by Peter Ackers
"…JUST TO PISS MY GIRLFRIEND OFF…"
Sometimes when you look at some unhappy couple who bicker and bitch, you could be forgiven for wondering why they stay together. Sometimes it’s because of the kids, and sometimes it’s because they’ve developed a life together that has shackled them irreparably: they have family that are friends, they have joint loans, a mortgage - an ordered if cataclysmic lifestyle. But just sometimes it’s because deep down a part of their brains cling onto the hope of rekindling what first drew them together. I imagine that subconscious hope is like the panicked hope of a drowning man clutching at straws. It’s a basic desire to live, to breath, to keep going.
There were no kids in our relationship, but something was keeping me bonded to her. I had sought her with an eye to dumping her, but as I went up the stairs, heading for the bedroom, some voice in my head told me this was all salvageable. Yet I wasn't sure that was what I wanted.
I pushed open the door. There she was, in front of the vanity table, applying eye-liner. I find that fascinating, by the way. Eye-liner. You girls pull out your skin and scrape a pen along near the eye - uugghh! One slip, one nudge…
I walked in, clenching my jaw. I wanted to scream. At that moment, there was something so much worse than the fact that my girl had fucked my friend. It was that she’d left me to watch the film while she sat up here and made herself beautiful. As if she’d left me watching a soap opera. And now she didn’t look shocked or scared or even fucking guilty.
“Well, what do you think?”
What a fucking question! What was she after, a review?
“Very good,” I said. I’d bitten the bait she’d unwittingly left. I congratulated myself on my restraint - I hadn’t flown across the room and taken her around the throat. I could control this bit of interaction, hopefully. “Good cinematography. Good use of lighting. The acting was a bit off, but, then, that wasn’t acting, was it? A lot of chemistry. Too much. Too much for two people igniting the spark for the first time…” I left the accusation hanging, hoping she’d take the bait.
She did. “You think we were having an affair? No.” She paused here to peruse her eyes in the mirror. “We got close that night, that’s all. It was a one night thing. We agreed that in the cinema.”
In the cinema! I’d been hoping they’d gotten so drunk that laughter in the back of a taxi home had turned into a kiss, into a fumble, into a come-on-let’s-have-a-drunken-quickie. But now she almost seemed to be admitting that the event had had all the planning of the scripted film I had been joking about. In the fucking cinema!
“So you made an executive decision? Weighed up the pros and cons? Was it worth it? Fucking up our relationship by fucking some guy? I hope he was good.”
That last part was sarcasm, but she seemed to miss it: “You do? That’s a weird reaction. If it pleases you, he was.”
“I know he was,” I hissed. “I saw the fucking film, remember. I heard your moaning.”
She set aside the eye-liner and reached for her lipstick. Before she could apply it, I strode over, snatched it from her hand and tossed it against the wall. It broke, and left a red blot like a splash of blood. Maybe blood would join it soon.
“Bloody hell, what are you doing?” I bellowed. “You still think we’re going out? After this?”
She huffed. “I thought we were going to discuss this like rational humans. If I’d known you’d act this way, I would have kept the tape hidden.”
Now, much later, I still hope I’d heard that part wrong. Her head didn’t split against the wall: I congratulated myself again.
I sat on the bed with my back to her. There was no point in getting angry and making accusations. That’s not how I would get information. And she was right about one thing: I was the sort who needed to see the whole picture, not just a few fragments with which to build a general image. She’d been right to show me the video if only for this reason, because it stopped my mind guessing, inventing, and that in turn stopped my voice bombarding her with questions about that night, that event. Unfortunately, the video didn’t explain the why; it didn’t tell me what had driven her to cheat on me in the first place. And my mind got to work formulating a target package for my mouth.
“Why him? Is he the only one? Why that night? We hadn’t argued.”
“Can you see my hairbrush? It’s not here. Did you move it?”
“Why did you fucking cheat on me, you slag?”
Something hard bounced off my back, maybe a small bottle of nail polish or a lipstick or something. I didn’t turn. Her voice was icy. “To think I used to bring that mouth to my parents’ dinner table.”
“And I’ve sucked that bastard’s dick by proxy.”
“What are you talking about?”
I paced again. It was getting hard to remain calm. “Was he the first? Was he the last? I swear, if you’ve given me any diseases…”
She stopped applying make-up. Finally something had gotten past her cold shield of indifference. She glared at me.
I didn’t relent: “That bastard’s a rabbit on heat. He shags a different bird each week. And he didn’t use a raincoat when he was sticking his dick in your arse. Lord knows what he’s given you. They could freeze you and keep you as a portable diseases laboratory. Tell the next guy to forget condoms and buy a raspberry-flavoured HAZMAT suit.”
I saw her eyes narrow. It was how she slipped into tigress mode. I’d seen it a couple of times.
“You’re just jealous I never let you stick it up my ass,” she said, softly.
