by Steven Snell
35.
She pulls into me and kisses my neck.
She shifts her leg over my body and sits up on me, her hair falling over her shoulders draping to cover her breasts. It’s Saturday morning. The morning after the first night she stayed through the darkened hours. I hear her say, “I like this.”
I hear her say, “I wish we could do this all the time.”
I hear her say, “Touch me.”
She rocks up and settles back down.
She looks down at herself against my stomach.
She bites her lip and says, “I want you again.”
What am I doing?
It’s early Saturday morning and as yesterday became today she woke up beside my restless body and pressed hers into mine.
I look at her stomach. Her diaphragm in and out.
I look out my third storey window at the swaying popular trees in the morning light and a bird landing, ruffling its wings.
What am I doing here?
“Do you want me?” she purrs.
“Tell me what it’s like to kiss me,” she says.
She pulls her hair back off her breasts.
She shifts her pelvis slightly so I can feel myself against her.
She looks down at her pubic hair again.
She says, “Maybe I think I like you more than I should.”
What am I doing?
I place my hand on her hip and open my mouth to speak but not to say anything but to give her the impression that I want to speak.
What she wants to hear.
“I like how we’re changing. I like how we came to be. I like where we could go. … I like to think that we can wake up together on another morning, many mornings, wake up and I’m on top of you.”
She leans forward and puts her breast to my mouth.
“Be inside of me,” she says.
She shifts back, my penis against her and she rocks and I close my eyes and she moans and rocks more and her breast against my mouth and I get hard and she moans and moans and kisses me and kisses me and glides me inside of her, “yes” she says “yes” she says and I don’t say anything. Karen, I don’t say anything.
36.
I’m bored and I’m lonely and sad and I’m fucking bored lonely and sad. A bad day at work. A bad week. I walk around my apartment. I hate my apartment. I want to paint it. I want to throw out my sofa. I want to throw out everything. All the furniture and books and plants and artwork on my wall. All this shit surrounding me. Pictures and books and mugs and the music playing. I press Skip and the next song and I press Skip again. I go outside on the balcony. There’s nothing on the balcony. Just this one single alone empty chair. This fucking chair and I’m alone this single chair for one person and I’m alone. I stare into the night and I’m alone. I go back inside and turn on the TV and watch the news. A snow storm somewhere. A murder someplace else. I feel comfort in others’ misery. I go to the kitchen to make tea and think about not being alone.
I think about, I think about.
I stand here and wait for thoughts.
Gabriella.
I think about us here like we used to be drinking tea and smiling and joking around about our day. I fill the kettle and flick it on and watch it boil. I stare at it. Minutes pass and there are more images of me and her here, here making dinner or eating cereal on a Saturday morning pulling apart the Globe and Mail newspaper passing sections back and forth to each other. Trying to bake a cake and giving up on baking forever. I crack a smile. I pour my tea and return to the couch and stare again at the TV. Fill a void in me. Fill me.
I pick up my phone off the couch and think about calling her. Just talking, communicating, without pretense. I put the phone back down on the coffee table. I watch TV.
I have a bath.
I think about her.
I get out of the bath and think about her.
I towel off and dress and think about her.
I think about us in my apartment. Making dinner, watching TV, standing on my balcony hugging during a cool eve watching the city succumb to darkness. I want to tell her about my day and listen to her talk about hers. I want to be silent and comfortable. I want to read a book while she cooks and I want to be vacuuming while she’s doing laundry. I think about her taking off my clothes and going down on me. I think about going down on her. I picture us in bed all over each other. I want to call her. I want to call her.
I want to call her.
My heart in my chest beating so hard it’s outside of my chest. My chest my chest and I lean forward and pick up my phone and call her my chest.
Ring.
Ring.
My heart.
Ring.
She answers.
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Hi,” I say again.
“Yes.”
“It’s me, Shawn.”
“I know who it is.”
“Um … How are you?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“Good … so … what are you up to?”
“Lots.”
“Oh …”
And this is our conversation. I ask her things and she answers with a word or two. I try to put my heart back in my chest. I stand up and walk around my apartment. Everywhere I am she is. We’re together and I want to tell her this. I want to tell her that I miss her and I wish she was here and I want to tell her, I just want to hold her. My heart still outside of my chest. But I don’t. I say little through the silence. I ask her things of little consequence just trying to fill in the awkward, the discomfort. I continue to talk but she cuts me off.
“Shawn?”
But I don’t hear her and I continue –
“Shawn?”
I stop. “… Yes, sorry. Yes?”
“… I’ve moved on. You’re going to have to move on too. Please don’t call me anymore.”
She hangs up.
My phone to my ear and a hot air balloon falls out of the sky descending tumbling dropping and clips a power line igniting into a fire ball and the basket tips the pilot falling out his arms flailing screaming yelling smacking and his skull splits open on the pavement.
