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Great Writing - Home > Short S. > How does one say no?
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| How does one say no? | |
| By smidge | ||||||||||||
| 17 August 2007 | ||||||||||||
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Another work in progress, particularly the title and the ending. Would love some ideas to improve on it. Of course, it was her who seduced me. I was oblivious. So blissfully unaware it took me 5 whole months to cotton on to just how in your face she was about what she wanted from me. And did I mention she was married? To the childhood sweetheart, naturally, and wasn’t he as ignorant as I, initially, when we’d go to dinner parties together and he’d pour his wife’s drink whilst her foot was so far up my thigh it could’ve identified exactly what underwear I was wearing. Unsurprisingly, passionless and complacent as I was, I took it all in jest. For some reason I was often a target for flirtation from many of my close friends, and, in my head, this was no different, if a little more intense. A little, hand on arse, dirty talking intense. Whenever her husband, Pete his name was, went away, she’d suggest cocktails at hers. Just me and her. All very civilised. And we’d sit and watch a film; she’d thoughtlessly brush my leg, her fingers touching mine when she passed me a glass, that sort of thing. So the first time it happened it was just a drunken kiss. Her head on my shoulder, the martinis gave me just the edge I needed to lean my face to hers, into the first drunken kiss. That lasted four hours, on the sofa her husband’s mother gave them for a wedding present. And I got frightened, naturally. For entirely selfish reasons to begin with – she wasn’t the only one who’d cheated at this point. I was in another nameless relationship with another faceless girl who could’ve been the one if I’d just given her a chance – a lecture I heard frequently from friends. Don’t think the selfishness stopped here either. Back to Pete, mid 20s, spent all his free time in the gym, lived on a diet of concrete slabs and metal bars, I imagine. Not the type of person you’d want to kiss the wife of. He could’ve killed me in one poke of his little finger. It was only two weeks later I thought about her issue. Her arms around my waist, face pressed into my neck. I ran my hands through her hair, smelt Parma violets on her skin, while she described her argument with the now bad guy Pete, his bout of jealousy as he left for another of his countless business trips. Not to mention his sudden distrust of me.And I kissed the top of her head, a pang of guilt running through me. Because of course I’d told someone. Not someone who would’ve told him, I thought though. One of my many friends who like to lecture me. I was phoned up in the morning, “Have you shaved? You don’t want to shave before you see her. Then you won’t be tempted to sleep with her because you won’t want her to feel you all unshaven. She probably won’t try and sleep with you if you’re all furry too.” Logical yet somehow not applicable. Needless to say, I’d already shaved. That’s where we returned to her wedding gift, my hands on the soft leather as she kissed my neck, forgetting in the moment just how wrong this was, right up until we were in the bed her husband picked out and bought for them. As she ran her hands down my body I saw them together, her and Pete, in this exact situation, his lips on her shoulder, her stomach, his hands caressing each intimate part of her. And afterwards – of course I waited till after – I asked her. If she was using me. If this was all just some experiment on her part, that she was greedy, wanting the security of a long term relationship and the passion of something new and illicit like this. And she looked genuinely hurt, and perhaps my misjudgement of her was worse than anything she felt her husband had done. Perhaps she was just an excellent bluff. Evidently the latter in some things. Pete returned, and our cocktail evenings and dinner parties evolved into poker nights and betting matches. It was as if we were competing for something… Especially seeing as he’d tattooed her initial, ‘M’, on his chest, branding himself with his ownership of her. The night he showed me we were outside. I only knew him as acquaintance, and guilt made me hardly want to spend quality time with him, but we were the only two who hadn’t given up smoking, so it was unavoidable. He unbuttoned his shirt and asked if I liked it; and it took everything in me to keep my face from falling. I nodded, and he suddenly said, “You fancy her don’t you Alex. I can see it in your eyes.” Unlike Michelle, I wasn’t a skilled actress, but must’ve given my life’s performance at that moment, churning out some rubbish about how I knew her too well, she was too close a friend, and besides, even if I did she was all straight laced and loyal and all that jazz. It appears vodka makes me garble on for too long sometimes. And made him oblivious to my over zealous defence. Thank God. So later I said no to her. I went into the bathroom, and she slid in like a shadow, shutting the door behind us. I ask her what she’s thinks she’s doing while she touches my hip, my hair, biting her lip. And I said no, and left. The next day there was a knock at my door. I, indignantly in a towel, answered expecting some sort of post that couldn’t fit through the letterbox, and found Michelle on my doorstep. “Wowee don’t you look fetching. Terrycloth’s a good look for you.” And she comes in, sits down, and looks up at me and my soaking hair and my unmade face. And asks me how she and Pete could fix things. Tells me how she didn’t love him anymore. How his unshaven chin and the hard skin of his palms, his chest, were such an unwelcome contrast to me and my moisturiser. How all she’d wanted was to feel my lips, my breath on her neck, my fingers running up her thigh. And then she kisses me. Just as another knock hits the door – “ignore it ignore it” tugging at my towel. Another knock, louder. A shout.“Alex. Alex I know you’re there!” Peter. Who else. I open the door, and there he is. Looking like he’d just eaten nails for breakfast. “Where is she. I know she’s here. Did she tell you? What did she tell you?” He pushes me back and calls her name - where is she where is she? Of course I don’t know, as he grabs me by the hair and drags me through the living room as I clutch my towel to myself and regret allowing this to happen. He keeps talking and asking me, did I think I’d get away with it? Did I think she loved me? Evidently I hadn’t thought at all. We find her in my bedroom, her knees to her chest sitting on my bed. His hand still attached to my hair and he screams at her and she screams back - "Let go of her let go of her!" And I wonder if I ever thought it would end like this, as he calls her a dyke and a whore and demands how she could’ve ever considered me over him. And he leaves, after an eternity just as the couple upstairs finally decide that all the shouting and crashing and banging is a worthy reason to call the police. Her tears soaking my shoulder more than the shower as she tells me we have to end it. As if I was surprised. And when it’s all over all I can wonder is whether Peter plans on keeping his M tattoo.
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