I don't think Ive ever had a more shameful walk of shame. Before or since. And trust me when I say that Ive made plenty of them. Hands stuffed into my pockets, laptop bag strap slung over one shoulder falling snugly across my chest. Every single time. As long as I can remember.
Home was halfway across town but my feet didn't seem deterred, placing one in front of the other. Taxi's hooted at me, boda bodas zipped past me shouting “Boss, we go.” or “Ssebo, tu kende.” or something of the sort but I insistently ignored them all in favor of scuffing and muddying up my favorite pair of sneakers in the name of “clearing my head”.
As I put one foot in front of the other, lost in thought, I pulled out my right hand from my pocket and put fingers up to nostril. Sniffed. An odd thing to do at such a time I know, but what can I say?
They still smelled of her, my fingers that is, my middle and my index if you want to get specific; my skin that grainy, dried sweat uncomfortable that served as a constant reminder that I would probably regret spreading my jelly all over her bread that one last time. Why? Well, because it was depressing and angry and weird and at some point she even cried. And oh yeah, did I mention weird? I mean, we ended up doing things that we would have never thought of doing when we were together. The kind of things that would have made it hard for me to look her in the eye afterwards. Sticking things in places that had no business being stuck with anything. Whether it was an act of desperation on her part or a savage release of my sexual inhibitions on mine, I'll never know. All I know is that when she had asked me whether I wanted to be treated like a porn star, the truth was I had. And so she did, treat me like as well as act like one.
Deep breath...nerves calmed...mind blown. And as far as acts of desperation go, it almost worked too...almost. But almost has never won first place and so I had gotten up, dressed up and left her lying there, knees and elbows rug burned wondering whether everything she had just done, everything she had allowed me to do to her had been for naught. And if not for naught, then what for? Because I think that even then she must have realized that there was no going back, no amount of kinkiness was going to pull the veil back down over the pretension of our entire relationship.
An hour and a half later and I was home.
I had worn ankle socks on high tops and so some how the sock of my right foot had slid halfway down the length of my foot causing my sneaker to abrade my ankle. Painful shit. By the time I got home I was limping.
Hobbling into the house, I stripped down and climbed into the shower. Water had never felt so good. Soap never so heavenly. I scrubbed myself and switched between scalding hot and icy cold enough times to leave my skin numb and tingly. To the point that rubbing myself down with my stiff towel actually hurt.
Boxers...vest...vodka...ice. Glass in one hand, I set down the half empty bottle Smirnoff triple distilled on the coffee table and plopped down in front of the TV.
Richard wasn't home yet, thank God. I really didn't feel like talking. And God knows that when Richard got home he would want to. He was that type of room mate. Hopefully I would be too far faded by that time to give a damn.
Scrambling for the DVD remote I pressed play; Entourage was in. The first season from the looks of it. I had watched it so many times that I could literally act out every episode line for line by myself.
And so I zoned out.
Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes and then...as the closing credits began to roll...
Shit.
My jaw became slack. I clutched my glass extra tight so that I wouldn't drop it.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
I counted back three months. 92 days or whatever. Where had we been? What had we been doing? Had she gotten the injection yet? Or were we still going through those packets of threes by the box full?
I threw back my drink. Emptied my glass. Which probably wasn't a very productive thing for me to do considering the task at hand.
And which injection is this, you ask? You kid...right? Come on you know, the one that makes baby making baby free.
Snap...snap...snap...Depo-Provera. Yeah, that's it. Depo-Fucking-Provera.
But wait, even if her 12 weeks were up, didn't it take over a year for a woman to regain full fertility?
I tried to think. Tried to remember but my mind was a blank.
Shit.
Leaning forwards, I grabbed the bottle of vodka and poured myself another drink. This one stiff. I held up the glass as if I was making a toast.
“So here's to hoping I didn't just make myself a baby daddy.” I mumbled to myself and setting down the glass, I upended the bottle.
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