Sloppy Talks

She softly calls out to me, begging me to be touched. I’m in the middle of a prayer session with my mom so I tell her, “Sshh… Not now. At least wait till we’re done.” But her soft plea gets louder, more demanding. It gets out of hand and I eventually give in.

Just as I climax I open my eyes suddenly and realize what I had just done. A wave of guilt rushes over me simultaneously as she eases out and lets out an ocean of release about me. I ask to be excused to ease myself. I wash up and return to prayers but I’m feeling too guilty to continue praying. I allow my mind to wander off into space until the grace is shared and walk to my room to check all my offline messages.

“J… J… Don’t be mad at me. I know I could have acted better, I shouldn’t have continued pestering you when you were obviously not in the right place to take care of my needs but I needed you at that point. I needed to feel wanted, I wanted to be touched.”

I’m lost for words, as I don’t know how best to reply to her. I’m mad at her but I can’t actually stay angry for long. She had been there for me all those times. She always takes care of me when I am in need. I close my eyes and open them to look at the ceiling, only to find myself staring at the biggest roach I have ever seen. I take to my heels and even forget the messages I was replying to, they can wait. “There’s a dragon roach on the wall!!!”

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As always I’m ignored because everyone knows that I can be quite hyperbolic when I’m describing a roach on the wall. In my defense, I was being honest about how I felt and how it appeared to me. Roaches truly do transform into dragons when they are positioned in a particular angle of elevation for me. I have noticed that being in that position tends to give them the idea that walking down would be an insult to the wonderful wings they were blessed with, so they choose to fly down instead.

I make it into my step mom’s room and lock the door just in time as the roach tries to reach the door, “Not today, roachy!”

It was after I said it out loud that I realized that I had just called a roach “roachy.” I was too tensed up to even bother much about it. A climactic event like this deserves a purge, so I lay on my mom’s bed and begin to rub V ever so gently. She purrs inaudibly and seems to be uninterested in whatever I am trying to do to her. Unyielding and unwilling to give up like that.

I turn things up a notch and begin a full body massage, focusing on her core and I begin to get a response, she’s obviously still mad at me so I decide to bring on my A-game and use one of my trump cards on her.

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She’s no longer purring at this point, she sounds like a grunting hog. “Leave me alone J. I thought you were mad at me. You just snapped at me like five minutes ago. You just put me through another one of your guilt-induced lectures on why I keep bothering you at the wrong time and venue as if it isn’t your subconscious call to me that wakes me up. I don’t like it when we fight, but honestly, I’m tired. I’m tired of this relationship because it’s obvious you don’t value me. You only want me for what I can give you not who I am.”

I’m confused. I look for the right words to explain how I feel, all the things I’d like to tell her. I want to reassure her that I truly do value her, that my relationship with her beats anything I’ve ever shared with a man. Ours was special, intimate. No one knows how to work me like she does, no one satisfies, excites, and throws me off balance like she does. Too many emotions, not enough words to express them so I leave them hanging in the air, unlock the door and walk back to my room feeling like I’d just been turned down a sexcapade by my boyfriend, only this was worse– it was with her.

Night poses the greatest threat to me because she is always on her toes then. Basically, everything seems to excite her. I remember how hearing the doorknob turn and lock back in place woke her up to a start one time. I honestly couldn’t believe it then. Usually, when she’s awake like that I can’t sleep, I become too restless and we both keep our vigil until she finally convinces me to ‘pat’ us back to sleep. Tonight will be no different and with all the pent up energy from the afternoon’s climactic events I know she won’t let us go to bed like that.

She stays true to the promise as she starts giving me signs when she notices that all of my five siblings have gone to bed. She starts by getting my hand to give her a gentle caress. I notice how sweaty she is and know what that means. Still feeling guilty about giving in during the afternoon’s prayers I choose to ignore her signs.

She hates it when I do that; when I snub her. So she forces my attention back to her and gets me to notice the small pool that had started to gather.

