendship. Like, it always feels like I’m the one initiating social stuff.

You know what, this is bullshit, I feel like I’m always doing the emotional labour with this person and they don’t ever seem to be putting in as much effort as I do. I think it’s time to end this friendship. I might’ve known them for over a decade, but you know what, it’s better if I start to pull away now because if I don’t they’re only going to end up fucking me over in a bigger way somewhere down the line.

These thoughts occur in the space of about five minutes.

Then they reply.

“Sorry! I was just driving and couldn’t reply, how are you?! I’ve missed you!”

My borderline means constantly being on high alert for any sign that the people I’m engaging with don’t want to be there. Because somewhere inside me, there’s a fucking persuasive voice telling me that they don’t. I watch facial expressions for signs that their eyes are glazing over, that they’re not watching my face when I talk, to see if their feet are pointing away from me. I’m constantly scanning for evidence that I’m not wanted. I keep track of how often I’m initiating the conversation, vs how often they are, often finding myself desperately wanting to reach out to them but not being able to because I’m so paranoid about coming across as needy and clingy.

Sometimes I get lucky and I have friends you can reach out to and say “Hey...I’m feeling a bit paranoid...are we okay?” And I’ll have a friend or a partner reply and provide the validation and reassurance that I need. But realistically everyone has their own lives and I can’t rely on external validation to help me cope.

After all, there’s nothing worse than sending an “Are we okay” and not getting a reply for 2 days because that person was overseas or out of range. Since I can’t constantly ask for reassurance, and because I’m aware that I don’t want to be seen as needy or clingy I start to find fucked up ways around it. I set tests.

Instead of saying “Hey, I feel like I’m often the one who is organising our catch ups” I just stop organising them and wait to see if the other person ever does, and when they don’t (because some people are just kind of shit at initiating that stuff) I take it as evidence that they secretly don’t want to be friends with me and I start distancing myself from them.

Instead of clarifying and saying “Hey, I feel like you’re not making much time for me” I let the narrative tell me that they’re pulling away because I never mattered to them, so I stop talking to them and start convincing myself that I’m better off without them in my life.

The narrator in my head is giving me a huge amount of evidence that these people don’t care, and then it uses existing patterns of behaviour to back it up. If I know my friend is bad at initiating contact, guess what’s going to happen when I step back and wait for them to make the first move? I’m going to prove that they won’t initiate contact, but I’ve managed to set it up so that this also proves they don’t care about me.

It’s confirmation bias at its absolute worst.  

Borderline involves learning to hate yourself more than anyone else ever can, because that way no one else can hurt you. It’s a kind of shield against the world. It means you never really believe anyone when they say nice things about you (but being able to fake it well enough to not make anyone feel awkward).

In fact the more compassion someone shows you, the more likely you are to want to punish yourself. Let’s say you fucked up your partner’s night by having an episode, so they take you home early. You won’t be grateful that they understand you, and that they’re supporting you, you’ll end up emotionally flogging yourself for ruining their night (and their entire life) because you know you don’t deserve someone who is this kind to you.

With Borderline you will punish yourself constantly. For example, I’ve managed to completely erase my body’s ability to register the feeling of hunger, because I starve myself so often to punish myself for being fat (and therefore terrible).

I do a lot of small things to punish myself, most of them are what I call emotional self harm. You’re probably familiar with this one if you’ve ever Facebook stalked an ex to see how happy they are now that you’re broken up, (or how good looking their new partner is). The only difference is I do it with people I haven’t broken up with, just stalking friends on social media to remind myself that everyone lives their best life when I’m not around.

You think that’s bad? It gets worse. My Borderline impacts who I allow myself to be attracted to. If I feel that someone is too conventionally attractive or cool, I literally can’t allow myself to feel attraction for them because I know I’m not good enough to be allowed to have those feelings.

I’ve never been able to have a sexual fantasy about a celebrity or a crush because my imagination isn’t good enough to picture a world in which they would ever want to have sex with me. My sex fantasies used to exclusively involve “forced to fuck” scenarios because if I didn’t start out by apologising to the person I was having sex with, it just seemed too far fetched for me to be able to engage my suspension of disbelief.

I should stop at this point and clarify something. I’m not telling you all of this so that you realise what an unhinged weirdo I am. I’m telling you this to give you context for the behaviours that Borderline causes. Because none of it makes much sense if you don’t first understand the thought patterns that cause it.

I’m lucky in that my Borderline is “quiet” so the anger, the hatred, the rage; it’s all turned inwards on myself. Other people aren’t so lucky and it all flows out towards the people they care about, which is where the stigma of BPD being tied to abusive partners comes from.

Some BPD people will lash out at the people they love for hurting them (or their narrative telling them they’ve been hurt, regardless of whether it actually happened). People with quiet BPD tend to do it through distancing themselves; the more they care about someone the more they overthink their behaviour and find proof that they’re hated.

For me I start to just pull away, because I know no one will chase me, because no one actually cares about me (because I’m the worst, obvs). Either way though, the result is the same; if you have BPD, you end up isolating yourself from the people you care about. Because it’s only the people you care about that can hurt you by abandoning you.

Ultimately Borderline is a learned set of behaviours that have come about as a result of needing to deal with trauma. They’re coping mechanisms that have been established as a result of being hurt too many times. If you love or care about someone with Borderline be prepared to justify why you care about them, because they genuinely can't understand why you would.

And wherever possible, try not make promises or offers to them that you can't back up. It might seem like a little thing to you, but it's a sure fire way to destroy the trust of someone who has a long history of being let down by the people they love.

Realistically I could tell you a million things you could do to help a person with Borderline in your life, but if I'm being honest the only thing that’s going to make any difference for them is getting professional help. Borderline isn’t like depression, or anxiety; it’s not a chemical imbalance.

If you have BPD, you’re doing things you have taught yourself to do. Sometimes these things are abusive, manipulative, or simply unstable as fuck, but they disrupt the lives of people around you. The only way to stop them is to unlearn them, slowly unpacking each one and dealing with them in turn. There’s no drug you can take for BPD, just years of therapy and working on yourself. It’s an isolating experience, knowing that you’re the only person who can fix yourself, especially when the whole problem is that you don’t think you deserve to be happy or well.

I’ve had mental health issues all my life, and I’ve been working on them for just as long. I see mental health issues as being very similar to having a chronic illness. It’s not someone’s fault that they have diabetes, but if they’re not monitoring their blood sugar, not exercising and not taking insulin, then it’s reasonable to be pissed with them when they end up in hospital.

It’s not my fault that I have Borderline, but I have a duty to the people I love; if I want them in my life then I need to own my shit. I need to be better than the disorder and do my best to work on my issues. And yes, I’ll fuck up along the way, and that’s when I’m grateful for the people who support me. But if I’m not actively trying to get better then I’m just asking for a lifetime of tolerance for problematic behaviours.

Mental illness isn’t an excuse for shitty behaviour, it needs to be managed just as much as physical illness. But if you know someone with BPD, a little empathy and understanding will always help that along.

That is all.

You may go now.

People...I want to tell you a story. It’s a story I’ve told many times now, but it’s one that I think you might appreciate. It’s a story about a lamp. A very Sexy Lamp. And at some point in the future there’s a good chance I’m going to refer back to this story to help me illustrate some otherwise convoluted point. So I hope you enjoy my feminist fairy tale.

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there was a Queen. It's important to note that she'd married into the position and hadn't achieved it through any merit of her own. But she had quickly managed to do away with her husband. 

Disregarding how she became Queen, how she was permitted to rule a kingdom without a husband, and why the peasantry hadn't revolted and demanded a representative parliament yet, all you really need to know is that this Queen had some serious personal validation hang ups. 

This Queen had been raised in a patriarchal society that taught her that her only value was in her appearance, so she had an unhealthy obsession with staring into her mirror instead of ruling her kingdom.

“Magic mirror, on the wall,” she would intone, “Who is the fairest of them all?”

And because a woman’s aesthetic value can only really be determined by a man, the mirror would reply with a deep masculine voice, “My Queen, the fairest in all the land is you.”

And because the Queen had been taught that the approval of men, even disembodied ones living in mirrors, meant more than her own opinion of herself, she would be satisfied.

One day however the Queen looked into the mirror, asked her question and received an unexpected answer.

"My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But that Sexy Lamp is a thousand times more beautiful than you.”

“What do you mean?!” demanded the Queen. How could this be?! She'd worked so hard on starving herself and reading every beauty tip in Ye Olde Cosmo!

The Mirror showed her an image of a Sexy Lamp that had been installed in one of the empty bed chambers.

The Queen had to concede that it was a pretty hot lamp, but surely she was far more magnificent!

She summoned a servant and told him to take the lamp down to the kitchens where it could illuminate the table scraps and hopefully get boiling oil splattered all over it at some point. And then she went back to ignoring the no doubt pressing issues involved with running a kingdom.

The servant did as the Queen commanded (because the working class still hadn’t conceived of a revolution at this point).

The Sexy Lamp dutifully illuminated the kitchens for seven long years (yeah, seriously Snow White is 7 years old in the original story), but to the Queen’s eternal frustration it never got any uglier.

