Page 1 of SEAL Mates

Paula

“I have a dead vagina!” I declared to my best friend Stephanie who was trying to convince me to go out this weekend.

“I know you have a vagina, but I’m sure it’s alive and kicking.”

I shook my head, and then it was as if she was getting bored of just talking on WhatsApp and video calling me.

Shit!

I hated when she did that. No doubt she would be all done up, perfect hair and clothes.

And I?

Well, I was in my pj’s. My new version of comfy clothes. Since 2020, I hadn’t bothered to go back to my old clothes, I’d stored them in the attic and no more were in my closet. I’d been wearing the comfy clothes, everyone was doing it. It meant you never had to buy clothes again, because they fit all sizes. I’d decided this would be the new me. Comfy clothes.

Comfy shoes. No more heels.

No more make-up, it was a waste of money. I can’t afford to go anywhere anyway, they said be free and goodbye to quarantine and then hiked up the bills of everything including petrol, which meant we were back to square one, but without having to wear masks.

Sure, we had freedom again, but I couldn’t afford to go anywhere. How did I go from going out four times a week to the gym, salsa dancing every Friday night and every couple of weeks dinner with Stephanie? To only dropping and picking the kids up from school, it was the only thing I could afford.

The school run.

My life wasn’t that exciting to begin with, but now it was completely dead, like my vagina.

“Please Paula. Hubby is out visiting his mom and siblings. I couldn’t be bothered to travel, because I’m exhausted. Luke is going to camp, after enjoying it so much when he went last summer. So, I have no one in the house during the whole Spring Break meaning I have the house to myself!”

She was talking to me as if I was a child. I loved and hated her for it. She was doing it, so I knew exactly what she needed, and being my best friend she would drop everything to help me out. Yet, I didn’t think going to a get together would be classed as helping a friend out.

She could see, I wasn’t convinced so she continued telling me about her plight.

“I invited a couple of our friends over too. Cocktails. Music. Come on. I may even hire strippers and we can really go to town.”

Now, she was lying that showed she was desperate for me to come over. If it was just her. If it was us, then I would do it, no worries. But sociable. Being sociable, that was a lot of work. A lot of it.

Number one, it would mean not wearing my comfy clothes and my comfy shoes.

Number two, I would have to look for something to wear which was not part of number one, and that meant a treasure hunt.

Number three, once I discovered the outfit, I would have to wash and iron it.

The reasons for not going were getting longer, and I had to find a way to let her down.

Number four, which was the biggest part of the problem. Friends meant her friends.

I didn’t socialize with anyone apart from my two kids. My mom when she wasn’t with her toyboy and my eldest when he came to town.

I loved her for trying to make out that they were our friends. She’s my oldest and closest friend, the only one in Pike County that still spoke to me. There was something about women in their mid-forties that felt threatened by women the same age who were single. There was nothing threatening about me. From my overgrown bangs, my love handles and my droopy breasts. I stood up, leaving the phone on the bed, and decided to get out my breasts. Somehow these perfect married women would take one look at me, and think, I need to hold on to my man. Funny how they saw something completely different to me.

The irony of it.

“Are you still there, or are you holding on to your breasts complaining about them being so droopy?” She really knew me too well.

“Yes, I’m here. I’ll prefer it if you didn’t make fun of my breasts. Maybe you would have the same if you had more than one kid.”

“Jackie’s got three.”

She didn’t need to remind me. One of Jackie’s daughters were in Kylie, my daughter’s class. So, I regularly bumped into Jackie. All I ever saw, when I did was:

---