Tanya the Slut

When I meet Tanya she is dressed inappropriately for the weather. Short skirt. Halter top. A light shawl. It’s September in Edinburgh. She tells me that she’s being as slutty as possible while she’s here. Back home she lives with her family on a farm in the middle of nowhere. So far from anywhere, in fact, that local boys won’t drive out to meet her even if she promises to blow them.

This is the first time she’s been in a city. She loves it. She tells me about the guys she’s fucked so far, counting them off on her fingers. The jazz musician. The nerd. One threesome, which she never planned to have but which she definitely wants to do again. “I think I’m doing pretty well for myself,” she says.

She is dirty. Provocatively so. Calls her cunt her pussy. Calls herself a slut. Says these words with a pride I’ve never heard before. She’s 19. Teen pussy, she says, laughing. I’m still technically teen pussy for one more year.

We leave the pub together just after midnight. We link arms as we walk across the city. Everything is interesting to her. “See that building?” I tell her. “That building is older than your entire country.”

We start seeing blood as we come onto North Bridge. A few spatters at first and then a thick trail of it. It seems almost comical. Then it doesn’t. A man is slumped at the bus stop, blood piddling from a wound in his head.

I hold his scarf over the wound. Tanya holds his hand. We make small talk with him until the ambulance comes. A couple of times he tries to stand, falling drunkenly into one or other of us. By the time we leave him in the care of the paramedics we’re both liberally spattered with his blood.

We resume our walk. Our destination is the same but the energy of the moment has changed. “If my housemate is still up,” I say, “tell him you’re on your period.”

*

We get back to my flat. We take turns washing off the blood. Tanya’s clothes are ruined. I put them in the washing machine and lend her pyjamas. It is 3AM. When we fuck, finally, she holds me very tightly and whispers throughout. “That’s good,” she whispers. “That’s good. That’s so fucking good.” I can see a slice of our bodies in the mirror – my skin a darker contrast to hers, her small hands on my ribs.

*

The next morning I run her a bath. She’s staying in a tourist hostel, not a hotel. The cheapest tourist hostel she could find. She’s living out of her suitcase, washing clothes in the sink. It shows. She’s appealingly ratty – greasy hair and dirty nails and a slight odour of bitter sweat to her. Traces of blood still remain between her fingers and on her neck.

She puts on my dressing gown and watches me from the doorway, chewing on her cuticles. “What are we doing now?”

“You’re having a bath.”

“Baaath.” She mocks my accent. “I’m having a baaath?”

I test the water. “Come here.” She comes. I take the dressing gown off her shoulders and hang it up. Odd how she looks more naked here than she did in my bedroom, in my bed. “In.”

She steps in. Sinks down. Grunts at the heat, but settles herself low into the water all the same. Her body beneath the surface looks pale and ghostly.

I wash her. Run my hands over her skin in a way that feels utterly different from how I touched her before. I wash her hair. Rinse the soap from it and tease out the tangles. I get a fresh razor and my shaving gel and shave her armpits. She shuts her eyes and sinks lower in the water. I wash her face. Scrub the roots of her hair. Clean under her nails. It’s a task that takes quite some time. She doesn’t speak, except to ask – every now and then – for more hot water.

When we’re done I wrap her in a towel. I use the corner to dry inside her ears. I fetch a hairdryer and dry her hair. She cuddles into me while I comb it with my fingers. I am not well practised at doing this, but I take as much care as I can.