Because the Queen was conditioned to believe that she was in constant competition with other women instead of being part of a united sisterhood, the Queen could no longer handle being the second most attractive woman in all the land.

She summoned her huntsman (not a spider) to her and commanded him to take the lamp deep into the Enchanted Forest and once there, remove its bulb and bring it back to her as proof that the lamp was no more.

The huntsman dragged the lamp to the middle of Buttfuck, Enchanted Forest and prepared to unscrew the bulb. But you see, the huntsman was an anomaly among medieval servant class and had a good working knowledge of vintage decor.

He realised that the lamp had an Edison-style Incandescent bulb that really complemented its chintz lampshade. If he took the bulb, the overall aesthetic of the lamp would be ruined forever! So he decided to leave the lamp where it was and return to his Queen via Ye Olde Hardware Shoppe, and pickup a common Compact Fluorescent bulb on his way. She’d never know the difference!

When the huntsman presented the Queen with the bulb, she was satisfied and proceeded to stomp the globe under her foot, thus believing she would be the most beautiful (and therefore valued) woman in all the land.

Meanwhile...in the Enchanted Forest several men of small stature were returning from a hard day’s work in the mines. They stumbled across the lamp and despite their lack of culture they could easily recognise that it was a pretty Sexy Lamp.

“Oh, if we took her home, she could light up our whole hovel!” one of the men said.

“You’re right! And some idiot has left her here with her bulb still in tact. All we need to do is plug ‘er in!”

So the seven men of short stature took the Sexy Lamp back to their hovel and plugged her in, where she did indeed illuminate their cramped residence for them. Because they were working class men, they were clearly very unintelligent so it had never occurred to them to acquire a light source before.

Unfortunately, when the Queen went to the mirror seeking her daily validation, she once again did not get the response she was hoping for.

“My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But that Sexy Lamp living with those seven men is a thousand times more beautiful than you.”

The Queen flew into a rage, calling the Sexy Lamp a number of whorephobic and sex negative names for having the shamelessness to live alone with seven men. In reality though this just further tied into her own insecurity about being unable to obtain the approval of such a large number of men.

The Queen knew spellcraft by virtue of having a vagina. Vagina owners are notoriously tricksy and can’t be trusted, because they’re mysterious and produce small babies from out of nowhere on occasion.

So the Queen decided she would use her dark sorcery to fuck up this Sexy Lamp once and for all. Instead of putting on a hat and some Groucho Marx glasses, she completely transformed herself into a hideous old crone. It was especially important that she be old as well as ugly, because both of those things make a woman inherently untrustworthy and unlikeable and she didn’t want to make it difficult for the audience to wish death upon her.

The Queen of Oldness and Ugliness arrived at the hovel of the seven men and found it unattended. So she cleverly opened the door, snuck up to the Sexy Lamp and removed her lovely Edison-style Incandescent Bulb. Sadly, on her way back to the castle to enjoy a victory latte, she was mistaken for someone actually old and ugly and was stoned to death by peasants who were no doubt jealous of her access to fancy light bulbs.

When the seven men of short stature returned from their day of work to find that the Sexy Lamp no longer had a bulb they realised what a useless piece of frippery it was and dragged it back to the middle of the forest and then went home via Ye Olde Ikea Shoppe to buy a replacement.

In the meantime though a local Prince, who was not at all related to the Queen (because apparently random monarchs were just all over the fucking place way back when), was riding his horse through the forest. He saw the Sexy Lamp and stopped suddenly. “What a fuckable lamp!” he thought to himself. He looked and realised that the Sexy Lamp didn’t have a bulb in it and was momentarily disheartened. But then he remembered that he was rich and could acquire more bulbs! So he commanded his men to take the Sexy Lamp back to his castle and install it in his bedroom, where it could illuminate his room happily ever after.

The End.

That is all.

You may go now.

People...I’m not a hero. There’s been a few situations in my life where I’ve watched something shitty happen and debated about whether to step in and risk life and limb in the pursuit of doing the right thing. For the most part however self-preservation has won out. So when I came across “Not On My Watch” I thought this was the perfect opportunity to learn how to pull on my Supergirl outfit and do the right thing in the face of danger.

Not On My Watch (NOMW) is a small book designed as a “Bystander’s handbook for the prevention of sexual violence”. It’s written and published by Isabella Rotman and a copy was provided to me by the awesome team at Nikki Darling. It’s presented as a comic book and starts by introducing the concept of the “Consent Cavalry” a group of people who are educated in ways to prevent sexual violence. By reading the book you become a member of the Consent Cavalry and should feel confident intervening in situations where you feel someone is being endangered. It’s a simple premise and to be honest, levelling any kind of criticism at it feels like kicking a puppy. But...well, there’s a few problems with it.

NOMW is a very small book, so obviously it’s not possible for it to address the myriad of complex issues surrounding sexual assault. But as an Australian reading it, it does focus very specifically on the American college campus dynamic. Obviously college sexual assault is a huge issue in America, which is why I was a little disappointed with the tone it took.

It starts by introducing your host, a gender ambiguous person called “Sergeant Yes means Yes” who rides a fixie bicycle and a kind of marching band meets military costume. The lessons are delivered by the Sergeant talking to a depressed looking guy in a hoodie wearing a backwards baseball cap that says “Sports”. All of this illustrates my first issue with the book - it reads as though it’s designed for middle school kids. It has that kind of mid 90s “cool handbook” approach to kids and drugs. Which is to say, it’s a little bit patronising and a whole lot of preaching to the choir.

Everything about NOMW is woke as fuck. There are references to sexual assault victims and perpetrators being every combination of gender, race and sexuality. They go out of their way to reiterate that anyone can be a victim, and anyone can be a culprit. While this is absolutely 100% true, and a healthy reminder, I feel like this isn’t actually the right forum for it. You don’t need to get socially conscious people on your side, they’re already there. They’re the ones protesting rape culture on weekends. So rather than making a super inclusive, politically correct book for the woke kids, you’d be better off getting your hands dirty and just addressing the people who are part of the actual problem. Talk to the frat kids. Talk to the sports players. Talk to the people who don’t currently give a fuck about the problem of sexual assault. Make your narrator a straight white dude who has a football scholarship. Make your audience avatar a kid who’s figuring out which frat to pledge to. Because while yes, gays, lesbians, trans and queer people can all be perpetrators of sexual assault - they’re not the biggest problem. While yes, straight men can be victims of sexual assault, they’re not the ones most likely to have it happen to them. By being inclusive you’re alienating the group who most need to hear this message. Because we live in a time when there are literal Nazi rallies and people demanding the destruction of safe spaces because “fuck snowflakes”. Clearly the people who are watching sexual assault happening and saying nothing are the ones in the middle and you can’t win them over with language of social justice. Win them over by pointing out what’s in it for them. Win them over by making it about them. Win them over by speaking their language and putting their faces on the cover.

Aside from all of this though, NOMW got me thinking about bystanders in general. In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, many sexual assault survivors starting posting “Me Too” to their social media in an effort to raise awareness of just how common sexual assault and harassment are. Within hours of this happening many women were writing articles pointing out that it shouldn’t be the responsibility of women to bring attention to this issue. That women have poured hours and hours of their lives into the emotional labour of educating men and now it’s their turn to step up. It’s time for the bystanders to take an actual stand and help to fight this epidemic.

Here’s an interesting thing about the Harvey Weinstein scandal, something that’s been rattling around in my brain for a while; Brad Pitt dated Gwenyth Paltrow and was married to Angelina Jolie, both of whom were victims of Weinstein. He then went on to film two movies with Miramax (2009’s Inglourious Basterds and 2012’s Killing Them Softly). Apparently he confronted Weinstein after Paltrow told him about her abuse (which Weinstein responded to by threatening Paltrow if she ever told anyone again). So here we have a triumvirate of sorts, three of the best known names in Hollywood. Victims and a bystander. Report after report has confirmed that Weinstein’s behaviour was an open secret in the industry. There were plenty of bystanders.

I’ve always believed that men have a duty to speak up in the face of any sexism they witness, since I know their words carry more weight than mine. I was discussing this with a male friend recently when he related his experience of this to me.

“I had a boss who used to make a lot of sexist comments. When I started to hang out with him a bit more, I called him on it. I said ‘You can’t say those things man, it’s not cool.” And he replied by asking me when I’d grown my vagina. He didn’t give a shit whether or not I thought it was cool. My opinion on his shitty jokes weren’t relevant. We were a small company, there was no HR department I could go to, no Board of Directors I could appeal to. I still don’t know what I was meant to do. What was the right thing?”

