Something to Declare by Cyclist

Chapter 15

This wasn’t how I had envisaged getting intimate with Geoff.

He half carried me to the bathroom and with scant ceremony pulled my T-shirt off, followed by his own, and pulled me into the shower cubicle. The steaming hot water soon washed away the smell of my sickness, but I still had the taste in my mouth and the soft whooshing sound of igniting men in my ears. I was shaking almost too much to stand, and he simply wrapped his arms around me to hold me up as the tremors slowly eased to little bursts of aftershocks.

I was gradually starting to take note of my surroundings again, and realised that we were still wearing our undies, soaking wet, in a shower, as Geoff handed me my loaded toothbrush to try and get the taste to disappear.

“You ok?”

“No. I still feel sick, my throat hurts, my jaw hurts, I think I’ve bitten my tongue and I am almost naked in the shower with a man”

“So not all bad then” he teased. I started to laugh, which didn’t last long until it became sobbing. Geoff just stood patiently, waiting for my convulsions to die down. Once he was sure I was under some control he kissed me and stepped out of the shower, returning with a fluffy bath sheet fresh from the airing cupboard and then my dressing gown. When I stepped out, he wrapped me in warmth and towelled my head dry, but I wasn’t that far out of it that I didn’t notice him ogling my chest. It was done in a nice and subtle manner, but definitely an ogle.

He left me to cross the hall and turn off the shower (have to do something…) and after a little while I heard the sound of the washing machine starting up. Our T-shirts and my bed-linen, probably. A thought struck me: what would I do without this man? What could I have done over the last few days without him? I resolved to ring Sally as soon as it was a reasonable hour and see what she thought was up, Why did my jaw hurt?

I wrapped myself in my mountainous dressing gown and went to the kitchen. As the washer grumbled away, he was just finishing two mugs of green tea.

“Make yourself at home, then” I teased back, and he pulled me to him one-armed as he fished the bag out of the second cup. I told him all that I could remember of the dream, and he thought for a while.

“You know that dreams are often an attempt to sort things out in your head, or to explain something outside, like having a dream about a fire engine when you hear the alarm clock?”

“Yeah, I think we’ve all read that.”

“Well, you had a little fire between your legs, you say, but you were screaming ‘Mam’. What does that say?”

“My mother died two years ago. It was a year into my first sessions with Sally, and that hospital was a place she put me into after my…well, after that day when I was 12”

“Steph, while you know this is important to me, after our awkwardness at the festival, but I think you need to ask yourself…..are you planning surgery?”

That one stopped me dead. I realised that in all the chats with Sally, in all my hopes and daydreams, the reality of the actual procedure had never fully featured. To be honest, my cock and balls had never really featured in my life apart from being an irritant I could have done without, but my obsession, my need, was to be seen as myself rather than to “function” as a woman sexually. I simply knew who I was, and was adjusting the outside to reflect that so that I would be SEEN as I really was. My breasts, my dresses… I had never had any form of relationship, any courtship, romance, even lust until Steph was released. The concept of sex in my life was just not there, and the need for invasive surgery likewise. Just snip it all off, Mr surgeon, returned unopened.

Geoff had changed that. I was only then, at that moment as my nightmare faded and the chai soothed, realising that I had indeed begun thinking of possible futures. I imagined one without his smile or touch, and promptly filed that as far down in my mind’s dungeons as I could.

Was this what the books and films were all about? Was this falling in love? I knew what love meant; I had loved my parents, and I had now realised how much I loved Dave, but in my Steve days of drink, self-harm and, well, self-hate, such concepts as another person in my life might as well have been written in Chinese. Did I want this man in my car-crash of a life? Oh so much so that I could not say it without crying. Did this man deserve to have me inflicted on him? No.

But he seemed to want it. I realised that there were things untold about the Woodruffs, and there were demons in their lives–in his life. Were they as bad as mine? Time, and hopefully Geoff would tell.

As I pondered, the water heater turned itself on, and as the gas ignited I realised where that sound had come from.

We had been sitting in silence for rather a long time, but all things considered it was pleasant. I was curled up on the sofa next to him, his arm around my shoulder, my head on his chest listening to his heart, the slow, slow beat of a serious cyclist. It was about two thirty, and I roused myself to get some clean (and dry) knickers. When I came back he was spreading some blankets on the sofa. I took his hand, shaking my head, and led him back to the spare room.

Dropping my gown, I stood bare-breasted before him and pulled him to me for a kiss, the hairs of his chest tickling my nipples. We lay down and he spooned into me under the duvet, one hand cupping my left breast.

“I don’t want, I can’t face any more bad dreams, cariad. Just remember the rules…..”

“No snoring nor farting?”