by Giselle Renarde
Dear Lawrence,
I've wanted to write this letter for ages. I'll tell you why I haven't: because every time I've said even the slightest word to you since we broke up, all you've heard was, "I want to get back together."
Dude.
I don't want to get back together. I don't want to go out for coffee. I don't want dinner. I don't want to fuck you. It's over. Really. It is.
You know I have a girlfriend now. Sweet and I have been together more than five years. I'm happy with her. Remember all the times I told you I was queer and you were all like, "No way. If you were a lesbian, you wouldn't be so good in bed." That's only one of your dickishly entitled remarks that stands out in my mind. Oh, and when you criticized your sister's foster-daughter for calling her "Mom" because they weren't biologically related? You could be such a fuckwad sometimes.
Seriously.
But I loved you. Stupid, because you were married the entire ten years of our relationship. Not that you pulled the wool over my eyes. I knew you were married from the moment we met. The difference was that you were fifty years old. I was... what, eighteen? Nineteen? Not a kid, no, but still a young woman looking for a father figure.
What hasn't hit home with you is that the book's called "The Complete Collection" for a reason: our relationship is over. Done. The fact that you still weasel your way into my building to leave Christmas and birthday gifts outside my door is, frankly, a little creepy.
One year, I sent you a thank you email. Just to be civil. Just to show you I was still human. Except, instead of hearing "thank you," you heard, "I want you." That's why I don't acknowledge your gifts anymore. I'd prefer if you focused your love and attention on some other girl--maybe your wife?
Ahh, your wife... I think about her a lot. Dreamed the other week that I was trying to get her into bed, but you kept cockblocking me. Bastard. She was a pretty pixie, from what I recall--younger than you, older than me. But she didn't want you, did she? Not for sex. Nope.
Ultimately, I want you to be happy. With someone else. Not with me. I feel a special compassion for you because I spent ten years of my life wanting you when I could never fully have you. Now the tables have turned. You want me. I've moved on.
Funny, that.
Giselle
Oh wow! Such a story here!
ReplyDeleteI tend to be fascinated by my lovers' former or even current girlfriends also. It's like we're sisters. There's another guy I could have written to/about this fortnight - maybe would have been a better story - who spent every night for six weeks with me, then disappeared over the weekend to Las Vegas to marry Jeanie, his former girlfriend. I sometimes imagined being with Jeanie, though I never met her.
Got to read these books of yours - so many stories, so little time!
intriguing...what a scandal. nicely done, Giselle :)
ReplyDeleteIt's always the married ones who can't take "No" for an answer, isn't it? I got to the point where when the pick-up line was "My wife doesn't want to have sex with me," I'd stare at his crotch deliberately, then look up and say, "Dude, she's had sex with you. If she doesn't want you anymore, I guess I'll have to defer to her superior knowledge. Obviously you're no damn good in bed, so I don't want to either."
ReplyDeleteIt's a very delicate balance between being a child and an adult when you are so young, like 19. Older people of both sexes will be attracted to you because they must believe that having sex with a younger person will rub off on them somehow, and let them prove to themselves that they aren't really that old...yet. The fact that you wrote about this relationship must signal to this guy that you still think about him...that he still matters to you. What non-authors don't realize is that once you write "the end" at the conclusion of a book, those characters stop talking in your head. New ones take their place. To him it is a call to rekindle the best of his memories and recapture what he remembers. For you, it was a kiss-off of finality. I'm glad you're happy in your present relationship.
As they say,: 'I guess a blow job is out of the question.'
ReplyDeleteSuch a true-to-life post, Giselle.
ReplyDelete