Thanks Peter God – Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
-In which our protagonist inadvertently tells a woman she has a large posterior and a drunken row ensues.
The Lovers
Peter Godfrey laid there in bed and thought about all the stupid, little judgements we all make, all of the time. Anita was asleep next to him, flat on her face in those green pyjamas of hers that she always left at his, completely oblivious, laid out like a slab of meat. He watched her carefully, trying to see any movement. He could see the back of her head, just a tussle of blonde hair which had fallen across her face so he could see nothing else unless he sat up. Her big, nice ass looked like it could take a scrabble board across it and remain still for an entire game. Her cute little feet where folded over each other, just on top of the duvet. He worried when she slept this still; he had an urge to shake her awake just to prove to himself that she was not dead but he knew that it would just infuriate her and lead to another argument.
They had been out that night to a barbecue at a friend’s house and Anita had drunk a little more wine than was sensible. Peter had not gotten away lightly himself; he’d had too much weed early on and had what his friend’s had previously described to him as “a whitey”. He’d never really believed they happened until he’d started to feel his blood pressure drop and his vision become a television screen filled with static. He had been sat on a stand chair in his friend’s garden surrounded by people he for the most part did not know. Anita was sat to his right and the guy to his left was someone he only knew from a previous event at the same house. He was a nice guy but one who always brought large amounts of weed along, hence the whitey.
Peter had sat there wondering if he should try and move and then quickly realised he probably couldn’t if he wanted to. When the sweat had popped out on his forehead and he had felt himself become very, very drowsy Anita had turned to him and told him that his lips were turning blue.
“I don’t think I’m very well,” Peter had said to her and was thankful she was also stoned; otherwise she would probably have taken her best berating tone with him.
“Do you want some water?” she’d asked him and he nodded.
He had sat still whilst she went off to get the water and he’d listened to sounds fade as his ears seemed to stop working. He had been worried now that he may pass out – he had never done so in his entire life and the prospect held a great fear for him. If people passed out then ambulances were called and people were taken to hospital. At the hospital they would do tests on him and discover all the secret, serious illnesses that only his neuroses and fear kept at bay. Then it would all be over.
He remembered he had taken a sip of the water that Anita had handed him and then the next thing he had known was hearing her voice as she said his name over and over, asking if he was okay. When he’d opened his eyes he was confused; her face was at the wrong angle altogether and he had wondered what was wrong with her. Then he had figured out that he was at the wrong angle; slumped sideways and almost laid on her breasts. He had righted himself and looked around, embarrassed, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. He was sweaty and cold.
“Are you alright?” Anita had been asking him, “You were shaking. Are you epileptic? I would have thought you’d tell me if you were epileptic.”
“I’m not epileptic,” he’d told her, “I think I had a whitey.”
“Your lips really turned blue but when I mentioned it you looked panicky.”
“No… no, I was just interested. Just interested. It was scary but I just tried to relax and let it happen. I just feel a bit wiped out.”
He had begun to perk up after that. He slowed down his drinking and even had a few more drags of weed later on and had actually felt quite good. Anita seemed okay with him, talking, laughing, acting normally but he had wondered if she was secretly pissed off with him and was not showing it because they were in company. She had seemed to be flirting a little with a guy they knew but she described him later as resembling a serial killer so maybe she hadn’t. She had asked Peter if he’d wanted another drink and then come back with two large glasses of wine, knowing very well that he never drank it. She had finished it off herself and then accepted another large glass from the serial killer guy and drank it down much too quickly.
By the time they left Anita had not been able to walk without putting her arm through his. When they’d detached to cross a road she had wandered sideways and almost into the path of an oncoming car. They had made it halfway home before getting a taxi seemed a much, much better idea, so they’d flagged one down. Peter hadn’t seen Anita this drunk since that night two months ago when they’d first had sex. She hadn’t been as drunk then, he’d decided, probably because she’d been nervous at that time too. Now, two months into what was definitely a relationship, she was relaxed enough to get into a state and he considered that a compliment. There were those silly little milestones in relationships – for instance, the first time a woman farted in front of you, you knew she had decided you were probably going to hang around.
