Gut Instinct (7 page)

Friday
21st March

It had been a long day for Lizzie, the kids had driven her to despair and she was absolutely desperate
for a ‘shag’
.   It had been over a month since she’d last had one and she felt like her private parts were like a dam waiting to burst.    A month was quite a long time for her.

Most of the time they were one night stands but at least she got laid.  She would have liked a steady relationship but it didn’t seem to
happen.
She could never seem to meet anyone that wanted a long term relationship but plenty that wanted sex.

She was running
her ‘so
called best friend’ Carol’s words through her head, trying to ignore the incessant fighting of her three little ones in the pe
rpetually untidy living room whilst
cooking chicken nuggets for their
tea .

Carol had told her to make them wait, that she would never find somebody permanent if she slept with them on the first night.  “Men will sleep with girls like you” she’d said “but don’t want to marry them”.  Lizzie had felt quite annoyed at first, insulted in fact. It was okay for her to talk, she was married to a handsome guy with plenty of money, she had it on bloody tap, but she knew deep down that Carol was right.  She was always right, self righteous bitch that she was.

“Shut the fuck up” she screamed as the noise grew louder and louder in the living room, “bloody kids.” 

Lizzie had three kids all
under six years old, all
by
different partners and they were the results of one night stands.

The fathers
hadn’t wanted to know when she
’
d tracked them down and told them that she was pregnant.
One
even accused her
of
it not being hi
s, as if?  But she’d managed fine without the arse holes up to now and it was their loss.
  As much as they did her head in sometimes, they were great kids and she loved them to bits.

Lizzie and Carol had been best friends since school.  Carol was always the pretty one, the more sensible one and the one that all the lads wanted. They’d hover around her like bees on honey, and only if Carole turned them down would they then turn thei
r attention to Lizzie.  It had been a
bug bear to Lizzie
and even more depressing
that her best friend’s life had turned out so fabulous and hers so challenging, so empty and so bloody lonely. Here she was stuck with three kids and no man and not a penny from any of their fathers.

It never ceased to amaze her or her friends on how she had managed to get up the duff by three bloody Houdini’s. Disappearing off the face of the earth to avoid the CSA and not wanting any responsibility for their children.

The screams from the living room went through her, she felt as if her nerves were shattered this week, s
he just wa
nted to fill their
faces
with food,
get them off to her mothers, so that she could get
some peace and get ready for her one night out a week
. 

She went out every Friday night with the girls to this club in town, Jason’s. It was supposedly for
the “
over thirties, but some of the women that frequented the place were not a day younger than fifty. 

“I don’t want to be still doing that scene at fifty” she thought “still looking for a man, when you’re old and saggy, that’s sad
.
”
 

This made her desperate, she was beginning to think that life was passing her by, she was thirty eight and still there was no long term
relationship, she was beginning to notice the lines around her eyes and on her forehead getting deeper, and last week had spotted the beginnings of cellulite on her backside.

Once these got worse, w
ho would want to sleep with her then she thought, not even aware that people still would –
older men would, they aged too. I
f this had crossed her mind she
would have been mortified at the thought.
In her eyes her love life was closer to the end than the beginning and if she didn’t find someone soon she would be left on the shelf a rotting old spinster.

She was looking forward to tonight though
she’
d
followed her friend’s unwanted and certainly unasked for advice and deprived herself of the only bloody comfort she ever got in her life, apart from her fags and drink that is
,
and had abstained for a month now.  But if she had it her way tonight was the night she thought a smile spreading across her face.
 

For the past three weeks she’d been having a bit of a dance with this bloke called Ivan, well to be honest a little bit more than that, a bit of a
snog
and a bit of a feel too, although she wouldn’t admit that to Carol
.  I
f her luck was in tonight would be the night
,
she’d already decided that,
just as she had naively decided that this one could be it, the one that swept her off her feet, took on her and the kids and loved them just as much as she did
.

S
he’d waited long enough
for
a shag
, surely he’d want more than that now,
and besides she was gagging for it, and she knew he was too.  If she didn’t give it him tonight, he’d probably be off flirting with someone els
e, someone a little less frigid.

“Tea’s up you three” she shouted and held her breath in anticipation of the usual squabbles about who was sitting where and who had more than the other.

**********

The kids were now dropped off at her mothers with the usual excitement, noise and her mother’s
weekly repeated
ranting about picking
them up before midday, she was no
t
gonna
be
babysitting
all day
while she was in bed recovering from
an hangover, she’d droned
,
oh and that she had a life too. 

What life, she never left the fli
pping house since Dad died! 
Never-the-less
Lizzie
did her usual “Yes
mam
, no problem
mam
” and
she
left
the house as quick as she could get away
,
to the noise of her
her kids fighting over wh
at DVD they were going to watch, and her
mam
droning
on about the time she wanted the kids picking up.
God, had she never been young once, she thought fractiously.