37.
I’m alone at work. Pointless overtime but it leaves me alone. Then I’m done being at the office. I finish a docket. I get on the train and there are people. But I’m alone. On the train are people of every colour and economic class. People in shorts and thick sweaters and workout tights and running shoes and suits and overcoats. There are teenagers in all black with metal studs on their faces, belts and around their necks. There are ads on panels above us for mobile phone contracts and VD clinics and dating services and top 10 winter travel destinations. People are clicking on their phones; some read books, some read the daily delivered at each station; some stare, reading thoughts in their heads. We’re all alone.
I get off a stop early and walk along blocks of walk-up apartments. I cross the street, another block. Down a street of trees and shops and wide sidewalks. I walk and watch and think about how alone I am. Another street. I don’t want to go to my empty apartment. I don’t know what I want. I’m alone.
I picture Karen. Her above me and her black hair falling over her breasts and I think about Karen and I’m alone.
A couple on the sidewalk across the street hug and kiss and he walks around the car and gets in and starts it and she stands there on the curb with her arms wrapped around her chest and he drives off and she extends her arms and waves. I watch her stand there waving and smiling and holding back tears until he can no longer be seen. She drops her arms and wraps them around her body. She looks sad. She starts to cry and slowly walks back into her apartment. I stare at the spot where she was waving from and I picture her still there waving, waving at me. The last person I saw wave to me … Gabriella. … I was going through Security at the airport and looked back over my shoulder and smiled and she waved and air kissed me saying bye and me on my way back here after a weekend where we
touched and made mistakes and didn’t know what we were doing.
I want to be around somebody, go somewhere and see people. I want to push up against some body, my hips to hers, my arms around her, her breasts against me. Attach me to something, some feeling other than this emptiness, for a moment, a morning, an evening crawling up her.
I think to myself: What time is it? Who’s available? Who can I touch?
I take my phone out of my pocket. I scan through the Contacts.
I message Laura. I wait. No response. Maybe she’s on shift at the hospital.
I return my phone to my pocket. I should go home. I turn down a street towards my building. A breeze picks up and I put my hands in my pockets and tuck my shoulders up. My phone beeps. I take it out. It’s Laura. “I cant”
I respond, “Ok”
I put my phone in my pocket and I walk and think about someone else, some other body, someone’s breasts above me. I walk. My phone beeps again. It’s Laura again.
“I met someone”
I stop walking. I stare at my phone. My stomach knots. The boulder I’m pushing up the hill and I slip and lose footing. It rolls and rolls over me crushing me.
I read her message again. I feel embarrassed and think about writing her back. I think about writing her back. I take a breath. I delete her message. I start walking and I’m still holding my phone and feeling more embarrassed and more empty and more alone and more frustrated and angry and pissed and I’m a fucking asshole.
I put my phone away.
I don’t want to go home.
Where should I go?
I walk and scan my Contacts list again.
I see Jacob’s name.
I walk to the coffee shop; he should be working. I walk the few blocks to the barber shop coffee house looking at people hoping a girl will look at me. None do.
Jacob is sitting on a sofa reading the paper.
I pull open the door.
He looks up, “You couldn’t look worse, mate.”
“Thanks.”
“Just saying. What’s up?”
“Off day.” I sit down. Jacob folds the paper and tosses it on the table. I shrug my shoulders. “Just in a pissy mood.”
“Why’s that?”
I look outside. “A bunch of reasons.”
“And?”
I look back at Jacob. “… I called Gabriella.”
“Uh-oh.”
I don’t say anything. Jacob doesn’t say anything. I look down. I picture Gabriella. I try to imagine who she’s moved on with, what he does, what he looks like, what he’s accomplished, how I could be better than him.
Jacob breaks the silence. “Tell me about how you met Gabriella.”
I look at him. “Wow. Where’d that come from?”
“From me.”
“Why? You know the story.”
“I want to hear you tell it.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll give me a boner. Don’t be a wank and just tell me.”
I look at him sideways and smirk. I take a long breath, sigh it out. “She was here studying for a semester. We met, dated, she left, kept in touch, we fell for each other, she moved here, fell more, stopped falling, she went back home. The end.”
“You’re such a gifted story teller.”
“Nobel Prize.”
“Tell me why you met.”
“Huh?”
“Tell me why you met.”
“I heard you … I don’t understand the question.”
“Give’r a go.”
“Why …” I shrug my shoulders. “… We met on campus. It was spring. She was wearing a skirt and boots and a thick sweater, a purple sweater, I think. I liked her style. I just went up to her and it wasn’t anything grand or eloquent. She just looked approachable, stunning but approachable. She was beautiful. Very. Is very beautiful. She was walking across a patch of grass and if I altered my course just slightly I knew I could bump into her. So I did. I said, ‘Hello, I’m Shawn.’”
“Sounds pretty straight forward.”