They’d gotten home to his place and Anita had demanded coffee and a bagel and then declared that it was the best food she had ever had. She had gotten excited when she thought she had enough weed on her to make one last joint and Peter had shared that excitement until she brought out a little baggy with three tiny specks in it. They shared a cigarette instead and then Anita had disappeared out of the room. Ten minutes later he had realised she wasn’t coming back and he’d crept quietly into his room and gotten undressed. Anita was under the covers snuggled up and he’d had to disturb her to get a little cover himself. She’d grumbled at this, only half asleep, still reeling drunk. Although he hadn’t actually said anything she started shushing him as if he’d spoken.
“That’s it,” she’d said, “enough chatter. We’re going to sleep now.”
“I hadn’t said anything.”
“Shhhh!”
He’d laid on his back, keeping still and silent. He knew if he stayed on his back he would find it difficult to sleep and that if he did go to sleep in that position he would definitely snore. He wasn’t sure that it would’ve woken her once she’d fallen into her drunken sleep. She was probably going to have a good, deep sleep.
“That lesbian was cute,” She’d said all of a sudden, making him start.
“Which one?” He’d asked.
“The pale cute one.”
“Not the one that looked like Katie Holmes?”
“The other one looked like Katie Holmes?”
“Yeah, she had that forehead thing going on.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“They were both cute,” Peter Godfrey had said and immediately knew he shouldn’t have.
“You thought they were cute?” Anita asked.
“Yeah. Well, I’m just agreeing with you…”
“So you were looking at them?”
“No.”
“Well how do you know they were cute?”
“Well, I wasn’t looking at them like looking at them… I just noticed them like I noticed everyone else.”
“So you weren’t just looking at them, you were checking out all the girls there then?”
“No!”
“But you just said you noticed them like you noticed everyone else which must mean you looked at all the girls and judged them all.”
“Well, men just do judge girls like that don’t they,” Peter had foolishly continued, “but it’s just like being in an art gallery and looking at the pictures and knowing which ones are best.”
“So you judged every single one of the girls at the party? Go on then, who else did you fancy?”
“I didn’t say I fancied any of them!”
“But you did fancy some of them. Because you’re a man in an art gallery. Or whatever.”
“No, but… well… you look but you don’t stay at the art gallery, do you? I mean, it’s one thing to go to an art gallery and look around but it’s better to have your favourite painting at home.”
“What? I’m a belonging? That should stay at home?”
“No! That’s not what I said!”
“That is what you said!”
“No, that’s not what I said.”
Silence fell for a few moments.
“Look,” said Peter, unaware that speaking further was the worst thing he could do at this point, “You can go to as many galleries as you want, but when you’ve got, er, when you’ve got, say, a genuine masterpiece at home, like a Picasso at home, then what does it matter?”
“A Picasso?”
“Yeah.”
“So I look like my face is twisted round and my eyes are wonky and my lips are up under my left ear? And my tits are on my knees?”
“Jesus Christ! No! Did I say anything remotely like that?” Peter still did not have enough sense to stop talking at this point. “Jesus. I was not checking out the girls at the party and I do not think your tits are on your knees! You mentioned one girl, a lesbian for god’s sake anyway who would not be interested in my opinion of her and I agreed with you anyway! How can we be having an argument when I’m agreeing with you on something?”
“Well if I said my ass looked fat and you agreed I wouldn’t be happy!”
“That’s because it isn’t fat!”
“You called it big.”
“What? When?”
“The other day we were having sex and you said something like bring that big ass round here.”
“I said big old ass!”
“It’s old as well as big? I’m sorry I’m not as young as your last girlfriend.”
“No, no, no,” said Peter. He sighed. “It was nothing to do with your ass being fat or old.”
“So it is?”
“No! I was quoting from a Prince song. Or something. It was like sexy talk.”
“Calling my ass fat and old was sexy talk? You’ve got a lot to fucking learn. Even at your advanced age.”
“So now I’m old? And it’s okay to say that?”
“Yes!” Anita shrieked, “Because you are a dirty old man who’s been looking at girls and says my ass is fat and saggy!”
“When did I say saggy? Jesus! Keep your fucking facts straight!”
The argument had not gotten better from there. Like most men in his situation, Peter Godfrey had no intention of winning the argument; he had just wanted it to end. He had felt anxious and out of control, he knew very well from experience that these kinds of arguments between men and women were not really arguments at all, just a ritual of positioning and power. He had not wanted to win, or get an apology or anything in particular except go to sleep. He had wanted her to just stop talking and pass out drunk and then he could drift off himself. He had been stoned and drunk still and should have been in that nice comfortable place where it was easy to slip into the place between waking and dreaming and let all those thoughts run through his mind as he went to sleep.
