DYSFUNCTIONAL

Your hair feels soft against my fingers, and I know you’ve recently conditioned it with one of your fancy products. I tug slowly but firmly, just the way I know you like it.

I breathe in the calming smell of burnt cigarettes as my tongue caresses your bottom lip trapped in between my teeth.

As usual, you pull back abruptly, this time asking me if I believe in God.

I snap back with a no before holding your head with both my hands and pulling it to reconnect our lips. But you hold me back by both my shoulders, your calm grip stronger than my incessant struggle.

You pull my head against your chest, wrapping me in a big hug, my resistant hands on your chest proving to be inconsequential. With that my mind drifts to the fact that maybe I should try working out too.

You rub my hair, over and over and over. Until I get that feeling, the one where I want to cry but my tears won’t flow, just like they haven’t for the past 4 years.

Finally you give in to my struggle and let me pull you down to my lips and I bite hard on your bottom lip. I feel you hard against my stomach and I let out a laugh knowing now why you had let go. My eyes are closed as we kiss but I still sense you roll your eyes in exasperation.

My hands crawl all the way from your shoulders, over your lean frame, right to their goal. And I feel you suck in a breath when I grip it. My mind then grabs its chance to switch off as my body takes over. Soon we are nothing but two bodies struggling to please each other, slipping, failing, pleasing, hurting until we finally find a rhythm after a few tries, unlike those passionate sex scenes in movies.

We lay there tangled in sheets my head at your feet, yours at mine. We’re both looking at the ceiling. You always shake your foot like a pendulum when you’re looking at the ceiling. I fight the urge to let out a disgruntled ‘See? I know you too!’

“Talk to me” you say and I grunt out a ‘no’. You let out a sigh and I know you’ve placed your forearm on your forehead, like you always do when we have this conversation.

I decide I’ve denied you enough for a day so I let out a small groan and ask you “What are we talking about?”. And I immediately sense you shift into therapist mode, instinctively covering yourself, as if we hadn’t just fucked each other senseless.

“Well you didn’t answer my previous question” you say calmly, still laying in the same position but this time the duvet on the floor is over your bare body. “God, God? Um maybe” I shrug

I sense your eyes shift towards me before feel the duvet shift over my bare chest. I stifle a laugh, knowing that you intended to check my expression but stopped short on my bare chest. “Maybe, huh?. So I take it you’re not religious”

“No”. I hear another shift signaling that you’re now seated at the centre of the bed. I subtly slide the duvet so a part of my chest is exposed and I immediately feel your eyes on it. “I know what you’re doing and it doesn’t affect me, I’m definitely more mature than that” I let out a small laugh. “You know therapy generally works better when there are fewer monosyllabic answers” you mumble in annoyance.

I roll my eyes “How about more grunting then?” I say in a fake sultry voice. “Fuck it” I hear you say as you get off the bed. I lie there staring at the ceiling as I hear you pull on your snug jeans that I love. I finally sit up when I hear your shoes on my hardwood floor. I see you struggle to take your eyes off my body and look at my face. You wait, and I know you want me to say something. You turn to leave and just when your hand is on the door I let out “I slept with Jess yesterday”. You pause, your back still facing me, but then as if giving up, you open the door and walk out. Alex has a way of making exits that make me long for more of him.

A month later.

I flinch as the beer bottle cracks and a shattered piece falls right on the part of my thigh that had a blood clot from the previous night. I watch as blood starts to drop out from a crooked line across my thigh. Jess continues to pace around the trailer tossing and thrashing everything he lays his hand on.

I’m wiping the blood off my thigh with my t-shirt when I feel him come towards me and the next thing I know his hand is slammed on my face, the hard blow making me lose consciousness.

_______

I wake up groggy, with my face aching and my thigh stinging. I look around and the trailer is empty. In the dim evening light I can see the mess he’s left in his wake. I walk across to the small sink and splash water over my face. I look around and find my phone below the bed. I dial the last dialed, light a cigarette and leave the trailer.

“A whole fucking month Kar? Really?!” he shouts

“I need a session” I say ignoring his outburst.

“A session? fine let’s meet at my office” he says in a clipped tone.

“When have we ever met in your fucking office” I snap.

“We will today, since you need a session” he says, mocking my use of ‘session’.

“Fine Alex, I’ll see you there in 20”, I say and end the call without waiting for his reply.

I’ve reached his building and I look at his window as I push my phone in the pocket of my shorts. I take the elevator to his apartment on the fifth floor instead of going to the office space he rents on the first floor.

I see my bruised face for the first time in the mirror at the back of the elevator, the skin at the corner of my cheek has darkened. I untie the ponytail and let my hair loose in an attempt to cover the bruise but give up when I remember that there is an ugly gash on my thigh, and my shorts don’t help with covering it. The elevator dings, bringing me back to the present.

I walk out and and the moment my eyes wander to his apartment door I rush back inside. I hold the door of the elevator as I see him kiss a woman and caress her cheek. I watch her playfully push him away and both of them laugh. I’m unable to decipher what they talk about as she fastens the top four buttons of her dress. I watch them exchange one more long kiss and watch his hands go down her back before I press One on the elevator and head right to his office.

_______

There are two couches in the room along with a coffee table that has a few essentials. The walls are as blank as I remember from the first and only time I had been here five months back. I take a seat on one of the couches and get to texting my parents, the regular weekly texts. He walks in while I’m replying to the last one of my work emails. I stiffen when he passes my couch and heads to the other couch across the coffee table.

The laughing man outside his apartment door is replaced with a blank therapist.

“Hello Kara. How can I help you?” he says in the most monotonous tone I’d ever heard him use.

I look at him, drink him in. He looks great as usual. His hair is shorter. His eyes piercing as ever as they look straight at me. He leans forward and for a minute I’m not sure of his intention until I realise he is grabbing the diary and pen off the coffee table. He carefully opens to a particular page and I wonder if he has a page about me like he does with every other person that visits him.

He raises his eyebrows urging me to answer the mundane question he’s posed. I roll my eyes and unbutton the first 3 buttons of my shirt, before leaning forward to exhibit the fact that I’m not wearing a bra. Unbothered he continues to look at my face, and I fight the urge to look surprised. I push myself off the couch and walk round the table to his couch. I sit down next to him and put my hand on his thigh. Pleased to notice that the page he’s opened is blank, I lean in to kiss him. He grabs my shoulder and pushes me away while getting up and moving to the next couch. I grunt as he sits there again open with his diary and giving me a blank look. Annoyed and frustrated with the past two days I refuse to say anything. I lean forward in a way that guarantees he gets a clear view of my breast and open Instagram and start browsing. We sit in silence for what feels like ages, however I’m more at peace than I’ve been in a month.

An hour later there’s a knock at the door “Come in”, he says and smiles at the teenage girl that walks in. He turns back to me with a blank stare and addresses her “Please have a seat Kim, Kara here was just leaving”

I give in and look at him wide eyed as I stand from the couch. I wait for a while as the girl reaches the couch hoping he says something, but he doesn’t. I walk out of the door more disoriented than when I entered the building. I open my phone type in ‘J’ and dial the first number. “Hey babe, are you back home?”