Only later, alone, undressed in her bed, she muses on what he'd said. "I've thought about it". The words smell like timber or vanilla. She's told him no strings, as if she didn't know that the world is tied together with string, that everything hangs poised from thread; that string, tied tight enough, slices to bone. She ponders the ceiling, arms folded under her head. She wishes she had sunglasses, for everything seems to unnaturally glare, a stringent, judgemental inescapable stare levelled solely on her because surely shes caught the attention of the entire world, surely she flickers like neon. All she can think of is him.

It was, I'm sorry I reduced it to sex. I just shouldve held you.

 

Weak is an understatement.

I have become one of those women who I despise. He calls me and tells me that he loves me. That he will change, and do anything for me. But for a moment I am strong, and I tell him that I cannot go back. Go forward with me then he tells me. Help him become a better person. Help him change. He will love me for every minute of the day he tells me. But I am strong, and he cries. Then later that night he e-mails me a video clip of Jeff Buckleys - Lover You Should Have Come Over. It weakens me. The couple in the video resemble him and I. Two people with so much passion for each other. Dancing in candle light, and spilling red wine. And then in anguish as they part.  So the weak me emerges, and I call him at 2 in the morning. Hes awake and answers like he was almost sitting by his phone waiting for me. He begs to see me. And I submit. Its the middle of the night. I creep out of the house like a criminal to meet a man in the darkness, in the freezing cold, against my better judgement.

 

Awkward is an understatement.

He chokes up words of desperate willing. And I stay silent. This man genuinely hates himself, and has never been the same since I left him. He has been broken, and is in very dark place. I want to save him, but I know I cant, and I shouldn't.  But god damnit, I want to hold him. The cold makes us both want to vomit ice, and no amount of clothing protects you from the harshness of being outside at 3am in winter. So I bring him home. Betraying my better self, and my roommate, who promised me that neither of us would let him know where we lived. And once again like criminals, we creep into the warmness of my room. We sit in silence. He gets up to leave, but my weak self tells him that I dont want him to go. He undresses me, but I beg him to just lie with me. And so we lay next to each other naked in darkness with soft music playing. I feel like im floating. It was such a surreal experience. I know I shouldnt of enjoyed it, but I did. And then he was kissing me all over, and passion took over and logic disappeared.

At the beginning of spring they go to a party, not together, but because they know the other will be there. She leans in a doorway, a shoulder against the frame, but her eyes on her glass because he stands before her saying nothing, shy as a calf. She knows that tonight will change things, and maybe he knows it too. She has reached the edge, and tonight she will fly or fall. She's bought a shirt that dips between her breasts - he gives no sign of noticing. Sometimes she thinks she has failed spectacularly, that he is blind to the glimmerance in her eyes - that she was, perhaps, always bound to fail, because he has no daring, because he is, unconquerably, an honerable man.

 

They aren't alone. The party is crowded, and people want to speak with him, so he must continuously look away; but he stays near her; his gaze returns to her. They exchange frivolities in those moments when it's just he and she. She's drunk enough to tip on her toes, but her thoughts are crisp as birdsong. She glances at him, and his eyes are on her. She can scarcely look at him. She wants to fuck this quiet man until he cries: fuck him in cars, in laneways, in playgrounds at midnight as if they're seventeen. She would make him swear to die for her, if only she knew how. Instead she hears herself saying, in her charmless, cheapest voice: "You know, don't you, that I want to screw you until you scream?"

 

It is uncouth and blundering, repulsive juvenile, almost knocks her to her knees: but she doesn't recoil, he doesn't even blink. And she has a thought that nearly smites her: he has heard such things before. He's not startled, because he is one of those irritating men over whom women war like crows. And she feels brokenly stupid, to have fallen for such a man: she'd prefer never to desire, than to desire unoriginally.

 

 

So I say to him, leave me alone. But all he does is re enter and penetrate my walls more so. He likes the idea of someone caring for him... But we are all guilty of that.

 

Men are everywhere at the moment. But they dont see me. They tell me I'm beautiful, and they want to penetrate my walls also. But they don't see me. The real me who likes the colour purple beyond obsession, and words like passionfruit and mistress. The girl who gets dressed up to spend the night in front of a book. Who writes poetry on scrap paper and then burns it. They see nothing. Blinded by red wine and lace.

 

I made love to a woman the other day. It was soft and sweet, and nothing at all like a man. She took time to touch every part of my body. Paid attention to the little things, and gave my skin goose pimples, like a big pimply goose. She is a loud extroverted goddess with dark curles. But when the clothes came off, this girl turned into a shy virgin like timid child. She was hesitant, and almost afraid to touch me, and I found myself taking the lead, and guiding her. Where I found this confidence, I'll never know, but I took over, and it was amazing. This young beauty couldnt wipe the smile off her face for hours.

 

Nothing I do though will ever make it easier to forget him.

So im not as strong as I thought I was. I have started to enjoy seeing him. I start to anticipate the times he comes to my door. Watching. Waiting. Lingering by the phone like a woman in love.

 

I was walking home from work the other day, and he was sitting on my door step waiting for me. To be honest, and you have to be, who doesnt like someone waiting for them? It means you're on somebodies mind. I let him im and he washed my dishes so he could cook me dinner while I had a shower. I felt like a queen. Like I must have some power over him for him to want to come to my house and do all these things for me. Like a witch, enchanting merlins all around her.

