Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty

There are questions you know you should never ask. And there
are answers as unwelcome as a punch in the guts.

Once you've cracked the door a little way, you can't shut it
again. All you can do is try to ignore what's revealed. You can turn
your head from the sliver of soft light, the secret sounds, those
tantalising glimpses of a stranger's bedroom.

But you've seen it. It wakes you up in the night. It pulls you
away from her when you're making love, so you finish with something
like anger; and when that excites her you think, I don't know her after
all. She can't be the girl I thought she was, accepting and
comfortable. She wants something other than me, than what I can give
her, even if she denies it. In the gap between what you thought she was
and what you fear she is, resentment grows.

And more questions. Mostly I found I could swallow them down
but half-cut, back from the pub, that's when I'd give in to my
curiosity. With the foolish confidence of a few drinks too many I'd
push it ever further. So tell me, who was the best?
She'd shake her head, not playing. Go on tell me, I want to
know. About the guys before me. Tell me about ... number
eighteen. She'd frown, push me away, point out my hypocrisy -
after all, I was no virgin either. And I'd lose my taste for the fight
I'd been spoiling for. I'd remember that I was the loser.

I don't care that she's had more lovers than me, but such an
imbalance... Too embarrassed then to tell her that she was my third
time lucky, I bluffed it: I don't really remember, it's not
like I keep count...I guess maybe a couple more than you. A
couple more than twenty. That's a lot more than three. We may be
playing slightly different games, but if every hole's a goal, then I'm
getting thrashed.

So I'm aware that it sounds like a bad excuse, but: I did it
for us. I didn't even enjoy it at first. One of my friends claims he's
shagged over a hundred women - and if you watched him in a bar you'd
believe him. It's all down to confidence, which is why seduction is
easier when you're getting it already. Still, it's a risk. It's when
they sense you can take them or leave them that it becomes more of a
game and less of a chase. Instead of opponents, women become players.

The first one, of course that was the hardest. It got easier.
Each girl was a series of small surprises: she tastes of perfume, she
smells of salt, her skin is dark where Lisa's is fair. This one is
light as a bird above me. This one holds my gaze. Yes, it got easier.

But once you're into double figures it's hard to keep track.
I don't really remember, it's not like I keep count.
And I had to get it right - all I wanted to do was even us up. If I
didn't make it to twenty it would all be for nothing: more than that
and I would have betrayed her. As individual experiences disintegrated
into a jumble of memory and fantasy, as faces and bodies and places
shifted, I knew I needed a record of my progress - something coded,
secret. So I made notches. Not on the bedpost, of course not there.
Just on a piece of wood. The kind of thing you keep in a cupboard for
stirring the paint when you redecorate. I made a score for every woman,
my blade growing blunter with every gash. Where I could remember their
names I added an initial, and at number three came L.M. for Lisa
Marshall.

I thought I was so fucking clever, really I did. You know that
saying, where's the best place to hide a leaf? In a forest. So, where's
the best place to hide a bit of wood? Tell you what, it's not in the
junk cupboard with all the flatpack furniture you've never got round to
sorting out and assembling and spending entire weekends screwing
together into some cheap and rickety monument to your girlfriend and
love and what you've achieved together, your life. Thought it was, but
it's not.

She was waiting for me to get home, surrounded by all the
paraphernalia of home improvements. Sheets draped across the furniture,
a tray, a roller, a tin of paint. A piece of wood to stir it with. A
piece of wood bearing her initials, which were followed by over a dozen
more. I don't know how much she had guessed. There may have been an
instant when I could have got away with it, spun a story, before the
truth slapped itself across my face. Secrets are easy, but put me on
the spot and you'll see straight through me.

I tried to explain it to her, but she didn't understand. She didn't
want to understand that I had done it to make things right between us.
I told her I didn't mind that she'd slept with so many men, and there
was really no difference. Was there? The look that she gave me as she
left, as she hissed at me not to follow her, turned my legs and my
stomach to water. I did this. Shit. No. Take it back, turn it back.
Pretend it hasn't happened, please -

If I just let her calm down, maybe she'd listen, be more reasonable.
But I'd no idea where she was going. I had to stop her before she
disappeared. Outside, I took a guess at which direction she'd gone and
started to run, round the corner, onto the main street, gasping for
breath. I could see her on the other side of the road. She was shaking,
arms folded tightly around herself. Must have been cold; she'd left
without putting on her coat. I waited for the cars to slow, so I could
cross over and close the distance between us. Saw a bus come to a stop
in front of her. Watched it shudder for a moment and jerk forward
again, accelerating fast. For a moment I could see a smudge in the
window that may have been her head, and above her the route number
twenty glowing yellow through the dusk. Then she slipped away round the
corner, leaving only traffic.