‘Uber Driver, I think I may have to go home,’ I say, sitting up slowly. My back creaks from too much lying down. ‘I am in a bad way, and the bed sores are starting to get infected.’
He laughs, long and hard. ‘You are so unusual,Alice. Very different from other women.’
I hate this line. I’m a human being, humans are all different from each other. It is one of the very first things they teach you at school: that people are all unique. Saying that line just feels like another way to set women against each other. We are encouraged to be different to ‘other women’, as if most women are awful and their personalities mustbe avoided at all costs.
I give him a look. ‘You mean different from the other tourists you pick up in your Uber?’
‘Exactly right,’ he says grinning. ‘You are so rude and you don’t care what I think. Most women in theUSget bounced from the state for eating carbs but I’ve seen you eat a whole loaf of bread in two days. Not to mention that large bar of chocolate you ate for breakfast.’
I harrumph. ‘That was only to prove a point,’ I say defensively. ‘How dare they call it a “Sharing bar”? I don’t want to share. They don’t get to police how I consume my snacks, with their politically correct,diabetes-friendly messaging.’
He laughs again.
‘Also,’ I say, ‘You are not my elderly grandparent – you do not get to comment on my eating habits. This is a verbal warning, Idon’t want to hear anything else about me eating carbs or I’m out of here for real.’
‘Fine, but I’m just saying I like it,’ he smiles and reaches for me again, pressing his erection against my leg.
‘Keep your likes and dislikes to yourself, you are aseven-night stand, that is all.’ I roll away.
‘Seven nights?’ he says, coyly. ‘That means I get one more night with you?’
‘Oh,’ Ireply distractedly, looking around the room for my underwear. ‘No, I just don’t know how to count. Maths was never my strong point.’
‘Math,’ he corrects me.
‘MATHS,’ I say, giving him my undivided attention again. ‘We invented the language, we get to decide if a thing is plural or not.’
I pull on one sock but he takes the other one, hiding it under the duvet. ‘Don’t go, Al, I wantyou to stay!’
I sigh. ‘Really, I do have to go back to my AirBnB. My host, Patrick, will have called the police by now. He hasn’t really seen me since that first night. And I’m meant to be seeing Isy for lunch tomorrow. I have to shower properly and I need a change of pants.’
‘These are fine,’ he says, picking up my jeans from the floor and sniffing them. ‘You’ve hardly even worn them.’I roll my eyes. ‘No,pants. Underwear. Oh God, you lot really have ruined the language. Although, I do very much enjoy what you’ve done with the word “fanny”.’
‘Well, I very much enjoy your fanny,’ he says, scooching over, squeezing my bum and tugging at the top I’ve just put on.
‘Look,’ I say, giggling. ‘We will compromise. I’ll stay with you for one more evening, but we have to actuallygo outside. I want to see the world out there, I want to taste something that isn’t takeaway pizza, leftover bread and chocolate you found in a cupboard that was so old it was turning white.’
‘You still ate it,’ he points out.
‘What did I say about commenting on my eating habits?’ I say loudly, standing up. He leaps up, too, and I feel my stomach flip a bit. He’s so tall and big. I forgotabout his bigness while we were horizontal for days on end.
‘OK,’ he is suddenly eager like a puppy. ‘What would you like to do? What haven’t you done inLAyet?’
I smile up at him. I already know what I want to do. It’s been on my list from day one, but I didn’t want to do it on my own, and I definitely didn’t want to do it with that dirtbag Robert.
‘I want to go visit a Green Doctor,’I say, grinning and taking his hand.
He cocks an eyebrow back at me by way of an answer.
An hour later, we are going through airport security.
It’s not actually airport security, but it feels like it. We are in a place calledWEED LOVE TO HAVE YOU AT THE BEST JOINT IN TOWN, where we are going to buy some totally legal marijuana. This could only be more exciting if it were stillillegal.
‘This is soawesome,’ I loudly hiss, as I show astern-looking woman my passport. Dom elbows me to shut up. ‘It is though!’ I say, my voice not really any lower. He pulls me closer as the woman nods us through and we enter the spliff shop.
So my original idea was to visit Muscle Beach for this. I’d walked past a bunch of totallylegit-looking places selling the good stuff from‘Green Doctors’. They all hadt-shirts with the name and everything. But Dom said we should go somewhere a bit more reputable.
The fact that marijuana shops have reputations to consider blows me away.
