'What the fuck are we doing?', I said. And you smiled, that beautiful smile of yours, and teased me in return. 'Isn't that what we just did? Fuck?', you said lightly. I imagine just then my face might've acquired a sterner look, especially after I told Eleanor she knew precisely what I meant. And you sighed, and sat down on the bed cross-legged. 'Why are you making things so complicated?', you asked, as you stretched a foot that began caressing my chest. I looked at you there, bare before me, a monument to desire. 'We both made things complicated, don't you think?', I said, maybe a bit too bitingly. 'What are we doing?', I repeated. We both sat straight on the bed, our backs against the cold wall. Then you said, 'We're going to hurt a couple of people that probably don't deserve to be hurt.', and I shook my head and said, 'No, all of us are going to get hurt.'. I pinched the bridge of my nose, and muttered under my breath 'what the fuck did I just do?'. You sidled closer to me, your breasts brushing my arm. You kiss me, slowly, tenderly, deeply. Why do you kiss me like you love me, I ask myself. And why do I kiss you back exactly the same way? I slide down and join you in a sort of small spoon facing each other sort of way. I feel your hand reaching out to me, I want to say no but I'm already hard, your fingers running across my cock. Mine slide inside you, I want you to say no but you're already wet, we can't stop, we can't stop, we can't, we can't, we fuck, we fuck, and then the guilt, oh the guilt comes back.
You're dressing yourself now, I am sprawled on my bed, broken, spent. Words escape my mouth. I can barely understand them myself. You ask, 'What was that you said?', and I get up, making my way to where you are. A part of me wants to undress you again. But I tell you that this can't happen again. We can't... we can't go on hurting others. Eleanor smiles sadly, slips on her shoes, and pecks my slightly on the lips. 'This was fun.', she said. 'No, scratch that, this was good. Real good.', and then, because this was, after all, goodbye, she pulls me in closer and we kiss again. 'Write me into your next book', Eleanor said, as she turned her back and closed the door behind her. She doesn't leave straight away, though. I can hear her sliding down the other side of the door, and sitting on the ground. I hear her gentle sobbing, and my heart wants nothing more than to go to her. I can't. I mustn't. It's going to hurt enough as it is.
It's now two years since Eleanor and I first met, and in that time I had to change some things in my life. For one, I stopped going to that park where we met - soon after that day we were together I saw her there, and just before I could turn around she saw me, and we changed an awkward glance before we pretended we didn't know each other. That hurt like hell. So I decided to stop going there. I'm having lunch now in a restaurant close to where I live. My mind is elsewhere, though it should be focused. I've been struggling to finish the novel I started the day Eleanor left. I'm not happy with it, not yet, it's still a bit disjointed. I need to work on some chapters, and give the story more of a structure. And for the life of me I still have no idea what it's going to be titled. Or how it ends. Wait, that's it, that's the title right there. 'How it ends', coming probably never. I'm slowly eating my desert, when someone pulls the chair in front of me, and sits down. Lithe and feline, her flowing hair grown much longer, framed in a fringe that fell down almost to her eyes. I'm sitting with a forkful of chocolate cake inside my mouth, as she descends fully into view. I'm speechless. Eleanor sits there, her head bobbing up and down slowly, as she looks at me eating. And she says, 'You know, mister, I've got some choice words for you.', and I'm in panic, I swallow what cake was in my mouth, steeling myself for some harsh rebuke. 'What?', was all I could manage. She sat in thought for a few moments, letting that pregnant silence become all the more difficult to bear, then she said, 'Hot dog. Jumping frog. Albuquerque.', and again all I could manage was, 'What?'. 'Oh, nothing, it's just a line from a song.' Your laughter then filled the air, light, airy, full of song and life. 'Yeah, I know', I said, 'I just don't expect people to say lines from songs in real life, right?', and you nod your head, saying 'Right, right.'
Ten minutes into our conversation, and after having shared the rest of the cake, the bombshells start dropping, hers and mine. 'So', you said, taking a sip from the cup of coffee you'd ordered. 'How are things with you and your girlfriend?'. I shook my head, saying all I needed to say. 'What happened?', you asked, and I said that maybe a week or so after we'd been together I came clean and told her. The guilt was eating at me, and I had to tell her. Of course there was pain, and tears, and though we tried to make it work... it was never the same again. Since then, I tell Eleanor, I've been busy writing the new book, escaping into the words imagined rather than facing the sorrows suffered. As I talk, and tell the sad story of how my relationship ended, I notice her fidgeting, her fingers nervously rolling a golden ring around her ring finger. Eleanor turns her head sideways, and she seems to be trying to fight back tears. There is a sadness to her eyes, now. Then she looks straight and me, sticks out her hand, and shows me her engagement ring. 'Yeah, great, isn't it?', she said, turning her hand this way and that, the light of the sun catching the diamond on the ring, and glinting a rainbow of colours briefly. 'I see', I reply curtly. She flashes a wan smile, then puts her elbows on top of the table, and buries her face between her cupped hands. 'I waited for hours outside your door', she said. 'I know', I replied. 'How different things could have been if only that click of the door opening had happened...', you mused. 'If only, the two saddest words in any language', I said. It was good to see her, it really was. What a coward I am, a soul reaches out to me from across an ocean in the form a table, and all I can do is watch as mascara bleeds blackened tears down her face. She gets up to leave, and I get up too. Our eyes meet, locked in a moment that should last an eternity of eternities. The door remains closed, now for good. We say goodbye, and as I watch her turn her back to me and walk away, I die on the inside.
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