Back when I broke up with Alexandra, or she broke up with me, I had this fantasy of her coming back to me and telling me just how big a mistake she’d made and that it was all just a big misunderstanding and that she’d discovered that she really loves me after all, and I, in my fantasy, would reply with a long list detailing just how badly she had treated me, before slamming the door in her face.
It was the one thing that I fell asleep dreaming about most, after having tossed and turned for a few hours feeling sorry for myself because I’d lost Alexandra. It was the one thing that I thought would have made my life complete. As is the way of the world, now that I no longer wanted it I was about to get it.
Jasmine threw a birthday party and invited a whole bunch of people. Mostly her friends, but a few that I knew as well. It was all set to be a great night. In fact it started out excellently. I had a few beers, talked and joked with seemingly everybody. I felt I was going to have a great time, even through I’d only known a few people to start with.
I’d had about four or five beers when Alexandra arrived. Of course Jasmine hadn’t told me she was coming, or even that Alexandra had been invited, all she’d said was that bunch of people from the Tennis club were coming. So it came as a bit of a shock when Alexandra walked in closely followed by a couple of other girls. And by the look on her face it was as much a shock for her as it was for me.
Jasmine appeared from nowhere and, grabbing my elbow, guided me over to meet her.
“Hi, Alex,” Jasmine smiled. “Glad you could make it.”
“Hi, Jasmine,” Alexadra replied lamely, her eyes locked on me.
“Oh. I believe that you both know each other,” she took us both by the elbow and pulled us a step closed together.
“Hi, ,” I said. “Long time no see.”
“Hi,” she replied. Then pulling herself together she turned and introduced her friends. “This is Mary and Sinead.” And she looked back at me, “This is Kevin.”
“Hi,” I managed to look away from Alexandra and smile at them.
“Hi,” they said in unison.
“Why don’t you help yourself to drinks,” Jasmine waved at the heavily loaded table.
“Thanks,” they spoke in unison again and move towards the table.
Alexandra and I looked at each other for a moment longer. Then I felt Jasmine leave. I said something like, “See you later” and hurried out into the hall. I caught hold of Jasmine’s elbow and turned her to face me.
“Why did you invite her without telling me she was coming?” I hissed.
“I wanted to get you two together,” she smiled. “And I didn’t think that you would turn up if you knew she was going to be here.”
She was probably right, but I didn’t want to admit it. “I’m not avoiding her !” I said. “She’s avoiding me.”
“Well I didn’t tell her you’d be here,” she said. “She didn’t even know that I knew you until tonight.”
“Why do you want to get us together?” I didn’t understand Jasmine. I’d have thought that she would want me to avoid .
“Because you have unfinished business together,” she sipped her drink.
“What do you mean?” I tried to keep my voice low.
“You can’t run away from her,” she put her hand on my arm. “The scars won’t heal unless you confront her.”
I snorted. “I’ve tried confronting her,” I said. “But she would never talk to me.”
Jasmine looked down for a moment. “Well now you have another chance to try.”
I looked suspiciously at her, “Is this some kind of game?” I shook my head, “Because if it is …”
“I’m not playing games with you, Kevin,” she looked around at her guests. “I can’t really explain now. But you have got to decide if you really love her or not.”
“I’ve already decided that !” I took hold of her arm as she started to move away. “That’s why I’m with you.”
She smiled at me and gently removed my hand. “Talk to her and see what you mean to each other now. That’s all I want.” She put her hand to my cheek, “Believe me I don’t want to share you with her. But you have to get her out of your system.” She took her hand away and straightened up. “Now I’ve got to circulate. Enjoy yourself.”
“Thanks,” I called after her.
A couple of minutes later I was sitting on the settee in the front room having another beer.Alexandra came over and sat beside me.
“Hi,” she smiled at me. “How have you been?”
“Fine,” I smiled back. “And how are you.”
“Oh, O.K. Can’t complain,” she looked around for a moment. And when I said nothing asked, “So you live here now?”
“Yes,” I smiled at the joke I always make. “Jasmine charges a rent I can afford.”
“That’s nice,” she looked away again.
