Foreign Perfume

Imperfect stillness.

I lie on the floor of my room, staring up at the horrendous red lampshade. It shadows the ceiling and makes it a dark, grime-filled cave. It's just as cold as one. The radiator's on the fritz, and I can't bear to phone anyone for it.

The curtains are red too. It looks like that wall has been splashed with fresh, iron-smelling blood, like I've been torn apart and splattered on it. Right now, that's exactly what it feels like for me. I'll start from the beginning.

When I arrived here at university for the first time, I thought my room was alright. I couldn't believe I was actually going to be studying at Cambridge - but I think back to secondary school and what I was doing. There was no partying, pink-tinted teenage kissing, nor sneaking out after dark through a window. I was always buried in a book, remote, packed away, and quiet, although I thank God that I got some use out of it in the end, at least.

It was a little small though - my room. My pinboard was barren - I've never had any photos to display at all. My bed was too high too, and it creaked. It was a thin single bed - insultingly thin, like they thought I'd never have anyone over anyway so there was no need to spend money on any extra mattress stuffing.

My mother took me up to Cambridge on the train - she insisted, with clasped hands, that someone might steal all my luggage straight off the train platform or the pavement unless her beady eyes were there to guard them. I do think, if someone wanted to steal my suitcases anyway, honestly - she wouldn't be able to do a thing about it whatsoever. I can imagine her now, starting to run to the exit of the train carriage following a masked suitcase thief, and sitting down before she even reaches the door from being out of breath.

My whole living space is surreal. It's an octagon for my shared area, doors on each side leading to different places. My mother said it was like a big open-plan office, straight out of Office Space. I've seen that movie, and it's nothing like that at all. I think she meant Space Odyssey - it was disgustingly modern. When I was looking forward to stone arches and cigarette-tempting alleyways, I got fluorescent lighting.

One door is the entrance and exit, of course. Another is for our shared kitchen, another is a housekeepers' closet of cleaning supplies, and the other five doors lead to my own room and that of my four flatmates - April, Leon, Poppy, and Jamie.

April was my favourite, straight away. She was gorgeous, one of those people you're just shocked to be around in real life. We were careening through conversation on the first day, getting to know each other, saying that the buildings are gorgeous, everyone's so nice, that it feels like forever after just a few hours and days, and a week later, that I've called the place "home" for the first time already. She hadn't got there just yet.

Maybe, when the real home is something you don't look forward to, you look for new wayward homes everywhere you happen to travel. Hence why I so quickly accepted that I really, truly, live on my own - right here.

What I didn't expect was how on my own I would be.

I went clubbing for the first time with April that first Saturday, at the busiest student night of the year. I didn't drink anything, I just put my hands up and smiled politely when offered - I had an image of myself refusing countless drinks that men would be buying for me all night, but even April didn't pay me a second glance and just drank for herself all night long. Although, at the rate she was going, you'd think she was drinking for two or three.

"My boyfriend is coming o--" she stumbled over her words as she stumbled over the curb of the pavement. "...he's coming over this Sunday."

I pointed out this Sunday was tomorrow, and asked if she'd got everything ready for seeing him. Not entirely surprising me, she said no.

She staggered back from the blurred and hazy nightclub, all her lights still blurring and cycling across her vision as she leaned into me, fur coat trailing elegantly in the breeze like a proud animal. I would herd her to safety. I gripped her coat harder, stroking the faux fur beneath my fingers. I noticed that I was stroking her shoulder beneath the fur as well. She went back to talking about her boyfriend.

She cackled: "...and this sound he makes when he... you know," she looked at me with a knowing glint in her tilted eyes as she looked up at me mindlessly smiling. I didn't know.

"It's a /proper/ sound, like..." she faded off.

"Proper like, posh? 'Good lady - I'm rather going to burst?'" I said.

"No, proper masculine!"

"Not in a womanly way, then, or anything? Is it the sound of chopping wood?" I asked. I was actually asking a little for future reference.

"Yeah, he has to make his voice really low, look at himself in the mirror, and then shout 'I'm a man!' before anything can happen."

"Really?" I asked again.

"Yeah, I'll act it out, even. Watch - "'I'm a MAN!'" she shouted out in a high-pitched voice before almost walking into a lamp-post. I pulled her away by the sleeve of her shirt, and she crashed into me on the way, pushing me into a railing. We both came to a stop, and looked at each other. I wished this wasn't the conversation we were on at the moment.

"I'm sorry," she said, suddenly forlorn. "That was so realistic, that must be seriously turning you on, actually." she laughed in my face.

"Yeah, I can barely keep my hands off you right now," I deadpanned.

I looked at her a little more, wavering, drunk, and reddened.

I couldn't.