 

But there is always a catch. I just have to work it out.

 

He cooked me an amazing dinner and served me my favourite drinks one after the other, while I relaxed and watched him. He brought over his xbox console and we played video games together for a few hours like we use to when we were together. And then I ushered him out the door so I could sleep. I felt like you do after an orgasm. Completely satisfyed. If I was a cat, I'd be purring. Buzzing like a bee on tranquilisers. And he did all of that without actually touching me. Now he has the power. But what does he want? I've decided i'm not going to be the fool to find out last. And i'm going to put a stop to it. I've left him a message that I want to speak with him about the two of us. I'm sure that will get him running over here in no time. I need to put up boundaries. I can't fall in love with this man again after all the hurt he's caused me. My life, however hard and lonely, has been much better without him. I have thrived on the independence. The feeling of not relying on anybody is like a drug of relief.

 

Try to find the will to forget him somehow...

 

 

..Oh wait, I think i've forgotten him now.

 

 

He comes to my door every day. A broken man. I don't know what he wants. He comes over when he knows i'm alone. Most of the time he sits and just talks. Talks about everything. His life, and how he hurts. He crys a lot. Even though I know I shouldn't care, after all the things he's done to me. But I do. I can't help it. One day he came over and collapsed on the floor. He's drunk again, and sobbing like a baby. Initially I just sit back and just let him cry. I put a steal coating over my heart like armour to protect me, but then eventually it starts melting away, and suddenly his head is in my lap and im stroking his hair like a child. For him that was like a permission slip, and hes immediately got his hands around my head, pulling me into him, kissing me with the force of a desperate man. And then he's ontop of me. Normally this dominance turns me on, but im terrified. Terrified he'll hurt me - not physically, but emotionally. He sees the fear in my eyes and tells me he'll leave if I ask him to. But I can't find any words for him. And then we're fucking. So hard and heavy and with so much lust and need. As if this would cure us both of our hurt and sufferings. Afterward we're lying naked together, and he tells me i'm the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. He spends an hour describing all the things he loves about my body. And then he fucks me again, with as much passion and desire as the first time.

And then he's gone. 

We have transitioned from partners to friends so smoothly that it feels like it was matter of fact that we shouldn't have been together at all. Everyone hopes that when they break up with someone they love that it will be nice, that you wont hate each other and fight. Hell, it's not like we haven't fought - everytime I picture him with that girl I want to vomit all over him. But it's been relatively nice between us. He comes over all the time to check on me. At first I liked it, even if we argued, I just needed him nearby. I've been with this man for a year and a half, its hard to not want him around me. But then it annoyed me, because he was acting as if he still had a say in my life. For instance, this one time he came over and found me naked in bed with two other people (but thats another story), and he just went crazy with rage and jealousy. As if he has the right to, after he slept with someone while we were together. But now we have come to some sort of mutual agreement. Neither get jealous anymore (or we don't show it). We let each other live our own lives the way we want it, and we just have a few beers together every other day. It makes us both feel better I think.

 

 

 

 

So my name is Liz. Im 22 and a nurse. I live 100 feet away from the local hospital where I work. I live on my own in a small apartment with white walls and two cats. I've never lived on my own, and you'd think I would be lonely, but it seems my apartment has some attractive powers to it, as I am never alone. There is always someone at my door wanting to penetrate my walls.

 

I came to this nowhere town for a boy. He took me away from the city with the bright lights and shiny people. He promised me everything I wished for. And it was good. Don't get me wrong. I loved him so passionately. He was my first love, and I would have done anything for him. But he strayed as most men do, ive  found. Its something I will never understand. To have everything and always want more. I could never betray another as he did to me.

 

It's interesting actually, because I was the one to introduce him to her. We were at a party, and she was this pretty young thing of 18. She actually looked a lot like me, which is perhaps why I was drawn to her. A tall girl, with lots of curves, fair, straight hair and green eyes. She had brilliant ideas on life, and I was instantly attracted to her. I invited her back to our apartment for a drink with us, which all went well, but when I got up early to go to work, and came home late in the evening, she was still there. Sprawled out on my loungeroom floor, half baked and drunk, slurring her words and looking but half the girl I met the night before. My boy was with her too. Just as drunk and unattractive. They had had a a 'liquid lunch' or so they said.

Ok initially I'm insanely jealous. I look at her with distain and wish hell upon her. Listening to the events of their day, filled with dancing and lying around each other. Laughing that they drank so much he had to take her to the toilet. But then I try to be the cool girlfriend, and think Ok, these are just two people having a good time, who am I to be upset about this? If he worked, I'd probably be lying around drinking with attractive young women too.

 

So I attempt to relax and enjoy their company. They shove drinks in my face trying to get me to their level. And then late in the night they decide to hit the bar. They make a feeble attempt at trying to get me to come with them, but I have to be up with the sun to go to work. I go to bed and have horrible dreams of the two of them fucking, and I am woken up at 4 in the morning by him stumbling in the bedroom trying to find the bed, then moaning that he loves me, then collapsing into a heap, and snoring like a steam engine. When I return home from work there is a bunch of roses on the steps for me. We've been together a year and a half, and he's never bought me flowers. Except that one time when I was really sick, and he stole some from the neighbours garden. So I dreamed a dream that was true. And I moved out 3 days later.