The End of the Affair

by Simon Maslin

A housemate had let him in, with an uncertain smile and a cautious half-mumbled greeting which instantly betrayed the fact that his name--mentioned in passing on the landing in the dead of night--had already been forgotten. Old student-house décor and a faint odour of cat were there as ever as he hesitantly made his way in across the threshold.

Walking softly, almost embarrassed to exist in that space within daylight hours; mind empty but for uneasy recollections of the previous nights he'd spent with her in this house, memories of the stairs at the end of the hall, the bicycle next to the door; her room on the first floor which seemed distant as the moon.

The kitchen was in the basement, down narrow wooden stairs. She was sitting there, a cracked duck-egg-blue mug of coffee before her, when he came down.

She barely raised her head to him when he entered, being already busy in conversation with another housemate, smiling at nothing that remotely involved him. He hesitated, murmured hello in a stuttering, stultified nothing-man attempt to ingratiate himself and sat down opposite her.

Having come to rest, he dropped his gaze, letting it linger on the sugar grains and crumbs which lay scattered across the scarred formica tabletop before him. He focused on a blackened hole in the finish, an old burn mark from an over-heated pan.

She had just carried on talking idly--her housemate looking at him momentarily, at his lost eyes and discomfort, then making some excuse to leave as soon as the conversation paused. During the thirty-second eternity between his sitting down and this event transpiring, his eyes flickered across her but briefly; flitting over and into the body of the petite blonde before him, remembering and remembering.

All he could think of was the way she had moaned when he had gently massaged her, stroked her, touched her and brought her to orgasm. The little silken shift she had put on when he had finished; the eagerness with which he had almost immediately removed it again. The half-light of the nothingness of 2 am; she talked incomprehensibly in sleep whilst he had lain awake staring into emptiness. The sound of dawn life stirring outside in the street, through her cracked sash window, after hours of painful, circular thought and fitful sleep for two in a crowded, single bed.

She finally turned to him, her conversation ended--blue eyes cooler than rain as she looked around his face, never making contact with his restless, sorrowful stare.

"So ..." he started, as cheerfully as he could, with the most hesitant of half-attempted smiles briefly moving across his face.

She shrugged with an indifference she made no attempt to conceal. "You want anything? I was about to cook ..."

He smiled. "There's only one thing I want and that's you ..." Her mouth was a hard hairline fracture. Her eyes never changed. She shook her head, slightly, with the barest of movements.

He felt himself crack inside, the room became colder. Ignoring him now, she drained the last of her coffee, got up and moved her chair back. It grated along the cold linoleum with a squeak. She went over to the cluttered sink and began to wash her mug.

Without another word, he got up and left.

The Author

Simon Maslin is a writer and cynical journalist of the human condition who has published short fiction and poetry in several international electronic publications. He has also released a novel and several other books through his own imprint via www.lulu.com. He plays a mean blues guitar, lives in Southern England and interfaces with the universe largely through his website, www.maslinbooks.co.uk.