And I was, I fucking was. Soon as that bit came on the screen, I was filled with a jealously that totally wiped away the anger and shock. My girlfriend of three years. We’d told each other everything. We’d been as one through everything. But my dim friend the bloody forklift driver had experienced my girl in a way that had always been forbidden to me. That hurt like hell. That hurt resurfaced now, and with it came a thudding ball of anger. Because she knew that it bothered me. Worse, she knew that she had done something that, even if I forgave the infidelity, I could never get over.
“Let me fuck you up the arse,” I said before I could stop myself.
She looked deep in thought. “Closure.”
“What?”
“You think he’s done better than you. Maybe you think he achieved something you couldn’t. So it’s now an alpha male ego thing. You fuck me up the ass, your ego can tell you that you levelled the score, maybe outdid him because you’ve also shot your spunk down my throat and he hasn’t?”
I stayed quiet. Because she was absolutely right.
“Would that make things better between us? Calm you down a bit, like a cat that got the cream?” She stood, turned, lifted up her skirt, pulled down her green knickers - she likes green. Showed me her rump, invitingly. “Go on, then. Quick. Use my lip balm as a lubricant if it’s too tight.”
I didn’t move. Suddenly she lost her glamour, her femininity. Here stood a dirty slag. Mutton wrapped as beef, I think the saying goes. I didn’t want her anywhere near me. I didn’t know this woman any longer.
“No,” I said. “I want you out. I want you out of this house, right now.”
The brash front evaporated; she sat down. “Why?”
“Don’t sound so shocked. You’ve got no soul, showing me that video and not even realising how awful and wrong this whole thing’s been. You’re an animal. It was bestiality, shagging you. They should have fucking arrested me. Out.” I pointed at the wall.
“I told you it was a one-off mistake. I said it wouldn’t happen again. I told you it was just a silly woman-on-heat thing. Why are you being like this?”
“The trust is gone. I can’t trust you again, ever. I wouldn’t believe the fucking time of day out of that hole in your face. Out.” Another finger jabbed at the wall.
“I paid for this weekend. I signed for it.”
“You’ve got the car. You can drive home. I’m staying. Out.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
I relaxed a bit. “Please go. I can’t be near you.”
Now she actually looked hurt. The angry face I wore must have confused her, made my pain seem unreal or hidden. Now she was seeing me as hurt by what she’d done. And she didn’t like it.
“I can’t drive back with you. I can’t sit in that car with you. Just go and leave me alone tonight.”
“You can sit in the back seat,” she implored. “We don’t have to talk. You don’t have to look at me.”
“I’ll smell you. Unless you suggest we get a trailer, and I can ride home in that? Or some roller skates and rope so you could tow me along like a fucking water-skier. I’m staying, and you’re fucking going.”
“No, you want to shag someone, don’t you? You’re going to go and sleep with a girl to get revenge. Please don’t. We can work this out.”
I went to the door. “I’m going downstairs. I’m gonna put my shoes on and go out to the bridge and sit under it -“
“What are you saying? Make sense!”
“- and I’m going to skim five stones into the water. No more. Then I’m going to come back here, and if you’re still here…” I paused. I gave her a glare, tried to make it look evil and sincere. “If you’re still here, we get on the ten o’clock news tonight.” Today, now, I’m proud of that line. The rest of this you’re reading might be clever paraphrasing to inject a bit of drama, a hint of comedy. But that line is verbatim. Proud of it.
I did what I said. Downstairs. Shoes. River. Bridge. Stones. As I was searching for a nice, flat stone number four, I heard her car start up. I was tempted to step out and stop her - my point had been made, and by preparing to drive away she had admitted she was sorry. I had won. This was where I was meant to jump out like a castaway spying a ship, waving my arms and shouting. I would take her back inside and make love to her, and while she was blowing me she would spit me out for a moment to answer my question of “Am I a better fuck than him?” with “Much better, baby.” Yeah.
Instead, I sat in self-pity and waited until the sound of her car had gone. I took the ring in its little box out of my pocket, preparing to toss it away. But part of me didn't like to get rid of the monetary value of the ring, so I kept it. I put it on my own finger, making it mine, and I tossed the box into the river, and that kind of covered the pride problem.
By the time I had traipsed back to the cottage, I knew she’d have left the village, probably soon to be on the motorway. I hoped her green skirt was sodden with tears. I sort of hoped she’d cry on her hands, lose her grip on the steering wheel and crash into a coach coming the other way - a coach of sumo wrestlers, just to make sure she was suitably squashed. No, I hoped she’d crash back home, on the forker’s street. Right into his house while he was watching TV. Or recording something on his camera with the fucking little red light on.
I went in and headed straight for the wine rack. Empty. The little bitch had taken all the wine, and it wasn’t even ours! I feared she was planning to go console herself round at the forker’s, but managed to laugh that bit of paranoia off moments later.
9.39 p.m. Early days yet. This little village had one solitary pub. The plan was still on. Beer. I was going. I was going to get drunk tonight and forget all my worries. And, with luck, I’d find a nice slag to shag, just to piss my girlfriend off. Yeah. With a bit more luck, the girl would have brought her camcorder along.