12 January 2025

How To Be The Other Women: A Step-By-Step Guide

AMELIA FAY

Wake up on the left side of the bed.

Reach for the concoction of pills you keep on your bedside table and wonder when your bedroom transformed into a makeshift pharmacy.

Balance two tablets on your tongue. It doesn’t matter what they are — paracetamol, aspirin, oxy, any will do— but do not swallow. Let them melt on your tongue, coating your tastebuds and gums in that sticky, sickly bitterness. Painting your saliva an unnatural white.

Migrate to the middle of the bed — that way the mattress doesn’t feel quite so big. You shouldn’t have opted for the queen size. The empty space leaves room for ghosts to linger. Try to ignore their besetting presence. Render this impossible.

Allow yourself thirty minutes of self wallowing, a temporary haunting before you start the day. Sob and gargle and choke like the beastly creature you have become. Allow yourself thirty minutes. Then time to get a grip.

Get dressed in the dark. Keep the curtains drawn shut. Daylight will only showcase the loathsome truths you would rather ignore: the stains on your bedsheets, the fresh bruises on your thighs. Opt for the dimmer, safer light of your vanity to put on your face. Apply concealer, bronzer, mascara, blush. Relish in the process. It’s religious, this becoming. Creating something out of nothing. Therapeutic. Pinned back hair to feign innocence. Another layer of varnish on the chips and cracks of your tired fingers. These are the things you can control.

Go to work, if that’s what you’re meant to do today. Commute on the tube and sink into the sweltering sweat of strangers. Wonder what they’re guilty of. Tax fraud. Addiction. Murder. Everyone is guilty of something. Find this strangely reassuring.

Make polite conversation with Jan in the office. Ask of her overweight children, or her overweight husband who had to have his wedding band cut off, or their weekly outings to play bingo down the road. Feign interest in her dull answers. Resent the security of her mundane life.

If today you don’t have the sweet distraction of plain Jan and a mind-numbing nine-to five, then take seven deep breaths. Prepare yourself for the drawling day ahead. First, busy yourself with errands — that way you won’t have time to think as much. Throw your whites in the washing machine. Pay your rent. Mail a postcard to your mother, assuring her you’re content. Answer the interrogations of her previous postcard as dishonestly as you can. How’s work?

Fine.

Have you been taking your vitamins?

Yes.

Have you found yourself a nice man yet?

….

Will you ever find yourself a nice man?

….

Take a stroll to the shops. Buy some vitamins. Buy more soap and two red onions, a box of Tampax, a smoothie with spinach in it, a bottle of merlot, bathroom cleaner, and another bottle of merlot. Buy some more paracetamol and aspirin. There’s a limit of two packs of painkillers per customer now. Find this ridiculous; if you were going to end your life, you know it wouldn’t be with own-brand painkillers. Consider how you would kill yourself, if it came down to it. A razor? A rope? Treat yourself to a cheap bunch of flowers. That will brighten things up.

On your way home, take the scenic route past the church. Think about the Catholicism you outgrew; the performative crosses that spread across your Grandmother’s walls and her frail hands clasping in prayer over your Sunday luncheons. Watch the young Catholic schoolgirls file out of the service, parading their tartan skirts and virginities. Feel sinful. Unclean. Remind yourself this is why you don’t take the route past the church. Know you’ll still take this route anyway.

At home, run a bath. Make sure the water is scalding hot. Add bubbles, if you like. Use the soap you bought to scrub yourself clean. Scrub hard enough that your skin turns red and irritated, prickling with those little raised bumps. Harder. You need to scrub hard enough to wash away the guilt — or until you run out of soap. Lie there, brewing in the steam. You’re a vegetable whose had its soil-stained skin peeled away. You’re a newborn baby still floating in the embryonic sac.

Make a note to buy more soap.

It’s time for another new face — a new mask — to make yourself striking again. It’s a powerful ritual, this becoming; you can decide who you want to be. Women have been altering themselves since the beginning of time, since Eve first fell to earthly floor and understood she was different from Adam. She had to be better. Women used to bleach their skin, bloodlet, swallow tapeworms. It is your turn to become better. Pearly teeth. Rouged lips. Spider-leg lashes. Make sure the process is less meditative this time, more obsessive. A powerful ritual, yes, but more importantly an essential one. You have to be better.

Don’t get dressed. You won’t be leaving the apartment again until it’s dark, when you can cower in the safety of shadows and shame — if you leave the apartment again at all — so there’s no use in dirtying clothes. Opt for a robe instead, the type you have seen mistresses wear in those old movies from the 195os. All silk and bare leg. You might as well look the part, seeing as you’re so insistent on filling the role.

Choose a suitable place to drape yourself, preferably a chaise lounge, but an armchair will do. Make sure it’s within reach of the telephone, just in case He calls.

Pretend to read the same book that has occupied your coffee table for weeks. Pretend its contents interest you, while really just fingering the pages and sneaking perverted glances at the clock. Grow irritated by how slowly its hands move.

One o’clock.

Two o’clock.

Gorge on whatever leftovers are in the fridge. Feel guilty afterwards. Untie your robe to analyse your body in the nearest mirror. Have you gained weight since yesterday? Are your breasts starting to sag?

Four o’clock.

Five o’clock.

His wife has yoga at this time on a Thursday.

Six o’clock.

Seven o’clock.