And that’s exactly it. With Weinstein, with NOMW, with all of the best intentions surrounding bystanders we don’t actually know what to tell people to do when there’s no higher power. Sure, Brad Pitt could have refused to work with Miramax, my friend could have quit his job in protest, but neither of those things would have actually changed anything. We tend to view bystanders as culpable individuals who witnessed awful things and did nothing. It’s that whole "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

There’s a bit of a catch with the whole good men (and women) doing nothing thing though. In 2002 a paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, that reported more than 70% of women had witnessed sexual harassment of other women in their work environment. A 1997 report titled  ‘Ambient sexual harassment: an integrated model of antecedents and consequences’ found that employees are frequently aware of who among their male co-workers harasses female employees. So, in layman’s terms a whole lot of people are witnessing sexual harassment and know who is responsible for it. Does this mean that there’s just a whole heap of people who give zero fucks about sexual harassment? Well the Australian Human Rights Commission did some research into it and their findings were pretty fucking interesting.

“There is a growing recognition that even observing or hearing about the sexual harassment of co-workers can foster bystander stress and other negative outcomes that parallel those experienced by the direct targets of harassment. Such outcomes include reduced health satisfaction, team conflict, declines in financial performance, occupational stress and job withdrawal.”

This means that bystanders are basically having the same or similar experiences as victims of sexual harassment. If this is the case (and I’m assuming it is since I don’t generally argue with Human Rights Commissions), then from a bystander’s perspective it would be in their best interests to put a stop to any kind of harassment or assault. The fact that they’re not indicates that there’s something more at play here than simply indifference.

If you google “bystander sexual assault” most of the guides that come up will list the numbers of reasons people don’t intervene when witnessing assault or harassment. Usually they’re along the lines of:

“I don’t know what to do or what to say.”
“I don’t want to cause a scene.”
“It’s not my business.”
“I don’t want my friend to be mad at me.”
“I’m sure someone else will step in.”

But perhaps it’s none of these. Perhaps bystanders, like victims, are genuinely terrified. We’re terrified of what happens to us if we step up and say something. Will we be targeted? Will we become the next victim? Will be punished financially, socially, or in some other way? And given everything that we’ve seen with Weinstein, it’s not unbelievable to think that many bystanders are asking themselves who the fuck will listen. Amber Heard came out and accused Johnny Depp of assault, and everyone labelled her a lying gold digger (even after she donated all of her damages payments to charity). Bill Cosby had 50 accusers and still got acquitted. Weinstein operated in the industry for over 20 years, with most people in Hollywood knowing what he was doing. Nothing happened.

So, my issue with NOMW and with everyone saying that we need more people to stand up against sexual assault and harassment is that we’re still looking at the wrong people. Right now we’re sending the message that women need to learn not get raped, that bystanders need to step in and stop people from harassing, assaulting and raping. But what we’re telling perpetrators is that you can absolutely get away with it. You can ignore all the people who tell you to stop. You can threaten your victims into silence. You can bully others into covering up what you’re doing. You might get caught, but even if you do there’s a good chance you’ll be acquitted.

Sure, if you’re a potential victim and you know you can make decisions to make yourself safer, that’s awesome. If you’re a bystander and you’re able to make someone stop their behaviour, that’s cool, definitely do that. But what we really need is some fucking serious education for potential perpetrators of sexual violence. We need to teach people about consent, about bodily autonomy, about what constitutes assault, harassment and rape. Since the law won’t convict, society won’t shun, and perpetrators consistently go unpunished, education is the only real weapon we have left in our arsenal.

Educate at every opportunity. When books like NOMW come out, they need to be talking to the right audience. We need to be putting this shit into words that people will respond to. Fuck altruism and inclusiveness, the education around this needs to be inescapable. We need to make it clear that not being a sexual criminal is in their best interests. Because at this point that’s the only language these people are speaking.

Most importantly though, this conversation needs to start young. We need to be teaching children this basic fucking lesson. We need to ingrain it in them the same way they know not to murder and maim other people. This is why sex education reform is so crucial. Until we start educating people properly we’re going to see more and more Harvey Weinsteins, Bill Cosbys and Bill O’Reillys and no amount of bystanders will be able to make a difference.

That is all.

You may go now.

*This is part of our Sexual Sins Series

People...I’m an only child. I was raised by a single mother, with no siblings. This means there weren’t a whole heap of family members around, and none that were especially attractive. As a result of this, my views on incest have always been kind of skewed. I understand logically that we’re not meant to be attracted to relatives, but to be honest, I look at a lot of people with newfound respect for being able to make it through puberty with siblings that look like theirs.

Before we begin, let’s have a quick recap of how closely related we all actually are in the first place.

“In 1987, geneticists studied the mitochondrial DNA of 147 people of different races and found the DNA of all living people fall within one of two human lineages. One of these lineages descended solely from Africa, while the other contains traces of all other races. According to one geneticist, humans actually share more mitochondrial DNA than most primates. The mitochondrial DNA of two humans has only about half as many differences as the DNA of two other primates of the same species, suggesting that humans have a much more recent common ancestor than other primates. Geneticists have traced everyone’s DNA to a single woman, nicknamed Mitochondrial Eve, who probably lived around 200,000 years ago in Africa.

If you happen to have blue eyes, you and every other blue-eyed person on Earth share a single common ancestor who lived between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before this common ancestor, every human being had brown eyes. Scientists aren’t sure why blue eyes spread so quickly around Europe, but theories have sprung up that blue eyes may be more useful in certain levels of daylight or were just considered sexually attractive to potential mates.

If you’re of European heritage, your lineage and the lineage of every European alive today can be traced to a set of ancestors that lived only 1,000 years ago, as researchers discovered after testing the DNA of over 2,000 people all across Europe. Researchers also found that, naturally, populations that lived closer together tended to be more related. Italians are slightly less related than other European populations, perhaps because they had a stable, independent population for many years, while people from the United Kingdom are more related to people from Ireland than people from other parts of the UK. Meanwhile, Eastern Europeans tend to be more related than the rest of Europe, which may be the result of the Slavic population boom that occurred about 1,000 years ago.”

Now obviously that’s a long way removed from how most of us view incest. We tend to imagine close blood relationships (parent-child and siblings) and most people’s instinctive reaction to incest is revulsion. Turns out there’s a good reason for that. Humans, like many animals, have evolved a “reverse sexual imprinting” process, also called the Westermarck effect. Basically if you grow up in the same house as someone else your brain kinda gets hardwired to see them as sexually repugnant. This is why so many people have issues discussing sex with or about their parents or siblings, because that sense of revulsion can overcompensate and go so far that you cease to see family members as sexual beings. To prove this theory, there was a study done on Israeli kibbutzim (like a socialist, Zionist farm). Kids on these kibbutzim were raised in communal groups based around age (but not around blood relation). They studied the marriage patterns of these kids later in life and found that out of the 3,000 marriages that occurred, only 14 were between children from the same peer group. And of those 14, not a single one had been raised together during the first 6 years of their life.

Here’s a story you might be familiar with. A king hears of a prophecy that his son will grow up to kill him. So he abandons his newborn son on a mountainside to be eaten by wolves. But some people who aren’t assholes discovered him and raised him as their own. Years later the boy meets the king on the road and after a fight about who had the right of way he kills the king. The boy continues into town, marries the newly widowed queen and becomes king (who says male privilege isn’t a thing). Later he finds out that the queen, his wife, is actually his mother. His mother kills herself and he gouges out both his eyes with a pin. Many years later an Austrian Neurologist will use this story as the basis for his theory - The Oedipus Complex. The myth is a perfect demonstration of what can happen without the Westermarck Effect. Oedipus wasn't raised with or by his parents and so had no innate revulsion towards them sexually. 

Oedipus’ journey is actually one that many people will experience in their lifetime; blood relatives, separated at birth and reunited later only to experience sexual attraction, often unaware of their genetic relationship. This specific situation is referred to as Genetic Sexual Attraction or GSA. It’s an attraction between close relatives, (parents and children, siblings and half-siblings, or first and second cousins) who first meet when they’re adults. It’s important to note that they’re not raised with the person they end up in a relationship with. There is no risk of grooming or predation. Much of what concerns people about the concept incest is that it's inherently predatory, especially in the case of a parent-child relationship. Even with siblings there is the idea that one party could be manipulating the other or coercing them into a situation they’re not entirely comfortable with. GSA removes this power dynamic and places both parties on an even footing.

It’s not uncommon for siblings adopted out to different families to be reunited once they’re adults. Likewise, parents who were sperm donors, or who had to give their children up for adoption might be reunited later in life. In many instances, GSA occurs without either party realising they’re related at all.

So you’re on Tinder and you see some sexy mo-fo who kind of looks like someone you know. You go on a couple of dates and there’s definitely some chemistry there. You start boning, fall in love, and then...you find out you’re related. But how? Why? Well apparently we’re all just a little bit narcissistic and we’re naturally drawn to people that look like us. This is because we find people who resemble our face as more “trustworthy and cooperative". Hence, this happens a lot more frequently than you’d think. Don’t believe me? In Iceland there’s literally an app whose sole purpose is to stop you from unwittingly banging your family members.

In South Africa a couple who met in college and dated for five years only found out they were siblings once they were pregnant and preparing their wedding.

In a plot twist worthy of the Lannisters, a UK couple had their marriage annulled after they found out they were twins separated at birth.