Doggedly, I still choose to not give in. At that point, she flips. She is getting warm all over and I know what it means so I have to start something or else we will both have to pay for it, so I start with a soft rub. She really likes it when I give her those light touches, she begs me to use only my fingertips and I oblige her. At this point we are slowly finding a rhythm, I can already hear a tune rising from somewhere deep but distant, or is it from within me? I can’t think straight at this point.

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His images force their way into my mind’s screen and I have a lucid view of his smiling face while we had our late night walks. The movie swiftly changes the scene to his distorted face, I immediately reckon that look and a new surge of emotions flood my entire body, causing my hands to work even faster than before.

She is obviously pleased as our music works its way to the bridge but the movie playing in my head moves on to a scene that I do not want to remember. I’m seeing his indifferent face while he is trying to assure me that being ‘just friends’ will be the best thing for us at the time. I continue to get angrier as he tells me “there’s no point being in a relationship that isn’t leading anywhere.”

V is no longer moaning from pleasure, she is moaning in pain. I can hear her soft, tiny whimpers but I don’t care, I need release. I go even harder on her and she yells in pain. At this point, she decides that she can’t take it from me anymore, and she starts nagging me.

“J, I know he hurt you, I know he dumped it on you like every other man that has come into your life, but you can’t keep taking it out on me. I don’t always want to be the punching bag you let out all your frustration and anger on. I’m not a dumpster you know? You can’t keep throwing out every trashy event you experience on me. I want to be there for you, always, but not as a gutter. I want to be there for you like a river, a calm stream you can pour out to, that we can cry together through. I know you’ve been through a lot of climatic events recently and I hurt every time you do, I feel every sting as much as you do and cry in my own way whenever you do. I have always been there for you through your happy moments and through the sad ones.” I don’t reply to her so she continues her monologue.

“Remember when you got your new phone? We played all night long and I wasn’t tired, no matter the number of rounds you wanted us to go. I obliged willingly because, in my own way, this was how I could celebrate your little wins with you. And then that evening when the break up happened? I swear I would have stabbed him for you. You were in so much pain and I wanted to comfort you however I could. You cried while we sang and at the end of our song, I cried too. I knew I didn’t have any choice as it was the usual for me to cry every time our songs ended but that day I cried from a depth of pain and grief that even I didn’t understand but felt because you were feeling it too.

I wanted to embrace you so badly but I wasn’t designed to be able to perform such a feat. I regretted who I was to you that day. I honestly wished I was someone else so I would be able to care for you as much as I wanted to, so I ignored all the bruises and sores, and I let you have your way that night, but I’m tired of all that now. I want you to see me too! Don’t just feel me, don’t just touch me, see me! You’re never proud to show me off, even in front of all those degenerates that don’t deserve to even have their pinky fingers graze your skin.

I endured every of their empty and lustful touches because you wanted it. I didn’t want to make you seem inefficient so I let the river flow even when I wanted to remain a desert so they’d leave you alone. He was different though, I’ll admit. His touch was magical, I felt it. I knew his touch was genuine and to be honest I feared that it would mark the end of our own relationship. Who knows I probably jinxed you and that is why you guys broke up but I don’t regret it, because I know I’ll always be good enough to take care of you the way you deserve.”

She always knows what to say, V. All the pain and guilt I was feeling throughout the entire day starts to recede. The tidal wave that was threatening to drown me moments ago became a soft tide that washed off all the tension built up inside me. I remove my fingers and allow the tears to stream down my face. We start to cry, both of us. The silent tears escalate to gentle sobs. I can’t afford to be loud, after all, it is 3 am. I limp to the bathroom to have a shower, the stings all over my core, a soft reminder. It gets worse when I get into the bathtub but I don’t mind. I want to feel the pain. After all, what is love without pain? What is Sacrifice without tears?

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I crawl back into my bed and cover up with my duvet. I had stopped crying, V had gone to sleep too. I close my eyes to get some sleep but in the process, I lose another tear. I had seen a moving picture of him again, only this time he was saying, “I love you.”