Bang Gang

I was done. Job complete. Balls empty.

Customer satisfied.

Don’t think about Trent. Don’t think about Trent. Don’t think about Trent.

I herded the kids through bath and bedtime, and made sure Nanna had taken her tablets before I sat with her to finish up her evening TV.

“Well?” she said during the advert break. “Did you sort things out with your Darren?”

I shrugged. “Nothing to sort, Nanna. We just… I said thanks for the washing machine.” I gave her my don’t-be-ridiculous eyes. “He’s not mine to sort.”

She chuckled to herself. “So I keep hearing…”

I held my breath — half expecting to field gigolo questions raised by over-the-fence gossip — but she let out a sigh at the end of her crime-drama and made her way to bed. Maybe she didn’t know… I could hope.

Once Nanna was tucked up for the night, I resumed my regular schedule. I wiped down the kitchen worktops, fed the cat for the twentieth time, sorted school lunchboxes and cleared the scrubbed-out baking pans away. It was late when I finally dragged myself to the machine to sort out the Trent-washed laundry. I did this while totally not thinking about him and his five man gigolo outfit, of course.

I sorted the kids’ blouses, then the socks, then the miscellaneous whites before I faced the inevitable, embarrassing confrontation of my underwear pile. Oh Lord. I cringed afresh as the full horror of the granny pants hit home, and it seemed so much worse now, now that I’d seen him — the one I was definitely not thinking about. Definitely not thinking about at all.

I definitely wasn’t thinking about how kind the years had been to the man I was definitely, definitely over.

Definitely.

Totally over.

Anyhow, it wasn’t just the passage of time that had served Trent well. No. It was the gym — sweat and time and effort. That and a fat wedge of cash from a string of loaded women like Porsche-bitch, no doubt. I bet she had nice knickers. I bet she had nice everything.

I looked through my pitiful pants collection. Some had holes. In at least one pair the elastic had snapped. One pair was still vaguely blood-stained. All of them were grey and tatty and thoroughly unattractive. That’s when it occurred to me that I might be too…

Ouch.

Super ouch.

Was I grey and tatty and thoroughly unattractive?

I scoffed the thought aside. Porsche-bitch has time to look great. Porsche-bitch probably has nothing better to worry about than looking great.

I could look great, too. If I really wanted to. I had makeup, I could put a face on any time I felt like it…

I fished my cosmetics bag from the odds-and-sods drawer. My heart dropped to find the situation was worse than expected…

One cruddy foundation — congealed around the top. Lid missing.

One blunt eyeliner pencil.

One neutral glow palette of eyeshadow — half of the colours missing, the other half broken and crumbly having been stabbed with an applicator. Thanks, Ruby.

Two lipsticks. One was just a paltry stub left in the bottom. One was so red I’d never even tried it.

Had it really been that long..?

Yes. It had been that long. The occasional night out down the local with Tonya had turned into a Christmas-only event. Ladies-who-lunch had become a makeup-less affair, hair scooped up in a pony after the school run.

Brian hadn’t cared a toss about my makeup through the two piss-poor years of our relationship… Hadn’t cared about my hair, either… or sex, in fact…

Or me…

Big pants had become a thing of comfort — bumper packs of five with standard white bras were easy-peasy. They covered my baby podge nicely. And who was there to worry about now, anyway? Who would ever see them? Not even Brian… not since I’d ditched the loser last winter.

Trent. He’d seen them.

And it smarted. The embarrassment prickled my chest. Shit.

He’d seen my ugly, stained knickers and now he was off fucking some rich bitch who probably had stylists to choose her panty-stash for her.

In a moment of madness I crumpled up those gross knickers and tossed them straight into the outside bin. My makeup bag followed soon afterwards.

I slammed the lid with a satisfying thump.

Good fucking riddance.

Late night shopping at the 24-hour supermarket was surprisingly calming. The aisles were empty and the music was loud, and I wandered freely through the clothes and makeup section without hindrance. A strange sense of guilt washed over me as I contemplated my purchases — some irrational mantra that said if I wasn’t buying it for the kids it wasn’t worth buying at all. But I was worth it. Surely I had to be worth it?

I picked up a handful of frilly knickers and a couple of matching bras. I grabbed a tight little teal V-neck that showed off the dip of my waist and a smaller pair of jeans to go along with them. A pair of low heels that wouldn’t totally destroy my feet through the day at the cafe. Some foundation, and an eyeliner that worked. A decent lipstick, too. A new eyeshadow palette, with green and gold and blue. It was a start.