All these people were in a situation where they unwittingly entered into an incestuous relationship and, upon realising it, wanted to GTFO. So what happens if you meet up with a long lost sibling or parent, aware of the relation? Surely then you’d be forewarned and forearmed against romantic attraction developing. Well, apparently not. Studies on GSA have placed the incidence of romantic emotions developing in these situations at 50%. And for many of these people the love and passion they experience is worth the social taboo and shunning they might experience as a result.

In 2007, in Germany, a sibling couple decided to challenge the laws around incest. They met as adults, got married and had children together, but under German law their marriage wasn’t valid. So they fought to have it recognised (they failed). In 2011, in the UK, a woman pregnant with her first child faced the fear of being court ordered to separate from the man she loved; her father. They had reunited as adults, and formed a relationship, but were concerned the publicity around the pregnancy would prompt the courts to react to their relationship.

The interesting anomaly with both of these couples is the inclusion of children. While the German couple had four children together, two of which had been diagnosed with unspecified disabilities, the UK couple insisted on getting an ultrasound at 3 months to determine if there were going to be any health effects for their child.

Many people who raise concerns about incestuous relationships do so under that familiar flag of “Won’t someone think of the children?!” And in this case, there is a strong argument against incest, since it increases the likelihood of developmental issues. So how valid are these concerns? Let’s start with a benchmark; how common are birth defects in the general population? Well in the U.S there’s a baby born with a birth defect every 4.5 minutes, so about 3% of births. That percentage increases though when you consider that not all defects are diagnosable at birth. If you expand the age range, then the percentage increases to 12-14% by school age. So how much does it go up by if, say, you had children with your cousin? A 2% increase in the likelihood of defects at birth. I know, it's a lot of maths. 

To help put it into perspective; if your father was over 40 when you were conceived and you’re able bodied and neurotypical then you overcame some amazing odds. There’s a 1 in 5 chance of breast cancer in children with advanced paternal age. Children conceived by fathers over 40 have a 30% increased risk of epilepsy, a 37% increased risk of Down's syndrome, a 14% greater chance of childhood leukaemia, and a 70% increased likelihood of central nervous system cancers (such as brain tumours).

But wait, it gets better! If your dad was over 45, you have a threefold increased risk of retinoblastoma (a rare type of eye cancer), as well as an increased risk of autism and schizophrenia. Also achondroplasia, a common cause of dwarfism, is nearly eight times more prevalent in the children of fathers aged 50 and over.

So realistically you’re better off having kids with your cousin as long as both of you are under 40.

Don’t get too excited though, because if you’re looking to have kids with a parent or sibling then you’re probably going to want to hold off (if I had a dollar for every time I had to say that). A group of genetic counsellors reviewed research done on the outcomes of sex between direct relatives, specifically their kids.

“The researchers examined four studies (including the Czech research) on the effects of first degree incest on the health of the offspring. Forty percent of the children were born with either autosomal recessive disorders, congenital physical malformations, or severe intellectual deficits. And another 14 percent of them had mild mental disabilities. In short, the odds that a newborn child who is the product of brother-sister or father-daughter incest will suffer an early death, a severe birth defect or some mental deficiently approaches 50 percent.”

The moral of the story here is don’t have kids with your parents or siblings. However, there have been some interesting thought experiments raised about this very issue. If we look at eugenics as the practice of controlling who can breed with who on the basis of trying to eradicate certain negative outcomes, then isn’t outlawing marriage and sex between immediate relatives a form of eugenics? Aren’t we stripping people of their right to love and have children with whomever they wish under the guise of protecting not-yet-created children. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t we then be enforcing genetic screening for all couples hoping to procreate.

In 2010 a man named David Epstein was charged with third degree incest for allegedly having sex with his daughter. Let’s disregard whether or not Epstein was guilty, and whether or not you can have a consenting relationship with your own child, and focus instead on the law he was charged under. This law doesn’t just weigh in on “sexual intercourse” but also “oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct” meaning that regardless of whether or not you can get pregnant, it’s still illegal. Additionally it also applies to any close relative “whether through marriage or not” which means it’s not even distinguishing between genetic relatives and in-laws.

Let’s say that you meet up with a gorgeous stranger, fall in love and bond over your shared interests. You get married and only then realise the love of your life is actually your long lost sibling. Let’s also add that one or both of you got a vasectomy or tubal ligation, or perhaps you’re a same sex couple. At this point we have to acknowledge that no one was taken advantage of or groomed into the relationship since you only met as adults, and there’s no risk to any future offspring. As a society, are we still revolted and repulsed or can we acknowledge that at this point it’s purely about a constructed taboo.

Sue Cowling is the deputy director of the Post Adoption Centre raises valid concerns about what this taboo means for research into issues such as GSA and the people likely to be impacted by it.

“Because of the revulsion aroused by incest, and the stigma attached to anyone who admits experiencing GSA...the condition remains obscured by myth, tainted by smutty innuendo, under-reported by sufferers and, worse, virtually ignored in academic circles. Although, occasionally, a story involving GSA is given predictably lurid tabloid coverage, ignorance prevails.

The lack of any serious scientific research is especially disturbing in view of the growing number of reunions between adoptees and their birth parents, and the prospect of many future reunions between children born through IVF involving sperm and egg donors. In the view of Sue Cowling, deputy director of the Post-Adoption Centre, "Genetic sexual attraction associated with IVF births is a time bomb waiting to go off." Cowling, like many professionals, suspects the subject has remained a no-go area, even for psychologists, because even in a society wide awake to the spectre of paedophilia and sexual abuse in families, GSA - which falls into neither category - threatens to explode too many cosy assumptions about "normal" and aberrant sexual instincts.”

So maybe it’s time for us to put away our instinctive revulsion and vomit emojis and actually start discussing incest and the fact that it doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. That like so many things related to sex it deserves far more research and interest than we’re currently giving it.

Incest isn’t just a trending porn genre and favourite fan fiction trope, it’s a real thing that impacts real people’s lives and relationships. We need to start thinking about it critically so that we can adjust our legislation and our attitudes accordingly. Sticking our fingers in our ears and chanting “la la la too gross” isn’t helpful to anyone. So let’s suck it up and start talking about incest like adults. 

That is all.

You may go now.

[Content note: Graphic discussions of vagina]

People...women bleed. If you cut us, do we not bleed? Yes. But we also bleed if you don’t cut us; on average around once a month. This can come as a bit of a shock to men and many of them really don’t like to be reminded of it. Some are pretty chill, but others are like “OMFG gross, shame and shun it!” As a result of this period sex isn’t as common as it could be, and women who do sex work are forced to find ways to cover up their menstruation if they want to keep earning a wage while they go through their natural cycle. This week we’re going to go back, into the deep dark depths of my past to retrieve a story about my experience with one such woman. So grab your popcorn and pull up the snuggie, cos it’s STORYTIME MOTHERFUCKERS!

Some of you might not be entirely familiar with the physiology of a vagina. I’ll skip the anatomy lesson and get to the point. Many women, during their period will elect to use tampons. This involves inserting what is essentially a cotton tea bag into your vagina to absorb the blood (at which point I always imagined it became a vampire’s tea bag, but for some reason Twilight never really ran with that one). However, you can’t have sex with a tampon in. Many women and their partners will elect to simply forgo sex during their period (especially if there are cramps) while others will enjoy the extra lubrication and engorgement of the area to have wildly fantastic sex. Neither of these is really an option for sex workers trying to make a living wage. They must maintain the illusion that there are no periods, and they achieve this by using a sponge.

There are different types of sponges, some are natural sea sponges, others are small pieces of medical foam but they both serve the same purpose. They’re similar to a tampon in that they’re inserted into the vagina to absorb blood and prevent it from just leaking out all willy-nilly. Unlike a tampon however, they don’t have a retraction cord. This means that when you’ve finished your shift and want to switch back to pads or tampons, you need to retrieve the sponge manually. If you’ve had a particularly well endowed client during your shift, this can be exceptionally difficult since it’s usually somewhere up near your cervix. Some women find it easier to squat down, others have invested in speculums specifically for this purpose. But in either situation it takes a fair bit of dexterity and practice.

Of course, all of these are things you learn from experience, and my first encounter with a sponge was at a point where I was still very inexperienced. I was working as a hostess and we’d had a shift with a few relatively new workers. At one point a gorgeous woman called Alanna came to the front desk and asked if anyone knew how to retrieve a sponge. The two other managers on shift kind of smiled apologetically and said no. I was always looking for an opportunity to endear myself to these gorgeous, half naked glamazons that I worked with so I happily volunteered. I mean, how hard could it be? I had long arms, if she’d dropped it behind the sink or something I’d fish it out no troubles.

Yes, dear readers, I boldly volunteered to retrieve a dish washing sponge, or perhaps makeup sponge, from some hard to reach place. That’s how astute I am.

As we made our way up the stairs to the change room Alanna advised me I’d need to grab some gloves. I nodded as though this was perfectly normal, obviously she’d dropped a makeup sponge down the drain and didn’t want me getting my hands dirty in the pipe. She was so considerate! So I picked up the kitchen gloves from the bar on my way.