“Look, what do you want from me?” I was beginning to experience a resurgence of emotions that I’d been suppressing for months. But I still can’t figure what they were. Was it love or hate, anger and bitterness? I really don’t know.
“I just want to talk to you,” she shifted uncomfortably on the settee.
“Well you never wanted to talk to me before,” I think the bitterness had worked its way to the top.
“What?” Alexandra couldn’t believe it.
Whether she couldn’t believe what I said or that I had actually said I don’t know.
“All you ever want to do was go out and have a ‘good time’,” I crushed my empty beer can. “And I mean that in every sense of the word.”
“That’s not true,” she almost whined. “I wanted to be loved just as much as you ever did.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” I interrupted. “Your ‘little Miss. sweet and innocence’ routine won’t work on me any more.”
She sat up straight, “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean that I have nothing to apologize to you for. I’m the offended party. I’m the person who was fucked about, who was used and abused and betrayed.”
She said nothing as I leaned forward and took another can of beer from the coffee table.
“I’m the person who was hurt again and again,” I said. “And who again and again tried to patch up the relationship. Who tried again and again to talk to you, to explain what you were doing to me. To ask you to stop and treat me with some respect.”
There was silence for a moment then she asked, ever so softly, “And what respect did you ever show me.”
“What respect did you let me?” I replied without thinking.
She said nothing, just sipped her drink.
“The respect I showed you was in treating you like a human being,” I started to explain, but knew that she wouldn’t understand. “In trying to talk to you as an equal. Trying to explain what you meant to me, how I felt about you, what I wanted from the relationship.” I stopped to take stock of my thoughts, but just came up with the same old recriminations. “I didn’t use you. I didn’t take advantage of your feelings from me to prop up my flagging ego. I didn’t reject you. I tried so hard to get close to you, to love you, just to hold you even.”
There was silence for a moment.
“You never even let me do that did you. Just to hold you and be with you, to feel you in my arms.” I looked at her, “But you don’t understand what that meant to me. How important you were to me. How much I wanted you to love me.”
“Now that’s bullshit, if I ever heard it !” her hands gripped her glass tightly.
I felt devastated. There I was, having once again opened my heart to her, explained how I felt and it had gone straight past her. She would never understand.
“All you were ever interested in was having sex with me !”, she realised she’d raised her voice and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Then looked back at me, “Night after night you tried to seduce me. Again and again you tried.”
I took a deep breath. After all I’d done not to seduce her, not to force her to have sex with me. From the fear of raping her to the guilt and recriminations that would follow “getting carried away in the heat of the moment”. And there she was accusing me of the thing I most didn’t want to do.
I looked at her and could see the anger that still bubbled in her eyes. Maybe, I thought. Maybe she just said it because she’s angry. Or maybe she really believes it.
“Yes I wanted to have sex with you,” I said. “But I told you what that meant to me. I told you,” and I knew even as I said that she’d never believe it, “that it meant that I loved you.”
I knew then that she couldn’t believe that I could love her and want to have sex with her. It comes from the early training that “If he respects you he won’t force himself on you. If he really loves you he’ll wait until you’re married to have sex with you.” Anybody who won’t wait until you’re married just wants to fuck you and only says that he loves you in order to have “his evil way with you”. There was nothing that I could do to convince her that my passion came from my love for her. Nothing.
I sipped my beer and she sipped her drink. But I decided to have a go anyway.
“You don’t understand the strain I was under. There I was getting excited, getting my passions aroused, for want of a better description. And I was supposed to control it. I was supposed to hold it all inside and not rape you. And I did it.” I smiled a thin smile, “Oh you’ll never know just how close you came to being raped. Just how thin my control was at times. And there’s not a court in the land that would convict me of rape if I had.
“You got your kicks out of frustrating and humiliating me. Out of deliberately getting me sexually excited and then denying me my orgasm. Denying me what you dam well made sure you got every time. You made sure you came and made doubly sure that I didn’t. How long did you thing I could put up with that?”
I looked up at her and she looked me straight in the eye.
“You did what you did because you wanted you to,” she said. “You did it because you thought I’d eventually succumb to your desires and have sex with you.”