Instead he had carried on trying to calm her down, feeling tenser and wired up as the argument went along – a physical pang in his chest, an acute and aching pain, a frustration and tension that felt like something from childhood. He wondered how she really felt, whether she felt anything similar, whether she really thought this was a necessary, relevant argument or was she caught in the midst of it purely through emotion and drunkenness. Peter had also felt incredibly horny throughout – just knowing she was so angry with him that she would physically repel him if he tried to lay a hand on her that drove him mad. He knew throughout that this would all just guarantee make-up sex in the morning. That had not really made the situation better for him – it did not dispel the tension and needling frustration. He had still just wanted it to be done with. And eventually it was.
Sat awake now, the clock showing 6am, he felt groggy and spaced out, probably still intoxicated, but he felt good. He looked over again at Anita lying there next to him, motionless and felt a sudden surge in himself, an overwhelming sense of affection and warmth. She brought out in him a deep desire to make sure she was okay; he had thought at first that it was an instinct to look after her but he soon realised this wasn’t even necessary, she was quite capable of looking after herself, probably more so than he was. This was something different; he just wanted to make sure that she had someone who could be there for her when she needed them.
He wanted to be the kind of man that Johnny Cash and June Carter sang about in those songs of theirs – someone who had found a love that had made him strong and right. But, just like in those songs he wanted to acknowledge his own weaknesses too; there was no sense in pretending he was something he wasn’t. Peter Godfrey was many things; lazy, cowardly, neurotic, but he was always honest about this – often too honest and too forthcoming on the subject of his own failings, but it was better than being delusional or in denial about himself. He wanted nothing more than to be able to say, yes, I’m imperfect but yes I can be strong when I need to be, when the right person needs me to be. He just didn’t realise how far away from this he was right now.
He wanted Anita to be the right person though. He knew already, had decided it, that he was in love with her and he could genuinely feel that she too was in love with him. He did not want to let her down as he had let women down in the past (or as he imagined he had; often he had not been at fault, just with the wrong woman). He wondered if arguments like the ridiculous one they had had last night were necessary, whether they were part of a process that would disappear as she began to trust him more or if they were just a permanent fixture that acted like a vent for emotions and insecurities. He felt they were wrong; they were unnecessary, part of a problem that he could fix. Peter Godfrey spent too much time thinking he could fix problems or people. He had not yet grasped that there was no way for one person to fix another; they could only do that themselves. He was on the right track though, thinking that he should just be strong for Anita, a permanent, solid thing in her life that she would always know was there, that she could always lean on and rely on. Of course she needed this, of course she wanted this. Who wouldn’t?
He also needed to learn that she could be the same for him, that he should be capable of giving in to his weaknesses sometimes and not be ashamed of it, that if someone truly loved him (as Anita was starting to, something deeper than simply being in love) they would accept this and just let him be himself. In that way he would relax and he would begin to change, to become more like himself than he had been capable of being before. This was what Peter needed to accept more than anything, that it was acceptable to be himself, instead of wishing he could transform himself into other people, or parts of other people’s personalities. He needed to realise that the best path for anyone was to embrace their own nature and come to terms with it, not to torture themselves with fantasies of changes that they could never make. A person content with their own nature, balanced and at peace would be capable of embodying any aspect of themselves they needed to at the time – they would find all they needed within themselves and realise that everything they’d ever aspired to or wished for had been there all along.
Anita was stirring now, maybe woken by Peter sitting up in bed and just watching her. She made some adorable little sleepy groaning noises and her hips swung slowly around as she stretched herself out. She pushed her hair out of her face and looked round to Peter. Her eyes were all gummy with sleep and puffed up. She sniffed and smiled at him. She seemed oblivious to the fact that the last words she had said to him before she had gone angrily to sleep had been “oh, shut the fuck up, dickhead” and he didn’t give care anyway. Her sleep face, her warm body next to him, her smiling, gorgeous lips; this was all that he wanted or needed right now.
She pulled herself up to him, not sitting up but snuggling into his side, her face against his chest and belly. He could smell perfume and stale booze on her and it was intoxicating. He put his arm around her shoulder and with his other hand stroked her hair away from her face. He smiled down at her.
“Did I get very drunk last night?” She asked him.