When I met her in the girls room she was naked and squatting in the shower. I did a double take. Was this an unexpected seduction technique? Lure me up here on the premise of fixing the plumbing and then overwhelm me with naked shower acrobatics? I was even more confused when she gestured to my gloves and said “Yeah, I really don’t want those in my vag, can you use the fingering gloves instead?”

Fingering gloves were the thin latex gloves used for fingering client’s assholes (or less commonly for clients to use while fingering workers). I looked at the box she was pointing at and slowly peeled off the kitchen gloves trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.

At this point another worker, Fifi, came in. Fifi was an exceptionally experienced and wonderfully professional worker from Paris. She took one look at me and then at Alanna and burst out laughing “She does not realise the sponge is inside you!” Fifi declared Frenchly.

Still being the most obtuse individual this side of Trump Tower, I started wondering how the fuck Alanna had managed to get a makeup sponge up her vagina. Had it been some weird client request or just a unique masturbation trend I wasn’t down with.

Fifi placed a hand on my shoulder and illuminated me. “We can’t bleed on ze clients, so instead we put little sponges in our boxes. Then zere is no string and voila we still can work.” She pointed to Alanna, still squatting in the shower, trying to retrieve hers, “Alanna had a client with a big dick, so her sponge iz, well all ze way up zere!”

Alanna looked at me and smiled, “It’s okay, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

But no, I was a professional damnit. I’d been knuckles deep in vaginas before, I wasn’t afraid and I wasn’t about to leave one of the workers in my care high and dry.

I grabbed the gloves and put on my big girl pants.

“All good, I got this,” I said with a confidence I really shouldn’t have had.

I took my begloved hand and lubed it up before sliding my fingers into Alanna. This wasn’t sexy, I was a soldier on the front lines of the feminine experience. I felt like a surgeon retrieving a shard of kryptonite from Supergirl so she can go back to saving the planet (I have a bit of hero worship for sex workers, so sue me). “Okay, so what am I feeling for?” I asked matter of factly as I fished around blindly.

“Okay, so I’ve used a sea sponge, it’ll be a soft squishy thing.”

I nodded professionally and set to work, brow furrowed in determination.

Dear readers, if you’ve ever fingered a vagina before you’ll immediately understand my dilemma. Finger fishing for something spongey inside a vagina (especially while wearing latex gloves) is kind of like trying to find something wet by sticking your hand in the ocean. I kept arbitrarily grabbing at Alanna’s anatomy and saying “Is this it?” as though the sponge was connected to her nervous system and she’d be able to feel when I’d found it.

“I don’t know...can you pull it out?”

“No, it seems to be attached”

“Well, it’s probably not the sponge then.”

For a woman with a stranger’s fingers inside her as well as a missing foreign object, Alanna was a picture of grace and composure and made me feel like we were in the trenches together.

After a few minutes of fishing around uselessly I adjust my hand so that I could reach further inside her. My thumb rested up against her clitoris and I thrust my two longest digits up towards her cervix. Was that...I grazed against something spongey. “I think I’ve found it!” I refrained from shouting “Eureka”.

“Awesome! Try and hook it with your fingers and drag it down,” my surgical nurse advised.

I wiggled my hand a little trying to gain the extra depth and began trying to pull the sponge towards the front of her pelvis so I could roll it down towards the exit. It was a sort of, come hither motion.

Many of you with vaginas will realise exactly what was happening at this point. I probably would have as well if I hadn’t been so determined to be the best damn surgeon Supergirl had ever had.

Alanna started to fidget a little, and I assumed she was trying to help me angle the sponge the right way. “Are you sure you’ve got it?” she asked.

“I’m pretty sure,” I replied, concentrating, “Are you okay, am I hurting you?”

“No, I’m good, just get that little bastard,” she laughed.

I redoubled my efforts, despite my now aching fingers, I was determined. I started stroking my fingers back and forward trying to catch the edge of the sponge with my gloved digits, periodically repositioning my thumb on the outside to get deeper.

Alanna was a trooper, she was obviously in discomfort but instead of asking me to stop she soldiered through it. Her brow was furrowed and starting to sweat, it was more important than ever that I retrieve this thing. She started to shake and make low moans of pain and discomfort and then finally she gave in to the pain and cried out loud. I jerked my hand out in alarm, it had smears of blood on it but I couldn’t tell if it was from her period or if I’d maybe accidentally scratched her or opened an abrasion.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Are you okay, do you need me to call a GP or something?”

Alanna collapsed on the shower floor, breathing heavily, “No, no it’s okay but uh...I think I’ll take it from here?”

“Of course! I’m so sorry! I’ll be at reception if you need anything or want me to call someone!”

I stripped off the gloves and made it halfway down the stairs before I realised what had just happened.

I was sitting at the reception desk still stunned by my own idiocy when Alanna bounced down the stairs.

“I am so sorry!” I began apologising, “I just realised…”

She held up a hand to stop me and then smiled, “Come on, give me a high five. That was my first orgasm of the night!”

We high fived and she informed me that she’d also managed to retrieve the sponge and was heading home for a bath and cigarette.

I apologised again, because I wanted her to understand that I hadn’t intended what happened, and she reassured me that it was all fine.

On her way out of the door she turned back and said “But maybe buy me a drink first next time.”

And kids, that’s how I met your mother. Okay, maybe it’s not, but it is how I learned what sponges are.
 

That is all.
 

You may go now.

People…my life hasn’t always been a bed of rainbows and starshine. I’ve been through experiences that, given the choice, I would have much rather skipped. I’ve had to deal with people doing things to me that weren’t ethical, legal, or fair. I’ve had to work hard to get what I want in life. But, and here’s the rub, I still benefit from a lot of privilege.

What is ‘privilege’?

Privilege is defined as “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.” And that’s actually a pretty accurate summation of it. Due to the way that our society is structured, there are a lot of advantages, immunities and special rights that we give to certain groups of people. If you want a really great example of how privilege often manifests, please read this amazing comic by The Pencilsword on a Plate. It'll take you about a minute and it's worth your time. 

When we’re confronted with this information, with the knowledge that we have these immunities, advantages and special rights, we all have a tendency to react in a pretty predictable way.

We become angry and defensive.

We often react like it’s a personal attack. For instance, if someone says to me “You have white privilege”, I want to say “That’s bullshit. My life is hard. You have no idea what my life has been like. How dare you tell me that I’m fucking lucky to be white! White has nothing to do with everything I’ve achieved!”

But I’d be wrong. Being white may not take away from the difficult things I’ve experienced in my life, but it’s probably ensured that my life hasn’t been more difficult. When I think about the things that I consider hardships in my life, there isn’t a single one that would have been made easier by being a person of colour.

The problem with the word ‘privilege’ is that often we use it to refer to special things that are given to people. So when someone tells us we’re privileged, we have a look around at our life and go “Where? Where is all this fucking privilege I keep hearing about? Because all I see is a pile of laundry I need to do, some bills I haven’t paid and a few health issues I keep putting off getting checked out.” 

We look at our lives as though if we were privileged there’d be something extra there. Instead, we need to be looking at our lives and seeing all the things that aren't there. As a white person, I can look around and go “Oh, I love the lack of systemic racism in here”, as an able-bodied person I can say “Oh, I love having access to all the places with the things that I like,” and as a non-Indigenous person I can look around and go "Oh my! All of this culture and heritage I still have left, that totally wasn't systematically stripped away from me, how nice!"

If you’re not sure what kinds of privilege you enjoy, try playing a game of privilege bingo. Look at each tile and imagine how your life would be different if you weren’t one of these things.

So let's say, hypothetically that you've accepted that you have certain privileges. Let's say that you've looked at the world around you and realised that it is, in fact, harder out there for people other than yourself, through no fault of their own.

What are you expected to do about it? Well, here's a start. 

When people share their experiences…listen

Once you’ve accepted that you have certain advantages in this world, what do you do with that information? When I acknowledge that I have white privilege it means that I need to listen to the experiences of people of colour. It means that I need to hear what they have to say, and not disagree with them, even if it doesn’t match my own experience.

If someone in a wheelchair is telling me that there aren’t enough ramps in the world, I don’t then get to say “Sure there are! I feel like they’re everywhere.” Because stairs aren’t a barrier to me, so I’m not going to notice them in the same way. I might see half a dozen ramps in a day, but I’m not going to notice the hundreds of buildings without them. Whereas to someone for whom stairs are effectively a “DO NOT ENTER” sign, the lack of accessibility into buildings becomes a major factor in their life. You don't get to tell them that they have everything they need. 

Listening means that when someone tells you about their situation, you need to refrain from telling them they're wrong. Because you're not living their life. For most people without privilege, their lives are a parade of people disagreeing with them about their own lived experiences. Imagine if someone said “How are you?” and you said “Ah, not too great actually, my dog died and I…” and they interrupted to tell you that “Uh, that’s bullshit. You’re doing great. You’re always cheerful and nice. You’re loving life!” Seems kinda fucked up right? Now imagine that you’re trying to tell them about something that affects whether you can access medical care, or whether or not you’re being discriminated against in the workplace, etc.

If you’re talking to someone about their lived experience, just listen. Hear their story. Hear what they’re telling you. And if you listen, without simply waiting for a break in the conversation to interject with your own opinion, you might be surprised at what you learn about the world.  

