Fiction Friday - August 24, 2007

This Week’s Challenge : Create a character in a genre you would normally avoid.

I briefly toyed with the idea of writing a story in the style of a romance novel, but I got sick to my stomach after mulling over it for a while. Since I currently am not writing in any genre, I figured I could do whatever I wanted. I feel like this story needs a lot of editing and could use some expanding to give it more coherence, but here it is. Let me know what you think.

The old man and I

I met the old man the summer I decided to stop living like a widow and start living it up like a divorcée. It took four years since the end of my first marriage, but it was finally time to fly towards the light.

I went to a dating website. Five years ago they were not quite the commonplace item they seem to be nowadays, but they were on the cusp of becoming part of mainstream.

I met quite a few people online. A lot of them were weirdoes. There was this guy who liked to chat with me on Yahoo IM. He was married, by his own admission, but his story was that theirs was an open marriage. Sure. It sounded more like his wife was with other guys and he had a hard time dealing with that. He was funny and smart, but he was married and I was not in the mood to walk into a mess. Plus, he always talked about her, so our chats ended up resembling counseling sessions. I got bored after a while.

There was the guy I met in Lavalife, who said he had a 12-inch dick and was coming to my city on business. He wanted us to meet at the bar of a downtown hotel, and if things went well maybe he would “let me play with it”. In reply I asked him what else he would do for a woman, other than having a big dick. He did not like it. Guess no one had ever asked him that question before.

I met a guy who was funny and smart and all around a great guy. We would talk on the phone and exchange single parenthood stories. He would gripe humorously about office politics at the company he worked for. We met in person and went out a few times. I wanted very much to like him. I really did. But it just did not happen.

I met another guy who was recovering from a divorce, taking his first tentative steps into the world of dating. I bonded with him quickly because he was cultured and witty. We met at the Museum of Natural History, and then took a drive to Galveston on his convertible with the top down. The day was beautiful and the air against my skin made me feel so alive. We had a beer on a bar at the Strand, and talked about life. I was not attracted to him, but that was one of the best dates I have ever had. I was honest with him, but kind. He appreciated my honesty. We got along great and continued to be in touch as friends.

Right around this time is when I met the old man. I wasn’t even that keen on meeting him in person. There had been nothing really remarkable about our first exchanges, but he invited me to dinner at The Spindletop restaurant, so I went.

He presented me with a rose when we met. And old school trick, but still nice. He was older than me by ten years, and he came across as someone who was very much in the driver’s seat. He was ordinary looking, not much taller than me and he had a redneck air about him, but I was very much attracted to him.

I was obsessed with the old man. I could not get enough of him. The first time he kissed me I wanted to sign myself over to him. He was skilled in love, and I came out of my celibacy with a vengeance. We made love all the time. He introduced me to ice cubes. He chased me around his apartment. He tied me up and I loved it. He took me to fancy restaurants. He cooked for me. We took weekend trips together. On one of these trips we both mentioned love, and it felt wonderful and sad, as if someone had opened a door into a room that had long been forgotten.

My whole life revolved around the old man. If we had a minor disagreement, I would replay the whole thing in my head for hours; rehash the scene so my friends could give me advice. He traveled on business and we would talk at night for hours. Sometimes there was nothing to say, but we did not let go. I loved him with fierce urgency, knowing in the back of my mind that things would change when my daughter came home from her summer stay at her dad’s.

Eventually cracks began showing. Once we were having dinner and he told me “you are going to leave me in the dust”. He had a daughter and he did not even pretend to be interested in introducing me to her. We did not have the same taste in music. He did not read books. On one of his business trips, while drunk, he sent an e-mail professing his love for me, and instead of reveling in the feeling I found myself counting the grammar and spelling errors.

Once I mentioned to him that I had a bad habit of picking at my nails and cuticles, and that I wore solar nails because that was the only thing that stopped me from doing it. He looked at me in horror, as if I was some kind of freak. I realized then that he had also put me on a pedestal and was just coming to the realization that I was not the perfect being he thought I was.

I could not help but notice that he relied heavily on alcohol to deal with stress at work. Liquid therapy, he called it. Great. I was dating my father. This is bullshit.

A friend from work was moving to California, so I decided to throw her a farewell get together at my house. We had a good crowd. I decided to invite Bruce (convertible guy) because he was a nice guy and maybe he would hit it off with one of my girlfriends. In the spirit of having everything straight out in the open, I made the mistake of telling the old man I was inviting him and how I had met him.

He did not like it one bit. Old man had trust issues, and he assumed I had been two-timing him the whole time with this other guy. He got very drunk and proceeded to treat me like dirt, screaming at me in front of my friends, in my own home. Then he left in his truck and I never saw him again. My friends rallied around me. One of them was particularly pissed that he had treated me so badly. Bruce just wondered why had I chosen that guy instead of him.

When I managed to reach the old man late the next day he said he did not want to talk to me then, that he was doing a lot of thinking and would call me the next day.

The next day he broke up with me via e-mail. What a bastard. I was a wreck for a couple of days. One of my coworkers caught me crying in a conference room. I walked around in a daze for a while. The third day I decided that it wasn’t worth it. I was done crying. I saw our relationship for what it was, a summer fling between a drunk and fool. It was nothing more, nothing less.