Drilling Down

He hurts me and I know he doesn't want to. He says it's not fair on
me over and over. But I make him do it. I plead with him to touch me,
to make me feel like I'm his.

Lying on his chest as he sits on his office chair. Me sitting on his
lap. I feel so safe. So perfectly entrapped. His hands tapping at the
keyboard, scrolling down. He's not giving me his attention but I
pretend it's me he's looking at on the screen.

'I could stay here forever.' I think to myself and know it's wrong.
Knowing I want it too much means I cannot have it.

'We're at different places,' he said.

Like 2 opposing candles, never going to burn together.

------

She felt okay in the morning. On her way home she felt a horrid empty
hole being drilled down every time she thought of him.

She didn't know which way to turn, what to do. He wanted to be friends
but she wanted him not to want that. Want everything or want nothing.
Don't want a half-baked plan.

She lay looking at her pillow that night. The smooth whiteness of it.
The purity. It's coldness comforted her for a second and then she
thought of his stomach and wanting to lie on that. Wanting to feel the
depth of it with her face. Nothing was of its own anymore. Nothing
didn't make her think of him.

-----------

When he told her for the first time he didn't want her, she couldn't
speak. Something had gotten hold of her throat started playing Chinese
burns.

He lay on the sofa watching DIY programs. She had watched it with him
for awhile. Inherently bored. Had climbed onto him, straddled his
belly. Her body pleading with him. But he didn't want to have sex, he
said. Didn't, in fact want anything from her at all.

---------

I had known it was coming.

Just not then spoiling an afternoon of sunshine outside, a glass of
wine, walking in the park, jumping on his back so she wouldn't have to
walk over the sand. Playfighting, play acting, play at being happy for
one moment can't you?

If she could pluck off the bits of her that were causing her pain now,
the bits of him that weren't what they should be. She could burn it all
and start all over again.

Start from the beginning I could not have answered his first email.
Passed him over, given him to someone else as he wants to go now.

Let him go, she said.
Let him go, I said.

-----------

Thinking of the first time they met a sear of joy rose in her heart.
Both had so many expectations. Although she just wanted to get through
the night without any awkward silences. He had been funny and he'd
laughed with her.

She had walked up to his house in her heeled boots. Clumping up,
talking to herself. His was number 69, she was on 151. Too anxious to
walk any further he met her in the street.

Nothing like his photo - she was disappointed. She wondered what he
thought of her. She told him he looked different, not what she was
expecting. He didn't reply. Spurned for the first time.

They had drunk two bottles of wine. Glugging it down so easily, talk
dripping out of their mouths in a rush.

On the way back they went past her house and she felt she had to ask
him in, the pretext (do I remember this correctly?) of looking at her
garden.

They had gone out in the winter air and talked loudly. (Neigbour Bonnie
posted a letter through the door the next day pointing this out. She
assumed they hadn't realised.)

She had lain on the couch in a drunken splay. She felt him moving
towards her. He placed his lips tentatively on hers. Perhaps not sure
if she was going to push him away. She wasn't sure if she would. She
didn't and kissed him back fervently. His tongue hard. His hands
peeling her jeans off her. The pleasure of his tongue.

Feeling guilty the next morning and unsure exactly of what had
happened. Unsure of why she had wanted it so much.

He walked down her corridor as she came down the steps. He looked like
a little boy. His hair fuzzed, sticking up. His blue eyes sticking out
like a baby's. Her heart had started warming up. Had started
working.

------------

And seeing him now I can distance myself. Except that when I wake up
the first thing I think of is his name. The very first thing.

Never been in love, she wondered if this was it. The search could have
been over. The hard part starting the search again, admitting defeat.
Trying to find others perhaps in his image.

Funny to think that the first few dates she had worried about having an
older boyfriend, a big boyfriend, a not as attractive boyfriend. Funny
to think that and what was he worrying about? Would she ever find out
the stumbling block? She needed to know what it was that kept him away
from her.

She needed to know.
I need to know.

Without this information how could she find another? How could she ask
him? She knows he won't reply by email too easy to ignore. Have to say
the words, put pressure on something that could burst over her.

Bursting, exploding branded on me.

---------

Then they are sitting in a restaurant. He's talking about the women
he's meeting through the internet. She can laugh when he tells her
about the woman he doesn't find attractive who he has told he doesn't
think they will have a passionate affair. She can laugh then about why
that woman has a photo that you can't see her face on. But then he
tells her he's met someone he likes, who's very attractive, who likes
him, who wants to see him again and suddenly her stomach is clenched.
She feels sick. The food on her plate suddenly incredibly unattractive,
food that she was guzzling down only a moment ago.

She knows it is time to end everything. To kill it off. Something that
had never begun should be dead now.