End Flashback

Sometimes I wonder what might have happened… if I had taken her offer.
But I didn’t.
I should have seen her shoe in the pit of my crotch as a cry for help.
Because she was asking me for help, and I know that.
Now.
I just couldn’t imagine how things were getting worse.

Flashback – Shane

It’s a Monday morning and I am climbing up the stairs just as Carmen is going down.
Jenny is in the middle, a feather duster in her hand, cleaning the banister.
“Stinking bitch”, I mumble to Carmen.
“Dumb bastard”.
“Slut”.
“Scum”.
“Filth”.
“Asshole”.
“Morning, Jenny”, Carmen and I say at the same time.
Her sorry, embarrassed, crestfallen eyes move from me to her.
“…Morning…”, she mutters, blushing.
Last night, Carmen came to me. She knocked to my bedroom door.
I opened it and we just stared at each other.
There was something, into her eyes.
Something that I couldn’t understand.
A shadow, a ghost, a haunting presence.
Maybe something happened, something that I don’t know.
Anyway, right then, right there, I knew she needed me.
And she knew I needed her.
We still have this skill. Nailing each other with no words, pun intended.
So, I just grabbed her hand and pulled her inside my room, inside my bed.
We made angry love, half-dressed, completely caught off guard, both of us.
A rapid, pulsing, aching wave of sex and moans and pleasure and pain.
After that, I told Carmen to leave.
When she closed the door behind her shoulder, I started to cry.
I could hear her lingering there, in the hallway, unsure about what to do.
I didn’t call her back.
And she didn’t turn the door knob.
And this morning, we still hate each other like anything happened.

End Flashback

At thirty, I became an evolutionist, and it all became clear.
We came from mud.
And after billions of years of evolution, at our core is still mud.
No divorce lawyer can doubt that.
Shane and Carmen were living with their alter-ego.
There were two Shanes and two Carmens.
They loved and hated each other.
They needed each other and, at the same time, each one of them wanted the other to leave.
They needed to talk but they refused to talk.
They let sex speak for them in a moment where their relationship could reach another, deeper, level.
Nobody wanted to give up.
Nobody wanted to say I am sorry.
Nobody wanted to admit anything.
Nobody wanted to stop with that couldn’t-give-a-damn attitude.
Nobody wanted to give in.
You have to reach the bottom, probably.
Just then, you can start swimming to reach the shore.