Accept how other people want to be treated

When you’re confronted with other people’s experiences, it’s important to remember that no two people will have had the same experience. So you might be one of those people who has black friends, or gay friends, or some of your best friends might be women! And those people might have told you that it’s okay to use racial slurs, that it’s okay to call them “faggot” or “dyke”, or you might have been told that rape jokes are hilarious. And then, when you’re confronted with someone telling you that these things aren’t okay, you might be tempted to argue. You might be tempted to point out that some of your best friends (who are totally black) said that you’re cool to use the n-word.

But you need to understand that while some people might have reclaimed words or experiences, other people are still going to be hurt by them, and others are far enough removed from the history of certain words that they might have never been affected by them. But that doesn’t mean you can treat everyone the same way.

I grew up around a lot of transport workers from Italian and Greek backgrounds and everyone in the business would affectionately refer to them as “wogs”, and they would encourage others to do so. To the point that one of them even paid to have his truck customised with the moniker right across the hood. I grew up thinking that it was friendly term, kind of like calling a white Australian a “skip”. But when I met a woman who told me that this was offensive, that it deeply hurt her and that she grew up being called this in the schoolyard, I stopped using the term. Because her experience was different. And you don’t really have to right to disagree with someone when they’re telling you what they do and don’t like being called.

Imagine if someone walked up to you and said “Hey FartMaster” and you were like “Uh, that’s not my name and I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me that”, and they said “Yeah but you’re blonde and my brother is blonde and he loves being called FartMaster.” And then they spent the next ten years calling you “FartMaster” and giving you shit for being “politically correct about your own name”, and campaigning for people everywhere to be able to call you “FartMaster”. You’d probably be pretty pissed. So even if you have friends, or celebrity role models, or a family member who has said “Yeah, go to town”, remember that their experience isn’t going to match up with everyone you meet. You need to accept what people tell you about their own experiences, their own preferences, their own lives.

Understand the anger

Look at your life and find an area that you don’t have privilege in. Maybe you don’t have thin privilege, or aesthetic-privilege, or financial-privilege. And now think about how frustrating it would be for someone to tell you that you’re wrong about that.

If you’re trying to explain how hard it can be to save up enough money to buy a house, and someone with a trust fund is saying “Well you’re just not being financially responsible. Banks give away money all the time. Clearly you're doing something wrong” you’re going to start to feel pretty fucking frustrated. You might get angry. And there’s nothing worse than getting angry, because then people start to use that anger against you.

“Why are lesbians always so angry?”, “Why are trans-women so aggressive?” “I don’t understand why black people are so angry,” and “I can’t take women seriously, they take all this stuff so personally, they get hysterical.”

When people start telling you that you’re doing life wrong, that you’ve been subject to no disadvantage, and that you’re just not trying hard enough; it’s pretty fucking easy to get angry.

And you’ll be judged for that anger. Because everyone else is debating you from a purely ‘academic’ standpoint. Because it’s not their lives that are being affected. For you, it’s real. For you it is every shitty experience, every dismissal, every cruel comment, every thrown punch, every moment you were made to feel less than human. For them it’s a conversation across a dinner table about something they’ve never felt.

Years ago, I was having a conversation with my partner and a mutual friend, both of whom were men. And I expressed my frustration about the lack of managerial roles for women in the workforce. And these two men patiently explained to me that it’s because, from a business perspective, women were more likely to go and have babies, so it was safer to put a man in that role. And I angrily explained that many women chose not to have babies, and why should we be penalised for that? And they, again, patiently explained that it’s just how things were. And I remember I started crying. I was so frustrated and angry, that before my career had even begun I was going to be hobbled by bullshit assumptions based on my gender. And these two men calmly looked at me and explained that there was no reason to cry. It’s just how things were. And I have never forgotten how powerless and angry and frustrated and overwhelmed I felt in that moment. Because for them it was academic. For me it was real.

Learn how to respond

A lot of the time when I have a depressive episode, well-meaning people will try and tell me that my life “could be worse” and that I should “think about the starving children in Africa.”

This is problematic for a number of reasons. But primarily because it implies that as long as there's someone worse off than you, you can never be sad. Which means literally only the most miserable, shat upon, abandoned orphan in a war-zone has the right to feel bad feelings. 

It might seem like having privilege is kind of like that. It might seem like if you’re a wealthy, attractive, straight, white, cis, able-bodied, neurotypical male then you no longer have any right to ever complain about your life. This is spectacularly not the case. You have every right to complain about your life! It’s probably shit. I’m not going to lie, having all that privilege sounds boring as fuck. So don't ever think that your privilege is a form of censorship. It's not. Complain away!

What it does mean though, is that you don’t get to tell other people that their life isn’t as hard as yours. It means that when someone tells you that there aren’t enough ramps, you have to acknowledge that you’re not in a place to tell them they’re wrong. It means that if a woman tells you she’s being sexually harassed in her workplace, you don’t get to tell her that it’s not a gendered issue. When a person of colour gets looked over for job after job, you don’t get to tell them that it’s not a racial issue. It means listening to people who have lived experiences you never will.

It can be difficult to moderate your opinions in discussions of privilege. We live in a society where we believe our opinions are sacrosanct, that they deserve to be retweeted, reposted and have a thousand likes every time we throw them out there.

But sometimes you need to acknowledge that your experience and understanding of certain situations is just going to be different. If you’re a man talking to a woman about sexism, you might want to argue that you’ve literally never seen sexism happen. But you first need to acknowledge that your experience isn’t going to be the best indicator for that.

Take on board what the other person is saying before asking yourself if your experiences are really going to be an accurate representation of a situation. And then consider whether telling someone that you’ve never noticed the thing that clearly affects them regularly is actually helpful.

And if you want to feel engaged in the conversation, find a way to use your voice to support the person you're talking to. You might not have lived what they have, but that doesn't mean you can't acknowledge how hurtful, or painful, or frustrating their experience was for them. 

And whenever someone tells you about an experience they have that you haven’t noticed, take it as an opportunity to start noticing. If someone says ‘I hate how people with my skin colour are portrayed in movies’ pay attention the next time you’re watching a movie. If someone says ‘I hate how every time they talk about women in politics they talk about their motherhood or their clothes’ start looking for that. Because you’re never going to notice something that doesn’t affect your life, unless you’re looking for it. Start looking for it.

Use your voice in your spaces

There are so many people with so much privilege who refuse to acknowledge it, because they feel that just because they’ve internally acknowledged their advantages in life, that’s enough. It’s not.

As a straight person, it is not enough that you mentally understand that you have privileges that your queer friends don’t. Because as awful as it is, your voice will carry more weight on issues affecting queer people. White people will listen more when it’s a white person talking about rights for people of colour. People listen harder when it’s a man talking about feminist issues. People are more likely to agree when a thin person talks about fat-shaming.

Because our society is built to acknowledge the opinions of the advantaged over everyone else. The more privilege you have, the more weight your opinion carries. As a woman, when I talk about feminism people assume I’m just some hysterical female with a victim complex. But when my male partner talks about feminism, when he pulls people up on shitty sexist jokes, or calls out misogyny when he sees it, other men will listen to him. Because he’s one of them. He has their respect.

So if you have privilege, use it. Listen to the experiences of the people around you, hear what they’re telling you, and then call out other privileged people on their bullshit.

To be crystal clear, I don’t mean if you’re a dude you should show up at a SlutWalk and tell all the women there how to feminist. I mean do it in your spaces. Bring attention to issues in the places where your opinion carries weight. Speak up in spaces where you can help to be an agent for change. Work in a an all-male office? Call out shitty sexist jokes. Go to a school surrounded by white kids? Pull people up on racist statements. Family dinner is full of able bodied people? Start a conversation about the lack of funding for disability support.

Change the fucking world

We’re all privileged in some way. And it’s important to acknowledge our privilege, so that we can continue to build a society that doesn't disadvantage people without that privilege. It’s important to stop becoming aggressive and defensive when someone highlights the advantages we have in our lives. They’re not saying we’re bad people. They’re helping us to understand that life is different, and more difficult for other people. Getting personally offended by that isn’t helpful.

We need to recognise that our society does not treat all people equally. Let’s start making a better world, by acknowledging our privilege and using it in the best possible ways.

That is all.

You may go now.

People...Some arguments have no resolution. For instance arguments with philosophy majors in share houses over who stole your cheese are likely to end in “Did you ever really own the cheese?” At which point it’s easier to just walk away rather than risk a homicide charge. Unfortunately not all arguments are as trivial as your lactose snack food. Some arguments involve making choices for other people, because they may or may not be in a position to make a choice for themselves.  These are the arguments that will never really have a resolution, because the issue is too complex and the people arguing are too personally invested. 

Recently a good friend brought to my attention this article. I highly recommend that you read this article now, as I’ll be referring back to it quite a bit. I'll wait...

Finished? Awesome, let's continue.

