‘I cannot allow myself to fall in love with you. I will get terribly hurt. And…’ he drops his voice so I can hardly hear him, ‘I cannot have sex without love…’
I take onboard what he’s saying, resenting the fact that it was fine for him to have ‘sex without love’ just a few days ago.
I suddenly decide to give him a proof copy of The Toyboy Diaries. Maybe it would work like homeopathy – treat the sickness with the sickness. I take one off the shelf and drop it into his lap.
‘Instead of imagining the worst, why don’t you read it?’ I suggest. ‘It’s nowhere near as bad as you may think, especially since most of it is made up!’
My nose grows by at least an inch and my tone is possibly half an octave harsher than usual. I’m still smarting from the No Sex Please – We’re Skittish comment. He recoils as he lifts the book gingerly off his lap and holds it at arm’s length as if it’s a ticking time bomb.
‘Please don’t throw things at me,’ he bleats ‘and don’t shout…’
I apologize, and consider that, should we ever by any remote chance get it together, I might have to temper everything I do around him: my voice, my mood, my personality, my behaviour. Christ! Do I really want to live like that?
He turns the book over frowning deeply as he reads the back cover. I stand there chewing my thumb, like a schoolgirl whose father is reading a letter from the Headmaster informing him that she’s been caught in the toilets giving the gym teacher a blow-job.
‘How can it possibly work out between you and me?’ he asks despairingly having scanned the best of the worst of my story. ‘You’ll always be looking over my shoulder for the next 19-year old!’
‘I will not!’ I cry defensively. ‘That affair happened twenty years ago and I’m so over all that now…’
How far can you bend the truth before it snaps?
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5 comments:
Hi Wendy,
Great reading - I've read your whole blog over the past 2 days (in fits and starts as a treat!) and LOVE IT!! I'll be ordering your book on Amazon ASAP too.
I'm guessing you maybe swamped with e-mail since something about toyboys showed up on Huffington Post the other day.
What a lovely way to not give in to the stereo types of "getting older"!!
Though married to a lovely man now, I'm thinking you my roll model once I'm widowed!! (how dark is that?)
Seriously, it's been great!
Thank you!
Mary
Hi Wendy,
Great reading - I've read your whole blog over the past 2 days (in fits and starts as a treat!) and LOVE IT!! I'll be ordering your book on Amazon ASAP too.
I'm guessing you maybe swamped with e-mail since something about toyboys showed up on Huffington Post the other day.
What a lovely way to not give in to the stereo types of "getting older"!!
Though married to a lovely man now, I'm thinking you my roll model once I'm widowed!! (how dark is that?)
Seriously, it's been great!
Thank you!
Mary
Hi Mary,
Thank you so much for writing! I'm very glad you're enjoying the blog - it's so gratifying to know my scribblings are appreciated!
I was a little shocked at your (dark) comment. but in retrospect it's a very positive attitude! At least after the loss, you'll have something to look forward to!!
Enjoy your lovely husband and keep away from the arsenic and kitchen knives!
Best wishes,
Wendy
Hi Wendy!
Oh Dear, yes, I guess it would be sort of dark to think that way. My husband is 11 years older than I am, and people in his family generally live into their 60's. I'm 10 years younger, and my relatives thrive into their 90's. So, if averages tell us anything, it's that I'll have about 40 years during which to spend my life without him.
You've given me a fresh perspective on those coming years!
But yes, the arsenic and kitchen knives are well stowed too! ;-)
Keep up the delightful scribblings!
THANKS AGAIN!
Mary
Hi Wendy!
Oh Dear, yes, I guess it would be sort of dark to think that way. My husband is 11 years older than I am, and people in his family generally live into their 60's. I'm 10 years younger, and my relatives thrive into their 90's. So, if averages tell us anything, it's that I'll have about 40 years during which to spend my life without him.
You've given me a fresh perspective on those coming years!
But yes, the arsenic and kitchen knives are well stowed too! ;-)
Keep up the delightful scribblings!
THANKS AGAIN!
Mary
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