Finally a respectable time to open the wine, not that anyone is around to witness the crazed liturgy about to commence. The only person able to judge will be the man who collects the bins on Wednesdays. Perhaps he’ll click his tongue and roll his eyes that the occupant of apartment 107 always has so many empty wine bottles. Well he’s not here now, and you’ve waited until seven o’clock. Drink up. No need for glasses. Suck the red nectar straight from the bottle’s neck. You used to hate the taste of alcohol at sixteen, now it is purer than Christ’s blood. Smoother then water.

Eight o’clock.

Nine.

Put on a record so the apartment doesn’t feel so quiet; the humming of the lightbulbs, the buzz of the heater — they’ve started to sound like laughter. Billy Joel is a safe choice. His voice is soothing, timeless. It might trick you into hoping everything will be alright. Put on Billy Joel.

Dance around the room manically, because a therapist once told you that dancing boosts serotonin and you are so deeply unhappy.

Stop dancing when you feel sweaty as well as unhappy.

Attempt to masturbate. Think about nothing in particular, as long as you’re not thinking about Him.

Stop thinking about Him.

Stop.

Cry before you reach orgasm.

Tell yourself you don’t need Him. You deserve better than this. Hold three fingers over your left breast and swear you will never speak to him again. You will not pick up when he calls. And so it goes and so it goes, and so will you soon, I suppose.

Turn off Billy Joel. His voice has started to sound like laughter too.

Wait.

Pick up when He calls. But wait five rings, so you don’t seem too desperate. Laugh at His jokes. Agree to His requests. It’s good to hear His voice. He’ll be outside your apartment in fifteen. It’s never a question. There’s craving in his voice. You know what type of night it will be. No fresh air. No salvation. He needs you quickly. You have purpose. You can get dressed now — not that he notices what you wear anymore. You’ll be naked again within twenty, but pick something nice, just for you. Perhaps that new lace nightgown, or the violet cami He said He liked once. Perhaps it will distract Him from your puffy eyes. The smell of red wine raw on your tongue.

Wait.

When He arrives, throw your arms around His neck. Grant him the same grand welcome as a returning war hero.

Offer Him wine.

Realise you’ve drained the bottle.

Suggest you open the other bottle. It would be nice to just sit and talk, wouldn’t it? Make pretend you’re a retired couple on some trip away in a cosy cabin with a fireplace. Two lovers who can talk as well as fuck. Have you read what that politician has done now? Can you save me the crossword? Are you still planning to leave your wife?

Try not to look sad when he undoes his trousers without warning — isn’t this what you wanted? Why this perfect tragedy began in the first place?

Get on your knees.

Spread your legs.

Feed His hunger — your hunger — the hunger that has become its own entity and now seems to be eating you from the inside out. You’ve lost an arm, your spleen, your sense of self. That’s unimportant. Let Him make you feel good. Because it does feel good — the stickiness of his body, hot, pounding flesh filling your vacantness. It feels good to have him close, no matter how bad it will feel later. Right now he is warm inside you. The pills are on the bedside table for the morning, ready to numb the hangover. The thoughts.

Grab His back as He thrusts into you. Dig your nails into His shoulders, so at least there’s some evidence this was real. Hope that his wife sees your scratches. You’re an explorer claiming land. Hope she’ll turn him out to the streets, into the orbit of your arms. Stop thinking so much.

Moan louder. Give a better performance. Stop thinking —

Don’t tell Him you love.

Even if it’s on the tip of your tongue. It will only scare Him away.

If you have to tell Him — if the words are foaming at your mouth, their own deadly form of rabies— tell Him subtly. With your eyes. Hold his gaze as He moves in and out of your emptiness. Caress his cheek and force him to participate in a holy gentleness. Hope He understands. I love you I love you I love you.

He’ll close his eyes as He cums. Fake an orgasm, a moment of orchestrated symphony you can share. Feel empty as He rolls off of you.

You’re a slab of meat on the butcher’s board.

Hide your disappointment when He says He can’t stay the night. The kids have piano lessons at nine. You should be used to this by now, being left deconstructed. Raw.

Stay perfectly still as He kisses your forehead.

Silently count to sixty, because a therapist once told you this helps to ground you, and pieces of loose flesh aren’t supposed to possess emotion.

Or maybe only count to fifteen — the number of months this infidelity has been going on. Or perhaps just three — how many times you’ve seen Him in daylight.

It doesn’t matter what number you count to — sixty, or fifteen or three — by the time you’re done He’ll have let Himself out. You’ll be on the left side of the bed. The only remnants of him a thin trickle of sweat. A stray hair or two.

Don’t bother getting up to lock the door. You’re exhausted now. Don’t care about potential danger. Maybe some lunatic will enter your apartment as you sleep, slit your throat from ear to ear, leave you naked and irreparable. Wonder who would find your body? How long would it take them? Would He come to the funeral?

Or maybe you’ll sleep through the night. Wake in the morning, alone, swaddled in your bedsheet, to reach for some paracetamol or aspirin or oxy, to send a postcard of falsehoods to your mother, to buy two red onions at the shop, to glower at the Catholic schoolgirls, to boil your skin, to paint your face like the women before, to never finish that book, to drown yourself in Christ’s blood, to dance, to touch yourself, to cry, to answer His call, to be left naked and irreparable all the same.

Wonder what future is worse.