The sex industry is actually a bit more complicated than Julie Bindel makes it seem. The problem a lot of people have with solving the issues surrounding it is that they can’t get past the sexual aspect of it. Sex adds a layer of urgency and drama to any argument, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. So we’re going to temporarily remove sex from the issue just to get us started.

Imagine that you’re working in the hospitality industry. Not too hard for some of you, I’m guessing, since most people will have worked in hospitality at some point in their careers. As anyone who has ever worked in hospitality will tell you, some people are there by choice because they actually like the industry. As confronting as I find this idea, it is actually true. There are people who really enjoy being a barista, who get a kick out of making fancy and pretentious coffees. Likewise there are chefs who genuinely love making food and even restaurant managers who just love having their own eatery. Good for them. They’re all happy and that’s great. But let’s not forget that there are some people there who really don’t like hospitality, who have only taken these jobs as a way to get through their uni course. These people hate hospitality. They hate the hours, they hate having to serve asshole customers and they hate the actual job itself.

Are you with me so far? We’ve identified two very different groups of people within the same field of work. There are people who want to be there and those who don’t. Alright, let’s continue.

Now imagine that there are good hospitality companies and bad ones. Again, I’m guessing this is something many of you have experienced at some point in your life. There are bars, restaurants and cafes that treat their staff well, that ask them what work hours suit them, that pay them a proper wage and even superannuation. These places care about their staff because they understand that happy, well treated staff will reflect on the quality of the establishment they run.

Then there are the other kind of hospitality businesses. These are the places that pay their staff cash in hand, that expect their staff to turn up to a shift with a broken arm if need be, and who will abuse their employees in every way they can think of to get the performance they want out of they staff. These kind of places are awful and they chew staff up and spit them out with a kind of slave labour mentality; that it’s easier to replace them than it is to treat them well and hold onto them.

Even if you’ve never worked in hospitality, you can probably compare this example to your own industry. There are people in every workplace who really don’t want to be there, who resent having to be at work to the point that it makes them physically ill and distressed. And there are companies in every industry who treat their staff terribly and will always find ways to cut corners to get around employee rights. 

So when this article informs me that “As with various studies on women in prostitution, it was clear from our interviewees that the vast majority are desperate to get out of the sex trade, but find a number of significant barriers that prevent them doing so.” I would argue that if you interviewed people in hospitality, you would find just as a high a percentage saying the same thing. As with hospitality, there are a few different groups of people working within the sex industry. There are those who chose to get into the industry but don't really want to be there, for any number of reasons from their rostered hours, to the irregular pay, to just genuinely not liking the work. Then there are the people who really love their job, they're good at it and they enjoy it and this is their career. There are also those who have been trafficked in to the industry against their will. This is more than a "not wanting to be there" mindset, this is people who were never given a choice. Bindel seems to ignore these distinctions and instead tells us that all sex workers should be grateful for the opportunity to leave. 

Also, much like hospitality, there are the different kinds of establishments. There are the ones that operate legally and within the law, that look after and respect the rights of their workers and there are the illegal parlours that literally buy human trafficking victims and allow their workers to suffer at the hands of clients. This is a crucial distinction. 

Every person has a right to decide what they want to do with their life. They have the right to decide if they want to be a sex worker or an architect, a stripper or an insurance assessor. My issue with debates like this, is that they strip people of their personhood and reduce the complexity of a very big issue down to “you’re either with us or against us.” 

I am against human trafficking. I am against any person being in a situation they don’t want to be due to circumstances beyond their control. But I am also very, very strongly for human autonomy and the freedom of choice. To declare that all “prostitution is a human rights violation” is not only offensive to sex workers who chose to be in the industry, it’s grossly offensive to victims and survivors of actual human rights violations. Sex work is real work, it is a real industry populated by real people who have chosen to be there. Yes, human trafficking does exist, it is a vile and abhorrent practice that should be expunged from the face of the earth, but stripping sex workers of their rights and protections is not the correct way to go about it. In fact it’s probably the worst possible way to do it. 

One of the things that Julie Bindel seems most upset about is that sex workers rights activists and sex workers alike, don’t appreciate attempts made by “exit organisations” to rescue people from sex work. If you’ve never heard of exit or rescue organisations, then allow me to shed some light on them. They are groups who feel the need to “rescue” women who are in the sex industry. And I do specify women here, because rescue organisations tend to overlook the large number of men and trans-women who are working in the sex industry and instead focus on heterosexual, cis-gendered women. The reasons for wanting to rescue these women are not the same for every organisation. Some of them are aimed at rescuing women who are in the sex industry as a result of human trafficking, often arriving from other countries. Sometimes their goal is to help women who turned to the sex industry as a last resort for financial reasons or as a result of drug habits. And on occasion it’s a religiously motivated salvation effort to rescue women from the depths of depravity and sin. My experience with them is limited to the religious groups who would bring cupcakes in for the sex workers. They were greeted with, at best indifference, but more typically frustration and indignation by the service providers. 

By attempting to rescue people who have chosen to be in the sex industry, you are undermining the legitimacy of their chosen career. Would you consider doing the same thing for people who are working in hospitality? For people who are working 18 hours days and three jobs to support their family? They're people too, and I promise you most of them would not be in that industry by choice if there was a better alternative. But you have turned your attention to the sex industry because something about the ‘sex’ aspect of it appals you. It doesn’t matter that there are thousands of people every day selling their bodies to corporations and organisations that might fundamentally oppose their ethics, beliefs or religion, because at least they’re not having sex. Do you think that someone who is an Animal Rights Activist that has to take a job at The Body Shop is happy about their situation? Are their hours of labour and ethical compromise less or more harmful than a person who made the decision to be a sex worker because they wanted to. 

Julie Bindel also seems affronted by suggestions that the sex industry be decriminalised or legalised, believing that this lends a legitimacy to the industry that it clearly does not deserve. Let’s clarify those terms first. In Victoria, sex work is legalised and regulated. This is different to it being decriminalised, which is what New South Wales has done. The difference is that decriminalisation doesn’t make something legal, but it means that it’s not a priority for law enforcement. For instance when marijuana is decriminalised it means you still can’t legally sell it, but likewise you can’t be denied a job because you smoked it outside of work hours.

Legalisation however means that you can set up shops, you pay taxes and you can advertise commercially (depending on the laws regarding advertising). So in Victoria, brothels are legal. Sex work is legal. You’re allowed to pay for sex without the risk of prosecution. There is nowhere in the United States where sex work, brothels and paying for sex is legalised and regulated. In the United Kingdom prostitution is legal, however a lot of the associated activities are crimes. This means you’re legally allowed to exchange sexual services for money, but soliciting in a public place, owning a brothel, pimping, kerb crawling, etc can all get you fined or imprisoned. 

In Melbourne, our parlours are regulated by the government. This means that the government tells us what we can and can’t do. That might sound awful, but it’s actually a pretty great system, comparatively speaking. The government stipulates that it is illegal to pay for sex in a brothel and not wear a condom. This means that in a brothel we can enforce this rule and customers who attempt to remove their condoms with, or more often without, the sex worker’s knowledge can be criminally prosecuted. They literally broke a law. In the UK and US, that’s not the case, because there's no government legislation there for a sex worker to enforce. Brothels are illegal in both countries, so there’s no establishment for the sex worker to go to for assistance.  Similarly, if in the US a client assaults a sex worker, the sex worker can’t really report it to the police without disclosing their relationship to the abuser. If they do this, then they’re just as likely to be prosecuted as the abuser since legally they were both engaging in criminal activity. 

For reasons of comparison, I should point out that I have never experienced or been exposed to violence against sex workers. I only worked in legalised and regulated parlours, so every room was equipped with both a panic alarm and an intercom button that connected to the reception desk. In the event that a client became rough, the service provider was encouraged to push either of these buttons and the floor staff would drop what they were doing and run to the room to assist the service provider. 

I also was never exposed to human trafficking. All applicants to the parlours I worked at were required to bring several forms of verified identification. We then made a point of sitting down with applicants and discussing the nature of the work and making a private assessment of their psychological capacity to handle the role. Obviously none of the brothel staff were psychologists, but we felt it important to use our best judgment about whether the person applying would be negatively affected by the role. We turned down the applicants we felt weren’t up to the work and explained to them why.

This does not happen in street work. This does not happen in parlours operating outside of the law. This is the difference legalisation and regulation makes. It makes brothels and people accountable. The women in the Dreamcatcher documentary most likely wouldn’t have been subjected to the violence, assault and abuse they suffered, if they had been working in a legalized, regulated brothel. But Bindel would encourage us to remove these forms of regulation in the attempt to reduce human trafficking, ignoring that it was the absence of regulation that led to Brenda Myers-Powell experiencing the horrific conditions that she did.

I was privileged to work in legal, law abiding parlours that respected the rights and safety of the people employed and who were working there. I know that not every parlour in Melbourne had the same level of care or legality. But I do know that the legal brothels did. I know because they were required to by law. This is not the case in the UK or the US. As for the argument that legalisation increases human trafficking, I will let Forbes do a better job than I can at rebutting that.

