fiction. kinda.
I’m pleasantly between states of consciousness, not quite asleep, on the couch. I hear you place your key in the lock. As the teeth of the key depress the tumblers, and the tension bar releases its trademark sound, I keep my eyes closed. Maybe you’ll see that I’m tired and slip off to the shower. Please just let me rest. Please just let me rest. Please just let me rest.
You throw your keys onto the cheap counter kitchen of our apartment. They gain no traction, filling what the property manager described as a “foyer” with a reverberation that makes me want to choke you as they hit the backsplash. I go through the motions of stirring, trying to hide my anguish.
“Hi! Did I wake you?”
“No. I wasn’t quite asleep yet” you dumb bitch. “How was your day?’
“Not too bad. Work was kind of boring. This one woman came in and ….”
I’m only half listening to you. I’m still trying to recover from your purposeful, clamorous antics. I’m still trying to recover from you. I right myself to a sitting position, and wait for you to come to me on the couch. These are the games we play, each of us searching for the upper hand. The open window at night that we can crawl out of. If you come and sit next to me, I’ll place my arm around you, in an empty gesture of solidarity, when we both know that our relationship is over.
You throw your shoes in the closet. You finally make your way to the bathroom. A vision of you slipping and falling in the shower fornicates with the earlier vision of strangling you. My mouth reacts with their progeny: “Are you hungry?”
I immediately regret the question while I begin to feel guilty about the thoughts that I have about you. I just want to sleep for an hour.
“Yes.”
“What would you like to eat?” I say, knowing full well that the dance has already begun.
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m going to cook some chicken and maybe some noodles, then.”
“No, I don’t think I want that.”
Please not this again. I hate this dance. I’ve always hated this part of our nightly sparring match. I would rather you slam my dick in the stove and then hammer it with the 4qt non-stick pot that you spent $50 on at Cracker Barrel then go through this. Again. Please just tell me what you want. I breathe. I regain control.
“What do you want?” I ask through the literal and figurative doors between us.
“I don’t want chicken. Anything else is fine though.”
“Stir-fry and tofu? We have those vega..”
“No…” you whine.
“I’ll just let you get out of the shower.”
Why does this have to be so difficult? I could just put on my shoes. I could walk out the door. I scroll through my phone waiting for you to get out. I catch a glimpse of your skin as you walk past the doorway. For a minute I think back to when you used to excite me. When we used to be flowing, instead of stagnant. I step out onto the porch and light a cigarette. I watch the cars pass by on the main road. I wonder what the neighbors must think. I lower my posterior to the chair that I’m used to sitting in.
Is it because I really do love you that I don’t want to give up just yet? Are we both so comfortable in our dysfunction that we don’t want to talk about the pink elephant that our relationship has become. We never even really fuck anymore. It’s just sex. Mutual masturbation. I don’t think you’ve done anything deliberately sexy for me in a while. I know that I haven’t tried to do anything for you except not piss you off. Maybe it’s because you draw me into arguments like you used to. I’m sure you’ve been peevish lately, and need to sting someone. I’m just so tired, or I’d be up for it. Looking back on it, that was how we started, until it got a little too personal.