Friday 29 April 2011

Bad Timing - #fridayflash

"I don't think I love you any more."

These are not words a girl wants to hear. Particularly, when the person uttering them is still inside you, and you are experiencing the after-shocks of a deep and satisfying orgasm.

"Then you'd better go." He doesn't move. "NOW." I push him off me. He rolls over to the damp side of the mattress.
"I'm sorry."
"Save it."
"I wish..."
"Just GO."

He makes no further attempt at civilised conversation. Taking me at my word, he climbs out of bed, and grabs his clothes. I bury my head under the pillow so I don't have to look at him. But I can hear the crackle of static as he pulls a T Shirt over the torso that I was just stroking, the sliding of trousers up the legs that were so recently wrapped round my body.

"Bye then." His words penetrate the muffle of the pillow case. If he's looking for a moment of understanding or forgiveness I'm not inclined to give it. I wait till he has left the room before I allow myself to bring my head up to breathe. A sickly smell of sex pervades the room. It makes me gag. The door to the flat bangs. My cue to jump out of bed, run to the toilet and throw up.

I feel better for a second. And then I begin to cry. My body shakes with sobs that seem to surface from deep in my gut. What am I going to do now?

I don't now how long I sit there crying on the cold bathroom floor, my sticky legs rubbing against each other, aggravating my eczema. I do know that when the tears finally subside, and I pull myself up, my face is puffed and blotchy. He used to say I lit up every room. No-one would say that of me now.

The stupid thing is, that I know he is right. He doesn't love me. He never did. And I didn't love him either. We were held together by mutual orgasm and the need for company on a Saturday night. Would it have made a difference if I'd said it first?

I have a shower, get dressed and make myself some toast. It doesn't change anything, so I phone in sick. I put "Casablanca" in the DVD, wrap myself in a blanket, and settle down to watch.

The bedroom will smell of sex for days. The bedsheets will stay stained.

I'm not inclined to clean up just yet.

7 comments:

Sulci Collective said...

OOh Virginia this is profoundly nastily brilliant. The emotion just pours off the page. Wonderfully done.

marc nash

Lou Freshwater said...

Whoa, this is a force from start to finish. Love the unromantic, love truth. Well done.

Sam Pennington said...

Yeah, this is wonderful, I love it!

John Wiswell said...

What a day to drop this one. Did it have any relation to recent public marriages, or the mothers of said-grooms?

Virginia Moffatt said...

Thanks folks. Yes the timing of this was deliberate, but actually based on something similar that happened to a friend of a friend.Thought it was a spectacularly nasty way to be dumped...

Icy Sedgwick said...

I once had someone tell me he didn't love me any more in a text message but I think this way would have been even worse. You pack a lot of intensity into this flash.

Unknown said...

There's no easy way to hear these words. in my case I asked 'do you still love me'. A 25 year marriage dissolved in moment's eloquent hesitation. Sometimes it's what's not said as well as what is.