It’s the picture on your bedroom wall that bothers me. It’s
hanging right across from the bed, with Her smiling straight at me. I imagine meeting
her eyes over your shoulder as we’re having sex. If I were a different kind of
person I might get a perverse pleasure out of it; maybe it’ll make me want to
hold you tighter, moan louder, work harder, to prove something.
I decide I will ask you to take it down while I’m here. I’ll
ask casually, make it sound like a joke: ‘Take it down jor. You want your madam watching us while we’re doing it?’
Weeks ago I rediscovered you on Instagram; you were living
only a few hours away. It had been all innocent at first, renewing an old
acquaintance from school. But when the break up I knew was coming came it was
you I called, and you said all the words I needed to hear – it was his loss and
I could do better anyway and any man would be lucky to have me. And so when you
said I could come over if I needed to get away from everything I came; even
though I knew there was no future here, even though I knew I would feel worse
after. Even though I knew about Her.
You come into the room. ‘Hey, you,’ you say. You’re smiling
as you hand me the glass of water I’d asked for. I smile back and take a sip.
‘Nice picture,’ I say, nodding at Her.
‘Yeah.’
‘She’s pretty.’
‘Yeah.’
You take off your jacket and ask if I’d like to shower. I
nod, because all my words are gone. I’m rethinking this whole picture matter.
Wouldn’t there be something proprietary about me asking you to take it down
when it doesn’t seem to bother you; something that might suggest that maybe I
think or hope that this thing with us might maybe perhaps be something more
than it is?
I undress, my back to the wall where she hangs, and watch
you watch me. The picture stays.
After the shower I return to the room to find you waiting. I
slip off the towel and the heat from your skin warms me.
When you come you come alone, and then you fall asleep. And you
snore. And I’m there watching your open mouth and being jealous because I want
oblivion right now and you won’t let me have it and I want to shove a pillow onto
your face and sit on it until the noise stops and I can go to sleep and forget
all this. At least until I wake up again.
I reach up to turn off the light and I can’t help it. I look
up at Her again and I wonder, is it just me or is that smile a tad smug right
now?
I just want to go home.