Now for a bit of peace and quiet, at least until Brenda came round with the bottle of
Lambrini
they always drank before they went out. 

She ran her bath and noticed that as much as she was looking forward to this night out Lizzie felt anxious, she felt like a cloud was
hovering over her. “What the fuck is wrong with me” she thought, counting the days in her head
trying
to work out her next due date.  No she’d got two weeks yet before her periods were due so it was not PMT, surely she wasn’t nervous about the inevitable that she’d planned for the end of the night.   Maybe it was, it had been a month since she’d last had sex, maybe this was what it was like, feeling like she was a virgin again.

She laughed out loud as she emerged herself in the steaming hot bubble bath. “I’ll be okay once I get some booze down me neck” she thought shaving her nether regions, legs and underarms.  My they’d grown. 

She’d done this on purpose
,
not had a shave for a few weeks and
had worn
the knickers she’d ha
d on for two days when she’d gone
out. 

It was a deterrent for her,
she
thought twice about having sex when she knew she smelt and had pubic hairs she could plait.  She knew that
even if she was as hot as a monkey on heat, she would not do it unless she was clean and shaved.
This was her willpower and it had worked a treat.  Ivan would think she was a ‘nice girl’ now.

Peace at last she pondered.  She loved her kids to bits, bu
t god were they noisy; she looked forward to her Friday nights and getting a
bit of noiseless peace before her heavy night out. It
was
utter
bliss.

She’d spoke to
o
soon she thought as she heard the back door open. Bloody Brenda
she was
early as usual, no peace for the wicked.

“Why do you build me up, build me up buttercup baby then you let me down, let me down” Brenda crooned as she made her way up the stairs. 

She couldn’t sing for toffee, in fact she couldn’t do
nowt
for toffee Lizzie laughed as she got out of the bath and grabbed her grubby off white dressing gown, from the bathroom door and headed for her bedroom.

“What do
ya
think” Brenda asked, trying
to do her best model girl pose, hips pushed out and hand perched on the door frame of Lizzie’s bedroom.

She looked blooming awful as usual. Red Lycra skirt, green top, black fishnet tights and white stiletto
boot
s, she l
ooked like one of Santa’s elves,
Lizzie thought.

“You look great” she lied. 

Brenda never did have much dress sense, she was overweight and never dressed fittingly for her size, but she didn’t want to upset her friend
not before they went out. S
he knew that if she told her the truth that she would be on a downer all night – and that would be unbearable.  Brenda was the life and soul of any party when she was on an upper, but on a downer she’d ruin the night for everyone.

Lizzie could remember one time
her ruining everyone’s night by being miserable and agitated,
crying over her drink. S
he wouldn’t tell anyone what was up and thrived on the
attention of everyone rallying around her trying to cajole her to find out.  

At the end of the night when she’d ruined everyone’s evening and put them all on a downer
too
, she’d said

“My goldfish died today” – fucking goldfish died, who cries over a goldfish dying for Pete’s sake, they’d all been furious, Lizzie in particularly she only got out once a week and she didn’t need it spoiling over a bloody goldfish.

“I’m organising a charity do” Brenda piped in breaking into Lizzie’s trip down memory lane.

“Are you?” she asked gobsmacked at Brenda doing anything for anyone but herself.

“
Yeh
, for people who can’t have orgasms” she replied.
..... letting that sink into
Lizzies
mind
for a moment.  Lizzie just looked confused. 

“What the.......”

“Let me know if you can’t come!” she said rolling about laughing, fat wobbling like a beached whale.

Lizzie’s eyebrows rose in a questioning,

“
what
the........”.
then
she clicked
on
and joined in the laughter. 

“What you like” she said “
go
and open that bottle of wine before I thump
ya
”. 

Chapter Eleven

The place was buzzing tonight, and the queue
was unusually
long to get in. Eventually
Brenda and
Lizzie paid their admission fee and entered the club, Abba singing Waterloo Road, blared out of the sound system.
  Lizzie hadn’t really liked Abba until she’d watched Mamma Mia,
since then
the music had grown on her.
 

They boogied across the dance floor heading to the bar for their usual first drink
,
a cider and black followed by a whiskey chaser, after the wine that would do just nicely to warm them
both up.  Lizzie scoured the room for Ivan but couldn’t see him yet, it was early still.

“Did you see that guy behind us in the queue Liz” Brenda shouted above the music
. 

Lizzie shook her head, not wanting to even try to shout over the music.  God it was loud tonight.

“He was bloody gorgeous, Liz you
shouda
’ seen him, made my clit twitch”.

They both laughed. Brenda was on top form tonight thank god, and she came out with some crackers when she was like this.  Please don’t win another goldfish
at the fair
Lizzie thought sniggering to herself.