Yes, sex against a person’s will is one of the most abhorrent violations a human being can suffer and that’s what we’re talking about when we discuss human trafficking. But, as I have argued before, if we as a society had a better relationship with sex and sexuality, there most likely wouldn’t be a market for sex slaves. We sell people into sexual servitude because while there is a demand for sex workers, we as a society treat those in the industry with such repudiation that only the truly determined or the truly desperate would put up with the social stigma in order to work there. If sex work were like being an accountant or a lawyer, if we gave the role respect and legality, then people would be free to work in the industry and feel legitimised. And if people felt free to work where they wanted to, in legal and regulated establishments then there would be no market for slavery. We have no human trafficking ring for baristas or bartenders, because there’s no stigma attached to being either of those things. There is a ready supply of people from the general public who will happily do those jobs and we will not judge them for it.

If you criminalise the sex industry and the people involved with it, you’re pushing the whole thing underground. You’re further stigmatising work in that realm and telling people that they’re broken if they want to work there. You’re opening up a demand for sex workers while closing off the legitimate channels through which people can get into that work. How do you help people in illegal brothels when you most likely can’t even find them?

By all means, advocate for the end of human trafficking and help to find people who are in the sex industry against their will. But for the love of free will, don’t tell me that it’s all the same. Don’t sanctimoniously inform me that brothels treat women as“…simply a commodity, and the pimps and buyers legitimised as customers and managers.”  Those people are customers and managers, in an industry that is older than civilised society. And in case I haven’t made myself inescapably clear, the people who choose to be sex workers are legitimate workers. They’re not there for you to rescue them, they’re not your goddamn damsels. They’re fighting against every stigma society has to do the job that they’re good at and that they enjoy. You don’t get to tell them that they’re wrong. And you certainly don’t get to strip them of their rights and protection so you can feel like you’re doing something to combat human trafficking or sexual violence. That's going to take a lot more effort I'm afraid. 

That is all.

You may go now.

[Estimated reading time: 10 minutes]

People...I'm going to tell you something you may already know, so I'd appreciate it if you could look shocked. I used to be a licensed brothel manager. I know, and yes my mother is proud. Whenever I bring this little factoid up at dinner parties, I get one of two reactions. Mostly I receive an enthusiastic smile of surprise followed by questions (which I love). But occasionally I receive a purse-lipped look of disapproval, because that isn't the sort of thing an educated young lady should be doing with her life. Well, I guess I beg to differ.

Here’s something that’s said a lot, but people don’t really think about; sex work is the oldest profession.

Think about the implications of that for a moment. Whether or not we have the anthropological evidence to support this colloquialism doesn’t really matter. The phrase itself has been around long enough that most people don’t question the idea. This means most people have casually internalised the idea that for the past 50,000 years or so, sex work has existed in some form or another. That being the case, wouldn’t you have thought we’d all be a lot more chill about it by now?

Sex is something that we are (almost) all driven to participate in, as members of the human species. So if (almost) everyone wants sex, and the people participating in the sex are all consenting, then surely there’s no reason to be upset. What could anyone possibly complain about?

A lot, as it turns out.

Strange as it may seem, there are people in this world who don’t want you to masturbate or have sex. They don’t want to you do it with a condom on. They don’t want you to do it with a same sex partner. They don’t want you to do it outdoors. They don’t want you to do it with the lights on. And they certainly don’t want you to pay for it.

This means we have here a demand for sex (e.g. people who would like to have sex), people willing to supply said sex (e.g. sex workers who will have sex in exchange for money), but a seemingly arbitrary aversion to allowing it to be socially acceptable. As though, regardless of consent, once you provide payment for sex it suddenly becomes unacceptable or immoral.

Let’s look at it in another way - try and apply the same logic to a different industry. We have a demand for human touch. It’s a basic human need. More specifically, we want therapeutic touch; a massage. And there are people who are willing to rub someone else’s body, who want to supply this service.

I get massages. Sometimes I’m naked. Sometimes I’m naked and get slathered with oil. Sometimes I get it done inside a little hole in the wall in a shopping centre. I’m yet to get called names for getting a massage (okay, sometimes I get called a bourgie WASP, but that’s entirely justified). I can pay for strangers to rub oil on my naked doughy skin all day long and society is fine with that.

Now, the word ‘prostitute’ and ‘whore’ are slurs. People who provide sexual services for money use the term ‘sex worker’ to remind people that what they do is real work. They are earning the fuck out of that money. But there are people who insist on claiming that it is not real work, who insist on using the term ‘prostitute'.

What really frustrates me about this attitude is that WE ARE ALL PROSTITUTES! We prostitute hours of our lives to the highest bidder. We are literally trading weeks, months, years of our lives in manual or mental labour to corporations in exchange for a negotiated sum. If you’ve ever worked in manual labour, you were literally trading your body for money. If you’ve only ever worked in white collar jobs, does it make you feel any better to know that you rented out your mind instead of your muscles? This is capitalism. Hell, even in socialism or communism you’re trading your labour for something - safety, food, continued existence.

If you've ever been in a sexual relationship with another person, you were trading sex for something. Maybe you were trading your body for the pleasure the act of sex would bring you (e.g. orgasms). Maybe you traded sex for the opportunity to be physically intimate with another person that you had feelings for. Or maybe you did it because you knew it would lead to further emotional support or investment from your sexual partner. 

Just as Mark Twain argued that there is no truly selfless act, I would argue that no sexual act is done without some form of “payment”. We always have a reason for having consensual sex, and that reason will pretty much always have a self-serving element…otherwise we wouldn’t do it.

For a moment, imagine every time you’ve ever had sex in your life.

Now imagine that every one of those encounters was with a stranger.

Sometimes you were physically attracted to the stranger, sometimes you were a little repulsed by them.

Sometimes you were intimidated by them, sometimes you rolled your eyes because they were a complete dropkick.

Sometimes it was their first time.

Sometimes they had a disability, disease or disorder.

But for each one of those strangers, you found something to love about them.

This is what a sex worker, a good sex worker, does. They look past the things that make their client “undesirable” and they find the redeeming quality that will help them love that person for an hour, or an evening.

Have you ever done that? Could you do that?

Having the skills to meet a stranger, to recognise what they need from you, and then to put aside a litany of socialised standards about what you’re meant to demand from your sexual partners (status, physical beauty, deep emotional connection, ongoing relationship, etc) so that you can bring them joy or happiness or satisfaction…I mean I don’t know about you but that impresses the fuck out of me.

I think it takes a pretty fucking spectacular human being to look at someone that, maybe, the rest of society might have rejected and say “I can love this person, for as long as they want me to.”

Not all clients are people who can’t find sex on their own. Many of them are simply time poor, or don’t desire emotional connection, or they simply prefer to employ a professional. Some clients are married or have partners who are unable, for whatever reason, to provide sexual fulfilment. And, like the clients at any workplace on earth, some of them are genuinely lovely people and some of them are asshats of the highest order. Every sex worker has the right of refusal, and they exercise that right judiciously - but they still end up having sex with a lot of people that you or I might outright reject. People who still deserve physical intimacy and connection.

And yes, there is monetary compensation. But how much money would you expect to be paid to fuck someone you’re not attracted to? Think about that last Tinder date or Bumble match that you totally unmatched with because you just weren’t interested. Or that person in your office who dresses like they found an OshKosh B’gosh store that stocked adult sizes. Or that family friend who is always single and no one knows how to tell them it’s because they have the charisma of a wet dishcloth. How much would you expect to fuck those people? Because for most of us, the answer is well above what the average sex worker charges for an hour.

Let’s say though, that you’re a bit skint and you’re happy to have sex for money - good on you! Well after you receive this money, don’t expect that your life will be the same. Because from now on you’re someone who had sex for money - and you will spend the rest of your life seeing media and hearing conversations that tell you that what you did was shameful and disgraceful.

Chances are you’ll be afraid to tell future partners, to tell family members, even to tell medical professionals. Because all of them will treat you differently now. Which means you have to lie. To the people you are supposed to love and trust. Because the world thinks that what you did was dirty and wrong. Because you got paid for it.

But the world is wrong. Sex work is not wrong.

If a person is doing sex work because they want to, and they enjoy the work, why on earth would it be wrong?

The truth is, not all sex workers love their work. And not all sex workers are good at what they do. Just like not all comedians, accountants or bus drivers are good at what they do. Some people are just in a job to earn money.

But not loving your work is not the same as being trafficked into the industry. It’s a crucial distinction. Human trafficking is an absolutely vile practice, one that would have a much lower prominence if we didn’t have social stigmas attached to specific types of work. We don’t traffic in accountants, because no one sees anything wrong with being an accountant, so therefore there’s never any real shortage of them.

My point is this; sex workers are human beings who do a job just like anyone else. But their job can involve doing something incredibly intimate with people the rest of us may or may not have deemed undesirable.

Instead of treating sex workers like they’re dirty, or like what they do is shameful, how about we start respecting them for being able to do the work they do. How about we accept that there’s nothing wrong with sex, and there’s nothing wrong with the people who make a living from it.

The next time you go to use the words whore, prostitute, or hooker, as an insult…stop. Use the word ‘accountant’ instead.

That is all. 

You may go now.