Early the next day I made my way home feeling like a chewed
up gummy bear. As he drove I stroked his thigh nearest to me and hummed a
nondescript tune to myself. I had woken up to the best bit of morning wood
known this side of the equator and felt ready to tackle the day with fervour. I
was re energised!
During the course of that Sunday he would board a plane and
be gone for at least two weeks. Nemesis has a tendency to be over loving and
gushy whenever he has to go somewhere but something about his demeanour this
time struck me as really odd. He seemed more than keen to go and I didn’t know
whether I had become boring to him such that he wouldn’t miss me or if it was
just resignation to the fact that from time to time separation would be a feature
of our relationship. Whatever it was I just shrugged it off and went about my
business. But I would remember this feeling in the days to come and cast doubt
on my own nonchalance.
As we entered the third day since his departure and there
was still no communication for him, I was damn near frantic. I tried calling
all the numbers I had for him at least once, because more than twice to me
indicates desperation and I will only very rarely call someone more than two
times at a time. All the numbers I had for him I had tried at least once, with
an email to boot and a skype message- I sat back and waited for the rain. The
rain only availed itself on the next Friday morning in the form of a text
message which informed me that he has been swamped and that he had travelled
with a phone that had no credit and whose roaming he had forgotten to activate.
Convenient, I’ll give him that –CON*fucking*VENIENT!!!!
HE was very well and was attending a wedding that
afternoon, not his but a wedding none the less (his niece’s if you really want
specifics).
I asked myself why I
was only hearing of this wedding story now, when he was already one week into a
trip away. Honestly speaking as events like weddings go it’s disconcerting that
something this huge was not even mentioned in passing. Did he think I would
have begged him to take me with him or what, I just couldn’t rationalise this
information. I only mustered a two word response and let myself simmer in the
juices of so many questions that I knew would not get answered for at least one
week. So why churn it in my head if I knew the outcome, you might ask…because I
am a woman and it is my inherent constitutional right to know everything.
Anyhow, the weekend came and went without incident and also
without communication. My angel and I went through our usual Sunday at KFC ritual
of ice cream with a thick chocolate stick down the middle. Being lactose
intolerant as I am this was dicing with death, but I just needed a distraction
from the feeling of feeling numb. Monday was work and school as usual, hum drum
run of the mill stuff.
As for your Nemesis…persistent
deafening silence.
With or without acknowledging it; the man was now trudging
his heavy self on some very thin ice that covered deep, murky and icy waters
beneath. As if he read my mind he suddenly became uber communicative, I presume
working on the off-chance that this would soften me into responding because his
communication was so sporadic. I let those messages sit and stare back at him
for a good three days, a much shorter time than he ever did but sufficient to
drive my point home. I also made sure he was able to see when I last logged off
and such just so he knew for sure he was not being rewarded for these errant
tendencies.
When I heard the phone ringing and noticed it flashing his
number I stared it into silence, gave a satisfied shrug, threw it in a cupboard
and went for a walk around the block. Upon my return the noisy bugger was still
vibrating and whining so I did the right thing and picked her up. The high
pitched frantic tone of his voice was absolute syrup to my ears. Sadly; that
was the sum of the joy that phone-call produced. We had a very flippant, casual
conversation which more or less ended before it had begun. I mumbled something
about being out of sight and out of mind and he was pleading for me to just
listen and be patient and he was coming back things have been hectic work was
hell his family is demanding they want to know who he is speaking with and why,it’s
not the right time to get into this yada yada hoody ha none of them own cell-phones
(first world country notwithstanding) and he was sorry oh and Pluto isn’t a
planet anymore and they just found a new rare jellyfish in Venezuela…hogwash…nyanyanyanyanyaaa!
Noise.
The first walk had done nothing to calm me down so I went
for another one, a very long one this time. I cussed and spat, punched the air
and got myself drenched by a sudden summer shower which was very angering as
everybody knows summer rain is the best for outdoorsy fornication. Like a
beaten dog with its tail clenched firmly under its own belly I made the long
walk back home and plunged into a hot soapy bath. I sat in there until the
water froze me out, only then did the din in my head calm itself. I was angry.
There! I admit it.
How do we get to a place where you as my lover are away for
such a long time and can’t, no won’t say more than a few words to me when it
suits you? What about when I am suited to speaking with you and you barely
muster more than a few cyber grunts or to be specific perennial silence. Of
course if you ask me how I am and how I have been, I will tell you fine, you obviously have no time or desire to hear the gory details lest you would have availed yourself as and when they happened . Then it's like oh oh suddenly
now I am the bad guy because I refuse to be softened by a phone ringing and a
few throw away messages because I should be grateful you have finally decided
to acknowledge my existence and dare-I-say it, lent me a modicum of validation.
Who do you think you are?
Nemesis must have been able to tell that I was
nonplussed because I only touched my cell phone the next morning when the alarm
went off. One thing I have never said is how he has a tendency to behave super
nice towards the build-up of him returning from his many forays to where ever
the hell it is he goes. Very chatty, very polite- grovelling almost. The best parts
of this whole Mr-Extra-Super-Nice scene are the final two hours before he boards
a plane to return here, when he is alone in the waiting lounge of whichever
airport he is coming from. I literally sit there imagining him using his
phallus to type the corniest, crappiest anecdotes known to man. Instead of
being a mega aphrodisiac I find it hilarious not only how gullible he perceives
me to be, but how gullible I actually am.
So believe me, it
did not strike me as cute at all that in the midst of all that silence I had
been faced with he had gone back to being bang on trend and suddenly giving a
damn. I had been through this enough times by now to be truthful enough to
myself how this was playing out and how it would continue to play out and it
made my blood boil.
It should be making your blood boil too by now…