“I guess so. … So, any resolution? Did I answer your why question?”
“I don’t know. Not really.”
“Then?”
“Then what? I’m not a psychologist! I’m just going with the flow here.”
“I hope your hourly rate is cheap.”
He grins and shakes his head. He picks up his coffee and takes a sip and leans back. He looks at me and says, “How many girls are you sleeping with right now?”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m an inquisitive bitch. Just tell me.”
“… Two or three maybe, but I can lessen that number by one as of a few moments ago.”
Jacob smirks. “And you’ve seen Gabriella since you broke up?”
“Yes.”
“A few times?”
“Yes.”
“Slept together?”
I nod.
“How many girls have you slept with since you ended it with her, well, non-ended it but ended it with her?”
“More than that.”
“Did you sleep with anyone while with her?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“How about when you met, were you with anyone then?”
“What’re you asking?”
“Exactly what I said.”
“Why?”
“Just trying to understand your actions.”
“Actions other than wanting to have sex with a girl?! I was sleeping with The Wife when I first met Gabriella.”
“So you and The Wife took a hiatus?”
“I guess, if that’s what you call it.”
“Did you tell The Wife that you had met someone?”
“Why?”
“Stop fucking asking and just answer the questions.”
“No, not at first.”
“So she’d message you looking for a hook-up and you’d say …?”
“I can’t, I’m busy.”
“Why didn’t you tell her the honest reason?”
“I did.”
Jacob looks at me, judging me.
I look away. “Fine, I don’t know.”
“Because you wanted a backup plan. In case it didn’t work out with Gabriella you’d hope that The Wife would be there to catch you when you fell.”
“Are those questions or statements?”
“Both, really.”
“… Fuck, I don’t know! … A backup plan? Really? … Gabriella moved here for us!”
“Quite a sacrifice.”
“…”
“So?”
“… What?”
“What did you sacrifice for your relationship, for her?”
“…”
“I’m waiting…”
“… Fuck, fine, I don’t know! I don’t know what I sacrificed! Nothing! Fine, I sacrificed nothing. She sacrificed everything. She came here. I ended it. She left. I fucked Karen! I fucked her again. I’m still fucking her when her husband isn’t around. But I think of Gabriella. I think about her all of the time. I called Gabriella. She told me to fuck off. Happy?!”
“No need to raise your voice.”
I shake my head in frustration. “You’ve slept with a bunch of girls!”
“I don’t pretend otherwise.”
“What’s that supposed –”
Jacob’s looking at me.
I look away, down, shake my head. “Ah … okay … I get it. I get it now.” I sigh. “Okay.”
Jacob smiles. “… It’s as though, huh, it’s as though you so badly want a connection to a girl but you have no idea what you want. … It’s funny, I’ve known you for-fucking-ever and I don’t think you’ve ever actually been single.”
“What are you talking about? Gabriella was my first real relationship since high school!”
“Real relationship.”
“What?”
“You qualified it, real relationship.”
“So?”
“So you
’ve been sleeping with girls for as long as I’ve known you and you only consider one of them, plus a girl in high school, as a relationship.”
“And?”
“I wonder what they call it.”
I shift my posture and look outside and look pissed.
“Shawn?”
“…”
“Shawn?”
“… Yeah, what?”
“No need to be pissy.”
I look at him. “Sorry.”
“What is it you want?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“You know. I think you know. … Listen to you. … Listen to what you’re saying, the things you think about. Listen to your opinions.”
“What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying you know but you’re afraid to admit it. You’re afraid to make a decision about something, about anything. Your life is a composition of indecisions and escape routes from the ones you’ve made.”
“Easy,” I push back.
“Sorry, mate, I love you but someone has to smack you around a little. You’ve got some significant commitment issues –”
“I know that!”
“So you fucking know.”
“So now what?” I can feel Jacob looking hard at me. “Fine!” He looks at me sideways. “Sorry, fine … I’ll accept that. I’m accepting it. This is me accepting. So now what? What do I do? And don’t give me some bullshit line about the first step is acceptance. I’m bored. I’m fucking bored and alone and what, WHAT? So now what?”
“How can you be bored?”
“What? How can anyone be bored? I don’t know! It just happens.”
“The boredom you’re speaking of is a much deeper one than being underwhelmed by primetime television.”
“So what then?”
“I don’t have an answer for you.”
I lean back and cross my arms over my chest. I shake my head. Jacob leans forward, picks up his mug. He looks into it, swirls it slightly, lifts it to take a sip, stops and says, “First off, you’re an idiot.”
“Cheers for that.”
He turns his head and looks back at me. “Second off … you’re a shit communicator.”
“You are SO good for my ego.”
“If you want an ego rub go fuck The Wife or some other victim.”
“Ouch.”
“Really?”
“Okay, I got yah.”
“Don’t tell me a light just went on.”