Surfacing from stairs in safety
He says he loves me - he’s loved me since before he even met me. And that could be some long time, as he’s no longer young. Indeed, he’s old enough to have been a proper punk: played with all the names back then. Stayed underground: no sell out from the squat where so many stars were formed. Drips their names at me - like a teenage girl keen to show they’re one who counts. He’s scoring points in a game I’m not even playing. Indifference.
Pause. Breathe. Listen to the sales pitch. Harder, higher, faster, grander. Stopped the gear: busted. Back when I was sipping Dubonet - in an effort to be more classy than a Martini might have made me. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere. With lemonade. Harmless teenagers’ indulgences - sucking on cigarettes in the quiet corner in the hope the Landlord’s eyes would fail to fall on us, while longing for the eyes of others. Meantime, he shot harder stuff into his veins in a city far from where we were. So did he love me then?
Love: he tells me of its greatness. How he can see I’m full of it: I’m good at it. Ha: little does he know, despite his desire to know all of me; but who am I to disabuse him? His ego is on show in his assumption. Big Fish, small fish. I’m not even in the pond. Desiccated fish laying in the desert, my scent is strong enough to pull in any stray seagull - with a scent for such things.
Pause. Brief breath. He can’t stay away. He tells me of his third wife and how she never touched herself. Had empty images inside her eyes as he came down on her. He’s visual - telepathic - tunes to what others see. He says. Intrigue.
I am intrigued by this thing I am indifferent to. Safe on my sofa with only a cell phone to connect us. I can mark time hearing inside the head of a man who’s laying it all out for me. She was beautiful. Validation: through third person. Just because one pretty girl once let you have her doesn’t mean another would. Divorce: the lack of fantasy and imagery the cause. And yet there was enough fantasy for that game they played. He told me all its details. He wants to hear my reaction in how I breathe: to know if I am worth the bother. Sweet, I am - or so he says. He wants to make me dirty. First he’d have to make me more than just intrigued. Indifference.
Fast, he fades into something fainter than the feel of his love gently slooshing through my childhood Dubonet.