An Affair

Author’s note: Another piece of creative writing from a wee while back. However, I’m posting this one as a punishment to myself for writing such pretentious quasi-intellectual trash. Once again written after a bottle-and-a-half of red wine, this was my attempt at being clever in some way. Merging capitalism with existentialism with a philandering bell-end, this is definitely a good bit of mental masturbation gone awry. At least it’s not particularly long because I fell asleep in a drunken reverie almost straight after I had written it. Anyway, like the decapitated head of an enemy thrust on a pike in the middle of a medieval village, I shall post this on my blog as a lesson to myself: If I have red wine, don’t start writing ‘clever’ drivel.

AN AFFAIR

I can’t do this any more. These hidden messages. These hidden conversations. Rendezvous in the night for fear of being caught. This life becomes death far too quickly for me to waste it on a charade as pointless as this. She has to know. And her. They both have to know. I love one and not the other. The other and not one. The world is turning so quickly. The expiration date draws nearer and this is how I’m spending my time. Both must know.

I feel her. I feel her heart beating so close to mine as I pull her towards me. Her skirt rides up because my hand is moving it so. She is writhing and moaning and screaming and scratching the skin on my back as I push her up against her bedroom wall, so desperate to be inside. The pain. The lust. The brutal intensity is palpable as I have her. The world has disappeared for a while. It’s been locked away by a torrent of joy. Before I cum it is gone. Being as one is not how I feel with the other.

With the other we lie down. I am on top. Always on top. I breathe heavily on her neck because I know that’s how she likes it. Always she likes it like that. I try not to make eye contact with her in case she figures me out, figures out that I’m not trying not to think of her. A few minutes pass then – as surely as a clock strikes twelve – she cums before me. Then I cum a little later. Such places in time are everywhere. In this world cumming is commonplace. You can do it on your own. Pay for it, but as a commodity it isn’t special. It is that special feeling whilst you cum with that remains special, almost transcendental. That absolute centre is a rarity. It is what happens when you are in love. Time doesn’t stop but it feels like it does. The earth still turns but none of it matters. The expiry date is still on the packet but you stop thinking about it. All that matters is that other-worldliness that fills her eyes, eyeballs rolling into the back of her head. Her breasts moving rhythmically and my eyes are drawn towards them and I grab one and she moans with so much pleasure that I’m in a dream and I’m gone. The world is gone. She is gone. I am centred. I am matter. I matter.

In this place there is nothing and everything, life and death, existence is screaming at me with a visceral roar. This place lasts four seconds at the most. Then it disappears. A microcosm self-implodes, a feeling written in sand. This is why I love her, Pleasure is why I love her. And is pleasure not our only goal? If it isn’t, then by god it should be. Pleasure, upon its own terms, is pleasurable. We are persuaded to buy so many things to make us feel good but we are left hollow. With every purchase we become more like husks, wallowing in emptiness, never understanding that we are still the same. We are told that we’ll feel happier. But we don’t. Not really. Instead, we paint on a veneer of happiness that is chipped at and chipped at until the cracks begin to show. The bottom falls out and the truth becomes apparent. Yet with good sex, the thing we’re told by so many that we shouldn’t be having, pleasure is paramount. There is no hiding. Everything is exposed. Unadulterated Pleasure. That is all I want.

So I walk up to her, the other at the the bar. She smiles at me and kisses me on the cheek. I smile back and feel my face suddenly emblazoned a bright red. The barman comes over and I ask for a cider with my tone a stuttering mass of a mess of a murky secret. My hands shake as I pass him the money. The other asks what’s up. She asks with that sympathetic smile that I used to find so irresistible at one time or another. Now it makes me ashamed. My drink arrives with the bartender in tow. The other one, that one I know so much more, asks me what’s wrong. The bartender is standing too close to us. I start to down my pint, each gulp not helping. Intoxication was never a help to anyone. Alcohol is an amplifier not a depressant. If you feel all loved up then alcohol will dominate those senses. If you feel guilt in equal measures then just you wait until you’ve had a couple of pints down you. Guilt will seep from every pore. But I can’t drink forever. Once I’ve stopped my pint glass is half-empty and I can’t think of a word to say. I can hear the people in the bar around me. Every inane piece of chatter is heightened to such clarity that I become completely convinced of everyone hearing my well-practised break-up speech. I need to drink more but am acutely aware of her glare. Words must be said. Eye-contact must be made. This has to be done. I love Her. Not the other. This isn’t fair. She has to know.

*****

In this world honesty is sacrosanct but people make the world what it is. We give it a meaning. People give everything a meaning. A piece of paper can become money because people make it so. We attach meaning to everything because this life is meaningless and we can’t take it. An entrance into a delusion. When I make love to her there is no meaning. There is only feeling. Feeling and her intertwined in an incomprehensible flow, the tide coming in and washing away what I know. I didn’t break up with the other one. I didn’t tell her. Honesty means nothing to me. I stay in the exact same situation. Emotions will shift otherwise.

Once I have left the pub I walk to her house. I knock on her door three times, clawing it upon my fourth to maintain my paralytic balance. She opens her door. That Her makes me feel anything and those eyes that are truly mine surely. She asks me what’s up. I cry. My weeping is uncontrolled. It pulses through any emotional barriers. I have façades that are uncovered. Mask’s unveiled. A host of masks one by one. She kisses me. She doesn’t know why. I’ll fuck her later. Later, I’ll let myself be washed away.

Fuck it. It’s still all good for me.