The Cohabitants 1

I am publishing “The Cohabitants” my memoir of a romance each Wednesday on my website and newsletter. Posts will be numbered so you can read them in order. Here on my website click on THE COHABITANTS tag to get the whole series. In my newsletter look for the episode number in the subject line.

~ : ~

This is a true story about an ongoing relationship. Mine. I’m writing it in third person because I need that distance to see myself. She is me.

~ : ~

THE COHABITANTS

Up until recently, she had not been wanting a man. But waiting out the pandemic in her apartment, he occupied her mind like her own private virus. Facebook had encouraged them to friend each other because they had a dozen friends in common, people they knew from their childhood in Illinois. His profile photo was enough to get her attention. He was cute. Then he started commenting on her posts. Followed her. Read her stuff. Joined in the banter. So, she started following him. Sniffing his world the way a dog sniffs trees in the park.

He was a curiosity. So many photos of him holding fish. Suntanned muscles in t-shirts and duckbill hats; under cloudy skies in shiny jackets. With fish. Not the sort of man she was attracted to. But then it had been so long since she was attracted to a man she couldn’t say what she found attractive anymore. A couple weeks after her memoir came out in March 2020, her Facebook friends were posting photos of themselves holding the book. Then he posted a picture of himself holding the book with an insightful review. That snapped her mind to the moment. He must have ordered it from Amazon and read it right away. He didn’t seem like a reader. She had written the book with women in mind, so having a man read it and post a positive review was startling. 

She upgraded her feelings toward him from passive resistance to predatory, and they began to chitchat in Facebook comments. After an extended thread of sassy one-liners, they exchanged phone numbers and started texting random conversation one phrase at a time, emoji this, emoji that, until she was feeling like they had an understanding, they were in synch, possibly actual friends. Then he disappeared. No Facebook posts. Radio silence.

When she texted him to ask why, he replied that he had been depressed, went down the rabbit hole, lost his way, and sat in the dark for a while. She understood that. Her mental home was a graveyard. But in her border gardens an obligation to help him was blooming. What a sweet confession of vulnerability. On a mission to lift his spirits, she texted him pastoral photos and kind words to let him know he wasn’t alone. She called him in the evenings to talk about his day and ask him questions about himself, tried to be therapeutic and supportive. In particular, she asked him what drugs he did and how much he drank because she had firsthand experience with the depression/addiction cha-cha. Depression was the rhythm of her day. Even after all these years, sometimes that dank vibe still sat on her, crushed her motivation, distorted her world view. She knew what it was like to get lost inside herself. And she respected him for being honest about his feelings. 

Not long after the depression confession, it was his birthday. May 13th. He texted her that he was spending the day by himself, and she made a giant mental leap picturing him alone and sad. She ached for him and his pain gave her purpose. She would selflessly rescue him. Glue him back together with love and carbohydrates. Make him laugh and soothe his anxiety with her mere presence. Most definitely. She was the cure for all that ailed him. Two-person sexual fantasies shimmied in her lady bits. And just like that, he filled her swishy, stumbling, bourbon infused thoughts. 

Then a day after his birthday, which in her mind had been the metaphysical betrothal of two lost souls, he texted her some photos of him in a lovely home, looking slick and groomed, beard trimmed, haircut, nice clothes, a mylar birthday balloon in his hand and a big smile on his face. He didn’t look lonely at all. You might think this image of happiness would have sent her into a victory dance, but no. Mood swing! 

On seeing him happy, her relationship zombies took aim and splattered her with poison tipped memory shards. She did not connect with the feel good vibe in that photo. What the fuck? Why had she been feeling sorry for him?

Then before she could get her ill temper under control, he sent her another picture of the same location at the same time, a picture of a piece of cheesecake on a blue ceramic plate. Cheesecake! The metaphor was not lost on her. He was having cheesecake without her. That’s cheating! Then she noticed a woman’s shoe in the corner of the photo, a shiny black Mary Jane just below the hem of a long black skirt. He really was cheating. 

Cheating set her hair on fire. He was duplicitous. She had followed him down his rabbit hole only to discover he had another woman down there. He was probably married. Probably had kids. College debt. A car that needed repair. Deferred maintenance on his house. A wife who resented him. Women stuffed in every laundromat and carwash. He was a grifter. Otherwise, why keep Mary Jane a secret? Why was she hidden, cropped out of the photo? He must be lying. 

The dried sperm of a thousand men rained down on her like volcanic ash. Years ago, her deceased husband had cheated on her and her brain was permanently damaged by those events. Then while her husband’s cremains sat in a can on her kitchen counter, the husband of a friend quietly invited her to have an affair with him at his brother’s empty condo. Then one day, she came home after grocery shopping and the husband of another friend was sitting on her front porch with a bouquet of flowers. He said he came to check on her and make sure she was okay, because a woman ought not to live alone. Then she had a Match.com coffee date with a man who was married twice with four children and claimed to be looking for his soul mate. Then she had relations with a sandy-haired man who had a woman in another state waiting for him to come home. This he confessed in a moment of weakness between lost erections, as though cheating was just another male disability. He said he was sad for the women in his life because there wasn’t enough of him to go around. 

She did not kill any of these men. But she wanted to.