The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride

at him for his hand up my leg and wanting it to all the more.
    Fuck your room’s tiny. And the walls are thin. Wet coat shed and quick caught me. Osip Mandelstam digging in the back of my knees as the kissing gets me pinned. But laugh we in the struggle to strip and not bump. Stilling into statues at the landlady’s coughs. I trample too on his new-pressed shirt, just a little just. Just for her. Worse though the mattress when he inches me there. Shush, I shush. Shush yourself. I am so for him now and yet What traces has she left? What did they do? How did they kiss? Did she do this to you? He considers – I see it – telling a lie. Did she? Yes, he says. What do I say to that? Like a stone on his back. Like a stone on mine. Have you protection with you? Of course I have. And, for all my want, I could kick myself for so easily giving in to his charms. When he’s ready though, Ilift to him. Kiss him as he’s about to, then it’s just us two again, finding how we creaklessly can and we mostly do – mostly he finds – while I hold to him, shaking in the silence. He makes me and waits. Lets himself once I have    and and    The weight of him on me. Christ. But all things between us made new.
    In the after, I listen to the rain. His breath on my shoulder That was great. And this is how I’d like the night to be – hours of lying here with him – but Don’t sleep, I say You have to leave. Don’t send me back out there. Consider it punishment for your sins! But I’ll get up so early. No. An hour? No. Half? No. Five minutes more? Those five he gets but after them Up. You’re a hard woman, he says getting off, all reluctant. And so I am, watching him dress now in the dark. We kiss a good while though before my door shuts and I listen to no sound on the stairs. Practice makes perfect. But I go to my window. Heavy rain beyond and him coming out into that. Tugging up his collar. Lighting a cigarette. Look up look up. He looks up. I show a hand. In turn, he bows then goes out to the footpath. I follow him to the end of the street where he disappears round Our Lady Help of Christians. Then slip back into the smell of him on my sheet. Search out the last of his taste on my lips. Imagine that I’d kept him here. Then think of him, in the rain, out there. That could – if I wanted – make my heart a little break. But I don’t want it to, so it does not.
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    Drift steam in the bath. Early morning. Thread his name through the bubbles and pop. Counting last night that’s six times I’ve had sex. If he was still here he’d make it seven. If he was still here    if he was still here    what would we not do?
    Before leaving, I wrap up the condom – if she found it she’d kill me stone dead. But at the bin on Leighton Road      thatlittle bit of him with Andrex wrapped round. Put it back in my pocket. Does he wish he had something of me? Even his sheets smell of someone else. No. Remember us there in the dark. I hang onto it so, until the bin at the top of Anglers Lane.
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    She stands smoking by the gate. Happy New Year! Her eyes are red. What’s wrong? He stayed over. He was collecting his stuff    and you know how it is. I ended up begging him not to do it but she’s going to pay off his fees. And inside her distress, I see a little of mine. They won’t be ‘married married’ though, couldn’t you still go out? How could I trust him? He kept it secret all this time    I mean    it’s happening Friday afternoon. Sorry, I say – pushing my own glee down – Why don’t we go out that night? You’re on, she says And fuck him anyway.
    Congregate in the Church first for Acting. Welcome back. I hope you had a good break. This term we’ll work on the Private Moment exercise. So choose something you really only do in private, something you’d